“That’s a hell of a window you got there,” he says. “What is that? Deco?”
“Nouveau, I think,” says Chris.
“Right. Right. You can tell. The lines and all. Soft. Not so geometric as Art Deco.” And now I’m already taking bets on how long it’s going to take for Jack to become an expert on early twentieth century stained glass. Or how long it’s going to take him to hatch a plan to work the thing loose from its putty and put it on eBay.
“One night,” I say. “I want you out of here tomorrow. Don’t touch anything, don’t steal anything and give me your lighter.”
“I don’t have a lighter,” says Jack, looking offended. “Actually I quit smoking, so how the fuck do you like them apples? You’re not the only one who can make New Year’s resolutions, Junior.”
In all fairness, he has quit smoking before. That is to say he quit smoking tobacco. He carried right on smoking weed. And angel dust. And meth. Oh, and occasionally crack. Never heroin, though. Never smoked heroin. He always preferred to inject.
I have no idea how he’s still alive, and maybe that’s why he’s here: because very soon he won’t be. As I follow him around the house I find myself looking for some telltale sign. A tremor or a wandering eye that might betray a brain tumor. The whites of his eyes are yellowish, but they have been for over twenty years. His liver can’t have many more miles on the clock, but Jack is near impossible to kill. One time when we were living in Michigan he passed out drunk in a snow bank, in temperatures so deadly that neither police officer that dug him out could believe he was still alive. Anyone else would have been a corpsesicle, but not Jack. He lost the tip of one little finger and a toe. They got to calling him Jack the Cat back in Michigan, then stopped when he’d blazed through all nine lives and appeared to have – instead – some kind of infinite revolving door to the afterlife.
“Watch him,” I tell Chris. “And keep your ears open. If you hear anything at night, wake me, because he’s probably stealing the lead flashing off the roof.”
I’m unsettled already. A house with Jack in it is a house primed to explode. I’m not even sure how I get through the day, because every minute I’m thinking about how to get him out of here. He helps me demolish the old servant’s staircase, the one that looks like the Upside Down, but every time our tools fall silent it’s like I can hear it, cutting through the quiet – the high-energy whine of his brain at work. What’s the angle? What’s the grift? What can I get out of this situation?
He insists on making us dinner – spaghetti, and meatballs from the braying freezer. He whips up a tomato sauce from canned tomatoes, dried herbs and other odds and ends he finds in the cupboard, and he talks constantly, that stream of P.T. Barnum patter from which I probably learned to talk in the first place. When I was very little, and I mean really little – before I’d learned that he’d always disappoint me – I loved him and all the things he told me, like how the bathwater always goes down clockwise, except in Australia, where everything is backwards, even the seasons. I drank it all in, until one day I knew enough to correct him when he was wrong. By the time I was a teenager he was just a drone, an endless self-regarding stream of consciousness. Whenever he got arrested I used to cheer, because the odds were he’d do time and we’d all get some peace and fucking quiet.
“The trick, you see, is a spoonful of sugar,” he says, because he’s a chef now. He’s a chef in the kitchen, a mechanic in the garage, a diva in all arenas. “Cuts the acidity in the tomatoes. They’re a nightshade, you know. As in ‘deadly’. Same as potatoes, and that’s why you should never eat the green ones. You know, Casanova used to swear by ‘em? Tomatoes, that is, not potatoes. Pommes d’amour, he called them. Apples of love. Ate ‘em for breakfast every morning. Said they were the reason for his legendary virility. Fuck Viagra, man – try tomatoes.”
Tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto – whatever. Please just let’s call the whole damn thing off.
He only stops talking to eat. I watch him mop up the last smudge of tomato sauce with the cut side of a meatball and dread the moment he stops chewing.
“It’s a great place, this,” he says sure enough. “Great place. Real characterful.”
“It needs a lot of work,” says Chris. “But thank you.”
“You buy it?”
Ah, here we are. Jack’s back in action. Chris knows not to tell Jack about my stake in the place: we’ve covered that. “No,” he says. “It was my aunt’s.”
“Single lady?”
“Yes.”
“You can tell,” Jack says. “Lot of books. Cat door out the back. She go all catty towards the end?”
“Uh, no.”
Jack thumps himself on the chest with a fist, shaking loose a burp. “Mine did,” he says. “You remember Aunt Viola? She dropped dead at an Italian delicatessen one day. Guy’s weighing out the salami, asks her if she’s okay with a slice over weight or under, she looks him in the eye and bam. Dead before she hit the floor. Brain aneurism. One minute that deli guy’s looking a living woman in the eye, and a split second later he’s looking at a walking corpse.”
“Oh,” says Chris. “I’m sorry. That’s…um…”
“Fucking terrifying, right?” says Jack. “But hey, she didn’t suffer. Worse ways to go, I figure. Ones where you linger.” He shudders. “Better not to know about it, if you ask me. She did okay. Like someone switched her out like a light.” He snaps his fingers. “I mean, the deli guy was probably kind of fucked up, but hey – he had a story to tell, right? Death by salami. You remember your Aunt Vi, don’t you, Junior?”
“Yes. And don’t call me that. My name is Jody.”
“Yeah. Junior.” Jack grins. “Ah, I see what’s going on here.”
“What?”
He turns to Chris. “It’s not a fancy story, I’m afraid. Doesn’t make us look like the classiest bunch in the world. You see, you’d need a gas mask to get in Aunt Viola’s place. It was that thick. Reek of cat piss. They were everywhere. Writhing. Mewling. Like a living carpet of fur and poop. And I’m like ‘What the fuck? I thought she had a cat.’ Singular. But then it turned out she got another cat, and she hadn’t had the first one fixed. And the new one wasn’t fixed either, so the new cat fucked the old cat and sure as night follows day you got five more cats, right? After that it was like…exponential. The newer cats fucked each other. Some of them fucked their mom and I guess they started fucking anyone else who showed up too. The situation was way out of hand by then. There was no question of getting that many cats fixed. Never mind not being to afford it – she couldn’t find half of them most of the time. They were living in the attic, the basement, the crawl space, you name it. Maybe that’s what killed her in the end, you know? That disease you can get from kitty litter.”
“Toxoplasmosis,” I say.
“That’s the one. Can that give you aneurisms?”
“I…I have no idea,” says Chris. He looks dazed, poor guy. That’s normal. Most people look like that the first time Jack happens to them.
Jack thumps me lightly on the arm. “Ah, but you knew what it was, you little smartass.” He pulls me towards him and plants a kiss on the side of my head, ignoring the fact that I’m trying to squirm away like that cat from Pepe Le Pew. “Watch this one, Chris. He’s a bright bulb. Takes after me. He’s got that whole attention span issue going on—”
“—oh my God.” Why is that the one time I do want the floor to swallow me up, it’s solid beneath my chair?
“No, no, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, son,” he says. “I had the same thing. No good in school. Couldn’t sit still, but it doesn’t mean I’m a dummy. They’ve done studies, you know. ADHD and all that shit actually means you have more chance of having an original intelligence. And that’s what counts. That’s what IQ really measures. When they’re talking about the top percentile they’re talking about those people who really can think around corners. That’s what I do. Outside the box. And the kid here. He’s got the same thing goin
g on—”
“—will you stop, Dad?”
“No, I’m just sayin’. You’re a smart cookie. Don’t hide your light under a bushel or whatever. You know what this kid came up with, Chris? With those cats?”
“No. Chris does not want to hear about this.”
“No, go ahead,” says Chris, who has no idea how trashy this story gets. “I’m curious.”
“Um, hel-lo? What do they say about curiosity and cats?”
Jack laughs. “See what I mean? Smart as a fuckin’ whip. Anyway, these cats – some of them were kinda fucked up. Shallow gene pool, you know. But this one here is like ‘So? Pedigree cats have tiny gene pools, and people pay hand over fist for them.’ So he gets on the internet and starts looking up all these different fancy cats – ones I didn’t even know existed. Tonkinese, Balinese, Cornish Rex…what was the one with the feet again?”
“Snowshoe Siamese.”
“Snowshoe Siamese. That was it. Siamese, but with white feet. Super fancy. He goes through dozens of these cats – at least, the ones you could deal with without them trying to take your face off, if you know what I mean. A lot of them weren’t real well socialized. So yeah – Jody goes through these cats and with every one he finds the spiffy breed they most look like and adjusts the price tag accordingly. I was like ‘Yeah, you’re dreaming,’ but you know what, Chris? He sold the shit out of those cats. Made fake certificates for them and everything. They were genetic garbage, but he made people want them. They took ‘em home, gave them expensive cat food and silk pillows to sleep on. I mean, I hope they didn’t use them for breeding, because the fucked up cat incest genes would have come out, but Jody was long gone by then. That’s how you do it. You do what you do, then move on.”
Throughout this whole monologue I’m peering through my fingers at Chris, watching his reactions. His expression remains politely neutral, although there was a moment back there when his eyebrows shot up at the information that I’d once forged cat pedigrees.
“I gotta hit the head,” says Jack, and as soon as he leaves Chris draws in a visible breath. Jack has a habit of consuming all the oxygen in a room.
“Great,” I say. “Well, now you know why I don’t want him around.”
“I thought you came off as very resourceful,” says Chris, although I can tell he’s choosing his words carefully. His forehead isn’t as smooth as it should be.
“Yeah, with a large side order of human refuse.”
He pulls his chair closer. “You’re not human refuse.”
“Then why are you frowning?”
Chris pinches the bridge of his nose. “Because I have a headache,” he says, and I relax a little. “Does he ever stop talking?”
“Sometimes. Mostly when he’s on smack. Oh, or benzos. Those seem to quieten him down. Just don’t ever be around him when he’s got his hands on meth, because he does. Not. Stop.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” he says, and looks around at the mess Jack has made in the kitchen. Sure, he can cook, but he also has a knack of using every available pan in the place. “I should get to these dishes.”
“Nah. Let me.”
I’m expecting a fight, but to my surprise he says, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
He takes my hand and kisses the back of my wrist. “Thanks. I…um…”
“…need to lie down in a dark, quiet place?” I say, lacing my fingers with his.
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“Welcome to the Jack Ohanian experience.”
Chris gets up from the table. I’m on edge, looking for signs that he thinks less of me, but his kiss is a soft promise of more later. I want to follow him back to the tent, zip ourselves in for the night and make out like we’re trying to crawl under one another’s skins, but of course that’s another thing that won’t be the same, not with Jack rattling around the house. “Don’t keep me waiting too long,” he says. “I also need someone to snuggle.”
He leaves and I gather up the dishes. Jack comes back in and spots the empty space at the table. His dark eyes glitter, the way they always do when he’s trying to figure out what something means. And how to exploit it. What is it like being him, I wonder? He exhausts me. Doesn’t he ever get tired of the constant scheming, or is it just who he is?
“Thanks, Dad,” I say.
“What? What’d I do this time?”
“You made me look like a fucking grifter in front of my boyfriend.”
Jack reaches for the dishtowel. Another red flag. Never trust Jack when he’s trying to make himself useful: he will expect payment later. “Ah, he’s not gonna hold that against you,” he says. “He seems nice. Smart, if a little stuck up.” My offense rolls off him, water off a duck’s back. “What? I’m just saying.”
“He doesn’t look down on me,” I say. “Well, he didn’t. He might now. Now that he knows how I operated a cat scam out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.”
Jack sighs. “Look, Jody – there are two types of people in this world, okay? There are the ones who get everything handed to them on a silver platter, and then there are those like us. The ones who have to bite and scratch and fight for every scrap.”
That’s when I know I can’t ever tell him about the house. If he knows I own half of this, he’ll figure out a way to snatch it all, because that’s how it works in his world. Chris is one of those silver platter types, and therefore kinda has it coming. If I had this place all to myself, God knows what Jack would do to it.
“The other sort,” he says. “The other half – they don’t know how it is. They can judge all they like, but they have it easy. They didn’t get genocided or whatever…”
Oh good. We’ve reached the race war portion of the evening. Figured we’d get there eventually. “Jack, Chris is half black, half Jewish. Racially speaking, he’s not exactly a stranger to persecution, okay?”
“No, I know, but he’s in good shape now. Got a nice job in New York, heritage homestead in New Hampshire, all’s I’m saying is…you know. Look out.”
“For what?”
He sighs again and leans against the kitchen sideboard. “Look, he’s always gonna be Lady, and you’re the Tramp, right?”
“Uh…” That plate of spaghetti and meatballs has gone to his head.
“You’re the bit of hot stuff from the wrong side of the tracks, kiddo. All very well when you’re trying to piss off Daddy. You go get matching tattoos and hitched in Vegas and do peyote in the desert – discover that you’re soul mates and have mind-blowing sex. It’s all fun and games and rimjobs until he runs out of creature comforts. You know what I’m saying?”
“No,” I say. Not sure where peyote and rimjobs entered the picture, but with Jack it’s best not to ask. “What fucking weirdass version of Lady And The Tramp did you watch? Because in the one I saw they lived happily ever after. They had babies.”
“Well, at least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about with you,” he says.
“Dad, Chris and I know what we’re doing, okay? I know it’s sudden, but this isn’t just some fling. Please don’t fuck this up for me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m happy for you. It’s about time you had some luck in love.”
I go back to the tent and crawl in. Chris stirs and turns on his phone, giving me some light.
“Oh God. You’re awake.”
“What? Was I not supposed to be?”
“No,” I say, wriggling out of my jeans. “Because if you’re awake you’re wondering how to break up with me.”
He frowns and pulls down the zipper of the bag, giving me access. I slide in with my top still on: it takes a while to get warm. “And why would I be thinking about breaking up with you?”
“You know why. Because once I sold a bunch of knock-off cats in Michigan.” The light blinks out and I’m glad of the dark. “I’ve lied, Chris. I’ve cheated, I’ve scammed, I’ve stolen. I grew up with no moral center whatsoever.”
He pulls me close and I feel
his lips against my hair. “Maybe,” he says. “But you came here when Becky called. And you held her hand while she was dying.”
There’s still stuff I haven’t told him about that, too. When I was little there was this kid in my class who couldn’t pronounce my name, so he called me Jody Onions. I was Jody Onions all through elementary school, and it’s never felt more appropriate. I got layers. Lots of layers. Most of them stinky, and some of them will make you cry. “I’m not a saint, Chris,” I say.
“Neither am I.”
“No, but you’ve had more opportunities to be good than I have.”
“Perhaps,” he says. “Some might say I squandered them.”
“Chris…”
His bare foot – warm from the inside of the sleeping back – strokes the back of my calf. He’s toasty and cuddly and I never want to let him go or disappoint him.
“Those cats would have been destroyed, wouldn’t they?” he says.
“A lot of them were. Like Jack says – they weren’t very well socialized.”
“And what about the ones you sold?”
“Well, they were the less feral ones, obviously. The ones you could pet.”
“Right,” says Chris. “And like Jack says, they went to people who wanted them.”
“No, they went to people who wanted pedigree cats. Not incestuous ferals rescued from a house full of poop and hair.”
“But they would have been euthanized otherwise,” he says, sliding a warm hand under my sweatshirt. “You gave them a shot at a loving home. And maybe some of those owners did find out they were scammed, and maybe some of them were mad. But maybe some of them found out they’d been scammed and didn’t even care. Because they loved that cat, whatever it was.”
My throat aches as I search for his lips in the dark. His tongue curls into my mouth with a soft sound as satisfying as a key sliding into the lock it’s made for. He can’t see my tears, but maybe he can taste them, but then his thigh moves between mine and there’s nothing I can say, because my throat’s too tight. It’s hard to breathe. It hurts. I’m so in love that it hurts.
The Other Half Page 17
