Left No Forwarding Address Read online

  I grunted, “Uh, huh.” This was the conversation concerning the mechanics of running a household. A businesslike household with two stockholders. A husband and a wife. An impersonal household with two members who were always correct and proper toward each other.

  “When are they coming?” I asked.

  She finished her mouthful before she spoke. She always had perfect manners. “July twelfth at eight in the morning. They said this was a quiet season for them.”

  I nodded. “That’s good. Will you be here to let the man in?”

  “Yes, I’ll take the morning off and work from home.”

  It didn’t really matter much if she went to her office or worked at home. My wife had a small space in an office complex in the next town, Norwalk. From there, she ran a one-woman company that she had started which produced point-of-sale displays for cosmetic and toiletry manufacturers. The company generated a reasonable profit in most years, and she often made more money than my meager income. That didn’t bother my ego. My fondest wish was that she would make ten times as much.

  I studied her face and tried to evaluate how I felt. I wanted to weigh on a balance scale the forces that pulled me toward her and those that repelled me. And all I could manage to come up with was a sum of supreme indifference. After all these years, I really had no feelings left for her. All the love and all the joy and all the promise that we had started out with had dried up and left an arid landscape in its stead.

  I tried to imagine how she viewed me. It couldn’t have been very warmly. She must have been disappointed by my failure to provide a secure income for our family and in my lack of fatherly understanding of our son’s misadventures. Before we married she saw me as a god who could do no wrong, a hero who would protect her from the unfeeling insults of society. Now, I could do nothing right.

  The phone rang. My heart jumped. “Don’t answer it,” I said instinctively. It was unnecessary to say it. We seldom answered the telephone.

  After the fourth ring, the answering machine played its message. "We're not home. Leave your message after the tone."

  The caller was just as unfriendly. "This is Mister McCallister from Financial Credit Corporation. This is the fourth time I'm calling you. You evidently don't realize the seriousness of this matter. You better call me before it's too late." He left an eight hundred number and a file number and again stressed the seriousness of the matter before he hung up.

  My wife glanced at me briefly and resumed eating. It wasn't necessary to discuss the call. It was an everyday occurrence for us. The constant grinding of bill collectors, the past due notices, the pleading extensions. The quaint notion that a gentleman lives on his overdrafts had lost its currency in the age of digital funds, those little bits of energy (plus or minus, yes or no, one or zero) that passed for dollar bills over fiber optic lines.

  We finished eating without any further conversation. Then she got up from the table and returned with a container of vanilla ice cream and two plates. It was one of those no-fat ice creams that tasted like synthetic space food of the kind they sent up with the astronauts. I ate it because it was cold.

  I wanted to say, “Are you happy?” And I knew she would reply, “Sure, aren’t you?” Because I knew what she wanted to avoid most of all was any kind of unpleasantness. She would go on pretending she was living a real life and not a counterfeit one.

  It wasn’t a difficult judgment. I’d already made the decision as far as my wife was concerned. Now there remained one final consideration.

  Would my son care at all if he never saw me again?

  CHAPTER III

  “What the hell do you want?” my son said through the crack in the partly-opened door. He didn’t bother to unfasten the chain.

  “I want to talk to you,” I said. All I could see was his bloodshot eye and an unshaven cheek.

  “We don’t have anything to talk about.” His tone might have been characterized as unwelcoming.

  “Please,” I said. “I really have to talk to you.”

  “Get lost. I’m busy. I don’t have time to talk to you.”

  “Ever?”

  “Not in this century,” he said.

  “But I’m your father.” The words sounded a little more plaintive than I wanted them to be. But they must have unlocked some emotion, because he slid the chain back and opened the door halfway.

  I could see into the cluttered room behind him. The sofa bed was still open and unmade. Automotive magazines were tossed about the floor. His cigarette was in an ashtray on the floor next to the magazines where he must have been lying reading them before my unexpected and unwanted knock on the door. Smoke from the cigarette curled slowly upward and merged with motes of dust that hung suspended in a beam of sunlight.

  My son lived in this dreary two-room apartment over a garage. You reached the apartment by climbing an uncertain flight of wooden stairs. He worked in the garage as a mechanic. He’d been working there for almost three years, part-time while he went to high school, and then full-time when he decided, much to our surprise and dismay, that he wasn’t going on to college.

  “Who’s that?” came a girl’s voice from the other room. The voice sounded sleepy.

  “Mind your own damn business,” he yelled over his shoulder toward the voice.

  A girl shuffled into the room, wrapping a sort of kimono around herself. It looked as if she wasn’t wearing anything underneath the robe. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen or seventeen. She rubbed her eyes as she approached us.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  My son gave her the back of his hand across her cheek and sent her flying to the floor. “I told you to mind your own business.”

  The girl looked surprised, but only briefly. She rubbed her cheek tentatively and got up. The robe had opened and exposed her breast. I felt embarrassed for her. She turned slowly, silently and retreated to the other room.

  My son was a tall, well-formed boy, given to wearing overalls, flannel shirts and work boots to emphasize a blue collar appearance. The fact that his parents were white collar types gave him a point of reference to rebel against. If we were Marxists, he would surely have been a red-blooded capitalist.

  He looked at me and I could see the coldness behind his eyes. This was the baby boy I had bathed and held and fed. This was the baby boy I had cradled and comforted when he was afraid of the darkness. And now I stood in awe of him because he had just whacked his girlfriend in furtherance of the philosophy of George Bernard Shaw, who had said that women should be struck regularly, like a gong.

  So many arguments, so many fights, so many disagreements over a lifetime, his lifetime, of disagreements. When exactly was the breaking point? At what instant did he decide that he was done with us? That he no longer wanted parents, or at least that he didn’t want a father. Was it the time I came home early and found him stoned on some controlled substance and the cat tied up and hanging by its rear paws from the chandelier and his girlfriend of the moment prancing naked around the dining room, rock music blaring and her body slathered with ochre. I chased him out of the house then, and told him not to return until he had straightened himself out. He returned three days later, shamefaced and apologetic, but his manner had changed irrevocably. From that point on, he remained distant and detached from us. I never found out where he went for those three days.

  “I don’t have time for you,” he said. “Tell me what you want and then get the hell out of here.”

  I hesitated. Was I going to tell him I was going to embark on the greatest adventure of my life and ask for his blessing, knowing he would never see me again? No, I wasn’t. It was clear he didn’t care about me.

  “Will you call your mother?” I said.

  He shook his head. “I got nothing to say to her…or to you.”

  “Don’t you have any feeling for her at all?” I asked him, fully realizing with painful irony that I could ask the same question of myself.

  He refused to answer. He just stood
there, glaring at me as if the expenditure of a few words was too costly for him. Reluctant to spend that emotional capital, he was.

  I wanted to put my hand on his cheek. To kiss him the way I did when he was a baby. But I knew he was lost to me forever. This had not been a conversation. It had been a volley of artillery shells fired back and forth between two recent strangers.

  “Very well,” I sighed. “Take good care of yourself.”

  He snorted. That was his reaction. He just snorted. Then he shut the door and locked it. I could hear him slide the chain back into place.

  CHAPTER IV

  The shop was a small grimy storefront on Eighth Avenue between Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth streets. The window on the street featured assorted novelties, from masks of President Bush and Elvis Presley to slightly larger than life-size flesh-colored dildos complete with testicles. There were boxes of pornographic videos and electronic calculators, side by side. The arrangement of the window was haphazard, with no clear definition of what the store sold or specialized in. This would have been a marketing man’s nightmare. It just sold everything you wanted, from pagers and cell phones to devices for improving one’s sexual performance or desire. Next to little packages of ginseng and Spanish fly were wooden gift boxes containing ben wah, those brass masturbatory balls that had given Chinese women so much pleasure over the centuries, rocking back and forth in those vaginal canals, knocking on all those cervixes and producing orgasm after crushing orgasm.

  But what had caught my eye was an inconspicuous sign in the corner of the window that said, We Make ID Cards.

  What kind of ID cards would such an unruly and haphazard store produce?

  Perhaps just the kind I was looking for.

  I had passed the store countless times on my wanderings around the city, and I’d always glanced at the window without stopping. The products displayed were mildly interesting, but not worthy of any sustained inspection. I’d never even noticed the sign before, although I’m sure it was always there because it was covered by dust, like everything in the window. It was only when the plan took solid form that the sign increased in size and began flashing like a neon light.

  I entered the store. There were no patrons. The store was even smaller inside than it appeared from the outside. Corrugated cartons of all sizes were stacked from floor to ceiling. The place had a musty smell as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Stale aromas of curry and saffron and chana batura hung in the air. There were display counters that were held together with masking tape and so coated with dirt you couldn’t see what was inside them.

  A frail elderly man walked slowly around the counter, holding on to it for support as he came up to me. His hands were small and the skin was almost transparent. You could see more than the veins. You could almost see the tendons and bones in his hand.

  “How may I be of service to you?” he asked. He was a little Hindu man, older than the Himalayas. His voice was soft and sibilant, almost soothing. He had long, gray hair, slicked back and smooth, unwrinkled skin.

  “I saw the sign in the window that said you make ID cards,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes, you are quite correct. There is such a sign in the window.”

  His eyes were large and dark, but there was a brightness about them. He seemed to take delight in the literalness of his answer. As he spoke, his head swayed from side to side.

  “Can you make ID cards for me?”

  He peered at me intently. There was an ancient and feminine aspect about him. “It depends on what kind of ID cards you want to have.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t know quite how to say it. “Can you show me the kind of cards you make?”

  He smiled at me and, as he smiled, his eyes squinted. It was a soothing smile. “But, of course.” The head swaying. “It would be my pleasure to show you.”

  He shuffled around the counter and disappeared into the back of the store. For the first time, I heard the sitar music and the sound of a high-pitched female voice chanting. What if I were a robber? I could steal whatever I wanted from his store. But then I saw there was nothing to steal. Everything was locked up in cases and there was nothing of value in sight.

  The music was enchanting. It reminded you of Ravi Shankar and the Beatles and all that Eastern mysticism. It seemed timeless. The only thing missing was the incense.

  He returned with a couple of generic ID cards. I studied them with mounting disappointment. This wasn’t what I needed. It had to be something official and bureaucratic that would start me on the road to my new identity. Something like a driver’s license and a social security card.

  “This wasn’t exactly what I was looking for,” I said.

  He wagged his head. “And what exactly are you looking for?” he said softly, so softly I had to incline my head to hear him.

  “I need something more…official.”

  “I see.” He didn’t say anything for a long minute. Then he leaned closer to me. “Exactly what do you refer to as official?”

  No holding back, I thought. Balls out. “Well, for example, a driver’s license…”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, my. That is not quite legal, you know.”

  “Oh, I know. I know,” I said quickly. “But I would be willing to pay whatever the price was. Maybe not you, but you might know of someone…or someone might know of someone…”

  He took a step back and examined me from head to toe. He didn’t speak. Then he rubbed his fingertips along his smooth cheek. “Are you a policeman?” he asked finally.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Are you a member of any law enforcement agency?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He considered that for a minute. “You should not wear a suit and tie, because that makes you look like a member of law enforcement.” He scrutinized me again. “You are sure you are not a member of any law enforcement agency?”

  “No, I’m not. I swear to you.”

  “You should not have to swear.” He took a step backwards and walked behind me. “May I inspect you?”

  I didn’t think I heard him correctly. “What?”

  “May I inspect you?” he repeated.

  I shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

  “May I see your wallet?”

  I took it out of my rear pants pocket and handed it to him. He put it on the countertop and spent a long time examining the contents. There was nothing unusual in my wallet, except maybe for those little information cards that listed the good vintage years for the wine harvest and another one that indicated trading patterns for the stock market and the best and worst times to invest. He seemed particularly interested in those infocards.

  When he had finished inspecting my wallet he nodded to himself and handed it back to me. “Please,” he said. “Would you unbutton your shirt and open it?” He pointed his index finger tentatively toward me and made a slow circular motion with it. There was something mystical about the gesture.

  I had no idea what he was after but I shrugged off my jacket and put it on the counter and opened my shirt to expose my chest. He lifted my shirt away from my chest with his fingertips and peered inside my shirt on both sides. Then he stood behind me and ran his fingertips gently across my back. The movement tickled and I involuntarily twitched in response. A chill ran up my spine to the base of my skull.

  He drew his hand back. “Please. I am so sorry. I did not mean to offend you. One cannot be too careful, you know. There are many risks.”

  He glanced out the front window of the store toward the street. “Would you be so kind as to come with me to the back room?”

  My first reflex was to look out the window, too. There was no need to worry. The window was so encrusted with grime that no one could look in. I didn’t know what he wanted. “OK,” I said. “Lead the way.”

  I followed him into a dimly-lit room with a small desk and chair. The floor was littered with empty boxes of porno videos and electronic toys and aluminum containers for take-out food. There
were posters on the wall of Indian gods with many arms and a day-glo picture of a bare-chested Christ-like Jim Morrison with his flowing hair. Against the far wall was a floor safe that must have been six feet tall and five feet wide. There were shelves and shelves of phones, small televisions and CD players.

  The old man turned to face me. “Please. Would you be so kind as to lower your trousers?”

  I drew back. “Why?” I said. “Why do I have to do that?”

  He looked at me with a sad expression, like you would look at a child who had asked a silly question. “Please. One cannot be too careful.” He gave me that same gesture with his forefinger, slowly making circles. The eternal, endless circle, round and round.

  I’d gone this far, I thought. I shrugged and unbuckled my belt and dropped my pants. I tried to be nonchalant about the whole thing and imagined it as a ritual initiation into my new life. The old man walked carefully around me, inspecting my hairy legs. He walked around me twice. Then he rubbed his hands together and said, “Thank you. You have been most kind. You may raise your trousers now.”

  I rearranged my linens and pulled up my zipper and buckled my belt. “Did I pass the test?”

  He gave me a reassuring smile. “You did very well. You may now inform me as to exactly what you would like.”

  “I’d like a New York State driver’s license, for starters.”

  He nodded as if he had caught on very quickly. “That is quite difficult because there is a photograph and a design to foil copies. Difficult and quite expensive.”

  “But I’d pay whatever it was,” I blurted out. “You said difficult, but not impossible, right?”

  His eyes twinkled. “Yes, that is correct. Difficult, but not impossible.”

  “Then you’ll do it for me?”

  He put his palms together and bowed his head slightly. “And who would you like to be?”

  That was a first-rate metaphysical question. Of all the people in the world, real and imagined, who would I like to be. No one had ever asked me that question before. There was an old story about Schopenhauer. He was visiting a greenhouse in Dresden and became deeply absorbed in contemplating one of the plants. His gestures became very erratic. An attendant approached him and asked, “Who are you?” Schopenhauer looked at the man for several moments and said, “If you could only answer that question for me, I’d be eternally grateful.”