In looking back, Norman understood how there were less perks, less decorum, less allowances made for the two martini luncheons. There were no longer secretaries, but administrative assistants. New hires were required to type their own reports.
Through those unsettling years, Mr Feldman had put on a front of congeniality, his last stand against a miserable and advancing age. He called Norman ‘Fauntleroy’, owing to the get-up of blazer and slacks Helen had insisted Norman always wear when he went into the city. Mr Feldman liked snappy dressers, while Helen, always in the offing, never failed to make mention of Norman’s grades, ‘straight As’, Mr Feldman quipping, ‘I dare say Fauntleroy here will have me out of a job if I’m not careful!’
The name Fauntleroy burned a hole through Norman even now. The condescension of it! The grades were always an overture to a traditional toast, Mr Feldman pouring a measure of Scotch, and another for Norman, and for Helen, too, so they could make a toast, ‘To Fauntleroy!’ Mr Feldman downing his shot, then swooping in and drinking Norman’s shot, and what remained of Helen’s, before bustling them to lunch at his club where the report card was set out on the table as evidence of a great and burgeoning mind, and at some point in the charade, the general manager always arriving on cue, whereupon he proceeded to hold the report card up to the light to make sure it wasn’t a forgery, and, satisfied it was not, dutifully notified Fauntleroy that when he came of age, there was room for him at The Club.
It came again, a surging memory of something long sublimated, these emblazoned days set against the reality of that impoverished home life: Walter arriving home with a Dutch Apple Crumble picked from the discount rack on the occasion of all As, the goddamned sticker announcing, ‘Day-Old!’ when it might as well have read, ‘Don’t Give a Shit!’
It was always there, the abject comparison of this pathetic celebration set against the realization that there was another way, a better way, and that a man from the middle of goddamn nowhere, from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, had gained it, and that nothing had been granted him that hadn’t been earned.
*
Norman pissed into a chemical swill of aqua dye that sloshed with clots of shit and toilet paper. The mirror was a distorted sheet of metal, not a mirror in the real sense, because nobody on a Greyhound bus could be trusted to see the real self.
The bus turned onto a county road, meandering through a series of abandoned storage buildings along a curve of river. In the distance, Norman stared as the arm of a giant silo swung out over a glint of river the color of mercury. He had his face against the warmth of glass.
There had been a bustle of trade here once. He was aware of it. At a point in the distant past, those who lived here had stood on the side of the Union, when the issue of slavery and the rights of men held, when great sacrifice had been called for and blood had been spilt and families torn asunder in the cause of Freedom.
It stirred something within him. He sat upright. Yes, minds here had settled important issues, because places like this were more vibrant and alive a century before.
Of course, progress was not uniform, and what rose in one place caused a death elsewhere, so, here, the prospect of a livelihood gained from a host of associated industries — barrel making, a forge for making plows, fixing wheels, a feed store, a barber, a general store, all the necessities of life — disappeared. It was sad to give witness to its death.
At an intersection, a pickup truck pulled alongside. Norman could see a rifle mounted across the rear cab window, and a hunting dog sentinel beside its owner on bench-style seating. It accounted for a way of life, as much a part of the American experience as its greatness.
19
IN THE GREY dark of his hotel room, Nate was inclined to understand how a Holy War, or the idea of a suicide bombing, its conception and then the commitment to it, might be better sustained by staying in a hotel room, in a bewildering disorientation with a minibar charging six dollars for a bottle of water.
He regretted the thought. He was not thinking straight.
*
Nate had the film reels. He had received them at the Law Office of Weatherly, Sutherland, and Saunders, all three present at an office skyrise with varnished trim, leather-back chairs and an ornate throw rug.
Collectively, all three had looked like the three pigs had finally gotten it right and forsaken the shoddy construction of straw and stick houses. Their names were embossed in gold lettering across the entrance. A glass elevator soundlessly arrived on the floor and opened. Nate stepped out onto the tiled expanse of a marbled floor.
In coming south he felt a greater awareness of distance and how time imposed itself that he had not experienced in the hideaway of his life with Ursula, where the seasonality dictated an easier, more rote existence, perhaps no less tied to time, but there was a sense now he was moving against a clock.
He had a time-stamp from the garage where his car was parked. The first hour was thirty-six dollars, and it went up from there, — this on top of the valet parking fee at The Drake. The car was gathering a great expense in just existing.
He didn’t like the feeling, how money was made while nothing was being created, how an empty space could account for so much on the ledger of some accounting book somewhere, but it could, and did.
A beautiful Latino secretary with almond-shaped eyes reminded Nate instantaneously of Ursula, her skin tone the same, her hair similarly long, but she wore too much lipstick, and she was in high heels and a short skirt.
She was a great distraction. She looked past him while he waited, while the lawyers, in the custom of selling their time, talked among one another, checking their watches before the appointed time Nate was expected. He was ten minutes early, so Nate waited, and they waited, as though he didn’t exist.
The secretary might have been an incarnation of Ursula, but, in this life, Nate didn’t matter in the way he had previously. It struck him how a life moved through cycles, the realities of what you might have, what you had, what you lost, and what you would never have again. He felt a stabbing pain where it hurt nearly always now.
The three lawyers had a decided opinion about Norman Price. Helen Price’s last will and testament had been harder to execute, given Norman Price’s unwillingness to serve as executor. A small fortune was lost on associated legal documents.
It seemed a quibble and strange that any one lawyer, let alone all three, Weatherly, Sutherland, and Saunders were concerned with what was a minor legal matter, given the grandeur of their office and the clientele they represented. The reels were the last disbursement associated with the will.
It had taken time to track Nate Feldman. According to Weatherly, the law office had hired a private investigative agency. It was through documents connected with the sale of Nate’s organics business, specifically, the uncovering of an outstanding IRS bill for unpaid capital gains that led to Nate being located in Canada.
The law office prided itself on its thoroughness and professionalism. They had a facsimile of the bill from the IRS and Nate’s social security number printed in block lettering. Weatherly went about handing the facsimile over. Nate had the presence of mind not to take receivership of it. He knew enough about the law.
It was apparent then, Weatherly, Sutherland, and Saunders, all three, were Nate’s age. What they wanted was to have it known that they had served with distinction in the US military during the Vietnam War. It seemed principally for the benefit of the Latino secretary. Perhaps she didn’t fully understand their collective sacrifice. Their military pictures were mounted alongside their law degrees and an American flag.