The Ask

Twelve

An hour later I stood in a bright, enormous candy shop on the East Side. It was late and the clerks seemed eager to close. Purdy shuffled down rows of bins, sampled the designer licorice and mocha clusters, scooped all manner of lacy goo into baggies. He was unshaven, his linen shirt soiled, limp. The look rather suited his ravening.

"Try the caramel turtles," said Purdy.

"That's okay."

"Really. Try them. They melt in your mind. Do you like that? That's funny"

"Purdy."

"Ever been to this place? It's amazing, right? I come here every few months. Whenever I'm just itching to score some blow, which I know would be a bad thing, and really piss off Melinda, and fuck me up for like three or four days because, let's face it, I'm not a young man anymore, even though I look like one, I come here instead. You've been here, right? This place is famous."

Purdy tacked down another aisle, tossed handfuls of chocolate-dipped filberts in his sack.

"I've seen it before," I said. "From the outside it looks like that giant makeup store in SoHo. They are both like these overlit oases of-"

"Sonofabitch."

Purdy stood before one of the last bins with a queasy look.

"It's that marzipanny shit. I don't like it."

"Skip it," I said.

"My flow is broken. I won't get it back. Let's go to the register."

We walked back up the gleaming aisle. Purdy's mania seemed to subside, the dope scorer's calm after the dope has been scored. He clamped his hand on the back of my head.

"What's that you were saying about oases? I love it when you rip into those eighties pomo raps."

"Oh, it was nothing."

"No, really, I enjoy them. They bring me back. I remember, I couldn't sleep, I'd just track you down, feed you some bong hits, and you were good to go. We kept it hyperreal, didn't we?"

"Don't forget Charles Goldfarb," I said. "That guy could talk your ear off."

"Pretty dry. All theory. No poetry."

"Billy Raskov was the true king of bullshit, though," I said.

"Billy Raskov! I just saw Billy Raskov!"

"Yeah? How's his Parkinson's?"

"Huh? No, really, he was just in town. He had a gallery show. I'm helping him make his movie. Shit, we should all get together, Milo. I should call him now."

"It's two in the morning."

"Bet the fucker's up. He's not a sleeper. He's like me. You're a sleeper, Milo. That's the truth about you."

"Lots of people sleep," I said.

"It's okay," said Purdy. "The main thing is you got out of bed. You came."

We reached the counter and Purdy dumped the candy on it, tossed a credit card onto the pile.

"So," said Purdy. "Should we talk?"

We walked the night city. Purdy gorged on his sweets. I outlined some ideas about his give, careful not to corner him on numbers. We needed a new screening auditorium, maybe a digital art center. These could be significant naming opportunities for Purdy. We wanted to get global, create programs in Europe and Asia and the Middle East, establish alliances with other mediocre universities around the world.

"Sure," said Purdy, pinched a mass grave's worth of gummy frogs into his mouth. "We can do that."

"Which?" I said, waited for him to finish chewing.

"I don't know. All of it?"

"All of it? No disrespect, but-"

"You don't even know, man," said Purdy. He sounded a little sugarshocked. "My pockets run deep. Even these days."

He turned out a pocket and a few loose red hots popped to the pavement.

"Did I pay for those?"

"I think so," I said.

I had to take him at his word about the give, at least for now.

"This is great news," I said. "This is fantastic. We can go into greater detail later but it sounds like what you're saying is-"

"Shit, Milo, don't give me the boilerplate. Let's be people. I didn't hear you say anything about painting. Figured that'd be your interest. Need new studios or something? How about a huge prize? Don't be bashful. You want a sour worm?"

"No, I'm cool."

A police cruiser slowed beside us as we made our way down Madison and I wondered what the cops made of us, if they could see how much fucking candy Purdy was eating, if there were any laws about that. The cop peeled away and Purdy coughed. Dark gobs sprayed out of his mouth.

"Sorry."

"Won't that stuff keep you up?" I said.

"I can't sleep."

"Right."

We'd been walking in endless rectangles and now we were near the candy store again. The lights were out, the security gate down. We leaned up against the wall of a bank and I could feel the cool stone on my back, the billions of dollars thrumming through wires beneath and behind me, or on the night waves above. I wasn't quite sure how they traveled. Or how much they got out anymore.

Now a town car pulled up to the curb. The driver had one scrawny arm out the window. Something about his frizzy hair and enormous eyeglasses seemed familiar.

Purdy pushed off the bank wall.

"Hi, Michael," he said, turned to me. "Can I drop you anywhere?"

"I don't think so, no."

"Please, Milo," said Purdy. "Our meeting isn't over."

"Okay."

I slid in after him. We sailed down the avenue.

"Michael," said Purdy. "Do you want some chocolate or licorice? I know you don't approve of the gummy stuff."

The frizzy head shook in front.

"Your loss. So let's head down to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, take this man home."

"Good idea," said Michael.

"Really," I said, "you don't have to."

"I know," said Purdy. "But I want to tell you something."

"What's that?"

"I want to tell you a story."

"I don't like stories," I said.

"Everybody likes stories. It's part of being human. We tell each other stories."

"Then I guess I'm not human. Maybe I'm descended from ancient astronauts."

"Please, no ancient astronauts. No crop circles. Let's leave Maurice out of this."

"Maurice Gunderson?"

"He's a prophet, haven't you heard? A pied piper for the psychonautic Mayan rapture set."

"I heard him talk about this once. I didn't understand it."

"Forget Maurice. You were telling me why you don't like stories."

"They take so long," I said. "Most of them are a waste of time. I like jokes. Can you tell me your story in joke form?"

Purdy grinned.

"What is it?" I said.

"Nothing. You just reminded me of the way you were back in school. It's been a while."

"We had dinner last month."

"It's been a while."

Purdy tossed down some jellybeans, stared out the window where the towers on York shot past. This had always been my favorite part of driving over the Queensboro Bridge at night, catching sight of the lives in those lighted boxes, the chandeliers and paintings (always the same art-boom disaster in a shit brown study), the custom shelving, the enormous video screens, the well-off dozing on their leather thrones.

"Well, what's your fucking story then?" I said.

"So aggressive. I'm trying to put it in joke form here. Give me a second."

"How about just an elevator pitch?"

"Elevator pitch. Nice. Very 1989."

"What do you call them now?" I said.

"Stories. It's all about stories, man. Stories are money. Money is a story. I actually once hired a Ghanaian griot for our Friday meetings. It was great."

"Fine," I said. "Tell me the story."

"You don't like stories. Let's stay with the pitch."

"Wonderful."

"Good. Here we go. A rich boy goes to college. He makes a lot of friends. They all think they are special and that they suffer in distinct ways, but they are all hurtling down the same world-historical funnel. They will attempt to professionalize their passions, or else just get jobs. Some will do better than others. Some won't have to do better because of their trust funds. Despite what are often radically different fashion aesthetics, not to mention politics, they are all fundamentally the same."

"Elevator's nearing the lobby, pal."

"I do this for a living," said Purdy. "I know when the lobby comes."

"Sorry."

"They are all the same except for one girl, or woman, though, really, at this point, girl. Her name is Nathalie. Nathalie Charboneau. Scholarship kid. They meet in the library, the rich boy and the scholarship girl. In the smoking lounge of the library. That dates this, doesn't it? Anyway, they meet. They talk. They smoke. They keep talking. She's reading Schopenhauer. She tells the boy about Schopenhauer. He explicates some economic models he's been studying. They don't really converse so much as listen to each other. They like listening to each other. They agree to meet for coffee. She tells him a bit more about herself. She's from the area, a few towns away. It's a crappy town, the kind of town the town the college is in would be if there were no college in it. She lives in a crappy apartment above a crappy pharmacy with her mother and sister. Her bitter mother. Her junkie sister. But not quite those things."

"They fall in love," I said. "I think I remember her."

"You don't remember her."

"I think I do. I think I remember her, or saw her once."

"Trust me, you don't remember. You never saw her because I-I mean, the boy, not me, the boy-"

"Whoa, there, storyteller!"

"Fuck this," said Purdy, jerked back in his seat. "I thought you could do this for me. Help me."

"I'm sorry," I said. "Really. Please. Finish."

Purdy stared wordless out the window. The river glittered.

"Melinda's pregnant," he said.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks," said Purdy.

"Aren't you happy?"

"Yes."

"The drugs worked. You didn't have to go to Mars."

"That's true."

"You're going to love fatherhood."

"I don't need the line," said Purdy.

"Sorry."

"Let me finish my story."

"Your pitch."

"Yes," said Purdy. "My pitch."

It took a while. Maybe it had been designed for a very slow elevator. Or maybe it was really a story, no joke.

The rich boy, who of course became Purdy as the telling continued, fell in love with the scholarship girl. They had no secrets from each other, but Purdy kept her a secret from everyone else, from his country club set and his jet-set club and even from the faux-bohos he visited to cure his insomnia. The clubs and sets would never accept her, especially in lieu of one of their own. The arty types would, but in a manner that would be despicable, and he also might run the risk of losing her to somebody, like the ridiculous but faintly charismatic Maurice, or, more precisely, something, such as Billy Raskov's tremulous hunt for authenticity. Even Constance's revolutionary socialist pigtails seemed a threat.

"Shit," I said. "You were even more mysterious than I could have guessed."

"It wasn't a game," said Purdy. "I really cared about her. But I was too callow to handle it. She didn't want anything to do with my friends, though, so it was easy to just disappear together. We spent some time with her family. Her mom was sweet. Her sister was a little whacked. Of course, it ended after a few months. I didn't see it then, but the time limit was built into it. I'm not sure if that makes sense."

"I think it does."

"Whatever. She dumped me. Sent me packing. Did it wonderfully."

"What do you mean?"

"It was no-fault. She was sending me back to my kind. It felt like science fiction. You must return to your planet. Please tell them of us, we who live in crappy towns and struggle to get by."

"I'm on that planet right now."

"But you're not quite a native, are you?"

"But she was on scholarship. She was going to get out. Better herself, right?"

Suddenly I wanted to see this girl, this woman, Nathalie, place her somewhere I had been, the House of Drinking and Smoking, one of those theory seminars, the refectory, but I couldn't find her anywhere. How was that possible? How could you evade all overlap? I guess that was one of Purdy's gifts.

"I didn't know it then but she was planning to drop out," said Purdy. "Her sister was sick. Nathalie was going to have to take care of her, work. Her philosophical investigations would have to wait."

"Sad."

"You say that with such haunting conviction. So she sends me back to my galaxy. None of you ever know about any of this, but it eats me up for long time. I feel as though I've failed at something crucial. And I miss the hell out of her, at least for a while. But that fades, of course."

"It does, doesn't it," I said. I was ready to nudge this conversation back to vague and more comforting terrain, the creeks and dales and low rolling slopes of universal disappointment. Something about this story, its specificity, bothered me, more so now that I seemed part of it, part of the future of it, or why else would I be hearing this?

"Time goes by," said Purdy.

"Having no alternative."

"Don't be cute. Time goes by. Nathalie recedes in my mind."

"What about you in Nathalie's mind?"

"How the fuck would I know? Just listen, Milo."

"Okay."

" 'Recede' is a weird word. This isn't so easy. So linear. But I do, on some level, just ball up the memory of my time with her, throw it on the sentimental-education heap. Then, a few years ago, I got a letter. It was sent to the company, before I sold it. She'd read something about me in one of those new-media magazines. Of course, the article she mentioned was already years old. I was a business hero in that issue. If she'd read the takedown they wrote later, maybe she wouldn't have contacted me."

"That piece was bullshit."

"No, it wasn't, Milo. But thank you. Still, it doesn't matter. Anyway, the letter wasn't very long. Chatty, even nostalgic for a while. Then she caught me up. She was living somewhere upstate. Working in what sounded like a sweatshop. Taking classes somewhere inane. Still reading Schopenhauer. I remember she used to say she read Schopenhauer because he hated women so much. She said it was instructive. But the letter. There's a kicker at the end of the letter. She has a sixteen-year-old son. Do I need to elaborate?"

It took me a few seconds but he did not need to elaborate.

"But how could you be-"

"Trust me, I submitted the kid to tests."

"What was it like when you met him?"

"Who?"

"Your son."

"I never met him. Nathalie wouldn't let me. Didn't tell the kid anything, either."

"That's ridiculous."

"It's fair enough."

"No, it's not. Nathalie should have told you."

"It was her call. A dumb call, given my resources, but hers to make. Anyway, I started sending them money. Set them up. Lee handled it all for me. Lee Moss. Lee's the only one who knew about this. Except for Michael here, of course. Lee was my father's lawyer, a mensch. But he's been very sick. Cancer. Pancreatic."

"That's one of the worst. A killer."

"Yes, the ones that kill you are definitely the worst. Anyway, Lee's still doing a bit of work around the office. Putting things in order. He noticed that the last few checks were never cashed. He tried to contact Nathalie. When he couldn't find her, he called around up there, found out… well… found out about Nathalie."

"Found out what?"

"That she was… it's hard. It's really weird how hard it is."

Purdy pinkied away a tear. There was something actorly in the gesture, but at least it seemed improvised.

"She died, Milo."

"Died?"

"Car crash."

"Oh… I'm sorry."

"Yes. Well. Thanks. Or…"

"Melinda doesn't know?"

"No."

"About any of it?"

"I just never saw a reason to tell her. Maybe I could have told her before. But I didn't. Now it's too late. She's kind of into the whole trust thing."

"So, you want to keep a lid on your history."

"Isn't that what we all want?"

"What about the boy?"

"Don?"

"Don?"

"I didn't name him. It's Don. Don Charboneau. Well, this is the really fucked-up part."

"Oh, there's a fucked-up part?"

"Don's been in touch. Don is just back from Iraq. Can you believe that? He's only twenty-one. And now he's got titanium legs."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Jesus."

"Usual roadside shit. And both of them."

"Man, that's bad. But there's that guy, that runner-"

"This kid's not there yet. Moves around like a drunk cross-country skier, according to Lee. It's pretty sad. I mean, I feel for him, I really do."

"He's your son."

"Right. He's my son. We think so."

"I thought you did tests."

"Science isn't everything."

"How did he find out about you?"

"We wondered what had happened to him, but he'd sort of dropped out of Nathalie's life for a time. I think she was mad at him for enlisting. Then she dies and he comes back. I guess he went through Nathalie's stuff, figured some things out. He started sending itemized bills for his expenses to Lee. Even showed up at his office once."

"Really?"

"Yeah, pretty aggro, right? Then he sends me a letter with a return address in Jackson Heights. Says he looks forward to the healing."

"Jackson Heights. That's near me."

"I know."

The car was turning onto my block.

"How did you know where I lived?" I said to Michael, the driver.

"What," said Michael, nodded at the navigation screen on his dashboard. "You think you're living off the grid? You have a listed phone number."

There was something in the tweaked amusement of his voice I recognized. It made me think of late nights over a CD jewel case, razor blades, long-winded denunciations of world banking cabals.

"Michael Florida," I said. We had always referred to him by his full name. I never knew how it started but the nature of the name and the nature of the man made it seem correct.

"Long time, brother."

Michael Florida's eyes shone in the rearview mirror. Even in the dark of the car I could make out his face now, the pocked cheeks, the pointy chin.

"How have you…" I said. "How did you-"

"Figured I was dead by now?"

"Or working in a halfway house in Arizona."

"Nice." Michael Florida laughed. "But it was Missouri."

The car slid up to my building. I looked up and saw the front room lit. The lamp near the sofa threw light on the ceiling cracks.

"We'll have to postpone the reunion," said Purdy.

"Seems like my life is one big reunion these days."

"I'm sure it seems that way," said Purdy. "Me, when I make a friend, I try to keep him."

"Point taken."

"Don't take it too hard, Milo. You're a good man."

"You think so?"

"I'm betting on it. Michael?"

Michael Florida twisted around and slid a large envelope between the bucket seats. Purdy handed it to me.

"I could have sent you an email and wired some money, but this is more fun, no? Fun's hard to find. You have to make your own. Look this material over."

"I will," I said.

"Goodnight, Milo."

"Goodnight, Purdy. Michael."

I ducked out of the car. The sofa lamp went dark.