Jonathan Lethem - Men and Cartoons

Adam Cressner began speaking. At first it seemed a hollow gambit, an attempt to distract us from Doe's testimony by non sequitur. “When I was last in Germany, I visited the Glyptotek in Munich,” he said. “It's full of statuary the Europeans ripped out of the old temples. They've got a Roman copy of a Greek marble by Boëthus — the original's in the Vatican — showing a boy with a goose. The bird's practically as big as the boy, and they're wrestling. The kid's got the goose by the neck. A museum guard came up behind me, he saw I was transfixed by this sculpture, and he uttered this line I'll never forget, it shot through me like a bolt: ‘Spielend, doch, mit toedlichem Griff.' He thinks it's a game, but he's choking the goose . But in the guard's High German it was more allusive and grand—‘playing, but with a deadly grip.'”

“Like something from Rilke,” said Roberta Jar.

Oh yes, I thought viciously, Rilke and High German after four or five beers. You're both such fine people. However slow my uptake, a picture formed: I now supposed Doe's dissertation had been in art history, for example. And that Adam Cressner and Roberta Jar had together known, from intimate experience, how easily Doe might be induced to turn herself inside out for us.

I wanted revenge on Doe's behalf. “I've never,” I said loudly.

All stared. I began again. “I've never pretended I was a character from a comic book. Never, say, dressed up in a superhero costume, not even on Halloween.” I glared at Adam Cressner: Let him eat cape.

It was Roberta Jar who drew our attention, though, by lifting her bottle high, as if to toast again before she sipped. We looked to her as we had to Doe.

“I met a man once,” Roberta said. “I liked this man, well, very, very much. This was eight years ago now.” She lolled her big head, a little shy to tell it, though her voice was still strong and resonant in her chest. “When we began to see one another, this man and I, there was something between us that was difficult, a secret — a secret priority in his life. It had to do with this, exactly: dressing up as a character from a comic book. And this priority was difficult for both of us.”

She'd turned my hostile joke into another confession, to give Doe company. We listened wide-eyed — I caught Flour glancing at me, likely wondering how I'd known to ask the question, as I'd wondered before at Adam Cressner. As for Adam, he sat quietly adoring his paramour while she spilled on.

“I realized I had to learn as much about this as I could, or it would beat us, and I was determined not to be beaten. I discovered that the comic-book character in question had gotten married, to another character, called the Scarlet Witch. I thought this was very unusual, two married superheroes, and I took it as a good sign. So, I went shopping for fabric, and hand-sewed a Scarlet Witch costume. Tights, and pink boots, a sort of pink headpiece to hold back my hair. I did a good job, really impressed myself. It was the most sustained arts-and-crafts project of my life, actually.”

Roberta paused, and in the silence we were allowed to sense the result of her efforts, a climax as inevitable and in its way as horrible as the kitten's execution. I wondered if Adam still wore the red food coloring for face paint, or whether he'd found some better method, easier to remove when he'd wanted to pass for a mere Columbia professor. I thought of the Scarlet Witch as I knew her from Marvel Comics, an exotic beauty whose powers, loosely defined as “sorcery,” mostly consisted of throwing up pink force fields, but whose real achievement was a stoical, unwavering devotion to her Spock-like emotional mute of a husband.

I looked again to Adam Cressner. I still faintly wished for the satisfaction of an unmasking, but his eyes gave me nothing. Adam Cressner was as little interested in my impressions of his Visionhood as he'd been at second base, all those years ago. He hadn't even sipped his beer to confess the truth.

“I have to go,” said Doe suddenly. She flinched her head from me, from all of us, hastily gathered a load of beer bottles into the kitchen and rinsed them in the sink. I wondered if she'd also been enticed into a costume — Ant-Girl, or Thumbelina.

“Well, anyway, that's my story,” said Roberta, the sardonic twang restored to her voice. One of the men gave an artificial laugh, barely adequate to break the tension. It was only now that Adam Cressner followed the game's protocol and also drank. I'd had my answer, though not as I'd wanted it, from Adam's mouth. I don't even know whether Flour or the two men had any understanding of what had happened — for all Roberta had told us, the man in question could have been someone other than Adam. Strangely, it was as if he and I were allies, having each forced confession from the other's woman. Except that neither woman was mine, and both might be his.

“A beautiful story it is,” said Adam Cressner. “With that we'll see our dear guests to the door, yes?”

No one resisted. The spell was broken. We were in some way broken, shattered by the game, unable to recover any sense of delight in one another's company, if we'd ever had that — I no longer knew. We cleared bottles, shuffled chairs, mumbled excuses, made promises to be in touch, to forward one another's e-mail addresses, which rang hollow. Within ten minutes we were out on the street, each headed home alone. At least I think we were alone. Certainly Doe strolled away, apart from the others, a tiny figure vanishing on the pavement, before I'd turned my back and descended into my basement entrance, before I'd even had a chance to wish her good night or kiss her equivocally on the cheek. It's possible one of Flour's suitors followed her home, but I doubt it. It had all been a little much for us poor singles, the tyranny of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

THERE WAS A START-UP ABOUT A HALF MILE ahead the day before, a fever of distant engines and horns honking as others signaled their excitement — a chance to move! — and so he'd spent the day jammed behind the wheel, living in his Apartment on Tape, waiting for that chance, listening under the drone of distant helicopters to hear the start-up make its way downtown. But the wave of revving engines stalled before reaching his street. He never even saw a car move, just heard them. In fact he couldn't remember seeing a car move recently. Perhaps the start-up was only a panic begun by someone warming their motor, reviving their battery. That night he'd dreamed another start-up, or perhaps it was real, a far-off flare that died before he'd even ground the sleep out of his eyes, though in the rustle of his waking thoughts it was a perfect thing, coordinated, a dance of cars shifting through the free-flowing streets. Dream or not, either way, didn't matter. He fell back asleep. What woke him in the morning was the family in the Pacer up ahead cooking breakfast. They had a stove on the roof of their car and the dad was grilling something they'd bought from the flatbed shepherd two blocks away, a sheepsteak or something. It smelled good. Everything about the family in the Pacer made him too conscious of his wants. The family's daughter — she was beautiful — had been working as Advertising, pushing up against and through the One-Way Permeable Barrier on behalf of some vast faceless corporation. That being the only way through the One-Way Permeable Barrier, of course. So the family, her ma and pa, were flush, had dough, and vendors knew to seek them out, hawking groceries. Whereas checking his pockets he didn't have more than a couple of dollars. There was a coffee-and-doughnuts man threading his way through the traffic even now but coffee was beyond his means. He needed money. Rumors had it Welfare Helicopters had been sighted south of East One Thousand, One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth Street, and a lot of people had left their cars, drifted down that way, looking for easy cash. Which was one reason the start-up died, it occurred to him — too many empty cars. Along with the cars that wouldn't start anymore, like the old lady in the Impala beside him, the dodderer. She'd given up, spent most days dozing in the backseat. Her nephew from a few blocks away came over and tinkered with her engine now and again but it wasn't helping. It just meant the nephew wasn't at his wheel for the start-up, another dead spot, another reason not to bother waiting to move. Probably he thought now he should have walked downtown himself in search of welfare money drifting down from the sky. The state helicopters weren't coming around this neighborhood much lately. Alas. The air was crowded with commercial hovercraft instead, recruiters, Advertising robots rounding up the girl from the Pacer and others like her, off to the world on the other side of the One-Way Permeable Barrier, however briefly. The world of apartments, real ones. Though it was morning he went back to his latest Apartment on Tape, which was a four-bedroom two-bath co-op on East One Thousand, Two Hundred and Fifteenth Street, just a few blocks away but another world of course, remote from his life on the street, sealed off from it by the One-Way Permeable Barrier. He preferred the early part of the tape, before any of the furnishings arrived, so he rewound to that part and put the tape on slow and lived in the rooms as hard as he could, ignoring the glare of sun through his windshield that dulled his view of the dashboard television, ignoring the activities of the family in the Pacer up ahead as they clambered in and out of the hatchback, ignoring the clamor of his own pangs. The realtor's voice was annoying, it was a squawking, parroty voice so he kept the volume down as always and lived in the rooms silently, letting his mind sweep in and haunt the empty spaces, the rooms unfolding in slow motion for the realtor's camera. While the camera lingered in the bathroom he felt under his seat for his bottle and unzipped and peed, timed so it matched to the close-up of the automatic flushing of the toilet on his television. Then the camera and his attention wandered out into the hall. That's when he noticed it, the shadow. Just for a moment. He rewound to see it again. On the far wall of the hallway, framed perfectly for an instant in the lens, was the silhouette of a struggle, a man with his hands on the neck of another, smaller. A woman. Shaking her by the neck for that instant, before the image vanished. Like a pantomime of murder, a Punch-and-Judy show hidden in the Apartment on Tape. But real, it had to be real. Why hadn't he noticed before? He'd watched this tape dozens of times. He rewound again. Just barely, but still. Unmistakable, however brief. The savagery of it was awful. If only he could watch it frame by frame — slow motion was disastrously fast now. Who was the killer? The landlord? The realtor? Why? Was the victim the previous tenant? Questions, he had questions. He felt himself begin to buzz with them, come alive. Slow motion didn't seem particularly slow precisely because his attention had quickened. Yes, a job of detection was just what he needed to roust himself out of the current slump, burn off the torpor of too many days locked in the jam at the same damn intersection — why hadn't he gone downtown at that last turnoff, months ago? Well, anyway. He watched it again, memorized the shadow, the silhouette, imagined blurred features in the slurry of video fuzz, memorized the features, what the hell. Like a police sketch, work from his own prescient hallucinations. Again. It grew sharper every time. He'd scrape a hole in this patch of tape, he knew, if he rewound too many times. Better to have the tape, the evidence, all there was at this point. He popped the video, threw it in a satchel with notebook, eyeglasses. Extra socks. Outside, locked the car, tipped an imaginary hat at the old lady, headed east by foot on West One Thousand, Two Hundred and Eighth Street. He had to duck uptown two blocks to avoid a flotilla of Sanitation hovertrucks spraying foamy water to wash cars sealed up tight against this artificial rain but also soaking poor jerks asleep, drenching interiors, the rotted upholstery and split spongy dashboards, extinguishing rooftop bonfires, destroying box gardens, soap bubbles poisoning the feeble sprouts. Children screamed and giggled, the streets ran with water, sluicing shit here and there into drains, more often along under the tires to the unfortunate neighboring blocks, everyone moaning and lifting their feet clear. Just moving it around, that's all. At the next corner he ran into a crowd gathered staring at a couple of young teenage girls from inside, from the apartments, the other side of the barrier. They'd come out of the apartment building on rollerblades to sightsee, to slum on the streets. Sealed in a murky bubble of the One-Way Permeable Barrier they were like apparitions, dim ghosts, though you could hear them giggle as they skated through the hushed, reverent crowd. Like a sighting of gods, these teenage girls from inside. No one bothered to spare-change them or bother them in any way because of the barrier. The girls of course were oblivious behind their twilight veil, like night things come into the day, though for them probably it was the people in cars and around the cars that appeared dim, unreachable. He shouldered his way through the dumbstruck crowd and once past this obstacle he found his man, locked into traffic like all the rest, right where he'd last seen him. The Apartments on Tape dealer, his connection, sunbathing in a deck chair on the roof of his Sentra, eating a sandwich. The backseat was stacked with realtors' tapes, apartment porn, and on the passenger seat two video decks for dubbing. His car in a sliver of morning sun that shone across the middle of the block, benefit of a chink in the canyon of towers that surrounded them. The dealer's neighbors were on their car roofs as well, stretching in the sun, drying clothes. “Hello there, remember me? That looks good what you're eating, anyway, I want to talk to you about this tape.” “No refunds,” said the dealer, not even looking down. “No, that's not it, I saw something, can we watch it together?” “No need since there's no refunds and I'm hardly interested—” “Listen, this is a police matter, I think—” “You're police then, is that what you're saying?” still not looking down. “No no, I fancy myself a private detective, though not to say I work outside the law, more adjacent, then turn it over to them if it serves justice, there's so often corruption—” “So turn it over,” the dealer said. “Well if you could just have a look I'd value your opinion. Sort of pick your brain,” thinking flattery or threats, should have chosen one approach with this guy, stuck with it. The dealer said, “Sorry, day off,” still not turning his head, chewing off another corner of sandwich. Something from inside the sandwich fell, a chunk of something, fish maybe, onto the roof of the car. “The thing is I think I saw a murder, on the tape, in the apartment.” “That's highly unlikely.” “I know, but that's what I saw.” “Murder, huh?” The dealer didn't sound at all impressed. “Bloody body parts, that sort of thing?” “No, don't be absurd, just a shadow, just a trace.” “Hmmm.” “You never would have noticed in passing. Hey, come to think of it, you don't have an extra sandwich do you?” “No, I don't. So would you describe this shadow as sort of a flicker then, like a malfunction?” “No, absolutely not. It's part of the tape.” “Not your monitor on the fritz?” “No”—he was getting angry now—“a person, a shadow strangling another shadow.” The chunk of sandwich filling on the car roof was sizzling slightly, changing color already in the sun. The dealer said, “Shadows, hmmm. Probably a gimmick, subliminal special effects or something.” “What? What reason would a realtor have for adding special effects for God's sake to an apartment tape?” “Maybe they think it adds some kind of allure, some thrill of menace that makes their apartments stand out from the crowd.” “I doubt very much—” “Maybe they've become aware of the black market in tapes lately, that's the word on the street in fact, and so they're trying to send a little message. They don't like us ogling their apartments, even vicariously.” “You can't ogle vicariously, I think. Sounds wrong. Anyway, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever—” “Or maybe I'm in on it, maybe I'm the killer, have you considered that?” “Now you're making fun of me.” “Why? If you can solve crimes on the other side of the barrier why can't I commit them?” The dealer laughed, hyena-like. “Now seriously,” he continued, “if you want to exchange for one without a murder I'll give you a credit toward the next, half what you paid—” “No thanks. I'll hold on to it.” Discouraged, hungry, but he couldn't really bother being angry. What help did he expect from the dealer anyway? This was a larger matter, above the head of a mere middleman. “Good luck, Sherlock,” the dealer was saying. “Spread word freely, by the way, don't hold back. Can't hurt my sales any. People like murder, only it might be good if there was skin instead of only shadow, a tit say.” “Yes, very good then, appreciate your help. Carry on.” The dealer saluted. He saluted back, started off through the traffic, stomach growling, ignoring it, intent. A killer was at large. Weaving past kids terrorizing an entire block of cars with an elaborate tag game, cornering around the newly washed neighborhood now wringing itself out, muddy streams between the cars and crying babies ignoring vendors with items he couldn't afford and a flatbed farmer offering live kittens for pets or food and a pathetic miniature start-up, three cars idiotically nosing rocking jerking back and forth trying to rearrange themselves pointlessly, one of them now sideways wheels on the curb and nobody else even taking the bait he made his way back to his car and key in the lock noticed the girl from the Pacer standing in her red dress on the hood of the car gazing skyward, waiting for the Advertising people to take her away. Looking just incidentally like a million bucks. Her kid brother was away, maybe part of the gang playing tag, and her parents were inside the car doing housework Dad scraping the grill out the window Mom airing clothes repacking bundles so he went over, suddenly inspired. “Margaret, isn't it?” She nodded, smiled. “Yes, good, well you remember me from next door, I'm looking for a day or two's work and do you think they'll take me along?” She said, “You never know, they just take you or they don't.” Smiling graciously even if a little confused, neighbors so long and they'd never spoken. “But you always—” he began pointing out. She said, “Oh once they've started taking you then—” Awkwardly, they were both awkward for a moment not saying what they both knew or at least he did, that she was an attractive young girl and likely that made a huge difference in whether they wanted you. “Well you wouldn't mind if I tried?” he said and she said, “No, no,” relieved almost, then added, “I can point you out, I can suggest to them—” Now he was embarrassed and said hurriedly, “That's so good of you, thanks, and where should I wait, not here with you at your folks' car, I guess—” “Why not, climb up.” Dad looked out the door up at them and she waved him off. “It's okay, you know him from next door he's going to work, we're going to try to get him a job Advertising.” “Okay, sweetheart, just checking on you.” Then she grabbed his arm, said, “Look.” The Advertising hovercraft she'd been watching for landed on the curb a half block ahead, near the giant hideous sculpture at an office building main entrance, lately sealed. Dad said, “Get going you guys, and good luck,” and she said, “C'mon.” Such neighborliness was a surprise since he'd always felt shut out by the family in the Pacer but obviously it was in his head. And Margaret, a cloud of good feeling seemed to cover her. No wonder they wanted her for Advertising. “Hurry,” she said and took his hand and they hopped down and pushed their way around the cars and through the chaos of children and barking dogs and vendors trying to work the crowd of wannabes these landings always provoked, to join the confused throng at the entrance. He held on to his satchel with the video and his socks making sure it didn't get picked in this crowd. She bounced there trying to make herself visible until one of the two robots at the door noticed her and pointed. They stepped up. “Inside,” said the robot. They were ugly little robots with their braincases undisguised and terrible attitudes. He disliked them instantly. “I brought someone new,” she said, pulling him by the hand, thrusting him into view. “Yes, sir, I'd like to enlist—” he started, grinning madly, wanting to make a good impression. The robot looked him over and made its rapid-fire assessment, nodded. “Get inside,” it said. “Lucky,” she whispered, and they stepped into the hovercraft. Four others were there, two men, two women, all young. And another woman stumbled in behind them, and the door sealed, and they were off. Nasty little robots scurrying into the cockpit, making things ready. “Now what?” he said and she put her finger to her lips and shushed him, but sweetly, leaning into him as if to say they were in this together. He wanted to tell her what he was after but the robots might hear. Would they care? Yes, no, he couldn't know. Such ugly, fascistic little robots. Nazi robots, that's what they were. He hated placing himself in their hands. But once he was Advertising he would be through the barrier, he'd be able to investigate. Probably he should keep his assignment to himself, though. He didn't want to get her into trouble. The hovercraft shuddered, groaned, then lifted and through the window he could see the cars growing smaller, his neighborhood, his life, the way the traffic was so bad for hundreds of miles of street and why did he think a start-up would change anything? Was there a place where cars really drove anymore? Well, anyway. The robots were coming around with the Advertising Patches and everyone leaned their heads forward obediently, no first-timers like himself apparently. He did the same. A robot fastened a patch behind his right ear, a moment of stinging skin, nothing more. Hard to believe the patch was enough to interfere with the function of the One-Way Permeable Barrier, that he would now be vivid and tangible and effective to those on the other side. “I don't feel any different,” he whispered. “You won't,” she said, “not until there's people. Then you'll be compelled to Advertise. You won't be able to help it.” “For what, though?” “You never know, coffee, diamonds, condoms, vacations, you just never know.” “Where—” “They'll drop us off at the Undermall, then we're on our own.” “Will we be able to stick together?” The question was out before he could wonder if it was presuming too much, but she said, “Sure, as long as our products aren't too incompatible, but we'll know soon. Anyway, just follow me.” She really had a warmth, a glow. Incompatible products? Well, he'd find out what that meant. The hovercraft bumped down on the roof of a building, and with grim efficiency the ugly Nazi robots had the door open and were marching the conscripts out to a rooftop elevator. He wanted to reach out and smack their little exposed-braincase heads together. But he had to keep his cool, stay undercover. He trotted across the roof toward the elevator after her, between the rows of officious gesticulating robots, like they were going to a concentration camp. The last robot at the door of the elevator handed them each an envelope before they stepped in. He took his and moved into the corner with Margaret, they were really packing them in but he couldn't complain actually being jostled with her and she didn't seem to be trying to avoid it. He poked into the envelope. It was full of bills, singles mostly. The money was tattered and filthy, bills that had been taken out of circulation on the other side of the barrier. Garbage money, that's what it was. The others had already pocketed theirs, business as usual apparently. “Why do they pay us now?” he whispered. She said, “We just find our way out at the end, when the patch runs out, so this way they don't have to deal with us again,” and he said, “What if we just took off with the money?” “You could I guess, but I've never seen anyone do it since you'd never get to come back and anyway the patch makes you really want to Advertise, you'll see.” Her voice was reassuring, like she really wanted him not to worry and he felt rotten not telling her about his investigation, his agenda. He put the envelope into his satchel with tape and socks. The elevator sealed and whooshed them down through the building, into the Undermall, then the doors opened and they unpacked from the elevator, spewed out into a gigantic lobby, all glass and polished steel with music playing softly and escalators going down and up in every direction, escalators with steps of burnished wood that looked good enough to eat, looked like roast chicken. He was still so hungry. Margaret took his hand again. “Let's go,” she said. As the others dispersed she led him toward one of the escalators and they descended. The corridor below branched to shops with recessed entrances, windows dark and smoky, quiet pulsing music fading from each door, also food smells here and there causing his saliva to flow, and holographic signs angling into view as they passed: FERN SLAW, ROETHKE AND SONS, HOLLOW APPEAL, BROKEN SMUDGED ALPHABET, BURGER KING, PLASTIC DEVILS, OSTRICH LAKE, SMARTINGALE'S, RED HARVEST, CATCH OF THE DAY, MUTUAL OF FOMALHAUT, THNEEDS, etcetera. She led him on, confidently, obviously at home. Why not, this was what she did with her days. Then without warning, a couple appeared from around a corner, and he felt himself begin to Advertise. “How do you do today?” he said, sidling up to the gentleman of the couple, even as he saw Margaret begin to do the same thing to the lady. The gentleman nodded at him, walked on. But met his eye. He was tangible, he could be heard. It was a shock. “Thirsty?” he heard himself say. “How long's it been since you had a nice refreshing beer?” “Don't like beer,” said the gentleman. “Can't say why, just never have.” “Then you've obviously never tried a Very Old Money Lager,” he heard himself say, still astonished. The barrier was pierced and he was conversing, he was perceptible. He'd be able to conduct interrogations, be able to search out clues. Meanwhile he heard Margaret saying, “Don't demean your signature with a second-rate writing implement. Once you've tried the Eiger fountain pen you'll never want to go back to those henlike scratchings and scrawlings,” and the woman seemed interested and so Margaret went on “our Empyrean Sterling Silver Collection features one-of-a-kind hand-etched casings—” In fact the man seemed captivated too. He turned ignoring the beer pitch and gave Margaret his attention. “Our brewers handpick the hops and malt,” he was unable to stop though he'd obviously lost his mark, “and every single batch of fire-brewed Very Old Money Lager is individually tasted—” Following the couple through the corridor they bumped into another Advertising woman who'd been on the hovercraft, and she began singing, “Vis-it the