New Jersey Noir Part 17

"I do have a boyfriend, but he's older. Mom would kill me if she knew I was going out with a guy in his twenties, but who the f.u.c.k is she to talk with the sc.u.mbags she chooses?"

The natural next question would have been Have you f.u.c.ked him? but asking it would put Ernie in the same category as the school nurse and guidance counselors, people she might actually tell this kind of thing to who nevertheless would never get to f.u.c.k her. Instead, he decided he should appear uncurious like someone she might like. Anyway, her boyfriend was in his twenties, so of course they'd f.u.c.ked.

"Hey, boat boy, you smoke, right?"

"Nah. Sometimes my clothes smell like my dad's Marlboros 'cause we live in a small house."

"No, I mean pot."

"Uh ..."

She narrowed her eyes and widened the smile. "I know you do. I can see it in your eyes."

Ernie smirked. "I thought Visine takes the red out."

"Not what I mean."

Carleen went over to her jewelry box and took out a tampon box. "One place f.u.c.khead won't look." She pulled out a lighter and a smokeless one-hitter.

"Cool, where'd you get that?"

"My boyfriend got it at Spencer's in the mall."

"They sell those at Spencer's?"

"In the back part."

"s.h.i.+t, they won't even let me in there."

She cracked the window and took a hit, blew the smoke outside, and handed him the one-hitter still hot, still wet with her spit. Ernie hit it and tasted the bra.s.s that a second ago had been between Carleen's lips. It was really good weed. "Where do you get this s.h.i.+t?"

"My boyfriend grows it."

"Maybe we should get started on this homework."

"Forget the homework, boat boy. You drive, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Can you give me a ride somewhere?"

She told her mom, "Me and Ernie are just going to Luigi's." She hadn't wanted him to do her science homework. Carleen hadn't even wanted any help with it. She just wanted someone her age to take her out of the house so that she could hook up with her older boyfriend.

They made a left on Tomlinson Mill Road and drove north to a world he didn't know was out there in the pines. The light was dying and the mile markers went by unnoticed under the hypnotic spell of the long straightaway. The blue glow in the sky off to the right came from the last light of the day reflecting off the Atlantic.

She told him to pull into the last driveway on the left. "Flash your lights twice before getting out of the car. Don't forget or they might have to shoot your a.s.s."

What the f.u.c.k was he getting into? He pulled in next to a black pickup, stepped out of the Buick, and followed Carleen up to the house.

The door opened before they got to it and Ernie saw a familiar ugly face-Tull's. He pretended he didn't know Ernie. Inside, the boyfriend Keith sat at a table with a bunch of baggies and a postal scale. The baggies were full of pot. Carleen sat on his lap and kissed him like Ernie never saw anyone kiss except for in the movies. Keith spoke without looking at him, her jeans on his lap. "You drive?"

"I just moved here from Miami."

"You want some pot?"

"I don't have any money."

"Figures." Keith pulled a couple of buds out of a bag and gave Ernie what was left. "I'll take her home later. You know how to get back to town?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Don't have to tell you not to come around here again or say anything about this. I know who you are. If I get any unauthorized visits, you know what?"

Tull finally spoke up: "We're the town murderers. We'll chop you up in little bits and scatter the pieces in the Pine Barrens for the wolves to eat."

Keith acted like he hadn't heard this. "You know the Betsy Ross Bridge?"

"Yeah."

"That's where we'll go."

Ernie knew it was time to leave. It had gone all right. He had a baggie of pot. Tull followed him to the door. "Careful out there in those pines. UFOs come out of hiding when you're high."

Now Keith and Tull are both looking at Ernie but not looking at Ernie, everything sideways, not looking him in the eye with everyone knowing that with one kid dead, another kid a witness, and n.o.body else but killers at an abandoned Girl Scout camp, something must come next.

Three tops. How much did he say that was? Six pounds? It doesn't make sense. Where could Pervert have put it? Not folded in Kevin Klausen's algebra homework. They had been out here only one other time. No way Pervert came back; n.o.body but Ernie or Pervert's mom would ever drive him anywhere. No way Pervert could have hauled more than an ounce or two out of here in his underwear. Two days in a row and he at best got a handful of buds. And Ernie knew Pervert: that's all he would have tried for, would have lied for. Always wanted to get over, never liked to share, fat little klepto. But it was nothing to get shot for.

Keith puts a hand on Ernie's shoulder and walks him back around the bunkhouse. He has Tull's gun. Ernie's adrenaline is flowing, his heart and his head going a thousand miles a second. He thinks of his mother talking to herself in her apartment in Miami. He thinks of his dad drinking at the kitchen table in Cherry Hill. He thinks of Carleen in first period, of how good she looks in those jeans. If only he could communicate with one of them. I'm here, Carleen, at the old Girl Scout camp off Kettle Run. Help.

Keith takes him back through the hedgerow to the clearing and the stump. Why had they come out here? It had been stupid to return. This is where it ends, at a forgotten Girl Scout camp in the Jersey Pinelands, by a river, with the leaves all rotting around him. Ernie is trying to guess: What does Keith need to hear? This is the stump where I will go down, unless I can figure out the answer. Remember Tull's trailer. He spelled trespa.s.sers wrong. Twitchy f.u.c.kin' Tull, and now Pervert is dead. f.u.c.k, Pervert, why'd you try and run, you f.u.c.kin' fat asthmatic f.u.c.k?

That's when Ernie sees: he didn't try and run. Go down Kettle Run. There's a place used to be a Girl Scout camp. How'd he know that yesterday? It was after they had gone to see Tull.

"Keith ... I think I've got it, Keith."

Driving back to Cherry Hill last night, Ernie had smelled a whiff of Carleen's perfume on his s.h.i.+rt. He wouldn't have thought s.h.i.+t about the scent at a store, but now that he connected it to her pink sweater and question-mark jeans he planned on sleeping with this s.h.i.+rt on. He planned on wrapping it around his head. Would she say hi to him in the hallway? He didn't care. He wasn't a sentimental little s.h.i.+t. He wouldn't even brag to Pervert about it. Something as pure as this belonged in a very quiet s.p.a.ce. The best way never to lose something is to take it out carefully on special occasions, turn it very delicately in your hand, and put it back away without wasting a second, keep it in a safe place, someplace f.u.c.khead would never look.

It was Tull who told Pervert about the plants, baiting Pervert to come out here because he knew he could frame him and get away with a few extra pounds for himself. Then he brought Keith out to catch Pervert and Ernie, and only Pervert had known the setup.

Now Keith comes back around the bunkhouse and Tull is almost done digging. "Took for f.u.c.kin' ever." Tull looks up, sees Keith holding the gun, sees Ernie watching. "What the f.u.c.k?"

Here comes your answer.

NOIR, NJ.

BY PAUL MULDOON.

Paramus When I wake up in a strange bed Beside a girl called Pam I try to play the whole thing down And give my name as Sam It's clear I'm way out of my depth It's clear that she's dropped a dime It's clear that even I suspect I'm guilty of some crime I know those goons by the streetlamp Are champing at the bit I last saw them on board the train Before we took a hit And jumped the observation car Only to lose our way In a nightmarish railroad yard Somewhere near Noir, NJ When I squint through the slatted blinds Pam orders juice and eggs She'll let a man do the legwork While she works on her legs It's clear her husband was a wimp It's clear he had no spine It's clear she lit that cigarette To give the goons a sign I know that it's a rule of thumb A gumshoe's fingered me When ladies who're high maintenance Meet lighting that's low key They're just so many femmes fatales Who have been led astray And now lure plainclothesmen et al Back there to Noir, NJ When a sergeant with a scattergun Meets a shamus Halfway up the stairs Somewhere between Paterson And Paramus They redefine the parameters And bid us welcome, hey, hey, hey, Welcome to Noir, NJ When I flash forward through the murk Of who did what to whom I'm pretty sure I don't deserve To die here in this room It's clear that I've been double-crossed It's clear that I've been framed It's clear Pam's husband was half deaf From how they shout his name I know I'll be reduced to pulp She'll gulp with her orange juice If I don't rea.s.sert myself She'll kick in my caboose It's not too late to be hard-boiled Like the eggs on Pam's tray Though even her pistol would recoil At what happened in Noir, NJ

PART IV.

GARDEN STATE UNDERGROUND.

TOO NEAR REAL.

BY JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER.

Princeton On the first day of my forced sabbatical, I noticed a car driving down Na.s.sau Street with a large spherical device extending from its top. It looked like the past's vision of the future. I a.s.sumed it was part of some meteorology or physics or even psychology experiment-another small contribution to our charming campus atmospherics-and I didn't give it much thought. I probably wouldn't have even noticed it in the first place had I not been taking my first walk for walk's sake in years. Without a place to get to, I finally was where I was.

A few weeks later-exactly a month later, I was to learn-I saw the vehicle again, this time crawling down Prospect Avenue. I was stopped at a corner, not waiting for the light to change, not waiting for anything that might actually happen.

"Any idea what that is?" I asked a student who was standing at the curb beside me. Her quick double-take suggested recognition.

"Google," she said.

"Google what?" I asked, but wanting far more to know what she thought of me, and how other students on campus were talking about and judging me.

"Street view."

"Which is what?"

She sighed, just in case there was any doubt about her reluctance to engage with me. "That thing above the car is a camera with nine lenses. Every second it takes a photograph in each direction, and they're st.i.tched together into a map."

"What kind of map?"

"It's 3-D and can be navigated."

"I thought you used a map for navigating."

"Yeah, well."

She was finished with me, but I wasn't ready to let her go. It's not that I cared about the map-and if I had, I could have easily found better answers elsewhere. But her reluctance to speak with me-even to be seen standing beside me-compelled me to keep her there.

I asked, "No one minds having all of these pictures taken all the time?"

"A lot of people mind," she said, rummaging through her bag for nothing.

"But no one does anything about it?"

The light changed. I didn't move. As the student walked away, I thought I heard her say, "f.u.c.king pig." I'm virtually positive that's what she said.

A few days earlier, while eating pasta out of the colander, I'd heard an NPR piece about something called "the uncanny valley." Apparently, when we are presented with an imitation of life-a cartoon, a robot-looking robot-we are happily willing to engage with it: to hear its stories, converse with it, even empathize. (Charlie Brown's face, characterized by only a few marks, is a good example.) We continue to be comfortable with imitations as they more and more closely resemble life. But there comes a point-say, when the imitation is 98 percent lifelike (whatever that means)-when we become deeply unsettled, in an interesting way. We feel some repulsion, some alienation, some caveman reflex akin to what happens when nails are run down a blackboard.

We are happy with the fake, and happy with the real, but the near real-the too near real-unnerves us. (This has been demonstrated in monkeys as well. When presented with near-lifelike monkey heads, they will go to the corners of their cages and cover their faces.) Once the imitation is fully believable-100 percent believable-we are again comfortable, even though we know it is an imitation of life. That distance between the 98 percent and 100 percent is the uncanny valley. It was only in the last five years that our imitations of life got good enough-movies with digitally rendered humans, robots with highly articulated musculature-to generate this new human feeling.

The experience of navigating the map fell, for me, into the uncanny valley. Perhaps this is because at forty-six I was already too old to move comfortably within it. Even in those moments when I forgot that I was looking at a screen, I was aware of the finger movements necessary to guide my journey. To my students-my former students-I imagine it would be second nature. Or first nature.

I could advance down streets, almost as if walking, but not at all like walking. It wasn't gliding, or rolling or skating. It was something more like being stationary, with the world gliding or rolling or skating toward me. I could turn my "head," look up and down-the world pivoting around my fixed perspective. It was too much like the world.

Google is forthright about how the map is made-why shouldn't they be?-and I learned that the photos are regularly updated. (Users couldn't tolerate the dissonance of looking at snow in the summer, or the math building that was torn down three months ago. While such errors would put the map safely on the far side of the uncanny valley, it would also render it entirely uninteresting-if every bit as useful.) Princeton, I learned, is reshot on the fourth of every month.

I wanted to walk to the living room, find my wife reading in her chair, and tell her about it.

The investigation never went anywhere because there was nowhere for it to go. (It was never even clear just what they were investigating.) I'd had two previous relations.h.i.+ps with graduate students-explicitly permitted by the university-and they were held up as evidence. Evidence of what? Evidence that past the appropriate age I had s.e.xual hunger. Why couldn't I simply repress it? Why did I have to have it at all? My persistent character was my character flaw.

The whole thing was a farce, and as always it boiled down to contradictory memories. No one on a college campus wants to stand up to defend the right of an accused hara.s.ser to remain innocent until proven guilty. The university privately settled with the girl's family, and I was left with severely diminished stature in the department, and alienated from almost all of my colleagues and friends. I believed they believed me, and didn't blame them for distancing themselves.

I found myself sitting in coffee shops for hours, reading sections of the newspaper I never used to touch, eating fewer meals on plates, and for the first time in my adult life, going for long, directionless walks.

The first night of my forced freedom, I walked for hours. I left the disciplinary committee meeting, took rights and lefts without any thought to where they might lead me, and didn't get back to my house until early the next morning. My earphones protected me from one kind of loneliness, and I walked beyond the reach of the local NPR affiliate-like a letter so long it switches from black pen to blue, the station became country music.

At some point, I found myself in the middle of a field. Apparently I was the kind of person who left the road, the kind of person who walked on gra.s.s. The stars were as clear as I'd ever seen them. How old are you? I wondered. How many of you are dead? I thought, for the first time in a long while, about my parents: my father asleep on the sofa, his chest blanketed with news that was already ancient by the time it was delivered that morning. The thought entered my mind that he had probably bought his last s.h.i.+rt. Where did that thought come from? Why did it come? I thought about the map: like the stars, its images are sent to us from the past. And it's also confusing.

I thought that maybe if I took a picture of the constellations, I could e-mail them to my wife with some pithy thumb-typed sentiment-Wish you were here-and maybe, despite knowing the ease and cheapness of such words, she would be moved. Maybe two smart people who knew better could retract into the sh.e.l.l of an empty gesture and hide out there for at least a while.

I aimed the phone up and took a picture, but the flash washed out all of the stars. I turned off the flash, but the "shutter" stayed open for so long, trying to sip up any of the little light it could, that my infinitesimally small movements made everything blurry. I took another picture, holding my hand as still as I could, but it was still a blur. I braced my arm with my other hand, but it was still a blur.

On the fourth of the next month, I waited on the corner of Na.s.sau and Olden. When the vehicle came, I didn't wave or even smile, but stood there like an animal in a diorama. I went home, opened my laptop, and dropped myself down at the corner of Na.s.sau and Olden. I spun the world, so that I faced northwest. There I was.

There was something exhilarating about it. I was in the map, there for anyone searching Princeton to see. (Until, of course, the vehicle came through again in four weeks, replacing the world like the Flood.) Sitting at my kitchen counter, leaning into the screen of a laptop I bought because, like everybody else, I liked the way it looked, I felt part of the physical world. The feeling was complicated: simultaneously empowering and emasculating. It was an approximate feeling had by someone unable to locate his actual feelings.

I asked myself: Should I go on a trip?

I asked: Should I try to write a book?