George Saunders - Tenth of December - Stories

Then I slept the sleep of the dead.

As they say.

VII

Next morning I was still asleep when Abnesti came on the P.A.

“Do you remember yesterday?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“When I asked which gal you’d like to see on the Darkenfloxx™?” he said. “And you said neither?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, that was good enough for me,” he said. “But apparently not good enough for the Protocol Committee. Not good enough for the Three Horsemen of Anality. Come in here. Let’s get started — we’re going to need to do a kind of Confirmation Trial. Oh, this is going to stink.”

I entered the Spiderhead.

Sitting in Small Workroom 2 was Heather.

“So this time,” Abnesti said, “per the Protocol Committee, instead of me asking you which girl to give the Darkenfloxx™ to, which the ProtComm felt was too subjective, we’re going to give this girl the Darkenfloxx™ no matter what you say. Then see what you say. Like yesterday, we’re going to put you on a drip of — Verlaine? Verlaine? Where are you? Are you there? What is it again? Do you have the project order?”

“Verbaluce™, VeriTalk™, ChatEase™,” Verlaine said over the P.A.

“Right,” Abnesti said. “And did you refresh his MobiPak™? Are his quantities good?”

“I did it,” Verlaine said. “I did it while he was sleeping. Plus I already told you I already did it.”

“What about her?” Abnesti said. “Did you refresh her MobiPak™? Are her quantities good?”

“You stood right there and watched me, Ray,” Verlaine said.

“Jeff, sorry,” Abnesti said to me. “We’re having a little tension in here today. Not an easy day ahead.”

“I don’t want you to Darkenfloxx™ Heather,” I said.

“Interesting,” he said. “Is that because you love her?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want you to Darkenfloxx™ anybody.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “That is so sweet. Then again: Is this Confirmation Trial about what you want? Not so much. What it’s about is us recording what you say as you observe Heather getting Darkenfloxxed™. For five minutes. Five-minute trial. Here we go. Drip on?”

I did not say “Acknowledge.”

“You should feel flattered,” Abnesti said. “Did we choose Rogan? Keith? No. We deemed your level of speaking more commensurate with our data needs.”

I did not say “Acknowledge.”

“Why so protective of Heather?” Abnesti said. “One would almost think you loved her.”

“No,” I said.

“Do you even know her story?” he said. “You don’t. You legally can’t. Does it involve whiskey, gangs, infanticide? I can’t say. Can I imply, somewhat peripherally, that her past, violent and sordid, did not exactly include a dog named Lassie and a lot of family talks about the Bible while Grammy sat doing macramé, adjusting her posture because the quaint fireplace was so sizzling? Can I suggest that, if you knew what I know about Heather’s past, making Heather briefly sad, nauseous, and/or horrified might not seem like the worst idea in the world? No, I can’t.”

“All right, all right,” I said.

“You know me,” he said. “How many kids do I have?”

“Five,” I said.

“What are their names?” he said.

“Mick, Todd, Karen, Lisa, Phoebe,” I said.

“Am I a monster?” he said. “Do I remember birthdays around here? When a certain individual got athlete’s foot on his groin on a Sunday, did a certain other individual drive over to Rexall and pick up the cream, paying for it with his own personal money?”

That was a nice thing he’d done, but it seemed kind of unprofessional to bring it up now.

“Jeff,” Abnesti said. “What do you want me to say here? Do you want me to say that your Fridays are at risk? I can easily say that.”

Which was cheap. My Fridays meant a lot to me, and he knew that. Fridays I got to Skype Mom.

“How long do we give you?” Abnesti said.

“Five minutes,” I said.

“How about we make it ten?” Abnesti said.

Mom always looked heartsick when our time was up. It had almost killed her when they arrested me. The trial had almost killed her. She’d spent her savings to get me out of real jail and in here. When I was a kid, she’d had long brown hair, past her waist. During the trial she cut it. Then it went gray. Now it was just a white poof about the size of a cap.

“Drip on?” Abnesti said.

“Acknowledge,” I said.

“Okay to pep up your language centers?” he said.

“Fine,” I said.

“Heather, hello?” he said.

“Good morning!” Heather said.

“Drip on?” he said.

“Acknowledge,” Heather said.

Abnesti used his remote.

The Darkenfloxx™ started flowing. Soon Heather was softly crying. Then was up and pacing. Then jaggedly crying. A little hysterical, even.

“I don’t like this,” she said, in a quaking voice.

Then she threw up in the trash can.

“Speak, Jeff,” Abnesti said to me. “Speak a lot, speak in detail. Let’s make something useful of this, shall we?”

Everything in my drip felt Grade A. Suddenly I was waxing poetic. I was waxing poetic re what Heather was doing, and waxing poetic re my feelings about what Heather was doing. Basically, what I was feeling was: Every human is born of man and woman. Every human, at birth, is, or at least has the potential to be, beloved of his/her mother/father. Thus every human is worthy of love. As I watched Heather suffer, a great tenderness suffused my body, a tenderness hard to distinguish from a sort of vast existential nausea; to wit, why are such beautiful beloved vessels made slaves to so much pain? Heather presented as a bundle of pain receptors. Heather’s mind was fluid, and could be ruined (by pain, by sadness). Why? Why was she made this way? Why so fragile?

Poor child, I was thinking, poor girl. Who loved you? Who loves you?

“Hang in there, Jeff,” Abnesti said. “Verlaine! What do you think? Any vestige of romantic love in Jeff’s Verbal Commentary?”

“I’d say no,” Verlaine said over the P.A. “That’s all just pretty much basic human feeling right there.”

“Excellent,” Abnesti said. “Time remaining?”

“Two minutes,” Verlaine said.

I found what happened next very hard to watch. Under the influence of the Verbaluce™, the VeriTalk™, and the ChatEase™, I also found it impossible not to narrate.

In each Workroom was a couch, a desk, and a chair, all, by design, impossible to disassemble. Heather now began disassembling her impossible-to-disassemble chair. Her face was a mask of rage. She drove her head into the wall. Like a wrathful prodigy, Heather, beloved of someone, managed, in her great sadness-fueled rage, to disassemble the chair while continuing to drive her head into the wall.

“Jesus,” Verlaine said.

“Verlaine, buck up,” Abnesti said. “Jeff, stop crying. Contrary to what you might think, there’s not much data in crying. Use your words. Don’t make this in vain.”

I used my words. I spoke volumes, was precise. I described and redescribed what I was feeling as I watched Heather do what she now began doing, intently, almost beautifully, to her face/head with one of the chair legs.

In his defense, Abnesti was not in such great shape himself: breathing hard, cheeks candy red, as he tapped the screen of his iMac nonstop with a pen, something he did when stressed.

“Time,” he finally said, and cut the Darkenfloxx™ off with his remote. “Fuck. Get in there, Verlaine. Hustle it.”

Verlaine hustled into Small Workroom 2.

“Talk to me, Sammy,” Abnesti said.

Verlaine felt for Heather’s pulse, then raised his hands, palms up, so that he looked like Jesus, except shocked instead of beatific, and also he had his glasses up on top of his head.