At the opposite end of the lobby was a vending nook, the lintel helpfully labeled VENDING, inside which was a soda machine, a snack machine, and a coffee dispenser, backlit COFFEE emanating little brown wavelets. My father felt the familiar twang in his chest, a twinge of weakness in his knees. The potential energy within the soda machine, a mammoth, a Vendo V-528, was on the order of fifty thousand psi. That took into account only the Coke cans, none of the machine’s refrigeration mechanisms, none of the Freon, the pressurized tubing. My father’s brain immediately offered up at least three ways to initiate a chain reaction culminating in the simultaneous explosion of five hundred cans of soda, a wide dispersion shrapnel profile that would result in a +50 percent casualty rate. And then there was the coffee dispenser, a huge brown cabinet filled with spaghetti towers of copper tubing, heaters, cisterns of pressurized, scalding water, which made the Coke machine look like a Molotov cocktail next to an ICBM.
John was at the information desk, playing the role of concerned son, decisive and forthright. The woman he was addressing, a battle-hardened veteran, gave no indication that she intended to help or even acknowledge his presence.
My father is a patient here. I’m told he’s gone missing.
The woman said nothing.
Is there an administrator I can speak to?
She adjusted her glasses, cat-eyes on a silver chain. Her hair was salty gray and fell in long kinky strands down over her shoulders.
I need to find my father, John said, louder this time. The security guard moved his head with such turtle-like dispassion that it seemed possible he was reacting not to John but to some unrelated thought that coincidentally occurred at the same time.
Hello?
I’m not deaf, the woman said. She produced a clipboard with a pen attached by a chain made of miniature silver balls. As she handed them to him, the pen made a dive for the floor, the chain thrushing against the edge of the clipboard.
I’m not signing in, John said, groping blindly for the pen, down there somewhere, oscillating. Not a patient.
You said your father is a patient. Fill out the form. Relative’s name, pertinent information.
And then?
And then? she said. Then you bring it back, dummy.
John looked around, hoping to engage the sympathies of a witness.
My father took a step closer, but not close enough to cross the threshold of that particular theater of the absurd.
Not here, the woman said when John began to fill out the form atop the desk. She gestured languidly at the waiting area, which at the moment resembled a bus station. John walked in the opposite direction, toward the vending machines, and my father followed.
Jesus, what a performance, John said. They sat down on a ledge by the window.
My father had his eye on the machines. He was about fifteen feet from them. He swiveled until he was looking at the plate glass. He put his nose close to it, and shielded his eyes from the light, creating a viewfinder through which to see outside. The snow was peach.
You’re worried? my father said to the glass.
He’s fine. Wherever he is, he’s fine.
Where do you think he is?
No idea. Maybe he needed to make a phone call. Maybe he got hungry, John said.
You think he went out for an egg roll?
Maybe.
I suppose you could threaten to sue them if something happens to him, my father said.
Exactly why there’s no point in trying to figure out where he went. Their problem, not mine.
John worked through the form, then took the clipboard back to the counter.
So? my father said when he’d returned.
So I wait.
You’re not worried.
We’ve established that.
You want to go poke around the halls or something? my father said.
John shrugged.
This, my father said. Pretending you don’t care.
I do care.
What happened to your hand?
Nothing, John said. I slipped. John looked at the ceiling and said, I’ve read your books.
You haven’t read my books. No one’s read my books. And the last one doesn’t count.
I didn’t read the last one.
Which ones, then? my father said.
El El Narrows. The Horseshoe Crab. The one about the shipping company.
Plover, my father said.
Yeah, Plover.
You didn’t read Plover. No one read Plover. Why would you do that?
Suicidal, I guess.
They were assigned for a class.
Nope. All on my lonesome. Your books are witness to the blasphemies of the twentieth century, John said.
What is that? Jacket copy?
Absolutely. I read the jacket copy. I read them inside and out.
But you didn’t bother with Slingshot.
I’ll get around to it after everyone else is done. Library’s only got twelve copies.
Your father never mentioned that you’d read them.
When did he mention me at all, is the question.
Only when things were going wrong.
Yeah. You going to write him into your next book? John said.
He’d probably sue me if I did, my father said.
He’s a blasphemy of the twentieth century if ever there was one.
Which is why you don’t care what happens to him? my father said.
John worked his pinkie nail around the bowl of his pipe, a gesture of consideration, and as he did, he was struck by what a performance it was, like everything else he did. How well do you know my father?
I know him well enough.
So you might understand that who he is now is just a sharper version of who he’s been his whole life. It’s like he’s gained superpowers. He’s broken the bonds of mortality. This disappearing act? Just a new and improved way to torture the family.
I see.
Let me guess how you met. Co-op board run-in? Nothing makes him happier than
