Powers, Richard - Orfeo

He pulls Els into the room. Number 18 is a narrow country. There’s a twin bed, a desk and chair, a tiny dresser, a wall-mount TV, and a wheelchair-accessible bathroom. Richard crosses through the deluxe dorm room to a stack of papers. He picks through the teetering tower. Nothing is what he’s looking for. Els sits, unbidden. An intentional tremor takes Richard’s hands — a vibrato so wide it can only be a side effect of the experimental drug. He’s beyond frail, hulled out, fighting for that lone resource of any consequence, focus.

A shout of triumph— Ha! — and he waves the prize aloft. Here we go . He crosses to where Els sits and hands him the article. It’s about a squad of CIA analysts — self-styled “vengeful librarians”—who spend their lives combing through several million Web posts a day.

What do you think? Richard says . Our next. . our next thing. Show.

Before Els can even stammer, Richard shoves more recent clippings into his hands. There’s an article about the installation artist Ai Weiwei, now languishing somewhere in a Chinese prison for tweeting a post that played on the word jasmine . There’s an article on a blockbuster film about a runaway pandemic, set to be released on September 11. There’s an article about a man arrested for building a nuclear reactor in his kitchen. And, of course, several articles about the Biohacker Bach.

They all fit together, Richard says. We just have to find out how.

His words are rushed, shorthand. There’s not much time, and the task keeps getting bigger, the longer they put it off. He implores Els, ambitious, impatient to knuckle down and concentrate, while concentration is still possible.

Els’s tinnitus starts to blare. Yellow highway lines pulse in his eyes. He can hear Bonner’s words, but he can’t understand them. He looks back down at the articles in his hand: Someone’s trying to send him a message, but in a language of weird blips and bleeps. Some unreadable, avant-garde thing.

Wait , he says. You knew I was coming?

Richard blinks. No. Did someone say I did?

They look at each other, an arms race of bewilderment.

Richard breaks first. Oh. You mean. . come here, eventually? Oh, eventually, sure. I knew.

He pats the provinces of his body, looking for a hidden cookie to pop in his mouth. He’s the kid from the stands of the University of Illinois Stock Pavilion on a cold night in 1967, shouting lunatic manifestos into the maelstrom. Under the paving stones, the beach.

Richard grins, reading his collaborator’s mind one last time. Forgiven? Again?

Nothing to forgive.

I’m sure there is, Richard corrects. I just can’t. .

No. You were only. .

Els doesn’t know how to say what his friend was. What this one aggravating, insufferable man managed to bring into his life.

You were an asshole, is all. Always.

Richard shrugs. How was I to the music?

I think you might have loved it , Els says.

Bonner walks to the window and peeks out through the blinds. What was the big one called? The opera?

Early Alzheimer’s looks, to Els, much like his old friend. The Fowler’s Snare .

That’s it, Richard says. That’s from the Bible or something? And there was one, lasted for hours, in New York? Something about bringing dead people to life?

Els himself needs half a minute to remember. Bonner turns back into the room, searching again. Why did you want to quit all that?

He stops to stare at his hands, and the search ends. You know what our problem was? When you want Perfect, even Magnificent seems shabby.

This is the case , Els says.

The old dancer swats the air. Never mind. New project. You’ve gotten us off to a fantastic start. Killer Theater. I’ve been dreaming about somebody doing this for a long time.

Els hides his bafflement in a coughing jag. It’s the Phase One wildcard drug babbling. Or maybe it’s the last thrashing of a mind that never committed to anything so trivial as sense. Els lays the clippings down on the student desk and studies this alien man, his one friend.

Richard, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Come on, Bonner shouts. Who gets this kind of audience? Millions of people are following your act. You can’t afford to refund that many tickets, Maestro.

He puts his arm around Els’s shoulders and leads him out into the hall. The pair of them wander back down the corridor toward civilization, leaving the door to Number 18 hanging open. There’s nothing in the room to steal except a stack of project ideas, and nobody to steal them except for three dozen human guinea pigs.

You may find this worth. . worth seeing, Richard says . The drug is called Consolidol. The disease is called shit. God knows what anybody else is called. They all have interchangeable little names, the fuckers. Lots of women named Leslie.

From down the hall comes a man as large as both of them, with a Marine buzz cut and a goiter like a grapefruit. He waves from a distance. Drawing near, he shouts, You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

Els is lost. Richard answers, Some man or other must present Wall: and let him have some. .

The giant draws close enough to muss Richard’s hair. Richard, incredibly, abides the attack. The giant waves at Els and mouths, Hi, hi!

Richard starts again: and let him have some plaster. . some. .

Or some loam , the giant supplies, his goiter shaking with pleasure.

. . or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall. .

Bruno, the giant says, sticking out his hand.

Els takes it and suffers the massive crushing. Paul, he says.

You visiting?

. . or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall. .

Yes, Peter says. Just leaving, in fact.

And let him hold his fingers thus. The giant holds up his fingers in a sideways chink of V in front of his shining eye.

Shut the fuck up, Richard barks. Right. And let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

If that may be , the giant says, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts .

He waves, and ambles on past, down the hall.

Richard turns to Els and asks, So what dose do you think he’s getting? Twenty thingies? Five? Or salt water? Those are your three choices.

Els shrugs. If we’re betting, I’d say twenty.

Oh, we’re betting, all right. Hundreds of millions of dollars. And I’d bet the same as you. So tell me. What dose you think I’m getting?

I don’t know, Els says.

The fuck you don’t. I’ve spent forty years reading that damn play. Four hours a day, this last month. More hours than all these other jokers combined. It’s about fairies, you know.

He stops to turn his pockets inside out. He births up a handful of forest-green jelly beans and studies them like they’re pebbles from the moon. He pops a few and staggers down the hall again.

The worst of it? Memorizing Dream was my idea.

You. . Els stops, thinking better. Then plunges in anyway. You directed it, in graduate school. Set in an old folks’ home.

I didn’t! Richard exclaims. Did I?

He walks oddly, listing toward port. They pass the small weight room, and a trio of old, broad women call to him. In a moment, they’re out in the hall, headbands and jerseys soaking, taking turns pressing their sweat to Bonner’s body. The shortest of them purrs and says, What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?