Jack kept watch, listening as he fingered the vial of Fusax in his pocket, holding it up to the light to measure its diminished contents and praying that it might, somehow, be enough. He heard the fellahin laughing in Untermeyer Park, marked the progress of a dirigible moving slowly through the clouds. He looked at his hands. He was losing weight. His sight was strained as well; bright shapes flitted at the corner of his eyes, and sometimes he heard voices that did not arise from radios or rooms within the house.
But at the same time it was as though some new and more subtle sense filled him, even as his old ones faltered. He felt the century round him hurtling harum-scarum toward its end: an infortuitous concourse of atoms, a runaway train slamming into the roundhouse with everything it contained slingshot skyward: quarks, drag queens, The King and I, Einstein, Telstar, Hitler, mustard gas, Thomas Mann, Jerry Mahoney, Victor Frankl, IBM and AT&T and GFI. He felt his blood quicken, hearing footsteps in the parlor, unseen musicians tuning up for the grand finale.
And, finally, one afternoon he entered the carriage house to find a fax scrolled onto the floor: yet another missive from GFI. SUNRA was to be set aloft six months hence, on the evening of December 31, from GFI’s pyramid in Times Square. Gala celebration, many celebrities, at especial request of Yukio Tatsumi the presence of your company is desired. At the very bottom there was a scrawled addendum to the corporation’s formal invitation.
FYI: New Year’s Eve, 1999: Will I see you there? RSVP, regrets only. With very warm regards, Larry Muso.
The next morning, Jack went downstairs. He found the blond girl in the kitchen, eating stale Cheerios with his grandmother and Mrs. Iverson. More of his aunt Mary Anne’s clothes had been found for her, a pair of corduroy bell-bottom trousers, too long and cuffed around her ankles, and a bright red plaid flannel shirt. Her hair had not been combed; it stuck out around her head in a ragged white halo, and once again Jack marveled at his grandmother’s self-control during these last few months, that she hadn’t attacked the girl with a brush and scissors. Otherwise, Marz seemed alarmingly well behaved. She murmured “hello” to Jack as he poured himself some of the brown bitter liquid that passed for coffee, and said “thank you” when Mrs. Iverson handed her a napkin.
Still, her presence at the table never failed to unsettle Jack. He poked desultorily at his Cheerios with a spoon, pouring a thin stream of powdered milk dissolved in water into the center. He forced himself to eat, imagining Jule and Emma at their breakfast table sixty miles to the north, with the remains of whatever frugal harvest they’d taken from Emma’s garden, dried apples and cherries, blueberries and black walnuts. It was an image that usually fortified him. This morning it only made him sad, seeing Marz in the chair where Jule and Emma’s young daughter Rachel had once perched. He finished his Cheerios quickly and excused himself, setting the empty bowl in the sink. There was electricity today: he let hot water dribble from the tap into his bowl, inhaling the steam as though it were perfume.
“I’m going out to work,” he said.
At the table three heads turned.
“Will you be busy, dear?” His grandmother sipped at her ersatz coffee in its Limoges china cup. “Have you found another printer?”
“No, I haven’t found another printer.” Larry Muso’s face stared calmly up at him from the rippling surface of his cereal bowl. “I—I have to try to send some faxes. While the power’s on.”
“Of course, darling,” his grandmother said. He looked back and saw her smiling as Marz shoveled Cheerios into her mouth. “Will you be going to the city today?”
“The city? No, Grandmother—I don’t go to the city anymore. Remember?”
“Of course, dear. I thought your grandfather said he had a meeting this afternoon, that’s all.”
God, she’s drifting! Jack turned away and his heart constricted; but why shouldn’t she drift? In six months she would be one hundred years old, her wizened body still remarkably strong but how long could, or should, that last? She had been a widow for twenty-five years, she had lost one child to God knows what, drugs or suicide or murder, and two others to more ordinary circumstances. She had outlived all her friends; should she outlive the century, too?
“It’s all right, Grandmother,” he murmured, crossing the kitchen to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be in for lunch…”
In the carriage house he turned on everything—lamps, radio, television, fax, answering machine, computers, electric typewriter, stereo. Even with the volume turned down on the TV and radio, the office hummed and rustled as though he’d smashed open a wasps’ nest. He could feel the electrical currents surging through the room, and watched as dust motes circled purposefully above the compact fluorescent bulbs, insectlike. He sat at his desk.
If circumstances permit I will be happy to attend GFI’s New Year’s celebration. However, transportation from here can be difficult…
He faxed off the reply, for good measure also sent an electronic response to the address on Larry Muso’s postscript. Faster than he would have thought possible, an icon on his monitor began flashing to signal that a message had arrived.
FROM: muso.shugenja@Pelgye.gfi.com
Jack! So glad to hear from you! Don’t worry about transport, lodging, all will be attended to on this end. Julie Braxton-Kotani from Special Events will have a courier be in touch with you by midsummer, to arrange security clearances, etc. & I anticipate no difficulties. I am on special assignment til Sept/Oct at the earliest but VERY MUCH want to see you again! All best & warm wishes, Larry M. P.S. Mr. Tatsumi says that he enjoyed the last issue of The Gaudy Book. Please let us know when we can expect the next one.
In July it snowed in New York. Environmental terrorists seized the George Washington Bridge and closed it off to traffic, erecting makeshift shelters and hanging an immense banner painted with a cerulean antelope. The strike forces marshaled by city and federal government were destroyed by napalm guns Blue Antelope had obtained from the sympathetic interim governments of Madagascar, New Zealand, and Kalimantan, as well as by ecologically noninvasive nerve gas smuggled in from the group’s Icelandic mission. News of other attacks by radicals filtered through the net to reach Jack at Lazyland: logging operations brought to a halt in the Pacific Northwest and Brazilian rain forest; the flooded ancient temples at Ayutthaya in Thailand captured by armed Buddhists who joined forces with the Christian environmental extremists. Pope Gregory XVII’s weekly message from St. Paul’s was interrupted by students wearing animal masks. In North America and Japan, outlaw electronic and video broadcasts by Blue Antelope spokesman Lucius Chappell made outraged claims that multinational corporations including GFI, TRW, Matsushita-Krupp and Gibson/Skorax were involved in a global conspiracy to release newly developed neurological toxins into the water supplies of First and Third World countries. The wife of Yukio Tatsumi, CEO of multinational giant Gorita-Folham-Ized, was found dead in their Paris apartment, an apparent suicide. Friends said she had been despondent for some time. The wildfires that had consumed Houston roared their way into Galveston Bay and on into the Gulf of Mexico, igniting offshore drilling platforms like Catherine wheels. The poisonous chemicals released into the clouds caused spectacular effects that could be seen as far away as Tampico and New Orleans.
At Lazyland, life teetered on. Jack had several messages from lawyers representing both The Golden Family and the interests of The Gaudy Book—the latter, despite all Jack’s protests, arranged by Leonard Thrope. It appeared that the sale would proceed without any difficulties; by year’s end, little Jackie Finnegan would be a relatively wealthy man. The realization caused him neither great happiness nor distress, only gratitude that he would be able to provide better for his ancient grandmother. Keeley and Jack’s brothers had to approve the sale, which they did. Jack had already spoken to Jule Gardino about changing his will once the sale was complete: upon his death, the estate would be divided amongst his siblings and their children, with provisions made for Keeley, if she should outlive him. Provisions also had to be made for someone to take over the helm of The Gaudy Book itself—Jack was serious about no longer wanting to be responsible for managing an outdated literary quarterly, even one that would continue under the benison of a zillion-dollar multinational corporation. Especially one that would continue under a multinational corporation.