“No?”
“Don’t take your clothes off. Go sit down, buddy. You’ve had enough fun.”
To a thunderous applause, with a few boos mixed in, popcorn flying everywhere, I jump off the stage and sit back down with the boys. They look sheepish, shoulders sort of hunkered over, glancing around sidelong.
“Well, I guess you enjoyed yourself,” Leon says.
“Well, hell yes, I did.”
Across the bar, I see a cute little silver-haired waitress. I signal her over so that I can order some more drinks. Up close, I realize she’s old. Her face is dried out and wrinkled. Her blue shadowed eyes and blood red lipstick make her look like she’s wearing a mask. But she looks like she’s still holding onto a dream that she’s good-looking, that men still want her; that dream is good for her, all that keeps her going.
“What’s it going to be, honey?” she asks.
“Nothing,” Leon says. “Sorry. No thanks. We have to get going. I have a commitment.”
“I have a commitment, too,” I say. I stand up and put my arm around the waitress. With one hand she balances her drink tray that’s loaded with empties and slips her free arm around my waist. I hold her tight. “This is my life,” I say. “This is what I live for.”
Leon and Sam look at me like I’ve gone crazy. The waitress squeezes me. “It’s okay, sugar, sure you do.”
But you can only hold an aging waitress for so long. I feel defeated by something I can’t name. “Never mind, honey. I guess we’re going.”
Beth and the kid are sitting on the couch, sort of dulled out, looking like they’ve dozed and woken, dozed and woken. They’re watching a hospital show. Some doctors and nurses are wearing masks and making jokes while they take out some sorry guy’s gall bladder. Beth is sipping a green drink that makes her lips pucker.
“Well, hey hey, happy New Year, honey,” Leon says.
She gives us a withering look, stands up and disappears into the hallway.
“Oh great,” Leon says to the people in the TV.
“Well, I guess we were late,” I say.
Old Ron’s got that plastic astronaut in his hand again, and damn if he doesn’t chuck it at me.
“How come you didn’t play with me tonight, Daddy, stupid idiot?”
“I’ll play,” Leon says. “Hey, I’ll play.” He scoops Ron off the couch and runs around the room with him, supporting him underneath the belly and legs, making a torpedo or a bird out of Ron’s body. “Superboy. Look at Superboy fly.”
Ron giggles. “Superman, Daddy.” They swoop into the hallway, going after Beth.
“How about a drink?” I ask Sam.
“I’ve got to breathe some steam first.”
“Christ, are you sick or what?”
“I’ve been sick for three months.”
I find a bottle of tequila in the liquor cabinet over the kitchen sink. Sam puts a pot of water on the stove to boil. He bends over it with a towel draped over his head and makes snorting sounds like a Zambezi hippo.
I carry my drink into the empty den and look at the TV. A stretcher with a screaming patient strapped in is rolling down a steep hill. In San Francisco maybe. I turn the TV off.
Leon comes back into the room carrying Ron in one arm, his other arm wrapped around Beth’s shoulder.
“Everybody’s happy,” he says. “We’re all going to have a great time.”
She hugs up against Leon. “I just got sick of waiting here on New Year’s Eve. I thought you had forgotten all about me.”
“It’s my fault,” I say. “You get me into a strip show, and it’s hard to . . .”
I notice Leon kind of grimacing at me.
“Strip show? Strip show, Leon?” She takes his arm off her shoulder, holding his wrist in both her hands like she’s about to do a judo move, and then drops the arm and heads for the bedroom again. A door slams.
“Uh oh,” I say. “She didn’t know?”
“Thanks,” Leon says. He sets Ron down and goes after her. Loud voices come from their bedroom.
I sink down into a rocking chair. It’s a big, comfortable den, filled with Ron’s toys. I keep promising to help Leon put in a fireplace, but we never get around to it. Every time I come here, Beth will end up making some crack about the fireplace we’ve never built. It’s stuff like that that makes me want to get her goat. But I shouldn’t have mentioned the strip show. I just wanted to tease her a little. I didn’t know she’d be so sensitive about it.
Ron kneels down on the brown carpet, heels tucked beneath his pint-sized buttocks, staring at the blank TV screen. He’s wearing flannel pajamas with bears on them, riding bikes, juggling balls, smoking cigars. “How come the TV isn’t on, stupid jerk? Want to read me a book?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want the one about dinosaurs?”
“Okay.”
Without standing up, he scoots across the carpet on the seat of his pants, moving his arms like he’s rowing a boat. He digs a book out of a toy chest and rows back across the carpet. He sits in my lap, and we rock and read about the dinosaurs, who are no longer with us.
“They got stuck in the mud,” he says. “That’s how come there aren’t any more.”
“There’s still some in Alaska.”
“Where’s that?” He sounds concerned.
“A long way from here.”
We turn to the page with the Tyrannosaurus Rex. “How far though?”
“Where it snows. I was kidding. There aren’t any dinosaurs.”
“I bet a Tyrannosaurus Rex would eat off your head. What about wolves?”
“What about them?”
“You know, Scooter.”
“What?”
“Are there wolves?”
“Not around here.”
“In Alaska?”
“Maybe. But they won’t come here. If they do, we’ll kick their butts.”
The happy couple returns. They’re not quite as cuddly as before, but they’re working on it. They’re holding hands. They go into the kitchen and come out with green drinks. Leon turns on the TV. He finds the station with the people milling around in Times Square. He sits on the couch with Beth, his arms around her. I can’t complain. I like it when people look happy.
“Mommy, Scooter said we’d kick the wolves’ butts if they came here.”
“Did he? Really, Scooter.” But she laughs. This isn’t so bad. It’s fun in its own way. The people in Times Square are really jammed up, rubbing up against each other, swigging from bottles, waving at the cameras. It would be fun to be there. It would be fun to be a lot of places. It’s hard to get enough. You need to be doing everything at once.
Then I remember the fireworks. “Hey, I got some bottle rockets in the truck. What do you say we shoot those suckers off?”
“We ought to wait right until midnight,” Leon says.
There he goes again. You can’t just do things as they come. You’ve got to plan it all out until there isn’t any fun in it anyway.
“No, now Daddy. Let’s shoot those suckers off now.”
Leon and Beth are both comfy on the couch. They look at each other, not wanting to get up.
“Maybe you’re right,” I say, sorry for what I’ve set in motion. “Let’s just wait until midnight.”
“No, I’ll be asleep,” Ron protests and wiggles in my lap.
“Okay,” Leon says. “We’ll do it now, Superboy.”
“Well, look, I’ll take him out,” I say. “Just for a second.”
Beth gets up with a sigh. “C’mon, Ron, you’re going to have to get your coat and shoes on, just so we can go outside and watch Scooter shoot off his fireworks.”
Sam breaks off from his steam breathing and comes out in the backyard with us. We set the bottle rockets in soda bottles and light the fuses. They whistle up
in the air, explode in sparks, and Ron claps his hands and laughs. I’m feeling a little crummy, knowing they didn’t trust me with Ron, thinking maybe I’d be irresponsible and we’d end up having an accident.
Leon puts his hand on my shoulder and whispers, “I’m going to save one for midnight.”
“Sure, Leon. That’s great.”
When we go inside, I sit back down on the rocking chair. This time Ron climbs up on my lap with an Aquaman comic book. Leon and Beth smooch like a teenage couple on the couch. We brought our noisemakers home from the bar, and now and then someone will toot on one and wave at the people in Times Square.
Ron glances up from the comic book. “Your nose looks like a strawberry.”
“Thanks.”
“Your breath is P.U.”
“So’s yours.”
“Scooter?”
“Yeah?”
He touches my nose, which he has so kindly compared to a strawberry. “How come you cause us trouble?”
Old Leon and Beth are still kissing. They don’t look over. A lot of years have gone down between me and Leon. Less between me and Beth, but it wouldn’t matter how many years. We still wouldn’t be easy around each other. We could explain our feelings up and down, and we still wouldn’t get anywhere. I just mean trouble to her. She’s built it up in her mind, but I guess I’ve given her reasons through the years. I’d take back some of it if I could.
Old Ron falls asleep in my lap. To tell the truth, his breath is P.U. Little boy P.U. coming from his open mouth, snot crusted around his nostrils. I carry him into his bedroom and lay him down on his bed. He’s a good kid. I wouldn’t want to be four again, having to put up with everybody’s craziness.
It’s getting close to midnight, and Leon has fallen through several stages and into sleep. He’s snoring, head against Beth’s shoulder. She looks lonely and drunk. The two are a hard combo. Sam wanders into the den wearing an air filter mask.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“The dust is getting to me.”
“What dust?”
“There’s dust everywhere. The molecules in the walls are breaking down. The roof is breaking down. It gives off dust. Everything gives off dust.”
“Why don’t you move into an oxygen tank?”
Beth shakes Leon. “Leon, it’s almost midnight.”
“Happy New Year,” he mumbles, without opening his eyes.
She sighs.
“Get tough with him,” I say. “You want to wake him up? I’ll wake him up.”
I go into the kitchen, fill up half a glass of water, carry it into the den and pour it on Leon’s face. He jumps like a cat, screaming, “I’ll kill you!” He stalks around the den, wiping a furious hand across his wet face. He bares his teeth like a mad dog and snarls, “Out. Get out of my house.”
“Hey, Leon, it was a joke,” I say.
“So’s this.” He picks up a half-filled green drink and chucks the glass at me. I dodge out of the way, and it smashes against the wall, right in the spot where all these years we’ve talked about putting the fireplace.
“Leon. Leon, please.” Beth looks like a nurse trying to calm down a wild man. “You settle down now, honey.”
I haven’t seen Leon looking so crazy in years. It’s a beautiful sight.
He grabs a Coke bottle, and I think he’s going to throw it at me. I’m getting ready for the old dodge scene again, but he stalks out the sliding glass door and into the backyard. He starts climbing up an oak tree that grows close to the house, the upper limbs drooping over the edge of the roof.
Beth touches Sam’s arm. “Stop him, Sam. Leon, what are you doing?”
Sam mumbles something from beneath his mask and grabs onto one of Leon’s legs. I grab the other leg, and we haul him down. We tackle him, and we all roll around on the ground like a short men’s wrestling team. We pin him to the ground. Beth kneels beside him and strokes his hair. She’s crying. “Leon honey, have you gone crazy?”
“I want to set the last bottle rocket off from the roof, honey,” he says, sounding reasonable in a strange way.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the last one, honey, and it’s midnight. Let me up.”
We ease off him, and he stands, brushing at his sweatshirt. He digs in his jeans pocket, brings out the bottle rocket, and holds it out to me. “You set it off. Go up on the roof and shoot it off.”
“I don’t care about it, Leon.”
“Go on. Do it. Have fun. Get crazy. That’s what you like.”
“C’mon, Leon. Let’s go inside,” I say. “I don’t care about it. Let’s watch the people in Times Square.”
“Shoot the damn bottle rocket off, will you?”
“Yeah, okay.” There doesn’t seem like much fun in it, but I start climbing the oak tree, Coke bottle in one hand.
“You be careful, Scooter,” Beth calls.
It’s funny. She can’t stand me, but she wants me to be careful. If I got hurt, she’d take care of me.
I get up on the roof and hear bams and pops going off all over the neighborhood. There aren’t any stars out. Just clouds and the fireworks streaking the sky. Maybe everybody feels like blowing up the neighborhood. Maybe they don’t. A lot of people don’t mind what they have. A lot of people don’t mind being dulled out, if that’s what it is. It may be the way to go. Tomorrow I’ll talk to the guy who was washing his car this evening. I’ll say, “Pistol, tell me about yourself, what makes you tick? What makes you want to wash your car on New Year’s Eve?” Maybe we’ll become friends then. He’ll laugh and say, “Glad you asked.”
Sometimes I feel tired. The trouble with hellraising is that you feel rocky and worn down when you stop. And each year there’s less people who will put up with you. Leon still puts up with me. We go back a long way. Sometimes you get down to that one friend who you can’t afford to lose.
“Scooter, shoot the firecracker off and come on down,” Beth calls. “It’s cold.”
“You want me to come down?”
“Hell yes,” Leon says.
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course I’m mad. Get down here so I can kick your butt between your ears. You’ve been a real rhino tonight.”
“C’mon, Scooter,” Beth calls. “I’ll fix up the couch for you.”
She sounds tired. I’m a thorn in her side I guess, but after a while people can sort of get used to even a thorn. So I guess I’ll keep haunting her holidays for a while to come. That’s what I’m for anyway, so that when I’m gone, she and Leon can sort out the jumble and end up settling even deeper into their lives, until the next time I come to town.
So I shoot off the last bottle rocket. It fizzes through the air and sparkles down over old San Antone. Happy New Year to all, good folks and clods alike, to the rhinos and the dulled out.
I think I’ll be good tomorrow. I’ll spend a quiet day with Leon and his family. I’ll help carve the turkey or something, and I won’t put Tabasco in the cranberry like I did last year. I won’t cause anybody trouble.
THE UNFOLDING
He told Sharon he’s looking for a whole new way of life. He claims being a stockbroker is immoral. He’s sick of their lifestyle, he says. He despises television now, hates parties. Says their friends are shallow.”
“Maybe they are shallow,” George said.
“Can you imagine? He told Sharon she didn’t stimulate him spiritually.” Mrs. Brady gave a wheezy laugh and raised her asthma inhaler to her lips. “That was the last thing he said to her. After that he stopped talking.”
“I never knew Gerald was all that spiritual,” George said.
“He used to be an altar boy,” his mother said.
“Well, he still never seemed all that spiritual to me.”
George rolled down the window, enjoying the cool mo
untain air as he cautiously steered the rental car around the winding curves. The afternoon was crisp, the winter sun bright. George was entranced by the views of forested hills, rugged rock outcroppings, and sudden sheer drop-offs. It felt wonderful to escape from the bleak Iowa winter, even if they were here in Northern California to help his older brother. He supposed they were here to help him, but it seemed terribly much like interfering.
“When he stayed in school and didn’t flip out on LSD back in the sixties, I thought we were home clear, hallelujah,” Mrs. Brady said. “And now he’s almost forty years old and he runs off and leaves his wife and children to become a . . .” A disgusted look swept over her. “To become a nudist, of all things.”
“I don’t think he’s become a nudist exactly, Mother.”
“You heard what Sharon said. They all take baths together. It’s a religion—the Consciousness Church. Have you ever heard of anything so crazy? Be careful, George. I don’t like these cliffs.”
George yawned. “You know, I feel like taking off my clothes. The sun’s so bright and warm out here. I just want to dance naked.”
Mrs. Brady batted at his arm. “Oh you’re not, George!” Her laughter was breathless and, George felt, bordering on hysteria. “Tell me you’re not going to become one of them.”
Her khaki skirt and square-shouldered sweater reminded George of a uniform, which heightened his uneasy sense that they were on a mission and that he was following a potentially irrational leader. Mrs. Brady was convinced she could talk Gerald into going home, and she had enlisted George’s support. But George was twelve years younger than his brother and he didn’t feel he knew him very well.
“Well, of course nobody stimulates you spiritually all the time,” Mrs. Brady went on. “Your father didn’t stimulate me spiritually all the time. I’m sure I didn’t stimulate him all the time. If Gerald’s looking for something spiritual, he should go back to his own church. You don’t need to dance naked or shave your head to be spiritual.”
“He didn’t shave his head,” George said.
“All you’ve got to do is say one Hail Mary every day—one good Hail Mary—and God will listen. God doesn’t expect us to carry on like holy rollers all the time. He doesn’t work that way.”
A Night at the Y Page 3
