243
“What happened?” Ben asks when Diane finishes her story.
244
Chon starts to run.
A steady, disciplined trot.
It’s only six or seven miles.
Nothing to it.
The rain grows heavier now.
Thick, heavy drops fall on his shoulders, run down his side and his leg.
The blood mixes with the water.
245
John 14:2
“In my Father’s house there are many mansions-if it were not so I would have told you.
“I go to prepare a place for you.”
246
What happened? Stan repeats.
To us?
To the country?
What happened when childhood ends in Dealey Plaza, in Memphis, in the kitchen of the Ambassador, your belief your hope your trust lying in a pool of blood again? Fifty-five thousand of your brothers dead in Vietnam, a million Vietnamese, photos of naked napalmed children running down a dirt road, Kent State, Soviet tanks roll into Prague so you turn on drop out you know you can’t reinvent the country but maybe you reimagine yourself you believe you really believe that you can that you can create a world of your own and then you lower that expectation to just a piece of ground to make a stand on but then you learn that piece of ground costs money that you don’t have.
What happened?
Altamont, Charlie Manson, Sharon Tate, Son of Sam, Mark Chapman we saw a dream turn into a nightmare we saw love and peace turn into endless war and violence our idealism into realism our realism into cynicism our cynicism into apathy our apathy into selfishness our selfishness into greed and then greed was good and we
Had babies, Ben, we had you and we had hopes but we also had fears we created nests that became bunkers we made our houses baby-safe and we bought car seats and organic apple juice and hired multilingual nannies and paid tuition to private schools out of love but also out of fear.
What happened?
You start by trying to create a new world and then you find yourself just wanting to add a bottle to your cellar, a few extra feet to the sunroom, you see yourself aging and wonder if you’ve put enough away for that and suddenly you realize that you’re frightened of the years ahead of you what
Happened?
Watergate Irangate Contragate scandals and corruption all around you and you never think you’ll become corrupt but time corrupts you, corrupts as surely as gravity and erosion, wears you down wears you out I think, son, that the country was like that, just tired, just worn out by assassinations, wars, scandals, by
Ronald Reagan, Bush the First selling cocaine to fund terrorists, a war to protect cheap gas, Bill Clinton and realpolitik and jism on dresses while insane fanatics plotted and Bush the Second and his handlers, a frat boy run by evil old men and then you turn on the TV one morning and those towers are coming down and the war has come home what
Happened?
Afghanistan and Iraq the sheer madness the killing the bombing the missiles the death you are back in Vietnam again and I could blame it all on that but at the end of the day at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves.
What happened?
We got tired, we got old we gave up our dreams we taught ourselves to scorn ourselves to despise our youthful idealism we sold ourselves cheap we aren’t
Who we wanted to be.
247
Paqu lies on the sofa.
Bottle of gin, bottle of pills on the coffee table.
The effects on her face, in her eyes. She sees O come in and says, “You look uncharacteristically nice.”
“Where’s Four?”
“That’s very amusing,” Paqu says, her words a little slurred. “Four is gone.”
“I went and saw Paul.”
“I told you not to.”
“I know.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Obviously.”
Paqu sits up, pours the last of the bottle into her glass, and says, “And are you happier now? Did you gain an epiphany? One that might propel you from this perpetual adolescence of yours?”
“He said he wasn’t my father.”
“The man is a liar.”
“I believe him.”
“Of course you do,” Paqu says. “You believed in the tooth fairy until you were eleven. I considered having you tested.”
“Who was he?”
“Who was who?”
“My father,” O says.
Just tell me.
248
