The Fan-Shaped Destiny of William Seabrook (36 page)

I couldn’t imagine that the elder Justine, planning for her successor to grow to maturity before recall, had intended a single-ended
consolidation of personality. But maybe she had overlooked the traumatic effects of inputs such as we had just experienced.
Locales that incessantly aroused feelings of regret and loss did not bode well for her integration and recovery.

At the barn, she’d longed for the security of her chains. Even around me, there was no calculating what she might do or say,
but I could at least communicate with her. She would respond to me, even if delusional, as had my dying mother. I veered away
from that awful comparison and applied the simplest of all tests.

“The President? I dunno, FDR? No, wait. I’m
still
doing that. Can you believe getting used to
President
Harry Truman?” That cinched it. I had to get her to a safe haven. Evidently, the entirely alien impacted less personally.
JFK International merely intimidated rather than horrified. By then she was remembering who Joseph Kennedy’s second son had
been.

She stayed nestled under my arm, clutching her big portfolio, while I first attempted to change our reservations. Giving up
on that, I bought us one-ways on a red-eye to Dallas–Fort Worth. It was either that or try to cope with more hours of waiting
in the terminal, or finding our way to another, to get an Atlanta flight. Using the one credit card I carry for emergencies,
I didn’t even attempt to involve her in the process.

Then she spied a jumbo airliner taxiing beyond the plate glass. Even as the panic attack began, I remembered that the elder
Justine had been afraid of flying. There was nothing else for it. I went into my pocket for the Valium, assuring her that
the “strong sophoric” would keep her from being afraid.

“Speaking of Aldous’s story? Well, this is like ‘soma.’” At her body weight, what I gave her was actually going to knock her
on her cute little butt. I had taken the decision that I would rather steer a zoned-out kid through security and onto the
plane than one having a screaming fit.

As the drug took effect, I used a nearby phone to call Joe in Arlington, Texas. Justine had tried to be helpful with “wiring”
him, then stared blankly at me as I explained that long-distance calls were commonplace. The agony of her frustration was
visible. She would reach for a clarifying memory, but more often find only the dated assumptions of the other time.

She seemed to remember the
fact
of recent technology: “Keyboard, nothing. It’s only typing, after all.” But in the same breath she failed to comprehend how
the great Western Union could have been reduced to consoles in the backs of check-cashing shops. It was ironic. Deutsch had
proposed that past and future are merely special cases of alternate realities. In that light, the being under my arm had not
only been able to use the “Everett phone”; with it, she’d called a god-damned cab!

Brief and to the point, I told Joe the ETA and flight number, that I was in an emergency situation, and that he might expect
to find our young friend in a precarious emotional condition. It’s very nice to have someone you can call like that in the
middle of the night.

Drawing her against me as we sat in the gate’s waiting area, I marveled at a subjective philosophical juxtaposition. On the
one hand, there were the mysteries being unraveled: a vision of the fabric of the cosmic tapestry which boded a complexity
undreamed of; on the other, a Zen-like clarity I had sought but never before found. One purpose, one reason for being; sitting
there, stroking her hair.

J
OE WAS WAITING FOR US, THANK
G
OD, AT THE GATE
in the American terminal at Dallas–Fort Worth International. With Justine between us, and a good grip under each armpit,
we were able to negotiate her down the ramps and outside. Such attention as we did attract was on the order of a few smirks
from passengers and a dim eye from security, but as we were clearly leaving, there was no interference. Joe observed that
they thought she was drunk, and I retorted that he should know. I’d had to peel him out of that same terminal, years before
during his drinking days.

The circumstances of our “escape from New York” had left me paranoid about the details of logistics. We’d been able to embark
owing only to being in a teeming monstrosity that gives not a damn—unless you block the flow of traffic. Californicated Texas,
its much-vaunted tradition of individualism aside, has become the most intrusive and litigious place in the nation. Lawyers
and social workers swing from trees.

Describing the restaurant adventure with his Justine, Seabrook had declared that no one interferes with a girl who’s poised
and happy. True now as well, but in his day the issue was the potential interference of individuals. In our time we are all
in jeopardy of the benevolent “intervention” of the state.

At any rate, Justine was not presently poised and happy. Doped up, sporting numerous marks from our night at
The Château,
and still being impacted by vivid recollections that would be indistinguishable from schizophrenic hallucinations, she looked
far too much the carrion upon which the social-service vultures feed. Joe’s “suburban utility vehicle” was parked right outside,
displaying a handicapped permit due to his wife Diane’s disabilities. As we got Justine and our bags settled into the back,
I told him flatly that we needed to go to ground for a few days.

Joe, who never worries about anything anymore, scolded me about being obsessed with what “might” happen. Without details which
I was not even near being able or willing to give, he could have no clue as to the degree to which I could now be excused
for
that!

Living with a declining alcoholic renders one immune to public humiliation, and episodes from my experience with Linda had
left me well equipped to handle the journey with a minimum of consternation. Once back in Texas, I possessed the contact resources
to counter any but the most determined “intervention.” Still, I was unwilling to risk the slightest possibility of her falling
into the clutches of professional psych-hackers while her behavior was still dysfunctional. There was no way to gauge the
damage that might be done by their ignorant meddling.

Another consideration was money. Justine would have to pull it back together before she could access her buffer, and I imagined
that I had maxed out with the tickets for our sudden departure. I was grateful for Joe’s largely unquestioning support, and
to God for letting me get Justine to a less exposed place to recover.

I would not allow for any consideration that she might not recover, be unable to correlate the conflicting realities slamming
into her memory. Just as well that she was crashed out in the back as we cruised the futuristic airport complex and the choked
arteries into Arlington, now only a portion of the fabric of the sprawling D-FW Metroplex.

Insofar as I had a plan, it was to try to help reinforce, within the baseline, elements of her present-day persona. One that
could cope with the sights and sounds of the alien landscape which had sent her antecedent self into a paroxysm of fear and
disorientation. Her reactions to the Village suggested that an environment known to that other self, but radically changed,
would not be very helpful. Just possibly, an unfamiliar but quiet suburban setting was the best I could provide.

The evidence was becoming overwhelming. I had no choice but to operate on the assumption that she
was
the other Justine, and always had been! But I was denied the luxury of elation at this potential discovery. Reflection on
rational proof of continued existence must wait until I’d dealt with the remarkable, and rather terrifying, reality of the
awakening process.

Her predecessor had indisputably contrived the conditions for her
anamnesis,
a “remembrance” or, more precisely, the negation of forgetfulness. She must have studied long on how her own preconscious
buttons might be pushed. But something seemed amiss. The elder Justine’s plan implied that her new incarnation would be gently
reawakened by virtue of first living in her old home; then going to Rhinebeck; then reading the manuscript. That last had
yet to be accomplished.

Had I messed up with the cathartic sadomasochistic activity at
The Château,
by taking her to the barn, or merely with my own inadvertent “intervention”? If so, then what of the confluence of synchronicity
that bound me into this thing; whence did that come? All I could cling to was faith, and the few words from her
Testament
’s instructions to go to Rhinebeck, “for which I am so sorry …” Perhaps this reaction was not wholly unforeseen.

Before discussing the situation with Joe and Diane, I tucked Justine into bed in their guest room. Through her drugged fog,
she seemed content with the chenille bedspread and oversize pillows, protected by the old wooden furniture and watched over
by Di’s wonderful collection of dolls. I could not escape the contrast of these friendly little figures with Willie’s witch-dolls,
which must have glowered over a woman called Justine on that last night in 1945.

————————

I
SECURED A NOTE TO A PILLOW
with a safety pin, in case she should awaken: “Don’t worry. I’m here. I love you.” There was no predicting how long this
process would take. While the memories of her antecedent self continued to self-organize into a separate persona, insisting
on believing me to be her lost Willie, I would have to play that role to a greater or lesser extent.

There was irony here. Men have always projected desired images on women, demanding that they become what we need. Now, only
by playing at being a man long dead, could I remain her bond with this present moment.

Contrary to how my young psych major might have been educated to self-diagnose, I was fearful. If this powerful personality
from the past were to disintegrate, I believed that it stood to drag down with it into madness the less elaborate and fixed
one of its successor. This was not some damned “complex” to be analyzed away, or, depending on your religion, exorcised. The
two were really only a single Justine, and the breach needed time to heal … or so I hoped.

I took a hairbrush from the vanity and gently stroked the tangles from her red tresses. Watching them spread out on the pillows,
I thought,
my angel, my chained lady.
I adored her as much as I had come to realize that I despised myself: myself and my world.

Had there been no real help for my poor Linda, what could there be for an exotic creature like Justine? They’d stop short
of burning her at the stake, but they’d gladly render her catatonic through drugs or electroshock to erase her inconvenient
memories. Much of her education had been wasted; there is no science of the mind available today, only propaganda and self-serving
bias masquerading as science.

I adjourned to the kitchen to drink coffee and offer some sort of explanation. Joe and I related by an understanding that
was almost family, and Di is one of the kinder and less-judgmental people I’ve known. However, there is a limit to how much
you can ask anyone to swallow in one gulp. In the tradition of Seabrook with his cannibal feast, I put together, for Di’s
benefit, an “alternative reality” that was true enough for the purpose. Having known Justine “a little while,” I planned to
marry her as soon as possible; some family problems due to the May-December aspect; had partied in New York with the wrong
people. Joe looked at the ceiling and stayed quiet.

I would tell him later that I hoped the proposed marriage would be fulfilled when Justine was up for it. I preferred for that
to be a
fait accompli
before I had to deal with her mother. I did neglect to mention just who her mother was! My only pure fiction was to invent
a designer drug that tended to linger in the system with repeated flashbacks for a while. I didn’t want them to be too disconcerted
should Justine come out in period drag, looking for “Willie”!

After graciously acknowledging the most well-intentioned cautions to their crazy friend, I wandered outside for a smoke. Joe
had offered me the use of one of his cars, and I reflected, in the markedly calm summer morning, that Lake Arlington was only
a few miles away.

The thought of the place where this all appeared to have begun, at least for me, so many years before, had a curious effect.
Rather than existing as I had previously thought of it, abstracted away into a superpo-tent archetypal domain, the memory
blended quietly with the familiar atmosphere of the North Texas morning. In its heart was still a red-haired angel, but otherwise
the memory seemed more a normal part of the fabric of my life.

I thought it likely that, in comparison with the extraordinary phenomenon sleeping inside, the whole thing about JJ was being
reduced to more natural proportions. I couldn’t go there immediately, risking being gone when Justine woke up, but decided
that I would deal with it soon. Maybe going back there would shed some new light on my end of this weird business. I dropped
a tranq myself, put out my pipe, and went to bed.

I was roused once, when Justine softly cried out and turned to burrow in against me. I gently wrapped her about me and dozed
again.

Coming up again, this time from REM sleep, I brought back clear memory of my latest dream. Three of my familiar dreamscapes
were superimposed, all locations along Interstate 35 and each featuring a highway interchange, which were also merged into

one. I was amused to note that the big road’s mile markers were delineated with numerical dates.

One branch of the intricate cloverleaf ran downhill into a dark place, like a bad neighborhood or a seedy little town. Justine
had turned her ankle, and I went back and carried her uphill, walking on a graveled grade, which I associated with unpaved
roads of the past. At the intersection, the rising sun was illuminating a newly completed highway link converging with my
dream highway. I felt exultant, like an Orpheus triumphant, bringing his love again into the land of the living.