A Changed Man (38 page)

“Have a seat,” says Chandler.

Have
my
seat, thinks Raymond.

Vincent sits, after giving his pant cuffs a tiny tug, as if he’s been doing that all his life. Chandler sits, same pant-tug. Where do these guys learn this? And who could have imagined Vincent would be an A student? Raymond remembers him being a troublemaker at school. Vincent’s poor mother put in her time in the principal’s office.

Chandler sits in his Chandler chair and turns toward Maslow and Vincent, who are sitting close enough to hold hands if they want to.

“How amazing,” Chandler says, “to see you two guys together. Not only together, but…anyone could tell just by looking at you how much you like and respect each other. You know…” Chandler’s acting as if he’s not reading from the prompt screen, as if he’s making it up on the spot. “I’m sure our viewers would love to know what it was like for you two gentlemen to meet. Can either of you reconstruct for me what was going through your minds?”

“Well, it’s strange,” says Meyer Maslow. “On the day that Vincent showed up at our office, my staff and I had been exploring new ways to dramatize our cause. Because the sad thing is, Chandler, that while we are known all over the world, by the refugees and dissidents we have worked to free—”

“Excuse me, Dr. Maslow,” says Chandler. “Let’s see some of their faces.”

The monitor lights up, and the audience watches glam shots—young and old, men, women, children, families, everyone happy and smiling, flashing more expensive dental work than Raymond can begin to afford for his kids.

“Tell us. Whose faces are we seeing?” Chandler asks.

Maslow doesn’t miss a beat. “Dissidents we have freed from Communist bloc prisons. Bosnians, Serbs, and Kosovars, torture victims, prisoners of conscience who dared to criticize their governments. Hunger strikers we rescued on the brink of starvation.”

Their faces flash at Raymond, who is probably the only one in the crowd who knows that this is another elaborate scam to line the Hollywood rabbi’s pockets. They could take photos of anyone and make them look like refugees. Those makeup queens can work wonders. And what about the people the government killed in
this
country? Or the
white
refugees driven by poverty to live in inner-city ghettos?

“All these people,” Meyer is saying, “owe their lives to Brotherhood Watch. But here at home we tend to become more involved with our own families, our own borders. I suppose it’s human nature to see only what’s under our noses.”

“I guess so.” Chandler doesn’t want to admit that he does nothing all day but sit around and think about other people’s problems—that is, how he can pimp them to make big bucks.

“So my staff and I were considering new ways to publicize our cause…. And Vincent appears out of nowhere.”

“That’s amazing. That’s beautiful. Would you say…God sent him?”

“I would,” Meyer says. “Others might have another explanation.” He curls his lip to show what he thinks of those other explanations. “I have learned over and over that God sends you what you need.”

Here’s where the logic breaks down. Did God send Maslow’s family, the ones supposedly killed in the Holocaust—did God send
them
what they needed? No. Which proves you can’t have it both ways: God and the Holocaust. Proof that the Holo-hoax never happened. Because there definitely
is
a God. A god who believes in justice, in Vincent getting what he’s got coming.

“Only later,” Maslow goes on, “did I realize that Vincent would not only become an important part of our Brotherhood family, but also that he was the living proof of the ideas that I had just written about in my new book,
One Heart at a Time.
”

Raymond checks the monitor, on which Maslow’s book appears. If this were less important, if he were relaxing in his living room, Raymond would count the number of times they plug the book during today’s show. He misses his ARM buddies. He wishes he were home with them, watching
Chandler
and cursing.

“And you, Vincent? Did you suspect that you were the living fulfillment of an idea that Meyer Maslow had written about in his new book?”

“Actually,” says Vincent, “I’d read the book.”

“You did?” says Chandler.

You did? thinks Raymond. When the hell was that? On the truck—the stolen truck—ride from Raymond’s house to the city? It was physically impossible for Vincent to have read those books while he was living at Raymond’s. The idea that someone could do such a thing totally rocks Raymond’s world. Though, come to think of it, there were days when Vincent would disappear at lunch or take a long time getting home from the tire shop. Raymond had hoped that Vincent was secretly getting laid, or even copping a drink. It’s sickening to imagine that he might have been reading Zionist propaganda. There was that one day Vincent’s car broke down in a vacant lot, and Raymond went to get him. Vincent claimed he’d been taking a piss. Could he have been parked, reading Maslow’s lies? Raymond won’t let himself go there.

“I’d read all of Meyer Maslow’s books,” says Vincent. “And I was impressed. I’d never read anything like them. In fact the people I got mixed up with—” He lowers his eyes. Overwhelmed.

“We understand,” says Chandler. “Take a minute if you have to. Have your feelings, Vincent.”

Vincent works the silence, then says, “But I never imagined I could be saved the way Meyer Maslow describes saving people. I never imagined that
my
life could change.”

“But you wanted to try—” Chandler suggests.

“I wanted to try,” agrees Vincent. The crowd applauds spontaneously, loving how the black man puts words in the white man’s mouth.

“And what made you able to do it?” Chandler says. “Able to change.”

If Raymond thought he could do it without attracting unwanted attention, he’d put his hands over his ears so as not to have to hear that doo-doo about the Korean greenhouse. Raymond tries to sing a song in his head to drown out Vincent’s voice. But the only songs that come to mind are the ones they played at Homeland Encampment. The trouble with German military marches is they’re not singable, exactly.

Apparently Vincent has reached the end of his routine. Chandler waits a few seconds. Then, as if he’s listening to the voice of his inner self instead of the million dollars’ worth of audio equipment plugged into his ear, he tilts his head and says, “You know, Vincent, Dr. Maslow, I heard a story. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“What’s that?” asks Maslow.

Dr. Maslow, I heard what you really get off on is sucking black men’s cocks. But Chandler’s not going to say that. There’s no point even hoping.

Chandler says, “I heard that the first time Meyer and Vincent met, the two of you compared tattoos. You, Dr. Maslow, asked to see Vincent’s swastika, and you showed him the numbers on your arm from the Nazi camp.”

Vincent is trying to disappear. What healthy white man wouldn’t? The alternative is to sit there while the audience imagines him involved in some macho standoff with one of those Jews who tattoo themselves. To say nothing of the fact that Vincent doesn’t
have
a swastika. That would have been way too ballsy for him. Waffen-SS bolts are kid stuff. It’s Raymond who’s got the swastika. Would Chandler like to see it?

Chandler seems to have stepped on somebody’s toes. Maslow is glaring at him.

“Do you think you could show our audience?” Chandler prods.

“Absolutely not,” Maslow says. “We are not primitives. We are not Amazonian tribesmen, displaying our tribal markings. We are two men who have suffered and have come here with a message that we refuse to contaminate by indulging in tawdry theatrics. I refuse to cheapen the Holocaust for anyone’s entertainment.”

“All rightee.” Chandler doesn’t blink. If Maslow won’t flash his tats, fuck him, let’s move on. “Let’s turn this over to the audience. Any questions for our guests?”

The lights come up. No one wants to go first. Certainly not Raymond. Let the ball get rolling. Then he’ll raise his hand and start off as if he means to ask a normal question. Of course, Vincent will know it’s him. That will be half the fun. Meanwhile Raymond’s got his hands jammed in his pockets so his tats don’t set off any alarm bells. He turns his face whenever Vincent looks his way.

A black girl stands, bouncing on the souls of her feet and jabbing the air in Vincent’s direction. “So what made you join in the first place? I mean, why would a person want to wallow in all that hate?”

Vincent fixes her with his baby blues. It’s like he’s practicing to be Chandler.

“I guess I was an angry guy,” he says. “And I blamed the wrong people for my problems.”

Raymond hears a roaring in his ears so massive and oceanic that for a minute he forgets where he is, forgets to duck when Vincent looks straight at him. Damn right someone would be angry. The white race is getting shafted. And white working men like Raymond and Vincent are being forced to bend over. Though not Vincent, not anymore. Vincent has gone over to their side, and left Raymond out in the cold.

Vincent sees Raymond. Raymond sees Vincent. Vincent can’t take his eyes off him. Raymond loves how the sight of him is scrambling Vincent’s brain. This is why it’s better to be the surpris
er
than the surpris
ee.

Finally, Vincent loses it. He goes rigid and stares into space. His concentration’s shot. He can’t handle the rest of the questions, can’t deliver the neat, prepackaged turd he’s learned to drop on command.

“Angry,” he says. “Yeah. I was angry and blamed the wrong people….” He’s turning his head in increments, trying to locate Raymond, but Raymond slumps and hides behind Aunt Brenda and baby Dineesha.

Chandler senses something wrong, but he doesn’t know what’s happened. Even the rabbi picks up on the negative buzz. He’s looking at Vincent, probably worried that the loser got a hold of some cocktail nuts backstage, that now he’s doing his near-death thing every time he appears in public. Why not? It worked for him before.

Vincent’s sudden psychic absence leaves a hole in the show, which Raymond decides to step through. He might as well go for the gold now. He’s already blown his cover.

Raymond catches the eye of the girl with the microphone, and she brings it over. Only when he grabs the mike does she see his tattoos. He watches her deciding if, by letting him talk, she’s doing something very right or very wrong. Raymond takes a deep breath, then asks the question he’s repeated to himself until he’s got it perfect:

“What I’d like to know is how honest Vincent Nolan has been with you guys about what he did before. I mean, how much has he told you?”

All right! Raymond got it out. It’s not the kind of question you hear much on
Chandler.
Mostly it’s some homey asking why the guests ain’t got the common sense God gave them. But you never hear anything that makes you think that the person knows the real story about the guests.

Vincent is dumbstruck. Light is beginning to dawn on the rabbi. Chandler is already there. But he’s still guarded and cagey as he says, “Hey, brother, why do you ask?”

That they haven’t called security and hustled Raymond out of the studio is encouraging. Chandler could make that happen by moving one little pinkie, the one with the Iceberg Slim diamond ring. But he’s taking a wait-and-see attitude until he figures out where Raymond is going with this.

“I’m Vincent’s cousin. Raymond Gillette. His first cousin. We grew up together.”

Raymond can’t read Chandler’s face. Maybe shock, maybe annoyance. Why didn’t his staff have this in their sights? That’s what he’s paying them for. Someone’s head is going to roll. Without a doubt, some white man’s.

“Man!” says Chandler, treading water. “Can you believe that? How about that? Vincent’s family.” He wants the long applause to give everybody a few seconds to regroup.

Looking into Chandler’s eyes is like watching a slot machine spin. Lemons apples cherries. Raymond can peer right into his skull and see that Chandler has no idea if Raymond is the good cousin or the bad cousin. Judging from surface impressions, Chandler’s betting on the bad. Now what? Does he find some way to shut Raymond down long enough to go to break and remove him from the studio? Or does he go for the chance that this might really be major TV and see what comes out when he mixes the new Vincent Nolan, the reconstructed cooled-out brotherhood model, with a few drops of his volatile past? The Changed with the Unreformed. A chemistry experiment.

Chandler knows what happened on the old
Geraldo.
They must teach you that in Talk Show for Beginners. Raymond himself has watched it many times on a tape he ordered by mail from an ad on TV.
Television’s Wildest Moments.
Chandler doesn’t want that happening on his watch. Still, the bottom line is that he knows about Geraldo’s wild moment. Everybody knows about it. Which means it must have been greater TV than all the forgettable, sharing-and-caring snoozes Chandler has hosted.

Chandler weighs his dilemma. He decides to bring it on. He hasn’t become the superstar talk-show Brother of the Moment for nothing!

“Family!” says Chandler. “What a terrific surprise. How long since you guys have seen each other? Sir, please…why don’t you come down here?”

Vincent’s doing all he can short of waving his arms in an SOS signal to Chandler. Disaster! Meyer catches Vincent’s vibe, and soon he too is shooting daggers at Chandler. They’ve worked hard to get this slot. It’s supposed to be about
them
and the rabbi’s book. They don’t want their big opportunity jacked by some trailer-trash cousin of Vincent’s.

Screw them. Raymond’s got something to say. Facts instead of bullshit. He stands and heads down toward the stage. He’s taking it slow. Let them watch, let them wait, let Vincent enjoy the cameras following Raymond for a change. Maybe they
haven’t
seen the old
Geraldo.
Or maybe the producers always secretly wanted to go the
Jerry Springer
route. Because they let Raymond get right up next to him, right up in Vincent’s face. Raymond’s so close to Vincent, he can count the drops of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Five, six, seven. Good.