Jonathan Raban - Surveillance - A Novel

COLD OR HOT SPAM HITS THE SPOT

Recently, Alida had tried it out on Gail, who peered at it for a long time, put on her glasses, peered some more, and shook her head, giving up. Being the knowledgeable guardian of the building’s history made Alida feel she was its owner. Then she’d noticed a can of Spam on a supermarket shelf and talked her mom into buying it. The taste was repulsive, like slimy cat food, but she saved the can as evidence and used it as a crayon holder on her homework desk. When the last ghostly letter finally faded from the wall, she’d still see the slogan there: “Cold or Hot, Spam Hits the Spot,” as much a part of the character of the Acropolis as the “Semper Excelsior” grandly painted in gold on blue over the arched entrance to her school.

She and Tad were goofing around in his place when her mom showed up, looking damp and frazzled from the heat. The ferry had been late, she’d got stuck at a roadblock, there’d been an accident…Alida knew that voice — the rapid, weary, one-note rat-a-tat-tat that meant her mom was losing it. Tad took charge. Switching character on the instant, he became a cool, soft-spoken ship’s captain, or the wise old doctor in the ER. He ordered up food from the Chinese restaurant they liked, told her mom to take a shower, opened a bottle of wine, and asked Alida to set the table in the apartment across the hall.

She’d watched Tad do these split-second makeovers on himself a million times, but was still always a little fazed by how someone she usually thought of as gentle and bumbly could just turn it on, like that, as if flicking a hidden switch in his pocket. Big question: did Tad think of what he did as faking, putting on a phoney act, or did he believe that he’d actually become this new masterful-type guy?

Suddenly handsome, with tight lips and squared-back shoulders, he said, “Too hot for candles, but let’s do flowers,” and scooped up a vase of stinky lilies and carried them through to her and her mom’s place. “Root beer for you, kiddo: it’s in the fridge.”

The lilies helped to mask the smell of smoke in the apartment, whose windows had been left open all day, and Alida, admiring her handiwork, thought the blue cloth, place mats, napkins, glasses, and chopsticks made the table look just like one in a magazine, everything just so, a model of order in an untidy world, like the rooms in Gail’s house, which always looked as if they were waiting to be photographed for Martha Stewart Living or something. Seeing the table, you’d never guess what a mess the rest of the apartment was.

Her mom showed, smiling, smelling of shampoo, and wearing the splashy muumuu that made her look like a walking flower shop. “You did the table, Rabbit? That’s beautiful.”

Alida wrinkled her nose and shrugged like it was nothing special, but she was pleased her mom had noticed.

When the food came, Tad tipped the contents of the greasy white-card boxes into bowls. It was only Chinese takeout, but between them Alida and Tad had made the meal into a fancy feast. With the hot city going dark outside, and the lamp by the table throwing the rest of the room into shadow, their dinner had the glowing promise of a lighted stage just before the actors step in to start the play.

Her mom was the first to sit down. “You’re such geniuses, you two — thank you. I had the weirdest day.” She slopped wine into her glass and passed the bottle to Tad.

Alida, watching the level drop against the side of the label, reckoned that her mom had taken 250 milliliters and Tad barely 150, which was typical. They were drinking zinfandel: 15 percent alcohol, it said, which was a lot. Alida, who’d done her research on the Internet and in the kitchen with a measuring cup, knew that binge drinking for women began at 600 milliliters of wine in one evening, so her mom was almost halfway to a whole binge with one of her big glasses, and maybe even closer with this high-alcohol stuff she was chugging down now. Stored in the Drafts folder of Outlook Express on Alida’s laptop was a message to her mom about her drinking, which she’d never quite found the courage to send, even though she’d edited it many times, trying to make it more loving and less stern.

Alida helped herself to four small spoonfuls of rice, lemon chicken, scallops in garlic sauce, and Buddhist Delight vegetables, which she chased around her plate for a while with chopsticks before she gave up, as she always did, and got a fork out of the drawer.

Her mom was saying, “When you knew him, did Augie Vanags have an accent?”

“Augie?” Tad put down his glass. “So we’re on pet-name terms now? Sure he did. He talked like a Nazi in a British World War II movie. The kids called him Dr. K.”

“He knew Kissinger. He worked for the National Security Council, the dark-arts people. Henry took a brief shine to him, then he messed up with Nixon and Henry dropped him.”

Alida switched off, letting her mind address the baffling love life of Jessica King and Steve Kunz, until she heard Tad say, “He used to hit on his students.”

“He hit his students?”

“Just an expression,” Tad said. “He tried to date them. He—”

Someone started banging on the door. “Land lord!”—two words, not one.

“Don’t let him in,” Tad said. “He has to give a week’s notice, it’s state law. Tell him to put it in writing. Jesus, what an hour!”

“Maybe he smelled the food,” her mom said. “Rabbit, let him in, will you?” Then, to Tad, in an urgent whisper: “There’s no point in needlessly antagonizing the guy.”

Alida unlocked the door. The new landlord walked in, beaming, like a celebrity guest on a late-night talk show.

“Hi, how ya doin’? Eatin’, huh? Don’t mind me. Just checkin’ in. Gotta make sure everybody’s happy, right? Hey, Mr. MagiGro!” But as he spoke Alida saw his eyes roaming impatiently from wall to wall and floor to ceiling, as if one sidelong glimpse of the people at the table had exhausted his interest in them. He stood frowning in front of the tall bookcases that her mom had built with old wooden Pepsi crates. Without turning his head, he asked, “You got them things fixed to the wall?”

“No.”

Alida could hear the defensiveness in her mom’s voice.

“Get somebody killed. Next earthquake, them suckers fly all over like goddam ducks. Hit somebody on the head, like little Missy there. Pow!” He reached to an upper shelf, and Alida saw the Pepsi crate wobble ever so slightly under the pressure of his forefinger. “Brain damage,” he said, looking disapprovingly at her mom’s collection of old novels. He snatched one out — a paperback called Beloved —and peered into the space he’d made. “Yeah. What you want is masonry screws. Two-and-a-half-inch. And plugs. You got power drill?”

Tad laughed at the question. Her mom said, “No, I don’t.”

“I got cordless, heavy duty. You get all them books out, maybe I get that shit fixed on the weekend.”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Lee — if you’re sure you r-really have the t-t-time.” Her mom was blushing, suddenly awkward in the face of the landlord’s offer.

“Not a problem.” He waved an imaginary drill at the piled crates. “ Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom : take a coupla minutes.” He stood back from the shelves, shaking his head. “Wah! You got death trap there.”

“I didn’t think.”

“People don’t.” He riffled through the pages of Beloved , squinting at the blocks of print like a kid with dyslexia. “Story book,” he said, and wedged it back into the shelf.

Her mom, wine bottle in hand, said, “Mr. Lee?” But he was at the open window, back turned, hands planted on the sill, looking down into the dark alley that ran along the side of the building. “Riffraff,” he said. “Scumbags. Dirt balls.”