Green Eyes

  At Jocundra’s questioning, Mr Juskit - I came to think of him by his assumed name, convinced by the assurance of his memories - detailed a final illness which led to a death he had previously failed to remember. The flickerings in his eyes intensified, glowing like swamp fire, blossoming into green stars, and he made the fisted gestures of a company president exhorting his sales force. As he gained control of his muscles, he seemed more and more the salesman, the Napoleon Of the board room, the glib, nattering little man born of the union between a vagrant and the bacterial DNA. When I had first seen him in the room beyond the mirror, dazed, dull, barely conscious, I had been struck by the perversity of the situation: an unprepossessing, half-dead man was being danced for by a lovely woman in a nurse’s uniform, all within a gaudy room which might have been the private salon in a high class whorehouse. The scene embodied a hallucinated sexuality. But now there was a natural air to the proceedings, a Tightness; I could not imagine any room being made unnatural by Mr Juskit’s presence. He dominated his surroundings, commanding my attention, and I saw that Jocundra, too, was no longer weaving her web of elegant motion, no longer the temptress; she leaned toward him, intent upon his words, hands folded in her lap, attentive as would be a dutiful wife or mistress.

  Mr Juskit began to address her as ‘babe,’ touching her often, and, eventually, asked her to remove her tunic. ‘Take it off, babe,’ he said with contagious jollity, ‘and lemme see them puppies.’ So convinced was I of his right to ask this of her, of its propriety in terms of their relationship, I was not taken aback when she stood, undid her buttons and let the tunic drop onto her arms. She lowered her eyes in a submissive pose. Mr Juskit pushed himself off the sofa, his hospital gown giving evidence of his extreme arousal, and staggered toward her, a step, arms outstretched and rigid, eyes burning a cometary green. Jocundra leapt aside as he fell to the floor, face downward. Tremors shook him for nearly half a minute, but he was dead long before they ceased.

  Ezawa opaqued the mirror. I had been leaning forward, gripping the edge of the mirror, and I believe I stared wildly at him. Seeing my agitation, no doubt thinking it the product of disgust or some allied emotion, he said, ‘It frequently ends that way. The initial sexual response governs them, and during the final burst of vitality they commonly attempt to embrace the therapist or… ask favors.’ He shrugged. ‘Since it’s their last request, the therapists usually comply.’

  But I was not disgusted, not horrified; instead I was stunned by the sudden extinction of what had seemed a dynamic imperative for the last half hour or thereabouts: Mr Juskit’s existence. It was unthinkable that he had so abruptly ceased to be. And then, as I gained a more speculative distance from the events, I began to understand what I had witnessed, its mythic proportions. A beautiful woman, both Eve and Delilah, had called a man back from the dead, lured him into vivid expression, coaxed him to strive for her and tell his secrets, to live in a furious rush of moments and die one breath short of reward, reaching out to her. The ‘zombie’-therapist relationship, I realized, made possible a new depth of scrutiny into, the complete range of male-female interactions; I was eager to take up residence at Shadows and begin my investigations of the slow-burners. They were the heart of the project! The scene I had just witnessed -the birth, life and death of Frank Juskit while in the company of Jocundra Verret - had transmitted an archetypal potency, like the illustration on a Tarot trump come to life; and though I had not yet met Hilmer Magnusson or Donnell Harrison, I believe at that moment I anticipated their miraculous advent.

Chapter 2

  BIAP Interview No 1251

  Host Name: Paul Pelizzarro

  BIAP Name: Frank Juskit

  Length of Interview: fifty-seven minutes

  Interpretation: None. See video.

  Comments/Personal Reactions/Other: I am, as usual, both saddened by the death and repelled by the patient’s actions, by my dutiful response; in fact, by the nature of the work: the tricks we play and the patients themselves, comic in their weakness, horrible in their desire for life and the flash of ardor that ends them… Green fireballs lodged in their eye sockets, their minds going nova with the joy of a lifetime crammed into a few minutes (that is how I imagine it, though I’m certain Dr Ezawa will quarrel with such an unscientific appraisal). I have long since become accustomed to the slight difference in body temperature and the other salient differences between the patients and the ordinary run of humanity, but I doubt I will ever grow callous enough to be unaffected by those final moments.