Very Hard Choices Read online

  Québecois separatists kidnap Commissioner Cross, so Premier Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act authorizing the government to do anything it likes; 450 bystanders are arrested; Cross is soon found dead in a car trunk. Gay men riot in a Greenwich Village dive called the Stonewall Inn, and the planet tilts on its axis. The Godfather spends sixty-seven weeks on the Times list, and sells twenty-one million copies. Woodstock happens . . . but then so does Altamont. The first 10,000 heroin addicts are converted to methadone addicts, to protect them from drugs. The Manson Family do their thing.

  Mind you, during the same period a booming U.S. economy employs a record number of workers, unemployment falls to its lowest level in 15 years, the prime interest rate is 7 percent, the dollar is strong in world money markets, and Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average rises above 1,000 for the first time in history. But none of us hippies gave a damn about any of that—or much of anything. We already sensed somehow that the Beatles had broken up. John and Paul were both married, and the wives couldn't stand each other: it was only a matter of time. The dream was over.

  By next May Paul had confirmed the news, and the Let It Be film publicly autopsied the corpse.

  Things got steadily shittier for quite a spell, then. It became gradually clear that the Apollo Program was over, and that there was nothing of any consequence after it. A race had been won, and space flight was over, before anything was done with it. It would take more than thirty-five years before men would again have the sense and guts to venture more than a cheesey couple of hundred miles from the ground. The Vietnam War finally ended . . . in shame and disgrace, and as clumsily as we could manage. As for politics, let's not even discuss the Nixon Era. It was he who gutted NASA, at the moment of its greatest triumph, for being a Democrat's idea.

  Hell, look at music. The Great Folk Scare finally blew over, rock and roll anarchy was finally tamed and lamed, and the industry proudly brought us disco instead. Who wouldn't have been depressed?

  Maybe it's no wonder people moved away from smoking Happy Weed . . . or for that matter, tripping on acid, mescaline and peyote . . . and started to honk harsh powders that sometimes contained a few molecules of cocaine up their bleeding noses, or set their faces on fire freebasing, or spike speed, or even smack. When you cut your hair, shave, put on a suit, and get a job with a dental plan, you may discover that's what you need, just to get over. Joy would get in the way, cost you your edge. We only had fifteen years to convert ourselves from people who cheered for Captain America in Easy Rider to people who would cheer for Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, and coke and speed and skag helped.

  I will never inject a drug for pleasure; I snorted cocaine six times in my life and never cared for it; I never stopped smoking pot myself, or enjoying it. But I stopped trying to talk my father into getting stoned with me. I came to think of it less as a sacrament and more as an analgesic, an anodyne.

  Until the day Dad called with a funny little story, I wish I could quote it exactly for you, about the cosmic particle that had left a far-distant star eons ago, and traveled countless light-years for innumerable centuries before passing through his pancreas and the rest of his planet without even noticing, one unfortunate side effect being that he was going to be dead of pancreatic cancer in an absolute maximum of three months. Then pot became more of a sacrament to me again.

  One I failed to share with him, try as I might.

  I was then living over a thousand miles away, newly married. Jesse was six months old, and not a healthy baby. His mom was basically still recovering from a thirty-hour labor followed by Caesarian section, serious infection, and several long bouts of mastitis. I was trying to get my journalism career started, and had already used those excuses too many times to my obligatory crusty editor. I managed to carve out four days, arranged temporary support and backup for wife and child, and flew home.

  Where I found it all but impossible to get two consecutive minutes alone with Dad in his hospital room. It is possible to get high in a hospital room without getting caught, if you know what you're doing; I had learned the knack on the second job I ever had, porter in a hospital, at eighteen, and used it in two subsequent long hospital stays of my own. But even when I finally came up with an errand that got Mom out of the room for a few moments, and worked up the nerve to propose the idea to Dad, he turned it down. I pressed him. "I can sneak back in after Visiting Hours, I know how hospitals work, Pop. It would really mean a lot to me."

  He did hesitate. But then he shook his head. "Not at the end of my life," he said. "It would only confuse me, and I need my attention for dying now. I want to get it over with. Thanks, Son; too bad we didn't get to it sooner."

  I didn't even get to respond; Mom came back that quickly.

  So when my own son turned eighteen, I'd asked him to get high with me. He turned me down flat, then, and the next half dozen times I proposed it—with something eerily close to the same thinly veiled contempt I had given my own father when he offered to get drunk with me on my own eighteenth birthday. And for the same reason: he said he'd grown up seeing me use that drug, and wanted no part of it.

  Of course, I had come to find use for alcohol later on—and I did, I'm happy to say, get pie-faced with Pop one glorious night—and I did in later years smell unmistakable evidence that my son was at least a social pot smoker. But I had never gotten him to share a joint or a pipe with me. "Can I have a hit of that?" were words I'd wanted to hear him say for a long time—and for him to say them now, here, was the best possible sign for my hopes of a reconciliation between us.

  Add in as a bonus the fact that if Jesse became part of the circle, Nika would have to stop pretending and actually take a few tokes—and I found that I wanted very much to get her stoned, to find out what her robocop brain was like when it was wrecked. It would actually help calm her down, which it was clear she needed right now.

  But damn it all to hell and back again, I did not want her getting stoned anywhere within a kilometer of my son. She was a neophyte, and among the most common effects on the beginner are a tendency to babble and a conviction that absolutely everything in the world is hilarious. I could easily picture Nika, in an explosive burst of laughter and smoke, telling Jesse how little he knew about his father, recounting for him the altogether side-splitting story of my old college roomie, Smelly the telepath, and how old Smelly had led her and me to conceal a body down by the stream that ran through my property, one ugly morning a few years before. Nobody who's been smoking dope for more than a couple of weeks actually behaves like that, except in folklore, but new users sometimes do.

  So:

  "A hit of what?" I asked, and made the joint disappear. "Have I introduced Detective Constable Nika Mandiç?"

  It was ridiculous. The scent of Kootenay Thunderfuck cannot possibly be mistaken for anything else, and noses were probably opening appreciatively as much as half a kilometer downwind by now. Vagrant wisps of heavy smoke still stood in the air between Nika and me. I croaked it more than said it, and exhaled hugely afterwards.

  But he had heard me say Nika was a cop, and he could see she was mortally embarrassed. He decided to let it go.

  Let the drug go, anyway. "A hit of the conversation, of course," he said after a barely perceptible pause. "Hi, I'm his son Jesse, and you're Nika. So you're in law enforcement."

  "Hello, Jesse. That's right, I'm a VPD officer."

  "Well, I for one feel safer already," he said, and showed her how good his dental work was, all the way to the back teeth.

  My God, he was hitting on her.

  Even she could tell. She dimpled and said, "Thank you, Jesse. And what do you do that's dangerous?"

  Holy shit, she was hitting back!

  I stood there and gaped. All I kept thinking was, I really wish I could keep smoking that joint.

  And I'm not even sure I can satisfactorily explain why I was so dismayed. My son and my collaborator in felony were of about the same age, both healthy and single. The pairing even made
a certain sense, from some perspectives: they both had a stick up their ass, for one thing. So why did I keep trying to think of reasons why they'd make a bad pair? It wasn't all that hard—she arrested people for not telling her the truth, he lied for a living—she lived on a cop's salary, he was on the lower rungs of rich, with a good grip and strong arms—she was a Canadian, he was an American—but what the hell did I care? They were both adults, barely.

  Okay, it's stupid. I'm closing in on sixty years old, and I get enough reminders of that every day to keep me popping acetaminophen. And other pills. But in my head, I'm still my son's age. In my silly secret heart, I had always thought of Nika as a possibility untried, always felt that if things had gone another way . . . well, they might have gone another way.

  Right. I was still the star of my own movie, sure, maybe even the main character . . . but I was no longer the romantic lead, that was clear. The male ingenue had taken the set. My choices now were to become kindly old dad and give benevolent wise advice to the young couple, or fuck off.

  When I thought about it, by all the standard criteria that matter to normal people, my son was a better man than I was. I happened to know his penis was bigger. So was his IQ. So was his bank balance. And she was a normal person. For a cop, anyway.

  Five minutes later, on the sundeck, drinking the Irish coffee I had intended as my second cup, Nika remembered that she had a matter of life and death urgency to discuss with me in extreme privacy.

  By then things had become even more uncomfortable for me, and if you're wondering how that could be, just think about it. That's right—they had started talking politics. Do I need to say he turned out to be a big fan of our current sissyphobe prime minister, Stephen Harper? Or that she was an ardent and annoyingly well-informed supporter of Resident Bush? Or that my teeth nearly met through my tongue within the first five minutes, from biting back brilliant rejoinders? Is there anything more frustrating than an argument you could win with your head in a bag . . . that you can't let yourself win? Probably, and it's frustrating that I can't think of it just now.

  "No one's ever going to give up Osama, no matter how high a reward is offered, or what kind of torture is used," he was saying, and I was not saying Of course not you silly shit, the dude's been deader than Dubya's dick for years now, and then he went on, "If they want to find him, it'll take dumb luck or a mind reader."

  Her eyeballs seemed to swap sockets and back again. "Oh. Um . . . Jesse, can I ask you to give me a few minutes in private with your dad? I just remembered the reason I drove out here, and I'm afraid it mustn't wait. We won't be long."

  We walked to her car together, stopped short of it—and found that he had followed us. It startled me. His manners were better than that.

  "I just wanted to say—" he began, and stopped.

  "Jesse," Nika said, "you're a serious man. You've obviously done some government work. You're not cleared to hear . . . are you listening to me?"

  He wasn't. He was looking past her, at something on or near ground-level. In a moment he caught up with what she'd said, and spoke to both of us. "You have some idea of the kind of resources and influence I can summon. Are you sure you don't want me to sit in on this discussion?"

  Burston-Marseller was at that time the undisputed biggest and best public relations firm in the world. There probably wasn't a lot they couldn't fix if they wanted. I almost thought about it. "Thanks, Jess," I said. "But I'd rather not involve you."

  "He's right, Jesse," Nika said softly.

  "I think it's a little late for that," he said just as softly. "Whatever's going on, I'm already involved."

  We exchanged a glance. "How do you figure that?" she asked him.

  "I know that's not standard equipment on a Honda," he said, pointing. "I happen to know what it is. As a matter of fact, I think I could quote the suggested list price."

  We spun to look where he was pointing. It took both of us seconds to see it, seconds more to grasp what we were seeing. At first I saw . . . dirt. My rutted driveway. Mud. Random puddles.

  Then I saw a reflection in one. Something small and shiny, under Nika's rear bumper. Moving slowly. Size and color of a nail-clipper. Seconds after I focused on it, it stopped moving. I tried to blink away floaters, failed as usual, and stooped for a closer look. Nika, far more effortlessly, went down on one knee and peered directly up at the thing, clinging to the underside of the bumper. It was motionless now.

  It looked to me like a tiny toy robot lizard, with a horn sticking up out of its snout—just the right size to go in a box of Cracker Jacks. (Do they still sell them? How? Do kids with game boxes and video iPods want little plastic toys?)

  I turned to Nika and the blood had drained from her face.

  "I don't happen to know what it is," I said. "Do you?"

  "I've heard about them," she said slowly, getting to her feet. "Seen a sketch that turns out to be accurate. It's a GPS snitch. It is the tracking device of the gods. Almost literally." She turned to look at Jesse. "I have no idea what it lists for. I think it may be a federal felony to recognize it. In America, anyway; I doubt our government has any, so it may not be proscribed here yet. Not that it matters."

  "Not that it matters," my son agreed. "I think I've been involved since you drove up this driveway. That thing picks up audio extremely well."

  I straightened up, almost. "Jesus Christ in a trenchcoat!"

  "Russell, I'm sorry. He's right. I'm very sorry."

  "You think?" I bellowed. "You don't know the meaning of the fucking word."

  "As a matter of fact, I do," she said, just loud enough to be heard. "Don't you tell me I don't."

  "Dad, how could she have known that was there? Now why don't you tell me what you're sorry I'm involved in, so I can decide whether I agree?"

  I turned to Nika. "We have to tell him."

  "We do now," she agreed sourly.

  I propped an elbow on a fist, covered my face with a hand. "You sorry enough to take a crack at it?" I muttered.

  She sighed. "We might as well sit back down."

  We resumed our seats on the deck. But before we could say anything, Jesse held up his hand for silence. He took from his shirt pocket the hot new superphone he had been so quietly proud to show off when he'd first arrived; it wasn't even supposed to be on sale for another few days yet, and then only in America. He poked at the screen for a moment, and set it down on the table.

  It began to play back—at plausible conversational volume—everything he and I had said on that deck since his arrival, with pauses longer than a few seconds edited out.

  I wondered why he had recorded our conversation. I wanted to believe it indicated that mending our fences was as important to him as it was to me. Or did he just keep the phone doing that all the time, a kind of audio diary, and dump it to hard disk each night? I was too busy to ask.

  Its volume was impressive for so small a device, making both me and Nika start at first. He made an adjustment with a forefinger, and the speed of playback dropped just perceptibly, not enough to distort our voices. Then he pointed the same finger in the air and made a circular motion to indicate that the recording was on a loop, and would repeat. Nika and I exchanged a glance, then both nodded that we got it. All three of us rose as silently as we could—me least of all, damn it—and I zipped the screen door open in its track as quietly as I could, and we all slipped into the house, pulling the solid wooden door closed behind us.

  "You really think that thing picks up audio?" she asked as soon as it shut.

  He shrugged. "It wouldn't add much to the cost."

  She looked around, seeing the room for the first time since the night a man had died in it while she watched and thanked her lucky stars, and I knew from her body language it was all coming back for her. Jesse let her pick her seat first. She chose the near end of the couch, beside the end table where a reading lamp stood, and I took the daddy chair on the other end that I knew she was avoiding. He pulled the old rocking chair at an angle
to face both of us across the coffee table, and waited while she finished her drink. So did I. I found I was curious to hear how she would say it.

  "A long time ago, back when he was in college, your father had a roommate nobody else on the whole campus was willing to share a room with, for two semesters."

  "Excessive tolerance has been one of his flaws as long as I've known him. What was this dude's offense?"

  "He didn't bathe. Ever."

  I could hear him inhale. "My God, I think I remember my mother mentioning that goofball, once. Stinky, they all called him, right?"

  I put my hands down and took a deep breath. "Smelly," I said. "We called him Smelly."

  3.

  Tuesday, February 14, 1967

  St. William Joseph College

  Olympia, New York, USA

  "Slim, I don't care how much grass you can get away with smoking in your room." Slinky John said to me. "I still don't see how you can keep from killing him. No mosquito has ever been thirsty enough to even circle that fat son of a bitch! Flies have died trying—upwind. Worms won't go near him when he dies, until a year later when he starts to smell a little better."

  The other card players, kibitzers and paralyzed drunks gathered in the end hall lounge of Nalligan Three all growled loud agreement, even though it was three AM and the door to the hall was open. Even one or two of the studiers present half-woke up to add their voices.

  How long ago was this? "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones was Number One, followed by the Buckinghams' "Kind of a Drag," and "Georgy Girl" by the Seekers—does that help? Crosby, Stills and Nash had not formed yet. Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom and Edward White would have been taking off that very day in Apollo 1, if it had not killed them on the ground a few weeks earlier. We had been sending combat troops to Vietnam in large numbers for two years, and would have soldiers there for another five years to come.

  Slinky John's point was not only popular but well taken, and his descriptions if anything charitable. I had often wondered myself how I could stand to room with Zandor Zudenigo, and knew I was not about to come up with an answer for Slinks now, at three o'clock in the morning in the midst of a marathon poker session. But pretending to think about it was good cover for any expression that might have flickered across my face as I discovered that he had just dealt me a nine, a ten, and three royals, all five wearing diamonds. "Slinks, I've told you a hundred trillion times to avoid absurd hyperbole. The guy reeks, no possible argument. But any smell wears off; after a while you just stop noticing, as with your extreme physical ugliness. It can be endured."