The Metropolis by Matthew Gallaway Read Free Book Online Page B

flowers. “Plants and animals—and humans—are not so different in some ways. We’re all made out of tiny parts into bigger, more complicated bodies. What I do is figure out how foreign substances interact with these parts. Certain things will make them stronger, while others make them more efficient, the way oil will prevent gears from rusting.” He looked down at Lucien and blinked. “My job is to discover what will do both.”

7
Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To
    NEW YORK CITY, 2001. After his dinner with Jay at Demoiselles, Martin woke up fascinated by the way his head and stomach undulated, and estimated he would need at least a year to recover. It almost made him resolve never to eat or drink again, but on further reflection he decided that he felt little contrition for having indulged with barely any restraint (e.g., he had not eaten red meat) in the epicurean phantasmagoria of the four-star French restaurant. He supposed he could have limited himself to a few glasses of wine instead of the five bottles he and Jay had shared, but he remained committed to the idea that each course demanded its own selection, nor could he regret ordering the second glass of port, which the acidulous taste of the cow’s-milk fribourgeois had so clearly demanded. Jay could probably be blamed for the cognac that had accompanied the dessert tray—compliments of the establishment—with which theyhad ended the meal, but Martin’s protestations had sounded weak and emasculated even at the time.
    He turned his head and slowly focused on the clock: it was already after 7:00, and most sad to consider, he had a 9:15 conference call scheduled at his office. He needed to allow at least an hour for the car service downtown—he was in Washington Heights, just north of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan—which gave him slightly less time than that to get ready. He forced himself to roll over onto one elbow so that he could reach out with his other arm for the six aspirin he had placed on his bedside table the night before, and after swallowing these with the aid of a glass of water placed there for the same purpose, he collapsed back onto the pillow, granting himself a reprieve.
    He gazed into the kaleidoscope of his ceiling and assessed the situation: he was hungover to be sure, but he also detected something else lurking in his condition that was decidedly more psychological, although it did entail a faint numbness—a certain syrupy sensation—that seemed to spread throughout his body, not completely unlike what had recently been afflicting his hands, although less painful, and possibly even pleasurable. He remembered a summer day when he was thirteen years old, and how—for the first time in his life—he had woken up possessed by a similar sense of unease; he did not feel sick, exactly, but he did not feel healthy, either, as though he were a piece of leftover food on an unwashed dish.
    This particular morning had arrived after seventh grade, a day or so after he had returned home from two weeks at hockey camp. He was on the screened-in porch off the back of the house, where he liked to sleep when it was warm enough, and was stunned by a sudden lack of motivation to do anything, even blink. As he looked through the mesh screen at the backyard, it seemed like every color had been bleached from the world, which itself was about as exciting as a corrugated box.
    Around eleven, his mother, Jane, leaned through the pass-through from the kitchen and asked if he wanted breakfast, a question to which he responded with a blank stare. “Earth to Martin,” she said.
    “What? No—that’s all right; I’m not hungry.”
    “Is something the matter?”
    He finally shifted his eyes in her direction. “I guess I’m tired.”
    She seemed to consider this for a few seconds as she plucked an errant thread from the front of her bright orange turtleneck top. “I’m sure you are.”
    Martin understood this to be a mild rebuke for