Point Omega

He tried to believe that the tension in his body alerted her to the drama of the scene. She would sense it, next to him. This is what he thought. Then he thought about combing his hair. He wasn't carrying a comb. He would have to smooth down his hair with his hands once he got in front of a mirror, wherever and whenever, u

The French couple changed position, moving across the room to the west wall. They were a positive presence, attentive, and he was sure they would talk about the experience for hours afterward. He imagined the cadence of their voices, the pattern of stress and pause, talking through di

"You're sure this isn't a comedy?" she said. "I mean, just looking at it."

She was watching the tall spooky house looming over the low motel, the turreted house where Mother sometimes sits by the bedroom window and where Norman Bates assumes the vesture of cross-dressing hell.

He thought about this, about Norman Bates and Mother.

He said, "Can you imagine yourself living another life?"

"That's too easy. Ask me something else."

But he couldn't think of something else to ask. He wanted to dismiss the idea that the film might be a comedy. Was she seeing something he had missed? Did the slow pulse of projection reveal something to one person and conceal it from another? They watched the sister and the lover talk to the sheriff and the wife. He wondered if he could work the conversation around to di

Maybe we could get a bite nearby, he would say.

I don't know, she'd say. I might have to be somewhere in half an hour.

He imagined turning and pi

"Okay," she said, "gotta go now." He said, "You're leaving."

It was a flat statement, you're leaving, spoken reflexively, stripped of disappointment. He hadn't had time to feel disappointed. He checked his watch for no reason. It was something to do rather than stand there dumbly. In theory it gave him time to think. She was already moving toward the door and he hurried after her, but quietly, eyes averted from anyone who might be watching. The door slid open and he was behind her, out into the light and onto the escalator, floor to floor, and then across the lobby and through the revolving door to the street.

He caught up to her, careful not to smile or touch, and said, "What about doing this sometime at a real movie with seats to sit on and people on the screen who laugh and cry and shout?"

She paused to listen, half turning toward him, middle of the sidewalk, bodies pushing past.

She said, "Would that be an improvement?"

"Probably not," he said, and this time he smiled. Then he said, "Do you want to know something about me?"

She shrugged.

"I used to multiply numbers in my head when I was a kid. A six-digit number times a five-digit number. Eight digits times seven digits, day and night. I was a pseudo genius."

She said, "I used to read what people were saying on their lips. I watched their lips and knew what they were saying before they said it. I didn't listen, I just looked. That was the thing. I could block out the sound of their voices as they said what they were saying."

"As a kid."

"As a kid," she said.

He looked directly at her.

"If you'll give me your phone number, I could call you sometime."

She shrugged okay. That was the meaning of the shrug, okay, sure, maybe. Although if she saw him on the street an hour from now, she probably wouldn't know who he was or where she'd met him. She recited the number quickly and then turned and walked east into the midtown glut.

He went into the crowded lobby and found a cramped space on one of the benches. He put his head down to think, to duck away from it all, the sustained pitch of voices, languages, accents, people in motion carrying noise with them, lifetimes of noise, a clamor bouncing off the walls and ceiling and it was loud and surrounding, making him cower down. But he had her phone number, this is what mattered, the number was securely in mind. Call her when, two days, three days. In the meantime sit and think about what they'd said, what she looked like, where she might live, how she might spend her time.

That's when the question came to mind. Did he ask her name? He didn't ask her name. He made the i

He sneaked a look at his watch and did not hesitate, crossing to the ticket area and paying full price. Should be half adult, considering the hour, or free, should be free. He blinked at the ticket in his hand and hurried to the sixth floor, two steps at a time on the escalator, everybody going the other way. He entered the dark gallery. He wanted to bathe in the tempo, in the near static rhythm of the image. The French couple was gone. There was one person and the guard and then him, here for the last less-than-an-hour. He found his place at the wall. He wanted complete immersion, whatever that means. Then he realized what it means. He wanted the film to move even more slowly, requiring deeper involvement of eye and mind, always that, the thing he sees tu

Norman Bates, scary bland, is putting down the phone. He will turn off the light in the motel office. He will move along the stepped path to the old house, several rooms lighted, dark sky beyond. Then a series of camera shots, varying angles, he remembers the sequence, he stands at the wall and anticipates. Real time is meaningless. The phrase is meaningless. There's no such thing. On the screen Norman Bates is putting down the phone. The rest has not happened yet. He sees in advance, afraid that the museum will close before the scene ends. The a

The other person walks out the tall door. There is only him and the guard now. He imagines all motion stopping on the screen, the image begi

He is not responsible for these thoughts. But they're his thoughts, aren't they? He returns his attention to the screen, where everything is so intensely what it is. He watches what is happening and wants it to happen more slowly, yes, but he is also mind-racing ahead to the moment when Norman Bates will carry Mother down the stairs in her white bedgown.