The drive that morning took Harry one and a half hours, wedged between a dirt-encrusted SUV that had “Wash Me” written above a “Live Free and Buy American” bumper sticker and a forest green minivan driven by a woman eating peanuts. The radio announcer stated that a truck and trailer had jackknifed itself across two lanes of traffic and urged drivers to show caution.
Harry’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he inched past the suburban houses half-eaten by retail expansion, their wooden clapboards pockmarked with the effects of fifty years of gasoline fumes. On his right was the neon cactus advertising “Authentic Mexican Food”, which heralded the start of a stream of chain stores with empty parking lots. Someone blew a horn behind him and he turned the radio up louder.
This program is sponsored by Portfolio Investments. Tired of losing sleep over the status of your investments? Portfolio Investments offers a personalized approach to Wealth Management. We cater to high-income clients who want to know their money is safe. Portfolio Investments – investing for the future. Harry passed the pirate’s ship, where you could go to be swung back and forth, higher and higher, before you sat down in the hold to eat greasy fish and chips. On his left was the Sleep Easy motel, with its boarded up swimming pool, where tech support workers from the other side of the belt went to copulate in their lunch hour.
Coming up level with the flashing lights of the police cars he saw the officers chatting over their note pads, framed in the glow of the accident scene. Behind them, on a rise, loomed the Chinese Palace, an enormous restaurant with a winding drive, which was well known for its Peking duck and its backroom drug deals. Beside it was the back end of the Paralogos building, squatting in the shadow. Harry had looked it up on the Net once – Paralogos made devices for covert spying operations, like hidden cameras and recorders. They boasted that they put their name on every product, because they were sure it would never be found.
At seven minutes to nine Harry pulled into the parking lot of the Monarch Conference Center, and filled up the space closest to the door. He was the only one there. In the kitchen he sipped his coffee, laced with three-day-old sour milk. Posted on the wall was a handwritten reminder to his two staff that they should endeavor to keep the sink free of sandwich crusts and teabags. The phone rang in his office.
“Hi Harry? It’s Jean. I’m afraid I can’t come in today.”
Harry glanced at the calendar on the wall.
“There’s a large group showing up in fifteen minutes, Jean. What do you mean you can’t come in today?”
“I’ve got this flu-like thing. It’s making me vomit all the time, and I’ve got this big rash all over. I kind of feel like I’m in Alien. Look, I could come in but I think I’m contagious.” Jean coughed into the phone.
“Fine, Jean, I think I can cover. Call me tomorrow to tell me how you feel.”
“Thanks Harry.”
The phone rang almost immediately after he had hung up.
“Hi Harry? It’s Ned. Look, I’m sorry man, but I feel just shitty. Came down with some sort of rash yesterday night and my temperature is really high.”
Harry stuck out his tongue at the window.
“Can Jean cover?”
“Jean is sick.”
“Man, I must have the same thing. Well, I’m sorry Harry. I’ll just lie in bed and take it real easy. Wouldn’t want the clients to be vomiting all over the place.”
Harry flicked on the lights at the edge of the Imperial Ballroom and began to move the folding chairs into neat rows. The curtains had not been drawn, and the hard dull light of the winter morning was beginning to appear. On the stage was a dusty white screen that once was used for slide shows. Harry had asked Ned to arrange it so people could use computers. Pictures would waver with every draft from the main door, as if they weren’t certain they wished to stay. Harry knelt and began to adjust the robe that kept it tethered to the stage. He hoped that this Corporal Network had strong speakers. The sound system had crapped out last week.
“Hello? Is there anybody here?”
Harry stood up and brushed his hands on his pants, leaving a thin sheen of cobwebs on the polyester.
“Oh, hello. I’m Dr. Cox. Are you Mr. Simmonds?”
Dr. Cox was a big boisterous man. Harry was certain he was always picked to play Santa Claus in hospital rounds.
“Yes, yes. Welcome. Sorry, I didn’t notice the time. I’m a little short staffed.” Harry offered a sticky palm, which Dr. Cox clamped briefly.
“Pleasure. So this is the room?” He stood back and spread his arms out. Harry found it oddly theatrical.
“Yes, the Imperial Room can seat around one hundred, which is the figure you quoted in the fax, right?”
“Yes, although it depends. Some of our members may not be joining us this year.”
“Do you need me to set up the screen for computers? Only my technology coordinator is sick today and I don’t know if I…”
Harry grinned foolishly and shrugged his shoulders.
“No, no. This is fine. It’s more of a chance for everybody to catch up, evaluate membership, we won’t be doing any visuals.”
Dr. Cox smiled and rubbed his right side thoughtfully.
Members began to arrive in fits and starts, while Harry busied himself in the kitchen opening packaged vanilla wafers and preparing the coffee maker. He heard voices, punctuated here and there by a burst of laughter or a shout rising above the smoggy confusion of sounds.
When he wheeled the white paper-covered tables out to one side of the room, he was shocked to see that many people were disabled in some way. At least a quarter of them were in wheelchairs, some had bandages over their eyes, a few were armless. Harry felt a pang for these poor examples of humanity. Even though Harry had often felt like a peripheral afterthought in God’s creative plan, he was not blind to the fact that he was alive, well fed, and educated. His sudden shock made him feel unusually strong and virtuous. Briefly he wondered if they were a veteran’s association, but there were a number of teenage men and women in the crowd. Dr. Cox was standing at the podium. Harry gave him the thumbs up.
“Ahem. People, people, can I please have your attention?” There was a screech as someone pulled back a chair. “I see coffee has arrived, so if everyone would care to serve themselves and find a seat, I can start the meeting.”
Harry stood behind the table, ready to help with the temperamental coffee maker, and tried to smile. This was usually Jean’s job. Tugging on the tablecloth to smooth out a wrinkle, he listened absentmindedly to the conversation.
“I suggested this new feature on the website. It’s sort of what they do with classmate searches or social groups. You get all sorts of benefits for signing other people up, you know, a fixed sum every time you recruit someone. So a cut of their first annual fee goes to you.”
“Do you get more for the permanent members?”
“Of course. But I haven’t got any as of yet.”
“Not much chance here.”
The first speaker, a man with deep blue eyes, looked perceptively at Harry, who felt a blush rising into his throat and cheeks.
“Yeah, maybe.”
While Harry was washing up the dishes in the kitchen, he could hear snippets of Dr. Cox’s welcome seeping in through the swing door. He crept into the room to do a quick head count for lunch.
“The current government’s attitude towards this kind of research has been very sound up to now, but I know many Corporal members are feeling increasingly worried by noises being made in other countries. This is the time to keep up lobbying pressure. Don’t let them off the hook.” Dr. Cox paused and smiled down at the sight of Harry toting up numbers on his fingers like a schoolboy. The audience turned and laughed. Harry waved gamely and scuttled back into the kitchen. Sixty-four.
At lunch the members did not seem phased by the choice of shrimp and mayonnaise, Swiss cheese and processed ham, or vegetable delight sandwiches. Harry nibbled on a stale wafer. Dr. Cox lightly squeezed through the crowd, his body a half-deflated rubber ball, expanding and contracting.
“Very good, Mr. Simmonds, very good. I’m enjoying myself immensely. You were the perfect choice for our meeting.”
Harry braced himself for the chance to implement all he had learned in the expensive three-day marketing seminar he had taken in Farmingham.
“Thank you. I hope that you will recommend us today to any of your permanent chapter members for future events.”
Dr. Cox looked puzzled at this statement. Harry saw the wrinkles around his eyes sharpen.
“Our permanent members? They’re not here, Mr. Simmonds.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“This is for the annual members. The permanent members are not able to attend.”
“Oh, that’s right. Very sorry, my mistake.” Harry’s stomach began to ache a little. He wondered if he were catching Jean and Ned’s bug, or whether he was simply nauseous from embarrassment. It was becoming a habit with this group, his unwitting playing of the fool. The room seemed warm with condescension.
“That’s alright, no harm done.”
“Dr. Cox, will you be needing me for the next two hours? I was hoping to fill out some paperwork, but if you want…”
“No, no, that’s fine Mr. Simmonds, we’re going to be having a kind of an exchange this afternoon, so dig away. I think we’ll have the final coffee at about four.” Dr. Cox moved off to shake the prosthetic hand of a white-haired man with a grandfatherly air.
Harry spent a dispiriting three hours working through old receipts and calculating depreciation costs. What, after all, was it all for? No one paid attention to him, to his business with its paint peeling away in the wind and its asbestos-lined pipes, not even the taxman. He felt as if one day he would find himself disappearing into the walls, becoming part of the worm eaten boards, feeling himself slowly being eaten away by time while Jean and Ned whipped one-liners and white saucers back and forth over the slippery kitchen counter. His head drooped and he slumped down onto his desk, succumbing to sleep.
He awoke in a panic, his cheek lined with indentations from his knuckles, a thin puddle of drool on his fingertips. The clock read five. Outside in the dusk he could see a few stray cars pulling away into the stream of lights that marked the homeward traffic. He jumped up and skidded down the hallway into the Imperial Room.
Dr. Cox was saying a last goodbye to an attractive woman, kissing her on the cheek, as what looked like her husband came out of the kitchen.
“Dr. Cox, I’m so sorry. I….”
The couple nodded at Harry and walked over to the door, the man supporting the woman, who had a lopsided limp.
“Not to worry, not to worry. I’ve left all the coffee dishes in the kitchen for you. We peeked in your office at four but we didn’t feel it gracious to wake you. Anyways, there wasn’t a lot to be done so Rachel opened some more cookies and Lionel brewed up the coffee. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.” Harry scratched his head and realized his hair was clumped and matted where he had been sleeping. With one hand on his hip, he tried to nonchalantly brush it back with the other. “But I’m so embarrassed.”
“No need to be. I understand that it’s been a long day.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Well, there is one thing. I was talking to Ralph…” Harry looked confused. “You may have heard him talking at morning coffee? He has the most striking blue eyes.”
Harry nodded.
“And he was telling me that he thought you might be a good candidate to become a member.”
It was intriguing, but Harry actually felt discouraged by this invitation. He knew he had neither the money nor the brains to match the conversation he had overheard that day. Dr. Cox’s invitation struck him as an attempt to be kind to a walk-on player. He was equal parts irritated and sad.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Cox, but what is it that Corporal Network actually does?”
“Oh, I thought you had heard this morning. We harvest body parts.”
Harry almost swallowed his tongue.
“Excuse me, I must have misheard. You harvest body parts? From donors? For research?”
“Well, yes, from donors. But not for research per se. And not all of us are dead.”
Harry envisioned himself waking up in his room at home, staring at the picture of the Eiffel tower tacked to his bedroom door, getting up to relief himself and rubbing the sleep out of the corner of his eyes.
“I see you’re surprised. And you think we’re crazy. But it’s not anything as base as organ marketing. I can see you’ve been taken in by that urban legend too. No, Mr. Simmonds, our members are what you might call the new aesthetes. We are lovers of beauty, of precision, of the wonderful intricate networks of creation. There is such wonder in the body. We make it point that all of our members be able to watch, if they wish, as they have a part of themselves removed. We have many biologists and physicists and chemists in our midst, as well as a good many sociologists and anthropologists.
You see, one of the more interesting effects is afterwards. The sense of absence. You may think you can imagine what it feels like to be missing a part of you, but you can often never really know. You cannot truly appreciate existence until you have been made aware of the possibility of loss. We have one artist who insisted on the eyes because he wanted to heighten his senses, to truly see the world without being misled by the superficial aspects.”
“But how does he work now?”
“He uses his fingers and toes, with oil paint. He does the most marvelous sensory collages. He says he can now feel minute things with his fingers that only the blind can appreciate. His pictures make quite a lot of money.”
“People do this for fun?”
Dr. Cox frowned.
“Not for fun, Mr. Simmonds, we take it very seriously. For example, we are always physically careful.” He tilted his head to one side. “In a way, I think many of us feel we are being altruistic, by helping others who are, shall we say, innocently whole, remember their blessings. We’re all discouraged by this modern emphasis on selfishness and greed, people griping about what they don’t have, not realizing what they do. We feel we bring them back to forgotten primal emotions. ‘Pity,’ as Thomas Southerne once said, ‘is akin to love.’”
“And what do you do with the…the bits afterwards?”
“We keep them. In collections in our homes and offices. That was what this afternoon’s bartering was about. Eyes and ears are particularly valued. Do you know that no two human ears are exactly alike? They’re like fingerprints – unique.”
At this point Harry was sick, into a wicker basket filled with crumpled napkins stained with lipstick. Dr. Cox waited patiently while he finished and handed him a tissue.
“You’ll want to drink some water. Stops the acid from destroying your teeth.”
Harry stood up after taking a few minutes to regulate his breathing.
“What about you? You don’t seem to have anything missing.”
“Ah, yes. My ex-wife would say I’m missing a heart.” Harry shuddered. “That’s joke, Mr. Simmonds. No, I am missing an appendix and a kidney.”
“That doesn’t seem very drastic when compared to your members.”
“Ah yes, but how many of them have been in the harmony of isolation at the time?”
“The…?”
“You’ll have to forgive my imagination, but I trained in music before I became a doctor. I think of human interaction as a song – the melody of conversation balancing the harmony of one’s own inner thoughts and feelings. And somehow out of each individual song, there is an immense swell of sound emanating from the earth. If we could only hear it. In my case, a large mirror and a healthy dose of well-aged malt helped my harmony considerably.”
Harry’s voice took on the wonderment of a boy learning about sex for the first time.
“Didn’t it hurt?”
“Pain is, as they say, in the mind. Do I mind pain? Or does it mind me? I suppose it ‘hurt’ in the conventional sense of the word, but it was nothing compared to learning that Flora Cummings cheated on me when we were in high school.”
“Your first love?” Harry hazarded.
“Yes.” Dr. Cox looked down at his ample midriff and sighed. “Look, Mr. Simmonds, I’m sorry if I have startled you, but I did think that you had been made aware of our organization.” Dr. Cox’s tone was contrite. Harry felt a surge of mastery.
“Oh, no, that’s alright. I’m sorry to have made you feel that way. I was just a little bit surprised, that’s all.”
“Well, I’m glad. But I take it you’re not too enthused about the idea.”
“No, I’m afraid not. Very sorry.”
“Quite alright Mr. Simmonds. But I should add that the annual membership is very reasonable and there are all sorts of health benefits and physiotherapy extras included.”
Harry felt he should humor Dr. Cox along, to ease the blow.
“And would it be cheaper if I became a permanent member?”
The same lines appeared around Dr. Cox’s eyes as they had at lunchtime.
“Well, no, Mr. Simmonds. You see permanent members are permanent.”
“Permanent?” Harry asked quizzically.
“Permanent.” A long pause filled the space between the two men.
“Ah, yes,” Harry said, “I see.”
“Of course, those annual members who do recruit willing permanent members receive a very healthy bonus.”
“And how does one tell if they’re willing?”
“Well, we’re pretty flexible on that point, Mr. Simmonds. Don’t ask, don’t tell, is often our policy. It seems to keep everyone happy.” Dr. Cox picked up his briefcase, slung his overcoat over his arm, and extended his hand.
“It’s been a real pleasure having the conference this year Mr. Simmonds. Thank you again for your services. I’ll make sure to recommend you to our annual chapter members. And if you do change your mind, here’s my card with a number you can reach me at. Call anytime.”
Harry smiled. It had been remarkably easy without distractions; he had even started the forms for his accountant. Of course, it helped to have such understanding clients. He grasped Dr. Cox’s hand.
“Dr. Cox, if I did decide to be a member, where would I start?”
Dr. Cox’s grip grew soft and he gently turned Harry’s hand until it was facing palm up.
“May I suggest you begin with a digit?” he said, lightly stroking Harry’s fingers. “I have been admiring your splendid specimens all day.”
At seven the roads were still clogged, with little sign of a let-up from the rush hour block. Harry sat in his Toyota Camry, with the dent in the driver’s side made from an unknown car at the mall, and caught the whiff of diesel fumes. On the other side of the divide he could see a number of pick-up trucks whizzing down the road towards the bar near the end of the strip that served Jack Daniels until three in the morning. Two cars loaded with teenagers turned into Sammy’s Steak Bar as the sleet began to fall.
Harry adjusted the volume. What do you think listeners? Is our society at war with humanity? Do we actually know anymore what’s going on in our communities? Is our quest for money and answers making us forget the importance of the personal touch? Today we ask that question to a panel of experts and try to discover – is there such a thing anymore as American intimacy? The row of brake lights in front of Harry lit up the hill like a string of Christmas lights glimpsed through a winter window. He slouched casually back into his seat, humming, thinking about calling Ned and Jean to ask them to come in early tomorrow, to make up for yesterday. When he reached the end of the strip, where the road turned into forest, he turned the radio off to travel through the dark stretch of the highway in silence. Tapping his pinky on the wheel, he smiled.
Across
