“The Oreo Man?” I pictured a weather-beaten cowboy in front of a sunset, holding a cookie to his lips like a cigarette. Then, in frantic compensation, I conjured a tormented nerd in goggle-glasses, peering at cookie crumbs through a microscope, trying to discern their serial numbers.
“Uh-huh,” said Kimmery. “A friend was moving out and she gave me this place. I don’t even like it. I’m hardly ever here.”
“Where instead-the Zendo?”
She nodded. “Or the movies.”
I wasn’t ticcing much, for a couple of reasons. The first was Kimmery herself, still an unprecedented balm to me this late in the day. The second was the day itself, the serial tumult of unsorted clues, the catastrophe of my visit to the Zendo; that extra track in my brain had plenty of work to do threading beads together, smoothing the sequence into order: Kimmery, doormen, Matricardi and Rockaforte, Tony and Seminole, Important Monks, Gerard Minna and the killer. Minna’s killer.
“Did you lock your door?” I said.
“You’re really afraid,” said Kimmery, widening her eyes. “Of the, uh, giant.”
“You didn’t see him?” I said. “The big guy who took me outside?” I didn’t mention what happened next. It was shameful enough that Kimmery had had to mop it up.
“He’s a
“Well, what do you call it?”
“Isn’t gigantism a genetic condition?”
“I’d say it is. He didn’t
“I guess I didn’t notice,” she said. “I was, you know-sitting.”
“You’ve never seen him before?”
She shook her head. “But I never met you before today either. I guess I should have told you not to bring anyone like that to the Zendo. And not to make noise. Now I missed practically the whole lecture.”
“You’re not saying the lecture went on?”
“Sure, why not? After you and your friend
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“Because my concentration isn’t that good,” she said, bitterly philosophical now. “If you’re really Zen you sit right through distractions, like Roshi did. And
I was tempted to remind her that she’d moved to avoid being trampled, but it was just one objection among thousands.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I didn’t bring him to the Zendo. Nobody knew I was coming there.”
“Well, I guess he followed you.” She shrugged, not wanting to argue. To her it was self-evident that the giant and I were dual phenomena. I’d caused his presence at the Zendo, was likely responsible for his very existence.
“Listen,” id. 01C;I know Roshi’s American name. He’s not who you think he is.”
“I don’t think he’s anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t say, like,
“Okay, but he’s not a Zen teacher. He’s involved in a murder.”
“That’s silly.” She made it sound like a virtue, as though I’d meant to entertain her. “Besides, anyone who teaches Zen is a Zen teacher, I think. Probably even if they were a murderer. Just like anyone who sits is a student. Even you.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, at least according to a Zen outlook. That’s my whole point.”
“Taken.”
“Don’t be so sour, Lionel. I’m only joking. You sure you’re happy with that cat?”
“Doesn’t it have a name?” Feline Hitler had settled ponderously between my thighs, was purring in broken measures, and had begun to feature tiny bubbles of drool at the corners of its mouth.
“Shelf, but I never call him that.”
“I know, it’s completely stupid. I didn’t name him. I’m just catsitting.”
“So this isn’t your apartment and this isn’t your cat.”
“It’s sort of a period of crisis for me.” She reached for her glass of water, and I immediately reached for mine, grateful: The mirroring scratched a tiny mental itch. Anyway, I was thirsty. Shelf didn’t budge. “That’s why I got involved with Zen,” Kimmery went on. “For more
“You mean like no apartment and no cat? How detached can you get?” My voice was irrationally bitter. Disappointment had crept over me, impossible to justify or perfectly define. I suppose I’d imagined us sheltered in Kimmery’s childlike foyer, her West Side tree house, three cats hiding. But now I understood that she was rootless, alienated in this space. The Oreo Man’s house was her home, or possibly the Zendo, just as L &L was mine, just as Shelf’s was elsewhere, too. None of us could go to those places, so we huddled here together, avoiding the big room and the forest of skyscrapers.
Now, before Kimmery could reply, I ticced loudly,
“Wow,” said Kimmery.
I didn’t speak. I gulped down water and fondled the stitching of her coverlet again, seeking to lose my Tourette’s self in texture. “You say really weird stuff when you get angry,” she said.
“I’m not-” I turned my neck, put the glass of water down on the floor. This time I jostled Shelf, who looked up at me with jaded eyes. “I’m not angry.”
“What’s wrong with you, then?” The question was delivered evenly, without sarcasm or fear, as though she really wanted an answer. Her eyes no longer looked small to me without the black frames around them. They felt as round and inquisitive as the cat’s.
“Nothing-at least from a Zen outlook. I just shout sometimes. And touch things. And count things. And think about them too much.”
“I’ve heard of that, I think.”
“You’re the exception to the rule if you have.”
She reached into my lap and patted Shelf’s head, distracting the cat from its interrogative gaze. Instead it squeezed its eyes together and craned its neck to press back against her palm. I’d have craned as far.
“Don’t you want to know Roshi’s real name?” I said. “Why should I?”
“What?”
“Unless you’re really going to shock me and say he’s, like, J. D. Salinger, what’s the difference? I mean, it’s just going to be Bob or Ed or something, right?”
“Gerard Minna,” I said. I wanted it to mean as much to her as Salinger, wanted her to understand everything. “He’s Frank Minna’s brother.”
“Okay, but who’s Frank Minna?”
“He’s the guy who got killed.” Strangely, I had a name for him now, a name flat and terrible and true:
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“Yes.” I wondered if I could ever share with her how terrible it was. “I mean, that’s got to be one of the worst things I’ve ever heard, practically.”
