A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [82]
“Oh, we’ll know each other forever,” Bix says. “The days of losing touch are almost gone.”
“What does that mean?” Drew asks.
“We’re going to meet again in a different place,” Bix says. “Everyone we’ve lost, we’ll find. Or they’ll find us.”
“Where? How?” Drew asks.
Bix hesitates, like he’s held this secret so long he’s afraid of what will happen when he releases it into the air. “I picture it like Judgment Day,” he says finally, his eyes on the water. “We’ll rise up out of our bodies and find each other again in spirit form. We’ll meet in that new place, all of us together, and first it’ll seem strange, and pretty soon it’ll seem strange that you could ever lose someone, or get lost.”
Bix knows, you think—he’s always known, in front of that computer, and now he’s passing the knowledge on. But what you say is: “Will you finally get to meet Lizzie’s parents?”
The surprise lands cleanly in Bix’s face, and he laughs, a big, billowing noise. “I don’t know, Rob,” he says, shaking his head. “Maybe not—maybe that part will never change. But I like to think so.” He rubs his eyes, which look suddenly tired, and says, “Speaking of which. Time to head back home.”
He walks away, hands in the pockets of his army jacket, but it’s a while before it feels like he’s really gone. You pull your last joint from your wallet and smoke it with Drew, walking south. The river is quiet, no boats in sight, a couple of toothless geezers fishing under the Williamsburg Bridge.
“Drew,” you say.
He’s looking at the water with that stoned distraction that makes anything seem worth studying. You laugh, nervous, and he turns. “What?”
“I wish we could live in that cabin. You and me.”
“What cabin?”
“The one you built. In Wisconsin.” You see confusion in Drew’s face, and you add, “If there is a cabin.”
“Of course there’s a cabin.”
Your high granulates the air, then Drew’s face, which reconstitutes with a new wariness in it that frightens you. “I would miss Sasha,” he says slowly. “Wouldn’t you?”
“You don’t really know her,” you say, breathless, a little desperate. “You don’t know who you’d be missing.”
A massive storage hangar has intervened between the path and the river, and you walk alongside it. “What don’t I know about Sasha?” Drew asks in his usual friendly tone, but it’s different—you sense him already turning away, and you start to panic.
“She was a hooker,” you say. “A hooker and a thief—that’s how she survived in Naples.”
As you speak these words, a howling starts up in your ears. Drew stops walking. You’re sure he’s going to hit you, and you wait for it.
“That’s insane,” he says. “And fuck you for saying it.”
“Ask her,” you shout, to be heard above the howling. “Ask about Lars the Swede who used to play the flute.”
Drew starts walking again, his head down. You walk beside him, your steps narrating your panic: What have you done? What have you done? What have you done? What have you done? The FDR is over your heads, tires roaring, gasoline in your lungs.
Drew stops again. He looks at you through the dim, oily air like he’s never seen you before. “Wow, Rob,” he says. “You are really and truly an asshole.”
“You’re the last to know.”
“Not me. Sasha.”
He turns and walks quickly away, leaving you alone. You charge after him, seized by a wild conviction that containing Drew will seal off the damage you’ve done. She doesn’t know, you tell yourself, she still doesn’t know. As long as Drew is in sight, she doesn’t know.
You stalk him along the river’s edge, maybe twenty feet between you, half running to keep up. He turns once: “Go away! I don’t want to be near you!” But you sense his confusion about where to go, what to do, and it reassures you. Nothing has happened yet.
Between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, Drew stops beside what might be called a beach. It’s made entirely out of garbage: old tires, trash, splintered wood, and glass and filthy paper and old plastic bags tapering gradually into the East River. Drew stands on this rubble, looking out, and you wait a few feet behind him. Then he begins to undress.