The Placebo Effect
Read The Placebo Effect Online
Authors: David Rotenberg
FOR SUSAN, JOEY AND BETH
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Chapter 1: The Dangerous Voyage of Mike Shedloski Begins
Chapter 2: In The Castle of The Enemy
Chapter 3: Mike Gets the Urge for Going
Chapter 6: Decker Takes a Job, or Two or Three
Chapter 9: The Further Voyage of Michael Shedloski
Chapter 13: Mike At Decker's House
Chapter 14: Henry-Clay's Decision
Chapter 17: The Day After a Fire
Chapter 19: The End of a Long Day
Chapter 21: A Visit to Leavenworth
Chapter 25: Return to Manhattan
Chapter 29: Mac and Henry-Clay
Chapter 35: Has Anyone Seen Mike?
Chapter 36: Movements Toward New Jersey
Chapter 39: HidingâA Column of Smoke Within a Fog
Chapter 41: A Cold Day in New York
Chapter 45: A Cold Night in Toronto
Chapter 47: Cincinnati, Ohio, Two
Chapter 48: Give Dreadful Note of Preparation
Chapter 49: Fight in a Synagogue
Chapter 55: The JunctionâEnd, Full Stop.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them.
M
ACBETH
, A
CT
1, S
CENE
3
I'd like to thank Alison Clarke and Kevin Hanson at Simon & Schuster Canada for their support and valuable input as this manuscript took shape. As well I owe a debt of thanks to Michael Levine, my agent and friend, who has been in my corner for many years now. In addition I'd like to acknowledge the talents of the teachers who work with me at Pro Actors Lab: Bruce, Rae Ellen, John, Marvin, Melee and Glen. Last, and most important, I want to thank the many gifted actors who have submitted to what were at one time my experiments and are now common practices in the profession. This book could not have happened without their talents.
You can't understand how a man lives his life until you understand what he thinks is going to happen to him after he dies.
âA
TTRIBUTED TO DAG HAMMARSKJÃLD, FORMER SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS
DECKER FELT HIMSELF SLIPPING. HE TRIED TO PULL HIMSELF
backâto make it stop. But he felt the cold, and knew there would be blood on his right hand if he looked.
“We do what we do to find our place in the universe,” someone said.
Decker knew where he was. It was 1988; he was twenty-two years old.
He was on the obligatory European promenade between second and third year at university and on a whim had hitchhiked one night down from Paris to Chartres. At dawn he found himself on the steps of the ancient cathedral beside many other backpacked vagabonds. He watched as the day's first light brought the twelve figures above the massive front doors to life. Each figure's fine facial features slowly awakening and accepting their job of both welcoming and warning the faithful.
“It never fails to thrill me,” the same high-class male British voice said.
Decker turned and was surprised to find the voice belonged to a tall, gaunt, middle-aged man wearing a threadbare suitâand not sixteen inches from his left ear.
“Do you know them? Can't understand the message unless you know each statue's story. The left side of the central door has five figures. From outer to inner they follow a chronological order. Outermost is Melchizedek, then Abraham (holding Isaac, whom he is about to sacrificeânote the trapped ram on the pedestal), then Moses holding a tablet and pointing to a brazen serpent, fourth is Samuel sacrificing a lamb, and finally King David carrying a crown of thorns. In some way they all prefigure Christ's sacrifice and passion. You see,” he pointed expansively to the figures, “all the Old Testament prophets lead to the arrival of the King Himself.”
Decker was going to counter that the Old Testament had been rearranged by the newly formed Christians so that it appeared that the prophets and the line of David led directly to the arrival of Christ, but the original order of the Old Testament did nothing of the sort. But before he could speak, the man put out his hand. “Brother Malcolm. I lecture at ten and one and four every day except Sunday, naturally.” Then he said the oddest thing. “Yes, the testaments have been rearranged. But sometimes the truthâHis truthâneeds to be bolstered by a bit of trickery. The falseness does not make the truth any less valid.”
Decker spotted Brother Malcolm again just before ten that morning. He joined the small crowd around the man and listened intently for the hour plus of the man's lecture about the flooring of the east transept and its door leading to what used to be called the Rue des Juifs. At the end of the lecture Brother Malcolm cupped his hands in front of his chest and announced, “I am a mendicant. I live on the generosity of others.” The thirty-odd people who had taken in the lecture put coins and notes into his hands.
At one o'clock that afternoon Decker listened for almost two hours as Brother Malcolm explained in great detail the workings of a cathedral's flying buttress system.
Then at four o'clock he heard Brother Malcolm, brilliantly and in remarkable depth, shed light on the carvings, drawings and
paintings at the first three stations of the cross. Surprisingly, at least to Decker, Brother Malcolm passed right by a newly bricked-in doorway. Beside the door was a small covered opening just large enough for food to be passed through. Decker was about to ask about it when Brother Malcolm shook his head, as if he knew the question before Decker asked it, and he wasn't going to answer.
Decker didn't remember where he slept that night or the next or the next. But he did remember in vivid detail Brother Malcolm's next nine lectures. At the end of the ninthâon the steps of the west transept entranceâhe went to put some coins in Brother Malcolm's cupped hands when the man said to him, “Stand beside me with your hands out as mine are.”
Decker never forgot the feeling of the first coin landing in his palm or the feeling of a burden laid down. Later that night, Decker found himself on the front steps of the cathedral again. And as he slept on his backpack he heard Brother Malcolm ask him, “So, have you decided to stay? I've waited a long time. I'm getting old and someone has to take over my ministry when I'm gone. I'll teach you what I know and this great place of faith will be your home.” Then he added with a knowing look, “It is another path, a way to avoid the room with no windowsâand the hanging man.”
In his dream that night Decker closed his eyesâdeeper darkness within the darkness of sleepâand watched his retina screen. Two identical cubes entered from the left side and slid majestically into the centreâperfect geometric shapes. Brother Malcolm was telling the truth.
Decker felt the cold envelop him and the slime of blood between his fingers. He opened his eyes within the dream and begged the dream to end.
Decker left Chartres before daybreakâbut he never left it very far behind.
THE DANGEROUS VOYAGE OF MIKE SHEDLOSKI BEGINS
ON THE SIDEWALK, ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE MASSIVE
headquarters of Yolles Pharmaceuticals, a six-foot stack of bottles of all sizes and shapes were miraculously balanced, one upon the next, creating the most unlikely tree under the heavens.
Mike Shedloski, a pear-shaped man wearing a dirty Michelin Man coat and frayed bell-bottoms, stood, fat fists pressed against his nonexistent waist, admiring his handiwork. A few feet away, another miracle of balance, this time made from random stones and twice the size of the tree, was clearly a representation of an office tower of some sort.
Mike picked up a hand-painted sign that, in angry red letters, asked “What's Your Ratio!” then began to shout across the road, “Tell the Enemy I worked here. I worked here, I worked here, tell the Enemy that!”
Two security guards, one big the other bigger, raced across the street, nightsticks at the ready.
Mike repeated his claimâ“I worked here!”âas the bigger of the security guards grabbed him.
“I worked here.”
“Sure you did,” the security guard said as the other one knocked down the office tower statue with one simple push. When it fell it revealed another hand-painted sign: “Who's Jumping Now?”