Wichita (9781609458904) Page 3

  Lewis follows him into the adjoining breakfast nook, where, resting light as a puppet in her wheelchair pulled up to the table, is teenaged Stacy. She suffers from a mystery degenerative condition but is pretty in a pale, pixieish way that reminds Lewis of the illustrations of Loki in D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Gods and Goddesses. With a thin arm, she hails Lewis, who waves back feeling the usual initial stab of pity for her and guilt at his own health and able body.

  Sitting next to her is Cody, Seth’s homeschool classmate and sometime bandmate who moved to Wichita to live with an aunt when he was kicked out of a FLDS “plyg” community in Texas. His credulous, stoned brown eyes lighting up at the sight of Lewis, he hops up to give him a pounds embrace, his wife-beater T tucked into a pair of jeans so truncated that the entirety of his narrow ass bulges beneath the taut cotton like a head concealed in a perp walk.

  Across from them is Harry, Seth’s shrink, though at this point more a psychopharmacological family friend than anything else—compassionately upswept caterpillar eyebrows and what’s left of his hair tied in a ponytail. Lewis is always surprised to find him still here, this New Agey Jewish psychiatrist in Christian Right Kansas.

  Finally there’s a mystery guest, a homeless-looking man with gray Willie Nelson pigtails that are, on closer inspection, matted into dreadlocks. He has a fine scar looping behind one ear and wears a trucker hat that says “Emerald City, Seattle WA.” Seth introduces him as Butch and Butch gives an imperious nod. It’s a type Seth has an affinity for, and not just because he’s lived on the streets himself. The affinity came first, from somewhere else—a past life, Abby believes (and/or a simultaneous life being lived out in a separate but related dimension). On visits to see Virgil in New York when he was a little boy, Seth would plop down next to someone with a cardboard sign and festering facial sores and chat about who-knows-what until drawn away by the hand. He doubtless knows Butch from the Inter-Faith Ministries Homeless Shelter, where he volunteers occasionally, Abby and Harry having decided that helping others—serving food, changing sheets—will help Seth focus less obsessively and self-destructively on himself. Has it worked? Abby and Harry think so, absolutely. That there’s no control-group Seth who didn’t volunteer at the Inter-Faith shelter and thus no way of knowing is something Lewis sees no good reason to point out.

  He’s not in the mood, after traveling all day, to try to make conversation with this crew but sits down at the table lest he be judged stuck-up. Abby’s households have always been havens for oddballs and outcasts of various sorts and Lewis just needs to reacclimate to this woolier, inclusive world.

  A silence falls and Seth breaks it by announcing daffily, with an air of imitating someone specific, “I can’t decide whether to get an iPhone or not.” He wrinkles his nose and looks from face to face. “It’s all I can think about! I’m just obsessed! Butch, think I should get an iPhone?”

  Butch sips his beer and stares stonily into the middle distance and as if he hasn’t heard.

  Smiling fondly, Harry raises his unopened can of Foster’s and says, “Lewis, congratulations! You did it!”

  “Did what?” Cody asks.

  “Graduated from college, stoner,” Seth says, rolling his eyes. “What do you think he’s been up to for the past five years?”

  Frowning, Cody hesitates then says tentatively, “I thought college was four years.”

  “Ah, yes, well, Cody, that’s true,” Seth says, glancing at Lewis as if embarrassed for him, regretful to have this awkward matter arise. “And normally, people do graduate in four years. But Lewis took a little longer and we’re not going to judge that because everyone has their own rate.”

  “From Columbia,” Harry tells Butch, playing the proud parent, which Lewis is grateful for. “Summa cum laude.”

  “Some cum loudly?” Seth asks, frowning innocently. Cody snickers into one hand and Stacy blushes and fiddles with a switch on the arm of her wheelchair. “No, really,” Seth protests with a befuddled look. “They give awards for that?”

  “Anyway,” Harry says to Lewis, sighing and shaking his head at puerile Seth.

  “By God, they give awards for that,” Seth says, looking around the table, “I better clear some space on my trophy shelf!” Then falls out laughing, backwards in his chair with both arms flung out, then falling forward to bang his forehead on the table.

  “God, that doesn’t hurt at all!” he pauses to announce with alarm. “I can’t feel that!” He resumes banging his forehead. “Am I banging my forehead against the table, Cody?”

  “Sure are, dude,” Cody says.

  “Why can’t I feel anything?” He bangs on. “Harry, we need to discuss my meds.”

  “Ivy League,” Butch says appraisingly, turning toward Lewis. He has a deep, raspy voice.

  Lewis shrugs. “Lots of ivy,” he says.

  Seth leans toward Butch. “Now it’s also true that Lewis came limping home to live with his mommy at age twenty-three with no job and no prospects whatsoever,” he says, scratching the facial tattoo and shaking his head sadly. “No one’s trying to deny that. But it’s also true and has to be said that Lewis has rejected the dry and delusional life of the mind for true wide-open realms of freedom and experience. Brav-o! Am I right? Brav-o!”

  All of which Butch waits out with a sort of steely patience. “You’re set for life,” he says to Lewis.

  “That’s the first I heard of it,” Lewis says lightly, looking around at the others. Butch seems to be mistaking Lewis for George Bush—a quip Lewis swallows, unsure of the man’s stability.

  “Nah,” Butch says, waving a hand, loath to be so lightly contradicted, “you’re in the club.”

  “Now maybe if he’d gone to Harvard—” Seth says, which gets a laugh from everyone except Butch, who continues to hold Lewis in the tractor beam of his gaze.

  Lewis takes a sip of beer and looks away. He could explain that a BA, from the Ivy League or not, doesn’t amount to all that much anymore. That one needs a “terminal degree” of some kind, in business or law or whatever. That Lewis, because he was on track to become a professor, has walked away from the Ivy League and its prestige prematurely. But he suspects that anything he says will just find its proper place in Butch’s Talk Radio conspiracy theory. He settles for catching Seth’s eye to quickly scowl his annoyance, with Seth cocking his head in canine puzzlement.

  Stacy leans toward Cody and makes a remark about something. Her speech is garbled by her condition and most of what she says is incomprehensible to Lewis. But he has the sense that she’s tactfully changing the subject. It seems to work: psycho Butch is now peering dully at Cody, who’s prodding what looks like a bite or welt on his thin forearm.

  “Nah, I’m pretty much used to it,” Cody says. He’s an assistant to a beekeeper, he explains. Last Lewis heard Cody was learning to install security cameras. What Cody imagined when he took this new job was peaceful stoned days spent sliding trays of honey out of those cool white boxes. But Cody’s boss is getting most of his work from banks that have foreclosed on homes, which, after standing empty, sometimes become infested by bees. And these bees get pretty damn pissed-off when you evict ’em. Hence all the stings.

  Then, as if remembering, Cody looks up and announces, “Yo, I’m gonna hop a freight up to work the sugar beet harvest in August!”

  “South Dakotee?” Butch asks.

  “Yep,” Cody says, nodding eagerly. “Or Minnesota.”

  “Minnesotee,” Seth says.

  “People still ride freight trains?” Lewis asks. He actually knows they do; he’s heard Seth talk about it. He’s read about it. The question just popped out.

  “Hell, yeah!” Cody says, turning to him. “Dude, you should come with me! You can make ten g’s in, like, a matter of weeks!”

  Lewis imagines a lush summer landscape clattering past the open doorway of a boxcar. Maybe he will hop a freight train with Cody, work the sugar-beet harvest. But his attention is drawn back to Butch, who is staring at Lewi
s in disgusted amazement.

  “Citizen,” Butch mutters, shaking his head with contempt.

  “Pardon me?” Lewis says.

  “Now, fellas!” Seth says and leans across the table with his arms spread as if to keep Lewis and Butch separated.

  “Pardon you?” Butch says. He makes a regal gesture of dismissal with a puffy, reddish hand. “OK, you’re pardoned!”

  “Fellas!” Seth says again, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. “Let’s keep this civilized!”

  “So Cody,” Harry begins, looking a little pale.

  “I said you’re a citizen,” Butch tells Lewis, with the slight shrug of someone stating a value-neutral fact.

  “So what are you?” Lewis asks and hears Cody suck in a breath.

  “Not that,” says Butch, raising his chin. “I’m not at liberty to say what I am.”

  “Oh, I see,” Lewis says. “Top secret.” But regrets it as Butch’s face flushes darkly.

  “I just can’t decide,” Seth says. “I mean, I love the way it feels in my hand—it’s so sexy—but they say the line drops a lot. What do you think, Butch? iPhone?”

  Butch sits staring murderously at Lewis. Now Abby appears with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “Anyone like to try one of these mushroom things?” she asks. She holds the tray over the table and the current between Lewis and Butch is broken. “They’re really good.”

  Harry takes a mushroom puff. “Thanks, Abby.”

  “Butch, have a damn shroom, already!” Seth says, pushing the tray toward Butch.

  Butch shakes his head, the matted gray ponytails swinging. “I’m gonna head out,” he says, rising from his chair suddenly enough to make Lewis flinch, he hopes not too obviously. Looking buffeted by the violence in the air, sensitive Stacy pushes a switch on the arm of her wheelchair and reverses away from the table to clear a path for Butch’s exit.

  “I’ll give you a lift, Butch,” Harry offers cheerfully. Lewis gets up from his chair to let Seth and Harry out, conscious of rising to his full height and peering down at Butch, who looks more stooped and brittle than menacing now that he’s on his feet. Avoiding Lewis’s eyes, he walks deliberately out of the kitchen wearing a haughty expression, followed by Harry and Seth, who shakes his head at Lewis as if to say, “I can’t bring you anywhere!”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Seth!” Butch calls from the garage, his froggy voice echoing.

  “Any time, Butch!” Abby calls back. She closes the door and turns with a wide-eyed, perplexed expression. “What was that all about?” But the front door bell rings and she goes to answer it before anyone can reply.

  “Do you know that guy?” Lewis asks Cody. Cody shakes his head decisively, defensively, as if Lewis might hold him to account. “I don’t know him! He must be a traveler-hobo dude.” He opens the door and peers out into the garage as if worried there might be more from Butch then closes it and returns to Lewis’s side. “They don’t consider themselves US citizens,” he whispers. “Have their own code and shit.”

  Seth comes in from the garage as Abby returns from the living room, where women’s laughter and festive voices can now be heard.

  “So what was that all about with Butch?” Abby asks, looking at Seth then Lewis as she hoists a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

  “Butch called Lewis a ‘citizen’ and Lewis, like, lost it!” Seth says in faux dismay. “I think he’s ashamed to be American or something, Mom!”

  Abby goes out with the tray without dignifying this with a reply; Seth lets out a triumphant cackle and thumps Lewis dismissively on the chest and Lewis seizes his hand, catching him off guard, and bends it downward at the wrist in a drop-the-weapon move he learned from Seth himself. Bigger and stronger, Lewis has always enjoyed a casually dominant physical relation to Seth, though Seth played football and the rest too, before spurning it all in favor of skateboarding. But while Lewis has been essentially ignoring his body for the past five or six years, doing the minimum to keep it healthy and functioning, Seth has devoted himself to mixed martial arts: his torso is cut and hard, his neck and upper shoulders thickened as if for head-butting or withstanding a battering. He’s also picked up a new attitude, whether on the streets and in jail or just in the course of training, a dangerous glint in his eye.

  So Lewis is taking care to inflict no more than a playful, light pain, just enough to hold Seth in check for a moment, repay him in part for the presence of Butch and that riff about the extra year it took Lewis to graduate, which stung more than Lewis let himself feel when he sat listening to it with a tolerant smile. In his junior year he decided that if he were actually going to read all the pages of Kant and Hegel and Žižek being assigned, he would have to take a lighter load. Virgil and Gerty, even Victoria, tried to dissuade him but he went ahead with it: he would show them how to be authentic; a truly serious student read every single word assigned. Well, no, he didn’t; it wasn’t possible, for one thing. And even with the lighter load, Lewis read about the same percentage as always. Adding the extra year, it seems to him now, simply lengthened his stay and made him vulnerable to being called slow, irresolute. It was another stick on the fire burning down Victoria’s belief in him. As for being twenty-three, he just turned. He’s surprised Seth knew or noticed; he can’t remember the last time Seth acknowledged his or anybody else’s birthday. But Seth notices and notes more than he lets on.

  Set has managed to flex impressively backwards and sideways far enough to reach inside an open cutlery drawer with his free hand. He’s grinning, Lewis is relieved to see; everything is still in jest. He’s no doubt detecting having succeeded in annoying Lewis enough to cut through Lewis’s galling aloofness: this is already a victory.

  Stacy, Lewis sees, has nestled her wheelchair into the far rear of the breakfast nook and is reading a paperback as if adept at tuning out such chaos. The frilly pink leather knapsack hanging from the handlebars of the wheelchair always has books in it—The Chronicles of Narnia, Tolkien, Harry Potter. She reads them over and over. Cody stands beaming his approval at the tussle from close by but ready to flee if it surges his way.

  Lewis increases the pressure on Seth’s wrist then abruptly lets go and pulls Cody over to use as a shield against the butter-knife attack Seth is mounting. The dogs are barking shrilly around their legs. Cody screams.

  And in comes Donald bearing grocery bags in each hand and stops in his tracks. He’s a large, lumbering guy in his fifties, mop of dark straight hair speckled with gray, thick glasses, thick moustache like a gay clone from the seventies. In New York he would be considered fat, in Wichita he’s “big.” He’s wearing pale khakis and a white T-shirt and a pair of enormous cross-trainers that have enough rubber to shoe a village in the tropics.

  “Put that knife away, please,” he tells Seth, blinking nervously. Lewis has no idea what’s already gone down between these two: Donald may have good cause to be nervous. Lewis has meanwhile been moving crabwise away to dissociate himself from the scene.

  “Of course!” Seth says and pretends to stab Cody in the gut and Cody obliges by folding forward and screaming again.

  “Seth, put it away,” Donald says through clenched teeth.

  Seth pouts and flips the knife back in the drawer with a clatter. “It’s a butter knife, Don buddy, not a shank.”

  Donald sighs forbearingly and sets the grocery bags on the counter.

  “Lewis!” he says now, coming forward to shake his hand as if singling out a fellow rational adult among the tattooed savages. And unwittingly echoing Seth’s burlesque of the same gesture in the driveway. “Welcome.”

  “Thanks,” Lewis murmurs, though “welcome” from Donald’s lips is worrisome, not to mention a little presumptuous. While Donald unpacks the groceries (more supplies for Abby’s cocktail party, Lewis notes, not day-to-day basics that would suggest permanent residency) he and Lewis make small talk about Donald’s visit to New York while Seth grumbles to Cody about how Donald must have some undiagnosed vision problem if the man can’t
distinguish a butter knife from a shank.

  Abby comes in for more finger food and wine, gives Donald a distracted, oblivious kiss, and goes back out. Hands on hips now, Donald surveys the kitchen and sets about tidying up with a stoic mien, shaking the dregs from a Foster’s can into the sink and dropping the can into a blue recycle bin with a clank.

  “Donald, buddy,” Seth says languidly, watching from a chair at the breakfast nook table now, the soles of his bare feet up and exposed in a way that makes Lewis think of how the posture is deemed an insult in certain Middle Eastern cultures, “you don’t have to do that!” Meanwhile winking at Lewis to say: it’s actually really nice to have a man servant, you’ll see. He pushes with a finger a beer-filmed glass an inch or two closer to the edge of the table to make it easier for Donald to pick up.

  “It’s so hard to know what happened in past lives,” Seth says to Lewis quasi-speculatively, “isn’t it? Why certain people have certain relations to others in this life. You have your teachers and your students, then you have the folks who come in after class to empty the trash and whatnot. Why?”

  While Cody gives straightforward consideration to this chestnut, Lewis frowns at Seth over Donald’s shoulder, annoyed to be made a party to mockery of a man he barely knows. Though Donald may be too dim or unaware to be getting Seth’s drift.

  “The whole question of hierarchy is what I’m getting at,” Seth says and too tired to head this off, Lewis is preparing to fly the coop when Abby reappears looking flushed and pleased. “They’re loving the hydro-stick! Tons of enrollment!”

  Seth is on his feet. “I need to get a look at these ladies.”

  “Put a shirt on first,” Abby tells him and he rolls his eyes but snatches a sleeveless black T-shirt from the back of his chair and slips it on as he lopes off toward the living room.

  “Get my note?” Donald asks, embracing Abby from behind, his enormous head slotted over her shoulder by the jaw, fleshy fingers interlaced at her waist. If there were a zoological sign for Abby’s type it would be the Bear.