Mao II

The food was usually takeout, coming in a bag with Arabic letters and a logo of three red chickens standing in a row.

No, he didn't hate the boy, who had scrappy hands and chewed-up fingers and was not the author of his lonely terror. But he did hate him, didn't he, or did he, or not?

Soon, though, he felt these talks with his father were a form of exercise, of self-improvement, and he stopped talking, he let this last voice flee, he said okay and fell to mumbling.

He thought of the no-shirt man on the razor wire and saw him turning neon in the gorgeous dawn of the war.

In the begi

In the begi

Who knew him now?

There was no one who knew him but the boy. First his government abandoned him, then his employer, then his family. And now the men who'd abducted him and kept him sealed in a basement room had also forgotten he was here. It was hard to say whose neglect troubled him most.

Bill sat in a small apartment above a laundromat about a mile east of Harvard Square. He wore a sweater over his pajamas and an old terry-cloth robe over the sweater.

His daughter Liz made di

"It's impossible to save a nickel so I don't even think about moving out of here. I'm at the point where I feel lucky to at least be doing something I like."

"And never mind the little miseries."

"But watch out for the big ones."

"Last time I was here."

"Right."

"You look a lot better, kid."

"Last time was a crisis. Which I see you found your robe and pajamas. Always leaving things, Daddy."

"I take after you."

He was barefoot, reading a newspaper.

"And let someone know you're coming for God's sake. I could have met you at the airport."

"Spur of the moment. I figured you were working."

"Monday's off."

"I'll bet you're good at your job."

"Tell them. I'm going to be like thirty any minute and I'm still trying to lose the word 'assistant.' "

"Now, look, about the inconvenience. I'm out of here tomorrow."

"The sofa's yours as long as you want it. Stay a while. I'd like you to."

"You know me."

"We're all going to Atlanta for Memorial Day. I'll be able to report on the rare visit of the Mythical Father."

"You'll ruin their weekend."

"Why don't you ask me how they're doing?"

"I don't give a damn."

"Thank you."

"I've reached a long-distance agreement with those two about the value of not giving a damn. ESP. We're in perfect unspoken communication."

He put down one section of the paper and started on another.

"They're interested in what you're doing," she said.

"What am I doing? I'm doing what I always do. How could anyone be interested in that?"

"You're still a popular subject. Except with Mother of course. She doesn't want to hear about it."

"Neither do I, Lizzie."

"But it comes up. We're like little brown doggies gnawing and pulling at the same spitty rag."

"Report that my drinking is completely under control."

"What about your remoteness?"

"What about it?" he said.

"Your anger. The airspace we weren't allowed to enter when you were brooding. What about your vanishing act?"

"Look, why even bother with me if you really believe I was all that difficult?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm a coward. I can't bear the thought that bad feelings might harden between us and I'll grow old always regretting. And maybe it's because there are no kids in my future. I don't have to live my life as a history lesson in how not to be like my father. There won't be anyone I can fuck up the way you did the job on Sheila and Jeff."

She put her head into the opening between the rooms, showing a sly smile.

"We don't think your behavior had anything to do with writing. We think the Mythical Father used writing as an excuse for just about everything. That's how we analyze the matter, Daddy. We think writing was never the burden and the sorrow you made it out to be but as a matter of fact was your convenient crutch and your convenient alibi for every possible failure to be decent."

"What does a stage manager do anyway?"

Her smile widened and she looked at him as if he'd made the one remark that might prove he loved her.

"I remind the actors where they're supposed to fall in the death scene."

Gail came out of the bedroom and got a jacket from the closet.

Bill said, "Am I chasing you out of here? Stay around and referee. An Old Testament sandstorm is falling on my head."

"I have my hypnotist tonight. He's my last hope of taking off pounds."

"I tell her try not eating," Liz said.

"She says it like it's common sense. I have an outside range of maybe eight days' strict diet and then something comes on automatic and I know I'm cleared of blame and guilt."

"Talk to my father. Writers have discipline."

"I know. I envy that. I could never do it. Sit down day after day."

"Army ants have discipline," Bill said. "Don't ask me what writers have."

Gail went out and the two of them sat down to di

"Now, look, I'm trying to remember what else I might have left behind last time."

"Gail wears your robe."

"Hypnosis. It could be the answer to everything."

"You left a billfold with traveler's checks and passport. Look surprised, Daddy."

"I've been wondering where the hell."

"You knew where it was. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I'm here to see you, kid."

"I know."

"Christ, I can't make a move."

"It's all right. I don't spend my time obsessing over Daddy's motives."

"Only his negligence."

"Well there's that of course."

"Actually I wasn't even around when you were born. Ever hear about that?"

"Only just recently."

"I was at Yaddo."

"What's that?"

"It's a retreat, a place where writers go for some ordinary fucking peace and quiet. In fact this is the institution's motto, engraved on a frieze over the entranceway. The u in 'fucking' comes out as a v, in accordance with classical precedent."

He looked up from his food to see if she was smiling. She seemed to be thinking about it. He helped her clean up and then called Charles Everson in New York.

Charlie said, "Your man Scott showed up not long after you left. I was in the boardroom for a luncheon meeting. He apparently raised something of a ruckus in the lobby. Tried to get up to our offices. Security finally called up and asked me to speak to him. He wanted to know where you were. Of course I couldn't tell him because I didn't know."