Lancelot

Lance?”
    â€œA thunder machine.”
    â€œA what? Never mind.”
    â€œThank you. Royal.”
    â€œGive my love to Margot.”
    â€œRight, right,” I said and almost forgot to say, Give mine to Charlotte. “Give my love to Charlotte.” I hung up.
    Give my love. I thought of something and called Royal again.
    â€œIs the period of pregnancy exactly nine months?”
    â€œIt depends on what you mean by month. Average gestation for a full-term infant is ten lunar months. Two hundred and eighty days. But why—”
    â€œWhat’s the average weight of a full-term infant?”
    â€œMale or female?”
    â€œFemale.”
    â€œSeven pounds.”
    â€œThanks. Royal.”
    â€œOkay, Tiger.”
    Tiger. Did he call me that in school? Or was there a note of condescension?
    â€œThanks.”
    My records were very good. In seconds I can, could—Jesus, the place burned to the ground, didn’t it?—no, still can. The pigeonnier didn’t burn and I guess the records are still there. I could look up any given day’s receipts of the tourist take at Belle Isle.
    I made calculations. This time the equations were simpler. In fact there were no equations because there were no variables. It was arithmetic. I needed four pieces of data. I had two: Siobhan’s birthday, April 21, 1969, and birth weight, 7 lbs. Subtract 280 days from April 21, 1969. I looked at my feedstore calendar. The remainder is July 15, 1968. I could remember nothing. Can you remember where you were in the summer of ’68? You can? Yes, you would. You didn’t keep records but you always had a nose for time and places. I remember you stone drunk here in New Orleans, on the ground in the weeds, on the levee, peaceable and not quite unconscious, sniffing the soil and saying “What place is this?” Is that why you chose the god you did, the time-place god?
    My third and indispensable item came from a shot in the dark. The dark of the dead file where I kept old income tax data and work sheets. A shot in the dark, not really a lucky—unlucky?—shot, but rather the only shot I had. My worm of interest tingled and guided me like a magnet to a manila folder neatly lettered DEDUCTIONS , 1968. I’m sure you don’t have to worry about deductions but it’s a good way to remember where you were and what you did ten years ago. A hundred years from now histories will be written from the stubs of Exxon bills. Bastardy will be proved by Master Charge. There was a chance I could find out where I spent the summer or at least hit on enough clues to remember the summer. Suppose Margot and I had gone to Williamsburg to talk to the National Heritage people about Belle Isle (we did one summer). A possible deductible. It would show: Coach-and-Four motel bill, Delta Air Lines carbon. Suppose I had spent two weeks in Washington with the Civil Rights Commission (I did that in the 1960’s). A deductible: receipted Shoreham Hotel bill. Suppose I spent a month in England buying antiques to show and sell at Belle Isle (I did that in the bad years). A clear deductible: Pan Am or Amex card. But where was I in the summer of 1968?
    I found out. Not where I was but where Margot was. Was that the significance of the tingling of the worm of interest? that actually I already knew but did not know that I knew or would not admit it, had even suppressed the knowledge so thai it might then be properly discovered, just as the astronomer already knows in his heart of hearts that that dot will have moved but won’t even think about it until the photographic plate is in his hand and he can see the dot in the right-wrong place—all this in order to do what? In his case savor the superiority of the real over the imaginary? In my case to do what? postpone the interesting horror the way a person will turn an unopened telegram over and over in his hand?
    Here it was. Amex stub and customer’s copy and receipted bill from the Arlington. Texas. Roundtower Motor Lodge for $1,325.27. A clear deductible. Not for me but for Margot, who at the time was still technically an actress, never a very good one but an Equity-card-carrying one and clearly engaged in the practice of her profession, that was why we deducted it, not acting but attending Robert Merlin’s workshop at the famous Dallas-Arlington Playhouse. The entire month of July. Eastern Airlines tickets for June 30 and return August 1.