The Dismal Science (33 page)

And although he had been working on this—on this pulverizing—for only a couple of months, he could see now that the work was mostly done. Wrecking was always easier than construction. There were chunks left, but they wouldn't last
long at this rate. It had not seemed like a strategy at first, but of course that was its true cunning. Piloted by intuition, yes, it was a strategy nonetheless.

Now, when he was at a loss to summarize himself—or to describe any aspect of himself, even to enunciate his place of residence—he could see the true end of the mayhem he'd been pursuing. There would not be angels spreading their majestic wings at the conclusion. There had been only this—the space left between where he'd been and where he would emerge again. What he'd had to work with was too badly damaged to be salvaged. He'd had what, in the parlance of insurance adjusters, was referred to as a
total loss
—a designation often viewed as a blessing, counterintuitively, by people ready to wipe clean and start over.

The next afternoon, at the diner where Leonora worked, he ordered coffee.

The waitress—another tattooed young lady, about the same age as Leonora, but plump and freckled with wild red hair—brought it to him. He resisted the urge to ask if Leonora would be there soon. Five minutes later, when the waitress next passed him, he flagged her down and asked if Leonora would be working there later. She said no, Leonora had the day off.

The day off? The concept drifted around his mind, opening spaces for itself. What might she do on a day off? Did she and Sam walk Central Park, or meet friends somewhere? He tried to picture it and could see nothing at all. It was beyond the range
of his imagination. So he decided he would stay in New York for the foreseeable future. That was step one of his new life.

When the young waitress came back, she said, “How do you know Leo?” Her lower lip was pierced twice, once on either side.

“She's—” he said and then shrugged, thinking better of it. Why make it more difficult than it needed to be? “I'm a friend of the family,” he said.

The woman nodded. She was suspicious, he could see, and he was pleased that she felt protective of Leonora, too. “You know, you kind of look like her,” she said.

Aware that the ruse was probably up, he said, “Yes, I'm actually her father.”

She chuckled, shook her head. “Why'd you lie? That's pretty weird. You didn't want to embarrass her?”

“Yes, I didn't want to embarrass her,” he said.

She laughed, and he liked her, liked the intelligence in her manner. She planted a hand on her hip. “She didn't tell me you were in town.”

“It's a surprise,” he said.

She smiled coquettishly, winked at him. “I promise I won't tell her.”

“Thank you,” he said, and picked up his coffee, had a sip, grateful for that. He still had time. He had no idea how much time he had. But he had time.

When he entered the gallery in Chinatown, there appeared to be no one there. After a minute, a pasty middle-aged woman,
scrawny and haunted, emerged. She wore noisy clogs, maroon-colored; they pounded the floorboards. Her hair, a nest of curls mounded extravagantly on top of her head, was a compellingly unnatural coppery hue. The hair seemed to ignite under the halogens, so that she looked ethereal, some luminous city-dwelling sprite, or ghoul.

“Can I help you?” she said. Her skin was moist, ashen.

“Is Gillian Tilman's video—do you have her—um—her art here? It's a video,” he said.

Gillian Tilman was Colin's girlfriend, the video artist. Though Vincenzo had never met her, had never seen any video art at all, to the best of his knowledge, he had wanted to know what she did ever since Colin had described it to him, over lunch in that room on top of the Lehman Brothers building. What Colin did, when it was all said and done, would have probably been the optimal choice for Vincenzo. Vincenzo desperately wanted to see what such a life looked like up close. What else was there, to be with someone like Cynthia? Himself, as a woman—more or less. No, he'd had enough of himself.

The gallery owner sat him down in a small room in the back. There were several simple wooden seats, black curtains boxing him in, a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. She closed the curtain behind her and he sat in the darkness as the large screen awakened.

In the video, a blond and freckled young pixie of a girl, with an aquiline face and a bunched-up mouth, large eyes, licked her lips and had a sip of wine. She readied herself, staring nervously at the camera. A clock in the corner ticked away the time. It was mostly dark in the room and someone could be heard snoring, no
doubt Colin. She scratched her forehead, had another sip of wine. She started to appear amused and her mirth grew until she had to stifle a laugh. And all the while she was staring straight out of the screen at Vincenzo, who sat alone in the darkness. Then this elfin little girl had another sip of wine and began to speak:

“Today, I sat here and listened to this car outside and it sounded awful. The engine, I mean. Like, it sounded like it was revving itself to death. You could smell it, even up here. And I gotta say, I loved it. Like, I mean—I
really
loved it. Who was doing that? And, while we're at it”— she stopped to inhale sharply and he saw her expression change subtly, but completely—“I know that there had been another life that I could have had and I don't know whether it would have been better, but I think I would have liked that one, too. Just a couple more turns to the left, or a couple more to the right, and I would have a different life right now.”

She had a sip of wine, lit a cigarette. During the pause, the snoring behind her grew louder. A backdrop of digitally animated stars appeared in the darkness of that room and commenced twinkling and turning, moving slowly across the screen, spinning gradually.

She sighed. She looked exhausted, ready to cry.

“Look,” she said, “I'm sorry, but I don't care anymore. The car . . . this here, too . . . and you . . . it was . . .” She shook her head. “I shouldn't have done this, either.” Then she glanced at the camera and whispered hoarsely: “This was a terrible idea.”

But instead of turning it off, she lingered. She sat there for a minute, face scrunched up, staring at nothing. Eventually, she looked back at the camera and said, “I guess that's everything.”

The clock in the corner said that the video had been playing for three minutes. Vincenzo reached out and picked up his overcoat, but the camera stayed on her, so he paused, in case there was more. The video kept going. He laid his coat across his lap.

The fake stars continued to twinkle behind her in the bedroom as she sat, smoking cigarette after cigarette, in silence, for the next hour.

When the clock in the corner read 1:04:55, she stubbed out another cigarette and glanced at the camera, and said, “Thanks for sticking around.”

Then she reached out, behind the camera, toward the off switch, and he knew that the video was about to end and, in a matter of seconds, the gallery owner would pull open the curtain and ask him if he was still awake, so he tried to dig into the moment as deeply as he could, he tried to stretch it out, to hide, here, on this side of the line, but the video was already over, and he could already hear those clogs on the floor, and he knew it was, all of it, all of it was already over.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My gratitude to 4Culture, Seattle's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the Corporation of Yaddo, and Seattle Arts and Lectures for their support. Also, especially, the Richard Hugo House, Seattle's writing center, which has given me a second home.

This book would not exist without the support of Jennifer Mountford, who has been my first and best reader for many years.

For advice on technical matters, much gratitude to David Beach, Darren Floyd, Andrea Corcoran, and my sister, Helen. For years, David Shields has been an insightful reader and an invaluable advisor.

My agent, Ayesha Pande, is the most passionate and wise partner a writer could hope for. Likewise, Tony Perez and the wonderful people at Tin House have welcomed me enthusiastically.

Finally, this book owes a substantial debt to the lives and memories of a number of loved ones whom I have outlived; to these extraordinary people—my mother, my grandparents, Farah, Patrick, Eleanor—thank you.

Photo: © SARAH SAMUDRE

PETER MOUNTFORD
's debut novel,
A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism
, won the 2012 Washington State Book Award and was a finalist for the 2012 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. His work has appeared in the
Atlantic Monthly, Best New American Voices 2008, Granta, Slate, Boston Review, Salon
, and
Conjunctions
. Born in Washington, DC, he currently lives in Seattle, where he teaches at the Richard Hugo House.