by James King
“They’re talking about you,” he’d whisper. “They’re worried that your dick is so small.” Nick would hit Mike with his pillow and Mike would retaliate and it wasn’t long before they heard their father bellow, “Knock it off up there, you two. You don’t want me coming up there.”
They’d settle and watch the lights from the cars passing on the street crash into the ceiling. Nick would start to nod off, and suddenly Mike would lean over and whisper loudly into his ear.
They’re making a baby now!
They’re doing it on the kitchen table.
Pack your bags, pal. They’re signing the adoption papers.
By this time, Nick usually just rolled over and went to sleep. But one night Mike leaned over and said, “Mom’s giving Dad a blow job.” Nick jumped up and, to the surprise of them both, swung at— and connected with—the side of Mike’s head. The punch didn’t do much damage. Mike’s counterpunch did. Nick’s nose exploded, he screamed like a girl (as Mike described it later), the room suddenly flooded with light, and Nick saw the crimson on his T-shirt before he realized what it was. When Mike jumped up and out of bed, saying, “He started it, he punched me first,” his father backhanded him, knocking Mike against the wall.
“Bill!”
Their mother, who Nick hadn’t realized had also come up the stairs, rushed by him in a dark flash, pulling the air after her. She grabbed at her husband’s arms. While his father later claimed his elbow accidentally caught his mother on the chin when he turned, Nick had never been able to rid himself of the certainty that he had seen a split-second look between his father and mother before the arm snapped back and his mother was suddenly on her back between the beds, holding her head.
His father froze. Nick and his brother froze. The air froze.
She let out a short, soft moan. “Oh!” She sounded more surprised than hurt, as if she’d woken up from a nap she didn’t mean to take. Her feet were flat on the floor and knees bent as if she were about to do some sit-ups. She didn’t notice or care that in this position her skirt wasn’t doing its job. Nick could not stop staring. He’d rarely seen his mother in her nightgown, much less in this pitifully exposed state. It made his father’s “accident” all the more heinous—and his own staring all the more despicable. Mike noticed that he was staring and glared at him ferociously, demanding Nick’s eyes while they waited for whatever was to come next. But Nick could not look away until his father moved. He started toward his wife, who suddenly held up her hand, fingers spread. Nick wondered how, still on her back and face covered with her hands, his mother knew that his father had stepped toward her. But that hand, thrust into the air from between the beds, seemed to control all that was going to happen in that room and all that would be afterward. His father turned and walked to the bedroom door. The light from the hall turned him into a silhouette, so Nick could not see who his father was looking at when he turned and said, “You little prick.”
Mike flipped the bird at the now empty doorway and turned to his mother. Nick watched him approach her slowly. He bent over her, reaching down as if to adjust her skirt, his long arms sticking out of the pajama top he was growing out of. He hesitated, clearly uncertain how to go about such a mysterious task. He finally just touched her knee.
“Mom?”
She sat up with a small groan and, after a moment, adjusted her skirt. She stayed that way for a few moments, lightly touching her jaw, kind of the way Nick had seen her use a powder puff when she was getting ready to go out to dinner with their father. Finally, using Mike’s bed as a brace, she started to get up.
“Thank you, dear,” she said to Mike when he tried to help her up. She told them both to get into bed and said something about stopping all the silly arguing and fighting. Nick watched from his bed as she leaned over Mike and stroked his cheek.
“Are you okay, Michael?” she asked. Mike nodded, bobbing his head like an idiot, Nick knew, to ward off the tears. His mother leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Nick decided he hated him.
“He’s never hit you before, has he,” she said. A statement, not a question. Mike, still fighting tears, shook his head vigorously. “And I know, without even talking to him about it, that he never will again. Do you understand what I’m saying, honey?”
More tearful nodding.
“It’s important for you to remember that.”
Even back then, Nick thought it was a strange thing for his mother to say. But he was too worried about being left out of his mother’s sphere of interest to give it much thought. He wouldn’t even remember those words until too few years later, after she was gone.
“What about you?” Nick called out, more to get his mother’s attention than out of any fully realized concern.
His mother looked over and—finally!—saw Nick’s bloody nose and soiled shirt.
“Oh my god!” she said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Nick would never have trouble recalling the feel of the warm washcloth and the heat of the steam rising from the sink. He watched his mother’s profile in the mirror over the sink, finding comfort in the way the lines around her eyes deepened and her lips tightened as she tried to dislodge the slightly congealed blood from his upper lip and nose. He felt a strange gratitude to his father for bringing all this about. His mother helped him out of his dirty T-shirt and into a clean one before tucking him back into bed. She paused at the door.
“You two need to learn how to be friends, not just brothers,” she said.
They lay in their beds quietly after that, listening for whatever sounds were about to emerge from below. But Nick only heard the usual nighttime sounds: the hum of a house, the fade in and out of a passing car, his brother’s breathing. Exhausted now, Nick was just about asleep when he heard a voice in his ear.
See what I mean, crybaby? Even Dad says you’ve got a little prick. Mom probably thinks so, too.
Nick smiled into his cup of coffee. Mike never passed up an opportunity. No wonder he did so well in sales.
He handed Marcy a menu. “You said something about Dad.”
“You sure you wouldn’t rather talk about Peggy Gallagher?” It was Marcy’s peace offering and Nick was inclined to accept, but before he could respond, Marcy dropped the menu to the table and held up both hands. “Okay, okay, don’t get your boxers in a bollix. I’ll get straight to the point. I’m pretty sure Dad’s dying.”
The waitress appeared to ask if they were ready to order. Marcy signaled for Nick to order while she scanned the menu. After he ordered a BLT, Marcy snapped the menu shut and said she’d have the same and a cup of coffee. Black.
“What’s he got?” Nick asked when the waitress left.
Marcy stared at him, wide-eyed. “That’s it? What’s he got?”
Nick looked away. “I know how that sounds, but we both know it’s bound to happen sooner or later, right?” He waited a moment for his embarrassment to pass. “What makes you think he’s dying?” he asked.
“He’s being nice.”
Nick leaned back against the vinyl padding of the booth. “Ah. The dreaded Nice diagnosis. How long’s he got, Doc?”
Marcy closed her eyes. She shook her head and shoulders as if loosening up for a jog. She mumbled something under her breath, chantlike. Nick guessed this to be some sort of affirming statement. Was Marcy in therapy?
“Let’s start over,” she said.
And she did, telling Nick about the call from her father and the condition of his house. She spoke fast and in detail, hardly pausing for air or Nick’s reaction. It reminded him of when they were younger and she used to come into his room—Mike was always out on a date by this time—to complain over the latest outrage committed by their father or to cry about how much she missed their mother.
Then, as now, he knew he should have tried to comfort her, but he couldn’t get past the feeling that she needed to buck up, that she wasn’t the only one fighting these fights. And so he’d sit on his bed, back against the headboard, and
look away or down when she started to cry—even the night she came to him in near hysterics, complaining that one of her sleepover friends had called home to have her parents pick her up because the old man had come into the family room to tell Marcy something but fell to the floor, dead drunk. “Flat on his face,” Marcy wailed. “He scared the shit out of her.”
Nick had laughed. He hadn’t known how else to react. Marcy’s friend had nothing to fear, but even now there was something hilarious about the scene as Nick saw it: his father walking in, maybe swaying a little bit, about to say something, and then . . . thunk! What could anybody do except laugh?
“Are you hearing what I’m saying?” she asked now.
“Of course,” Nick said. “What’s your suggestion?”
“Goddammit, Nick, I knew you weren’t listening. I just told you. Sunrise. It’s an assisted-living facility. One of the girls in the office has her mother there and her mother loves it.”
“Have you talked to Dad about this?”
“Not yet.”
He chuckled. “Good luck with that one.”
Marcy looked out the window. “Well, see, that’s part of why I wanted to talk with you. I figured that if it was more than just me talking to him about it, he’ll listen.” She paused, and when Nick didn’t say anything, added, “Especially since he’s trying to get the three of us together anyway.”
“The three of whom?”
“Whom? Whom do you think? Us. You. Me. Mike. So we might as well use his plan as an excuse to talk to him about ours.”
“I’m confused,” Nick said. “Who wants to see us?”
“Who have we been talking about, Nick?” Marcy now assumed a second-grade teacher voice he hadn’t heard before but suspected his niece often did. His heart went out to her. “Your father? Remember him? He wants a get-together. That’s another reason I think he’s dying.”
“He told you he wants to get together with the three of us?”
“You think I’m making this up? Of course he told me. Told Mike, too.”
“He called Mike?”
Marcy waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t get in a sibling rivalry snit, Nicky. He called Mike by accident, I think.”
Nick fiddled with a sugar packet. Marcy wasn’t telling the whole story. He felt it in his bones. “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” he said. “Dad wants us to get together for some reason—maybe to recover all those happy memories he lost to Jack Daniels—and you want to take the opportunity to talk him into moving into a nursing home.”
“It’s an assisted-living facility and it’s two separate issues, dickwad.”
Definitely hiding something. Nick thought about something Marcy had told him a few minutes earlier, something about her spending a lot of time lately—sometimes with April—getting the old place “in shape.”
“And what do you suggest we do about the house?” he asked.
Marcy’s face reddened. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Bingo.
“Well . . . you’ve obviously thought all this through. Any thoughts on who might list the house, once Dad moves out?”
“You think that’s what this is about?”
Nick shrugged.
Marcy stood. “I’ll tell the old man you’re too busy to see him,” she said. “Call him if you change your mind.”
Not wanting to watch her go, Nick turned his attention to the whirlpool he’d made in his coffee with his spoon. For a long while after Marilyn died, he believed she was somehow looking down on him, somehow transmitting encouragement and advice and helping him avoid doing things that would make her cringe. But what he’d just done convinced him, finally, that she wasn’t hanging around in some other life-form or energy force. She was gone. She would always be gone. He was here alone, mucking things up all by himself.
He opened the portfolio he had brought with him. Inside was Bobby Gallagher’s college essay. The prose was better than expected.
“I’ll pay for those, but I’ve changed my mind,” Nick told the waitress when she brought the two sandwiches. “Just more coffee, please.”
CHAPTER NINE
The white panels of the emergency room ceiling reminded April of the Beatles song her father loved. She couldn’t remember the name—something about a hole in the roof or filling holes in Albert Falls—but she could remember that he practically worshipped John Lennon. Heather’s theory was that people put Lennon on a pedestal because he got shot, but Heather didn’t know squat about music and, besides, that sounded like something Heather’s parents might have said, not Heather. Still, in a way, it was cool that he got shot before he got a chance to sell out.
At one time April had started a list called TAD—Things About Dad—naming everything she could remember about her father. Singing Beatles songs was at the top, and second was the way he’d suddenly grab her and throw her up over his head before April realized what was happening. She’d be in the air, trying to catch her breath, and in the next moment she’d see her father’s face suddenly in focus, his smile, the tiny gap between his two front teeth, and the scratchy feel of his kiss on her cheek. But the third entry stopped her short. She didn’t want to include it, although skipping it would somehow make the entire list less credible, less real. And because it was a topic she didn’t want to think about, much less write about, she abandoned TAD altogether.
The argument had started out to be what she thought would be an ordinary fight between her parents, but it grew so loud, and with so much crashing and stomping and crying, that April had hid in her room and tried to work up the courage to dial 911. By the time things quieted and she came out, it was too late. Her father had left without even saying good-bye. He called her a few days later and promised he’d be back someday. But even at eight, she knew the word, coming from him, meant never. And now, a few days past her fifteenth birthday—which he had yet to acknowledge—she also knew there was a reason someday was never, and that—any minute now—this reason would come bursting into the room, hair on fire with worry and hands on the side of her head and mouth wide, a big O, like that awesome painting of the weird guy on a bridge, screaming and asking questions and maybe crying about her baby, her baby.
As if this whole situation weren’t embarrassing enough.
Three stitches above her right eyebrow, which actually looked pretty cool. She couldn’t wait to show her friends. They’d gasp. She’d shrug it off. Keith Spinelli would be concerned. He’d want to comfort her in some way. She’d let him.
She wondered if there’d be a scar. She hoped so. She didn’t want anything big and disgusting, just a small, white line, raised a little bit. Forehead Braille. Irresistible. An interviewer would ask her how she’d gotten it. She’d explain. People all over the country—the world—would then cut themselves just so, to look more like her. She’d then have to hold a press conference to tell kids not to do it. But they’d do it anyway.
She needed a story her mom would buy. Yeah, I’m such a spaz. It was so cold that I wanted to get into the house fast and I walked right into that stupid storm door at the same time Grandpa was opening it. She was sure her mom would go along with the scenario, just as she had when April told her that the “Life Lessons from a Mentor” essay was now her assigned final project for English. This proved to be the perfect cover for the driving lessons her grandfather was more than willing to keep secret. Like most people, her grandfather seemed a little afraid of her mother—which was weird, since he was her father and all. But April noticed that whenever her mom dropped her off or picked her up from her visits, he’d ask in almost a little-boy voice if she’d called Nick or Mike yet. To which she would let loose with one of her hanging-on-the-cross sighs and say she’d left messages and how many times did she have to tell him? And Grandpa, who’d recently been given billing as the first and only listing on Signs Of Intelligent Life, would jeopardize his standing on said list by nodding meekly.
God only knew what the woman would do to him now. But her grandf
ather had insisted on coming here. She’d tried to tell him no, that it would ruin everything. He told her not to worry about her mother, that her mother would be grateful that they were being extra careful, making sure everything was okay.
She wondered how a father could know so little about his daughter.
“You decent in there, kid?”
“Come on in, Grandpa.”
Her grandfather pushed aside the curtain and glanced around as if he had expected to see someone else. He was still wearing his heavy plaid jacket—April called it his lumberjack special—and his hundred-year-old rubber galoshes, complete with the metal snaps down the front. “How do you feel?”
“Same as the last fifty times you asked. Fine. Can we get out of here?”
He nodded. “Doc should be by soon,” he said. “He wants you to sit for a few minutes. Let me see those stitches.”
April told him she didn’t want to take the bandage off. There wasn’t a chair in the tiny cubicle, so she scooched over on the bed and invited him to sit next to her. When he did, she could tell he’d been smoking his pipe. The smell, combined with the feel of his weight next to her, was both comforting and confusing. She suddenly wanted to cry. How lame would that be? A few stitches and she turns into a baby. Still, inside she was trying to will her grandfather into holding her tight so she could bury her face in his smelly plaid shirt.
“How bad’s the car?” she managed.
The question seemed to take him by surprise. He had been staring straight ahead, the way he sometimes did while she was driving. Earth to Grandpa, April would call out. But she didn’t trust her voice to do so now.
“A little banged up on the passenger side,” he finally said. “The headlight works but probably needs to be replaced. All in all, not too bad.”
