by Karen Rivers
billowed
and he
tipped.
I start to cry hard, finally, and for real. My shoulders are shaking in a way that would be totally embarrassing if I cared. But I don’t care. I can’t stop. It’s like somehow something inside me has come unplugged and there’s nothing that could stop it and I am hemorrhaging snotty tears everywhere. I won’t stop, maybe not ever. Not for the older businessguy who angles his body away from me in the next seat. Not for the fake concern of the flight attendant. Not for anyone. Not for anything.
But when we touch down, I do.
I stop.
I am empty. Lighter.
Different.
I expect to look down at my hands and see feathers, ready to push me upward and away from here. But my hand is still my hand. And now I’m in Canada.
I am still me. Just me, for the first time in so long, I can’t remember. Inhabiting me, I guess, is what I mean. I’m not Sharky The King Daff. I’m not one of three. Or, then, one of two. Or gone, zeroed out.
I’m here.
And when I walk to the baggage claim and wait for my bag to drop down onto the belt I feel like something inside me has been shaken free.
12
A car pulls up in the roundabout in front of the airport. This Canadian air feels thinner and somehow smaller than the air at home, like even the molecules of oxygen are more compact and more polite, not big sprawling stinky American air. It smells like sleep breath and the threat of a storm, something crackling behind something else.
The car is purple and makes a sound like a gray whale singing for a mate. Which is great and majestic if you’re a whale, but not so good for an old station wagon. Underneath the peeling purple paint are patches of green, brown, and rust that look like bad camo gear. I had no idea that people really drove cars like this. It looks like something from a movie about hillbillies, something that is nothing to do with me.
Shame crawls around under my skin like an army of caterpillars with sticky feet. It’s a good thing I’m not talking because I don’t have to decide what to say. Hello, hi, hey there. And there are no names for him that fit: JC Sr.? Papa? Dad? Father? Sir? Yeah, right. Dad is about the furthest thing from a “sir” you could ever imagine. He’s a “hey, dude” at best.
The King’s dad is a “sir.” He commands it. The way he moves into a room. The way his smile crawls into place with a slow deliberation that puts you in your place. My dad doesn’t smile. Dad is a grinner.
The word PEACE is painted in gold sparkly paint in letters about a foot high across the rear door of the purple car, like it’s been graffitied by a band of wayward hippies. The sight of that word and the way it is crooked lets me know all I need to know about my dad’s so-called life, which involves caretaking a stopped-in-progress hotel building site on an island with nothing else on it.
No roads.
No stores.
No residents.
No one.
Nothing but trees and whatever animals lurk in their shadows. Deer, I guess. Probably rats.
Dad’s “career” involves running off kayakers and campers to protect the property from fire and vandalism. For that, he gets paid in room and board and who knows what else, and he buys time to write his painfully crappy novels that he self-publishes and makes enough money from to send Mom a check for fifty dollars once a month. Impressive my dad is not.
My phone buzzes. Daff.
I type Arrête without reading what she wrote.
I add, Au revoir.
Why doesn’t she get it? Why don’t I get it?
I am quickly running out of French. Pretty soon I’ll be reduced to saying, Where is the library? and Please pass me a pen. Or Can you show me the way to the metro?
The car grinds to a stop, then revs up, chokes, and goes again, circling. Sweat drips down my face and into my shirt, which is good because it disguises the wet patches I made when I was crying, but sucks because I stink. I’m guessing a washer and dryer are not things he has, and I know for sure there is no Laundromat.
The purple car circles me.
And circles me.
And circles me.
I am prey, with nowhere to go. Pretty much stunned into submission, unable to surface to get a breath of air. I only hope that it doesn’t hurt too much when it finally bites.
13
I have only ever seen my dad when he comes to Brooklyn to visit me, which he does because that’s what the judge said he has to do and not because he wants to do it, which is painfully obvious whenever it has happened. Awkward is stuck on him like a cobweb he walked into by mistake, covering his face and hands and everything he says. He takes me places I hate and fills up the space around us with a bunch of joviality and trying: baseball games and the Empire State Building and the freaking zoo, like he didn’t get any updates when the calendar flipped over each year and I went ahead and got older and older and older and older and I hate baseball and I think zoos should be illegal and the Empire State Building?
Well, it’s boring.
Sorry, but it is.
The elevator in the Empire State Building smells like hospitals. The view is something you’ve seen in pictures so many times that when you actually see it, it feels old already, like you’re watching a rerun on TV. Unless you’re my dad, and then you’re snapping pictures like no one will ever go up there again, like no one would ever see this.
Last time he was in town, he took me and The King and Daff to a “fancy” dinner. We ended up at TGI Fridays on Forty-Second, uncomfortably making conversation over plates full of terrible shrimp, The King and Daff shooting looks at each other over the rims of their Shirley Temples. I tried to pretend it was so lame that it was actually cool. Ironic. But no one was buying what I was selling and Dad was trying too hard. Like always. Afterward, I seriously considered just drowning myself in the East River so that I’d never have to go through anything like that again. But I went along with it because after that it was all, oh, it’s lunchtime, who wants a formal shrimp plate? Shall we take the town car to TGIs? Hmmm? Oh, that isn’t funny? No, it isn’t? Want to call your dad? He’ll wear his fanciest T-shirt! Not funny? Oh, okay.
But I’d laugh because yeah, it was really at the expense of my dad, not me, and my friends got me. They knew what my dad was like. “You know,” Daff whispered behind her menu, “your dad is kind of like a visitor from another planet. I feel like a scientist, observing life on Mars. Let us take notes.” And just then, my dad stood up to go to the washroom and a server walked right into him with a tray of sizzling meat and Dad’s legs were scalded and he kept saying, “Man, I am so sorry,” while the waiter said things like, “Yeah? Well, maybe I’ll sue you, jerk,” and Dad apologized again and again as if he was a dog, which is what he reminds me of, specifically a golden retriever, he would have been wagging his tail exuberantly and knocking over more things in his effort to be forgiven. The King said, “I am a lawyer. I am a lawyer.” And Daff laughed and laughed and actually, so did I, and it was only actually just now that I realized that Dad wasn’t really the jerk in that situation.
It’s better not to remember stuff.
It’s better to just focus on the now. Buddhism 101. Or, you know, what I think Buddhism is. I was never into that stuff. That was The King’s thing and who knows how much he made up and how much was real, how much was the philosophy of The King and how much was ancient religious tenets that could change everything if only we would just get on with it and believe in love and hope and peace and not attaching to anything ever. Not attaching to anyone. Not putting your hands into a girl’s hair while your best friend’s eyes see you and his face sees you and his heart sees you and just for a split second, his face is lightning-split open and you can see his brokenness. But you can also see her lips, right there and you didn’t kiss them but you could have. You should have. And if the timing was just a few seconds the other way, you would have. And you are such a jerk for thinking that because then he would have seen something e
ven worse.
But then again, why did he get to decide?
The purple car, look at it. I look at the purple car. I am not at Daff’s place, she is not here, The King is not breaking. I am here and I am breathing and that’s over and I don’t have to think about how even looking at Daff gives me panic attacks so intense that I feel like my heart is rolling on a tsunami and one day it will rip right out of my chest like an alien baby and anyway thinking about her makes it hard to breathe this tiny, peculiar Canadian air.
I concentrate on the car, but I still can’t seem to move or wave. Instead, I let the time stretch and yawn between us, between me and Dad and his purple behemoth. Finally, he struggles out of the car through the window in a ridiculous painful-to-watch way, butt first.
Seriously.
I am incredulous, I type to The King. Incredulity rules the day.
“Yo, JC!” Dad shouts, half-in, half-out. Then he’s out. “I mean, Shark Dude! Or Sharkboy! Yeah, Sharkboy, right? Right,” he answers himself, crossing those twelve feet between us in about three leaping, loping strides. His face has new wrinkles, spraying out from his eyes like his eyeballs were dropped into his head from such a great distance that they made splash marks in his flesh. His stubbly beard is gray.
When did he get so old?
He’s bouncing on his feet like a runner waiting for a light to change. The grin flashes on and off his face like one of the neon signs advertising GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS near Times Square.
“Hey,” he says. “Heyyyy.” He holds out his hand. There’s a tattoo on his wrist that says, Writers write. It looks itchy. He smells weird, if by “weird,” I mean, “like someone who badly needs a shower,” which I guess is how I’m going to spend the summer smelling, myself. Smelling good is sort of important to me. Or it was. Maybe it isn’t anymore. Maybe I don’t care.
“How was your flight? Was it good? Was there food? There’s never food. I wondered … I mean, I worried…” He trails off, squints at me like he can barely make me out. “I’ve been at Costco. Stocking up. I hope you like … cereal. And chips.”
I shrug. Everyone in the world likes cereal.
“What’s your favorite? I didn’t know so I bought…”
I know that Mom told him that I’ve stopped talking. I can tell he thought he’d be the miracle that would make me utter words again. Like now I’m going to say, “Cornflakes,” or whatever, just to make him the winner. Well, screw that. Also, all cereal is the same. It’s fine. It’s good. Whatever. Seriously.
“It will pass,” I’d heard Mom tell him. “Don’t push him, John, okay? Leave him to sort it out.”
When they were together, she used to get so mad at him. She’d start out nice, trying hard not to lose her temper, but you could see it crackling there, right behind her eyes. He’d be goofy and dumb and she’d be trying to say or do something important, and by the end, she’d be throwing things: glasses, shoes, a paperweight.
And he’d stand there grinning like a simpleton. Wagging.
Like now.
I put my sunglasses on.
The dads of the kids in my class do important stuff, like surgically repair cleft lips on orphans in Africa. Or they are philanthropists, pouring millions into finding a cure for breast cancer or tapeworm or whatever, or they at least own boutiques or grocery chains or star in crappy action films while running around with starlets. McFatty’s dad is dead but everyone else has one, usually on wife number two or three or four. Rich guys, man. They’d make you sick, if you knew. But poor guys are equally bad, just in different ways. They aren’t nobler or inherently better people, they are the same stupid idiots, but with less money. I wonder if it’s necessarily true that all boys grow up to be disappointing men. I can’t actually think of a single adult man I know who is a decent person.
Not one.
“So,” says Dad. “So, so, so … hey.” He cocks his head. “Think you’ll start talking again soon? ’Cause I’ve gotta be honest, this is tough. Talking to you and having you not answer. I feel weird about it. Man.”
I shrug.
“I really want you to talk to me,” he says. “About everything. Anything. I want to be here for you. It’s going to be tough if you won’t tell me what’s going on. Look, I know it’s your decision. Everything’s a decision. But I … want to help.”
Right.
Sure.
The truth is that Dad wants me to talk so he can validate his own role in my life. He can be all heroic and like, I’M LISTENING TO YOU BECAUSE I’M SUCH A GOOD DAD, LOOK AT ME! LISTENING! HURRAY FOR ME! His need for my voice is like a vibration on a guitar string, quivering between us. If I could, I would reach out and twang that string. Snap it between my fingers. My silence is unbelievable to him, like he’s so shocked that his declaration didn’t make me suddenly start pouring out my heart and soul. My silence makes him louder and louder, like he can make up for my silence with all-caps-level volume.
“OKAY. SO I GET IT,” he says. “I’M A BIG BOY AND I CAN WAIT. YOU’VE GOT YOUR STUFF. YOU GOTTA DEAL. IT’S OKAY. SO I’LL TALK. LET’S SEE. WEATHER? BEEN SUPER HOT, OF COURSE WATER IS RATIONED AND THE GRASS IS ALL DEAD HERE BECAUSE WHO CARES ANYWAY BECAUSE THAT’S NATURE, RIGHT? THERE AREN’T LAWNS ON THE ISLAND. IT’S NOT THAT KIND OF PLACE. SUBURBIA, ICK. YOU’LL LOVE IT THERE, ON THE ISLAND, BECAUSE IT’S QUIET. UNTOUCHED. LIKE HOW THE WORLD SHOULD BE. I LIKE QUIET. YOU’LL SEE. YOU MUST, TOO, RIGHT? HA HA. BUT WOW, YOU MUST BE GLAD TO BE HERE, OFF THAT PLANE, AWAY FROM NEW YORK AND EVERYTHING, WELL … THIS MUST FEEL LIKE A DIFFERENT PLANET, HUH.”
Shut up, I want to say. Just shut up. Please shut up.
He grins and bounces and stares at me. I hold up my hand in the universal sign of seriously, stop now.
“You could tell me to shut up,” he says finally. “But I guess not. Not yet anyway. We should get going. But it’s so good to see you. It’s so good.” He takes a lurching step toward me and there it is: the hug. My skin shivers with revulsion. If I had a superpower, I’d like for it to be awkwardness repulsivity. I’d be like a reverse magnet. Anything awkward wouldn’t even be able to get close. I smile a tiny bit, then stop, hoping he didn’t see that.
I don’t smile.
I stopped smiling.
I will never smile again.
Why was I smiling? It wasn’t even funny.
My best friend is dead.
Hey, here’s a joke, self! What do you get when you fall off the forty-second floor? Answer: dead! Bad um cha!
Not funny, no? Too soon?
I pick up my bag and move toward the car, not looking at him. I don’t know what happens next, but I guess Dad’s puppy-legs wound around each other, tripping him up, because suddenly he’s lying facedown on the sidewalk and blood is dripping from his nose as he pushes himself back up, looking dazed. I blink hard because bam out of nowhere, I’m right back there, on Eleventh and Fifty-Third and the blood on the sidewalk the blood on the sidewalk the blood on the sidewalk the blood.
It’s nothing the same.
Why do I think it’s anything like something that is the same?
Dad gets to his feet and there is blood gushing down his lip, which he licks. I look away. He says, “I can’t believe that happened.” He half laughs. “First day, new feet.” He points at his sandals, which look like something a German tourist would go crazy over. You can always tell the German tourists in the city by those dumb shoes and none of them are tripping over their own feet. I shrug in a way that is meant to communicate everything: You’re a loser. You’re clumsy. I hate you. I don’t know you. I don’t want to be here. You know, all of that.
Dad wrenches the passenger door open and finds a filthy-looking tissue on the seat and stuffs it up his nose. “There,” he says. “Better.” Which sounds like “bedder.” There is blood on his stupid hipster stubbly beard and his stupid inside-out, probably ironic T-shirt.
“By dose hurds,” he says. “Shood.”
I take my phone out of my pocket, switch it over to my photo a
pp and take a picture of him, filtered to look like an old Polaroid, the photo even more hipster than the hipster himself. I send the picture to Mom. I type, Dad’s here.
Swooop.
Let her look at that.
Let her see what she’s done to me.
14
Outside the car window, fields become a town and then become fields again and forests. I feel carsick. I miss the stupid F train and even the overcrowding and stench of the 6. If I try hard enough, I could even miss the bus. “Everything is a decision,” Daff said. “You can decide how much pain to feel.” I press a point on my wrist and believe that it works. The car heaves back and forth. Daff was always right and always wrong and I have to stop thinking about her, but she’s in my head and I can’t get her out, like a song that won’t leave me alone.
Dad talks and weaves between lanes. Maybe he thinks if he doesn’t hurry the island won’t still be there when the car stops. I guess the ferry could leave without us. I kind of hope it will. Even this place looks like a smaller town than I’ve ever seen and we are going away from it? To an … island? It seems so crazy. Absurd. And every other SAT synonym for stupid that you can think of: vacuous, vapid, daft. The whole escapade is something you’d see in a sitcom and you wouldn’t understand how things connected until the misunderstanding was cleared up in the last scene or until you just stopped caring and changed the channel.
Except it’s real.
It’s my summer.
Well, yippee for me.
I close my eyes. Closing your eyes when you are mute is like shutting the blinds on your office door. It says, Thank you for stopping by, but I am currently unavailable. A message that Dad does not receive, evidently.
“… and I make extra money with the scallops. Selling them. I have a friend who is doing it, too. Really lucrative. You’d be surprised. I mean, I didn’t think I’d like doing that, but you know, a guy has to make money and HEY, LOOK AT THAT, AN EAGLE? Bald eagle. I’ve never seen one in America, but here they are everywhere. Ironic, right? Amazing birds. Take some pictures and wow your friends when you get home. Seeing them never gets old and…”
