Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

He went upstairs to her little room, where she was chattering happily with one of her old basketball friends—she still showered laughter and wit on the people in her life who weren’t Walter—and gave her to understand that he wasn’t leaving until she got off the phone.

“It was cash,” she said when he showed her the printouts of account activity. “I wrote myself some checks for cash.”

“Five hundred a month? Near the end of every month?”

“That’s when I take my cash out.”

“No, you take two hundred every couple of weeks. I know what your withdrawals look like. And there’s also a fee for a certified check here. The fifteenth of May?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds like a certified check, not cash.”

Over in the direction of the Naval Observatory, where Dick Cheney lived, thunder was banging in an evening sky the color of Potomac water. Patty, on her little sofa, crossed her arms defiantly. “OK!” she said. “You caught me! Joey needed the whole summer rent up front. He’s going to pay it back when he earns it, but he didn’t have the cash in hand right then.”

For the second summer in a row, Joey was working in Washington without living at home. His spurning of their help and hospitality was irritating enough to Walter, but even worse was the identity of his summer employer: a corrupt little start-up—backed financially (though this didn’t mean much to Walter at the time) by Vin Haven’s friends at LBI—that had won the no-bid contract to privatize the bread-baking industry in newly liberated Iraq. Walter and Joey had already had their big fight about it some weeks earlier, on the Fourth of July, when Joey had come over for a picnic and very belatedly divulged his summer plans. Walter had lost his temper, Patty had run and hidden in her room, and Joey had sat smirking his Republican smirk. His Wall Street smirk. As if indulging his stupid rube father, with his old-fashioned principles; as if he himself knew better.

“So there’s a perfectly good bedroom here,” Walter said to Patty, “but that’s not good enough for him. That wouldn’t be grownup enough. That wouldn’t be cool enough. He might even have to ride a bus to work! With the little people!”

“He has to maintain his Virginia residency, Walter. And he’s going to pay it back, OK? I knew what you’d say if I asked you, so I went ahead and did it without telling you. If you don’t want me making my own decisions, you should confiscate the checkbook. Take away my bank card. I’ll come to you and beg for money every time I need it.”

“Every month! You’ve been sending money every month! To Mr. Independent!”

“I’m lending him some money. OK? His friends basically all have limitless funds. He’s very frugal, but if he’s going to make those connections, and be in that world—”

“That great frat-house world, full of the best sort of people—”

“He has a plan . He has a plan and he wants you to be impressed with him—”

“News to me!”

“It’s just for clothes and socializing,” Patty said. “He pays his own tuition, he pays his own room and board, and maybe, if you could ever forgive him for not being an identical copy of you in every way, you might see how similar you two are. You were supporting yourself the exact same way when you were his age.”

“Right, except I wore the same three pairs of corduroys for four years of college, and I wasn’t out drinking five nights a week, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting any money from my mother.”

“ Well, it’s a different world now, Walter . And maybe, just maybe , he understands better than you do what a person has to do to get ahead in it.”

“Work for a defense contractor, get shitfaced every night with fratboy Republicans. That’s really the only way to get ahead? That’s the only option available?”

“You don’t understand how scared these kids are now. They’re under so much pressure. So they like to party hard—so what?”

The old mansion’s air-conditioning was no match for the humidity pressing on it from outside. The thunder was becoming continuous and omnidirectional; the ornamental pear tree outside the window heaved its branches as if somebody were climbing in it. Sweat was running on every part of Walter’s body not directly in contact with his clothes.

“It’s interesting to hear you suddenly defending young people,” he said, “since you’re normally so—”

“I’m defending your son ,” she said. “Who, in case you haven’t noticed, is not one of the brainless flipflop wearers. He’s considerably more interesting than—”

“I cannot believe you’ve been sending him drinking money! You know what it’s exactly like? It’s exactly like corporate welfare. All these supposedly free-market companies sucking on the tit of the federal government. ‘We need to shrink the government, we don’t want any regulations, we don’t want any taxes, but, oh, by the way—’ ”

“This isn’t sucking on tits , Walter,” Patty said with hatred.

“I was speaking metaphorically.”

“Well, I’m saying you picked an interesting metaphor.”

“Well, and I picked it carefully. All these companies pretending to be so grownup and free-market when they’re actually just big babies devouring the federal budget while everybody else starves. Fish and Wildlife has its budget cut year after year, another five percent every year. You go to their field offices, they’re ghost offices now. There’s no staff, there’s no money for land acquisition, no—”

“Oh the precious fish. The precious wildlife.”

“I CARE ABOUT THEM. Can you not understand that? Can you not respect that? If you can’t respect that, what are you even living with me for? Why don’t you just leave?”

“Because leaving is not the answer . My God, do you think I haven’t thought about it? Taking my great skills and work experience and great middle-aged body out on the open market? I actually think it’s wonderful what you’re doing for your warbler—”

“Bullshit.”

“So, OK, it’s not my personal thing, but—”

“What is your thing? You don’t have a thing. You sit around doing nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, every day, and it’s killing me. If you would actually go out and get a job, and earn an actual paycheck, or do something for another human being, instead of sitting in your room feeling sorry for yourself, you might feel less worthless, is what I’m saying.”

“Fine, but, honey, nobody wants to pay me a hundred eighty thousand a year to save the warblers. It’s nice work if you can get it. But I can’t get it. You want me to make Frappuccinos at Starbucks? You think eight hours a day at Starbucks is going to make me feel like I’m worth something?”

“It might! If you would ever try it! Which you never have, in your entire life!”

“Oh, finally it comes out! Finally we’re getting somewhere!”

“I never should have let you stay home. That was the mistake. I don’t know why your parents never made you get a job, but—”

“ I had jobs! God damn it, Walter.” She tried to kick him and only by accident missed his knee. “I worked a whole horrible summer for my dad. And then you saw me at the U., you know I can do it. I worked two solid years there. Even when I was eight months’ pregnant, I was still going in.”

“You were hanging out with Treadwell and drinking coffee and watching game films. That’s not a job, Patty. That’s a favor from people who love you. First you worked for your dad, then you worked for your friends in the A.D.”

“And sixteen hours a day at home for twenty years? Unpaid? Does that not count? Was that just a ‘favor,’ too? Raising your kids? Working on your house?”