Michael Collins - The Death of All Things Seen

Yes, of course it had been, they both had, Roger Carlyle was wildly impressed. Maybe they were in the market for a house after all. Wasn’t Norman up on his history! His hands came together in the gathering warmth of a deal.

Norman sidled toward his own interest in the arts, and theater especially, leading toward a reference to his own success in the Chicago theater scene, with the tacit understanding that anything he said could be verified in the surreptitious click of a website. It made lying that much harder in the cast-iron Truth of easily accessed facts. But there was enough to pique Roger’s interest in a downturned market.

Norman rattled on about Second City TV and the great glut of talent that came out of Chicago. Belushi, Aykroyd, Candy, Murray and Chevy Chase.

Well, maybe they weren’t all Chicagoans, but they might as well have been. They were associated with Chicago, and that’s what mattered. What they shared was a commonality, all involved in the great irreverent classics like Caddyshack and Stripes and, of course, the lampooning send-up of those damn Nazi sympathizers out in Skokie in The Blues Brothers .

The titles, of course, revealed Norman’s age, but, then, who wasn’t getting older, Roger baited with the good business sense there might be an uncovered treasure here.

Norman turned toward Joanne. He was talking in a way everybody could hear. ‘I’ve always said, if you want to understand Chicago in relation to the politics of Reagan’s Trickle-down economics, just think of an incensed Ted Knight in his brass-buttoned, blue double-breasted captain’s jacket facing down a bug-eyed Rodney Dangerfield speeding toward him in his power boat in Caddyshack . It says something about the driving vengeance of class warfare!’

It didn’t quite make sense in how he said it. His voice reached a sudden pitch of hysteria. It was the Feldmans at the root of it. He kept talking.

‘And what about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ? That was filmed here, right, Rog?’ He didn’t wait for the answer. ‘ Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , an existential Chicago masterpiece of adolescent disaffection that asks the really hard question facing all of us, “What the fuck will we do with the rest of our lives?”’

*

They left. Roger Carlyle and the clutch of elderlies looked on, mortified and shocked. It wasn’t the sort of language you used around children. It was downright criminal.

Joanne hustled Grace across the road. When they got to the car, she glared at Norman. ‘You enjoy making enemies.’

Norman didn’t answer. Roger Carlyle was in the street, a cell phone to his ear. He was talking frantically to someone.

They were pulling away from the curb when Joanne said suddenly, ‘You don’t have a license! Pull over!’ just as a police cruiser turned a corner and came at them.

It passed and then in a wheeling turn the police car was behind them, its misery lights swirling and lighting up the interior of the car.

Norman shoved his cell phone toward Joanne, saying, ‘Take it. It’s got all my contacts on it!’

NORMAN WAS IN the holding cell in Winnetka. During the traffic stop, a quantity of marijuana had been uncovered in a small bag Joanne had packed for Grace. Norman was facing a criminal act of possession along with a charge of Child Endangerment. And there was the matter also of an outstanding bench warrant against him related to a subpoena that he had not complied with in relation to his father’s case.

At the Winnetka jail, his fingerprints were run through a database. They came up a match to an ongoing criminal investigation. In a small interrogation room, a detective read from a copy of a letter sent to one Daniel Einhorn informing him that he had been named as a sexual partner of a person who had tested positive to HIV and was legally bound to appear at Cook County Department of Health.

Under direct questioning, when Norman was asked how his fingerprints were on the letter, he elected to take the Fifth. He requested a single call as per his legal rights.

*

Joanne was crying when she picked up. She was out in the waiting area. The car had been impounded. She said, ‘I’m so sorry, this is all my fault!’

Norman preempted her saying anything about the pot.

Joanne needed to listen very carefully. He was being transferred to Cook County Jail. A bond hearing was being scheduled for the following morning. He didn’t know the exact details. Joanne should ask at the desk, find out his case number.

Joanne’s voice was suddenly frantic again. ‘Why? I don’t understand it… We can just tell them…’

Norman talked over her again. ‘Listen to me, Joanne, I want you to call Kenneth! His number is on my cell phone. Tell him they’re asking about a letter that was sent to Daniel Einhorn. He’ll know what it’s about.’

The call lasted two minutes before Norman was cut off.

*

Joanne took a bus back into the city with Grace, who was still in her new outfit. She drew attention from the other passengers, mostly tired-looking elderly black women. Joanne was dressed in a shabby down coat and moon boots she had retrieved from the trunk of the car, against the protest from the arresting officer who had wanted the contents of the car held. She had waited, insistent, Norman cuffed, her hair wet from the snow and parted in the middle in the way she had worn it in high school.

Joanne felt emotion well up as she stared into the dark. The indignity of it and all happening so suddenly, after all the trouble they had renting the car, when nothing should have gone wrong after that. It was too hard to cope with. She was crying without sound, holding it in and wiping her eyes. How could this have happened? Her thoughts settled on what if Grace had just not thrown up, when she knew the blame lay in her having put the marijuana amidst Grace’s snacks.

It was undone, what she had gained with Norman.

‘Call Kenneth…’ That was Norman’s solution, and so quickly arrived at. She was being pushed out. She couldn’t bear thinking of it. She had been rash in presuming that anything had been established between them. It had been her hope, her delusion. Anybody else would have seen it!

Joanne let it play in her head in a quiet indictment. There had been so many questions unasked regarding Kenneth and Norman’s break-up. She had never even questioned if a court hearing had been held regarding visitation rights for Kenneth to see Grace, or if Kenneth had simply walked away? How could that legally be? It was bound to surface. A relationship couldn’t end like this, and now she had facilitated it, ending a détente. Kenneth was being summoned. Where would she go if Kenneth re-emerged?

Joanne felt a deep shudder run through her. She was thirty-nine years old and without prospects. It was the singular, unalterable fact in her life. She lowered her head. She had made some bad choices . The expression was on her lips before she could think otherwise, when the greater reality was how chance figured in a life. It came as a revelation, something she would have denied yesterday, and yet it was true.

Joanne reached for Grace’s hand to rouse her, to reclaim her, then thought better of it. Grace had become Joanne’s single purpose in life. It was what children did, mollified ambition, establishing a reasonable excuse for personal failure. Joanne was accepting of the terms. She had love to give. It took nothing from her to admit it.

*

Joanne let Grace sleep. She might ride deep into the city. The bus was warm and comforting, a reprieve from the cold and what awaited her. There was Randolph, of course, poor Randolph. He would have to wait their return. She could do nothing else.