Chapter 18: Moderation In All Things (Including Moderation)

18

Norman finished Gigantomachy at eleven-thirty in the evening on his birthday, December 6, 2004, alone in his studio in the weird basement of that house by the river in South Bend. He had spent the whole day alone, finishing it. Imogen was in Indianapolis cleaning her parents’ house; Sylvia was bartending several blocks downtownward.
“I’ve just finished my first novel,” he said aloud to the otherwise empty basement, slightly unnerved by the distinct impression that someone somewhere had somehow heard him.

Norman stops and leans back in his chair, overwhelmed by the idea of having to condense the year he spent in South Bend living with Imogen and Sylvia in that indescribable relationship, the break-up with and exodus of Imogen, the weird romances with Elise and Sylvia and the months of preproduction for The Turing Registry that went to naught, into a single chapter. (He is trying to keep this one under six hundred pages.)
He pictures Laura flying through the air over the Caribbean. He tries to remember what it felt like to be with Imogen, to have been part of something now gone.

In late August of Two-thousand-four, Imogen and Norman each drove their cars and Lee drove a small U-Haul the thousand or so miles from Maine back to South Bend, Indiana, almost a perfect backtracking of the journey the war-weary lovers had taken out to Maine a year previously.
When Imogen’s depression had reached its zenith and she felt that the only answer for her was to return to Indiana, Sylvia had suggested by phone that Imogen and Norman move in with her in South Bend. The idea had originated at Sylvia’s mother Ingrid’s funeral in April of that year, for which Imogen had flown out as she had been particularly close with Ingrid while she and Sylvia were lovers short years before. By August, Sylvia had found a house in a lovely historic district of South Bend right across the street from the tree-lined banks of the Saint Joe.
Norman at first felt like the situation could begin some kind of new creative golden age for him. He was two-thirds finished with his first novel, plus he was back in Indiana where he could hang out with Lou, his collaborator in creative and spiritual pursuits, on a daily basis. And Imogen experienced a brief resurrection of spirit once she had access to Sylvia’s soft shoulders and could drive down to Indianapolis every weekend to see her parents. Sylvia hopped between jobs throughout the autumn, while Imogen was paid by her parents to clean their small house more than it needed. Norman did not work for money for the first few months, instead writing furiously down in his basement studio, finishing Gigantomachy.
But Imogen’s depression returned, polymorphing every day into some new weird excuse for tears. After a while she moved out of the bed she had been sharing with Norman and into the room that had been her little art/sewing studio just down the hall. She cocooned herself in there for days at a time, watching television on her tiny little rolling TV and drawing cards and designs for dresses and handbags, compiling mix tapes and crying.
Norman spent more and more time downstairs in his basement lair, a little portable heater beside him creating a zone of warmth mere meters in diameter in which he and Sylvia would occasionally huddle and smoke from Ahab together, talking. They had a big idea about starting a cultural revolution in South Bend, Indiana, bringing liberalism and progress to the Midwest by means of centering Norman’s intended artistic renaissance there. Sylvia was deep in the small South Bend art scene, and from the perspective of her surroundedness it seemed to Norman to be more significant a force than perhaps it may have been. Nevertheless, Norman and Sylvia made plans for a local art magazine called Smoke and Mirrors and even began to envision Norman’s filmmaking dreams occurring there. It seemed to be the perfect answer for a nation so geographically divided by culture - to start an art/reason-storm in the middle of deep-red flyover country.
The 2004 Presidential Election was yet to be determined then, and hope was still in the air; Norman actually believed (hilariously in hindsight) that they could swing Indiana Democrat. Lee flew out to be with Norman and Imogen for the election (missing the triumvirate of strength they had formed over the past year), and they all got together at Eleanor’s house (into which Lou had recently moved) with several others in the greater northern Indiana friend-tribe to watch the sad, almost epically non-epic tragedy of that evening. It was a powerful loss after so much excitement over the potential for change – first excitement about Dean and then just excitement against Bush. Lee and Imogen both fell into depression for some time afterwards. It gradually became more common for Sylvia to accompany Norman on an evening excursion to Lou and Eleanor’s house than for Imogen to do so.
After he finished Gigantomachy on his birthday, Norman finally began looking for work (that didn’t piss test). Unfortunately, in the Michiana area at that time there were few respectable options for art majors. His first interview ended up being something more like a pitch given to him and another young man his age by a middle-aged woman with heavy make-up trying to convince them to start their own businesses selling fire-extinguishing foam which she taught them both to use before they understood what was happening. His second interview was for a booth in the mall that sold personalized Veggie Tales CDs and DVDs, for which he was asked to express his opinion of the Veggie Tales franchise and how he thought it helped kids, and despite his personal integrity he lied, giving his younger-than-he interviewer exactly the kind of answer he imagined she wanted, and still they never got in touch with him. His third interview was at a gay strip club. He called the place responding to an ad for dancers in the paper and got an audition from the phone interview, drove in that same afternoon and auditioned for the ultra-sketchy Jerry-curled owner, stripping and dancing on-stage to absurd pop music, and much to his surprise was actually offered the job. He was to return that night to work, but never did, after driving to the lingerie store and looking at g-strings while considering what sort of stage name to use and then suddenly realizing that he could actually back down and didn’t have to actually become a male stripper. His final interview was with the job that he ended up taking, at a book warehouse where they received donated books from libraries and schools and such, which they then sorted and sold on-line. He spent the next several months sorting and shelving books all day for eight dollars an hour.
It was at Better World Books that he met Elise, a seventeen-year-old belly dancer who had been home schooled her whole life and now worked full time while she ‘lived’ a while before taking her GED and considering college. She and Norman were made into a book-shelving team as soon as the young managers of the company noticed how taken the two seemed to be with each other. She whispered Hindi (a self-educated student of some Sufi guru or other whose video she had once seen) between kisses.

Norman stops writing and looks back over what he’s written. The year he’s trying to compress into a single chapter could easily make a long novel on its own. His memory flits between scenes – Darren, Steve and Karl all coming into town that weekend in October and the whole crew doing a photo shoot to commemorate the event; Sylvia passionately sucking his cock upon finishing reading Gigantomachy for the first time; she and he and Imogen all drinking wine and sketching each other on New Year’s Eve; playing frisbee golf on a wooded course with Lou and finding half a joint at one of the holes; lying on the couch in the living room downstairs watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD with Sylvia innumerable times; that dark, strangely-circular basement with the ceiling of labyrinthine pipes that went to nowhere; going to a Halloween party as Rasputin and kissing Imogen for the first time in a long time (and the last time, as it happened) and already missing their love even in that moment, with Sylvia mere feet away, waiting for a kiss herself. As the images pass through his mind, Norman considers each in terms of how it could be lightly fictionalized to work into the greater concept of his story.
Without a conscious goal beyond just looking at the names of his files for inspiration, he opens his My Documents folder and scans through the names of the various image, sound and text files that are there. He sorts the files by type and scans down to the group of Word files, his collected written work. Most are stunted beginnings hovering in the potentiality of unfinishedness like Michelangelo’s half-men.
Norman opens the file JOURNAL.doc, which he recalls keeping in the late spring/early summer, almost six months ago now, during that tumultuous time when Imogen had just left for Maine to nanny for Jason and Lewis, he and Sylvia were on their own in the house, working with Lou on pre-production for The Turing Registry and becoming lovers in their own right, and Lou and Eleanor’s wedding was being prepared. He reads through the days, grateful to his past self that he was so dedicated in keeping the journal. (Recording the actual events of his life is something Norman has often tried to do, but he has never been able to keep up with it; this journal is the longest period of his life immortalized in prose thus far.)
Struck by a foolish honesty in the text, and full of a passionate desire to keep his fictional novel as true to life as possible, Norman decides to use the journal entries in his book.
He cuts it from the file and pastes it into his Word file a little ahead of where he is.



Moderation in All Things (Including Moderation)

“So, it takes place in a nebulous future, where two identical guys are interviewing each other in this room, and the more they get to know each other they can’t find any differences between them – it’s a little hard to describe; I hate having to describe my work, but – and neither of them can remember how they got there or what they’re doing. And it kind of falls into them discussing the nature of identity and self and interacting with each other, kind of constantly haunted by their identical nature. Sort of dry metaphysical comedy.”
Harvey, who is wearing an impressively-handmade plush bee costume, laughs loudly. “That’s hilarious!” he shouts, sloshing his beer onto his sleeve a little. “Metaphysical comedy.”
Norman grins, glad that Harvey can appreciate the idea. “It’s called The Turing Registry.”
Norman is wearing a long, black priest robe that he got at Goodwill several years before, but in order to be able to walk in it he has to leave the bottom half unbuttoned, and this makes it end up looking more like some kind of long, black Matrix-style coat. They are sitting across from each other in the booth of a crowded pub in the Old Port.
“Hey, man, were you thinking of going out for a cigarette anytime soon, and when you do can I bum one?”
“Sure, man. Let’s have one right now,” Norman agrees, picking up his coat from behind himself in the booth and standing up. “Maybe we’ll meet the guys outside.”
“Someone might take our booth,” Harvey notes.
“Eh,” Norman says dismissively, headed for the door. Harvey follows him outside the pub to the Old Port sidewalk where several other young people are gathered, smoking. Norman lights Harvey’s cigarette for him, then his own.
“I only smoke when I’m drinking,” Harvey remarks. “Don’t tell Wayne about this. In fact, you stand over here and I’ll stand over here,” he says, awkwardly changing positions with Norman within the group of smokers, “so that I’ll see Wayne when he’s coming, and I can lose the cigarette.”
“What do you care what Wayne thinks?” Norman jibes.
“We quit together. Oh shit, there they are!” Harvey ditches his cigarette and holds that hand up above the crowd, waving to Wayne, Elliot and Walt, who are all walking together toward the pub, dressed respectively like a Flintstones-era caveman (animal skin loincloth/sash, headband, big plastic club), a doctor (white lab coat, reflective circle headband) and a man in a nice charcoal suit (nice charcoal suit). Wayne holds a fist high in the air above his huge grin.
“What is up, bubs?” Wayne laughs, giving Harvey a pound, then holding out his fist for Norman. “You guys are already here.”
Norman pounds Wayne’s fist. “Hey man. How you doing?”
“I’m good, bub,” Wayne says enthusiastically. “Yount.” Elliot laughs.
“I got out of my show early,” Harvey explains, “so I came straight here. I’ve got a few in me already.”
“Word up, bub,” Wayne laughs.
“And I’m always early. Elliot/Walt, what’s up.” Norman nods to the two of them.
“Hey man,” Walt nods with a smile, his eyes shifting to the side, watching Wayne’s energetic antics.
“What’s up, dude,” says Elliot.
“We’ve got a booth inside, but Norman wanted to have a cigarette,” Harvey says with a smile and a shrug.
“I guarantee you I’m gonna want one of those before the night is over,” Wayne says, punching Harvey in the shoulder as he passes him, headed inside the pub. Walt and Elliot follow him in with mumbled comments to Harvey and Norman that they will see them in a few minutes.
Harvey looks up at Norman with a big grin.
“Go on in if you want,” Norman says, “unless you want another cigarette.”
Harvey shakes his head and says, “Maybe later on; we’ll see how drunk I get. I am in a bee suit after all, so who knows. Anything could happen!”
“Word, man,” Norman laughs. “You are a comedy elemental in that bee suit.”
Harvey frowns and puts his hands on his hips, then waddles back into the pub, his plush black stinger wagging behind him.

All huddled together around three stools (Elliot the only one sitting) at the crowded bar, the dialogue between the young men bounces back and forth between lines of conversation amongst the chorus of other social nuclei having similar experiences. As Norman approaches the group, coming in from his cigarette, he imagines having to direct such a scene naturalistically and it blows his mind how difficult the logistics of it would probably be. He pictures the screenplay pages and considers different ways of representing dialogue from people in a cramped space speaking over each other.
Harvey: “Man, I am so fucking glad we all came out together like this. It’s about fucking time we did.”
Walt: “Fuckin’ right.”
Wayne: “Dig your Matrix coat, bub.”
Elliot: “Harvey, man, how long did it take to make that bee costume, man?”
Norman: “Actually it’s a priest robe that my girl – well, my ex-girlfriend…”
Elliot: “That thing is definitely sweet!”
Norman: “…Yikes – Imogen, one of my exes, got for me at some Goodwill.”
Wayne: “Which one? The one on Saint John’s Street?”
Harvey: “I just made it tonight, man. It was pretty simple.”
Norman: “No, somewhere back in Indiana.”
Harvey: “It’s full of packing peanuts. Press my bee belly.”
Norman: “Where’d you get that caveman outfit?”
Elliot: “Oh, weird! Nice.”
Wayne: “Built a time machine. Jumped an ancestor of Walt’s.”
Walt: “Yeah, dude, that bee suit surely kicks ass. Nice work.”
Wayne: “I’m kidding, of course. Halloween store. I wish I had invented a time machine. I would go back to caveman days with a shotgun and a hell of a lot of ammunition, and maybe some basic Chem books and become a … a fucking wizard-king.”
Harvey: “So what are you supposed to be, Mister I’m-Too-Cool?”
Norman: “It’s really interesting you say that…”
Walt: “I took Wayne’s idea. I’m an insane killer.”
Norman: “I’ve been thinking a lot lately, since I started writing, about how a caveperson would react to our world.”
Walt: “We look just like everybody else.”
Walt takes out his iPod and begins fumbling with the thumb control.
Wayne: “Ted Bundy was his own lawyer – fucking crazy bastard.”
Elliot: “So, you’re gonna be Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness?”
Wayne nods an unaffectedly genuine affirmative.
Walt: “You have an iPod, man?”
Harvey: “Who are you speaking to?”
Wayne: “No, man; I want one.”
Elliot: “Yeah, Louise and I both have one.”
Wayne: “I’ll probably ask my mom for one for Christmas.”
Walt: “Do you both have one or do you each have one?”
Harvey: “Dick.”
Elliot: “My bad. We each have one, was my point.”
Harvey: “Yeah, I need to get one of those. Do you have one, Norman?”
Norman: “No. I don’t know – when I can, I prefer to listen to records.”
Elliot: “Ah, an old school fellow.”
Walt: “Can’t listen to records in your car, or walking down the street.”
Norman: “Well, I mean, I do have CDs and tapes. But yeah, you’re right. In an all-digital universe, the iPod is clearly king.”
Wayne: “Okay, who the fuck is gonna do a shot with me?”
Harvey: “Yes! Or, as we say in bee…”
Harvey shakes his bee body. Everyone laughs, including some members of other parties gathered nearby.
Norman: “Yeah, man, I’ll have a shot with you. What the fuck.”
Walt: “Yeah, dude. Count me in.”
Wayne orders the group five shots with two gestures to the bartender, who Norman cannot even see through all the people that surround them.
Norman: “Dude, what did you order us?”
Wayne: “Whiskey. That alright?”
Norman: “Oh word. That’s my drink. Good lookin’ out.”
Harvey: “Dick, you know whiskey makes me crazy. Makes me say things I’ll regret. Like tell this young lady how mind-bendingly foxy she is. Hello. I’m a bee.”
Foxy lady: “Oh hello.”
Elliot: “Pardon Brian. He’s a comedian.”
Foxy lady: “Aren’t we all.”
Walt: “Well he is one semi-professionally.”
Harvey: “Is that your dude there with you?”
Foxy lady: “No, this guy? No. I don’t know who he is. Hi, I’m Brenda.”
Inadvertently, Harvey’s question forces the foxy girl and the dude in the blue windbreaker beside her into igniting a conversation. Harvey watches their instant humble chemistry for a few moments while the other data enterers around him all watch his comical expressions of frustration at being ignored. As she steps closer to the other guy to hear him better, people fill in the void between her and the their group.
Five shots are placed one by one beside Wayne, and he hands them out to each man.
Wayne: “Alright, forget about all that. Men, data warriors – here’s to the Revolution.”
Words all around, and the shots are swallowed.
Wayne follows his swallow with an exaggerated sigh.
Wayne: “So the fuckin’ Army wants me back.”
There is a beat of silence, during which Wayne nods and looks around at each dumbstruck comrade in turn.
Wayne: “Demands me back, really.”
Norman: “That is such bullshit. You quit, right?”
Wayne: “Yount, bub.”
Norman: “Yount, what is yount?”
The others all laugh, as if yount is a word they all know.
Wayne: “Yount is like word.”
Harvey: “It’s a little bit word, and it’s a little bit snarf. Because you can just say it for no reason, like a hallelujah.”
Wayne: “It’s probably a Washington County thing.”
Norman: “I see. Right on.”
Elliot: “So, but, Wayne – I don’t understand; how can the Army force you to go back?”
Norman: “What are your options, if any?”
Harvey: “Because we live in a police state is why.”
Wayne: “Word, man. The Army takes your balls. They own you, man. That’s just how it is. I mean – it’s not like it’s just me they’re calling back. It’s my unit. It’s not as simple as me.”
Walt: “Oh, I see. Shit. Does that mean you’re thinking about going back?”
Wayne: “I have to go back. There’s nothing I can do. And shit is way worse now than it was when I was over there before. Talkin’ ‘bout Baghdad.”
Harvey: “Fuck, dude.”
Elliot: “Isn’t there anything you can do? Civil disobedience?”
Wayne: “I don’t know, man. I haven’t really explored my options yet.”
Walt: “Fuck. I can’t believe the way this country has gone. We’re really fucked, overall, aren’t we? Like, the state of the world? We’re pretty much circling the drain at this point, the human race.”
Harvey: “Hey, man. Then let’s keep dancing. Break out the booze.”
Wayne: “Word up, bub. Yount, another round, comrade!”
Walt: “This one’s on me, man.”
Norman: “You know, I feel I have to point out my disagreement with your comment about how the human race is circling the drain, Walt, as it’s an attitude that I feel is far too prominent these days. Because, really, we’re on a general upward slope of pretty much everything good you could want to quantify.”
Elliot: “What? How can you possibly say that?”
Norman: “Well, I mean generally. Obviously I’m not saying that the way things are going politically or whatever right now with America is a good thing, but overall, if you even compare now to, say, fifty years ago, just about everything about our day to day lives is way better. I mean, obviously there’s some subjectivity to ‘better’, but there also sort of isn’t on a higher plane. Like, from above, looking down upon all this from outside of it. Even in Africa, where, compared to the rest of the world, maybe shit is really bad, even in Africa it’s better than it was before. And, of course, it might not seem like that because the change is gradient, continuous, we live through it. And so one moment is never that different from the previous, but…
“I mean, check it out – Leonardo da Vinci was a fucking genius of the first magnitude, right? He could write two different ideas at the same time with both hands, shit like that, like – he was a fucking demigod of genius, basically. But Leonardo da Vinci didn’t know, didn’t fully fathom, half the shit I know. He just didn’t have the context I do, the progress of science in the last several centuries. Leonardo da Vinci would probably do just about anything to be able to experience an hour of our world, to know half what I know.
“But really, we are Leonardo da Vinci and all those other guys from the past. We’re them after they’ve done all that we’ve done. See, time, history, experience … it’s a summation. Everything is better than nothing, and by that I mean each individual thing is better than nothing. It’s all a summation. And so everything I experience and learn is built upon what I already have and worked into the matrix.”
The bartender places five shots next to Wayne’s elbow on the bar. Listening intently to Norman with a sort of awe-struck, open-mouthed grin, Wayne doesn’t notice the shots. Harvey reaches in front of him and grabs two, hands Wayne one.
Harvey: “Norman, you’re fucking awesome. Wayne, do this shot.”
Elliot smiles and shakes his head, arms folded. He declines Walt’s offer of a shot.
Elliot: “I’m good for now, thanks.”
Wayne: “Give me that.”
Wayne puts down his first shot, then takes Elliot’s out of Walt’s hand and swallows that one too.
Norman, Harvey and Walt all take their shots..
Norman: “Sorry to ramble.”
Wayne: “Actually, I was totally digging it.”
Elliot: “I would have assumed you were more on the Buddhist tip – live here now, and all. All there is is the moment.”
Harvey: “Isn’t that sort of a logical truism anyway? All there is is the moment.”
Norman: “Okay, check it out. The World – by which I mean the Universe, all things, the phenomenal milieu of events and things of any kind at all – must be experienced to exist. And an experience requires the distinctions of Time to mean anything at all, right? There have to be different things separated into different moments of change over time, otherwise the staticity effectively makes the information inert, meaningless, experientially empty. So really, all there is is this constantly changing moment.”
Walt: “Is staticity a word?”
Norman: “You know – a truly homogenous milieu is inert, empty. I don’t know. Does that somehow not make perfect sense?”
Walt: “Some.”
Elliot: “None.”
Norman: “I don’t know, then. Nevermind. Logically, though, it just seems so obvious to me that the only real thing is us – me, you, the combination of the infinite watching … whatever all this will end up to have really been.”
He casts a hand slowly across the whole scene around them, visualizing, as he does, a shot much like his gesture in Taxi Driver, when Travis Bickle is indicating Candice Bergen’s character’s cluttered modern life and how empty it is, or something to that effect.
Norman: “Really, though, I’m getting off track. All I was trying to say is that there is an upward slope of awesomeness in the world, and we’re right on the elbow of the curve. Shit has been getting more and more awesome all the time, exponentially, but we are on the threshold now of a time when the awesomeness factor is about to skyrocket. It will really be a fundamental paradigm shift, and we are the ones who are going to get to experience the fullest scope of that change. And, really, potentially, we could be the oldest immortal generation. I mean, shit is getting better. All over. Steadily. I mean, global climate catastrophe is certainly imminent and the American political arena is starting to look gangrenous, beyond hope perhaps even, but who knows what could happen. The world has seen shit like this before. Alexander the Great fucking diverted the Indus river as a combat tactic. I mean, the ancients didn’t play, you know what I mean? Archimedes with giant wooden claws that picked up sailing ships just to drop them, and such? We’ve always been doing this shit, and really, generally over the whole Earth, look how much peace there is, how much luxury and shit like that. Like, the proliferation of music, of films? I mean, I know Africa and Asia are largely still in rough shape comparatively, but even there it is the Future in a weird way. Hundred dollar crank laptops, baby. Everyone’s got cellphones. I mean, shit is better. And even if it’s briefly worse in some places or for brief periods we step backwards, the betterness of the Future will spread, inevitably. That’s just how it works. Shit gets better.”
Elliot: “You are unbelievably optimistic.”
Norman: “Thank you.”
Elliot: “That wasn’t necessarily a compliment.”
Norman: “Sure it was.”
Wayne: “I don’t know, Norman. I mean, it’s easy for you to meditate on the conditions of the third world from your armchair in Portland, Maine, but if you could actually see some of these places – the way they live. I’ve been to Afghanistan, man. I’ve been to Kazakhstan. We make how much working at Woodard and Curran, twelve dollars an hour? Those people work hard ass jobs and make that much like every week, or every month. They just live in dirt. Like, you seriously have no idea. It may be the future here, but it is the stone age over there.”
Norman: “Bullshit, because I’ve seen video of those dudes in those caves, who you say live in the stone age, building rifles by the thousands. It’s different, but it’s really mostly the same. That shit going on over there is inextricable from all of this that we’re experiencing in America, and that is exactly what they were trying to tell us on September Eleventh.”
Everyone: “Whoa…”
Norman: “What? Is that so shocking to say in public? That maybe the events of that day were only the beginning of our big comedown, of the rest of the world reminding us that we are not better than they are, that we are more deserving of nothing, that we are all connected, and that anymore the interests of all of humanity are the only truly righteous agenda? This partisan, nationalist, culture-war bullshit is on its way out. It is the lamest. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating terrorism. Honestly, just as much as we can all agree that a child is less developed, less educated, less progressive as an organism than an adult who can do more, has more experience mentally and biologically, can deal better with others in society and such, just as much as we can distinguish early organisms from more complex ones, it seems to me that you can definitely judge certain societies – by which I mean only the cultural/legal systems, not the people themselves – as backward or behind. And these cultures/societies in which women are treated like shit and … you know, all that stuff … that shit is stupid and backward. And in this country, certain ideologies are bullshit as well. I mean, anyone who is not for openness and tolerance and human progress is basically stuck in a dickhead kind of mindset as far as I’m concerned. Don’t get me wrong. But that is just the systems, it’s conservatism. I mean, the people, the organisms themselves, are merely parts of that greater system and can make decisions either way at any time. We would be the same had we been born there, raised within that system, perhaps. We’re all just cells interacting. Quantum leaps are very rare, but evolution continues. That’s what I’m for, really. Not the Revolution, but the Evolution. I don’t know. I forget where I was going with all this. I’m thinking about a cigarette.”
Walt: “You know, I like what you said earlier about how Leonardo da Vinci would kill to know what we know. That’s a really interesting point. Sorta just struck me now.”
Norman laughs and feels suddenly intoxicated. “Well, I didn’t say he’d kill per se, but who knows, yeah,” he chuckles.
Wayne grabs Norman’s shoulder. “Hey Neo, could I bum one of those from you? I haven’t had a cigarette in months, and I think today I fuckin’ deserve one.”
“Word.”
Elliot shakes his head, smiling to himself. “So it is the enlightened individual who goes out into the cold to smoke his cancer stick, eh?”
Quoting Robocop (though he knows they probably won’t catch the reference, and that it contradicts what he was just saying), Norman replies, “Yeah. You want to live forever?”
As Wayne and Norman move away from the bar, Harvey touches Norman’s shoulder and whispers, “Hey man, could I bum one of those again, too? I’ll buy you a pack.”
“Of course, dude. You don’t owe me anything. I am getting so much from that bee costume as it is.”
Harvey laughs and follows Norman through the crowded bar, toward the door that Wayne is holding open for a pretty young lady who is entering the place. The girl laughs when she sees Harvey’s bee outfit and stops him to compliment it. Norman continues past, and he and Wayne step out onto the sidewalk, letting the door shut and muffle the sounds of Harvey flirting.
“Chilly out,” Wayne comments, rubbing his bare arms. “How did they do it?”
“How did who do what?” Norman asks, lighting a cigarette and then handing it to Wayne.
“Thanks.” Wayne laughs. “That was classy. Cavemen, dude. Homo neanderthalensis or whatever. How did they survive in the fucking ice age just wearing shit like this?”
Norman laughs, lighting himself a cigarette. “It was probably a lot more actual fur and less plastic.”
“You’ve got a long Matrix coat.”
“It’s actually a priest robe I bought at Goodwill.”
“Oh, a priest robe! I knew I must have misheard you,” Wayne laughs.
Harvey steps out of the pub, comically strutting so that his bulbous bee body sways back and forth with each step. Norman hands him a cigarette and lights it for him.
“Hey, man, we should go swoop by Amanda’s party, yo,” Wayne says.
“Totally,” Harvey agrees, then explains to Norman, “my girlfriend Amanda is throwing a Halloween party at our place. It’s mostly her friends, not all of whom are that interesting, but there is this guy Alan who is pretty cool and I’ve been meaning to introduce you to. He’s a filmmaker, too.”
“Oh yeah?” Norman asks, his interest piqued.
“And she made a whole shit-ton of magic brownies for it, which I wouldn’t mind putting into my bee belly,” Harvey adds with a big grin, rubbing both hands on the belly of his costume while grimacing at the smoke that instantly gets in his eyes with a cigarette held between his lips. He starts coughing and almost drops the cigarette, but it sticks to his lower lip and dangles there bouncing a couple of times against his chin as he laughs and says, “Ouch, ouch,” then carefully gets a hold of it again between his fingers. “Jesus.”
“Careful there, bub.”
“Ah, that was fucking brilliant physical comedy,” Norman sighs through his laughter.
“Hey man, have you got liquor at your place?” Wayne asks Harvey. Inhaling, Harvey nods with raised eyebrows. “Well how about once I’m done with this cigarette I go get Elliot and Walt and we head over to fucking your place?”
“Yeah, seriously,” Norman agrees, “what are we doing out here with the hooples?”
“The hooples?” Wayne frowns.
“Alright,” Harvey agrees, retrieving a thin cell phone from the elastic waistband of his black bee shorts. “I’ll give Marcus and Colin a call and let them know to meet us over there instead of out here.” He dials and puts the phone to his ear, turning away to the street.
Wayne takes a quick puff, making eye contact with Norman, then throws his cigarette to the sidewalk and steps on it with his caveman sandal. “I’ll go get those dudes from inside.” Wayne squeezes through the door of the pub just as a middle-aged couple is exiting.
Norman finishes his cigarette, watching the passersby, trying to extrapolate from the visual/auditory information available what it might be like to be each person.
As Norman is flicking his cigarette into the street, Harvey approaches him, shutting his phone. “Let’s get this feast on the move!” he bellows, flexing both his arms. Norman laughs, and they enter the pub again together, Harvey repeatedly but softly pummeling Norman’s lower back and making buzzing sounds, Norman chuckling and half-heartedly pretending to be comically injured for lack of a better reaction.
Walt turns to the two of them as they approach the bar. “So we’re going to your place, Harv?”
“Word,” Harvey acknowledges.
Norman catches one of the bartenders’ eye and he points to her, nodding and almost shouting, “Yeah, can I get my…thanks.” She extends her arm and he quickly retrieves his debit card and puts it in her hand.
“This place is crazy,” Elliot murmurs. “I’ll be glad to be somewhere where I can actually move.”
“Yeah, dude,” Wayne agrees. “Everybody is fucking here tonight, and yet nobody I know. Seriously, I would bet that at least a billion people are in this building right now.”
“Fucking new fire chief and his irresponsibly high new building fire code maximums,” Harvey says quite seriously. Only Norman laughs, which makes Norman wonder if no one else heard it or just no one else found it funny.
“Isn’t it crazy to actually consider the fact that there really are like six billion or seven billion or however many people alive right now, and how each of them is living a different life with different concerns and different morals and all that shit?” Wayne says almost to himself.
“Yes,” Walt agrees with a laugh. “It is crazy.”
“Thank you, sir; have a great weekend.” The bartender hands Norman his debit card and the receipt, which he signs and leaves on the bar.
“Kinda makes you feel all huge and significant, doesn’t it?” Harvey asks sarcastically.
“In the modern world it can be hard to feel a real passion for any great purpose,” Norman begins to add, getting nervous halfway through his sentence that he has been philosophically proselytizing too much lately, but he continues anyway after a moment’s pause, shrugging the whole time, “particularly in the light of these enlightenments I’ve received, but also conversely in the presence of such powerful forces of lameness and cynicism as the world so readily tries to drown us in. So, lately, I’ve counteracted that in my own life by seeing myself as a sort of Art Samurai, a lead/teach-by-example colossus of self-contained, self-sufficient awesomeness, righteousness, reason and compassion with a brush or a mike or a book or my very character and deeds, whatever is at hand to function as my sword-sublime.”
“Word, man,” Wayne remarks with a laugh, and throws an Ali G-ish gesticulation.
“Every artist is a savior, and every speaker is an artist. Every doer of things is an artist.” Norman signs the receipt he has been handed and puts his debit card back in his wallet. “Let’s blow this joint.”
“I think I just need to learn not to be so constantly self-conscious,” Wayne says as he and Norman follow the others, who are having their own conversation about Tom Waits ahead, out of the bar and down the street. “It’s like if I could just shut my mind off and forget about how I look or how I sound…”
“It’s okay to be self-conscious,” Norman says, “you just can’t constantly fight yourself. To be truly self-conscious is just to know yourself, to understand yourself. The problem is in trying to act in a pre-conceived manner. It’s trying to conform ourselves to what we’ve deduced is expected of us that tears us apart if it runs contrary to our Hearts. Economic-bottom-line-junkies like corporations and nations may think that we are expendable units that run most smoothly when homogenous, but we can see more clearly our own truer purposes, and that’s why we have to fight them, or at least fight that tendency. But the last thing we should be doing is letting ourselves get torn apart by the gravity of those illusory social constraints. Be self-conscious; just make sure to love what you see, especially if it’s you (and it all turns out to be you at the logical end of extrapolation). Anyway.”
“Wait a second,” Wayne says, slowing his walk slightly to fall back to Norman’s side, “what do you mean, it all turns out to be me at the logical end, and compassion for all things is logical or whatever? I cannot disagree more. Let me give you the example of the Bush administration, for one. Or the military leaders who are waging wars on innocent people, innocent countries. I am not making those decisions. Or the suicide bombers blowing people up in Israel, or the Israeli troops murdering Palestinian children – those motherfuckers most certainly are not me. You gotta earn my compassion.”
“I wonder, though, if you lived there, how you might feel.”
“Okay, Wayne,” Walt interjects, turning around ahead of them to walk backwards for a moment, “well, tell me this – do you feel like there is any possibility, any possibility at all, that these conflicts can be resolved?”
“No,” Wayne replies quickly. “Some of them? Definitely no. Like fucking Israel and Palestine? Do I think there’s some magical way to resolve that situation that isn’t fucking somebody? No. That region is just fucked. Any resolution, and one of them will feel fucked.”
“How about forgiveness?” Norman suggests.
“That’s not possible. They’ve been doing this forever. This grudge is old, man.”
“Not really,” Norman replies. “Not relatively. It’s less than a century old. I mean, I know it’s more complex than that, but, still. The issue at hand is pretty young. If everyone involved would genuinely forgive everyone else involved (of course, this is also under the conditions that they recognize each other as people like themselves and begin to actually treat each other thusly thereafter, and set up legal systems and customs to allow for that), I definitely think the region could find stability. I mean, those people are fundamentally no different than we are; they’re just in a shitty situation. If people could get over their bullshit ideas of entitlement and property, and the idea that where you come from makes you some kind of different person or have certain rights or blame solely because of your birthland or race, we might be able to more efficiently share and get along. I mean, we’re trying to share and get along – everyone would agree on that, I hope. But our systems get in our way of doing so. Systems set up by men who hoped everyone else wouldn’t realize just how this system fucked the common people while giving the guy who set it up a sweet deal. And we bought it, because people are gullible and conservative, generally. So first we fell for it, then we just stayed in it because it was how we had always done it. You know? Like, my father worked for the lord his whole life without question, died a serf in the mud, so that must be how it works. But really, we could all get along and share resources at something like a truly equal level, while not having to sacrifice all this luxury and such that we have now. These are not the fruits of capitalism, of systematized selfishness, alone. If we could only see how property is a bullshit concept, and thusly land-ownership, too.”
“You can’t run a society on goodness,” Elliot laughs. “Talk about a fuel shortage.”
“You guys have such a low opinion of Humanity,” Norman scoffs. “I’m genuinely shocked. Are you yourselves not good people, compassionate, tolerant and understanding? Aren’t most people you know?”
“Well, sure, but look at the news,” Walt says, “look at History. I mean, there isn’t much evidence of large-scale moral successes that I can think of.”
“Okay, sure,” Norman acknowledges, “the world is full of bullshit and lameness, but our judgments of bullshit and lame can only be in comparison to the other shit we see in the world – the awesome, totally sweet, progressive, empathic, unifying, transcendent shit that staggers all of us with its wonderfulness. There will always be an evenness of these two forces by their very nature, I have to feel.”
“Interesting thought,” Elliot admits, “but it leads nowhere.”
“And yet, I would almost be so bold as to say,” Norman continues, “there is slightly more awesome shit in the world. Or at least, the choosing, arranging forces of the universe prefer the awesome. Otherwise, it would seem there would not be this continuous tendency of progress toward more complex awesomeness. So, like, there is war and oppression and … what we would call evil bullshit,” (Norman tiptoes facially around the word evil) “but the driving force of the universe is clearly transcendence which, in this paradigm, can be translated to compassion, understanding, tolerance, forward-thinking, empathy, et cetera.”
Wayne scoffs with a devious grin. “Please. Empathy?” He dances very slightly, mockingly, as he says the words, “Peace, love and understanding?”
“Exactly,” Norman replies passionately. “What’s so funny about that?” Norman puts a cigarette in his mouth backwards absent-mindedly and lights the filter, which quickly plumes acrid smoke and causes him to throw the cigarette to the ground with a guttural curse.
“Oh shit, dude,” Wayne laughs. “Nice one. I’ve done that before.”
Norman chuckles to himself and gets a new cigarette, paying careful attention this time to lighting it correctly. “I’ve been drinking,” he explains.
“I don’t believe in empathy,” Wayne claims. “At least, you could never prove it.”
“Well from a certain point of view you can’t prove anything, really,” Norman retorts.
“Well…” Elliot begins.
“I mean, you can prove things within this paradigm of logic and reality, or at least come as close as possible, but really even A equals A is not necessarily true, in fact can almost be said to be fundamentally not true, because that A does not equal that other A. Really, the very word is is a metaphor, it cannot be actually true. Because as soon as you distinguish the two things, that this one thing is this other thing, they’re really not the same thing – you’ve split A in two and just named them identically. And so joining them is only really symbolic or meaningful, not inherent. It’s a summation, somehow. And can anything be said to be the same as anything else, then, at the heart of it all? No, surely. And yet, despite this, there is all of this stuff which is similar or connected or the same or whathaveyou, and…”
Wayne interrupts him, “Exactly. Everything is separate and maybe we can talk to each other and touch each other and stab each other and stuff, but true empathy? Truly, like, being able to conceive of being someone else, or, like, truly understanding another person’s perspective? Or, at least, ever being able to be certain you’re right? It’s impossible.”
“I disagree,” Norman smiles, shaking his head. “It seems to me that the logical end of all of these distinctions between things just goes to show how you can take apart the whole universe into its constituent parts continually. Continually. Like, it seems almost like every direction you go you end up on the other end, like, nothing ends, everything is toroidal or spherical or whatever. And so, you can keep distinguishing, like, ‘Okay, well this one thing is really these ten things, and each of these ten things are actually these hundred different tiny things, and on and on, but it doesn’t seem like you’ll ever be able to stop doing that. There is no pure god-monad. It almost seems to me like the horizon of how far we can see microscopically is just that – a horizon that we may not be able to see past dimensionally or whatever, but that there is fucking stuff behind. And maybe in a weird moebius way it’s the biggest stuff in the universe there under the smallest, or whatever. You know? And so, really, there’s everything, but also really, in a way, there’s nothing, and all of this is just a metaphor for itself. And really, it’s just the metaphor-maker/metaphor-listener, us, that universal, aware, choice-making substrate that must be shattered into all infinity of us (among which I include every part, every system, of the universe) in order to really mean anything at all, and of which every part is intrinsically connected. And so, you’re right, I’m not you, and I could never really understand what it was like to be you, and yet I feel that with enough effort toward knowledge and compassionate deduction and extrapolation and understanding and such, the component parts of empathy, I can come pretty much asymptotally close enough to understanding you and experiencing true empathy for you that the distinction is elementary. I can interpret the art-piece that is your physical existence to deduce the real you behind.”
It is now just Wayne and Norman together, walking very slowly, each staring forward at the ground, deep in their shared thought space. The other three are several feet ahead.
“If there is empathy,” Wayne says slowly, struggling to build his thought, “and … if empathy is possible and through someone like you or me it creates this understanding of unity and compassion and all that, then why doesn’t it create the same kind of thoughts in everyone else, is what I want to know. You know? Like, does President fucking Dooku not have empathy? Or, is his just sort of faulty, or something? You know? Or is he just not exercising it? Or racists, or terrorists, or…”
“We’re all connected, right?” Norman asks, interrupting Wayne. “All consciousness is really, at its distant, perhaps paradoxical heart, the same consciousness.”
“No,” Wayne laughs, “no it is not. Because I can’t just be you. I can’t be anybody but this guy,” and he points at himself with both thumbs. “And no matter how I want to try to feel inside my own damn head, shit is going to happen to my body and only mine, as far as I’m concerned. Like, I can watch someone else get blown up, and my brain will swirl with sort of preparation exercises or whatever where I imagine myself blowing up, myself dying, myself losing my whole family or starving in the desert, to prepare for such a thing happening to me, and it makes me sad because of how that happening to me would affect me, but, like, how can I really be sad about someone I never knew dying? All it really does, I think, is make me think about, like, my brother dying or me blowing up or whatever, and that’s why I’m sad.”
“Because that is exactly what is happening when you experience empathy,” Norman says, grinding his teeth hard in his mouth, both because of the evening chill and because of the gravity of the discussion and the fact that he is treading courageously into philosophical territory he has not prepared for. “That is you blowing up. That is you wailing at the loss of your family and starving in the desert. It’s you through those eyes and brain and body, from that perspective. Because really, we are none of these things. Really, it would seem to me, all we are is an experience of these things, the Great Story, and that’s all any of this is. And, of course, if it was one single, unshattered whole self experiencing every facet of the multiverse simultaneously, well … that would be basically inert omniscience. That is the wholeness that is as meaningless as nothingness, which, I think, are the same.”
Norman feels an awe of understanding, a sort of simple glowing pride of perfection, that reminds him of his Canada epiphany with Lou.
“I don’t know, man,” is all Wayne says after a few moments of silence. Then he points to Norman’s cigarette and says, “Hey, can I bum another one of those?”
“No problem.”
“Yount,” Wayne says with a somewhat glum grin after Norman lights his cigarette.
“How you doing?” Norman asks him. “With the whole Army-wanting-you-back thing?”
“I think I’ve decided that I’m just not gonna respond to them,” Wayne says. “I’m just gonna ignore it, and see what happens.”
“What could happen?”
“They could throw me in jail,” he says, grinning.
“That’s so ridiculous.”
“I’m not gonna worry about it tonight,” Wayne says. “I’m just gonna have a good time. Get drunk. Maybe get really high.” He chuckles. “And hang out with my fellow data soldiers, you know?” He slaps Norman’s shoulder.
“Hey man,” Norman says with an appreciative grin, slapping Wayne on the back in return, “as my friend Lou likes to say: moderation in all things, including moderation. Which means that even the spirit of moderation demands occasional excess.”
Wayne lets out a single powerful laugh, then chuckles to himself for a few moments. “Right on, bub,” Wayne laughs, nodding to Norman. “Let’s roll up in this bitch.” As he jogs up to the head of the group, toward the stoop of Harvey’s apartment building, he shouts into the air, “Moderation in all things,” then points furiously at a passing elderly couple and continues, even louder, “including moderation!” The woman recoils her neck and the man glares at Wayne, but otherwise they coolly continue along their path. Norman tries to beam a subtle apology to the man through a brief moment of eye contact, though he cannot help smiling at Wayne’s antics.
Harvey’s apartment is on the second floor of a tall, slender wooden building at the edge of a copse of similar buildings each painted a different pastel color, all fading/cracked. Harvey leads the party up a narrow flight of stairs to his doorway, behind which, even before the door is opened, Norman startlingly recognizes Imogen’s laughter among the din of the party.
The place is small and packed with costumes. As Harvey the Bee and Wayne the Caveman push a path with laughter and salutations, Imogen becomes visible at the far side of the room, near the windows. Just after Norman sees her, her eyes find him as well. She is wearing a short, tight red dress that she has adjusted into a perfect original series Star Trek outfit with a little felt communicator on one breast and knee-high black boots. Her black hair is curled at either side into a particularly sixties-ish do. She is standing next to Hunter Thompson, who is chatting with her while she stares across the room into Norman’s eye like she somehow knew he was coming. Norman patiently moves through the crowd in a direct path to her.
“Well hello there,” Imogen says with an enthusiasm that only Norman seems to find forced and awkward. She hands her drink to the good doctor and gives Norman a tight hug. “This is a surprise,” she remarks with a nervous giggle, looking over at Hunter Thompson, who is peering at Norman from behind his sunglasses and green visor.
“Hi, I’m Norman Newman,” Norman introduces himself. He and the man shake hands.
“I’m Alan,” Alan says. “Or Hunter, if you prefer. What are you, Neo from the Matrix?”
“No, this is a priest robe, actually,” Norman says.
“Yeah, I found that at a Goodwill in Indiana,” Imogen explains. “You must be getting old, Norman; reusing the same Halloween costume two years in a row.”
“Well this is a new city,” Norman replies, softly biting the inside of his mouth as his body subtly shakes with an inexplicable nervous chill. His heart feels like it is attempting to flee his chest. “Anyway,” he continues with a slight squeak to his voice, “I was Rasputin last time. I had a beard.”
“I remember,” Imogen says with a sexy smile. “It didn’t stay on very long.”
“What are you this time?” Alan/Hunter Thompson asks.
Norman silently thinks for a long moment, then slowly says, “A priest, I guess.” Imogen laughs cutely.
Wayne’s hand reaches over the girl in the big hamburger costume who is right behind Norman, a pan half-full of brownies firmly in his grip, and then the whole caveman emerges from between the hamburger and her date, a plainclothes Cyclops. “Yount!” Wayne shouts. “Hello there, Yeoman. Nice costume.”
“Thank you,” Imogen smiles, touching her hair.
Harvey appears behind Wayne, ogling the hamburger girl as he pushes past her. “You look delicious. You win Most Savory.” He turns to Norman with a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Alan! I see you’ve met Neo. He’s the new kid on the street. Interested in film. Norman, this is Alan, the dude I told you about. Oh, and this,” he says, gesturing with the bottle, “and those,” and he points with the bottle to the pan of brownies in Wayne’s hand, “are for you to have some of, mi amigo.” He hands the bottle off to Norman, who laughs and takes a small swig.
“Thanks, dude. Good lookin’ out.”
Bottle in hand, Norman turns to Hunter Thompson and says, “So, are you involved in filmmaking in some way?”
“That’s right, man,” Dr. Thompson replies.
“Hi, I’m Imogen,” Imogen laughs somewhat awkwardly, leaning forward to shake Harvey’s hand. “Old friend of Norman.”
“I’m Harvey, and this is my party. Wayne, distribute refreshments, would you?”
“Hi, I’m Wayne,” Wayne says with a weird comic meekness. “You look great in your Starfleet uniform. It’s very flattering.”
“Well thank you, Wayne,” Imogen smiles, looking at Norman and lifting her ample breasts with both hands for a moment. “It’s a little tighter than I intended.”
“No complaints,” Wayne assures her.
“Well,” Harvey the drunk bee continues, “it’s actually my girlfriend’s party. Where is she? Here, eat these.” He waggles his bee stinger in the direction of the brownies, making everyone laugh. “I’ll be right back.” He ventures off into the party.
“Did you make that yourself?” Wayne asks Imogen.
“I did, actually,” Imogen replies, touching the hem of her skirt and smiling at Norman.
“So do you have a ship we could take off on, or something?” Wayne asks, almost sounding genuine, again wielding that comic timidity. “Because I need to get out of here. I need to leave the country. Maybe the planet.”
Hunter Thompson/Alan slaps Wayne on the shoulder and grunts, “You’ll be alright in a minute, man, just sit the fuck down and eat a pot brownie.”
“That’s a good idea,” Norman says, picking up the pan and using the knife in it to cut several brownies out. “Here, you guys, let’s all have one. Or, each have one, rather.” Wayne, Imogen, Alan and Norman each take a brownie and begin to eat them. “Ah, moderation,” Norman sighs, smiling to Wayne after he washes a swallow of brownie down with some whiskey.
Wayne laughs loudly. “Yes! Moderation in all things, my friends – including moderation! Give me that.” He grabs the bottle of Jack out of Norman’s hand and takes a big swig. “Here’s to the military-industrial complex.”
“What?” Alan asks.
“I got called back.”
“What, are you in the Army?” Imogen asks.
“I was. My unit got called back, for Iraq this time.”
“You were in Afghanistan and Kazakhstan last time?” Norman confirms.
Wayne nods. “Mostly.”
“Oh my god,” Imogen gasps. “That’s awful.”
Wayne just nods slowly, trying hard to keep a comedic expression on his face. “They sent me an email last week that I didn’t notice ‘till yesterday, and then today my mom called me and said they left a message on her machine about it, so – it’s for real. I’m supposed to report to the recruiting office in South Portland.”
“Holy shit,” Alan scoffs. “I can’t believe it. Are you still in the Army?”
“They just sent you an email?” Imogen half-laughs.
“No, I’m not in the Army,” Wayne laughs, shaking his head.
“You quit, right, though? You’re out?” Norman tries to understand.
Wayne nods, grinning bittersweetly. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “They can call me back anytime and try to make me do it.”
“So once you’re in the military they have you forever?” Norman scoffs, half laughing in disbelief. “Is that really how it works? That’s ridiculous!”
“Yeah, dude,” Alan agrees.
“Are you gonna go?” Imogen asks Wayne.
“Nah, girl,” Wayne nods excitedly, proudly. “I’m not going back over there. With everything I know now? I couldn’t possibly.”
“I’m proud to hear you say that,” Norman assures him, and pats Wayne’s shoulder.
Someone near the entrance to the apartment frantically calls Wayne’s name with a hand stretched out over the crowd. Wayne nods to the group with a goofy roll of his eyes and leaves.
“Man, poor guy,” Imogen whispers mostly to herself.
“He’ll be alright,” Alan assures her. Norman wonders if they came here together, and how Imogen knows this guy. “Like, a lot of guys are dying over there,” Alan continues, “but statistically the chances of it being any one specific guy out of the tens of thousands or whatever that are there, is very low. You know, right?”
“That’s a ridiculous argument,” Norman scoffs, then takes a sip of whiskey from the bottle that ends up being slightly bigger than he had intended. He coughs, covering his mouth and sloshing the bottle in his hand, spilling a bit more whiskey down his chin. He laughs and apologizes, wiping off his mouth, then continues his thought, adding, “Statistics are so misleading. Statistics are to the truth as, like, a genre is to an actual story.”
“It’s true,” Alan half-agrees, looking away for a moment at Harvey and Walt, who are doing shots with their arms entwined. “It’s just that, you know…”
“No, yeah,” Norman stutters, inexplicably nervous under Imogen’s gaze, “I know what you mean. But I sure as hell wouldn’t wish going over there on anybody. Especially an Iraqi. It’s so sad, really. I wonder how many people are going to be refugees from their own country because of us. I mean, you know, not that Saddam was great or whatever, but at least shit was somewhat stable. I mean, what about Darfur, you know? Where’s the righteous invasion force there?”
“So you do think it would be possible to righteously invade a country, just not Iraq?” Alan asks, apparently just for the sake of discussion.
“Well, I don’t know. I guess, were it righteous it wouldn’t be called an invasion. Although, at the same time, if it were really righteous it wouldn’t matter what it was called. People know good when they see it. It’s just that they don’t see it that much anymore. So yeah, potentially, I guess, I would have to say it would be possible to righteously go into another country and be like, ‘Yo.’ It almost seems like any act can be righteous, though, depending on the context. Because really, anything can be cool, potentially,” Norman says with a swish of his cigarette. “Nothing is intrinsically lame. It’s just all about how you rock it. Each detail.”
“So rather than what you do,” Imogen suggests, “you really mean how you do it.”
“I suppose I propose that there is no difference between how and what in this instance. What you do and how you are doing it are the same thing. And this is why all sorts of things that we lump together into categories or types are actually not the same thing at all. In the same way that we’re all humans, but we are definitively not the same. Everything, it turns out, is actually unique (obviously, hello).”
“Why would he not mean to say what he knows we will naturally assume him to mean?” Alan asks Imogen with a laugh.
Norman’s heart skips a beat. He shoots a glance at Imogen, his mouth agape, but she does not seem to recognize the line that Alan just quoted, which is word-for-word a line from the screenplay for Norman and Lou’s planned second film, Death and the Ladies. Imogen half-smiles-half-frowns at him quizzically.
“That’s just obtuse,” Norman continues ecstatically. “You don’t recognize that line, Imogen? Holy shit, Alan, did you just say those words of your own volition?”
Alan frowns and squints. “What do you mean? What’s so funny?”
“You just quoted one of my films that I’ve not yet made.”
“What,” Alan scoffs. “What I just said, about you being a nerd?”
“The exact words you spoke are the exact words from the script for my film Death and the Ladies, my second future film. It’s one of my favorite lines.”
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Why would he not mean to say what he knows we will naturally assume him to mean.’ Right? That’s what you said, right?”
Alan just shakes his head. “You said future, not feature, right? Your second future film? How many films do you have planned?”
Norman shakes his head and says, “I don’t know. It depends on what you count as planned. We’ve got at least like twenty ideas but maybe only like ten that are specifically planned.”
“Jesus. Okay, so tell me about your first planned film.”
“The Turing Registry,” Norman says nonchalantly. “Firstly, though, I’d like to reiterate how incredible I think it is that you just randomly quoted from a movie of mine that has not yet been produced, that only exists in screenplay form, and you have never read or heard of that screenplay – that’s fucking really interesting to me, but clearly only to me … so anyway. Turing is about two identical guys who interview each other, but the more they do the more they realize there are no differences between them at all except simple location across a table from each other, and they start to discuss the nature of identity. It’s more complicated than that, of course, it has a story. It’s difficult to describe. It’s a comedy.”
Alan silently nods, his brow furrowed. “How does it end?”
Norman laughs and says, “One of them kills the other.”
Alan’s flat mouth turns into a half-grin. “That’s kind of funny. Which one?”
Norman laughs out loud. “They’re identical.”
“Right, but…” Alan stops in the middle of his sentence, seeming to hope Norman will fill in the rest. His head seems to twitch a couple of times to the left, like an android who is briefly stuck in a thought loop, then he looks back at Norman and asks, “Are they played by the same actor?”
“Oh yeah, they’d have to be. I think it’s highly unlikely I can find twins for the role. Anyway, even twins aren’t really identical. I mean, it would be completely obtuse for me to make a film about two identical beings, about the comedy of identity…”
“The comedy of identity?”
“…and the roles of these identical beings are played by, like, an Australian woman and a sea lion. No, maybe in some ultra-meta Twenty-ninety-nine theatrical version or something, but, no, in my film they have to be played by the same person.”
“What about identical twins?”
“Still not physically identical. They would play the parts differently. Has to be the same actor.”
“Okay, okay,” Alan nods. “And this actor is … you, right?”
“Yeah, ideally,” Norman asserts, looking out through the window to his left at the street below, where Wayne seems to be scuffling with two other young men by the stoop of the building. “I’ve been having an idea for a script tonight, this one a two-act play about an anti-abortionist in the near future who blows himself up in some liberal gathering place in middle America, and then they all wake up together in the bardo. The bomber and his victims. And the whole play would be them all figuring out what happened and talking about it and then in the second half they decide to put together a makeshift trial.”
“Now that’s fascinating. What’s their judgment, in the end?”
“That it’s not up to them to judge. I think Wayne has gotten into a fight out on the street. Check it out.” Norman gestures with his drink to the window.
“What’s the bardo, by the way?” Alan asks Norman as the two of them and several others around who overheard Norman’s comment all peer out the window. Below, Wayne has one of the other men’s shirt up over his head and is punching him in the ribs while the other one struggles to pull him off.
“It’s a Buddhist term, I think, for the place where you wait between lives.”
“Ah,” Alan sighs. “What’s that one called?”
“That script, in the bardo? It’s called In The Bardo, right now, but that could change. That’s just the name of the file on my computer. Maybe I’ll call it A Grand Jury, though. I just thought of that.”
“I like that word, bardo.”
“Do you think Wayne needs some help?” Imogen asks.
“He is fighting two guys,” Alan notes.
“Maybe you guys should go down there and help him,” Imogen says nervously, clearly made uncomfortable by her proximity to real violence.
“Here, I’ll be right back,” Norman says, handing his drink to Alan and then throwing on his coat. He hurries out of the apartment and down the stairs to the stoop, noting his exceptional level of drunkenness as he descends, hoping he won’t have to get involved in the fighting but also hoping for a chance to be involved in a potent moment of some kind. He slows, turns and backs into the door at the bottom to open it.
One of the guys Wayne had been fighting is now a block away, running slowly, and Wayne has the other guy’s fingers in some kind of painful hold while the guy crouches by Wayne’s knees and feebly punches and smacks Wayne in the sides and thighs, shrieking softly. “You gonna come back here, ever, motherfucker? Hey Norman, these two fucks came to kick Jason’s ass but ended up getting their own asses kicked. Didn’t you, ass?”
“Fuck you,” the guy fumes, nearly muted with pain. “Let go.”
“Let go of him, Wayne,” Norman suggests softly. “Who’s Jason?”
As soon as Norman finishes his sentence, Wayne lets go of the guy and steps back from him for a moment, giving the guy just long enough to stand up before Wayne decks him in the face. The guy falls back again to the ground and struggles to stand.
“Wayne, control thy damn self,” Norman demands with a powerful psychic hand on his shoulder. Wayne lurches back a little and turns around to face Norman with a big grin on his face.
The other guy runs off in the direction of his friend. As soon as he is out of reach he starts coughing curses and vicious promises back at Wayne.
“What the fuck was all that?”
“Nothing, man, just some fucking assholes who thought they could kick my ass,” Wayne laughs, throwing his arm around Norman to reach for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. “He didn’t know he was fucking around with the post-humans, motherfucker!” Wayne grabs onto Norman’s shoulder and shakes it as he holds his other fist in the air. “He can’t deal with our enlightened asses. We are enlightened with a capital E, motherfucker! Suck it!” He starts to limp toward the door back into his apartment. “Bitches.”
Harvey and Alan appear at the door as Norman and Wayne approach the stoop from the street. Harvey has a beer in each hand, and when he sees Wayne limping he thrusts one forward, shouting, “Yes, Wayne, you are the man! You are the Revolution! Have a beer!” Wayne gratefully grabs it, sloshing it all over both of them, then takes an exaggeratedly tiny sip to compensate for the vigorous hand off, making everyone laugh.
“I love you guys,” Alan says with a laugh.
“Fuck yeah!” Wayne agrees.
Norman takes this moment, while he is outside, to light a cigarette. His fellows gather around him, making a circle whose circumference undulates like four drunkenly teetering young men.
“This is it,” Harvey declares intensely, gesturing to the group, and to the sky. “This is the real shit. This is what the Revolution looks like, guys. It’s just guys like us standing in the street, smoking cigarettes, planning the future of beauty.”
“The Evolution, don’t you mean,” Norman adds with a sly smile.
“The Evolution, that’s right!” Harvey slaps Norman on the shoulder. “I love this guy! This guy is a fucking genius! I am drunk! I’m a drunk bee!” They all laugh.
“Well, you know the ancient Greeks believed that you should make all your decisions drunk,” Wayne says, pointing to Norman for some reason.
Norman laughs. “Not exactly,” he corrects. “But, yeah – that you should consider important decisions both intoxicated and sober.”
“Name me one good decision that has ever been made sober,” Wayne challenges the group. They all look around at each other shaking their heads and then begin laughing.
“You’re right,” Norman jokes with sarcasm, “drunk is definitely superior.” He very dramatically takes a drag from his cigarette at the same moment that he is struck by the beauty of the moon, which hangs crescent in the sky, its dark side visible like a big gray button in the midnight blue. He reaches up and presses it with his index finger, saying, “Boop,” as he does, then laughs to himself.
“What was that?” Alan asks.
“The moon looks like a big button,” Norman explains. “I was just pressing it.” He gestures theatrically as he describes, “Now the sky is supposed to fall like a tent and the poles of Heaven collapse into a little portable cube and the stars all sprinkle down like paratroopers.” He points to each referenced landmark as he continues, “And that building there gets folded up and the street gets rolled up by a couple of interns and you guys take off your human suits, and I take off my human suit and we all psychically agree to start this world over, this time as lizardoids instead of primates.”
“Lizardoids?” Alan asks.
“That’s right.”
“I’m down,” Wayne shrugs, nodding.
Norman stands for a while in the cold, transfixed by the stars. After a while, Harvey calls to him from the doorway as he and the others are headed inside, “You okay, Neo?”
“He’s fine,” Wayne assures Harvey. “He’s the One. He’s meditating.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Norman replies.
As the other guys all file back inside to the party, Norman watches the three words he has just spoken rise slowly above him like a cloud of exhaled smoke, bright white against the black night, covering the stars. But the longer he considers the words, Imogen’s pleas for him to love her echoing back and forth between him and the cloud/words, they seem to stop rising and finally begin to fall, to smother Norman with their potential untruth.
Drunker than he has been since (coincidentally) that Halloween party a year ago when he and Imogen and Sylvia had their last passionate night of triumviral love, Norman spends the last couple of hours of the party outside by himself, unwilling to face Imogen when he cannot be sure what he will say. His whiskified brain can’t hold back the flood of regretful, apologetic words that he wishes she could understand without him having to speak them, so Norman keeps himself away from the possibility of letting them slip and simply holds them wetly in his mouth. The Radiohead song Gagging Order and the Portishead song Over play simultaneously in an eerie, mashed up harmony on the wind of Norman’s mental landscape. He cries briefly, the moments of genuine love that he and Imogen shared circling and cackling at him as he hides behind the corner of Harvey’s apartment building. He smokes far too many cigarettes, eventually making himself nauseous from it.
When he finally goes to the door he finds that the party seems to be over and the door is locked. Norman throws pebbles from the parking lot (there are surprisingly few to be found) at Harvey’s second floor bedroom window until Harvey finally shows up in just his boxers at the front door and wordlessly lets Norman inside to sleep on his couch.


The light of dawn through Venetian blinds wakes him. As drunken dreams turn into shafts of light, fiery angels swirling against the background of space become lit particles of dust passing through the rows of light.
Norman rises from Harvey’s couch, steps over Wayne and Timothy, and sneaks out of the apartment, heading home to Laura’s place. As he walks back across the empty, horizontally lit city of Portland, still drunk, he wonders why he didn’t realize last night that he could sleep at Laura’s, that Laura’s place is now basically his home. It strikes him that he is no longer homeless, sort of. He now lives with his new girlfriend, Laura. He struggles to maintain a semblance of sobriety as he walks. Norman briefly half-hallucinates, almost certain he can see a hovering set of windows that display assorted information about him. Norman Newman, 24, In a Relationship, intoxicated. He wonders, as he ascends in the Metropolitan’s elevator, whether he has changed his various online profiles yet from single to attached. He also wonders when Imogen left the party last night, and if she was hurt by his antisocial denouement to the evening.
Norman strips on the way to the bedroom and falls onto Laura’s bed with a soft, happy laugh to himself. Her smell in the sheets pulls him down into dreams.
There, in some dream realm, it is as if another him (a double, like Norman B in the Turing Registry version of his life [or perhaps just the fictional Norman he has created for his book]) takes him by the hand to steady his body which is drunk even in dreams. He finds himself in a small room that seems to have no walls – only an edge to the floor, which is glossy black against the matte black void surrounding.
“Before you forget,” the other Norman says to Norman, putting his other hand on Norman’s shoulder, gripping his hand firmly.
Sam the Demon steps up out of the floor and flies up to Norman’s shoulder. Norman feels frozen, the ice of drunkenness pushing him somehow out of this realm and into more nightmarish/chaotic ones, but he can hear, just before he stops creating new memories for a while, Sam whisper, “It’s all true. You’re doing an excellent job. Do the thang, dog. Out.”