Read Online A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jennifer Egan
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it.
Hey, Lou goes. He leans down so our faces are together, and stares straight into my eyes. He looks tired, like someone walked on his skin and left footprints. He goes, The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Don’t listen to them—listen to me.
And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen.
Two weeks after that night, Jocelyn runs away. I find out with everyone else.
Her mother comes straight to our apartment. She and my parents and older brother sit me down: What do I know? Who is this new boyfriend? I tell them Lou. He lives in LA and has six children. He knows Bill Graham personally. I think Bennie might know who Lou actually is, so Jocelyn’s mom comes to our school to talk with Bennie Salazar. But he’s hard to find. Now that Alice and Scotty are together, Bennie has stopped coming to the Pit. He and Scotty still don’t talk, but before they were like one person. Now it’s like they’ve never met.
I can’t stop wondering: If I’d pulled away from Lou and fought the garbage throwers, would Bennie have settled for me like Scotty settled for Alice? Could that one thing have made all the difference?
They track down Lou in a matter of days. He tells Jocelyn’s mom that she hitchhiked all the way to his house without even warning him. He says she’s safe, he’s taking care of her, it’s better than having her on the street. Lou promises to bring her back when he comes to the city next week. Why not this week? I wonder.
While I’m waiting for Jocelyn, Alice invites me over. We take the bus from school, a long ride to Sea Cliff. Her house looks smaller in daylight. In the kitchen, we mix honey with her mother’s homemade yogurts and eat two each. We go up to her room, where all the frogs are, and sit on her built-in window seat. Alice tells me she’s planning to get real frogs and keep them in a terrarium. She’s calm and happy now that Scotty loves her. I can’t tell if she’s actually real, or if she’s stopped caring if she’s real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?
I wonder if Lou’s house is near the ocean. Does Jocelyn look at the waves? Do they ever leave Lou’s bedroom? Is Rolph there? I keep getting lost in these questions. Then I hear giggling, pounding from somewhere. I go, Who’s that?
My sisters, Alice goes. They’re playing tetherball.
We head downstairs and outside into Alice’s backyard, where I’ve only been in the dark. It’s sunny now, with flowers in patterns and a tree with lemons on it. At the edge of the yard, two little girls are slapping a bright yellow ball around a silver pole. They turn to us, laughing in their green uniforms.
Safari
I. Grass
“Remember, Charlie? In Hawaii? When we went to the beach at night and it started to rain?”
Rolph is talking to his older sister, Charlene, who despises her real name. But because they’re crouched around a bonfire with the other people on the safari, and because Rolph doesn’t speak up all that often, and because their father, Lou, sitting behind them on a camp chair (as they draw in the dust with little sticks), is a record producer whose personal life is of general interest, those near enough to hear are listening closely.
“Remember? How Mom and Dad stayed at the table for one more drink—”
“Impossible,” their father interjects, with a wink at the bird-watching ladies to his left. Both women wear binoculars even in the dark, as if hoping to spot birds in the firelit tree overhead.
“Remember, Charlie? How the beach was still warm, and that crazy wind was blowing?”
But Charlie is focused on her father’s legs, which have intertwined behind her with those of his girlfriend, Mindy. Soon they will bid the group good night and retreat to their tent, where they’ll make love on one of the narrow rickety cots inside it, or possibly on the ground. From the adjacent tent she and Rolph share, Charlie can hear them—not sounds, exactly, but movement. Rolph is too young to
Hey, Lou goes. He leans down so our faces are together, and stares straight into my eyes. He looks tired, like someone walked on his skin and left footprints. He goes, The world is full of shitheads, Rhea. Don’t listen to them—listen to me.
And I know that Lou is one of those shitheads. But I listen.
Two weeks after that night, Jocelyn runs away. I find out with everyone else.
Her mother comes straight to our apartment. She and my parents and older brother sit me down: What do I know? Who is this new boyfriend? I tell them Lou. He lives in LA and has six children. He knows Bill Graham personally. I think Bennie might know who Lou actually is, so Jocelyn’s mom comes to our school to talk with Bennie Salazar. But he’s hard to find. Now that Alice and Scotty are together, Bennie has stopped coming to the Pit. He and Scotty still don’t talk, but before they were like one person. Now it’s like they’ve never met.
I can’t stop wondering: If I’d pulled away from Lou and fought the garbage throwers, would Bennie have settled for me like Scotty settled for Alice? Could that one thing have made all the difference?
They track down Lou in a matter of days. He tells Jocelyn’s mom that she hitchhiked all the way to his house without even warning him. He says she’s safe, he’s taking care of her, it’s better than having her on the street. Lou promises to bring her back when he comes to the city next week. Why not this week? I wonder.
While I’m waiting for Jocelyn, Alice invites me over. We take the bus from school, a long ride to Sea Cliff. Her house looks smaller in daylight. In the kitchen, we mix honey with her mother’s homemade yogurts and eat two each. We go up to her room, where all the frogs are, and sit on her built-in window seat. Alice tells me she’s planning to get real frogs and keep them in a terrarium. She’s calm and happy now that Scotty loves her. I can’t tell if she’s actually real, or if she’s stopped caring if she’s real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?
I wonder if Lou’s house is near the ocean. Does Jocelyn look at the waves? Do they ever leave Lou’s bedroom? Is Rolph there? I keep getting lost in these questions. Then I hear giggling, pounding from somewhere. I go, Who’s that?
My sisters, Alice goes. They’re playing tetherball.
We head downstairs and outside into Alice’s backyard, where I’ve only been in the dark. It’s sunny now, with flowers in patterns and a tree with lemons on it. At the edge of the yard, two little girls are slapping a bright yellow ball around a silver pole. They turn to us, laughing in their green uniforms.
Safari
I. Grass
“Remember, Charlie? In Hawaii? When we went to the beach at night and it started to rain?”
Rolph is talking to his older sister, Charlene, who despises her real name. But because they’re crouched around a bonfire with the other people on the safari, and because Rolph doesn’t speak up all that often, and because their father, Lou, sitting behind them on a camp chair (as they draw in the dust with little sticks), is a record producer whose personal life is of general interest, those near enough to hear are listening closely.
“Remember? How Mom and Dad stayed at the table for one more drink—”
“Impossible,” their father interjects, with a wink at the bird-watching ladies to his left. Both women wear binoculars even in the dark, as if hoping to spot birds in the firelit tree overhead.
“Remember, Charlie? How the beach was still warm, and that crazy wind was blowing?”
But Charlie is focused on her father’s legs, which have intertwined behind her with those of his girlfriend, Mindy. Soon they will bid the group good night and retreat to their tent, where they’ll make love on one of the narrow rickety cots inside it, or possibly on the ground. From the adjacent tent she and Rolph share, Charlie can hear them—not sounds, exactly, but movement. Rolph is too young to
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