Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

When the bag is filled to bulging, the Kid drags it to the tailgate of the red, rusted-out pickup truck parked next to the Professor’s van, where he separates bottles from cans and tosses them into a pair of metal barrels placed in the bed of the truck. Though it’s still early in the day, the sun is already pounding down and the air is thick as syrup. The Kid moves slowly. He knows how to work in the heat. He’s wearing a T-shirt and cutoffs and sockless sneakers and a baseball cap. The Professor wears his usual dark three-piece vested suit, and though he stands in the shade of his van, sheets of sweat run down his entire body, soaking his underwear and socks. He wipes his face and neck with his handkerchief and folds and tucks it neatly back into the breast pocket of his suit coat.

The Kid, who until now has not acknowledged the Professor’s presence, tosses a glance in his direction and looks away.

I see that you are now gainfully employed. Good.

Benbow told me the deal. Not clear who I’m working for, though. Him or you.

You’re employed by Benbow. You answer to him. I’m merely the guarantor of your salary. He’s your boss.

Whatever.

I brought you a few items.

Yeah? What?

Household items. For your campsite.

The Professor slides back the side door of his van and pulls out a cardboard box and sets it on the ground. The Kid walks up to the box. He purses his lips, crinkles his brow, and peers skeptically into it, as if wondering what this weird fat dude wants in return. It’s got to be some kind of trick. What’s the exchange rate here?

Early this morning before leaving for his office, the Professor raked through the kitchen cupboards, linen and cleaning closets, filling the box. Gloria asked him what he was doing, and he told her he was bringing a few things to the Kid. Necessaries, he called them. She said nothing in response, just stood with her back to the stove and watched in silence, wondering: What’s the exchange rate here? What does her husband really want from this person?

The Kid reaches down and pokes through the contents: a cast iron skillet, a large pot, a spatula, a small wooden salad bowl and serving spoons, a set of old mismatched bath towels, laundry detergent, several bars of hand soap, a gallon-size thermos jug.

The Kid grunts. I can’t use this shit. I can’t use any of this shit, man. I travel light.

What could you use, then?

A Mercedes S-Class coupe. A condo twenty-five hundred feet in the air in a building where no children are allowed. That’d be enough, I guess. For a start.

No, seriously, Kid. You might be settled here for a while now.

I don’t think so, man. Benbow didn’t give me no guaranteed lease or anything. He could boot my ass outa here anytime he wants.

No, he can’t. I arranged for you to stay.

There’s still the problem with my parole officer, man. My caseworker, she calls herself. But she’s a parole officer and she can pretty much ruin my life if she wants to. The part that isn’t already ruined. Anyhow, she don’t want me settling here. She didn’t say it, but she wants me to go back to the Causeway. Did you bring the map? The treasure map?

It’s in a file in my office at the university. I’ll bring it next time. I’ll speak with her. Your parole officer.

The Professor pulls out his cell phone and hands it to the Kid. He instructs the Kid to call the woman and tell her that someone wants to discuss the Kid’s housing situation with her. I’ll take it from there.

The Kid shrugs and punches in the caseworker’s direct number, which after these many months of reporting in to her every week he has memorized. Her name, he tells the Professor, is Dahlia Freed. She’s a black lady, he adds. Cold. And hard. Goes by the friggin’ manual.

When Dahlia Freed picks up, the Kid in a flat, uninflected voice tells her that he has someone here who wants to speak with her about his housing situation. The guy’s some kind of professor. He’ll explain, he says and passes the phone to the Professor.

Benbow has stepped from his trailer and stands on the steps watching the Kid. Benbow pointedly looks at his watch, and the Kid immediately goes back to work picking up bottles and cans, leaving the Professor alone by his van to speak with Dahlia Freed.

He introduces himself to the woman and informs her that he is a professor of sociology at Calusa State University.

She is not impressed. She sounds bored and skeptical. Okay, so what’s the purpose of your call? She has a Brooklyn or Queens accent. Queens, he decides. She was probably a New York City cop before coming to Calusa. Half the Calusa police force are ex-cops from northern cities. Snowbirds with badges and guns.

The Professor explains that he’s doing field research for a paper on convicted sex offenders and the causes of their high rate of homelessness and low rate of recidivism. He wants to interview young Mr. Kydd, who has agreed to talk with him about his present situation and his personal history. He invites Ms. Freed to verify his academic credentials and the seriousness of his project by checking the faculty listings on the university’s website or by looking him up on google.com, where he has many listings. She can visit his personal website as well. You will find that I am a legitimate researcher and social scientist and have published numerous monographs and studies on the subject of homelessness. I’m now trying to expand my research into the lives of convicted sex offenders who happen also to be homeless. A subject I’m sure you’re more than familiar with.

So why call me? You want to interview him, go ahead and do it. You don’t need my permission.

He explains that it would be helpful to him if Mr. Kydd could remain in residence here at Benbow’s while he’s being interviewed, since he’s already encamped here and has even arranged to be employed by Mr. Benbow. Otherwise it may be very difficult for me to track him down again and interview him in an ongoing way for the length of time required by my project. I need to meet with him many times over several months in order to test the veracity of what he tells me.

Yeah, yeah.

This is very important work I’m doing, Ms. Freed. Someday it may turn out to be helpful to you in your line of work as well. In fact, I might want to interview you yourself. I’m sure your perspective would be helpful. I would give you proper credit in print, of course. Which might be useful to you down the line. With your department head, when you seek promotion.

She barks a laugh. Maybe. Maybe not. But I don’t like him living at that place. Benbow’s. It’s got a reputation. Supposedly they do all kinds of fashion shoots there. Fashionistas. It’s like a whaddaya call it, a location. But even if that’s all they do there, it’s still clothes coming off and on, cameras rolling, lights, et cetera. It’s only a step or two removed from the porn industry. Which is something I heard they’ve done over there in the past anyhow, make porn films, and are probably doing it still. So-called adult films. It’s not illegal, although you ask me it oughta be illegal. Besides, Benbow’s is a known hangout for upscale junkies. Which means there’s dealers present — we’re talking coke mainly and smack. Lots of soft money moving around. And where there’s upscale drugs being bought and sold, Professor, there’s pretty little sex workers standing on the sidelines looking for work, male and female. And some of them are underage. He’s gonna get caught up in that, one way or the other. At one end of the trade or the other.