A Scanner Darkly

"Bob," she said softly. "Can you hear me?"

No answer.

All the circuits are welded shut, she thought. Melted and fused. And no one is going to get them open, no matter how hard they try. And they are going to try.

"Come on," she said, tugging at him, attempting to get him to his feet. "We've got to get started."

Bob Arctor said, "I can't make love. My thing's disappeared."

"They're expecting us," Donna said firmly. "I have to sign you in."

"But what'll I do if my thing's disappeared? Will they still take me in?"

Donna said, "They'll take you."

It requires the greatest kind of wisdom, she thought, to know when to apply injustice. How can justice fall victim, even, to what is right? How can this happen? She thought, Because there is a curse on this world, and all this proves it; this is the proof right here. Somewhere, at the deepest level possible, the mechanism, the construction of things, fell apart, and up from what remained swam the need to do all the various sort of unclean wrongs the wisest choice has made us act out. It must have started thousands of years ago. By now it's infiltrated into the nature of everything. And, she thought, into every one of us. We can't turn around or open our mouth and speak, decide at all, without doing it. I don't even care how it got started, when or why. She thought, I just hope it'll end some time. Like with Tony Amsterdam; I just hope one day the shower of brightly colored sparks will return, and this time we'll all see it. The narrow doorway where there's peace on the far side. A statue, the sea, and what looks like moonlight. And nothing stirring, nothing to break the calm.

A long, long time ago, she thought. Before the curse, and everything and everyone became this way. The Golden Age, she thought, when wisdom and justice were the same. Before it all shattered into cutting fragments. Into broken bits that don't fit, that can't be put back together, hard as we try.

Below her, in the dankness and distribution of urban lights a police siren sounded. A police car in hot pursuit. It sounded like a deranged animal, greedy to kill. And knowing that it soon would. She shivered; the night air had become cold. It was time to go.

It isn't the Golden Age now, she thought, with noises like that in the darkness. Do I emit that kind of greedy noise? she asked herself. Am I that thing? Closing in, or having closed in?

Having caught?

Beside her, the man stirred and moaned as she helped him up. Helped him to his feet and back to her car, step by step, helped him, helped him continue on. Below them, the noise of the police car had abruptly ceased; it had stopped its quarry. Its job was done. Holding Bob Arctor against her, she thought, Mine is done, too.

***

The two New-Path staff members stood surveying the thing on their floor that lay puking and shivering and fouling itself, its arms hugging itself, embracing its own body as if to stop itself, against the cold that made it tremble so violently.

"What is it?" one staff member said.

Donna said, "A person."

"Substance D?"

She nodded.

"It ate his head. Another loser."

She said to the two of them, "It's easy to win. Anybody can win." Bending down over Robert Arctor she said, silently,

Good-by.

They were putting an old army blanket over him as she left. She did not look back.

Getting into her car, she drove at once onto the closest freeway, into the thickest traffic possible. From the box of tapes on the floor of the car she took the Carole King Tapestry tape, her favorite of all she had, and pushed it into the tape deck; at the same time, she tugged loose the Ruger pistol magnetically mounted out of sight beneath the dashboard. In top gear she tailgated a truck carrying wooden cases of quart bottles of Coca-Cola, and as Carole King sang in stereo she emptied the clip of the Ruger at the Coke bottles a few feet ahead of her can.

While Carole King sang soothingly about people sitting down and turning into toads, Donna managed to get four bottles before the gun's clip was empty. Bits of glass and smears of Coke splattered the windshield of her can. She felt better.

Justice and honesty and loyalty are not properties of this world, she thought; and then, by God, she rammed her old enemy, her ancient foe, the Coca-Cola truck, which went right on going without noticing. The impact spun her small can around; her headlights dimmed out, horrible noises of fender against tire shrieked, and then she was off the freeway onto the emergency strip, facing the other direction, water pouring from her radiator, with motorists slowing down to gape.

Come back, you motherfucker, she said to herself, but the Coca-Cola truck was long gone, probably undented. Maybe a scratch. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, her wan, her taking on a symbol and a reality that outweighed her. Now my insurance rates will go up, she realized as she climbed from her car. In this world you pay for tilting with evil in cold, hand cash.

A late-model Mustang slowed and the driver, a man, called to her, "You want a ride, miss?"

She did not answer. She just kept on going. A small figure on foot facing an infinity of oncoming lights.

14

Magazine clipping thumbtacked to the wall of the lounge at Samarkand House, New-Path's residence building in Santa Ana, California:

When the senile patient awakens in the morning and asks for his mother, remind him that she is long since dead, that he is over eighty years old and living in a convalescent home, and that this is 1992 and not 1913 and that he must face reality and the fact that

A resident had torn down the rest of the item; it ended there. Evidently it had been clipped from a professional nursing magazine; it was on slick paper.

"What you'll be doing here first," George, the staff member, told him, leading him down the hall, "is the bathrooms. The floors, the basins, especially the toilets. There're three bathrooms in this structure, one on each floor."

"Okay," he said.

"Here's a mop. And a pail. You feel you know how to do this? Clean a bathroom? Start, and I'll watch you and give you pointers."

He carried the pail to the tub on the back porch and he poured soap into it and then ran the hot water. All he could see was the foam of water directly before him; foam and the roar.

But he could hear George's voice, out of sight. "Not too full, because you won't be able to lift it."

"Okay."

"You have a little trouble telling where you are," George said, after a time.

"I'm at New-Path." He set the pail down on the floor and it slopped; he stood staring down at it.

"New-Path where?"

"In Santa Ana."

George lifted the pail up for him, showing him how to grip the wire handle and swing it along as he walked. "Later on I think we'll transfer you to the island on one of the farms. First you have to go through the dishpan."

"I can do that," he said. "Dishpans."

"Do you like animals?"

"Sure."

"Or farming?"

"Animals."

"We'll see. We'll wait until we're acquainted with you better. Anyhow, that'll be a while; everyone is in the dishpan for a month. Everyone who comes in the door."

"I'd sort of like to live in the country," he said.

"We maintain several types of facilities. We'll determine what's best suited. You know, you can smoke here, but it isn't encouraged. This isn't Synanon; they don't let you smoke."

He said, "I don't have any more cigarettes."

"We give each resident one pack a day."

"Money?" He didn't have any.

"It's without cost. There's never any cost. You paid your cost." George took the mop, pushed it down into the pail, showed him how to mop.

"How come I don't have any money?"

"The same reason you don't have any wallet or any last name. It'll be given back to you, all given back. That's what we want to do: give you back what's been taken away from you."

He said, "These shoes don't fit."

"We depend on donations, but new ones only, from stores. Later on maybe we can measure you. Did you try all the shoes in the carton?"

"Yes," he said.

"All right, this is the bathroom here on the basement floor; do it first. Then when that's done, really done well, really perfect, then go upstairs—bring the mop and bucket—and I'll show you the bathroom up there, and then after that the bathroom on the third floor. But you got to get permission to go up there to the third floor, because that's where the chicks live, so ask one of the staff first; never go up there without permission." He slapped him on the back. "All right, Bruce? Understand?"

"Okay," Bruce said, mopping.

George said, "You'll be doing this kind of work, cleaning these bathrooms, until you get so you can do a good job. It doesn't matter what a person does; it's that he gets so he can do it right and be proud of it."

"Will I ever be like I was again?" Bruce asked.

"What you were brought you here. If you become what you were again then sooner or later it'd bring you here again. Next time you might not make it here, even. Isn't that right? You're lucky you got here; you almost didn't get here."

"Somebody else drove me here."

"You're fortunate. The next time they might not. They might dump you on the side of the freeway somewhere and say the hell with it."

He continued mopping.

"The best way is to do the bowls first, then the tub, then the toilets, and the floor last."

"Okay," he said, and put the mop away.

"There's a certain knack to it. You'll master it."

Concentrating, he saw before him cracks in the enamel of the basin; he dribbled cleaner down into the cracks and ran hot water. The steam rose, and he stood within it, unmoving, as the steam grew. He liked the smell.

***

After lunch he sat in the lounge drinking coffee. No one spoke to him, because they understood he was withdrawing. Sitting drinking from his cup, he could hear their conversation. They all knew one another.

"If you could see out from inside a dead person you could still see, but you couldn't operate the eye muscles, so you couldn't focus. You couldn't turn your head or your eyeballs. All you could do would be wait until some object passed by. You'd be frozen. Just wait and wait. It'd be a terrible scene."

He gazed down at the steam of his coffee, only that. The steam rose; he liked the smell.

"Hey."

A hand touched him. From a woman.

"Hey."

He looked sideways a little.

"How you doing?"

"Okay," he said.

"Feel any better?"

"I feel okay," he said.

He watched his coffee and the steam and did not look at her or any of them; he looked down and down at the coffee. He liked the warmth of the smell.

"You could see somebody when they passed by directly in front of you, and only then. Or whichever way you were looking, no other. If a leaf or something floated over your eye, that would be it, forever. Only the leaf. Nothing more; you couldn't turn."

"Okay," he said, holding the coffee, the cup with both his hands.

"Imagine being sentient but not alive. Seeing and even knowing, but not alive. Just looking out. Recognizing but not being alive. A person can die and still go on. Sometimes what looks out at you from a person's eyes maybe died back in childhood. What's dead in there still looks out. It's not just the body looking at you with nothing in it; there's still something in there but it died and just keeps on looking and looking; it can't stop looking."

Another person said, "That's what it means to die, to not be able to stop looking at whatever's in front of you. Some darn thing placed directly there, with nothing you can do about it such as selecting anything or changing anything. You can only accept what's put there as it is."

"How'd you like to gaze at a beer can throughout eternity? It might not be so bad. There'd be nothing to fear."

***

Before dinner, which was served to them in the dining room, they had Concept time. Several Concepts were put on the blackboard by different staff members and discussed.

He sat with his hands folded in his lap, watching the floor and listening to the big coffee urn heating up; it went whoopwhoop, and the sound frightened him.

"Living and unliving things are exchanging properties."

Seated here and there on folding chairs, everyone discussed that. They seemed familiar with the Concept. Evidently these were parts of New-Path's way of thought, perhaps even memorized and then thought about again and again. Whoop-whoop.

"The drive of unliving things is stronger than the drive of living things."

They talked about that. Whoop-whoop. The noise of the coffee urn got louder and louder and scared him more, but he did not move or look; he sat where he was, listening. It was hard to hear what they were saying, because of the urn.

"We are incorporating too much unliving drive within us. And exchanging—Will somebody go look at that damn coffeepot to see why it's doing that?"

There was a break while someone examined the coffee urn. He sat staring down, waiting.

"I'll write this again. ‘We are exchanging too much passive life for the reality outside us.' "

They discussed that. The coffee urn became silent, and they trooped over to get coffee.

"Don't you want some coffee?" A voice behind him, touching him. "Ned? Bruce? What's his name—Bruce?"

"Okay." He got up and followed them to the coffee urn. He waited his turn. They watched as he put cream and sugar into his cup. They watched him return to his chair, the same one; he made certain he found it again, to reseat himself and go on listening. The warm coffee, its steam, made him feel good.

"Activity does not necessarily mean life. Quasars are active. And a monk meditating is not inanimate."

He sat looking at the empty cup; it was a china mug. Turning it over, he discovered printing on the bottom, and cracked glaze. The mug looked old, but it had been made in Detroit.

"Motion that is circular is the deadest form of the universe."

Another voice said, "Time."

He knew the answer to that. Time is round.

"Yes, we've got to break now, but does anyone have a fast final comment?"

"Well, following the line of least resistance, that's the rule of survival. Following, not leading."

Another voice, older, said, "Yes, the followers survive the leader. Like with Christ. Not vice versa."

"We better eat, because Rick stops serving exactly at five-on fifty now."

"Talk about that in the Game, not now."

Chairs screaked, creaked. He rose too, carried the old mug to the tray of others, and joined them in line out. He could smell cold clothes around him, good smells but cold.

It sounds like they're saying passive life is good, he thought. But there is no such thing as passive life. That's a contradiction.

He wondered what life was, what it meant; maybe he did not understand.

***

A huge bunch of donated flashy clothes had arrived. Several people stood with armfuls, and some had put shirts on, trying them out and getting approval.

"Hey, Mike. You're a sharp dude."

In the middle of the lounge stood a short stocky man, with curly hair and pug face; he shifted his belt, frowning. "How do you work this here? I don't see how you get it to stay. Why doesn't it loosen?" He had a three-inch buckleless belt with metal rings and he did not know how to cinch the rings. Glancing around, eyes twinkling, he said, "I think they gave me one nobody else could work."

Bruce went over behind him, reached around him, and cinched the belt looped back through the rings.

"Thanks," Mike said. He sorted through several dress shirts, lips pursed. To Bruce he said, "When I get married I'm going to wear one of these."

"Nice," he said.

Mike strolled toward two women at the far end of the lounge; they smiled. Holding a burgundy floral shirt up against himself, Mike said, "I'm going out on the town."

"All right, go in and get dinner!" the house director yelled briskly, in his powerful voice. He winked at Bruce. "How you doing, fella?"

"Fine," Bruce said.

"Sound like you got a cold."

"Yes," he agreed, "it's from coming off. Could I have any Dristan or—"

"No chemicals," the house director said. "Nothing. Hurry on in and eat. How's your appetite?"

"Better," he said, following. They smiled at him, from tables.

***

After dinner he sat halfway up the wide stairs to the second floor. No one spoke to him; a conference was taking place. He sat there until it finished. Everyone emerged, filling the hall.

He felt them seeing him, and maybe some spoke to him. He sat on the stairs, hunched over, his arms wrapped around him, seeing and seeing. The dark carpet before his eyes.

Presently no more voices.

"Bruce?"

He did not stir.

"Bruce?" A hand touched him.

He said nothing.

"Bruce, come on into the lounge. You're supposed to be in your room in bed, but, see, I want to talk to you." Mike led him by waving him to follow. He accompanied Mike down the stairs and into the lounge, which was empty. When they were in the lounge Mike shut the door.

Seating himself in a deep chair, Mike indicated for him to sit down facing him. Mike appeared tired; his small eyes were ringed, and he rubbed his forehead.

"I been up since five-thirty this morning," Mike said.

A knock; the door started to open.

Very loudly, Mike yelled, "I want nobody to come in here; we're talking. Hear?"

Mumbles. The door shut.

"Y'know, you better change your shirt a couple times a day," Mike said. "You're sweating something fierce."

He nodded.

"What part of the state are you from?"

He said nothing.

"You come to me from now or when you feel this bad. I went through the same thing, about a year and a half ago. They used to drive me around in cars. Different staff members. You met Eddie? The tall thin drink-a-water that puts down everybody? He drove me for eight days around and around. Never left me alone." Mike yelled suddenly, "Will you get out of here? We're in here talking. Go watch the TV." His voice sank, and he eyed Bruce. "Sometimes you got to do that. Never leave someone alone."

"I see," Bruce said.

"Bruce, be careful you don't take your own life."

"Yes, sir," Bruce said, staring down.

"Don't call me sir!"

He nodded.

"Were you in the Service, Bruce? Is that what it was? You got on the stuff in the Service?"

"No."

"You shoot it or drop it?"

He made no sound.

" ‘Sir,' " Mike said. "I've served, myself, ten years in prison. One time I saw eight guys in our row of cells cut their throats in one day. We slept with our feet in the toilet, our cells were that small. That's what prison is, you sleep with your feet in the toilet. You never been in prison, have you?"

"No," he said.

"But on the other hand, I saw prisoners eighty years old still happy to be alive and wanting to stay alive. I remember when I was on dope, and I shot it; I started shooting when I was in my teens. I never did anything else. I shot up and then I went in for ten years. I shot up so much—heroin and D together—that I never did anything else; I never saw anything else. Now I'm off it and I'm out of prison and I'm here. You know what I notice the most? You know what the big difference is I notice? Now I can walk down the street outside and see something. I can hear water when we visit the forest—you'll see our other facilities later on, farms and so forth. I can walk down the street, the ordinary street, and see the little dogs and cats. I never saw them before. All I saw was dope." He examined his wristwatch. "So," he added, "I understand how you feel."

"It's hard," Bruce said, "getting off."

"Everybody here got off. Of course, some go back on. If you left here you'd go back on. You know that."

He nodded.

"No person in this place has had an easy life. I'm not saying your life's been easy. Eddie would. He'd tell you that your troubles are mickey mouse. Nobody's troubles are mickey mouse. I see how bad you feel, but I felt that way once. Now I feel a lot better. Who's your roommate?"

"John."

"Oh yeah. John. Then you must be down in the basement."

"I like it," he said.

"Yeah, it's warm there. You probably get cold a lot. Most of us do, and I remember I did; I shook all the time, and crapped in my pants. Well, I tell you, you won't have to go through this again, if you stay here at New-Path."

"How long?" he said.

"The rest of your life."

Bruce raised his head.

"I can't leave," Mike said. "I'd get back on dope if I went out there. I've got too many buddies outside. I'd be back on the corner again, dealing and shooting, and then back in the prison for twenty years. You know—hey—I'm thirty-five years old and I'm getting married for the first time. Have you met Laura? My fiancée?"

He wasn't sure.

"Pretty girl, plump. Nice figure?"

He nodded.

"She's afraid to go out the door. Someone has to go with her. We're going to the zoo … we're taking the Executive Director's little boy to the San Diego Zoo next week, and Laura's scared to death. More scared than I am."

Silence.

"You heard me say that?" Mike said. "That I'm scared to go to the zoo?"

"Yes."

"I never have been to a zoo that I can recall," Mike said. "What do you do at a zoo? Maybe you know."

"Look into different cages and open confined areas."

"What kind of animals do they have?"

"All kinds."

"Wild ones, I guess. Normally wild. And exotical ones."

"At the San Diego Zoo they have almost every wild animal," Bruce said.

"They have one of those … what are they? Koala bears."

"Yes."

"I saw a commercial on TV," Mike said. "With a koala bear in it. They hop. They resemble a stuffed toy."

Bruce said, "The old Teddy bear, that kids have, that was created based on the koala bear, back in the twenties."

"Is that right. I guess you'd have to go to Australia to see a koala bear. Or are they extinct now?"

"There're plenty in Australia," Bruce said, "but export is banned. Live on the hides. They almost got extinct."

"I never been anywhere," Mike said, "except when I ran stuff from Mexico up to Vancouver, British Columbia. I always took the same route, so I never saw anything. I just drove very fast to get it over with. I drive one of the Foundation cars. If you feel like it, if you feel very bad, I'll drive you around. I'll drive and we can talk. I don't mind. Eddie and some others not here now did it for me. I don't mind."

"Thank you."

"Now we both ought to hit the sack. Have they got you on the kitchen stuff in the morning yet? Setting tables and serving?"

"No."

"Then you get to sleep to the same time I do. I'll see you at breakfast. You sit at the table with me and I'll introduce you to Laura."

"When are you getting married?"

"A month and a half. We'd be pleased if you were there. Of course, it'll be here at the building, so everyone will attend."

"Thank you," he said.

***

He sat in the Game and they screamed at him. Faces, all over, screaming; he gazed down.

"Y'know what he is? A kissy-facy!" One shriller voice made him peer up. Among the awful screaming distortions one Chinese girl, howling. "You're a kissy-facy, that's what you are!"

"Can you fuck yourself? Can you fuck yourself?" the others chanted at him, curled up in a circle on the floor.

The Executive Director, in red bell-bottoms and pink slippers, smiled. Glittery little broken eyes, like a spook's. Rocking back and forth, his spindly legs tucked under him, without a pillow.

"Let's see you fuck yourself!"

The Executive Director seemed to enjoy it when his eyes saw something break; his eyes glinted and filled with mirth. Like a dramatic stage queer, from some old court, draped in flair, colorful, he peeped around and enjoyed. And then from time to time his voice warbled out, grating and monotonous, like a metal noise. A scraping mechanical hinge.

"The kissy-facy!" the Chinese girl howled at him; beside her another girl flapped her arms and bulged her cheeks, plop-plop. "Here!" the Chinese girl howled, swiveled around to jut her rump at him, pointing to it and howling at him, "Kiss my ass, then, kissy-facy! He wants to kiss people, kiss this, kissy-facy!"

"Let's see you fuck yourself!" the family chanted. "Jack yourself off, kissy-facy!"

He shut his eyes, but his ears still heard.

"You pimp," the Executive Director said slowly to him. Monotonously. "You fuck. You dong. You shit. You turd prick. You—" On and on.

His ears still brought in sounds, but they blended. He glanced up once when he made out Mike's voice, audibly during a lull. Mike sat gazing at him impassively, a little reddened, his neck swollen in the too-tight collar of his dress shirt.

"Bruce," Mike said, "what's the matter? What brought you here? What do you want to tell us? Can you tell us anything about yourself at all?"

"Pimp!" George screamed, bouncing up and down like a rubber ball. "What were you, pimp?"

The Chinese girl leaped up, shrieking, "Tell us, you cocksucking fairy whore pimp, you ass-kisser, you flick!"

He said, "I am an eye."

"You turd prick," the Executive Director said. "You weakling. You puke. You suck-off. You snatch."

He heard nothing now. And forgot the meaning of the words, and, finally, the words themselves.

Only, he sensed Mike watching him, watching and listening, hearing nothing; he did not know, he did not recall, he felt little, he felt bad, he wanted to leave.

The Vacuum in him grew. And he was actually a little glad.

***

It was late in the day.

"Look in here," a woman said, "where we keep the freaks."

He felt frightened as she opened the door. The door fell aside and noise spilled out of the room, the size surprising him; but he saw many little children playing.

That evening he watched two older men feed the children milk and little foods, sitting in a separate small alcove near the kitchen. Rick, the cook, gave the two older men the children's food first while everyone waited in the dining room.

Smiling at him, a Chinese girl, carrying plates to the dining room, said, "You like kids?"

"Yes," he said.

"You can sit with the kids and eat there with them."

"Oh," he said.

"You can feed them later on like in a month or two." She hesitated. "When we're positive you won't hit them. We have a rule: the children can't never be hit for anything they do."

"Okay," he said. He felt warmed into life, watching the children eat; he seated himself, and one of the smaller children crept up on his lap. He began spooning food to the child. Both he and the child felt, he thought, equally warm. The Chinese girl smiled at him and then passed on with the plates to the dining room.

For a long time he sat among the children, holding first one and then another. The two older men quarreled with the children and criticized each other's way of feeding. Bits and hunks and smudges of food covered the table and floor; startled, he realized that the children had been fed and were going off into their big playroom to watch cartoons on TV. Awkwardly, he bent down to clean up spilled food.

"No, that's not your job!" one of the elderly men said sharply. "I'm supposed to do that."

"Okay," he agreed, rising, bumping his head on the edge of the table. He held spilled food in his hand and he gazed at it, wonderingly.

"Go help clear the dining room!" the other older man said to him. He had a slight speech impediment.

One of the kitchen help, someone from the dishpan, said to him in passing, "You need permission to sit with the kids."

He nodded, standing there, puzzled.

"That's for the old folk," the dishpan person said. "Babysitting." He laughed. "That can't do nothing else." He continued by.

One child remained. She studied him, large-eyed, and said to him, "What's your name?"

He answered nothing.

"I said, what's your name?"

Reaching cautiously, he touched a bit of beef on the table. It had cooled now. But, aware of the child beside him, he still felt warm; he touched her on the head, briefly.

"My name is Thelma," the child said. "Did you forget your name?" She patted him. "If you forget your name, you can write it on your hand. Want me to show you how?" She patted him again.

"Won't it wash off?" he asked her. "If you write it on your hand, the first time you do anything or take a bath it'll wash off."

"Oh, I see." She nodded. "Well, you could write it on the wall, over your head. In your room where you sleep. Up high where it won't wash off. And then when you want to know your name better you can—"

"Thelma," he murmured.

"No, that's my name. You have to have a different name. And that's a girl's name."

"Let's see," he said, meditating.

"If I see you again I'll give you a name," Thelma said. "I'll make one up for you. ‘Kay?"

"Don't you live here?" he said.