“We have reason to believe Conrad is in this area, probably under an assumed name.”
The first mail guy turns to the other one, and says, whisperinglike, “Another assumed name. The guy’s as slippery as an eel. They don’t even have a picture of him. He’s such a smooth talker he’s probably convinced one of his dumb-bunny customers he’s a clone and moved in with them.” The cop shoots him a dirty look.
“Are you sure you’ve had no communication with Mr. Conrad or with Clones, Inc?”
“Nope. All I got was my clone.”
All four guys lean forward. “You received the doll advertised in the magazine?”
“Doll?” I said. I was gonna say, Hell, no, I wish it hadda been a doll and not some big good-for-nothing guy. Only just then I saw for sure it was Marjean and the big good-for-nothing. They was both bombed out of their minds. I could tell 'cause they was sort of weaving down the road, but that ain’t what gets me. Right in the middle of the road my clone stops and plants a big old kiss on Marjean. He’s got his hands where they got no business being either. And old Marjean is eating it up.
“Did you or did you not receive a clone as ordered?” the cop guy says, annoyedlike.
“I want to file a complaint,” I says, real mad.
They give me a number to call if I see that Conrad guy, and then they go off in their big cars. They drive right past Marjean and the clone guy, who are still feeling each other up. They don’t pay no attention, and that makes me know for sure they are not Welfare guys. Those guys don’t let you do
I stand there on the porch, just watching them and thinking. I think about the post office guys and the cop. And then I think about Marjean and how that guy don’t look nothing like me even when he’s feeling up my wife and pretty soon I get an idea. I am not so dumb.
Marjean knows it, too. When she comes in, smelling like beer and pot, she is pretty sassy, but she ain’t sassy now. I heard them talking at the kitchen table yesterday and she says, “He’s figured it out,” and the clone guy kind of laughs, but not too loud, and says, “Him? He couldn’t figure his way out of a paper bag.” But he don’t sound real convinced.
I been pretty busy. First thing I done I read all of Marjean’s love magazines. I found some good stories like “I Killed My Wife’s Lover” and “A Husband’s Revenge” and I put them real casual-like on the kitchen table open to that page like I been reading them. Then I real casual-like cut out one of them ads for a laser gun. That disappears like sixty and when I check the other magazines I see she’s cut out every gun and knife ad and thrown them all away I keep suggesting she take my clone over to the Indian camp, but she won’t go nowhere. All she does is sit at that kitchen table reading stories and biting her fingernails till there ain’t nothing left just like I planned. Pretty soon I will leave that complaint form around where the clone guy can see it. Then he will know I am not so dumb. But I think I will wait on that.
See, while I’m standing there on that porch I figure out I have been looking at this clone thing all wrong. That story about the orphan girl throwed me off, the twin stuff and all. That ain’t what clones are for. And any way you look at it, that guy don’t look nothing like me at all. So what I figure is, a clone of Marjean’s won’t look nothing like her neither. It’d be all round and soft and curly blond hair maybe. Not so high-and-mighty neither. I know just what Marjean’s clone’d be good for. And I am all set. I got twelve ninety-five and a envelope full of Marjean’s chewed-off fingernails and I am sending it in. I am not so dumb.
SAMARITAN
The people of the Countrie, when they traoaile in the Woods, make fires where they sleepe in the night; and in the morning, when they are gone, the Pongoes [orangutans] will come and sit about the fire, till it goeth out: for they have no understanding to lay the wood together.
Some of the stories in the Bible are really old. Bible scholars think parts of Genesis date back to the Bronze Age, but I think they may be far older than that. Consider the tale of Esau and Jacob:
Isaac, old and blind, wanted to pass on his inheritance and his blessing to Esau, his firstborn, who is described as being “red, all over like an hairy garment. “ But his younger brother, Jacob, “a smooth man, “ cheated Esau of his father’s blessing by putting goatskins “upon his hands and upon the smooth of his neck” and so fooling the blind old man.
Jacob of course sounds uncomfortably like us, but who is this red and hairy brother we have stolen our inheritance from? And will he forgive us?
Reverend Hoyt knew immediately what Natalie wanted. His assistant pastor knocked on the half-open door of his study and then sailed in, dragging Esau by one hand behind her. The triumphant smile on her face was proof enough of what she was going to say.
“Reverend Hoyt, Esau has something he wants to tell you.” She turned to the orangutan. He was standing up straight, something Reverend Hoyt knew was hard for him to do. He came almost to Natalie’s shoulder. His thick, squat body was covered almost entirely with long, neatly brushed auburn hair. He had only a little hair on top of his head. He had slicked it down with water. His wide face, inset and shadowed by his cheek flaps, was as impassive as ever.
Natalie signed something to him. He stood silent, his long arms hanging limply at his sides. She turned back to Reverend Hoyt. “He wants to be baptized! Isn’t that wonderful? Tell him, Esau.”
He had seen it coming. The Reverend Natalie Abreu, twenty-two and only one year out of Princeton, was one enthusiasm after another. She had vamped the Sunday school, taken over the grief counseling department, and initiated a standard of priestly attire that outraged Reverend Hoyt’s Presbyterian soul. Today she had on a trailing cassock with a red-and-gold-embroidered stole edged with fringe. It must be Pentecost. She was short and had close-cropped brown hair. She flew about her official duties like a misplaced choirboy in her ridiculous robes and surplices and chasubles. She had taken over Esau, too.
She had not known how to use American Sign Language when she came. Reverend Hoyt knew only the bare minimum of signs himself, “yes” and “no” and “come here.” The jobs he wanted Esau to do he had acted out mostly in pantomime. He had asked Natalie to learn a basic vocabulary so they could communicate better with the orang. She had memorized the entire Ameslan handbook. She rattled on to Esau for hours at a time, her fingers flying, telling him Bible stories and helping him with his reading.
“How do you know he wants to be baptized?”
“He told me. You know how we had the confirmation class last Sunday and he asked me all about confirmation and I said, 'Now they are God’s children, members of God’s family.’ And Esau said, 'I would like very much to be God’s beloved child, too.’”
It was always disconcerting to hear Natalie translate what Esau said. She changed what was obviously labored and fragmented language into rhapsodies of adjectives, clauses, and modifiers. It was like watching one of those foreign films in which the actor rattled on for a paragraph and the subtitle only printed a cryptic, “That is so.” This was reversed, of course. Esau had signed something like, “Me like be child God,” if that, and Natalie had transformed it into something a seminary professor would say. It was impossible to have any real communication with Esau this way, but it was better than pantomime.
“Esau,” he began resignedly, “do you love God?”
“Of course he loves God,” Natalie said. “He’d hardly want to be baptized if he didn’t, would he?”
“Natalie,” he said patiently, “I need to talk to Esau. Please ask him, ‘Do you love God?’”
She looked disgusted, but signed out the question. Reverend Hoyt winced. The sign for “God” was dreadful. It looked like a sideways salute. How could you ask someone if they loved a salute?
Esau nodded. He looked terribly uncomfortable standing there. It infuriated Reverend Hoyt that Natalie insisted on his standing up. His backbone simply wasn’t made for it. She had tried to get him to wear clothes, too. She had bought him a workman’s uniform of coveralls and a cap and shoes. Reverend Hoyt had not even been
