Chapter 6 - City of Truth

Twelve gates lead to the City of Lies. Every year, as his commitment to mendacity becomes increasingly clear, his dishonesty more manifestly reliable, the Satirevian convert is told the secret location of yet another entrance. Mere notiviates like myself knew only one: the storm drainage tunnel near the corner of

Third and Bruno in Nietzsche Borough.

So many ways to descend, I thought as Toby and I negotiated the dank, mossy labyrinth beneath Veritas. Ladders, sloping sewer pipes, crooked little stone stairways — we used them all, our flashlights cutting through the darkness like machetes clearing away underbrush. My son loved every minute of it.

Wow! he exclaimed whenever some disgusting wonder appeared — a slug the size of a banana, a subterranean lake filled with frogs, a spider's web as large and sturdy as a trampoline. Neat!

Reaching our destination, we settled into the Hotel Paradise. Unlike my previous accommodations, our assigned suite was sunny and spacious, with glass doors opening onto a wrought-iron balcony from which one could readily glimpse the local fauna. Dad, the horses around here have six legs! Toby exclaimed, hopping up and down, his skin aglow. The rats chase the cats! The pigs have wings! This really a magic kingdom!

is

It soon became obvious that the whole of Satirev had been anticipating our arrival. The Paradise guards immediately learned our faces, letting us come and go as we pleased. As we strolled around the community, total strangers would come up to us and, confirming our identities, give Satirev's tragic child a candy bar or a small toy, his father a hug of encouragement and

affirmation.

Even Felicia Krakower was prepared. After drawing a sample of Toby's blood — we told him the government had to make certain its guests weren't carrying germs — she retired to her office and came back holding a stuffed animal, an astonishingly comical baboon with acrobatic eyes and a squarish, doglike snout.

This is for you, Rainbow Boy, she said.

Toby's face grew knotted and tense; he gulped audibly. He was not too old for stuffed animals, merely too old to enjoy them without shame.

He needs a name, don't you think? said Dr. Krakower. Not a silly name, I'd say. Something dignified.

I performed my survey, the one I took every hour. The facts were becoming irrefutable — the bluish cast of his skin, the thinness of his hair.

Toby relaxed, smiled. Dignified, he said. Not silly. Oh, yes. Clearly he'd sensed the truth of his new home: in Satirev everything was permitted; in Satirev no boy grew up before his time. His name is

Barnaby. Barnaby Baboon. Frowning, Toby rammed the tip of his tongue into the corner of his mouth. I

think he might be carrying some germs.

Rainbow Boy, you're absolutely right, said Dr. Krakower as she pried a wad of cotton batting out of

Barnaby's arm with her syringe. We'd better take a stuffing sample.

That night, the minute my son fell asleep, I ran to the phone booth outside the Paradise and called the

Center for Creative Wellness. Krakower told me exactly what I expected to hear: positive.

There's still plenty of hope, she insisted.

I know what you mean, I said, shivering in the hot summer darkness. If we give Toby the right outlook, his immune system will kick in and bang

— remisssion.

Exactly.

How many years might a remission last?

You can't tell about remissions, Jack. Some of them last a long, long time.

I placed a call to Veritas.

Hello, Helen.

Jack?

Now you call?

Now

, after ten whole days?

I've been busy.

Your curator sent a get-well card. Are you sick?

I'm feeling better.

This is a bad time to talk, said Helen. I'm due at the bus station.

No, you're not. I took Toby out of camp on Sunday.

You what

?

He's got to be with me now. I can give him the right outlook.

You mean — you're one of them?

Dogs can talk, Helen.

I pictured her turning white, cringing. Shut up! she screamed. I want my son back! Bring me my son, you tropological shithead!

I

love him.

Bring him back!

I can cure him.

Jack!

* * *

As the hot, soggy July melded into a hotter, soggier August, my son and I spent long hours in the outdoors — or, rather, in those open spaces that in Satirev functioned as the outdoors.

Together we explored the community's swampy frontiers, collecting bugs and amphibians for Toby's scale-model zoo.

The money orchards, meanwhile, proved excellent for archery — we would nock our arrows and aim at the five-dollar bills — while the broiling snowfields soon became littered with the results of our sculpting efforts: snowmen, snowdogs, snowcows, snowbaboons. It was all a matter of having a good pair of insulated gloves.

Finally there was the Jordan, perfect for swimming and, when we could borrow a gondola, fishing. Do you like this place? I asked Toby as I threaded my line with a double-barbed hook.

It's pretty weird. Furiously he worked his reel, hauling an aquatic armadillo on board.

You're having a terrific time, though, aren't you, buddy? You're feeling cheerful.

Oh, yeah, he said evenly.

What do you like? Do you like making snowmen?

The snowmen are great.

And the fishing?

I like the fishing. Placing his boot atop the armadillo's left gill, Toby yanked the hook out of its mouth.

And you like our archery tournaments too, don't you? I marveled at the armadillo's design — its lozenge-shaped body, sleek scales, dynamic fins. And the swimming?

Uh-huh. I wish Mom were here.

I began baiting my own hook with a Satirevian snail. So do I. What else do you like?

I don't know. In a spasmatic act of mercy, he tossed the armadillo overboard. I like the way strangers give me candy.

And you like the fishing too, right?

I already said that, Toby replied patiently. Dad, why does my hair keep falling out?

W-what?

And my skin looks funny too.

I shuddered, pricking my thumb with the fishhook. Buddy, there's something we should talk about.

Remember that blood sample Dr. Krakower took? It seems you've got a few germs in you.

Nothing serious — Xavier's Plague, it's called.

Xavier's what?

Plague.

Toby impaled a snail on his fishhook. Is that why my skin—?

Probably. They might have to give you some medicine. You're not really sick. God, how I loved being able to say that. The thing is to stay cheerful. Just say to yourself, 'Those bad old Xavier's germs can't hurt me

. My immune system's too strong.'

My what?

Immune system. Say it, Toby. Say, 'Those bad old Xavier's germs can't hurt me

.' Go ahead.

'Those bad old Xavier's germs can't hurt me

,' he repeated haltingly. Is that true, Dad?

You bet. You aren't worried, are you?

Toby rubbed his blue forehead. I guess not.

That's my buddy.

* * *

If my son wasn't too old for stuffed animals, then he wasn't too old for bedtime stories. We read together every night, snuggling amid the Paradise's soft buttery sheets and smooth cotton blankets, working our way through a stack of volumes that had somehow escaped the Wittgenstein's predations —

Tom Sawyer Treasure Island Corbeau the Pirate

, , , and, best of all, a leatherbound, gilt-edged collection of fairy tales. Perusing the Brothers Grimm, I trembled not only with the thrill of forbidden fruit

— how daring I felt, acting out material I'd normally be reading only in prelude to burning it —

but with the odd amoralities and psychosexual insights of the stories themselves. Toby's favorite was

Rumpelstiltskin, with its unexpected theme of an old man's longing for a baby. My own preference was

Sleeping Beauty. I roundly identified with the father — with his mad, Herodlike campaign to circumvent his daugher's destiny by destroying every spinning wheel in the kingdom. I thought he was heroic.

Why did Rumpelstiltskin want a baby? Toby asked.

A baby is the best thing there is, I replied. I felt I was telling the truth. Rumpelstiltskin was a man who knew what he wanted.

Whenever Martina was in Satirev, she joined our expeditions — hiking, swimming, bug collecting, whatever — and I couldn't quite decide what Toby made of her. They got along famously, even to the

point of scatalogical private jokes involving Barnaby Baboon, but occasionally I caught a glimmer of unease in my son's eyes. Were he a post-burn kid, of course, he would've been frank.

Dad, is Martina your mistress? Dad, do you and Martina have sex?

To which the truthful answer would have been: no. Since Toby's arrival, I had lost my urge for erotic adventure. Martina was relieved; like me, she felt guilty about our romp on the billiard table. Adultery was wrong, after all — even we dissemblers knew that. Thus had Martina and I entered that vast population of men and women whose friendship had crossed the copulation barrier but once, followed by retrenchment and retreat, an entire affair compacted into one memorable screw.

Most nights the three of us went to dinner in the Russian Tea Room. The staff doted on Toby; he got all the hamburgers a boy could eat, all the French fries, all the hot dogs, all the milkshakes. Nobody could say the Tea Room wasn't doing its part to keep Toby cheerful, nobody could say it wasn't putting him in a therapeutic mood. The manager was a thin, wiry, exuberant man in his early fifties named Norbert Vore (evidently he did not partake of his own fattening and enervating menu), and upon sensing that from

Toby's viewpoint the restaurant was deficient in desserts, he immediately read up on the matter.

Norbert learned how to prepare transcendent strawberry shortcake and ambrosial lemon-meringue pie. His baked Alaska, fudge brownies, and bing-cherry tarts kept my son grinning ear to ear.

It was in the Russian Tea Room that Toby and I first noted a curious fashion among Satirevians.

About a quarter of them wore sweatshirts emblazoned with a Valentine-style heart poised above the initials

H.E.A.R.T.

HEART, what's that? Toby asked Martina one evening as we were plowing through a particularly outrageous ice-cream treat — a concoction Norbert had dubbed A Month of Sundaes.

It's a kind of club — the members get together and talk about philosophy. You know what philosophy is, Toby?

No.

The stands for Happiness, the for Equals.

H

E

And the , , and ? asked Toby.

A R

T

Art, Reality, and Truth, said Martina, at which point I realized she was lying through her teeth.

H.E.A.R.T. It was, Martina explained after Toby was asleep, an organization the year-rounders had formed for the sake of, as she put it, thinking good thoughts about your son and thereby hastening his recovery. They met every Tuesday evening. They were planning to start a newsletter.

I had never been so profoudly moved, so totally touched, in my life. My soul sang, my throat got hard as a crab apple. Martina, that's terrific

. Why didn't you tell me about HEART?

Because it gives me the creeps, that's why.

Huh?

Your son is very sick, Jack. He's going to need more than HEART. He's going to need ... well, a miracle.

HEART a miracle, Martina. Don't you get it? It a miracle.

is is

* * *

There is nothing quite so exhilarating as spending large amounts of time with your child, and nothing quite so tedious. I'll be honest: when Martina offered to relieve me of Toby for an hour or two — she wanted to help him find specimens for his miniature zoo — I told her to take all day. Even Sleeping Beauty's father, I'm sure, got tired of her on occasion.

It was an hour past his bedtime when Toby returned to the Paradise laden with the day's haul, a dozen bottles and cages filled with rubbery newts, glutinous salamanders, spiky centipedes, and disgruntled tree frogs whose cries sounded like bicycle bells.

He could not enjoy them. Dad, I don't feel so good, he said, setting the various terrariums on the coffee table.

Oh? So here it comes, I thought. Now it begins. What do you mean?

My head aches. Toby clutched his belly. And my stomach. Is it those germs, Dad?

Just remember, in the long run they can't hurt you.

'Cause of my immune system?

Smart boy.

Toby awoke up repeatedly that night, his temperature lurching toward 103, his flesh trembling, bones rattling, teeth chattering like castanets. He sweated so much he looked as if he'd just returned from a swim in the Jordan. I had to change the sheets four times. They stank of brine.

I think we'd better drop by the hospital tomorrow, I told him.

Hospital? I thought I wasn't really sick.

You aren't really sick. Oh, the power, the power. Dr. Krakower wants to give you some medicine, that's all.

I don't think I can sleep, Dad. Will you read to me about Rumpelstilkskin or pirates or something?

Of course. Sure. Stay happy, and you'll be fine.

The next morning, I took Toby to the Center for Creative Wellness, where he was assigned a place in the children's ward, a large private room that despite its spaciousness quickly seemed to fill with my son's disease, his aches and chills pouring over the bedframe, across his nightstand, and up onto the sway-backed parent's cot in the far corner. His skin got bluer; his temperature climbed: 103, 104, 104.5, 105, 105.5. By nightfall the lymph nodes under his arm had come to resemble clusters of ossified grapes.

We can get the fever down with acetaminophen and alcohol baths, said Dr. Krakower as she guided me into her office. And I think we should put him on pentamidine. It's been known to work wonders against

Pneumocystis carnii

.

Genuine wonders?

Oh, yes. We'd better set him up for intravenous feeding. I want to try pure oxygen too, maybe an inhalator. It'll keep his mind clear.

Doctor, if there's no remission...

We shouldn't talk like that, Jack.

If there's no remission, how long will he live?

Don't know.

Two weeks?

Can't say. Sure, two weeks.

Although Martina's speech-writing job for Borough Representative Doreen Hutter consumed all her mornings, she arranged to spend each afternoon at Toby's bedside, infusing him with happy thoughts. She invited him to imagine he was gradually being placed into suspended animation, so that he could become the first boy ever sent beyond our solar system in a spaceship: hence the plastic tube flowing into his left arm, giving him enough food for a year of interstellar travel; hence the green plastic mask — the rocket jockey's oxygen supply — strapped over his mouth and nose.

And when you wake up, Toby, you'll be on another planet — the mystical, magical world of Lulaloon!

Lulaloon? The oxygen mask made him sound distant, as if he were already in space. Is it as good as

Satirev?

Better.

As good as camp Ditch-the-Kids?

Twice as good.

Toby stretched out, putting a crimp in his glucose tube, stopping the flow of what Martina had told him were liquid French fries. I like your games, he said.

I stroked my son's balding scalp. How's your imagination working? I asked him.

Pretty good, I guess.

Can you picture Mr. Medicine zapping those nasty old Xavier's germs?

Sure.

'Zap 'em, Mr. Medicine. Zap 'em dead!' Right, Toby?

Right.

For over a week, Toby's remained appropriately chipper, but then a strange Veritasian skepticism crept over him, darkening his spirits as relentlessly as the Pneumocystis carnii were darkening his lungs. I feel sick, he told Dr. Krakower one afternoon as she prepared to puncture him with a second IV needle, in the right arm this time. I don't think that medicine's any good. I'm cold.

Well, Rainbow Boy, she said, Xavier's Plague isn't any fun — I'll be the first to admit that — but you'll be up and running before you know it.

My head still hurts, and my—

When one medicine doesn't work, I hastily inserted, there's always another we can try — right, Dr.

Krakower?

Oh, yes.

Martina took Toby's hand, giving it a hard squeeze as Krakower slid the needle into his vein.

Toby winced and said, Do children ever die?

That's a strange question, Rainbow Boy, said Dr. Krakower.

Do they?

It's very, very rare. The doctor opened the stopcock on Toby's meperidine drip.

She means never, I explained. Don't even think about it, Toby. It's bad for your immune system.

He's really cold, said Martina, her hand still clasped in Toby's. Can we turn up the heat?

It's up all the way, said Dr. Krakower. His electric blanket's on full.

The narcotic seeped into Toby's neurons. I'm cold, he said woozily.

You'll be warm soon, I lied. Say, 'Zap 'em, Mr. Medicine. Zap 'em.'

Zap 'em, Mr. Medicine, said Toby, fading. Zap ... zap ... zap...

So it was time to get serious; it was time for Sleeping Beauty's father to track down every last spinning wheel and chop it to bits. The minute Krakower left, I turned to Martina and asked her to put me in touch with the president of the Healing and Ecstasy Association for the Recovery of Toby.

Instead of complying, Martina merely snorted. Jack, I can't help feeling you're riding for a fall.

What do you mean? Psychoneuroimmunology is one of the key sciences of our age.

Just look at him, for Christ's sake. Look at Toby. He's living on borrowed time. You know that, don't you?

No, I

don't know that. I cast her a killing glance. Even if the time borrowed, Martina, that doesn't is mean it won't be the best time a boy's ever had.

She gave me the facts I needed. Anthony Raines, Suite 42, Hotel Paradise.

I marched up the hill outside the Center for Creative Wellness and placed the call. Anthony Raines answered on the first ring.

Jack Sperry? he gasped after I identified myself.

The

Jack Sperry? Really? Goodness, what a coincidence. We've been hoping to interview you for The Toby Times

.

For the what?

Our first issue comes out tomorrow. We'll be running stories about the fun you and Toby are having down here, his favorite toys and sports, what drugs he's taking — all the things our members want to hear about.

The Toby Times. I found the idea simultaneously uplifting and distasteful. Mr. Raines, my son just entered the hospital, and I was hoping—

I know — it's our lead story. A setback, sure, but no reason to give up hope. Listen, Jack —

may I call you Jack? — we people of the HEART know you're on the right track. Once Toby tunes in the cosmic pulse, his auric field will mend, and then he's home free.

The more Anthony Raines spoke in his calm, mellow voice, the better I felt — and the sharper my image of him became: a tall, raffish, golden-haired bohemian with bright blue eyes and a dropping, slightly disreputable mustache. Mr. Raines, I want you to mobilize your forces.

Call me Anthony. What's up?

Just this — for the next two weeks, Toby Sperry's going to be the happiest child on earth. No spinning wheel would escape my notice, ran my silent, solemn vow. Don't worry about the cost, I added. We'll put it all on my credit card.

I pictured Anthony Raines organizing his buddhalike features into a resolute smile. Mr. Sperry, I want you to know the HEART stands ready to help your cause in every way it can.

* * *

The next evening, Santa Claus visited the Center for Creative Wellness.

His red suit glowed like an ember. His white beard lay on his chest like a frozen waterfall.

Who are you

? Toby asked, struggling to sit up amid the tangle of rubber. Every day he seemed to acquire yet another IV need: glucose, meperidine, saline, Ringer's lactate, the various tubes swirling around him like an external circulatory system. Do I know you? With a bold flourish he pulled off his plastic mask, as if this bulbous saint's mere presence had somehow unclogged his lungs.

Hi, there, fella, said Santa, chuckling heartily. It was Sebastian, of course — Sebastian Arboria

— the fat and affable dissembler who'd led the meeting in the roundhouse; I'd empowered Anthony Raines to hire him for twenty dollars an hour. Call me Santa Claus. Saint Nicholas, if you prefer. Know what,

Toby? Christmas is coming. Ever hear of Christmas?

I think we studied that in school. Isn't it supposed to be dumb?

Dumb? said Sebastian with mock horror. He seemed even fatter than I'd remembered, but then I noticed the pillow under his coat. Christmas is the most wonderful thing there is. If I were a little boy, I'd feel absolutely great about Christmas. I'd be looking forward to it with every cell of my body. I'd be so full of happiness there wouldn't be any room left for Xavier's Plague.

Is Christmas a warm time? Toby was wholly without hair now. He was bald as an egg.

The night before Christmas, I fly around the world in my sleigh, visiting every boy and girl, leaving good things behind.

Will you visit me

?

Of course I'll visit you. What do you want for Christmas, Toby?

You can have anything

, I said. Right, Santa?

Yep, anything, said Sebasian.

I want to see my mother, said Toby.

Dr. Krakower shuddered. That's not exactly Santa's department.

I want to get warm.

Sebastian said, What I

mean is ... like a toy. I'll bring you a toy.

Pick something special, I insisted. Like, say, that Power Pony you've been asking about.

No, that's for my birthday

, Toby corrected me.

Why don't you get it for Christmas? Martina suggested.

Toby slipped his rocket jockey's oxygen supply back on. Well ... okay, I guess I

would like a Power

Pony. His words bounced off the smooth green plastic.

Sebastian said, A

Power Pony

, eh? Well, well — we'll see what we can do. Any particular kind of Power Pony?

Big enough for a kid like me. Maybe I look kind of short to you, lying here in bed, but I'm really seven.

Can he be brown?

So — a brown Power Pony for a seven-year-old, eh? I think we can manage that, and maybe a couple of surprises too.

Toby's delighted giggle reverberated inside his mask. How long do I have to wait?

Christmas will be here before you know it, I told him. It's just a couple of days away, right, Santa?

Right.

Will I be better by then, Dr. Krakower? Toby asked.

There's a good chance of it, Rainbow Boy, said the doctor, twisting the stopcock on Toby's meperidine drip. He was getting the stuff almost continuously now, as if he had two hearts, one pumping blood, the other pumping narcotics. It's highly likely.

Furtively I opened my wallet and drew out my credit card. For Anthony Raines, I whispered, pushing the plastic rectangle toward Sebastian. Tell him to put it all on this.

Sebastian extended his palm like a Brutality Squad officer stopping traffic. Keep your card, he said. The

HEART's picking up the tab, including my fee. He stood fully erect, the pillow shifting under his wide black belt, and backed out of the room. So long, Toby — Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, said Toby, coughing. He threw off his mask and turned to me. Did you hear that, Dad? Santa's coming back. I'm so excited

. His plum-colored skin beamed. He's going to bring me a Power Pony, and some surprises too. I can't wait for him to come back — I just can't wait

.

* * *

Martina said, We have to talk.

Damn. Couldn't she leave me alone just now? I suspected she was in love with me. She probably wanted to know how I felt about her — whether we should resurrect our affair, whether I was prepared to walk out on Helen. Such lousy timing. Didn't she realize all my energy must focus on Toby?

She escorted me into the first-floor visitation lounge, a kind of indoor jungle. Everywhere, exotic pink blossoms sat amid lush green fronds the size of elephant ears. Fake, all of it: each petal was porcelain, each leaf was glass.

Jack, I don't think what you're doing is right.

Huh? I flipped on the television — a variety show from Veritas called The Tits and Ass Hour

. What do you mean?

I think it's ugly, in fact, said Martina. Wrong and ugly.

What is? Christmas?

Lying to Toby. He wants to know the truth.

What truth?

He's going to die soon.

He's not going to die soon. I suppose Martina meant well, but I could glean only treachery from

her words. And even if he were terminal, he certainly wouldn't want to hear about it.

He's dying, Jack. He's dying, and he wants someone to be honest with him.

On the TV screen, a toothy woman removed the bikini top of her bathing suit, faced the camera, and said, Here it is, guys! This is why you all tuned in!

I shut off the set. The image imploded to a point of light and vanished. All this pessimism, Martina —

you sound like my wife.

Don't be a coward, Jack.

Coward?

Coward

? No coward would put up with the shit I've been through. I chopped at the nearest plant with the edge of my hand, breaking off a glass frond. Besides, he doesn't even know what death is.

He wouldn't understand.

He would.

Let's get something straight. Toby's going to have the greatest Christmas a boy could possibly imagine.

Do you understand? The absolute greatest, bar none.

Fine, Jack. And then...

And then I would lose him. The fact hit me like something cold, quick, and heavy — a tidal wave or a falling sack of nails. My knees buckled. I dropped to the floor and pounded my fists into the severed frond, pulverizing it. This can't be happening, I moaned. I shook like a child being brainburned. It can't be, it can't be...

It is.

I love him so much.

Of course.

Help me, I cried as I worked the bits of glass into my palms.

Help Toby, said Martina, bending down and hugging me with her deep, genuine, useless sympathy.