Chapter Six

Two weeks after John had left Cedars-Sinai, he was physically restored, but his old life and its trappings felt archaic, slightly silly, and woefully inadequate to meet the changes he felt inside—as if he were now expected to play CDs on a wobbly old turntable with a blunt needle. He kept trying to see his life as Susan saw it, or rather, how his life might seem to the woman in his vision, whose identity remained unknown. He was thumping out tuneless rhythms as he walked through the fuck-hut's slate and aluminum walls. Yes, he was experiencing a type of freedom associated with no longer caring about keeping up the appearance of wealth, but with this freedom came a rudderless sensation, one that made him giddy, the way he'd felt as a child as he waited for week upon agonizing week for the postman to deliver a cardboard submarine he'd sent away for—a device that had promised to take him far away into a fascinating new realm, but which upon arrival was revealed to be as substantial and as well constructed as a bakery's cardboard cake box. But ahhh, the waiting had been so wonderfully sweet.

The sun had set. Another day was over. He'd spent the morning speaking with a lawyer inquiring about his will. He'd spent the afternoon at City Hall doing some paperwork. He was still

thumping when the doorbell ran (two bars of Phillip Glass), It

was the twins Melody had promised. He sighed and buzzed them into his polished-steel atrium. " I'm Cindy, " said the sister in the pink angora sweater with bare midriff. " And I'm Krista, " said the other in green. They looked at each other, smiled, and overstated the obvious: " We're twins! "

" Yeah, yeah. "

He showed them the living room with its suede walls and panoramic windows exposing a constellational view of the city lights below. " Can I fetch you drinks? " he asked, inwardly noting how many times he'd asked this same antique question.

The girls exchanged looks. " Just one, " said Krista.

" That's all we're allowed, " added Cindy. " Jack Daniels if you have it. With maraschino cherries. I just adore them. "

" Why just one drink? " John asked.

More looks were exchanged: " We've heard you can be demanding, " said Cindy, to which Krista added, " We're going to need our wits here. "

" Wits? " said John. " Oh God, relax. Sit down. Look at the view. I don't want anything. Wait. Yes I do. I just want to talk. "

" That's okay. We get that all the time, " said Krista.

" What—guys who only want to talk? "

" No. More like guys who don't want to feel like they're consorting with hell-bound floozies, who believe that a cozy chat beforehand will absolve them of moral contagion. "

John looked at Krista: " Absolve them of moral contagion? "

" I'm an educated woman, " said Krista.

Cindy said, " Krista, don't. "

" Don't what? " asked John.

There was a pause: " Don't be smart. "

" Why not? " John asked.

" It's a turnoff to customers. "

John howled. " You can't be serious! " Krista said, " Mention politics or use a big word and a guy deflates like a party balloon. "

" Now you've done it, " said Cindy.

" You've done nothing, " said John.

" I've got a degree in organic chemistry, " said Krista. " That's the study of molecules containing carbon. "

" Thank you, Madame Curie, " said John. " What about you, Cindy, what do you have a degree in? "

" Hot nourishing lunches, " Krista inserted quickly.

" I have a degree in nutrition. Florida State University, class of '97. "

" Phone the Nobel Committee, " said Krista.

" Krista, just can it, okay? "

" So what are you two baccalaureates doing in a fuckhouse like Melody's? There must be test kitchens all over America begging for a team like you two. "

" Very amusing, Mr. Johnson, " said Krista. " We both want to act. In high school I did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat— in drag, no less. " John's heart was sinking. " I'm good. So's Cindy. And this kind of thing just pays the bills. "

" Look, " said John, " you've gotta know that if you hump one of us producer guys, you've humped all of us—which means there's probably all kinds of other junk you've done that the Enquirer's going to zoom in on like a smart bomb the moment you get a walk-on part in a cable-access slasher. You won't even get a job as a body double in a Cycle dog food commercial. "

" We'll take that risk. "

" Okay, " said John. " You guys want to do some acting tonight? "

Cindy winked at Krista: " Sure. And by the way, Bel Air PI was great. I saw it three times in a row in Pensacola this spring after my wisdom teeth got yanked. "

" How do you want us to act, Mr. Johnson? "

" Oh Jesus. How about normal. "

This remark drew a blank.

" Normal? " Cindy asked. " Like housewives? Like people who live in Ohio or something? "

" No. Be yourselves. Talk to me like I'm a person, not a customer. "

" We can do that, " said Krista, communicating with Cindy in what appeared to be their personal Morse of winks. " Yes—let's. "

And so the three of them sipped drinks and watched the city lights for a moment or two.

" My panties feel too tight, " said Cindy.

" And my sweater's too hot, " added Krista. " I'm so hot. I'm going to have to remove my sweater. "

" Cut! " John was upset. " I don't mean normal dirty talk. I mean normal. Like we're talking in a restaurant and there's no possibility of sex. "

The twins had heard rumors at Melody's about some of John's kinkier scenes. Maybe this was how they started out.

" I'm going to freshen your drinks, " John said, " and then you're going to tell me about yourselves. How you got to where you are now. Your life if it was a movie. "

" More like a beauty pageant, " called Cindy as John jiggled with bottles and crystal glasses.

" I was Miss Dade County, " said Krista.

" And I was Miss United Fruit Growers, " added Cindy.

" And we were both Junior Miss Florida Panhandle, " continued Krista. " One year apiece, one right after the other, but because we're twins people weren't sure if we were technically the same person. USA Today did a thing on us. It's real scary how evil the pageant circle is. "

" Tell me, " John said, returning with the drinks.

" Oh! Where to begin? " said Cindy. " At birth, I guess. The important thing is to have a hungry unfulfilled mother who

needs a piece of herself up there on the winner's dais being bathed in adulation. There's no such thing as a child star by herself. Child stars exist only in conjunction with a stage mother. Earth and sun. "

" We really lucked out in that department, " said Krista. " In her sophomore year at U. of R, Mom got the heave-ho from God-spell, and she vowed to wreak vengeance on the state of Florida. We're her weapons. "

Said Cindy: " You have to have a mother pushing you the whole way from, like, two onward. For most of us show dogs, we're not even aware of how distorted and grimly fucked up we are until it's too late. They have to get you when you're young. "

" And your mom has to buy and make you, like, a thousand little outfits a year, " said Krista, " and your mother has to make you dress like a stripper at the age of, like, five. "

" Some parents will do anything. There's this actress out there—Susan—oh—what's her name, Kris? She's in the Where-Are-They-Now? file—the one who disappeared for a year. "

" Colgate. Susan Colgate, " Krista answered,

" Yeah. In junior high her parents moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, just to improve their chances of being able to represent an entire state in the national competitions. Yeah—Miss Wyoming. Ha! "

" Missed her, " said John. " I don't pay attention to TV. It turned to trash in the eighties. I stopped watching it, period. "

Music then swirled through the room's air—horns and jazz, and the lights dimmed to candle strength. " The lights are on a timer, " John said, but it didn't matter, because the room became smaller, the air charged like summer's eve, and the three of them clinked the ice that remained in their glasses. The sisters began to remove their angoras. " No, don't, " John said. " No. Let's keep it perfect. " And the girls said, " Fine. "

" Come work for me, " he said.

" What? " came the reply in stereo.

" Be my assistants. I need help right now. "

There was a pause. Krista said, " I don't know, Mr. Johnson. "

" No. No. It's not a sex thing. I swear, no sex. You guys are smart and ambitious, " John said.

" Is that what you look for in assistants? " Krista asked.

" Fuck, yes. Smartness, hipness, alertness, greed and speed. "

Krista continued: " Is this how you normally hire assistants? "

" Nahhh. What I normally do is put ads in the paper advertising Eames furniture at ridiculously low prices. "

" That's that 1950s stuff, isn't it? " asked Cindy.

" Bingo. It's this furniture designed for poor people, but poor people never liked it, and the only people who know about it or care about it are rich or smart. So anybody who answers that ad really quickly is de facto smart, alert, greedy and hip. "

" What's Melody going to say? " asked Cindy.

" Mel has two ugly little brats I helped put through Dartmouth and Neufchâ tel. She owes me. "

" But then what about, say, the salary? "

" See—I was right. You're a little bit greedy, " at which point the girls quickly huffed up and their spines straightened. " Relax. In the film business it's a compliment. "

" So what do you want? " Cindy asked.

" Truth be told, " John said, " the one thing in this world I want more than anything else is a great big crowbar, to jimmy myself open and take whatever creature that's sitting inside and shake it clean like a rug and then rinse it in a cold, clear lake like up in Oregon, and then I want to put it under the sun to let it heal and dry and grow and sit and come to consciousness again with a clear and quiet mind. "

The CD player clicked and purred as it changed albums, and Cindy and Krista kept their bodies still. Cindy said, " Okay. I'll work for you. "

Krista said, " Me, too. I'm in. "

John said, " Good, " and music came on, Edvard Grieg, a flute solo. " What's going to be your next move then—John? " asked Krista.

" I'm going to liquidate myself. "

" Like going offshore or something? Taxes? " asked Cindy.

" No. I'm going to erase myself. I'm going to stop being me. " John saw the look on the twins' faces, and it wasn't fear, but neither was it comprehension. " No. Not suicide. But suicide's cousin. I want to disappear. "

" You've lost me, " said Cindy.

" I'm going to start my own witness relocation program. "

" Help us out here, John. "

" It's easy. I don't want to be me anymore. I think I've gone as far as I can go in this body. "

" In this body? "

" Yeah. "

" Who gets your money? " Cindy asked.

" Probably the IRS. "

" Who gets your residuals and your copyrights? "

" I don't know. Crack babies. Jerry's Kids. Something like that. That's a detail. Think of the bigger picture here. "

He would be gone. Completely. He would no longer be John Lodge Johnson. He would be—nobody—he would have nothing: no money, no name, no history, no future, no hungers—he would merely be this sensate creature walking the country's burning freeways, its yawning malls, its gashes of wilderness, its lightning storms, its factories and its dead spaces. " Ladies, my atom's stopped spinning. The twitching barnyard animal lies silent in a heap. The machine has stopped. "

Cindy and Krista made ooh... noises.

Two drinks later, John, Cindy and Krista were going through John's house, with Cindy pushing a SmarteCarte and Krista holding a clipboard on which she recorded each item John tossed into a box on the cart, the contents bound for the local Goodwill drop box.

" DKNY blazer. Unworn. Charcoal. "

" Check. "

" Prada slacks, cocoa. Unworn. "

" Check. "

" Where'd you get a SmarteCarte? " Cindy asked.

" Stole it from SeaTac Airport up in Seattle. I've spent so much on those goddamn things over the years—I put the SmarteCarte children through beauty school. They owed me one after all this time. "

Cindy said, " You seem to put a lot of people through a lot of things, John. "

The doorbell rang—it was his business partner, Ivan McClin-tock, with his wife, Nylla. John buzzed them in and called from upstairs, Ivan and Nylla climbed a series of chilly aluminum slabs that led up to the bedrooms. " John-O? "

" We're in here, Ive. "

The couple rounded a corner. " Guys, this is Krista and Cindy. Gals, this is Ivan and Nylla. Ivan and I have been making movies ever since we both had acne. "

The group exchanged hellos, and the work of emptying John's wardrobes of conspicuously expensive clothing continued.

" See anything you want, Ivan? " John asked, holding out a nest of ties.

Ivan was doing his best to keep his cool.

" Our styles are opposite, John-O. That's why we make a good team. " Nylla, pregnant and wrapped in one of her trademark silk shawls, asked, " John, Melody called Ivan at work and then me at home. She said you were making plans to—. " She paused. " Erase yourself or something. Something radical. "

John was silent.

Nylla persevered. " So what's the score? "

A TV-sized Tiffany box full of enema tools clattered down from an upper shelf, bouncing on the sisal flooring and rattling onto the white limestone hallway. " Why don't we go downstairs? " John said to Ivan and Nylla.

From the landing, he shouted back, " Remember gals— everything goes. "

They went into the living room. It was night outside. Ivan and Nylla drank in the view. " I never get tired of looking at the city, John-O. It's like we're flying over it, about to land at LAX. "

" It's like upside-down stars, " said Nylla.

John handed Ivan a scotch with branch water. Nylla took cranberry juice.

Ivan said, " Melody phoned. She told me about your name change application. "

" She narcked? "

Nylla said, " Oh, don't be so corny. Of course she did. She's worried sick about you. We all are. "

Ivan burst in. " Fortunately between me and Mel we have enough contacts at City Hall to retrieve your forms, no harm done. "

" John, " said Nylla, " You were going to change your name to'dot'? "

" Not 'dot'—just a simple period. When I filed my Change of Name affidavit at City Hall, they told me I had to use at least one keyboard stroke. A period is the smallest amount of ink and space a name can be. "

Ivan put his drink on a glass-block table and made I-told-you-so eyes at Nylla.

" There's more, Ivan. I'm going to renounce my citizenship. "

" Oh, John-O, that is a lousy idea—it's—it's—un-American. "

" What country do you want to be a citizen of, then? " asked Nylla. The three sat themselves down on Ultrasuede couches in John's high-tech conversation pit. John clapped his hands and the fire started.

" I don't want to be a citizen of anywhere, Ny. "

" Can you do that? " she asked. " I mean, be a citizen of nowhere? "

" I don't know. I'm seeing an immigration lawyer tomorrow. I'm wondering if I can get citizenship in Antarctica. "

" Antarctica? " said Ivan.

" Yeah. It's not like it has a king or queen or president or anything. I want to give it a try. "

" I think Antarctica's presliced into pieces from the South Pole outward, " said Nylla, " and a different country regulates each slice. So maybe not there. Maybe you can get citizenship in a country that's so useless it's almost the same thing as being stateless. Some country that only exists when the tide's out. "

" Nylla, " Ivan interrupted, " you're only feeding his bullshit idea. "

" It's not bullshit, Ivan, " John said.

" How about Pitcairn Island? " Nylla suggested. " One square mile in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, the most remote inhabited place on earth. "

" My wife the Jeopardy champion. "

" England owns it, " said John. " I checked. "

Ivan asked listlessly, " How about one of those African countries held together with Scotch tape and Popsicle sticks? "

" I'm considering them, too. " " John-O—if you renounce your U. S. citizenship, you'll have no protection. With citizenship, the U. S. government can step in and help you wherever you go. And besides, you'll always have your Social Security number no matter what else happens. "

" Not if I renounce my citizenship. I do know that. "

Ivan was sulky: " just try renting a car with no credit card and a passport from Upper Volta. "

" It's called Benin now, " said Nylla.

Ivan glowered her way: " Please phrase your answer in the form of a question. "

" Ivan, you're getting distracted. You're missing the spirit of the thing. I won't be wonting to rent cars anymore. I'll be completely gone. "

" You're really pushing me with this new hobo kick, John-O. Sleeping in rain culverts and stealing fresh clothes from laundry lines is going to wear thin awful quickly. "

" Ivan, let me pitch it to you: This is the road we're talking about—the romance of the road. Strange new friends. Adventures every ten minutes. Waking up each morning feeling like a wild animal. No crappy rules or smothering obligations. "

Ivan was appalled. " The road is over, John-O. It never even was. You're thinking like a kid behind a Starbucks counter sneaking peeks at his Kerouac paperback and writing 'That's so true! ' in the margins. And if nothing else, Doris is freaked out by this totally. "

" You told my mother? "

" Of course. "

John paused. " Another drink, Ivan? "

As he looked for ice cubes in the kitchen's two deep freezes, John considered Ivan and Nylla. He heard them talking back in the living room. They were now discussing carpeting: prices per square yard, World Book Encyclopedia-style. " I want the good type, " said Ivan, " the kind that looks like pearl barley packed together. Really smooth. "

" But if the wool's too smooth, it looks like Orion. It needs character. A bit of sheep dung mixed into it maybe. "

" We're going to have Beverly Hills's first Hanta virus carpet? "

" Sheep don't get Hanta virus. Just rodents, I think. And raccoons. "

John listened in and ached to have somebody to discuss rugs and raccoons with. He felt intact but worthless, like a chocolate rabbit selling for 75 percent off the month after Easter. But it went beyond that, too. He felt contaminated, that his blood stream carried microscopic loneliness viruses, like miniscule fish hooks, just waiting to inflect somebody dumb enough to attempt intimacy with him.

His mind wandered. There had to be hope—and there was. He remembered the woman in his hospital vision had made him feel that somewhere on the alien Death Star of his heart lay a small, vulnerable entry point into which he could deploy a rocket, blow himself up and rebuild from the shards that remained.

In the second freezer John found the ice cubes clumped frozen together inside a sky blue plastic bag. He opened up the bag and tried to pry a few cubes away from the lump. Daydreaming, he wondered if he could ever be unselfconsciously chatty and loose with someone. If Ivan=Nylla, then John=blank. Maybe his mother Doris's years of prayers had begun to inch their way onto God's " To Do" list: Dear Lord, please take care of the late Piers Wyatt Johnson, a king among men. . Also bless the pesticide industry, our boys in Vietnam, (still, even at the century's end) and please find a nice young wife for John, preferably one who doesn't mind the smell of cigarette smoke, which is so hard to find in California—

He heard Krista and Cindy come downstairs and begin chatting with Ivan, then returned his attention to the ice. He lifted up the bag of fused ice cubes and dropped it, shattering its contents into individual cubes. The noise was fearsome, and Ivan called from the living room asking if John was okay, and John called back, " Fine—couldn't be better, " and it was easy to take as many cubes as he liked.

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