The Secret of Life Page 8

  Conrad felt like a condemned man. “Yes. Of course.” They made out for a while, working themselves up, and then Audrey went to her room.

  “You come in in a minute, Conrad.”

  He changed into his pajamas and got two rubbers out of his travel kit. He’d had those rubbers for a long time. In the confusion of the moment, Conrad’s mind kept blanking out. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw snow, clouds of snow.

  Audrey was in her bed waiting for him. He got the rubber on and pushed into her. He could hardly feel anything; he was numb all over. But there was warmth and smoothness; he could tell he was in. Her neck smelled like honey. They pushed and bounced. He was going to come. He told her. He told her he loved her. In the dark, his eyes were full of snow, snow that he somehow sensed asNorth Dakota snow . A

  bugle was sounding, and there in the snowstorm you could see Old Glory rising up the flagpole. The Stars and Stripes. Showing the colors. Here, yes, here. Now. They did it a second time, just to make sure they really weren’t virgins anymore. The next morning, Conrad and Audrey wandered around Paris in a daze.

  “We reallydid it, Conrad.”

  “Oh, Audrey. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it finally happened. That’s the weirdest thing about time, the way things that you never think will come finally do come. I love you, Audrey. I love you a lot.”

  “I’m so excited, Conrad, I can hardly see. I feel like I’m going to fall over!”

  They found themselves on a deck halfway up the Eiffel Tower. The only other person there was an old woman with a poodle on a leash. She was busy peeling an orange.

  “Why doesn’t the elevator go all the way to the tip?” Conrad asked Audrey.

  “This is high enough for me. I feel like the wind could blow me right off. My head is buzzing.”

  “Me too. I feel light as air. I bet I could fly around the tower, Audrey.” He had already told her about the time he saved Ace’s life.

  “Don’t risk it! I want my darling to be safe.”

  But now that the idea had formed in Conrad’s mind, it was overwhelming him. Last night he’d done an impossible thing—he’d fucked Audrey. Why not do another miracle today? Before Audrey could stop him, he’d jumped up to stand on the deck’s railing. Vast windy space out there, a hungry void.I can do it.

  As he began to teeter forward, the old tightening in his brain’s center began. Yes. He could hold on to space. Conrad did a slow flip and hung upside down, his face in front of Audrey’s. From this perspective, it looked like her mouth was in her forehead. He blew her a kiss and drifted off the deck and into thin air. The poodle started barking.

  Moving quickly, and not letting himself think about it too much, Conrad flew all the way around the tower and landed back at Audrey’s side. The elevator had just brought up a load of tourists. The old woman with the poodle was yelling to the guard, yelling and pointing at Conrad. The guard frowned, turned off the elevator, and took out a little notebook.

  “Oh, God, Conrad, they want to give you a ticket for climbing off the deck. It’s strictly forbidden.”

  “I didn’tclimb .”

  The guard gave a perfunctory tip of his hat and asked for their passports.

  “Let’s just fly off, Audrey. I don’t want any big legal hassle.” The power was still humming in his head.

  “No!”

  Upset and shaking, Audrey rummaged in her purse for her passport. This was no way to be spending lunch hour on such a special day. She’d said no to the idea of flying, but she’d said no about other things, too. Conrad put his arms around Audrey’s waist and flew the two of them out off the deck. The tourists from the elevator started yelling; someone took a picture. Audrey clung to Conrad’s neck in terror.

  “Don’t drop me!” Conrad felt his control waver when he looked down. Black asphalt down there, and the vast latticed curve of the tower’s leg. Some of the ants on the distant pavement looked up and pointed. This was madness.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Conrad.”

  A fisherman/bum some twenty yards away stared at them for a moment, then looked away.

  “Let’s get the Metro out of here,” suggested Conrad.

  “The people on the Eiffel Tower know we came this way.”

  In the subway, Audrey calmed down. They rode until they found themselves in Saint-Germain. They had a good lunch at the Cafe Flore. “What’s going to happen, Conrad?” asked Audrey over coffee. “Are you going to start flying all the time?”

  “Maybe.” Conrad felt within himself. “But right now I don’t think I can anymore. It’s like I told you before, it’s a survival trait. I have to risk my life to make it start. On the tower I was so excited to think we actually fucked that I went ahead and took the chance.” He took her hand and squeezed it.

  Audrey stared deep into his eyes. Her face looked so open. “It’s too bad today’s our last day here.”

  “We’ll have lots more chances this fall. You can come visit me at Swarthmore; and I’ll take the bus up to visit you in New York.” Having finished college, Audrey was planning to get a master’s in French at Columbia. “We still have to get good at it.” “You didn’t think it was good?” “Of course it was good. I’m crazy about you, Audrey. And I’m going to start studying hard, so that when I graduate, I can get a good job to support you.”

  “You’re planning to marry me?” She looked surprised.

  “Of course.”

  Walking back to the Metro, they passed a kiosk selling afternoon papers. In the middle of page one, there was a photo of a man and woman hanging in midair. The Eiffel Tower’s railing was in the foreground, Notre Dame in the background. Conrad and Audrey’s faces didn’t show. “What does the caption say, Audrey?”

  “ ‘Mysterious Hoax: Two Americans Sought.’ ” She looked at him in dismay. “I hate having our picture in the paper like that. What would they do to you if they found you, Conrad?” “It ...” Conrad’s mouth worked wordlessly. “I ...” He staggered and sat down on the curb.The picture of him flying. Something about it ... He felt like there was Novocain in his head—Novocain and thick, heavy throbbing.Picture not good. “Are you all right, Conrad? What’s happening?”

  Chapter 13:

  Thursday, December 2, 1965 “What do you mean, ‘levitation’?” Mr. Bulber was bored and impatient. He and Conrad were alone in the physics laboratory.

  “Antigravity,” said Conrad, lighting a cigarette. “I want to invent antigravity. That’s why I decided to major in physics.” Conrad had come back from Paris filled with high resolve. He’d been cracking the books like never before. Audrey was up in New York, doing grad school at Columbia; she and Conrad got together and fucked one or two times a month. It was agreed that they were both free to date others—Audrey had insisted on this point last time they’d been together. Three weeks ago. Conrad hadn’t really heard from her since. Three weeks? He’d been studying hard. Three weeks? It was something to worry about, all right; but nevertheless, right now, Conrad’s plan was to figure out a way to mechanize his flying ability, revolutionize transportation, marry Audrey, and retire as a millionaire in three or four years. “Flying without wings,” amplified Conrad, exhaling smoke. “It’s an old science-fiction idea. I’m pretty confident I can get it working.” Mr. Bulber grew irrationally angry. He was thirty-two, with a potato-face and neatly oiled dark hair. He had a small pompadour. Back when Mr. Bulber had been a student, he’d been a loner, mocked and reviled by people like Conrad Bunger. He’d just gotten tenure, and the college had promised him a sabbatical for next year. Mr. Bulber was worn out from six years of teaching and in no mood to nurture some shaggy young wastrel’s dreams of glory. “Conrad Bunger. All right.Fact: Antigravity is impossible. If you knew tensor analysis and general relativity, I could show you why. But you don’t know. You never will.Advice: Stop this intellectual masturbation and bring your lab book up to date. At this point, you’re working on a D.” Mr. Bulber caught Conrad’s crushed expression and softened
a bit. “It’s good to dream, Bunger, don’t get me wrong. Every scientist starts with a dream. But physics isreal . The world is stubborn. Just wishing for something doesn’t make it so. “What if I told you that I can fly?” Mr. Bulber’s face hardened. “I’d tell you to get counseling.” Conrad made a brief effort to levitate on the spot, but the vibes weren’t right, down here in a machine-filled basement, alone with an old nerd who thought antigravity was crazy bullshit. And Audrey hadn’t written, and she wasn’t ever there when he called ... He took his books up to the science library and tried to do the homework for Bulber’s Mechanics and Wave Motion course.Let a 40-kg cannon ball be attached to a 3-m chain weighing 5 kg per m. The ball is carried to the top of a 4-m ladder. How much work is done? Jesus. Too much work, that’s how much. Next question.A boy on a Ferris wheel is playing with a yo-yo. Find the velocity of the yo-yo, given that ... Conrad sighed and closed his book. None of this stuff made sense. Science. He remembered a guy from chem. lab back at St. X. Gary Fitzer, a total screwball. Fitzer had snuck a test tube under the lab bench, pissed in it, and set it over his Bunsen burner to boil. What a stench! Brother Hershey had pounded Fitzer’s ass. Antigravity might as well be piss stink, as far as Mr. Bulber was concerned.

  “Get a haircut,” said a thick voice behind Conrad. “Love it or leave.” It was Platter. Despite occasional spats, he and Conrad were still roomies and best friends. Platter did all his studying in the science library.

  He said it was more boring that way.

  “Orbit,” said Platter, smacking his lips and stroking his beard. “Uff, uff.”

  “Orbit, man.”

  In the last year or two, it seemed like society had begun to turn against people Conrad and Platter’s age.

  Growing up, they’d been America’s Finest, but now all of a sudden they were spoiled brats, Spock-raised squallers, no-good ingrates. Even though nothing had changed. Politicians were picking up on it, and the funnies, too. Platter’s “Orbit, man, uff, uff” routine was from a villainous young longhair now playing inLittle Orphan Annie . Rex Morgan was on the trail of a college LSD guru.Li’l Abner ... in the old days it had beenfunny ... but now the strip was always about Joanie Phonie (Joan Baez), and S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly INdignant about Everything). Conrad had never liked people telling him what to think—but if you had to choose between radicals and uptight old people, there was no contest. If only he could get hold of some drugs!

  “You want to go eat?” asked Platter.

  “Sure. That Bulber is such an asshole.”

  “Why? He expects you to do homework? Take tests? Go to lab? What a Nazi!”

  “Aw, I was telling him this really good idea I have, and he started dumping all over me.”

  “What kind of idea?” asked Platter, beginning to smile. He’d had experience with Conrad’s “good ideas”

  before.

  Conrad hesitated. Even though they’d roomed together for three years now, he still hadn’t ever told Platter that he could fly. Ace and Audrey were the only ones who knew—and Ace never mentioned it.

  Actually, Ace had been so drunk the time Conrad saved him that maybe he’d forgotten the whole thing.

  The picture of Conrad and Audrey flying off the Eiffel Tower had been widely publicized—it had even been on TV—but no one knew who it had been, or what had really happened.

  “Can you keep a secret, Platter?”

  “Like a tomb.” They were walking across the campus now. It was the start of December, raining a little, beginning to get dark. “Let me guess. You’ve discovered a new member of the pion family. Fella name of Ed Pion, with a half-life of two picoseconds. A real degenerate particle, Ed is, here today and gone ...”

  “This is serious, fucktooth. I can fly. I can levitate.”

  Platter’s gasping laugh started up.Haw-nnh-haw-nnh. “Sure you can, Conrad. And that fascist swine Bulber doesn’t believe you.”Haw-nnh-haw-nnh. “He thinks you’re a weirdo. Just because you have long hair!”

  Conrad had to laugh along, but he was more than a little disappointed. If only there was some way to convince Platter he was serious. The only time he could be sure of flying was when his life was in danger... .

  So be it. The two boys were just walking up to the curb of a street that cut through the campus. A heavy delivery truck was chugging toward them. With a well-timed spring, Conrad flung himself in front of the truck, expecting his mind to come up with the usual last-minute life-saving flight. But something even stranger happened. Conrad was lying there in the street. Platter was yelling, and the skidding truck was only inches away.Fly , Conrad was thinking,I know I can do it.

  All at once, lying there, Conrad realized that he was not going to be able to fly. Something about having his and Audrey’s picture in the paper had finished the power off. Was this, then, some kind of suicide attempt? The truck’s left tire, moving slowly as in a dream, bore down on Conrad’s face. The low-hanging bumper was about to touch his hip. The right tire was already nudging his foot. There was only one way out:Get small! Shrink! It happened. For the time it took the truck to pass, Conrad shrank down to a length of two inches. His clothes shrank with him. Tiny in the road, he got to his feet and gaped up at the truck’s underside—a moving sky of angry machinery. As soon as the truck had skidded past, Conrad got big and took off running. Platter caught up with him at the dining hall. “Jesus, Conrad. What happened back there? You trying to kill yourself? The tires barely missed you! You needhelp , old roomie. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find a grinning corpse in the other bed.” “Where’s Ace? We gotta talk to Ace.”

  “He’s in there eating supper, Conrad. What’s the matter with you?”

  They found Ace eating alone in a corner of the dining hall. Ace was in one of his antisocial phases these days. He frowned impatiently when Conrad and Platter set their trays down on his little two-person table.

  “No room,” snapped Ace.

  “Tell Platter,” said Conrad, dragging over an extra chair. “Tell him that I used to be able to fly. The time you fell off the roof?” Ace cut a small piece of Swiss steak and chewed it for a while. He peppered his salad and ate some.

  “You said not to talk about it,” he said finally, squeezing lemon into his tea.

  “But it’s true, isn’t it? Iflew .”

  “It seemed that way,” shrugged Ace. “We were pretty hammered.”

  “You know what Bunger did just now?” interrupted Platter. “He threw himself under a fucking truck.”

  Ace was on his dessert now, vanilla pudding. “Did he fly to safety?” He didn’t bother to look up.

  “Ishrank ,” said Conrad triumphantly. “I stood up under the truck and it just drove over. I was the size of a thumb!” Platter groaned and Ace began to laugh.Eh-eh-eh. “You’re all right, Pig, you really are.”Eh-eh-eh. “You want to get some beer?”

  “Well ... I guess so.”

  “What about Mechanics and Wave Motion?” protested Platter. “What about Audrey?”

  “Uh ... no,” said Conrad. “Tell us about it.”

  “The Big Woof?” said Platter. “What kind of place was this, Weston?”

  “It was a diner up in Massachusetts. I worked there the summer after high school. All the customers were idiots; I mean who but an idiot would eat food from a place called the Big Woof? One of these guys would come in, sit at the counter, and say, ‘Put me on a dog, Chief.’ I’d look over and snap back,

  ‘You wouldn’t fit.’ A lot of laughs. The boss was kind of pitiful. Ned. Ned’s daughter was, like, a real slut. Lots of makeup, always with a different guy, and fucking all of them. Ned tried not to think about it.

  Then in August, all of a sudden, Ned’s daughter wanted to get married real fast. She was knocked up, I guess, and was marrying a Puerto Rican. Ned wanted to make the best of it—his wife was dead, and his daughter was all he had. He loved her a lot, and he wanted the best for her, so he threw her a big wedding reception in the Holiday Inn. I was there, too, there w
as a lot to drink, but the groom’s friends and family were real assholes. I mean, it was a wedding reception, and they were all acting like Ned and his daughter were trash. You could tell the groom wasn’t going to treat her right; it was like even though she was married, everyone was going to call her a slut forever. Just for wanting to get laid a lot, no different than guys. It was pretty terrible.”

  “This is really cheering Conrad up a lot,” said Platter. “This is just the kind of story he needs to hear.”

  “No, no,” said Conrad. “Go ahead.” It was always nice to listen to Ace talk. That was the real fun of drinking with him, listening to the endless flow of his oddly slanted stories.

  “Right. So the reception breaks up with the groom slapping Ned’s daughter and hustling her into the car.

  Everybody grabbed a bottle from the bar and split. Ned had left his car at the Big Woof—so he could ride to the wedding with his daughter in a limousine—and I gave him a ride back over there. ‘It’s all for the best,’ he kept saying. ‘I’m sure it’s all for the best.’ It was Sunday, and the diner was closed. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot you could smell it.”

  “Smell what?”

  “All the meat had spoiled. Ned had a big walk-in freezer with three months’ worth of meat in there. The motor had blown out maybe Saturday night, and all day the sun had been shining. It was like five thousand dollars’ worth of meat—hot dogs, hamburger, steaks, and chickens—all stinking and rotting there, while some prick was driving off with Ned’s pregnant daughter. It was like the summary of his life.”

  “What did Ned do? What did he say?”

  “He always called me Westy. ‘Westy,’ he said, ‘you’ve only got one life. Make the most of it.’ ”

  Chapter 14:

  Thursday, December 9, 1965 Conrad gave up schoolwork again and spent a week getting drunk with Ace. Audrey seemed more and more distant. Finally all sources of money dried up. It was a gray winter morning, and Conrad was walking around with nothing to do.