“Not justice,” Laertes said, and then he downed the cocktail in one swallow. “Not justice, no. Uh-uh. The expectation of justice would be like waiting for the Second Coming. It would be like thinking I could absolve myself of all the pain that is the true inheritance of my ancestral history.”
Laertes could see that his answer was unexpected. Sansome had thought that he understood why Laertes said the things he did. But now he could see that he’d been wrong.
“If not justice then what?” the vice president in charge of trouble asked.
There was yet another Manhattan before Laertes.
“I would just like,” the bank teller said, “for the words people say to have some modicum of truth to them. I’d like it for people to see that some folks are named after countries and cultures, whereas others are ill-defined by race and continent. That’s all.”
Having told his truth about truth, Laertes downed his fifth cocktail.
“Your records say that you only have a high school diploma,” Howard Sansome said.
“Education is simply the process of thought being applied to knowledge,” the bank teller said. “Thought... applied to knowledge. Most people just say things having never thought about what what they say means. You got presidents do that.”
Sansome turned on his barstool so that he was facing Laertes.
He said, “So you’re saying that you bollixed up your interview because the woman was white with a Spanish name and she called you African-American.”
“I’m saying that the words I hear and the words I speak should make sense. You can’t live a life in terms that are wrong — not a good life.”
“And are you living a good life?” Howard Sansome asked.
Laertes felt the full force of the five cocktails upon hearing that question. He blinked and shook his head, trying to find an answer that he felt should be second nature.
“I’ll be in touch, Mr. Jackson,” Sansome said.
Watching the short man in the dark red suit walk from the bar, Laertes felt that the room was tilted to the right. This impossibility made him smile.
3
Weeks later Laertes’s life had changed in small ways that promised to be large. Are you living a good life? The question resonated at the back of his mind, through every activity, and even in his sleep. There was certainly goodness in his life. Medea was a beautiful child, and she loved him even though she called another man father. Things had been good with Bonita before her ambition cast its gaze on him. He was good at his job, rarely had other than a zero balance. His rent had gone up twelve percent in the last three years, and another hike would necessitate a move. He needed more money but didn’t want an officer’s position, because he felt that they misrepresented the value of the accounts and loans they pushed on customers.
He hadn’t been on a date in six years — since the divorce. So now he bought his first computer and start trawling dating sites for companionship. His explanation of who he was and what he wanted was seventeen pages long, and his photograph was of a dark-skinned man who wasn’t smiling and seemed confused by and leery of the camera.
The few responses he had online were tentative but interested.
Agnes327 wrote, “Your profile was so serious, Laertes8, what do you do to have fun?”
“I read the Times,” Laertes wrote, “and take each story apart, imaging how what they say happened could have happened. Then I write responses when I feel that I’ve struck upon a contradiction.”
Lucy!! asked, if he could change the world he found so problematic, how would that look?
Laertes wrote a sixty-two-page response over a three-day period in which he addressed the economic system, the problems of a standardized education, medical care, the environment, the misconceptions of race and gender, and the waste of human potential on distractions created to keep human passion limited.
Laertes got only sixteen responses to his dating-site profile. After answering all of them he got only one second response. This was from Mona_Loa_Love. She had asked him where he’d retire when he could. He replied that the notion of retirement in the animal kingdom was tantamount to exile and not something one should pursue.
“I believe that when we age we lose our physical edge but gain wisdom and patience. I’d like to become an advisor to younger members of our nation; that and maybe I’d like to tend a flock of sheep.”
Mona_Loa_Love had written to Laertes in the second week after Howard Sansome had asked his devastating question. He used a facility on the site to allow her to read his answers to the other fifteen conversations. By the fifth week she had crafted an intricate reply.
Dear Laertes8,
It intrigues me that you included a photograph of yourself but refused to identify by gender, race or age. There’s something genius in that. I love the long, well thought out answers you gave to the others who responded. And I can understand why they didn’t answer. These women are looking for something they’ve already seen and don’t want to be challenged but rather loved — and cared for in various ways.
I am not interested in dating you. As a matter of fact I can see no reason in our meeting. But I am deeply moved by your convictions and your resolute inability to compromise. I hope that we can have an epistolary relationship over this medium, or maybe you’d like to send me your email address. I could use your wisdom and, I believe, you might have some use for my understanding.
Laertes was devastated by Mona_Loa_Love’s response; your resolute inability to compromise was the most painful phrase. She saw something in him that he had not seen himself. As a matter of fact, even though he saw the truth of her words, still he did not understand how to leave, or live with, them.
Laertes did not go on the dating site for a week after this last response. He went to work, visited his mother and estranged family, and read the Times but did not perform his usual exegeses on its articles. On that Saturday, around midnight, he felt very much alone in his studio apartment on the third floor, next to a woman whose hound dog howled every evening from six to just about seven. The bank teller felt the urge for a Manhattan cocktail. He took a shower and put on his medium-gray suit. He buttoned the white shirt up to the throat but forwent a tie. He took sixty dollars from a manila envelope in his writing desk, pocketed the house key, and went to the door.
His hand was not yet on the knob when the landline rang. He rubbed his fingers together, and the second volley of sound pealed. He turned to look at the phone he had no intention of answering. This would be the third and last ring. After that the automated answering service would take over.
The fourth ring surprised him, as did the fifth, sixth and seventh. By the eleventh ring Laertes was certain that the world he’d known, and despised, had fallen off its axis.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Jackson? Laertes Jackson?” a woman’s soothing voice asked.
“How come my phone didn’t send you to voice mail?”
“Our technology sidesteps that process,” she said. “Mr. Jackson?”
“Yes. I’m Jackson.”
“So pleased to meet you, sir. You have been on my mind for quite a while now.”
“And who are you?”
“My name is Winsome Millerton-Pomerantz, CEO of Triple-M.”
“It’s Saturday night, Ms. Pomerantz. Most people are taking it easy around now.”
“Money never sleeps.”
“My little bit of change been nappin’ my whole life.”