Death Qualified (2 page)

    The man they called Tom got up slowly and went into the kitchen to eat his dinner. The food was hot and quite good. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, more soup.... He ate everything, drank the carton of milk, and got up to make coffee before he remembered that Tom didn't drink coffee. There was a jar of instant decaf in the cabinet. He looked at it, then put it back.

    All right, he said under his breath. Tom wasn't a prisoner;

    he had a little money. He even went shopping alone now and then. He found forty-three dollars in the chest of drawers in the bedroom, and several singles and some change in the pockets of the dirty jeans he had worn earlier.

    No wallet, no car keys, no identification. A key to the apartment that made little difference since they all had keys also. He got his poncho from the closet, put it on with the hood down nearly to his eyes, and walked out into the spring storm. That way was the cafeteria, and over there the maintenance office, and opposite both a path through the trees to the sidewalk that led to the nearest grocery store, a convenience store where Tom was a familiar figure. In the other direction, farther away, was another store, a mini market that he had been in only once.

    He turned in that direction.

    He hadn't known what he expected to happen after reading the newspapers and magazine articles. Nothing did. He made strong coffee and drank it, then a second cup. The caffeine made him dizzy and he couldn't sit still. March 1989. It was not a surprise; after all, Tom had watched television every night, through the weekends.

    He had seen the changing seasons, had been aware of time in a dim way. At last he went to bed, more frustrated than before, and exhausted. He wondered for the first time if perhaps he really had had the flu.

    When he woke up he realized he had to hide the things he had bought. Someone would come with his medicine and breakfast and he couldn't let them know anything had changed, even if he didn't know yet what the change meant. It was Friday, he thought then. He was still toe sick to work, and he would have the weekend to himself.

    Maybe things would come clearer if he had a few days to think.

    He got up and hurried to the kitchen where he regarded the table with dismay and fear. What if they had come in while he slept? The doctor would know. Another shot, many more shots, and when he went to work again it might be winter, or summer. He went to the window and pulled the shade away enough to see that it was snowing hard.

    Then he turned back to the table.

    He had bought notebooks and pens and pencils. He had coffee and recent magazines and newspapers. He had a paperback book or two. He flushed the decaf coffee granules down the toilet and filled the jar with regular, put it back in the cabinet. He started to throw the empty jar into the trash, then drew back; they might notice. Instead he put it in his jacket pocket to toss later. He hid the other things between the mattress and box spring of his bed.

    When the young woman with the long braid came, he was sitting in front of the television, wrapped in the blanket.

    On Monday when he went back to work, nothing was clearer. The snow was already melting. Every day he took the red capsule and spat it out later. He learned how to hold it in his mouth for longer periods, even to mumble something or other with it under his tongue. Tom never had talked very much and he didn't now. A mumbled yes or no was all he said most days.

    "Any more episodes, any more dreams?"

    "No."

    He always knew when Dr. Brandywine was in the lobby of her building, or in the office where he reported in every morning. If he had to, he stopped to examine a flower, or to tie his bootlace, or just to gaze vacantly into the distance in order to wait until she walked into the lab or a classroom; then he went inside and got his capsule. There were three people in there usually, none of them interested in him. They were easy. Dr. Brandywine was never easy.

    On those days when he knew he could not avoid her, he pulled his shell so tightly around him he felt suffocated by it, constrained so that he moved awkwardly, and he knew that was all right, in character for Tom. He tried not to look at her directly ever. Sometimes she ordered him, "Look up here, Tom. Tell me the truth. Any dreams?"

    He looked at her chin, or her iron-gray hair that was thin enough that her scalp showed through like a wad of pink chewing gum. He looked at her earlobe, or the gold chain that tethered her reading glasses.

    He now knew where he was, on a college campus. Tom had simply been here. The campus was not very large.

    The school was private, very prestigious, a few miles north of Denver. The student body hovered around five hundred.

    Dr. Brandywine's department of psychology was housed in a red brick building. Dr. Margolis's department of computer science was in the large building where the cafeteria was located; one wing was student dormitories. Dr. Schumaker was in the department of mathematics in the science building on the far side of the campus. He was there only one day a week. Those were the only three people he was interested in, and afraid of.

    Every Friday afternoon he checked in at Dr. Brandywine's office and was handed an envelope with forty dollars in it. He never said anything, and usually neither did the person on the other side of the desk. When it was the young woman who wore glasses as large as saucers, and had a braid that went down to her waist, she spoke pleas m antly, called him Tom, said something like have a nice weekend. He didn't know her name.

    He was beginning to remember other places: a desert ringed by buttes and mountains; a semicircular volcanic caldera; a pine forest with sunlight streaking in horizontally;

    a misty, dripping forest of fir trees.

    One night he came wide awake with the name Nell in his head, on his tongue.

    "Nell," he said.

    "Nell." No picture came with it. Just the name. He got up and prowled around the dark apartment. Nell. Nell.

    Tom never woke up at night, never turned on lights after going to bed, and he didn't this night, but neither could he go back to sleep. He pulled the notebook from under his mattress, groped for the pen, and took them to the kitchen table in the dark. A sliver of light came in around the edges of the shade, not enough for him to read by, but enough to see the blank white paper. He had written nothing in the notebook yet. Now he did: Nell, and in a second he added another name: Travis. He couldn't make out the letters, but he knew what he had written.

    He beat his hand against the tabletop, then grasped the pen again and stared at his fingers. The hand had written before, unbidden: It had told him not to take the medicine.

    That other one who was not Tom had communicated with him. Do it again! He tried to relax his fingers, to ease the tightness in his arm and shoulder, and finally he wrote forbidden name and then let the pen drop to the table.

    He got up and went to the living room window to look out at the parking lot, at the looming building beyond it.

    A lighted stairwell, a few lights in windows up there, no one in sight. And he thought, forbidden. Not forgotten, but forbidden.

    April passed. May was hot and the drought returned, threatening to scorch the grass. He mulched, and mowed, and pruned. He waxed the floors and carried out trash.

    He could walk away. No one really paid any attention to him. Take your medicine. Any more episodes? Any dreams? He knew they would come after him and bring him back if he left, but more than that, he had to stay because he had to find that forbidden name. It was here.

    The grounds were ready for commencement exercises;

    a platform had been erected and draped with blue and orange, the school colors. Canopies were in place; long tables were decorated with flowers for the reception. The graduates and their families and guests had not yet arrived but would within the next half hour or so.

    He was rising from pulling out a stray weed from the bed of cannas in front of the administration building when he came face to face with Dr. Schumaker. He turned and fled. He did not stop running until he was around the corner of the building, and then he walked very fast to the back where deliveries were made. He sank to the ground behind a dumpster, breathing hard. Stupid, he thought, stupid to bolt like that, give himself away through something like that. Stupid. He stared ahead, but he was watching Dr. Schumaker. Without thought he had extended his shell in order to watch, and listen, to see if he had given himself away through such a stupid act as running like that.

    Dr. Schumaker continued to walk. At the door, he looked back, frowning.

    "Morning, Walter," Dr. Brandywine said, joining him.

    "What a long face."

    "I just ran into him, Tom. Why on earth do you keep him around?"

    "Tom? Why not? He's harmless, and a good worker.

    Cheap, too." She laughed softly.

    "Listen, Ruth. I said this before, and I'm saying it now.

    He's a danger to you, to all of us. Get rid of him."

    "Now, Walter, if I didn't know better I'd say that's a guilty conscience talking. Besides, where could he go? At least I can keep an eye on him here. Forget it. Ready to give a rousing send-off speech?"

    His voice dropped to a near-whisper as other people began to draw near.

    "He knows, Ruth. That look on his face ... he knows."

    "Nothing, Walter. He knows nothing. He's good for us.

    A little Lucas-prod keeps us all a bit more honest."

    Lucas! The world changed. Everywhere lines and bands stretched taut, a web of shining lines encased him, choking him, smothering him. He flung up his hand over his eyes and screamed and pitched forward to the ground.

    TWO

    he lay in the dirt in a fetal position, his eyes tightly closed. Voices were everywhere.

    Dr. Schumaker: "... idealists all, striving toward the highest ideals...."

    Dr. Brandywine: "You know I'm the only one who can help you. As long as you're Tom, you're safe.. .."

    Schumaker: "... met by temptation at every step, and you have the inner resources to resist...."

    Brandywine: "He did terrible things. You know that.

    They will give you shock treatments, a lobotomy even.

    Criminally insane...."

    "... inherit a world that appears all evil, but that is an illusion. It appears that the strong force their will upon the weak at every turn, but that is an illusion, also. You are the strong ones. Your youth, your courage, these are the strengths...."

    "Listen to me, Tom. Listen. He must never be allowed out again. Never! Do you understand me?"

    Dr. Margolis: "Good Christ! All that blood!"

    "We have to get him out of here! Don't move, Lucas.

    Just don't move. Find a blanket...."

    "All that blood! It won't work."

    "They can't have him! Get a blanket."

    All that blood! All that blood! All that blood! All thaI can save you. I'll protect you. You have to do exactly what I say. Do you understand?"

    "What you have learned in this academy of the utmost importance, is that you can make a difference, each one of you, in the little things you do every day, and in the big things you do that bring you acclaim...."

    "Tom, if you ever have another episode like this, you must tell me instantly. Instantly. Do you understand? Answer me!"

    "Yes."

    Dr. Margolis: "We have to turn him in. My God, we can't do something like that. Look at him!"

    "... grateful for your birthright, this beautiful land, this beautiful country that is yours, and make the deepest, most heartfelt resolution that that which you find beautiful you will leave even more beautiful...."

    "Wrap him up in it. Pick up your foot, Tom. We've got you; you won't fall. Get the blanket around his shoes. All right. Clean up the computer, get it all out. And I'll take the disks. Give me ten minutes before you call the police."

    "My God, Ruth, the computer's destroyed! Everything's gone! The tape's wiped, everything's gone!"

    "Get the backup disks, you idiot! We have to move!"

    "That's what I'm trying to tell you. They aren't here."

    "They have to be here! Let's get him out to the car and I'll help you look."

    "... only possible expression of gratitude is through service to your fellow man. The smallest act of generosity is magnified a thousand fold

    "That name is forbidden. You will never again think of it. You won't hear it if anyone addresses you by it. You won't see it. The name and everything associated with it are forbidden. You are Tom."

    Good morning Tom. Any more episodes? Any dreams?

    Take your medicine.

    A strange voice, a laughing voice: "You're tangled up in the web? Take the next step, it's easy."

    "... not fame or money, but the realization of the hopes and dreams...."

    "No!" he moaned, his eyes hurting from being closed so hard.