«I don't know. I'm seeing an immigration lawyer tomorrow. I'm wondering if I can get citizenship in Antarctica.»
«Antarctica?» said Ivan.
«Yeah. It's not like it has a king or queen or president or anything. I want to give it a try.»
«I think Antarctica's presliced into pieces from the South Pole outward,» said Nylla, «and a different country regulates each slice. So maybe not there. Maybe you can get citizenship in a country that's so useless it's almost the same thing as being stateless. Some country that only exists when the tide's out.»
«Nylla,» Ivan interrupted, «you're only feeding his bullshit idea.»
«It's not bullshit, Ivan,» John said.
«How about Pitcairn Island?» Nylla suggested. «One square mile in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, the most remote inhabited place on earth.»
«My wife the
«England owns it,» said John. «I checked.»
Ivan asked listlessly, «How about one of those African countries held together with Scotch tape and Popsicle sticks?»
«I'm considering them, too.»
«John-O — if you renounce your U.S. citizenship, you'll have no protection. With citizenship, the U.S. government can step in and help you wherever you go. And besides, you'll always have your Social Security number no matter what else happens.»
«Not if I renounce my citizenship. I
Ivan was sulky: «Just try renting a car with no credit card and a passport from Upper Volta.»
«It's called Benin now,» said Nylla.
Ivan glowered her way: «Please phrase your answer in the form of a question.»
«Ivan, you're getting distracted. You're missing the spirit of the thing. I won't be
«You're really pushing me with this new hobo kick, John-O. Sleeping in rain culverts and stealing fresh clothes from laundry lines is going to wear thin awful quickly.»
«Ivan, let me pitch it to you: This is the
Ivan was appalled. «The road is
«You told my
«Of course.»
John paused. «Another drink, Ivan?»
As he looked for ice cubes in the kitchen's two deep freezes, John considered Ivan and Nylla. He heard them talking back in the living room. They were now discussing carpeting: prices per square yard,
«But if the wool's too smooth, it looks like Orlon. It needs character. A bit of sheep dung mixed into it maybe.»
«We're going to have Beverly Hills's first Hanta virus carpet?»
«Sheep don't get Hanta virus. Just rodents, I think. And raccoons.»
John listened in and ached to have somebody to discuss rugs and raccoons with. He felt intact but worthless, like a chocolate rabbit selling for 75 percent off the month after Easter. But it went beyond that, too. He felt contaminated, that his blood stream carried microscopic loneliness viruses, like miniscule fish hooks, just waiting to inflect somebody dumb enough to attempt intimacy with him.
His mind wandered. There had to be hope — and there was. He remembered the woman in his hospital vision had made him feel that somewhere on the alien Death Star of his heart lay a small, vulnerable entry point into which he could deploy a rocket, blow himself up and rebuild from the shards that remained.
In the second freezer John found the ice cubes clumped frozen together inside a sky blue plastic bag. He opened up the bag and tried to pry a few cubes away from the lump. Daydreaming, he wondered if he could ever be unselfconsciously chatty and loose with someone. If Ivan=Nylla, then John=
He heard Krista and Cindy come downstairs and begin chatting with Ivan, then returned his attention to the ice. He lifted up the bag of fused ice cubes and dropped it, shattering its contents into individual cubes. The noise was fearsome, and Ivan called from the living room asking if John was okay, and John called back, «Fine — couldn't be better,» and it was easy to take as many cubes as he liked.
Chapter Seven
Standing alone on the sidewalk, John watched the police car drive Susan away. He was as still as a statue as the sun went down behind the hill. Had he left a car at the restaurant? No, Nylla had dropped him off there. So he decided to walk the rest of the way home. Home was temporary digs in Ivan's guesthouse, the house he grew up in and in which his mother still lived. John had been staying there since his return two months earlier from his disastrous experiment in hobodom.
He headed along Sunset Boulevard and was oblivious to the stares of passing drivers, many of whom punctuated their cell phone calls with such comments as:
* «Good
* «
* «Maybe he's doing his walking thing again — I mean, he looks like a Mexican gonna sell you a bag of oranges at a streetlight for a dollar.»
* «Yes, I'm absolutely sure it's him — he looks really thin, or should I say, not sort of bloated like he was before detox number 239.»
* «Wasn't he in the hospital? — pneumonia? AIDS? — no, if it was, we'd all know.»
* «Maybe he's gone and found God again. Whatta case.»
Ivan spotted John from his Audi and pulled over just past the corner at Gretna Green. «John-O, what the
«Ivan, what do you know about Susan Colgate?»
«Susan Colgate? TV — rock and roll. Get in the car and I'll tell you. Jesus, you smell like the carpet in a Gold's Gym changing room.»
«I walked here from the Ivy.»
«The Ivy? That's, like, a
«Ivan, what do you know about Susan Colgate?»
Ivan cut the car back into traffic. «Later. Later. Did you see the weekend numbers from France and Germany? Whoosh!»
«Ivan — » John was firm: «Susan Colgate.»
«Everybody in town is going to think you've gone crazy again. Walking. On Sunset, no less. Shit.»
