Prodigal Sons

by Mike Miner

  His father sat in his usual chair, a somber expression on his face. He looked like a grocer, or a chef, or a restaurateur; a man who enjoyed a big meal and a few glasses of wine.

  Dad spoke first, “Well your brother went and fucked up again.” No real anger, just resignation.

  Mark had heard this tone before. Same chair. Same room. Maybe even the same sentence.

  Lucy sighed. There were threads of gray hair at her temples. Her nostrils flared, her big brown eyes trembled. Mom put an arm around her, hugging what Mark was sure was a cashmere sweater. He and his brothers had posed for prom pictures on that couch. He couldn’t remember two people sharing that couch for any other reason. He sat in the only unoccupied chair next to his father. He was glad he had those beers.

  “I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.” Lucy’s voice was thick, like she needed to clear her throat.

  “Shit,” Mark said, “What’d he do?”

  “A third DUI.” Dad almost laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. “Three,” he confirmed, holding up three fingers. “Did you hear anything about this? I only knew about the one in Boston.”

  “It’s news to me.”

  Mark didn’t blame his father for asking. Some things should stay between brothers. This sounded like something that should stay between husband and wife, but he could see that Lucy was at her wit’s end. Peggy would have killed him if he had pulled this shit. All three Flanagans watched Lucy with the same knowing sympathy. Welcome to the family, their looks said. Peggy looked confused. Like Mark, she probably wondered why Lucy was here and not at her parents’ house.

  “Has anyone talked to Matthew?” Since Lucy left, he wanted to add, but bit his tongue.

  Dad shook his head. “I’ve tried.” Mom could have been talking about a lot of things. Lord knew she’d tried over the years. .

  Lucy stared at the carpet along with everyone else until Mark came to a decision. “I’ll go out there.”

  Lucy’s face was full of wrinkled question marks.

  Peggy shook her head. “You aren’t going to California.” With the last syllable, her mouth stayed open.

  “If we haven’t heard from him by Monday, I’ll go out there.”

  Mark nodded as though still trying to convince himself. Scenes came to his mind. Part of him genuinely wanted to help his brother if he was in fact in trouble, but quite a bit of him needed to get away from his parents, needed a break from his job, from Peg, from winter, and this seemed like a gift-wrapped excuse to go as far away as possible. And a very small part of him didn’t want to miss the party of the century that might be happening over there on the West Coast.

  Dad chewed this over and the women watched to see what resulted. Mark watched too, but he was prepared to fight for this one and mentally, he was already packing his bags when dad spoke.

  “What will you do when you find him?”

  “I’ll improvise.”

  Dad smiled and narrowed his eyes in consideration. The only thing he could be considering, Mark figured, was whether or not he should go himself. Matthew and his father had had some epic battles over the years. Mark counted on his father not wanting to go another round with his wildest son. A son who, by the age of fifteen, had been too wild to live under the same roof as his father and spent three years proving it before screaming off to college at eighteen and never looking back. Mark wasn’t sure if he was up to it, but he’d made up his mind to give it a shot.

  For nearly five years Lucy had tried to corral her husband, and she didn’t look the better for it. Mark was aware that she and Peggy were watching him. He knew he’d have a fight on his hands with Peg, but he couldn’t tell what Lucy thought.

  Mr. Flanagan finally nodded.

  So it was decided. If no one heard from Matthew by Monday, Mark would fly out to LA to see what could be done. In the meantime, Lucy would stay here and not tell her parents yet. Mr. Flanagan motioned with his jaw, indicating that he and Mark would adjourn to the kitchen.

  When they got there, his father sighed. “Jesus Christ, what a fucking idiot.”

  Mark grinned and nodded.

  “You’d think this would be out of his system by now.”

  Mark shrugged. His father could never stop wondering what motivated his oldest son, but Mark had stopped trying to figure him out. He felt like a drink and knew his father did too, but wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate. “You think it’s as bad as she makes it sound?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s not good. He may be looking at doing time.”

  “You think? Christ, you think they’d lock a person up for that?”

  “It’s a different world these days, Dad.”

  “That it is.” His eyes looked somewhere else now. Mark guessed he was remembering some wild times of his own when he got nothing but an angry talking to from Papa Flanagan.

  “Why’d she come here?” Mark asked.

  “You know how we always kid about her father being connected to the mob?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I think she’s worried about what he might do to Matthew.”

  “Man,” was all Mark could think to say. He changed the subject. “So I’ll open up tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I’ll be in when I can.” He made a gesture meant to encompass this entire situation from the living room all the way to California.

  Mark nodded. “Whenever. I’ve got it covered.”

  With a grateful look in his eyes his father patted him on the shoulder. “I know you do, Son.” He was getting misty. Mark always felt uncomfortable when his father got sentimental. Matthew always seemed to bring this side of his father out from under his thick, sarcastic shell. Mark preferred the shell. A person could predict sarcasm, could count on it. Sentiment could make a man do anything and rarely the right thing. So he left his father in a sentimental mood, alone in the kitchen, thinking about his oldest son. Mark supposed he hated Matthew a bit as he walked back to the living room. It wasn’t a new feeling. He hated his brother often when they were growing up but he hadn’t felt it in a long time. Even three thousand miles away, Matthew could still be the center of attention.

  Lucy and Mom had made themselves scarce. Mark sat in a chair next to his wife and faced the firing squad of her gaze. Peggy had fierce green eyes surrounded by freckled Irish skin. A serious face, even when she smiled.

  Dad took a cork out of a bottle of wine and poured himself a glass. He stepped to his favorite leather chair in the family room and turned on the news. Upstairs, Lucy and Mom prowled. Peggy watched him—her square jaw flexed, her neck tense.

  “I need a beer. Want one?”

  She shook her head.

  In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and took inventory, settled on a German pilsner his father was fond of. He took the opener out of the drawer and popped the cap off. He took a sip and loosened his tie. Instead of going back to the family room, he pulled one of the wooden chairs out from under the kitchen table and took a seat, holding the bottle on the table with both hands. After a moment, Peggy came in and sat next to him. He offered her a sip. She took the bottle by the neck, sipped and handed it back to him. His mother didn’t drink beer and it always gave Mark a charge when he saw a woman take a sip. The taste of beer on a woman’s breath always struck him as carnal for some reason. He began playing with the label.

  Peggy looked over the sink out the window. They had met in second grade in Mrs. Gerald’s class. He remembered her blonde pig tails, and how he had enjoyed yanking them. When she started to lose an argument, she used to stick her tongue out at him, or sometimes fold her arms, lift her jaw and refuse to look at him no matter what he did—just like she was doing now.

  “Soon we’ll be in our own place.”

  He nodded.

  “I hope you don’t have to go to California.”

  “I know.”

  She took another sip of beer. He was tired of having to whisper when he wanted to have a conversation with his wife. He supposed she was ti
red of it too. He wondered what Matthew’s marriage was like at these times, in the quiet, just the two of them. Was there a lot left unsaid? He looked at Peggy. Was this the same girl he’d crushed on twenty years ago? He remembered their teacher, Mrs. Patrizzi, catching them making eyes at each other instead of paying attention to their lessons. He tried to think of the moment he’d known she was the one, but it eluded him.

  “I’m gonna go correct some papers.” She stood and pushed her chair in, then brushed her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. She taught math at Silk City High, calculus, algebra. Subjects Mark could barely remember.

  “Okay.” He hoped she knew how he felt.

  Dinner was quiet. Chicken Cordon Bleu, Mark’s favorite. He had two pieces. Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan sat at the heads of the dining room table. Mark and Peggy sat on one side. Lucy sat alone on the other and ignored her food and the conversation. She passed on dessert, banana cream pie. Mark had seconds.

  Later he drank a beer, watched SportsCenter and listened to everyone’s nightly bathroom rituals. The familiar sounds comforted him. He waited until Peggy was in bed to go through his routine.

  In his underwear and a t-shirt, he slid under the covers next to her. She wore her flannel pajamas. They felt soft against his bare legs as she turned toward him and kissed him. “Do you want to fool around?” he asked, more out of obligation than desire.

  “Sure.”

  He could tell she wanted him to take his time, savor it, but he was distracted. By the upcoming trip. By the constant need to be quiet. The thought of being gone, even for a little while, tantalized him. So he barreled ahead not taking her cues, her eyes wide with surprise at his rushed pounding. Her hands on his chest said, not yet, her still hips said, wait. Breathless, he finished. Too soon.

  A disappointed sigh. “I was hoping you wouldn’t be in such a hurry.”

  “I’m not.” But he was.

  It took them a long time to fall asleep.

  The store was always busy on Super Bowl Sunday. Mark wondered if he would miss the store, the daily trials and tribulations. He tried to look at his life as a stranger would. He examined the circus freaks his father and he employed at the store. Didn’t see himself missing them any more than Johnny Dollar seemed to miss his teeth.

  For the umpteenth time, Mark said, “Johnny, where are your goddamned teeth?”

  “Left my choppers in the car last night. They were too cold to put in this morning so I’m keeping them in my pocket.” He reached to grab them.

  “Do that in the bathroom, Johnny.”

  “Okay.”

  Jonathan Dolores had been his dad’s first employee; before the store was open, his mother had secured her son a job as a bagger. Johnny had just graduated high school. He had never been much for dental hygiene. Finally, the dentist, whose office was four doors down in the same plaza, had decided it would be easier to give Johnny dentures that he could just pop out and clean in a glass. As often as not, Johnny left his choppers at home and customers saw a gummy, pink grin as he loaded their groceries into their trunks or back seats and waved goodbye. It drove Mark to distraction that this was a customer’s last impression of the store, but it didn’t bother his father much and no one had complained. Most customers had a protective attitude about Johnny. He was a favorite of the older ladies in town, many of whom insisted that Johnny bag their groceries. Several old biddies told Mark that they would rather wait for Johnny than have him do it.

  In aisle four, Dad teased the Dolphin Lady. The Dolphin Lady had earned her nickname by insisting that the store carry only dolphin-safe tuna.

  “What is this, Geisha tuna? What is that?” she hollered. A pear-shaped woman built low to the ground, she had a habit of leaning her weight on her shopping cart.

  “I believe it’s a Japanese brand of tuna.”

  “Japanese? Those slopes don’t care about the dolphins.”

  “They aren’t the only ones.” Mr. Flanagan grinned.

  The Dolphin Lady kept a cane in her cart and she took a swing at Mr. Flanagan who easily dodged it. “Honestly, I don’t know why I come in here,” she said to the ceiling then noticed Mark. “Mark do you see how your father abuses his customers?”

  “Dad, haven’t I told you to behave yourself?”

  “You have, Son. I’m sorry.”

  “We are getting a new product in that you might appreciate, Florence,” Mark said.

  “Really?” Her eyes were wide.

  “Yes, it’s tuna-safe dolphin.”

  Mr. Flanagan burst out laughing.

  “I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You two are incorrigible.”

  She walked away in a huff. She tried to look back in anger but Mark saw a broad smile on her face. For just a moment, the smile seemed to transform her into a thirteen-year-old girl. He shared a private glance with his father; they kept their love of the store like a secret between them, never revealing to anyone else the bizarre fact that they never imagined doing anything else.

  Mr. Flanagan noticed the woman first. You could hear her coming a mile away. She was thin with short, dark hair and big ugly glasses. Her son was in the child seat of the shopping cart and she talked baby talk to him. The baby’s name was Charlie.

  “Well, Charlie, isn’t this a nice store? Look at all the nice fruit.” She filled a bag full of apples.

  “Keep an eye on that one,” Mr. Flanagan said.

  She kept it up at every department, raved to her son about the quality of the store and the staff. “Look at those steaks! Smell that bread!” Mark kept her in his line of sight, stayed busy straightening end displays. After Jack, the head butcher, waited on her at the meat department, Mark walked behind the counter. “Something funny about that broad,” Jack said.

  “I hear you.”

  When the woman got to the front, she got in the line with Jane, one of their best cashiers. When it came time to pay, she started to write a check, and Mark let out a long sigh. To her credit, Jane caught his eye. He walked behind the register and Jane pointed to the list of the names of bad check writers. The name on this check was first on the list. Marcia Andrews. She had written three bad checks last weekend at his Uncle Tim’s store in Silk City. Mark had taken the furious call from Tim and added her name above Andrew Brady’s. He tugged Susan aside.

  “Ma’am, I can’t accept that check.” Mark took the same tone his father had with him and his brothers when they had done something very bad.

  Marcia sized him up. He knew the act. Her son in the baby seat swung his feet back and forth. He had a lollipop in his hand. Customers watched. Was she someone they knew? “How awful,” someone whispered. “Paper or plastic, ma’am?” Johnny had just come back from outside and hadn’t heard Mark. He stood with a stupid, toothless grin on his face waiting for an answer. “What do you mean?” Marcia asked, her voice loud. Too loud. Her son’s eyes clouded. “Why can’t you take my check?”

  “Because our Silk City store is still awaiting payment for three checks written last weekend.”

  “I don’t remember doing any shopping at Silk City last weekend.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’d be happy to take a credit card.”

  “I’m paying by check!” she hollered in Mark’s face. “How am I supposed to feed my son?”

  Everyone in the front of the store was now openly gaping at Mark and Marcia. Charlie started crying. Mark was careful to keep his voice at the same stern level, maintain eye contact. “Ma’am that check’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  Marcia nodded, her shoulders slumped in defeat. Anger boiled over under glasses too big for her face and she ripped the lollipop out of her son’s hand and threw it on the counter. The boy turned red, then white, then screamed until he was out of breath. A terrible moment of silence, Charlie’s face a twist of want and hurt. She yanked him out of the baby seat and stormed out of the store. The only sound was the squeaking of her cheap sneakers and the opening of the automatic door. Still
holding an empty paper bag in one hand, plastic in the other, a dumbfounded Johnny stared at Mark. Mark looked at all the sliced meat from the deli that could not be resold and sighed.

  “Johnny, could you put this stuff back where it belongs? Put the deli stuff in the case inside the wrappers.” Johnny, still mystified, only nodded.

  Mark leaned on the counter, put his head on his hands and whispered, “I hate that shit.”

  Jane patted him on the back. “You handled it swell, Boss.”

  He would miss Jane. A country girl who would probably settle for her high school sweetheart and never get out of the one-horse town she was from, but she’d make you wonder, what if she had left? Moved to New York or LA? Would she have made it?

  Mark had seen it happen before. Girls who might have had enough of that ‘It’ factor if only they’d had more ambition. If only they’d met the right guy or hadn’t met the wrong one. Girls whose kids would look at their mom’s yearbook pictures or wedding album and say, “Damn, Mom, you were gorgeous.” And that ‘were’ would echo through her head and maybe she wouldn’t be able to get anything done for the rest of the day and when her husband got home from delivering milk or repairing refrigerators, he’d ask her what was wrong and she’d say, “I don’t know. Nothing,” and start getting dinner ready.

  “Did I hear you’re taking a trip?” Jane asked.

  “Off to LA to see my big brother.”

  “Cool.”

  Mark smiled. One of his mother’s nicknames for Matthew was, ‘The Master of Cool.’ It seemed like everything Matthew did turned out cool. “Pretty cool.”

  “When I grow up, I’m gonna live in LA.”

  “Cool.”

  MATTHEW 2

  A knock on the door.

  The taste of panic on Matthew’s tongue, a tightness in his chest, in his nuts.

  A stampede of questions: Where am I? (My office.) What time is it? (Early.) Where are my clothes? (I have no idea.)

  More knocking—shave and a haircut, two bits.

  The night before was a tattered newspaper left out in the rain.