White Man's Problems Part 9

"Let's walk down the road," said the tour guide trooper. "There is an authentic section of the wall at the end. It might be hard to believe now, but this ground you are walking was the site of some of the most awful killing in our history. It's a great place to start a trip."

The kids rose and followed and the adults moved with them. Hansall said h.e.l.lo to Declan and Harry, who were a lot like Will: polite at first bite, but beginning to enjoy being far away from their parents. The teacher said to Jobie, who was trailing the other boys, "Come here and say h.e.l.lo to Mr. Hansall."

Jobie looked at him. His eyes were respectful, his manner deferential, but not obsequious. Fifth graders on this trip, like Will, Hansall suddenly felt, were at the edge between the sweetness of childhood and the bored, gawky disposition of teenagers. But Jobie challenged this a.s.sumption, and the contrast sent a pang through Hansall about his own child. Jobie seemed younger, more innocent. He had parts of Will that were gone for good.

The teacher produced a small envelope from her bag and presented it to Hansall. Inside was a clip of bills; she held onto it for an extra second for emphasis. "This is Jobie's money. His mom would like you to hold it for him. Jobie is going to ask you for it whenever he wants to buy something, right, Jobie?"

The kid nodded.

"Ok," said Hansall. "How much are we starting with?"

"One hundred and fifty-three dollars," Jobie said.

"All right, man. You come to me when you want something." Hansall tousled his black hair.

Jobie ran back to the pack, and Hansall and the teacher continued at the rear of the group as it made its way alongside the famous stone wall. He looked downhill to the right, from the position where Confederate soldiers shot down the waves of approaching Yankees.

"You have to use your imagination," said the trooper, now next to him. "The houses kind of run up on us here."

Two hundred and fifty yards from the wall was a housing development. Blacktop surrounded the homes, which were arranged in four lines running away from where the tour group stood. The structures were middling; not the kind of fancy development for middle managers and accountants seen in the suburbs, but neither were they s.h.i.tholes with clotheslines and junk cars in the front yards. The trooper said, "You have to picture the Union soldiers coming up from two miles away. Coming and coming, all the while getting ma.s.sacred by the Southern guns behind this wall."

"Pretty stupid," replied Hansall to no one in particular.

The woman walked past and made eye contact again, but was soon distracted by a girl, her daughter, Hansall a.s.sumed, who reached up to whisper to her mom's ear. They glanced at him while she spoke.

Will did not sit next to Hansall on the bus, preferring to join Declan in a seat in the back near the bathroom, which Mrs. Coyle, the other schoolteacher on the trip and chief disciplinarian, had admonished the kids not to use. She had a chipmunk's cheeks and a helmet of caramel and gray hair. Hansall chose a seat about four rows deep-not back with the kids, but not in the front with Mrs. Coyle, her younger colleague, and a smattering of mothers, all yapping and eating snack foods.

"I'm Linda," said the woman, now seated across from him. "I guess you're the only dad." He introduced himself and then they smiled for a moment, staring ahead.

Finally, he said, "How long you in for?"

"Oh, it's not that bad," she said with a wave. "C'mon, we'll have fun."

"Just kidding. You have a daughter?"

"Yes. Rebecca."

"Wait, I know Rebecca." A lean black-haired thing with worrisome teeth, he recalled. "We were in third grade together, right?"

"Right. We never really met."

"Yeah, that was a crazy time for me. I wasn't around too much."

Hansall knew Linda knew why. His thoughts returned to when it had all gone down. The affair, the discovery of the affair, the pregnancy, the separation, and the divorce. The conversation with Will about living apart. The conversation with Will about having a new baby sister. The conversation with Will about having a new baby sister who was going to live in New York, where Hansall would have to be a lot.

"Do you know Will's mom?" he said.

"Not really. We say hi, but we've never really spent much time together." She held her hand to the side of her mouth in mock secrecy. "You know. I have a girl."

"Oooh, Yeah. Right. Boys and Girls. Sheesh."

The conversation stalled and Linda went back to her book. He looked out the window as they drove toward Williamsburg, where they would spend the next two nights. He then moved to Linda's side of the aisle. She lowered her book to talk. "Is your husband happy to have the house to himself?" Hansall asked.

"I'm divorced, too," she said, seeming eager to surprise him. "Two years." She gave a forced smile. "Club D."

Her confession surrounded him like warm water; it was like she had told him that she, too, had been touched in a bad place. "What do you do for work?"

"Real-estate broker. You?"

"Lawyer."

Mrs. Coyle left them on the bus while she strode ash.o.r.e of the lobby of the Williamsburg Marriot like a GI hitting Normandy Beach. Upon her return, she read off names and handed the adults room keys. The kids without parent chaperones were a.s.signed three to a room, while the grownups were given doubles to share with their own offspring.

Will immediately objected to the arrangement. This pet.i.tion was joined in by Declan and Harry. Hansall made a quick calculation of the risks involved in contending with Mrs. Coyle versus making Will happy and getting his own room. His better angel wanted to be close with his son, to bond over teeth brushing and shower taking; his bad angel wanted to be left alone, to sleep deeply and without obligation in the hotel sheets. The trump factor, though, was that he recognized why Will wanted to be in a cheesy Marriott with other kids, where they could jump on the beds and sleep on the floor and ring the girls' doorbells and run back into their room

He cut the corner by getting permission for the room charges from the young teacher instead of Mrs. Coyle, who was busy putting down a clamor among the girls.

He led the way down the long Marriott hallway until the boys, reading the signs faster than he, sprinted down to 406. Hansall got them inside and surveyed the grounds as sleeping arrangements were made. Then he went to his room, 412, took the comforter and half the pillows, and brought them back to 406. Harry and Declan a.s.sembled a pillow/blanket pod between the two beds, where Will, as last man in, would sleep.

"Do you have my money?" Jobie said.

Hansall hit his pant leg. "Right here."

The boys were told to brush their teeth and get to sleep, but Hansall knew and they knew that his instructions were toothless business. Hansall didn't care. He had discharged his duty. Let them have some fun. The teachers would come down on them when need be. He went to his room.

His cell phone rang as he walked over the threshold.

It was Johanna. "How is he?" she said.

"He's fine. He's asleep."

"How are Dana and Marjorie?"

"Who are Dana and Marjorie?"

"The teachers. Marjorie is the older one. Dana is the one you'll be hitting on."

"They're fine."

"Do they all know you lied about the New York trip so you didn't have to ride in coach?"

"As a matter of fact, I think they do. I think they hate me. I think they all hate me, so you'll be happy."

She exhaled, "I told you, don't f.u.c.k this up. I never should have let this happen."

He heard her shake her head. The ability to hear her actions was actually something he acquired long ago, during the earliest years of their relationship, when arguments were the normal arguments of two people invested with each other. Arguments that people know they have to end. But now the tone had changed, the investment was gone. The fights were the fuel which got them through the day. They were adversaries. Not just in matters of the heart; not just betrayal and bonds broken. They were actual litigants now that she was moving to reduce his custody rights and increase his support. His financial deposition was in three weeks.

"Ok, let's not do this," he said.

"No one is fooled, just so you know. Everyone knows what you're doing."

"Can I go now?"

"Make sure he calls me in the morning."

Fifteen minutes later Hansall was in bed. The room quality was beneath his low expectations. No minibar, no nothing. The only extravagance was a small coffee maker and the accoutrements for a one-cup morning pop, complete with a spongy to-go cup and powdered dairy packets.

Thankfully, the Marriott's no-frills att.i.tude did not extend to the world of pay-per-view movies. With a product loyalty he could never muster in the supermarket when trying to pick a medium hot salsa or organic oatmeal, Hansall scrolled past the "Still in Theaters" and "Best of TV" and went right to "Adults Only." He navigated past the traditional p.o.r.n offerings (Driving Miss Daisy Crazy) and attendant seals of approval (AVN Rated Top s.e.x Scene of 2008) to the Real Amateurs section. He was turned on by the images of real people being caught on camera having real s.e.x, even when he knew they were probably not so amateur. Finding really good amateur p.o.r.n was difficult: his special area of p.o.r.no connoisseurship. He didn't go around buying the stuff. But when he found himself in a hotel room, or occasionally when drifting on the Internet late at night-that is, at those times when p.o.r.n presented itself-he liked the amateurs.

He especially liked auditions. This usually involved a guy behind the camera, the surrogate narrator, the embodiment of "you" in the fantasy, who conned young girls into sitting on a couch and submitted themselves to an interview which eventually led to taking their clothes off and performing s.e.x acts with the anonymous guy behind the camera. The s.e.x was t.i.tillating, but the mental exercise of discerning the level of truth to the setup was the real trick to it. It was easy to make the girls seem inexperienced, but the real accomplishment was to make the corruption seem true. Like the finest jazz or a revelatory Bordeaux, it was layered complexity that set off a fine piece of audition p.o.r.n.

Hansall didn't reflect on it. He knew it was not a problem, the way excessive drinking or gambling can be. He wasn't like that; addictions didn't plague him. But as with the seemingly hundreds of other consumer choices a normal American faces in a day or week or lifetime-what your signature soft drink is, or what do you think about electric cars, recycling, Guantanamo, do you wear the size that's smaller or the one that's more comfortable, even if it is XL?-he thought it through in great detail, punishing himself for an instant, processing a matrix of factors such as t.i.tle, descriptions, third-party endors.e.m.e.nts. He knew the girls on the promo page were never in the video itself, yet he couldn't help imagining he was moments away from seeing them with d.i.c.ks in their mouths. Was there any kind of process which protected the p.o.r.n consumer, he wondered, against false advertising like this? He selected Amateur Screen Test.

The TV screen displayed a ticking clock with the caption, "One moment please, your selection is starting." But after three minutes Hansall realized it wasn't clicking over. He went to the Main Menu and began the process again. This time the ticking clock remained on digital hold, promising him what he wanted but not actually giving it to him.

He called the front desk.

"I can't get a movie," he said to the desk clerk.

"Let me take a look," the girl said. After a moment, she came back. "Movie system is on, don't know what the problem is."

"That's weird," Hansall said.

"Unless you're trying to get something that's child protected. Hold on." She left the line and returned. "Yeah, your room is child protected. Are you trying to get an adult film, sir?"

He froze.

"It says here this block of rooms is child protected. Are you with a school group?"

"No, I was trying to get something else. Forget it. I was really just calling for a wake-up call. Can you put me down for six thirty?"

"You're already set for a wake-up call at six a.m., sir."

"Well, make it six thirty."

"Ok, fine."

He turned the light off and tried to sleep. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he looked at the curtains above the radiator in front of the window. They were dark and polyester, a sort of unidentifiable color that did not quite match the carpet and the paint. What makes a hotel room cheap? Is it simply the finishes, the quality of the sheets and drapes, the infrequency of the paint jobs? Or is it more the architecture of the building, the size of the rooms, the way the edifice is set up? That's it, he thought; a hotel room is cheap long before they fill it with s.h.i.tty building-grade sinks, faucets, and sheer shades hung inside awful curtains. Bad hotel rooms are conceived in mediocrity. They are not meant to be great.

No one is fooled, just so you know. Johanna was saying he was only on the trip to bolster his defense against her motion to reduce his visitation rights. His lawyer advised him to do as much with Will as possible while they were battling it out, and Hansall had moved his schedule around to make the DC trip. He had sacrificed a week in Hawaii, his first real vacation since the mess with Francesca concluded with her relocation with the baby to New York. He had a moment of grat.i.tude that a baby didn't require a phone call late at night.

The Ambien was not working. Tonight was extra hard, he reasoned, and he went to the bathroom and popped another. He was sure he could score one or two later in the week from one of the moms. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the curtains again. Why was he even fighting for Will? Did he really want to be with him, or was it the appearance of being an involved father he was after? You couldn't possibly not fight a motion to reduce involvement with a child. To give in was to give up, even if a part of him was thrilled at the prospect of one fewer day per week taken up with mothers, teachers, kids, and fathers who knew what he had done.

By 9:30 a.m., the group stood in the intersection of the two main dirt roads of their destination, the Colonial Village of Williamsburg. Mrs. Coyle was previewing the day.

"Ok, Websters, we have a lot to do. This is busy, busy, busy. No lollygagging, you have to stay with me. We'll be here until four thirty. The shoppes and the crafts people are one hundred percent authentic to colonial times. You could really spend a week here, and we're trying to do it in a day, so stay focused."

Linda was standing next to him, just behind Rebecca and with her arms draped on the little girl's shoulders. Hansall moved to get Linda's attention, acting as though he needed to tell her something important. She leaned in. "I think," he whispered, "I would prefer to spend the next eight hours in prison. You know, a jail. I'm not sure if I'd take federal prison. It's a close call."

She closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side, smile cracking. "Stop it."

He moved in for more. "This is a trip my grandmother would take. I hate this."

"Stop..."

"Craftsmen. Think about it. All day with the crafts of the seventeenth century."

She talked out of the side of her mouth out of respect for Mrs. Coyle's lecture. "You're not interested at all?"

"No. It's a hundred and ten out here. I've already sweated through my clothes. Don't get too close."

"Oh c'mon, it's fun," Linda said. "You're a big baby." She looked up at him. "A very big baby. How tall are you anyway?"

"Not important. Ok, six three."

She giggled. "Yeah, right. You're not that big."

"Back to this: I'd rather stick pins in my eyes."

Twenty minutes later they were by a brickmaking site, complete with a large kiln and work tables, where a rugged man with a ponytail like Mel Gibson wore in that Revolutionary War movie was yelling, "Are we making bricks today? What do you think?" He glowered at the kids. When no answer came, he said, "Of course we're not making bricks today. When do you make bricks?"

"In the summer," Mrs. Coyle shouted.

"That's right. And why do you make bricks in the summer?"

Hansall looked at his shoes and thought, it sure f.u.c.king feels like summer.

The mason kept shouting. "You make bricks in the summer because that's when the clay is dry." His tone betrayed his contempt for their lack of historical knowledge. Hansall noted Mrs. Coyle, decked out in black polyester pants and a red shirt, nodding in approval. Hansall felt his hatred for her flair up into his nostrils.

The berating continued as the group moved throughout the points of interest. The silversmith was angry they didn't know the value of a shilling; the apothecary threatened to bleed them. The roaming street actors had weird tics, and Hansall occupied himself trying to determine whether these were attributable to the acting. The basket maker had a little cry in her voice. Was she trying to sound colonial? The blacksmith was a big man, much less articulate than the other performers. Was he cast as the kind of strong, silent, and ruddy fellow who would shoe horses? Or was he just the only guy in the area who fit the part? How deep did these things go?

Mrs. Coyle became excited shortly before lunchtime when she saw Patrick Henry, in search of clots of children to whom he could give rousing speeches. After a ten-minute roadside rant, during which sweat dripped in ball-bearing-sized droplets from his face, the group moved to lunch at Wetherburn's Tavern. The kids were directed to a long table. The air smelled of french fries.