Certain American States_Stories Read online

  For a while I’d been making massive anonymous gifts to various charities, but the financial planner had rigged it so I’d probably never pay taxes again, which felt unfair, and later I found out that several of the charities I had donated to were shut down for corruption, hadn’t done a fraction of the good they said they did—so I stopped thinking of the fund. When the quarterly statements came I hand-shredded them and flushed them down the toilet. I felt guilty for even feeling guilty and felt even worse for feeling guilt over guilt over all this privilege so I decided to do absolutely nothing, to just let it all sit there. It all felt unreal, a number in a computer somewhere that had been passed down to me like a genetic mutation.

  But she wasn’t angry that I’d been lying to her—she was angry I’d come clean, that she couldn’t unsee this safety net below her.

  I could stop everything right now and it wouldn’t matter. There’s no urgency to anything I could make or do now—there’s no, there’s just no actual reason for me to, to even get up in the morning.

  She was pacing the room, her breathing shallow and hands clenched at her sides when she leaned over, picked up volume seven of the OED—a gift I’d given her last Christmas—and flung it across the room, making a dent in the drywall I’d done myself.

  I just married a goddamn university endowment!

  This made no sense but I didn’t correct her. It was just one of those times when I had to let her say absurd things, a sort of emotional demolition. I understood what she meant when she said, back then and many times since then, that the fund was a curse. I just didn’t think she needed to throw something to make this clear to me. This was the difference between us.

  * * *

  Hours later, long after dark, she came back from her drive. We went to the grocery store together, though we wandered alone, neither of us sure of what we wanted. I stood for a long time in the dairy aisle studying a $7.59 quart of yogurt after noticing an AS SEEN ON THE GRATEFUL DAD shelf talker below it. A cartoon version of Jared’s head was on the container with a speech bubble: The only yogurt I’ll feed my kids!

  She and I reconvened at the register—she had an onion, bag of black beans, sack of flour, and Café Bustelo. I had potato chips and yogurt.

  Oooh, you got the Grateful Dad one, the cashier said—you got kids?

  Ellen said, No, and watched our groceries go down the conveyor. Though we used to buy organic whole-bean coffee from a local roaster, aware of the atrocious working conditions and environmental impact of conventional coffee production, we had, for some silent reason, switched back to the cheap stuff. We also stopped bringing our own bags, started saving twenty cents a pound on conventional over organic bananas, stopped obliging chatty cashiers with small talk. If they asked how our day was going we just stared at them. If they pressed further, asked us what we were doing today, we said nothing or sometimes, when we were feeling bold, we said, Nothing.

  On the walk home Ellen said, That yogurt was, like, eight dollars, but all I did was make some kind of noise to let her know I had heard her, but had nothing more to say on the matter. We ate half the chips standing over the slant-ripped bag until I crumpled it up and threw it in the freezer to demonstrate our shame. She smiled at this; I claimed it as a victory, a sign that everything was really fine, would always be fine. A few minutes later I asked where she’d driven this afternoon, but hadn’t noticed she’d fallen asleep on the couch.

  * * *

  Walking to school the next week I decided the real enemy of learning wasn’t the students’ apathy or their belief that there was no use in making useless things—the enemy was the telephone, how it made life seem to be happening elsewhere. Life is here, I imagined myself telling them. Life is at the easel, noticing the world, interpreting it very slowly. Perhaps I could turn this whole class around, make it feel exciting and fast, like an inspirational montage. It was possible that a few of them would abandon law school for the blistering uncertainty of the life of an artist.

  I was passing by a liquor store and a small cardboard box advertising a vodka was out on the curb, the perfect size, I thought, to collect all their telephones on the way into class—no telephone, no attendance credit—and the first few students seemed at least willing to turn over their devices (though, yes, they were also a little reluctant, eyes narrowed, noses turned, ever so slightly, up) but it wasn’t until Sean that there seemed to be a problem.

  Do you want to know what I really think of this?

  I didn’t.

  You’re taking a rather cowardly and immature stance to believe a smartphone has any legitimate power over the mind, he said. It’s just standard liberal hand-wringing, pretending to be progressive and tolerant, but being afraid of every little change or advancement, and despising anyone who doesn’t live in the way the liberals think is best.

  That may be, I said, but you’re still going to turn it in if you want an attendance credit, and technically, if you have one more absence I can fail you.

  You’re actually not within your legal rights as an adjunct elective instructor to demand we forfeit our personal property or risk failure.

  I’m not a lawyer, but neither are you, and we both know that is a bunch of bullshit.

  Leroy sort of nodded at this as he came in, tossed in his telephone with what seemed like a kind of knowing happiness though he may have been stoned or already full of noodle soup.

  * * *

  I walked the long way home that day, through a warehouse district, then a rich young person’s neighborhood that still believed itself to be a warehouse district. As I was cutting through a small crowd gathered outside a bookstore, I nearly knocked over one of those A-frame chalkboards. It said THE GRATEFUL DAD BOOK LAUNCH! 5PM! KIDS WELCOME! and someone had even re-created that cartoon version of Jared from the yogurt container, in flesh-toned chalk. The crowd was mostly women, ten to one, most of them yoked in one way or another to a child or baby. I was still squinting at the chalkboard when I heard my name.

  It’s so good to see you!

  It was Anne, a client from a few years back, and she went in for a hug. I could not imagine it was as good to see me as she was making it seem. Her black-haired child stood below us, looking upset in that demonic way that beautiful children can be upset. I had painted a three-wall Alice in Wonderland mural in her nursery. It was based on the Carroll illustrations and had taken almost a month to complete.

  Anne and I exchanged the kind of nonspeech that people with nothing to say to each other end up saying to each other and I even asked, How’s the mural?—immediately regretting it, an inquiry about some walls in her house.

  Oh, we actually had to have it covered. Lena, well, she decided she couldn’t handle it.

  I looked down at Lena, her little mouth pursed like an animal anus.

  I’m so sorry, Anne said.

  Don’t be. It’s really not a big deal at all.

  We really loved it though. It was just—it was really great for those few months before Lena started talking.

  I started to say something but Lena stamped my toe and ran into the bookstore. I pretended it hurt less than it did.

  Sorry, she’s been weird lately, like, her whole life—she’s just weird. But you know, like Jared says, we don’t get to choose who our children are, we only choose what we teach them.

  Is that what he says?

  Aren’t you—are you here for the book party? You have kids, right? I just figured with the mural thing—

  Well, we thought we would, at some point, but I don’t know.

  Anne squinted over my shoulder as if she were trying to recognize someone several blocks away. I mumbled something about how I was fine with it, completely fine with the way my life had gone, and just then I caught Jared’s eyes through the bookstore window and saw that flicker of confused recognition, the wrong place for a person, the wrong person for a time, an awful reminder of how no matter how much your life changes, it doesn’t. He smiled unhappily, broke away from the person he was ta
lking to, and came outside.

  Long time, brother!

  Jared hugged me with that heterosexual back-clap. Anne looked at him as if he were a cake she wanted.

  Hi, she said.

  Hi there, he said. A certain kind of famous person just pretends like they sort of know everyone, I thought. Can I borrow him for a second? He didn’t wait for Anne’s reply before guiding me toward the edge of the sidewalk.

  So what’s up, dude?

  Oh, you know, man, a nervous teen in me said, just living, you know. And congratulations on all this. I saw you on a yogurt.

  Yeah, pretty wild, but I can, like, feed my family and stuff now.

  Yeah.

  Listen, is this about the money I still owe you? Because I had to settle a lot of debts and I’m really not liquid at the moment—man, you knew me at a weird time. I was such a fuckup back then, but you know, it’s just that’s how Christ had to teach me.

  It’s not the money, I don’t need—

  But I’m going to pay it back, you know, I haven’t forgotten. I just—wait there, hold on—

  Jared dashed into the bookstore and I saw Anne watch him, almost go after him, look back at me, look at the bookstore again. He came running out smiling, aware of how everyone around him was watching him run, admiring his run, wishing to also run so gracefully. He was carrying a book.

  Here, he said. I even signed it.

  Oh, you didn’t have to do—

  Yeah, but I really want you to have it. You have kids now, right?

  Yeah, two. Joe and Chelsea.

  Rad—so you’ll totally understand this. It’s part memoir, part cookbook, part parenting guide—you know, tips and tricks and stuff. And actually it’s part devotional also, though marketing didn’t want to emphasize that part—

  He opened the book in my hands to the middle.

  On every page there are these thoughts from me, you know, just something to think about—and he pointed to a couple lines of boxed text.

  Jared’s Thoughts: It’s super incredible how all these great things can happen, yeah? Take a moment to think about all the great stuff in the world! #THINKABOUTIT #AWESOME

  There was a child’s drawing of a bird and what looked like a fried egg beside it.

  One of my kids did those. And since there are exactly three hundred and sixty-five pages in the book, it also works like a yearly devotional. You know—Jesus really said that prayer can happen anytime, in any kind of voice, you know? Like it doesn’t have to be all Thy and Thou and everything. And, you know, this was Jesus saying this.

  If there was anything I could have said to him then, I still don’t know what it was.

  Anyway, they don’t want me to push the Jesus stuff and I get it. I really do. The Christianity of old white men has to die, blah blah. I get it. And obviously, we’re white men and we’re not exactly young anymore, ha!

  I did not believe or did not want to believe there was a group to which Jared and I both belonged. I tried to hide this feeling from showing up on my face, just stammered something until a bright blue hybrid stopped beside me. I hadn’t even heard it approach. Ellen leaned over from the driver’s side to push open the passenger door.

  Get in, she said.

  Curbside service, Jared said, very nice, dude! We’ll be in touch, yeah? We’ll get this all sorted out. He shut the car door behind me.

  What are you doing in this neighborhood?

  Driving, she said, speeding through a yellow light. What are you doing over here?

  Taking the long way home—

  And going to some kind of party?

  A book thing. I held the book up. I sort of stumbled into it, but then it turns out I actually know the guy.

  You know the Grateful Dad?

  You’ve heard of him?

  He’s horrible. My mother sends me links to his blog all the time.

  We went silent. Any mention of her mother caused the air temperature to immediately drop. She is truly a wretched person. On this fact, we always agreed.

  You actually know the guy?

  From college, yeah.

  Weird.

  Several silent minutes later she stopped outside our building, found a spot right in front, though she kept the engine running and we both stayed in our seats.

  It’s just—I think it’s just— She turned the engine off. I think I just find it weird that you randomly went to this guy’s book party, this guy of all people. This really isn’t anywhere close to your walk home and it just seems to me— It seems to me that—

  She started the engine again and said, You know how I feel about parenting.

  Do I?

  It was something we’d never talked about, had pointedly been not talking about for years now.

  I’ve got to go somewhere, she said.

  Where?

  It doesn’t matter.

  I didn’t say anything else, didn’t even want to, just got out of the car and she drove off. It seems to me you’ve got no option when a person tells you they’ve got to do something.

  * * *

  That Monday I got a phone call from the Dean, and that afternoon I went to his office, papers everywhere, like someone just aimed an industrial fan at his door.

  So we have something here of some concern, some concern, that is, to our students, the experience they’re having in your classroom, and thus it’s a concern to us, to the school, to what we stand for, that is, giving our students—who pay our salaries, you know—giving them the best learning experience we can give them. And I want to say that I appreciate you, appreciate your, your, painting, your, um, your enthusiasm for painting, but some concerns, some causes for concern have arisen and I just wanted to share with you some of the—I don’t want to call them complaints, but they are complaints—some statements about a few aspects of your class that, uh, that bring them some displeasure. So I’ll just read a few of these …

  He cleared his throat and began.

  “Instructor doesn’t understand the meaning of an elective.”

  Well, I said, isn’t it, by definition, something one elects to do—

  “Instructor has something against lawyers. Instructor doesn’t seem to respect law school. Instructor marks students absent to class when they are actually present. Instructor came to class reeking of alcohol.”

  Okay, well, you see, with that one, I found this box outside a liquor store but part of it, I later realized, had been soaked in maybe vodka? But I have a bad sense of smell and—

  Sure, okay, and if you could just hold your defense until the end, that would be great. “Instructor drunkenly forced class to give our cell phones to him. Instructor openly wept in class. Instructor ‘accidentally’ drank and threw up a jar of paint water. Instructor seen sleeping in his classroom. Instructor seems to be going through some personal problems. Instructor is overbearing. Instructor curses too much.”

  The Dean cleared his throat again, longer this time until it turned to a cough, then a hacking cough, then a truly worrying hacking cough. When he finally stopped he kept his eyes closed, hand on chest, peaceful like a corpse.

  You know, I said after a long silence, it’s the pollen lately, or maybe the pollution, it makes my eyes water. They thought I was crying but it was allergies. It’s really—

  Listen, the Dean said, his eyes still closed, you’re a creative person, an eccentric, and I really do think the world needs creative people, creativity and the arts in general, so I’m not saying the world doesn’t need you, because it does, I think it really does, I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect law students to go along with all your ideas about this, uh, this painting stuff. And honestly, the elective program was the previous dean’s idea and I’ve been meaning to end it. They’re lawyers, or they’re going to be lawyers, that is, and we don’t expect anything else of them, really. The world doesn’t need its lawyers to be well-rounded. So what I’m going to do, because I am a reasonable person, is, I’m going to let you keep teaching the class, but I c
an’t require the students to attend anymore.

  I felt like a map that had been refolded the wrong way. I wondered if I would still give demonstrations and set up still lifes and explain techniques to all the empty easels. I wondered if any of the students would still show up.

  I thanked the Dean, though I did not feel thankful.

  Standing outside the law school I got a telephone call from Ellen and I thought of how the story of this failure might entertain her, provide her some amusement. I had always wanted to be interesting to her. Perhaps that’s how you know you still love someone, that their interest is still something you want, to hold their attention while they hold yours. It should be like two hands, like two notched logs.

  She was weeping when I answered the telephone. I could hear her heave. When she eventually spoke she asked where I was, told me to stay right there, that she was coming to get me. Minutes later she drove up in a small red car. Her face was dry and pale.

  We drove in silence, toward what I didn’t know. For a while I thought maybe all her pain was over now, that maybe whatever it was had been fixed and we were really going somewhere together.

  My mother’s in the hospital. She said this as if she were telling me her mother was expecting us for lunch.

  Is something wrong?

  Yes.

  With her, or …

  With her. It seems that, it seems— She’s probably going to die. Her voice shook.

  Oh, I said, trying to measure how appropriate it was I felt nothing but relief.

  I offered to drive but she refused.

  I love driving, she said. I love driving more than anything.

  When we got to the ER we stood in a long line, then there was some confusion over whom we needed to check in with, what floor or wing her mother was in. Finally a nurse walked us to an elevator, pushed us in, pressed a button, said to take a left on the third floor, then a right, then check in with the nurses’ station there. Only after the elevator doors shut did I notice Ellen shivering and lightly sweating. I put my arm around her hunched shoulders.