Charlie Huston - Sleepless

I drove down the narrow twisting streets, slowing to a crawl at one point while a party of drunken sleepless in fancy-dress ball gowns and tuxedos stumbled down the middle of the road for a quarter mile. They began to dance as they walked, puppeteers to the towering spider shadows that my high beams projected onto the walls of abandoned homes and the branches of dead trees.

Inching behind them, illuminating their capers, I felt my confusion again. A moment like this, a mystery play acted out just for my eyes, how could such a thing happen and my end not be at hand? Yet where was the beauty in my own life to offset the value of such a gift?

It was coming. The future.

It was already here.

PARK LISTENED TO ONE OF THE TEN WEALTHIEST MEN IN THE world. A man who, if the world lasted long enough, would undoubtedly become the single wealthiest. Past seventy, once-broad shoulders with a wide chest now drifting toward portly, and apparently comfortable with the fact; his iron-gray hair was thick as ever, and sharply parted at the side, even at this hour. A man who, wealth aside, wore a thin cotton bathrobe, that dangled threads from the cuffs, over a pair of equally worn red flannel pajamas.

“I should be asleep, Officer Haas.”

The man tugged at one of the hanging threads and pulled it loose.

“But then, shouldn’t we all.”

He wrapped the thread around the tip of his left index finger.

“Officer Haas. The name rang a bell when I first heard it. So I dug up the most recent edition of Who’s Who.”

He pointed the now-purple tip of his finger at an open book resting on the brass-riveted black leather arm of a Colonial chair under a tulip glass reading lamp.

“Safe bet it will be the last edition. In any case, I was right about the name. I’d heard it before. In fact, I met your father once.”

He walked to the chair, unwrapping his finger, dropping the thread in one of the pockets of his robe as he went, and picked up the book.

“That was when he was ambassador to the UAE. I was conducting business in Israel. We met as Americans abroad, at a diplomatic function in Saudi. He was a cordial man. I read his book.”

He put a hand on the back of the black chair.

“Sitting in this chair. Read it straight through. I recall being alarmed by his predictions for the region. In retrospect, they seem optimistic.”

He referred to the open page in the copy of Who’s Who.

“Opportunistic Militancy and the Inevitable Loss of the Middle East. Published in 1988. Well ahead of the curve, your father. Must have been an interesting man to grow up around.”

Park knew a response was expected, but he didn’t have one. The complexities of growing up around his father not being a topic he was inclined to discuss with strangers under the best of circumstances.

Parsifal K. Afronzo Senior closed the copy of Who’s Who with a slight thump.

“Am I right that he was passed over for the 9/11 commission?”

Other complexities aside, Park had been raised in an atmosphere of scrupulous politesse, and he was almost relieved to be asked a question he could answer.

“No. He was asked.”

Afronzo Senior was at the bookshelves that covered the wall next to the wet bar.

“He declined?”

“Yes.”

Afronzo slipped the copy of Who’s Who onto the shelf.

“I’d think a man dedicated to public service would have jumped at that particular assignment.”

Park remembered the conversation he’d had with his father regarding the commission.

“He said they only asked him because they knew he would say no. And he didn’t want to disappoint them.”

Afronzo’s chuckle quickly turned to a cough.

“Excuse me. As much as I appreciated his book and enjoyed the brief conversation I had with him, I wouldn’t have expected him to have much of a sense of humor.”

Park shook his head.

“He didn’t.”

The rich man rubbed the back of his thick neck.

“When I was a boy, my father kept a copy of Who’s Who on the back of the toilet for bathroom reading. He said that when he was the same age it had been corn husks in a outhouse. Back in the old country that was. Said if you crumpled them enough they weren’t that rough at all. Said he kept the Who’s Who in the can in case an emergency should arise.”

He chuckled again.

“I don’t expect that sort of humor would have sailed in your house.”

Park shook his head again.

“No, sir, it would not.”

Afronzo rested a hand on the bar.

“Though this is not a regular drinking hour for me, I don’t believe I’ll have a chance of getting back asleep if I don’t have something.”

He went around the bar.

“I’m having cognac. Would you care for one?”

Again Park shook his head.

“No thank you, sir.”

Afronzo took a bottle of Pierre Ferrand Abel from under the bar and poured two fingers into a snifter.

“You are a very polite young man, Officer. A childhood in diplomacy seems to have served you.”

“Serious crimes are being committed within your company, sir.”

Afronzo placed the cork at the mouth of the bottle, settling it with a light slap of his palm.

“At the time I met your father, he told me that he thought the business I was conducting in Israel would likely put American citizens at risk. American workers I planned to hire and bring over. He told me that he opposed my proposal and had spoken out against it with his counterpart in our embassy in Israel. He was, as I said, very cordial, but also very direct.”

He took a small sip of his drink.

“It seems his son inherited that directness along with his good manners.”

He came from behind the bar and sat in the Colonial chair.

“Would you care to sit, Haas?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

Afronzo looked at the young man still standing just inside the door of the guest cottage den, the same spot he’d been delivered to a few minutes before.

“I was told that you might be sleepless. That you might either be unaware of your condition or in denial. But looking at you, I don’t believe that you are sleepless. I’ve seen a lot of them. Close up. From here, you just look very tired to me.”

He gestured at a couch that matched his chair.

“You’re just about out on your feet, Haas. Sit down.”

Against his will, Park rubbed his eyes. He nodded. And he sat down.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome. And by the way, I don’t get called ‘sir’ much. Mostly I go by ‘Senior’ these days. If you don’t mind.”

Park knew there was a distinction between the wealthy and the rich. He had grown up with wealth. While there had been abundance and quality in his upbringing, security was always viewed as the greatest benefit of the wealth his father had inherited, carefully tended, and added to. Never a threat that the cupboard might someday be bare. New clothes every school year. No fear of the wolf. Also weekend trips to Boston, D.C., and New York for dinner, concerts, or theater. Tastes of his mother. And his father’s sailboat, a 1969 Dufour Arpege 30. College funds for the children. Assurance of a secure old age should the fates not intervene. A life not so far removed from the general that they lost sight of just how great their blessings were and, as Park’s father often pointed out, how great the responsibilities that came with that wealth.

The rich were another matter. The amount of money required to elevate someone to that level provided a great deal of insulation. In conversation with rich schoolmates, Park could sense in them a confusion as to why everyone didn’t do the things they did, value what they valued, eat and consume what they ate and consumed. An implicit question they silently asked whenever subjects of want and need might come up: Why doesn’t everyone just live like this? As though these things were a matter of choice. As these classmates aged and gained experience, they began to affect a posture of ironic self-awareness. They knew they were rich, they knew most everyone else wasn’t, they knew it was unfair, but at least they cared that it was unfair, not. The final flourish was meant to indicate that of course they cared, but they cared in their own deeply personal way. Park thought that it indicated the opposite. The ability to make the joke only revealed the isolation in which they were sequestered by their money.