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

— So what did you do?

— Man, I took off, too. But this is what I’m saying. Black man isn’t being killed by Tyler Waites, not in this city, not in Detroit. Black man being killed by another black man.

— So why didn’t you stay to help your friend?

— If the cops come, everybody guilty.

The other voice was Astrid’s. She used subtitles for the man’s speech but not her own, which annoyed me. And then the music came back and the screen went dark. The words A Conversation about Race started moving across it.

“I’m not interested in this kind of thing,” I said. “It’s banal. The only interesting thing is ordinary life. The rest is boring.”

“The people I talk to, for them, this is ordinary life.”

“I mean people living well, how to live well, that’s the question.”

“You don’t want to see the rest?”

“How long does it go on for?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Okay, I’ll watch it. Give me another drink.”

There were six or seven other interviews, with a crack dealer, an auto worker, an elementary school teacher, a single mother, etc. Afterwards the camera zoomed in on Astrid’s own face, with the white wall behind it. Her bottle-blond hair looked dark at the roots and carefully messed up.

“These stories are our stories,” she said. “Everywhere is Detroit. We all risk transforming ourselves into human monsters, at any moment in our lives. And everybody is responsible, because we let it happen.”

She turned off the TV and we sat looking at it. By this point it was close to midnight and the air coming in through the opened windows felt almost cold. I was shivering slightly.

“I may be too drunk to drive home,” I said.

“Do you want to sleep on this couch? It’s small,” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to see my room?”

I felt a little frightened of her. I couldn’t tell if anything she said was true. At the same time, there was something glowing or burning in my stomach, like the blood in your hand when you shine a flashlight against it.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” she said.

“Why are you talking like that? It’s not a big deal. Fine, let’s go see your room.”

I almost hoped that we’d run into somebody downstairs, so I could sober up or change my mind, but we didn’t. When we got there she said, “You can sleep in my bed, it’s big enough. I don’t mind.” She undressed in front of me, she let me use her toothbrush, it was all very normal. But in the dark, when the lights were off, I couldn’t help myself, I started touching her, and she responded quickly. It was strange, I felt very gentle towards her, when all night long we’d been scratchy and sarcastic. But afterwards I slept okay.

In the morning I had to pick up my brother from the airport. My car was still parked in the road outside the bar, and I worried something might have happened to it. But it was fine, and I drove to meet him in last night’s clothes.

Detroit’s got a nice airport. It’s on the way out to Ann Arbor, and it has a kind of New South vibe — like money’s been recently spent. These days you can’t meet anybody at the gate, so I waited by the baggage claim for my brother to come out, and then he did, wearing Dockers and a pair of crappy deck shoes and no socks.

“What do you look like?” I said.

“You mean the shoes? This is one of the all-time great pairs of shoes.”

Brad either wore a suit and tie or he dressed like a frat boy on Spring Break. It didn’t matter he was thirty-eight years old and had three kids.

His ten-year law school reunion was in Chicago that weekend, and he planned on renting a car in Detroit and driving to it. Then dropping off the car and flying home from Chicago. I told him over the phone this is a crazy idea, it’s like a five-hour drive, but he said, look, when you don’t have the kids along, any kind of travel is a holiday, and he wanted to see me. I figured he wanted to check up on me, and this was his excuse.

In fact, he wanted to persuade me to move back to Baton Rouge.

“Listen,” he said, when we got in the car. “I’m just going to say this now, to get it out of the way. And then we can talk about it or not. But I think you should go home to Mom. She’s not doing so hot. Dad has moved out of the Wenzlers’, he’s got an apartment in the Quarter, and Mom says he’s living with some public health student at Tulane. She’s like twenty-five. Meanwhile Mom feels too ashamed to see their old friends. She says they mean well, but they’re basically embarrassed by her, and the truth is, when Dad was around, everybody wanted to talk to him. She was just deadweight. That’s a direct quote.”

“Why don’t you move home if you feel so strongly?”

“Come on, Greg. I’ve got three kids in school. I’ve got a life in Houston. I’ve got responsibilities. As it is, I’ve been driving back a couple of times a month, which isn’t fair on Andrea. She’s got the kids all week and then she has to take them on the weekend, too. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this but it’s putting a strain.”

“What are you trying to say, that I’m just playing around? I’ve got a life here, too. I’ve got a job, I’ve got a girlfriend. I’m actually a part of something, for once in my life.”

“Okay, then. Show me,” he said.

He arrived Wednesday morning and left on Friday afternoon. Thursday I had to teach, and Brad had some clients based in Detroit he wanted to see, but the rest of the time we hung out and talked. He slept on my sofa bed and turned out to be a good guest. The only thing he traveled with was a garment bag, in which he kept his suit for Saturday night. He borrowed my toothpaste, he wore the same clothes every day, he took up very little space. And he was curious about everything and asked smart questions. Mostly he liked what he saw.

“This is a great neighborhood,” he said. “Solid middle-class turn-of-the-century American architecture. They knew how to build. What do they sell for now, do you know?”

“Nobody’s selling. At least if you do the consortium takes most of the money. It’s part of the deal.”

“So when do people make money out of this?”

“It’s not about money.”

“Okay,” he said.

On Thursday night Gloria came back with me after school, and the three of us went out to dinner. There was a Polish place in Hamtramck I wanted to try, but since it didn’t take reservations, we had to wait half an hour at the bar. I got a little drunk, I let them talk.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said to her at one point. “What are you doing with this bum? You’re clearly much too good for him.”

“Is this like a big-brother thing?” she said. “I never had a brother. Is this what they do to each other?”

“Well, what does he say about me?”

“Oh, he never talks about you.”

For two days I had felt like the tagalong kid, even while I showed him around. I liked hearing Gloria stick up for me, but I’m not sure the comparison did me any favors. Afterwards, when the bill came, I said, “Give it to the big shot here. This one’s on him,” and Brad took out his wallet.

“Come on, Marny,” Gloria said. “This is our treat. He’s the guest.”

“No, he’s good for it. He likes throwing his money around.”

We had a quiet fight about it but Brad just paid. They gave us vodka shots on the house. I drank Gloria’s, too. She decided I wasn’t sober enough to drive home, so she took the keys and I ended up sitting in back while she talked to Brad. My thoughts felt a little soft-focus, but I liked listening to them talk. Gloria said to him, “How’s your mom doing?” and Brad said, “That’s partly what I wanted to discuss with Greg. Not great.”