We Can Leave Whenver We Want. Not Everone Can -- David Hernquist

Excerpt from "The Undoing"
Simon and Thomas Driving Through The City To Simon’s Parents’ House

There were oversized churches leftover from before the neighborhood emptied out. Now the buildings were rented to the people left behind. Those people replaced the old denominations with new ones like the True Coptic Church Of He Who Is To Be Risen.

We passed stretches of houses all standing, still inhabited and huddled together, but in other places the city opened up with burned-out buildings that no one bothered cleaning up. Or no buildings at all, no houses, just the sidewalk shell of the block that used to be there. Giant fields of weeds and grass, car parts and metal trash, black trees and sick trees and dead trees.

Are you glad I drove, I said.

You’re doing a fine job.

We drove through the east side of the city and crossed the border into Grand Tip.

We can leave whenever we want, said Simon.

The implication being, I said, that other people can’t. It would seem so.

I don’t know what my constraints are, said Simon. I certainly don’t know anyone else’s.

I don’t feel constrained at all.

Grand Tip. Homes lined up one after another, tucked neatly together. People were out walking simply to take a walk. When we turned onto Hamilton, we saw a woman speed-walking in a bright, neon blue sweat-suit. She was fit, older, probably a mother. I desperately wanted her to be attractive when I passed her. I watched the jerk in her step and her clenched fists jabbing mechanically, her head bobbing.

Look at that, I said. (I could still make him laugh.) You should take that up.

Simon started to swing his fists and turn his head abruptly back and forth.

I know his street but not his house. Simon pointed it out. It was a stone and brick house, undersized for Grand Tip; it made every attempt to look like an English cottage, with dark red brick — the front door rounded at the top in a semi-circle. No one came out to greet us.

Sam and Gloria answered the door together. They were glad to see their boys, smiling, not rosy, not overly affectionate. Simon was distant. They were used to it. Almost expected it. Gloria introduced me to Sam. I couldn’t remember when I had been introduced to her. He greeted me with a handshake. She led us a room (a sort of study) with a fully-stocked bar. She left us momentarily and called up to Simon’s sister Sarah to join us.

Gloria reappeared and immediately asked if Sam had offered us something to drink. Sam hadn’t. Gloria turned to me and with glassy manners informed the room that Sarah would take an aperitif with but would be not be accompanying for dinner.