Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

The WE’RE OPEN sign’s been left hanging inside the glass door since yesterday, and in the shadowy interior, where Mike and I sit at two secondhand metal desks I got at St. Vincent de Paul to make us not look like sharpsters but doers, the red pin light’s blinking on the ceiling smoke alarm. Of course I have to piss again, though not frantically. Later in the day the urge is worse. Mornings and early afternoons, I often don’t even notice. I can use the office facilities rather than wait for home (which could get tricky).

Mike is still aswarm with thoughts. He’s stuffed another cigarette out the window and breathed a deep sigh of anti-Buddhist dismalness. His Marlboro and garlic, and my pissed-on shoes, have left my car smelling terrible.

There’s no good reason to resume our conversation about mindfulness, glasses of yak milk, what we originate and what we don’t. I have no investment in it and was only performing my role as devil’s advocate. In my view, Mike is made for real estate the way some people are made to be veterinarians and others tree surgeons. He may have found his niche in life but hates to admit it for reasons I’ve already expressed. I would hate to lose him as my associate — no matter how unusual an associate he is. I might arrange to have a Sponsor visit him, some stranger who could tell him what I’d tell him.

Still, old Emerson says, power resides in shooting the gulf, in darting to an aim. The soul becomes. My soul, though, has become tired of this day.

“You’re not under any big time constraint in all this, are you?” I say this to the steering wheel without looking at him. The interior instruments glow green. The heat’s on, the car’s at idle. “I’d be suspicious if there was some kind of rush. You know?”

“House prices went up forty percent last year. Money’s cheap. That won’t last very long.” He is morose. “When Bush gets in, the minority program’ll dry up. Clinton would keep it. So would Gore.” He sighs again deeply. He dislikes Clinton for uncoupling China trade from human rights, but of course would fare better with the Democrats — like the rest of us.

“Does Benivalle like Bush?”

“He likes Nader. His father was a lefty.” Mike absently pulls on his undersized earlobe. A gesture of resignation.

“Benivalle’s green? I thought they were all cops. Or crooks.”

“You can’t generalize.”

Though generalization’s my stock-and-trade. And I like Benivalle less for getting in bed with the back-stabbing Nadir. “Isn’t it odd that you like Bush, and he’s killing off your minority whozzits. And you’re thinking of going into business with a liberal.”

“I don’t like Bush. I voted for him.” Mike impatiently unsnaps his seat belt. He has ventured valiantly forth as a brave citizen and come back an immigrant vanquished by uncertainty. Too bad. “I feel regret,” he says solemnly.

“You haven’t done anything bad,” I say, and attempt a smile denoting confidence.

“It doesn’t attach to doing.” And he’s suddenly smiling, himself, though I’m sure he’s not happy.

“You just got out beyond your stated ideological limits,” I say. “You can always come back. Devil’s advocate ’s just a figure of speech. My belief system hasn’t defeated your belief system.”

“No. I’m sure it hasn’t.” Mike frames his words as a verdict.

“There you go.” Ours is a rare conversation for two men as different as we are to have in a car, though I wish it could be over so I could grab a piss.

“I understand you think this is not a good thing to do,” he says.

“I don’t want to keep you from anything but harm,” I say. “You’ll just have to understand what you understand.”

B ennie, the pizzeria owner, has taken his Italian flag inside and is letting himself out his front door, locking up using a ring of keys as big as a bell clapper. He has his white apron draped over his arm for at-home laundering. He’s a small, crinkly-haired, mustachioed man and looks more Greek than Filipino. He’s wearing flip-flops, a red shirt and black Bermudas that reveal white ham-hock thighs. He glances at Mike and me, shadowy male presences in an idling Suburban, gives us a momentary stare, possibly puts us down for queers — though he should recognize me — then finishes his lock-up and walks away toward his white delivery van farther down the block.

Mike says he feels regret, but what he feels is lonely — though it’s logical to confuse the two. He’ll probably never feel true regret, which is outside his belief system. When he gets back to his empty house in Lavallette, he’ll turn up the heat, call his pining wife in the Amboys, speak lovingly of reconciling, talk sweetly to his kids, meditate for an hour, connect some significant dots and pretty soon start to feel better about things. As an immigrant, he knows loneliness can be dealt with symptomatically. I could ask him over for Thanksgiving. But I’ve made a big-enough mess with Ann, and don’t trust my instincts. Anything can be made worse.

In our silence, my mind strays to Paul again, already on his soldiering way over from the Midwest, his new “other” manning the map under the dim interior lights so there’s no need to stop. (Why do so many things happen in cars? Are they the only interior life left?) I wonder where exactly they are at this moment. Possibly just passing Three Mile Island in his old, shimmying Saab? I already sense his commotional presence via consubstantive telemetry across the dwindling miles.

Mike’s small, lined, smiling face waits outside my car door. Cold ocean fog swirls behind him, giving me a shudder. I’ve briefly zoned again. Oh my, oh me.

“Suffering, I think, doesn’t happen without a cause.” He nods consolingly in at me, as if I was the one in the pickle.

“I don’t necessarily look at things that way,” I say. “I think a lot of shit just happens to you. If I were you, I wouldn’t think so much about causes. I’d think more about results. You know? It’s my advice.”

His smile vanishes. “They’re always the same,” he says.

“Whatever. You’re a good real estate agent. I’d be sorry to lose you. This is the fastest-growing county in the East. Household income’s up twenty-three percent. There’s money to be made. Selling houses is pretty easy.” I could also tell him there’d be virtually zero Buddhists in Haddam to be buddies with — just Republicans by the limo-full, who wouldn’t associate with him, not even the Hindus, once they found out he’s a developer. He’d end up feeling sad about life and moving away. Whereas here, he wouldn’t. I don’t say that, though, because I’m out of advice. “I’ll be in in the morning,” I say, all business. “Why don’t you take the day and think about things. I’ll steer the ship.”

“Sure. Good. Okay.” He goes reaching in his trousers for his keys. “Have a happy Thanksgiving.” He puts the accent on the giving, not on the thanks as we longer-term Americans do.

“Okay.” I sound and feel vapid.

“Do you explode fireworks?” His car lights flash on by themselves.

“Different holiday,” I say. “This is just eating and football.”

“I can’t always keep things straight.” He looks at me inside my cold cockpit and seems delighted. A minor holiday miscue lets him feel momentarily less American (in spite of his lapel-pin flag) and makes his other errors, failures and uncertainties feel more forgivable, just parts of those things that can’t be helped. It’s not a wrong way to feel — less responsible for everything. Mike closes the door, taps the glass with his pinkie ring and gives me a silly, grinning half bow with a thumbs-up, to which I involuntarily (and ridiculously) give him a half bow back, which delights him even more and into another thumbs-up but no bow. I am the hollow, echoing vessel between the two of us now. I have my patience and forbearance for my ride home, but as this long day of events comes to its close, I have little more to show.