Sunset Park

as if he were talking to himself. I just want to disappear.
    They order their soups and sandwiches, and when the Latino waiter walks off with their menus (a Latino waiter in a Jewish restaurant, they both like that), Morris and Renzo start talking about the funeral, sharing their impressions of what they have just witnessed in the community center auditorium. Renzo didn’t know Suki, he met her only once when she was a small child, but he agrees with Morris that Rothstein’s talk was a powerful piece of work, almost unimaginable when you consider that it was written under the most appalling duress, at a time when few people would have the strength to pull themselves together and write a single word, let alone the passionate, complex, and clear-sighted eulogy they heard this morning. Renzo has no children, two ex-wives but no children, and given what Marty and Nina are going through now, given what he and Willa have already gone through, first with Bobby and then with Miles, Morris feels something close to envy, thinking that Renzo made the right decision all those years ago to steer clear of the kid business, to avoid the unavoidable mess and potential devastation of fatherhood. He is half-expecting Renzo to start talking about Bobbynow, the parallel is so evident, and surely he understands how difficult this funeral has been for him, but precisely because Renzo does understand, he does not talk about it. He is too discreet for that, too aware of what Morris is thinking to barge in on his pain, and just seconds afterward Morris himself understands his friend’s reluctance to intrude on him when Renzo changes the subject, skirting past Bobby and the gloomy realm of dead children, and asks him how he is weathering the crisis, meaning the economic crisis, and whither Heller Books in this storm of trouble?
    Morris tells him that the ship is still afloat, but listing somewhat to the starboard side now, and for the past few months they have been throwing excess equipment overboard. His primary concern is to keep the staff intact, and so far he hasn’t had to let anyone go, but the list has been reduced, cut down by twenty or twenty-five percent. Last year, they published forty-seven books, this year thirty-eight, but their profits have gone down by only eleven percent, in large part thanks to The Mountain Dialogues, which is in its third printing, with forty-five thousand hardcovers sold. The Christmas sales figures won’t be in for a while, but even if they turn out to be lower than expected, he isn’t predicting out-and-out disaster. Louverain, Wyatt, and Tomesetti all published strong books this fall, and the paperback crime series seems to be off to a good start, but it’s a rough time for first novels, very rough, and he’s been forced to reject some good young writers,books he would have taken a chance on a year or two ago, and he finds that troubling, since the whole point of Heller Books is to encourage new talent. They’re planning only thirty-three books for 2009, but Carlsen is on the list, Davenport is on the list, and then, needless to say, there is Renzo’s novella, the little book he wrote just after The Mountain Dialogues, the unanticipated bonus book he has such high hopes for, and who knows, if every independent bookstore in America doesn’t go bankrupt in the next twelve months, they might be in for a decent year. Listening to himself talk, he almost begins to feel optimistic, but he is telling Renzo only part of the story, leaving out the fact that when the returns start coming in on The Mountain Dialogues sales will fall by seven to ten thousand, leaving out the fact that 2008 will be the worst year for the house in three decades, leaving out the fact that he needs a new investor to put additional capital into the company or the ship will go down within two years. But there is no need for Renzo to know any of this. Renzo writes books, and he publishes them, and Renzo will go on writing and publishing books even if he is no longer in business.
    After the soup comes, Renzo asks: What’s the latest on the boy?
    He’s here, Morris says. As of two or three weeks ago.
    Here in New York?
    In Brooklyn. Living in an abandoned house in Sunset Park with some other people.
    Our drummer friend told you this?
    Our drummer friend is one of the people living there. He invited Miles to come up from Florida, and the boy accepted. Don’t ask me why.
    It sounds like good news to me.
    Maybe. Time will tell.