Holy Water (18 page)

And,
“
Don
’
t ever say the word
millennium
again. It will be nine hundred and eighty years before that word will be in the least bit cool.
”

And,
“
Teach your children engineering and Mandarin or else in ten years they
’
ll be mowing lawns and cleaning toilets for someone with the last name of Hung.
”

And this:
“
Be careful over there, because I swear to God, Hank, if
any thing
ever happened to you . . .
”

Meredith shakes her head.
“
Hank?
”

“
Confucius-like in his wisdom,
”
Warren says.
“
Most people go to the East to absorb its ancient truths, but you
’
re going with a whole suitcase full of your own, courtesy of a white-collar sociopath.
”

“
Are you excited?
”
Meredith asks.

Henry stares at her. Is he? Simple enough question, but he is stumped. He tries to guess what
’
s p
laying on the sound system. Fer
gie? Duffy? Pink? Doesn
’
t matter. No meaning, ironic or symbolic, to be gleaned there.
“
Actually, I don
’
t know enough about where I
’
m going to be excited. I
’
m excited to be leaving, but I should be equally excited about my destination. But the truth is. . . Truth is, I haven
’
t given it a whole lot of thought.
”

Meredith pretends to sip her seltzer as she maintains eye contact with Henry. Warren looks around. Coughs into his fist.
“
I
’
ve got to take a leak.
”

After Warren leaves, Henry says,
“
Rachel threw me out yesterday.
”

Meredith nods.
“
I know. She called.
”

“
Did she tell you why?
”

“
No. I already knew.
”

He starts to ask how she knew, then decides it doesn
’
t matter. Just assume she knows everything.

“
She
’
s been studying witchcraft, you know.
”

Meredith nods.
“
She said she put a virility-sapping spell on you.
”

Henry opens and closes his legs under the table, sips his
Hoegaarden
.
“
She said she knows how to make my penis dry up and fall off.
”

“
So you
’
re going to leave the country to work in a place you never heard of because your wife threw you out?
”

Henry nods.

“
Because you falsified a vasectomy?
”

Of course she
’
d know.
“
Pretty much. Yeah.
”

Neither speaks for a while. Henry decides that anything he says to Meredith will be redundant, something already known. It
is
Fergie on the sound system. Fergie with the Black Eyed Peas, anyway.
“
Boom Boom
Pow
.
”

“
I chickened out. She didn
’
t seem all that. . .all that stable. She
’
d already changed her mind about kids, our house, her job, several times, and I just thought that this was something that you don
’
t want to mess with unless you
’
re certain.
”

“
What about saying no, Henry? Did that ever occur to you?
”

“
She
’
s studying to be a bloody witch.
”

“
Probably because she
’
s looking for what is lacking in her life.
”

“
She could have joined a reading group.
”

“
Again, all you had to do is tell her you don
’
t want a vasectomy and you are not interested in being the soul mate of a child of Artemis.
”

“
We had no sex life. I
’
m thirty-two, and even after I was supposed to have had it, she barely let me near her anyway.
”

“
But—
”

“
And she cheated on me. In Vegas.
”

Meredith straightens up.
“
I see. This is more info than even I need to know. Listen, you
’
re a great person on the inside, Henry. With all the right principles and convictions. The problem is you lack the balls to act on them.
”

“
So I should go?
”

She sighs.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder,
“
Do I dare?
”
and,
“
Do
I
dare?
”

. . .
“
Do I dare

Disturb the universe?
”

He looks at Meredith and feels ashamed. Few people have this effect on him, but often without prompting, condescending, or saying a word, she has the ability, in her mere presence, to make him fully aware of his deficiencies as a human. Boom
Boom
Pow
.

“
Shakespeare?
”

She shakes her head dismissively.
“
Eliot.
”

“
I guess you know I
’
ve visited your Web site.
”

She nods.
“
Several times a day. Every day. I can track the hits right back to our server, your office, your home PC.
”

“
Right. Well, it
’
s very well done, you know. The graphics and the. . .
”

Warren comes back and slides into the booth.
“
Miss anything?
”

~ * ~

They order sandwiches and another round as Warren begins to lay out his plans for his forthcoming trip to India. Flights, inoculations, accommodations. Lots of talk about
Slumdog
Millionaire.
Henry appears to be listening, but he isn
’
t. Maybe 50 percent of the time the words register, but the other 50 percent he is thinking about the course of his life so far and he realizes that Meredith is right, that he is the problem. Not suburbia or Metro-North or overdosing on armpit sweat focus groups or a cheating, mentally unstable wife who wants to be a witch. Well, maybe all that is part of the problem, but what has he ever done to change it? To prevent it?

“
I got a two-bedroom place in one of the most exclusive condominiums in Bangalore for next to nothing,
”
he doesn
’
t hear Warren say.

But he does see two construction workers at the bar looking at Meredith, then at him in a way that can be described only as disdainfully. As if he is half a man. Unworthy of the company of a woman like Meredith, let alone, if they only knew, none other than
EEEEva
EEEEnormous
. And he has to admit, they might be half right.

“
I
’
m not just gonna be in Bangalore, though. All over their
region. Mumbai. Delhi. Shit, I may even make it up to your neck of the Himalayas, Henry.
”

Henry doubts that his father ever dwelled on his role as a man. His vocation. His direction. He went to Vietnam against his will and never spoke about it again. He got married to a woman his brother fixed him up with, got a job in sales because his father-in-law set it up, and to this day it remains a mystery to Henry whether or not he enjoyed any of it. He just kept his mouth shut and soldiered on. Like a man. Right up until the off-site. The coronary.

After his father died Henry wanted to ask his mother if she was satisfied with the path of her life. Marriage. Kids. Suburbs. Taking a backseat to Dad
’
s supposed career when he
’
s certain she would have been a star at whatever career she
’
d chosen if she
’
d been born in a different family, or ten years later. But he never asked, and sixteen months after his father died she was married to a real estate man named Alexi who made her—to Henry
’
s. . . what?
Dismay
is the only word for it—so happy that he no longer had the desire to ask the question or the stomach to handle its reply, because who enjoys seeing his mother more in love with a man than she was when she was with his father?

Norman arrives and slides in alongside Henry. After introductions Henry asks if he can get him anything.
“
No thanks. Got really wasted last night.
”

“
Wow. Where was the party?
”
Meredith asks.

“
Actually, I was alone in my apartment, doing a marathon viewing of season one of
Gossip Girl
on DVD.
”

Within minutes Norman has given up on abstinence (
“
Oookaaay
. . . Bourbon, rocks
”
) and may or may not have slipped something into his mouth, Henry can
’
t be sure, and has his laptop open and is showing them his latest film, a four-minute documentary on a day in the life of a Gulf War I
reenactor
. It
’
s hard to hear what the
reenactor
is saying over the tiny laptop speakers because the music in the bar is so loud, so they can only watch as a man in full U.S. Army Desert Storm fatigues goes through SCUD gas-mask application, entrenching, and weapons drills in what looks, at least initially, like a desert environment.

“
So he
’
s the only one?
”
Meredith asks.

“
Yeah. For now.
”

“
And was he really there?
”

“
Oh, no. He
’
s just a buff.
”

“
I think I just saw the mast of a sailboat,
”
Warren says.
“
Where
’
d you shoot this?
”

Norman takes an exaggerated breath.
“
That
’
s the thing. We had to do it at Robert Moses State Park. We started at Jones Beach, but it was too crowded, even on a weekday morning, and the park police kicked me out for not having a permit.
”

“
I
thought
I heard waves crashing,
”
Meredith adds.
“
Far off in the desert.
”

Henry watches the
reenactor
lumbering along the beach/desert and diving into the sand to get a better look at the invisible Republican Guard. The laptop screen is small and there
’
s a glare from the outside window, but at one point a sand castle is clearly visible in the background, and now Henry is fairly sure that the protagonist
’
s assault rifle is plastic.