Man Gone Down (58 page)

The air outside seems warmer and muggy—strange for these parts to have more heat than New York City. I turn south—no Claire. I stand there a moment while the other passengers take their bags from the storage compartments underneath. I realize that this area's only for buses, so I follow behind the others to the adjacent side, which faces the parking lot. Two get in waiting cabs, another in a car, and the last starts diagonally across the big lot. I think about him disappearing beyond the guardrail and cattails and the unlit road.

I don't see the Benz anywhere. It's not like Claire to be late. I get hit with a wave of panic as soon as I think that and then a streak of dread in the form of a bilious razor on my liver. I shake it off and try to focus on where she might be along the road—not why—just how the car moves down the highway, wide and squat with those white-blue halogen beams leading it on. But I don't get close enough to see inside or far enough away to be able to tell if it isn't just the same short stretch of road again and again.

Ten minutes pass, then more, with me standing there, watching the cars on the highway and access road, watching the headlights coming out of the black of the approach to the parking lot. Nothing. I put my bag down and feel my face with my hands, imagine her there, looking at me. And we both know what she sees. And I look for her again, this time in the night sky. I've heard that in the constellation of Orion smaller suns are sometimes moved by the enormous forces
of a giant one, and that what looks like a tail of light to us is really the beginnings of new planets. This sun is all the way down. So I call to her,
“Godspeed.”
What else can I say?

Headlights sweep off the road and semicircle around the outer loop of the lot with a dark form behind—like a comet moving backward. She pulls up to the curb, leaves the car running, and opens the big door slowly. She lifts herself out gracefully and leans against the car, not moving, just looking at me, blankly, her eyes only half open. Waiting. Finally, I step forward, and then she does, too. She opens her eyes wide and reaches for my face with both hands.

“There's my husband,” she whispers. My Claire, a long crooked nose now to match. She turns her head to the side and pushes it into my chest. I hold her. The world seems to rock around our stillness.

My stomach rumbles. She puts her hands on my sides.

“You're skinny.”

“I'm all right.”

“Did you sleep?”

“A little bit.”

She kisses my chest, inhaling as she does. “You smell good.”

“No,” I mumble.

“Yes. To me.”

I softly trace the line of her nose. She leans away.

“No, I'm hideous.”

I go to kiss it. She winces, but lets me.

She turns to the idling car. “They were just dropping off.” I look in the window—the stillness. She leans back, lets go of my waist, lets her hands slip down my arms, and lets me catch her.

“Can you drive?” she whispers.

I nod. She squeezes my wrists, and we get in the car.

I move the seat back as far as it will go and stretch. I lay my hands on my thighs: They throb into each other. I shake my head once quickly to make sure I'm awake and then nod—more like a forward pulse of my body—to assure myself that I can do this. Then I just stare out the windshield into the night.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

She puts her hand on mine. I turn to her, but she's looking into the back. She whispers, “Someone's happy to see you.” I turn. There's my girl in her car seat pointing at me—softly bended arm.

“Dada,” she whispers, honoring the silence. I blow her a kiss. She smiles, puckers, and those deep brown eyes are glowing—beyond me. I shut the heavy door as softly as I can, then look back at them again. They're still there. Claire squeezes my hand. There's strength in it. C sleep-talks something quietly, and X moves slightly as if to respond. There's all their breath in the quiet, my wife's hand on mine. I start to face forward, but I turn back, take one last look at my own: the boys, I hope, dreaming in their own hue and time and my girl in the fading light; the little, changing face of love.

There are many people, friends, and family I must thank:

My patient agent, Eileen Cope.

Everyone at Grove/Atlantic, Inc., especially Deb Seager and the great and loyal Dara Hyde, (you were right about Youk), Michael Hornburg, and Morgan Entrekin.

Elisabeth Schmitz, my editor: Thank you for your faith, your time, and grace.

Al and Judy Maeda, Samareh Eskandaripour, Sarah Morse, Glen Mazara, George
(Joga Bonito)
Sanchez, Emily Stone, David Levinson, Britt Dean, Lindly, Al and Julie Boegehold, John Milkey, Daphne Klein, Cathy Fuerst, Craig Townsend, Rebecca and Michael Bruno, Gabe and Marty, Cecil, Elizabeth Gaffney, Brigid Hughes, Emily Frankovich, Sandy McLean, Keli Garrett, Martha Southgate, Robert Sullivan, Van Jordan, Jim Collier, Kim Wiley, Colin Erickson, Carol Wood, Charles and Dorthea Bowen, Jane Morse, The Newsome Family, The Nestor Family, Brooklyn Patriots FC.

Thank you Caroline and Leslie Marshall and Clay Miller for your generosity.

Uncle Russell and Aunt Pauline, Lisa and Russell Houston, all of the Fowlkes and Allens, Pauline Sweet, Seddon Ryan Wylde, John Wylde.

Mentors:
Frank Kirkland, Elizabeth Beaujour, Eleanor (my Virgil) Wilner, Chuck Wachtel, David Haynes, Peter Turchi, David Winn, Dexter Jeffries, Barbra Webb, Bill Root, George Willauer.
Protégées:
Eliana Kissner, Mohammed Saleem, Shokry Elady.

Teri Rosen—of course you are a part. Jennifer McMahon, Eisa Ulen-Richardson, Stephen Wetta, Ira Elliott, Tony Mancus, Mark Bobrow, Thom Taylor, Margret Laino, and all the good folk in HW1238.

Where are you?:
Leslie Williams, Will Gardiner, Herbie Dade, Kieran Murphy, Hal Herring.

Those remembered:
Margret Owens, Cecil Irton Wylde, Cecil C. I. Wylde, Joan Thomas, John Potter, David M. Thomas Jr.—my father.

Charles Beatty Medina—
Gracias:
you helped build my home.

We will sail someday John Manderson.

“Fare Forward”
Jyanto.

Anne Grazino: Great poet—elegant and bright:
Go raibh maith agat.

Sally Wylde: You are not Edith. It's good to see you painting again. Thank you for everything.

Caitlin Wylde: I know you understand.

David, my brother—Peace.

Thank you to my sister, Tracey, who has a knack for producing laptops when needed; who taught me how to tie my shoes.

Mauro Premutico:
Molto Grazie al mio amico profondo.

Padraic Michael O'Reilly and Dominic A. Taylor: I could not have done this, nor much of anything else, without you.

Elise Cannon: I'm so glad I went for coffee. You are rare and beautiful. I love you, friend.

Thelma Louise Allen Thomas: I'm sorry for taking the long way
“all ‘round Robin Hood's Barn.”
I hope you know I'm proud to be your son.

Cecil Alexander, Miles Fowlkes, and Ella Sweet, I know I don't say it enough: your father loves you and always will.

MAN GONE
DOWN

Michael Thomas

A BLACK CAT READING GUIDE
Prepared by Barbara Putnam

We hope that these discussion questions will enhance your reading group's exploration of Michael Thomas's
Man Gone Down.
They are meant to stimulate discussion, offer new viewpoints, and enrich your enjoyment of the book.

More reading group guides and additional information, including summaries, author tours, and author sites, for other fine Black Cat titles, may be found on our Web site,
www.groveatlantic.com
.

MAN GONE
DOWN

Michael Thomas

A BLACK CAT READING GUIDE

1. Why do we read coming-of-age stories? Think of Twain's
Huckleberry Finn,
Dickens's
Great Expectations,
and Fielding's
Tom Jones.
All have flawed heroes if not rogues who go on journeys or quests to find themselves and end up forging stronger, wiser selves. How does
Man Gone Down
reflect these traditions? Do you see similar traits in the protagonists? Energy? Imagination? Big hearts? Raw intelligence? Canniness? Self-delusion? Wry bedrock honesty? What else? Is there even some of Byron's Don Juan in this narrator?

2. What happens to the American Dream in the novel? What about the Sox and the Cubs (see page 230). How does Daisy Buchanan still tug on the main character? As the narrator remembers years of white, rich girls (his own American dream?), he says, “Keep dreaming, blondie. And it occurs to me not to ask about the dream deferred, because almost everyone knows what it is, on some level, to fail. But what happens to a dream, and yes, a dream, not a desire or hankering or an impulse or a want, but a dream, realized? And yes, I say it again: It is a strange thing to go through life as a social experiment—to learn Latin and Greek and the assassination dates of the martyrs; to toggle between Christ and Keynes, King and Turner,
Robinson, Robeson, Ali, Frazier, Foreman; to have a rumbling in the jungle of your black folk soul while a rough coon, its number come up at last, shuffles up from New Orleans to be free.
‘And all shall be well'
when champagne sprays around the home clubhouse in the Olde Towne, character the only currency. Love won. Kingdom Come” (p. 231). How is this passage central to the novel? What is going on between expectations and reality?

3. Can you distinguish between the author and his first-person narrator? Do you find the portrayal completely sympathetic? Are there times when the author seems ironic, wary, or judgmental about his created character? Does Michael Thomas ever allow us to feel contemptuous of him? How are we kept aware of his humanity . . . and our own? Give examples. As a reader, did you sometimes feel chagrined or even appalled by his behavior or reactions? How does the narrator's own honesty and self-knowledge propel the book to the level of revelation? How is he his own worst and best critic as he ricochets through his four-day journey through New York and memory? Does he ever devolve into self-pity? Do you think he is saved by his sense of humor?

For instance: “When I realize that I've left the lucky jeans behind, I have to stop and laugh. I take out the money she paid me and count it: one-fifty—a wash. The cosmos has no sense of humor, so it shouldn't play jokes on a soul, but I have to laugh again. I start to trot. When I hit the down slope, I break into a run. . . . ‘You're so good in a crisis,' Claire used to say. I have to laugh again. The crisis is over. I come off the heaving bridge, turn back once to the electric lights, then into Brooklyn, contemplating the life of an imploded star” (pp. 332–333). Have you noticed in your reading or in your life that laughter can be a corrective as well as a balm?

4. How do his physical symptoms often reflect the narrator's psychic state? Think of his dyspepsia, gagging, and bile. Are you reminded
of Sartre's
Nausea?
Is it always a personal disgust or is it sometimes a more general reaction to the state of the world—for African-Americans, for a confused America, for a world in peril?

5. Thomas has written a moral history not only of his narrator without a name—an Everyman—but also a rich tale of America and of people in general. How does the narrator's own diverse heritage (black, Irish, Native-American) enlarge the meaning of the book?

6. How is the narrator's extreme energy actually his salvation? “Whatever the disaster of my past life, or the low-calorie days and sleepless nights, I can still run, which is something that Claire and many other people, being neither ex-junkies nor ex-athletes, cannot understand. She would say, when she thought I was angry, ‘
You should run,
' as though it would be some cathartic event. Her suggestion would
make
me angry” (p. 101). What other kinds of physical or intellectual energy sustain him?

7. Do you find that one of the riches of
Man Gone Down
is that the narrator lives on so many levels, interior as well as “real”? Do we, too, feel we are living multiple lives? At times the heightened senses, physicality, and joy of acuity make us understand what it might be like to be on speed. Discuss the many-faceted main character—his skills and passions, from his world of books to the music that runs in his blood to his Tiger Woods moments. What about his deep fatherhood? His own pure love?

8. What motivates the narrator as writer? In his youth he practiced poetry and thought deep thoughts . . . “and missed out on all the subtleties one could mine a work of art for—to get laid, to get paid. That if you quoted someone, or turned on the right song, with the lights just so, money could change hands or clothes could come off” (p. 99). Then, in
Chapter 12
, he says, “I am desperate for all the
wrong reasons”—the contract providing fame and a silver minivan (p. 277). He slides into paranoia about agents, editors, reviewers, and buyers. Does all this ring true from what you know about writers and the publishing business? At bottom, writing “names things, locates them . . . at least when I'm writing, I can pretend to be involved in some kind of management of my netherworlds” (p. 277). Is that a fair description of creativity in other forms as well? Painting? Composing?