Sweat-soaked, numb, fists pressed together under the table, he felt a wild surge

  of pity for her. He felt like saying, Yes, of course, whatever I can do to help

  you. Come home with me, take a bath, let’s blow a few golds and talk about

  things, this telepathy of yours, this delusion. Not because I ever knew you. Not

  because the things that happened between you and Nat Hamlin give you any claim

  on me. But only because you’re a suffering human being and you’ve turned to me

  for help, and how can I refuse? An act of grace. Yes, yes, I will be your

  anchor.

  Instead he said, “You’re asking a hell of a lot from me. I’m not the most stable

  individual in the world either. And I’m under doctor’s orders to keep away from

  people out of Nat Hamlin’s life. You could be big trouble for me. And me for

  you. I think the risks for both of us are bigger than the rewards.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to get involved?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Sorry I wasted so much of your time,” she said. In a dead voice. No change of

  expression. Not really believing he means it, maybe.

  “It wasn’t wasted. I only wish I was in shape to do you any good. But a Rehab

  lives right on the edge of collapse himself, in the beginning. He’s got to build

  a whole new life. So when you ask somebody like that to take on the additional

  burden—” All right, Macy. Stop explaining things, get up, walk out of here,

  before she starts crying and you start listening to her again. Up. You don’t owe

  her a thing. You have your own troubles and they aren’t small ones. Getting to

  his feet, now. The girl watching him, stricken, incredulous. Giving her a sickly

  smile, knowing that a smile of any kind is out of context when you’re condemning

  somebody to death. Turning. Walking away from her, up the aisle of the people’s

  restaurant, past the counter, the sauerkraut and the algaecakes. Another ten

  strides and you’re out the door.

  A scream from the back of the room.

  “No! Come back! Paul! Paul!Nat! ”

  Her words leaped across the gulf between them like a flight of arrows. Six

  direct hits. Thwack thwack thwack thwack thwackthwack! The last one a killer,

  straight through from back to chest. He staggered. St. Sebastian stumbling in

  the restaurant aisle. His brain on fire, something very strange happening in

  there, like the two hemispheres splitting apart and taking up independent

  existence. And then a voice, speaking quite distinctly from a point just above

  his left ear, saying:

  —How could you walk out on her like that, you snotty creep?

  He hit the floor hard, landing elbow-first. A stunning burst of pain. Within

  that cone of red agony a curious clarity of perception.

  Who said that?he asked, losing consciousness. And, going under, he heard:

  —I did. Nat Hamlin. Your twin brother Nat.

  FOUR

  HE was at work in his studio again, after too long a layoff. All the sculpting

  equipment covered with a fine coating of dust. Maybe the delicate inner

  mechanisms are ruined, or at least imprecise. Try to build an armature for a

  man, end up with a chimp, something like that. He checked all the calibration

  carefully: everything in order, surprisingly. Just dusty. Ought to be, after all

  these years. A wonder it wasn’t busted up by vandals. Fucking vandals all over

  the place. Goths, too. He touched the main keyboard lightly. This was going to

  be his chef d’oeuvre, a group composition, a contemporary equivalent ofThe

  Burghers of Calais. But fragmented, intense, multivalued. Call it something

  unpretentious, likeThe Human Condition.

  A fucking headache getting all the models together at the same time. But the

  group interactions are important: shit, they’re the whole point of the thing!

  There they all stand, now. The fat lady from the circus, eight hundred pounds of

  quivering suet. Half a ton of laughs. The kid from the student co-op, the one

  with the shaven head. Gomez, the skull doctor, for that little touch of

  hostility. The pregnant chick from the supermarket. Get the clothes off, baby,

  show that bulge. Bellybutton sticking way out like a handle. And the

  vice-president from the bank, very very proper, turn him on a little when we’re

  ready to start. Also the old plaster model from art school days, Apollo

  Belvedere, missing his prick. A real technical stunt, trying to make

  psychosculpture out of a hunk of plaster. Faking in the appropriate responses:

  the test of a master. A cat, too, the one-eyed one from downstairs, gray and

  white with maybe a dozen claws on each paw, the way it looks.

  Lastly, Lissa. My beloved. Stand next to the banker, honey. Turn a little to the

  left. The banker lifts his hand. He wants to grab your tit, but he doesn’t dare,

  and he hangs there caught in the tension between wanting and holding back. Your

  nipples ought to be erect for this: you ought to be in heat, some. Wait, I’ll do

  it. A tickle or two down here, yes, look at them standing up.

  Okay! Okay! Places, everybody! Group interaction, take one! I want each of you

  to project the emotion we talked about before, project just that emotion, as

  purely as you can. And reallylive it. Don’t say to yourself, I’m posing for an

  artist, but say, I’m so-and-so and this is my life, this is my soul, and I’m

  radiating it in big chunks so he can grab it with his machine and turn it into a

  masterpiece. Ready? Ready? Hey, you suck, why aren’t you holding the pose? Who

  gave you permission to dissolve? Let’s have some fuckingstability in here! Hold

  it! Hold it! Hold it!

  He was running as fast as he could, and the effort was killing him. A band of

  hot metal around his chest. His eyes ready to pop out of his head. He had turned

  left outside the restaurant, onto Broadway, down the dark street in long loping

  strides, thinking at first that he was going to get away, but then he heard the

  footsteps precisely matching his, a clop for his clop, on and on, and knew he

  wouldn’t escape. Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.

  Nat Hamlin running smoothly behind him, wearing the same body as his only four

  years younger. Shouting obscenities as he ran. What a foul mouth he has! You’d

  think artists were aesthetic types, more refined, and yet here comes this

  anthology of smut running after me. Shouting, Hey, you, Macy, you dumb

  cocksucker, slow down! We got a lot to talk about, you asshole!

  Sure we do. The first thing we talk about is which of us dies and which of us

  lives, and I know right away what your position is onthat, Nat. So I’m just

  going to keep on running until I drop. Maybe you’ll drop first, even though

  you’re younger. With your acid and your golds and your broads tearing you down,

  and I’ve lived a clean life in the Center all these years.

  On. On. Almost at the bridge, now. The shining towers of Old Manhattan ahead of

  me. Hamlin still screaming garbage. Isn’t that one of the network hovereyes up

  there? Sure it is! Following right along, taping the whole thing, just in case a

  nice sweet murder happens. Call the police, you dumb machine! Look, there’s a

  lunatic on my ass, a convicted criminal making an illegal breakthrough to life

  after having been eradicated! See, see, he’s got my face! Why don’t you do

  something? I’m a network man, can’t you tell? Paul Macy. Number six on the late

  news. I know, you’re just a machine, an objective reporter, a self-contained

  self-propelled passive observer, but screw all that now. My life’s at stake. If

  he catches up with me. And I can’t hold out much longer. Fire in my guts. All

  that spaghetti in there going up and down with every stride. Liver and lights

  ajiggle. Oh, Christ, a hand on my shoulder. Tag, I’m it!

  Down on the ground. His knees on the crooks of my arms. Pinned. His lips

  drooling. A lunatic with my face. Get off! Get off! Get off! And he laughs. And

  over his right shoulder I see the hovereye recording everything. Wonderful.Now

  we bring you the final moments of Paul Macy, thirty-nine, tragically slain by

  his berserk alter ego. After this brief message from the makers of Acapulco

  Golds. Going. Going. Go—

  He was moving warily through a sleepy suburb, Queens or Staten Island, he wasn’t

  sure which. They all looked the same. A biting January day. High-pressure system

  sitting on the city: not even a cloud in the sky, just a bright blank blue

  shield pressing down, no hint of oncoming snow, though some blackened heaps of

  the Christmas snowfall still lined the curb. In this sort of dryness it was

  difficult to believe it would ever snow again. The leafless trees like gaunt

  bundles of sticks, silently shouting, I am an oak, I am a maple, I am a tulip

  tree, and nobody listening because they all look the same. Squat two-story brick

  houses, reasonably far apart, on both sides of the street. The kiddies at

  school. The hubbies at work. A hot little wifey behind each picture window.

  He wasn’t sure how he had found his way here. Starting out from Connecticut

  about half past nine in the morning, the work going all wrong, a fucking

  nightmare in the studio finishing in a horrid botch of a week’s good labors, and

  then driving into the city, crossing two or maybe three bridges, ending up here.

  And the familiar yellow haze now swathing the temples and forehead, the steamy

  mist of madness. He welcomed it. There comes a time when you have to surrender

  to the dark forces. Yes, yes, go on, take possession of me. Nat Hamlin at your

  service. Call me Raskolnikov Junior. Ha, that crazy Rooshian understood

  something about intensity! How we boil inside. And sometimes boil over.

  Look at this house, now. A completely stereotyped suburban villa, maybe fifty

  years old, product of the buggy seventies, the creepy sixties. I shall bring

  some illumination into its dreary existence. By an act of will I shall intensify

  the life-experience of its inhabitant. See how easy it is to force the side

  door? Just this flimsy little latch: you insert the slicer, you waggle it, you

  push ... yes.

  Now we go inside. Good morning, ma’am, this is the mad rapist, the Darien

  cocksmith, I’m peddling ecstatic terror this happy day. No, don’t scream, I’m

  friendly. I never do unnecessary injury. I assure you that I wouldn’t be here at

  all except for this irresistible compulsion I have. Is it my fault I’m off my

  hinges? A man is entitled to have a breakdown. Especially if he’s a serious

  important artist. You ought to be thrilled to know who’s going to fuck you.

  You’re part of one of the most significant personal disintegrations in the

  history of western art. Like, suppose I was Van Gogh and I cut off my fucking

  ear right here on your kitchen linoleum? Wouldn’t that give you at least a

  peripheral place in his biography? Well, all right, then. He had his collapse,

  I’m having mine. Come here, now. Let’s get this tunic off you. See what kind of

  merchandise you’re offering. Sorry, I wouldn’t have ripped it if you had been

  cooperating. Why fight it? This can be much more meaningful for you if you just

  spread and give in. There. There. See, you’re creaming for me! How can you deny

  the activity of your own Bartholin glands? This lubrication brands you whore,

  milady! Ah. In. In. In. That’s the ticket. In and out, in and out.Con amore.

  Allegro, allegrissimo! Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Zip it up. Out the door. Mad

  rapist strikes again. Thus we enact the latest fascinating episode in our case

  of personality disruption. I look so cleancut for being a psychopath. Oops! Hey,

  no, officer! Put that stunner down! Don’t—hey, watch it—I surrender, damn you, I

  surrender! I’ll go peacefully! I’ll—go—peacefully—

  Blinking furiously, soggy-headed, disoriented, he woke up. He found himself in

  bed, his own bed, the covers up around his chin, the lights on in the bedroom.

  Darkness beyond the window. The sheets cool against his skin: somebody has

  undressed him. From his elbow there flowed rivulets of agony. For a moment he

  was totally unable to recollect his last previous period of consciousness; then

  the incident in the people’s restaurant came back to him. Walking out on Lissa.

  The girl calling after him. Nat Hamlin’s voice whispering snakelike in his ear.

  Calamity. Collapse. Chaos. “Hello?” he said, voice breaking, ragged. “Is anybody

  here? Hello? Hello?”

  Out of the other room came the girl. Framed in the doorway, naked. Even more

  slender than he had imagined, ribcage visible, the double ridge of muscle on the

  flat belly, thighs lean with a gap of an inch or two between them all the way

  up. The breasts still full, though. Not big boobs but nicely shaped. Triangular

  red bush. Her skin pink, scrubbed-looking, still moist. She’s had a bath. Looks

  about five years younger now.

  “How long have you been up?” she asked him.

  “Maybe half a minute. What day is this?”

  “It’s still the same Monday night. No, it’s Tuesday morning by now. Half past

  one in the morning.”

  “You brought me home?”

  “With some help. There was this cabdriver in the people’s restaurant. He carried

  you out. Christ, I was scared, Paul. I thought you were dead!”

  “Did you try to get a doctor?”

  She laughed. “At this time of night? I just sat here and watched you and hoped

  you’d snap out of it. You seemed to be having nightmares. Your eyeballs rolling

  around under the lids. I touched your mind just once, more or less an accident,

  and it was pretty scary, something about being chased through a dark alley.”

  Coming over to the bed, she said, “Do you feel all right? Headache?”

  “Headache, yes. Jesus.”

  “After a while it looked like you were just sleeping. So I took a bath, like you

  said I needed. You should have seen the mud come off me. But you get to feeling

  so shitty sometimes that you don’t even bother to wash yourself, and that’s

  where I was at. Well, that’s over, now. I couldn’t figure out how to work your

  cassette player, so I’ve been inside reading a book, and—”

  “What happened to me in the restaurant?” he asked.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. He looked at her thighs and wanted to let his

  hand rest on them, but it took two tries before the quivering arm would lift

  itself and make the ten-inch journey. Her skin was cool and smooth. He stroked

  her thigh, up and down, midway between knee and crotch.

  She said, “You got up to leave, remember? I didn’t think you were going to do

  it, but you did, and there you were, walking away from me. The one hope I had,

  walking away from me. And I knew I had hit bottom right there.”

  “So you called out to me.”

  “No,” she said. “Ireached out. With my mind.”

  “You didn’t shout my name? Yell at me to come back?”

  “I didn’t open my mouth. I reached. And I made contact. With both of you.”

  “Both?”

  “I went right into your head, and there was someone called Paul Macy there, yes,

  but I hit you on another level, too, and I found Nat Hamlin. Coiled up like a

  spring. Hiding in the dark. I’ll never forget it in a million years. My mind

  arcing across the gap from me to you, and finding two of you. The hidden one. Or

  the sleeping one, I guess.”

  —Sleeping is more accurate.

  Hamlin’s voice. Macy jumped, yanking his hand back from Lissa as though she were

  a stove.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  “I didn’t hear anything. But I felt a kind of twinge. A little jolt of ESP

  action.”

  “It was Hamlin, talking inside me. He said, ‘Sleeping is more accurate.’ What

  the hell’s going on, Lissa?”

  “He’s still inside you,” she said.

  “No. No. That’s impossible. They all said he was gone forever.”

  “I guess he wasn’t,” Lissa said. “A little bit of him left, down in the bottom

  of your head. Maybe you can’t ever fully wipe out a personality. Like you can

  breed a whole new frog if you’ve got a single cell of the old one’s body, and

  the new one will be identical to the old. Is that right? And so you had a couple

  of cells of Nat Hamlin still in your head, and I brought them back to life by

  touching them. I’m sorry, Paul. It’s all my fault.”

  “It isn’t possible,” he said. “It’s just some hallucination I’m having.”

  —You wish, brother.

  “He’s really there,” Lissa said. “Ifelt him. A presence inside you. The two of

  you in one head.”

  “No.”

  —No?

  “I didn’t mean to bring him back, Paul. I mean, I loved him, yes, but he was no

  good, he hurt people, he was a criminal. When they sentenced him to be wiped