Chapter 7 - City of Truth

On the last day of August, at the height of a seething and intractable heat wave, Christmas came to the

Center for Creative Wellness. Sleigh bells jangled crisply in the hallway; the triumphant strains of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing flowed forth from a portable CD player; the keen verdant odor of evergreen

boughs filled the air. I'll never forget the smile that beamed from Toby's dry, cyan face when his friend

Saint Nicholas waddled into the room dragging a huge sack, a canvas mass of tantalizing bulges and auspicious bumps.

Hi, Santa.

Look, Toby, these are for you! Sebastian Arboria opened the sack, and the whole glorious lot flowed out, everything I'd told Anthony Raines to bring down from the City of Truth, the plush giraffe and the android clown, the snare drum and the ice skates, the backgammon set and the Steve Carlton baseball glove.

Wow! Oh, wow! Toby tore off his oxygen mask; this time I took the action for what it was — a minor, meaningless gesture, not a sign of recovery. For me

— they're all for me

?

For you, said Sebastian.

Toby held his stuffed baboon over the edge of the bed. Look, Barnaby. Look at all we got.

An entourage of HEART members appeared, a score of pixies, fairies, elves, and gnomes festooned with evergreen wreaths and mistletoe sprigs, streaming toward Toby's bed. One of Santa's helpers arrived pushing a hospital gurney on which sat a Happy Land even more elaborate than the layout my niece received after her burn (Toby's included a funhouse and a parachute jump, plus a steam-powered passenger train running around the perimeter). Three other helpers bore an enormous tree — a bushy

Scotch pine hung with glassy ornaments, sparkling tinsel, and dormant electric lights, shedding its needles everywhere.

Hi, everybody — I'm Toby, he mumbled bravely as the helpers patted his naked head and brushed his bony shoulders. I've got Xavier's Plague, but I won't die. Children don't die, Dr.

Krakower said.

Of course you won't die, said the elf behind the gurney.

A tall pixie in a feather cap, holly necklace, and leiderhosen marched toward me. I'm Anthony Raines, he said. I had anticipated his physiognomy in every particular but one; far from sporting a mustache, his lip was as hairless as a sentient Satirevian stone. It's a privilege to meet someone of your spiritual intensity, Jack.

A gnome connnected plug to socket, and the Christmas tree ignited — a joyous burst, a festive explosion, a spray of fireworks frozen against a green sky. As Toby clapped his hands — an effort that left him breathless and wincing with pain — the HEART members began caroling.

Oh, Toby, we're so sad

To hear you're feeling bad

But we can tell

You'll soon be well

'Cause you're a spunky lad...

Santa, I have a question, said Toby.

Yes?

Did you remember that, er ... that Power Pony?

Power Pony, what Power Pony? said Sebastian with fabricated distress. He smacked his mittens together. Oh, yes — the

Power Pony

.

Hearing her cue, a slender female elf rode into the room on a magnificent chestnut-hued Power Pony, its bridle studded with rubies, its saddle inlaid with hand-tooled cacti, a mane of genuine horse-hair flowing down its neck.

What's his name? Toby asked.

Sebastian, God bless him, was prepared. Down on Santa's Power Pony Ranch, we called him Chocolate.

That's a weird name, said Toby as the machine loped over and nuzzled his cheek. Look, Dad, I got a brown Power Pony called Chocolate. He coughed and added, I wanted a black one.

A sharp ache zagged through my belly. Huh? Black?

Black.

You said brown, I wailed. These final weeks — days, hours — must be perfect. You definitely said brown

.

I changed my mind.

Brown's a great color, Toby. It's a great color.

Toby combed the pony's mane with his pencil-thin fingers. I don't think I'll ride him just yet.

Sure, buddy, I said.

I think I'll ride him later. I'm tired right now.

You'll feel better in the morning.

Toby slipped his mask back on. Could I see how that Happy Land works?

As Dr. Krakower operated the mattress crank, raising Toby's head and chest and giving him an unobstructed, God's-eye view of Happy Land, Sebastian twisted the dials on the control panel.

The toy lurched to life, the whole swirling, spinning, eternally upbeat world.

Faster, Toby muttered as the carousel, ferris wheel, and roller coaster sent their invisible passengers on dizzying treks. Make them go faster!

Here, you do it. Sebastian handed my son the power pack.

Faster... Toby increased the amperage. Faster, faster... I sensed a trace of innocuous preadolescent sadism in his voice. Step right up, folks, he said. Ride the merry-go-round, ride our amazing colossal roller coaster. In his mind, I knew, the ferris wheel customers were now puking their guts out, the roller coaster was hurtling its patrons into space, and the carousal horses had thrown off their riders and were trampling them underfoot. Step right up.

It was then that I observed an odd phenomenon among Santa and his helpers. Their eyes were leaking.

Tears. Yes, tears

— children's tears.

What's the matter with everyone? I asked Martina.

What do you mean?

Their eyes.

Martina regarded me as she might a singularly mute and unintelligent dog. They're crying.

I've never seen it before. I pressed my desiccated tear ducts. Not in grownups.

Step right up, rasped Toby.

In Satirev, said Martina, grownups cry all the time.

Indeed. I surveyed the gathered grownups, their dripping eyes, their wistful smiles, their self-serving grimaces of concern. I surveyed them — and understood them. Yes, no question, they were enjoying this grotesque soap opera. They were loving every minute of it.

Toby was no longer saying, Step right up. The only sound coming from him was a low, soft moan, like wind whistling down the Jordan River.

A flurry of grim, efficient movement: Krakower cranking Toby's mattress to a horizonal position, turning on his inhalator, opening the meperidine stopcock. Anthony Raines took my son's knobby hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Will I see you people again? asked Toby as the drug soaked into his brain. Will you come next Christmas?

Of course.

Promise?

We'll be back, Toby. You bet.

I don't think there'll be a next Christmas, my son said.

You mustn't believe that, said Anthony.

I lurched away, fixing on the tree ornaments. A Styrofoam snowman held a placard saying, GET

WELL, TOBY. A ceramic angel waved a banner declaring, WE'RE WITH YOU, SON. A plastic icicle skewered an index card reading, WITH PAIN COMES WISDOM.

Turning, I tracked a large, silvery tear as it rolled down Santa Claus's cheek. Of course there'll be a next

Christmas, I said mechanically.

Toby's blue skin, stretched tight over cheek and jawbone, crinkled when he yawned. I love Christmas, he said. I really love it. Will I die today, Santa? I'm so cold.

Sebastian said, That's no way to talk, Toby.

You're crying, Santa. You're...

I'm not crying, said Sebastian, wiping his tears with his mittens.

Thank you so much, Santa, Toby mumbled, adrift in meperidine. This was the greatest day of my whole life. I love you, Santa. I wish my Power Pony were black...

My son slept, snoring and wheezing. I turned to Martina. Our gazes met, fused. Tell them to get out, I

said in a quavering voice. Martina frowned. These HEART vultures, I elaborated. I want them out.

Now.

I don't think you get it, Jack. They're here for the long haul. They came to—

I

know why they came. They'd come to see my child suffocate. They'd come to feast on the maudlin splendor of his death. Tell them to leave, I said. Tell them.

Martina moved among Santa's helpers, explaining that I needed some private time with Toby.

They responded like wronged, indignant ten-year-olds: pouty lips, clenched teeth, tight fists.

They stomped their feet on the bright yellow floor.

Slowly the HEART filed out, offering me their ersatz support, sprinkling their condolences with Satirevian remarks. It's a journey, Mr. Sperry, not an ending. He's entering the next phase of the cosmic great cycle. Reincarnation, we now know, occurs at the exact moment of passing.

As Anthony Raines reached the door, I brushed his holly necklace and said, Thanks for hunting down all those toys.

We think you're being selfish, he replied snappishly, twisting the feather in his hat. We've done so much for you, and now you're going to—

Cheat you out of his death? Yes, that's perfectly true. I'm going to cheat you.

I thought you wanted us to synch your son's immune system with the cosmic pulse. I thought we were supposed to—

I don't believe that business any more, I confessed. I probably never did. I was lying to myself.

Let's leave him alone. Sebastian pressed his amplified belly against Anthony. I don't think he needs us right now.

Some people are so fickle, said Anthony, following Santa Claus out of the room. Some people...

At last I was alone, standing amid the grotesquely merry clutter, my ears vibrating with the ominous tom-tom of Toby's inhalator. Christmas tree, Power Pony, Happy Land, plush giraffe, android clown, snare drum, ice skates, backgammon set, Steve Carlton baseball glove — I'd given him all these pointless things, but now, finally, I would give what he wanted.

* * *

Toby awoke at midnight, coughing and gagging, gripped by a 105-degree fever.

The August air was moist, heavy, coagulated; it felt like warm glue. Rising from the cot, I hugged my son, tapped on his rocket jockey's oxygen supply, and said, Buddy, I have something to tell you.

Something bad.

Huh? Toby tightened his grip on Barnaby Baboon.

I chewed my inner cheeks. About this Xavier's Plague. The thing is, it's a very, very bad disease.

Very bad. Pain razored through my tongue as I bit down. You're not going to get well, Toby.

You're simply not.

I don't understand. His eyes lay deep in their bony canyons; the brows and lashes had grown sparse, making his stare even larger, sadder, more fearful. You said Mr. Medicine could cure me.

I lied.

But you said—

I wanted you to be happy.

Anger rushed to his face, red blood pounding against blue skin. But — but Santa Claus brought me a

Power Pony

!

I know. I'm sorry, Toby. I'm so terribly, terribly sorry.

How could you lie to me? How could you even that?

do

This Satirev — it's different from our old city, very different. If you stay down here long enough, you can learn to say anything

.

I want to ride my Power Pony! He wept — wept like the betrayed seven-year-old he was. His tears hit his mask, flowing along the smooth plastic curves. I want to ride Chocolate! I don't want to die

!

You can't ride him, Toby. I'm so sorry.

I knew it! he screamed. I just knew it!

How did you know?

I

knew it!

A protracted, intolerable minute passed, broken by the interlaced poundings of the inhalator and Toby's sobs. He kissed his baboon. He asked, When?

Soon. A hard, gristly knot formed in my windpipe. Maybe this week.

You lied to me. I hate you. I didn't want Santa to get me a brown Power Pony, I wanted a black one. I

hate you!

Don't be mean to me, Toby.

Chocolate is a stupid name for a Power Pony.

Please, Toby...

I hate you. You're horrible.

Why are you being so mean to me? Please don't be mean.

Another wordless minute, marked by the relentless throb of the inhalator. I can't tell you why, he said at last.

Tell me.

He pulled off his mask. No.

Absently I unhooked a plaster Wise Man from my son's Christmas tree. I'm so stupid, I said.

You're not stupid, Dad. Mucus dribbled from Toby's nose. What happens after somebody dies?

I don't know.

What do you think happens?

Well, I suppose everything stops. It just ... stops.

Toby ran a finger along the sleek rubbery curve of his meperidine tube. Dad, there's something I never told you. You know my baboon here, Barnaby? He's got Xavier's Plague too.

Oh? That's sad.

As a matter of fact, he's dead from it. He's completely dead. Barnaby just ... stopped.

I see.

He wants to be buried pretty soon. He's dead. He wants to be buried at sea.

I crushed the Wise Man in my palm. At sea? Sure, Toby.

Like in that book we read. Barnaby wants to be buried like Corbeau the Pirate.

Of course.

Toby patted the baboon's corpse. Can I see Mom before I die? Can I see her?

We'll go see Mom tomorrow.

Are you lying?

No.

A smile formed on Toby's fissured lips. Can I play with Happy Land now?

Sure. I closed my eyes so tightly I half expected to hear them knock against my brain. Do you want to hold the control panel?

I don't feel strong enough. I'm so cold. I love you, Dad. I don't hate you. When I'm mean to you, it's for a reason

.

What reason?

I don't want you to miss me too much after I'd dead.

It would happen to me now, I knew: the tear business. Reaching under his bed, I worked the crank, gradually bringing Toby's vacant gaze within range of his amusement park. Such a self-referential reality, that toy — how like Veritas, I thought, how like Satirev. Anyone who inhabited such a circumscribed world, who actually took up residence, would certainly, in the long run, go mad.

You won't miss me too much, will you?

I'll miss you, Toby. I'll miss you every single minute I'm alive.

Dad — you're crying.

You can play with Happy Land as long as you like, I said, operating the dials on the control panel. I love you so much, Toby. The carousel turned, the ferris wheel spun, the roller coaster dipped and looped. I

love you so much.

Faster, Dad. Make them go faster.

And I did.

* * *

We spent the morning after Christmas outfitting a litter with the necessities of Xavier's amelioration, turning it into a traveling Center for the Palliative Treatment of Hopeless Diseases: tubing, aluminum stands, oxygen tank, inhalator. Dr. Krakower placed a vial of morphine in our carton of IV bottles, just in case the pain became more than the meperidine could handle. I'd be happy to come with you, she said.

The truth of the matter, I replied, is that in a day or two Toby will be dead — am I right? He's beyond medical science.

You can't put a timetable on these things, said Krakower.

He'll be dead before the week's out. You might as well stay.

Martina and I carried Toby through Satirev to the Third and Bruno storm tunnel, Ira Temple riding close behind on the Power Pony, then came William Bell, dragging my son's Christmas presents in Santa's canvas sack. Toby was so thin the blankets threatened to swallow him whole; his little head, lolling on the pillow, seemed disembodied, a side-show freak, a Grand Guignol prop. He clutched his stuffed baboon with a strange paternal desperation: Rumpelstiltskin finally gets his baby.

By noon Toby was with his stalwart, Veritasian mother, drooping over her arms like a matador's cape.

Does he know how sick he is? she asked me.

I told him the truth, I admitted.

This will sound strange, Jack, but ... I wish he didn't know. Helen gasped in astonishment as a drop of salt water popped from her eye, rolled down her cheek, and hit the floor. I wish you'd lied to him.

On the whole, truth is best, I asserted. That's a tear, I noted.

Of course it's a tear, Helen replied testily.

It means—

I

know what it means.

Weeping, we bore Toby to his room and set his marionette-like body on the mattress. Mom, did you see my Power Pony, Mom? he gasped as William and Ira rigged up his meperidine drip.

Isn't he super?

His name's Chocolate.

It's quite a nice toy, Helen said.

I'm cold, Mom. I hurt all over.

This will help, I said, opening the stopcock.

I got a Happy Land, too. Santa brought it.

Helen's face darkened with the same bewilderment she'd betrayed on seeing her tear. Who?

Santa Claus. Saint Nicholas. The fat man who goes around the world giving children toys.

That doesn't happen, Toby. There is no Santa Claus.

There . He visited me. Am I going to die, Mom?

is

Yes.

Forever?

Yes. Forever. I'd give almost anything to make you well, Toby. Almost anything.

I know, Mom. It's ... all right. I'm ... tired. So ... sleepy.

I sensed his mind leaking away, his soul flowing out of him. Don't die, Toby, I thought. Oh, please, please, don't die.

Stunned and gutted, the five of us wandered into the living room, a space now jammed with terrible particulars, the Power Pony, the plush giraffe, all of it. Helen offered us a lunch of sliced Up-to-Snuff

Cheddar on Respectable Rye. No one was hungry. Collecting by the picture window, we looked down at the City of Truth. Veritas, the vera-city; curiously, the pun had never occurred to me before.

I followed William and Ira to the elevator, mumbling my incoherent gratitude. Unlike the HEART

members, they sympathized tastefully; their melancholy was measured, their tears small and rationed.

Only as the elevator door slammed shut did I hear William cry out, It isn't fair

!

Indeed.

I returned to the living room. Martina was still near the picture window, rooted like a moneytree. Stay, I

told her. That's all right, isn't it, Helen? Martina is Toby's friend. She can stay, right?

Instead of answering, Helen simply stared at Martina and said, You're exactly as I imagined you'd be. I

guess you can't help looking like a slut.

Helen, we're all very upset, I said, but that sort of talk isn't necessary.

My wife lit a cigarette, the first time I'd seen her smoke in years, and sank into the couch,

drained, defeated. I'm upset, she agreed, blowing out smoke.

Toby was so happy to see you, Martina told her. I'll bet he'll start doing a lot better now that you're with him.

Don't lie to me, Miss Coventry. I'm sorry I was rude — but don't lie.

Martina was lying, and yet as evening drew near Toby indeed seemed to rally. His fever dropped to

101. He began making demands of us — Helen must bring his Power Pony into the room, Martina must tell him the story of Rumpelstiltskin. I suspected that the infusion of familiarity —

these precious glimpses of his wallpaper, closet door, postcard collection, and benighted carpentry projects — was having a placebo effect.

Placebos were lies.

While Martina entertained Toby with a facetious retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, a version in which the miller's daughter had to spin bellybutton lint into peanut butter sandwiches, Helen and I made coffee in the kitchen.

Do you love her? she asked.

Martina? No. I didn't. Not any longer.

How can I know if you're telling the truth?

You'll have to trust me.

We agreed to keep the marriage going. We sensed we would need each other in the near future: the machinery of grief was new to us, our tears were still foreign and scary.

At five o'clock the next morning, Toby died. During his final hour, Helen and I positioned him on

Chocolate and let him pretend to ride. We rocked him back and forth, telling him we loved him. He said it was a great Power Pony. He died in the saddle, like a cowboy. The final cause was asphyxiation, I

suppose; his lungs belonged to

Pneumocystis carnii and not to Veritas's soiled and damaged air. His penultimate word, coughed into the cavity of his mask, was cold. His last word was Rumpelstiltskin.

We set him back in bed and tucked Barnaby Baboon under his arm.

Guiding Martina into the hallway, I gave her a good-bye hug. No doubt our paths would cross again, I

told her. Perhaps I'd see her at the upcoming Christmas assault on Circumspect Park.

Your wife loved him, Martina said, pushing the elevator's Down button.

More than she knew.

Bong

, the car arrived. I made him happy for awhile, didn't I? For a few weeks, he was happy.

Behind Martina, the elevator door opened. You made him happy, she said, stepping out of my life.

I shambled into the kitchen and telephoned my sister.

I wish my nephew hadn't died, she reported. Though I will say this — I'm counting my blessings right now: Connie, my good health, my job. Yes, sir, something like this, it really makes you count your blessings.

Meet us in an hour. 7 Lackluster Lane. Descartes Borough.

Helen and I wrapped Toby's tiny corpse in polyurethene bags. Barnaby Baboon was part of him now, fastened by rigor mortis. We hauled him onto the elevator, brought him down to street level, and loaded him into the back of my Adequate. As we drove across town, political campaign ads leaped from the radio, including one for Doreen Hutter, the borough rep for whom Martina had been writing. While one of my teenage boys is undeniably a drug addict and

a car thief, she said, the other spends his after-school hours reading to the blind and...

I pictured Martina writing those lines, scribbling them down in the margins of her doggerel.

Reaching the waterfront district, I pulled up beside the wharf where Average Josephine was moored.

Boris sat on the foredeck, wrapping duck tape around the fractured handle of a clamming rake, chatting with Gloria and Connie. I fixed on my sister's eyes — dry, obscenely dry — shifted to my niece's — dry.

Thank the alleged God: Boris grasped the situation at once. So Toby wanted to be buried at sea?

All right, no problem — the canvas sack would work fine: a few bricks, a few rocks...

He brought

Average Josephine into the channel at full speed, dropping anchor near the north shore, below a sheer cliff pocked with tern rookeries. Wheeling across the water, the birds scolded us fiercely, defending their airy turf like angry, outsized bees.

Boris dragged Santa Claus's sack to the stern and set it on the grubby, algae-coated deck. I hear you were quite a lad, little Toby, he said, cinching the sack closed with a length of waterproof hemp. I'm sorry I never knew you.

Even though you can't hear me, I am at this moment moved to bid you good-bye, said Gloria. I feel rather guilty about not paying more attention to you.

The fact of the matter is that I'm bored, said Connie. Not that I didn't like Toby. Indeed, I'm somewhat sorry we hardly ever played together.

Boris lifted the Santa sack, balancing it on the transom with his hairy, weatherworn hand.

I miss you, son, I said. I miss you so much.

Boris raised his palm, and the sack lurched toward the water like the aquatic armadillo Toby had caught and freed on the Jordan. As it hit the channel, Helen said, simply: I love you, Toby. She said it over and over, long after the sack had sunk from view.

It'll be dark in an hour, Boris told me. How about we just keep on going?

Huh?

You know — keep on going. Get out of this crazy city.

Leave?

Think it over.

I didn't need to.

* * *

I'm a liar now. I could easily fill these final passages with a disingenuous account of what befell us after we set Gloria and Connie back on shore and returned to the river: our breathless shootout with the

Brutality Squad, our narrow escape up the inlet, our daring flight to the sea. But the simple fact is that no such melodrama occurred. Through some bright existential miracle we cruised free of Veritas that night without encountering a single police cutter, shore battery, or floating mine.

We've been sailing the broad and stormy Caribbean for nearly three years now, visiting the same landfalls Columbus once touched — Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados — filling up on fruit and fresh water, course uncharted, future unmapped, destination unsettled. We have no wish to root ourselves. At the moment

Average Josephine is home enough.

My syndrome, I'm told, is normal. The nightmares, the sudden rages, the out-of-context screams, the time I smashed the ship-to-shore radio — all these behaviors, I've heard, are to be expected.

You see, I want him back.

It's getting dark. I'm composing by candlelight, in our gloomy galley, my pen nib scuttling across the page like a cockroach scavenging a greasy fragment of tin foil. My wife and the clamdigger come in. Boris asks me if I want coffee. I tell him no.

Hi, Daddy. Little Andrea sits on Helen's shoulders like a yoke.

Hi, darling, I say. Will you sing me a song? I ask my daughter.

Before I destroyed the radio, a startling bit of news came through. I'm still trying to deal with it.

Last

October, some bright young research chemist at Voltaire University discovered a cure for Xavier's

Plague.

Andrea climbs down. I'd be deee-lighted to sing you a song. She's only two and a half, but she talks as well as any four-year-old.

Boris makes himself a cup of Fran's Fairish.

Out of the blue, Helen asks, Did you have sex with that woman?

With what woman?

Martina Covington. Did you?

I can answer however I wish. Why are you asking now

?

Because I want to know now. Did you ever—?

Yes, I say. Once. Are you upset?

I'm upset, says Helen. But I'd be more upset if you'd lied.

Andrea scrambles into my lap. Her face, I note with great pleasure, is a perfect melding of Helen's features and my own. I hide my wings inside my soul, she sings, lyrics by Martina Coventry, music by

Andrea Sperry.

Their feathers soft and dry, my daughter and I sing together. Her melody is part lament, part hymn.

Now Helen and Boris join in, as if my Satirevian training has somehow rubbed off on them. The lies cause them no apparent pain.

And when the world's not looking...

We're in perfect harmony, the four of us. I don't hate the lies, I realize as we trill the final line —

our cloying little denial of gravity — but I don't love them either.

We take them out and fly, we all sing, and even though I'm wingless as a Veritasian pig, I feel as if I'm finally getting somewhere.