The Humanity Project

by Jean Thompson

  Back in the main room, he grabbed another beer and looked around for Beata. He still couldn’t fathom the fight she’d picked with him, and now, with his head inflated by alcohol, it seemed like a simple matter to set it right. He would get her to explain herself. They would agree to have, in the future, whatever variety of sex she wished, and a great deal of it.

  He found her standing next to the piano. A group had gathered there to listen to a man who was playing some sweeping, classical piece. “Hey,” Art said, sidling up to her. “I missed you.”

  “I have been right here.” She was drinking a glass of wine, red, like her dress. Her makeup, the black eyes and red mouth, had smudged a bit. He found this alluring, in a slutty sort of way. Beata looked him over. “Did you lose your club?”

  He hadn’t realized it was gone. “Yeah, I’m, ah, trying to invent the bow and arrow.”

  He laughed foolishly and drank down half the beer. OK, not funny. He wanted to tell Beata how good she looked, like a red fruit. He wanted to eat great mouthfuls of her, feel the juice dribble down his chin. But you couldn’t say something like that, and besides, there he was making everything about sex again, well EXCUSE ME, but sometimes it really was all about sex, that was why it felt so good, why you’d crawl over broken glass to get it, how you’d do anything for it except pretend it didn’t matter.

  On impulse, he grasped her around her fringed hips and lifted her to sit on the piano. “Art! Stop!” A dribble of wine spilled onto her lap. He thought of slurping it up with his tongue, then thought better of it. He laughed again, beer-buzzed but not quite as drunk as he would have liked to be, and struck a caveman pose with both hands on his hips, which had the advantage of keeping his pants from falling any farther.

  “Honestly! Art!” Someone handed her a napkin and she used it to blot at the wine.

  “You look good up there,” he told her. She was sitting primly, as if making a point of how uncomfortable and unwilling and disapproving she was. What he’d had in mind was a more seductive, reclining pose. “Relax,” he said, ineffectually.

  The man playing the piano had stopped playing. “That’s really not the best thing for the instrument.”

  “For crying out loud, it’s a piano,” Art said.

  The man shook his head. He was one of those droopy blond types that women always got excited about for reasons Art never understood. His hair fell over his eyes and he had a long, narrow face to go with his long, narrow, piano-tickling hands. “Hey!” Art said. “You aren’t wearing a costume!”

  “I came dressed as a piano player.” The blond man let his hands drift over a chord, and smiled up at Beata. Art wondered if he was one of the old boyfriends. It wasn’t fair. He could have avoided all sorts of trouble if he hadn’t had to dress up.

  “This is ridiculous,” Beata said. “I’m getting down.”

  “Nonono, just stay there a minute, please?” He wanted her to go along with it, smile, flirt back at him. “It’s OK,” he said. “You’re like, what do they call it, a hood ornament. Except on a piano.”

  “Ridiculous,” Beata said again. She drank more of her wine.

  The rest of the crowd had retreated. Art hoped they were afraid of what he was going to do next. What was he going to do next? He finished his beer and looked around for someplace to put the empty bottle. He couldn’t find a coaster. He’d get in some kind of new trouble if he didn’t use a coaster. He hung on to the bottle.

  The blond man started playing again. He played as if he was a little bored, as if he was somebody who performed in front of audiences every night of the week, no big deal.

  “What’s that called, what you’re playing?” Art asked. “It’s kind of a nice tune.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody . . . call Claude Debussy’s La Mer a ‘nice tune,’ ” the piano player said, in between banging away on the keyboard.

  “Clyde Debussy? The same Clyde Debussy who ran the vacuum cleaner repair shop back in my hometown? What a coincidence.”

  “Art,” Beata said, “are you aware that you are speaking very loudly?”

  “Well, sorry.” He had only been trying to make himself heard over the music. The caveman mask had been pushed up to his forehead, but now he pulled it over his face and swung his head from side to side. “I apologize,” he told the piano player. “In my culture, we express our appreciation of music with enthusiastic mouth breathing.” To Beata he said, “You want to dance? Come on, I’ll get you down.”

  “I’m fine here,” Beata said. “Hi, Susan. Come sit with me.”

  Susan had come up behind Art. “Wow,” he said, catching sight of her. “You sure are yellow.” She was blinding, especially the wig.

  “Thank you. Everything all right here?”

  “Everything is very all right,” Art told her. “This is a beautiful apartment. So, you drive a taxi?”

  Beata said, “Taxes, Art. She is a tax attorney. You weren’t listening.”

  “Like anyone could hear with all this racket.”

  “You need to not drink any more.”

  “What?” He cupped a hand to his ear. He had forgotten he still held the empty beer bottle, and smacked himself just above the eyebrow. “I meant to do that,” he informed them.

  “Art?” Beata wiggled off the piano and put a hand on his arm. “Time-out. Let’s get some air.”

  “Bye,” he said, to whoever else was there. The mask cut off his peripheral vision. Someone handed him the foam club. He followed Beata down the stairs, and although he knew that things were not turning out well, and in fact might have already turned, for the moment he was happy to be alone with Beata again, just the two of them. When they reached the sidewalk she said, “What in the world is the matter with you?”

  “You know that guy? Clyde? The piano player? He somebody you used to date?”

  “Don’t change the subject. You humiliated me. Not to mention yourself.”

  It was cold out on the street after the overheated party. He felt his sweat turn into a chill, heavy layer. Instant pneumonia. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t mumble. A minute ago you were shouting.”

  The caveman mask smelled of every synthetic substance in the world, a dead, chemical smell. Art pushed it off his face and tried to clear his lungs. The beer sloshed in his stomach. Heavy seas. He started walking to the car, careful about putting one foot in front of the other.

  “Where are you going?” Beata came after him, her shoes clippety-clipping on the sidewalk. “We need to talk! A serious talk, there is never such a thing with you. Art! I am unhappy!”

  He kept walking, giant-stepping his way along the street, Beata still going on about the things that made her unhappy, which were mostly him. Later, tomorrow or the next day, he would feel bad about the accumulating consequences of his behavior. There would be regret, and guilt, and carnal deprivation, but there would also be relief, because if he was purely honest, he had arranged his entire life so as to avoid, as much as possible, any serious talks.

  SIXTEEN

  Maybe his dad was already dead. Conner made himself think it, dead, again and again, until the word was hollowed out and meant nothing. But it didn’t keep on meaning nothing. It came back to him on the edge of sleep, when he couldn’t guard against it, it made him angry, it made him scared, and he got tangled up in all the different things that might have happened or might still be happening. If his dad wasn’t dead, why hadn’t he called? Was he in a hospital again? Or maybe he was mad for some stupid reason. Why was it always Conner who had to worry about him, or decide not to worry and then feel bad about it?

  Linnea said she’d help him look. Conner didn’t want her to. She’d already gone and talked to that weird hippie woman, the one who worked for Mrs. Foster, and now somebody else was all into his business. “Why did you do that?” Conner asked her, and Linnea said because she knows stuff, she kno
ws what hospitals do when people come in without money and she knows where the homeless shelters are and what happens when the police get called and what’s the matter with you? Do you want to find your dad or not?

  “Fine,” Conner said. “OK.” But it wasn’t her dad. She didn’t have to keep doing things for him.

  The hippie woman had suggested places they look—places around here, that is. Maybe his dad had driven off north, south, east, or west. There was no telling. Conner had already gone to Floyd and to anybody else he could think of and come up with nothing. Floyd said, “Could be your dad doesn’t want to be found, he’s embarrassed, you know? He doesn’t want you to think he’s some kind of bum.”

  Then he shouldn’t be a bum, Conner thought but did not say. Don’t look like one and live like one. That was what Conner figured had probably happened. His dad had run off so he could be a bum. Conner had gone to the humane societies a couple of times, the one in Marin and the one in Sonoma, to look for Bojangles. He wasn’t there but the places were full of miserable dogs, cowering and barking. He couldn’t forgive his dad for taking Bojangles with him when he couldn’t take care of himself.

  Linnea said she wanted to go with him to the shelters the hippie woman told her about. She said she wasn’t afraid of the places they’d have to go, places where drunks or worse hung out, he wouldn’t have to worry about her or anything. Except that of course he would. She said she didn’t have anything else to do on Halloween, she was such a loser.

  “You’re not a loser,” Conner told her, because she was always saying things like that, and now if he didn’t let her come with him, he’d be one more person who didn’t want her around.

  So on Halloween night, when all the little dressed-up kids were being led door to door by their parents, and the big kids were out looking for trouble, he told Mrs. Foster that if she didn’t need him, he was going to spend the evening with some old friends, and Mrs. Foster, distracted by arranging trick-or-treat candy in a bowl, waved him away, fine, fine. He didn’t need to ask her permission, but sometimes she decided she needed something from the drugstore, or some other excuse to talk to somebody besides a cat.

  He knew he’d gotten lucky with Mrs. Foster; he didn’t make the mistake of giving himself any credit for it.

  Conner gassed up the truck and drove to Linnea’s apartment. She was already waiting for him in the parking lot. “There’s the St. Vincent de Paul in San Rafael,” she told him, even before she said hello. “You want to start there?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know what that was, St. Vincent de Paul.

  Linnea perched up on the truck seat the way she always did, looking around her like there was something to see, not just the same old stretch of 101 and the same old landmarks that made you impatient to get past them. “What’s the matter with you?” she said after a minute.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.”

  “I think my dad might be dead.”

  “No way.”

  “How would you know if he is or not?” It was a relief to at least say it.

  “Because you would of heard. There’s nothing on TV about anybody dead. Take the Central exit,” she added. She looked out over the lights reflecting and pooling on the surface of the water as the highway passed over the bay. “Is that San Quentin?”

  “Yeah. You know anybody in there?”

  She whipped her head around. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why’d you say that?”

  “It was a joke. Jesus.” He never knew sometimes what was going to get her going.

  Linnea’s phone beeped, a text. She pulled it out of her pocket to read it. “It’s Art,” she announced, tapping back a reply. “He’s at a party with his girlfriend. You met her, remember? The Polish Bombshell?”

  “That’s messed up, that you call him Art.”

  “Well it’s not like he was around during my formative years.” They pulled up to a downtown stoplight and they both scanned the sidewalks, looking for anybody who might be just hanging out. “There’s all kinds of fathers, you know.”

  “Yeah, at least you know where yours is.”

  St. Vincent de Paul was a charity, a place that handed out meals and clothes. It was closed for the night, but a half dozen people were killing time at the end of the block, on the steps of an antiques store. “Dining room opens at six for breakfast,” one man told them. He looked young, no more than thirty, but the top of his head was bald. The rest of his hair was long and fine and tangled.

  “We were looking for somebody,” Linnea said. “His dad.”

  Conner said, “He has a bad hip that makes him walk crooked. He might have a dog with him.” Nobody spoke. It wasn’t a hostile silence, just a reluctance to give anything up, even words. “His name is Sean McDonald,” Conner added.

  “They don’t allow dogs in there,” an old man said. “They have rules for things.” His face was so lined and shriveled, it looked like a special effects from a movie.

  “So where would you go, if you had a dog?”

  The bald man said, “I trained dogs in the army. The Special Forces. German shepherds, mostly. And Dobermans. Train them so all you have to do is nod your head and they’d tear somebody’s throat out. They’d do whatever I’d tell them. Wouldn’t let anybody mess with me. A guy tried to jump me once. Dog ate three of his fingers.”

  Linnea looked at Conner and shrugged. “Well, you guys have a nice evening.”

  “Hey, trick or treat,” somebody yelled after them as they walked away. “Hey!”

  Once they were sitting in the truck, Linnea said, “I didn’t know places like that weren’t open at night. I guess we should come back in the daytime. Talk to somebody who works there.”

  “Yeah.” Except his dad wouldn’t go anywhere like that. He wouldn’t want to be around those people. He’d keep to himself. “Where else did she say?”

  “There’s different churches that have shelters, but that’s mostly in winter. There’s another place in San Rafael . . .” She had things written down on a piece of notebook paper that she fished out of her bag. “It’s where you can get a cot for a night, and take a shower.”

  “Jesus.” He hadn’t thought about things like showers, his dad not being able to take a shower.

  They drove past it. Through the front windows they could see some kind of kids’ Halloween party going on in a front room. Little kids were running around with plastic orange treat bags. Some of them had their faces painted to look like cats or clowns. Some of them had masks made out of construction paper. “It doesn’t look like a dad kind of place,” Conner said.

  They circled the downtown blocks. No businesses were open, and the half-lit storefronts had the look of empty fish tanks. The deserted streets reminded him. “Hey, how was the zombie apocalypse?”

  “It sucked. They wouldn’t let me be a zombie. It was only for the cool kids.”

  They drove in wider and wider circles, beneath the freeway and back again. Linnea said, “Ah, this is going to sound strange, so don’t get upset, but did you think about putting an ad up about your dog? People notice dogs, you know, if they’re hungry or lost. More than they do people.”

  That was true. “Talk about suck,” Conner said. He hadn’t let himself think a lot about Bojangles. He kept a bareness all around his heart.

  “So Christie”—that was her name—“said, if he has a vehicle, he could be sleeping in it. People find parking lots where maybe they won’t get hassled, like, twenty-four-hour restaurants. And there’s people who camp.”

  “Camp, where?”

  “Anywhere. Open space.”

  There was open space all around them. Even downtown, all you had to do was raise your eyes to the hillsides. There were a few houses on the lower slopes, their lights showing through the trees. Beyond them, solid bl
ack. And beyond those hills were other hills and canyons, the whole of Mt. Tam, and beyond the mountain were more wild and secret places, and beyond them was the rest of the world.

  “This is stupid,” Conner said. He meant, stupid to even try and find anyone.

  “Let’s just drive around for a while,” Linnea said.

  Conner got back on the freeway and headed north, hitting the accelerator hard. Sometimes he forgot it wasn’t really his truck. It wasn’t like Mrs. Foster ever checked the mileage, and even if she ever did, it wasn’t like she cared, and even if she cared, she could afford all the gas on the planet. What did it matter that she was trying to give her money away? She was still keeping plenty for herself. And giving money to him by the handful. Money he couldn’t afford not to take. It made him angry, like it was his fault for his dad being broke and beat down, like he was just one more part of the howling unfairness of it all.

  Linnea said, “Maybe your dad got a ticket. You know, for sleeping in public or something. I’ll ask Christie if she can find out.”

  “Fucking incredible.”

  “What is?”

  “They make it illegal to be homeless.”

  He was glad she didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t want to have to explain himself or have some big heavyweight conversation. But in his restless bad mood he was ready to find fault with her silence also, her willingness to put up with him. Why did he hang around with her so much anyway? She was the only person he ever talked to, and she was just this freaky little girl.

  After twenty minutes or so, she said, “You headed anywhere in particular?”

  “You got somewhere you need to be?” he asked, and she gave him one of her looks.

  Out of some need to be spiteful, or hurtful, either to her or to himself, he got off in Santa Rosa and steered his way to his old girlfriend’s house. Linnea sat up and took in the streets of ordinary houses and lawns. Some of them were decorated with carved pumpkins or fake cobwebs or paper cutouts of black cats, witches, ghosts. “Nice neighborhood,” Linnea said. “You think your dad’s around here?”