Complete Stories (47 page)

Walking on, I felt such a feeling of freedom. I used to always be in a hurry—not that I had anything worth doing. I was in a hurry, I suppose, because I felt bad about wasting time. But now that I have no time, I have all time. If I have endless time, then how can I waste it? I feel so relaxed. I wish I could have felt this way when I was alive.

The crushed body beneath the truck seems less and less like me. I walk by it with impunity. Up by the shops, coming out of the post office, not yet noticing the accident in the street, is always Lou Bunce, successful and overbearing. How nice it is, I thought this time, walking past him, how nice it is not to have to talk to him.

The supermarket front consists of 18,726 bricks. Numbers are power. I think now I’ll count the blades of grass in our lawn. I’ll memorize each and every detail of the little world I’m in.

Somehow the sunlight seems to be getting brighter. Could it be that by visiting each spot in my little neighborhood over and over, I am learning the light-patterns better, sensing them more intensely? Or is the world, in some way, objectively changing along my time axis? Has this all just been a dying man’s last hallucination? It doesn’t matter.

Before, I thought of this frozen time as a prison cell. But now, I’ve come to think of it rather as a monastic cubicle. I’ve had time here—how much time? I’ve had time to rethink my life. This started as hell, and it’s turned into heaven.

I’ve stopped taking my walks. I’ve lost my locality. From travelling over and over these few streets, I’ve spread myself out: I see all of it, all the time, all melting into the light.

A thought:
I am this moment
. Each of us is part God, and when our life ends, God puts us to work dreaming the world. I am the sidewalk, I am the air, I am 9:17:06 A.M., September 14.

Still the brightness grows.

============

Written in 1985.

Afterlives
, Vintage Books, 1986.

“In Frozen Time,” comes from near the end of my Lynchburg period. When your stories are all about death and suicide, it’s time for a change. Thank God my new job teaching computer science at San Jose State University came through. A more fundamental solution would have been to get into recovery, but I wasn’t ready yet.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Leckesh,” said the doctor, nervously tapping on his desk-screen. “There’s no doubt about it. The tests are all positive.”

“But surely …” began Leckesh. His voice came out as a papery whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean…can’t you put a new liver in me? I can afford the organs, and I can afford the surgery. My god, man, don’t just sit there and tell me you’re
sorry
! What am I paying you for?” At the mention of money, Leckesh’s voice regained its usual commanding tone.

The doctor looked uncomfortable. “I
am
sorry, Mr. Leckesh. The cancer has metastasized. Tumor cells are established in every part of your body.” He fingered some keys and green lines formed on his screen. “Step around the desk, Mr. Leckesh, and look at this.”

It was the graph of an upsloping curve, with dates along the horizontal axis, and percentages along the vertical axis. The graph was captioned: PROJECTED MORTALITY OF DOUGLAS LECKESH.

“These are my odds of dying by a given date?” barked Leckesh. What a fool this doctor was to let a computer do all his thinking. “You’ve got this all projected like some damned commodities option?”

“Most patients find it reassuring to know the whole truth,” said the doctor. “Today is March 30. You see how the curve rises? We have a fifty percent chance of your death before May 1; a ninety percent chance before July 1; and virtual certainty by late September. You can trust these figures, Mr. Leckesh. The Bertroy Medical Associates have the best computer in New York.”

“Turn it off,” cried Leckesh, smacking the screen so hard that its pixels quivered. “I came here to see a doctor! If I wanted to look at computer projections, I could have stayed in my office down on the Street!”

The doctor sighed and turned off his terminal. “You’re experiencing denial, Mr. Leckesh. The fact is that you’re going to die. Make the most of the time you have left. If you want a non-computerized projection, I’ll give you one.” He stared briefly at the cityscape outside his window. “Don’t expect much more than three weeks before your final collapse.”

Leckesh found his way out of the Bertroy Building and into the morning roar of Madison Avenue. It was 10:30. He had business meetings; but what difference would more millions make now? At least he should call Abby; she’d be waiting to hear. But once he told Abby, she’d only get right to work planning her own future. If he, Doug Leckesh, was the one doing the dying, why should he do anything for anyone anymore? Abby could wait. Business could stop. Right now he wanted a drink.

The weather was raw and blustery, with a little snow in the air. The sky was fifty different shades of gray. One of the new robot taxis slowed invitingly as Leckesh approached the curb. He owned stock in the company, but today of all days he didn’t feel like talking to a robot. He waved the cab off and kept walking. His club was only four blocks off.

There was a bar at the next corner, apparently not automated. Leckesh hadn’t entered a public drinking place for years, but a sudden gust of cold wind urged him in. He ordered a beer and a shot of scotch. The bartender looked sympathetic; Leckesh had a sudden flash that someone with cancer came in here every day. There were lots of doctors in the Bertroy Building. There were lots of people with cancer. There were lots of people who handled stress with alcohol.

“I’m ready for spring,” observed the bartender when Leckesh ordered his second round. He was a broad-faced Korean with a New Jersey accent. “I got a garden up on the roof and I’m dying to put the seedlings in.”

“What do you grow?” asked Leckesh, thinking of his father. Papa had put a garden in the back of their little tract home every summer. “This is living, Dougie,” Papa would say, picking a tomato and biting into it. “This is what it’s all about.”

“Lettuce,” said the flat-faced Korean. “Bok choy. Potatoes. I love new potatoes, the way they come up in a big clump of nuggets.”

Leckesh thought about nuggets. Tumor cells in every part of his body. He sucked down his scotch and asked for another.

“The main thing is fertilizer,” said the bartender, placidly pouring out a shot. “Plants need dead stuff, rotten stuff, all crumbly and black. It’s the cycle of nature. Death into life.”

“I’ll be dead in a month,” said Leckesh. The words jumped out. “I just saw my doctor. I have cancer all over my body.”

The Korean stopped moving and looked into Leckesh’s eyes. Just looked, for a long few seconds, watching him like a TV. “You scared?”

“I’m not religious,” said Leckesh. “I don’t think there’s anything after death. Three more weeks and it’s all over. I might as well never have lived.”

“You got a wife?”

“Ah, she won’t miss me. She’ll
talk
about missing me. She likes to put on a show. But she won’t really miss me. She’ll take all my money and find someone else, the little tramp.” Speaking so unkindly about Abby gave Leckesh a perverse and bitter satisfaction.

The Korean kept watching him in that blank, judicious way. “You have a lot of money?” he asked finally.

“Yes, I do,” said Leckesh, regaining his composure. “Not that it’s any of your business. What’s your name anyway? I’ll buy you a drink. Take it all out of this and keep the change.” He threw a two hundred dollar bill on the bar.

“My name’s Yung. I’m not supposed to drink on duty but …” The Korean glanced impassively around the bar. There were a couple of old longhairs having coffee in the booths, but that was it. “Yeah, I’ll take a Heineken.”

“That’s a boy, Yung. Get me one, too. Nothing but the best for Douglas Leckesh. I’m full of nuggets. You can call me Doug. I was thinking before, you must get a lot of death cases in this bar, being so close to the Bertroy Building. It’s all doctors in there, you know.”

“Oh yeah,” said Yung, opening the two bottles of Heineken. He poured his into a coffee mug. “Bertroy Medical Associates. They have a teraflop diagnostic computer in the basement there—it does a trillion calculations a second, fast as a human brain. My sister helps program it. She’s a smart girl, my sister Lo.” He sipped at his mug and watched Leckesh some more. “So you gonna die and you think that’s it, huh, Mr. Leckesh?”

“Religion’s wrong, Yung, isn’t it?” Leckesh was feeling his drinks. “When I was your age, I didn’t think so—hell, I even used to paint pictures. But down on the Street, nothing counts but numbers. I’ve got a seat on the Exchange, you know that? So don’t try and tell
me
about religion.”

Yung looked up and down the bar and leaned close. “Religion’s one thing, Mr. Leckesh, but immortality’s something else. Lo says immortality’s no big problem anymore.” He drew a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Leckesh. “This is modern; this is digital. Whenever you’re ready for immortality, my sister Lo’s got it.”

Leckesh pocketed the card without looking at it. All of a sudden, the beers and the scotches were hitting him hard. The dull throb of his sick liver was filigreed with accents of acute pain. He was stupid to be drinking this early in the day, drinking and slobbering out his soul to a Korean bartender. Where was his self-control? Stiff-legged, he stalked into the men’s room and made himself throw up. Better. He washed his face, first with hot and then with cold. He gargled and drank water from the tap.
Three weeks
, the doctor had said.
Three weeks
. Leckesh left the bar and went home to Abby.

Abby Leckesh was a dark-haired woman with full cheeks and beautiful teeth. When they’d met, fifteen years ago, Leckesh had been fifty and Abby thirty. He’d still dreamed of being a painter, even then, and he’d liked the bohemian crowd that Abby traveled in. But now Leckesh hated Abby’s friends with an aging man’s impotent jealousy.

To his displeasure, Abby greeted the news of his impending death with what he took for enthusiasm. She believed in spirits and mediums, and she was confident that Leckesh would be able to contact her from beyond the grave.

“Don’t be downcast, Doug. You’ll only be moving to a higher plane of existence. You’ll still be here with me as a dear familiar spirit.”

“Talk about a fate worse than death,” snapped Leckesh. “I don’t want to float around watching you spend my money on your boyfriends.” For years now, he’d suspected her of being unfaithful to him.

“I’ll wear full mourning for six months,” prattled Abby, ignoring his accusation. “I’ll go out and buy some black dresses today! And we must have Irwin Garden over for tea. He’s simply the most brilliant new medium in America. You should get to know his vibrations so he can contact you on the other side.”

Leckesh didn’t dignify this with an answer. Abby went out in search of mourning clothes and Mr. Garden while the robomat made Leckesh a veal cutlet for lunch. The meal cleared his head entirely and he drew out the business card that the Korean bartender…Yung…had given him.

SOFT DEATH INC.

Scientific Soul Preservation and Transmission

Strictest confidentiality — Call for an estimate today!

Lo Park * B-1001 Bertroy Building * 840-0190

Leckesh studied the card for awhile, and made his decision. He’d be damned if he was going to let one of Abby’s phony mediums get away with pretending to talk to his spirit. If there was anything to this “Scientific Soul Preservation,” he’d be able to steal a march on the table-rappers. He picked up the phone and called the Soft Death number.

“Hello, this is Lo Park.” Her accent was as pure New Jersey as Yung’s, though with a hint of Eastern melody.

“Hello, this is Doug Leckesh. A man—I believe it was your brother—gave me a business card with your name on it. Soft Death Incorporated?”

“Oh, yes, Yung told me. I don’t like to discuss this on the telephone. Could you come see me tomorrow morning, Mr. Leckesh?”

“Ten o’clock?”

“That will be fine.”

Feeling strangely relieved, Douglas Leckesh stretched out on the couch and fell asleep. He dreamed of colors, clouds of color around a long line of precise, musical tones—binary tones chanted by Lo Park’s musical voice. When he awoke, it was late afternoon, and Abby was sitting across the room drinking tea with a balding young man in glasses.

“This is Mr. Garden, Doug. He’s the medium I was telling you about.”

Garden smiled shyly and shook Leckesh’s hand. “I’m sorry to hear of your illness, Douglas.” He had gentle eyes and large moist lips. “You have very interesting vibrations.”

“So do you,” said Leckesh curtly. The thought of Garden alone in a dark room with Abby made him sick. “You have the vibrations of an ambulance-chasing lawyer, mixed in with the aura of a two-bit Casanova and the emanations of a snake-oil salesman. Get out of my apartment.”

Garden gave a low bow and left. Abby was quite angry.

“It’s fine for you, Doug, to act like that. Soon you’ll be dead. But I’ll be here all alone, with no one to take care of me.” Tears ran down her big cheeks. “Irwin Garden only wants to help me contact your spirit.”

“Let me worry about my spirit, Abby. Can’t you see that Garden wants to cheat me and seduce you? I don’t want jackals sniffing around my death-bed. I want to pass on in peace. Business as usual!” His liver hurt very much.

Abby sobbed harder. The fact was that she was very devoted to Leckesh. All her talk of mediums and mourning clothes was just a way to avoid thinking about his death. After a few minutes, she calmed herself and kissed him on the forehead. “Of course, Doug. I’ll do as you wish. I won’t see Mr. Garden again.” In his embittered state, Leckesh was convinced that Abby was lying. He’d never caught her yet, but he was sure she had boyfriends. How could she not? He’d been part artist when he’d wooed her, but since then he’d joined the Stock Exchange. How could Abby still love him? Well, now it didn’t matter. The long game was almost over. And if there was anything to these Soft Death people, Leckesh was on the brink of a whole new existence.