Good Trouble

by Joseph O'Neill

  Her eyes were now open. She felt the plane thudding down through clouds, then saw earthly lights, patterned and hopeful. She felt ashamed. Her son wanted a world with a further dimension for him and his family. She made it difficult for them. She dragged them down.

  * * *

  —

  The plane landed in Oakland at one o’clock in the morning, three hours behind schedule. There followed an infuriating delay with the baggage, and it was not until three that Breda was finally able to push her cart toward the taxi stand. But there were no taxis, and the line seemed miles long. As Breda stood despairingly by the curb, a black man walked by muttering, “Taxi, taxi,” and Breda tried to summon the courage to take up his offer, even though he was illegal-looking. Then another traveler, a businessman, appeared from behind her and decisively signaled to the black man. “Park Plaza Hotel,” the businessman said.

  The taxi driver waved his hand. “No, no, I not driving for just one mile.”

  The businessman had anticipated this answer and waved a twenty-dollar bill. This struck Breda as an act of awesome worldliness.

  The driver hesitated, then said, “OK,” and walked off to collect his car.

  It occurred to Breda that she was a few minutes away from a clean hotel bed, whereas it might be two exhausting hours before she arrived home. She looked again at the businessman. She opened her mouth for a second or two, then finally spoke. “Excuse me,” she said, “but did I hear you say you’re going to a hotel?”

  The man turned to her. He was pale-haired, sturdily built, mid-forties. “I guess I am.” He paused. “You, ah, need a ride?”

  The accent was southern. “Well, I was thinking,” Breda said, “it doesn’t look like there’s much sense in waiting here.”

  “I’d be happy to take you,” he said, looking neither happy nor unhappy.

  “Thank you,” Breda said.

  They stood awkwardly together until the car arrived. The businessman helped Breda with her luggage. There was something appealing about him, Breda thought—something about the athletic swing he gave her suitcase, something about his purposeful air. Breda got into the backseat and waited while the businessman placed his own things into the trunk. Then he eased down next to Breda and slammed shut the passenger door with a slight bodily lurch. His shoulder made contact with hers, and Breda experienced a shock of sexual arousal of a kind she had no live memory of.

  The hotel was almost comically close by, and they arrived after what seemed like a few seconds’ drive. When Breda offered the man money, he said, “No, really, there’s no need,” and quickly got out of the car. He picked up his bags and walked immediately to the hotel, leaving Breda to handle her own suitcase.

  Breda took no offense. When she entered the hotel lobby, the businessman was talking to the woman at the check-in desk. Breda got in line behind him.

  “Marietta, Georgia,” the woman was saying as she typed the man’s address into her computer.

  “That’s right,” the man said.

  The woman typed on. “Guess you pronounce it Muh-retta, huh?”

  “I might.”

  She tittered. She was a blonde, in her forties. “My brother lived right there, in Marietta. Now he lives—you’d never guess where.”

  “I give up,” the man said. Breda couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was enjoying himself or not. She moved to one side to get a view of his face.

  “Siberia,” the receptionist said. “Bought some land there with his Russian girlfriend.” She handed him a card-key for his room. Room 207, Breda had already noted.

  “He bought a property in Siberia?” The man was now alert. “He can get his title insured over there?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “If I can’t insure my title,” the man said, “if I can’t get copper-bottomed title insurance, I don’t touch it.”

  Breda found the man’s strong opinion on title insurance impressive. She watched him as he walked over to the elevator.

  She was given room 214, which was, it turned out, only two doors across the corridor from room 207. It was almost four o’clock, but Breda took a shower. Afterward, she examined her body in the bathroom mirror. Her face she had never liked—she saw a thin upper lip, hair that had never, not even for ten minutes, been cut or styled right—but she could quite neutrally say that her body had not really changed in a couple of decades. Not significantly. As she fastened the towel around her chest, Breda wondered, and allowed herself to doubt, if the businessman’s wife could claim as much. That was assuming he had a wife, which was uncertain, since he hadn’t worn a wedding band. Breda decided to proceed on the footing that he was unmarried, or at least unattached.

  She caught herself. Proceed? Proceed where? And how, and to what end? She closed her eyes with embarrassment. He had shown no sign of being attracted to her, was at least five years younger, and by now was almost certainly asleep. What was she thinking of doing? Tiptoeing out into the hallway and knocking on his door? It was crazy, out of the question; but it seemed also out of the question to not do anything. Not to be with this man seemed a grotesque impossibility, like the impossibility of perpetual death.

  Breda splashed cold water on her face. What was happening to her? She had lost all sense of the real and the unreal. Wake up! she urged her reflection. But here was a reality: the man was only thirty feet away. Thirty feet! And if she went out and stood by his door, it would only be twelve feet! And if she knocked on his door, well, the worst that could happen would be a rejection; whereas the upside…Breda unfastened the towel and let it fall to the floor. Still looking into the mirror, she arched her back and stuck out her ass. White, like a cloud, she thought. She wished it were rounder, though. She wished…She shut her eyes. Enough.

  But once back in the bedroom, she found herself fumbling into a bra and panties. They were new from Garnet Hill and though perhaps not sexy, then certainly pretty. What to wear with them, though? Her nightgown, with its faded floral, was out of the question, and there was no hotel bathrobe. Breda picked up her raincoat. A raincoat over underwear. It was a combination that brought to mind Faye Dunaway. Faye Dunaway—the most stylish woman in the world, in Breda’s eyes, at least before all that plastic surgery—would walk right over to room 207, knock on the door, and, with a bra cup showing beneath her mackintosh, ask for a light.

  The raincoat felt cold against her skin. It laid bare her neck and the pleated skin near her collarbone. Breda turned up the collar, tightened the belt, and examined herself again. She left the bathroom.

  She lay down on the bed in her raincoat. She was suddenly exhausted and, in that increasingly familiar and frightening way, adrift—from the world of Faye Dunaway, of children, of cheese. She would be buried with her father and mother in the Boston graveyard. It was with this thought that she found calmness and, still wearing her raincoat, sleep.

  The Referees

  ◇

  I’m having lunch with a friend from college days, Michael, with the secret purpose of asking him a favor. It’s not the only reason I’m meeting him. I like Michael, as one does. He’s entertaining. He decides to tell me about his neighbor, Gus—

  “Gus?” I say. “Are we talking Augustus?”

  “Gustavus,” Michael says.

  —who has, apparently, been ill-tempered and hostile for years—

  “Back up,” I say. “Gustavus? As in Gustavus Adolphus?”

  “What? He’s Gustavus Goldman. Gus Goldman.”

  —this guy, this Gus, who lives in the apartment next door to Michael’s and has a history of irascibility and unhelpfulness connected, it would seem, to his alcoholism, this guy has turned over a new leaf and is now a sober, much happier, downright pleasant individual, and for some months has been trying to befriend my friend Michael, and has been Miking him—

  “Did you say ‘Miking’ you?”<
br />
  Michael says, “You know, ‘Mike’ this, ‘Mike’ that.”

  “Oh yeah, right.”

  —Miking him with a view to Michael becoming his pal. But Michael doesn’t want to be pals with Gus. He doesn’t like the guy, even if the guy who he doesn’t like has been replaced by a much sunnier and more affable non-asshole who sort of merits being befriended and who no doubt would appreciate Michael’s support and affirmation as he ventures down the straight and narrow—

  “Hold on,” I say. “How was he an asshole? What did he do, exactly?”

  “Do? He was an asshole. He behaved like an asshole.”

  “You’re saying he was unneighborly.”

  “I’m not saying that. I don’t need to say that. I’m saying I’ll be the judge of whether he’s an asshole or not. That’s my prerogative. It’s not an objective test. It doesn’t matter if nine out of ten people think he’s terrific. It doesn’t matter if he’s the greatest neighbor of all time. I get to decide who I’m going to be friends with, in accordance with my criteria.”

  “For sure,” I say. “Freedom of association.”

  Michael, who is an attorney, says, “Well, that’s a slightly different concept.”

  —anyhow, so Gus is on the wagon and offering Michael his friendship, and the question that must be answered, never losing sight of the fact that Michael enjoys a basically unqualified freedom to keep whomsoever at whatever distance he sees fit to keep them for whatever reason, the question to be answered is—

  I say, “The answer is no. Don’t do it. An asshole is an asshole. Don’t cave.”

  —the question to be answered, Michael goes on, isn’t whether he should be Gus’s friend, which is never going to happen, you can’t just undo years and years of being a dick, life just doesn’t work like that, no, the question is how to manage the situation so that Michael isn’t suddenly the asshole; because, although being an asshole would be within Michael’s rights—

  “Correct. You get to be an asshole. It’s not illegal.”

  —being an asshole isn’t what he wants; and, as things stand, it’s Gus who’s the nice guy and it’s Michael who’s the asshole.

  My friend is bark-laughing. It’s a bark-laugh I remember well, and it’s as if we’re once again at NYU, in the dorm on Thirteenth Street. I say, “Yeah, that’s right, someone has to be the asshole. And it can’t be Gus. Not anymore. He’s turned over a new leaf. Gus is nice now.”

  Michael says, “It’s like the poker thing. If you look around the table and can’t figure out who the asshole is—guess what? It’s you.”

  The old back-and-forth is still there, the old badinage, the old rapport; and with pleasure we finish our hamburgers and catch up on each other’s news. Mine is the more interesting news, I would say, what with my interesting divorce and my interesting pennilessness and my interesting loneliness on my recent return to New York from Portland, Oregon, but Michael has anecdotes that he wants to share, and I end up not saying very much, and it’s only at the last minute that I’m able to mention that I’m trying to rent an apartment in Prospect Heights. “It’s a co-op,” I tell him. “They need me to provide character references. Hey, Mike,” I say with the old merrymaking irony, “could you write me one? You’ve got stationery. They’ll like that.”

  We’re splitting the check: Michael puts the full amount on a law-firm credit card and I pay him my half in cash. “Sure,” he says. We shake hands. “E-mail me.”

  Which is, when I get back to the office, exactly what I do. Michael replies within the hour:

  Hi, Rob. On reflection, I don’t think I can do this. I’ve consulted some people here, and they agree that, as a professional matter, a historic collegiate acquaintance is an inadequate basis for a personal reference. It would be a different story if I had firsthand knowledge of your life post-college. I thought it right to let you know as promptly as possible. Michael.

  What an asshole, I think I can say.

  * * *

  —

  It wouldn’t matter except for the fact that it does matter. I need two character references ASAP, and so far I’ve failed to collect a single one.

  That’s not totally accurate. I’ve got this, from Tariq:

  To Whom It May Concern: As his work supervisor, I have known Rob Karlsson for two weeks, during which time he has presented as a pleasant and responsible person. I hope this is of assistance.

  Tariq is British and so maybe is guided by some protocol of understatement that I’m not familiar with. Either way, his endorsement, as worded, isn’t what I’m looking for. I’m informed by the apartment lessor, Travis, who’s twenty-six and some kind of junior restaurant manager and yet somehow also a man of property, that the co-operators require (per their forwarded e-mail) “meaningful letters of reference that specifically address the high standards of integrity and deportment expected of a co-operative resident.”

  I get that it’s a little much to drop this thing on Tariq, but in the short time we’ve known each other we’ve worked well together on our project, and I’d like to think that we’ve made a social connection that’s not unreal over the course of our almost nightly after-work drinks, when he goes from being my superior at the office to being just a dude who would like me to introduce him to a girl who would like to be introduced to him. I can’t help him with this, unfortunately. After years on the West Coast, my New York contacts are pretty much vestigial. It took some effort to track down Paul, on whose couch I’m currently sleeping, if that’s the right word for what an insomniac does, and I can’t even claim that Paul, my mother’s cousin’s son, was anything like a huge bud in the first place, and in all honesty I tracked down Paul not because he was Paul as such but because the poor devil was the only New Yorker I knew who was likely to be kind enough to let me crash with him until I found somewhere more permanent and suitable. Paul himself essentially lives at his boyfriend’s place, in Manhattan; since the key handover we’ve laid eyes on each other only once. I’ve of course asked him for a reference and, because he’s a reliable and upstanding person who’s known me (very slightly, admittedly) since we were kids and is technically family, I can count on him to come through, I think, even though his job keeps him very busy and more than a week has passed since he agreed to do the necessary and time is getting to be of the essence.

  What I mustn’t do is give the wrong kind of credence to the apparent fact that, at the age of thirty-six, I find myself unable to easily identify two people who know me well enough to plausibly and candidly state that I’m a sufficiently OK human being for the purpose of living in close vicinity to others. That would be a superficial and overly catastrophic way of looking at things.

  Now this, just in, from Portland:

  Robert, I’m glad to hear you have found an apartment you like. I’ve been worried about you. It’s good to see that you’re doing fine. I’m going to ask you not to contact me for a long while. It’s unhealthy for us to be involved in each other’s lives. That’s why I’m not going to give you the personal recommendation you asked for. I’m sure you understand. Good luck with everything, Robert. Samantha.

  Have you asked Billy?

  I want to write back to Samantha to make it clear that I’m not looking for any further involvement in her life but actually and merely asking for a onetime administrative courtesy. I also want to contest her bare assertion that I’m “doing fine,” which I feel is basically a way to throw a blanket over me and my situation as if I were a small fire that you put out, and—wait: Billy?

  Billy who?

  Samantha doesn’t e-mail back. But Travis texts:

  Got those refs yet? Need to wrap this up.

  Oh—Billy.

  Billy is my childhood best friend. We haven’t been in touch for nearly a decade. That’s been my doing, I’ve got to say. Billy came to “NYC,” as he always c
alled it, in his mid-twenties, not long after he’d belatedly gathered the credits he needed for a business degree from Mankato State, and for a little more than a year he hung out with me and Samantha nonstop, it felt like, and kept hitting on Samantha’s friends with no luck, often implicating me as his “wingman,” and dragged me out to hockey games I absolutely didn’t want to go to. Billy, at this time, worked in sales strategy for a baby food company, in Midtown. His dream was to come up with a world-conquering idea for a “startup,” and he and I spent many evenings drinking beer at my place, when, if we weren’t re-reminiscing about the characters and events of our teenage years in St. Paul, we were contemplating the magical “synergy” that Billy thought would be achieved by “fusing” his business skills and my computer expertise. Often, I remember, he would tap his skull with his finger and say that it, his skull, contained “the keys to the kingdom.” Meanwhile, Samantha lay low in the bedroom. It was an unsustainable state of affairs. Billy is a lovely, somewhat special guy, no question, and not at all malicious, but his company became intolerably stressful. Also, he developed a habit of reprimanding me. For example, if I voiced a mildly negative thought—“This coffee is too weak,” say, or “I wish those bros would turn down the volume”—Billy would say something like, “Dude, chill, you’re getting all snobby in your old age,” and say it with a weird laugh of anger. I kept wishing that my old friend would somehow change or wise up or move on, but if anything he doubled down on who he thought he was, with the result that a kind of cartoon Minnesotan Billy came into being, an extremist of easygoingness who could be counted on to occupy the nice or feel-good side of any issue and make everyone else feel cynical and shitty by comparison. It took a drawn-out and horrible process of rejection by me of him to bring our relationship to an end. I really believe that the trauma surrounding that whole episode is why I was so enthusiastic about leaving the city, where I’d spent eight otherwise happy and productive years, in order to relocate to Portland, where Samantha had a job offer from Wieden+Kennedy and I’d lined up a sweet-looking gig to develop software for a real-life startup that had as its goal the revolutionizing of the logistics industry.