Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip

THE ARTIST DISCOVERS HIS GIFT

1984, Orwell’s year, the global situation quite thoroughly fucked up on schedule, although not quite as fucked up as the pessimistic old bastard had imagined, and in this small town is twelve-year-old Nat Hamlin, barely pubescent, full of ungrounded wattage and churning unfocused needs. Which small town, where? Mind your own business. The boy is slim and tall for his age. Long sensitive fingers. Father wants him to be a brain surgeon. It’s a good living, son, especially now, with all the psychosis flapping in the breeze. You open the skull, you see, and you stick your long sensitive fingers inside and you chop this and you splice that and you amputate this, three thousand dollars, please, and put your money in good growth stocks.

The boy isn’t listening. In the attic he models little clay figurines. He has never been to a museum; he has no interest in art. But there is sensual pleasure, in squeezing and twisting the clay. He feels a lusty tickle in his crotch and a delicious tension in his jaws when he works with it. Filling the attic with grotesque little images. You sure see the world a funny way, boy. You been looking at some Pee-cas-so, hey? Pee-cas-so, who he? He that old mother from France, he make a million bucks a year turning out this junk. No shit? Where can I see some? And going to the museum, two hours away. Pee-cas-so. That’s not how it’s spelled. He’s pretty good, yeah, yeah. But I’m just as good as he is. And I’m just starting out.

SOLITARY PLEASURES

The first major piece now adorns the attic. Three and a half feet high. Adapted from one of Picasso’s paintings: woman with two faces, body twisted weirdly on its perpendicular axis, a veritable bitch of a challenge for a fourteen-year-old boy no matter how good he is. The creator lies naked before it. Straggly mustache. Pimples on his ass. Act of homage to the muse. Seizes rising organ in left hand. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Oooh and ahhh. Sixty seconds: close, to his record for speed. And accuracy of aim. He baptizes the masterpiece with jets of salty fluid. Ah. Ah. Ah.

AN END TO SUBLIMATION

She has long straight silken golden hair in the out-of-date style favored by girls of this town. Rimless glasses, fuzzy green cashmere sweater, short skirt. They are fifteen. He has lured her to the attic after telling her, shyly, anesthetized by pot, that he is a sculptor. She is a poet whose work appears regularly in the town newspaper. Appreciates the arts. This village of philistines; the two of us against them all. Look, this I took from Picasso, and these are my early works, and here’s what I’m doing now. How strange, Nat, what brilliant work. You mean nobody knows about this? Hardly anybody. Who would understand? I understand, Nat. I knew you would, Helene.

You know what? Never worked from a live model. An important step forward in my career. Oh, no, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t I mean, I’d be embarrassed to death! But why? God gave you the body. Look, all through history girls have been posing for famous artists. And I have to. How else will I grow as an artist? She hesitates. Well, maybe. Let’s smoke first. He brings out the stash. She takes two puffs for every one of his. Giggling. He is deadly serious. Reminds her. Yes, yes, yes. You’re sure your mother won’t come upstairs? Not a chance, she doesn’t give a crap what I do up here.

And then. The clothes coming off. Her incandescent body. He can barely look. Fifteen and he’s never seen it. Backward for his age, too much time spent alone in the attic. Sweater, bra. Her breasts are heavy; they don’t stick out straight when they’re bare, they dangle a little. The nipples very tiny, not much bigger than his. Dimples in her ass. The hair down there darker than on her head, and woolier. She looks so incomplete without a prick. His cheeks are blazing. Here, stand like this. Doesn’t dare to touch her. Poses her by waving his hands in air. Wishes she’d stand with her legs apart: he isn’t sure what it looks like, and he can’t see. But she doesn’t. She’s so stoned, though.

He attacks the clay. Yes. Yes. Works furiously. Meanwhile this posing is turning her on. The artist ought to be naked too, she says. It’s only fair. He just laughs. An absurd idea. Couldn’t concentrate if. Half an hour. Sweat running down. Tired of posing, she says. Can I stop? They stop. She comes over to him. Leads him on. Put your hand here. And here. Oh. Oh. Oh. Unzipping him. His dong will explode. Quick, on top of me. Oh. Oh, God!

THE BIG CITY

A small apartment. Dozens of his favorite works crammed around everywhere. The famous art critic visiting him. Tall, serious, silver-haired. The artist is tall and serious too. Nineteen. Why should you go to art school, the critic asks? My boy, you are already a master! Paternal hand fondling Hamlin’s shoulder. What you need now is a dealer. With the right sponsorship you could go places. And how young you are. Cheeks still downy. So saying the famous art critic rubs the downy cheek. Staring intently into young artist’s eyes. You could make me the happiest man in the world tonight, says famous art critic in tender tones.

AT THE GALLERY

Little red circles pasted on every label. Sold. Sold. Sold. Sold. An auspicious debut. All the best people buying. The dealer, fat, glorying in flesh, slapping his back. Twenty-two years old. An instant success. Now scene follows scene helter-skelter, one blurring into the next, sometimes two running at once, split-screen.

THE ADVENT OF PSYCHOSCULPTURE

UNREQUITED LOVE

THE SEDUCTIONS OF WEALTH

THE CELEBRATED ACTRESS

ALONE ON THE PINNACLE

THE TORMENTS OF FAME

THE DAY THE MUSEUM BOUGHT EVERYTHING

MEETING HELENE AGAIN, FIFTEEN

YEARS LATER

THE WORLD TRAVELER

KICKING THE HABIT

FOUR’S COMPANY,

FIVE’S A CROWD

MY NAME IS LISSA

And the camera speeding up, running wild.

THE ANTIGONE

THE HEADACHE

THE BREAKDOWN

THE FIRST RAPE

FREAKING OUT ON TERROR

THE QUARREL WITH HIS WIFE

FINISHING ANTIGONE

KNOCKING LISSA DOWNSTAIRS

OUT OF HIS MIND

RAPE UPON RAPE

CAUGHT

CONVICTED

OBLITERATED

AWAKENED

And the sequences jumbled.

ALONE ON THE PINNACLE

AN END TO SUBLIMATION

THE BIG CITY

KICKING THE HABIT

OUT OF HIS MIND

AT THE GALLERY

SOLITARY PLEASURES

THE ARTIST DISCOVERS HIS GIFT

Faster and faster. Names, dates, events, aspirations, swirling in a thick soup of memory, everything merging, all detail lost. Perhaps none of it had ever happened.

—Good night, old buddy.

Lissa was crying softly to herself when he got into bed Tuesday night. He touched her arm and she pulled away from him. Afterward she told him she was sorry for being so unfriendly.

On Wednesday morning, setting out for work, Macy thought he saw one of the Rehab Center minions who Gomez had said would be keeping watch over him. A squat, potbellied man standing at the entrance to the building across the street, holding a newspaper. An awkward exchange of guarded glances. From Macy a nicker of a smile. Me and my shadow. Right hand to left shoulder, hup! Left hand to right shoulder, hup! Hands clasped at back of neck, hup, hup, hup!

That night he suggested that they go downtown to a sniffer palace, but Lissa didn’t want to. A quiet evening at home with Brahms and Shostakovich. Near bedtime Lissa said that she had figured out one way for him to get rid of Hamlin.

“How?”

“You could rape somebody and arrange to get caught. And blame it on him. The authorities would see to it that he was completely erased.”

“He’d kill me if we were taken into custody,” Macy said. A crazy idea. A crazy girl. You could rape somebody and arrange to get caught. Within him Hamlin laughed. Lissa cried again that night, and when Macy asked her if he could help her in any way she made no reply.