The Future for Curious People: A Novel (15 page)

I start to alternate now between shouting, “Dotty!” and shouting “Evelyn!” while padding along as quickly as I can.

And then I get shoved in the butt. I spin around. “Hey, watch it!”

There’s some chubby, sweaty, cheeky kid face saying, “Mister, you’re not supposed to be up here! There’s a weight limit!”

“I lost my kid!” I shout back. “One day, when you’re a father, you’ll understand that you don’t abandon your own child just because of a weight limit!”

But there’s a sharp nervous twitchy glance that I give the tube all around me like—shit, I’m going to die in this tube and I’m going to take my whole family and all these kids with me.

I’m perspiring all down my shirt; even my pants are soaked.

But I persist and, God bless it, I kind of love me for pressing on. I mean, I have no real choice, but still I keep shouting, “Dotty! Evelyn! Dotty!”

And then just when I think things can’t get much worse, the lights go out. Kids scream. Music blares. And there’s some kind of laser light show—the kind they do at bowling alleys nowadays for no rational reason. What does bowling have to do with laser light shows? What does
anything
have go do with laser light shows, really?

And then there’s a fucking fog machine that sprays—inside the tubes!—as if kids today aren’t already, by and large, asthmatic!

I’m pissed about this. I know my pissed face and, holy shit, this is it, dear God.

And that’s when I lose it.

I stop moving altogether; I lock it up like an angry camel. And I start screaming. Just a high-pitched hysterical scream.

And the screen goes blank because Dr. Chin Productions is, one assumes, trying to show this from inside of my very own point of view; and, with my eyes closed, I can see nothing.

But then there’s this slap. It’s a loud ringing snap, and it cuts through all the noise. My own cheek goes warm in an instant as if my cheek knows it’s been slapped before the screen even pops back into focus.

Of course
focus
isn’t the right word because there’s pretty much only fog lit up by laser lights playing in rhythm to some screaming guitar rock-opera bullshit.

But I hear a voice and the voice is Evelyn.

“Quiet!” Evelyn says. “Godfrey, I’ve got Dotty. She’s right here. We’re fine.”

“I’m so sorry,” future-me says back to her. “I looked away for one second and she just shot right up. I’m a terrible father. Jesus, I’m the worst father.”

“I love you, Godfrey Burkes. You’re a fucking superhero. You’ve got a good soul, and this isn’t your shining moment, but I will always love you. No matter what. In fact,” she goes on because her heart must be pumping pretty hard with adrenaline right now, too, “I will always remember you in this stupid tube. I will always remember how you went after her. It’s proof. You hear me? It’s proof that no matter what we will endure.”

It’s a beautiful speech, especially from a woman holding on to a little kid—our Dotty—cursing pretty hard amid flashing lights in a foggy tube during a rock-opera crescendo.

And even though I can’t see her face clearly and can only make out the squirming shape of our daughter, I see a glint on Evelyn’s shirt. It’s a brooch. Is it a pear brooch? Jesus, it’s exactly like the one found in Wickham Purdy’s safe deposit box.

“Now don’t barf,” she says. “And let’s go home.”

Evelyn Shriner. My wife. The mother of at least one of my offspring. God, I love her.

I stare at the blank screen. My heart seems like it might burst from my chest, and I realize—with a feeling of elation—that I have access to Wickham Purdy’s brooch, which Evelyn Shriner will wear in some future. It’s like a small baton that could pass from my hands and somehow to hers, a baton that could be passed through time, through futures. It’s a kind of lure. If I somehow put it out in the world and she takes it, what would that mean? Nothing or everything? This is about fate. I’m not baiting fate, but I am, yes, testing it a little, maybe shoving it in the chest, like I’m saying,
So, fate, you know futures? Prove it.
If there’s something here, between Evelyn and me, and it’s true love, and it’s as serious as a heart attack, I can’t give up on it.

I know I shouldn’t do a damn thing with Wickham Purdy’s brooch and I know that I will.

Shaken by my last disastrous envisioning at Chin’s and the encounter with Adrian, I’ve got new resolve. I go back through my old recordings, put in new endings, and upload them to the database. It takes a while, but I save them—one by one. I reunite lovers and families and push many great and tragic literary figures to better fates, and damn it, it feels good. I’m just now getting back to
Th
e Great Gatsby.
Mr. Wilson comes over to Gatsby’s with a gun but not to kill him. He invites Gatsby and Nick hunting in some East Egg woodlands. “The boar was almost too heavy for the three of us to lift,” I fake-read. “Gatsby thought it better to just leave it.” I flip a page, for effect mostly.

I’m getting into the rhythm of it when there’s a knock at the door. I wonder if it’s Binter coming to apologize for . . . what? Wanting me to be not-weird when that’s just not realistic at all? Or it might be someone interested in postcards about Salisbury Cathedral or cable cars (both found in box 2).

Mr. Gupta says, “Evelyn, can I talk to you?”

I wonder if he’s mad at me. I’m not volunteering on library time. I can prove this with time cards. “Sure,” I say. A key in the lock again and there’s Mr. Gupta, “Jesus, Evelyn,” he whispers. “Why do you do this in here?”

I open my mouth to explain, but Gupta raises his hand then squeezes his forehead as if his head is about to explode and he’s trying to mitigate the spray of his brains on the holdings within Special Collections. “Look,” he says. “We got a call.”

“From who?”

“A blind person.”

“Oh.”

“I know what you’re doing.” He lowers his voice. “And
Charlotte’s Web
! That’s for children, Evelyn Shriner! You can’t revive Charlotte and think that sight-impaired children won’t know the difference!”

“I assume they know,” I tell him frankly. “In fact, sometimes I talk directly to the listener. I talk about sorrow in literature. Sometimes I talk about sorrow in life. Sometimes I whisper to them that it’s just me in a room and that there’s been enough sorrow. Every book has a past, a present, a future, and the future, by definition, is splintered, Mr. Gupta, so I’m being true to a larger order here, if you get what I’m saying.”

“I do not get what you’re saying. Not at all. What would Salinger think? My God.”

“I never touched
Catcher in the Rye.
I feel like you should know that.”

“This is literature, Evelyn. Literature is a language handed down from one generation to the next. Without that consistency, the world order breaks apart completely! You’re fired.”

“From my job?”

“You’re fired from this volunteer effort.”

“But can you fire a volunteer?”

“Would you prefer to resign?”

“I would.”

“Then . . .”

“I resign, but I would like you to tell the board—”

“I’m not going to relay this to the board.”

“Tell them that I believe in—”

“What
do
you believe in?”

I grip my copy of
Th
e Great Gatsby
and my digital recording device. “I believe that nothing is set in stone. That each reader is an interpreter. Reading is collaborative. I was just . . . collaborating.”

Gupta sighs.

“And I hope we’re still on good terms otherwise,” I say. He’s my boss after all. I don’t want to call him a father figure, but there’s something there.

“You’re on secret probation. I’m worried about you,” he says, as if reading my mind.

“Don’t worry about me!” I say, but I’m worried about me, to be honest. I feel shaky and loose in the knee joints. Why did I think I could change endings to great works of literature?

Gupta opens the door for me. There’s Binter, sitting there at his desk, looking completely unwittingly good-looking. I want to say the right thing. I’m trying to be not-weird. “I’m sorry about the complaint you got,” I tell Gupta in a formal tone. “I’m sure it was embarrassing. And I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Well,” Mr. Gupta says quietly. “It wasn’t exactly a complaint.”

“What was it then?”

“Technically, it was a fan.”

“A fan?” I glance at Binter to see if he’s overhearing this. He’s staring at his computer, oblivious. “I have a fan?”

“Actually, a couple. One of them wanted to convey his gratitude. This person said, ‘Tell her I like what she did with
Anna Karenina
.
’ Evidently, he’d listened to it many times and, well, found your version refreshing.”

“I see,” I say, trying to take the high road. “Well, I hope you told them that we aim to please.”

“We don’t aim to please,” Gupta says. “We’re a library of books. They are fixed in time and space by language.” He opens the glass door to Special Collections.

I give a wave to Binter, saying, “Bye-bye, Binter!”

And as the glass door swings closed between us, I’m sure I hear him say, “Bye-bye, weirdo.” Just like that, but that’s fine by me. My weirdness got me more than one fan; I have
plural
fans.

Gupta peels off, duck-footing toward the front desk.

I get my coat from the mail room and then make my way out the main doors, down the large marble steps. I wish I could walk straight into Mr. Chin’s waiting room. I close my eyes and try to imagine it. But all I see is Gatsby floating in a pool. Sometimes I wonder if the future is the future, and no matter what you do, you’re bound to meet it. A fast car, a gunshot, a crumpled bike.

Inevitability. What if every fork in the road is leading to the same conclusion? This scares me most of all.

It hits me that Chin was right and wrong about me. I’m an obsessive, but I’m not obsessed with the promise of a man in my life or even love and family, which aren’t antifeminist but noble, damn it! I’m obsessed with the future and the future only. I’m terrified of not knowing what will happen to me—and my heart, yes, my ever-calcifying, one-love-at-a-time heart. Is this a young-life crisis? Is there such a thing? I once knew step-by-step what would happen next and next and next. I went to high school. I graduated wearing a black gown. I went to college and then got my master’s in library science. I graduated in another black gown. And now the rest of my life lies before me, stretching on and on.

I do not know how to get from here to there—I do not know where there is. If I knew that, I’d have a better chance of getting there. I am not a grown-up. I ride a bicycle and glue flowers on my rain boots. Last year, I hosted a cocktail party but realized I didn’t know how to make any cocktails. We drank out of mugs and jelly jars. I have a job and a best friend who steals things like a juvenile delinquent. We talk about our crushes. What if life goes on this way—on and on. It can’t. Once, I was an eleven-year-old who was terrified that I would never be able to give up playing with Barbies. I’d be a closet Barbie player my entire life—a dark hidden shame. Were there more like me? Was there a support group? And then one day I realized I hadn’t played with them in ages. It was over. How will this part of my life be over?

And worse, why would I want it to ever end? So that I can become my parents and stop yearning?

I know that life makes demands on a person. It wants things that you don’t want to give. Sometimes it asks for your firstborn. Sometimes it wants you to love a child you can’t love. Sometimes it says just try to divide up your grief between two people. You still won’t be able to bear it.

I need to know
something.
And Chin can provide a piece of the future. I will keep going back until I have that one fucking thing. Is that thing love? Love is how you build family, how you combat loneliness; maybe it’s how you fill a deep unfillable hole. I can’t stand the futures—millions of them—chaotically rolling out before me in all directions.

And this is how I know I’m not an obsessive anymore. I’m a junkie.

Every day is fix-our-relationship day at the Madge and Godfrey estate, and I’m running late. I’m in Fontana’s Super Mart and Pawn Shop. Mr. Fontana is turning the pear brooch around in his hands, holding it up to the fluorescent lights, as if that’ll do anything. I shouldn’t be here. I can’t stop thinking of Evelyn. I want to hear that speech one day in a foggy tube of flashing lights. This is what I can’t explain to anyone. Who would understand? “I’ll give you five bucks if I sell it, and frankly, I doubt I’ll sell it. It’s pretty much crap.”

“You can keep all the money, Mr. Fontana. All I want is for you to give this note to the person who buys it and not to share this information with Madge.”

Fontana reads the note aloud. “We should have lunch. I think we’ve got a bright future together. Sincerely, Godfrey Burkes.” And then he reads my phone number. He looks at me and smirks, his chins squeezing together tautly. “Is that supposed to be romantic or some kind of job application?”

Because I don’t trust Fontana, I say, “A kind of job application. And can you display it prominently?”

Fontana scratches his chin. “That’ll cost you.”

“But I’m already giving you the entire proceeds!”

“This isn’t about proceeds, is it?”

He’s got me there. I give Fontana ten bucks and he promises to keep it out from under the glass, right near the cash register.

WE’RE ON DAY 4
in Dr. A. Plotnik’s workbook, and Madge is so happy she doesn’t even care that I’m late. As soon as I see her beaming face, I remember how happy Madge and I can be together. I decide, right then, that I will call off my brooch deal with Fontana as soon as humanly possible. No excuses. No rationalizing. I love Madge, and I love how she’s throwing her energy into fixing us. I don’t need to test fate. This is fate—me and Madge. Right,
right
? Dotty doesn’t even really exist. She’s a figment. What kind of a name for a little girl is Dotty anyway? I wouldn’t ever name a child Dotty. And no one would actually let loose a fog machine in an elaborate Habitrail for human children.

I’m with Madge. I can do this.

Honestly, the envisioning experience can really warp your mind. I mean, I fell in love with a girl in rain boots while watching my future self locked up in prison and then fell more deeply in love with her because of just one beautiful heart-pumping speech? After a good night’s sleep and with a happy Madge, things are a lot clearer.

The expression “serious as a heart attack” does come back to me from time to time—it does—like an unpredictable missile attack. But I keep going.

Madge marked this day on the calendar that hangs in the kitchen with a big heart. Inside the heart, Madge scribbled,
Abstract painting—4:30 p.m
. Every month on the calendar is a different kitten. February is a Maine coon wearing a scarf dotted with hearts and a matching beanie. I’m not going to lie, it’s cute as fuck.

Today, our living room is half–art supply store. I feel like I’m at summer camp. I used to be a counselor at summer camps. That’s where I first figured out I’d like to teach kids, before I tamped that down deep. Today Madge is head counselor. She’s going to teach us how the abstractness of abstract art is going to save our relationship. Out of sheer confidence and optimism, Madge invited Bart and Amy over after for cheese and finger foods, things that you would find on the decks of yachts, things that don’t actually equate to meals.

“So it’s not a dinner party?” I ask Madge. It’s hard to hear her. She has her computer plugged into the stereo speakers, almost full blast. I’m not familiar with the band; I’ve never heard these songs before. See, this is how a relationship can be made new—little things.

“No, just
hors d’oeuvres.”
She looks me up and down, lingering on the down, and frowns. “No jeans,” she tells me.

For just a split second, I want to say,
So we’re having a dinner party but with no dinner. And I have to dress up for this dinnerless dinner party where our only guests are just Bart and Amy?
But I don’t. I just go and change because saying those things would be petty. Pettiness is one of the traits to avoid, as listed in Dr. A. Plotnik’s “Guide to Romantic Success.”

I put on khakis and walk back to the living room.

Madge says, “Sit down on the rug.” It’s the old Burt Reynolds – inspired shag, which sometimes makes me feel slightly less masculine because I’m just not that furred.

Somehow the music gets louder when I’m on the floor. And I really don’t like the music. I guess hot air rises, but shitty beats lower themselves, probably heading for the graves they know they’re destined for. The devil is still probably listening to Creed.

Do I say any of this? No, I do not. Self-restraint is listed as a positive quality to have in Dr. A. Plotnik’s “Guide to Romantic Success.”

Madge sits across from me, Dr. A. Plotnik’s workbook in her lap. Between us, there are two canvases, paintbrushes, paint. While Madge flips through the workbook, I wonder how we’ll afford to eat next week.

I say, “Who is this?” I point to the air, then my ears.

“Oh,” she says, smiling. “They’re called the Babymakers. They’re a local band.”

“Oh, local.” Baltimore’s local scene has its highlights. This isn’t one of them.

“They’ve got a gig at Club Q coming up,” she says. “I think we should go.”

We both sit on the floor and listen for a minute. Most likely this is a self-produced EP. The Babymakers haven’t recorded more than four songs, but Madge has them on a continuous loop. But why?

“Do you like it?” Madge wants to know.

“ ‘You are only aware of love when your lips are drenched in sun,’ ” I say, quoting the song that’s playing right now. “It’s just that same line for like four minutes straight.”

“Well, what do you think he’s saying?”

“That she really gets off on being outside?”

“Oh, Godfrey.” Madge actually puts her hand against her chest. “They say so much in such a simple way. It’s heartbreaking.”

“It sounds like it was made in a bedroom.”

“It was,” she says. “Adrian said it was all made on his MacBook. An entire song done on one computer, all made next to a bed and dresser. Can you believe it? Those aren’t even real drums. The drummer got mono or something.”

Listening to the songs, I want to say,
Yes, yes, I can absolutely believe it.
Then I think a little longer. Adrian, I don’t know an Adrian.

“Who’s Adrian?” I say.

“The lead guitarist and backup singer.” Madge’s face says,
Obviously.
Keep up, dumbass. You shouldn’t fail a take-home test.

“You know his name?”

“Yeah,” she says a little quieter. If I weren’t sitting so close to her, I wouldn’t have heard her. Then Madge straightens up like something climbed up her spine. I think of a wooden roller coaster. “He’s the one who gave me the demo, along with this.” She reaches across the living room floor for her purse and pulls out a flyer. She hands it to me.

It’s a cheap cutout, something mass-produced in a hurry, with
THE BABYMAKERS
written in a bold, all-capped font on the top. Underneath the band name:
GET YOUR ASS OFF THE SOFA AND LIVE A LITTLE
. Am I jealous? It’s not like me. Maybe it’s because I just envisioned my future with four women from my past and a stranger I’m afraid I fell in love with.
See how these little secrets erode trust,
I tell myself.
See?

“I don’t really know him,” she says, and then she holds up a book.
Abstraction:
Th
e Past, Present, and Future of Abstract Art.

“Hey, hey!” I say. “That’s cheating.”

The catch about this Dr. A. Plotnik assignment is that we’re supposed to make an abstract painting “of our own relationship.” I don’t even know what abstract painting is, but Madge urges me to relax. “It can be whatever we want it to be.”

I bet the book told her that.

“It’s just research,” she tells me. “To save . . . whatever this is.”

“You mean, to save our engagement?”

Madge begins to read from the workbook. “ ‘Be in the same room but barely.’ ” She looks at me. “She must mean that we’re together but aware of our selfhoods most of all.” I’ve never been clear on Madge’s use of the term
selfhood,
so I just nod.

“ ‘Take exactly one hour.’ ” Next to her is an egg timer. “Okay,” she says, “it’s all ready to go. Any questions before we start?”

“Which color is that?” I say, pointing to one of the darker colors in the middle of the paint pile between us.

Madge barely has to look at it. “After Midnight Blue.”

“So, a light black?”

“It’s a blue.” A sigh that sounds like frost. “If you were listening. After Midnight Blue.”

I nod. “So the lighter blue is
Before
Midnight Blue?”

“No,” Madge says, “it’s just blue.” She grabs my hand. “So, we’re going to do this?” Madge’s eyes look like Christmas morning.

“Yes.”

Madge sets the egg timer. “The timer’s on. Pick your corner.”

WHEN THE EGG TIMER
goes off, I’m grateful—an hour is a long time to try to be abstract. I set down my paintbrush and look up from my canvas.

“Don’t show me! Don’t show me!” Madge cries.

She’s already out of her corner, walking back toward the center of the living room. If the room were larger, she’d be skipping. She loves this. And I love that she loves this. And I wish that I loved this.

I follow her lead, getting out of my corner and walking back to the center of the living room. I sit back down across from her. Our canvases are facing away from each other.

“Okay,” Madge says. “Who first?”

I can tell Madge wants to go first. She’s lightly drumming her fingers against the back of her canvas. “Why don’t you?” I say. I’d do anything to score some points right now.

Madge’s painting is intricate. There are so many lines and small dots of color that I wonder if I should be picking out Waldo. Is this one of those paintings that only make sense when you stand very far away or if you relax your eyes so you can see the lady or the witch?

I back up a little. That’s when I see the penis. My penis, I’m guessing. And my penis doesn’t look very happy—or robust. I want to tell Madge how buff I look in prison—
that
Godfrey Burkes would have been drawn with a robust penis, believe you me. But I can’t tell her this because I’d have to explain why I saw myself in prison.

“Well?” Madge says.

I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the painting.

“This is where you say something,” she says. “The workbook says that first impressions are the most important. Godfrey, what’s the first thing you see, feel?”

I clear my throat. “You didn’t make my penis very life-sized.” I pause. “Or maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong mirrors.”

“What are you talking about?” Madge is doing her best to keep a neutral facial expression, but her lips are trying not to do something—I’m just not sure what the
not
is.

“Underneath the After Midnight Blue,” I say, pointing to the center of the painting, at a long strip so blue it’s black. Madge follows my finger as it goes underneath the dark strip, hovering right over a flesh-toned cock.

Madge’s brow furrows, her lips purse. I keep my finger there. She knows I’m right, but I won’t win this. I’m surprised I’m even willing to try.

“You have to see it,” I say. “You painted it.”

“Oh, Godfrey,” Madge says. She’s still looking at her painting. She finally lifts her head up. “I really hoped for more from you today.”

“What?” I’m trying not to laugh, but my self-control is shaky. “It’s a cock. I mean, not an impressive cock, but it’s a cock!”

“Language,” Madge says in a tight whisper.

“I’m sorry,” I say, lowering my voice, too, even though nobody else is in the apartment, even though that music is still playing on a continuous fucking loop, and even though both of us curse freely in front of each other.

Madge sets her painting down. “It’s hopeless,” she says.

“What is?”

“Us.”

“But I haven’t shown you mine yet,” I say, trying to backtrack. Something can be saved. Something can always be saved.

“You were barely doing anything over there. I saw you.” Madge sighs. “I bet it’s two stick figures holding hands, maybe a quarter of a sun in the upper-right-hand corner of the canvas.”

My face goes red. How the fuck did she know that? Still, I say, “That’s not even close to being true.”

The room is stale. Madge is about to lose her shit. “This is fucking typical,” she says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“You’re so . . .”

“Say it.” Now I’m getting worried. I don’t ever remember seeing Madge like this.

“You’re so like you!” She’s breathing through her mouth because she can’t fit enough air through her nose right now. “You’re always so . . .” And then she just stops. Her arms don’t move. She looks like a marionette, hanging from invisible strings. “You just have no idea how to be in a relationship!”

“That seems really unfair.”

“Do I have to rehash old Godfrey relationships to make it clear? Wasn’t your last relationship a short-lived romance with a woman who lived in a ‘very confusing’ part of town? And on your third date, you got lost while on your way to pick her up, and because you were too embarrassed to admit it, you never showed up.”

“In my defense—”

“She never called, and neither did you. Was that going to be your defense?”

It kind of was. This is not a story I told Madge, by the way. It’s a story I told Bart, in confidence. But I don’t mention this because Madge’s face has gone all stony, and she’s stopped talking.

“Madge,” I say. That fucking music. That same line—“You are only aware of love when your lips are drenched in sun”—over and over again for four minutes. “Madge, say something.”

“What if I’m only drawn to you genetically,” Madge says.

Is she breaking up with me? “Only genetically?” I say. “What else is there?”