Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

Dolores asks the Writer what he’d do then.

I’d go back and interview them both again. And one of my main questions would be to ask the first guy why he withheld the fact that he was a sex offender. I’d ask the second why he lied about having seen combat.

And what if it was the meaningless case? Dolores wants to know. She has caught the Writer’s drift. The case where you weren’t writing about the subject in the first place. What would you do with the new information that you took off the Internet?

Nothing, I guess. Like I said, no one has to tell you everything about himself. And no one’s obliged to tell you the truth about himself either. We all have our little secrets, no? And we all tell little lies, sometimes for innocent reasons. To make friends, for instance, or to avoid embarrassment. Or just to keep things simple. Sometimes the truth is too complicated to pass along in a short conversation or interview. And sometimes it’s just irrelevant.

Dolores says, There you go, Cat. Irrelevant. Meaningless. Got that? You’ve kept a few secrets yourself, you know. We both have. And told a few lies over the years, even to each other. And I’m here to tell you that it’s not always useful to know all of someone’s secrets or every truth behind every lie. You know that as well as I do.

The Writer agrees. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Cat feigns a large sigh of capitulation and smiles at his woman. She’s a better person than he is, and he loves her for that. He believes that a person’s weaknesses are also his strengths: Cat’s weaknesses are skepticism and suspiciousness; Dolores’s are trust and open-mindedness; and if her weaknesses are morally superior to his, and Cat believes they are, then so are her strengths. Ergo, she’s a better person than he is. He’s a lucky man and he knows it. And when he forgets it she’s there to remind him. He says to Dolores, You’re right. Compared to you I’m a total pain-in-the-ass estupido.

Throughout the conversation the Kid has remained silent. At first he was freshly ashamed for not having told the man that he was a convicted sex offender and felt once again like a chomo like the Shyster and then when he saw that Cat also knew that he had lied about having been in combat in Afghanistan he felt like he was O. J. Simpson again. But listening to Dolores and the Writer lay out what kinds of secrets and lies were meaningful and what kinds were meaningless he began to feel a little better about himself and when even Cat came around to essentially forgiving the Kid for his secrets and lies he was able to see himself briefly through Cat’s eyes — although not through Dolores’s which were a little too wet with sympathy for him and not through the Writer’s either who for all he knew might now be thinking about writing an article for a fancy magazine about sex offenders or about American males who lie about having fought in a war instead of writing an article about the Great Panzacola Swamp and will next be wanting to interview the Kid on one or both of those subjects.

The Kid has been interviewed enough for a lifetime thanks to the Professor and shrinks in prison and judges and public defender lawyers and cops and parole officers going all the way back to Brandi’s father and before that at his army discharge hearing. Except for Iggy the best thing about his life before he joined the army is that back then no one ever wanted to interview him which meant that he never had to lie and didn’t have to keep any secrets. He was no more or less than what he seemed to be — a fatherless white kid who graduated high school without ever passing a single test or turning in a single paper, a kid who could barely read and write or do math beyond the simplest level of arithmetic, who was hooked for years and maybe still was hooked on porn and jacking off and never had a girlfriend or a best friend and belonged to no one’s posse — but that was okay to the Kid back then. He might not be the kind of kid he wanted to be but at least back then he didn’t have anything to hide.

The Writer asks the Kid if the missing person, the fat bearded professor, might really be a friend of his, and the Kid says, Yeah. I’m sure of it, in fact. He’s not exactly a friend, though. More of an acquaintance.

You got any idea of where he is?

Yeah. Sort of.

The Writer is intrigued. So are Dolores and Cat. All three turn their full attention on the Kid and wait for him to say more. He stays silent for a long minute until finally the Writer asks if the missing professor has been having marital problems. The Kid shrugs as if he doesn’t really know. Maybe, he says. Although he knows of course that the Professor’s wife Gloria has recently taken their two children and gone to live with her mother.

Financial problems?

The Kid shrugs again.

But you do have an idea of where he might be found. Correct?

It’s only a guess. It’s probably not him anyhow. I’d hafta see a picture. Most professors are fat and wear a beard anyway, aren’t they?

Dolores suggests they go over to the trailer and check out today’s Calusa Times-Union on the Internet. They print the paper a day early but the Internet’s up to the minute. There’ll likely be a photograph of the missing professor to accompany the article. And if it is your friend, and you have an idea of where he might be, then naturally you’ll want to help find him.

The Writer thinks that’s a great idea, and Cat says, Yeah, sure, why not? He’s still a little embarrassed for having used the computer to check on the Kid. Maybe he’ll feel better if he apologizes to the Kid. Which is a little tricky for Cat to pull off, since he’ll be apologizing to someone who’s a convicted sex offender and has committed a sin that’s cardinal to a Marine vet by falsely claiming to have served his country in wartime. He tries anyhow, for Dolores’s sake and says to the Kid, No hard feelings, I hope. About me not believing you and all. And looking you up on the computer and such. I probably shouldn’t have done that. I mean, it isn’t like we was gonna hire you for a babysitter or something.

My late husband Abbott, Dolores chimes in, used to say that a person’s private life ought to be kept private. That’s why it’s called private life. ’Course, that was before the Internet and all.

Thank you, Dolores, for your late husband’s words of wisdom. Anyhow, sonny, I guess I just got a suspicious nature. Must come from dealing with tourists all the time out here.

That’s okay, man. I’m actually kinda relieved. When people know the truth about me there’s not so much for me to keep track of.

Ha! You’re starting to sound like Dolores’s late husband.

The Writer is impatient to check out today’s online edition of the Calusa newspaper. He says so, and Dolores leads the group from the store along the pier and up the grassy slope to the double-wide trailer where she and Cat make their home.

THAT’S HIM ALL RIGHT!

How come it’s a whachacallit, a mug shot? Like he’s been arrested for something. What’s the article say? Is he a fugitive from justice?

Says he’s a “person of interest” in an ongoing investigation but has not been arrested. Doesn’t say what kind of investigation, though.

So how come they took his mug shot?

Maybe it’s off his ID. Or from some previous arrest. Does it say anything about that?

No. Just says he was last seen leaving his home in his car Sunday morning in the company of an unidentified teenage boy and when he didn’t show up for his Monday classes university officials called his home. His wife and two children were visiting her mother and have no idea of his whereabouts. I’m summarizing here.