by Owen Thomas
Blair flicked his hand with an expression of hot disgust, sending the faceted chip of moon sailing through the air to splash softly into the black harbor water.
“Yeah,” he said. “You never love anyone. But you use them plenty. Get off my boat. And stay off my bloody set.”
CHAPTER 56 – Susan
“They only had orange juice.”
“That’ll do. Thanks Gayle.”
“And the vending machines on this floor are out of order, so you have to use the ones down on the second floor. But I’d stay away from those if I were you.”
“Why is that?”
“Cause that’s where Kris and Meredith are camped out.”
“And?”
“Kristen’s raging.”
“Kristen’s always raging.”
“Well, she’s raging about you.”
“Again? What did I do?”
“Meredith took your side, that’s what you did.”
“I don’t… huh?”
“Your draft press release was way better than Kristen’s. I told you.”
“So Meredith’s using mine and Kristen’s taking it personally, is that about it?”
“Used. She already sent it out. Didn’t care to tell Kris ahead of time. So, you know, ka-boom.”
“I really don’t understand the big deal.”
“That’s because you’re rational, Susan. Try to think more like Kristen. She’s supposed to be the media insider. That’s what she’s bringing to this party. Now CNN’s not returning her calls.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. Probably because CNN has more to cover in the world than our little home grown protest. But Kris is convinced that we’re being ignored.”
“Because …”
“Because someone doesn’t know how to write a real press release.”
“Aaaahhhh…”
“Right. Well, from what I could hear from all the way down the hall over the hum of the vending machines, they’ve moved on from the do’s and don’ts of protest press releases to the do’s and don’ts of having sex with Kristen Sloan. Such as, do fall to your knees whenever Kristen enters the room. And don’t pay so much fawning attention to Susan Johns.”
“Fawning. It was a conversation.”
“There was wine.”
“So?”
“It was two a.m.”
“It’s not like we were alone. You were there!”
“Right, but Kristen thinks I’m a jealous, depraved, two-timing slut who would love nothing more than to see Meredith bounced out on her ass.”
“Are you?”
“Absolutely. So claiming me as a chaperone is not helping your case any.”
“I have no case to make, Gayle. We’re all supposed to be on the same side here. Don’t you think she’s a little heavy on the drama?”
“Always.”
“Well, she was here first. I’m the newcomer. Think I should back off?”
“You want serious drama from me? Besides, Kris is threatening to leave.”
“No…”
“Yes. All the cards are on the table down there. We’ll see. Kris loves to threaten the walk out. You just keep your head down. Keep writing. How’s it coming?”
“Slow. It’s going to be a long night. Here.”
“What’s this?”
“A revised roster and an updated schedule for all three days. The names with checkmarks have confirmed. The ones with x’s have declined. The circled names still need contacting. You and Mark should work on that first thing. And Claire; she’s good for something like this. Let’s put Debbie and Josh on accommodations; every name with a checkmark will need a place to stay. Early check-ins and late check-outs. Plus the final permit paperwork came in for Columbus. And waivers for the school. It’s all on the dresser. You might slip it under Meredith’s door for when she’s done with Kris. Or the other way around.”
“Damn girl!”
“Too bossy?”
“Hell no. It’s your show.”
“Our show.”
“Whatever you say. I thought you were up here working on your own thing.”
“No. That’s next.”
“Jesus. This is going to be a long night. Want me to go get Meredith’s printer?”
“No.”
“What… you’re gonna write this out long hand?”
“Told you I was old school. I was a teacher once. It’s time we all got back to basics.”
CHAPTER 57 – David
The shadow in the doorway shifts and bends and tries to look into the window. I think of telling Caitlin to stop and turn around, or to just keep driving. The shadow has no reason to associate me with her vanbulance. But she continues her approach.
“Uh oh,” she says, seeing him, slowing to a crawl. “Who’s this?”
“This… is my father.”
“Ahh, Papa Johns. Why’s he here?”
I cannot think of why he is here, knowing only that it is not good news. My father is not one to simply drop by. He calls. He works through my mother as proxy. If he comes to me – and apparently he has – then it is not a casual visit. He has something serious on his mind. It cannot possibly be good. Then it hits me.
“Fuck.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“He called.”
“When?”
“In the middle of the whole Brittany blood and barf fiasco thing. I told him I’d call him back. Fuck.”
“I… so? I don’t get it.”
“He said we needed to talk about something important.”
“And…”
“They’ve made contact.”
“Who?”
“The cops. They want to interview him. Just like Mae. Goddamnit. So he knows.”
“Dave…you’re a grown man. Maybe this is a good thing.”
“No. Cait. This is not a good thing.”
“He can help.”
“No. Trust me.” I turn, with a long but earnest sigh. “Listen, this is going to be a very long night. Just drop me off. I’ll call you. Shit. I should’ve just stayed in jail.”
“Dave…”
I hold up a hand to silence her as she noses into the driveway and stops. My father is headed across the lawn. He moves slowly, haltingly, like his limbs are encumbered by rope. He seems older. I climb out, thanking Caitlin in a ridiculously cheerful tone, sing-songing that I will give her a call tomorrow.
But she is not looking at me. She is preparing to greet my father through the rapidly opening window. I slam the passenger door and walk briskly around the front. She has pulled in so close that I cannot squeeze between the front of the vanbulance and the back of my father’s car and I have to walk around the back end which is jutting out into the street. As I come around, they are shaking hands.
“…a friend of Dave’s,” she is saying. “We were out killing some time.”
“Hey Dad. This is a surprise.”
He turns, greeting me with a look I cannot decipher, then swivels himself back to Caitlin, placing a hand on the hood.
“I’ll just bet this baby could tell some stories.”
“Got it at an auction up in Cleveland,” says Cait.
“And you probably got it for a song.”
“Yeah. All but free. ‘Course it needed a lot of work.”
“What’s under the hood?”
“Three-fifty. Brand new.”
“Hmm. Really?”
“Seven point three turbo diesel. The torque rating is over five-fifty at fourteen hundred r.p.m. Multiple fuel injection. Baby here hauls ass.” She pats the exterior of the door like she is stroking the neck of a thoroughbred.
He looks at me, nodding approvingly and raising his eyebrows. “Ms. Lewis here knows a little something about automobiles.”
I, who know a little next to nothing about automobiles, shrug an acknowledgment.
“Not really,” says Cait. “A little, I guess. Mostly I’m lucky to know people who know about automobiles. I know enou
gh to know a good deal when I see one.”
“I had a friend when I was just out of high school who bought a decommissioned police cruiser at an auction. Dillon Knotty. Big, good lookin’ guy. Looked about ten years older than he really was. Everyone called him Naughty Dillon. He kept up the paint job and installed one of those search lights that you could work from inside the car, and he bought this,” Dad holds out his hands like he is clasping opposing ends of a large boulder, “this magnetic light, a blue and red light, that he kept under the front seat that he could put up on top of the car.”
“Trouble,” Cait says with a smile. “I think I know where this is going.”
His face is relaxed. One hand on the hood, the other comfortably in the pocket of his slacks. His mouth is in its enigmatic curl, as if from some secret humor. In the streetlight his eyes glow warm. They radiate a kind of nostalgic bemusement which the uninitiated will attribute to the fondness of some spontaneously unbidden memory, but which anyone in my family would recognize as the look of the storyteller. As if by some silent automatic transmission in his brain, he has slipped into entertainment mode. He is holding court. His hand is cupping an old ambulance rather than cradling a glass of Chablis, but the vibe is the same. The rhythm is the same. The effect is the same. He exudes that easy, disarming charm. The storyteller. In sixty seconds, she will love him. The first impression will harden and she will adore him. He will, to her, be cute and wise and wonderful and patient and tolerant and understanding. He will leave her wanting more and wondering exactly what my problem is that I cannot simply open up to him.
I may be an incorrigible fuck-up headed to prison and the family name may be destined to ruin by scandal, but my father shows no hint of concern. His level of self-control – the iron compartmentalization between inner turmoil and outward manifestation – is a wonder, even to me, even though I have seen this ability of his demonstrated a thousand times. He is the pilot who is running out of fuel telling the passengers a joke about airline food as he waits for emergency landing clearance. His is the voice from Apollo 13, Houston, we’ve had a problem. Not, oh shit we’re all going to die! Not unintelligible blubbering. Just, simply, calmly, we’ve had a problem. It is the voice, if I am not careful, that will disarm me into full confession.
“Trouble is right, my friend,” he says to Cait as though he has known her most of his life. “Trouble is right. One night Naughty Dillon and I and oh, who else, let’s see, Alan Daniels was there, we called him Stinky, and Alice Monroe, she was Stinky’s girlfriend, we were all in Dillon’s car headed out to a party up in, well if you know Cleveland at all then you’ll know Shaker Heights.
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Right. It was up in that area. Just south of there. So we’re all headed up there, me and Naughty Dillon and Stinky and Alice and we’re on this little two lane road headed up to Bedford, or near there anyway, Bedford or Solon, somewhere up there, and for about ten miles we get stuck behind this little ratty truck with a bunch of scrap and junk in the back moving about twenty miles an hour. There was too much on-coming traffic to pass the truck so we were trapped behind this thing, dragging along the road.”
He looks up casually, as if he has heard something fly overhead, and then glances back down to the pavement. Thinking. Remembering. Building suspense. We wait.
“Well Dillon was not an especially patient person. We were already late and by golly he wanted to get to where we were headed. And so eventually he reached down beneath the seat and pulled out the magnetic light. And he turned the thing on and stuck it on the top of the car and then he started flashing his headlights.”
Cait turns off the engine. “Oh no,” she says, leaning into the window frame.
“Oh yes. We were all just watching him with our mouths agape. We’re laughing and hooting and telling him to turn off the damn light and to stop flashing his headlights but not really meaning any of it because we all thought that the truck would pull over and that Naughty would just zip on past.”
“But?”
Caitlin turns back to look at me. Her smile says she is completely under his spell.
“But that’s not quite what happened. The truck pulled over to the side of the road and Naughty Dillon did the same thing. He put the car in park and got out, left the lights on top of the car flashing, and we were all shouting after him, but he kept on moving. We can see him get up to the driver’s window of this ratty little truck and sort of bend in like police officers will do, and he starts talking to the driver.”
Another imaginary bird catches his attention. He tracks it slowly. We wait.
“Well, so ol’ Naughty Dillon leans in real slow and he starts doing his thing. We couldn’t hear what Naughty was saying, but it was clear he was lecturing this guy on driving so slow. And there were cars passing us in both directions, not the traffic we have today, but enough so there was plenty of noise and commotion around us. And it was hot and dusty and the dust was kicking up into the air because, you know, this was farm country in middle of summer. This was back in the day, you understand. Forty-five years ago or so. Whole area is a lot more developed now. Anyway, because all of our attention was on Naughty and Naughty’s attention was on the driver of this little ratty truck, none of us saw the real police cruiser pull up behind us until it was too late.”
“Ooooo….,” I say, because now I am wrapped up in the stupid story. Every time I am convinced that I have heard every story of every relatable event of my father’s life, he tosses out another one. Cait looks back and smiles again, clearly enjoying herself. Dad crosses his arms and looks up at the sky, as if drawing down this memory from space; weaving the yarn from stardust. We wait.
“Well, it takes this trooper about two seconds to figure out what’s going on and he walks past us and right up behind Naughty who is totally focused on taking out his frustration on this poor driver of this little ratty truck. And he’s, you know, he’s an Ohio State Trooper and he’s got the gun and the baton and the hat and the uniform and the whole deal, and he taps Naughty on the shoulder. Well... you could see ole Naughty put about three feet of air between the soles of his shoes and Mother Earth.”
Cait and I laugh in unison. Dad offers his own little chuckle and shakes his head and rocks back and forth on his feet.
“I mean this kid just about jumped clean out of his skin. And Naughty Dillon was big for his age but next to this Trooper, he looked about the size of... well it was about the difference between this ambulance and David’s car over there.”
He doesn’t look. He merely jerks his thumb dismissively over his shoulder at the Civic on the curb. It feels insulting.
“This guy could’a knocked Naughty Dillon over with the flick of his little finger.”
He touches the tip of his forefinger to his thumb and makes a flicking motion in my direction that I imagine I can feel in the hollow of my chest. There is no reason to take these gestures personally. And yet I cannot evade the knowledge that he knows what I have done, or at least, what I am accused of doing. I tell myself that I am too sensitive. That my father, whatever he knows or suspects, does not wish to flick me away like a dead fly on a window sill.
The inclination to obsessively mine my father’s gesticulation for signs of derision and disappointment is suddenly choked off when I am tackled from behind. Two arms wrap around my midsection, squeezing and pulling in excitement.
“Benny my man!”
“Did I scare you David my man? Did I scare you like a mo-fo?”
He is wearing his red Buckeyes sweatshirt and a pair of navy basketball shorts down to just below the knees. His legs are dimpled and pudgy and as white as snow.
“Yes you did. Like a mo-fo. You scared the pants off of me.”
“I was sneaky quiet wasn’t I, David?”
“Yes you were sneaky quiet. Were you hiding in dad’s car?”
“No I was listening to music in daddy-o’s car.”
He points to the headphones over his ears, bouncing a little on
his toes and bending forward like he is trying to peck me with his face, just so that I might more closely inspect the obvious. It is his way of telling me that I am a dunce for not noticing the headphones, the cord to which swings over the pavement. I imagine that the familiar purple and black cd player was abandoned in the back seat as soon as a pause between songs allowed for the sound of our voices.
“Ben, this is Caitlin. She’s a friend of mine.” I step back against the van so that they can see each other. “Cait, this is my brother Ben.”
“Hi Ben,” says Cait. “Very nice to meet you.”
“Ha ha! I scared David like a mo-fo! I’m sneaky like a mo-fo!”
“I thought he was done with that,” I say to dad.
“Tilly,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s like a bad song you can’t get out of your head.”
Mother Fucker is not a term, even in its highly contracted form, that he wants in his son’s head, polluting his already limited expressive repertoire. The real problem, of course, is not that Ben has any concept of what he is saying, for he certainly has no idea. The real problem is that Tilly has found a way to call my father a mother-fucker without any of the inconvenience or complication of an actual interaction. Ben may say the words, but he’s just the messenger. It’s Tilly voice my father hears.
“Well, I’m not sure, but a mo-fo must mean someone who is very handsome and charming,” says Cait. My brother stops moving and his face changes from a silly radiance to something quiet and shy; a full moon slipping behind a cloud. He looks down at his hi-top sneakers, rocking his body slowly from one foot to the next so that the headphone cord begins to move like a string metronome. Cait gives me a half-smile.
“Hey, Ben,” she says. “Want to come sit up here with me in my ambulance?”
If he had the ability to widen his eyes, they would be spinning pie plates. His head is up and his mouth is open and he is looking alternately at me and at dad.
“Well, it’s up to you bro,” I say. “But I’d do it. She doesn’t invite just anyone.”
