Reality by Other Means. James Morrow

allegiances, the vigilantes stood united in their realization that André Pollifex, sane scientist, was about to unleash a reign of enlightenment on Greenbriar. They were having none of it.

      I was experiencing yet another version of the student’s dream — this time I’d misconnected not simply with one class but with an entire college curriculum — when shouts, gunshots, and the neighing of frightened horses awoke me. Taking hold of the library cart, I roused Vickie by ruffling her feathers, and side by side we stumbled into the parlor. By the time we’d made our way outside, the windmill, tractor shed, corncrib, and centaur stables were all on fire. Although I could not move quickly without risking permanent paralysis, Vickie immediately sprang into action. Transcending her spheroid body, she charged into the burning stables and set the mutant horses free, and she proved equally unflappable when the vigilantes hurled their torches into Maxwell’s residence. With little thought for her personal safety, she ran into the flaming piano barn, located the panicked bull-man and the equally discombobulated pig-woman — in recent months they’d entered into a relationship whose details needn’t concern us here — and led them outside right before the roof collapsed in a great red wave of cascading sparks and flying embers.

      And still the arsonists continued their assault, blockading the main gate with bales of burning hay, setting fire to the chicken coop, and turning Pollifex’s laboratory into a raging inferno. Catching an occasional glimpse of our spectral enemies, their white sheets flashing in the light of the flames, I saw that they would not become hoist with their own petards, for they had equipped themselves with asbestos suits, scuba regulators, and compressed air tanks. As for the inhabitants of Pollifex Farm, it was certain that if we didn’t move quickly, we would suffer either incineration, suffocation, or their concurrence in the form of fatally seared lungs.

      Although I’d never felt so divided, neither the fear spasms in my chest nor the jumbled thoughts in my jar prevented me from realizing what the mutants must do next. I told them to steal shovels from the tool shed, make for the creek, and follow it to the fence. Thanks to my levees, I explained, the bed now lay in the open air. Within twenty minutes or so, they should be able to dig below the barbed-wire net and gouge a dry channel for themselves. The rest of my plan had me bringing up the rear, looking out for Karl, Serge, and Dr. Pollifex so that I might direct them to the secret exit. Vickie kissed my lips, Juliana caressed my cheek, Maxwell embraced by brain, and then all three candidates rushed off into the choking darkness.

      Before that terrible night was out, I indeed found the other Party members. Karl lay dead in a mound of straw beside the sheep barn, his forehead blasted away by buckshot. Serge sat on the rear porch of the farmhouse, his left horn broken off and thrust fatally into his chest. Finally I came upon Pollifex. The vigilantes had roped the doctor to a maple tree, subjected him to target practice, and left him for dead. He was as perforated as Saint Sebastian. A mattock, a pitchfork, and two scythes projected from his body like quills from a porcupine.

      “André, it’s me, Blake,” I said, approaching.

      “Blake?” he muttered. “Blake? Oh, Blake, they killed Serge. They killed Karl.”

      “I know. Vickie got away, and Maxwell too, and Juliana.”

      “I was a sane scientist,” said Pollifex.

      “Of course,” I said.

      “There are some things that expediency was not meant to tamper with.”

      “I agree.”

      “Pullo for Mayor!” he shouted.

      “Taurus for Planning Commission!” I replied.

      “Caprikov for Borough Council!” he shouted. “Sowers for School Board!” he screamed, and then he died.

      There’s not much more to tell. Although Vickie, Juliana, Maxwell, and I all escaped the burning farm that night, the formula for the miraculous serum died with Dr. Pollifex. Deprived of their weekly Altruoid injections, the mutants soon lost their talent for practical idealism, and their political careers sputtered out. Greenbriar now boasts a mammoth new Consumerland. The Route 80 Extension is almost finished. High-school principals still draw three times the pay of first-grade teachers. Life goes on.

      The last time I saw Juliana, she was the opening act at Caesar’s Palace in Atlantic City. A few songs, some impersonations, a standup comedy routine — mostly vegetarian humor and animal-rights jokes leavened by a sardonic feminism. The crowd ate it up, and Juliana seemed to be enjoying herself. But, oh, what a formidable School Board member she would have made!

      When the Route 80 disaster occurred, Maxwell was devastated — not so much by the extension itself as by his inability to critique it eloquently. These days he plays the piano at Emilio’s, a seedy bar in Newark. He is by no means the weirdest presence in the place, and he enjoys listening to the customers’ troubles. But he is a broken mutant.

      Vickie and I did our best to make it work, but in the end we decided that mixed marriages entail insurmountable hurdles, and we split up. Eventually she got a job hosting a preschool children’s television show on the Disney Channel, Arabella’s Barnyard Band. Occasionally she manages to insert a satiric observation about automobiles into her patter.

      As for me, after hearing the tenth neurosurgeon declare that I am beyond reassembly, I decided to join the world’s eternal vagabonds. I am brother to the Wandering Jew, the Flying Dutchman, and Marley’s Ghost. I shuffle around North America, dragging my library cart behind me, exhibiting my fractured self to anyone who’s willing to pay. In the past decade, my employers have included three carnivals, four roadside peep shows, two direct-to-video horror movie producers, and an artsy off-Broadway troupe bent on reviving Le Grand Guignol.

      And always I remain on the lookout for another André Pollifex, another scientist who can manufacture QZ-11-4 serum and use it to turn beasts into politicians. I shall not settle for any sort of Pollifex, of course. The actual Pollifex, for example, would not meet my standards. The man bifurcated me without my permission, and I cannot forgive him for that.

      The scientist I seek would unflinchingly martyr himself to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. As they hauled him away to whatever dungeon is reserved for such saints, he would turn to the crowd and say, “The personal cost was great, but at least I have delivered a fellow human from an unjust imprisonment. And who knows? Perhaps his anguish over breaking faith with me will eventually transform him into a more generous friend, a better parent, or a public benefactor.”

      Alas, my heart is not in the quest. Only part of me — a small part, I must confess — wants to keep on making useful neurological donations. So even if there is a perfect Pollifex out there somewhere, he will probably never get to fashion a fresh batch of Altruoid. Not unless I father a child — and not unless the child receives the gene — and not unless the gene finds expression — and not unless this descendant of mine donates his superego to science. But as the bull-man told me many years ago, QZ-11-4 only rarely gets actualized in the humans who carry it.

      I believe I see a way around the problem. The roadside emporium in which I currently display myself also features a llama named Loretta. She can count to ten and solve simple arithmetic problems. I am enchanted by Loretta’s liquid eyes, sensuous lips, and splendid form — and I think she has taken a similar interest in me. It’s a relationship, I feel, that could lead almost anywhere.

      Arms and the Woman

      “What did you do in the war, Mommy?”

      The last long shadow has slipped from the sundial’s face, melting into the hot Egyptian night. My children should be asleep. Instead they’re bouncing on their straw pallets, stalling for time.

      “It’s late,” I reply. “Nine o’clock already.”

      “Please,” the twins implore me in a single voice.

      “You have school tomorrow.”

      “You haven’t told us a story all week,” insists Damon, the whiner.

      “The war is such a great story,” explains Daphne,