The Problem of Other Minds

by Harry Dolan

"You're Larry Spector?"

The figure in the mirror nodded. Its face was pale: high forehead, puffy cheeks, and an otherwise weak chin defined by a thin mustache and a thinner beard. Both of these last were close-cut, gold mingling with black so that neither truly matched the eyebrows or the hair.

"You don't look like him."

The eyes narrowed, looking back — brown eyes behind thick lenses in cheap plastic frames.

"But then what would a Larry Spector look like?"

A hand came up on either side of the face, two bony hands on thin wrists. The fingers were an unhealthy white with bristley hair growing on them and pink joints thicker than the digits themselves. It looked as if someone had starved those fingers.

"Like this?"

Thumb and index finger pinched a fold of bearded skin on the right side of the jaw and drew it out in a flap, wiggled it back and forth. On the other side some other fingers hit upon the same idea and ran with it. Pull left and watch the head move left. Pull right. Stretchy face.

Fingers released and flesh snapped back into place. A crooked smile appeared, creating half a dimple in one cheek.

"I guess you are

Larry Spector switched off the light over his mirror, took two steps backward, and fell onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling: crinkly white plaster illuminated faintly by reflected light from the reading lamp on his desk. Over a hook embedded in the plaster was looped a rubber band, and suspended on this were a number of caps from sixteen-ounce soda bottles — resealable aluminum caps from diet Coke and diet orange Minute Maid. They had been clamped together, one on another, in a kind of chain: a white and orange phallus that swayed in the breeze from the window. Twenty-eight inches long and growing longer every time Larry opened another bottle. Carolyn had once called it obscene. It had been shorter then.

"'S'art." he had said, lying beside her, mumbling the words into her tousled black hair.

"Who?"

"It's art."

"Oh. Obscene art."

"All art is obscene."

~

Larry reached over the active radiator next to his bed and closed the window. He propped his head up on two oversize pillows and pulled a quilt over his legs. He picked up a book from where it lay open, face down on the floor, half under the bed. Its smell said textbook. He found his place and read from Rene Descartes' Second Meditation. Rene was talking about wax.

. . . words often impede me and I am almost deceived by the terms of ordinary language. For we say that we see the same wax, if it is present, and not that we simply judge that it is the same from its having the same color and figure. From this I would conclude that I knew the wax by means of vision and not simply by the intuition of the mind; unless by chance I remember that, when looking from a window and saying I see men who pass in the street, I really do not see them, but infer that what I see is men, just as I say that I see wax. And yet what do I see from the window but hats and coats which may cover automatic machines? Yet I judge these to be men. . . .

The aged clock radio that sat atop Larry's stereo clicked as it did every hour: 10:00. Larry bent a corner of the page he was on and closed the book. He kicked the quilt off his sweaty legs, sat up, and opened the window a crack. The wind sighed through, relieved. Crossing to his small refrigerator, Larry took a bottle of diet Coke, twisted it open, and added its cap to the phallus-in-progress.

He sipped his soda and glanced at the clock radio. "Ten-oh-one on a Sunday night," he said to himself. "What do we do on a Sunday night?"

For the previous three months the answer had nearly always been some variation of "see Carolyn": either "take a walk to Carolyn's" or "call Carolyn and invite her over" or "go with Carolyn to a movie." But Carolyn, it seemed, was no longer interested in any of those options. Now he had to think of another answer.

"Sunday," he said. "The Sabbath. A little pagan ritual is in order."

He set his soda next to the electric fan on one of his speakers and knelt down by the bed. From beneath it he extracted a dusty cassette case, imitation leather with a metal clasp. He opened it on the floor and scanned the titles, passing by Elton John and Neil Diamond, passing by Barry Manilow.

Carolyn had been amused when she found that he listened to Barry Manilow. She was fond of classical music. He had no patience for anything without words.

"I like the lyrics," he had confessed. "I like to sing along."

"They're only words," Carolyn had said. "Can't you sacrifice a few silly words for music?"

And when he'd played her Stephen Bishop, she had mocked him gently, singing along: " 'I remember all the women who've cut me deep.' Do you really remember?"

"Every one."

~

Eventually, Larry found what he wanted: his double-length tape of Jesus Christ Superstar. He had owned it since high school and had played it so often that he knew all the parts by memory. He could even match the characters' voices, their accents, their emotions.

His mother had stopped insisting that he go to church when he was twelve; but later, when he'd gone through his spiritual phase, he'd decided that it was possible to discard God while retaining Jesus Christ. Larry admired Christ, not as a deity or the incarnation of a deity, but as a fascinating character in a compelling story. He found Judas Iscariot equally fascinating, and he had incorporated them both into his life by means of a simple personal ritual. Every Sunday night he would find the time to play Jesus Christ Superstar, even if it were only as a backdrop to some other activity, even if he didn't have time to sing along. His Sunday ritual.

Carolyn did not know of it. He had stopped when he started seeing her; it had not seemed so important. He might have invited her to become a part of his ritual, might have exposed that facet of himself to her, but would she have understood such a thing? Did he understand it?

She was an irreligious person, raised Presbyterian but unimpressed by it. Once, under questioning, she had declared herself an atheist.

Larry had found it entertaining to play God's advocate. "How can you not believe in a supreme being?" he'd asked.

"When have I been given any reason to?"

"You want proofs? Who do you think created you?"

"That's easy. Mum. Dad."

"And who created them?"

"Their Mums. Their Dads."

"But it had to start somewhere," he'd said. "Who created everything?"

"You're begging the question. You're taking for granted that everything was created."

"As a student of philosophy, I am well aware of that. But you're not answering."

She had sighed. "If an omnipotent God had created the Universe," she'd said, "I'd like to think It would have done a better job."

"Amen."

~

Larry pushed the open cassette case back under his bed and raised himself from his knees. He retrieved his soda and slipped the tape into the deck, fingering the play button, keeping the volume low. He did not want the sound to be intrusive. The guy in the room next to his had annoyed him often enough, playing Van Halen at all hours, cranking up the volume when he had his pot-smoking friends over, so that they wouldn't have to talk to each other. But on Sunday nights he was usually off somewhere, probably smoking in someone else's room, being deafened by someone else's music.

Larry sat cross-legged in his bed, arranging the pillows to support his back. The overture began playing quietly beside him, no words yet. He set his Coke on the desk and picked up a letter from home that had been there since Friday. He felt the heat blowing out of the radiator and the cool breeze from the window. Adjusting the desk lamp above his shoulder, he opened the letter and unfolded it in his lap. It was written by his sister and punctuated with all the exuberance he might have expected of a thirteen-year-old.

Hi Larry!!

How's it going??? Mom's sick and she's upstairs resting!! It's nothing serious, but she didn't feel like writing you today!! No offense!! She just doesn't feel good at all!! So I'm writing you instead!! Daddy's drunk again!! So what have you been doing?? I've had lots of homework lately, especially Math and History. But I shouldn't complain — you must have tons of it!!!

Mark and Terri were here yesterday and they brought the baby!! Matthew is so cute!!!! He turned seven months old last week!! Me and him and Mark were sitting on the floor and playing with his little blocks and Mark took out his handkerchief and covered up one of the blocks so Matthew couldn't see it and Matthew acted like it wasn't there at all!! It was weird!!

That was a spot of vintage Mark: performing psychology experiments on his own kid. He probably couldn't wait until it was old enough for Rorschach tests. Larry shook his head and took a swig of Coke before reading the last of the letter.

Well, I've got to go!! By the way, how's Carolyn?? Tell her I said Hi!!! I saw the picture you sent!! I think she's really pretty and you should marry her!!

Your cutest sister,

Michelle

Quietly, from the stereo, Judas Iscariot began to sing: "My mind is clearer now. . . ." Larry shifted his position, stretching his legs out in front of him. The wind was winning out over the radiator and he was chilled. He swung one leg over and closed the window with his foot.

"Listen, Jesus, I don't like what I see. . . ."

Larry took a pen and a clipboard from his desk and stared at a blank page for a few minutes, half-listening to the music. Across the room the refrigerator came on, hummed for a while, and turned off. Slowly, jerkily, between sips of diet Coke, Larry wrote a letter.

Dear Cutest Sister!!!!!

Much as I might like to fulfill your last request, I'm afraid Carolyn would be unlikely to go along. She is no longer willing, she says, to be my link to the world. Isn't that a curious phrase? Shall I relate the silly stupid incident that led to that remark?

Friday I went to see her, just like I always do. We were sitting on her couch and I was massaging her shoulders. Should I be telling a thirteen-year-old that I was massaging my girlfriend's shoulders?

She had already massaged my shoulders.

"Where would you like to go tonight?" she said.

"Where would you like to go tonight?" I said.

"There's a movie playing in town," she said. "Something with Meryl Streep."

"Sounds good," I said.

"Jim and Kathy are going dancing tonight," she said.

"We could go dancing with Jim and Kathy," I said.

"Or there's a play. The Bald Soprano," she said.

"Okay," I said.

"Which one, Larry?" she said.

"Any one is fine," I said.

"Pick one," she said.

"Whichever you like," I said.

"I'm asking you, Larry," she said. "Talk to me."

"Mmmm. Okay," I said. I paused. "What were the choices again?"

She removed my hands from her shoulders. She got up from the couch and sat in a chair, drawing her knees up to her chin. That's when she said it. "I'm not willing to be your link to the rest of the world, Larry," she said. "That's too big a responsibility for me."

Larry crumpled the letter and threw it across the room. Tomorrow he would write something tame and innocuous that said nothing and said it cleverly. Tomorrow he would mail it off with the checks he needed his mother to deposit for him and that would be enough.

The radiator was blowing triple force and Larry was sweating. He tossed the clipboard on the floor, got up, and eased the window open. For a few seconds it was a pleasing, cooling feeling, but then he was too cold. He slammed the window shut and turned his electric fan on low. On the stereo, Mary Magdalene was singing of her love for Jesus. Larry was forced to increase the volume so that he could hear above the noise of the fan.

"I don't know how to love him;
I don't know why he moves me.
He's a man;
He's just a man.
He's not a king;
He's just the same
As anyone I know.
He scares me so."