Free Eating Memories by Patricia Anthony Page A

absently. “People say you’re in love with PLT, Harry. They say it must come from your culture.”
    I glared at my reflection. A thin gargoyle stared back. “I’m third generation. My mother and father were Lutherans.”
    “I know.”
    “Do you imagine I practice Past Life Therapy because of something Hindu in my DNA?”
    “Don’t get stuffy with me. PLT’s fine, but it’s not the only therapy we have. Granted, we have an interesting situation here, but I’m not certain your data are valid, In the meantime, you have a patient who needs you, Treat the past life, but don’t forget the present.”
    Bobby was kicking one heel of his sneaker into the linoleum, an expression of other-worldly sorrow on his face. He broke my heart. “I never forget the present, Dr, Carleton.”
    I studied the faces of the two QM physicists as they watched the films of Bobbie at dinner. Harold Moss, from MIT, winced and looked away from the screen as if we had shown him pornography. In fact, that’s what it was. Bobby ate with all the decadence of an aging lecher.
    Burton Stengler, professor of applied mediumship from the Kardeckian Institute in Atlanta, watched doggedly, his eyes narrowing in disgust.
    Carleton turned the film off just after the denouement when Bobby vomited out the contents of his engorged stomach, paused for a moment, and then calmly began to eat again.
    “Just so you see what the problem is,” I told them. “Some background.”
    The ascetic Stengler nervously ran a finger along his upper lip. The rotund Moss seemed more than simply nervous, and I wondered if the film had given him the impetus to begin a diet.
    Then Carleton slipped the July 21 tape into the VCR. The monitor lit up.
    I was looking at myself: a graying Indian with hollow, dark eyes and rumpled lab coat, Bobby sat across from me, pumped full of Thanapeline, his head lolling on his neck:.
    “Quero um cigarro, ” he muttered.
    Reaching into my pocket, I got him one, lit it and passed it across. He took it, pressing the filter between two fingers. After breathing in a deep drag of smoke, he plucked at his tongue. Gilberto Soares would be a poor man, and he would be used to rolling his own.
    Bobby regarded me, his eyes slitted and tired from the drug. “Brigado.”
    Moss turned from the screen to me, “Do you speak Portuguese?” he asked hopefully.
    “Direct Translation Feed,” Carleton answered. “Notice the pink button on Dr, Patel’s right ear.”
    On the monitor the dot of pink erupted from my brown skin like an infection. The Translation Receivers, like bandaids, were advertised as being “flesh colored.” The pink would have clashed with no one else in the room but me and the artificially tanned Dr. Stengler.
    Looking disappointed, Dr, Moss turned away.
    “Where do you live, Gilberto?” my image asked. Because of Bobby, Soares understood English. He could speak English, too, when he wanted. But Soares would be a difficult, a stubborn, man. After knowing the easily intimidated boy, that cheered me. I loved Bobby for his gentleness, but gentleness is a hard thing to bear. Its burden was heavy on Bobby, and it weighed down the people around him. Sometimes they hated him for that.
    “Aqui.”
    “And where is that?”
    Bobby, his face drawn up into an expression of amusement that looked out of place on a child, said, “Aqui, pô: Manaus.” Then he asked me in that crude Portuguese of his if I didn’t know where I was.
    “Quero uma cerveja.”
    “I don’t have a beer. Would you like a Coke?”
    “Não.” At this point he stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and crossed his arms. His movements were clumsy.
    It was coming. I knew it was coming. I’d seen the tape dozens of times. My hands dug into the armrests of my chair. On the monitor a placid, innocent me went on, a smile of encouragement on my face.
    “Okay, Gilberto. I’m going to take you forward five years. Five years. Tell me what you see.”
    Why hadn’t I noticed