Getting Off Clean

by Timothy Murphy

  The three of us sat there, saying nothing, until we heard the sound of Brenda in the hallway, and rushed to her. She had on her coat and a ridiculous-looking ski cap pulled down over her ears, and two Jordan Marsh bags filled with gifts.

  “See ya later,” she said, kissing us all brusquely. “I’ll call you soon.”

  “Brenda,” my mother said, standing in her way. “Don’t go. You can just stay up in your room, and we’ll tell Frank you already went back.”

  “Nope, no good,” Brenda said. “He’ll see my car. And I gotta work tomorrow anyway.”

  “Brenda, please!” my mother pleaded, clutching her arms.

  “Sorry, Ma, you blew it. Now let me outta here. ’Bye, guys,” Brenda said to us; then, with some awkwardness, she maneuvered herself and the two bags out the front door, into the cold drizzle.

  “You’re gonna slip and slide on the roads!” my mother called back to her. “You’re taking a big risk!”

  “I’ll be fine,” she called back. In a minute she was in the car, streaking out of the driveway and down the road toward the highway. My mother closed the door, her face tight with withheld tears, and stalked upstairs, leaving my father and me standing bereft in the hallway. The grandfather clock struck eleven-thirty.

  “You wanna go finish the game until Frank comes?” my father said, trying to sound casual, but I knew he was nervous because his right eye was leaking a streak right down his cheek.

  I was tired, and depressed now, and wanted to slip up to my room, but I sensed he wanted someone to hang out with him while he waited for Frank, so I said sure. But he fouled his next two hands purely out of distractedness, and I think he was almost relieved when, ten minutes into our resuming, the front door bell rang three times in rapid succession. “I hope he hasn’t been drinking,” my father said, getting up to answer the door, and I followed him, hanging out in the living room, just beyond sight of the front door.

  “Hey, Mr. Fitz, Merry Christmas! It’s a wet one, huh?” I heard Frank say after my father opened the door. He sounded cheerful, but too cheerful, as if all his pleasantries were just preface to coming face to face with Brenda. He also sounded too loud, and thick-voiced, the way he always did when he had had too much to drink, something I had witnessed during his visits to our house on many previous holidays.

  “Hey, buddy, Merry Christmas,” my father said back, fake-genial and cautious. I could tell he hadn’t budged from the doorway, nor was he letting Frank in. “Long time no see, huh?”

  “Yeah—well, whatever,” Frank said. “That’s the whole point of the holidays, huh? Making the rounds?”

  “Absolutely,” my father said. “Absolutely. Problem is, you were on and off the phone so fast, you didn’t give Terry a chance to tell you that Brenda’s not here. She had to go back earlier tonight. She was afraid the streets were gonna ice over.”

  There was a pause, then Frank started in, more slurring than before. “No, no, no, Mr. Fitz, wait a minute. Mrs. Fitz told me Brenda was still here.”

  My father laughed, thinly. “Well, what happened was, Terry got tired out, so she went up to bed, and when she answered the phone, she thought Brenda was still here. But Brenda had taken off a little while before. Tell ya what, Frank? Why don’t you leave your presents here, and we’ll get ’em to Brenda, and she’ll call—”

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Fitz, don’t give me this bullshit!” Frank whined. “I know she’s here. Now, come on, I always thought of you as a friend a mine. I helped you install your back deck last summah an’ everything.”

  “Frank, you are a friend. That’s why I’m bein’ honest with you and tellin’ you Brenda’s not here. Now, why don’t you be a good kid and leave your presents here and she’ll give you a call when she’s ready, good enough?”

  “No, it fuckin’ isn’t!” Frank bellowed. “Mr. Fitz, I don’t know what the fuck is up. I love your daughter. She’s havin’ my baby. And I wanna marry her, but now she won’t have anything to do with me!”

  “She’s goin’ at her own pace, Frank,” my father said, trying to stay calm.

  “She hasn’t even called me since she moved out! It’s like she thinks I’m a fuckin’ leper or somethin’, and I’m gonna infect the baby.”

  “Cut the melodramatics, Frank,” my father said. “She doesn’t think you’re a leper, and you’re gonna see her soon enough.”

  “But I wanna see her now!” Frank shouted, and I could hear the heavy scrape of his boots as he tried to let himself inside.

  “Hey, punk, you’re drunk!” I heard my father say now, in the same harsh, staccato voice he always used with Brenda and me when he used to get really mad at us. “Now go home and get some sleep.”

  “Lemme inna fuckin’ house—” was the last thing I heard Frank say before my father slammed the door shut and locked it, twice. After that I heard Frank’s garbled cursing from outside and the sound of his fists rattling the storm door. I stepped into the hallway.

  “What are you going to do about him?” I asked. “Should we call the police?”

  My father sneered. “Just let him blow off his steam. He’ll leave soon enough.”

  “You think so?” Outside, Frank was still muttering and banging on the storm door.

  “Yeah,” my father said, after a pause. “Just ignore him. He’ll leave when he sees he’s not gettin’ any attention.”

  “Okay.” And we both stood there, listening to Frank blubber on outside in the drizzle.

  “I’m pooped, Eric.” My father let out a big yawn. “Can we pick up that card game tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I think I’m gonna play some solitaire before I go to bed.”

  “All right,” my father said hesitantly. “Just turn out all the lights when you’re done. And if this one rings the bell again”—he jerked his thumb toward the front door—“ignore it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well. Good night. Merry Christmas.”

  My father laughed his little philosophical laugh: “Heh. Merry Christmas.” I leaned over awkwardly and kissed him good night on the cheek. He laughed again—“Heh”—before heading up the stairs.

  In the living room, I collected the dirty glasses and put them in the dishwasher in the kitchen. Then I fixed myself a bowl of Raisin Bran, went back into the den, turned on the TV to what must have been the fourteenth showing that night of It’s a Wonderful Life, and turned the volume all the way down. It was the scene where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are listening into the same phone receiver, and she’s starting to cry. And then he grabs her and talks right into her face, and they start making out like crazy people. For some reason, watching them kiss soundlessly made me incredibly sad—as though imagining what they might be saying was more moving than hearing their actual words—and I ate my cereal and watched the movie like that, in silence, for about the next half-hour, whereupon I finally put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher, turned out all the lights, and readied to go up to bed.

  When I turned out the light in the hallway, I heard a rustle on the front steps outside. In the dark of the vestibule, I peered through the windowpanes of the front door. Frank was still sitting there on the wet steps, looking directly up at me, his face red and puffy with drinking, the bag of gifts wet and deflated by his side. The minute he saw me, he jumped up, mouthing, “Open up. Open up.” “I can’t,” I mouthed back. (The truth is, I’ve always been a little afraid of Frank. He’s got a big square head, and little black eyes that can look mean, and a crew cut, and he’s still built like a linebacker.) Then his face just dropped, and he just stared at me, blankly, and I realized that not only had he been drinking, he had been crying, too. “Hold on,” I mouthed to him, creeping halfway up the stairs to make sure everyone was tucked away, then putting on my coat and shoes. Softly, I slipped outside into the drizzle, and closed the front door behind me.

  “Hi, Frank,” I said, leaning against the railing, looking down at him. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you in.”

  “Hey, Eric. Long time
no see,” he mumbled, looking away. He seemed to have calmed down now; he actually seemed contrite. “How ya doin’?”

  “I’m all right. How about you?” He just looked at me and laughed balefully. “Merry Christmas,” I said. He looked at me and laughed again, replacing his head back in his hands.

  “Why don’t you go home to bed, Frank? You’re going to catch pneumonia out here.”

  He looked up at me and squinted, trying to focus on my face. “Eric, would you please just level with me?”

  “Over what?” I asked. I couldn’t get over this image of Frank. Only three years ago, he had been West Mendhem High’s star linebacker, a complete picture of cockiness and bravado racing down the field or swaggering through the halls. Now here he was, a prison guard, sitting out crying in the rain, drunk, on our front steps on Christmas night.

  “Over what do you think? Over Brenda.”

  “What about her?” I asked. I felt bad withholding information from Frank, but I had to remember my allegiance lay with Brenda, and I had to protect her best interests.

  “Is she in there?” Frank asked.

  “No, Frank, I swear she’s not. She went back to her apartment earlier tonight.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell us.”

  “Bullshit,” he said into his knees.

  “I swear, Frank, I don’t know,” I said feebly, because of course I knew exactly where she was. “I tried to find her myself, and I got lost,” I added, thinking how ironic it was that two different lies could converge, creating a fabric of story that almost resembled the truth.

  He looked at me hard—I wondered if he was going to bully me into telling him—then he just seemed to give up and looked into the palms of his hands. “I only wanted to give her these presents, you know. And some presents for your folks.”

  “I know,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic, which I actually was, to an extent.

  “So, you saw her, huh?”

  “Um, yeah. For a little while tonight. Then she had to go back. She has to work tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, you told me. So, how is she?”

  “She’s okay, I guess,” I said, feeling like it wasn’t smart to tell Frank that she was doing particularly badly or particularly well. (And she had seemed to be doing just okay.)

  “How’s she look?” Frank asked, his face beginning to brighten.

  “Good, I guess. She cut her hair.”

  Frank laughed. “She did, huh? It looks good?”

  “Yeah. It’s very stylish.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He laughed again, then stopped. “I always told her her long hair looked beautiful. I guess she didn’t believe me.”

  “That’s not necessarily true,” I said. “Maybe she just wanted a change.” I started wondering how I could end the conversation and get Frank home without hurting his feelings. It was cold and damp outside, and I was beginning to regret having come out in the first place.

  “She big yet?” Frank asked, patting his stomach.

  “She’s definitely getting there,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Frank virtually squealed, laughing again. “Whaddya think of that?”

  “Well, that’s what happens when girls get pregnant, Frank. They get bigger.”

  He didn’t get my sarcasm. He just kept laughing, saying, “I guess you’re right! I guess they really do! Hey, does she know if it’s gonna be a boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t think she’s looking into it. I think she wants to be surprised.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Frank said, entirely amenable to the idea. “That’s right. Be surprised. I’ll sure be!”

  “So will we all,” I said. “Hey, Frank, why don’t you go home and get some sleep? It’s really wet out here. And I gotta go to bed, too. I just came out to see if you were all right. I’ll take the gifts in, if you want.”

  “Yeah, okay, Eric.” He stood up, the back of his pants soaked. “You gotta tell me one thing, though,” he said, handing me the sodden bag of gifts.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Why’s your sister doin’ this a me, huh? Come on, tell me. I know you two are close. I know she tells you stuff, an’ stuff. Why’s she doin’ this?”

  “Frank,” I said, trying to sound firm, “I don’t know exactly why. All I know is that Brenda’s sorting some stuff out, and when she’s ready, she’s gonna talk to you. She plans to, believe me.”

  Everything I said seemed to go right over his head. “But why can’t she talk a me, now, huh? What’d I do was so bad to her?” He was right up close to me now, expelling his beery breath in my face. I remembered the mark on Brenda’s face that looked faintly like a bruise the day she moved out, and I wondered if Frank had done something to Brenda that was so bad, after all.

  “Frank, it’s not that you necessarily did anything bad,” I said, stepping away from his face. “It’s just that I don’t think Brenda was expecting a baby so soon, or to get married so soon, and she needs some time away from everyone to think things out.”

  “Even away from me?” Frank asked.

  “Even away from you,” I said. “You shouldn’t take it so personally.”

  Frank threw his head up in the air and let out the closest thing a human being could emit to an animal roar. “What the fuck do you mean, I shouldn’t take it personally? You wait until your girlfriend is five months away from having your kid and you haven’t seen her, and—and she won’t talk to you, you don’t even know where she is, and someone says to you, ‘You shouldn’t take it personally.’ What would you wanna do to that person, Eric?”

  I didn’t want to know what Frank wanted to do to me, so I just said, “Look, Frank, I’m sorry. That was really stupid. What I meant was, Brenda’s not running away from you, per se. She’s trying to reconcile her own issues.”

  “What?”

  “I mean— I mean, she’s running away from herself.”

  “Exactly. That’s what I’ve been thinking all along. She’s running away from her problems.”

  “Exactly!” I said, too emphatically. “She’ll come around.”

  Then Frank got silent again, just staring out into the street. By this point, my own head was wet with drizzle, and I followed his eyes out into the street, the blacktop shiny with rain—and for the briefest instant, I wondered what kind of Christmas, what kind of funeral, they had had in Virginia; was it tropically warm? had it rained?—and I thought that this was the gloomiest Christmas I had ever experienced.

  “Eric, I love her so much.” Frank spoke out of the silence, still looking out into the street. “And I love that kid so much, even though I’ve haven’t seen him yet.” (I thought it best not to remind him it could be a her.) “An’ all I want is for the three of us to be happy together, just like the two of us used to be, plus one more.”

  “I know, Frank,” I said. Then his voice started to rise; he started crying again, and all I wanted to do was get away.

  “I saw my sister’s little baby kids today,” he said, his own voice becoming strangely babylike as he spoke. “And I played with ’em all day—Annie and Peter, Petie, we call him—’cause I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a good father. An’ I wanted Brenda to be able to see me, so she’d know the same thing. And you know, Petie, the boy?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I pretended he was mine. I tried to get him to call me Daddy.”

  “Well, that’s okay, Frank,” I said, feeling like a therapist. “It’s okay to pretend things.”

  Then he turned and looked me straight in the eyes, beer breath on me again. “You know, Eric, I’m not like you—”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I didn’t do very good in school. I never cared. An’ I’m not goin’ off to some fancy college to become a big-time doctor or lawyer or whatever. I’m a prison guard, okay? Plain and simple. That’s probably what I’m always gonna be.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “That’s not my point. I don’t c
are if that’s all I’m ever gonna be. I’ve accepted it. But the difference between us is…” And he looked at me again, in a shrewd, cold, analytical way that completely took me aback.

  “Is? Yeah?” I said.

  “Is that you’ve got a whole shitload of stuff goin’ for you. But if I lose your sister and my kid—then I’ve got nothin’. Nothin’. And do you know what it feels like to have nothin’, Eric?” He was whisper-spitting in my face now.

  “No,” I managed.

  “It feels like shit. It feels like fuckin’ shit.”

  Then he picked up his bag of gifts and started down the steps without saying another word to me. Halfway down, he slipped and almost fell, and I almost called out, but he caught himself, and I thought it best not to say a word to him. I watched him as he made it to his minitruck, turned over the engine, and sped off in a nearly straight line down the deserted street.

  When I got inside, cold and wet, I thought that maybe I should call Brenda, but then decided that would only scare her; also, it was after midnight. But sitting at the bare kitchen table, I desperately wanted to talk to someone—not about Frank, really, but everything. I wanted someone to know that I wasn’t the only person in the world without a story to tell, that I wasn’t merely an observer and chronicler of other people’s lives, that I wasn’t an emotional vacuum or some kind of sick emotional leech. I thought about calling Phoebe; she would definitely still be up, listening to new tapes that she got for Christmas. I stared at the phone for a long time, thinking about what I would say, how I would frame my story, how she might react, how I’d respond to all her questions, and how she would support me in my anguish forever after. Finally, I picked up the receiver and dialed her private line, connected to her bedroom.

  “Hello?” I heard, and something that sounded like Cream in the background. I also heard the click in my throat when I tried to speak, to identify myself, but nothing more than that came out.

  “Hello?” from Phoebe, more annoyed, then: “Merry Christmas, you fuckin’ pervert,” and she hung up.