One afternoon at work, a rough yank on the tube jerked Johnson’s head back hard. He’d been bent over some figures on paper, tinkering with a pencil in the columns. The unexpectedness of the movement and the fierceness of it, the almost pointed maliciousness, had caused his heart to skip a beat. With a vulnerable, fluttering sensation deep in the left side of his chest and a sweat breaking on his forehead, he locked himself in one of the cubicles of the male restroom. He put the lid down and sat on it. As he considered his next move, he wondered if there were hidden security cameras in use.
He had often thought about touching the tube but had discovered within himself his own taboos regarding it. He felt his sanity depended on the possibility that the tube was an illusion. If he discovered something else to be the case, if the thing was material and tangible, he didn’t know how he would cope. So far, he believed he’d done well keeping his reactions under control but feeling it with the skin of his hand, knowing for certain it was real and attached to him…
Raising a trembling, hesitant hand, he reached up as if it was not himself he was about to touch but perhaps the sexual organs of someone he had never before met. His fingers made contact with a smooth surface. It was not cold, as he had expected but warm like his own skin. The texture was greasy but when he took his hand away there was no residue on the tips of his fingers. There, surrounded by the faint smell of blended urines and throat catching disinfectant, under the glare of bright artificial light, Johnson discovered the tube was a fact; as true as his own body.
But the tube was not of his body. If it was, it contained no sensory nerves because, although he could feel it through his fingertips, the tube itself experienced no sensation. Or, if it did, Johnson was not the one to receive that sensation. Like an anaesthetised limb, it was numb; alien, un-him.
He took his hand away.
He stayed in the cubicle a little longer wondering what he could do, praying there was someone he could turn to. It was only then that the question of ownership occurred to him. Was it correct to say that it was his tube or was it the other way around?
He reached up once more, less confident than the first time. More daunted by the implications of further discoveries. He wanted to squeeze it, to find out what was inside. He pressed it between his thumb and forefinger. The sensation was fibrous and grainy as if the tube was packed with strands of wire or twine. It felt like there might be liquid inside too; there was a turgidity that suggested fluids under internal pressure.
He took the tube more forcefully in his whole hand, making a fist around. He squeezed. Immediately, he felt a contraction below the surface of the tube and it fattened in his grip. On his head he felt the presence of the tube for the first time as it gripped him. It yanked his scalp upwards and he felt a drawing sensation where the tube met his head. Though the sensation of intimate connection nauseated him, squeezing the tube caused no pain. He did not black out or feel short of breath.
It was all the investigation he had strength for that afternoon but he took Bill Shuckman’s advice and called to make an appointment with the family doctor.
Chapter 7
Surely, Dr. Alpert would be willing to discuss the matter in confidence.
As Johnson sat in the waiting room he tried to come up with a way of communicating his problem without sounding nuts. When the receptionist told him to go through to the surgery twenty minutes later, he’d made no progress at all.
“Robert. This is a rare pleasure. According to your notes, I haven’t seen you for four years.”
Johnson wanted to apologise for not seeing him more regularly but it seemed such a dumb thing to say that he kept quiet. How was it that doctors could make you feel so awkward?
“How’re Angie and the kids?”
“Just fine. Angie’s still makes curtains at home for a few folks and the kids are doing real well in school.” Johnson shrugged. “How about you, doc?”
“I’m just as busy as bears goin’ fishin’.”
The doctor smiled.
Johnson didn’t know what to say. He remembered now that this was always how it went with Dr. Alpert. All smiles and quaint sayings followed by a finger up your ass.
Dr. Alpert gave him his cue.
“So, what’s your trouble, Robert?”
He put on his spectacles and leaned over Johnson’s notes with a fat gold fountain pen at the ready. He was yet to computerise his surgery and many folks loved him for it. They thought it was a personal touch.
“I’ve been having a problem with my tube?”
“Oh yes? What kind of problem?”
“It keeps jerking at me.”
Dr. Alpert took of his spectacles and looked up at Johnson.
“Excuse me?”
“Uh, twitching. Jerking. You know.”
Johnson made a few sudden cocking motions with his head to illustrate the point. Dr. Alpert stared at him for several seconds before speaking. Johnson eyed the glistening conduit that rose like liquorice from the doctor’s head and vanished through the ceiling.
“Let me be certain I understand you correctly, Robert. You’re saying your penis is jerking, right? Is this happening when you ejaculate?”
“No, doc. Not my penis.” Johnson dropped his voice to a whisper. “My tube.”
“I’m sorry, Robert, I don’t understand you. What tube are you referring to?”
Johnson gestured with one hand, waving it beside his ear in a vaguely cranial direction and rolling his eyes upwards. He leaned forwards.
“My…tube.”
Dr. Alpert sat back and blinked in confusion. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to fathom out a complaint without much help from the patient. He scratched his head. Then a look of triumph spread across his face.
“You’re talking about the tubes in your middle ear, aren’t you? You’re saying you’ve been losing your balance. Am I right?”
Johnson sagged a little in his chair but did his best to hide it.
“You’ve got it, doc.”
Ten minutes later he walked away with a prescription for an antibiotic to clear up the infection in his middle ear. In his car he wept without making a sound before tearing up the prescription and dropping the pieces into the ashtray.
Chapter 8
That night Johnson made a decision based on the facts. The tube was merely pulling at him. It had never hurt him and, as far as he could make out, it had never hurt anyone else. The fact that people either didn’t know or didn’t care wasn’t important. Perhaps everyone came to a similar realisation about their tubes when they discovered them. Perhaps they never became aware of them.
He realised it didn’t matter. He wasn’t prepared to throw everything away by letting himself go crazy. He had a beautiful wife and fabulous children. He had a comfortable home and a good but challenging job with a promotion not far away. He had built this life for himself and he was not going to let it crumble over an obsession he could easily control. It was like quitting smoking or going on a diet—it would be tricky, there would be temptations, but he would do it.
He made himself forget.
And when the tube plucked at him, he ignored it with a smile and carried on with whatever he was doing. Following this decision, the power the tube had over him diminished. Nothing about it seemed as bad as when he’d let its presence rule him.
The following evening the family viewing was not interrupted by his trips upstairs. They even had a family session of gaming on their well used Maruyama Entertainment Console, playing Narco Cop and Spider Hunter until late. He did not stare at his children. He no longer worried that his wife was watching him, noticing his strangeness. Together they tracked down drug dealers and blasted hordes of arachnids until their thumbs were sore. He slept well. The next day he was able to concentrate correctly at work for the first time in more than a month. That weekend he took Angelina out for dinner and when they came home they made love for the first time since his birthday.