The Corrections

by Jonathan Franzen

  There was a murmur at a distant table where a tweedy, homely contingent was seated, maybe union fund managers, maybe the endowment crowd from Penn or Temple. One stork-shaped woman stood up from this table and shouted, “So, what’s the idea, you reprogram the repeat offender to enjoy pushing a broom?”

  “That is within the realm of the feasible, yes,” Finch said. “That is one potential fix, although possibly not the best.”

  The heckler couldn’t believe it. “Not the best? It’s an ethical nightmare.”

  “So, free country, go invest in alternative energy,” Finch said, for a laugh, because most of the guests were on her side. “Buy some geothermal penny stocks. Solar-electricity futures, very cheap, very righteous. Yes, next, please? Pink shirt?”

  “You guys are dreaming,” the heckler persisted at a shout, “if you think the American people—”

  “Honey,” Finch interrupted with the advantage of her lapel mike and amplification, “the American people support the death penalty. Do you think they’ll have a problem with a socially constructive alternative like this? Ten years from now we’ll see which of us is dreaming. Yes, pink shirt at Table Three, yes?”

  “Excuse me,” the heckler persisted, “I’m trying to remind your potential investors of the Eighth Amendment—”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much,” Finch said, her emcee’s smile tightening. “Since you bring up cruel and unusual punishment, let me suggest that you walk a few blocks north of here to Fairmount Avenue. Go take a look at the Eastern State Penitentiary. World’s first modern prison, opened in 1829, solitary confinement for up to twenty years, astonishing suicide rate, zero corrective benefit, and, just to keep this in mind, still the basic model for corrections in the United States today. Curly’s not talking about this on CNN, folks. He’s talking about the million Americans with Parkinson’s and the four million with Alzheimer’s. What I’m telling you now is not for general consumption. But the fact is, a one-hundred-percent voluntary alternative to incarceration is the opposite of cruel and unusual. Of all the potential applications of Corecktall, this is the most humane. This is the liberal vision: genuine, permanent, voluntary self-melioration.”

  The heckler, shaking her head with the emphasis of the unconvinceable, was already exiting the ballroom. Mr. Twelve Thousand Shares of Exxon, at Gary’s left shoulder, cupped his hands to his mouth and booed her.

  Young men at other tables followed suit, booing and smirking, having their sports-fan fun and lending support, Gary feared, to Denise’s disdain for the world he moved in. Denise had leaned forward and was staring at Twelve Thousand Shares of Exxon in open-mouthed amazement.

  Daffy Anderson, a linebacker type with thick glossy sideburns and a texturally distinct stubblefield of hair higher up, had stepped forward to answer money questions. He spoke of being gratifyingly oversubscribed. He compared the heat of this IPO to Vindaloo curry and Dallas in July. He refused to divulge the price that Hevy & Hodapp planned to ask for a share of Axon. He spoke of pricing it fairly and—wink, wink—letting the market do its job.

  Denise touched Gary’s shoulder and pointed to a table behind the dais, where Merilee Finch was standing by herself and putting salmon in her mouth. “Our prey is feeding. I say we pounce.”

  “What for?” Gary said.

  “To get Dad signed up for testing.”

  Nothing about the idea of Alfred’s participation in a Phase II study appealed to Gary, but it occurred to him that by letting Denise broach the topic of Alfred’s affliction, by letting her create sympathy for the Lamberts and establish their moral claim on Axon’s favors, he could increase his chances of getting his five thousand shares.

  “You do the talking,” he said, standing up. “Then I’ll have a question for her, too.”

  As he and Denise moved toward the dais, heads turned to admire Denise’s legs.

  “What part of ‘no comment’ didn’t you understand?” Daffy Anderson asked a questioner for a laugh.

  The cheeks of Axon’s CEO were puffed out like a squirrel’s. Merilee Finch put a napkin to her mouth and regarded the accosting Lamberts warily. “I’m so starving,” she said. It was a thin woman’s apology for being corporeal. “We’ll be setting up some tables in a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”

  “This is a semi-private question,” Denise said.

  Finch swallowed with difficulty—maybe self-consciousness, maybe insufficient chewing. “Yeah?”

  Denise and Gary introduced themselves and Denise mentioned the letter that Alfred had been sent.

  “I had to eat something,” Finch explained, shoveling up lentils. “I think Joe was the one who wrote to your father. I’m assuming we’re all square there now. He’d be happy to talk to you if you still had questions.”

  “Our question is more for you,” Denise said.

  “Sorry. One more bite here.” Finch chewed her salmon with labored jawstrokes, swallowed again, and dropped her napkin on the plate. “As far as that patent goes, I’ll tell you frankly, we considered just infringing. That’s what everybody else does. But Curly’s an inventor himself. He wanted to do the right thing.”

  “Frankly,” Gary said, “the right thing might have been to offer more.”

  Finch’s tongue was probing beneath her upper lip like a cat beneath blankets. “You may have a somewhat inflated idea of your father’s achievement,” she said. “A lot of researchers were studying those gels in the sixties. The discovery of electrical anisotropy is generally, I believe, credited to a team at Cornell. Plus I understand from Joe that the wording of that patent is unspecific. It doesn’t even refer to the brain; it’s just ‘human tissues.’ Justice is the right of the stronger, when it comes to patent law. I think our offer was rather generous.”

  Gary made his I’m-a-jerk face and looked at the dais, where Daffy Anderson was being mobbed by well-wishers and supplicants.

  “Our father was fine with the offer,” Denise assured Finch. “And he’ll be happy to know what you guys are doing.”

  Female bonding, the making of nice, faintly nauseated Gary.

  “I forget which hospital he’s with,” Finch said.

  “He’s not,” Denise said. “He was a railroad engineer. He had a lab in our basement.”

  Finch was surprised. “He did that work as an amateur?”

  Gary didn’t know which version of Alfred made him angrier: the spiteful old tyrant who’d made a brilliant discovery in the basement and cheated himself out of a fortune, or the clueless basement amateur who’d unwittingly replicated the work of real chemists, spent scarce family money to file and maintain a vaguely worded patent, and was now being tossed a scrap from the table of Earl Eberle. Both versions incensed him.

  Perhaps it was best, after all, that the old man had ignored Gary’s advice and taken the money.

  “My dad has Parkinson’s,” Denise said.

  “Oh, I’m very sorry.”

  “Well, and we were wondering if you might include him in the testing of your—product.”

  “Conceivably,” Finch said. “We’d have to ask Curly. I do like the human-interest aspect. Does your dad live around here?”

  “He’s in St. Jude.”

  Finch frowned. “It won’t work if you can’t get him to Schwenksville twice a week for at least six months.”

  “Not a problem,” Denise said, turning to Gary. “Right?”

  Gary was hating everything about this conversation. Health health, female female, nice nice, easy easy. He didn’t answer.

  “How is he mentally?” Finch said.

  Denise opened her mouth, but at first no words came out.

  “He’s fine,” she said, rallying. “Just—fine.”

  “No dementia?”

  Denise pursed her lips and shook her head. “No. He gets a little confused sometimes, but—no.”

  “The confusion could be from his meds,” Finch said, “in which case it’s fixable. But Lewy-body dementia is beyond the purview of Pha
se Two testing. So is Alzheimer’s.”

  “He’s pretty sharp,” Denise said.

  “Well, if he’s able to follow basic instructions, and he’s willing to travel east in January, Curly might try to include him. It would make a good story.”

  Finch produced a business card, warmly shook Denise’s hand, less warmly shook Gary’s, and moved into the mob surrounding Daffy Anderson.

  Gary followed her and caught her by the elbow. She turned around, startled.

  “Listen, Merilee,” he said in a low voice, as if to say, Let’s be realistic now, we adults can dispense with the nicey-nice crap. “I’m glad you think my dad’s a ‘good story.’ And it’s very generous of you to give him five thousand dollars. But I believe you need us more than we need you.”

  Finch waved to somebody and held up one finger; she would be there in one second. “Actually,” she said to Gary, “we don’t need you at all. So I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  “My family wants to buy five thousand shares of your offering.”

  Finch laughed like an executive with an eighty-hour work week. “So does everybody in this room,” she said. “That’s why we have investment bankers. If you’ll excuse me—”

  She broke free and got away. Gary, in the crush of bodies, was having trouble breathing. He was furious with himself for having begged, furious for having let Denise attend this road show, furious for being a Lambert. He strode toward the nearest exit without waiting for Denise, who hurried after him.

  Between the Four Seasons and the neighboring office tower was a corporate courtyard so lavishly planted and flawlessly maintained that it might have been pixels in a cybershopping paradise. The two Lamberts were crossing the courtyard when Gary’s anger found a fault through which to vent itself. He said, “I don’t know where the hell you think Dad’s going to stay if he comes out here.”

  “Partly with you, partly with me,” Denise said.

  “You’re never home,” he said. “And Dad’s on record as not wanting to be at my house for more than forty-eight hours.”

  “This wouldn’t be like last Christmas,” Denise said. “Trust me. The impression I got on Saturday—”

  “Plus how’s he going to get out to Schwenksville twice a week?”

  “Gary, what are you saying? Do you not want this to happen?”

  Two office workers, seeing angry parties bearing down, stood up and vacated a marble bench. Denise perched on the bench and folded her arms intransigently. Gary paced in a tight circle, his hands on his hips.

  “For the last ten years,” he said, “Dad has done nothing to take care of himself. He’s sat in that fucking blue chair and wallowed in self-pity. I don’t know why you think he’s suddenly going to start—”

  “Well, but if he thought there might actually be a cure—”

  “What, so he can be depressed for an extra five years and die miserable at eighty-five instead of eighty? That’s going to make all the difference?”

  “Maybe he’s depressed because he’s sick.”

  “I’m sorry, but that is bullshit, Denise. That is a crock. The man has been depressed since before he even retired. He was depressed when he was still in perfect health.”

  A low fountain was murmuring nearby, generating medium-strength privacy. A small unaffiliated cloud had wandered into the quadrant of private-sphere sky defined by the encompassing rooflines. The light was coastal and diffuse.

  “What would you do,” Denise said, “if you had Mom nagging you seven days a week, telling you to get out of the house, watching every move you make, and acting like the kind of chair you sit in is a moral issue? The more she tells him to get up, the more he sits there. The more he sits there, the more she—”

  “Denise, you’re living in fantasyland.”

  She looked at Gary with hatred. “Don’t patronize me. It’s just as much a fantasy to act like Dad’s some worn-out old machine. He’s a person, Gary. He has an interior life. And he’s nice to me, at least—”

  “Well, he ain’t so nice to me,” Gary said. “And he’s an abusive selfish bully to Mom. And I say if he wants to sit in that chair and sleep his life away, that’s just fine. I love that idea. I’m one-thousand-percent a fan of that idea. But first let’s yank that chair out of a three-floor house that’s falling apart and losing value. Let’s get Mom some kind of quality of life. Just do that, and he can sit in his chair and feel sorry for himself until the cows come home.”

  “She loves that house. That house is her quality of life.”

  “Well, she’s in a fantasyland, too! A lot of good it does her to love the house when she’s got to keep an eye on the old man twenty-four hours a day.”

  Denise crossed her eyes and blew a wisp of hair off her forehead. “You’re the one in a fantasy,” she said. “You seem to think they’re going to be happy living in a two-room apartment in a city where the only people they know are you and me. And do you know who that’s convenient for? For you.”

  He threw his hands in the air. “So it’s convenient for me! I’m sick of worrying about that house in St. Jude. I’m sick of making trips out there. I’m sick of hearing how miserable Mom is. A situation that’s convenient for you and me is better than a situation that’s convenient for nobody. Mom’s living with a guy who’s a physical wreck. He’s had it, he’s through, finito, end of story, take a charge against earnings. And still she’s got this idea that if he would only try harder, everything would be fine and life would be just like it used to be. Well, I got news for everybody: it ain’t ever gonna be the way it used to be.”

  “You don’t even want him to get better.”

  “Denise.” Gary clutched his eyes. “They had five years before he even got sick. And what did he do? He watched the local news and waited for Mom to cook his meals. This is the real world we’re living in. And I want them out of that house—”

  “Gary.”

  “I want them in a retirement community out here, and I’m not afraid to say it.”

  “Gary, listen to me.” Denise leaned forward with an urgent goodwill that only irritated him the more. “Dad can come and stay with me for six months. They can both come and stay, I can bring home meals, it’s not that big a deal. If he gets better, they’ll go back home. If he doesn’t get better, they’ll have had six months to decide if they like living in Philly. I mean, what is wrong with this?”

  Gary didn’t know what was wrong with it. But he could already hear Enid’s invidious descants on the topic of Denise’s wonderfulness. And since it was impossible to imagine Caroline and Enid amicably sharing a house for six days (never mind six weeks, never mind six months), Gary could not, even ceremonially, offer to put his parents up himself.

  He raised his eyes to the intensity of whiteness that marked the sun’s proximity to a corner of the office tower. The beds of mums and begonias and liriope all around him were like bikinied extras in a music video, planted in full blush of perfection and fated to be yanked again before they had a chance to lose petals, acquire brown spots, drop leaves. Gary had always enjoyed corporate gardens as backdrops for the pageant of privilege, as metonymies of pamperment, but it was vital not to ask too much of them. It was vital not to come to them in need.

  “You know, I don’t even care,” he said. “It’s a great plan. And if you want to do the legwork, that would be great.”

  “OK, I’ll do the ‘legwork,’” Denise said quickly. “Now what about Christmas? Dad really wants you guys to come.”

  Gary laughed. “So he’s involved now, too.”

  “He wants it for Mom’s sake. And she really, really wants it.”

  “Of course she wants it. She’s Enid Lambert. What does Enid Lambert want if not Christmas in St. Jude?”

  “Well, I’m going to go there,” Denise said, “and I’m going to try to get Chip to go, and I think the five of you should go. I think we should all just get together and do that for them.”

  The faint tremor of virtue in her voice set Gary’
s teeth on edge. A lecture about Christmas was the last thing he needed on this October afternoon, with the needle of his Factor 3 gauge bumping on the bright red E.

  “Dad said a strange thing on Saturday,” Denise continued. “He said, ‘I don’t know how much time I have.’ Both of them were talking like this was their last chance for a Christmas. It was kind of intense.”

  “Well, count on Mom,” Gary said a little wildly, “to phrase the thing for maximum emotional coercion!”

  “Right. But I also think she means it.”

  “I’m sure she means it!” Gary said. “And I will give it some thought! But, Denise, it is not so easy getting all five of us out there. It is not so easy! Not when it makes so much sense for us all to be here! Right? Right?”

  “I know, I agree,” Denise persisted quietly. “But remember, this would be a strictly one-time-only thing.”

  “I said I’d think about it. That’s all I can do, right? I’ll think about it! I’ll think about it! All right?”

  Denise seemed puzzled by his outburst. “OK. Good. Thank you. But the thing is—”

  “Yeah, what’s the thing,” Gary said, taking three steps away from her and suddenly turning back. “Tell me what the thing is.”

  “Well, I was just thinking—”

  “You know, I’m half an hour late already. I really need to get back to the office.”

  Denise rolled her eyes up at him and let her mouth hang open in mid-sentence.

  “Let’s just finish this conversation,” Gary said.

  “OK, well, not to sound like Mom, but—”

  “A little too late for that! Huh? Huh?” he found himself shouting with crazy joviality, his hands in the air.

  “Not to sound like Mom, but—you don’t want to wait too long before you decide to buy tickets. There, I said it.”