James Sallis
Within a week of thawing Daddy out, we knew something was wrong.
He claims, seems in fact fully to believe, that before going cold he was a freelance assassin; furthermore, that he must get back to work. ‘I was good at it,’ he tells us. ‘The best.’
When what he actually did was sell vacuum cleaners, mops, and squeegee things at Cooper Housewares.
It doesn’t matter what you decide to be, he’s told us since we were kids, a doctor, car salesman, janitor, just be the best at what you do—one of a dozen or so endlessly recycled platitudes.
Dr Paley said he’s seen this sort of thing before, as side effects from major trauma. That it’s probably temporary. We should be supportive, he told us, give it time. Research online uncovers article after article suggesting that such behavior, in fact, may be backwash from cryogenics and not uncommon at all, ‘long dreams’ inherent to the process itself.
So, in support as Dr Paley counseled, we agreed to drive Daddy to a meeting with his new client. How he contacted that client, or was contacted by him, we had no idea, and Daddy refused (we understand, of course, he said) to violate client confidentiality or his own trade secrets.
The new client turned out to be not he but she. ‘You must be Paolo,’ she said, rising from a spotless porch glider and taking a step towards us as we came up the walk. Paolo is not Daddy’s name. The house was in what we hereabouts call Whomville, modestly small from out here, no doubt folded into the hillside and continuing below ground and six or eight times its apparent size. I heard the soft whir of a servicer inside, approaching the door.
‘Single malt, if I recall correctly. And for your friends?’
‘Matilda, let me introduce my son—’
Immediately, I asked for the next waltz.
‘—and daughter,’ who, as ever in unfamiliar circumstances, at age twenty-eight, smiled with the simple beauty and innocence of a four-year-old.
‘And they are in the business as well?’
‘No, no. But kind enough to drive me here. Perhaps they might wait inside as we confer?’
‘Certainly. Gertrude will see to it.’ Gertrude being the soft-voiced server. It set down a tray with whiskey bottle and two crystal glasses, then turned and stood alongside the door to usher us in.
I have no knowledge of what was said out on that porch but afterwards, as we drove away, Daddy crackled with energy, insisting that we stop for what he called a trucker’s breakfast, then, as we remounted, announcing that a road trip loomed in our future. That very afternoon, in fact.
‘Road trip!’ Susanna’s excitement ducked us into the next lane—unoccupied, fortunately. She must have forgotten the last such outing, which left us stranded carless and moneyless in suburban badlands, limping home on the kindness of a stranger or two.
Back at the house we readied ourselves for the voyage. Took on cargo of energy bars, bottled water, extra clothing, blankets, good toilet paper, all-purpose paper towels, matches, extra gasoline, a folding shovel.
‘So I gotta know,’ Susanna said as we bumped and bottomed-out down a back road, at Daddy’s insistence, to the freeway. ‘Now you’re working for the like of Old-money Matilda back there?’
‘Power to the people.’ That was me.
‘Eat the rich,’ she added.
‘Matilda is undercover. Deep. One of us.’
Susanna: ‘Of course.’
‘In this business, few things are as they appear.’
‘Like dead salesmen,’ I said.
‘My cover. And a good one.’
‘Which one? Dead, or salesman?’
‘Jesus,’ Susanna said and, as if on cue, to our right sprouted a one-room church. Outside it sat one of those rental LED digital signs complete with wheels and trailer hitch.
COME IN AND HELP US HONE
THE SWORD OF TRUTH
Susanna was driving. Daddy looked over from the passenger seat and winked. ‘I like it.’
‘I give up. No scraps or remnants of sanity remain.’
‘Chill, Sis,’ I told her. ‘Be cool. It’s the journey, not the destination.’
‘To know where we are, we must know where we’re not.’
‘As merrily we roll along—’
‘Stitching up time—’
Then for a time, we all grew quiet. Past windshield and windows the road unrolled like recalls of memory: familiar as it passed beneath, empty of surprise or anticipation, a slow unfolding.
Until Daddy, looking in the rear view, asked how long that vehicle had been behind us.
‘Which one?’ Sis said. ‘The van?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’ve not been keeping count but that has to be maybe the twenty-third white van since we pulled out of the driveway.’
‘Of all the cards being dealt,’ Daddy said, ‘I had to wind up with you jokers. Not one but two smart-asses.’
‘Strong genes,’ I said.
‘Some are born to greatness—’
‘—others get twisted to fit.’
‘Shoes too large.’
‘Shoes too small.’
‘Walk this way…’
Half a mile further along, the van fell back and took the exit to Logosland, the philosophy playground. Best idea for entertainment since someone built a replica of Noah’s Ark and went bankrupt the first year. Then again, there’s The Thing in Texas. Been around forever and still draws. Billboards for a hundred miles, you get there and there’s not much to see, proving yet again that anticipation’s, like, ninety percent of life.
‘They’ll be passing us on to another vehicle,’ Daddy said. ‘Keep an eye out.’
‘Copy that,’ Susanna said.
‘Ten-four.’
‘Wilco.’
Following Daddy’s directions, through fields with center-pivot irrigation rollers stretching to the horizon and town after town reminiscent of miniature golf courses, we pulled into Willford around four that afternoon. Bright white clouds clustered like fish eggs over the mountains as we came in from the west and descended into town, birthplace of Harry the Horn, whoever the hell that was, Pop. 16,082. Susanna and I took turns counting churches (eleven), filling stations (nine), and schools (three). Criss-cross of business streets downtown, houses mostly single-story from fifty, sixty years back, ranch style, cookie-cutter suburban, modest professional, predominantly dark gray, off-white, shades of beige.
‘You guys hungry?’ Daddy said.
Billie’s Sunrise had five cars outside and twenty or more people inside, ranging from older guys who looked like they sprouted right there on the stools at the counter, to clusters of youngsters with fancy sneakers and an armory of handhelds. Ancient photographs curled on the walls. Each booth had a selector box for the jukebox that, our server with purple hair informed us, hadn’t worked forever.
We ordered bagels and coffee and, as we ate, Daddy told us about the time he went undercover in a bagel kitchen on New York’s Lower East Side. ‘As kettleman,’ he said. ‘Hundred boxes a night, sixty-four bagels to the box. Took some fancy smoke and mirrors, getting me into that union.’
Bagels date back at least four centuries, he said. Christians baked their bread, Polish Jews took to boiling theirs. The name’s probably from German’s beugel, for ring or bracelet. By the 1700s, given as gifts, sold on street corners by children, they’d become a staple, and traveled with immigrant Poles to the new land, where in 1907 the first union got established. Three years later there were over seventy bakeries in the New York area, with Local #338 in strict control of what were essentially closed shops. Bakers and apprentices worked in teams of four, two making the rolls, one baking, the kettleman boiling.
‘So. Plenty more where that came from, all of it fascinating. Meanwhile, you two wait here, I’ll be back shortly.’ Daddy smiled at the server, who’d stepped up to fill our cups for the third time. ‘Miss Long will take care of you, I’m sure. And order whatever else you’d like, of course.’
Daddy was gone an hour and spare change. Miss Long attended us just as he said. Brought us sandwiches pre-cut into quarters with glasses of milk, like we were little kids with our feet hanging off the seats. If she’d had the chance, she probably would have tucked us in for a nap. Luckily the café didn’t have cupcakes. Near the end, two cops came in and took seats at the counter—regulars, from how they were greeted. Their coffee’d scarcely been poured and the skinny one had his first forkful of pie on the way to his mouth when their radios went off. They were up and away in moments. As they reached their car, two police cruisers and a fire truck sailed past behind them, heading out of town, then an ambulance.
Moments later, sirens fading and flashers passing from sight outside, Daddy slid into the booth across from us. ‘Everybody good?’
‘That policeman didn’t get to eat his pie,’ Susanna said.
‘Duty calls. Has a way of doing that. More pie in his future, likely.’
Smiling, Miss Long brought Daddy fresh coffee in a new cup. He sat back in the booth and drank, looking content.
‘Nothing like a good day’s work. Nothing.’ He glanced over to where Miss Long was chatting with a customer at the counter. ‘Either of you have cash money?’
Susanna asked what he wanted and he said a twenty would do. Carried it over and gave it to Miss Long. Then he came back and stood by the booth. ‘Time to go home,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the car.’
We paid the check and thanked Miss Long and when we got to the car Daddy was stretched out on the backseat, sound asleep.
‘What are we going to do?’ Susanna asked.
We talked about that all the way home.