A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [74]
“May I help you with that?” I asked, stepping into the sunlight where she and Whiskers stood and slipping the Duane Reade bag full of poop from her hand.
Janet grinned. It was like someone waving a flag. “Are you insane?” she said.
4. To the Editor:
In the earnest spirit of your recent editorial (“Vulnerability in Our Public Spaces,” Aug. 9), and as the embodiment, if you will, of the “mentally unstable or otherwise threatening people” you so yearn to eradicate from the public domain in the wake of my “brutal attack” on that “too trusting young star,” allow me to make a suggestion that is sure to appeal to Mayor Giuliani, at the very least: why not simply erect checkpoints at the entrances to Central Park and demand identification from those who wish to enter?
Then you will be able to call up their records and evaluate the relative success or failure of their lives—marriage or lack thereof, children or lack thereof, professional success or lack thereof, healthy bank account or lack thereof, contact with childhood friends or lack thereof, ability to sleep peacefully at night or lack thereof, fulfillment of sprawling, loopy youthful ambitions or lack thereof, ability to fight off bouts of terror and despair or lack thereof—and using these facts, you can assign each person a ranking based on the likelihood that their “personal failures will occasion jealous explosions directed at those more accomplished.”
The rest is easy: simply encode each person’s ranking into an electronic bracelet and affix it to their wrist as they enter the park, and then monitor those encoded points of light on a radar screen, with personnel at the ready to intervene, should the perambulations of low-ranking nonfamous people begin to encroach upon the “safety and peace of mind that celebrities deserve, as much as anyone else.”
I ask only this: that in keeping with our hallowed cultural tradition, you rank infamy equally with fame, so that when my public excoriation is complete—when the Vanity Fair reporter I entertained in prison two days ago (following her interviews with my chiropractor and building superintendent) has done her worst, along with the TV “news” magazines; when my trial and sentence are concluded and I’m allowed at last to return to the world, to stand beneath a public tree and touch its scraggly bark—then I, like Kitty, will be afforded some protection.
Who knows? I might even glimpse her one day as we both promenade in Central Park. I doubt we would actually speak. I’d prefer to stand at a distance next time, and wave.
Respectfully,
Jules Jones
10
Out of Body
Your friends are pretending to be all kinds of stuff, and your special job is to call them on it. Drew says he’s going straight to law school. After practicing awhile, he’ll run for state senator. Then U.S. senator. Eventually, president. He lays all this out the way you’d say, After Modern Chinese Painting I’ll go the gym, then work in Bobst until dinner, if you even made plans anymore, which you don’t—if you were even in school anymore, which you aren’t, although that’s supposedly temporary.
You look at Drew through layers of hash smoke floating in the sun. He’s leaning back on the futon couch, his arm around Sasha. He’s got a big, hey-come-on-in face and a head of dark hair, and he’s built—not with weight-room muscle like yours, but in a basic animal way that must come from all that swimming he does.
“Just don’t try and say you didn’t inhale,” you tell him.
Everyone laughs except Bix, who’s at his computer, and you feel like a funny guy for maybe half a second, until it occurs to you that they probably only laughed because they could see you were trying to be funny, and they’re afraid you’ll jump out the window onto East Seventh Street if you fail, even at something so small.
Drew takes a long hit. You hear the smoke creak in his chest. He hands the pipe to Sasha,