“I want to see that car again,” Barney said.
“Why? What’s that car got to do with you?”
“I don’t know,” Barney replied, his hands tracing patterns on the sheet. He didn’t want to tell Billy about the nightmare of the car, wondering whether the nightmare would be set off again if he saw the MG once more from the fence. “I don’t know, but I’ve got to see it again.”
“We’ll go out tomorrow, Barney, if neither one of us gets a treatment. I’ll act as a lookout.”
“Great, Billy, great,” Barney said.
And then Billy seemed to be overcome by a huge weariness that made his body droop. As if suddenly his bones and muscles had turned to wax and the wax was melting. Billy’s head fell forward on his chest and he rested it there a moment. Then he whispered: “Think … I’d … better … get … to … bed.”
Barney pushed him back to his room, the wheelchair whispering through the dim corridor, the door to Billy’s room swiveling open noiselessly. Barney helped Billy to get into the bed. Billy’s breath was coming hard again, and when his eyes fluttered open, the flashing was in them.
Barney patted Billy’s shoulder.
“See you tomorrow,” he said softly.
“May—be …” Billy said.
Barney was sorry suddenly that he hadn’t come out of the compartment for Billy, poor Billy who wasn’t sure that he’d wake up tomorrow morning.
May—be.
The syllables echoed within Barney all the way to his room, as he prepared for bed and took the capsule and then slipped in between the cool sheets. He lay quietly, waiting for the Handyman’s capsule to bring obliteration. The last thing he was aware of was the vision of that red car in the junkyard, and then he plunged suddenly and sweetly into sleep, grateful for the Handyman’s knowledge of the stuff that brought oblivion.
But sometime in the night he was in the car again, hurtling down the slanted street, and the girl stepped out from the curb and this time he almost … almost … saw her face and then his own screams awakened him.
Or had he been awake all the time and didn’t know it?
4
THE Handyman summoned him to the Hit Room during breakfast the next morning. Bascam delivered the message as Barney ate the nothing food. “He wants to see you after you’ve finished eating,” Bascam said, touching his shoulder, making Barney jump. Sometimes Bascam gave him the creeps, appearing out of nowhere on her rubber-soled shoes, gliding like a ghost through the Complex. He wondered if she was married and had a family, whether she ever left this place: She always seemed to be around, night and day.
Barney relaxed at the table after Bascam left. He knew that the Handyman would not have allowed him to eat breakfast if he were scheduled for new merchandise today. On the days when merchandise was administered, the diets were under strict control, with preparations beginning at least twenty-four hours in advance. Barney pushed the food around the plate. Fried eggs and bacon, but the food could have been cardboard as far as Barney was concerned. He had lost interest in eating since his taste buds had failed to work, and he ate simply to keep up his energy, to fill a cavity in his body.
The sound of the knife and fork hitting the plate echoed loudly in the dining room. Barney always ate alone, the only person in Section 12 to eat regularly. Billy the Kidney and Mazzo and Allie Roon took nourishment in their rooms, in a variety of ways, through plastic tubes, IV’s and such. Mealtimes did not exist for them; food was only another element to be introduced into wasting bodies. Barney was constantly dismayed by the futility of it all, even though the Handyman had tried to explain the situation at the Complex to him. The conversation had taken place shortly after Barney had arrived and learned that the Complex was not a treatment center, that Billy and Allie Roon and Ronson and Mazzo were doomed to die.
“How about a miracle?” Barney had asked. “Or some kind of hope, some kind of long shot?”
“I have never witnessed a miracle,” the Handyman had said. “Nobody here is looking for such a thing. Or even a cure. This is the last place in the world to come for that. Although what we do here may someday produce a miracle.”
“Then why aren’t guys like Billy and Ronson and even Mazzo beating their heads against the wall? That’s what I’d be doing. Pushing the panic button. That’s what most people would be doing.”
The Handyman paused as if trying to find the right words. Barney called him the Handyman in order to avoid the word doctor. Doctors scared him to death. Doctor Lakendorp looked so much like a doctor—always dressed in green hospital garb—that Barney resorted to his old trick: providing a more suitable label for things that he feared or worried about. Like merchandise for drugs. Barney called the doctor the Handyman because a handyman is skilled and clever and Dr. Lakendorp was expert at his job, skilled with needles and drugs and all the paraphernalia of medicine. Barney felt secure with him but never completely comfortable. Why? He wasn’t sure. Maybe because the doctor kept himself at a distance, behind an invisible wall. Small and compact, he held himself stiffly erect all the time, as if trying to compensate for his lack of height. His movements were precise, formal, almost like a figure on a music box. Short beard and mustache neatly trimmed, black hair so neatly combed it seemed to be painted on his skull. Brilliant green eyes. He did not speak with an accent, but his speech was so formal and proper that it was obvious English was not his native tongue.
“Let me explain first what we do here, Barney,” the Handyman said. “This is not a hospital or a clinic or a hospice, although it has come to be called a clinic simply because people have a need for labels. This is a facility for experimental medicine. We deal here with patients of limited life expectancy.”
Meaning people who were dying, Barney said, automatically translating the Handyman’s words.
“We operate here under strict codes and regulations that must be scrupulously observed.”
Barney didn’t say anything. He was sorry, in fact, he had started this conversation. He had the feeling that the less he knew about this place, the better off he’d be.
“For instance, my boy, we have only volunteers here. We must obtain informed consent. The subjects must know exactly what awaits them here. For our part, we must operate under the code which insists that the well-being of the subject takes precedence over everything else. We must also avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering. The risks to the subject must never exceed the humanitarian aspects of the situation. And, of course, the subject is always free to withdraw from the project.”
Subject, project. Cold words to chill the bones.
“But you haven’t answered my question, doctor,” Barney said, cutting through the Handyman’s terrible words to get at what he really wanted to know. “Why aren’t Billy and Allie and Mazzo in a state of panic? Have they been drugged? Put on tranquilizers so that they don’t know what’s going on?”
“The only therapy they receive, Barney, is involved with experimental procedures,” the Handyman said. “However, these are terminal patients, and they have reached a certain state of existence.” The Handyman arched his back, craned his neck, as if weary suddenly but not wanting to admit to the weariness. “All terminal cases display similar characteristics. People who have learned that there is no reprieve, that their conditions are irrevocable and irreversible, proceed through a succession of stages. Panic, at first. Then perhaps rage. And then: Why me?” Those eyes fastened on Barney. Like X-ray eyes, Barney thought, as if they could see into your innermost being. “Then there is the stage of denial, when they trick themselves into thinking that a terrible mistake has been made. There is something in human beings that whispers secretly to them that they are personally immortal, that other people die, but not them.” Eyes almost sad now, brooding. “Some argue with God or whatever deity commands their belief, offering prayers, good works, bribes, anything to get well, to find out that it has all been a mistake. And then at last a kind of resignation, like weariness after battle. Accepta
nce. And with this, calm. They may fret about other aspects of their lives, but they have come to terms with their limited expectancy.”
“The tests,” Barney said. “Why are they putting themselves through the tests? They could be home or someplace with friends.”
“Who can accurately know other people’s motives?” the Handyman asked. “Perhaps they want to contribute to mankind. Serve a useful purpose. Give meaning to their final days. I do not question their motives. I cannot deal in imponderables. I deal in results, effects. I need subjects for the work we are doing, and they are provided for me. I do not question, do not go beyond that.”
What kind of monster is he? Barney thought.
Perhaps sensing Barney’s revulsion at his words, the Handyman continued, voice almost gentle. “I cannot allow myself to become involved, my boy. The subjects are made as comfortable as possible. Our medical teams provide therapy, both physical and psychological. As director, I am ultimately responsible for the well-being of our subjects. But you must remember that we are primarily investigators here. We must view our subjects objectively. Must keep a certain distance. As you must also do, Barney, if you are to remain here. We all have separate compartments and must remain within them.”
That was the first time the Handyman had used the word compartment, but not the last. Barney was glad to have taken the Handyman’s advice, had minded his own business during his stay here, not allowing anyone to get too close to him. Even Billy the Kidney, who hated to be left alone. Although he and Billy had become friendly and spent a lot of time together, Barney didn’t allow any intimacies, turning him off when he became too personal about himself or curious about Barney. Maybe I’m becoming a monster, too, Barney thought.
* * *
He pushed the plate away, the bacon and eggs half eaten but his stomach satisfied for the moment. He left the dining area and headed down the corridor to the elevator that would take him to the Handyman’s office on the second floor. He felt the immensity and the mystery of the Complex all around him. The six-story building covered the equivalent of a city block, but Barney was familiar only with Section 12, the pediatric area he occupied with Billy the Kidney and Ronson and Allie Roon and, of course, Mazzo. Section 12 was isolated from the rest of the facility, although Barney occasionally caught a glimpse of a passing gurney on which a patient lay, heading for merchandise or an operation, he didn’t know which and never asked questions.
The Handyman gave him the run of Section 12 and imposed few rules or regulations. When he was not involved with merchandise, he was allowed to establish his own daily routine. The Handyman, in fact, encouraged all the patients to come and go when they were able to. Billy the Kidney had good days during which he could maneuver his wheels all over the place or even try to walk. Other times he remained in bed, pale with exhaustion, unable to visit even the Recreation Room with its black-and-white television set and the old books that smelled musty and dusty and the outdated magazines. “We have no funds for luxuries or comforts here,” the Handyman explained, “but then most of the patients here are past the need for luxuries.” Sometimes Barney hated the Handyman.
The Complex was Barney’s home for the moment, but he disliked a lot of things about it. The sound effects, for instance. Blips and bleeps of cardiac monitors, the rattling of bottles and jars and tubes that contained fluids he didn’t even want to think about, phones ringing in the distance with the sound of emergency, bedside machines, like the one to which Mazzo was connected, that hummed or groaned, their dials and gauges glowing green in daylight or darkness. He tried to shut his ears to the sounds but couldn’t, of course.
Nobody bothered Barney. The nurses passed him by as if he did not exist, focusing their attention on the patients in need of their care. They attended to Barney with the same care when he received the merchandise, but he always recovered quickly and the nurses withdrew swiftly and efficiently, their attentions always required elsewhere. Barney didn’t mind, was glad to see them go off.
Now he knocked at the door of the Hit Room, paused, then swung it open. He called it the Hit Room because this was where the Handyman hit patients with news of the next merchandise. The Handyman sat behind a simple wooden desk, its surface bare of furnishings, like a butcher’s block before the day’s work begins.
“You did not have to knock,” the Handyman said. “I was expecting you.”
“I was knocking for luck,” Barney said.
The Handyman locked his hands together and rested them on his desk. He studied Barney as if he had never seen him before. This was a ritual, this scrutiny, and Barney always endured it silently, patiently. The Handyman and his X-ray eyes.
“Luck is a useless word,” the Handyman said. “It is especially meaningless here.”
Barney didn’t say anything. He always let the Handyman take the initiative. And the Handyman seldom lost time getting to the point. He didn’t believe in small talk, never discussed the weather or the state of the world or anything except what went on here in the Complex, as if no other world existed.
“You’ve been here forty-two days, Barney, and have undergone three tests. Three tests, three affirmative responses. By affirmative, I mean that your response has either confirmed our knowledge of certain conditions or, as in one test, added specific new evidence to our knowledge.”
Barney was mildly curious: What conditions? What knowledge? But he didn’t ask any questions. He had made a bargain with the Handyman when he had first arrived. I will do whatever you want, whatever is required of me, but don’t tell me too much. I don’t want to know the details.
“So, my congratulations, Barney. You’ve more than lived up to expectations.”
For some reason Barney felt pleased beyond words, although he felt that he had done nothing to earn congratulations, had only lent the Handyman his body for short periods of time.
“And now we come to a new stage,” the Handyman said. “What we spoke about when you first arrived. These tests you’ve undergone were only preliminary to a series that’s scheduled for you. To start forty-eight hours from now. Thursday, at nine in the morning.”
“You said the other tests were preliminary. You mean only warm-ups? Like spring training before the real season starts?”
“Exactly, Barney.” A flicker of a smile.
Barney thought of the three times he had taken the merchandise. Never pain but the apprehension, the nausea, the dizziness, and the aftermaths. “Boy, doctor, those were some warm-ups.”
“The importance of a procedure isn’t measured by its physical effects, Barney. A routine procedure can sometimes cause major discomfort.” There he goes again, Barney thought, avoiding the word pain. “And remember, we never expose anyone to more than he can absorb or endure. We know your far horizons, Barney, just as we know your limits. The tests, in fact, proved what we suspected.”
“What did you suspect?” Barney asked, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
“That you would be ideal for the experiments you were brought here for.”
“So tell me about them,” Barney said, investing his voice with a bravado he did not really feel, telling himself to let the blood flow, tempo, rhythm.
The Handyman still sat there, hands clasped on the desk, not having moved since Barney entered the room. While Barney was conscious of having squirmed and fidgeted in his chair and now was letting his arms dangle at his sides, letting the blood flow.
“We’re about to begin a series of procedures involving the brain,” the Handyman said as if he were a teacher addressing a classroom, and Barney only casually involved. “Specifically, the memory. It’s an exciting departure for us. As you know, we are involved in experimental therapy here, but thus far it has been confined to the physical, not the mental. Now we explore new territory.”
The Handyman smiled again—he was breaking some sort of record today—but Barney realized that his eyes didn’t change with the smile. They remained the same, dazzling in their intensity and brilli
ance but hard and cold.
“The brain, Barney, remains uncharted territory for the most part, one of the last frontiers to be explored. Outer space is another frontier. The brain is inner space, a land of many marvels about which we know only too little. We know less about the brain than about any other region of the body, but there has been some advancement in knowledge in recent years. In particular we have witnessed the effects of chemicals on the brain. I’m sure you’ve heard of mind-altering drugs, Barney. They range from tranquilizers that doctors prescribe to relieve the anxieties of their patients to sophisticated drugs that have changed the course of treatment of the mentally ill. These drugs have opened the doors to research into the chemistry of the brain.”
The chemistry of the brain. Barney felt self-conscious suddenly, thinking of his brain: How do I think, where do thoughts come from? He could feel the blood gathering in his hands as they hung limply on either side of the chair.
“Then there’s another side of the drug picture,” the Handyman said, moving for the first time, unclasping his hands, the index finger of his right tapping the desk lightly. “This is the exciting aspect of developments, Barney, the positive, constructive side. If these new chemicals can help afflicted persons, why can’t they improve the performance of normal people? Can they improve mental ability? Increase the capacity to learn, to assimilate, to remember? Some progress has already been made on these fronts, however limited it has been. But now we must push even further.”
He looked fondly at Barney, the way a teacher might look at a favorite pupil.
“Your involvement, Barney, will involve memory. We are going to introduce elements into your system that will affect your memory.”
“You mean make me some kind of genius at remembering things? I could be great on quiz shows, win all kinds of money.”
“We are attempting to do just the opposite, Barney. We will obliterate your memory. A portion of it, anyway. We will introduce a condition similar to amnesia. Temporary, of course, a matter of two or three hours.”