The Subject Steve

Tough cookies.

"Come on," I said to Lem. "I've got to make a call."

We took a train back up to Port Authority. We had an hour to kill before the next bus, found a lone porn shop tucked off near a parking lot. New laws had reconfigured the stock. Teen comedy up near the register, teen anal in back. Somehow it reminded me of a medieval synagogue I'd once visited in Spain.

Tenakill was a leafy ville out past the city limits. The plaque at the bus stand explained the name was Dutch but that the Dutch had left before explaining what it meant.

Maryse was out by the curb in what must have been the latest in suburban transport. You could see where the gun mounts had gone, how you might secure the wounded. The color was a cousin to teal. We climbed in back and Maryse nodded, peeled out toward the hills. The vehicle shook with Bach.

"You used to call this math rock," I said.

"I appreciate it now," she said. "I'm a much more evolved appreciator."

We passed a chain video store and a shop selling "locally scented" candles. The Latte Da, Tenakill's most stylish cafe, advertised an open mike sonnet slam to benefit victims of the victim culture.

"By the way," I said, "this is Lem."

"Okay, Lem," said Maryse.

"Thanks for picking us up," I said.

"I take it this isn't just a friendly visit."

"I think we're being very friendly," I said.

"Look," said Lem, pointed out the window. "It's a white person."

"Kid's a comedy gem," said Maryse.

Business news burbled out of the wall. William was asleep on modular suede. His laptop was sliding off his lap. His slipper had fallen to the carpet. There were bruises on his toes.

"Oh," said William, waking. "Hey. Hi. Wow. Look at you. Hey. Hi. Come sit down."

"He called before," said Maryse. "I didn't want to interrupt you."

"Trading in my sleep," said William. "Nap trader."

"He hasn't told me why he's here," said Maryse. "He said he wanted to speak to the both of us. Coffee?"

"Coffee," said William. "Terrific. Coffee?"

"I'm in," said Lem.

"He's in. Terrific."

William looked down at his swollen toes.

"Thought we had a creep," he said. "A prowler. I kicked the credenza."

We sat quietly for a while. William seemed to be conducting vital transactions on his laptop. I peered over, watched him switch his desktop photo from a seascape to an apple basket. Lem was scoping the stock quotes on the wall screen. He had this look on his face, some annihilating wonderment.

"Has anyone ever explained this stuff to you?" I said.

"What, why the biotechs are diving?"

Maryse came back with a tray full of cappuccinos.

"Cinnamon?" she said. "Nutmeg? I recommend cardamom."

"She's never wrong about this shit," said William. "Am I right?"

"We used to drink instant," I said.

"Is that true, honey?"

"God," said Maryse. "I can hardly remember. Could be. It's the kind of life we were leading."

"So," said William, "what brings you to Tenakill? Not that we're not thrilled to see you. Especially, you know, considering. I mean you're really bearing up, aren't you? I mean, under the weight. The weight of your illness. Is illness okay?"

"I'm not," I said.

"Not what?"

"I'm not really bearing up. I'm gearing down. Do you get what I mean? That lap you run after the race is over?"

"The victory lap?"

"Not that one," I said.

"The cool-down," said Maryse.

"That's it," I said. "The cool-down. My race is run. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Wow," said William. "Terrific. I mean, not terrific. I mean the opposite of terrific. Do you need money? I have money."

"I know you have money."

"It's well known, I guess," said William. "My frugality is less documented. But I can do something for you. Some cash. A check. We'll call it a loan but only to call it something. Look, you're my friend. A friend is forever. Or until there's a problem with the friendship. But this isn't about friendship anyway. I can see that. Where are my glasses?"

"I don't think he wants money," said Maryse. "Am I right?"

"Yes," I said.

"I think he wants more than money. Am I correct?"

"Yes," I said.

"More than money is tough for me right now," said William.

I took a sip of cappuccino, coughed it up into the cup.

"That's not cardamom," said Maryse.

"Looks like blood," said Lem.

They gave me the guest room.

The guilt room, I heard William call it from the hallway. He'd have to work on his whisper.

His portfolio was in good shape, he told me, even in the wake of Cruel April, that rash of crashes last spring, and I was not to fret expenses. Besides, he'd had a little chat with Leon Goldfarb. Arrangements to ease various individual and collective burdens were in the offing.

"What does that mean?"

"You tell me," said William. "It sounded like Jew talk."

"Watch it," I said.

"Don't be a child," said William. "My uncle hid yids in Rotterdam."

"You never told me that."

"You never asked."

"What part of the war was this?"

"What war? This was the early seventies."

The guilt room was a good room.

I got fresh flowers, fresh linen, fresh fruit, audiotapes of tides and typhoons, waterfalls, gales, natural sounds to confirm one's droplet status in the eternal downpour. I got satellite TV, a universal remote, a Dictaphone for last words if the ligature of my pen hand failed.

I got my daughter, bedside, reading me box scores and poems. I couldn't fathom the math of either, but Fiona's voice eased the pain somehow. Maybe the pills did, too.

I sensed something torrid going on between Lem and my little girl. The idea made me glad. I liked to picture them in faraway rooms, confessing their secrets, flaunting their moles, vaulting themselves into some soulful teen future. William's place was enormous so I never saw those rooms. I was bed-bound, mostly, or wheelchair'd when my color was up and I could join them all for a few minutes at table, feign delight in food.

I was dying well, could detect a certain shimmer in the mirror, a made-for-TV terminal glow. I was going to light up the land with love and forgiveness, die with a wide wise grin. Angels in work casual sweaters would chaperon my ascent to paradise. Maybe my soul would return on occasion, spook my family into betterment. I'd smash a vase or burn a curtain and Fiona would finally know that nicotine was addictive, that sex with her soccer coach had repercussions.

Maryse was spooning broth through my teeth when she said she thought Fiona was no longer disaffected.

"She's flourishing," said Maryse.

"She's grown," I said.

"Lem seems like a good boy."

"He has a good heart."

"He's a little odd, though," said Maryse. "Is he on drugs?"

"Usually," I said.

"I guess people can change."

"Have I?"

"Have you what?"

"Changed."

"I see an arc," said Maryse. "A trajectory."

"Really?"

"Maybe not," said Maryse. "But sometimes it's about how you transform the people around you. Sometimes someone has to be the messenger."

"Is that me?"

"No," said Maryse.

"Who am I, then?"

"You're Steve."

"I refuse that," I said. "Even as life refuses me."

"Maybe it's not a refusal, Steve," said Maryse. "Maybe there is a higher power and he or she or it has plans for you."

"Do you believe that?"

"No," said Maryse.

"Van Winkie," said Lem, from the doorway.

"The Wrist," I said.

Lem sat down, chucked me under the chin.

"I just want to say that whatever happens, I'll take care of Fiona. I don't want you to worry about her."

"We know what's going to happen."

"Either way," said Lem.

"Okay," I said. "Either way."

"Do you want some morphine?"

"I'm fine."

"Do you mind if I have some?" said Lem. "You know, the stress. My girlfriend's dad is dying."

"Okay," I said. "Do me, too."

The Philosopher and the Mechanic dropped by for occasional visits. Transition maintenance, I heard the Mechanic call it.

Departure management, the Philosopher said.

It'd been nearly two years since my checkup.

"Do you remember when we first diagnosed you?" said the Philosopher.

"Sure."

"The salad days."

It was a time for testimonials, recollections, goodbyes, Godspeeds.

William the Fulfiller wanted absolution.

"What happened with me and Maryse, I know how much pain we caused you. It's tragic the way happiness hurts others."

"It's okay."

"We're happy," he said.

"I know."

"But it hurt you."

"Yes, it did."

"Exactly," he said. "I just wanted to be sure."

The Philosopher and the Mechanic said it could be any day. There was no way to calculate. By their calculations there could be no calculations. Me, I was on the uptick, the pain on slow fade, a new feeling in my veins, a deep living slither. People would be disappointed. I began to flutter my eyelids a bit, affect a weak grip, mutter cryptic phrases tinged with tiny history, a Dutch Schultz delirium of baby talk and birch nest slaughter.

"Cudahy," I said, "don't burn them, they're butterflies!"

"Who's the navigator? I'm the navigator. I'm the snack-giver. I'm your mommy in snacks."

"Some companies make powerful computers. We make powerful people."

"Perhaps the most prevalent trope in fire safety literature is the notion of the regrouping area. The family gathers at a point distant enough from the conflagration to prevent a singeing or charring of the ideation of domesticity."

"Vast gulfs may be received on vast gulf days. One radio equals one radio nation. I heard the tittering of Velcro. Naperton's grapefruit brain, my pupilage. True puny. Renee, Renee, my rivulet."

"Can't be long now," said the Mechanic.

"Is this all some kind of gag?"

Fiona sang to me, softly, our aardvark song:

Aardvark

Lovely aardvark

I have only the vaguest sense

Of what you look like

I know there's a nose

That works like a hose

Beyond that

I just have certain cultural associations

It was really more of a spoken-word piece.

"Daddy?" said Fiona.

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you remember when I was really sick and you ran through the streets with me in your arms?"

"My doll-daughter."

"What?"

"I remember."

"Do you think I suffered any brain damage from the fever?"

"What?"

"Sometimes I feel like I'm not as smart as I should be."

"You're almost a genius, Fiona."

"And I have to live with that almost every day of my life."

"I'm sorry, baby. But I think you're just fine."

"Daddy, when you're dead, I'm going to be so fucking pissed at you. Do you know that? It's a grief mechanism, or whatever, but I'm really going to hate your fucking guts for a while. It'll take a long time to work it all through. I've already warned Lem. He's okay with it. Lem is amazing, Daddy. Thank you for bringing him to me. He's like some kind of inner astronaut. He drifts along in the deep space of his consciousness like no one I've ever been with before. Daddy, do you know what I mean when I say 'been with'? I mean, of course you know. But that's the thing about euphemisms. Most of them are true. Ha! That's pretty funny. But what I really mean, Daddy, is have you ever pictured me being with someone? I know fathers and daughters are supposed to have this bond, I mean, I know they do, even when I was at my most disaffected and had to be boarded at the School for it, even then I felt it, Daddy, and I think we're all adult enough to allow that there's got to be some sexual element inherent in this bond, Daddy, but people tend to leave off right there, don't they? For good reason, I guess. But really, have you ever really pictured it? Like have you ever pictured me being pussy-licked, say? Or maybe titty-tugged? Butt-banged? Clit-bit? Have you, Daddy? Did any of those particular pictures ever light up your inner astronaut viewing screen? Me on my knobby knees, cooz up in the air like a hairy flower, some big cock, some huge anonymous fuck stick jabbing into my tight, wet, almost-genius-caliber twat, me moaning and bucking, moaning and bucking-"

I took her hand, tenderly.

"Ow."

"Not really," I said.

"I'm going to hate you when you're dead, Daddy. It's a fact. Are you going to be all right with that?"

"Fiona," I said.

"I hate you now. Why did you have to be such a bad father?"

"I wasn't so bad."

"You were less than bad, which is worse. I'm fifteen fucking years old. What am I going to do without my fucked-up Daddy?"

She reached for me under the bedsheet.

"You watch," she said, "when you're dead I'm going to cut it off and put it in my ballerina box."

"Fiona!" I said. "Stop!"

Lem burst into the room.

"What's going on?" he said.

"Lem," said Fiona, "have you seen my ballerina box?"

Now the PERPS were popping up. People With PREXIS, all over the news. A rash of them in Wichita, in Wilmington, in Bakersfield, Dubuque. But this was not the crisis predicted, the plague ordained. They weren't dying. They were suing. Class action of the Infortunate.

"We're going after the charlatans," a federal prosecutor announced on the evening news. "This disease is nothing but a marketing ploy. Show me one death from PREXIS! Just one! It's time to close this shop down and show the world who the real perps are!"

The Mechanic came to see me.

"We're counting on you," he said. "Don't fuck it up."

"If you tell me not to fuck it up," I said, "I'll fuck it up."

"Then hang in there, dammit."

"What if I'm not dying?" I said.

"We've been through this before," said the Mechanic. "You're absolutely dying. But the ball's in your court."

That night Maryse wheeled me out to the dining room. The good linen was on the table, the good silver, the good silver napkin rings. There were bottles of burgundy, roses in a cut-glass vase, a rare roast garnished with parsley. I dipped my thumb in the gravy boat, licked it, swooned. Even the twine that bound the meat was beautiful.

"What's the occasion?" I said.

William dickered with a video camera mounted on a tripod in the corner, panned from roast to roses to me.

"I saw this on a TV special about dying," said Maryse. "Everyone gathers for a nice meal. It's the classy way to say goodbye."

"I'm not hungry," I said.

"Do it for Fiona," said Maryse. "The footage might prove useful down the line."

"Did you make yams?" I said.

"No, that's Thanksgiving."

"I just thought, you know, in honor of the time you kissed Cudahy."

"Why can't you let things go?"

"Because I don't have to. Because it seems they just leave of their own accord."

"You drove me away," said Maryse.

"As I remember it, William drove you away in his fucking convertible."

"Can you say that again, Steve?" said William. "I want to try the zoom."

"I hate all of you," I said.

"Wow," said William. "I'm right in there. I know the zoom is hackneyed, but when you're actually controlling it, it's very compelling."

Maryse took my wrist.

"When you're dead you won't feel that way," she said.

Fiona walked in wearing something diaphanous, nearly vampiric, a paste pearl choker at her throat. She led Lem by the elbow to his chair.

"Look," she said, "it's like we're an unconventional but loving family again."

"What exactly is a tilt?" said William. "It's just basically you tilt it, right?"

"Daddy," she said, "I'm sorry about before. It was the strain."

"It's okay, baby," I said.

"I'm ready to let go now, though."

"Baby," I said, "maybe I'm not ready."

"Sorry to interrupt, but. ."

"But what?" I said.

William lifted his wineglass.

"I want to begin this dinner," he said, "by offering a few words on behalf of our guest of honor. It may be that I've known him longer than anyone here, and in so many ways he's the man I have to thank for my happiness. I can only hope that my friendship has brought him some measure of solace and/or bliss over the years as well. We've been through a lot together, haven't we, Steve? But where you're going now, I guess you'll have to go it alone."

"That's not my name," I said.

"It's a sad thing, death," said William. "I can't think of anything sadder. It really fills me up with a melancholy feeling when I think about it. But what you're doing, Steve, what you're giving us, this gift that you're giving us by letting us share these last days with you, this gift is immeasurable, Steve, priceless, it's the Hope Diamond of gifts, the crown jewels of enriching spiritual experiences, like a Lamborghini with all the trimmings, or a house and real acreage in Malibu, and I mean beachfront, a big sturdy house, too, not one of those washaway, mudslide shitboxes, I'm talking about something built with fucking care, but anyway, that doesn't matter, that's not my point, because the thing is, the thing of it is, Steve, those things, all of those material objects, they have prices, so how could they compare to your goddamn priceless gift that transcends material realms? How could they ever compare to this gift you've bestowed upon all of us here in what is essentially my home but is also, on some deeper spiritual level, your home, too, by dint of you opening your heart to us and allowing us all into your last desperate moments so that you, too, belong as much as I do to what is essentially my house where I have essentially financed all of the comforts you deserve in this last, terrible waning of your life, comforts financed, I should add, with no ponying up by certain nameless cheapskates, though I might mention there were intimations of some kind of contribution from these unnamed nickel-pinching parties, parties who have already profited from your affliction, which is all just to say, really, that my outlay, and I mean my emotional as well as financial outlay, because of the situation here, the situation vis-a-vis Maryse, not to mention the situation vis-a-vis Fiona, this lovely girl, this lovely girl-woman with whom, and I don't mean to hurt you, Steve, in fact I hope it helps in its way, eases your transit, as it were, with whom I've developed something of a paternal bond with, though not forgetting for a moment my emotions as they vis-a-vis you, too, Steve, which is just to say this outlay has its emotional as well as financial aspects-bed, board, medicine, laundry, all the things, in fact, one associates with a well-tended send-off, a lavish bon voyage, a top-shelf sayonara-nonetheless it's an outlay, that, even in toto, in financial and emotional toto, cannot begin to compare with what you've given us, Steve, the gift of witness, here at the end of the ballgame, here at the end of the so-called road, here at the terminus of terminal, where every twitch and murmur of your up-till-now, every dream you've ever dreamed, every sensation you've ever, well, sensated, waves goodbye like doomed doughboys on a troopship. Once more, I must reiterate, how could anything compare to such a gift? Forget my outlay, the Lamborghini, the beachfront joint with crackerjack ground work, or that big rock so many historically oppressed, oxygen-deprived Africans died prying loose, what could rival your gift, Steve, this revelatory, keeps-on-giving gift, wherein you offer up your life to make our lives that much more meaningful, that much more, well, lived. So, to you, I raise, or rather, now, extend, my glass, my love, my gratitude. Thank you, Steve, thank you."

"Thank you, William," said Maryse.

"Shit," said William, "was the camera on?"

"The light's lit," said Fiona.

"Let's feast."

"Fuck it," I said.

"What, Steve?" said Maryse. "The roast? It's a lovely roast."

"Not the roast," I said.

"Fuck what, Daddy?" said my daughter.

"Scandinavia," I said.

I decided not to die. Not here, not now. I knew my number was nearing up, but my fettle was nearly fine again. Conundrum? Contradiction? Contraindication? Probably the Philosopher would have sneered it away. Mere remission, he'd have said, malady's lull, death catching its breath, a little pre-crossing picnic by the Styx.

Probably he'd be right.

I got up, cased the joint, cat-burgled around, searched and seized. Jewelry, cash, checkbooks, credit cards. The gold rope I gave Maryse one anniversary. The gold earrings I gave her another. Money from all the places I supposed a typical William to keep it-cookie jars, cigar boxes, smuggler's almanacs, antique licorice tins. I scooped up wallets, keys, coins. I rolled William's convertible out of the driveway, gave myself a swift lecture in stick.

"I am me," I said, aimed for the interstate.

I drove to Cudahy's grave. Cudahy had no grave. I parked and walked the pathways of the tony boneyard where somewhere a sandwich-sized wedge of granite bore his name. We'd cindered him, after all, old Cudahy, poured him into the Florentine-where were his ashes now? In mini-storage? On a hock shop shelf? Beside the chipped china and warped seventy-eights at some old biddy's going-out-of-subsistence yard sale? — but an anonymous donor had sprung for a marker, a simple stone in this spare outer lawn, this necropolitan burb, set aside for the absentee dead.

We'd never discovered the name of the donor. We'd never bothered. Who didn't have the distant dowager aunt somewhere, the rumored relation, the cash uncle who'd let you dangle in your day-to-day but who could be counted on to shout for the quality engravature that pronounced your finitude?

I didn't, actually, but we'd all concluded Cudahy did. We'd blown his wad on the big vase, so who else?

Now I walked these stone rows, bent here and there for the stenciled calendrics of Cudahy. I had something to say to him, maybe, or something to say in the vicinity of his granite mention. I walked beneath a low mean sky that somehow made the long lawn lusher. Like it had secret sun in it, a spy for brightness, a sunshine mole. It was deep swollen light, the kind that hung over us that boyhood day we stood beneath the toolshed window, Cudahy and I, propping each other up on a cinder block to peep.

It was our fathers, Cudahy's father, my father, that toolshed not big enough for the one father, let alone two, no room at all in there, really, rake tines porcupined out of barrels, leaf-blowers resting on tarp heaps, hoes, spades, tool chests, bait boxes, cartons of nuts, of bolts, of screws and gears and nails, the weekend handyman's arsenal, his ammo dump, all manner of thingamabob there in casual stockpilage in that dank, mouse-turded dark.

It was all of this and our fathers, fuming.

Because of the mower blade. Because Cudahy's father had borrowed my father's lawn mower and the blade was cracked where maybe it hadn't been cracked before.

I knew all about it. Who didn't at our dinner table? Listen past the clatter of casserole lids and you will never wonder later what murdered your kin. They tell you straight off. They bear you to bear witness. It was the mower blade, the crisis to usurp all crises, and never at a better time, either, the kind of catastrophe that spelled instant amnesia for all the nagging failures of my father's current administration-the unpaid gas bill, the unscooped rain gutters-or even my misdeeds, my messy room, my algebraic woes, my budding notoriety as a tree-torcher, a whiskey thief. The mower blade had buried all the local news. It wasn't a domestic issue, not even a border dispute. It was an international incident.

So here were our fathers, fuming. Our fathers, who'd never dared to like each other anyway, Mr. Cudahy, the buzzcut vet, the grizzled Mama Bell lineman, always with his big, beautiful laugh and those special clips for scaling pole rungs hanging from his belt like some alloyed adjunct to virility-those clips were maybe for scaling tall women, too-and that huge orange lineman's telephone for plugging in anywhere, for listening, for listening in, to his barber, his banker, his boss, to anybody he pleased, to strangers, to housewives, to horny teens, to seditious profs at the community college, or for calling, calling his bookie, calling his chippy, calling home, him clipped to a pole in a rainstorm and wondering what's for dinner-"How about you with a cherry on top, honey?" — for calling in airstrike, death from above, for calling the mayor, the president, or Captain Thornfield, even, for calling in his markers, his favors, his slips, for calling the play, for calling the shots, for calling all of them out, and my father, the Frigidaire elegist, the seawall dreamer, an island of a man whipped by inner monsoon, not a broken man but maybe too much bent, caught in some crooked, voluptuous glide through that no-fly zone between the forestalled and the forsook, my father maybe somehow forging for himself a power in hating this Cudahy, this swaggering, cackling, doubtless Cudahy, a power in caring enough to hate, that soulforce summoned from having a stake in a wager all the fiercer for being finally prizeless-the money, the women, the kicks long paid out, the teller gone, the bank broke-and Mr. Cudahy, Mr. Cudahy maybe never giving my father much thought in the first place, but, if pushed, knowing it was best to hate the crud back, maybe just for being one of the ground-dwellers, one of the surface saps (no rung-buffed boots, no climbing clips, no field phone, no bookie, no nookie), one of the puny, the ant-people, some bitter simp who couldn't be neighborly if he tried, couldn't neighbor his way out of a paper bag, who makes a federal case out of a freaking mower blade, who drags a fine man into a stinking shed to bitch about an old crack in some rusted-to-shit excuse for a lawn maintenance machine, drags him, of all people, drags Cudahy, a near-hero hereabouts, the closest thing to mythic in the township, who toils daily between earth and sky, who is decent and neighborly always, a ladder-lender, a driveway-waver, or if the jerk needs a jump, and not because he gives one shit for the guy, either, not because of anything like that.

Hell, no.

Because of the sons. Because of the friendship of their sons. Because that is something to respect, to value, to fend for (even if the toaster poet doesn't get it, could never even comprehend), because whatever is between these boys deserves to be shielded from ant bitterness, from town pain, because that's it, that's all you get in the end, a friend, one if you're lucky, one who doesn't catch a sapper's bullet in freaking Korea (if you're lucky), one who doesn't wrap his jalopy around an oak trunk (if you're lucky), one who doesn't botch a lifetime of I've-Got-Your-Back with a tipsy grope at the wife (if you're lucky), and who of us is ever truly lucky?

Because of the boys, the sons, who even now were on tippy-toes under the toolshed window, straining for a peep.

"So," we heard my father say, "I guess the rocks really needed some trimming, huh? Figured the yard's all done, might as well mow the rocks while I still have the guy's machine."

"Look, I didn't mow no rocks, Charlie," said Mr. Cudahy. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for? You said you didn't mow any rocks. Or no rocks, rather."

This last was so shameless, so shameful, the fop's swipe, the nerd's gnaw, so laced with the venom of soft men, that I looked to my friend there beneath the sill, beseeched forgiveness, but I don't think Boy Cudahy even caught the slight to his father's speech, or maybe he had, of course he had, it just wasn't the terrible rent in his world I thought it to be, or that maybe my father intended. I saw it a dirk sunk to hilt in the meat of decency, equality, common cause. But to a Cudahy it probably had the same power "four-eyes" would to my bifocaled father. Big whoop. Specs. What else you got?

"I guess," said Mr. Cudahy, his voice going taut now, like cable, like strung bundle, "I guess I'm sorry the mower was broken before you gave it to me."

"Loaned."

"What?"

"I loaned the mower to you."

"Yes, Professor."

"Well, it wasn't so broken you weren't able to mow some rocks with it, now was it?"

"I told you, I didn't mow no goddamn fucking rocks!"

"Don't you dare swear in my shed."

"This was Walt Wilmer's shed before you even moved here. I helped him build the fucking thing."

"It's my shed now."

"Walt Wilmer."

"Nuts to Walt Wilmer."

"Walt Wilmer was a good man. He died protecting this community."

"He was a drunken traffic cop. His wife ran him over."

"He was protecting this community."

"I don't know what that means."

"Sure you do, Jewboy."

"You just stepped over the fucking line, Cudahy."

"Hey, don't swear in the shed, kike!"

It didn't sound like a fight. It sounded like an accident, or some vaudeville routine. I pictured our fathers in checkered suits, pratfalling in tandem, dumb grins footlight-lit.

"Hey, Jimbo, what do you know, is this a hole in the road?"

"Don't see no hole, Charlie, I think it's just fresh paiiiiiint. ."

Then it sounded like something else was in there with them, something maybe fanged and rabid fettered to the toolshed floor. We heard banging, bashing, what must have been the rake barrel spinning, all those wingnuts and washers and quarter-inch screws spilled out like some dragon hoard of home improvement, all those thingamabobs sliding, wheeling, rolling into thingamajigs, flipping them, flying them, and underneath it now a new noise, a slow, pressured thrashing, as though our fathers were vying for great gruesome grips on the floor, for spine-snapping holds, full and infernal Nelsons, each man sliding, straining, torquing for purchase, for a death blow, even, but it never came. There was only a thud and then another thud, hard breathing, moans.

Cudahy cupped his hands under the window and I slipped in my Ked for a hoist. I caught sight of them before his fingers-not yet the cannonball shovers they would someday become-gave way. Our fathers were shored up together against the wall planks, eyes shut, shirts torn, knuckles torn, blood riding eddies of sweat down their cheeks. They looked like a famous photograph of war, some newsweekly pin-up of noble woe. They rubbed their arms, tested their necks, bit down on pulped lips.

"Who won?" whispered Cudahy.

Cudahy hadn't seen what I'd seen. For him it was still my-father-can-beat-up-your-father, understandable, really, part of the protocol, in fact, but my vision of them there together in that ruined place-everything upturned, upended, all order murdered, the floor studded with oddments, the rakes and spades and hoes heaped like some peasant rebellion's surrender-had changed everything. These were new men now.

We'd have to be new boys.

"Nobody won," I said.

"What do you mean nobody won?"

"Shh," I said.

We heard them through the shed wood.

"Jesus, Jim," said my father. "I'm sorry."

"Didn't know you had it in you, Charlie."

"Jesus, Jim."

"Haven't banged around like that in a while."

"My first fight."

"No shit? You did good, Charlie. You're a maniac."

"I thought I was a pacifist. Against the war, you know."

"Hell, the war was bullshit."

"We're all animals, Jim."

"Take it easy, buddy. You weren't that good. I could have kicked your ass if it came down to it. Still might."

"You're a big man, Jim. Big Jim."

"Big Jim Cudahy. Big everywhere. Big where it counts."

"Sure you are."

"No shit. Ask your wife."

"I did."

"Fuck."

"It's all right, Jim."

"Shit. What'd she say. Oh, fuck."

"Forget about it, Jim."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"You're a better man than I am, Charlie."

"Clearly I'm not. So, let's see it."

"What?"

"Let's see it."

"Whoa, there, buddy."

"No, really, let's see Big Jim's big 'un."

"Now I'm really going to have to beat the crap out of you."

"Want to see mine?"

"What the hell?"

"No, really."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You, too, then."

"Me, too, then."

"You won't be sorry."

"I'm always sorry."

We listened for a while, a shuffle of boots, buttons unsnapping. We listened and heard nothing. Then we heard something. It didn't mean anything, really. It was a couple of men finding some kind of solace in darkness, I guess. It was a couple of men with nothing in common but four hands and two cocks between them.

I looked over at Cudahy.

We'd have to be better friends than we'd ever been or no friends at all.

"Somebody won," said Cudahy.

"No," I said, "it was a draw."

Now I walked the cemetery grounds, poked around for Cudahy's stone. Near some weeds I spotted a granite sarcophagus that said Kippelman. I laid some nylon roses on it. Cudahy had been a great believer in fake flowers, fake teeth, fake fur.

"Everything God makes rots," he'd said.

I laid a card down beside the roses.

"Kippelman," I wrote. "Please hold for Cudahy."

I drove west, took a room in the hills, the Landview Inn Motel.

"We used to be an inn, in the olden days," said the woman who'd risen from a plate of sauerkraut when I'd tapped the bell. "We're a motel now, but we enjoy the historical significance of our past. Aaron Burr bedded a lady here. How long are you staying?"

"I don't know."

"That's not a problem."

"I'll have a better answer tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Tomorrow the cows come home."

"I don't follow."

"I didn't ask you to follow," said the woman. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I guess I'm not in a welcoming mood. I'm pooped. People think motel people just sit on their butts and pass out keys. There's a lot more to it."

"I don't doubt it."

"That's kind of you not to doubt it," the woman said, looked at my credit card. "William."

"Bill."

"I'm Fran. Fran Kincaid."

"You're kidding."

"It's not a very funny name, Bill, why would I be kidding? I mean Fran's sort of funny, like Gertrude, or something. I'll grant you that. But Kincaid? I like the sound of Kincaid. Hearty, right? I knew a guy named Murray Murray. Now that's funny. Jewish fellow. Not that I care. Happened to be Hebrew. We kissed, that's all. Not because of the Jew thing. I'm attracted to Jews. Einstein stayed here with his mistress in the fifties. Not that he was attractive. But you figure a guy who knows how the universe works would probably have a knack for smaller-scale manipulations, too, if you get my meaning. I'm sure you get my meaning. You seem like a worldly man of the world, William."

"Bill."

"I like William better. Do you mind if I call you William? It sounds more historical."

"Tell me, Fran, have you worked here long?"

"All my life. Or, well, a while. A few years."

"I once knew a Fran Kincaid. We were pen pals."

"Were you in prison?"

"No."

"Because a lot of gals write to cons. It's good to know where your man is every night. Oh, wait, I've heard of this. She was in prison."

"Nobody was in prison."

"Well, William, I never wrote you when you were in the slam. Seeing you now, I'm kind of sorry I didn't."

"Can I have my key?"

"Here. Don't worry, I've got a set, too."

I picked up a pint of rye at a package store across the interstate. My hunt for a complimentary Landview Inn Motel water glass proved futile and I had to make do with Dixie cups. This wasn't a bad thing, though I find it pretty hard to drink from a Dixie cup without tasting toothpaste. Someday there will be surgical remedy for this sort of thing. I called directory assistance and asked for my father's telephone number.

"Does your father have a name?"

"Oh, right," I said.

The old man let it ring for a while.

"Dad."

"My boy."

"That's me. How're the nibs?"

"I'm about to strike a deal for a Hink's Civic Stainless. Maybe a Mitchell's Fairie, too, although this Kraut down in Brownsville is playing tough guy. The nib world is no place for the gentle, kid. But you've got to do what you've got to do. You can't worry too much if you're righteous. You've got to give it up to the qelippah sometimes."

"The what?"

"The power of evil, son. It's a Kabbala thing, you wouldn't understand."

"Dad, you're really deep in this stuff."

"I've been deep in all my life. I'm clawing my way out now. So when do I get to see my boy?"

"Well, I'm actually near you. I thought I'd-"

"This is a really bad time for me, kid. I'm closing in on that Hinks. Winnie's real busy, the kids are around, court-mandated house arrest, you know. Menachem's LoJack is too tight and we've got to get that dealt with."

"It's okay, Dad."

"Next time you swing through Pittsburgh. How are you, though? Good?"

"Not good."

"Good. I was worried about you. I saw you on TV and all that. Then I didn't hear from you. I respected your decision not to involve me. I probably would have complicated things anyway. But it sounds like you're all better now. I'm happy about that. No father wants to see his son die. Not before a reasonable age. That's just the way of nature. I'll call you soon. Or you call me. When this Hinks thing, when it's in the can. Isn't that what you Hollywood people say?"

"I was never in Hollywood, Dad."

"This is the big one. I thought the Brandauer was the big one but that was before the Hinks."

"Good luck."

"I don't need luck. I have faith."

"Fuckeroo'd," I said.

"Excuse me?"

The TV was bolted to the wall near the ceiling. There was no remote. I had to hop up on the bureau to work the dials. Was this how Einstein did it? Maybe he made his mistress change the channels. Not that they had much to choose from in those days. Puppets, mostly, maybe a Senate hearing. Probably just wanted to see up her poon, Einstein. He was pretty damn old by then. Maybe even dead.

High up on the dial, past all the softcore sumo and night hunts of the snow owl, was a show I'd never seen before. The Realms, it was called, or at least those were the words that pulsed continuously in the corner of the screen. Sometimes there was a graphic, too, a sketch of a thatch-roofed hut. The whole thing was hard to follow, all dissolves and bleeds and wipes. Nude people drifted in and out of mostly empty rooms. Sometimes the rooms had chairs in them, or a ceiling fan, or a pail of soapy water. One room was knee-high with topsoil. A man in buckskin and a ski mask stabbed at the dirt with a shovel, let the blade scrape concrete. Now two women cuddled in a hammock, talked in low grave tones.

"Woodland apes," said one.

"Spawn of," said another.

She pointed across the room to where a man stood eating some whitish substance from a peel-off container. It took me a while to place him. The bones in his face had slid around a bit, the skin was bumpier, seamed.

But it was absolutely Bobby Trubate.

"Guess you're wondering what the hell is going on," he said now to the camera. "Let me explain something about the Realms. The Realms is the Realms. My new friend Warren said that. I couldn't agree more. The only thing I'd add is that the Realms is the Realms is the Realms. It's where we all truly live. It's not fantasy. It's not reality. It's not another world. It's not television, though you're certainly welcome to tune in. It's not the Internet, though I think you're lost if you're not already a part of our online community. It's not a movement. We hardly move at all. It's not a paradox, but it's guaranteed to blow your mind. It's not even a business, though we do accept all major credit cards. Would you like to see something? I'd like you to see something."

He led the camera through a door into a narrow room. There was a hospital bed, a bony old man up to his ribs in sheet. The walls were a trompe l'oeil of desert dunes and sky. The trick didn't quite take. You could see where the paint got grainy, the streaks of charcoal underneath. The old man sat up in bed. His hair was patched and stiff, his arms spindly, his skin stippled with rot.

"Good morning, evening," Trubate said to him softly.

"Good afternoon," said Heinrich.

Now the screen went white. The rest of the evening's local cable line-up started to scroll. Something called Landview Today was on next. Sallow men in varsity satin argued the merits of a new turnpike toll. I tugged a fresh Dixie cup from the stack, grateful for such distraction after the shock of seeing Heinrich. Christ, how long had it been? How long in Pangburn Falls? How long in the guilt room? How long in the Landview Inn Motel? It feels of an evening with your Dixie cups, your rye. It could be years. Carthage gets covered with Tunisian condos, or moves to Tennessee.

How long had Heinrich known he was sick?

"Time has never lost in overtime," he'd told me once.

Whatever was having at him now was no mystery plague, either. It looked like a good old fashioned tumor party, cell bullies pulling the body dirtward. I stared at the TV, tried to focus on the Landview spat, blot Heinrich out. I was listing toward support of the toll hike when the liquor put me under.

Near dawn there was a noise at the door. Some carouser in the wrong keyhole, I figured, a demo-kit pilgrim back from a sports bar score.

"Who's there?"

The lock clicked and Fran Kincaid walked in, kicked off her shoes. She had a maid's apron on.

"Do you want me to wear this?" she said.

"Don't you own the place?"

"This is fantasy time."

"It's a little late," I said. "Or a little early."

"I had to finish the books. I promised my husband I'd get the books done. Now do you want busty mature woman sex or not?"

"Sure," I said.

"No mommy tit shit. We're beasts of the field, okay?"

"Okay."

Fran was no stranger to the field. When we were finished I watched her shimmy back into her jeans, fix her hair in the mirror as though trying to approximate the wife her husband had last seen, the bitch who hadn't done the books yet. I could smell bad hubby a mile away. It smelled like me. She balled up the apron and stuffed it in her pocket.

"Did you enjoy yourself, William?"

"I did," I said. "But I still can't get over the fact that your name is Fran Kincaid."

"It's the doppelganger effect, I guess."

"Something like that," I said.

"You really miss her, don't you?"

"Who?"

"Stop lying to yourself, William. You are you, and that's all there is to it. You just need a little continuum awareness, is all."

"The Realms," I said.

"I couldn't watch last night," said Fran. "I told you, I was doing the books. But my husband tapes them all. That Bobby Trubate is a dreamcake. Now, William, it's time for me to say good morning, evening. I've got a lot of work to do. As you may have noticed, I don't just sit on my butt all day. Checkout's eleven-thirty."

I checked out around ten, bought some gas, got back on the highway heading west. I'd never seen the heart of the country. I figured it all for corporate parks and sick prairie grass. Apparently there were also some malls. I pulled off into one in Ohio, bought a knockwurst sandwich and a bag of chips-"flavored with other natural flavors"-sat on a wrought-iron bench in the middle of a freezing atrium. The coffee shop across the way had a brick facade and ornate signage much like that used in commercials to convey the supposed muffin-consciousness of Industrial England. A big blond cop walked out with some kind of roll in his hand. He put his boot on the bench.

"Yum," said the cop. "Mocha bagel."

"I got knockwurst," I said.

"Get it with golden mustard?"

"I did."

"Smart move."

"Thank you."

"You're not from around here, are you? I can tell by your mannerisms. You use your hands a lot."

"I'm eating."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What do you think of cops?"

"Cops," I said.

"I want to write a TV show about a cop and another guy. The cop part is easy, but the other guy, what he thinks about the cop, I need to do research. So I'm asking all the smart people I meet what they think about cops."

"Why do I qualify as smart?"

"The mustard. Your mannerisms."

"Who's the other guy?" I said.

"He's this guy. He's not a cop. It's becoming a real pain in the neck. I'm blocking on the non-cop mentality. Can't you give me something?"

"Cops have guns," I said.

"That's it. That's all I needed. I knew you were the guy to ask. Fare thee well, me. Good afternoon, breakfast."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just beginning to pick up the lingo."

"I should get going," I said.

I got some news on the radio. The oldest man in the world had just admitted to lying about his age. "I feel bad about it," said Willett Phillips, fifty-three, "but the yogurt people dangled a lot of cash in front of me." Harvard seniors were gearing up for an international event they'd organized for credit, A Day Without Exploitation. The CEOs of several major corporations had already pledged to pay overseas factory workers minimum wage for the day. Some American-based companies had promised full health benefits for the twenty-four-hour period. "If I'm going to lose my arm," said Glen French of Flint, Michigan, "I pray it's on Tuesday." Speeches and a concert were planned. In other news, the third unclaimed nuclear device in as many weeks had been detonated over the Pacific, this time in the vicinity of the Cook Islands. When asked to comment, a spokesman for the State Department said, "Somebody's having some fun." Meanwhile, advertisers were lining up to air spots on The Realms, the runaway underground multimedia hit to be pancast by several networks and content companies at once. Said Realms creator and host Bobby Trubate from his headquarters in Death Valley, "We'd do this for free, but we wouldn't. The main thing, though, is to win people over to the idea of spirit-based branding. We're a spiritual delivery system. People are tired of reality, and they're too smart for fantasy. It was just a matter of time before somebody figured out what was next. This is the marketplace of ideals, and we mean to corner it. The Realms is just the tip of the ice pick. I want our advertisers to know that. The dream of the wireless Xanadu is alive. I'm literally on the verge of decreeing stately pleasure domes, here, people."

I hit the tuning scanner, found some old-time Muzak. It was the purest, truest thing I'd heard in a while. I pictured the viola section in loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts, listened to them ride the chordal swell. They were doing a rendition of something once regarded by rock magazine capsule reviewers as cruelly melodic and teeming with surplus malaise. These fiddle boys were bowing such sweetness back into it. I wept on past the Ohio state line.

The question of why William's credit card was still valid tender continued to gnaw when I heard the birdsounds in the glove box. Glad chirp of sparrow on a microchip. I dug around for the phone, found it, flipped it.

"Go," I said.

Goddamn, it was good to say that.

I got the buzz of bad frequency, a harried satellite.

"Hello?" I said. "William?"

"It's Bobby. Can you hear me?"

"In and out."

"Good. ."

"I missed that."

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"How do you like Indiana?"

"Are you tracking me?"

"Drama queen."

"What happened to the freedom of the open road?"

"You're free to stop at any roadside concession. There's a Stuckey's coming up. I recommend the candied almond log."

"Is that my password?"

"No, it's just totally tasty."

The redemption van crapped black smoke in the Stuckey's parking lot. I pulled William's convertible up beside it, got out. The van door slid open and Dietz smiled down. His ponytail was tucked inside his derby. The loop hung down like a silky noose.

"Brother in fire," said Dietz, giggling. "Welcome to the whirligig."

"I've got a ride," I said. "But thanks."

"I don't think you're going to get too far," said a voice behind me. It was Old Gold. He was tearing up packets of diner sugar, pouring them into William's gas tank. Dietz grabbed me by the arms. His grip was tremendous. We had to wait for Old Gold to tear up all the packets, dig for more in his pants.

"I told you we should have gotten the fucking box," said Dietz. "Eighty-nine cents."

"That's a rip-off," said Old Gold.

"We expense it."

"Then we have to explain it."

"Just cut the tires."

"Radials," said Old Gold. "Bad for the knife."

Old Gold drove. Dietz sat in back with me. There was a shovel there, the bed of it shiny, the blade edge blacked with oil. Dietz picked it up, poked at some bright netting torn loose from clementine crates.

"My mother used to wear ones like these," he said. "Slut hose."

"No more boat," I said.

"There's always more boat."

"Shut up back there," said Old Gold. "Dietz, did you drop those tabs? That's all I need. I'm commander of this operation."

"What, nobody ever did a magic dance on your Navy SEAL Team?"

"I wasn't no SEAL," said Old Gold. "I was an intelligence."

Dietz fell back laughing, hugged the shovel blade.

"Good stuff, Dietz?" I said. "See anything special?"

"I don't have visions anymore, man. Too many golden fucking arches obstructing the view. Lookie there. Death burgers on both sides of the road. Motherfuckers get you coming and going."

"It's your peers that are responsible, Dietz," I said. "They made this world."

I pointed out the window to the world.

"My peers? My peers been dead since '73. Don't lay that trip on me, man. Those people you're talking about, they were pigs all along. Pigs with beards, pigs on skag, little sows with blond hair down to their asses and sweet little piggy tits. Must I give you a lesson in cultural. . cultural. . oh, shit. ."

Dietz began to wriggle, beetle-like, batted his arms in the air.

"Good morning, evening!" he said.

"Don't mock the rituals," snarled Old Gold. "It's bad karma."

"Karma?" said Dietz. "You moron. Hey, pull over. Let's get a burger. They make them with fetus meat now."

"Can it, Dietz," said Old Gold. "Or I'm going to do something evil."

"Evil?" said Dietz. "You don't have the sensitivity for evil. All you're capable of is mean. Man, if Heinrich was still Heinrich he'd show you a thing about-"

"I said can it," said Old Gold.

"Indiana," said Dietz, after a while, as though it might be a disputed philosophical supposition.

"This here is downstate Illinois," said Old Gold. "They have signs about it for people like you who can't tell the difference."

"Mind if I ask you guys a question?" I said.

"Mind," said Dietz. "How many times do you think I've said the word mind?"

"Where are you taking me?" I said.

"To your rightful place," said Old Gold.

We took a turnoff, sped up a ramp. Withered fields whipped by. I looked down at the shovel, up at Dietz. I wondered if I'd have to dig my own grave like some mob saga hood. I could storyboard the whole thing if they wanted.

"Turn here," said Dietz.

I peered out the window for a peek at my last location, but the only sights I saw were airport signs, a tinted tower by a pond.

We flew out on a cheapo line, Phaethon Air. Dietz flourished tickets and we charged through the gate. Old Gold drove off with the van. Phaethon security was a coke-shaky clubkid with a billy bat. He wanted to know if we'd left anything unattended in the terminal.

"Just my detonator," said Dietz.

The kid laughed, waved us through.

"Realm it up!" he called.

"I use Phaethon for most of my travel. They're fans."

We boarded, found our seats. We'd been assigned to something called urbane class. There was little in the way of leg room and no magazines, just old foreign affairs journals, some soft sculpture catalogues. The pipe racks fitted in the seatbacks were filled with posies and incense sticks. Stuffed in the pocket webbing, alongside some sick bags, were blank diaries with embossed covers that read: Reflections Aloft. The inflight movie, according to a typed index card, would be a series of experimental shorts produced at McGill University in the seventies.

"What I love about this airline," said Dietz, "is that they know their niche and they work it."

The pilot's voice came over the speaker to announce we'd be taking off shortly.

"I'm feeling good about the whole takeoff thing right now," he added. "I mean, why not? Pilot error is all in the head."

A steward came by with hot towels and vodka shots.

Dietz lit up an enormous spliff.

"I'm sorry, sir," said the steward, "you can't smoke that in here."

Dietz winked a bloodshot eye, gave the guy a hit.

I looked around for signs of censure but nobody seemed to notice. There were about a dozen people on board. Some were in leather and all were asleep.

"Kiwis," said Dietz. "Crazy motherfuckers."

"What's their niche?" I said.

"Okay," said Dietz. "I lied to you. This isn't really an airline. But you'll thank me when you taste the lemon chicken."

I spotted a few more passengers under blankets in the back of the plane, tiptoed past them to the bathrooms. The lock plate in one of the doors said Need. The other said Want. I went for Want. The door whacked up on a pair of knees.

"Sorry," I said.

"Come in."

I slid through the door, leaned up on the sink.

"Dropping some friends off at the lake," said the Rad Balm girl.

"So, you wanted company?"

"I didn't know it was you, fuckstick."

"Right."

The exit was a bit trickier, requiring a sort of high hurdle kick to clear. I leaned on Need. Need was not occupado. I locked myself in, sat down. The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.

"Steve, you're all flustered. Over."

"My name's not Steve," I said.

"It's so tiring, your denial. Over."

"Your voice is really crackling," I said. "Over."

We touched down a few hours later. I looked out the window as we made our approach, saw blasted earth and cracked desert roads looping into emptiness. I didn't see any airport. Dietz had nodded off next to me, spliff stub poking cold from his knuckles. Some of the leather men were playing hacky sack in the aisle, shouting in strange English. Something about a wingeing sod off his tits in Auckland, a bunch of silly cunts. The pilot announced that he'd lowered the landing gear, requested that we please refrain from dread. I shook Dietz awake.

"Where the fuck are we?"

"We're in the land of dreams. Sunny California. Hollywood, to be exact."

"This is the desert," I said.

"Mulholland Drive," said Dietz. "Sunset and Vine. Betty Grable. Fatty Arbuckle. Bad fatty. Hollywood Walk of Fame. A star for Steve. A star for Dietz. We'll marry Brazilian models. We'll battle addiction."

"This is the desert," I said. "This isn't even the desert where people go and say, Oh, I went to the desert, I lost eighty bucks on the slots but I found this skull. This is actually the fucking desert."

"Okay," said Dietz, "I lied to you. It's the desert."

We had to wait for the emergency chutes to inflate. Dietz said the deplaning platform was on the fritz. The New Zealanders were having chicken fights in the rear of the cabin. A great cheer went up as one man split his head on the luggage bin.

Layover fever, Dietz said.

We slid down to the desert floor, walked out across the waste. We walked for a while. The Rad Balm girl and some of her friends were with us, a few of the New Zealanders, too. There were some kids in skate pads who said they were from St. Louis. The going was slow. Every few feet there was a blindside tackle, a tussle in the sand. The man who'd injured himself on the luggage bin was beaten severely again. His mates laughed and called him a poof. The skate kids spit on his head. It appeared he'd been sacrificed by the Kiwis to the greater glory of international goodwill.

"Violence will be met with decisive violence," said Dietz, but nobody paid him any heed.

We passed the remnants of an encampment. Empty water bottles, tattered tents. Sun-browned business cards lay strewn with charred bones in a fire pit. There was a jar of glitter on a rock, a cell phone wedged in the crook of a cactus. Signs and pseudo-signs. Sense and sensimilla. Goofball shit.

"Thought they were the new Dionysians," said Dietz. "They're all dead now."

"They're not dead," I said. "They got downsized."

"You tell your story, I'll tell mine."

Just past the next rise we caught sight of a huge metal-skinned hangar. It could have been the hull of some alien ship, sunk belly up in ancient sea boil. More likely it was something the feds had pawned off in the last budget crisis, or forgotten about entirely, abandoned to the war nerds who sneaked inside to jot maps, jack soda machines.

The glare off the hangar was strong. Dietz handed me a pair of aviator glasses. As I put them on I heard the plane start to taxi behind us.

"Don't look back," he said. "You'll turn into All-Spice."

"Right," I said.

"There are a lot of little shits where we're going," said Dietz. "Don't let it get to you. Remember who you are. You're the Subject Steve."

"Right," I said.

We swung down a high ridge to the hangar. Dietz called to some men lounging near the enormous door. It took them a while to slide it back. There were shapes there in the darkness, lit hives receding into the vast cool of the room. Varnished deskpieces in workstation clusters spiraled out of a raised hub. Kids, dozens of kids in bughead earphones tapped away at consoles in low golden light. There was a kind of liquid quiet in the room, a strange drone joy. People tapped each other, whispered, giggled softly over the tidal click of keypads.

Most of the workstations included a shelving unit for extra drives, office swag. Exhibits in kiddie kitsch abounded. TV tie-in lunchbox collections, Matchbox cars, bandoleer'd action figures. They seemed to be the same order of artifact my peers had hoarded, though I had only the vaguest sense of these versions. They'd probably reigned the schoolyards about the time I was blowing dormroom snowcaps with William. Dietz led me past a set of plastic poodles hanging on a wire. The dogs lit up and yapped.

"I me ma," they said. "I ma me."

We cut through a row of cube dividers to the hub area. Bobby Trubate sat with his feet up in a white leather easy chair. He wore rope sandals, a mesh robe with platinum trim, the outfit of a man who goes to court to have his name changed to a prime number. Bits of the mesh were dark with sweat. He flipped his ring binder shut.

"Steve-o. Get up here, buddy!"

He hoisted me up to his dais, bent me in a tender headlock.

"Nice place," I said, ducked loose from his robe folds.

"Should of seen this dump before I leased it. Brought in the best industrial decorator around. My investors went nuts, but fuck them. They invested in a visionary so they should expect vision. Dietz, you old fuck, hold the fort."

I followed Trubate through a side door into a wide wood-beamed room. It was skylit, full of lush rustic comforts, animal skins, teak. A bank of monitors was mounted in the wall. Some screens showed Realms locations, the soil room, the hospital bed. Others scrolled pages from the Realms website, or surveilled the workers in the hangar. A few pulled in random programming, soccer games from South America, Polish soaps. The thatch hut logo blinked from every corner.

"Can I get you something?" said Trubate. "Vodka frappe? A frosty rail?"

"Is that the road to redemption?"

"Things have changed a bit."

"They seemed to have changed a lot for Heinrich," I said. "Unless it's your makeup team that's made him look like death."

"No," he said, "that's death."

Trubate squinnied his eyes. There was something scooped-out about him, I saw now, sick. A thin vein in his temple was thumping hard. I wondered what dregs of goodies it was bearing from his brain.

"I don't know," he said softly. "It's so fucked. I almost feel like it's my fault. He wasn't strong enough for the relocation. The tumors moved fast."

"So did you."

"The hut did some shit to me," he said. "Maybe not what Heinrich had in mind. The branks. The breast ripper. I saw it all so plain after that. I'd been such a child. They say actors are children."

"So you wanted to direct."

"Don't be snide. Snidery is the last refuge of dickwads. The Center was no longer viable. It was time to take things to the next level. I couldn't run away from my talent. I am Hollywood, after all. I am more than Hollywood."

"Old Gold, too?"

"Hey, everyone was welcome. Heinrich was sick. The bills were piling up. The marshals were coming. I made some phone calls. Saved the fucking day. We have a new home for you, Steve. But you've got to earn your keep."

Trubate batted something out of my hair.

"Ladybug," he said.

"Let's see it."

"Maybe not a ladybug," said Trubate, pinched something in his fingers to a smear. "I've got to scram. Goddamn investor teleconference. They don't like the figures. Fuck the figures. They want their money. Fuck them. Do I look like I have the money? If I'd spent it on speedballs and pussy they'd understand. That they can get their heads around. But a glimpse of the truth? No fucking way."

Trubate cut loose with a cackle.

"I'm working on the cackle," he said.

I milled around the room, inspected the mail-order baubles. There appeared to be some sort of nautical motif in effect, solid gold sextants, diving bells that doubled as ice buckets, stereo speakers mounted in the galleon wood. A lot of it looked culled from those old magazines at the Center, Estelle Burke's yearbooks. Don't forget the postcard from Paris. Remember me when you're a crazed futurist.

A stack of coasters on the coffee table bore the hut logo in safety orange. The Realms Is Real, they proclaimed. I found a leather binder with some hole-punched pages. It was a business plan, a pretty primitive-looking one at that, some smudged graphs, a brief budget breakdown whose figures didn't add up. One section was entitled the Trubate Brand, another the Heinrich Time-Sensitivity Factor. A list of future projects included the Daddy Chair, the Gimp Snatch Miracle Hour, and the Subject Steve. A parenthetical following this last noted that the executive producer credit had been "preguaranteed" to one Leon Goldfarb.

Now one of the monitors in the wall fired off a series of high squawks. Heinrich leaned into frame, his face puckered, papery. He lay supine on his counterpane in bikini briefs, his nipples blacked with cork. The bed was heaped with toys, baby dolls, wind-up robots, Scrabble chips.

"Hey, kids," he said. "Welcome to Heinrich's Story Bed. Looks like I'm going to tell you kids another story. Looks like all I'm good for these days is telling stories, at least according to your buddy Bobby. Bobby can't wait for me to die. Neither can I, tell you the truth. Cancer's eaten clear through me. It'll get you, too, don't worry. Meanwhile, prepare for some allegorical instruction. Do you know what that means? It means shut the fuck up and listen, because here we go. Once upon a time there was a big game hunter. This was in the time when there were big game hunters with big fucking guns and everyone understood it was a natural thing, a man versus beast thing. That's a modality that people conveniently forget these days, but it's still out there, every day, man versus beast, whether you like or not. Now this big game hunter, who happened to be from Cleveland, which is not important, but I want to make it clear he was from a highly esteemed smelting dynasty in Cleveland. ."

There was someone else in the room. I turned and there she stood, hair up, pale arms tucked in rubber crutch locks.

"Renee."

"Look at him," she said.

"You're standing," I said. "You're walking."

"Look at the man," she said. "Saddest thing I've ever seen in my life."

"They said you'd never walk again."

"They never actually said that."

"You're walking," I said.

"Injections," she said. "Incisions. Experimental stuff. Animal cells. I have some antelope in me. Some silverback."

"Gorilla?"

"Very avant-garde. It's not the animals, though. It's the chip."

"The chip?"

"A chip in my gut. Electrodes in my legs. Bobby paid for it. Look at my crutch handles. See the buttons? I'm remote-controlling myself."

Renee twitched towards me, her crutches buzzing. Heinrich's voice careened around the room.

". . and the hunter felt the tusk slide through him, and I'll put it bluntly, kids, the cold, sharp tusk slid through him from behind, through his anus and curving upward, just tore right through his guts and punched out his chest. Skewered, he was. Completely, irrevocably skewered. Yet even then, wriggling with the last of his life on that great bloody ivory shaft, even as the elephant lifted his head and the hunter felt the hot rank breath of the beast blanket him and its horrendous trumpet blast shatter his ears, the hunter could not understand it, and with what was left of his strength he said to the elephant, 'Why? Tell me why? You called me brother.' And the elephant blinked once and nodded, and with his trunk pushed the gored hunter to a mangled heap on the jungle floor. 'I know I called you brother,' said the elephant, shrugging his great white shoulders. 'My mistake. I must have had you mixed up with somebody else.' "

Pink pinwheels spun in Heinrich's eyes.

"Needless to say, children," he said, "Cleveland is not the manufacturing center it once was."

There were more squawks and the screen went white.

"Christ," I said.

"This is content," said Renee.

"I heard on the radio. Your big multimedia deal."

"PR bullshit. This kind of idea has been dead for a long time. We were out in the forest, what did we know? We're fucked. We're the fuckers and we're fucked."

"I've met fans."

"Like I said," said Renee.

"Renee."

"What."

"You're walking."

"This isn't really what I had in mind."

She hit the button on her crutch, just stood there, buzzing. Then she jerked away.

Everyone had gathered around Trubate's hub, a sea of wet haircuts and ghosted skin. The Rad Balm girl sat in back with a boy who'd come off the plane with us. He had lime-colored muttonchops, a denim jacket in his lap. Apparently he was getting some sort of handjob.

"Yo," I said.

"You," said the Rad Balm girl, slid her hand away.

"Get your jollies, geezer?" said the boy.

"Nice sideburns," I said. "They remind me of my father's. He was a fire captain."

"That's the most engrossing story I've ever heard."

"Better watch it," said the Rad Balm girl. "Warren's a writer, you know. That sounds so stupid. Of course you know that."

"I do now," I said.

"He's like the most famous writer in the world. The spokesman of our generation. I mean that in quotes. Spokesman in quotes. Generation, that's just generation. Whatever that means."

"Hey," said Warren. "I just do what I do. If people like it, that's cool."

"How's the fish?" I said to the Rad Balm girl.

"Fish?"

"Musician talk."

"Yeah, okay."

"Don't you remember?"

"What, do you have a photographic brain thing?"

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind."

"Okay."

"Sometimes I can't believe I actually took this job," said the Rad Balm girl. "You know, I almost went to SarinNet. That's the other big desert dot-com. They're in the silos. Package was worthless, though. Not like this is any better. People like us, we fucking made the information economy, now they're flushing us down the toilet. San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong, Brussels, Tehran, Perth, I've been pimping code all over. I just hope I can squeeze another few months out of this bullshit before everything goes bust. I know people have been saying that for years, but it's coming for real now, mark my words. What I really want to do is study medical ethics. Like what are the moral ramifications of putting a monkey head on a human body? Or a horse dick. Or like a lot of cow tits. Or is it wrong to fuck a clone of your brother if you use a rubber? That kind of crap. This place is weird, huh? The Realms. You should see some of the shit they do down there that doesn't make it past post. Bobby seems pretty creepy. What's with the robe? But I guess he has a viable business model."

"I'm sure," I said.

"Hey, you're the dying guy. You used to ball Renee, right? Somebody said that. Because Bobby's balling her now. Me, too, when I have time. I love to say ball."

"Okay."

"Just a heads-up, to use the old hippy term."

"Right," I said.

There was a man in a tight Lycra hood standing with some others near a water cooler. When the man turned to cough I saw it was the Philosopher, tricked out like some aerodynamic Franciscan. He nodded me an amen. Nearby an obese Japanese kid in a hunting vest just like Naperton used to wear was conducting impromptu Bible study with some Realms techs.

"Moses waited for the slave generation to die off," he told them. "That's why they wandered. They could have been to the Promised Land in a day. A few hours. It's like the Realms. We could expand in the snap of a finger. But if it's not the right time, our options won't be worth shit. Have you ever heard of Heinrich of Newark?"

"You mean the old freak on the bed?" said a woman with a tattoo of a water bottle on her arm.

"I mean Moses."

The kid in the vest waved off his proteges, stepped up on the dais.

"My name is Desmond Mori, Chief Personal Resources Officer, and I say to you, Good morning, morning!"

"Good afternoon," called the gathering.

The voices of the Realms were low broken things.

"Evening is upon us somewhere!" said Desmond.

"Good morning, evening."

"The past is before us!"

"We're coming, past."

"The future is gone!"

"Fare thee well, future."

"Now is. ."

"Now."

"Now is. ."

"Now."

"Iam. ."

"Me."

"Iam. ."

"Me."

"And who, pray tell, are you?" called Desmond, pointed over to one of the New Zealanders.

"Not a buggering bastard like you!" he said.

"I am me, me am I!" someone shouted.

"Fair dinkum?" said the New Zealander.

The woman with the water bottle tattoo punched her head against a systems panel.

"Watch my tower!" someone screamed.

"I me ma! I ma me!"

"Enough!" said Desmond, leaped from the dais, hugged the woman down to the hangar floor.

"You are you," he said, stroked her hair. "My sweet Fair Dinkum."

The room went quiet and Desmond rose with the woman in his arms, led us single file out into the sun.

"There's going to be a new policy on sick days."

Trubate stood above us on a heat-cracked mound. His mesh had stiffened with sweat. Sunlight caught the metal at his neckline. It did not make him dazzling. It looked like he was getting knifed by God.

"There will be a memo about it," he said, "but basically, no sick days."

Some hissed.

"Listen, people. We're in a tight spot right now. Forget what you hear about megadeals. That's just smoke and mirror signals. It's nothing tangible. It's nothing fungible. I'm doing everything I can for you but I need you to help yourselves. Help yourselves by working every day. All day. For us. For this. For the Realms. They want us to fail. Do you hear me? They want us to fail!"

A cheer went up and Trubate chuffed some dust with his sandal.

"I adore you all," he said. "You are my brothers and sisters. In the future they will do in-depth half-hour bios of each and every one of us. That's how important this is. Save your office party JPEGs, people! Now, I want to introduce a new family member to the Realms, the star of our latest, most innovative offering. I've known him for a long time, but it wasn't until I had a little talk with Dr. Goldfarb that we realized what a contribution he could make to our content division. So give it up for Steve!"

Nobody gave much of anything up.

Some stood and started to chat. Others found flat rocks for tanning. Desmond Mori appeared to be consoling a stick of deadwood. The St. Louis kids stalked scorpions with staple guns. Fair Dinkum scoured her head gash with sand.

We ate at long picnic benches in the back of the hangar. Bobby sat with Renee, fed her hunks of raw carrot, fondled her animatronic feet. Dietz was up on the wall in a handstand, babbling to Warren and the Rad Balm girl.

"Altamont? Best hologram I ever saw. Look, with the exception of Chuck Berry, every major entertainer was on a CIA payroll at one time or another. Doesn't matter much anymore. You kids, with your computers, your complacency beneath the boot of global capitalism, you've done in a few years what it took the pigs decades to put together."

"I'm an anarchist," said Warren.

"Let me tell you," said Dietz, "they're all immensely frightened."

"Well, what are you doing here then?" said the Rad Balm girl.

"Where was I supposed to go?"

I took a bench next to Desmond Mori, watched him spork kale from his bowl.

"I miss Parish's stew," I said.

"You knew the man they called Parish, then?"

"Why are you talking like that?"

"I'm sorry," said Desmond.

"What do you do here?"

"I'm the Chief Personal-"

"But what do you do?"

"I choose the chairs. I study ergonomics reports and choose the chairs. I respond to Frequently Asked Questions. I lead Team Greeting."

"It used to be called First Calling."

"Hey, don't tell me. I'm the only one who's even aware of shit like that around here. Except for the Pre-Realmers. Like Dietz and Renee. I always wanted to meet Heinrich. When I was a kid, a few years ago, I ordered his book through the mail. I guess he's not like he was, though."

"I wonder what happened to everybody," I said.

"Scattered."

"I like your vest."

"It's an exact replica of the one Naperson wore in the mothering hut."

"Naperton," I said.

"I was testing you," said Desmond.

Now Trubate's cackle burst across the hangar.

"Renee," he said, "you kill me. What are you even talking about? The Heinrich stuff is classic."

Dietz joined us on the bench, pointed over to Trubate and Renee.

"Look at them all cuddly together," he said. "Remember that old ad for the Poconos? They had those bathtubs shaped like pussies. Filled them with champagne."

"Hearts," I said.

"They put hearts in them?" said Dietz. "I thought it was champagne."

I waited for Renee to rise, tailed her to the serving table. Available now was some arid ziggurat of soy cakes and sunflower tortes.

"Dessert?" I said.

She pointed to the coffeepot and I drew her a cup of the house brew, yellow, sweet, carbonated, cold. Across the room Trubate was demonstrating the heroin walk he claimed to have perfected for a transgressive high-eight Hamlet.

"You've got to understand," I heard Trubate say, "the Prince of Denmark was a trust-fund brat."

"Well," I said to Renee, "as long as you love the guy."

"Love?"

Renee popped the top off a plastic vial, tapped out powder the texture of iron filings into her cup, sipped it.

"What's that for?" I said.

"I have a happiness-deficiency."

"Let's go," I said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"You and me?" said Renee.

"Yeah."

"Steal the van?"

"Yeah."

"Hit the road?"

"That's it."

"Sleep under the stars with ketchup stains on our shirts?"

"Beautiful."

"You and me?"

"Screw Trubate," I said.

"I do," said Renee.

"What is it? Your chips? Your legs? We'll figure something out."

"No, we won't," said Renee. "Why do people always say that? We won't figure anything out. We'll stare at each other and wonder why the other person hasn't figured anything out. That fucker said we'd figure something out, and we haven't figured jack shit out. That's what we'll say to ourselves, and it's just a matter of time before we say it to each other."

Her head started to loll a little.

"You look really happy right now," I said.

Spit slid down her chin.

"Take me downstairs," she said. "I've got to do my miracle."

We rode an old cage elevator down to the lower levels. One of Desmond's reluctant acolytes rode the brake lever, whispered into his sleeve.

"Pathogens," I heard him say. "With a P."

"Aren't you supposed to be sick?" said Renee.

"Fine fettle," I said.

"You look pretty sick."

"That won't work," I said.

"Sure it will."

We hit bottom with a soft bump. The boy flipped the lever back.

"No," he was saying now, "you have to coat it before insertion. You didn't coat it, did you?"

We walked down a corridor and through a doorway into darkness. And then there was light, or lights, high blinding banks of them blasting down on an enormous soundstage. Camera crews clustered around a series of sets, three-walled ceilingless rooms, some white, some papered over with photo sheets of trees, or seascapes, or city squares at night. People scurried by with power strips and prop boxes. We passed the soil room, saw a masked man there in buckskin. He was tinier than he'd seemed on TV. He leaned on his shovel near a man spooling cable on his arm.

"Let's do one," said the man. He called for quiet and we stood off near some steel cases. The Digger dug, struck concrete, began his drag and scrape.

Renee led me away from the shovel screech.

"They'll shoot that shit for hours."

"What's the gimmick?" I said. "I don't get it. It's boring."

"We prefer trance-friendly."

Renee hobbled on towards the next set, a barren blue room with gym mats on the floor, a lone stool. Identical posters lined the wall. "Go, Gimp Snatch!" they said. The Rad Balm girl approached us with a clipboard.

"Sweetie," she said. "Feeling the magic?"

"I guess," said Renee.

"Hey, honey, you got a problem tonight?"

"No problem."

"Goody."

The Rad Balm girl smeared some ointment on her mouth.

"Where's the Spokesman?" said Renee.

"Warren? He's in makeup. I'll get him."

A few minutes later the kid with the muttonchops stepped bare-chested through the set door. He wore white, therapeutic-looking trousers, nurse shoes. He took a seat on the stool, started to knead his crotch.

"Places," said the Rad Balm girl.

Renee handed me her crutches, slid down to her belly at the lip of the stage.

"Action!"

Some song started pumping through the PA, the one I'd heard on the radio in Indiana, the authentic version, pre-viola. It sounded derivative now.

"I love my dog," Warren began, still fondling himself. "My dog loves me. That's all there is in life. I raised my dog from infancy. Puppyhood. Whatever. Both his parents were put down, so I had to do it myself. No help. Nobody gave a shit whether my dog lived or died. So I took it upon myself to give a shit. He was my dog. There are beautiful things in this world, and if you can escape your narcissism, or the collective hallucination of the media, or the singular hallucination of your narcissism, you might get to see them sometime. But it's like you're encased in some kind of fucking titanium pod cruising through the atmosphere, you're not quite the pilot but there's a joystick in your hand, and it feels like you're steering but you've never been steering, never in your life have you been steering, not when your dad remarried for the seventh time, not when your mom got weird and distant, not when your brother tried to butt in with the raising of your dog that you alone were raising from puppyhood, you've never been steering anything, really, you've just been cruising along in this pod with all these gleaming buttons on the control panel but they don't connect to anything, and you're just whistling along through the dead air, dead space, through the nothingness of the world's chatter and the nothingness of your own-most you jabbering away in your head, and you just have to get out of that pod, you must eject from the fucking pod, and you're like, Oh fuck, I must fucking eject, I must, I must fucking. . and then you notice a little button that's gleaming, that's glowing a little differently from the others, and it's got a big E on it and it's glowing and it's even kind of like blinking as though maybe this button, as opposed to the other buttons, maybe this button actually fucking works, so you hit it, you hit it hard. ."

Warren's cock popped out of his pants. Renee stabbed towards him on her elbows. Her legs swayed dead behind her. Occasionally, and with a terrible grunt, she'd put out her hand as though to grip air.

"Punching out," said Warren, his voice gaining velocity, "that's what they call ejection in all those jet pilot movies, where they're always going on about how you have to be careful punching out because you hit the wrong angle, boom, you lose an arm, you lose a head, you lose your head. But fuck it, I mean you can't go on in this pod, this little self-contained smugness apparatus of yours and-"

"Cut!" said the Rad Balm girl.

Renee collapsed near the tips of Warren's shoes, weeping.

"What?" said Warren.

"The dog," said the Rad Balm girl. "What happened to the dog?"

"I was looping back around to it."

"Renee was at her mark."

"I had a few seconds."

"Bullshit you did. Look at her. She's practically at your feet. Warren, this show isn't about you, it's about her. You have to be more generous."

"How is it about her? I'm the one talking. I'm the one beating off."

"That's the point. It's from a dyke's perspective."

I ducked out of there.

I wandered awhile, found a vault crammed with winking circuit boards, lay down and dozed on a hump of cable there. Maybe I dreamed. When I woke, somebody's boot tip nuzzling my ear, I did have that sense of being led out of some kind of subterrain, me discombobulated, a bit embarrassed, a tourist nearly lost in some regionally famous cave.

It was Desmond's boot. I studied the palisades of grain in the leather.

"He's up now. He'd like to see you."

Desmond walked me out to my mark, took my arm as I went to open the thin pine door.

"Just be yourself," he said.

"Just let go of my arm."

Heinrich sat up in his hospital bed, tissue balls and clementine peels spilled out on the counterpane. The sky on the wallpaper was paler than I'd seen on TV, the desert darker.

"Steve-o!" called the studio audience. You could hear the tape hiss as the cries died down to some stray handclaps, a few knowing hoots.

Steve-o devotees.

"Do my tumors understand that when I go, they go, too?" said Heinrich.

I looked around for cue cards. Spotlights popped.

"Tumors," I said. "Tumors shmoomers."

"Cut!"

Trubate bobbed up out of the darkness.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Ad lib," I said.

"Ad lib," said Trubate.

"That's right."

"Listen," said Trubate, "don't wait for the laugh track. Makes you look like an amateur."

"I am an amateur."

"Point taken. Just don't ruin my show."

"Or what?"

"I'm a sick man," said Trubate. "And I don't have the luxury of dying, like you do. I have to live with my sickness. I have to take it out on other people. Or the people other people care about."

"Is that a threat?"

"Vague. Veiled."

He stuck an old light meter under my chin. The dial didn't move, looked busted, and Trubate didn't check it anyway.

"Let's take it from the dead dad speech," he said.

Heinrich coughed, pulled a clementine from a sack that hung on his bedpost, started to peel it down.

"You know," he said, "I watched my old man die. Kind of like this. He gathered us all to him. He said he had something to show us. When we were all there in the room he lifted up his blanket, pointed down to his bedpan. To what was in the bedpan. 'There it is,' he said. 'I wish I could leave you more.' He was dead by dusk."

"I don't believe that story," I said.

"Jeez, you want a gazelle?"

He had his tongue out. It was hard to tell if he was razzing me, or just gagging, dry.

"Can I get you some water?"

His eyelids were caked with paste. Beige fluid frothed at the hems of his mouth. He shuddered like some piece of overheating machinery.

"Hey," called Trubate from the darkness, "Code Blue Man!"

The Philosopher leaped through the door in his Lycra hood, a heel of French bread in his hand. The recorded applause was a concert-hall roar, maybe something bootlegged from a diva's farewell. The Philosopher did some bug-eyed business to the camera, a vampy strut to the bed. He sopped up Heinrich's froth with his baguette.

"Won't be long now," he said. "Vitals are locking down. Big choo-choo's comin' round the bend. All aboard!"

"This is a man here," I said. "A man dying. Have some respect."

Heinrich made more noises. Froth fluttered up.

"Meat, meat, meat," said the Philosopher. "You, too, pal."

"I'm in fine fettle," I said.

"That's how you're supposed to feel in the final stages of PREXIS. Haven't you heard the news? How I discovered virulent Goldfarb clusters within the original PREXIS protein model?"

"PREXIS schmexis," I said.

Laughter boomed out of the walls.

The Philosopher fell on me. We pitched down to concrete. I kicked, caught him with my knee, flew at him with both fists, windmilling. Rain of blows. Steady rain of blows. My knuckle came up with a piece of blue-stained tooth.

Now Heinrich started to stir, thrash, blow froth, a sea beast sounding. I went to him, took his hand.

"Herodotus," he whispered, "writes of an army that went away to war for twenty-eight years. When they returned home they found themselves locked out of their city. Their wives, you see, had married their slaves. A new generation had grown up and seized power. The last thing these slave sons wanted was the masters of their fathers back in town. Day after day the old army stormed the city. Day after day the slave sons drove them back. At last one of the wizened old generals said, 'If we keep attacking them with swords and spears they will consider themselves our equals and they will keep beating us back. We must go to them with whips.' And so they did. And when the slave sons saw the masters of their fathers come to the city walls with whips, they fled."

Heinrich's hand drooped down along the bed skirt. I thought it a sign, some finality of musculature, a swoop death-ward. But he was just strumming the fabric down there with his thumb. Boredom, itch, even now.

"I genuinely prefer tangerines," he said, turned to the wall dunes, died.

"Cut!" called Trubate from the darkness. "That was dynamite."

Someone scurried up to cover Heinrich with a sheet. The Philosopher was kneeling on the floor, feeling around for his teeth.

"Goldfarb what?" I said to him.

"Cluthterth," he said through his ruined mouth.

"I believe you."

"Fuf nath ta beleef?"

The Digger and I dug the hole at daybreak. We dug it near the rockpile behind the hangar. The clouds were the color of our shovel blades. The Digger looked to be suffering under his ski mask.

"Why don't you take that thing off?" I said.

He stared at me through slits in the wool.

The rest of them stood in a ring around us. Trubate, Desmond, Warren, Dietz, all the Realmers, dozens of them, most dozing in the heat. The Philosopher sat a little ways off, his mouth stuffed with gauze.

They'd carried Heinrich out on a battered boogie board, shrouded him in counterpane. A pair of mint-condition quarter pieces commemorating the statehood of New Jersey rested on his eyelids.

"Coins of a darker realm," said Desmond.

They slid Heinrich into the hole.

"That's it?" said Renee.

"What else is there?" said Trubate.

"When my dog died," said Warren, "we buried him just like this. And we all threw something in that reminded us of him. Dog toys, dog biscuits, essays in which I'd mentioned my dog."

"That's so beautiful," said the Rad Balm girl.

"Oh, is it?" said Renee. "Why don't we just throw you in."

"Go ahead," said the Rad Balm girl. "See if you can find another technologist who'll work for stock options these days."

"Cunt," said Renee.

"Silly cunt," called one of the New Zealanders.

I started to walk away.

"Where are you going, Steve?" said Trubate.

"I'm leaving."

"You can't leave. Don't you get that? Damn, you of all people."

I walked off in the direction I'd come with Dietz. Somewhere up ahead was the abandoned campsite. Past that was the runway. I could wait for the plane. Maybe the plane was due back. Doubtful, but possible. What wasn't possible?

I'd gone in for a checkup.

I could hear Trubate shouting down his people behind me. I kept walking, walking through the pain, walking it off, moving through my moist crackle and burst. I pictured each step shucking those Goldfarb clusters loose, little protein deathsquads bouncing along in miniature humvees through the bleak ravines of me. They had names like Reynoldo, Spider, Wideband, wore paramilitary underwear manufactured in Rhode Island. Ever since the Philosopher had told me about the clusters I'd been feeling them on the move. Psychosomatic? Later, towards the end, I asked him.

"Psychosomatic like a heart attack," he said.

Now Dietz caught up with me.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"What do you mean?"

"He'll shoot you."

"Paranoid hippie fuck," I said.

I heard the crack, the whistle, felt the punch in my spine.

Why does Steve deny his name is Steve?

He hated his name. There was nothing to his name. There was taunt built into it because of its nothingness. It sounded like something you wiped off your shirt. Everyone was supposed to be special but how could you be special if your name was tantamount to lint? He stayed in his room and read books. He stayed in his room and read the beginnings of books, until there was mention of a breast heaving, or a groin tightening. Then he'd put the book aside for a few minutes. He could do it over and over again, for hours. He'd skip school to do it.

He knew what was special.

His mother said he was too shy. His only friend was Cudahy. They used to burn trees. Sometimes he'd sit by himself in his father's toolshed, study the lawn mower blade in his lap. He'd run his thumb over the rust, up to the toothy crack near the tip. Something might scuttle in the rake bin behind him. Field mice, his father called them. Field mice ran free in the fields. They had freedoms we couldn't dream.

They had no names.

What he'd seen his father do with Cudahy's father, there was a name for that. That wasn't anything, though. Kids did stuff like that all the time. It was weird, was all, like seeing your old man on a moped.

He got more Steve years on him. It was time to be in the world. The world was like God or some fucked-up dragon. You couldn't look at it all at once or you'd go nuts.

He fell in with a woman who believed in falling in love. They made a creature together. People made creatures to pass themselves onward, but that's not how he saw it. He wanted to stop the Steveness. He needed a family to destroy him, his Steveness. Someday he'd make a new name for himself. Before he died he'd have a new name, or no name.

It wouldn't be the name his mother used to call him when she called him in for dinner from the stoop.

"Stee-eeve!" she used to call.

Once, his buddy Cudahy grinned.

"Tell her fuck you."

They'd been wrestling in the grass. Greco-Roman. American. Fake American.

"Fuck you, Mom!" he called across the yard.

He had to eat dinner on his bed. The penalty for insolence is room service. He couldn't eat, though. He couldn't get it down. It was because of the guilt. He said it was because of the broccoli.

What does Steve eat?

He eats what's brought to him. Water, bread and water, sometimes stew. The Realms community decides his dinner daily. Steve has joked that he can gauge the mood of the nation by the size of his portion. Some days the nation is in a generous mood. Some days, maybe, the generous majority is busy. Those days the people Steve tends to call the bastards log on to the Subject Steve. Just Water, they shout at their screens. Of course, there are those who have already visitedThe Tool Shed and downloaded the latestthought command application. They don't have to say anything at all!

They just think just water, and just water it is!

When is Steve not available for viewing?

Never is Steve not available for viewing. There are camerason him all the time. There are camerasin him all the time.

Is the Subject Steve a game?

The Subject Steve (TM) is a revolutionary media space that binds together the most innovative elements of gaming, spectacle, democracy, and commerce. It is produced byThe Realms in association with theGoldfarb-Blackstone Life Lab.

What is the significance of the mothering hut?

The hut Steve inhabits, housed in the main facility, is an exact replica of the one erected by the late Heinrich of Newark at the now-defunct Center for Nondenominational Recovery and Redemption. It was used for purification purposes and to hasten personal growth. The Realms, as many know, is indebted to the teachings of Heinrich, but its methods and goals must be situated in a much larger context.Read Realms-founder Robertson Trubate's mission statement for more information.

How long does Steve have to live?

It's difficult to calculate. By our calculations there can be no calculations. He is dying of something no one has ever died of before. He is dying of something absolutely, fantastically new. Click here for his medicalchart or visit the Realmsarchives for a peek at the top-secret notes Goldfarb and Blackstone took during those first, exciting consultations. Click here for adimensional model of the deadly Goldfarb protein.

Is Steve's item book posted in its entirety?

It will never be complete until Steve himself achieves ultimate completion.

Does Steve deserve our sympathy?

We'll let the Realmers speak to that. Here's a transcript from comments made earlier this week in the Special Cases Lounge, one of our most popular rooms.

gary7:fuck steve. . anybody here?

burma: steve-O fuck that fucker die already!

nonabravo: he's misunderstood

burma: this twaddle again? i say fuck steve

gary7:bad dad bad hubby.

nonabravo: less than bad. worse.

reneelegs: He thinks he made me come.

bundiscakes: Sad Less than sad.

gary7:fuck him

machinaX: right on baby!

nonabravo: did you see that bio on his father?

seawolf: inner monsoon my ass.

steve: Hey, it's me.gary7: fuck you get the fuck out of here.

reneelegs: steve you should go.

burma: you're ruining it dude.

gary7: go the fuck you fuck.

"You're a hit," said Bobby Trubate. "But watch it with all the scribbling. Better you babble than scribble. Better yet, moan. Steve, they love the moans. They love the mealtimes. They dig dialogue, conversations, say. The conversation we're having now? They love it. We have data. Your pathetic attempts at masturbation? The rubbing? They adore this. Hell, they even tune in for your naps. But the writing, I mean, have you ever watched somebody write? What are you fooling around with that stupid item book for, anyway? The rest of us burned ours, you know. After we buried Heinrich. Very ritualistic. Very moving."

"I'm not done with mine."

"Well, I'm not going to stop you. More Steve content. For later. Do you know what I mean when I say for later?"

"Yes," I said.

"The bed restraints aren't too tight, are they?"

"No, they're great."

"Do you have enough arm motion?"

"Sure."

"How's your back?"

"I don't know. I'm restrained."

"I'm sure it's fine," said Trubate. "I'm sorry I shot you. But I bet you're pretty stoked it was a rubber bullet. I ordered them by mistake, but then I figured, rubber gets the job done. I'm not here to kill people."

"No, I suppose not."

"I mean Heinrich would have killed your ass. Bailing on his funeral like that."

"I guess so."

"I'm on your side. Not that there are sides, but if there were sides, I'd consider myself on your side."

"Thanks."

"Steve, do you know that I love you?"

"I didn't know that," I said.

"Now you know. I was going to say, not in a sexual way, but what the hell does that mean? I love you in every way. We're all post-human here, right? I'm not afraid. Are you afraid?"

He pointed to a canvas satchel on the wall, Heinrich's old pain kit.

Branks, breast-ripper, pear.

He looked up into one of the cameras in the thatch.

"Realmers," he said, "are you ready for more show!?"

The Philosopher came by for a visit.

"You," I said.

"Me," he said, bared his new blazing teeth.

"Nice," I said.

"Had to fly up north for them," said the Philosopher. "Find a mouth guy Blackstone hadn't turned against me."

"The Mechanic," I said.

"We're in heavy litigation."

"Sorry to hear it."

"Don't be," said the Philosopher. "I consider it a continuation of our collaboration by other means."

He smoothed his hand on his hood.

"Why do you wear that?" I said.

"I'm Code Blue Man."

"Like a superhero?"

"People are frightened by science. This makes them feel more comfortable. Are you comfortable?"

He lifted a long syringe from a felt-lined case.

"What's that?"

"It's just a prop. People want more injections."

"There's stuff in it."

"Yes, there's stuff in it."

"What's the stuff?"

"Prop stuff. Now, if you'll allow me to lift your gown for a moment."

"Why?"

"Because," said the Philosopher, his voice loud for the microphones, "I need to take this frighteningly large needle and inject the sensitive tip of your penis!"

"No!" I said.

"It's crucial to your treatment!" he shouted.

"Please," I said.

"Just trust me," he said.

I decided to trust him. I figured he meant to fake it. I could sense a weariness in him, some seismic disgust with the entire enterprise.

I guess I figured wrong.

Time went by, probably. It was hard to keep track. The Realms launched a news division, a twenty-four-hour, continuously updated wire service, but the news was always at least several hundred years old. "False Messiah Leads Jews Awry in Smyrna," read one headline. "Pre-Classic Mayan Ritual to Include Hallucinogenic Enema," went another. Maybe it was all part of continuum awareness training.

Maybe it was all part of a plan.

Didn't it all have to be part of a plan?

The Rad Balm girl said it could well be.

The Rad Balm girl said there were big plans for my finale, too.

"My finale?" I said.

"We're days away," she said. "Bobby's given us the green light. Traffic is slowing down so it's time for the green light. The green light is going to be the light at the end of the tunnel. But it might not be green. It will be Heavenly, which I think of as white. But those are my prejudices speaking. My prejudices speak me. But sometimes they're right on the money."

"You're confusing me."

"I'm crystal on this. The Subject Steve must reach a satisfactory conclusion. A conclusion of total satisfaction-saturation. For all parties concerned. I need you to sign this waiver."

She handed me some stapled pages, a Bic ballpoint.

"Read it after you sign it," she said. "You know you're going to sign it anyway. You don't have to feign scrutiny. It's crucial that we stay crystal now."

I signed the waiver, the warrant, whatever it was.

I started to murmur so the Rad Balm girl would lean down.

I stabbed her in the neck with the Bic.

The Digger appeared in the doorway of the hut. I'd noticed him staring in from time to time, wordless, eyes flashing from behind his ski mask, but he'd never been so brazen before. Now he walked into the room and stood near an oil portrait of Heinrich painted on black velvet. It hung from a hook in the thatch. Soldier, Healer, Dreamer said the brass plate.

"How is she?" I said.

He looked away for a while, as though wondering if he should speak.

"She'll live," he said.

"Why don't you take your mask off? I know you, don't I? Where do I know you from?"

"I need to tell you," he said. "I've been asked to dig you a hole."

"Will I be dead when they put me in it?"

"That's an interesting question."

"Will you answer it?"

"I wish I would," said the Digger.

Desmond rolled in some covered dishes on a cart.

"Sure it's safe?" I said. "I'm a psycho now."

"I'll take my chances. Anyway, they're watching us. The whole world is watching us. This is your last meal."

"Don't I get to choose?"

My last bacon cheeseburger was a bit too bacony.

"How is it?" said Desmond.

"Delicious."

"We polled the Realms. Baked Alaska got nipped at the wire. Can I have a bite?"

I tore some burger off for Desmond.

"Damn," he said. "This is the shit. All that clean Asian food around here makes me sick. You know, my father was a flavor engineer."

"I didn't know that."

"God, I remember all the crazy guys that worked at his lab. Did stuff just for a goof. One guy, he made this steak sauce. He called it Holocaust-flavored. He bottled the shit and he-"

"I think I'd like to be alone now."

"I understand. But do you mind if I ask you one question?"

"One question," I said.

"How did you go on living knowing you were going to die?"

"Was I living?" I said.

"Wow," said Desmond. "Don't talk. Don't say another thing. Those should be your last words. Mythic, man. I knew you had style."

"Fuck you," I said.

"See, you ruined it. You always ruin it, don't you?"

"We said one question," I said.

Desmond stood and raised his hand towards the wall thatch. A woman in a mink brassiere walked into the room. Fair Dinkum.

"This is Tina," said Desmond, shut the door behind him.

Tina took a seat near my bed.

"I like your tattoo," I said. "Is that a water bottle?"

"Look," she said. "I'm not attracted to you in any way, but I'm supposed to offer you some kind of final sexual favor in the way of sex and stuff. Nobody else wanted to, so, of course, I'm like, I volunteer. I'm the little trooper, aren't I? Mom? Mom? Can you hear me, Mom? She's not dead, but it's like she's hovering all the time anyway. She's like, Tina, if everybody was like I'm not jumping off the bridge, and so on. Oh, well. So, what do you think? A little hoobie doobie? Some jobby wobby?"

"Jobby wobby," I said.

"Did I say jobby wobby? I didn't mean jobby wobby. I could shit on your cock, though."

She plucked at her lip stud.

They wheeled me out to the desert in my bed. They wheeled me out across the scrub, took me up to a little hillock of hard earth. They maybe meant to murder me with sunlight. Baked Steve. Devil's Steve Cake. Old Gold and the Rad Balm girl rigged lights and video gear. Dietz squatted by my gurney, rubbed my skull.

"I'll see you on the other side, bro," he said. "Or if there's no other side, then, well, I guess I'm seeing you right now."

Trubate was sweat-resplendent in his robe. He paced about his minions, muttered something about turning water into vitamin water, hummed. It was the aardvark song. I must have hummed it in my sleep. Maybe the nation was humming it by now.

"Fiona," I said.

The Digger was nearly done with the hole. The task had maybe taken a toll on him. He fell to his knees in the dirt, let some air in under his mask. I saw an odd lump of skin there.

"We're good to go," said the Rad Balm girl.

"Fucking finally," said Bobby. "Where's Warren? Don't we get another doggie speech?"

"Warren's not coming," said the Rad Balm girl. "He says his presence would send the wrong message to his readers."

"Pussy," said Trubate. "Pussy readers."

The Rad Balm girl held me down, saw me notice the bandage on her throat, dug her thumbnail into my ear. Old Gold unbuckled my bed straps, bound me up with rope. He ripped my gown away, picked up a tray of cold grease. I could make out shreds of last night's chuck, my mythic bacon cheese. Old Gold scooped up handfuls of the stuff, smeared me down like a channel swimmer. Sunlight was too easy. They meant to bait the beasts out of the desert night, the ants and wolves and wolverines, the carrion-loving birds, all of God's meat-horny Steve-craving things.

Renee stood off and watched, crutch tips sinking in sand.

"They could have voted for something much crueler," Trubate kept saying. "You should be thankful. Grateful. Thankful."

The Philosopher stood over me with his new marvelous mouth.

"I want you to know that in all my years of science I've never come across a subject as worthy of the name as you. I'll tell them what you did here this day. At cocktail parties. At informal seminars. Do you have anything to say before the ball gag goes in?"

"Excuse me?"

"Eighty-three percent of respondents weighed in for the gag option. Seventy-four percent of those people, incidentally, also regularly purchase home decor products online. Don't know what it means, really, but the people of the Realms have spoken. Do you have anything to say to the world?"

"I'm thirsty."

"That's it?"

"The Realms is not the Realms!" I said.

"Anything else?"

"It's all hype! You're being duped! The goose has no clothes! The president is a moon rock! Eden is a fuck club!"

"Take your time."

"The server is not secure!"

"Gag him!"

The Rad Balm girl rammed the ball in my mouth, cinched it tight. Old Gold tipped me into the hole. I kept squinching my eyes, waiting for dirt to splash down, but then I remembered the cameras, the burger fat. The Digger stood staring from the lip of the hole. It would have made for a menacing shot. Maybe it did. My ball gag probably had a camera, too. The Digger leaned down and tugged his ski mask off his head. He had a nylon stocking on beneath it.

How fucked is the Subject Steve?

Hard to say. One could argue, for instance, that fuckedness is a vague concept, indefinable, and thus a meaningless point of departure for any sort of cogent analysis. Yet by the same token, one could make room for the advent of a counterargument, whereby fuckedness is posited as something else entirely. Feel free tovoice your opinion.

I shivered in my pit, stared up at the stars. There were forms now finally in these decals of the void, I could see it, a cosmos of my own, a god grid tailored to this niche of one. Up in the bitter firmament Cudahy heaved his shot and Fiona picked her pock and a box of Hinks Civic stainless nibs spilled out in milky light. Here was Renee, frozen in her sneeze of sorrow, and Captain Thornfield's captainless hat. There was Heinrich preaching from his porch, Bobby in his blazing robe, Estelle in lewd galactic concourse with her only spawn, big jiz splooging across the vaults of heaven. There was Donald, his stars stifled somehow, and the Kincaids, Big Fran and Little Fran, indistinguishable save for the far stars that looped to make the apron string bow. Here was William, young William, with his straw of happiness, his art rock toupee. Here was Maryse asquat a chamber pot filled with candied yams, a viscid bile coursing down her chin. There was my mother, the navigator, flying through the star shatter of some celestial head-on, a Ziploc bag of Cheez-Its in her fist. I saw them all up there, the Philosopher and the Mechanic, two-faced, one-hooded, a fire-sale Janus, Greta and Clarice double-dipping Jesus, Mr. Ferguson, Wendell Tarr, Dr. Cornwallis, the Rad Balm girl. There were even bears up there. I saw fucking bears up there. But where was Steve? I searched the suns of night for a constellated me.

What the hell ever happened to Steve?

The Subject Steve is without a doubt a dead subject. He's probably dead in the desert somewhere, though initial air searches have recovered nothing but a stolen van and a diary. We surmise Steve ran out of gas and staggered off into the waste. Whether his disease or the elements claimed him first we will never know. Click here tocook up a theory, or click here toorder souvenirs from Steve's life, including his Jews of Jazz calendar and snapshots of his family. Click here for spycam video of his sexy daughter inflagrante delicioso! Click here for apeek at the newest offerings from the Realms, Inside the Mothering Hut and It's Your Funeral: The Digger DaShawn Digs Real-Life Graves.

I heard footsteps, too quick for people feet. They had the pouncy sound of people-hunters. I heard barks and breathing. Dogs, desert dogs. Hell's hounds here for their treat. I looked up from my hole, saw cold eyes burn green in fur.

Let the bastards note, I thought.

"Fuhk Oo," I said into my ball gag.

"Hey," said a voice, "don't talk to my dog that way."

Warren vaulted down into the hole. He had a steak knife in his hand. His wolfhound hopped in after him, sniffed my hair.

"No, Pascal," said Warren, shinned the dog off, cut my ropes.

I tried to get up, fell back in the hole.

"Here," said Warren, hoisted me out.

Far off I could see the lights of the hangar. The redemption van rumbled towards us with the headlights dimmed.

"I thought your dog was dead," I said.

"I'm an artist," said Warren.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm just tired of the bullshit."

"What bullshit?"

"I don't know."

"You're the spokesman of your generation."

"Yeah."

"You're not really articulating."

"Steve, I'm saving your life."

"Thanks."

"Look," said Warren, "someday my name will come up in conversation, as it seems to so goddamn often these days. Some of your friends will scoff at my work, all the attention it's been paid. Hype, they'll say. Marketing. A dearth of authentic talent. But you'll stick up for me. You guys don't know what the hell you're talking about, you'll say. That guy saved my fucking life."

I wanted to tell him I'd be dead by then, that maybe he should talk to Spider or Wideband about this.

Now the van rolled up and Trubate was out the door. He wiped at his nose with his robe sleeve.

"Fucking outstanding," he said. "Fucking beautiful. A rescue mission. Now I know why I went through all that bullshit with your jerk lawyers, Warren. You are a motherfucking genius. You are without a doubt the most significant artist of your generation. Now where do you want it?"

Trubate got his gun out. Warren whipped the knife. The blade wheeled in high-watt light. The grip hit Trubate in the eye. He drew his hands up to cup it, hollered, staggered back, let the gun drop. I dove on the thing, stood slowly with a bead on Trubate.

"You don't have the balls to shoot me," he said.

He squirmed in the sand. Fluid from his eye squirted down his cheek.

"I never did," I said. "I never had the balls for anything, Bobby. I'm a ball-less wonder. De-balled. Sans balls. Without balls."

"That's all I meant," said Trubate.

I shot him in the head.

"Shit," he moaned.

Warren went over to where Trubate lay.

"No blood."

"Rubber bullet," I said.

"I think you stunned him," said Warren.

"I'm stunned," said Trubate. "I don't fucking believe this."

"Fuf nath ta beleef?" I said.

"What did he say?" said Trubate. "What did that motherfucker say?"

"Slap leather," I said. "Fill your hand."

"You'd better go," said Warren.

"Need a ride?"

"I'd better stay. I'm under contract."

"Me, too, I guess."

"Not for what I'm getting."

"You're a good man," I said.

"I don't know about that," said Warren. "I feel more like a boy. Everybody my age does. It's like we're all trying to come to terms with a moment that won't quite reveal itself, and here we are, devoid of a context within which to situate ourselves-"

"Warren," I said.

"What?"

I got in the van, drove out across the desert floor. The desert was forever. The whole wide world was a road. There were lit shapes in the distance. Hills, houses, power lines, who knew? The van shook as it picked up speed. The steering wheel stabbed my hands. The radio was full of static. I could have sworn I heard a voice there just the same.

It said, This ain't no joke, Jack.

It said, Fare thee well.