Freedom [102]
Q: If that’s the case, then why was there a censor at the awards last year, making sure that nobody spoke out against the war? Are you saying Sheryl Crow is a Republican?
A: I hope so. She seems like such a nice person, I’d hate to think she was a Democrat.
Q: She’s been very vocally antiwar.
A: Do you think George Bush actually hates gay people? Do you think he personally gives a shit about abortion? Do you think Dick Cheney really believes Saddam Hussein engineered 9/11? Sheryl Crow is a chewing-gum manufacturer, and I say that as a longtime chewing-gum manufacturer myself. The person who cares what Sheryl Crow thinks about the war in Iraq is the same person who’s going to buy an obscenely overpriced MP3 player because Bono Vox is shilling for it.
Q: But there’s a place for leaders in a society, too, right? Wasn’t that what corporate America was trying to suppress at the Grammys? The voices of potential leaders of an antiwar movement?
A: You want the CEO of Chiclets to be a leader in the fight against tooth decay? Use the same advertising methods to sell gum and tell the world that gum is bad for you? I know I just made a crack about Bono, but he has more integrity than the rest of the music world combined. If you made a fortune selling Chiclets, you might as well go ahead and sell overpriced iPods, too, and get even richer, and then use your money and your status to get entrée to the White House and try to do some actual hands-on good in Africa. Like: be a man, suck it up, admit that you like being part of the ruling class, and that you believe in the ruling class, and that you’ll do whatever it takes to consolidate your position in it.
Q: Are you saying you supported the invasion of Iraq?
A: I’m saying, if invading Iraq had been the kind of thing that a person like me supported, it never would have happened.
Q: Let’s get back to Richard Katz the person for a minute.
A: No, let’s turn your little machine off. I think we’re done here.
“That was great,” Zachary said, pointing and clicking. “That was perfect. I’m going to put this up right now and send the link to Caitlyn.”
“You have her e-mail address?”
“No, but I know who does.”
“Then I’ll see you both after school tomorrow.”
Katz made his way down Church Street toward the PATH train under a familiar cloud of post-interview remorse. He wasn’t worried about having given offense; his business was giving offense. He was worried about having sounded pathetic—too transparently the washed-up talent whose only recourse was to trash his betters. He strongly disliked the person he’d just demonstrated afresh that he unfortunately was. And this, of course, was the simplest definition of depression that he knew of: strongly disliking yourself.
Back in Jersey City, he stopped at the gyro joint that provided three or four of his dinners every week, departed with a heavy stinking bag of lowest-grade meats and pita, and climbed the stairs to his apartment, which he’d been away from so much in the last two and a half years that it seemed to have turned against him, to no longer wish to be his place. A little bit of coke could have changed that—could have restored the apartment’s lost luster of friendliness—but only for a few hours, or at most a few days, after which it would make everything much worse. The one room he still halfway liked was the kitchen, whose harsh fluorescent lighting suited his mood. He sat down at his ancient enamel-top table to distract himself from the taste of his dinner by reading Thomas Bernhard, his new favorite writer.
Behind him, on a counter crowded with unwashed dishes, his landline rang. The readout said walter berglund.
“Walter, my conscience,” Katz said. “Why are you bothering me now?”
He was tempted, in spite of himself, to pick up, because he’d lately found himself missing Walter, but he remembered, in the nick of time, that this could just as easily be Patty calling from their home phone. He’d learned from his experience with Molly Tremain that you