Benjamin Markovits - You Don't Have to Live Like This

People laughed, but at the time I didn’t hear all that, and only worked out from the Free Press website in the morning exactly what he said. Partly it was a problem with the acoustics. The office had been designed to cut out the flow of noise from one space to the next. There were also hecklers. Someone called out, “The United States of Detroit,” which didn’t mean much to me then and doesn’t now. But Obama stopped and started again.

“Now I know there are folks here today who don’t agree with everything I do, and I don’t expect you to. But there are things we can agree on. That the American Experiment ain’t over yet. And that’s not because we’re sitting around on our butts, waiting for the results to come in. The people rebuilding Detroit, and some of you are in this room right now, are still tinkering with it, still adapting it, still moving forward. You have come here from Albuquerque and Chicago, from Queens and from Cleveland and from San Diego. You have come from Mexico and Poland and Sudan and from right here in Detroit. You have come because you lost your job or you couldn’t get a job or you had to work three jobs just to put food on the table. Because your health insurance ran out or your mortgage was worth more than your home. Because the school you sent your kids to couldn’t afford to buy books or because the part-time job you got in college turned out to be the best thing you could find after earning your degree. You have come because there was a voice in your head saying, You don’t have to live like this. There’s a better way to live . This voice has called people to America for over four hundred years. It calls to us now. .” and so on. Eventually he said, “But stick around, I’m just the warm-up act. Am I right in thinking we got the Wrenfields coming next?”

Afterwards, though, the men in dark suits closed down on him pretty quickly, and a few minutes later I saw the herd of SUVs in the parking lot filing out. Maybe they were worried about the snow — it sat lightly on the parked cars about six inches thick.

I said to Gloria, “Did you get anything to eat? There were turkey burgers going around. I want to introduce you to Robert James.”

We caught up with him shaking hands. There were maybe fifteen, twenty people who wanted his attention, and he stood there in his open-necked shirt, looking the part but not saying much. He looked tired, too, like he’d been wound up and was winding down. “I’ve got to get this stuff off my face,” he said at last and rubbed his palms against his cheeks and held them up. “I hate TV, please excuse me.” He headed for the exit, but I chased him into the concrete stairwell.

“I want to introduce you to someone,” I said. But Gloria had got stuck somewhere. The stairwell was empty, and for a moment we just stood there, the two of us, almost embarrassed. Robert had his foot on the stair — he was giving me time.

“We’re going over to my house for a party,” he said. “Obama’s already there.”

“Let me just get her.”

“Come, too, I can put you on the list. I’d drive you over but I need fifteen minutes alone.”

“It’s been a good day for you,” I said.

“It’s been a terrific day.”

So I found Gloria and we went downstairs and collected our coats, then stepped outside. The afternoon felt warmer. Snow reflected the cloud-filtered sunlight, and there was a kind of cold glow in the air. Cars driving out had packed the snow down in two ruts and we walked in those.

“It’s stupid, I should have brought my other shoes,” Gloria said.

I turned on the ignition and let her sit in the car while I scraped the windows clear. When the snow came off I could see her again, looking ahead but not looking at me.

There wasn’t much traffic but I concentrated on the road instead of talking. After a few minutes Gloria said, “I still don’t know what took you so long in there.”

“I ran into Kurt Stangel. They had a camera set up, where people could tell their stories, and I listened to them for a while.” Then I said, “The truth is, I liked seeing you with Beatrice. I thought you would get along.”

“I’m not really into that sister act she tried to pull. Did you go out with her?”

“No. In college she went out with Robert James.”

“Did you ever sleep with her?”

“There’s a lot of things I could tell you about her but not like this.”

“Like what?”

The drive was too short to talk any of this out. Robert’s street was blocked off at both ends by security vehicles, so we had to park around the corner. It was a little after three o’clock in the afternoon and the street lamps came on while we sat in the car. They flickered and then burned, and the snow, which was still falling, made patterns against the rays of light.

“I shouldn’t drink at lunch,” I said. “It makes me depressed.”

But she was looking out the window at the sidewalk. “I’m really annoyed with myself I didn’t bring other shoes.”

“I could carry you in. I said I could carry you in.”

“I’m deciding if I want to be in a grouch. Okay, carry me.”

So I stepped into the cold and opened the passenger door and she jumped into my arms. She put her legs around me. I could feel the strength in her thighs and managed to kick the door shut and get the key in while she hung on. Then I shuffled along through the snow — she weighed about as much as a ten-year-old kid. It just felt like an incredibly friendly thing to do, on both sides. She held her cheek against my hair, which had snow in it that melted against her skin and made her shiver.

“Be nice to me,” she said, “when we get in. Don’t leave me.”

In fact, we soon got pulled in different directions, but it didn’t matter much. Obama was there — I mean, he was in the house, in one room or another, and from time to time you could see him, smiling sometimes and sometimes holding back smiles. Gloria kept looking out for him and then we ran into Clay Greene, who had sobered up a little.

“This is Gloria Lambert,” I said. “She teaches art and computers at Kettridge High. She’s one of those teachers who wins prizes.”

“Now I’d very much like to hear your views on something,” he said to her. “I’m working on an article about class and race and education. Maybe you can help me. Let me get you a glass of champagne.” And he picked one off a passing tray.

I left them to it and edged into a group of people talking to Robert James. They were standing in front of the living room fireplace, with their backs against the heat.

“May I use you as a fire screen?” I said to no one in particular. The conversation was about the mayoral election, which was a month old. The guy who lost used to work at Arthur Andersen. Some lady’s ex-husband had a weekly lunch date with him at the Yacht Club, oh, about twenty years ago, when people still lived like that. She couldn’t remember what his impressions were.

“Have you seen Beatrice?” Robert said to me, when the circle broke up. “Apparently she’s working on a novel. She’s got an agent, Clay Greene’s agent. He’s here, too.”

“Which one is he?”

“Some English guy. Not that old.”

“Do you mind?”

“Why should I mind?” he said.

“Excuse me.”

I felt a hand on my arm and it was the woman with the ex-husband. She was the underweight kind of elderly lady. Her skin bruised easily — I could see the marks on her wrists made by some of her bracelets. Also, she was drunk. Her head lay slightly lopsided on her neck.

“Excuse me,” she said again. “Robert tells me you’re one of these terribly brave young men.”