Scrooge said, “I’d like to say some things, you see. Then when I’m done, you can go. You’ll manage. You strike me as the kind of old man who thinks he’s in good shape because so far you’ve not had a heart attack.” A mirthless smile came to Scrooge as he studied Abel. “Your clothes are expensive.” He nodded. “A devoted secretary organizes your days. Nothing is really expected of you anymore, you’re a figurehead. A few leadership qualities left. But physical strength, I doubt you have much. So please. Sit.”
Abel stayed exactly where he was, but he felt winded. Everything this wretched man had said was essentially—except for the part about not having had a heart attack yet—true. The heart attack had been only a year ago and had scared Abel severely. He took two steps toward the chair and sat down; the chair swiveled backward, surprising him.
“Weak in the knees,” Scrooge said. “Well, I’m strong as wire. I’m also at the end of my rope. No one should be in a room with a man who’s at the end of his rope.” He laughed, showing his fillings, and Abel now felt a true bolt of alarm. He wondered how long he would have to be gone before his wife—or perhaps Zoe—would drive to the theater, God in heaven.
“That pony belongs to your grandchild?”
“It does,” Abel said. “She’s very attached to it.”
“I hate children,” Scrooge said. He slid down the wall and sat on the floor cross-legged. He was not a young man; Abel was surprised at his suppleness. “They’re little, they move quickly, they’re very judgmental. You look surprised.”
“This whole thing is surprising.” Abel tried to smile, but Scrooge did not smile. Abel continued, his mouth dry, “Look, I’m awfully sorry, but can we—”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Well, I suppose—”
“You’re stuck in a room with a lunatic and you apologize?”
“I see what you mean. Well, I would like to go, if you think—”
“I think I would like to say a few things. I told you that. The first thing I’d like to say is that I’m deeply, deeply tired of the theater. I only went into it because it takes everyone, especially if you were born queer back when I was, it scoops you up and gives you a sense of belonging—which is false, phony, silliness. And the second thing I would like to say is that I caused the lights to go out tonight. I did it with a cellphone inside my nightshirt. It’s all on the Internet, you know, pretty soon you’ll be able to blow up a whole country with a cellphone. But I followed the directions and I was quite surprised. I wanted to cause chaos and I did. Anyway, I had no one to tell. I was quite pleased with myself, and now find it to be a hollow victory.”
“Are you serious?”
“About the hollow victory?”
“About the lights.”
“Completely. Awesome, as the kids would say.” Scrooge shook his head slowly. Accentuating his words with a pointed index finger aimed at Abel, he said, “We all want an audience. If we do something, and no one knows we did it?— Well, then the tree might not have fallen in the forest.” His face opened in surprise. “So there. Now I’ve reported it, it happened, I’m satisfied. Though not as satisfied as I expected to be, honestly. And what are we going to do with you? You’ll walk out of here and tell the police, or your wife, and eventually Linck McKenzie will be even more of a joke. The town can watch him go down.”
“I’m not interested in that,” Abel said.
“You might be tomorrow. Or the day after.”
“I’m interested in getting the pony back to my granddaughter.”
After a long pause, Scrooge said, “It’s the oddest thing. But that just makes me hurt with jealousy. You probably want to say, ‘If you had a grandchild yourself, Mr. Oddball Theater Queer, you might understand that love.’?”
“I wasn’t thinking that at all. That’s not close to anything I was thinking. I was thinking about Sophia. Waiting for her pony. I hope she’s been able to fall asleep.”
Scrooge frowned. “Sophia. I suppose this little girl is well off?”
Abel waited a moment before he said, “She is, yes.”
“When you were her age, were you rich?”
“I was not remotely rich.”
“And did you get rich by working hard?”
Abel again hesitated. “I work hard,” he said. “I have always worked hard.”
Scrooge clapped his hands. “Ha! I bet you married your wealth! Don’t blush, old man. It’s terribly American, it’s fine. Nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, I’ve really embarrassed you. Quick, quick, let’s change the subject. This Sophia—do you think she’ll be a hard worker too? I’m concerned. I don’t think people work hard anymore. And these kids—I heard that some preschooler got a gold star just for showing up for the week! My dear man, you’ve turned red as a beet.”
Scrooge looked around the room and saw what he apparently wanted, a plastic bottle of water; he scuttled over to it, and returned, handing it to Abel. Abel did not argue. He had become desperately warm beneath his woolen suit. He drank, then offered the bottle to Scrooge, who shook his head, sitting once more with his back to the wall.
“What business are you in?” Scrooge asked. A toothpick was lying on the table, and he took it and picked at his teeth.
“Air-conditioning units.” Abel fleetingly pictured the young girl in the conference room today, so overprepared for her presentation; she was from Rockford, where he had grown up. “People still work hard,” he said.
“Air conditioning. You make a bundle.”
“And every year I give to the arts.”
Scrooge tilted his head, looking at Abel. His lips were colorless, cracked in places. “Now, please,” he said quietly. “Don’t be like that.”
Abel said nothing. A private nail of shame was driven into his chest; he could feel himself perspire. He remembered how earlier he’d thought of people reciting a line, and he understood now that he was one of them.
“Look,” Scrooge continued. “I just need you to listen to me and then you can go.”
Abel shook his head. A disc of nausea spun through him, he felt saliva rushing to his mouth. In his mind arrived a full understanding: Zoe was unhappy.
“I’ve scared you,” Scrooge said, in a voice that seemed to have scared Scrooge as well.
Abel said quietly, “My daughter’s unhappy.”
Scrooge asked, “How old is she?”
“Thirty-five. Married to a very successful lawyer. Has wonderful kids.”
Scrooge blew out his breath slowly. “Well, sounds like death to me.”
“Why?” Abel asked sincerely. “It should be perfect.”
“Perfectly lonely. A successful lawyer’s never around. She loves her kids, but it bores her, all the kid chores. And she feels irritated with the nanny and the cleaning woman, and her husband doesn’t want to hear it—and so she doesn’t like going to bed with him anymore, that’s a chore now too. And she looks at the rest of her life and thinks, God, what is this? Her kids will grow up, and then she’s really in Dullsville, and she’ll buy a new bracelet, and then a new pair of shoes, and maybe that will help for five minutes, but she gets more and more anxious and pretty soon they’ll put her on Valium or antidepressants, because society’s been drugging its women for years—”
Abel held up a hand to indicate that he should stop.
Scrooge said, “I know you want to go. You will, you will. Relax.” Scrooge opened his mouth wide, poked at something with the toothpick, then expelled the bit with a large sigh. “Sorry,” he said. “That was gross.”
Almost imperceptibly Abel nodded, to indicate that it was okay with him.
Earlier in the month Abel had celebrated a birthday that put him smack in the middle of his sixties. You look great, people said. You look wonderful. No one said: Your capped teeth—your pride and joy so long ago—seem to get bigger as you get older. No one said: Abel, too bad about those teeth. And maybe no one thought it.
“So dumb,” Scrooge said. “The telling-someone-to-relax thing. When did you ever relax because someone told you to?”
“I don’t know,” Abel said.