The Heart of Henry Quantum

by Pepper Harding

  It was a music video of a Samurai warrior rapping while flying through treetops and battling the demons of boring snacks. It had a million hits on YouTube in less than a week and the product flew off the shelves—until someone discovered the packaging was faulty and the stuff was sprouting a green halo of incredibly odiferous mold. He remembered the emergency meeting of the account group. “It could have killed someone!” he’d said. But Bigalow, the boss, laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Henry,” he said. “I made sure they paid in advance.”

  Now, sitting alone in the conference room, he sighed for the hundredth time that day.

  Nobody did actually die, he reminded himself. Most mold is basically benign, isn’t it? Penicillin, that’s mold. And blue cheese.

  He was heartened by the fact that advertisers don’t actually lie about stuff. That would be illegal. We just don’t tell the whole truth.

  After all, the truth is always thick with complexity. Like gumbo. You kind of have to dig through it—and what do you find? Okra.

  And then he thought: Why exactly am I buying Margaret a bottle of Chanel No. 5? Will that express my true feelings? Or is it just another sales pitch? Just making myself look good. My true feelings, he repeated, feeling some sort of door slam, some sort of door that said, “Don’t go in there, buddy,” some sort of door he most likely always thought would be wide open. Margaret wasn’t much on public affection, never was. But lately she’d been offering her cheek instead of her lips for their good-night kiss. Obviously, he was in the doghouse. He just didn’t know why. And he’d been in there a long time. A very long time. When he thought about these things he got the strangest sensation in the back of his throat, as if he were coming down with something.

  He made his way back to his office looking rather downcast. Here and there he heard a “Merry Christmas” but didn’t respond. He sat down, plopped his head onto the desk, not cradled in his arms, just flat on the surface—a surface that wasn’t even wood—and closed his eyes. Wood would have smelled nice, like a carpentry shop; it might have soothed him, comforted him—but this material, whatever it was, only alienated a person. No wonder we’re so disconnected from ourselves, he thought.

  Why had he waited so long to buy her a gift? he wondered. He could remember tons of Christmases—the excitement of planning and shopping, the thrill behind every bow and piece of tape on the wrapping, the joy of watching it all being torn apart—and then, inevitably, the muted, “Oh. Okay. Nice. Thank you.” And the gift, so lovingly chosen, never to be seen again. Had it always been that way? He tried to remember.

  There was that first Christmas in San Francisco, wasn’t there? When he had lain awake several nights trying to figure out the perfect present. Couldn’t think of a thing, of course. Maybe a ring would be nice—but you don’t get your new girlfriend a ring, for crying out loud. Could be totally misinterpreted! What about a blouse? Your mother buys you a blouse! Shoes? Way too weird, even though he liked shoes. Not to mention everything in Berkeley was so tie-dyed or fair-trade or Athleta or, well, just too head-shop-y for Margaret, which now made him realize that maybe the person he thought she was back then (soft, cuddly, easy to please, and left-wing) she already wasn’t, because if she were he would have just bought a bottle of patchouli and been done with it. Instead, he felt compelled to hop on BART and tunnel into San Francisco. Much less tie-dye in Union Square, he reckoned.

  “May I help you?” said the first saleslady.

  “Just looking,” he replied rather tremulously.

  “May I help you?” said the second.

  “Just looking,” he said again, this time with a hint of brio.

  And to the third, the fourth, and the fifteenth, he now quite confidently replied, “Just looking!”

  And in truth it was hard to choose. Everything he wanted was too expensive. Everything he could afford sucked. But on he shopped, amazed and confused and delighted by the choices the world of commerce provided: A purse? A pair of gloves? A pocket camera? A pair of earrings? Until finally he had the temerity to walk into Shreve.

  “Just wondering,” he said, nonchalantly tapping on the glass display case, “how much is that one—no, not the ring!—that other little thing—the one with the green stones? Yes that one. What is that exactly?”

  It was presented upon a black velvet pallet. “It’s called a choker,” explained the salesman. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “It really is.”

  “Eighteen-karat gold. Almost half a carat of stones.” The man delicately flipped over the little ticket that had until now been hidden from view. “Oh! A very good price!” he exclaimed.

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes. You’re really in luck. Just $1,129.”

  “Wow,” said Henry Quantum.

  “Wow is right! I almost wonder if it’s been mismarked. But she’ll love it. Believe me.”

  “She would. She totally would. It’s practically our first Christmas together.”

  “It’s exquisite.”

  “But I’m just—”

  The salesman suddenly placed the necklace in Henry’s hand. It flowed over his palm and through his fingers like a glittering waterfall. It had looked so solid in the display case, but actually it was slinky and articulated, like the tail of a dragon whose scales were fashioned of pure gold, and it was heavier than he imagined, too, so he allowed himself to test the heft of it, though he still didn’t dare touch the stones. They glimmered in the light coming up from the display case like a swarm of brilliant green fireflies.

  “Irresistible,” said the salesman.

  “How—how much did you say?”

  “And if she doesn’t absolutely fall in love with it, she can always exchange it,” he went on.

  “No,” Henry murmured. “She’ll love it.”

  And the word “love” seemed to glow from the little green stones with a profound inner light: the word itself, “love.” The letters condensed into magic clouds under his feet and lifted him off the hard tile floor, and while he was floating there, he noticed that the entire jewelry store had become quite fuzzy and maybe a little pink.

  But here his memory grew a bit dim because he couldn’t precisely recall reaching into his pocket, taking out his newly minted credit card, his first, a $1,400 limit, and handing it to the sales clerk. That he did not remember.

  But he did remember how Margaret gasped, how she cried, how she practically swooned, how she wrapped herself around him and held herself there for what must have been ten minutes. Not kissing, just holding. Perhaps it was at that moment he realized she might never let go, never ever, and that from this point on there might be a lifetime of holding, a lifetime in which one could, at last, breathe and sleep.

  It all came flooding back now: Christmas Eve aglow with little candles and sparkling tinsel, cheap wine in paper cups, and ham she’d baked from a can. They tore into all the other little gifts—the ones she’d given him—long before that Christmas morning on which they’d overslept because they’d made love all through the endless night.

  Or maybe they hadn’t. He couldn’t be sure anymore.

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  11:46 a.m.–12:38 p.m.

  He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew Gladys, the receptionist, was standing over him whining, “Did you turn off your phone again? I’ve been buzzing you.”

  Gladys, in spite of her name, was very young and pretty, and this might have been her first real job. She was a graduate of Brown; he didn’t know what she’d majored in, probably Italian literature of the late cinquecento or something like that, but for some reason she wanted to break into advertising. Too late, he thought. Advertising is over. TV, radio—pretty much finished. Everything was online now, guerilla, they called it, viral. You had to appear as if you weren’t advertising in order to advertise. Yet another fucking layer of subterfuge. But Gladys had a gorgeous, athletic body and straight, limpid, blond hair, which Henry hoped was her natural color but knew i
n his heart wasn’t. Too many highlights and lowlights. He had learned those terms from Denise when he’d brought up the subject of Gladys’s beauty. Denise was quick to point out these and several other faults, which gave Henry the feeling she was perhaps marginally interested in him. But right now it was Gladys and her athletic body that was near him, and the refreshing scent of soap she carried with her.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, wiping a tendril of spit from the corner of his mouth.

  “It’s your wife,” she explained. “It seems important. She called three times.”

  “Oh!” he said. “Shit.”

  “She’s on the line now.”

  He had, in fact, turned off all his phones—his cell and his landline. He hadn’t wanted to be interrupted before the meeting or during the meeting or after the meeting, for that matter. The pressure of another human being’s words was just a little more than he could handle. Especially Margaret’s. Nevertheless, he put the receiver to his ear and said, “Hi, babe.”

  “Why do you always shut off your phones?” she began.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “It’s so fucking rude.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But you always do it.”

  “Not always.”

  “Always.”

  There was no answer to this, so he said, “What’s up, hon?”

  “It’s my brother.”

  “Oh God. What now?”

  “I invited him for Christmas.”

  “Really?”

  “I had to, Bones. He called in tears. That woman has left him.”

  “Again?”

  “He’s a mess.”

  “He’s an alcoholic, Margaret.”

  “No, he’s not!”

  “He is, but whatever,” said Henry, bending a paper clip between his fingers.

  “He’s just coming for a few days. Don’t worry.”

  Henry sighed yet again, or rather, stifled a sigh. Because a sigh would have communicated what he thought, and he wasn’t going to say what he thought. When he’d mentioned the obvious—the substance abuse—she’d already jumped down his throat. And since she would get her way anyway, why bother?

  “Maybe you could pick him up at the airport?” she said.

  “Me? What about you?”

  “I told you I have dinner plans tonight. I can’t break them. It’s work.”

  “He’s coming tonight?”

  “I put him on a plane.”

  “We’re paying?”

  “Bones!”

  “Christ,” he said. “Whatever. Just e-mail me the details.”

  “Thanks, honey,” she said.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Believe me, it’ll be fine.”

  “Right.”

  “Love you!”

  “Yeah. Love you, too.”

  Now he really did sigh. He checked his watch again. It was noon. Get the fucking perfume, he heard himself say.

  So he put on his sports coat and tucked his scarf around his neck and walked down the hall to reception, where Gladys asked him, “Are you all right?” and he answered, “For God’s sake, yes!” and he bounded down the teak staircase and pushed open the frosted glass door and found himself back on Pacific Avenue. It used to be the biggest whorehouse street in the West—and guess what? It still was!

  Perfume, he reminded himself, perfume. And Macy’s was his goal. Or he could have lunch first.

  If he turned west, he’d be in Chinatown in two seconds, delicious, or he could turn up Columbus and find himself in North Beach, calzone! But sometimes you just have to choose the harder path. He decided he would trek to Union Square, a good twenty-minute walk, and go to fucking Macy’s to buy fucking perfume for his fucking wife. Scowling, he crossed Columbus, walked up to Grant, and made his way south through Chinatown, ignoring all the wonderful aromas emerging from all the wonderful restaurants and hoping against hope that he could get through all this and reach the Chinatown gate on Bush Street without so much as a steamed bun. Then he could head over to Geary, where he’d hang a right and end up at Macy’s, job complete! As he mapped out his route, it occurred to him how amazing it is that he, or anybody for that matter, could remember how to get from one place to another. There’s a map in your head, he thought. You don’t even have to plan it all out—you just have to let one foot follow the other and you’ll get there; it’s practically autonomic, like breathing. It was beautiful, the intricacies of the human body. The flow of blood through the veins and arteries, the electrical signals that jump from one synapse to the other, and the fact that our bodies are really composed of billions, maybe trillions, of separate life-forms, bacteria, viruses, amoebas, and who knows what else, all swarming within you, a living, walking macrobiotic zoo! He marveled at all the other people walking, too, going somewhere as if it were the easiest thing in the world—even tourists who in fact had no idea where they were going and did indeed need real maps—and yet didn’t. The mind is just a kind of electronic map anyway, a map of memory and emotion, a map of love and desire, a map of resentment and fear. That’s why most of the time he did love advertising—because he was reading a map of untapped need. And also an intellectual map—you mapped out your strategy, didn’t you? And using that map, you created pictures in people’s minds and souls, images of fulfilled desire and familial happiness that were more real than reality itself; and if people’s lives were far from perfect, still, they had this map of perfection, a map that he, Henry Quantum, had placed in them. And now, passing by in every direction, his minions of map readers marched through Chinatown, and he loved each and every one of them, even the very fat ones in their World’s Best Mom sweatshirts, and even the sullen teenagers who walked ten paces ahead of their parents pretending they were alone, and even the screaming little ones who were totally out of control and who on any other day would deserve to be sent to toddler reform school, and even, yes, the gay-bashing, survivalist dads in their knock-off Ralph Laurens—he loved them!

  He was, however, forced to stop at Red Blossom Tea because he could not resist the scent of jasmine that emanated from the open transom and thought about going in for a tasting and a snack, but, no, he held himself in check. Discipline! Perfume! At Eternity Fine Jewelry he was enchanted by the collection of bright gold thingies in the window—innumerable rings and necklaces and all manner of bejeweled knickknacks. He could buy Margaret a brooch or something—so much cheaper here—but she’d never want anything from a Chinatown jeweler and he’d have to put it in a Tiffany box and she’d find out sooner or later and then it would be worse than buying nothing at all. Macy’s! he cried. Perfume! He walked on. But merchandise was spilling onto the narrow sidewalks: cheap plastic fans and fake satin slippers, elaborated back scratchers, sacks of lychee, finely embroidered tablecloths, old-fashioned Chinese hats like they wore when building the transcontinental railroad, traditional Chinese dresses in glimmering red silk, intricately carved ivory dioramas, and huge blue-and-white porcelain urns—it was endless; it was magnificent. What a culture! he thought. In a few years China would own the world. Of course, we used to think that about Japan, he remarked to himself. And look what a mess they are. He wondered why it was that there were all these races of humans in the first place. Was it the amount of sun? You know, in Africa dark skin takes the sunshine better and in Sweden white skin is sort of like snow—but why are the Chinese yellow? Of course they weren’t really yellow! Who decided to call them yellow? They were kind of tan, a very pretty shade of tan actually. Ecru. The sun couldn’t account for ecru, could it? Because China is both desert and mountain and in some places it’s hot and in some places it’s frigid. And if there really were races, how come they interbreed? But there was no question about it, most people felt more comfortable with people who looked pretty much like themselves. Although that was changing, too, and, really, was there any person more beautiful than a Eurasian? Let’s face it, mongrels are the healthiest, not thoroughbreds. He himself was German, Polish, Iris
h, and something else, maybe Sioux or Cherokee—in other words, what difference does it make? Sometimes, though, he wished he was from Papua New Guinea, climbing coconut trees with his bare feet and hunting monkeys with a bow and arrow and having communal sex with all the women in the camp.

  When he next looked up, he had safely passed through the Chinatown gate and was standing on the corner of Grant and Bush, looking across the street at Café de la Presse, which was also quite delicious. The town was bustling with shoppers. And because it was sunny, Café de la Presse had set out two rows of tables on the sidewalk, and so had the wine bar two doors down and the tables were full. People were filing in and out of stores and up and down the avenues with shopping bags of every color. Some were in couples—gay, straight, young, old, mothers with daughters—and some were alone, but everyone seemed to be dancing to the same happy beat as if the city were keeping time beneath their feet. He walked down to Sutter Street and decided to turn there instead of up Geary—so quickly do plans change—because he wanted to move with the flow of these people, but just as quickly he changed his mind again because he remembered he wanted to go past Prada on the corner of Maiden Lane. He’d been to Prada in Florence, and also to the outlet in Montevarchi, where Margaret bought stuff totaling many thousands of dollars because, she said, “Oh, Bones, it’s so cheap!” He almost bought himself a pair of shoes for about $400, which he was told was 75 percent off, but he couldn’t do it. Not because of the money, but because there was something unseemly about the pointed toes. Anyway, Prada was now in San Francisco and maybe something from there would be better than perfume, so that’s why he kept walking down Grant Avenue. And that’s why what happened next happened next.