Christopher Sorrentino - Trance

“All right,” said Howard.

Howard couldn’t get over the dog manure. Everywhere you looked on Post Street it was Dog Dropping Heaven. Somehow he’d managed to avoid stepping in all but one ripe turd, but that was a beaut. He had to hang on to a lamppost while he scraped the sole of his shoe against the curb. He did this delicately, a little tentatively, as though in ridding himself of this ordure he might offend some sense of propriety that existed among the natives here, a blighted pride in their specific metropolitan disfigurement that they might assert, defending it against the judgmental gaze of an outsider. But they just ignored Howard, wobbled by. Definitely high on something. Howard had taught high school long enough to recognize intoxicated kids, though these weren’t kids and this clearly was not a matter of Testor’s glue in a paper bag or a few beers. This drug usage was not recreational; it was a matter of life and death. The possibility that it wasn’t dog crap underfoot briefly occurred to him.

How could the kids live like this? Susan had always been the most fastidious of children, and Roger was always so damned grateful for everything he had. Though Howard consoled himself with the thought that they weren’t really living like this at all — just picking up their mail here to avoid being located by the authorities. Swell.

He found 625 Post, a shabby storefront (what else?) under a sign that read INDUSTRIAL PHOTO PRODUCTS, INC. A smaller sign, in the window, said POST RENT-A-BOX. No products were on display in the window. Inside, the simple-looking clerk barely seemed to comprehend Howard’s request to leave a message “for some of your postal clients.” Maybe it was just indifference. Howard had written a note on hotel stationery and stuck it in a hotel envelope, and now he addressed it. He hoped to see the clerk put it in a P.O. box, a cubbyhole, some evidence of actual delivery, but the envelope remained on the counter next to the clerk as he read from a creased issue of Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals, lips muttering silently.

Back into the dog poop. Amazing quantities of the stuff, considering that the streets were not populated with dog walker types, exactly. In fact he’d seen no dogs since he’d strolled past Union Square. Maybe they roamed in packs, after dark?

Not until late afternoon did the phone in his room ring. It was Susan, who sounded thrilled to have heard from him and then smoothly lied about the need for the mail drop. He hadn’t even asked. It wasn’t encouraging. He arranged to meet the kids near Federal Plaza. Then he called the agent Toomes had referred him to, a man named Nietfeldt.

Hugs and handshakes. They stood in the shadow of FBI headquarters, discussing where to have dinner. He took them to a bar for a couple of beers. He stopped at a little place and bought some postcards and an ashtray with a picture of a crab in it while the kids laughed at him, the tourist, good-naturedly. The Oriental lady who sold him the things was practically an American, I mean zero accent, none at all; she was joking along with him and the kids, and it set him to thinking about this Joan Shimada, and Guy Mock, and the overcast reason for his visit here, and he carried his stuff out in a little white paper bag, feeling sorry for himself and, in the chill damp of the evening, slightly drunk. Supposedly he was up here “on business,” though this would have been plenty vague even if he weren’t a schoolteacher whose only business trips were to L.A. for occasional training. Didn’t matter anyway; they ended up at a steak house and what’s practically the first thing he does once everybody’s slid into the banquette? He tells them the FBI’s looking around for them.

“Look, they just want to talk, and they’re not bad guys, so maybe you should just do it,” he finished.

Roger looked as if he were going to puke. Susan said, “Not bad guys? I can’t believe they fooled you. The FBI are a bunch of liars.” She had a baked potato in front of her and waved around a piece of it on the end of her fork.

This was his daughter, flourishing a hunk of spud and hissing at him in a restaurant full of people. Well, they hadn’t agreed on everything these past few years, but Howard had always been able to lump it all, these disagreements, into a pile of minor wrangles: you know, like painting her room a funny color or wearing something that came up to here. Kicking-over-the-traces stuff. Even getting on the TV and hollering about the SLA seemed isolated, a passing thing. Until now he hadn’t realized that she was heading in the direction of being a totally different person.

Susan said, “They’re liars.”

Susan said, “You can’t trust anything they say.”

Susan said, “We’re using the PO box ’cause someone was stealing the mail off our front steps.”

Susan said, “I was upset about Angela. That’s all. It’s better now.”

Susan said, “I’ve never used any name but Rorvik.”

Susan said, “I did visit a prisoner for a while, some guy I don’t remember his name, part of this volunteer program I signed up for. It was a drag getting there so I quit.”

Susan said, “I’ve never even heard of Joan Shimada. I do work with a Meg, but I don’t know her last name.”

Susan said, “I haven’t even talked to Guy Mock since he left for Oberlin maybe two years ago.”

She was so good, the complete actress. It struck Howard as a shame that she’d missed her calling. He knew she was fibbing, though he couldn’t really believe that she’d had a hand in any of the bomb throwing, but what he wondered was why she’d chucked this golden talent of hers to do … what? Wait tables and publish propaganda? At least with acting you got your big break one day. Did that happen with left-wing pamphleteers? He doubted it. Maybe her whole life was an act now, a matter of slipping fluidly from one invented personality to another. Susan Anger, what a name. He hoped someone else was writing her material if that was the stuff she was coming up with.

The restaurant was emptying out. Two waitresses sat at a table in the corner, eating dinner salads. One had kicked her shoes off and was kneading the ball of her left foot, tucked under her thigh, with her right hand. Some men at the bar watched a ballgame, Phillies leading the Giants in the eighth. Nobody wanted any dessert.

It was chilly outside now, and Howard was wearing only a polo shirt. Hugging himself, he asked Susan: “Look, where are you living now? Are you together?”

“We’re sort of in between spaces right now. We’re staying at different friends’ houses. Dad, it happens all the time. People just don’t settle into one place like they used to.”

He must have gaped at her. It was true; even this was difficult for him to understand. Why don’t they?

“It’s nothing serious . Dad, you look so tragic.”

He reached out for her. The bar at the steak house had a separate door, and just then it flew open, expelling a sour odor of stale beer and crushed cigarettes. Three men exited.

“Fucking Tug McGraw,” said one.

“Fucking Halicki,” corrected another.

The third cast a glance at Howard and Susan. “Too fucking young for you, pops.”

“Fuck you,” said Roger.

“Bet you’d like it, faggot. Get back to Castro Street.”

The men disappeared, jaunty, bustling down the street as if they’d approached them to ask the time of day. That the entire encounter had generated so little heat, had been hostile for the sake of hostility alone, bowled Howard over. This was the city of peace and love? Maybe he was just in the wrong neighborhood.

“God,” he said suddenly. “Is this any way to live? What are you doing here? Why don’t we all fly back together? Look, you’ve got no place to live, and you’re what? Waiting tables? And you’re painting houses? Let’s get the hell out of here. Come back home. Breathe clean desert air, instead of—” He hadn’t been planning on this, but suddenly he wanted to gather them up, be a family under one roof again. What had happened was that things had fallen apart little by little. Decisions he hadn’t approved of but kept his mouth shut about had built up, it was clear, into something huge, uncontrollable, something he would never have kept quiet about if he’d seen it coming. Did every father, at some point, urge his children to just quit it, come home, they weren’t fooling anyone? On the whole, he thought he was being reasonable. He could accept a certain amount of foolishness up to a certain level. When you had a houseful of kids, it was normal to expect a certain number of matters that would have you tearing your hair out by the handful. But none of this was normal: the FBI at your door with a dossier about your own kid? Time to come in now. They’d made their point, but listen, things are getting serious. The FBI is not horsing around. But all he could think of to say was: “Dog shit. How can you live here? This whole god damn place is Dog Shit Heaven. You can’t walk. You can’t breathe.”