He would be gone. Completely. He would no longer be John Lodge Johnson. He would be — nobody — he would have nothing: no money, no name, no history, no future, no hungers — he would merely be this sensate creature walking the country's burning freeways, its yawning malls, its gashes of wilderness, its lightning storms, its factories and its dead spaces. «Ladies, my atom's stopped spinning. The twitching barnyard animal lies silent in a heap. The machine has stopped. »
Cindy and Krista made ooh … noises.
Two drinks later, John, Cindy and Krista were going through John's house, with Cindy pushing a SmarteCarte and Krista holding a clipboard on which she recorded each item John tossed into a box on the cart, the contents bound for the local Goodwill drop box.
«DKNY blazer. Unworn. Charcoal.»
«Check.»
«Prada slacks, cocoa. Unworn.»
«Check.»
«Where'd you get a SmarteCarte?» Cindy asked.
«Stole it from SeaTac Airport up in Seattle. I've spent so much on those goddamn things over the years — I put the SmarteCarte children through beauty school. They owed me one after all this time.»
Cindy said, «You seem to put a lot of people through a lot of things, John.»
The doorbell rang — it was his business partner, Ivan McClintock, with his wife, Nylla. John buzzed them in and called from upstairs, Ivan and Nylla climbed a series of chilly aluminum slabs that led up to the bedrooms. «John-O?»
«We're in here, Ive.»
The couple rounded a corner. «Guys, this is Krista and Cindy. Gals, this is Ivan and Nylla. Ivan and I have been making movies ever since we both had acne.»
The group exchanged hellos, and the work of emptying John's wardrobes of conspicuously expensive clothing continued.
«See anything you want, Ivan?» John asked, holding out a nest of ties.
Ivan was doing his best to keep his cool.
«Our styles are opposite, John-O. That's why we make a good team.»
Nylla, pregnant and wrapped in one of her trademark silk shawls, asked, «John, Melody called Ivan at work and then me at home. She said you were making plans to — .» She paused. «Erase yourself or something. Something radical.»
John was silent.
Nylla persevered. «So what's the score?»
A TV-sized Tiffany box full of enema tools clattered down from an upper shelf, bouncing on the sisal flooring and rattling onto the white limestone hallway. «Why don't we go downstairs?» John said to Ivan and Nylla.
From the landing, he shouted back, «Remember gals-every thing goes.»
They went into the living room. It was night outside. Ivan and Nylla drank in the view. «I never get tired of looking at the city, John-O. It's like we're flying over it, about to land at LAX.»
«It's like upside-down stars,» said Nylla.
John handed Ivan a scotch with branch water. Nylla took cranberry juice.
Ivan said, «Melody phoned. She told me about your name change application.»
«She narcked?»
Nylla said, «Oh, don't be so corny. Of course she did. She's worried sick about you. We all are.»
Ivan burst in. «Fortunately between me and Mel we have enough contacts at City Hall to retrieve your forms, no harm done.»
«John,» said Nylla, «You were going to change your name to “dot”?»
«Not “dot” — just a simple period. When I filed my Change of Name affidavit at City Hall, they told me I had to use at least one keyboard stroke. A period is the smallest amount of ink and space a name can be.»
Ivan put his drink on a glass-block table and made I-told-you-so eyes at Nylla.
«There's more, Ivan. I'm going to renounce my citizenship.»
«Oh, John-O, that is a lousy idea — it's — it's — un-American.»
«What country do you want to be a citizen of, then?» asked Nylla. The three sat themselves down on Ultrasuede couches in John's high-tech conversation pit. John clapped his hands and the fire started.
«I don't want to be a citizen of any where, Ny.»
«Can you do that?» she asked. «I mean, be a citizen of no where?»
«I don't know. I'm seeing an immigration lawyer tomorrow. I'm wondering if I can get citizenship in Antarctica.»
«Antarctica?» said Ivan.
«Yeah. It's not like it has a king or queen or president or anything. I want to give it a try.»
«I think Antarctica's presliced into pieces from the South Pole outward,» said Nylla, «and a different country regulates each slice. So maybe not there. Maybe you can get citizenship in a country that's so useless it's almost the same thing as being stateless. Some country that only exists when the tide's out.»
«Nylla,» Ivan interrupted, «you're only feeding his bullshit idea.»
«It's not bullshit, Ivan,» John said.
«How about Pitcairn Island?» Nylla suggested. «One square mile in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, the most remote inhabited place on earth.»
«My wife the Jeopardy champion.»
«England owns it,» said John. «I checked.»
Ivan asked listlessly, «How about one of those African countries held together with Scotch tape and Popsicle sticks?»
«I'm considering them, too.»
«John-O — if you renounce your U.S. citizenship, you'll have no protection. With citizenship, the U.S. government can step in and help you wherever you go. And besides, you'll always have your Social Security number no matter what else happens.»
«Not if I renounce my citizenship. I do know that.»
Ivan was sulky: «Just try renting a car with no credit card and a passport from Upper Volta.»
«It's called Benin now,» said Nylla.
Ivan glowered her way: «Please phrase your answer in the form of a question.»
«Ivan, you're getting distracted. You're missing the spirit of the thing. I won't be wanting to rent cars anymore. I'll be completely gone. »
«You're really pushing me with this new hobo kick, John-O. Sleeping in rain culverts and stealing fresh clothes from laundry lines is going to wear thin awful quickly.»
«Ivan, let me pitch it to you: This is the road we're talking about — the romance of the road. Strange new friends. Adventures every ten minutes. Waking up each morning feeling like a wild animal. No crappy rules or smothering obligations.»
Ivan was appalled. «The road is over, John-O. It never even was. You're thinking like a kid behind a Starbucks counter sneaking peeks at his Kerouac paperback and writing “That's so true!” in the margins. And if nothing else, Doris is freaked out by this totally.»
«You told my mother ?»
«Of course.»
John paused. «Another drink, Ivan?»
As he looked for ice cubes in the kitchen's two deep freezes, John considered Ivan and Nylla. He heard them talking back in the living room. They were now discussing carpeting: prices per square yard,World Book Encyclopedia —style. «I want the good type,» said Ivan, «the kind that looks like pearl barley packed together. Really smooth.»
«But if the wool's too smooth, it looks like Orlon. It needs character. A bit of sheep dung mixed into it maybe.»
«We're going to have Beverly Hills's first Hanta virus carpet?»
«Sheep don't get Hanta virus. Just rodents, I think. And raccoons.»
John listened in and ached to have somebody to discuss rugs and raccoons with. He felt intact but worthless, like a chocolate rabbit selling for 75 percent off the month after Easter. But it went beyond that, too. He felt contaminated, that his blood stream carried microscopic loneliness viruses, like miniscule fish hooks, just waiting to inflect somebody dumb enough to attempt intimacy with him.
His mind wandered. There had to be hope — and there was. He remembered the woman in his hospital vision had made him feel that somewhere on the alien Death Star of his heart lay a small, vulnerable entry point into which he could deploy a rocket, blow himself up and rebuild from the shards that remained.