The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac

by Kris D'Agostino

  “They had to remove the bullet,” she says. “Small surgery.”

  “What day is it?”

  “It’s Tuesday,” she says. “You slept most of yesterday.”

  “Did I say anything funny?” I ask.

  “People always say funny things when they’re on morphine,” my mother says. “Your father recited plotlines from Law & Order.”

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “He’s at home,” she says. “He’s embarrassed to see you. He feels so guilty.”

  “I’m not mad at him,” I say. “He needs help, Mom.”

  “We all do,” my mother says.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “In the end, nothing,” my mother says. “Cops came. They took the gun, brought him to the station. The Hillmans wouldn’t press charges, so they let him go. Naturally, his pistol permit has been revoked.”

  “It’s so humiliating being part of this family.”

  “You were passed out,” she says. “I was the one who had to go fetch him.”

  The pain in my shoulder fluctuates from mild to excruciating.

  “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “I don’t know,” my mother says.

  “Work?”

  “I called them. Spoke to a wonderful woman. They completely understand.”

  “They’re always so understanding.”

  “They said to rest up and everything will be waiting for you when you go back.”

  “I’m hungry,” I say.

  “I’ll get you something,” my mother says.

  “Can you bring me some paper, too?” I ask.

  “Sure, dear,” she says, and she is gone.

  THE PAIN MEDICATION they have me on causes strange thought patterns that I want to capture for transcription into my notebook at a later time.

  Junior year of college I spent a week in North Carolina visiting my classmate Doug Gordon. We were close then, but I’ve lost touch with him since.

  Life is constantly turning on itself and eating up the spot where it was only moments before. Life as Ouroboros. Life as inescapable tedium. Life as family. Maybe that’s the whole point.

  I remember the drive down from Durham to the town where Doug lived. It was a long stretch of old road where most of the houses had front yards littered with mattresses, rusting car chassis. I wanted to live in those houses. The people were free inside there, I could just tell. They lived like free people.

  We wasted a lot of time in Chapel Hill. At the university there.

  We’d walk through the quad, admiring the Douglas fir. We’d pick out the best-looking girls as they rushed from one class to the next, holding their books like babies, and then we’d complain about how unapproachable they seemed. We’d sit against the mossy stone walls lining the campus and discuss the fact that our ilk seemed nowhere to be found. We were supremely alone, dejected young men and we felt it was better that way. I feel this still. I feel it now, in the hospital, recovering from a gunshot wound to my shoulder, administered by my own father. I feel I belong here. It was, in all likelihood, inevitable that I follow him.

  IT ENDS UP being another day before they send me home. I leave the hospital just after 9 a.m., my right shoulder encased in mounds of gauze and tape, a sling keeping the whole mess in place.

  My father drives in with Chip to pick me up. They have Emma with them. She goes into a frenzy when I get in the car, pounces into my lap, licking my face.

  “They gave me drugs,” I say.

  Percocet and Tylenol with codeine. All I had to do to get them was complain about the pain in my arm and wince whenever I was in a doctor’s presence. It is the first time I have legitimately scored prescription drugs. I shake one of the bottles with my good hand.

  “Share,” Chip says from the backseat. “My legs are killing me from the gym.”

  “Get your own,” I tell him.

  “Your mother thought it would be a good idea for me to come,” my father says.

  “I seem to recall you saying something about not taking orders from Mom,” I tell him.

  “Maybe I wanted to come,” he says.

  “It’s a nice day,” I say.

  “You hate me?” my father asks.

  “I don’t hate you,” I say. “I don’t hate you at all,” I tell him again. “I’m just tired.”

  “We’re all tired, I think,” he says.

  “Business as usual for this family,” Chip says.

  “Shut up,” my father says.

  Emma throws her front paws up on the window and stares at the taxis whizzing by on the FDR.

  << 28 >>

  She steals my sock. I chase her through the kitchen, into the dining room, out to the living room. She scampers under the piano and won’t come out. I see her under there, the sock dangling from her mouth. She looks at me.

  “Give me the sock, you shithead,” I tell her. I get down on my knees, pain shoots up through my shoulder, and I pause to adjust the sling. I reach with my left arm, my good arm, and try to grab her. She backs up against the wall, out of reach. When I crawl under the piano, she bolts to the side, rounds the corner back into the kitchen.

  “The dog has my sock,” I call out. I remember I am home alone, having opted out of a family trip to the mall. “Fuck,” I say.

  I back out from under the piano. I stand up too quickly and bang my shoulder. The pain is excruciating. I roll on my back, squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I can. When I open them, I see tiny points of light everywhere I look.

  It takes me forever to stand up. Despite my pledge to do fewer drugs, the pain drives me to the bathroom, where I take a Percocet. Surely I’m allowed such indiscretions following a gunshot wound?

  I look at the scrap of paper hanging from the mirror, a giant letter S inscribed on it. I throw it in the garbage. I flush the toilet for no reason.

  “That asshole should have come by,” I say.

  I DRIVE TO his house. I remember the way. I speed up the curling streets of Croton, climbing higher and higher, away from the twinkling Hudson. Turning the wheel is awkward with one hand, and it’s painful. I’m not supposed to be driving. I’m supposed to be taking it easy.

  I park. I watch the porch for a while. I watch the windows. I look for signs of movement inside, a signal of some kind, telling me what to do next. My arm is throbbing from shoulder to elbow. I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. I leave the keys in the ignition. I get out and walk across the front lawn and march up the steps. I stand on the porch, ringing the bell. I don’t know what I plan to do. It feels like a long time goes by before the lock turns and the big red door swings open and Bjorn is standing there in gym shorts and a tank top. Wild, sweaty hair is matted all around his forehead. He is breathing heavy.

  “You?” he says.

  “Me,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Why are you all sweaty?”

  He looks behind him.

  “I was on the treadmill,” he says.

  “Elissa Moretti,” I say.

  “What about her?”

  “You should have come by. To see how she’s doing. See how they’re doing.”

  He looks at me for a moment. His mouth is turned up a little at the ends, like he’s smiling, but he isn’t smiling.

  “What?” he says.

  “You should have come by,” I tell him. I hit him in the face as hard as I can with my good arm, my good hand. I’ve never punched anyone in my life. It feels okay. The dull sound of knuckle hitting cheekbone. An intense pain rockets up my forearm. He falls to one knee and I’m on top of him. His arms are around my waist, and we hit the deck, flop around on top of one another. My arm comes loose from the sling. It’s all gone numb. Something jerks me and I’m being dragged to my feet from behind.

  “Just hold on a minute,” a man’s voice is saying.

  And at the same time, Bjorn is yelling, “This guy is fucking crazy.” He spits blood. He holds a hand to his bleeding lips.

  “Get
your hands off me,” I say. I wave my good arm and squirm until the man releases his grip. I stumble a few feet. I nearly fall.

  I turn and swing my arms, warding them both off. I feel the wound opening under the bandages. The warm sensation of fresh blood, the slipperiness of it.

  “Son,” the man says, “you’re in a world of trouble.”

  “He fucking punched me,” Bjorn says in disbelief.

  I stand there, catching my breath, clutching my shoulder, pressing hard against the gauze beneath my sweater.

  “Go get the phone,” Bjorn’s father says. “Call the police.”

  “I’m bleeding,” Bjorn says.

  “Just do it,” his father says.

  “You do it,” Bjorn says. He spits more blood. “I’m gonna kick his ass.” He advances toward me. His father grabs him by the shirt and drags him through the front door, into the house.

  “Call the police,” he says. “Now.”

  My bearings are coming back to me. I turn and run as fast as I can to the hatchback. I fumble for a second with the handle, then I’m inside and I’m shutting the door and I’m starting the engine and I’m wrenching into first gear and peeling off. I look in the rearview mirror, half expecting Old Man Copeland to bolt into the street after me. He doesn’t. Just houses and trees, getting smaller and smaller, and then I’m through a stop sign and around a corner and I’m gone.

  THE FOUR WINDS HOSPITAL is set back behind black wrought- iron gates. From the road, I see brick through the trees. Soothing glimpses of the vast, secluded complex. I see swatches of roof. Shingling, old and noble. It has the feel of a college campus. Ivy growing over brick.

  I drive up past the main entrance. The grounds are littered with patients and nurses out taking midafternoon strolls. An elderly man, hunched over a walker, is escorted by a young lady in pink scrubs toward a bench near a small pond. Others, many others, are being led to various resting places. Tranquil spots selected to promote relaxation and recovery. Momentary escape from inside thoughts. I look to see if Aunt Corrine is among those permitted access to fresh air. She is nowhere in sight.

  I put on my turn signal even though there aren’t any other cars in sight. I coast into the visitors’ parking lot. I sit for a moment, listening to the radio. I turn off the radio. My face hurts, and from the looks of it I’ll have a black eye soon, though I don’t remember Bjorn getting any shots in. My arm hurts. My sling is in tatters. I jury-rig it into working condition. Both my hands ache.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask the rearview mirror.

  I take the keys out of the ignition and walk across the lawn.

  The lobby smells like a library. Stale paper and ancient wood. There is sweet, gentle Muzak coming from speakers in the ceiling. Low tones, calming and jarring at the same time. A girl in a swivel chair behind the reception window spins toward me as I approach, as if she senses my movements before I make them. I look at her. We share an unspoken bond and I feel a stirring in my stomach that gives me hope. This girl can see my weakness. She will accept me and show me to a place, a room, a support group, a doctor’s office. She will tell me why I am here. She will help find the missing pieces. And if she can’t do these things personally, she knows who can. She knows what to do. I am safe in her hands.

  “Hi there,” the girl says. Her name tag reads “Veronica.”

  “Hello, Veronica,” I say.

  “Can I help you?” she asks.

  “My aunt is a patient,” I say. “I was hoping I could say hello to her.”

  “Of course,” this girl, Veronica, says. Her eyes seem to dance in her head. She wears a necklace. A small silver butcher’s knife dangling between her breasts, inside the collar of her blouse. She is looking at me with concern.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “You look like you got the shit kicked out of you.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. I touch my face. I touch my lip. “I’m fine,” I say again.

  “You don’t look fine,” Veronica says.

  “Maybe a bathroom?”

  “It’s right there,” she says, pointing down the hall behind me.

  I run cold water and splash my face a few times. I stick out my tongue and look for something, although I’m not sure what exactly I’m looking for. My eyes are tired. I do look like I’ve had the shit kicked out of me. I head back out to the lobby.

  “You look the same,” Veronica tells me.

  “I feel the same.”

  “What’s your aunt’s name?”

  I look at her necklace. I look into her dancing eyes.

  “Corrine Jones.”

  Veronica punches some keys on her computer. She clicks her mouse.

  “Building Four. Across the lawn, near the gym.”

  “Thank you, Veronica,” I say.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I turn and leave. Back out to the lawn, the Muzak ringing dully in my ears.

  Because of a genetic malfunction in her ovaries, Aunt Corrine was forced to adopt. A baby girl she named Grace. Grace had black hair. Dark circles under her eyes at the age of nine. She was a few years older than me. Grace would babysit me sometimes. We’d play a game where Grace would put a toy car in her underwear and I would take it out. She’d put the car in my underwear and take it out.

  “You get hair down there,” Grace told me.

  “You don’t have any,” I said.

  “It’ll happen.”

  Grace went on to become a heroin addict. She dropped out of high school, had a kid before she turned twenty-one. I have no idea where she is now.

  A male nurse at reception in Building Four holds a clipboard. Glasses dangle from a chain around his neck. He shows me to Corrine’s room.

  “Four twenty-six is just at the end of the hall here and to your left,” he says, pointing with his pen. “Past the water fountain. You can’t miss it. Dinner is in half an hour, just so you know. Try not to stay too long.”

  “I won’t,” I say.

  I make as little noise as possible as I walk. I don’t want to disturb the delicate illusion of sanity hanging in the air. I let my heels fall slowly, purposefully. I bring my toes down gently. I try to breathe only when necessary.

  I stand outside her door for a long time. I knock, and when nothing happens, I turn the knob and go inside. Corrine is standing at the window, peering out at trees and landscaping. Green shrubbery. She looks at me, her movements slow and drawn out. She wears a pale green sundress, slippers. Her face is a map of lines and furrows. A bookshelf on the far wall is filled with knickknacks. Empty picture frames, porcelain animals.

  “Calvin,” she says.

  “Hi, Aunt Corrine,” I say.

  “I’m waiting for a new washer-dryer,” she tells me.

  I look at the door behind me.

  “How’s Grace?” I ask.

  “Can’t remember the last time I saw her.”

  “She doesn’t visit?”

  “Not once. I’m not even sure she knows I’m here. We don’t talk. She went to Rochester to be with the kid’s father.”

  “Jesus.”

  “God is here. I think.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “If you could feel the things I feel.”

  “All I feel is pain in my shoulder.”

  “What happened there?”

  “My father shot me. He’s going through some things. Trying to work them out.”

  “Jimmy always was a little odd,” Corrine says. She walks to the bookshelf and arranges a set of miniature bells in a straight line. “Even when he was younger,” she adds.

  “I didn’t know him then,” I say.

  “You know him now.”

  “So people don’t change?”

  “In my experience, they don’t.”

  “Is happiness achievable?”

  “I’m happy.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Is it any better out there?”

  “I think the general consens
us is that it’s better out there.”

  “They let me do whatever I want. I take swim classes. Sunday night movies in the community room. Refreshments. There’s even a nature trail. It’s quiet all the time.”

  “It’s never quiet in my house.”

  “That’s real life.”

  “I could use a break from it.”

  “There is no break.”

  “You’re taking a break.”

  Corrine sits on the bed. She bites her fingers. Outside, light is disappearing from the sky.

  “Is Lloyd seeing anyone new?” Corrine asks.

  “Lloyd’s dead.”

  “He is, isn’t he?”

  “For a while now. I’m sorry to have to keep reminding you.”

  “I like thinking about him,” she says.

  “I don’t know why I came.”

  “I’m glad for the company. I don’t see much of anyone. What’s the news out there?”

  “Trying to figure out how to hold on to our house,” I say.

  “Times are tough,” she says.

  “Family’s getting bigger,” I add.

  “Overeating?”

  “Elissa’s pregnant.”

  “She’s a bit young, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “Like Grace.”

  “Not really. Aunt Corrine?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I used to dread having to kiss you hello when I was little. I’m sorry for that.”

  “You did? Well, no worries. We can forget. We can just worry about right now.”

  I leave her then. I kiss her forehead slowly, and although the wrinkles of her brow are rough and leathery under my lips and she smells faintly of urine, I smile when I pull my face away. I hug her until she lets go. In truth, I hardly know this woman at all, but down some path of family lineage we share something. It is strange for me to show up like this, to be in her room, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

  I stop back at the main building on my way out and see Veronica, still seated behind her computer screen. She smiles when she sees me.

  “Hi there,” she says.

  “Hello again. So what’s involved in getting a room here?”

  “How long you planning to stay?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “You want two twins or queen size?”