The Best of Youth

by Michael Dahlie

  They took the same route back as they had come, with the exception being that they headed east at Albany and then took the Mass Pike to 495 (where they turned off to buy some hamburgers at a local diner) and then proceeded toward the estate agent’s headquarters in Concord on smaller roads while eating their lunch.

  And the lunch turned out to be especially good, since they’d grossly overordered, which brought the pleasant sensation of having far more than enough french fries to distract them from their physical distress. Henry even remarked on this, how much he liked having more than enough of this kind of thing. “I suppose it’s wasteful, and I don’t normally do this, but I really feel relief at avoiding the sadness of getting to the end of an order of french fries when I still want more.”

  They were then passing through the somewhat scenic village of Kingston, and Henry slowed as he wound through the small town. But the hamburger he was now eating was so good, and he was once again thinking about how pleased he was to have access to so much fried food, that he failed to calculate properly a small turn in the street. And just as he was thinking about how to deal with a bit of mustard that was now on his chin—it stung, actually, which was surprising—he swerved to his left, and then to his right, and then crashed into a parked car.

  As collisions go, it was from the very start clearly not catastrophic. He’d been driving slowly, applied the brakes (just not in time), and, in the end, the abrupt stop was at no more than five miles an hour. But the hit was direct—Henry’s right fender into the door of a Subaru Outback, and, judging from the sound of the impact, quite a bit of metal and fiberglass had been wrenched from place.

  No one was in the car, as Henry quickly gathered, and Whitney immediately said, “I’m fine, I’m fine,” when Henry looked over at him. And no one was next to the car, so there were no ancillary injuries. There were a few people on the sidewalk about ten yards away, however, and thus it was with some embarrassment that Henry put his hamburger on his dashboard and got out.

  He tried to remain relaxed, but the relief stemming from the lack of real injury gave way to the realization that this was really not good news and certainly would bring him some kind of trouble. He’d surely be reprimanded by someone, and would have to pay for damages, and perhaps this would mean some sort of spike in his insurance premiums. Also, although he well knew that the alcohol was technically long out of his bloodstream, he was definitely still suffering its effects, and when he finally had to explain himself, he wondered how he’d handle it.

  As Henry looked at the damages—they were cosmetic but surprisingly substantial—he reached for his phone, deciding it was probably best to call the police, thereby establishing himself as a conscientious and earnest young man, not some kind of hooligan from Brooklyn. But just as he began to wonder if 911 was the appropriate number to dial—it wasn’t really an emergency, after all—a police car arrived with New England efficiency and an officer was soon standing beside Henry inspecting the damage with him.

  “I’m so sorry,” Henry said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure how this happened. But obviously it was my fault. I just didn’t gauge the curve correctly.”

  The officer seemed surprisingly relaxed, almost regretful, really. Finally he asked, “Were you on a cell phone?”

  “No, no,” Henry immediately replied, and then added, with sincerity, “I don’t believe in that.”

  “Were you eating?” the officer asked.

  Henry glanced at Whitney in the passenger seat. He was holding a gigantic fountain-soda cup in his hands and had a Styrofoam food container on his lap. “Yes, I was eating a hamburger,” Henry said. “But I’ll pay for everything. I have insurance.”

  The cop looked down again at the car, bent his knees, and touched the dent and the broken Subaru fiberglass. Then he stood up, stepped back a little for a broader view, and said at last, “Well, I’ve seen worse.”

  And he said it in a very gentle and reassuring tone. It made Henry feel quite grateful, and he was just formulating another apology and another statement of responsibility when he noticed that the police officer was now looking away from the impact and into Henry’s car.

  Henry wished he’d done something better with his hamburger than put it on the dashboard. He felt like even more of an idiot now. But as the cop moved closer to the car, Henry was surprised to see that the officer didn’t look in the front, but in the station wagon’s back. Henry began to follow just as the cop turned and asked, “Are those guns?”

  “Yes,” Henry replied, wondering now if he could stick his hand in and discreetly knock his hamburger to the floor.

  “They’re yours?”

  The two Colt pistols had slid out of the blankets Henry had wrapped them in and were now lying beside the mahogany writing secretary, just below the back window.

  “Well, they’re my father’s. Or they were my father’s. He died and they’re mine now. I’m actually just taking them to a dealer to have them sold.”

  “Can I see the registration?”

  At this Henry hesitated, then said, “Well I’m not sure I have that.”

  “You don’t have the registration?”

  After a pause, Henry said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “The registration?”

  “I’ve only just picked them up. This is the first time I’ve really ever even seen them.”

  “But you own them?”

  Henry had already admitted this, so what was there for him to say? “I’m the owner, but I’ve got nothing to do with them, really. I’m just taking them to be sold. From upstate New York.”

  Here Henry smiled and, because this police officer seemed to be a decent sort of man, Henry hoped that his naïveté might cause the cop to be somewhat sympathetic.

  And the truth was that it seemed to work. The cop appeared very sympathetic to Henry’s answers. He gave Henry a very compassionate glance, even. But this glance was quickly followed by one that seemed very troubled. At last, the policeman said, “Look, I hate to do this—I understand what you’re saying to me, and I believe you—but you’ve got two handguns in there. Thirty-eight Specials, even, it looks like. I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to call back to the station about what to do about this. The laws are pretty strict, and we’re under a lot of pressure nowadays with this type of thing. You need to have your registration with you. They definitely need to be registered in the first place. Especially handguns.”

  “Maybe they’re registered in New York.”

  The officer again looked a bit disturbed and then said, “To you? Are they registered to you?”

  “I never registered them.”

  “But you’re the owner.”

  “I inherited them.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Um, around two years.”

  “Yeah,” the police officer said, again trying with what seemed like an attempt at warmth, “transporting them across state lines, no registration, handguns, it’s just something I’ve got to call in. I’ll try to help you sort this out. I’ll do whatever I can for you, but—I’m really sorry—I have to report this.”

  11

  FORTUNATELY, THE REST of the police force and law enforcement officials behaved with the same kind of decorum and sympathy as the officer who arrested them. Whitney was let go within twenty minutes of their arrival, and Henry found himself in a pleasant waiting room that resembled a cheerful and well-run post office rather than a detention center. Henry still expected rapists and pickpockets to be led through, but there was absolutely nothing going on and Henry, as far as he could tell, was the only criminal in the entire building.

  And when he was finally questioned by a friendly detective with the last name of Jensen, the mode seemed almost apologetic. Henry did have to explain, with some detail, his “intentions” for the guns. And he was even asked if there was anyone that he was having trouble with, people he “hated” (Henry did not bring up the fairly insulting list of writer’s tips he’d recently received f
rom Kipling), and the detective listened thoughtfully to all that Henry had to say and treated his entire situation as a predicament, not a crime. It was, in fact, as though this were all something very unfortunate that had happened to Henry, that he was the victim who needed to be assisted.

  It did strike Henry that had he not been a friendly white Harvard grad, he might not be getting so much sympathy. He was sure of this, in fact, and it did make him feel quite guilty. But he was not, it was perfectly true, some sort of gunrunner or violent criminal, although, again, what made this so obvious to the police department? That was the troubling and ugly question.

  At any rate, the wheels of justice had to turn as they were expected to, and about three hours later, long after Whitney had been released, Henry was before a judge who was setting his bail for the crime of illegal possession of firearms, “although,” the judge added, “there might be additions to this as the investigation continues.”

  The amount of the bail actually turned out to be fairly light: $15,000, of which Henry had to put up 10 percent. So, $1,500 due, then, paid by Whitney, who’d somehow bought a money order for this amount from a nearby Western Union. And, of course, the guns were confiscated, but the property officer assured Henry that he would take good care of them. “I know it’s family stuff,” he said.

  By this point, however, Henry wanted nothing at all to do with any gun ever again and would have been just as happy if they were lost. The day of jail had, in the end, made him feel very uneasy, despite the kindness of the people who were sending him down the river, as it were, and this feeling continued for some time. Henry had used his one phone call to contact Whitney about bail, so, after hugging Whitney in the front reception room, Henry was quickly on his phone with Lawrence Price, his lawyer—the man who’d so ably defended Henry in the Libyan goat affair. Lawrence was apparently just sitting down to dinner, but he still greeted Henry warmly and said, “I’m glad you called me about this.”

  Lawrence did what he could to reassure Henry, although Henry, again, was not as panicked as might have been expected. Lawrence admitted that he didn’t quite know the scope of everything. “But I’m sure we can work this out,” he said. “Handguns are trouble, but it’s so clearly just a mistake. It would be a terrible miscarriage of justice for them to punish you. It’s just that handguns, well, it’s not like accidentally walking out of a store with a bag of bananas.”

  “No,” Henry said, now somehow feeling slightly more nervous. “I suppose it’s not the same.”

  “Anyway, I can’t do anything this late,” Lawrence said. “I can make one or two calls tomorrow, even though it’s Sunday. Monday morning I can really get started and figure this out. The thing for you to do now is find some dinner and have a drink. I’ll find a way through this for you.”

  “Okay,” Henry said, although he wondered if he detected just a bit of equivocation in Lawrence’s voice.

  12

  HENRY AND WHITNEY drove straight back to New York that evening (the car now full of his nonlethal family possessions) and Henry was still very uneasy by the time they arrived home. Whitney had forced him to eat a plate of some sort of Korean noodles and drink three beers at a restaurant when they got to Williamsburg, though, and this helped, and by Monday afternoon he was having a more specific and useful conversation with Lawrence, who tried to assure Henry that he’d get him through all this.

  “There are mandatory sentences with some things,” he said, “and we don’t know what the charges are, but sentences can be suspended, and after talking to the prosecutors this morning, it seems like no one is going to try to put you away, but the charges, unfortunately, can’t be dropped. I’ve been on the phone to an associate in Albany to see what the law is there, and you really should have registered the guns when you inherited them. Everyone understands that none of this was really your fault, but those were, technically, your obligations. And with guns, these obligations become important. I mean, you’re not in any jeopardy as far as New York goes, since you were picked up in Massachusetts, but since they picked you up in Massachusetts, it means that they’ve got to move forward there.”

  Henry paused, although only one question was on his mind: “So they could send me to jail?”

  Lawrence said, “Almost impossible, but, yes, technically they could. So much comes down to who reviews your case, but you going to jail is in nobody’s interest.”

  Henry was about to rephrase his question when Lawrence continued talking. “Look, you’ll be fine. If someone told me about the case, if it wasn’t mine, I’d say there’s nothing to worry about, but as your lawyer, I have to tell you that there is a tiny risk, although let’s not worry about it all until we have more facts, until the prosecutors come up with an idea of what they want.”

  It was sound advice, but still unsettling. Lawrence was hardly calling to tell Henry that things had been resolved.

  And the feelings of uneasiness continued for the next few days—Lawrence had warned Henry it would take some time to hear from the prosecutors. Henry did his best to carry on as normal, although at first he wished he had some kind of full-time employment to provide him with a few mindless tasks that could keep him occupied. Lots of photocopying was what he felt like doing just then. Making one’s own days, as the saying goes, is only pleasurable when a person’s mind is clear. Still, Henry found that he was able to focus on his writing, and for that week and part of the next, he continued with his children’s novel about brain hemorrhages, polishing and cutting the book with devotion until he had what he thought was a draft good enough to pass along. In fact, by Henry’s measure, the book was nearly done, and as he prepared to send it off to Merrill he readied himself for the fights that might ensue with Kipling over various details of the story. Kipling, after all, was hardly a reliable reader, and Henry didn’t think he could stand another tip sheet on “how to be a writer.”

  During this time, of course, Henry spoke to Lawrence on a few occasions. The situation was always the same—they had to wait for the prosecutors to make up their minds about the matter. When Henry sent off his book, now titled The Best of Youth (a title inspired by an Italian movie that Henry absolutely adored), his case had not moved forward.

  13

  HENRY WASN’T SURE what would follow the submission of his novel, but he heard nothing at all for the following few weeks, and he began to worry that they hated it and that they’d been talking about how best to fire him. There was also the matter that it was, once again, the Christmas season—a thing that Henry had mostly avoided thinking about. He passed the holidays as he preferred to, though—alone, drinking lots of coffee, thinking about his parents, and accomplishing minor tasks around his apartment. He also managed not to kill any animals. And Henry followed this routine well through New Year’s Day (also spent alone), keeping the anxiety over his novel at bay until finally, on January 3, he got a call from Merrill asking what his plans were for the next few nights.

  “Kipling is going to be in town,” he said, “and we thought it might be fun for the three of us to go out one night.”

  “Has he read the book?” Henry quickly asked.

  “Well, it’s hard to say,” Merrill replied. “He has a lot of ideas about the book, but I’m not sure they have much to do with the manuscript. But you know I loved it. I thought it was magnificent, Henry.”

  Henry was at a loss, but he finally said, “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “I emailed you last week. Something must have happened. I did it from my BlackBerry. I was in France. I loved the book, Henry. I truly loved it. I have to say, I think you’re crazy to think this is a children’s novel. I mean, it’s simple enough to read, but it’s pretty heavy stuff. The hospital scenes with the boy. The recollections of losing his mother and father. I see what you’re saying, though, about two people in trouble, on such different sides of life, taking care of each other. I really did find it very affecting, and very uplifting even, given the subject matter, although I think that’s what
you were trying to tell me before, so I don’t think I’m wrong here. Anyway, it’s so, so good. So moving.”

  “Thanks,” Henry said, pausing for a moment because he thought he really ought to say more—“thanks” hardly expressed the gratitude he was now feeling—but Merrill quickly continued, “So can you meet up with us this week?”

  “Yes,” Henry said. “I’d love to.”

  They agreed to meet that upcoming Thursday, the plan being to have dinner together at a new sort of private club that Kipling belonged to and then to go out from there, probably to a high-toned discotheque or wherever else people like Kipling went. Abby had an important show that night in Williamsburg—probably her biggest so far—and Henry regretted not being able to make that, although in the back of his mind he wondered if he could talk Kipling and Merrill into going.

  And in fact the matter of going to see Abby did come up, although Henry actually brought up Abby’s gig at a point in the dinner when he was (contrary to the original goals) trying to make an excuse to leave early and alone.

  The so-called private club where they ate consisted of an entire brownstone close to the Meatpacking District and, although it was ostensibly a club for artists, it was so lavish and the people there were so expensively dressed that Henry couldn’t help but wonder what kind of artists these were. Of course, technically speaking, he himself was both an artist and also unjustly wealthy, so living a rougher-looking life in Brooklyn hardly made him any better than these people. Still, it was a baffling environment.

  More baffling, however, was the conversation that unfolded between the three men. After some fairly pleasant chat during the first course, when Merrill told some very interesting stories about his childhood in San Francisco, the conversation drifted. Kipling then became suddenly animated and he began to talk about Henry’s novel, which, as became obvious, he hadn’t finished and, likely, he hadn’t made it past the first twenty pages. This did not, however, prevent him from making some fairly stern pronouncements on its qualities.