Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

"Go ahead."

"Thanks. For the permission."

"Maybe I should come back another time."

"How much is in the envelope?"

"Which envelope?"

"The one you must have brought."

I slid it out of my pocket.

"I should really give it to Don."

"I just want to know how much is in it."

I told her how much was in it.

"Good. That's a nice number. Tell me, for real, how long do you think Don can keep this up? Because he's starting to freak me out a little."

"Keep what up?" I said.

"Come on," she said.

The door buzzed and Sasha went to the intercom. She did not speak, pressed a button.

"You know," I said, "it's probably a good idea to ask who it is first."

"I know who it is. It's the food."

"You thought I was the food."

"How many times can I be wrong?"

A moment later a delivery kid was at the door with a plastic bag. Sasha asked him the price a couple of times. The kid shrugged, pointed to the receipt. Sasha handed him some bills and he stood there and stared as she closed the door.

"It's like they want a tip," she said.

"They do want a tip."

"Fuck that. What did that guy do to deserve a tip?"

"He bicycled across the neighborhood to bring you your food."

"That's his job. Don drove a Humvee across fucking Iraq to bring you your freedom."

"They don't really pay them that well around here."

"Like they did Don? You got some kind of bleeding heart? My heart bled out a long time ago."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"Do you want to squeeze my tits?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's from that show."

"Which one?"

"I don't know. Everybody's in a room or something. And it's real."

"Oh."

"They look fat but they are very firm."

"I. ."

"He's speechless."

I looked down at the stained carpet.

"He doesn't know what to say. Well, I'm hungry."

I listened to the rustle of the food bags. Paper and plastic. You could recycle the paper, slip the plastic over your head. Recycle yourself.

Now the door rattled and a man leaned into the room. He wore a sleeveless black shirt with green letters that read "Thank You for Not Sharing." His greasy hair flopped out of a blue bandana. A pair of artificial legs curved out of his cargo shorts. He just sort of bounced there on the linoleum, scowling, loutish, kangarooey.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

I wondered if the torn boat shoes came with the prostheses.

"No, okay," he said. "Let's rephrase: What the fuck is going on here?"

"This is your dad's buddy," said Sasha. "He has some kind of name."

"Milo Burke," I said.

"My dad's buddy? My dad doesn't have buddies. He has associates. Employees. Clients. Counsel. Which one are you?"

"I'm just helping Purdy out a little," I said, put the envelope on the table.

"Flunky," said Don.

"Same as last time," said Sasha, nodded at the envelope.

"I don't mean to be vague," I said.

"What, you're like some fixer?"

"No, I'm a development officer."

"You don't look like any officer to me. What do you develop?"

"It's been a bad year."

Don shuffled to the table. I'd seen the amputees on TV, the ones who parasailed and played extreme badminton and were paragons of positive thinking, who never let their calamity stymie them. I presumed this Todd Wilkes was one of those sorts. Watching Don move now I was struck by how utterly impossible and aggravating it must have been to walk on these things, let alone do Tae Bo, no matter how advanced the technology. How easy it would be to say to hell with it all, to lie on a cot with your titanium legs and curse your fate and soil the cot you curse your fate upon and not want to learn how to do anything all over again. I was on the verge of such behavior with my original legs. Don picked up the envelope, thumbed through the bills.

"Ulysses S. Grant is always welcome in my house," he said. "You, I'm not so sure about. What are you eating, honey?"

"Rice and beans, baby. I ordered from the place. Our friend here says I should have tipped the guy."

"Tipped him for what?"

"Riding a bike."

"Riding a bike? Try delivering the fucking beans in a chemical suit. Then I'll tip you. Nobody tipped Vasquez."

"Who's Vasquez?" said Sasha.

She's the one who got an RPG in the teeth, I wanted to say, figured it for lousy spycraft if I did.

"She was my friend," said Don, stumbled over to the futon, flung himself down. "I've told you about Vasquez a million times."

"Oh, yeah."

"Shit, honey, can you take my girls off? I'm whipped. Been pounding the fucking pave-o-mento. It's goddamn hot in here. We've got to get Nabeel to turn the boiler off. Sahsh, my girls."

Sasha pushed her plate away, crouched over the futon, and unstrapped Don's prostheses.

"Feel free to gawk at a total stranger during a private and painful moment," he said.

"Sorry."

"Just fucking with you. You can look. So, you here to give me the money?"

"And say hello from your dad. He'd love to see you sometime."

"Oh, so now I'm his son again. Good. He was hinting he wanted more tests. I'm sure he wouldn't love to see me. But I suppose we'll have to bro down one of these days. Wait, can a dude bro down with his dad? I guess he can. Where's Lee Moss?"

"Lee Moss is very sick."

"Sick like he's going to kick it?"

"I don't know, Don. I'm new to all of this."

"New to what?"

"To working with your father."

"I thought you were old friends."

"We are. But we haven't worked together before."

"Worked together," said Don. "That's funny. My fucking humps are killing me."

"Don calls them his humps," said Sasha.

"Excuse me?"

"His stumps. He calls them his humps. Everything is girls and humps around here."

Don rubbed the rough knobs just below his knees.

"Tikrit," he said.

"Saddam's hometown."

"We've got a CNN watcher," said Don. "How inspiring."

"I tried to keep up," I said.

"Yeah, must have been a real sacrifice."

"I must sound lame," I said.

"No, I think I'm the lame one," said Don.

"You move incredibly well," I said, "considering, you know. ."

"Considering I'm a double transtibial amputee," said Don. "I'll tell you, man, some things I do better now. Right, Sahsh? Sahsh loves my humps. They're all-American humps. Can-do mission-accomplishing humps. Is my bitterness too obvious? I grew up watching those Vietnam movies on TV. There was always that bitter vet in the ball cap. I think I identified with that guy long before I went into the fucking army. Maybe being a pissed-off, paranoid, maimed war vet was my goal. I bet Nathalie thought so. How could such a smart lady have such a stupid-ass son?"

"Don," said Sasha.

"Mr. Burke," said Don. "Do you know where I can score hard drugs in this neighborhood? I see a lot of curry and lot of beans out there, but no dope."

"No, I really don't."

"You must think we're the lowest scum on earth, right? Regular old dude like you."

"We all have our pasts."

"I'm sure."

The near-knowing, not-knowing snarl in his voice, it reminded me of so many kids from college. Myself then, too. I wondered if that's what Nathalie sounded like. Probably not. Purdy would never have been so smitten.

"I'm sorry about your mother," I said. "I know Purdy is. It really shook him up."

"So much he had to finish her off, right? Wasn't going to keep meeting her in that motel, so he wasn't going to pay those fucking hospital bills. His little upstate authenticity piece just a slab of sleeping meat."

"Listen," I said. "I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Are you sure about that?"

Don rocked forward on his knobs.

"Extremely."

"Did you know Don was an interrogator?" said Sasha. "Just for a little while."