Jane Smiley - Golden Age

Or he did get to sleep — since he suddenly sat up in bed at about four and knew for a fact that the cops were heading his way and he had to do something with the bong and the last of his stash, which was in the freezer. That would be the first place they would look. He staggered out of bed, but was perfectly alert by the time he was reaching for his jeans, and five minutes later he was walking down the alley behind his apartment building, looking for just the right trash container — one that had no relationship to him or his building. When he found what seemed to be the right one, he opened it quietly, reached in, pulled out a bag of some sort, oh, McDonald’s, and stuffed the weed into a leftover Big Mac. He dropped it into the container, closed the lid, went on. There was no one around. He got rid of the bong by smashing it and shoving it under some bushes, then walked back to his place, about a quarter-mile, still no one around.

The two cops showed up at nine-thirty, pounding on the door and demanding entry. He had actually gone back to sleep, so when he staggered over to let them in, he did look ignorant and helpless, which maybe was the best look. They waited while he put on some pants and a T-shirt.

They questioned him at the kitchen table. Where was his crank? How long had he known Melinda Grand, and how much crank did he buy from her on a regular basis? Who was he dealing to? Other Iraq War vets? Was he buying from Barry Heim and Melinda Grand, or from Juan Castro, known as the Barker? How else did he know Juan Castro? They stared at him as he answered, looking skeptical — he had never taken meth in any form; he had never seen Melinda take meth; he did know Barry took meth, but he didn’t know where he got it. They questioned him for an hour, then showed him their search warrant, and he went out into the hall while they went through his things, which took another hour. They did not clean up after themselves. They said they would be over to the hotel later in the day — expect them. And when he showed up at the hotel, he would be watched, so don’t try anything. Guthrie promised not to try anything.

There was something about being hostilely questioned by the cops that had an aversive effect, Guthrie thought as he was cleaning the place up, something that put him off thinking about Melinda, made that whole affair seem distasteful and creepy, when he had meant to be faithful and kind and see her through her troubles, whatever they were. Something about those two hours, the cops with their holstered weapons and the bully sticks hanging from their shiny black belts, that convinced him that Melinda was guilty, that her complaints about the long hours and the low pay had indeed persuaded her to go into business, to parrot what Barry often said: Doctors used to prescribe meth. All the ingredients are legal. If you aren’t batching, you aren’t a danger to anyone. It’s my own business — what’s the big deal?

When he got to work (right on time), there was someone, not in uniform, standing in the lobby, not looking like any of their usual clientele — truck drivers, homeless people who had saved enough to check in for one night and take a shower, weary travelers trying to make it from Chicago to Denver on a hundred bucks, the occasional talkative former Ushertonian returning home for the weekend. He went in the back room to go into his little locker and put on his tie and his name tag. The hotel was better now than it had been: The pipes were fixed, the electrical wiring was almost fixed, and there was Internet. The grungiest carpets and mattresses had been gotten rid of, and the place where the ceiling collapsed in Room 145, down at the end, in a big thunderstorm (not even a famous one) three years ago, was repaired and repainted. The cop (plainclothes, Guthrie guessed) followed him into the back room and watched him, took note of the number of his locker. The same two policemen showed up half an hour later, talked to his guard, and came over to the counter. “Mr. Langdon?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go have a look.”

After that, they went through his locker, through the drawers in the reception desk, through his car, and left. He had no idea what they found, but, standing there, half smiling as people looked at him, then the cops, then him, then the cops, then shook their heads in disapproval, was punishment in itself. His boss drove up, probably called by Lupe, the head housekeeper. He stopped his Dodge Caravan in the middle of the parking lot, opened the door, and sat there in the heat, one foot on the pavement, his khakis scrunched up above his white socks. He said, “What the fuck is this all about, Langdon?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Dell.”

“You involved with those craphead meth dealers, Langdon?”

“I know them, Mr. Dell.”

“That’s bad enough.” The old man shook his head. “Ah, jeez. I ought to fire you.” Guthrie thought, I ought to quit. But he didn’t. That afternoon, he checked in a busload of kids from Cleveland on a school trip to Yellowstone. They all looked different to him now — the girls dolled up in push-up bras, glittery makeup, shorts that ended at the crotch, flip-flops; the boys pale and uncertain, already done for, Guthrie thought.

—

FELICITY NEVER KEPT her opinions to herself; she understood that in Iowa she was surrounded by people who muddied the waters by never saying what they really thought. So, when Guthrie stopped in Ames (he didn’t come for her birthday, he only stopped on his way back from Des Moines) and took her to Aunt Maude’s for supper (she had the Onion Creek Lamb Sliders with Radish Slaw, Tzatziki Sauce, and House Made Buns, for eleven bucks; he had the Cajun Prime Rib Sandwich), she waited until they were half finished eating, then pointed out that, by the time their dad was Guthrie’s age, Guthrie was a couple of years old, Perky was born, he owned most of the farm, and he was calling the shots about farming it. She admitted that there was some scientific evidence that putting off adult responsibilities was an understandable response to longer average life spans and generally lower economic expectations, but…

She made eye contact.

He did not look either shocked or insulted, but she got nervous anyway, while adding the other part she had practiced the night before — the great-and-famous-all-powerful Uncle Frank, whose remains in the form of dusty letters their father kept in a locked box on his desk — and, yes, Felicity had rifled through them and found them mildly interesting for their coyly seductive tone — had been through a war just as Guthrie had, and at about the same age, and, admittedly, all wars were different, but their parents were worried, their mom had talked to Felicity about it for an hour the last time she went home and made Felicity swear on a stack of Bibles that she wouldn’t say a word, but since Felicity was a nonbeliever and the stack had not been a stack of scientific journals, she did not feel bound—

Guthrie grunted, ate another bite of his sandwich; she saw that he was going to humor her once again.

She said, “Okay, I am going to tell you what Mom said to me, and this is not necessarily what I think, but you should know what she thinks, and what Dad thinks, because what Dad thinks is about fifteen to twenty percent more anxious than what Mom thinks.”

Guthrie said, “Dad thinks I should give up and move back to the farm, live in the old place, raise some goats or heritage chickens, and be content to talk about whether the river at the bridge there on Adams Road is a foot below flood stage or six inches below flood stage, and do I remember when the creek that runs past the southeast field actually had water in it, and the biggest question in life is ethanol. We had that discussion in May. And then we turned to the new interactive tornado map on the Weather Underground site, including the ‘historically significant’ tornado map, none of which had ever touched down anywhere near Denby.”