The Normals Read online

  Maybe she intrigues him because she's the only woman in the van. Being in transit always makes Billy mindful of love. Planes, buses, trains have an aphrodisiacal effect on him, terminals and stations like singles bars. There's nothing seedy about this, nothing cheap like getting laid in a wheelchair-friendly bathroom. Nope. Maybe the occasional fantasy, but in general, his leanings are far more romantic. With every trip, he imagines meeting his future wife. He might pooh-pooh fate but he's a fool for the chance encounter. He'll check left hands for wedding bands, scope gates for possible brides, treat ticket agents like desk-bound cupids. Foolish, he realizes, especially when he recalls the people he's normally stuck with, but he always wonders if behind him or ahead of him or across from him is the woman of his dreams, the woman he's just missing, who might make everything all right.

  On the other side of Billy is a different story.

  Rodney Letts is miserable from all angles. Haggardness hangs over him as well as an improvised hygiene, like he licked himself clean this morning and stuffed perfume inserts into his pockets so he might overwhelm the obvious, that he's a mess. His skin has the quality of an old dried sponge with bits torn away, particularly around the nose, which bears a black stain on its tip. Billy assumes drops of water, if mixed with booze, might expand his presence tenfold. His eyes have the punch-shy manner of a man who's clawed through a variety of bad temperaments until finally settling on harmless coot.

  An hour into the trip he asks Billy if he knows the time.

  "Four-thirty-eight."

  "Exactly?"

  "According to me."

  "Good enough." Rodney digs inside the grocery bag he's been hugging from the start and rustles free a Ziploc pillowed with raw spinach and raisins. He breaks the seal, sniffs the atmosphere. He nods for his own encouragement then pinches a leafy wad, pauses, commits. Chewing is the minimum, swallowing the goal. He could be eating aluminum foil. But he's determined, his fingers already preparing the next mouthful. Sensing his companion's interest, he asks Billy if he wants a bite.

  "Uhm, no thanks."

  "Why would you, unless you were—" Rodney stops talking and peers at Billy like he's just recognized a childhood enemy and he's ready to Popeye the Sailor Man his ass. "Jesus," he asks. "Do I really look this bad, or are your sunglasses fun house mirrors?"

  "You look fine," Billy lies.

  "No, I think I look like shit." Rodney bobs and weaves his reflection.

  "Grade A. Obvious, so obvious. And I was worried about my liver count. Idiot. One look at me and they'll stamp sayonara on my forehead. And I bothered shaving."

  "Shaving" is a stretch, unless he used a ripped can for a razor. "You look fine," Billy promises. He removes his sunglasses, hoping this will end the man's self-observation. "These are maybe the worst sunglasses in the world. Really cheap. Trust me, you look fine." In natural light, Rodney looks even worse. His raw eyes could've transmitted salmonella.

  "I'm doomed," Rodney mutters. "Reason why I'm eating this crap." He picks a raisin from his molar and inspects the black pulp like it's the most innocent thing he's ever scraped from his teeth. "All this crap because I'm an asshole." He inventories the contents of the grocery bag. "Dried apricots, Herbal Clean tea, goldenseal—a buddy of mine recommended—iron supplements. Before this trip's over I got to drink this entire bottle of vinegar."

  "What, are you anemic or something?"

  "Nah, I'm bit of a drinker," Rodney says with obvious modesty.

  "Oh."

  "Two days I've been eating this junk, praying for an acceptable liver count, all because on Wednesday, fucking hump day, I said my good-byes and got carried away and pricks ran me a tab knowing I'd be flush in two weeks. Okay, maybe I insisted, but still, they were undermining their investment. My own stupid fault. Usually I stay dry the week before and I'm fine, but me and my good-byes. Even yesterday I said a small see ya with scotch."

  "So you've done this before?"

  Rodney smiles. "Get loaded?"

  "No, I mean the drug-study type of thing."

  "Christ, I've got my Ph.D. in guinea pig. Six years I've been doing this, all over the country, all the big companies, three, four, five times a year, lending them my"—he spreads his arms—"only asset. Even have some aliases so I can load up on studies and improve the old cash flow without them bitching about overextending the system."

  "So who are you?" Billy asks.

  "Like the man said, Rodney Letts. How about you?"

  Billy gives him his name.

  "Well, I bet your liver is nice and clean. No dehydrogenase in your piss. You'll be golden." Rodney unscrews the cap to the vinegar and tests its smelling-salt bouquet. "But me, I'm fucked, which is too bad because I need the money. And this job, man, it's the easiest job in the world. All you do is sleep, soak in the tub, eat decent food, watch TV. In return all you've got to do is bleed, piss, and swallow whatever they give you. If you're on placebo you're laughing all the way to the bank."

  "What if you're not?"

  "Still not too bad. You can count on flulike symptoms; those are standard. Then there are always a few add-ons. Depends on the drug. Like what we're pigging, this atypical antipsychotic, you can expect your head being messed with mightily. A two-week stupor. But however you're feeling, really lousy, say, just keep your mouth shut. Don't tell them anything, especially if you're feeling fucked. That's a rookie mistake.

  Because then they get all nervous and they'll send you home early and pay you less than full. Best to keep the major side effects quiet and let the blood do the talking. They just care about your blood anyway. Oh, they'll pretend to be interested in your head but all they want is right here." Rodney taps the inner crook of his elbow. "Let them pop your cherry without fuss and you'll both be happy. That's my only advice. But look at me. I'm about to drink vinegar, for fuck's sake."

  "You're really going to drink that?" Billy asks.

  "Got to," Rodney says. "Hopefully this'll bring my count down to acceptable levels. It's an old-fashioned remedy. This shit will overwhelm everything in your system." Rodney prepares his chaser: a two-liter bottle of water. "I'm thinking chug, right. One fell swoop." He pauses. "Hope I can keep it down."

  "Me too," Billy says.

  "Not that bad, right? Just red wine gone bad." Rodney sniffs. "Okay, really, really bad." He raises the bottle. "Well, Billy Schine, nice meeting you. To our health, mine in particular." He sucks down about a quarter of the vinegar before the taste hits him and crumples his throat. Gags take over. Eyes squeezed tight, lips pained, he's a bullfrog perched on a pile of rags, tongue wrapped around a hornet. Tearing, drooling, sweating, Rodney bends over and repels a thick rope of saliva down to the floor. Billy thinks about rubbing his back. Then reconsiders. Rocking back and forth, the man is going through his own version of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross until his stomach reaches—chaa —acceptance. He wipes his face, smiles. His breath smells like salad. The van notices the commotion, heads snapping around like Billy's slugged Rodney in the stomach. Ossap and Dullick glare, twins with different parents. Lannigan asks if everybody's all right back there, hungering for more than just the yep he gets. Sameer Sirdesh still sleeps. Swain tells Corker a Dodge Viper is hardly a sports car. Gretchen registers none of the drama, just her computer solitaire.

  Billy decides this might be the time to unfold the New York Post and escape any further encounters with Rodney Letts and his vulnerable liver count. The headline screams THE SHROUD OF CHUCK in typical Post fashion. Billy loves the big bold print, the puns, loves how every day is a day of infamy. Below the headline is a photograph of an MRI with an uncanny resemblance to that face so celebrated in Turin. The brain's magnetic gray tones are smudged and swirled in perfect likeness of beard and eyes and long hair, the gaunt beatific expression. It could have been a charcoal sketch from the original. The photo caption explains that this is the MRI of Charles Savitch, from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, a plumber who has a tumor with mystifying implications, full story, page four.


  After all the front-page fuss, the article is shorter than expected. It's accompanied by another photograph of Chuck Savitch, this one from his 1984 high school yearbook. Never the most flattering time in your life, Billy thinks, and wonders why are these the preferred headshots for killers and victims alike? His own senior year photo would've been criminal enough—William Adamas Schine, features half-cooked between adolescence and adulthood, hair positively cubist, clothes seemingly pieced together from the lost and found. And don't forget his senior quote: "Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word." Iago. Oh, please. But at least it isn't being reproduced nationwide, like Chuck Savitch here, his chin gnawed by pimples, his shoulders stuck in mid Huh? Inside his smile, buckteeth lean forward like obnoxious sightseers straining for a view. That sweeping middle part is consistent with hockey hairdos immemorial, and that sport coat and tie flirt with the flare from the previous decade. But his eyes are undaunted. They will never guess that in fourteen years he'll be living with his mother, terminally ill with what was if anything a nativity of cancer cells. Billy decides this is the prime reason for high school yearbook pictures: they're naive portraits of forthcoming anguish.

  The hospital is scant with the details, citing privacy issues, but they've released a statement claiming that the MRI was stolen from the radiology department (a recently born-again technician suspected) and that they're in the process of conducting an internal investigation. "This image is the sole diagnostic property of Mercy Hospital and Mr. Savitch and any unauthorized reproduction without permission is illegal," the spokesperson claimed. But the image is already floating around the Internet. A Christian Web site was the first to post it, followed by supermarket tabloids, and now mainstream media. Rumors of fraud, of forgery, are debunked by the Savitch family who promise further neurological exams if need be. "I'll leave the religion stuff alone but my Charlie is not dying from some hoax," his mother is quoted as saying. The Post, in a sidebar, interviews an oncologist from Memorial Sloan-Kettering. He hazards that in all likelihood this is a late-stage glioblastoma multiforme. "The configuration of the neoplasm is symptomatic with that type of cancer, albeit unique," the doctor says. "All tumors spread in different patterns, but I can assure you any resemblance with Jesus Christ is purely coincidental and not in any way the intention of the cancer. The only truth in this story is that Mr. Savitch is an extremely sick man." So sick, he's been discharged from the hospital for the hospice of his own home. Treatment options are limited considering tumor size and location. Pain management is the most reasonable course of action. This pleases the evangelicals who regard even the hint of surgery or radiation or chemotherapy as desecration. People are starting to converge on Menomonee Falls, "miracle chasers," the Post calls them. The millennium is of course mentioned. And there have been whispers within the pilgrim community of cures, the sick and infirm canceling trips to Lourdes and Fatima and rushing here instead. Time is short, everyone agrees.

  Billy feels the beginnings of a headache.

  This sort of nonstory is nothing new. Yet here it is, again, and Billy knows, yet again, he'll eat up every unsavory bite and participate in the event despite himself, feeding the insatiable media mouth with his eyes and eagerly awaiting the next morsel, like a rat on that worn-out sinking ship who mocks the tastes of man while gnawing through its cargo.

  Billy stops reading, gazes out the window.

  Not much to see except the median strip and the southbound traffic. The occasional deer lies shattered on the side of the road, and while sad, it seems exotic, as if swiped by a cougar instead of a fender. In the distance, Billy catches sight of a shape, doggish in nature, a dead-doggish shape. His stomach tightens and he begins mourning the death, his insides tingling with life-affirming sadness, more abstract than tears, and he keeps this vigil until the poor corpse passes—just a shredded tire. Lassie is nothing but litter. But within the median strip actual live rabbits frolic, trapped between the northbound and southbound lanes. Billy finds the setting depressing, like Flopsy and Mopsy in a crack den. Not that he has an overwhelming affection for rabbits. Please. They're basically rodents. Semiprofessional prey. The only time they're featured in wildlife programs is when they're pursued by more glamorous claws. So why—why!—does he lean toward Gretchen and say something about them?

  "Excuse me?" she asks.

  "Nothing," he backtracks. "Forget it."

  "No, you said something about rabbits."

  "Stupid," he says.

  "No," she says, all glint. "Tell me about the rabbits."

  "I must sound like George. Or is it Lennie? Lennie or George? You know, from Of Mice and Men. I always confuse the two. I think it's Lennie. Not that I'm trying for some literary reference here."

  "Actually, I made the reference, and I'm pretty sure it's Lennie," she says.

  Billy nods, petrified. "Yeah, sounds right. Lennie loved the rabbits. Tell me about the rabbits, George. Yeah." Pretending that this has settled the conversation, Billy jumps back into the newspaper, headache or not.

  "Wait, tell me about the rabbits, ?" She leaves a blank for a name.

  "Billy, I'm Billy."

  "I'm Gretchen."

  "It's so stupid, but I was feeling sorry for them. You see them? They're all over the place, hopping in and out of the bushes, and I was thinking they must spend their entire life, generation after generation, in that median strip, living with speeding cars on either side. It seemed, well, depressing until I said it out loud."

  "Maybe it's like a moat. Maybe it protects them."

  "The constant noise. The exhaust."

  Gretchen gestures her chin at his chest. "Maybe it stops the cats."

  "Do you think cats are a—oh." Billy pinches his Cats T-shirt. "A joke. Well, you see, I'm wearing this shirt ironically. I swear I know nothing about Old Deuteronomy or Macavity or Grisabella. In fact, I don't know why I'm wearing it." The idea of Ragnar seems so far away. "And this silly hat. I guess it was a mood."

  She smiles, a crook somewhere between intrigue and wariness, Billy's not sure, but he settles on interested unease and he smiles in return—comfortably embarrassed—and says, "We now return to our regularly scheduled silence, already in progress."

  He's asleep, or pretending to be asleep, hoping he might fool himself and actually fall asleep—eyes closed, mouth open, breathing ZZzzs, thinking dreamy thoughts, e.g. Gretchen watching him snooze and taking in his face and allowing his lazing cheek to slip on her shoulder as they ride the bumps of the thruway, until Billy actually does fall asleep and dreams, or remembers his dream when the van turns for the exit and pops him awake from a nightmare of driving, of him behind the wheel and every hundred yards there's a dead body in the middle of the road, and Billy speeds no big deal over these bodies like this is the way of the world, tires rolling flesh and bone into macadam.

  "We're here," Rodney Letts tells him. "Roughly."

  Fast-food restaurants and gas stations and various national chains are clustered in a line, herding animals sipping at the oasis of the main strip. Billy, still half-asleep, imagines a predator bursting forth in a flash of impossible speed and pouncing on this dim-witted prey, tearing through stucco and drop siding and ripping out the warm innards of adolescents in paper hats.

  Corker says to no one in particular that two hours and twenty minutes is pretty decent though last week he had made the trip in two. The van takes a left, another left, and heads down a street that dead-ends on a gatehouse and a chain-link fence warning of private property ahead. Corker waves at the guard who peers from his air-conditioned booth. The gate lifts. Corker shouts, "You fucking lazy prick," through his closed window. The guard shouts something in return, his window also closed.

  Ossap and Dullick are suddenly excited. They perk up like eight-year-olds entering the magic kingdom. The guard could've been a beloved character living inside a toadstool, a host to an animatronic world of wonder where, if you keep your eyes peeled, you might s
pot a unicorn somewhere along the route.

  Ossap flips open his cell phone, dials. "Hey," he says. "Tell Father we've arrived and we'll be talking soon."

  Lannigan, Hamlet in hand, turns around. "You guys brothers or something?"

  Dullick stares long and hard before answering. "Why do you care?"

  "I don't."

  Ossap palms shut his phone. "We're cousins."

  "Not related by blood," Dullick clarifies.

  Ossap refines. "My father is very sick and he needs money for a trip back to his homeland. That's why we're here." His tone is similar to a soldier providing name, rank, serial number.

  "Where?" Lannigan asks.

  "Hungary. He's Hungarian, Hungarian-American."

  "What's he have, your father?" Lannigan asks.

  "I'm sorry but I really don't want to talk to you," Ossap says.

  Billy finds the bluntness stunning, almost awe-inspiring.

  A clearing appears up ahead.

  "Welcome to the AHRC," Corker shouts.

  8

  FREE FROM the van, everybody stretches and reconnects with joints.Unlike the city, where humidity can seem overly intimate, as if expressed in percentages of public sweat, the heat here feels removed from human concern. Whatever burns in the sun. Woods of pine border the property. They carry the menace of early American settlements. Witches and Indians could easily roam in their shadows. In the middle of the clearing stands the AHRC: six stories of glass and metal siding, with wings extending from either side. It resembles the sort of building used in science fiction movies where the story needs the creep of the cold distant future. But in this setting, alone in the wilderness, the future appears lost. If cities were born from the sky, say air-dropped like paratroopers, the Chrysler, the Empire State, the Citicorp, Go! Go! Go! floating down and landing on Manhattan, then the AHRC would've been the unfortunate soldier who jumped a bit too late and got caught up in a heavy gust and drifted deep within enemy territory.