Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

Horace walked by, hummed the theme song from a TV show canceled before his birth. I remembered the show, my devastation at its demise. It was maybe the first time I understood there were powerful people far away who could destroy your world without even knowing it.

"Milo, toosh dev warrior king, what's the fine word?"

"Hi, Horace," I said. "Where's my computer?"

"Repair guy took it to fix."

"Why couldn't he fix it here? And it wasn't broken. Who told him it was broken?"

"Calm down. Afraid he'll find the naughty stuff?"

"I wouldn't be dumb enough to use an office computer," I said.

"Me," said Horace, "I've got the whole system beat."

"How's that?"

"I'm back to actual magazines. Keep some in my desk, even. Who would ever bother to look? My hard drive is pristine. Not a dirty cookie in sight. I jerk it in the men's room with real glossy stock on my knees. Like my father, and his father before him."

"That's very clever," I said.

"If a vengeful theocracy took over this country tomorrow, they'd have nothing on me. Probably put me on the morals squad."

Horace walked off and I picked up my desk phone, dialed.

"Greetings. You have reached the voice mail of the Unknown Soldier. Please leave a massage. Happy endings preferred."

I'm not sure what I meant to say. I hung there in silence, waited for something unleechlike to arrive.

"Savitsky," I said. "The officer with the boots in the story your mother liked. His name was Savitsky. It's from a story by Isaac Babel. I read it in a literature class in college. Maybe your mother read it there, too. Goodbye, Don. Take care."

And that was, somehow, officially, that.

Just as I hung up the phone it rang again.

"Don?"

"Milo?"

"Vargina."

"Do you have a minute?"

"Sure."

"Conference room."

It occurred to me that calling from the Mediocre line was probably not wise. I'd only just found out six months ago there were surveillance cameras in the suite, and only after Horace directed a sieg heil toward a drilled hole in the ceiling tiles, received an email reprimand a week later. Maybe they tapped our phones, too. I'd always scoffed at conspiracy hobbyists, paranoid stylists. The corporate complex wasn't organized enough for master plans, I'd argue. We're all just flawed people with our flawed systems. But things had seemed rather organized in recent years. You had to wonder. Maybe the leaders of the global elite did all have secret lizard heads. Maybe my mother had a secret lizard head.

A whole trove of cockamamie theories deserved another look. Perhaps, for example, Lena had told me I was only moderately talented because she felt compelled to speak the truth. Maybe Maura still desired me but for her own sanity could stay in our marriage only if I chose to confront my rage and resentment. There was even a chance happiness had something to do with acceptance, and something to do with love.

No, this was ridiculous. These notions were all part of the trick, the scam. The asks had me nailed from the get-go, ever since they installed the selfware, back in Milo Year Zero. That's how the whole long con got started.

The conference room felt smaller than it had on my coronation the day before. A berry spritzer tallboy sat half collapsed on the conference table.

Another dented can.

Somehow Vargina and I ended up seated beside each other, the way some couples arrange themselves in restaurants. I'd never understood the appeal, though now I wondered if Maura and I should have given it a whirl. Maybe it granted you a whole new perspective on coupledom, or at least served as a welcome breather from having to look each other in the eye, glimpse all that mutilated hope.

Vargina re-angled her chair.

"This is weird," she said.

"You mean how we're sitting?"

"No, what I need to tell you. Your computer isn't broken, Milo."

"That's what I was trying to tell Horace. I was just thinking that. ."

The truth sank in as I spoke. I tried my best to resemble a man in whom the truth had just been sunk, to the hilt. I owed Vargina that much, if only for elevating this encounter with use of the conference room.

"I'm fired again," I said.

"This time there's severance."

"Why? Why now?"

"I don't know the full story, Milo. Call came in from Cooley about it. Your absence was necessary for certain things to go forward."

"That's a nice way of putting it."

"I'm a craftswoman. And don't feel too bad. Sometime next month there's going to be a big bloodletting. Our endowment is in worse shape than anybody will admit."

"So, I'd be fired in a month anyway?"

"Probably."

"I can't do this anymore," I said.

"That's what we're saying."

"Sleep tight, you world, you motherfucker."

"Are you finished?"

"Yes," I said.

"You'll be okay, Milo," said Vargina. "Here."

Vargina pushed an index card across the table. It was a recipe for egg salad.

"I watched my husband make it. He can never know. Nobody can ever know."

"Thank you, Vargina."

"No more turkey wraps, Milo. They're gross."

"I see that now," I said.

I still had the key to the life I'd been evicted from, and the next morning I took the train out to Astoria, let myself into the apartment. Life was doing fine without me. There was Maura, jabbing at her laptop, always this, the work before work. It wasn't her fault. It was how they had us. There was Bernie on the sofa, watching his favorite show, the one where children mutated into gooey robots, sneered. It was like a parable from a religion based entirely on sarcasm. I'd seen the program before, tried to ban it. But there was no banning it. This wasn't China. This was dead America. If Bernie lucked out, he'd only be as warped as Horace. I could live with that. Assuming I could live.

"Bernie," said Maura. "Put on your velcros. Daddy's taking you to school. I'll see you at pickup."

There were not too many school days left. It would be another summer on Christine's concrete apron: blood and corn dogs.

I gathered up Bernie's sandals, slipped them on his feet.

"I want to see this show," he said. "Daddy, are you crying?"

"I have something in my eye," I said.

"Both eyes?"

"Yes, Bernie."

I walked into the bedroom, threw a few things into a knapsack. I took the money Purdy had given me, peeled off some for my wallet, wadded up the rest with a rubber band.

I dropped the wad next to Maura's laptop.

"What's this?"

"I don't know," I said. "Child support?"

"Do you need to be so dramatic? This is still your home. We're still your family. We're in a rough patch. We're taking a break."

"Rough patch? That's kind of a worn image, isn't it? I'm not sure what it means. Is it a driving thing? We're driving over a patch that's rough? Or is it like a patch on your coat? A smooth coat except for this little rough flap you ironed over a rip in the elbow? Or maybe the elbow skin is rough. Remember that time you said my elbow skin was like an elephant's? Is that what this is about? Is that what it's always fucking been about?"

"Language," said Maura.

"Indoor voice," said Bernie.

"Let's just patch up this rough patch now," I said. "I can't take this anymore. I want us all together."

"You seem really strung out, Milo. You need some rest. Aren't you getting rest at your mother's house?"

"Yeah," I said. "Nothing but rest."

I walked Bernie down Ditmars toward his new school. His little hand slid around in my palm.

"Daddy, are you sick?"