Read A Visit From the Goon Squad for Free Online Page A

drive up the driveway.
    Chris was leaning forward from the backseat, his head between Bennie and Sasha. Bennie wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. “I think you need some of your medicine, Dad,” he said.
    “Good idea,” Bennie said. He began tapping his pockets, but the little red box was nowhere to be found.
    “Here, I’ve got it,” Sasha said. “You dropped it coming out of the recording room.”
    She was doing that more and more, finding things he’d misplaced—sometimes before Bennie even knew they were missing. It added to the almost trancelike dependence he felt on her. “Thanks, Sash,” he said.
    He opened the box. God the flakes were shiny. Gold didn’t tarnish, that was the thing. The flakes would look the same in five years as they did right now.
    “Should I put some on my tongue, like you did?” he asked his son.
    “Yeah. But I get some too.”
    “Sasha, you want to try a little medicine?” Bennie asked.
    “Um, okay,” she said. “What’s it supposed to do?”
    “Solve your problems,” Bennie said. “I mean, headaches. Not that you have any.”
    “Never,” Sasha said, with that same wary smile.
    They each took a pinch of gold flakes and placed them on their tongues. Bennie tried not to calculate the dollar value of what was inside their mouths. He concentrated on the taste: Was it metallic, or was that just his expectation? Coffee, or was that what was left in his mouth? He tongued the gold in a tight knot and sucked the juice from within it; sour, he thought. Bitter. Sweet? Each one seemed true for a second, but in the end Bennie had an impression of something mineral, like stone. Even earth. And then the lump melted away.
    “I should go, Dad,” Chris said. Bennie let him out of the car and hugged him hard. As always, Chris went still in his embrace, but whether he was savoring it or enduring it Bennie could never tell.
    He drew back and looked at his son. The baby he and Stephanie had nuzzled and kissed—now this painful, mysterious presence. Bennie was tempted to say, Don’t tell your mother about the medicine , craving an instant of connection with Chris before he went inside. But he hesitated, employing a mental calculation Dr. Beet had taught him: Did he really think the kid would tell Stephanie about the gold? No. And that was his alert: Betrayal Bonding. Bennie said nothing.
    He got back in the car, but didn’t turn the key. He was watching Chris scale the undulating lawn toward his former house. The grass was fluorescently bright. His son seemed to buckle under his enormous backpack. What the hell was in it? Bennie had seen professional photographers carry less. As Chris neared the house he blurred a little, or maybe it was Bennie’s eyes watering. He found it excruciating, watching his son’s long journey to the front door. He worried Sasha would speak—say something like He’s a great kid , or That was fun —something that would require Bennie to turn and look at her. But Sasha knew better; she knew everything. She sat with Bennie in silence, watching Chris climb the fat, bright grass to the front door, then open it without turning and go inside.
    They didn’t speak again until they’d passed from the Henry Hudson Parkway onto the West Side Highway, heading into Lower Manhattan. Bennie played some early Who, the Stooges, bands he’d listened to before he was even old enough to go to a concert. Then he got into Flipper, the Mutants, Eye Protection—seventies Bay Area groups he and his gang had slam-danced to at the Mabuhay Gardens when they weren’t practicing with their own unlistenable band, the Flaming Dildos. He sensed Sasha paying attention and toyed with the idea that he was confessing to her his disillusionment—his hatred for the industry he’d given his life to. He began weighing each musical choice, drawing out his argument through the songs themselves—Patti Smith’s ragged poetry (but why did she quit?), the jock hardcore of Black Flag and