Have You Seen Luis Velez?(82)

Duh. If I didn’t know that I would have been here on Friday.

“I just need to talk to Dad.”

“Right. That’s why you’re here every other weekend. To give you plenty of time to talk to Malcolm.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” he said.

For several seconds, nothing happened. No words were spoken. It was beginning to dawn on Raymond that she might not let him in.

Then he heard his father’s booming voice.

“Who is that, honey?”

A second awkward pause fell, and seemed to amount to a tug-of-war without words or motion.

Raymond looked up to see his father’s face appear behind her.

“Raymond. What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to ask your advice about something.”

“Is this some kind of emergency?”

“Not really, I guess. It’s just important to me.”

Malcolm sighed. Not as though disgusted with Raymond, Raymond thought. More as though he was gearing up to fight about it with his wife.

“Give me a minute to get a jacket,” he said. “I’ll take you out for an ice cream soda like we used to do in the old days.”

While he was waiting, no one invited Raymond in.

He stood out in the hall, one ear near the narrow opening of the door, and listened to them going back and forth about it.

“He’s my son.”

“I’m your wife.”

“He’s just a boy. He needs a strong adult in his life.”

“I’m making us a special dinner, and you knew it.”

“I’ll still eat it. That’s hours away.”

“He could have called.”

“I’ll talk to him about that.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I said I will, and I will.”

“You always say that, but then you never want to ruffle anybody’s feathers.”

“I’ll be back in less than an hour. Love you.”

No reply.

Raymond’s father popped out into the hall with him, and Raymond jumped back to give him room.

“I suppose you heard all of that,” his father said.

Raymond didn’t offer any reply.

They walked toward the elevator side by side.

“So why didn’t you call?”

“I figured Neesha would answer and not let me talk to you and tell me not to come.”

“That’s honest enough. And I’m not going to stand here and tell you that couldn’t have happened.”



Raymond ordered a root beer float, his father a single scoop of vanilla. Raymond knew his father was being careful not to spoil his appetite.

They sat at a round stainless steel table by one of the front windows, where they could watch what looked like the entirety of the human population of Earth as it teemed by. The table had sparkly stars on its surface. Slightly raised. Raymond traced them with his finger as he spoke.

“So, what would you do if you had a friend who was just . . . completely . . . I’m not sure what the word is I’m looking for. I want to say depressed, but I feel like it’s more than that. Like she’s just given up on the world. Like the way the world is, she just can’t face it.”

“Sounds like the word you’re looking for is despair.”

“Yeah,” Raymond said, looking up directly into his father’s face. “Despair.”

Malcolm sighed deeply. “It’s probably not what you want to hear, but there’s a limited amount you can do. You can listen.”

“Listen? That doesn’t sound like much help.”

“Well, here’s the problem, son. I think you’re asking me how you fix a thing like that for somebody else. And unfortunately the answer is . . . you can’t. In fact, sometimes that gets in the way, when we try to fix what somebody else is feeling. Ever had somebody telling you what you ought to do to get out of what you’re feeling when you wish they would just hear you out?”

“Yeah. More times than I could count.”

“When we care about somebody, we don’t want to see them in pain, and that’s normal. But when a person is in despair about the world, I mean . . . what can you do? You can’t change the whole world into something they’ll like better.”

“No,” Raymond said.

A waiter in a red-and-white striped apron appeared with the ice cream and the root beer float. He seemed to catch the mood at their table, and he quickly left their order and retreated.

“This is about the trial?” his father asked. “And that woman shooter getting acquitted?”

“I thought so. At first. But it turns out it’s partly about that and partly about some other bad things from her past that I think she never really got over.”

“I see.”

“Listen? You really think that’ll be enough?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Raymond took a big gulp of his root beer float. Or tried to, anyway. The straw was full of ice cream, and it was hard to pull much in. But it was good, the little bit he got.

“You know anything about the law?” Raymond asked his father.

“Not too much. Probably just what your average person who’s not a lawyer would know.”