Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

After the trot comes the flat-out run, all heaves and stumbles, the smile long vanished, but it never came to that, because I found Bernie, or he found me, his wrist in the grip of a stout woman in a business suit.

"Yours?"

"Bernie," I said. "You are in big trouble. Thanks."

"No worries," said the woman. "He was just chasing a pigeon."

"Thanks again. I really appreciate it."

"I've got three at home."

"Pigeons?"

"No, kids. Here."

She handed me Bernie's wrist.

"He's a fast one. But I know how to sneak up on them."

"I owe you," I said, dragged Bernie away.

We stood behind a tree near the edge of the park.

"What are you doing, Daddy?"

"I think I'm going to cry," I said.

"Don't do that," said Bernie.

"Okay," I said, picked up him up, laid my cheek on his shoulder.

"Bernie," I said. "I love you so much."

"That's nice, Daddy."

"Yes," I said. "It is nice."

"You want to know something else nice?"

"I sure do, Bernie."

"I love mommy's friend Paul. Do you think Paul loves me, Daddy?"

They weren't like dolls, because dolls had no feelings. Kids had feelings, just not any remotely related to yours.

Now we sat at dinner saying nothing. Some families did this every night. Hollywood made poignant movies about them. But we'd always been blabbermouths.

Bernie chuckled again.

"What's so funny?" I said.

He looked up at me with odd fervency. He was holding his miniature half-on between his fingers, thwacking it against the chair seat.

"Daddy," he said.

"Yes, Bern."

"This isn't a winky."

"It's not?"

"It's a video game."

I looked down at my son's lap. An odd benevolence surged through me. I had maybe made peace with Bernie's foreskin. His freak flap, let it fly. If he ever wanted to be a real Jew he could have it snipped. Nobody would ever be able to question his commitment after that. Besides, if he wanted to be a real Jew, he'd probably have to renounce me. Because I was a fake Jew who spent a lot of time on the fake internet rubbing my video game. Because the real Jews scared the hell out of me, same as the real Muslims and the real Christians, the real Hindus. Because they believed. How could they believe? Fine, come kill me as a Jew, flog me to death in a desert quarry, bayonet me in the Pale, gas me in your Polish camp, behead me on your camcorder, I still would not believe. To me that was the true test of courage: to not submit to the faith they assume you possess and will kill you for. So now I loved Bernie's foreskin. Or at least I'd made peace with it.

"I've made peace with it," I whispered.

"Excuse me?" said Maura.

"I said I've made peace with it."

"That was quick."

"What do you mean?"

"Wait a minute," said Maura. "What have you made peace with?"

"You tell me."

"Not so fast."

"What do you think I've made peace with?"

"That's what I'm asking you."

"You tell me," I said.

"I think we're going around in a circle."

"Which means what?"

"What do you mean which means what?"

"It could mean there is something you don't want to tell me."

"No, Milo, it's you who won't do the telling. Don't you see? You won't tell me what you've made peace with. So, I can't tell you what I don't want to tell you until I know what it is that you've made peace with."

"I'm no longer at peace."

"Good. You probably shouldn't be."

This is how I knew my wife was having an affair with Paul. The knowledge arrived with a pressured sensation, a pallet of wood on my chest. Deck wood. For a Mission-style deck. I stood, moved to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get some air."

"Daddy, will you get me some?"

"Air?"

"Yeah."

"I'll try, Bern."

"You can't go out now," said Maura.

It was true. We had the evening ritual ahead of us-the dishes, Bernie's books, his teethbrushing, his pre-tuck-in piss, which often required some degree of cajolement, his stories, his songs. It would be a kind of betrayal of the ideals of co-parenting to walk out now. Then again, sliding your tongue along the seam of Paul the Animator's smooth and perfumed scrotum had to hold formidable rank in the hierarchies of betrayal. Maybe someday a civil court judge would sort through the equivalencies. Most of me hoped not.

"I need some air," I said.

A walk around the block convinced me I could not return home tonight.

I headed for the doughnut shop. I wanted doughnut-scented air. My pain had earned me both a Bavarian cream and a coconut chocolate flake. I was the only customer and I sat and ate my doughnuts, pictured myself that lonely diner at the counter in the famous painting. I'd always studied it from the artist's perspective, the stark play of shadow and light. But to be the fucker on the stool was another kind of stark entirely.

Now the door opened and the kiddie-diddler, his herringbone blazer twined shut with twists of electrical tape, wheeled a plaid suitcase into the shop.

"Good evening, Predrag," he said in that radio voice.

The counter kid nodded.

The kiddie-diddler sidled up, tapped a finger on the napkin dispenser. Predrag slid the old man coffee in a paper cup.

"Predrag, my strapping friend, what are the specials tonight?"

"No specials. Doughnuts."

"What about those croissant sandwiches? With the eggs and sausage?"

"What about them?"

"I'm in the mood for one of those delectable concoctions."

"Microwave's broken."

"Yes?"

"They're frozen. You need a microwave."

"Surely you have a conventional oven back there," said the kiddie-diddler.

"These are for the microwave only."

"I'd be surprised if you couldn't defrost them in a conventional oven. You know, Predrag, and I grant that you may be too young to remember this, but there was a time before the microwave. A better time, some would argue, though I wouldn't. That would be silly. No time is better than another time. It's preposterous. There are always people doing kindnesses and there are always people smearing each other into the earth. To think otherwise is foolish. But I dare say it's not so foolish to suppose one could circumvent the problem of the broken microwave and heat the croissant sandwich in the conventional oven, probably to better overall effect. What say you, my Serbian prince? Couldn't be that much of a hardship, could it? Not compared to the Battle of the Blackbirds, I'd wager. What say you, son?"

"I say you don't have any money to buy a croissant, you old queer. Not a dime."

"The Slavs are a brainy lot," said the kiddie-diddler, swiveled toward me on his stool. "Absolutely crazy, as history bears out, but very smart, very courageous, marvelous poets, and also fine logicians."

"The fuck you talking about?" said Predrag.

"Any coarsening effect, as witnessed here, can be blamed on the West, I assure you. What's good in them comes from their Oriental influences, a notion they detest, but understand in their hearts to be the truth."

"Here," said Predrag, threw a frozen croissant in its wrapper at the kiddie-diddler. The old man ripped it open, sucked on the crystals.

"That's right," said Predrag. "Now give me five dollars."

The kiddie-diddler lowered his pastry.

"Young man, you know I never carry that kind of cash around."

"Damn it," said Predrag. "Do I have to call Tommy?"

"No," said the old man, looked at me again. "We won't have to call Thomas, will we?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Sir, I recognize you as a man of this neighborhood. A frequenter of this counter. Surely you could find it in your heart to advance the cost of this sandwich. I am good for it."