Doctorow

  You chose the suburbs, you know. I work to pay off the mortgage. The three tuitions. The two car payments.

  I’m not blaming you. Could we turn on the light a moment?

  What’s the matter?

  There’s no moon. In the dark, it feels like a tomb.

  —

  THIS IS VERY EMBARRASSING.

  What were you doing there at three in the morning?

  Sleeping. That’s all. I wasn’t bothering anyone.

  Yeah, well, the cops are touchy these days. People sleeping in their cars.

  It used to be a ball field. I played softball there as a boy.

  Well, it’s the mall now.

  You don’t mind that I gave them your name?

  Not at all. I like being known as a criminal associate. Why didn’t you just check into the local Marriott?

  I was trying to save money. The weather is clement. I thought, Why not?

  Clement. Yes, it’s definitely clement.

  Is it the habit of the police to go around impounding cars? Because if they think I’m a drug dealer, or something like that, they will find only books, my computer, luggage, clothes, and camping gear and a few private mementos that mean something only to me. Very unsettling, strangers digging around in my things. If I’d stayed at a hotel, I’d be on my way right now. I’m really sorry to impose on you.

  Well, what’s a neighbor for.

  That’s funny. I appreciate humor in this situation.

  I’m glad.

  But we’d be neighbors only if time had imploded. Actually, if time were to implode we’d be more than neighbors. We’d be living together, the past and the present moving through each other’s space.

  Like in a rooming house.

  If you wish, yes. As in a sort of rooming house.

  —

  SO HE’S THERE. WHAT—HITTING on your wife?

  No, that won’t happen. It’s not what he’s about. I’m pretty sure.

  So what’s the problem?

  He comes on like some prissy fusspot poet, doesn’t have it together, drives a junk heap, claims to have quit his teaching job but was probably fired. And, with all of that, you know he’s a player.

  Yeah, I know people like that.

  His difficulties work in his favor. He gets what he wants.

  So what does he want from you?

  I’m not sure. It’s weird. The house? Like I’ve defaulted on the mortgage and he’s the banker come to repossess.

  So why’d you bring him home? He could sit in a Starbucks while they went through his car.

  Well, he called. And I hang up and there she is looking at me. And I’m suddenly into proving something to her. You see what’s happening? I can no longer be me, which is to say to the guy, I don’t know you. Who the fuck cares if you lived here or didn’t live here? They’ll give you back your damn car and you can leave. But no, he works it so that I have to prove something to my own wife—that I am capable of a charitable act.

  I guess you are.

  So, like, he’s now some new relative of ours. This touches on the basic fault line in our marriage. She’s naïve in principle—she forgives everybody everything. Always excusing people, finding a rationale for the shitty things they do. A clerk shortchanges her, she imagines he’s distracted and just made a mistake.

  Well, that’s a lovely quality.

  I know, I know. Her philosophy is if you trust people they will be trustworthy. Drives me crazy.

  So they’ll give him back his car and he’ll go.

  No. Not if I know her. She’ll drive him to pick it up. The day will have passed, and she’ll ask him to stay for dinner. And then she’ll insist that he shouldn’t be allowed to drive off in the night. And I will look at her and sit there and agree. And she will show him to the guest room. I’ll give you odds.

  You’re a bit overwrought. Have another.

  Why the hell not?

  —

  WITH AGE, YOU SEE how much of it is invented. Not only what is invisible but what is everywhere visible.

  I’m not sure I understand.

  Well, you’re still quite young.

  Thank you. I wish I felt young.

  I’m not talking about one’s self-image. Or the way life can be too much of the same thing day in and day out. I’m not talking about mere unhappiness.

  Am I merely unhappy?

  I’m in no position to judge. But let’s say melancholy seems to suit the lady.

  Oh, dear—that it’s that obvious.

  But, in any case, whatever our state of mind life seems for most of our lives an intense occupation—keeping busy, competing intellectually, physically, nationally, seeking justice, demanding love, perfecting our institutions. All the fashions of survival. Everything we do to make history, the archive of our inventiveness. As if there were no context.

  But there is?

  Yes. Some vast—what to call it?—indifference that slowly creeps up on you with age, that becomes more insistent with age. That’s what I’m trying to explain. I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job.

  No, really, this is interesting.

  I get very voluble on even one glass of sherry.

  More?

  Thank you. But I’m trying to explain the estrangement that comes over one after some years. For some earlier, for others later, but always inevitably.

  And to you, now?

  Yes. It’s a kind of wearing out, I suppose. As if life had become threadbare, with the light peeking through. The estrangement begins in moments, in little sharp judgments that you instantly put out of your mind. You draw back, though you’re fascinated. Because it’s the truest feeling a person can have, and so it comes again and again, drifting through your defenses, and finally settles over you like some cold, very cold, light. Maybe I should stop talking about this. It is almost to deny it, talking about it.

  No, I appreciate your candor. Does this have something to do with why you’ve come back here—to see where you used to live?

  You’re perceptive.

  This estrangement is maybe your word for depression.

  I understand why you would say that. You see me as the image of some colossal failure—living on the road in a beaten-up car, an obscure poet, a third-rate academic. And maybe I am all those things, but I’m not depressed. This isn’t a clinical issue I speak of. It’s a clear recognition of reality. Let me explain it this way: it’s much like I suppose what a chronic invalid feels, or someone on the verge of dying, where the estrangement is protective, a way of abating the sense of loss, the regret, and the desire to live is no longer important. But subtract those circumstances and there I am, healthy, self-sufficient, maybe not the most impressive fellow in the world but one who’s managed to take care of himself quite well and live in freedom doing what he wants to do and without any major regrets. Yet the estrangement is there, the truth has settled upon him, and he feels actually liberated because he’s outside now, in the context, where you can’t believe in life anymore.

  —

  WHY WOULD ANYONE COME to New Jersey to die?

  Sir?

  And the house is nothing special, you’ll grant me that. The usual Colonial with white vinyl siding, a one-car garage, the gutters packed with the crap of I don’t know how many autumns. Actually, I’ve been meaning to get to that.

  Sir, please. We ask and you answer and we leave. Can you tell us anything more about the deceased?

  Well, you see, I knew him mostly as a corpse in the hallway. Ah, you are skeptical. And why not, with my wife weeping away like he was a close relation?

  So you’re saying—

  Hard to believe, isn’t it? Not even an old boyfriend of hers, not even that.

  You have no heart.

  No, it’s an interesting experience, a total stranger falling dead in his underwear on the way to the bathroom. And to see him carried out the door in a body bag! Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Good for the kids, too, a life experience before going off to school. Their
first suicide.

  Sir, the man died of an acute myocardial infarction.

  Says who?

  The EMTs examined him.

  Well, they’re entitled to their opinion.

  It’s more than an opinion, sir. They see things like this every day. They didn’t even try to resuscitate.

  No, he took himself out, for sure, wily fellow that he was. That’s why he came here—it was all planned.

  Why are you being like this? He came here, it was like—

  Like what?

  A pilgrimage.

  Oh, right. He came here to fuck up our lives is why he came here. Came here like a dog to lift his leg and mark his territory. And where does that leave us? Living in a dead man’s house. I thought my home was my castle.

  I didn’t think you had such homebound loyalties.

  Well, folks, we’ll be leaving now.

  I didn’t! Somewhere to stash the wife and kids is as far as it went with me. But, by God, I paid for it with my labor. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. Gave you a house, a safe if dull neighborhood, three children, a reasonably comfortable life. To make you happy! And have you ever been? What but your dissatisfactions could have led you to invite this walking death wish into your home!

  Well, folks, as I said, we’ll be leaving now. We may have some more questions after we sort things out.

  And what are you going to do about his damn Ford Falcon sitting in my driveway?

  We’ve gone through the car. We’ve inventoried the contents. Got his I.D. Closest relative.

  He said he had a daughter.

  Yes, ma’am, we have that.

  But the car!

  We have no more interest in the car. It becomes part of the deceased’s estate. The daughter will decide its disposition. In the meantime, I will ask you to leave it where it is. Safer here than downtown. Keys are in the ignition.

  Jesus!

  Sir, there are procedures for situations like this. We are following the procedures. The cause of death will be confirmed by the medical examiner, the death certificate filed with the town clerk’s office, the body placed in the morgue, pending instructions from the closest relative. That will be the daughter.

  Officer, I will want to write her.

  Soon as we make contact, ma’am. I see no reason why you can’t. We’ll be in touch.

  Thank you.

  And, hey, Officer?

  Sir?

  Tell her the good news. Daddy has come home.

  —

  SO, FINALLY, I AGREE with you.

  Yes?

  We can’t live here anymore. I pass through the hallway and sidle along the wall as if he were there on the floor, staring. It’s eerie. I feel dispossessed. I’m a displaced person.

  Not the best time to be selling, babe. And what about the kids’ school? Right in the middle of the term.

  You’re the one who said we couldn’t ever get this out of our mind.

  I know, I know.

  The boys won’t come upstairs. The playroom’s their dormitory. And it’s damp down there.

  All right. Okay. Maybe we should think about renting something. Maybe a sublet somewhere till we get squared away. We’ll see. You want another?

  A half.

  I am really sorry. I don’t blame you. I speak in the heat of the moment.

  No, I suppose I should have known. The way he talked. But it was interesting. His ideas—how unusual to hear philosophical conversation. That someone would reveal himself to that extent. So though I thought he was a depressed person, I was fascinated by the novelty that someone could be talking that way as if it were the most natural thing.

  You know, it’s really funny…

  What?

  She’s just like him, the daughter. A gamer.

  Yes, I did think it odd.

  I would not call that a close relationship, would you?

  Hardly.

  Couldn’t care less. You know, I found—when Goodwill took away all his stuff—I found that the actual naked car inside was clean. Upholstery’s okay. And I looked under the hood. Needs an oil change, and the fan belt looks a bit ragged. Took it around the block and it bounces a bit on the road. Maybe new shocks.

  You like that car, don’t you?

  Well, with a good paint job, maybe some detailing…You know, people collect these things, Ford Falcons.

  It was his home.

  No, dear one. This is his home. That’s just a car.

  Our car.

  Appears to be. We ought to frame her letter. Or bury it in the yard along with the can of ashes.

  Oh, but she meant for them to be strewn.

  Strewn? Did you say strewn?

  Scattered?

  Why not sprinkled?

  Sown.

  Okay, sown. I’ll go with sown.

  Where Ramon worked washing dishes, the owner called him in one day and said that he was raising him to busboy. Ramon would wear the short red jacket and black trousers. Ramon’s hands were cracked and peeling from the hot water, but he was wary of the promotion because the owner was selling it to him like there was a catch. They were all foreigners—the owner, the owner’s wife, and the people who came there to eat. Big people with loud voices and bad manners. You are in the waiting pool now, my friend, and on a good night your share could be thirty, forty dollars, under the table.

  —

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, RAMON took the bus upstate to see Leon. They talked through the phones. I don’t know why he wants to see my certificate, Ramon said.

  What certificate?

  Of my birth.

  He wants to make sure you’re an American, Leon said.

  So I can?

  Why not? Figure they’re illegals—maybe not the owner, because he has a business that requires a license—but a lot of them. Born here is a commodity, it has a value, so see what the deal is.

  —

  WHEN RAMON PRESENTED HIS birth certificate, they sat down with him in the back after the restaurant was closed for the night—Borislav, the owner, his wife, she of the squinting eyes, and another man, who was fat, like Borislav, but older and with a briefcase in his lap. He was the one who asked the questions. After Ramon gave his answers, they talked among themselves. He heard harsh mouthfuls of words with deep notes—it was not a mellifluous language like the bright bubbling of water over rocks of his language.

  And then, with a flourish, the owner placed on the table a photograph. Look, my friend, he said. The photograph was of a girl, a blonde with sunglasses propped in her hair. Her hand gripping the strap of her shoulder bag was closed like a fist. She wore jeans. She wore a blouse revealing the shoulders. Behind her was a narrow street with an array of motorcycles and mopeds parked front wheels to the curb. She was half sitting sideways on a motorcycle seat, her legs straight out and her feet in their sandals planted on the paving stones. She was smiling.

  —

  HOW MUCH? LEON SAID.

  A thousand. Plus air and hotel expenses.

  They are messing with you. This is good for three thousand, minimum.

  And then?

  Why not? It will pay for filmmaker’s school. Isn’t that what you want?

  I don’t know. It’s selling yourself. And it’s a defilement of sacred matters.

  You still have it for Edita?

  No, eso es cuento viejo.

  Then what’s the problem? You sell yourself washing dishes, little bro. This is the country of selling yourself. And what sacred matter do you mean, which this scam bears no resemblance to, if you think about it?

  —

  WHEN THE PLANE LANDED, Ramon crossed himself. He took the bus to the city. It was already late afternoon and the city was under the heavy dark clouds he had flown through. Packs of motorcycles and mopeds kept pace with the bus and then shot past. Linked streetcars ground around corners and disappeared as if swallowed. It was an old European city of unlighted streets and stone buildings with shuttered windows.

  He had the addr
ess of the tourist hotel on a piece of paper. There was just time to change into the suit and they were calling from downstairs.

  The girl from the picture gave him a quick glance of appraisal and nodded. No smile this time. And her hair was different—pulled tight and bound at the neck. She was dressed for the occasion in a white suit jacket with a matching short skirt and white shoes with heels that made her taller than Ramon. She seemed fearful. A bearded heavyset fellow held her elbow.

  They all rode in a taxi to a photographer’s studio. The photographer stood Ramon and the girl in an alcove with potted palms on either side of them and a plastic stained-glass window lit from behind by a floodlamp. They faced a lectern. When Ramon’s shoulder accidentally brushed hers, the girl jumped as if from an electric shock.

  Some sort of city functionary married them. He mumbled and his eyes widened as if he were having trouble focusing. He was drunk. When the photographer’s flash went off behind him he lost his place in his book and had to start again. He swayed, and nearly knocked over the lectern. He clearly didn’t understand the situation because when he pronounced them man and wife he urged them to kiss. The girl laughed as she turned away and ran to the heavyset fellow and kissed him.

  The photographer placed a bouquet of flowers in the girl’s arms and posed her with Ramon for the formal wedding picture. And that was that. Ramon was dropped off at the hotel and the next day he flew home.

  —

  HE LEARNED THE GIRL’S name when the lawyer with the briefcase put in front of him the petition to bring her to the States: Jelena. It attests that she is your lawful spouse and you are in hardship without her presence beside you, the lawyer said.

  Jelena, Ramon said, to hear the sound of it. He had not heard it properly, as uttered by the drunken fool who married them. Jelena.

  Yes. This is all here, everything, marriage certificate, copy of birth certificate, passport, and here is the wedding picture. It couldn’t hurt for you and bride to smile but okay.

  The lawyer slapped a pen down on the table. The John Hancock, he said.

  Ramon folded his arms across his chest. The figure was three thousand, he said. I have seen only one thousand.

  Don’t worry, that is to come.

  Ramon nodded. Okay, when it comes, then I will sign.

  The lawyer pressed his hand to his forehead. Borislav, he called to the owner. Borislav!