We Can Build You

  To the people at the nearby tables Blunk said, “It’s a doll, a life-size doll, for display. Mechanical.” For their benefit he showed them the now-visible metal and plastic inner part of the simulacrum’s skull. Within the puncture I could see something shining, the damaged ruling monad, I suppose. I wondered if Bob Bundy could repair it. I wondered if I cared whether it could be repaired or not.

  Putting out his cigarette Barrows drank his drink, then in a hoarse voice said to Pris, “You’ve put yourself on bad terms with me, by doing that.”

  “Then goodbye,” Pris said. “Goodbye, Sam K. Barrows, you dirty ugly fairy.” She rose to her feet, deliberately knocked over her chair; she walked away from the table, leaving us, going among and past the other tables of people, at last to the checkstand. She got her coat from the girl, there.

  Neither Barrows nor I moved.

  “She went out the door,” Dave Blunk said presently. “I can see the door better than any of you; she’s gone.”

  “What am I going to do with this?” Barrows said to Blunk regarding the dead Booth simulacrum. “We’ll have to get it out of here.”

  “We can get it out between the two of us,” Blunk said.

  “I’ll give you a hand,” I said.

  Barrows said, “We’ll never see her again. Or she might be standing outside on the sidewalk, waiting.” To me he said, “Can you tell? I can’t; I don’t understand her.”

  I hurried up the aisle alongside the bar, past the check-stand; I pushed open the street door. There stood the uniformed doorman. He nodded courteously at me.

  There was no sign of Pris.

  “What happened to the girl who just came out?” I said.

  The doorman gestured. “I don’t know, sir.” He indicated the many cabs, the traffic, the clusters of people like bees near the doorway of the club. “Sorry, couldn’t tell.”

  I looked up and down the sidewalk; I even ran a little in each direction, straining to catch a glimpse of her.

  Nothing.

  At last I returned to the club and to the table where Barrows and the others sat with the dead, damaged Booth simulacrum. It had slid down in its seat, now, and was leaning to one side, its head lolling, its mouth open; I propped it up again, with Dave Blunk’s help.

  “You’ve lost everything,” I said to Barrows.

  “I’ve lost nothing.”

  “Sam’s right,” Dave Blunk said. “What has he lost? Bob Bundy can make another simulacrum if necessary.”

  “You’ve lost Pris,” I said. “That’s everything.”

  “Oh hell, who knows about Pris? I don’t think even she knows.”

  “Guess so,” I said. My tongue felt thick; it clung to the sides of my mouth. I waggled my jaw, feeling no pain, nothing at all. “I’ve lost her, too.”

  “Evidently,” Barrows said. “But you’re better off; could you bear to undergo something of this sort every day?”

  “No.”

  As we sat there the great Earl Grant appeared once more. The piano was playing and everyone had shut up, and we did so, too.

  I’ve got grasshoppers in my

  pillow, baby.

  I’ve got crickets all in

  my meal.

  Was he singing to me? Had he seen me sitting there, seen the look on my face, known how I felt? It was an old song and sad. Maybe he saw me; maybe not. I couldn’t tell, but it seemed so.

  Pris is wild, I thought. Not a part of us. Outside somewhere. Pris is pristine and in an awful way: all that goes on among and between people, all that we have here, fails to touch her. When one looks at her one sees back into the farthest past; one sees us as we started out, a million, two million years ago …

  The song which Earl Grant was singing; that was one of the ways of taming, of making us over, modifying us again and again in countless slow ways. The Creator was still at work, still molding what in most of us remained soft. Not so with Pris; there was no more molding and shaping with her, not even by Him.

  I have seen into the other, I said to myself, when I saw Pris. And where am I left, now? Waiting only for death, as the Booth simulacrum when she took off her shoe. The Booth simulacrum had finally gotten it in exchange for its deed of over a century ago. Before his death, Lincoln had dreamed of assassination, seen in his sleep a black-draped coffin and weeping processions. Had this simulacrum received any intimation, last night? Had it dreamed in its sleep in some mechanical, mystical way?

  We would all get it. Chug-chug. The black crepe draped on the train passing in the midst of the grain fields. People out to witness, removing their caps. Chug-chug-chug.

  The black train with the coffin guarded by soldiers in blue who carried guns and who never moved in all that time, from start to end of the long, long trip.

  “Mr. Rosen.” Someone beside me speaking. A woman.

  Startled, I glanced up. Mrs. Nild was addressing me.

  “Would you help us? Mr. Barrows has gone to get the car; we want to put the Booth simulacrum into the car.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding. “Sure.”

  As I got to my feet I looked to the Lincoln to see if it was going to pitch in. But strange to say the Lincoln sat with its head bowed in deepest melancholy, paying no attention to us or to what we were doing. Was it listening to Earl Grant? Was it overcome by his blues song? I did not think so. It was hunched over, actually bent out of shape, as if its bones were fusing into one single bone. And it was absolutely silent; it did not even seem to be breathing.

  A kind of prayer, I thought as I watched it. And yet no prayer at all. The stoppage of prayer, perhaps; its interruption. Blunk and I turned to the Booth; we began lifting it to its feet. It was very heavy.

  “The car’s a Mercedes-Benz,” Blunk gasped as we started up the aisle. “White with red leather interior.”

  “FU hold the door open,” Mrs. Nild said, following after us.

  We got the Booth up the narrow aisle to the entrance of the club. The doorman regarded us with curiosity but neither he nor anyone else made a move to interfere or help or inquire as to what was taking place. The doorman, however, did hold the door aside for us and we were grateful because that left Mrs. Nild free to go out into the street to hail Sam Barrows’ car.

  “Here it comes,” Blunk said, jerking his head.

  Mrs. Nild opened the car door wide for us, and between Blunk and myself we managed to get the simulacrum into the back seat.

  “You better come along with us,” Mrs. Nild said to me as I started away from the car.

  “Good idea,” Blunk said. “We’ll have a drink, okay, Rosen? We’ll take the Booth to the shop and then go over to Collie’s apartment; the liquor’s there.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Come on,” Barrows said from behind the wheel. “You fellows get in so we can go; that includes you, Rosen, and naturally your simulacrum. Go back and get it.”

  “No, no thanks,” I said. “You guys go on.”

  Blunk and Mrs. Nild closed the car door after them and the car drove off and disappeared into the heavy evening traffic.

  Hands in my pockets I returned to the club, making my way down the aisle to the table where the Lincoln still sat, its head down, its arms wrapped about itself, in utter stillness.

  What could I say to it? How could I cheer it up?

  “You shouldn’t let an incident like that get you down,” I said to it. “You should try to rise above it.”

  The Lincoln did not respond.

  “Many a mickle makes a muckle,” I said.

  The simulacrum raised its head. It stared at me hopelessly. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”

  We both sat in silence, then.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m going to take you back to Boise and take you to see Doctor Horstowski. It won’t do you any harm and he may be able to do something about these depressions. Is it okay with you?”

  Now the Lincoln seemed calmer; it had brought ou
t a large red handkerchief and was blowing its nose. “Thank you for your concern,” it said from behind the handkerchief.

  “A drink,” I said. “Or a cup of coffee or something to eat.”

  The simulacrum shook its head no.

  “When did you first notice the onset of these depressions?” I asked. “I mean, in your youth. Would you like to talk about them? Tell me what comes to your mind, what free associations you have. Please. I have a feeling it’ll make you feel better.”

  The Lincoln cleared its throat and said, “Will Mr. Barrows and his party be returning?”

  “I doubt it. They invited us to come along; they’re going over to Mrs. Nild’s apartment.”

  The Lincoln gave me a long, slow, queer look. “Why are they going there and not to Mr. Barrows’ house?”

  “The liquor’s there. That’s what Dave Blunk said, anyhow.”

  The Lincoln cleared its throat again, drank a little water from the glass before it on the table. The strange look remained on its face, as if there was something it did not understand, as if it was puzzled but at the same time enlightened.

  “What is it?” I said.

  There was a pause and then the Lincoln said suddenly, “Louis, go over to Mrs. Nild’s apartment. Waste no time.”

  “Why?”

  “She must be there.”

  I felt my scalp tingle.

  “I think,” the simulacrum said, “she has been living there with Mrs. Nild. I will go back to the motel, now. Don’t worry about me—if necessary I am capable of returning to Boise on my own, tomorrow. Go at once, Louis, before their party arrives there.”

  I scrambled to my feet. “I don’t—”

  “You can obtain the address from the telephone book.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that’s so. Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. I have a feeling you’ve got a good idea, there. So I’ll see you, then. So long. And if—”

  “Go,” it said.

  I went.

  At an all-night drugstore I consulted the phone book. I found Colleen Nild’s address and then went outside onto the sidewalk and flagged down a cab. At last I was on my way.

  Her building was a great dark brick apartment house. Only a few windows were lit up, here and there. I found her number and pressed the button next to it. After a long time the small speaker made a static noise and a muffled female voice asked who I was.

  “Louis Rosen.” Was it Pris? “Can I come up?” I asked.

  The heavy glass and black wrought-iron door buzzed; I leaped to catch it and pushed it open. In a moment I had crossed the deserted lobby and was climbing the stairs to the third floor. It was a long climb and when I reached her door I was panting and tired.

  The door was open. I knocked, hesitated, and then went on inside the apartment.

  In the living room on a couch sat Mrs. Nild with a drink in her hand, and across from her sat Sam Barrows. Both of them glanced up at me.

  “Hi, Rosen.” Barrows inclined his head toward a coffee table on which stood a bottle of vodka, lemons, mixer, lime juice and ice cubes and glasses. “Go ahead, help yourself.”

  Not knowing what else to do I went over and busied myself.

  While I was doing that Barrows said, “I have news for you. Someone very dear to you is in there.” He pointed with his glass. “Go look in the bedroom.” Both he and Mrs. Nild smiled.

  I set down my drink and hurried in the direction of the door.

  “How did you happen to change your mind and come here?” Barrows asked me, swirling his drink.

  I said, “The Lincoln thought Pris would be here.”

  “Well, Rosen, I hate to say it, but in my opinion it did you a rotten favor. You’re really bats to let yourself get hooked by that girl.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  “Hell, that’s because you’re sick, all three of you, Pris and the Lincoln and you. I tell you, Rosen, Johnny Booth was worth a million of the Lincolns. I think what we’ll do is patch it up and use it for our Lunar development … after all, Booth is a good old familiar American name; no reason why the family next door can’t be named Booth. You know, Rosen, you must come to Luna someday and see what we’ve done. You have no conception of it, none at all. No offense, but it’s impossible to understand from here; you have to go there.”

  “That’s so, Mr. Rosen,” Mrs. Nild said.

  I said, “A successful man doesn’t have to stoop to bamboozlement.”

  “Bamboozlement!” Barrows exclaimed. “Hell, it was an attempt to nudge people into doing what they’re going to be doing someday anyhow. Oh hell, I don’t want to argue. This has been quite a day; I’m tired. I feel no animosity toward anyone.” He grinned at me. “If your little firm had linked up with us—you must have had an intuition of what it would have meant; you picked me out, I didn’t pick you out. But it’s water over the dam for you, now. Not for me; we’ll go on and do it, possibly using the Booth—but anyhow in some manner, by some means.”

  Mrs. Nild said, “Everyone knows that, Sam.” She patted him.

  “Thanks, Collie,” Barrows said. “I just hate to see the guy this way, no goals, no vision, no ambitions. It’s heartbreaking. It is.”

  I said nothing; I stood at the bedroom door, waiting for them to finish talking to me.

  To me Mrs. Nild said, “Go ahead on in. You might as well.”

  Taking hold of the knob I opened the bedroom door.

  The bedroom lay in darkness. In the center I could make out the outlines of a bed. On the bed a figure lay. It had propped itself up with a pillow, and it was smoking a cigarette; or was it actually a cigarette? The bedroom smelled of cigar smoke. Hurrying to a light switch I turned on the light.

  In the bed lay my father, smoking a cigar and regarding me with a frowning, thoughtful expression. He had on his bathrobe and pajamas, and beside the bed he had placed his fur-lined slippers. Next to the slippers were his suitcase and his clothes neatly piled.

  “Close the door, mein Sohn,” he said in a gentle voice.

  Bewildered, I automatically complied; I shut the door behind me but not quickly enough to obliterate the howls of laughter from the living room, the roars from Sam Barrows and Mrs. Nild. What a joke they had played on me, all this time; all their talk, solemn and pretentious—knowing that Pris was not in here, was not in the apartment at all, that the Lincoln had been mistaken.

  “A shame, Louis,” my father said, evidently reading my expression. “Perhaps I should have stepped out and put an end to the banter, and yet I was interested in what Mr. Barrows said; it was not entirely beside the point, was it? He is a great man in some ways. Sit down.” He nodded toward the chair by the bed, and I sat.

  “You don’t know where she is?” I said. “You can’t help me either?”

  “Afraid not, Louis.”

  It was not even worth it to get up and leave. This was as far as I could go, here to this chair, beside my father’s bed, as he sat smoking.

  The door burst open and a man with his face on upside down appeared, my brother Chester, bustling and full of importance. “I’ve got a good room for us, Dad,” he said, and then, seeing me, he smiled happily. “So here you are, Louis; after all our trouble we at last manage to locate you.”

  “Several times,” my father said, “I was tempted to correct Mr. Barrows; however, a man like him can’t be reeducated, so why waste time?”

  I could not bear the idea that my father was about to launch into one of his philosophical tirades; sinking down on the chair and pretending not to hear him I made his words blur into fly-like buzzing. In my stupor of disappointment I imagined how it would have been if there had been no joke played on me, if I had found Pris here in this room, lying on the bed.

  Think how it would have been. I would have found her asleep, perhaps drunk; I would have lifted her up and held her in my arms, brushed her hair back from her eyes, kissed her on the ear. I could imagine her stirring to life as I woke her up from her drunken nap.

&n
bsp; “You’re not paying attention,” my father said reprovingly. And I was not; I was completely away from the dismal disappointment, into my dream of Pris. “You still pursue this will-of-the-wisp.” He frowned at me.

  In my dream of a happier life I kissed Pris once more, and she opened her eyes. I laid her back down, lay against her and hugged her.

  “How’s the Lincoln?” Pris’s voice, murmuring at my ear. She showed no surprise at seeing me, or at my having gathered her up and kissed her; in fact she did not show any reaction at all. But that was Pris.

  “As good as could be expected.” I awkwardly caressed her hair as she lay on her back gazing up at me in the darkness. I could barely discern her outline there. “No,” I admitted; “actually it’s in terrible shape. It’s having a psychotic depression. What do you care? You did it.”

  “I saved it,” Pris said remotely, languidly. “Bring me a cigarette, will you?”

  I lit a cigarette for her and handed it to her. She lay smoking.

  My father’s voice came to me, “Ignore this introverted ideal, mein Sohn—it takes you away from reality, like Mr. Barrows told you, and this is serious! This is what Doctor Horstowski, if you’ll excuse the expression, would have to call ill; do you see?”

  Dimly I heard Chester’s voice. “It’s schizophrenia, Dad, like all those adolescent kids; millions of Americans have it without knowing it, they never get into the clinics. I read an article, it told about that.”

  Pris said, “You’re a good person, Louis. I feel sorry for you, being in love with me. You’re wasting your time, but I suppose you don’t care about that. Can you explain what love is? Love like that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Won’t you try?” she said. “Is the door locked? If it isn’t, go lock it.”

  “Hell,” I said miserably, “I can’t shut them out; they’re right here on top of us. We’ll never be away from them, we’ll never be alone, just the two of us—I know it.” But I went anyhow, knowing what I knew, and shut and locked the door.