“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow,” he said. “I really do want as cold a read as possible.”
“It has something to do with your video?” I said.
“Everything,” he said, and the middle of his chest began to beep and blink orange. As he had the night before, he tapped the brightest part with the heel of his palm—one, one-two, one-two, one-two—and when the blinking and beeping didn’t let up, he mumbled, “Pain in the fucking dick.” This time, though, when he yanked the vitreous pendant from his collar, he ripped it off his neck, turned himself sideways, whipped it at a hedgerow across the street, and started yelling at Burroughs. “You’re standing right there! Why does that fucking thing have to go off? Do I look dead? Do I look injured? Maybe you think Belt’s kidnapping me?”
Burroughs said, “I don’t carry the locator. You know that, Trip.”
“Well maybe you should, though. Carry the locator.”
“It needs to be—”
“It needs to be separate cause what if we’re both hurt? and then how will my father and how will Security and how will the cops and so on and so on and fucking etcetera?”
Burroughs laid his hands on Triple-J’s shoulders. He told him, “You should stop showing off. No one here’s judging you for being protected.”
Triple-J blinked hard, pushed air through his teeth. He said, “That was the worst kind of showing-off there is. I felt ashamed and started…I was having a tantrum.”
“You were,” said Burroughs.
“I’ll go get the pendant now,” Triple-J said. He went across the street.
“Don’t judge him,” said Burroughs.
I waited for more. I thought he’d present a case against judgment. It was just a command, though. “Don’t judge him,” it seemed, was all Burroughs had to say to me. Nonetheless, I still wanted him to like me.
“Quill?” I offered.
He said, “I don’t smoke.”
“ ‘No thank you’ works fine.”
“Your opinion,” he said.
I couldn’t tell whether or not we’d just riffed.
Triple-J crouched in front of a shrub, started parting branches gingerly.
“It may or may not be surprising to you,” Burroughs said, “that Mr. Pellmore-Jason was, for a while, made uncomfortable by what he believed to be his symbolic depiction in your book.”
“Mr. Pellmore-Jason?”
“I’m referring to Jonboat, not Triple-J.”
“I know who you’re referring to. He’s not depicted in my book, though, let alone symbolically.”
“He was made uncomfortable at the thought of being represented as, and I quote, ‘a plastic doll with a stupid name who’s been misplaced by a sad kid.’ ”
“You’re telling me Jonboat thinks he’s Bam Naka? He thinks I made an action figure of him?”
“I am telling you he used to think that, yes, and that I, in my capacities as Triple-J’s driver and security chief for the Pellmore-Jasons, would prefer it if you could reassure me, convincingly, that any resentment which may be underlying any authorial obsession you may have with Mr. Pellmore-Jason isn’t going to rear its head at brunch tomorrow.”
“You know, you sound like an attorney.”
“That’s not surprising. I don’t often practice, but I do have a law degree. I’ve been a member of the bar going on thirty years now.”
“Good for you,” I said. “I’m not obsessed with Jonboat.”
“Okay,” said Burroughs.
“And I don’t resent him,” I quickly added.
“I see I’ve offended you, which wasn’t my intention. Truly. If it’s any comfort, I enjoyed your book. Perhaps not as much as Trip over there, but more than many novels. I found it humorous at times, and well written throughout. As a fairly regular consumer of contemporary fiction, I was especially pleased to discover that, unlike most novels that get attention these days—especially those that were getting attention a few years ago, when yours was published—it wasn’t about Curios, or ‘living in a world shaped by Curios.’ Correct me if I’ve misremembered, but I don’t think there was a single Curio in the book, nor even a mention of Curios. Outside of the author biography, I mean.”
“You’re not incorrect,” I said.
“And despite that, despite the absence of Curios, the book wasn’t, thank goodness, about its absence of Curios. Again: something I appreciated. This idea that novels are supposed to be somehow practically useful to be important is troubling enough, but the idea that in order to be useful they have to concern themselves with our latest technologies, whether it be in passing or, as I’ve heard it so laughably put, ‘directly and confrontationally’—I don’t know where that idea came from, but its implications frankly sicken me. Your book did not sicken me.”
“Thank you for reading the book, Burroughs.”
“It was my pleasure to read the book. Furthermore, I never once—and then only once—considered the possibility that you were attempting to depict Mr. Pellmore-Jason as the lost action figure until Mr. Pellmore-Jason himself made the claim, which has always seemed to me to be a misguided claim, and which, I hasten to reiterate, is no longer a claim Mr. Pellmore-Jason makes. However, I’m known for—and have always prided myself on—my due diligence, and given that you’ll be visiting us at the compound, it would have been irresponsible of me not to make sure the claim was false, or rather: it would have been irresponsible of me not to make sure that, if the claim, despite my instincts, were true, your depiction of Mr. Pellmore-Jason as Bam Naka didn’t prefigure some kind of threat to him or the family. You have helped me to make sure of that, and I am relieved. Now I hope I can count on you to behave as though this conversation never happened. Triple-J adores his father, looks up to you as an artist, and is a very sharp, very sensitive kid. If you were to display even the subtlest hint of negativity or aggression toward Mr. Pellmore-Jason tomorrow at brunch, the boy would pick up on it, and he would be upset. That, in turn, would upset me.”
“I won’t upset you,” I said.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear, Belt. I’m grateful for your cooperation.”
“Thanks for all the kind words about the book,” I said. “I’m wondering now, though—does Triple-J think that Bam Naka’s Jonboat, too?”
“Not at all,” Burroughs said. “He’s never said so to me at least, and he’s certainly spoken of the book an awful lot. Now, just in case I wasn’t clear when I said I’d like you to behave as though this conversation never happened, Belt, part of what I meant is that I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention to Triple-J what I’ve told you his father once thought about the book. As would his father. And for that matter his stepmother. Appreciate it, that is. When Trip first read your book, he wasn’t aware that you and Mr. Pellmore-Jason had ever known one another, and when he—that is, Trip—raved to us about the book, we praised his good taste, let him know that you and his father had been acquainted as boys, and pretty much left it at that. So as far as Trip knows, Mr. Pellmore-Jason has always loved your book, plain and simple, without reservation, and we’d all like to keep it that way. When it comes to art, we like to support him unconditionally. Inasmuch as it’s possible, we aim to stay out of the way of his process, and to encourage him to form his own opinions. Understand?”