The Didion Moment, Revealed

Let me tell you about a blog: it’s just like a conversation. How? Well, you start off meaning to talk about one thing, and end up talking about another.

You legions of Alert Readers out there will remember yesterday’s opening sentence, in which I said it had been a Didion moment. And then I went on to talk about Montalvo and his utterly exemplary behavior—he could have taught a course or two at Miss Porter’s Finishing School, or whatever it’s called—and the French pronunciation of the word oeuvre, and then….well, all those things you need to know.

And had I ever revealed the Didion moment? Of course not, since I was actively engaged in waiting for the plumber, who is reportedly en camino, which is “on the way” but literally “on the path,” and is it just me who feels it sounds so much better? Mystical, a soul forging his way to its destination.

So the plumber is on the way—presumably from Indochina—and I have sat down to write this, only to be interrupted by Mr. Fernández, who had spent all day in bed, with his entire body hurting, especially his head.

“Did I fall or something?”

It’s probable, since it didn’t take too much exertion of the famous grey cells to put it together. What’s “it?”

·      An ashtray next to the green resin chair had been overturned

·      Cigar butts everywhere

·      Four bottles of wine the night before, after which I had retired, leaving Taí and the gentleman to start in on the scotch

·      The gentlemen, rather, since Taí had wisely switched to beer

So we have a probably traumatized Mr. Fernández, now looking at “his boys” on the Internet, and we have a plumber who is on his way, but is it his way or my way? Since it is pouring in Puerto Rico, that means that everyone will have to get home to avoid be incommunicated—works in Spanish, computer!—but really to lie in bed and drink soup, since that’s what everybody does. See!

So will I ever get around to telling you about that Didion moment?

It started by Taí venting her rage at the Muslim extremists—or rather, extremist—in Sydney, Australia, who had gone into the chocolate shop and held hostages for sixteen hours or so, eventually killing two people. Right, so that was news for Montalvo, even though most of the rest of the world had been following the story  more or less constantly.

“It’s just ridiculous that a guy can barge into a café, demand that patrons recite verses from the Koran, and then kill anybody who can’t do that,” said Taí.

Montalvo’s reaction?

Well, it was on the lines of “some fucked-up dude,” but what wasn’t there? Any interest whatsoever in the matter, much less moral indignation. Right—he’s 21, time to bring the matter home.

“OK—you’re in the Poet’s Passage, and some guy comes in with a gun, and shouts ‘everybody line up’ and then he’s got the gun on your face and he’s demanding that you recite Romans 22:13.’”

This Montalvo sort of gets, but will it ever happen? Of course not, so he goes on his way, mentally speaking. I consider pointing out that there are 3,000 Muslims in Puerto Rico, as well as eight mosques, but then I realize, does it matter? Because it’s not the number of Muslims or the mosques we have to worry about, but rather that one guy with too much time on his hands who gets militarized in front of his computer.

“And why isn’t the rest of the Muslim world speaking out…” when we hear a pop.

“What was that?” I asked. Nobody knew but Montalvo: it had been a shot.

“Oh my goodness,” said Taí, standing up. “Where did it come from?”

Both Raf and Montalvo thought it came from the east, and was quite close. Taí moves into the library.

“What are you doing?” said Montalvo. “You’re not calling 911, are you?”

He was incredulous.

“I mean, look, this is Old San Juan. Hundreds of people heard that shot. There are cops all over the place: they’re probably running like crazy motherfucks to get to the scene.”

Right, so then it was time to jump back half a century to Kitty Genovese, who got stabbed to death—as seen by umpteen people, all of whom assumed that someone else was calling the police. So I’m attempting to get to that teaching moment, when Taí comes back with the question: what kind of a gun was it?

“It was an 9 millimeter,” said Montalvo, “and it was a block away, probably in front of…” He named a restaurant or bar, which I had walked past a million times, but knew nothing about.

“It’s about leadership,” I said—all that time at Walmart must have had some effect after all. “Most people stand around and wait for somebody to do something. Or they wait for somebody to tell them what to do. But…”

Here the telephone rings.

“They’re calling back,” said Montalvo.

“But she didn’t give our number…” I said.

Dear Readers, some looks can scald as badly as boiling oil….

Well, we had invited him over to see him, but also—truth comes out!—to figure him out, since Taí—fiercely protective—had not been impressed with him, on her last visit. And a friend had taken me aside, and said, “there are some people for whom the con is a way of life.” So were we that stalest item, the liberal do-gooding couple? Was this kid playing us for free food, attention and—when needed—bail?

That’s when it hit me: the Didion moment. This kid grew up where people didn’t call the police. This kid grew up expecting that the police, when they came, would be unannounced and uninvited, and not there to do anybody’s bidding but their own. This kid knew stuff that we had no idea about—such as when a sound is in fact a shot, and what pistol had fired it. Nor had he reacted in any way when he had heard it.

This kid’s world? It’s his neighborhood—not Sydney or Pakistan, or any other place where extremists have attacked this week. To worry about the rise of Muslim extremism is—to Montalvo—a pleasant worry to have. He worries about whether his mother can pay the rent, and whether he can help her when she is—as she recently was—hospitalized.

Do I have the answer to the question: is this kid playing us?

No.

Worse—now I don’t know if that’s the right question….