We went to the M’s. Your book wasn’t there. The woman asked someone who worked at the front of the store to order it, and they started searching in their computer for a reference number or whatever. Then Levin came over, with Camille Bordas, and he said, “What’s going on?” Said it in English to his French mother-in-law. And she told him she was searching for a book by my son, and Levin said, “Who’s your son?” and I told him your name, and he said, “NO PLEASE DON’T! I love that book. I’ve read it three times. It’s out of print for some reason. I’ve got a copy at home, Sandrine. I’ll send it to you.”
Sandrine, I thought. Okay, okay.
“I think you’ll like it,” Camille said to Sandrine. She’d read it, too.
I waved Camille’s book at her. “I think my son will like this,” I said. “I didn’t even read a page yet, and I laughed. Out loud. I think it’s great so far.”
Camille mumbled something like “Thank you,” but seemed embarrassed, then started talking to Sandrine in French, and Levin said, “So where you coming from?”
“Same as you,” I said.
“Yeah, you know,” he said, “I knew that. I don’t know why I was pretending I didn’t know that. Wheelatine, right? Home of the Pellmore-Jasons.”
“I guess that’s one way to think of it,” I said.
“Not a fan of them?”
“Not so much.”
“Me neither,” Levin said. “I went to the compound a few times, when I was a kid, saw him in action. Jonboat. You know, there was a little while—seemed long at the time, but was probably just like six months, when every fuckup and skid in the northwest suburbs wished he was from Wheelatine. Partly that was because Jonboat had a halfpipe and ramps that he’d let kids come over and use on weekends if they signed a waiver with his bodyguard or whatever, but more than that, I think, it was because of your son. The swingset murders. I don’t know if you mind me bringing that up.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Belt doesn’t do that anymore.”
“I know,” Levin said. “I know, believe me. Thing is, I never got to see one,” he said. “There were only a couple, I guess, that anyone showed up for, right? But I heard about the first one after it happened, and then, when I heard about the second one, I couldn’t get there. I mean, I was eleven. I had a cousin who drove, but his car was full, so he wouldn’t take me, and I don’t know why I didn’t ride my bike out there. I mean, I know why. I was this fat little angry lazy person, and I probably lived six, maybe seven miles away, but I regret it, I’m saying. It was the last one anyone ever saw, that murder, at least as far as I know, and after it happened, the kids I knew who went, they made it sound like I missed the whole point of growing up where we did. Not the whole point. That’s dramatic. But a highlight. Sounded like I missed what should have been the highlight of my entire childhood, you know? The thing that made where we were from what it was. Or something. And then that cousin of mine who drove, a few months later, he told me that he met Belt over at Jonboat’s one day, that Belt gave him a piece of bubblegum or something, and, after that, even though I didn’t ride a freestyle bike or a skateboard or anything, I made sure I had a ride to the compound whenever Jonboat opened it up, and it completely sucked. Belt never came back, so I just waited around, watching Jonny wonderboy get his ass kissed all day by all these kids who I kind of looked up to, but who had it all wrong, and I knew they had it all wrong, but if I tried to say so, they’d say I was just jealous, so I didn’t say anything, just waited around, hoping for your son to return.”
“They had what all wrong?” I said.
“They were trying to figure out how Jonboat became Jonboat, you know? Like he wasn’t born Jonboat. They had it all wrong.”
“Levin,” I said, “don’t misunderstand, I don’t like the guy either, but it’s not like he’s done nothing. I mean, he’s this astronaut. And he was a fighter pilot. It’s because of him that prostitution’s legal. Gay marriage too.”
“Bullshit on that,” Levin said. “Those last two things are because of his wife. And an astronaut? A fighter pilot? Who needs another fucking astronaut fighter pilot? Maybe that’s ignorant of me, Mr. Magnet. I only 75% mean it. And I’m sorry to curse so much. Probably it’s ignorant of me. But he wasn’t one then, anyway. An astronaut or a fighter pilot. He was just a smart kid, like any other smart kid, who happened to be really athletic, and the son of Jon-Jon. He was good at the things he was supposed to be good at. Great even. But what do I give a shit about any of that? At eleven, especially—why should an eleven-year-old give a shit about that? Especially when there’s someone like Belt around. The swingset murderer. He murdered swingsets. He invented swingset-murder out of nothing and instantly perfected it and everyone thought it was beautiful. Everyone was crazy for it. I think everyone who saw it, or who even heard about it back then—it changed their lives, the way they saw things, thought about things. That’s how it was for me, just to imagine seeing it. And no one even understood what it meant. They just knew it was good.”
“What did it mean?” I said. “Why was it good?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “But it’s why I became a writer. In large part, at least.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
And then he started talking about art and literature and “the meaning of meaning” and what, in his opinion, the best art and literature achieve, or are supposed to achieve, and are supposed to refuse or maybe he said refute, and I didn’t really get it, but I felt like I got it while he was saying it, and anyway he seemed to believe what he was saying, and I’m not even going to try to tell you exactly what that was because I can’t remember, and I probably didn’t remember right even half of what I already wrote that he said, but the long and the short of it was he was a big fan of you for the swingset murders, and then he read a review of your book, and he said his hopes were high for it, and that even though they were so high, it turned out better than he hoped. NO PLEASE DON’T. And I don’t think he was exaggerating at all. I liked him.
“So is Belt still living in Chicago?” Levin said, once he was finished talking about art. By then we’d been out of the bookstore for a while, the four of us. I’d bought ESTRANGEMENT EFFECT, and we’d ended up walking out together, Sandrine and Camille a few steps ahead of Levin and me, and we’d probably walked a mile or two, into the Right Bank—it’s hard to judge distance here.
“In Wheelatine,” I said. “Stays with his old man.”