The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (26 page)

A man stood at the far end of the room, his back to her, gazing through floor-to-ceiling windows at the view of Manhattan.

“Excuse me,” she said, hesitating in the doorway. “So sorry to bother you but—this might sound weird—but I actually grew up in this apartment. I happened to be walking by and was wondering, would it be insane if I asked maybe to peek inside? I’m getting a flood of memories even just standing here. Is that—”

“Very nice,” Venn said. “You’ll ask to use the toilet next.”

“I’m too old for that line,” she said, closing the door behind her. “Pity, I wouldn’t mind walking into random apartments when I need a bathroom. Actually, yes—why don’t I?”

The place was sumptuous, floorboards and walls brilliant white, a white orchid on the coffee table before a leather divan, a braided pachira tree in a pot. Tooly checked out the bookshelf, which contained only volumes about beads, buttons, and Bakelite jewelry.

She joined him at the windows. The panes were four times her height and as wide as the entire apartment, a crystal cityscape of West Village rooftops steaming, high-rises crammed in higgledy-piggledy.

“Who lives in this place?” she asked. His eyes looked so intently ahead that she followed his gaze, only for him to turn to her, a grin creasing his cheeks.

“Who lives here?” he repeated back.

“Yes, here. The place where we’re both standing right now. The apartment that—I think I can confidently say—isn’t yours.”

“You mean this place, where you grew up?”

“Seriously, whose?”

“Just a friend, duck.”

“Speaking of your ladyfriends, Sarah is still holding out hope of hearing from you. And Humph is going nuts dealing with her. Could you just see her before she leaves? Or at least phone her at the apartment? It’s easy for you, hiding out here in luxury. But we have to deal with her.”

“And the boy-lawyer?” he asked, meaning Duncan. “How’s that?”

“I’m making friends with the whole place.”

“Friends? Make them fall in love with you.”

“I might have something for you from there.”

He pointed a remote control at the shutters, which lowered with an automated whirr, wiping out the city. “We ready to go?” He often spoke of “we” like this, as if he and Tooly were akin, which flattered her, since she viewed her personality as so small and his as so large. He understood her character and spoke of it so convincingly. When she was little, and he praised her as brave or uncomplaining, she sought to become that way. Until, gradually, she adopted the traits he claimed to have seen from the start.

They set forth into the snow. Venn went most places by foot, and she had assumed this habit. He was as likely to walk for three hours as three minutes, and never informed her of their destination. They tracked north today, past Fourteenth Street, through Chelsea, east at Penn Station, along secondary streets uncleared except over subway
grates or where muddy footsteps had preceded them. For blocks, he said nothing.

“So,” she asked, to break the silence, “the owner of the white apartment? Anything special?”

“No, no.”

“Don’t you get the urge to stay with any of these women?”

“Absolutely not. You know me.”

“I know you,” she said. “But I don’t get you. You seem to be cutting out more and more stuff these days.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. I try to distance myself from things.”

“What for? I don’t see what you gain from that.”

“I achieve a peace in it, I suppose,” he said. “It’s about recognizing how little I need and sticking with that, as forces around (and in me) tempt me to set it aside. I try to get rid of everything unnecessary.”

“Meaning what?”

“Everything possible. Even unnecessary thoughts,” he explained. “Fear, for example. The only way I was able to deal with fear was to reconcile myself with death. And no longer fearing death makes it so much easier to live how you want, without the interference of conventions, so many of which are just ways of staving off death anyway.”

“How so?”

“Things like family, kids. Some people have children expressly so they’ll be looked after in old age. They want adulation guaranteed, even when they’re no longer worthy of it. The love they give is only because they expect it in return. There’s always that condition, and it’s at the root of failed love, marriages, friendships.”

“Not always a condition,” she responded. “Isn’t that the point with stuff like marriage and children? It’s supposed to be unconditional.”

“ ‘Supposed to be’ is just a way of saying ‘isn’t.’ The reality is that people marry and procreate because of pressure from friends, from family. But there’s something vital lost the moment couples define themselves by an achievement anyone—good, bad, bright, or
boring—achieves with the same simple act. For me, starting a family would be capitulation. Not least because it’d force me to have lunch with uninteresting people whose only point of reference is that our kids take the same dance class.”

They walked on in silence. “I don’t want kids, either,” she said, looking at him.

“Why would you? Children are not remotely interesting till they grow up,” he said. “Even then, few turn out to be.”

“I was interesting, wasn’t I?”

“But you weren’t much of a child. Like I never was. We were hanging around in kids’ bodies, waiting for time to rectify the mixup.”

“Some children must be nice.”

“How many did you like when you were one? I defy anyone to tell me that having them is meaningful,” he said. “It’s supposed to make you more loving and nurturing. But those are things I aim to be irrespective. People who must have a child to be kind are missing something in their emotional setup; they require someone’s neediness to give their lives meaning. Life has enough meaning and beauty already. Discovering that is a proper pursuit. Not just making helpless little organisms. Or marrying whoever once turned you on. Bonds between people form in particular circumstance and times, and ought to end once those pass. But people are so frightened of being left alone that they collect all these malformed relationships. Accepting loneliness is everything.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, laughing.

He chuckled. “I’m challenging my crazy self,” he said. “Testing my limits and getting stronger in the process. Can I go without friendship, pleasures, warmth? Can I walk for twenty-four hours straight through the night? Can I challenge a tyrant? If yes, what have I achieved? An insight? A vanity? A change somewhere in me? To pursue my own life satisfies me in the way that parenthood must for mothers and fathers. Most of them would find my views offensive. But later they’ll find themselves attracted to me.”

Rounding the corner, they confronted a peculiar scene. At the entrance
of a closed office building across the street, a bum stood, tottering over a sleeping bag, which he jostled with his foot before unzipping his filthy black jeans and, right there, urinating on it.

“I think there’s someone in that sleeping bag,” Tooly said. “He’s pissing right on them.”

“Stay here.”

“Wait a second.” But he was already crossing the street.

The bum—knuckles covered in blue tattoos, face inked, too—zipped his fly, cursed the sleeping bag and kicked it, provoking a howl from within. He grabbed the end of the nylon bag and dragged it, a body flailing within. Noticing Venn, the bum paused, glaring from under a scabby brow. “Guy’s a faggot,” he said, by way of explanation. “He’s blocking my house.” He hammer-fisted the sleeping bag, prompting another muffled wail.

Venn pointed down the street. “Go that way. Now.”

“It’s my motherfucking door, man.”

A toothless face jutted from the sleeping bag, nose bleeding, greasy comb-over flopping in the wind. “Aren’t you just Mr. Sunshine,” he babbled. “I think we’re in love now.”

“See?” the bum told Venn. “Guy’s a fag.”

“Leave it.”

“Tell the fag to leave.”

“Now,” Venn said. “Or I rip your ears off.”

“What you say?”

Venn didn’t repeat himself.

As the bum unleashed another kick at the sleeping bag, Venn rammed him against the building. The bum struck the wall with a thud and fell to the snowy pavement. Venn dropped atop, knee in his chest, pinning him, muscles straining as he pushed downward.

“Hurting me, asshole!” the bum hollered. “Can’t fucking breathe!” After futile squirming and howling, he went limp. When Venn dragged him to his feet, the bum lunged for a head-butt. Venn caught him by the throat and eye socket, jutted a leg behind his, thrust forward his shoulder, knocking the man to the pavement, against which
he bashed his face twice, before pulling him to his feet and frog-marching him a short distance away. “You’re done.”

Bleeding, the bum stumbled off, stopping at the corner to shout back curses.

Tooly knelt before the madman in the sleeping bag: a little person, sweet-faced, effeminate, and so damaged that he could have been thirty or seventy. “You okay?” she asked.

“Why,” he answered, “why don’t you go screw yourselves.” He cackled and pulled his head back inside the urine-drenched sleeping bag.

“A lunatic,” Venn said calmly, and turned to Tooly. “Ready?”

He resumed their walk as if nothing had happened. She hastened to match his pace, shaky but determined to exude nonchalance. “Look.” She held up her hand. “I’m trembling and I didn’t even do anything! You’re completely calm.”

“Does no good to get frightened in a situation like that.”

“I don’t get frightened because I think it’s a good idea.”

“Always best to keep your wits about you—a big man like that could have fallen and cracked his head, especially on a snowy day. Anyway, nobody walked past.”

“You were watching for bystanders during all that?”

“Well, I can’t count on you to be my lookout,” he said cheerfully.

“Venn,” she said, “did you tell that guy you’d rip his ear off? Please tell me I misheard that.”

“I never said that.” He paused. “I said ‘ears,’ plural—there’s no point taking just one.”

“How do you even think of a thing like that?”

He threw an arm around her, pulled her over, knuckled her ribs, earning a squeak.

To witness violence but be spared—to stand behind his shield—always left her giddy. It made her talk and talk. She boasted lavishly of all she’d gathered for him about the students. Venn listened intently—he’d always shared her curiosity about the lives of strangers. Indeed, he was the one who first stirred that interest in her.

“This Duncan likes you?”

“He does.”

“He’s in love with you, duck!” Venn said. “How could he not be! How could he not be.”

“But wait—listen.” She returned to Xavi, detailing his idea for the online currency. Venn knew all sorts of business guys. Could he make something of this?

“Are you saying take his idea?”

“No,” she responded. “Would you want to?”

“Much rather get him involved. Could fit beautifully at the Brain Trust.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“But there’s the fee to join, plus the monthly rental,” Venn reminded her. “The kid has that kind of cash?”

“He’s on scholarships, I think, and gets help from friends.”

“Plus, he’s buddies with your boy-lawyer, who has funds.”

“Don’t know,” she said, hoping to move this away from Duncan.

“Dear me. What are you doing up there?” he teased. “You don’t know if the boy-lawyer has funds? I know already, and I never even met the guy! His father’s an architect in Connecticut. His folks are covering his law school and lodgings comfortably. Is he getting student loans?”

“Not sure.”

“Tooly, Tooly,” Venn said affectionately.

“What?” she replied, amused.

“These are things you should know by now!” Delighted, he told her, “What would I do without you, duck? You’re still the only person who makes me laugh.”

“You’d be a wreck without me.”

“Exactly right. I was saying before how I test myself by going without, right? Doing that shows me what I do need.”

“Which is?”

“Just walks like this. Conversations like this. Humor like ours.” He looked at her, earnest now. “I depend on you.”

She nodded fast, heart racing. He walked on, and she kept in stride. “But Venn,” she asked, “do you like this Wildfire idea?”

“I’d give your African friend a cubicle at the Brain Trust for nothing. Unfortunately, they’re not mine to give. I only look after that place.”

“For your venture-capitalist guy, right? Maybe he’d be interested.”

“Mawky is looking for companies that are ready to launch—not looking to hand-hold, as he puts it. But if your friends are serious, if they can rustle up basic funding and get this moving, it might be interesting.”

“You like the idea, then?”

“Listen, send me the African kid. We’ll have a chat. Then if you and your friends raise enough for membership and a few months’ rental, I’ll find a place for you. And if you get that far I’ll put you together with Mawky.”

“Seriously?”

“I’ll always help you, Tooly.”

“But not if you’re just being nice. Not as a favor. I want us to do a proper project together.”

“My project with you, as far as I’m concerned, is our friendship.”

“Who cares about your lousy friendship.”

“I know, you want glory. Why not? You’re in New York. Ambition is the municipal pastime. If you want, just keep tickling those boys uptown. It’ll produce something.”

“You think?”

“The lawyer’s parents must be shelling out fifty thousand a year for NYU already. If their son loves you, they’d be open to funding your future.”

“Don’t know if going through Duncan is a good idea. The father is a massive lump of jerk.”

“That part, duck, is up to you.”

Alive to the tremors of her mood, he patted her cheek, which made her smile. “Tooly, neither of us is interested in stuff like this. You won’t find anybody who cares less about money than me. How much
do I need for a year of living well? How much do I spend? Nothing. Money is totally uninteresting. What you and me want is freedom from fools. The less cash, the more you have to deal in fools. Money is dull. But independence?
That
is interesting.”