Homeland Elegies(95)

“Yeah, but still—”

“What still?”

“When nobody says anything, that’s how people can keep doing stuff like this.”

“What are you, a child?”

“What is that supposed to mean—”

“You think I didn’t go over this in my own mind?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“I did. I thought about it. And I did what I thought was best.”

“And what was that?”

“I told you. To use it as leverage. To get things we needed. To do the job better.”

“So did you?”

“What?”

“Use it as leverage?”

He looked down at the phone. “Make your next left,” he said. “That’s Main Street. Library is farther up.” Around us, the hardwood groves and muddy fields had given way to a baseball diamond and, beyond it, the rest of a municipal park. A row of brick buildings appeared now, apparently the town center. As we slowed into the intersection, I stopped for a pair of young mothers in coats and pajama bottoms pushing strollers across the walkway. “Thom knew,” Father finally answered. “He knew I knew. That was the leverage. I got things for the doctors and nurses I could not have gotten otherwise. I got things for the patients.”

“Left here, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. Then: “It’s why he’s never been able to make nice with me. I mean, not that I wanted to make nice. I didn’t. I don’t. But it’s a fine line between that and getting fired.” He paused midthought.

“What?” I asked.

“No, no—it’s nothing.”

“What is it?”

“I see you scribbling all the time.”

“Yeah? I’m a writer, Dad.”

“Well, you might want to take your notes with you when you go to the bathroom next time.”

“Did I leave them out at lunch?”

“You write it all down, don’t you?”

“You looked at my notebook?”

“—Everything. Details and details. How do you not get bored?”

“It’s my job. I have to make note of the details in case I need them later. There’s a lot of labor involved.”

“Well, I just hope you’ll be fair. I hope you won’t make me look like an asshole.”

I never recalled him expressing concern about what I might write about him, and now he was mentioning it for the second time in as many days.

“If I write about the case…”

“You will.”

“…If I do, I wouldn’t be writing about you. But some doctor like you.”

“Who everybody will think is me.”

“…And who will definitely not be an asshole.”

I laughed; he didn’t. “Okay, over there, on the left. The yellow one,” he said, holding the phone up. He was pointing to a squat, square mustard-colored building with a sign over the front door announcing its purpose: PUBLIC LIBRARY

“I don’t see parking,” I said.

“It’s probably in back. Use that Kwik Mart,” he said, indicating the gas station convenience store adjacent to the library. “I’ll go in and get a few things.” I slowed and signaled, then turned in to the parking lot. If I wasn’t particularly mindful about my parking angle, it was because I didn’t have any reason to be.

Father pushed open his door. “You want something?”

“I’ll come with you. I need to use the bathroom.”

Behind the register inside was another heavyset young woman; she was staring down into her phone. The odors here were pungent, off-putting: the burned coffee and cleaning bleach, the desiccated wieners slowly turning on the roller grill. Father headed for the row of refrigerated cases displaying beer. I wove my way through the aisles to the bathroom in the back corner. When I came back, I found Father perusing a rack of potato chips, a six-pack of beer nestled into his armpit. I noticed a narrow, clean-cut man in the store now, maybe forty, with a furry head of white-blond hair shorn close to his skull. He was standing at the press rack by the register, magazine in hand—but he wasn’t reading: he was watching Father and me. I heard him speaking, but I wasn’t sure to whom. “Fucking rule of law. There’s laws for a reason,” I thought I heard him say.

“You want some chips or something?” Father asked me sweetly.

“I’m fine. I’ve still got water in the car.”

He nodded and headed for the register.

As we approached, the blond man held his ground, staring at us as Father laid out his merchandise before the clerk.

“Will that be all?” she asked without interest.

“That’s it,” Father said.

“—You know, there’s rules for a reason,” the blond man blurted, clearly addressing us.

Father looked over at him, confused. “I’m sorry. Were you in line?”

“I’m sorry. Were you in line?” the man repeated, mocking.

I saw Father bristle. “Is there a problem, sir?”

“—Dad.”

“I don’t know, sir—is there?” the man shot back with a smirk. His small teeth were gnawing on a piece of gum. To call the thin row of hair above his upper lip a mustache wouldn’t exactly have made sense.