Sam Lipsyte - The Subject Steve

"Cabin visit."

"Are you going to tuck me in?"

"I could, but then you'd just get up again to proceed with your wheelchair assignations."

"No secrets around here, huh?"

"Renee," said Heinrich. "Poor kid came here thinking about miracles. Just like you. People get crazy ideas. Even smart people like Renee. They think they're going to overcome their personal tragedies. They employ the phrase 'personal tragedy.' But I have deep feeling for Renee, I do. Marooned colonies of feeling, even."

"No respect for Velcro, either."

"Privacy's a dead end, Steve. What's the saying? Last refuge of scumbags?"

"Do you read everyone's items?"

"I paid for the pen, man. And the paper. So, how did you like being shot at today?"

"Is that what that was?"

"Toughie. How's your mysterious rot going?"

"I'm not sure."

"That's a good sign."

"The symptoms come and go."

"As they will."

"It's not all in my head."

"Hey, if it's in your head it's in you."

"I'll try to remember that," I said. "Or my head will. What were you doing to Trubate in the mothering hut?"

"Midwifery."

"What happened?"

"You were there."

"Is he dead?"

"Why would he be dead?"

"Because his things were still here. Because I heard those screams. Because you-"

"Careful now. I what?"

"I don't know."

"No, you don't, do you? You're deducing again."

"I want to leave here."

"And go where?"

"Home."

"Where would that be?"

"Shit," I said, "you tell me."

I threw a fit. I decided to throw a fit. It was a technique I'd honed at the agency. Sometimes, uncertain times, it proved judicious to appear unhinged. A timely spaz bespoke passion, salary-worth. Mine were maybe tantamount to office culture, too, like the late-night car service or the Monday massage. Don't pitch a Steve, people would admonish, except they said something else because as I may have mentioned, my name isn't Steve. Now I careened around the cabin looking for props. Swipes and kicks were a crucial part of the show. I started for the Coleman, dreaming of a drywood blaze. Heinrich stuck his foot out. There was time to clear it but I tripped anyway. The finish is the hardest part of the fit. That foot was a gift.

"Calm yourself," said Heinrich.

"Thank you," I said.

"Are you calm?"

"Extremely fucking calm."

Heinrich put his hand out.

"Listen," he said. "This is your home. You have to accept that fact. Acceptance is the key to everything. I need you to be the hero of your own life, Steve. Also, I need your help."

"My help."

"Work for me, son. Don't be embarrassed. The dependence of a great man upon a greater is a subjection that lower men cannot easily comprehend."

"Who said that?"

"Halifax."

"I wouldn't know him."

"I read his maxims on the can. The cheese spread has real possibilities. We need some snap. We need some pop. Soft cheese for a soft touch."

"Now you're quoting me quoting myself."

"Too heavy for me," said Heinrich. "The levels, the levels. But I know you'll do us proud. One more thing. Don't ever sneak up on me at the hut again. I'll put one in your neck. Now, let me see your eyes. That's what I thought."

"What?"

"More dimness. Less flickering."

The ant trundling a piece of thread across my windowsill had a brain punier than the blackhead I was teasing out of my nose with opposed thumbnails, but he must dream, mustn't he? Of what? Love? Work? Popcorn skins? Bolts of lint? Maze rats dreamed of mazes, according to the latest studies. Maze rat scientists dreamed of rats. I was dreaming of cheese.

I scoured my corporate memory for all those phrases we used to bat around in lieu of competence. Brand leverage, brand agility, viral replication of the core brand identity. How about isotopic marketing? Meme buzz? Meme juice? Brand spill? The older types, the so-called salesmen, they'd laugh at us, go on about how there was no difference between hawking a webcasting network and an oatmeal cookie. Then they'd beg us for cocaine. Me, I was never much of a salesman. Sometimes, in my cups, or in a moment of weak arrogance, I called myself a court poet in the multinational kingdom. Better days I'd just call myself a hack and get on with the work.

Renee lay beside me in my cot, the Tenets tilted on her belly.

"Don't pop it," she said.

"Why not?"

"I want to."

I tendered my nose to the lamplight.

"Go ahead."

"Hey," said Renee, "did you know Heinrich has a son? Or had a son?"

"It says that in the book? I missed it. Ow!"

"There," said Renee, held out the dark squiggle, my coagulated essence, in her palm. "It's vague, towards the end of the preface: 'My only issue emerged somewhat amphibious, due to pharmaceutical miscalculation on the part of his mother. He lived for a while in a ventilated, see-through tube. Then he returned to precellular nullity.' "

"That's not so vague. How could I have missed that?"

"I think I have an older edition."

"Why would he take it out?"

"Why would he put it in?" said Renee. "At least like that?"

"That's part of his appeal."

"Appeals to you, maybe."

"What aspect of the master most pleases you, young novice?"

"His shoulders. From behind he looks like my father."

"Women and their fathers," I said.

"Is that supposed to be insightful?"

"It's a saying," I said.

"You have a daughter, don't you?"

"I did. I definitely did."

"You're breaking my heart. I feel my heart actually cleaving. Is cleaving the word?"

"We thought the school was a good idea."

"I'm sure it was. It's you and your wife that weren't such a good idea."

"We tried."

"That's what I mean."

"Lay off, okay? I want to ask you something. Did you know Heinrich reads our item books?"

"We give them to him. Before we're mothered by fire."

"I mean all the time."

"I don't think so."

"He read mine."

"He must like you."

"I don't trust the bastard."

"Don't talk that way, Steve."

"I'm not Steve."

"You keep saying that. I'm all for mantras, but really, the trick is to find one that isn't so rooted in negation."

"Listen, why don't you drag your numb ass back into your little fucking go-cart and get lost. I have work to do."

The compound was quiet tonight, lit low by a pale slice of moon in the sky. The wind carried moans of milk cows in their stalls. Renee wheeled off near the dining-hall door without a word. She'd been crying. I'd thought she'd been sneezing but she told me through snot-wet bursts that this was how she cried. Wires crossed up after the accident. Not that I would care. Now I looked over towards Heinrich's cabin. He sat near the window, reading by candlelight. Strains of some cantata poured through the crevices of his home. His sloped shoulders bucked with what looked to be spasms of amusement. Maybe Renee's father laughed like that. I sneaked up to the sill. Let him put one in my neck, I thought.

Heinrich saw me, cracked his window.

"Evening," he said. "Out for a stroll?"

He laid the pamphlet he was reading on the sill. Adult Children of War Criminals: A Copebook .

"Cheese to Ease the Disease," I said.

"Not bad," said Heinrich.

"It's terrible," I said.

"Yes," said Heinrich, "it is."

"I don't have to help you, you know."

"It's a free country. A dry county, but a free country."

"I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here. I think it's some bizarre belief that the more ridiculous the situation is, the better the chances of something good coming from it."

"That is bizarre," said Heinrich.

"You don't have the fucking cure," I said.

"Good night, Steve."

"You know, you could go to prison for what you're doing here."