Free Man in the Dark by Paul Auster Page B

the wound on his cheek, I got my new face, didn’t I? Thanks to Rothstein’s fist.
    You can’t win, Virginia says. Everywhere you go, someone is watching you. You’ll never get away from us.
    According to you, Brick says, not yet willing to give in, but knowing in his heart that Virginia is right.
    Ergo, my dear Owen, this little interlude of dawdling and hide-and-seek has come to an end. Hop into the jeep. It’s time for you to talk to Frisk.
    No dice, Virginia. I can’t hop, and I can’t run, and I can’t go anywhere yet. My face is bleeding, my balls are on fire, and every muscle in my stomach is torn to shreds. I have to patch myself up first. Then I’ll talk to your man. But at least let me take a goddamn bath.
    For the first time since the conversation began, Virginia smiles. Poor baby, she says, simpering with compassion, but whether this new concern for him is real or false is far from clear to Brick.
    Are you with me or not? he asks.
    Climb in, she says, patting the door of the jeep. Of course I’m with you. I’ll take you back to my house, and we’ll fix you up there. It’s still early. Lou can wait a little while. As long as you see him before dark, we’ll be okay.
    With that reassurance, Brick hobbles over to the jeep and hoists his sorry carcass into the passenger seat as Virginia slips in behind the wheel. Once she starts the engine, she launches into a long, meandering account of the civil war, no doubt feeling an obligation to fill him in on the historical background of the conflict, but the problem is that Brick is in no condition to follow what she’s saying, and as they lurch along over the potholed streets of Wellington, every jolt and bump sends a fresh attack of pain coursing through his body. To compound the trouble, the noise of the engine is so loud that it nearly swallows up Virginia’s voice, and in order to hear anything at all, Brick must strain himself to the limit of his powers, which are diminished at best, if not entirely obliterated. Clutching the bottom of the seat with his two hands, pressing the soles of his shoes onto the floor to brace himself against the next bounce of the chassis, he keeps his eyes shut throughout the twenty-minute drive, and from the ten thousand facts that come tumbling down on him between Molly’s apartment and Virginia’s house, this is what he manages to retain:
    The election of 2000 . . . just after the Supreme Court decision . . . protests . . . riots in the major cities . . . a movement to abolish the Electoral College . . . defeat of the bill in Congress . . . a new movement . . . led by the mayor and borough presidents of New York City . . . secession . . . passed by the state legislature in 2003 . . . Federal troops attack . . . Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester . . . New York City bombed, eighty thousand dead . . . but the movement grows . . . in 2004, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania join New York in the Independent States of America . . . later that year, California, Oregon, and Washington break off to form their own republic, Pacifica . . . in 2005, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota join the Independent States . . . the European Union recognizes the existence of the new country . . . diplomatic relations are established . . . then Mexico . . . then the countries of Central and South America . . . Russia follows, then Japan. . . . Meanwhile, the fighting continues, often horrendous, the toll of casualties steadily mounting . . . U.N. resolutions ignored by the Federals, but until now no nuclear weapons, which would mean death to everyone on both sides. . . . Foreign policy: no meddling anywhere. . . . Domestic policy: universal health insurance, no more oil, no more cars or planes, a fourfold increase in teachers’ salaries (to attract the brightest students to the profession), strict gun control, free education