What the hell?
It was two o'clock, and she doubted that his appointment with Guthridge
had lasted an hour, therefore, he hadn't phoned her from the doctor's
office. On the other hand, he wouldn't have had time to drive all the
way home, which meant he had called her enroute.
She lifted the handset and punched in the number of his car phone. He
answered on the second ring, and she said, "Marty, what the hell's
wrong?"
"Paige?"
"What was that all about?"
"What was what all about?"
"Kissing my breasts, for God's sake, just like the movies, bliss."
He hesitated, and she could hear the faint rumble of the Ford's engine,
which meant he was in transit. After a beat he said, "Kid, you've lost
me."
"A minute ago, you call here, acting as if--"
"No. Not me."
"You didn't call here?"
"Nope."
"Is this a joke?"
"You mean, somebody called, said he was me?"
"Yes, he--"
"Did he sound like me?"
"Yes."
"Exactly like me?"
Paige thought about that for a moment. "Well, not exactly. He sounded
a lot like you and then . . . not quite like you. It's hard to
explain."
"I hope you hung up on him when he got obscene."
"You--" She corrected herself, "He hung up first. Besides, it wasn't an
obscene call."
"Oh? What was that about kissing your breasts?"
"Well, it didn't seem obscene 'cause I thought he was you."
"Paige, refresh my memory--when was the last time I called you at work
to talk about kissing your breasts?"
She laughed. "Well . . . never, I guess," and when he laughed, too,
she added, "but maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea now and then, liven up
the day a little."
"They are very kissable."
"Thank you."
"So's your tush."
"You've got me blushing," she said, and it was true.
"So's your--"
"Now this is getting obscene," she said.
"Yeah, but I'm the victim."
"How do you figure?"
"You called me and pretty much demanded that I talk dirty."
"I guess I did. Women's liberation, you know."
"Where will it all end?"
A disturbing possibility had occurred to Paige, but she was reluctant to
express it, Perhaps the call had been from Marty, made on his car phone
while he was in a fugue state similar to the one on Saturday afternoon
when he'd monotonously repeated those two words into a tape recorder for
seven minutes and later had no memory of it.
She suspected the same thought had just occurred to him because his
sudden reticence matched hers.
At last Paige broke the silence. "What- did Paul Guthridge have to
say?"
"He thinks it's probably stress."
"Thinks?"
"He's setting up tests for tomorrow or Wednesday."
"But he wasn't worried?"
"No. Or he pretended he wasn't."
Paul's informal style was not reflected in the way he imparted essential
information to his patients. He was always direct and to the point.
Even when Charlotte had been so ill, when some doctors might have
soft-pedaled the more alarming possibilities to let the parents adjust
situation with Paige and Marty. He knew that no half-truth or false
optimism should ever be mistaken for compassion. If Paul didn't appear
to be more than ordinarily concerned about Marty's condition and
symptoms--that was good news.
"He gave me his spare copy of the new People," Marty said.
"Uh-oh. You say that as if he handed you a bag of dog poop."
"Well, it isn't what I was hoping for."
"It's not as bad as you think," she said.
"How do you know? You haven't even seen it yet."
"But I know you and how you are about these things."
"In the one photo, I look like the Frankenstein monster with a bad
hangover."
"I've always loved Boris Karloff."
He sighed. "I suppose I can change my name, have some plastic surgery,
and move to Brazil. But before I book a flight to Rio, do you want me
to pick up the kids at school?"
"I'll get them. They'll be an hour later today."
"Oh, that's right, Monday. Piano lessons."
"We'll be home by four-thirty, she said. "You can show me People and
spend the evening crying on my shoulder."
"To hell with that. I'll show you People and spend the evening kissing
your breasts."
"You're special, Marty."
"I love you, too, kid."
When she hung up, Paige was smiling. He could always make her smile,
even in darker moments.
She refused to think about the strange phone call, about illness or
fugues or pictures that made him look like a monster.
Appreciate the moment.
She did just that for a minute or so, then called Millie on the intercom
and asked her to send in Samantha and Sean Acheson.
In his office, he sits in the executive chair behind the desk. It is
comfortable. He can almost believe he has sat in it before.
Nevertheless, he is nervous.
He switches on the computer. It is an IBM PC with substantial hard-disk
storage. A good machine. He can't remember purchasing it.
After the system runs a data-management program, the oversize screen
presents him with a
"Main Selection Menu" that includes eight choices,
mostly word-processing software. He chooses WordPerfect 5.1, and it is
loaded.
He doesn't recall being instructed in the operation of a computer or in
the use of WordPerfect. This training is cloaked in amnesiac mists, as
is his training in weaponry and his uncanny familiarity with the street
systems of various cities. Evidently, his superiors believed he would
need to understand basic computer operation and be familiar with certain
software programs in order to carry out his assignments.
The screen clears.
Ready.
In the lower right-hand corner of the blue screen, white letters and
numbers tell him that he is in document one, on page one, at line one,
in the tenth position.
Ready. He is ready to write a novel. His work.
He stares at the blank monitor, trying to start. Beginning is more
difficult than he had expected.
He has brought a bottle of Corona from the kitchen, suspecting he might
need to lubricate his thoughts. He takes a long swallow.
The beer is cold, refreshing, and he knows that it is just the thing to
get him going.
After finishing half the bottle, confidence renewed, he begins to type.
He bangs out two words, then stops, The man The man what?
He stares at the screen for a minute, then types "entered the room."
But what room? In a house? An office building? What does the room
look like? Who else is in it? What is this man doing in this room, why
is he here? Does it have to be a room? Could he be entering a train, a
plane, a graveyard?
So the man
is tall. Does it matter that he is tall? Will tallness be
important to the story? How old is he? What color are his eyes, his
hair? Is he Caucasian, black, Asian? What is he wearing? As far as
that goes, does it have to be a man at all? Couldn't it be a woman?
Or a child?
With these questions in mind, he clears the screen and starts the story
from the beginning, He stares at the screen. It is terrifyingly blank.
Infinitely blanker than it was before, not just three letters blanker
with the deletion of "man."
The choices to follow that simple article, "the," are limitless, which
makes the selection of the second word a great deal more daunting than
he would have supposed before he sat in the black leather chair and
switched on the machine.
He deletes
"The."
The screen is clear.
Ready.
He finishes the bottle of Corona. It is cold and refreshing, but it
does not lubricate his thoughts.
He goes to the bookshelves and pulls off eight of the novels bearing his
name, Martin Stillwater. He carries them to the desk, and for a while
he sits and reads first pages, second pages, trying to kick-start his
brain.
His destiny is to be Martin Stillwater. That much is perfectly clear.
He will be a good father to Charlotte and Emily.
He will be a good husband and lover to the beautiful Paige.
And he will write novels. Mystery novels.
Evidently, he has written them before, at least a dozen, so he can write
them again. He simply has to re-acquire the feeling for how it is done,
relearn the habit.
The screen is blank.
He puts his fingers on the keys, ready to type.
The screen is so blank. Blank, blank, blank. Mocking him.
Suspecting that he is merely inhibited by the soft persistent hum of the
monitor fan and the demanding electronic-blue field of document one,
page one, he switches off the computer. The resultant silence is a
blessing, but the flat gray glass of the monitor is even more mocking
than the blue screen, turning the machine off seems like an admission of
defeat.
He needs to be Martin Stillwater, which means he needs to write.
The man. The man was. The man was tall with blue eyes and blond hair,
wearing a blue suit and white shirt and red tie, about thirty-years old,
and he didn't know what he was doing in the room that he entered.
Damn. No good. The man. The man. The man . . .
He needs to write, but every attempt to do so leads quickly to
frustration. Frustration soon spawns anger. The familiar pattern.
Anger generates a specific hatred for the computer, a loathing of it,
and also a less focused hatred of his unsatisfactory position in the
world, of the world itself and every one of its inhabitants. He needs
so little, so pathetically little, just to belong, to be like other
people, to have a home and a family, to have a purpose that he
understands.
Is that so much? Is it? He does not want to rub elbows with the high
and mighty, dine with socialites. He is not asking for fame.
After much struggle, confusion, and loneliness, he now has a home and
wife and two children, a sense of direction, a destiny, but he feels it
slipping away from him, through his fingers. He needs to be Martin
Stillwater, but in order to be Martin Stillwater, he needs to be able to
write, and he can't write, can't write, damn it all, can't write.
He knows the street layout of Kansas City, other cities, and he knows
all about weaponry, about picking locks, because they seeded that
knowledge in him--whoever "they" are--but they haven't seen fit also to
implant the knowledge of how to write mystery novels, which he needs, oh
so desperately needs, if he is ever to be Martin Stillwater, if he is to
keep his lovely wife, Paige, and his daughters and his new destiny,
which is slipping, slipping, slipping through his fingers, his one
chance at happiness swiftly evaporating, because they are against him,
all of them, the whole world, set against him, determined to keep him
alone and confused. And why? Why? He hates them and their
schemes and their faceless power, despises them and their machines with
such bitter intensity that- --with a shriek of rage, he slams his fist
through the dark screen of the computer, striking out at his own fierce
reflection almost as much as at the machine and all that it represents.
The sound of shattering glass is loud in the silent house, and the
vacuum inside the monitor pops simultaneously with a brief hiss of
invading air.
He withdraws his hand from the ruins even as fragments of glass are
still clinking onto the keyboard, and he stares at his bright blood.
Sharp slivers bristle from the webs between his fingers and from a
couple of knuckles. An elliptical shard is embedded in the meat of his
palm.
Although he is still angry, he is gradually regaining control of
himself. Violence sometimes soothes.
He swivels the chair away from the computer to face the opposite side of
the U-shaped work area, where he leans forward to examine his wounds in
the light of the stained-glass lamp. The glass thorns in his flesh
sparkle like jewels.
He is experiencing only mild pain, and he knows it will soon pass. He
is tough and resilient, he enjoys splendid recuperative powers.
Some of the fragments of the screen have not pierced his hand deeply,
and he is able to pry them out with his fingernails. But others are
firmly wedged in the flesh.
He pushes the chair away from the desk, gets to his feet, and heads for
the master bathroom. He will need tweezers to extract the more stubborn
splinters.
Although he bled freely at first, already the flow is subsiding.
Nevertheless he holds his arm in the air, his hand straight up, so the
blood will trickle down his wrist and under the sleeve of his shirt
rather than drip on the carpet.
After he has plucked out the glass, perhaps he will telephone Paige at
work again.
He was so excited when he found her office number on the Rolodex in his
study, and he was thrilled to speak with her. She sounded intelligent,
self-assured, gentle. Her voice had a slightly throaty timbre that he
found sexy.
It will be a wonderful bonus if she is sexy. Tonight, they will share a
bed. He will take her more than once. Recalling the face in the
photograph and the husky voice on the phone, he is confident that she
will satisfy his needs as they have never been satisfied before, that
she will not leave him unfulfilled and frustrated as have so many other
women.
He hopes she matches or exceeds his expectations. He hopes there will
be no reason to hurt her.
In the master bathroom, he locates a pair of tweezers in the drawer
where Paige keeps her makeup, cuticle scissors, nail files, emery
boards, and other grooming aids.
At the sink, he holds his hand over the basin. Although he has already
stopped bleeding, the flow starts again at each point from which he
works loose a piece of glass. He turns on the hot water so the dripping
blood will be sluiced down the drain.
Maybe tonight, after sex, he will talk with Paige about his writer's
block. If he has been blocked before, she might remember what steps he
took on other occasions to break the creative impasse. Indeed, he is
sure she will know the solution.
Pleasantly surprised and with a sense of relief, he realizes that he no
longer has to deal with his problems alone. As a married man, he has a
devoted partner with whom to share the many troubles of the day.
Raising his head, looking at his reflection in the mirror behind the
sink, he grins and says, "I have a wife now."
He notices a spot of blood on his right cheek, another on the side of
his nose.