The Subprimes by Karl Taro Greenfeld Page A

had once raised money for Planned Parenthood.
    Pastor Roger was demanding $25 million and an apology on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek .
    I had expected Ed Minskoff to be more stern with me, but then I realized that not only were my lawsuits keeping me employed, they were also keeping Ed Minskoff employed.
    As I light up my first joint of the day, an Altria Strawberry Cough, I think that by now even those editors most disposed to give me a break must be tiring of my lousy performance. Surely, this has to be coming to an end. Then what will I do?
    Thank God for my lawsuits.
    â€œTHIS IS MARK NAKAMURA, VICE principal here at the Subway Fresh Take Paul Revere Charter Middle School, can you call us back as soon as you get this?”
    Ronin was called into the vice principal’s office, I am told when I call back. There has been an incident.
    â€œIs he okay? What kind of incident?” I ask.
    I am too high to deal with this. Shit.
    â€œCan you or his mother come and pick him up?” Mark Nakamura says. “He’s physically intact.”
    â€œWhat does that mean? Is something wrong?”
    â€œWe’ll discuss it with you or Ronin’s mother when you get here. Sign in at the C Building, please.”
    I call Anya, but she doesn’t pick up. She never does. She must be at yoga. I have to trot home, still coughing up bits of my pepper-spiced lung as I go, the bad parts, I hope.
    Sunset Boulevard from PCH to the 405 has been closed for three years, the outside lanes having finally become more pothole than road and collapsing into actual sinkholes for long stretches. Since the privatization of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, pothole repair has completely ceased; thedepartment’s resources are now focused entirely on the building of more profitable elevated toll roads connecting Beverly Hills and Malibu to the private aviation terminals at Santa Monica Airport and LAX.
    So I sit in traffic in the thick haze of marine smog. The oil rigs offshore—the scandal over their having been drilled one mile closer to the beach than the oil companies had promised had passed in one news cycle—stretch to the horizon like an invading army of black beetles.
    At the C Building I sign in, receiving a coupon good for one dollar off on a foot-long sub, and am directed to Vice Principal Nakamura’s office, outside of which I see my son sitting with his backpack on his thighs. Ronin has thin brown hair that has grown to shoulder length, a semicircular forehead, thin, surprisingly arched eyebrows, and dark brown eyes. He also has my ex-wife’s nose, slender, with large nostrils, her pronounced chin and long neck, and my thick lower lip. He was a cute boy, and still is, though in his current preferred outfit of painter’s cap, noise-reduction headphones, black T-shirt, black pegged denims, and high-top skate shoes, he looks more like a member of a struggling boy band working the drive-thru window to pay for his hip-hop dance lessons.
    Behind him is a cartoon of Paul Revere riding with a sandwich in each hand above a caption reading: “Two if by land.” (Does this even make sense? I am so stoned I am having trouble following the logic of it. Two if by land, that was the signal from the Old North Church; it had nothing to do with Paul Revere, or did it? I can’t remember.)
    Ronin’s eyes are red. He has been crying.
    â€œWhat’s going on, Rone?”
    Before he can answer, Vice Principal Nakamura walks around his desk and out the door to greet me.
    â€œYou’re Mr. Schwab? I’m going to have Dean of Student Affairs Ramos sit in.”
    â€œSit in on what?”
    â€œWe’re going to go over the incident.”
    I take a seat facing Vice Principal Nakamura. Behind him is a filing cabinet upon which sits a glass plaque on a black base: “Los Angeles Area 5 Administrator of the Year.” Vice Principal Nakamura gets up and closes the door. I