by David Gates
“So how was that?” he says as they walk down the steps into the sunshine. They’ve gone out a side door to avoid shaking hands with the minister.
“I don’t think kids should sing,” Deke says.
“How come?”
“ ’Cause they stink.”
“Really? I thought they did great.”
“They shouldn’t be allowed.”
What’s this about? Billy can’t think what the right response might be; then inspiration kicks in. “Well, adults aren’t always perfect singers either. People sing just because they enjoy it sometimes.” And another inspiration. “What about the kids who sing with Barney? They’re not perfect either, but it’s fun to listen to them.”
“I hate them.”
“Why do you hate them?”
Shrug.
“But you like listening to them.”
Not even a shrug.
They get back in the car and Billy heads for the Howard Johnson’s just off the 787 ramp; he didn’t have time to fix breakfast before they left the house. He stops and buys Sunday papers: the Times for himself and the Times Union because Deke likes the funnies. The greeter girl—pretty, seemingly too young—leads them to an empty booth. Billy guesses that with his Diamond Dogs cap and nylon bomber jacket he can pass for a divorced dad with weekend custody. If that’s his beau ideal.
Mostly he avoids taking Deke to restaurants, not because of the catamite issue but because the two of them look so alone in the world. The only person either of them has left is Cassie. Well, Deke does have another grandmother: Vic’s mother, who lives in Provo, Utah. But the extent of her involvement is a hundred-dollar check every Christmas and a card signed Mammaw, the alias she devised for herself since Cassie’s mother already had Grandma. Billy should probably make overtures: call every week or two, put Deke on. If only for practical reasons. Suppose he had a head-on crash coming home from work: Mrs. Bishop would take Deke that night, but then what?
Deke orders oatmeal and bacon; Billy has oatmeal and a half grapefruit. He cuts a section free, spears it with his fork and holds it out to Deke.
“No way.”
“No, thank you.” Because if he’s doing this, he’s damn well going to do it right.
“Oh, yeah,” Deke says.
Billy’s been sneaking looks at the entertainment listings in the Times Union. This is already shaping up as a long day, but the movies look either inappropriate or unbearable, and mostly both. “Aha,” he says. “Looks like they’re having a young people’s concert.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, a big concert that’s geared to kids? Somebody usually comes out and talks about the instruments and whatnot. They must have those in Boston, right?” Which Billy flatters himself is a neutral way of asking.
“I don’t know.” Deke clamps his teeth on a piece of bacon and tugs it back and forth.
“Sound like something you’d be up for? Oh. Cool. They’re doing The Planets today. That’s this piece of music where each part is about a different planet. You want to check it out?”
“No, thank you,” Deke says, chewing.
“Hmm. Looks like pretty slim pickings otherwise. Our alternative would be just to go home and hang out.”
Deke crams the rest of the bacon into his mouth and nods.
On the way home they stop at the video place and return Top Hat, whose plot Deke hadn’t been able to follow, and take out Star Trek IV, the whale one. Billy steals a glance over the top of the louvered doors into the back room, where all the covers have bodies with the same shade of tan. He happens to know they stock a few gay videos, in a section called ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES. But this will have to be a distant good.
They spend most of the afternoon playing Candyland, during which Billy gets to listen to Tatiana Nikolayeva’s Shostakovich preludes and fugues. God knows what this Shostakovich obsession is about; anyhow, it’ll run its course. He hits the Cherry Pits again and again, and Deke wins three straight games. During the fourth game, Billy starts feeling cooped up—which couldn’t have to do with losing at Candyland—and they go out in the yard and toss the little rubber football around. Most of his throws bounce off of Deke, and Deke’s return throws either fall short or go wide. But Billy says “Good arm” and “That’s the way” whenever it’s remotely applicable. Then they go back in—Billy checks the answering machine: nothing—and watch Star Trek IV. Deke doesn’t follow this one either, but at least it’s in color and feels contemporary. The first week Deke was here, Billy rented a compilation of ’30s farm-animal cartoons: pecking chickens making typewriter sounds, that sort of thing. When he was little he used to love this stuff. After a couple of minutes Deke said, “Do we have to watch this?” What was bizarre was that Billy instantly saw how crude and depressing it was.
Since they had a late breakfast instead of lunch, Billy calls Domino’s and has them deliver a pizza around five. Afterward he gets Deke into the tub and starts straightening up. The actual vacuuming he puts off until Deke’s in bed; it’s the chore that seems the most housewifely, that he most dislikes being seen at. He still uses his mother’s old Hamilton Beach, a low gray cigar-blimp on casters that whines like a jet engine.
Into p.j.’s, brush teeth. Dry his hair. While he’s picking out his bedtime books, make sure all his stuff’s in his backpack for school tomorrow. And that’s the weekend.
On Monday morning, Billy’s on the phone with some technophobe who’s whining that Windows is defective because when he tries to drag and drop icons on his desktop they won’t stay put. “Okay, go to your START button,” he says, and his other line lights up. “Sorry, could you hold just a second?” Dennis, perhaps, at long last? He hits HOLD, then 4427.
“Billy?” Cassie. “Listen, I’m in Albany. Can you meet me for lunch?”
“You what? Look, can you hold? Let me get rid of this call.” He hits HOLD, then the blinking 4426, and tells the technophobe “a small emergency” has come up and he’ll transfer him to somebody who can help him out. He hits the blinking 4427.
“Cassie?”
“None other.”
“What’s going on?” Crap: he forgot to transfer the guy. “Why aren’t you—”
“They let me have a whaddya-call-it. I have to be back by six-thirty. Poor Billy—I scared the hell out of you, didn’t I? So can we have lunch? There’s something I really need to ask you and it’s, sort of, not for the telephone. Shit, I’m making this sound heavy and it’s really not.”
“Jesus, I wish you’d—sure. Yeah. I mean I’d love to see you.”
“I’ll bet. But really, I’m a lot, lot better. I promise you, this is not going to be painful.”
“I’m just surprised is all. If you’d—”
“I know, I know. Like, how can they let her out if she’s going to go right back to her impulsive behavior?” Billy hears her sigh. “It’s not like that, believe me.”
“So where did you want to meet?”
“Doesn’t matter. Actually, you know where I’d like to go? Now, this is crazy. That HoJo’s where we used to go with Mom and Dad.”
“That’s bizarre,” Billy says.
“How so?”
“Because I just—you know, took Deke there.”
“Oh.” Silence. “So. How is he?”
“He’s good.”
“Are you judging me for not asking about him first thing? I can tell you are. Shit. See, I knew that was a mistake. I didn’t want to seem like I was pushing, but I can see how you might think, you know, that I was, like—”
“Don’t tie yourself up in knots. I’m not judging you, and Deke’s doing fine.”
“I.e., better than with me.”
“Well. Better than back then.”
“Oh,” she says. “Tough love.”
“You asked. I mean, don’t you think so?”
“No, you’re right,” she says. “See? I’m learning.” She sighs again. “But you’re not impressed.”
“Can we save this?�
��
“That’s the question, isn’t it? But you mean for over lunch. Save the bullshit for over lunch. Because you’re busy at work. Don’t worry, Billy, I’ll be good. Now, what time?”
“What’s good for you?”
“And the hits just keep on coming. What’s good for me. Twelve-thirty. Twelve-thirty is good for me. She says decisively. So I’ll see you then, at HoJo’s?”
“How are you getting there? I mean, how did you get here?”
“Rented a car. That’s another thing, I have to return the car by six o’clock. So you’re covered six ways from Sunday, kiddo.”
Billy has to ask. “Had you planned to try to see Deke?”
“Had I planned, to try, to see Deke. Whew. You put that so beautifully. You really are a word person, Billy. You’re wasting yourself in computers. God, it’s like … No. Short answer: no. That would just be too much. For everybody concerned. Don’t you think?”
“I do, actually. But it’s your decision.”
“Damn right,” she says. “Not to put you on notice or anything.”
“So I’ll see you at twelve-thirty.” He looks at the corner of his screen: 10:38.
“Unless you get lucky,” she says. “That would be a novelty. Believe me, Billy, if I could go in there and sit across from me and handle this whole thing for you, I’d gladly do it.”
“What are you going to do between then and now?”
“Wow, I’ve really got you worried. That must be the way I like it. No, that must be the way you like it. Actually, there’s a Big Book meeting at the Episcopal church in Colonie. At eleven, so I better hustle. And when that lets out I’m going to stop by the Barnes & Noble on Wolf Road. Is that really the only Starbucks? In the Barnes & Noble?”
“Hey, at least we’ve got one,” Billy says. “We’re getting there, slowly but surely.”
“What’s this we?”
“Oh, I don’t know—the civic ‘we.’ We of Greater Albany often talk this way.”
“Hey, Billy?” she says. “Don’t think I don’t worry about you, too.”
When he pulls into the parking lot, he sees her just getting out of a no-color Dodge Stratus with a paper cup in her hand. She looks right, then left, then shrugs and tosses it back into the car. She’s wearing sunglasses, a blue blazer and khaki pants, and she’s had a recent hundred-dollar haircut, judging by how perfectly the ends curve under. Billy noses into a parking space and watches her stride, long-legged, to the door, a briefcase dangling from a shoulder strap, hairdo bouncing as if in slow motion. She looks like she’s overplaying it, not that he’s any judge of where the ideal midpoint would be.
When he comes in she’s talking to the greeter girl. If this is the same one as yesterday (which Billy wouldn’t swear to), now she’ll have got the complete picture: the divorced father meeting with the estranged wife to see if there isn’t a chance after all. Can we save this? The girl leads her to the same booth he and Deke had yesterday; Cassie sits and immediately picks up her menu.
“Hey,” Billy says, walking over, smiling. “You look great.”
She looks up, smiles. “Hey. Gee, you too. Fatherhood doesn’t seem to be grinding you down.” She frowns and goes back to the menu.
Billy sits down and examines her face. In one corner of her mouth, the lipstick looks like a kid has colored outside the line—the result, probably, of freshening up in the rearview mirror. Otherwise she looks perfectly plausible. And young. His beautiful sister, who always liked the same boys he did.
“Deke’s easy,” he says. “We’re having a good time.”
“Easy for you, you mean?” She closes her eyes, opens them, nods.
“Look, I’m just glad I was there to step in.”
A waitress appears. “Do you need more time?”
Billy guesses Cassie will hear a double-entendre in that, too.
“No, we’re ready—I’m ready,” she says. “I’ll have the hamburger platter. And coffee.”
Billy looks at Cassie. She shrugs. “Hmm,” he says. “Can I just get a BLT? Whole wheat, no mayo? Coffee also.” The waitress scrawls and goes. “Red meat?” he says.
“It’s my new thing,” Cassie says. “I mean—not red meat. But just deciding something and sticking with it. That’s a big part of my problem.”
“Deciding things?” This doesn’t seem quite dead-center.
“Well, not that per se. Are you going to start twisting everything?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to sound—”
“I don’t mean twisting, that sounds paranoid, but, you know, reacting. It’s like you’re still trying to find out what’s wrong with me. Well, I guess that sounds paranoid, too. I’m not getting off to a very good start, am I?”
“Sssh.” He holds up a hand. “I can tell you’re doing better.”
“Oh, I am. I really am. You can’t shake my faith in that.” She gives a smile to indicate this is a joke. Then she frowns. “I’m fucking up. I came to ask you a very big favor—two very big favors, actually—and now I’m acting hostile to you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Well, that’s nice of you to say.”
The waitress sets their coffees down.
“So what are these very big favors?” he says. He decides not to point out that on the phone she had said this was nothing heavy.
“Look, I know you’re already doing me a huge favor by taking care of Deke, and I appreciate it that you’re not, like, grinding that into my face. Now, I didn’t want to ask you this on the phone because you don’t know who might be listening—I said might be, Billy. But do you think you could possibly go and clean out my apartment? Before I have to go back there?”
“Well—I mean I could. But it’s kind of a trek into Boston. I’d be more than glad to pay somebody to go in there. Didn’t you use to have that woman from—”
“Billy. I don’t mean like scrub-a-dub-dub.”
“Oh.”
“I can tell you exactly where everything is. And you should just feel free to go ahead and use it if you want. I mean, it’s all really good, and I hate to think of it just getting flushed. Or if you’re not into it, you must still know people who like to party.”
“Well …”
“Oh, you look so scandalized. For God’s sake, I’m an addict, I recognize that, but I’m not a fucking puritan.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I am. Anyway, sure. I could go take care of it next weekend. Would that be soon enough?”
“Oh, that would be great. Thank you so, so much.”
“I’ll have to figure out something to do with Deke.”
“Why don’t you just take him along? At this point it would probably be a good idea to sort of reintroduce him to the apartment. He can watch TV or play in his room. I don’t have anything in there.”
“Thank heaven for little mercies.”
“Yeah, okay, I don’t need you to give me shit, Billy. I know exactly what I did. And didn’t do. I just need your help.”
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be a prick. I just, I don’t know, care about him, and I get sort of protective. My motherly instinct.”
“You mean you need to protect him from me.” She nods her head. “Okay. I had that coming. I mean, you’re absolutely right. Which kind of brings me to my other favor.”
“Which is?”
“Well … Just if you’d still stay involved.”
“Involved?”
“I mean, he’s never had a father, or really any kind of man around except for, like, people that … You know. And now that he has you, and if that’s suddenly taken away …”
“You mean you’re going to take him back.”
Cassie cocks her head and stares at him. “Well, what did you think?”
“Oh. I don’t mean, I mean I always assumed that you—”
“Did you think I was never coming out?”
“I actually didn’t think at all, you know, in the long term. I’ve just sort of been going along d
ay by day. How sure are you that you’ll be able to handle it?”
“Billy,” she says. “You didn’t have it in mind to fight me on this?”
“You mean legally?” He shrugs. “You’re his mother. I’m his faggot uncle.”
“Oh. So you have been thinking about it. What are you, preparing your little court case? ‘And then she asked me to take him along while I cleaned the drugs out of her apartment.’ ”
“Listen to yourself,” he says.
“Why? So even I would have to agree that I’m an unfit mother?”
The waitress is standing over them. “The hamburg platter?”
Cassie points at the tabletop in front of her and the waitress sets down an oval platter. Only the top of a bun is visible among the heaping french fries.
“BLT?”
Billy nods. A round plate, with chips.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“We’re fine,” Billy says.
“Enjoy your meal.” The waitress turns away so quickly Billy feels a breeze from her skirt.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Cassie says.
Billy lets the waitress get a couple of booths away. “Which one?”
“Any question, actually. ‘How’s Deke?’ ‘He’s fine.’ ‘Will you stay involved in his life?’ ‘We’ll have to see.’ ”
“That’s not what I said. Of course I want to stay involved. So you’re taking him back to Boston?”
“What have we just been talking about? Hello?” She drops her mouth open, idiot-style, and waves. “Yes. It’s where I live. When I’m among the living. So in other words, when I take him home, that’s too much of a trek, so you’ll never see him.”
“I’m not saying that.”
She takes a bite of her hamburger, chews. “Good burger,” she says. “Not. I’ll tell you one thing, though. This time I’m going to make it.”
