The Absolved Page 7

  Mr. Toczauer’s family collectively nods in mock understanding.

  “This session of chemo is essentially napalm. It kills not just the cancer but all of the other cells, in the gut, the hair follicles, the mouth, all of them. As terrible as the pain you’re in now is, the chemo will make you feel worse. Imagine the sickest you’ve ever felt in your life, and then multiply that by one hundred.”

  “But it will kill the cancer, and then he’ll get better, right?” the wife asks.

  “As I’ve said, there’s a very good chance your husband won’t survive the chemo. Even so, that’s just the first step. We’d still need to do a bone marrow transplant. The odds that any of this works are very, very small. And no matter what, he will experience extreme bouts of pain and discomfort.”

  “Doctor,” the son says, “it’s time to begin the healing.”

  Nothing’s clearer than that this family refuses to acknowledge their moral predicament. Mr. Toczauer’s wife pulls from her purse a set of rosary beads, grips them tightly, and whispers a prayer. The daughter rests her mother’s head on her shoulder.

  “We’re never alone in this world,” she says. “At the very worst, we are with God.”

  The room’s view affords concrete apartments in the old Soviet style—newly erected low-income housing for The Absolved—each a different color—to mask, I surmise, the drab design. The sky is dull grey, the land as ominous as a painting by Edvard Munch.

  A thin nurse with a kind smile hooks Mr. Toczauer to an IV. He groans softly when the needle stabs him. He looks like a rabbit in a trap.

  While his wife and daughter pray, his son’s gram blinks, and he moves to the corner to talk. He’s the owner of a fitness center, and his robots are malfunctioning. They can’t easily grasp the corners of the towels they’re folding, so each towel takes fifteen minutes and is costing him dearly. Within thirty seconds, the son abandons all semblance of politeness and begins to holler at the AI he’s talking to. Mr. Toczauer’s daughter and wife, meantime, go on with their supplications.

  10

  I head to Anodyne in the tangerine glow of a setting sun. Along the side of the street, two policemen rouse sleeping homeless men from their makeshift beds. When I roll down the windows, Chloe warns me of pollution levels, saying that we’re at “Code Purple.”

  “That’s bad?”

  “It’s very bad, Henri. Nitrogen Dioxide levels are spiking again. You should be wearing a mask.”

  Lydia is hunched over the bar with a pencil, staring at a drawing. She marks it, lifts the pencil to her mouth, considers, and makes another mark. Karl is at the end of the bar, attempting to get her attention by slapping his hand on the counter. Due to the wedding ring, the sound is loud and piercing. Lydia is so focused that she fails to acknowledge him. Karl folds a napkin into an airplane and launches it, striking her in the shoulder. When she looks up, her brown eyes, which I once heard a drunk describe as being “soft and velvety,” appear as cold as razorblades. I crane my neck to make out what she’s drawn. Lydia snatches the picture and tucks it between two bottles of whiskey.

  “Mind your own business, would you?” she snaps.

  “Come on, Lydia,” Karl says, “what are you hiding back there?”

  “I’ve never known you to be so sensitive before,” I say.

  “You don’t know plenty about me.”

  Lunging over the bar, Karl snatches the drawing. He holds it high over his head while fending off Lydia with a classic stiff-arm.

  “My God,” Karl exclaims, “this is some picture!”

  Lydia punches Karl in his belly, and he doubles over.

  “Now can I see it?” I ask.

  Lydia flips the drawing onto the bar. Her art is some of the crudest and most unrefined I’ve seen. The drawing depicts a boy ascending from his mother’s arms to Heaven, where an outstretched set of hands wait to receive him. All around the mother are men and women in swimwear who witness this spectacle with shocked and grievous expressions. The rendering is so disproportionate and overly simplistic that I am made disturbed.

  “You have a unique style.”

  “It keeps the memories at bay.”

  “What happened?”

  “Suffering is never the result of just one thing.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “Yeah,” Karl says, “but some folks got more troubles than others.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Lydia says.

  The room gets so quiet that I swear I can hear my own heartbeat.

  Martinez appears on the television. He’s calling for unity during what he refers to as a “difficult time.” This morning at a campaign stop in Knoxville a mob of Bradford devotees clashed with his supporters, and a full-on riot ensued. Cars were set ablaze, storefronts were looted, and seven people were killed. A report from one news outlet claims there have been two separate attempts on Martinez’s life, this week alone. Up there on the stage, speaking from behind bulletproof glass, everything he says sounds tiresome and untrue. It’s as if his remarks can be predicted before they’re even made.

  “Now that’s a man who’s got a whole lot of trouble coming his way,” Lydia remarks.

  “I’ve had enough of this crap,” Karl says, finishing his beer. “Henri, give me a lift home.”

  I rack my brain for an excuse. “Where do you live?”

  “Bayview.”

  “Too bad,” I say. “I’m in the other direction. Presidio.”

  “Just fucking with you, Henri. I’m in the Tenderloin. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chloe is reluctant to unlock the passenger door for Karl. I assure her that it’s okay, but she calls the police, stating that we’re being carjacked.

  “We’re fine, Officer,” I say. “My OS is mistaken.”

  “Are you sure, sir?” the officer asks. “Blink twice into the camera if you’re under duress.”

  I shake my head, then manually unlock the door. Before Karl can sit down, I lay my lab coat across his seat, to protect the leather. A soulless pop song from one of Chloe’s playlists plays quietly in the background.

  “Nice tune,” Karl says.

  “My wife’s music.”

  “A real lady of the times.”

  We pull up to an apartment complex. A bunch of kids are sitting on the stoop, plugged into their grams. The whole street-facing wall of the building is covered in graffiti claiming allegiances to various Absolved gangs.

  “You remember my dog?” Karl asks.

  “A handsome animal.”

  “He’s sick, and I need you to check him out.”

  “I’m a cancer physician, not a veterinarian.”

  “You’ll make do.”

  A raggedy-looking boy with buckteeth and thick eyebrows closes his gram, and runs to Karl. Karl swoops him up and tosses him high into the air, then catches him. Karl introduces the boy as Karl Jr. The boy holds out a sweaty little hand with dirt-encrusted nails, and I give it a shake.

  Nearly every inch of space inside of Karl’s apartment is lined with junk: decades’ old newspapers and magazines stacked to the ceiling, empty birdcages, shelves lined with ceramic figurines, boxes of discarded appliances, piles of moth-riddled clothing, self-help books, old bank statements, stuffed animals. Tucked under a stool there are several glass bottles filled with urine.

  “She’s not much of a homemaker these days,” he says, nodding at the woman napping on the couch, nearly obscured by a broken antique clock.

  Narrow walkways have been forged through the debris to navigate from room to room. Karl leads me to an office at the back of the apartment. It stands in stark contrast to the rest of the place. The room is sparsely furnished with just a desk, chair, and dresser. Its walls are neatly decorated with photos and memorabilia from Karl’s military days.

  He catches me admiring his Medal of Honor, framed and in glass.

  “I fought in the Battle of Sand Hill Road back in ’27.”

  “It was only a matter of time be
fore they brought the fight to the Bay Area,” I say. “If you’re in a holy war against the West, you strike at the heart of its great religion: technology.”

  “American innovation lost six hundred of its brightest minds that day. Piles of dead software engineers, coders, and venture capitalists strewn all along the streets.”

  “The media called it the death of the Technology Revolution. So much for that, huh?”

  “I saw some really heinous shit while I was in Syria and Egypt fighting the Russians, but nothing like the ‘Iibadatan. They made ISIS look like a bunch of kindergarten teachers. Instead of just cutting your head off, they would do things like sever a soldier’s dick and then use it to fuck him in the ass—while he was still alive, no less. Can you imagine that, getting fucked in the ass with your own dick?”

  “Who’s this?” I ask, pointing at a picture of Karl and another soldier, wearing fatigues and holding machine guns, standing in front of a building on the Google campus.

  “That was my best pal, Benito. He died in my arms the day after that picture was taken. His final words were, ‘Karl, it’s okay, I’m dying for my country. It’s a good death. Remember, America is a bastion of goodness in a world gone mad. You have to keep fighting for our way of life.’”

  “He died fighting for the country he loved.”

  “Benito wouldn’t even recognize what this country has become.”

  The dog is lying on its side on the floor. His eyes are glassy and his breathing is labored. He makes a feeble effort to lick Karl’s hand when Karl goes to pet him. I kneel next to the dog, and feel his nose. It’s bone-dry. The dog breaks into a coughing fit. Placing my ear to the dog’s chest, I listen to its breathing. Unsure of what to do, I diagnose him with an upper respiratory infection, and gram in a prescription.

  Karl walks me to the curb and thanks me for my help. As Chloe pulls away, Karl is slow to return to his home.

  11

  Today is Saturday, and I’ve promised to take Julian to a baseball game—an attempt to foster in him an interest in something other than his new gram. The game doesn’t start until 1:00 p.m., but he wakes me at 6, mitt in hand, to get a jump on the day, he says.

  “Give me thirty more minutes,” I mumble.

  He twists a few of my fingers, the kind of paltry but effective move they teach in women’s self-defense courses. When I howl much louder than what’s warranted, Rachel tells me to, “Quit your moaning.”

  I sweep the boy up and kiss him. He giggles, then accidently pokes my eye when trying to push me away. I’m still disoriented and bump into the walls of the hallway as we move toward the kitchen.

  “Make me some coffee.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I’ve seen you navigate the most bewildering and complex computer applications with nary a hiccup, and you’re claiming ignorance on how to brew coffee?”

  “I’m only seven,” he says, and shows me his mouth full of holes, now that he’s losing his baby teeth.

  I show him how to make coffee with a French Press. As I place the kettle on the stove, I ask him, “Does your mom let you boil water?”

  “Why are you making coffee the old-fashioned way?”

  “I enjoy the ritual.”

  “But it’s slow.”

  “Sometimes slow is good.”

  A few minutes later we’re on the narrow strip of grass we call “the backyard.” I have a mug of coffee and a baseball. Julian’s cap is far too big and keeps falling over his eyes. I lob the ball toward him and watch him flinch as it nears, then deflect off his mitt and smack him in the chest. He picks it up and throws it back, far over my head. This goes on for ten minutes. Finally, sufficiently caffeinated, I teach him the concept of “keeping your eye on the ball,” and then watch the concept become act. A few tosses later, he actually catches the damn thing.

  It occurs to me that I’ve never felt happier.

  My biological father was a hedonist—an artist and devotee of the wonderful French painter Rousseau, and a womanizer, to boot.

  “Why did you give me the name Henri?” I asked him when I was a boy. “All of the kids make fun of me.”

  “You should feel blessed to be named after the most important artist of the 20th century!”

  “What about Picasso?” I said.

  “Picasso was a charlatan. He trafficked in nothing but imitations!” he replied.

  When I was small, my father lived in a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Los Angeles. He didn’t work a normal job like an insurance salesman or a pharmacist. He made art and sometimes sold it, too. When the art didn’t sell, he took odd jobs as a handy man. I’d come over on weekends from my mother’s, where I lived, and we’d spend the day in the studio he shared with one of his artist pals. Sometimes they’d both work so furiously they wouldn’t notice when I snuck off to the streets. Other times they’d have a bunch of friends over and lounge around smoking pot and drinking. His friends taught me at the age of eight how to smoke cigarettes, how to juggle, and how to play the guitar. One of his ladies taught me how to kiss. My father hated the attention I got from his pals.

  “Being admired by grownups is a curse from which no child recovers!” he’d say. I know what that means now no more than I did then.

  When I turned eleven, a judge took away his rights to see me. Occasionally, I stole away on my bike to visit him. By then, he had moved into the house full of bohemians that my mother called a “flophouse.” But I knew it was more than that. At any time, I could find the most interesting characters about: motorcycle gang members, drug dealers, poets, and babes. Over the front door someone had painted in blood red letters the maxim: “Abolish Your Future!” My father died shortly after my fourteenth birthday, as poor as the day he was born.

  Later I found another role model in the most unlikely of places: the desert between Riverside and Indio, California. The year had to have been either 2006 or 2007. I was in high school and playing in The Blank Sets. As a prize for getting second place in a Battle of the Bands contest, the local radio station had given my band mate, Foley, and me a pair of tickets to Coachella, a wildly popular music festival from the early twenty-first century.

  At band practice one night, after Foley and I had each eaten a bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms, it dawned on us that we were about to miss the concert. Just past midnight, higher than the heavens above, we drove his old Subaru wagon through the cool air and starry skies of the desert until we blew a tire and veered into a ditch.

  The well in the trunk where the spare should have been was full of guitar cables, porno magazines, fire crackers, and twine. We called for help, but in those days service was spotty, and we couldn’t get through. It was 3:00 a.m. We were forty miles from any town, but high as we were set off anyway. It wasn’t long before Foley twisted his ankle and collapsed beside a dead coyote. I climbed a rocky outcrop and in the distance saw a fire. It took a while, but at last by the fire I found Ronald, a short, rotund, bald-headed man, dressed in the breathable fabrics found only in specialty outdoors shops. He was surrounded by an array of priceless telescopes. I told him about our predicament, and we packed up his camp and set off to rescue Foley.

  Ronald’s parents had owned a small grocery store. By thirteen, he was working the register every day after school. At sixteen, his father died of stomach cancer. Come time for college, despite scholarships to the nation’s most prestigious universities, he stayed home to help his mother until she sold the store five years later.

  Ronald married his college sweetheart, and his son was born when he was only twenty-four. He admitted to me, that before his wife, he hadn’t slept with more than three women. But Ronald had aspirations. After work each day at his job at an engineering firm, he’d come home and tinker on his own innovations in the garage. By the time his son turned six, Ronald had founded his own company for solar tracking technology, moved into a ramshackle apartment, and lost his marriage. At the divorce proceedings, the judge reproached him, saying, “Quit your mo
nkeying around and go get your old job back!” But two years later, he closed a multi-million-dollar deal, the first of many to follow. And somehow, then, he remarried his wife.

  “But, sir,” I said, “you were rich, and women really respond to money. You could’ve had anyone you wanted. Why didn’t you go out and have some fun?”

  “The only reason I worked so hard to become rich was to give my family the best life I could,” Ronald explained. “She was the mother of my child, and I wanted her to have the world.”

  Years later, after Ronald had lost his business to “those New York vultures,” as he called them, his son died while scuba diving in Nicaragua. It was Ronald’s loneliness that inspired his interest in me, I believed, until my psychologist enlightened me.

  “A rescuer,” she said, “always holds the person rescued in the highest fondness. They gave him the chance to demonstrate the bravery of which heroes are made.”

  Who doesn’t like to be reminded of their most shining achievement? Every time Ronald looked at me, he thought of his great deed saving me and Foley from the desert. In the end, the reason he loved me is moot. If it weren’t for his guidance, I would’ve pursued music and followed my father’s path of art, anguish, and death.

  After throwing Julian a round of batting practice, I decide to take a swing, hitting the ball onto the roof, effectively ending the game.

  Julian loves the metro. Within minutes, he’s made the following observations: “That man has three different colors of freckles on his face. The lady sitting next to me smells like pickles. I bet that little girl has carpet in her room, because she’s got rug-burn on her knees.”

  On game day, everyone in the city is dressed in black and orange, the colors of the Giants. Since half of the population is out of work, with little to do, sports are more important than ever. The average American man now watches more than eight hours per day of sports. And with mandatory “equal television-time” for women’s and non-gender specific sports being enforced, the average person who is not self-identifying as a “man,” is watching just over six hours of sports per day.