Q: A Novel (2 page)

“I am going to take you to my favorite place in the city,” she says, and takes me by the hand.

I am happy to be led.

We descend into the bowels of New York, catch the 2 train, change for the 1, and disembark at Chambers Street. It is early on a Wednesday morning; the streets are a-bustle with men and women in gray suits and black over-the-knee skirts hurrying to their office jobs. I, on the other hand, am unencumbered. I feel playful.

“Are we going to the Stock Exchange?” I ask. “You work in an organic market on weekends, but you’re a broker during the week, right? You’re going to take me on a tour of the trading floor. What do you trade—stocks, futures, commodities? I bet you’re in metals. Let me guess: you trade copper and tin contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oh, happy day!” I buttonhole a gentleman passerby, a businessman freshly outfitted at the Barneys seasonal sale. “The woman I am seeing trades copper futures. Can you believe my good fortune? She is
that
beautiful
and
a commodities trader!”

Q smiles and puts a finger to her lips, but I can see that she is amused.

As the man I accosted recedes into our wake, Q pulls me closer, entwines her arm with my own, and leads me down Church Street.

I am flummoxed.
This is the kingdom of Corporate America, heart of the realm of the modern faceless feudal overlords who drive the economic engine of the ship of state, their domain guarded by giant sentries, skyscrapers, colossuses of steel and concrete dwarfing the peons below.

It is no place for a flower child.

But here we are, passing the worldwide headquarters of Moody’s Financial Services, and now the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center, and now the reconstruction of the towers, and now, just across the street, Century 21, the department store where I have had great success with T-shirts and belts, which can be quite dear. Somehow, Century 21 has withstood not one terrorist attack but two, as if to say to the fundamentalist Muslims, you have thrown your very best at us, twice, and still we are here, defiantly outfitting your mortal enemies, the Sons of Capitalism, with Hanes and Fruit of the Loom at surprisingly reasonable prices: God bless America! And now the Marriott, and now the hot dog stand on the corner of Liberty, of which I have partaken once, during a tenth-grade field trip to the Stock Exchange with Mr. Henderson, and became so violently ill that the doctors suspected I may have contracted botulism, and now passing a Tibetan selling yak wool sweaters off a blanket, and now turning left on Thames, and now entering, behind an old building that vaguely resembles the Woolworth, a dark alley that smells of what can only be wino-urine.

And now I am completely confused.

“What?” I say, but Q puts her hand over my mouth.

“Wait,” she says, and like a trusting puppy I am led down the dank passageway. We pass some sacks of garbage, and a one-eyed alley cat lapping at some sour milk, and arrive, finally, at a tall iron fence, the sort that guards cemeteries in slasher flicks.

“This is creepy,” I say.

“Wait,” she says again and opens the gate, which plays its role to perfection and creaks in protest. Q takes my hand and leads me inside. I look around.

“Can I cook?” she says, “or can I cook?”

It is a garden—
that is the only word for it—but what a garden! The gate is covered on the inside by a thick, reaching ivy, as is the entirety of the fence surrounding the conservatory. This vine keeps the heat and moisture from escaping. The atmosphere feels different. It is slightly humid, faintly reminiscent of a rain forest, and at least twenty degrees warmer than the ambient temperature on the streets of the city. When Q closes the door behind us, the current of clammy alley air is sealed behind us, and it is as if we have entered another world, an—I don’t dare say it, it will sound clichéd, but it is the only word on my mind—Eden.

Here are apple trees, pullulating with swollen fruit. Q nods in approval and I administer to a branch the gentlest of taps. A compliant apple falls into my greedy hands. I bite in. The fruit is succulent, ambrosial. Here is a vegetable garden—orderly rows of broccoli, squash, yams, three kinds of onions, carrots, asparagus, parsnips, and what I think is okra. Here is an herb garden—redolent with rosemary and thyme, basil and sage, mint and rue, borage already in full flower. I have the sudden urge to make a salad. Here are apricots. Here plums. Here, somehow, avocados.

Dirt pathways, well manicured, wend their way through the garden. One path leads to a pepper farm. Q tells me that ninety-seven varieties are in the ground. Another path leads to a dwarf Japanese holly that has been mounted on stone. Yet another path ends at a Zen waterfall.

I have endless questions for Q. With skyscrapers encroaching on every side, how does enough light get in to sustain the garden? Who built it? When? Who owns it now? How could its existence have been kept a secret? Why is it so warm? Why is it not overrun by city idiots, ruined like everything else? How is this miracle possible?

Q answers in the best way possible. She sits me down at the base of a pear tree—a pear tree in the middle of Manhattan!—kisses me passionately, and, oh God oh God, am I in love.

Book One
Good

Chapter One

I
n the aftermath of the publication of my novel,
Time’s Broken Arrow
(Ick Press; 1,550 copies sold), a counterhistorical exploration of the unexplored potentialities of a full William Henry Harrison presidency, I experience a liberal’s phantasmagoria, what might be described as a Walter Mitty–esque flight of fancy if Thurber’s Mitty, dreamer of conquest on the battlefield and adroitness in the surgery, had aspired instead to acceptance among the intellectual elite of New York City, more specifically the Upper West Side, the sort who on a Sunday jaunt for bagels buy the latest Pynchon on remainder from the street vendor outside of Zabar’s, thumb it on the way home while munching an everything, and have the very best intentions of reading it.

I am on National Public Radio.
It is putatively something of an honor because they do not often have novelists, except Salman Rushdie for whom NPR has always had a soft spot, but I know better. A friend of mine, a lawyer, has called in a favor from the host, whom he has helped settle some parking tickets. It is an undeserved and hence tainted tribute, but the moderator gives me the full NPR treatment all the same. He has read my opus cover to cover and asks me serious questions about several of the important issues raised in the book, including Harrison’s mistreatment of the Native Americans, problematic support for slavery in the Indiana Territory, and legendary fondness for pork products.

“Which was his favorite?” he asks.

“The brat,” I say.

“I have never had a brat.”

“That is too bad.”

“Is it like the knock?”

“No, it is much better.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It is nevertheless true,” I say. “It is the best of the wursts.”

The Fantasia for Clavichord in C Minor begins playing in the background, signaling the end of the interview. “I am afraid we are out of time,” says the host. “Is this not always the case? Just as things are getting interesting, time runs out.”

“It is always so,” I say, whereupon I am ushered out of the studio to the music of C. P. E. Bach.

The following morning
my book is reviewed in the
New York Times
. To be fair, it is not a review per se. Rather, it is an oblique reference to my novel in a less than favorable discourse on the new Stephen King novel. Specifically, the critic writes, “The new King is frivolous claptrap, utterly predictable, surprising only for its persistent tediousness and the suddenness with which the author’s once discerning ear for a story has, as if touched by Medusa herself, turned to stone. The novel’s feeble effort at extrapolating from a counterhistorical premise as a means of commenting on modern society compares favorably only with the other drivel of this sort—I dare not call it a genre lest it encourage anyone to waste more time on such endeavors—including the profoundly inept
Time’s Broken Arrow
, surely one of the worst novels of the year.”

My publicist calls around nine o’clock and merrily inquires whether I have seen the mention in the morning’s paper. I say that I have.

“It’s a coup of a placement,” she says. “Do you know how difficult it is for a first-time novelist to get a mention in the
Times
?”

“A coup? She called my book one of the worst novels of the year. It isn’t even a review of my book. It’s just a gratuitous slight. It’s actually the worst review I have ever read, and she says my book is even worse still.”

“Don’t be such a Gloomy Gus,” says the perky publicist before she hangs up. “You know, any publicity is good publicity.”

I wonder about this. It seems too convenient.

Surely a plumber would not stand before a customer and a burst pipe, wrench in hand, sewage seeping onto the carpet, and proudly proclaim, “Any plumbing is good plumbing.”

I am out with Q
at a restaurant in the Village. She is wearing her beauty casually, as she always does, draped like a comfortable sweater. She is full of life. The light from the flickering tea candle on the table reflects gently off her glowing face, and one can see the aura around her. She is glorious.

The tables are close together, virtually on top of one another. We are near enough to our neighbors that either Q or I could reach out and take the salt from their table without fully extending our arms. It is a couple. They are talking about us. I am so full of Q that I do not notice. She, though, is distracted.

“You two are in love,” the man says finally.

“Yes, we are,” says Q.

“It is lovely to see.”

“Thank you,” she says.

The woman, presumably the man’s wife, continues to stare at us. This goes on through the end of the main course, and dessert, and even after the second cup of coffee has been poured. At last she says, “You’re that novelist guy, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I say, beaming.

“Wait a second, wait a second,” she says. “Don’t tell me.”

I smile.

“Let me guess. I know. I know.” She snaps her fingers and points: “John Grisham!” she cries.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am.”

The Colbert Report
has me as a guest. I am excited about the appearance. I have not seen the show, but my agent says it is popular with the sort of people who might read my book and, she says, the host is quite funny. She knows this will appeal to me, as it does. I am something of an amateur comedian, and as I wait for the show to begin, I envision snappy repartee.

In the green room, they have put out fruit. The spread consists of cantaloupe and honeydew and watermelon. I do not care for honeydew, but I respect it as a melon. The cantaloupe is luscious. The watermelon, however, is less impressive. It is a cheap crop, grown in China, and seems to me to have no place on a corporate fruit plate. I make a mental note to talk to one of the staff about this.

Approximately fifteen minutes before showtime, a production assistant enters the room and gives me some brief instructions. In a few minutes, they will take me onto the stage, where I will sit on the set until the interview begins. I will be on following a segment called “The Word.” Colbert will introduce me, and then she says—this is unusual—he will run over to greet me. Unfortunately, I either do not hear or do not understand this last instruction. I think she says that I should run over to meet him.

I am not sure why I get this wrong. I think most likely I just hear what I want to hear. I am a runner, and I conclude this will be a unique opportunity to demonstrate to a national audience my unique combination of speed and humor. I suppose I get caught up in all that.

Approximately twenty minutes into the show Colbert introduces me. He says, “My guest this evening is the author of the new novel,
Time’s Broken Arrow
, which the
New York Times
has praised as unique and singular.” He graciously omits the following word from the review—“bad.” He says, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome . . .”

At the sound of my name, I lower my head and break into a sprint. As I round the corner of the set, I see Colbert. He is merely in a light jog—he does this every night—but it is too late for either of us to stop. I make a last-ditch effort to veer to the left, but he turns in the same direction, and I strike him squarely in the head. Even as he is injured, he is supremely self-possessed and funny.

As he falls to the ground, he says, “Et tu? So fall Colbert.”

He is concussed.

Colbert is done for the night, so the episode is concluded with a backup interview, which the show keeps in the can in case of emergency. The guest is Ted Koppel, reminiscing about his time in the White House press corps. He covered Nixon and was there for the trip to China. Following Nixon’s visit to the Great Wall, Koppel asked Nixon what he thought about the experience. Koppel relates the president’s reply in a surprisingly good Nixon, with just a hint of his own sultry baritone. “Let it be said,” says Koppel-as-Nixon, “that this was and shall be for all time, a truly
great
wall.”

The audience howls. The ratings are strong. Rather than reschedule my appearance, the producers decide to invite back Koppel.

I am invited
to the 92nd Street Y, as part of its “Lox and Talks” series, focusing on young Jewish writers. I am worried. The event is set for a Tuesday at lunch, and I will have no reliable supporters on hand. Q is out of town for the week at the Northeast Organic Farming Association annual convention. None of my friends can take the time from work. Even my mother, who reliably attends all of my readings, cannot make it because of a conflicting pedicure appointment. I am uncomfortable—for good luck Q has bought me new pants, which are itchy—and nervous: I expect an empty room.

But the room is not vacant. Not at all. It is brimming with
alter
kakers
, a gaggle of old ladies sipping coffee and munching coffee cake and kibitzing about dental surgery. It is not exactly my target audience, as they say in the ad biz, but I am elated all the same. Here are real human beings gathered to hear my work. I take the stage and open to my favorite chapter—the one where Secretary of State Daniel Webster uses his rhetorical gifts to cajole President-elect Harrison into wearing a coat at his inauguration—and begin reading with verve.

“I must prove that I am the same man who triumphed at Tippecanoe,” protests the president-elect.

“You are sixty-eight years old. You will catch a cold and die.” Webster had a rich and musical voice, which I do my best to imitate. I am good but not great at impressions. I hold out hope that Jim Dale will voice the book on tape.

“You are extremely persuasive,” says Harrison.

“So I am told,” says Daniel Webster.

Harrison dons an overcoat and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fake history, but history all the same.

I see immediately that the old ladies are disappointed. It is not even what I have written, my mere speaking seems to dishearten them. I press on, but they continue to fidget in their seats and whisper to one another. One woman makes an ordeal of opening an ancient sucking candy. Another sighs a giant sigh.

I stop reading and ask, “What is wrong?”

“You are very nasal,” says a woman in the front.

“Do you have a cold?” asks another.

“I am fine.”

“Well, you should have some chicken soup anyway.”

“I do not like chicken soup.”

“You would like mine. It is the best.”

“Is my voice the issue?”

“Yes, we are surprised to hear you speaking.”

“You have never heard someone with a nasal voice?”

“No, we are surprised to hear you speaking at all.”

“It is a reading after all.”

“We came to hear Marcel Marceau read from
Bip in a Book
. You are not he.”

An official from the Y standing in the back hears the exchange. She explains that the rare video of one of the few readings Marceau gave before his death is being shown in the next room. Slowly, the old ladies file out. One woman remains to whom I ascribe the noblest and most empathic virtues of humanity. No doubt she too has stumbled into the wrong room. But she recognizes how vulnerable a writer makes himself when he puts his work out to the world. Even if this reading was not her first choice, as an act of basic human dignity, she perceives a duty to stay. I, in turn, am grateful for her and read with even more zeal than before.

I become apprehensive, however, when she fails to perk up at Harrison’s mention of reviving the Bank of the United States, and downright suspicious when she does not so much as chuckle at Martin Van Buren’s snoring during the second hour of the inaugural. I take a close look at her and conclude that she is either asleep or, as appears to be the case upon further reflection,
dead.

Hastily, I finish the chapter and head for the door.

I want to make a quick exit
from the Y and the yet-to-be-discovered corpse, but I also need to pee and I decide to make a stop at the bathroom. Here I meet Steve Martin, who is having a pee of his own at the adjacent urinal. It is a coincidence, but the sort of chance encounter that happens more often when one travels in the circle of celebrities.

Martin will be performing banjo at the end of the week, as part of a bluegrass festival at the Y, and he is here for a rehearsal. His banjo case is on the ground between his feet.

I fumble a bit as I get started. It’s the new slacks.

“Usually I wear pleated pants,” I explain to Martin, “but my girlfriend bought me flat fronts for this occasion.” He does not look up. “She couldn’t be here today,” I explain further. “She is at the Northeast Organic Farming Association annual convention in Hartford.”

“I see,” says Martin.

“I have just finished reading from my novel. Perhaps you have heard of it? It is called
Time’s Broken Arrow
.”

Martin shakes his head.

“I was very much influenced by
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
,” I say. “I think you are right that all great works, whether of art or scientific genius, are of equal merit and share the same mysterious origin. I just love the scene where Picasso’s art dealer asks the waitress whether Pablo has been to the bar and Germaine says, ‘Not yet,’ as if she knows what is going to happen in the future. I bet you get that all the time.”

“More often people prefer scenes involving the main characters.” Martin does not look up as he says this. He is concentrating.

“I also love the way you make time fungible and everything arbitrary. When Einstein shows up at the wrong bar and explains there’s just as much chance of his date wandering into the Lapin Agile as at the place they made up to meet because she thinks as he does, it’s just hilarious. It’s a brilliant play. I bet you get that all the time, too.”

“More often people prefer the movies,” he says.

“I enjoy your movies, too. My favorite is
The Jerk
, before you got all serious with
The Spanish Prisoner
and
Shopgirl
. I love the scene where Navin Johnson sees himself in the phone book and is so excited to see his name in print. I like Mamet as much as the next guy, but that’s just classic.”