Read The Heart Goes Last for Free Online Page B

them toward a restaurant called Together, just down the street.
    There’s an old-fashioned tune playing in the background, white tablecloths, a plush carpet.
    “Oh Stan,” Charmaine breathes at him over the electric candles on their table for two. “It’s like a dream come true!” She picks up the rose from their bud vase, sniffs it.
    It’s not real, Stan wants to tell her. But why spoil it for her? She’s so happy.
    That night they stay at the Harmony Hotel. Charmaine has two baths, she gets so turned on by the towels. Less so by him, Stan guesses; but still, she comes across for him, so why complain? “There,” she says afterwards. “Isn’t this better than the back seat of the car?” If they commit to the Positron Project, she says, they can kiss that horrible car goodbye and good riddance, and the vandals and thieves can tear it apart, because they themselves won’t need it any more.
Night Out
    The next day, the workshops begin. After the first one, they’ll still be free to leave, they are told. In fact, they’ll have to leave: Positron wants you to take a good look at the alternatives before deciding. As they themselves know, it’s a festering rust bucket, out beyond the Consilience gates. People are starving. Scavenging, pilfering, dumpster-diving. Is that any way for a human being to live? So each one of them will spend what the Positron Project hopes – what it sincerely hopes! – will be their last night on the outside. To give them time to think it over, seriously. The Project wasn’t interested in freeloaders, tourists just trying it out. The Project wanted serious commitment.
    Because after that you were either out or you were in. In was permanent. But no one would force you. If you signed up, it would be of your own free will.
    The first day’s workshop is mostly PowerPoints. It begins with videos of the town of Consilience, with happy people at work in it, doing ordinary jobs: butcher, baker, plumber, scooter repair, and so on. Then there are videos of the Positron Prison inside Consilience, with happy people at work in it as well, each one of them wearing an orange boiler suit. Stan only half watches: he already knows they’re going to sign the commitment papers tomorrow, because Charmaine has her heart set on it. Despite the slightly uneasy feeling he’s had – they’ve both had, because Charmaine said at breakfast, with lattes and real grapefruit, “Honey, are you sure?” – the bath towels clinched the deal.
    Their night outside the wall is spent in a nasty motel that Stan wagers has been tailored for the purpose, with the furniture trashed to order, stale cigarette smell sprayed one, cockroaches imported, and sounds of violent revelry in the room next door, most likely a recording. But it’s enough like the real thing to make the world inside the Consilience walls seem more desirable than ever. Most likely it is the real thing, because why fake it when there’s so much actual wreckage available?
    In view of the racket and the lumpy mattress they have trouble getting to sleep, so Stan hears the tapping at the window immediately. “Yo! Stan!”
    Fuck, now what? He draws back the ragged curtain, peers cautiously out. It’s Conor, with his two looming sidekicks watching his back.
    “Conor!” he says. “What the fuck?” At least it’s Con and not some lunatic with a crowbar.
    “Hi, bro,” says Con. “Come out. I need to talk to you.”
    “Fuck, now?” Stan says.
    “Would I say need if I didn’t need?”
    “Honey, what is it?” says Charmaine, holding the sheet up to her chin.
    “It’s only my brother,” says Stan. He’s pulling on his clothes.
    “Conor? Why is he here?” She doesn’t like Con, she never has; she thinks he’s a bad influence who will lead Stan astray, as if he’s that easy to lead. Con might get him into behaviour she doesn’t approve of, like too much drinking, and darker stuff she’ll never elaborate on, but she most likely means whores.