Are You Happy Now? (14 page)

That word again, thinks Lincoln. It’s like a virus.

“That’s what I try to teach my students.”

Loosened by the champagne, Lincoln nudges forward a provocation. “I thought that happiness stuff was mostly self-help hooey—you know, Oprah territory.”

“Oh, academically, it’s much more than that. Quite disciplined and scientific, in fact. They call it positive psychology. It’s probably the most exciting thing going on today in the field.” Pausing to nibble a slice of baguette, Buford spills a few beads of caviar onto his white shirt. He brushes the tiny black eggs away without a trace. “We used to focus on the unpleasant aspects of the human condition—depression, negativity, isolation, neurosis. Now we’re studying things like love, altruism, companionship, the qualities that make people happy. It’s astonishing—there was this entire side of the emotion spectrum that the so-called experts had virtually ignored. And the kids love it. I not only teach the science, but help the class apply it to their own lives. I
always survey my students before and after the semester, and on average about seventy percent of them feel better about themselves after they’ve taken my course.”

“That does sound like Oprah,” Lincoln says.

“There’s a reason her show has endured,” Buford says with a laugh. “As an editor, you should appreciate this: studies show that if you’re in a cheerful frame of mind, you’ll be more creative—you’ll do better on tests, you’ll explore more options, your imagination will fire more freely than if you’re depressed.”

Lincoln loosely remembers an undergraduate course he took on psychology, and he recalls coming away with the impression that researchers could cook up just about any finding they wanted, depending on the experiment. “What do you do with Joyce, Faulkner, Hemingway?” he asks. “The literary canon of the twentieth century came from depressives. And it’s the same in other fields. You think Van Gogh would have been Van Gogh if he’d been doodling smiley faces in his spare time?”

Buford laughs again. “It’s true—for the most part, the works that have been anointed reflect the bleak visions of their creators. But who does the anointing? Academics. Intellectuals. The cultural elite, to use the disparaging term.”

Lincoln tries another tack. “So where is this body of Great Happy Art?” he asks. “I suppose by your reckoning we should replace Chekhov in the curriculum with
Tuesdays with Morrie
.”

“You should come visit my class, old buddy,” Buford says. “The kids would enjoy this exchange.” He refills their champagne glasses. “I agree, the sentimentalists and self-help gurus have polluted the water for people like me. Oh, there are a few books out there—
To Kill a Mockingbird
, for example. That’s on my syllabus. But we need more.”

So here comes the advocacy for his poetry, thinks Lincoln—Pistakee’s opportunity to open Western Civ to a revolutionary aesthetic. But instead Buford veers off into a discussion of books he’s read recently and movies he’s seen. For almost an hour,
as the shadow of the bridge stretches down the river, they sip champagne and nibble caviar sandwiches while chatting easily. Lincoln decides after a while that Buford actually makes pretty good company. Those Kenyon English professors taught him well. He’s argumentative, but in a good way, nothing personal. Probing, ambitious, informed. Conscious of man’s obligation to amuse.

“Want to get dinner?” Buford asks finally. “There’s a pretty good seafood restaurant right across the street.”

Lincoln hesitates. “No, I should get going—home fires and all.”

“Fair enough.” Buford starts packing the remains of their picnic into the shopping bag. “I really do appreciate you taking the time to have a drink with me—then to listen patiently to my crackpot theories on literature.”

“My pleasure.”

“You’re a good man.”

Lincoln smiles in gratitude.

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask about my mother.”

Fuck sake. “Ah, of course. How is she?”

A big sigh. “Not well, I’m afraid. Still a lot of discomfort. Many visits to doctors. Surgery may be the best option.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” (Lincoln thinks: Is there any reason on earth to believe him?)

“It’s been hard on the family. She’s always been our rock.” Buford sits back on the bench to watch while an architectural tour boat passes in front of them on the water, every seat on deck filled, the docent’s amplified remarks about the twin corncobs of the Marina Towers echoing along the river canyon. When the boat has passed, Buford says, “You really should publish my book.”

By now, Lincoln is prepared. He turns to the poet and addresses him earnestly. “Look, you’re an educated guy. You majored in English at Kenyon, for Chrissake. You’re extremely
well read. You can’t really think there’s any quality to those poems.”

Buford absorbs this mixed insult evenly. “I’m surprised at you, John,” he says, for the first time addressing Lincoln by his first name. “Do you think you’re living in the nineteenth century? We’re in 2009. No one suggests there’s a relation between quality and popular culture, except perhaps an inverse one.” He reaches for his thin briefcase and unzips the top, then pulls out a copy of Pistakee’s spring catalog. “Shall we consider some of the books you’ve been publishing?
The John Wayne Gacy Labyrinth: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer
. Or maybe
The Lava Lamp Story
.”

Lincoln holds up his hand to interrupt. “But it’s a business—it’s all about sales, or potential sales. Before we take on a book, I have to convince Byron Duddleston, our owner, that the book will make money.”

“Who do you suppose has a better sense of the consumer—a former trader of hog bellies or someone who has spent more than five years studying human desire?”

So Buford has done his homework. He knows Pistakee. Lincoln smiles but shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Byron would laugh me out of the room.”

Buford sighs noisily. He has a way of exhaling through his nose that suggests both pain and menace. Tony Soprano featured the same tic. “You make things too hard on yourself, John. One of the lessons I’ve learned, one of the things the studies all show us, is that successful people know when and how to make compromises with themselves.”

“But what about principles?” Lincoln protests. “What’s the harm in sticking up for your principles?”

“Principles are fine. But like every other living thing, they should evolve.” Standing, Buford takes a card from a leather wallet in his inside jacket pocket. “My brother,” he says, handing the card to Lincoln.

The type is embossed:

Lucas Buford
Attorney at Law

Above the list of contact information, Lincoln recognizes the name of a Loop law firm. “Your brother is a lawyer?” Lincoln asks wanly.

“You’ll be hearing from us,” Buford says before climbing the stairs to Wacker Drive.

Lincoln places the card in the pocket of his shirt, then lingers for a few minutes by the river. The cheerful effects of the champagne have worn off. He leans on the railing above the water, communing with the hundreds of forgotten victims of the
Eastland
Disaster. Buford admires the march of progress, the erasure of folly and sorrow, but it hardly seems fair. Losers can’t catch a break.

14

I
T’S HARD TO
lead a normal life when you have to plot your movements to avoid a process server. Lincoln assumes Buford’s lawsuit will drop at any moment, and his sketchy knowledge of civil litigation suggests that word will come when some shady guy in a soiled overcoat jams a legal document into his hands. Leaving home in the morning, Lincoln pauses with the door cracked to make sure no one is lurking outside. He alters his commute, exiting the train one station early so he can approach Pistakee’s building from the rear, unseen. Rather than go out to lunch, he has a Jimmy John’s sandwich delivered daily, and he reminds Kim not to buzz in anyone she doesn’t know. Does any of this do any good?

Lincoln worries about his health. Stress is a killer. He’s started to break into a sweat at the least provocation, or no provocation at all, and he seems to spend all day chilling in the office as the air conditioning hits his damp shirt. Sitting there one afternoon, feeling clammy and distracted, he wonders if maybe Buford is right, maybe Lincoln really is making things too hard on himself. He finds that he can (seemingly) lower his blood pressure simply by letting his imagination play with the preposterous notion that he might get rid of Buford by publishing him.

Lincoln never got around to returning the poet’s manuscript, so he retrieves it from the side table and leafs again through the pages, not certain what he hopes to find. He absently recites titles, “The Typewriter,” “Buttering an English Muffin.” In Buford’s poetic world, “The Brown Easy Chair” memorializes an avuncular hunk of wood, cushion, and corduroy that comforts a little boy. Lincoln lets himself wonder if perhaps he’s grown jaded and too quick to judge. After all, Buford is probably right about one thing—Lincoln lives within the bubble of the cultural elite.

In this frame of mind, Lincoln comes up with the notion of shopping for a second opinion. But from whom? Duddleston hasn’t yet replaced Arthur Wendt, and Lincoln has so little regard for Hazel Lanier that even her gushing endorsement (unthinkable, of course) wouldn’t mean much. Flam—well, Flam would guffaw at this stuff and never let Lincoln forget it. Lincoln needs a fresh, unbiased eye, so when Amy stops in to drop off some photographs for the Wrigley Field book, Lincoln figures, why not?

By now, they’ve relaxed somewhat their frosty office interactions, but Amy still looks puzzled when Lincoln hands her Buford’s manuscript. “See what you think,” he says.

“A book of poems?” Amy asks. “You think we should publish it?”

“Just tell me what you think. But quickly. I’ve promised to get back to the author.”

Early the next morning, Amy returns to Lincoln’s office. Lately, she has reverted to her long, puffy peasant blouse, and her eyes look heavy. She drops Buford’s manuscript on Lincoln’s desk and flops into a chair. “Well, I read it,” she says, “but first I had to work something out in my novel, and I didn’t finish that until almost two in the morning. But I think I get it, I think there’s really something there.”

“The poems?” Lincoln asks optimistically.

“No, my book.”

“Terrific,” Lincoln says without enthusiasm. For a few minutes, the two discuss the progress of the novel. Amy says she might have something for Lincoln to look at in a month or so (he envisions a scene: poring over the manuscript in his office, trying to focus while Reverend Jackson’s forces mass and chant outside the building).

As she stands to go, Lincoln taps Buford’s manuscript with his finger. “Did you have any thoughts...”

“Oh! I completely forgot.” Amy laughs and sits again. “Those poems are awful, John.”

“I know, I know.” (Lincoln thinks: well, at least my sensibility is reliable.)

“They’re so un-modern.”

“I know.”

Amy laughs again. “On the other hand, I never really liked modern poetry.”

“Nobody does.”

“I call it ‘about about’ poetry.”

“Huh?”

“You know—poetry about being about something. It sort of warms up to a subject without ever getting there.” Amy taps the manuscript. “But you know what? I kind of like these poems.”

“Really?”

“They remind me of my grandmother.”

“She read poetry to you?”

“No. They remind me of
her
. Reeking of sweet perfume. Soft. Sort of unimportant. No demands.”

Lincoln thinks of alternate titles.
The Granny Poems
.
Senior Theses
.
Here’s Nana
.

“What’s this guy got on you?” Amy asks.

“Ah...” The accidental precision of the remark stops Lincoln for a moment.

“You’re not really going to recommend that we publish him?”

“No. Of course not.”

After she leaves, Lincoln sits at his desk in a kind of trance. Blackmail. He’s being blackmailed. Buford denied it, but that’s exactly what’s going on. He may not be asking directly for money, but Pistakee would incur expenses bringing out his book. Besides, what he’s really demanding is that Lincoln pay with his reputation, the career he’s built as a discerning editor. His personal brand! That’s worth something, no? Blackmail. As he chews over the word, Lincoln thinks of Detective Evinrude. The officer never called back, and it’s been more than six weeks. What would he make of Tony Buford’s behavior? After all, blackmail is a crime.

On an impulse, Lincoln picks up the phone and dials the Twenty-Third Police District. Detective Evinrude is out. But after Lincoln gives his name and explains that he’s already talked to the detective about a criminal matter, the cop on the other end of the line schedules an appointment for three the following afternoon.

Lincoln arrives early. The station house is busier than on Lincoln’s previous visit, and even with two cops behind the counter taking inquiries, Lincoln has to wait ten minutes just to get to the front of the line and announce his presence. For another twenty minutes he occupies himself looking at wanted notices posted in the lobby. Finally, a young cop with a blond crew cut summons him and leads him down the hall to Detective Evinrude’s office. On seeing the officer seated at his desk, Lincoln has a sudden failure of nerve. Evinrude’s aging yet conditioned physique, his stolid bulk fills the small office and commands with presence. This is not Lincoln’s home court.