The Ask

by Sam Lipsyte

  "But not at the Best Place," said Purdy.

  "I'm just so excited," said Melinda. "And I'm learning so much. I won't bore you with it all. But the doctors and midwives have been tremendous."

  "So have you, Mel," said Purdy. "You've been tremendous, the tremendousist, the tremendousiast, of them all. And I speak as a husband and a grammarian."

  "Is it weird to say how much I love this man? You have a wife and son, Milo, don't you? You know this feeling."

  "Sure," I said. "The feeling. Absolutely."

  "Why don't you two enumerate my amazing qualities," said Purdy. "I'll be right back."

  We watched Purdy walk away, join Charles Goldfarb at the bar. He glanced back at us, waved.

  "Would you like to feel?" said Melinda, tilted the tight swell of her belly.

  "You're barely showing."

  "It's okay. Touch it."

  "Really? Most women I've met hate that convention."

  "I never knew this."

  "They don't understand why any man would feel entitled to-"

  "Just put your fucking hand on it." Melinda smiled.

  I laid my palm on her stomach.

  "So tight," I said. "You could bounce a dime off that."

  "Sounds fun. So, tell me, Milo, how is it all going?"

  "Well, it's going great. I'm sure Purdy told you about the new arts pavilion and I just have to say-"

  "Not that," said Melinda. "The kid. Purdy's other darling child."

  "Excuse me?"

  "What do you think, I'm just some clueless bitch? Ever been to Elizabeth, New Jersey?"

  "Driven past it."

  "Exactly. But it's where I'm from. Now I'm here. You want to know something? I really do love Purdy. I was always going to marry for money, but I had choices. I chose Purdy. I wanted Purdy's child. I wanted his first child, but I guess I'll have to settle. He could have told me from the beginning, I would have been fine with it. I would have made a place for that kid in our family. Theoretically. Now that I've met him I'm not so sure."

  "You met him?"

  "We had a chat. I was sick of his stalkery phone calls. I only told Purdy about one of them, the first, before I started to figure out what was going on. But after a while, I called the boy's bluff. I met him for coffee. He's in bad shape. Still a real spaz on those prosthetics. I gave him the name of a physical therapist."

  "That was nice of you."

  "I thought it was patriotic. After all, this boy gave his legs so my husband could enjoy the freedom to fuck his trashy mother behind my back."

  "So you guys really talked."

  "We had a cell phone slide show, too."

  "Look," I said. "I don't know what to say."

  "You're not to say anything. And you can take your hand off my stomach now. I just don't understand it. Hookers are one thing. We know how these guys have to work off some steam. But what the hell? She's not even that pretty. Wasn't even pretty. I feel bad for her. I have this sense I knew who she was, kind of. I don't blame her, I really don't. It's just, like, she's this black hole in my understanding of the universe. Why her? It must have been something."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What did they have together? What was it?"

  "I don't know."

  "The way they talked. Maybe that was it. Purdy and I talk, but I know there's a part I can't get to. I want to know what it was with them. Purdy will never tell me. I'll never ask. Who else is there who knows? Florida? That thug. Lee Moss? Well, not Lee Moss. He died yesterday. Did you know that?"

  "I heard," I said.

  "I'm just trying to understand, and it hurts all the time. And it makes me worry. About what will happen to us."

  "Like I said, I really don't know."

  "I didn't think you did," said Melinda, looked down at her belly. "Or maybe I thought you might."

  "I'm sorry."

  "That's what they all say."

  "I don't know if this helps," I said, "but I'm going through something similar."

  "You're a man," said Melinda. "You're not going through anything remotely similar. Just tell me this. Everything's going to be fine, right? That boy is going to leave us alone? Because I can't handle this right now. I'm having a goddamn baby."

  "It looks that way."

  Melinda waved past my shoulder, blew a kiss.

  "Idiot," she said. "Thinks it's about trust."

  Purdy announced we would be eating family-style at a cluster of tables in the main room. Servants, or, in the argot of this crowd, caterers, set our places, decanted the wine. Were they indentured caterers? I found a seat at a table with Charles Goldfarb and the women from the building, Lisa and Ginny. I couldn't decide if they were sisters, or lovers, or just friends. The way they picked food from each other's plate signaled all three possibilities. Every few minutes another platter would arrive, each with its menagerie of dehydrated food. The figures dissolved in your mouth like sugar lumps, but none tasted like sugar. There were olives in the shape of lobsters, lobster in the shape of gazelles, mahi-mahi in the shape of bonobos. Purdy's silliness surprised me. This was Vegas sideburn food, what the Apollo astronauts should have gotten in their shiny pouches along with freeze-dried banana splits. Maybe we'd still be on the moon if they had. We'd have time-shares on the moon, as so many otherwise visionary thinkers always assumed we would. I shared this timely thought about the time-shares with the table.

  "But we went there already," said Ginny.

  "One small step," said Lisa.

  "I guess I'm just nostalgic for the future," I said.

  "Funny you should say that," said Charles. "There's a bit about that in my new book."

  "What's your book about?" said Ginny.

  "Oh, a bunch of things really. I try to advance a new approach to transcendentalism in the face of technology and interconnectivity."

  "Sounds amazing," said Lisa.

  "Sure," I said. "But it's still the rulers and the ruled."

  "Not sure how you mean that."

  "I think you're very sure."

  "Okay," said Charles. "Should we talk about the controlled demolition of the towers now?"

  "That's not what I meant," I said.

  Ginny and Lisa popped cockatoos into each other's mouth.

  "Hummus!"

  "Maybe. Saltier."

  "Ladies," said Charles.

  "Women," said Ginny.

  "Dames," said Charles, and the women giggled. I knocked back my double.

  "Think I need a refill," I said, steadied myself on the table.

  The barman bowed at my approach, scooped some ice into a glass, reached for the bottle on the stool.

  "No," I said.

  "No ice?"

  "Yes, ice. Just pour that into it."

  I pointed to the swill, saw a new sad knowing in the barman's eyes.

  I took my drink back to the table. Charles, abandoned, leaned over his plate with a butter knife, sliced the wings off a tiny magenta duck.

  "They went to the bathroom," he said. "I'll refrain from some cliched comment about how they always go in pairs."

  "Thanks for refraining," I said.

  "How you doing there, buddy?" said Charles. "Looks like you're partaking of a wee dram or two."

  "You have any coke?" I said.

  "Coca-cola?"

  "No, the other kind."

  "You must be kidding."

  "Coke can be pretty transcendental. And interconnective. First couple bumps, anyway."

  "I don't have any coke. I never had any coke. You know that."

  "I don't know. I remember you were always trying to get laid and nobody would ever go to bed with you. And this was a time and place when being able to explain Horkheimer would get you action easy."

  "I never really saw it that way."

  "But you figured it out, because Emerson, Thoreau, that's where the real tail is, right? The dependable stuff. I'm just guessing."

  "When did you get like this, Milo?"

  "Seriously? About tw
enty years ago. And then about two months ago. And then about ten minutes ago. Why should I want to deck you? I'm wracking my brain. I can't think of why I should deck you. I always pretty much liked you. I know you thought I was a lightweight, but I didn't mind. I thought you were a bore, and that my paintings would outlive your tedious summaries of other people's books. But it looks like I was wrong."

  "Man, you take self-pity to new and astonishing heights, don't you?"

  "Probably," I said.

  "Constance thought so."

  "Constance said that? When?"

  "A long time ago."

  "Oh."

  "Look, this is weird. I didn't mean to get into it with you."

  "You still haven't told me why I should deck you. Is this about my knife?"

  "Your knife?"

  "My Spanish dueling knife."

  "No. It's not anything, I guess."

  "Do you see Constance?" I said.

  "Sometimes. She's my ex-wife."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, I thought you knew. I thought… we thought you were angry, still angry ten years later when we sent out the invitations. We invited you to the wedding. You never responded."

  "I don't think I got it."

  "Bullshit."

  "I don't know what to say, Charles. I'm sorry. I've been an asshole for years."

  "Constance thought you were heartbroken."

  "She did?"

  "We always thought of maybe reaching out to you, but she was afraid you were too angry."

  "I would have been glad that she was happy."

  "It's good to hear that. Constance would probably love to hear that."

  "What happened to you guys, anyway?"

  "What happens to people, Milo?"

  Now Ginny and Lisa rejoined us, just as Purdy clambered up on his chair at a nearby table, clinked his glass with a spoon.

  "Hi, everybody," he said. "Just wanted to thank you all for coming. I see so many people from different parts of my life. It makes me so happy. There really wasn't an occasion for this party. I was trying hard to come up with one. I looked into historical birthdays. There were some contenders, a medieval tsar, as I remember, and a noted National League southpaw from the seventies, but nobody seemed worth the big bash. Maybe, I thought, I'll just call it Melinda's Ovaries Day, a celebration of the little old egg that could. God knows how many couldn't."

  "The ancient mariners in your ball sack were the problem!" called the guy with the pink polo shirt.

  "Thanks, Kyle," said Purdy. "That's Kyle Northridge, a now former principal in Groupuscule Media."

  "You can't afford to fire me!"

  "Fire him from what? The whole thing's in the shitter!" called a man next to Kyle.

  "True," said Purdy.

  "Say it ain't so!"

  "But really, folks, it's not about business. It's not. It's about people. And it is a bona fide delight to see you people types enjoying yourselves in my home. Our home, I mean. Soon to be the home of little Arnold Horshack Stuart."

  "Don't do it!" somebody called.

  "No? What do you guys think of Space Lab Stuart?"

  "Sea Monkeys," somebody said.

  "Too self-conscious!" somebody called.

  "How about Red Dye Number Two Stuart?" called another.

  "You're not getting it!"

  "Carter Malaise Stuart!"

  "Marzipan!"

  "I hate marzipan!" said Purdy.

  "Hey," called a new voice, high, strained. "How about Fallujah?"

  There was a clatter near the kitchen door.

  One of the caterers stood with a tray of cups and saucers. Other than his short white jacket he didn't look much like the others. He wore his hair up in a beige bandana. He'd rolled his sweatpants up past his knee. The sunlight spearing through the steep windows made his metal shins twinkle.

  "Come again?" said Kyle Northridge.

  Don's tray hit the floor with a clap. Cup shards skidded. Don strode toward us, his gait a near glide, smoother than I'd ever seen it. Purdy slid down into a crouch on the chair.

  "I said, 'How about Fallujah?' " said Don. "Or Baghdad. Or fucking Anbar. Anbar Awakening Stuart. Or maybe just Surge. What do you think? Surge Stuart?"

  "Hey," said Purdy. "Those are all good."

  "Really."

  "Hey, yeah," said Purdy, gentle, beseeching. "Yes. How are you?"

  "How am I?"

  "Yes."

  "How am I?"

  "It's good to see you."

  "Oh," said Don. "Is it? Is it good to see me?"

  "Of course," said Purdy. "You are like family. I mean, like, family."

  "Thanks, Dad."

  Purdy looked down on Don from his perch. They both appeared to quiver. It occurred to me that Purdy had never seen his son before. Don had only caught sight of his father in photographs, through motel windows.

  "You've earned it, son."

  Don's eyes softened, beamed, something boyish and quasi-sainted glowing in them.

  Now came the slap of hard shoes, dark fabrics flashing, a glint of jewels. Giant men swooped in from the edge of the room. You could tell they were the bodyguards because they dressed better than the guests. The rangier one guided Purdy down from the chair. The other, his head the size and hue of a glazed ham, cupped Don's elbow with bling-sheathed fingers.

  "What the hell?" said Don.

  "You really have earned it, son," said Purdy, nodded at Don's legs. "For what happened to you. For what's happened to so many of you. We are all in your debt. And we should all take responsibility."

  "Is that a fucking joke?" said Don.

  He shook off the bodyguard, but the huge man snatched Don's hand, bent it behind his back.

  "I was over there, too," said the bodyguard. "Don't be a fool."

  "Blue falcon," said Don.

  "I ain't no buddy fucker," said the bodyguard. "This is my job."

  "You could have waited to move her until I got back," said Don, looked hard at Purdy.

  "What difference would that have made?"

  "You rotten shit. I should just-"

  "Don."

  "Don't even say my fucking name."

  "Don, please…" said Purdy.

  "I said don't say it."

  Now Michael Florida crossed the oak floor in a pair of alligator boots, leaned forward to whisper in Purdy's ear.

  "Right," said Purdy.

  "What?" said Don.

  Purdy nodded to Melinda, turned stiffly to the tables.

  "What's going on?" said Don.

  "I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this evening a little short," Purdy said. "I've just this moment received some awful news about a dear friend. Lee Moss has died. I suspect he did so with his loving family at his bedside, as he wanted and deserved. I feel I've lost another father. I think it's better if we grieve quietly tonight."

  Purdy pinched his lips, made a short, grave bow, walked off toward the study.

  "Where the fuck are you going now!" shouted Don. "Come back, Daddy!"

  Michael Florida flicked his chin and the bodyguard let Don go. Don jogged a few steps toward his father, his boat shoes stabbing at the antique oak. His heel caught a scoop in the wood and he slid, twisted, pitched over in an violent braid of metal and meat. Somehow he got to his knees.

  "She loved you more than anything!" called Don.

  Purdy stopped for moment, seemed about to turn around.

  "She did," Don sobbed.

  Purdy ducked into the study and shut the door.

  "She did," said Don again, softer, as though suddenly aware of the room, his audience, who had already begun to look away and whisper.

  I walked over and knelt near Don, rubbed his arm.

  "Hey," I said. "It's okay."

  "Get the fuck off me," he said.

  "Really, Don, it's okay. Let's just get out of here."

  "I'll kill you," Don snarled.

  I rose, backed away, watched Don sit with his head on his knees, rock. Michael Flori
da walked over and squatted beside him. He must have said something amusing because Don looked up with an odd half-smile. Michael Florida began to talk, very rapidly, it seemed, and Don cocked his head.

  Now Michael Florida stood and hoisted Don up, looped the boy's arm across his neck like they were soldiers in some statue about blood and brotherhood. Together they stumbled out of the room.

  I was about to follow them when Melinda stood to speak, worried the thin platinum chain at her throat.

  "Please," she said. "Let me apologize for all of this."

  "Don't even, Melinda," Ginny said. "It's okay."

  "Really," said Charles Goldfarb.

  "It's nobody's fault," said Kyle Northridge.

  "No, I think I should explain. I doubt any of you knew, because he doesn't like to brag, but that boy, well, Purdy's been doing some work with an organization that helps young vets. A lot of them have severe problems. Don has been one of Purdy's projects. I'm afraid it's not going that well right now. But don't let that dissuade you from getting involved in this very important cause. With everything that's happened in this country, we are forgetting about these poor kids. Not even to mention what we've done to the men, women, and children of those other countries. It may not be fashionable anymore, but that's precisely why now is the time to revisit these issues and really give your support. I hope you'll excuse us this hasty end to the evening. We all love you very much and can't wait to see you in a more joyful context real soon."

  Melinda palmed her belly, the context. Other women closed around for soothing squeezes.

  "These fucking wars," said Charles Goldfarb, tilted back in his chair. "Only the historians will have a true sense of what they did to us."

  "Fantastic," I said. "Blistering."

  "Who's Lee Moss again?" said Lisa.

  "He's the conveniently dead guy," I said.

  I drained my Scotch, scooped a handful of chocolate stag beetles into my pocket. People began to gather their coats and bags.

  "Milo, hold up, I'll walk out with you."

  "No thanks, Charles. Think I want to be alone."

  "Suit yourself."

  "Say hello to Constance for me," I said.

  "I will. I mean, I hardly see her but… yes, I will."

  "Tell her I'm happy for her," I said. "And sad for her. And also happy-sad. Tell her to get a better haircut. She looks like the middle-aged head of a girl's prep school."