by David Gates
Billy eats a potato chip. “I don’t suppose you’d consider moving back here,” he says.
“Please.”
“I know, but think about it. The house is paid for, you and Deke could each have a room, you wouldn’t—”
“We’ve got rooms. At home. Besides, I’ve had that room.”
“We could switch. I’ll take your old room and you can have the big room.”
“Their bedroom?”
“Or you can switch with Deke. Take my old room. The piano’s still here, it needs—”
“That house is death.”
“That house,” he says, “is a three-bedroom house. For free. In a safe neighborhood. With decent schools. Also, Billy wouldn’t have to suddenly—”
“Yeah, I know the decent schools, too. It’s where I used to boot coke in the toilet stalls.”
“You could’ve done that anywhere. It was your choice. I didn’t get into drugs.”
Cassie’s mouth drops open.
“Well, not like you did. Anyway, that was in high school. Deke’s only in second—”
“I’m not discussing this.” She stuffs a french fry into her mouth. “Mmm. Fries are good.”
“So Boston’s better.”
“Better than Greater Albany? Yeah, I’d say so. Listen, I changed my mind. I want to see my boy.”
“School doesn’t let out until three,” Billy says. “I thought you had to be back by six.”
“No, I don’t want him to see me. Can’t we just go over to the school and peek in the classroom?”
“Not a good idea.”
She gives him a quick shark smile. “Do you understand that I could call the police any time and say you’re molesting him?”
Billy looks at her and nods. “Nice.” Keeps nodding. “A truly lovely way to repay me.”
“Oh, I thought you were too much of a saint to worry about being paid back. It’s not reward enough, just feeling superior?”
“Cassie, why are you being so ugly?”
“Because I want to see my son, Billy, and you’re giving me all this shit. Why can’t we just go over and watch them come out for afternoon recess?”
“Line up behind the fence with all the pedophiles?”
“And the dope pushers,” Cassie says. “You know, I don’t need your permission. I know the way over there. I could drive it blindfold.”
“Look. If we do this, I want you to—”
“Yay!” Cassie puts a fist in the air.
On the other side of the fence, kids are running and yelling, swinging and seesawing, swarming over the old jungle gym, a skeleton dome of smooth, dull gray pipes. Far across the still-green playing field, a pickup truck’s parked by where they’re building a modern playground with rubber mats and pressure-treated timber—so far away that you see a workman’s hammer fall, then hear the clink on the upswing.
Billy points. That’s Deke: in the blue-jean jacket, seesawing with a little girl.
“He plays with girls?” Cassie says.
“Yeah,” Billy says. “He must’ve caught it from the toilet seat.”
“You laugh. But you shared a bathroom with me all those years, and you ended up fucking men.”
“Okay, now I believe you’re Cassie.” He looks at his sister, her hair tucked up into his Diamond Dogs cap. “I was afraid an alien had taken over your body.”
“God, don’t even joke about it. Listen, what’s he going to be for Halloween?”
“I thought I’d dress him up as Carol Channing. No, actually, how about a space alien?”
“Billy. Jesus.”
“Sorry. I’ve kind of had my eye on this Barney costume, but he doesn’t seem to be into it.”
“Actually, a space alien would probably be great. He’s big into X-Files.”
“Really.” Billy means this as a shot of disapproval, quick enough to be undiscussable. “By the way, if it’s any comfort, remember that I only played with boys when I was his age.”
“Come on,” she says. “I was only kidding. I’m not a total right-winger.”
“No comment. But if you want to know, my special faggot radar hasn’t picked up any queer vibes from him.”
“Stop.”
“So you’ve seen enough? I mean, there he is. So you know I wasn’t bullshitting you about his being alive and well. Or do you want to take this to the next level?”
Cassie hasn’t taken her eyes off of Deke. “No,” she says. She closes her eyes. “I’ve got to get back. I’ve got to get the damn car back.”
He walks her over and opens her door. She stands there, still looking at the playground. “It’s weird being here,” she says. “That has to be the same jungle gym. How can you stand it?”
He shrugs. “See, I’m so used to it now that it seems weird I ever thought it was weird.”
“Then you are in deep shit.”
A bell rings, and kids start racing for the door.
“You sure you don’t want to stop by the house for a second?” he says. “See how it feels?”
“No. You’re really creeping me out, Billy. I mean, I don’t mean to judge you.”
“Yeah, God forbid. So I’m still not clear on when exactly … you know.”
“Me either. But I definitely plan to be home before Christmas.”
“Okay, that gives me some idea. Speaking of which, I guess we should plan to do a celebration. It’s kind of down to the three of us.”
“Definitely. Well, we’ll talk, okay? I really better hit it.” She turns the key in the ignition, then stops. “Billy? Wouldn’t you even consider moving to Boston?”
“I’m always up for considering. But you mean would I? I doubt it. I’ve had the urban experience.” Diplomatic of him, not going into New York versus second-rate cities.
“I was just thinking, we could sort of be a family. I mean, not that we’re not, but—”
“Until your next beau comes along.”
“You might find a beau, too, you know. The odds are a lot better in a place like Boston.”
“Do I want a beau?”
“Don’t you?”
“I think I’m suffering from beau burnout.”
“Then I guess you’re in the right place.” Cassie starts the engine.
“Gee, sounds like the last lifeboat’s going over the side,” Billy says.
“If you weren’t so smart—”
“With Leonardo DiCaprio waving me a wistful goodbye.”
“—you’d be a lot better off.” She looks back at the now empty schoolyard. “At least in the short run.”
“Is there any other run?” Billy says. “I mean in the long run?”
On Saturday morning they stop at the car wash as a way of making their trip to Boston an occasion; in Billy’s real life, a clean car is just more middle-class crap-o-rama. Going through with Deke reminds him of how exciting he used to find it: the King Lear hurricanoes driving against the windshield, the giant whirling brushes at the front and sides, the mysterious rubber fringe as you enter the region of winds and bright lights, then sadly out into the world again. Billy drops quarters into the vacuum and lets Deke do his own side—and doesn’t criticize when Deke only rubs the mouth back and forth across a single patch of floor.
Then they stop at CVS to pick up the pictures; if there’s a decent one of Deke, he’ll buy a Lucite frame and leave it on Cassie’s night table. But when he opens the envelope, all twenty-four prints show nothing but brownish murk. Last stop is Hojo’s: breakfast here eventually might’ve become a little tradition, and maybe to Deke it already is. But he has to say, the kid’s being a pain in the ass this morning. Complains they never made the pumpkin pie like Billy promised. Wants the pancakes but wants the oatmeal too, and whines that it isn’t fair to have to choose. Over the long haul, living at this level of detail—Hegelian agonies over every fucking choice of food or garment or activity—would wear down Mother Teresa. It almost makes him feel some belated sympathy for the old man.
Heading sou
th to pick up the Mass Pike, Billy explains that when he was a kid, the Pilgrim hats on the Mass Pike signs used to have Indian arrows sticking through them. “Cool,” Deke says. But it’s only good for a second’s interest. The fact is, the arrows aren’t there. They play I Spy, then the game where you have to spot the letters of the alphabet in order on signs and license plates; Billy lets Deke win, averting his eyes from the X on an exit sign lest the kid throw another shit fit. But eventually the big breakfast, Biber’s Mystery Sonatas and warm sunshine in his face put Deke back to sleep, and Billy’s free to think.
But all he can think about is the next time they’ll make this drive, a month from now maybe. One last HoJo’s breakfast, one last Deke-and-Billy expedition. Billy will hang with them in Boston for a while, they’ll all do something together—the Aquarium, a movie, an early dinner—and at some point he’ll ease out of the picture. And after that? A gay man, about to turn thirty-three, alone in a suburb of Albany. In his parents’ house. In his parents’ bed. What you do about that, of course, is you find somebody quick. (Dennis, the little prick, never called back.) There’s a couple of possibles. Older guy, status unknown, who works a couple of cubicles down. Chatty pony-tailed waiter in a restaurant on Lark Street—or he was there, before Deke came along. What you don’t do is get into porn on the Internet. You don’t get a cat. You could possibly get a dog, but not a small dog.
You could move to Boston.
He thinks he’ll try to do what he’s attempted so often: actually listen to a piece of music all the way through, move by move by move, without his attention wandering. He bumps the Biber back to Track 1.
Deke wakes up cranky and thirsty, so they stop at a service area. In the Roy Rogers Billy buys him a carton of milk, which Deke always chooses over soda. Does he drink so much milk because he has a calcium deficiency? (Due to Cassie’s neglect?) Did Billy drink this much milk as a kid? Can’t remember, though he does recall his father’s scolding him for bubbling it. He gets himself a coffee and finds them an empty table. He’s in no hurry to get to Boston, and he’s truly not looking forward to ferreting out and flushing his sister’s drugs. And no matter what she said, he imagines he’ll be doing some scrub-a-dub-dub. On the other hand, he can’t wait to park the nephew in front of a TV. He’s spent the last month making conversation with a seven-year-old.
“You know who Roy Rogers was?” he hears himself say.
Deke shakes his head. Bracing for more ancient history.
“He was the King of the Cowboys.”
“Cool,” Deke says, though the epithet must communicate even less to him than it does to Billy.
“His real name was Leonard Slye,” Billy says.
Deke’s making a snake by twisting up his straw wrapper. He touches a drop of milk from the end of his straw to the paper and it begins to writhe. We don’t do that, Billy should say—except he taught him this trick. He could tell the story of Laocoön and his sons, except all he really knows is the image of the naked man and naked boys, struggling with the serpent. The hydra, whatever. When Billy was little, he found the picture arousing—he spent lots of time looking at Greek and Roman statuary in the encyclopedia—but he hopes Deke might be spared. Basically, it’s a fucked way to live. No pun intended. Though he also hopes the Aphrodite of Cyrene and whatnot won’t do it for Deke either. Imagine a lifetime of lusting after the likes of Pamela Anderson. Wouldn’t everybody of every persuasion be less unhappy if they all simply got fixed, like house pets? Lately, every time he uses his mother’s serrated bread knife, he pictures himself cutting off his own penis.
Back on the highway, Deke’s wide awake and whiny. “How come we have to go to Mommy’s?”
Had Billy been calling it Mommy’s—as opposed to home—or was this Deke’s own formulation? “We’re just going to clean up a little bit,” he says. “Make things nice for her when she gets back.”
“Is she going to be there?”
“Didn’t I just say when she gets back?” He almost adds Hello? Kid either doesn’t listen or doesn’t think.
“Sor-ry.” Deke’s never been insolent before. Billy looks over and sees he’s staring at his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to sound impatient. I thought you understood that she’s still in the hospital.” Billy decided when they moved Cassie that it was simpler not to get into the whole thing of what a halfway house was. “But I think you’ll be back home together before Christmas.”
No answer. Billy looks over again. Deke’s still staring down. Then he twists in his seat, wrenches at his door handle and tries to force the door open with his shoulder, but at sixty-five miles an hour, the wind resistance is too strong—and he’s forgotten he has his seat belt on. Billy cries “Hey!” and darts his arm across to grab at Deke’s door handle. A roar and rumble and shaking as the front wheel hits the warning strip of roughened pavement. Billy brakes hard, pulls over onto the shoulder and comes to a stop. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Deke glares at him. “I don’t want to.”
Billy can’t pretend not to understand. “You have to realize,” he says. Only now is his heart racing: the delayed adrenaline reaction that proves wise old Mother Nature’s looking out for us. “When Mommy comes out of the hospital, she’s going to be a lot better. The reason you sometimes had a bad time is because she was having such a bad time herself because she was sick. But she loves you so much.”
“But I want to be with you.”
Billy’s heart begins to slow down. He looks over at Deke. The pale skin, through which a blue vein shows at his temple. The soft hair that should’ve been trimmed weeks ago. The ragged, scuffed sneakers Billy’s been meaning to replace. So much need, and nobody else to help. He takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Well?” he says. “I’m here, right? I’m not going anywhere.” Kid doesn’t get it. Billy didn’t get it himself, until just now.
THE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD
When the subway door’s about to close, you hear these two tones, like the phoebe’s call: three one. I tried to find it once on the clarinet, out of curiosity, and all it is, it’s just a third. D down to B-flat, say. Yes, well, obviously the phoebe’s call is sweet and breathy and organic and all that good stuff; I’m talking about the interval. And yes, I know it’s cheap irony, this thing of juxtaposing urban and pastoral. What am I supposed to do, not notice it? And, again yes, I know the Robert Frost thing about how the phoebes wept or didn’t weep or whatever the fuck. You know, what don’t I know?
I know, for example, that my daughter now has a piano, a Yamaha, but a good Yamaha supposedly, and has begun taking lessons. Sometimes when I call, I’ll hear the piano going. Lately Carrie won’t talk to me, and Laura covers for her as gracefully as can be expected. Oh, she’s so earnest about her practicing, it’s so dear to see it, this and that. So I’ll be getting the latest from Laura but really listening to Carrie playing “Lightly Row” or “Swans on the Lake,” and sometimes reverting to “Chopsticks.” Lots of fun, easy for everyone. And I know her teacher still uses the John Thompson book; Greenfield, Massachusetts, is a fucking backwater. Which of course is why it’s basically good that she’s growing up there and not here. Among other things, she stands a better chance of not getting an X-Acto knife held to the side of her neck and being told Give it up, bitch, which happened the other day to the woman who answers the phone for me and the two other assistant deans. When Laura told me that she and Walt planned to move to Greenfield, what could I say? After all, she and I had had a backwater of our own, though ours wasn’t quite so Bedford Falls. We’d agreed that it was essential (we meant desirable) to have someplace to bring a kid to. If only on weekends, assuming we couldn’t get out of the city for real. If we ever had a kid.
Our backwater was in this depressed part of Pennsylvania. Hey, that narrows it down. Two hours and fifty minutes, we used to tell people, not adding that this was from the GW Bridge. A beat-to-shit farmhouse on the last five acres of the origin
al hundred; with our two salaries we could just about swing it. Gray asphalt shingles we were going to replace with clapboards. Among all the other plans. What ended up getting done was having the kid and ripping up the wall-to-wall carpeting. Okay, I’ll stop with the hard-boiled tone. But the house and Carrie did go together. Laura must’ve thought so, too, since she chose it as the setting for her announcement. This was on a Thursday, in July. She called me at my work from her work and asked if we couldn’t both get off early, drive out to the farm (as we called it) that afternoon and call in sick the next day. I said, “Absolutely. Fuck this.” It was like ninety-five degrees, and when you looked along the street you saw brown air all the way up the sky. Which gives you an idea of how young I was, thinking we deserved better air than other people.
So we drove out and I cut the grass while she made dinner. I was finishing the last little bit by the toolshed when she appeared holding a tall glass in each hand as if she were—forget it, no stupid similes. She was a vision. A vision of herself. She handed me mine, then went and sat in a lawn chair with her legs tucked under her, bare feet pasted with grass blades. The air smelled of new-mown lawn, and every once in a while a phoebe whistled those two soft notes: three one. So am I wringing your heart yet? I took a sip and said, “Holy shit. If yours is as strong as mine, I hope you’ve finished the chopping and slicing.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Enjoy it. You’re going to have to be drinking for two for a while.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
And enough of that story.
The big news these days is that I’ve started fooling around with the clarinet again. In high school, I played in a Dixieland band that did “At the Jazz Band Ball” and “Midnight in Moscow,” but in my junior year I sold the clarinet to buy an electric guitar and like an idiot gave away all my jazz records that weren’t post-Parker. Even Ambassador Satch, the first album I ever bought, with all this amazing work by Edmond Hall. These days I buy nothing but early-jazz CDs, and some of the restorations sound so clear they bother me: I’m used to a hiss between me and the music. And for the last year or so I’ve been getting together with these guys on Thursday nights. Andy, a doctor in real life, plays okay trumpet (Punch Miller is his man), and we’ve got a good trombone player named James. I forget what he does; real estate or something. A pothead who thinks he’s discreet, going to the bathroom two or three times a practice.
