The zenith angle by Bruce Sterling Page A

paper towels, suicide and revenge. Mrs. Srinivasan’s phone rang. It was her neighbor, Mr. Chang. Mr. Chang was surprised at all the morning ruckus. He wanted to make sure that she wasn’t being robbed. Mrs. Srinivasan was an Indian widow with an elderly man in her care. She seemed very reliant on Mr. Chang, who was the retired owner of a Chinese grocery.
    There was nothing for it but to have Mr. Chang come right over. He did. He was small and gray-haired and bent, with pants belted high above his waist. Mr. Chang examined the visitors. He sat on Mrs. Srinivasan’s lavishly pillowed wicker couch, and rolled himself a cigarette. Mr. Chang put such luscious handiwork into this that it was clear that smoking was his full-time occupation. Mrs. Srinivasan set out green tea.
    Another of Van’s cell phones rang. Dottie had awoken inside the truck. She arrived with the baby. The arrival of little Ted broke Grandpa Chuck’s foul mood. Van helped Grandpa Chuck to the wicker couch and put Ted on his bony knee. The two of them together looked postcard-cute. Even Mr. Chang was forced to smile. Van felt stunned. His grandfather and his son looked eerily alike, same round faces, same blinky, distracted stares.
    Dottie plucked Ted free from the old man before Ted’s uneasiness could grow into sobs. Using her baby as a wedge, Dottie swiftly broke the ice between Helga and Mrs. Srinivasan. Soon the three women were clucking over Ted in a happy international hen party. Van’s stomach rumbled and his mood darkened. Van realized that he was starving.
    Clearly Mrs. Srinivasan lacked the provisions to feed this sudden crowd of adults.
    “Kentucky Fried Chicken?” Van hypothesized.
    His insight met with swift approval. Mrs. Srinivasan was vegetarian, but not on special occasions. For Mr. Chang, Kentucky Fried Chicken was the height of luxury from the Red Chinese cultural thaw. Helga loved American fast food. Grandpa and Ted could suck on the crusts.
    Van left in the Rover and fetched a big family bucket of extra crispy. Driving the Rover again, even for a few more blocks, was like having sunburned skin rubbed.
    When Van returned to the duplex, two more strangers had arrived. One was a middle-aged, olive-skinned woman, in a tailored black pants suit and a hooded khaki jacket. The other was an older, distinguished man, in designer jeans, with a gold earring and graying blond ponytail. The man was his father.
    A sudden hush fell. “Is that Kentucky Fried Chicken?” his father said at last.
    “Uh, yeah, Dad.”
    “For breakfast?”
    “Yep.” Van set the cardboard bucket down defiantly.
    His father took a breath and emitted a quotation. “ ‘Let me prescribe the diet of the country; I do not care who makes its laws.’ ”
    Van felt a familiar despair. Why was his father always like this? Why didn’t he just say whatever he meant directly? Why did he have to dig into his big, 1968-hippie head, and come up with some kind of weird, senseless, semipolitical quotation? Van’s dad was a former Rhodes scholar. He was ruinously gifted. Van’s father was literally the only human being in the world who spoke both Afghan Pashtun and African Bantu dialects. He was also the only man Van knew who carried on conversations, in real life, using semicolons that you could actually hear.
    Van looked at his father glumly. His father looked bad: piratical, slick, and never to be trusted. But he didn’t look quite so bad as he normally did. He was, for instance, sober. His father offered Van a brisk, cheery “Your dad is here, all is well” smile, a smile as thin, flimsy, and phony as individually wrapped lunch meat baloney. How had his father found out that Van was in California? How had he shown up here at this building? Without a word, a phone call, an e-mail, or a whisper of permission! The guy was impossible.
    “It’s more of an early lunch,” Dottie offered kindly. In the rare moments when her erratic father-in-law drifted into her life, Dottie