Trance

by Christopher Sorrentino

  He felt suddenly woozy and sat inelegantly on one of the stacks of newspapers.

  “You OK?”

  “I just need some Aquafilters.”

  Isidore reached behind him and picked a package off a hook.

  “Gotta watch that sun,” he said. “I like to stay inside the store. Nice and cool.”

  “Can’t stay inside forever.”

  “You could try.”

  “Believe me,” said Hank, rising and digging in his pocket for money.

  “Buy a Coke,” said Isidore.

  “Oh, I don’t need a Coke,” said Hank, “but I do need a magazine.” He moved over to the rack and selected the one Helene wanted.

  “Seventeen,” said Isidore, beginning to depress the keys on the old register. “For your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh,” said Isidore.

  Sunwashed walls. Dead time of midday, cars here and there poked askew into the diagonal spots, waves of heat rising from their hoods and ruffling the still air. Hank stood under the shelter of an awning and in the mirror-bright window he saw an old man holding a paper bag. He knew if he lifted his left arm, the old man would lift his right, like something out of the Marx Brothers. Freedonia, Symbionia, one was a comic reflection of the other. If only his daughter had been abducted by Harpo and Chico, to be brought to Groucho’s lecherous burrow. He began to laugh when, casting about for the proper counterpart for the superfluous Zeppo, he settled instinctively upon Stump.

  MRS. MOCK CARRIED, WITH a little difficulty, the flat of zinnias to the patio area behind the owner’s unit. There was a sliding glass door that she could push open with her foot, but she had forgotten first to open the screen, and after standing there indecisively for a few moments, staring out into the unsparing sunlight and allowing the centrally conditioned air of the owner’s unit to escape into the desert, she set the flat down on the glass dinette table to open the screen and then returned for it, to carry it without further incident onto the patio area where her small garden plot was located. There. In the hot, dry air she felt her skin clench up immediately and classified the feeling as bracing. She could hear the sound of water slapping concrete and knew that Mr. Mock was indulging in one of his peculiarly meaningless morning rituals, the hosing down of the deck surrounding the heated swimming pool. As eggs fried, coffee brewed, and morning papers unfurled across the Las Vegas region, at least for those who lived and worked here and maintained normal schedules, as Mrs. Mock chivied her lovely, soft-spoken, unutterably stupid housekeeping staff into action, Mr. Mock could be found tightening lightbulbs in the breezeway, or testing the ballpoint pens at the front desk in the office, or hosing down the deck surrounding the heated swimming pool, whose otherwise still waters gurgled occasionally as they incorporated hose water runoff. Mrs. Mock affixed pads to her knees and donned work gloves, preparing to transplant the zinnias to her mostly luckless garden plot. The zinnias were in fact replacing an earlier, failed attempt at cultivating some rather temperamental ageratum. As she fitted the last surprisingly flexible and pain-free finger into a glove, the Trimline phone rang in the living room. The sound of the hose ceased immediately.

  She heard, “Telephone!”

  At least she wasn’t on her knees yet.

  She’d chosen a tropical theme for the designer living room, uncomfortable with the locally dominant southwestern look. She pretended to herself that she had been motivated by boredom with the latter style’s austerity, but it was actually fear of its sterility, an eroded look that seemed an unpersuasive attempt to prepare her for her death. Anyway, she liked things that grew, not things that blew away or were bleached and scoured down to nothing in swirling storms of sand.

  She thought of Beau Geste; what a fine picture that was.

  So a living room in cool blues and greens, with rattan and cane furniture covered with floral patterned fabrics, and plenty of plants, and a big aquarium that had been full of tropical fish, until they died. The room sat cool and still behind the walls of glass that divided it from the desert, like the diorama of a remote ecology. It had been her idea, her decision, 100 percent. Mr. Mock didn’t care. He walked about the room, sat down in its chairs, drank bourbon highballs and watched television and read his newspaper in it. He himself looked somewhat out of place, dressed in the blown-out clothing of a backpacker on an extended journey. The heavy, dark garments that had constituted his East Coast wardrobe lined the walk-in closet, useless. If he insisted on going around like a vagrant or a hobo in cut-off chinos and a frayed old dress shirt with the tail hanging out, that was none of her concern.

  She had a picture in her mind of Mr. Dick Taranutz, who lived across the highway with his adorable if somewhat strident second wife Minnie and who wore crisp khakis and a fresh polo shirt even when washing his Cadillac. He’d stop the hose to wave across the lanes of traffic when he saw her. When he dressed to take Minnie out to dinner, he looked like something that stepped from the pages of a storybook. That was what she meant by active maturity.

  She passed the color console on which sat framed portraits of Guy and Ernest. She sensed that this was one of her boys calling. Which troublemaker would it be? She was a pleasant, handsome woman in her mid-sixties who sometimes caught herself trying on the word widow as a term of self-description. She enjoyed dancing and dining out. A night at the pictures was always appreciated. She kept herself as busy as she could under the circumstances, but she couldn’t help feeling sometimes as if there were a millstone tied around her neck. There were evenings when she would look across the Key lime tiles that divided the all-electric kitchen from the designer living room and see the ill-clad figure sitting in the shifting light of the television, hear the faint clink of ice cubes, and grow full with despair.

  “Ma.”

  “Why, Guy. What a nice surprise to hear from you.”

  “I know it’s been a while.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry. We’re out so much I often wonder if we don’t miss more calls than we receive.”

  “All right.”

  “I was even thinking that maybe we should get ourselves an answering machine.”

  “That might be good, yeah. We have one at the institute.”

  “Oh, your institute. And how is that going?” She wanted to sound interested because Guy was very protective of his peculiar interests, bullying and evangelical. She did not like being bullied by Guy.

  “It’s going fine, Ma.”

  “I’m so glad. I think it’s good that you have that, to occupy you between jobs.”

  There was a slight pause. “The institute’s enough of a job, as it is.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it keeps you very busy.”

  “It does. You’d be surprised.”

  “Not at all. I do wonder, though.” She trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  “Have you given some thought to a more conventional job?”

  “Conventional jobs seem to take a dislike to me, Ma. It’s not like I haven’t tried.”

  “Oh, well. You may be right. I certainly don’t want to argue with you.”

  “Right now I’m really just trying to concentrate on the institute.”

  “Hmm. Well, honestly, I just don’t see how a bunch of ex-athletes sitting around hammering away at a typewriter are going to convince anyone of anything.”

  “It’s not you we’re trying to convince, Ma.”

  “Well, if not me, then who? I certainly count myself among those who believe football players should spend their time outdoors knocking one another down, not cramped in a closet with their big hands all over a little Italian typewriter. I say let the football players play football. Nobody forces them to do it. And it’s been shown to build character.”

  Her son’s controlled annoyance was tangible across the miles separating them. She had a picture in her mind of Guy holding the receiver away from his head and staring at it scornfully. It grieved her that he scorned her opinions. She decided she would continue to put her best
foot forward with her younger son.

  “Guy?” she said. Her voice sounded sharper than she’d intended.

  “Yeah, Ma.”

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “So how is your lovely friend?” Mrs. Mock couldn’t bring herself, for some reason, to call a grown woman Randi.

  “Randi’s fine. She’s laying out a garden.”

  “It’s a little late for annuals, wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Mock felt a twinge of guilt, given her own procrastination in the garden this year. But she had sent some perfectly wonderful heirloom seeds to Guy’s lady friend when she’d heard that the two of them were returning to California and it grieved her that the woman was going to plant them for naught.

  “She’s actually not planting the flowers, Ma. She’s trying for tomatoes.”

  “Tomatoes!” Mrs. Mock didn’t quite know how to respond to that. The two fell silent, and the line was filled with the ghostly whistling sounds of all the blasted land that lay vacantly between them.

  “Mom, listen.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I need you and Dad to do me a favor.”

  “What kind of favor, dear?”

  “I need to borrow your car for a few days.”

  “I don’t think your father is going to want to part with his car for a few days.”

  She certainly didn’t. Mr. Mock was a man who disliked the slightest deviation from his routine. Just getting him to agree to a new brand of hand soap was an ordeal.

  “He wouldn’t have to. I was hoping that the two of you would come with me.”

  She laughed.

  “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten your father to go anyplace?”

  “Well, see, it’s a good idea then.”

  “Who will run the motel?”

  “Dad told me the thing practically runs itself.”

  “What your father means is that I run it, dear.”

  “Can’t you get someone to take care of it for you?”

  He could be so insistent. They both—in fact, they all could be. Each concession wearing her down a little further. Look up nub in the dictionary, and there she was. Where are we going? For how long? What was wrong with his car? She would ask, but she had the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t receive satisfactory answers to these questions.

  “Where would we be going?”

  “East.”

  “Nearly everything is east of here, dear.”

  “We need to drive to our place in New York.”

  “You and your young lady.”

  “Randi. Randi. But no. Not with her.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand at all. What happened to your car? Why can’t you take your own car to New York?”

  “I really can’t discuss it over the telephone.”

  “Then, dear, you shouldn’t have called to discuss it.”

  “If you could just say yes, it would be so much easier for me to fill you in later on.”

  “And how on earth could I possibly say yes for your father?”

  “Believe me, it’d be great for him. He’d love it. You’d both love it.”

  “Love what?”

  “I can’t discuss it.”

  Then the door opened, and Mr. Mock entered the owner’s unit, his beaten Hathaway shirtfront soaked with water and clinging to him. When he peered over at her, Mrs. Mock instantly felt as if she’d been discovered doing something that she shouldn’t. She was having a frustrating and, she hated to admit it but, unwanted conversation with her son and being made to feel as if it were the wrong thing to be doing and she was simply tired of being beset by bullies. She handed the phone off to Mr. Mock.

  “Here,” she said, “it’s for you.”

  From the designer living room she watched as he studied the phone for a moment before lifting it to his ear. See the Designer Color, to match any household decor? (The Moss Green tone matched the refrigerator and dishwasher, but all three were, in Mrs. Mock’s mind, unsatisfactory compromises.) See how the dial is Built Into the receiver, so that you can make calls more easily? See the lighted dial, allowing you to place a call in Total Darkness if the mood strikes you? See the long Tangle-Resistant Cord, so that you can effortlessly go about your business while enjoying a conversation? See the Contoured Design that rests easily in the hand and against the planes of the face? The Trimline. Mr. Mock finally laid the device against his skull.

  “Dad.”

  “Guy.”

  “Dad, remember telling us about the war when we were kids?”

  “I remember telling you. Ernest wasn’t listening to me much anymore by then.”

  “He was older.”

  “The firstborn.”

  “It must have been rough on him.”

  “Those were the best years of our lives we spent over there.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “What about the war?”

  “Remember telling me how sometimes you just had to do something someone asked of you, do it without question?”

  “Or else you’d end up in the brig.”

  “But there was a reason, a principle behind the idea.”

  “I guess. Mostly you just didn’t want to end up in the brig. All the nuts were in there.”

  “Dad, I need to ask you to do something for me, and I need you not to ask any questions. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “What did your mother say?”

  “We can’t expect Mom to understand matters of life and death.”

  “Why not? She’s a mature woman.”

  “She’s a wonderful mother. Ernest and I agree. I’ve no doubt she’s been a loyal and resourceful wife. Sterling reports from the PTA and such. A model citizen. But life and death?”

  “Guy, your mother’s a senior citizen.”

  “Well, I don’t blame Mom. But she wasn’t real receptive.”

  “I’m glad you don’t blame her. What’d you ask her to do? What are you asking me to do?”

  “I need you to take a trip with us.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I can take a trip. I’d really have to check.”

  “You know what you’re doing. You’re running around changing the bed sheets in that motel. Get that guy across the street to look after it for you. Taranutz.”

  “Ha. I am not the one convinced of the infallibility of Dick Taranutz.”

  “Still. I would suggest this trip. Whatever your final decision is, and I will respect that decision, I ask that you consider the benefits of a little change of pace, plus also these life and death aspects I mentioned. Not to put pressure, but because it really is a matter of life and death.”

  “Whose?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Whose life and whose death?”

  “Well that, that I don’t really feel comfortable discussing over the phone. Which I hope you understand. But I can tell you that Randi and I need your help driving a very important person from here, the Bay Area, to the East Coast.”

  “Randi’s coming?” Mr. Mock’s face lit up. He liked Randi. In the designer living room, at the sound of the inappropriately mannish, she thought, name, Mrs. Mock wrinkled her nose.

  GUY IS A DERVISH today. The phone, the car, the knocking on doors, the typewriter, the tape recorder: All this industry should have him flat on his back moaning for ice and Darvon and a deep-tissue massage of the variety that tends, in his experience, to lead to intercourse and the sort of acute, spirit-wringing orgasm he would feel compelled to note in a journal, if only he kept a journal. Instead, manic, he smokes a joint, feeling the air around him in the kitchen. It presses in on him, weighty. Vibes in here. There’d been an argument, of course. Here I am just getting it together here and you want me to head back to New York indefinitely? And so on. Randi is usually pretty pliant but he senses that in this case he’s run up against the limits of her patience.

  It still isn’t exactly a question of will-she-or-won’t-she, but he’ll have to find a way
to “make it up to” her. As he’s promised so many times.

  In the meantime, though, he is on this energy jag that he finds just exhilarating. Just to have been able to put an end to the “discussion” with Randi—she remained unsatisfied, he could tell, as he backed out of the room, hands raised in the air as if she were an armed bandit—just to have managed that was a minor accomplishment of a kind.

  Oh, the methodically thrown plates that had zipped across the room the day that shouted name, Erica Dyson, had hovered, charging the air between them, becoming taboo evermore. Shards of china progressively filled the checkerboard spaces of the kitchen linoleum, skidding across them, coming to rest in the corners. When finally one had ricocheted, breaking the rhythm, to strike him just above the left eye, there had been instead of pain the feeling of awakening from a dream.

  In and out, in and out, all day long. Armful of maps from AAA. Granola and some twiggy stuff for trail mix. Wigs from Wig City over in Oak Town.

  The telephone’s on his desk in the spare room. His squat little buddy, the phone. Calls like potato chips, just one and you’re committed to a spate of them, helpless. Guy likes the phone. Invasive, irresistible, anonymous, it amplifies his core personality in all sorts of interesting ways. As a teenager he’d pick out girls he liked from his high school class and telephone their homes, basically tripping on the fact that he was making a disruptive noise right where they lived, causing all the wholesome activities there to stop, their dads rumbling up out of their easy chairs, grunting with the effort, to pick up the phone as their pretty blossoming daughters waited to see what news or worshiper’s adoration the call might yield. Guy would hang up. He wasn’t a heavy breather. It had nothing to do with sex at all. Sex was another thing; the fine art of masturbation he had honed to perfection was another story. Offered up lessons in technique in the school cafeteria before a captive audience of late bloomers and textbook cases of latency, pimpled pusses registering both faint disgust and budding interest. But the calls had been about sheer manipulation.