Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin (12 page)

^{he would write}
letters to her about the wheel wars late at night. Four in the morning at his terminal under the white fluorescents, cutting code, when sometimes a message flashed up. Most of the intrusions were from members of his own squad, linked in a couple of desks away, working on other programs, the tallies of war, and it was just a thing to pass the time, to hack another man’s code, to test his strength, find his vulnerability. Harmless, really, Joshua said.

Charlie and the Viet Cong didn’t have any computers. They weren’t going to sneak in past the cathode tubes and transistors. But the phone lines were linked up back to PARC and Washington, D.C., and some universities, so it was possible, every now and then, for a single slider—he called them sliders, she had no idea why—to come in from somewhere else and cause havoc, and once or twice they blindsided him. Maybe he was working on an overlap line, he said, or a code for the disappeared. And he would be in the zone. He would feel, yes, like he was sliding down the banisters. It was about speed and raw power. The world was at ease and full of simplicity. He was a test pilot of a new frontier. Anything was possible. It could even have been jazz, one chord to the next. All fingertips. He could stretch his fingers and a new chord was suddenly there. And then without warning it would begin disappearing in front of his eyes.
I want a cookie!
Or:
Repeat after me, Bye- Bye Blackbird.
Or:
Watch me smile.
He said it was like being Beethoven after scribbling the Ninth. He’d be out on a nice stroll in the countryside and suddenly all the sheet music was blowing away in the wind. He sat rooted to the chair and stared at his machine. The small blipping cursor ate away what he’d been doing. His code got munched. No way to stop it. All that dread rose in his throat. He watched it as it climbed over the hills and disappeared into the sunset.
Come back, come back, come back, I haven’t heard you yet.

How strange to think that there was someone else at the other end of the wires. It was like a burglar breaking into his house and trying on his slippers. Worse than that.
Someone getting into my skin, Mama, taking over my memory.
Crawling right inside him, up his spinal cord, inside his head, deep into the cranium, walking over his synapses, into his brain cells. She could imagine him leaning forward, his mouth almost to the screen, static on his lips.
Who are you?
He could feel the intruders beneath his fingertips. Thumbs drumming on his spine. Forefingers at his neck. He knew they were American, the intruders, but he saw them as Vietnamese—he had to—gave them a brown slant to their eyes. It was him and his machine against the other machine.
Right, okay, now, well done, you got me, but now I’m going to crush you.
And then he would step right into the fray.

And she would go to the fridge and read his letters and sometimes she would open the freezer section and allow it all to cool him down.
It’s all right, honey, you’ll get it back.

And he did. Joshua always got it back. He would phone her at odd hours, when he was elated, when he had won one of the wheel wars. Long, looping calls that had an echo to them. Didn’t cost him a cent, he said. The squad had a switchboard with multiline capability. He said he had tapped into the lines, routed them down through the army recuiting number just for fun. It was just a system, he said, and it was there to be exploited.
I’m okay, Mama, it’s not so bad, they treat us fine, tell Dad they even have kosher here.
She listened intently to the voice. When the elation wore off, he sounded tired, distant even, a new language creeping in.
Look, I’m cool, Mama, don’t freak out.
Since when did he say
freak
? He had always been careful with language. Wrapped it up in a tight Park Avenue crispness. Nothing loose or nasal about it at all. But now the language was coarser and his accent had stretched.
I’m gonna go with the flow but it seems I’m driving another man’s hearse, Mama.

Was he taking care of himself? Did he have enough food? Did he keep his clothes clean? Was he losing weight? Everything reminded her. She even once put an extra plate out on the dinner table just for Joshua. Solomon said nothing about it. That and her fridge, her little idiosyncrasies.

She tried not to fret when his letters started to slacken. He wouldn’t call for a day or two. Or three in a row. She would sit staring at the phone, willing it to ring. When she stood, the floorboards gave out a little groan. He was busy, he said. There had been a new development in electronic postings. There were more nodes on the electronic net. He said it was like a magic blackboard. The world was bigger and smaller both. Someone had hacked in to chew away parts of their program. It was a dogfight, a boxing match, a medieval joust.
I’m in the front line, Mama, I’m in the trenches.
Someday, he said, the machines would revolutionize the world. He was helping other programmers. They logged on at the consoles and stayed on. There was a battle going on with the peace protesters, who were trying to break into their machines. But it was not machines that were evil, he said, but the minds of the top brass behind them. A machine could be no more evil than a violin, or a camera, or a pencil. What the intruders didn’t understand is that they were coming in at the wrong place. It was not the technology that they needed to attack, but the human mind, the way it failed, how it fell short.

She recognized a new depth in him, a candor. The war was about vanity, he said. It was about old men who couldn’t look in the mirror anymore and so they sent the young out to die. War was a get- together of the vain. They wanted it simple—hate your enemy, know nothing of him. It was, he claimed, the most un- American of wars, no idealism behind it, only about defeat. There were over forty thousand to account for now in his Death Hack, and the numbers kept growing. Sometimes he would print the names out. He could unfurl them up and down the stairs. He sometimes wished that someone would hack his program from outside, chew it up, spit it all back out, give life again to all those boys, the Smiths and the Sullivans and the Rodriguez brothers, these fathers and cousins and nephews, and then he’d have to do a program for Charlie, a whole new alphabet of dying, Ngo, Ho, Phan, Nguyen— wouldn’t that be a chore?

—You okay, Claire?
A touch on her elbow. Gloria.
—Help?
—Excuse me?
—You want help with those?
—Oh, no. I mean, yes. Thanks.
Gloria. Gloria. Such a sweet round face. Dark eyes, moist, almost. A

lived- in face. A generosity to it. But a little perturbed. Looking at me. Looking at her. Caught in the act. Daydreaming.
Help?
She almost thought for a second that Gloria wanted to
be
the help. Presumptuous. Two seventy- five an hour, Gloria. Clean the dishes. Mop the floor. Weep for our boys. A chore indeed.

She reaches high into the top cupboard and pulls out the Waterford glass. Intricate cut. Distant men do that. There are some that aren’t savages. Yes, that’ll do nicely. She hands it to Gloria, who smiles, fills it.

—You know what you should do, Claire?
—What?
—Put sugar in the bottom. It keeps the flowers longer.
She has never heard that before. But it makes sense. Sugar. To keep

them alive. Fill up our boys with sugar. Charlie and His Chocolate Factory. And who was it called the Vietnamese
Charlie
anyway? Where did it come from? Some radiospeak, probably. Charlie Delta Epsilon. Incoming, incoming, incoming.

Gloria takes the flowers out and spreads them on the dish rack, takes a small knife from the kitchen counter and lops off a tiny segment of each, sweeps the stems into the palm of her hand, twelve little green things.

—Amazing, really, isn’t it?
—What’s that?
—The man in the air.
Claire leans against the counter. Takes a deep breath. Her mind

whirling. She is not sure, not sure at all. A nagging discontent about him too. Something about his appearance sitting heavy, bewildering. —Amazing, she says. Yes. Amazing.
But what is it about the notion that she doesn’t like? Amazing, indeed, yes. And an attempt at beauty. The intersection of a man with the city, the abruptly reformed, the newly appropriated public space, the city as art. Walk up there and make it new. Making it a different space. But something else in it still rankles. She wishes not to feel this way, but she can’t shake it, the thought of the man perched there, angel or devil. But what’s wrong with believing in an angel, or a devil, why shouldn’t Marcia be allowed to feel that way, why wouldn’t every man in the air appear to be her son? Why shouldn’t Mike Junior appear on the wire? What is wrong with that? Why shouldn’t Marcia be allowed to freeze it there, her boy returned?
Yet still a sourness.
—Anything else, Claire?
—No, no, we’re perfect.
— Right- y- o, t hen. All set.
Gloria smiles and hoists the vase, goes to the louvered door, pushes it open with her generous bulk.
—I’ll be right out, says Claire.
The door swings back shut.
She arranges the last of the cups, saucers, spoons. Stacks them neatly. What is it? The walking man? Something vulgar about the whole thing. Or maybe not vulgar. Something cheap. Or maybe not quite cheap. She doesn’t quite know what it is. To think this way, how petty. Downright selfish. She knows full well that she has the whole morning to do what they have done on other mornings—bring out the photos, show them the piano Joshua used to play, open the scrapbooks, take them all down to his room, show them his shelf of books, pick him out from the yearbook. That’s what they have always done, in Gloria’s, Marcia’s, Jacqueline’s, even Janet’s, especially Janet’s, where they were shown a slide show and later they all cried over a broken- spined copy of
Casey at the Bat.
Her hands wide on the kitchen counter. Fingers splayed. Pressing down.
Joshua. Is that what rankles her? That they haven’t yet said his name? That he hasn’t yet figured into the morning’s chatter? That they’ve ignored him so far, but no, it’s not that, but what is it?
Enough. Enough. Lift the tray. Don’t blow it now. So nice. That smile from Gloria. The beautiful flowers.
Out.
Now.
Go.
She steps into the living room and stops, frozen. They are gone, all of them, gone. She almost drops the tray. The rattle of the spoons as they slide against the edge. Not a single one there, not even Gloria. How can it be? How did they disappear so suddenly? Like a bad childhood joke, as if they might spring out of the closets any moment, or pop up from behind the sofa, a row of carnival faces to throw water balloons at.
It is, for an instant, as if she has dreamed them into being. That they have come to her, unasked, and then they have stolen away.
She lays the tray down on the table. The teapot slides and a little bubble of tea spurts out. The handbags are there and a single cigarette still burns in the ashtray.
It is then that she hears the voices, and she chides herself. Of course. How silly of me. The bang of the back door and then the upper roof door in the wind. She must have left it open, they must have felt the breeze.
Down along the corridor. The shapes beyond the upper doorway. She climbs the final few steps, joins them on the roof, all of them leaning out over the wall, looking south. Nothing to see, of course, just a haze and the cupola at the top of the New York General Building.
—No sign of him?
She knows of course that there could not be, even on the clearest of days, but it is nice to have the women turn to her in unison and shake their heads, no.
—We can try the radio, she says, sliding in behind them. It might be on a news report.
—Good idea, says Jacqueline.
—Oh, no, says Janet. I’d rather not.
—Me neither, says Marcia.
—Probably won’t be on the news.
—Not yet, anyway.
—I don’t think so.
They remain a moment, looking south, as if they might still be able to conjure him up.
—Coffee, ladies? A little tea?
—Lord, says Gloria with a wink, I thought you’d never ask.
—A nibble of something, yes.
—Calm our nerves?
—Yes, yes.
—Okay, Marcia?
—Downstairs?
—Mercy, yes. It’s hotter than a July bride up here.
The women guide Marcia back down the inside stairs, through the maid’s door, into the living room once more, with Janet on one arm, Jacqueline on the other, Gloria behind.
In the armchair ashtray, the cigarette has burned down to the quick, like a man about to break and fall. Claire puts it out. She watches as the women scrunch up tight on the sofa, arms around one another. Enough chairs? How could she have made such a mistake? Should she bring out the beanbag chair from Joshua’s room? Put it on the floor so that her body can spread itself out in his old impression?
This walking man, she can’t shake him. The bubble of discontent in her mind. She is being ungenerous, she knows, but she just can’t get rid of it. What if he hits somebody down below? She has heard that at night there are whole colonies of birds that fly into the World Trade Center buildings, their glass reflection. The bash and fall. Will the walker thump with them? Snap to. Enough.
Pull your mind together. Pick up all the feathers. Guide them gently back into the air.
—The bagels are in the bag there, Claire. And there’s doughnuts too.
—Lovely. Thanks.
The small niceties.
—Dearest Lord, look at those!
—Oh, my word.
—I’m fat enough.
—Oh, stop. I only wish I had your figure.
—Take it and run, says Gloria. Bet it spills over!
—No, no, you have a lovely figure. Fabulous.
—Come on!
—I must say, truly.
And a hush around the room for the little white lie. A pullback from the food. They glance at one another. An unfolding of seconds. A siren outside the window. The static broken and thoughts taking shape in their minds, like water in a pitcher.
—So, says Janet, reaching for a bagel. Not to be morbid or anything . . .
—Janet!
— . . . I don’t want to be morbid...
—Janet McIniff . . . !
— . . . but you think he fell?
—Ohmigod! Who gave you the sledgehammer?
—Sledgehammer? I just heard the siren and I—
—It’s okay, says Marcia. I’m okay. Really. Don’t worry about me.
—My God! says Jacqueline.
—I’m just asking.
—Really, no, says Marcia. I’m kinda wondering the same myself.
—Oh my God, says Jacqueline, the words stretched out now as if on elastic. I can’t believe you just said that.
Claire wishes now to be removed and off somewhere distant, some beach, some riverbank, some deep swell of happiness, some Joshua place, some little hidden moment, a touch of Solomon’s hand.
Sitting here, absent from them. Letting them close the circle.
Maybe, yes,it’s just pureselfishness. They did not notice the mezu zahon the door,the painting ofSolomon, didn’tmention a singlething about the apartment, just launched right in and began. They even walked up to the rooftop without asking. Maybe that’s just the way they do it, or maybe they’re blinded by the paintings, the silverware, the carpets. Surely therewere other well- heeled boys packed off to war.Not all of them had flat feet. Maybe she should meet other women, more of her own. But more of her own what? Death, the greatest democracy of them all. The world’s oldest complaint. Happens to us all. Rich and poor. Fat and thin. Fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. She feels a pang, a return.
Dear Mother, this is just to say that I have arrived safely,
the first began. And then at the end he was writing,
Mama, this place is a nothing place, take all the places and give me nothing instead.
Oh. Oh. Read all the letters of the world, love letters or hate letters or joy letters, and stack them up against the single one hundred and thirty-seven that my son wrote to me, place them end to end, Whitman and Wilde and Wittgensteinandwhoever else,itdoesn’tmatter—there’s nocomparison. Allthe things he used to say! All the things he could remember! All that he put his finger upon!
That’s what sons do: write to their mothers about recall, tell themselves about the past until they come to realize that they
are
the past.
But no, not past, not him, not ever.
Forget the letters. Let our machines fight. You hear me? Let them go at it. Let them stare each other down the wires.
Leave the boys at home.
Leave my boy at home. Gloria’s too. And Marcia’s. Let him walk a tightrope if he wants. Let him become an angel. And Jacqueline’s. And Wilma’s. Not Wilma, no. There was never a Wilma. Janet. Probably a Wilma too. Maybe a thousand Wilmas all over the country.
Just give my boy back to me. That’s all I want. Give him back. Hand him over. Right now. Let him open the door and run past the mezuzah and let him clang down here at the piano. Repair all the pretty faces of the young. No cries, no shrieks, no bleats. Bring them back here now. Why shouldn’t all our sons be in the room all at once? Collapse all the boundaries. Why shouldn’t they sit together? Berets on their knees. Their slight embarrassment. Their creased uniforms. You fought for our country, why not celebrate on Park Avenue? Coffee or tea, boys? A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
All this talk of freedom. Nonsense, really. Freedom can’t be given, it must be received.
I will not take this jar of ashes.
Do you hear me?
This jar of ashes is not what my son is.
—What’s that now, Claire?
And it’s as if she is rising again from a daydream. She has been watching them, their moving mouths, their mobile faces, but not hearing anything they’ve been saying, some sort of argument about the walking man, about whether the tightrope was attached or not, and she had drifted from it. Attached to what? His shoe? The helicopter? The sky? She folds and refolds her fingers into one another, hears the crack of them as they pull apart.
You need more calcium in your bones, the good doctor Tonnemann said. Calcium indeed. Drink more milk, your children won’t go missing.
—Are you okay, dear? says Gloria.
—Oh, I’m fine, she says, just a little daydreamy.
—I know the feeling.
—I get that way too sometimes, says Jacqueline.
—Me too, says Janet.
—First thing every morning, says Gloria, I start to dream. Can’t do it at night. I used to dream all the time. Now I can only dream in daytime.
—You should take something for it, says Janet.
Claire cannot recall what she has said—has she embarrassed them, said something silly, out of order? That comment from Janet, as if she should be on meds. Or was that aimed at Gloria? Here, take a hundred pills, it will cure your grief. No. She has never wanted that. She wants to break it like a fever. But what is it that she said? Something about the tightrope man? Did she say it aloud? That he was vulgar somehow? Something about ashes? Or fashion? Or wires?
—What is it, Claire?
—I’m just thinking about that poor man, she says.
She wants to kick herself for saying it, for bringing him up again. Just when she felt that they could be getting away, that the morning could get back on track again, that she could tell them about Joshua and how he used to come home from school and eat tomato sandwiches, his favorite, or how he never squeezed the toothpaste properly, or how he always put two socks into one shoe, or a playground story, or a piano riff, anything, just to give the morning its balance, but, no, she has shunted it sideways again and brought it back around.
—What man? says Gloria.
—Oh, the man who came here, she says suddenly.
—Who’s that?
She picks a bagel from the sunflower bowl. Looks up at the women. She pauses a moment, slices through the thick bread, pulls the rest of the bagel apart with her fingers.
—You mean the tightrope man was here?
—No, no.
—What man, Claire?
She reaches across and pours tea. The steam rises. She forgot to put out the slices of lemon. Another failure.
—The man who told me.
—What man?
—The man who told you what, Claire?
—You know. That man.
And then a sort of deep understanding. She sees it in their faces. Quieter than rain. Quieter than leaves.
—Uh huhn, says Gloria.
And then a loosening over the faces of the others.
—Mine was Thursday.
—Mike Junior’s was Monday.
—My Clarence was Monday as well. Jason was Saturday. And Brandon was a Tuesday.
—I got a lousy telegram. Thirteen minutes past six. July twelfth. For Pete.
For Pete. For Pete’s sake.
They all fall in line and it feels right, it’s what she wants to say; she holds the bagel at her mouth but she will not eat; she has brought them back on track, they are returning to old mornings, together, they will not move from this, this is what she wants, and yes, they are comfortable, and even Gloria reaches out now for one of the doughtnuts, glazed and white, and takes a small, polite nibble and nods at Claire, as if to say:
Go ahead, tell us.
—We got the call from downstairs. Solomon and I. We were sitting having dinner. All the lights were off. He’s Jewish, you see...
Glad to get that one out of the way.
— . . . and he had candles everywhere. He’s not strict, but sometimes he likes little rituals. He calls me his little honeybee sometimes. It started from an argument when he called me a WASP. Can you believe that?
All of it coming out from her, like grateful air from her lungs. Smiles all around, befuddled, yet silence all the same.
—And I opened the door. It was a sergeant. He was very deferent. I mean, nice to me. I knew right away, just from the look on his face. Like one of those novelty masks. One of those cheap plastic ones. His face frozen inside it. Hard brown eyes and a broad mustache. I said, Come in. And he took off his hat. One of those hairstyles, short, parted down the middle. A little shock of white along his scalp. He sat right there.
She nods over at Gloria and wishes she hadn’t said that, but there’s no taking it back.
Gloria wipes at the seat as if trying to get the stain of the man off. A little sliver of doughnut icing remains.
—Everything was so pure I thought I was standing in a painting.
—Yes, yes.
—He kept playing with his hat on his knee.
—Mine did too.
—Shh.
—And then he just said, Your son is passed, ma’am. And I was thinking, Passed? Passed where? What do you mean, Sergeant, he’s passed? He didn’t tell me of any exam.
—Mercy.
—I was smiling at him. I couldn’t make my face do anything else.
—Well, I just flat- out wept, says Janet.
—Shh, says Jacqueline.
—I felt like there was rushing steam going up inside me, right up my spine. I could feel it hissing in my brain.