4. Few Jokes. The Mystery will Deepen.

Chapter Four. As though being corralled by the attorney wasn't bad enough, a whole cadre of street-teamers suddenly walked into the place wearing Sean Rogen's Superjew tee.
"Look, I've got to go, Josh," Adam said.
Freddie heard the low rumble get louder.
"Just let me know later. I owe all of those guys a favor. Yes, one apiece. Goodbye."
Adam rose from his bench.
"What are you doing?" he asked the group of street-teamers.
A street-teamer with a nametag that read, "Anna Rawson," blinked at Adam. "We're just getting a coke?"
"Why are you wearing that? Isn't that in bad taste?"
"Well no," said Anna. "It isn't. I think the designer is actually J--"
"Hey Adam?" said Freddie.
"Huh."
"Look, I'm bored. I'll be outside."
"Oh, okay."
Freddie was having a hard time concentrating on party schools, street teamers in Jewish paraphernalia, and the last names of movie characters. The Four Arms always seemed to be this way - you could never concentrate on your own thing, because there always seemed to be wave upon wave of little vignette-like happenings.

It was kind of nice, in a way. At least it was encapsulated, as though in a little box. Freddie enjoyed the fact that you could step in, and face the barrage of 2009, or step back out and sort of consider and process what you had seen.

His mind was still on Bunning.

Why was Bunning signing autographs at a cash for clunkers program?

It was like there were too many of these little vignette-like concerns, piled way upon way.

He sat down under a tree with a fancy phone. But the fancy phone wasn't going to do him any good because the batteries were dead.

Two silhouettes approached from the distance. Freddie blinked. Would no one leave him alone from all of these clusters of time and place to consider? As they got closer, Freddie realized that it was two associates of that stupid lawyer. It was Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski. Jillian was an attorney.
"Oh. Hi guys."
"Hey Fred. What's going on?" said Ed.
"Aw, I don't know," Fred said. "There were about five things happening at once and I sort of needed to get some air. I like the Four Arms but it can be a little much sometimes."
"I know what you mean," said Jillian. She was way less smarmy than Josh. She grinned big and her jaw showed. A bit self-important, perhaps.
She took on the accoutrements of exaggerated therapeutic concern. "Do you wanna talk about it Freddie?"

Freddie took a deep breath. "Well, I went down to the cash for clunkers program, because I wanted to get Bunning's autograph. But then Adam was pointing out to me how weird it is for that guy to be making appearances at this like, liberal bastion. So there's that. I feel like there's something wrong with this picture and it's like a thread on a shirt. You know what I mean? It's like if you walk past a mirror and see someone ELSE'S reflection, but it's just that one little problem encapsulated, otherwise you can go back to your job or school or whatever, get some pizza and go about whatever you were going to do anyway, but any time you walk in front of a mirror, it's someone else."

Jillian and Ed turned to each other and Freddie had the disconcerting sensation that they were appraising something about him that they weren't saying out loud.

"But that's not all. I already had that bee in my bonnet, then we came to the Four Arms to see Karen, who has a job now where she takes kids, I am assuming pretty well off like, junior year of high school, they got a car from the clunkers thing and they're going around the country."

"Yeah?" said Jillian. "So?"

Freddie paused. "I'm not sure. I don't know."

"What about it?"

"Something just seems ... off. She was telling us how the top party schools in the new Princeton Review book all correlate with having really good Chem departments. Adam brought it up, and I couldn't believe I never thought of it before. It's kind of terrible."

"I never thought of it before either," said Jillian.

"You know something," Ed said. "I never thought of it before either. So wait, are you suggesting that there are like, illicit chemists who use the school's facilities to make drugs, and the fact that it has such a reputation means that there is a readymade market for the drugs?"

"Well," Freddie said. "I don't know. That would be the thing, yes. But it could easily be an apocryphal story. I have no idea."

"So that doesn't seem like anything to worry about though," Jillian said.

"There's just so much to think about," Freddie said. "I was sitting there while Adam was on the phone with Josh-"

"Huh," Jillian said. "Josh Willingham?"

"Yeah," Freddie said.

"Bastard," Jillian said.

Freddie nodded. "So I'm waiting patiently and I look up at this monitor and there's Sarah Palin doing her farewell speech, but it seemed to be taking way longer than it should, and I couldn't tell if it was me, if they were just like, running the whole thing in its entirety, or if it was the Four Arms having a VJ kind of thing, getting arty."

"Hmm..." Ed said. "Maybe you need to get hammered."

Freddie looked aghast. "I don't think you're supposed to say that within fifty yards of the Arms."

"It's okay, Freddie," Jillian said. "Really, it's okay."

"Maybe you've been working too hard," Ed said.

Freddie just sighed. He looked really uneasy.

3. In which Adam Rubin gets corralled by a talkative Josh Willingham and Freddie waits

The students went outside for a minute with their chaperone and Adam and Freddie blinked. Shaun was washing some tables, typical unflappable barkeep.
"I was wondering," Freddie said.
"Yes?" Adam said.
"Why is it that no one can remember Thelma and Louise's last names, you know, from the movie?"
Adam scowled. It was just like Freddie to bring up that kind of nonsense.
"I don't know," Adam said. "But I have a friend who is attorney to the housekeeper of the attorney of the housekeeper of Davis and Sarandon. You could ask him."
"Huh? Really?" Freddie seemed surprised.
"Yes. Let's call him on his cel right now." Adam dialed the number.
"Josh Willingham and Associates," said a voice.
"Hello, Josh?" said Adam.
"That's right," said a weird husky whine.
"Josh, it's Adam Rubin."
"Adaaaaaam!"
Willingham was sort of a smarm.
Adam held the phone away from his ear.
"Look, never mind all that," Adam said into the phone. "What were Thelma and Louise's last names. Can you ask Jillian to ask Ed to ask Shana to ask Geena and Susan..."
There was a low rumble. Freddie thought for a moment that it was coming from a nearby manhole cover (outdoors) and a series of ducts.
But it wasn't.
It was coming from Adam's friend.
"Well, my friend, it's not so simple," said Willingham. He spoke in a really odd register. As a child, Freddie had once wondered whether an entire classroom of children, with immense practice, would have been able to simulate the scratches and clipping inherent in a typical suburban school's public address system coming over a tinny loudspeaker, so as to be able to all work together and pipe the sounds, "Ms. Harrison, please come to the office. Ms. Harrison to the office please," so that the teacher would leave the room and the kids could raise a ruckus. The answer had usually been no, but this was the sensation brought about by listening to Josh Willingham talk.
Adam was looking weary. He sipped on a 7-up.
"No," Adam said. "Yes. No, look, I'm not going to go down to that Cash for Clunkers program with you because I don't have a car to trade in. Yes, no."
All Freddie could do was wait. He looked up at a silent monitor overlooking the phony tavern. It was replaying a tape loop of Sarah Palin's farewell speech. Once again, it was difficult to parse out the discrete combination of ingenuous and disingenuous in the Four Arms, in not being able to tell whether their point of origin was more pragmatic, plodding and personable, in which case they would probably be showing the Palin speech because the evening news had been on. or whether their point of origin was purposely pretty postmodern, in which case it was an art thing, similar to the intriguing new artform of live video editing at dance clubs, in which a moment, such as Lee Marvin kicking someone's ass, could be stretched out to a half an hour, or made to repeat in jittery fashion, rewinding by three moments, going ahead by four.
Adam put his head on the rutted wooden table.
Karen came back in with Kirstie and Otty. "We found a squirrel!" she said.