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Alan Turing.
The girl who hands me my coffee is seventeen or eighteen years-old and pretty as a model. I take the cup of hot coffee and pay with my credit card. I apologize for not having cash. Behind me, I hear a man’s voice slurringly ask if they have beer. I walk outside with my paper and sit down. I smoke a cigarette. I read about healthcare reform.
There’s a full page ad on the next page from the pork producers’ association, asking people to keep eating pork, assuring them that they won’t get swine flu by doing so. The ad features blurbs from public officials testifying to the safety of pork products. They remind me of the book I read last night, about chatbots and Turing tests, about how we’re all working off pre-recorded scripts.
The slurring man from inside sits down across from me, uninvited.
“Bullshit, man, you guys think you can do this to me…”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“No, sorry.”
”I know who you’re with, man.”
”Who I’m with?”
He laughs derisively. ”You’d do it if you could. If you had something to say to the world, you’d say it right now, man. But you can’t.”
“I guess I don’t really have much to say.”
“You guys think you’re something, but you’re not. Your fuckin’… whatever they call those, shirts. You think you’re something, but you don’t mean shit.”
“No, I guess I don’t.”
“You know who Miles Davis is?”
“Yeah, he’s a jazz player.”
“Bullshit. I have it like him, man. The heart zone. Right in here.” He motions to his chest.
”That’s good.”
He laughs. ”That’s not good, man. That’s not good. It makes me… Just watch, man, just watch what I do.” He makes an expansive gesture with the pen and sunglasses held clumsily in his right hand.
I watch the pen carefully, to see if it’s capped. On television the other day, I saw a man stab another man in the neck with a pen.
“You guys think you can do this to me, put me out of here. That’s bullshit, man.” His mustache is stringy and overgrown. He wears red hiking socks that go halfway up his sun-darkened calves. His shorts and t-shirt are almost matching browns. The shirt bears the logo of a company that makes shoes for skateboarders. He digs into his plastic grocery bag and pulls out a Member’s Only jacket. He struggles to put it on. ”Just watch, man, just watch what I’ll do.”
I gather up my paper, put my cigarettes in my pocket, and stand up to leave. ”Well, I gotta get going. Work…”
“Get the hell out of here then.”
“I’m going.” I turn and walk away. ”Good luck,” I call out over my shoulder as I go. In my head, I add, “You’ll need it with a script like that.”
May 11, 2009
I wake up and I don’t know where I am. I realize there’s someone next to me and a twinge of panic drops in my stomach. I blink my eyes and rub them and look around. I look at my wife, next to me in the bed. Her red hair is matted against her face, her mouth agape, her eyes still closed. I sigh in slight relief and pull the covers off myself. I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly and then do it again. I rub my left temple with the fore and middle fingers of my left hand. I rub my right temple with the fore and middle fingers of my right hand. I rub both temples. I get out of bed.
In the bathroom, I turn the shower on, to let the water heat up. I take off my silk pajama bottoms and the matching collared top. I sit on the toilet. I push my penis down between my legs and piss. I try to shit, but nothing happens. Steam begins to fog the glass shower doors and I get off the toilet. I reach my right arm into the shower, making sure it’s not too hot. I get in the shower. I let the water rinse over my body, until I’m wet all over. I take the bar of soap from its built-in enclave in the shower wall. I rub the soap between my two hands, to build up a lather.
Holding the bar in my left hand, I rub the lather from my right hand along my left forearm, then my left bicep and tricep, then my left shoulder. I scrub the lather vigorously into the hair of my armpit, scratching the skin underneath with the fingernails of my right hand. I rub the lather on my chest and stomach. I cup my testicles and rub them with the warm soapy water in my right hand. I take the shaft of my limp wet penis and gently squeeze it. I cup my hand over my penis and my testicles and rub them clean. It feels good and I take hold of the shaft of my penis again. I stroke it several times and it doesn’t get any harder and I give up. I rub the bar of soap between my hands again. Taking the soap in my right hand this time, I use the lather in my left to wash my right forearm and bicep and tricep. I scrub my right armpit as vigorously as the left.
With my right hand, I rub the bar of soap in circles on my right ass cheek. I switch the bar to my left hand behind my back and rub circles with it on my left ass cheek. I run the bar through the crack of my ass and rub the residue into a lather with my right hand. I lather both my legs and feet. Then I let the falling water of the shower rinse me clean.
I turn in small circles under the water, feeling its warmth on every part of my body. I feel its temperature start to fall. I stand directly under the nozzle and let what little hot water remains pummel the nape of my neck. I count backwards from ten. ”Zero.” I turn the water off and grab a crimson-red terry-cloth towel from the shower door.
I scrub my hair dry, and then drape the towel over my back and pull it towards my ass, to dry my back. I dry my chest and my arms. I remember what my arms used to look like, how firm my chest used to feel. I dry my penis and my testicles, and run the towel between my legs to dry the fleshy expanse between my genitals and my asshole. I dry my ass and the back of my thighs and my thighs and my calves and my shins and my feet. I hang the towel back on the shower door and I flush the toilet.
I brush my teeth with the whitening toothpaste in the medicine cabinet. I comb my still-damp hair, parting it down the right side. My hair is still black, still full. I walk naked from the bathroom. The sunlight peeks around the heavy brown bedroom curtains, embossed with hundreds of tiny golden fleures-de-lis. My wife lies in the same position, hair matted the same, mouth still agape, eyes still closed. I dress myself in a navy blue suit with a white collared shirt with buttoned stays. I choose a solid red tie. I slide my feet into a pair of black patent leather shoes. I thread a matching belt through the loops of my suit pants. I take my wallet and my car keys from the nightstand on my side of the bed. I look again at my wife and leave the bedroom. I pick up my briefcase in the foyer as I walk out the front door.
In the car, I listen to local talk radio, a show called, “Mikey in the Morning.” Mikey is telling a caller that he’s naive about immigration. Now Mikey is talking about me. Mikey is saying that I am naive like the caller. He’s saying that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I should be fired. He says that I’m a fat cat. I turn the station to classic rock and The Beatles are singing, “a crowd of people stood and stared.” I stop at the chain coffee store in the strip mall a block away from the home office. I order a small coffee. I look in my wallet and realize I don’t have the two dollars I need to pay for the coffee. I hand the girl behind the counter my credit card. She asks to see my ID and I show it to her. She laughs.
“What’s so funny?” I ask her.
“Nothing,” she replies, still laughing, “it’s just that you have the same name as our congressman.”
”What a coincidence,” I say.
She looks at me again and the smile disappears.
“Wait,” she says, “Are you him?”
“Guilty.” I raise my right hand like I’m swearing an oath.
“Wow,” she says, “What are you doing here?”
“Work.” I take my coffee and leave. In front of the home office I pull the gold Toyota into a parking spot with my name painted on the asphalt between its confines. I get out of the car and walk into the office. I get in the elevator and press a button marked “4″. The elevator goes up and the doors open. The intern at the reception desk sees me and stands up.
“Hello, Congressman!” he smiles, “I’ll let Ms. Garcia know you’re here.”
“Thank you.” I walk into my office and close the door. On the walls are pictures of myself. There’s one of myself and the president and one of myself and the last president and one of myself and the Lion of the Senate and one of myself and the chief of the Chumash Indians and one of myself and the foreign minister of Azerbaijan. On my beechwood desk is a picture of myself and my wife, swimming in the Grotta Azzura. Her hair is a brighter red in the photograph than it is now, my teeth a brighter white. There is a knock at the door. It is my chief of staff.
“Come in.” I say, and she enters carrying a manilla folder.
“Hello, sir,” she says, “Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Ms. Garcia.”
“Shall we get right to business?”
“We might as well.”
“Ok,” she says, opening the folder on my desk. She produces an agenda and spins it around on the desk, so it’s top-up to my perspective, and slides it across the desk. Below it in the folder is an identical copy, which she picks up. “For lunch, you’ve got Armistise, from Veteran’s Affairs. He wants to talk about the new VA hospital, specifically the leasing agreements and future development clauses.”
“Do we have to do it at the rib place again?”
“I could try and change it, but he’s pretty particular.”
“No, the rib place is fine.” I set my elbows on my desk and rub my temples with my fore and middle fingers.
“Jet-lagged?”
“Yeah. Laurie, I’m sorry, can you give me five minutes.”
“Sure,” she says scooping the manilla folder off the desk, “just buzz me when you’re ready.”
She walks out and shuts the door behind her. I lay my arms across the desk and my head on top of them. I close my eyes.
