Love Is the Law by Nick Mamatas

Author:Nick Mamatas [Mamatas, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Published: 2013-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

13.

Mike Schmidt knew a lot of social workers, and true to his word he started making calls at two minutes after nine. He didn’t make breakfast, or even offer to go out and get Dunkin’ Donuts. I drank water from the tap—I had to wash a glass myself, and even the sink was dirty—and waited at the kitchen table, flipping through some RS pamphlets, which were mostly about campus issues and reminiscences of the 1960s, when he was an undergrad. The phone was in the living room. Red Submarine, so far as I could tell, seemed to be composed of Schmidt, whoever he was fucking at the time, a random and ever-changing assortment of sophomores who are purged when they declare an unacceptable major, and a few perennial graduate students. And Bernstein. Comrade J anyway, according to the caption under the photo in the zine I was reading. There was no real discussion of what Comrade J was doing, or even why his picture was in the pamphlet. Bernstein was filler. His sideburns were so thick they looked like a pair of bushy wings. I guessed 1974 or so. Even the sign he was holding appeared to be blank, though much of it was cropped out of the frame.

“Hey,” I called out, “Do you have a job? I mean, do I need to leave soon?”

Mike swung his head into the doorway. “I don’t. Back in 1979 Public Safety beat me during a demo and broke my leg in three places. I sued SUNY and got a huge settlement. It’s what inspired me to read the law too.” Then the phone rang, and he ducked back into the living room. After some murmuring he returned and said, “Well, the good news is that your grandmother wasn’t taken in anywhere. Nor has she been found by the cops, and she’s not in any public hospitals anywhere in Suffolk County. So she’s not in the clutches of the state. And no, you can’t leave. You’ve been released into my custody, remember?”

I just stared at him. Grandma wasn’t home when we had swung by the apartment the previous night. She had no friends, nobody to turn to, and no kindly stranger was going to be able to put up with her for long. “So, she’s not in the clutches of the state. But I am, and you are. After all, if I leave that means you have to follow me. Aren’t we both trapped, after a fashion?”

“Oh, you can leave. I was just teasing. Anyway, I just have to make sure you don’t leave the county, basically, and if the cops want to talk to you, that you’ll be available . . .” Mike trailed off. He was trapped, he realized finally.

“Let’s go find my grandmother,” I said. She had to be with my father, unless he just took the stuff and left the door open behind him, for her to wander through, lost and confused and cold in her house dress and slippers.

“Thanks for last night,” he said in the car.

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