Lost Echoes

  Without asking, Harry knew he was her father.

  Talia leaned to Harry, said, “He dyes his mustache, you know.”

  The others were almost in a trance, watching Talia come toward them.

  When they were close, Mr. McGuire said, “And who’s this?”

  “Harry,” Talia said.

  “Harry, huh?” the father said.

  “Hello, Mr. McGuire.” Harry stuck out his hand and Mr. McGuire rested his shotgun on his shoulder and held the stock with his left and shook with his right.

  “Nice to meet you. You out of razors?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I just love him like he is,” Talia said. “And he’s not like us, Daddy. He doesn’t worry about money. Or appearances.”

  “I don’t know I’d say—” Harry started.

  “He and I are quite fond of one another,” Talia said.

  “Say you are?” Mr. McGuire said.

  “Very fond.”

  “That’s very nice, dear.” McGuire turned his attention to Harry, studied him, said, “You will drop by and visit with us sometime, won’t you?”

  Before Harry could respond, Talia said, “He works at a bookstore.”

  “That right?” Mr. McGuire said.

  “He may come to our party, Daddy.”

  “Really,” Mr. McGuire said, shifting his shotgun, looking off at a ridgeline of trees as if he might have seen a flying saucer pass over them.

  “What party?” Harry asked.

  Neither Talia nor Mr. McGuire bothered to explain. They were looking at each other now the way gunfighters would, waiting for someone to make the next move.

  “Well, nice meeting you, Henry,” Mr. McGuire said.

  “Harry,” Harry said.

  “Of course.” Mr. McGuire turned his head, said, “Pull.”

  The man near him, on the ground, looking up at Talia as if she were a work of art, took a moment to understand. McGuire repeated himself, and the young man pulled.

  The skeet sailed, and Mr. McGuire effortlessly exploded it.

  As they walked back across the field, past the building, Harry looked back. Everyone but Daddy was eyeballing Talia’s ass.

  Harry said, “That was odd.”

  “Think so?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It wasn’t really. He takes his shooting seriously. He’s killed animals all over the world. A few endangered species even. He likes to preserve them himself.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really. He’s not very strict, you know. I think he liked you.”

  “Liked me?”

  “Sure.”

  She drove away from there quickly and dropped him off out front of his place.

  “You going to come in?” Harry asked.

  “No. I have some errands. Be a dear and call me later.”

  “Sure.”

  Harry got out and closed the door.

  For a long time he stood on the curb looking in the direction in which Talia and her fine red sports car had departed, trying to figure out exactly how he felt about things. Had he just been a dirty pawn in a dirty chess game, or were Talia and her father just odd, like the rich could be?

  And if he was a pawn, what exactly was his role in the game?

  There was an answer in there, and he thought maybe it bounced up against his head once, but he didn’t catch it, and whatever might have been there didn’t bounce back in his direction again.

  He did ask himself a question, however, and he asked it aloud:

  “What party?”

  37

  EXCERPT FROM HARRY’S JOURNAL

  My little friendly composition notebook, I come to you having been sharply centered, to now being off the plumb line, maybe two bubbles.

  I’m not sure how I have come to be where I am….

  No. That’s not true.

  I don’t like how I have come to be, don’t like how I am, and yet I don’t know what to think or do about it, so pardon me as I write, for this will be, to put it bluntly, a little bit mixed and undecided.

  There are upsides to my position. Mostly Talia’s backside, bent up and ready, but that’s not a way I like to think or a thing I want to live my life for, though, to be honest, it’s such a fine thing that one can’t help but consider, and I fear—shit, I know—that little pleasure may have departed.

  Look at that.

  May I say, I’m still clinging to hopes that are unwarranted.

  Elvis, my friends, has left the building, and that’s all there is to it.

  So here I sit. In darkness, except for this one lamp and my journal and pen, and this strange feeling of remorse and sadness, and the awareness that my old demons, the ghosts in the machine, have not gone away and I have heard and seen something horrible, and that true love isn’t always true and isn’t always love, and that love at first sight is sometimes a harsh light in the eyes.

  Most of what plagued me before, the goddamn sounds, has not gone away, but I have been able to frequently put them aside, or, to be more exact, they activate and swim about me like sharks. It is as if I am in a large aquarium, a piece of kelp on the bottom of the goddamn thing, and the sharks are set loose, and as they move the water moves and the kelp moves, and I drift amongst them.

  Not a good feeling. But I try to shove it back. Tad says not to do that, not to shove it back, because then I become a depository for those feelings. I am to be like a filter, let them drift through me and out of me. I am to accept our sameness and oneness and move on.

  Easier said than done. I’m still trying to figure how they and I are the same. Or even how we’re one.

  Zen, baby. It do be confusing.

  On a good day it is less like the sharks and more like noise heard from construction work ten blocks away. That is a good thing.

  But that is not why I come to you today, my composition friend. No, sir. That ain’t it. I come to you to tell you of a very bad thing and how sometimes the sounds and images are not from far away, nor are they swimming by you, making you nervous. Sometimes they are close as your skin, your intestines, your brain cells, in there with the beat of your heart.

  Alas, I avoid. And for good reason.

  Best way to put this, best way to explain this to you, is to start where it starts, not behind some rock looking from afar, wishing for a Winchester rifle.

  Here it is, then.

  So things were going really well, with a stress on the well, but there were signs, dear friend. Signs and portents, and the advice of Tad, right out there in front of me in my lessons, and all of it has come back to me now, and all I can think is: Weren’t you paying attention, asshole?

  Once upon a time a poor boy who was afraid of sounds—and for good reason, I might add—got drunk and felt better, but felt less good when sober, and he met a drunk who didn’t feel so good himself, so they decided that together they would not be drunk.

  Something like that.

  Plans were made, deals were struck.

  And, sure enough. They began to find the center they had lost. The wobble stopped.

  Well, for me, Composition Notebook Journal (I give that to you as a title now), the wobble is back, because I forgot who I was and what was inside me, and I forgot who Talia is and how it’s her world, not mine.

  Hell. I did not forget. I refused to remember.

  My world is the dirt beneath her feet, and her world is the clouds. Way up there in the misty white, spotted with clear blue and all manner of hope and fortune and future.

  Me, I’m down here with the worms, maybe loony as a rat in a paint shaker, for in spite of my thought-to-be-centered life, I was always listening and waiting for the trumpet blow, the one that announced betrayal.

  Or maybe it was just the trumpet blast that told the truth. How it is on earth and not in heaven, and how it is for the not-so-fine and the not-so-beautiful and the not-so-gifted and the not-so-lucky and the not-so-rich.

  And how is it, you ask?

  Not good,
the poor boy answers. Not good.

  Joey is an asshole, and maybe, as Tad says, he is like a monkey who throws his own shit because it’s all the ammunition he has, but, that said, he still knows some things; there is still some undigested fruit or nuts in the shit he throws.

  38

  “It’s a very nice party,” Talia said. “You want to look nice.”

  “I have a good suit.”

  “The one in your closet? Or is that your room it’s hanging in?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The place is small.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Sometimes I pretend it’s large, but when I open my eyes, it isn’t.”

  “Oh, don’t be mean.”

  “I’m just saying. Yes, it’s small. And my suit is just fine. And, hey, when I met your dad, you didn’t even give me time to shower and shave. So now I’m supposed to look sharp?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted you to meet him while I had him cornered.”

  “That was it?”

  “Of course. What else? But for this, you should look nice. There will be a lot of people there. They will all be very well dressed, and Harry, I’ve seen your suit, and it’s what, from JC Penney?”

  “Yeah. Well, maybe Bealls. I don’t remember.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “What case?”

  “The one in your closet isn’t the suit you want to wear to the gala. Trust me on that. Everyone will be there, and—”

  “It’s the suit I got.”

  “I can fix that.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want you to buy me anything, and I can’t afford to buy anything. Maybe I can rent a tux.”

  “Those never fit right. Listen, Harry, I want to do it. It’s not a problem for me.”

  “You mean it’s not a problem for your daddy.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Either way, I don’t like it.”

  “Harry, you have to look nice if you’re going to come, and you do want to come, don’t you? You and me, at my father’s house, and all those people? A lot of them very prominent.”

  “You mean rich.”

  “Okay. Rich. So what? Is it okay if we’re rich? Is that a crime? You’re starting to hurt my feelings, Harry.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “We want to look our best. Want to dress up and look fine, and I can show you off, introduce you to my mother, and later, well, we’ll go our own way, and we have our place, don’t we?”

  “We do. Though we shared it with four other cars last time.”

  “True, but they weren’t in our car, were they?”

  “No…I don’t know about this suit business, Talia. It doesn’t seem right, you buying me a suit.”

  “I want to do it. Everyone at these parties knows a good suit from a bad one, and they’ll spot a cheap one right off. And you’ll need shoes, some good socks, and I’ll pick a tie.”

  “I feel like a mannequin.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  At seven in the evening the phone rang, and Harry, dressed in his new suit, socks, tie, and shoes, waiting patiently on his couch, hands in his lap, rose and picked up the receiver.

  “Hey, baby,” Talia said.

  “Hey.”

  “We’re coming around the corner. Come down to the curb.”

  “Okay. We?”

  But she had hung up.

  Harry went downstairs and out to the curb. He was no sooner situated then a limousine, black as a crow’s wing, came around the corner and glided to a stop.

  The driver got out, went around, opened the back door to let Harry in.

  “I could have done that,” Harry said to the driver.

  “Yes, sir,” said the driver, “but, unlike me, you wouldn’t have gotten paid for it.”

  Harry climbed in. Talia, in a short black dress, her hair pulled back and up, her dark-stockinged legs crossed, her cell phone beside her on the seat, looked at him and smiled.

  Harry’s discomfort began to melt away.

  “You look fantastic in that suit,” she said.

  “For what it costs, I should not only look fantastic, I should be fantastic, maybe have some superpowers. Good God, Talia, you are dynamite. You are so lovely.”

  “Thank you, sweetie.”

  The car drifted away.

  Talia’s parents’ house was off a little road that wound in amongst old oaks and new pines. They pulled up at a gate with a metal box on a pole beside it. The driver pushed a series of buttons on the pole, and the gate opened. They cruised up a hill between oaks, willows, and walnut trees, a sweet gum here and there. As they climbed, Harry could see lights shining brightly through patches of greenery, warm explosions of yellow and orange.

  The car window on the driver’s side was still down from the driver having worked the buttons on the pole, and Harry could smell perfume on the air, and hear music, a big-band sound, and it all came down the hill in a waft of smell and sound that filled the car thick as taffy. Harry had gotten to where noise, even noise in which the past did not lurk, annoyed him, but this wasn’t so bad. It was the sound of another time, and there wasn’t any anger or violence in it, not like most of the stuff today.

  The greenery divided as the car wound along the concrete path, and now he could see the house up there on a hill, lit up like the pearly gates, so brightly lit that at first glance it appeared to be on fire. The house stood strong and heavy of stone against the night, and outside of it, along the pool, on a large, flat area of tile, well lit up from decorative lights on poles, people danced, and the music was suddenly divided by a voice, the sound of a male singer crooning into an old-style microphone. His voice was rich and strong, and the dark and the lights and all the people were as one, the way Tad had told him the world could be if you looked at it right.

  There were cars parked all over, pointing this way and that, like discarded cartridges from big guns, but the limousine slid past them, around to the back of the house, where there was a carport supported by stone pillars. They parked, and with the driver holding the door for them, Harry climbed out first, extended his hand to Talia.

  “I thought it would be larger,” Harry said.

  Talia grinned at him.

  They went in the back way, and as they entered the house there was a burst of light and the bright white paint of the walls jumped out at him. The house on one side was free to the outside by open windows and open glass doors, and the music came inside, loud and friendly, filling the giant cathedral room. People laughed and danced. There was a long table full of food of all persuasions: sushi and barbecue and darkly cooked birds, bowls of this and bowls of that, and all manner of wine and beer and soda and bottled water, and there were Latino men and black women in little white outfits, walking this way and that with silver trays, smiling, as if nothing in the world pleased them more than to cater to the happy, indulgent, honky rich.

  “Daddy,” Talia said, and sure enough it was Daddy coming their way. And tonight he seemed happier, and the drink in his hand was probably the source of it, thought Harry. The suit he wore was just like the one Harry wore, so were the shoes. The only difference was the tie. And maybe the socks. Harry decided not to ask him to extend his leg so he could check.

  Mr. McGuire said, “Ah, this must be your date. Barry—”

  “Harry,” Talia said.

  “How are you, Harry? Name’s John.” And he extended his hand.

  Harry shook it. He realized that Mr. McGuire didn’t remember that they had met before.

  “I’m fine, sir. Thanks for having me here.”

  “Quite all right. Bird’s good. So is everything, but the turkey, it’s to die for. Black people are such good cooks, and I’ve got three or four of them to do the kitchen business. Got to circulate. Host and all. You know how it is. Nice to meet you. Nice suit.”

  “Thanks.”

  John went away, and so did Talia. Harry found himself standing in the middle of the room, not knowing where to put his h
ands. Men and women danced around him in their fine clothes, like drunken moths a-spin beneath a bright night-light.

  Harry went over to the food counter, which was as long as the room, looked to see what was there.

  A black woman in a maid outfit appeared at his elbow. “May I help you, sir?”

  “Just looking.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “It’s all good.”

  “You know the cook?”

  “I am the cook. Me and three others.”

  “That’s quite a staff.”

  “We cook and wait, us three. You add the whole staff together, all the people work here, there’s about twenty. That way, the folks live here don’t have to do a lick of work…. I didn’t mean that—”

  “Oh, that’s all right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have some chicken, a diet cola.”

  The maid fixed Harry a plate, gave him napkins and silverware. Harry glanced around for Talia, didn’t see her. He went outside and watched people dance out there. He found a metal table and a metal chair, sat down, and ate his chicken. When he was finished he wiped his fingers on the napkin and went back inside.

  No sooner was he in the door than a woman in a bloodred dress grabbed his elbow. “You all alone?” she said.

  She was a very nice-looking woman, maybe forty, with too-red hair and a fine build and a good face full of Botox.

  “No. I’m with Talia. She lives here.”

  The woman laughed. “She certainly does. Some of the time. I’m her mother.”

  “Oh, glad to meet you,” Harry said, and held out his hand.

  “I’m Julia,” she said, and took his hand and held it softly. Her eyes looked just like Talia’s eyes. “I’m a little drunk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, don’t ‘ma’am’ me. Makes me feel so old. Let’s dance.”