Nicotine by Nell Zink Read Free Book Online Page B

away, puckering his lips, as though tasting something sour.
    NORM’S ACOLYTES ARRIVE FROM ALL over—medical students, fans of holistic medicine, fellow practitioners, patients whose illnesses relented, aspiring shamans, veterans and benefactors of the Last Resort. They leave their cars at odd angles, blocking each other’s escape. No one will leave until they all leave.
    The women carry big pots and bowls of food. The men carry coolers and drums: congas, bongos, tabla, djembe. The dress code is garment-dyed linen in earth tones, tooled leather, and jewelry made of rock. Thin-skinned, thin-haired, physically vulnerable people are one main cohort: Norm’s former clients. Another is colleagues and friends, old-school hippies—rude, furious, elderly sensualists channeling Falstaff with all their might while their wives read Isabel Allende. A third is college students: self-styled sixties throwbacks who greet each other with palms pressed together, whispering shyly, “Namaste.”
    There is consensus among the hippies that Penny is an “old soul.”Many have known her since she was a baby playing on the floor of the clinic, back when Amalia was in college and Norm lived full-time in Manaus with a babysitter. Then came his financial breakthrough, the triumphant return to America and his wife, her career, the Morristown house, the good suburban schools for their daughter. The utter estrangement from his sons—but that makes sense to the disciples, knowing their history. They see Penny as the bearer of unique potential.
    Though in fairness they see many people, including nearly all their friends, that way. There is tacit agreement among Norm’s followers that they make the world a better place by living in it. They don’t change it. They redeem it, through the searching way they live their lives. The cult is populated by realist aesthetes. A cult of personality for those cultivating personalities. Expecting nothing more from life than self-actualization, accepting nothing less. Willing to settle for others’ self-actualization if their own turns balky.
    Initially it was realist aesthetes in a hurry due to piss-poor diagnostic outlooks. Lately it’s realist aesthetes with time on their hands, drawn to the shine in the eyes of the survivors. Captivated by their intensity after Norm (with unspoken apologies to Epicurus) persuaded them death could be ignored.
    Most have been to Manaus to see the cosmic anaconda.
    Penny wears a shapeless white cotton shift. Also a Cambodian anklet with little jingle bells on it—something meant to help parents locate toddlers, but she likes it. She ties small, white freshwater snail shells into her hair, so that they click when she moves her head. She starts dancing the minute the drumming begins. She is tipsy, it should be said, on cachaça from Norm’s stash in the cellar, formerly used to create alcoholic mists for purposes of shamanic healing. Her half-brothers remain on the periphery, talking. For nearly twenty minutes no one else dances.
    Because she has special meaning for Norm’s devotees, they like to watch her dance. They hope one day she will follow in his footsteps,as his sons show no sign of doing. (Mourners overhear them discussing the Yankees.) They find her entirely Indio, as though the shaman had managed, in impregnating Amalia, to suppress his own ethnicity—a feat that ought not to be past a shaman, it seems to them.
    The older drummers play African polyrhythms. As they tire out, the beat gets fatter and heavier. The students join Penny in dancing, some chanting Norm’s name. At twilight the old hippies’ wives approach the margins of the service, wearing red hats and carrying big, white drums. The beat becomes bombastic, all skittishness gone.
    When the sun goes down, the mood shifts from trance to fury. Everyone is stomping. The West African–style drummers reassert themselves. The sound becomes