Chang-Rae Lee - A Gesture Life

The road routes to an old divided parkway that is faster and tighter still, and then, in a three-mile stretch, becomes the main commercial route of 3A, the signposted six-lane strip of the town of Ebbington. Liv has been taking us forth at a brisk clip, confidently riding the yellow line, but now it’s halting traffic and four-way intersections and the rattle and hum of engines; though she’s irritated and Renny’s nodding off, I don’t mind the sudden heat and exhaust and crowd. I can’t help but notice, too, that beyond the expansive parking lot to my right, there sits the bulbous, tri-domed structure of the Ebbington Center Mall, its stucco facade stained dark along the top in large, creeping patches, the spindly trees infrequent in the mulched-bark landscaping, the whole thing looking weathered and faintly marine, floating in its blacktop sea.

When it was built, there was much fanfare and optimism, and I remember reading an editorial in the local paper about how important the Ebbington Center Mall would be in bringing new vitality to the area, enticing the shoppers (especially the affluent ones in Bedley Run) to stay here with their money, rather than trek down to the city. I myself received numerous solicitations from the mall management, special inducements and incentives to relocate my store as a “founding tenant,” but even as some of my fellow merchants left the old village, I took heed of the comments I’d casually hear around town from the country and tennis club set, the matrons and well-heeled young mothers, that they never went over to Ebbington and would certainly not start now. This instant, unwavering judging did bother me a little, as it naturally made me wonder what thousand other predeterminations had been made, and kept to. Still, I remained at my spot on Church Street, and proceeded to watch the mall go up and grandly open to balloons and flags and enjoy the initial flush of good business, and then, in good time, settle in to its Ebbington-land destiny of steady dwindle and decline.

This being the place, apparently, to which Sunny has returned.

And so I look there now, with the impulse of asking Liv to turn into the lot, simply to drive slowly past the columned entrance, to peer at the scant activity inside. Originally there were plans for sixty or more shops, as well as a few large department stores like Macy’s or Bloomingdales or Sears to anchor the bi-level wings, but the major chains weren’t interested in a lower-middle-class hamlet forty miles from the city with no major highways running near its borders. So after failed attempts by lesser retailers, there are now huge yellow banners on each end of the building, courtesy of the temporary (two-week) tenants, a clearance “wholesaler” of brandless electronics and a discount Christian bookseller, their wares hastily set out on long, folding-leg tables, with pricing by the bunch. The smaller retail spaces are only two-thirds filled, the square-foot rents now around half the price originally quoted to me. Just recently, the grand indoor waterpool leaked one night and left in its wake a dusty, fungal odor that all the pizza and enchilada and chicken stir-fry of the food court can’t seem to mask. Obviously I haven’t been there since speaking to former Officer Como the other day, and I’m having trouble conjuring my former daughter even setting foot in such a place (self-styled anti-capitalist as she was, or at least, anti — Sunny Medical Supply), much less being a manager of a women’s better-clothing store. And if all of this is true, I wonder now about the little boy who was mentioned by Officer Como, where he is staying while his mother works, and with whom, whether it’s the whole day that he’s with someone else, and again I want to tell Liv to tap her turn signal, get over to the entrance lane for the mall.

But I do not. I just sit quietly in the glove-leather seat and watch as the traffic light turns from red to green, and she lets up on the clutch to sling us forward off the line, and we are running, following Route 3A again as the stores and filling stations and kiosks gradually thin out, the horizon coming visible, the golden, burnished woods rushing back, dense and stately in their towering solicitude as we reach the kempt, rolling country of Bedley Run.

Renny Banerjee, perhaps inspired, too, by the glittering canopy, is talking now about this town of ours. We’re gliding on the narrow two-lane road toward the old part of the village, the edifices of the dark brick town fire station and the turreted stone post office (once a mill) nobly guarding the entrance. But he’s going on somewhat bittersweetly, not at all in a way meant to perturb Liv, who everyone knows is the first champion of this place. It seems he’s had a few displeasing experiences around town in the last few weeks, despite the fact that he’s lived here for nearly ten years.

“I don’t know what it is,” he says, pulling himself forward between our seats in front, “but I’ve been getting the most annoying comments lately, around the village. I’m confused. It seems everyone has completely forgotten who I am.”

“Everyone but me,” Liv sighs.

Renny squeezes her shoulder appreciatively. “Really, though. Have you noticed anything odd, Doc?”

“Not myself. At least I don’t think so.”

“I guess not, for someone like you. You’re beloved. But I have. Even at Murasan’s. Not-quite-funny jokes.”

“What do you expect at that awful smoke shop?” Liv cries out. “They’re a bunch of mean old geezers. Sorry, Doc, but it’s true.”

“I suppose they can be a little acid,” I answer. I myself had been cutting back on my visits to the shop in recent months, as I’d decided to curtail my pipe smoking to one bowl a week instead of my longtime three or four; but also, I’ve been finding that the conversation there, which is usually entertaining and vigorous, has been somewhat sodden of late, as the fellows have been preoccupied with perceived “changes” in the character of the town and area, changes that Renny has obviously been compelled to address.

“Last week I’m there to buy cigarettes, just an in-and-out, and old Harris, who’s sitting in his usual spot in the corner, says something about the millions of new smokers in the Third World. I turned around and he just waited. I asked him if he was talking to me and he said he was interested to know what I thought about the situation. I told him I had no opinion and got my change and was about to leave when he said, ‘People don’t even care about their own anymore.’ Then the next day I’m walking by the duck pond in the park when I approach these two mothers with their strollers. One tries to hide, whispering something, and they quickly turn away like I’m about to mug them or steal their babies. Suddenly I don’t know what the hell’s going on around here. I mean, hey, I want to know, since when did I become the randy interloper?”

“It’s because you’re darker during the summer,” Liv says matter-of-factly, evidently bringing up an old topic of discussion. She turns to me, smiling. “It’s a fact.”

“This is different, Liv,” Renny insists. “And for the record, Liv darling, I’m always this dark. You should know. But it never mattered much before. Now people like Harris and Givens are talking about the ‘direction’ of the town. How the shop owners aren’t like they used to be, your average middle-class Italian and Irish folk. I guess except for you, Doc.”

“I guess so, yes.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t really heard a bigoted word from anybody. Just ‘observations.’ There’s every sort of merchant in town, the Viet people who bought the cleaner’s, the French-speaking black couple at the old candy store.”

“So what?” Liv exclaims. “People aren’t allowed to talk about who runs the businesses in their own town? What’s next, Renny? Will I not be able to even say you’re Indian anymore? Or that Doc Hata is a noble Japanese?”