Fitz

by Mick Cochrane

  “Annie,” he says.

  “Yes?” she says. Her voice sounds skeptical, suspicious. It’s the way she talks to telemarketers. Maybe she doesn’t recognize him. Fitz sees her right hand closing over her car keys. Making a fist. If he were in real danger, she’d go, Fitz doesn’t doubt it—five-five, 120 pounds soaking wet, but if her son were in trouble, she’d throw down, in a heartbeat.

  “Mom,” Fitz says. “It’s Curtis.”

  “Curtis?” she says. First sort of globally puzzled, as in what’s a Curtis? or which Curtis? Then, finally, like, really, you, Curtis? “Curtis?”

  “I can explain,” he says.

  “He can explain,” Fitz says.

  Annie waits. “Please do,” she says. “Explain.” She crosses her arms then, really crosses her arms, which she never does, assumes the classic this-ought-to-be-good pose.

  “Fitz and I,” he says, and pauses. It’s a good start, Fitz thinks, a solid subject for a sentence. He can’t wait to hear the predicate.

  “Fitz and I,” his father says, “we ran into each other.”

  His mom turns and fixes Fitz with a look. It’s knowing, and it’s murderous. It’s as if in that instant, she intuits, in her scary omniscient mom way, everything, understands everything—his whole constellation of lies and deceptions, the tangled web he wove. She may not know exactly how they ended up here, but she knows it was no happy accident, no chance meeting. Before she can object, though, Curtis keeps it coming.

  “We got a quick bite to eat,” his father tells her. “That’s all. We had lunch. And then I dropped him off. They were getting ready to rehearse, and they were good enough to invite me to stay and listen to a tune.”

  Fitz is grateful that he’s not mentioned the gun. His unregistered firearm, the possession of which could land his butt behind bars. It’s sitting right now not more than three feet from him, tucked in the front pocket of his backpack. He’s grateful that he’s not ratting him out. That he seems to be on his side. He likes the sound of his dad pleading his case. He likes the reasonable, unflustered tone, the way that the insanity of the day is getting smoothed into the reassuring shape of his story. He almost believes it himself. The man is good, Fitz realizes, he’s probably worth every bit of his three hundred bucks an hour. He’d like to hire him to explain things, to be his own spokesman and personal persuader. He could explain to Mr. Massey why his term paper was so short; he could make the case to his mom that it wasn’t his fault he managed to pull no better than an eighty-one in French. He could maybe even persuade Nora that he isn’t the loser child of lunatics and deserves a second chance, that he is still worth getting to know.

  Caleb is still playing, nearly inaudibly, finger-picking now, something sort of lyrical, ethereal even. Believing probably that so long as he keeps making music, he’s safe. If he’s shrouded in a sonic cloud, he must believe he is invisible, and no one will get up in his grill—that would kill him. He avoids conflict, hates confrontation of any kind.

  There’s silence now on the porch. Curtis has rested his case.

  “There are going to be consequences,” Annie says at last. She claims not to believe in punishment. Instead, she’s all about consequences. The distinction is lost on Fitz. Consequences are the terrible things that happen to you as a result of your poor decisions. How is that not punishment?

  Nora puts on her helmet. She buckles it and adjusts the straps. She’s getting ready to leave, but she doesn’t leave. Maybe she can’t think of how to excuse herself gracefully from a mad situation. She probably doesn’t know what words to say in order to extricate herself. Or maybe she wants to stick around just a little longer to savor the drama, to see what weird thing is going to happen next. It’s hard for Fitz to imagine that she’ll ever be back, that after all this she’ll want anything to do with him, but he doesn’t have time to grieve that now.

  “Actions have consequences,” Annie says. No one responds. It’s like she’s trying to incite something, light a match, get something started, but no one goes for the bait.

  “I should get going,” his father says.

  “Yes,” his mom says. “I think you should. Get going. I think that would be best for everybody.”

  His mom’s face has an edge, something he barely recognizes and doesn’t like, a hardness. Fitz wonders what gives her the right to speak for him. Since when does she know what’s best for everybody?

  Fitz feels an urge to stick up for his father—to take her on. To stick up for himself.

  “You don’t understand,” Fitz says. He hears something weak and whiny in his voice, a sense of powerless outrage. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “We can talk about it later,” she says.

  “We sounded great,” he says. The four of them on the porch, connected by the music—she broke that up.

  “I’m sure you did,” she says.

  “You have no idea,” Fitz says.

  “We’ll talk later.”

  “You haven’t got a clue.”

  “Later,” she says, her voice like a slap, like a slamming door.

  38

  It’s the back of his head that sets him off.

  Before that, right up until the moment Fitz loses it, things are calm and civil, everyone’s conduct completely orderly. Everything has been smoothed over, for the time being at least, his mom pacified, if not pleased, their argument delayed, deferred. Nora and Caleb are halfway down the block, heading home together, Nora pushing her bike, Caleb doing his slow death march with his amp in one hand, guitar in the other, cable back around his neck. The regular programming of their lives about to resume.

  Fitz says goodbye to his father on the porch steps. No handshake, just the blandest, most neutral words of parting—“bye,” “so long”—his mom behind him straightening the furniture on the porch but really eavesdropping, it is so obvious, she’s pseudo-straightening, trying to figure out what’s happened, where things stand with them. But his father’s tone and manner betray nothing—no sorrow, no anger either, nothing at all. If he feels anything at all—about Fitz, about what’s happened today—he’s not showing it. His face is blank. It’s as if to him Fitz is Chip from the diner, nothing more, just some random guy, nobody special, someone he small-talks, exchanges pleasantries with, and then moves past—bye.

  Fitz turns and bends down and picks up his backpack. His face feels hot. When he looks up, he sees his father walking away, toward his car, out of his life. The back of his head. After all this, after all they’ve been through, he still seems composed and confident somehow, unruffled. His hair perfectly trimmed, his shoulders square, his posture perfect.

  And that’s when it hits Fitz. A wild surge of emotion—rage, despair, a livid desperation roaring in his ears, some tsunami unleashed in him now, at last. He feels like a crazy bomb, ready to explode.

  It’s happening again. Fifteen years later, but it’s the same thing. His mom putting the run on Curtis—on his dad. Chasing him away. Showing him the door. Telling him he better leave. And him taking it, no pushback whatsoever, walking away. Him like, okay, so long, as if nothing ever happened. As if he never happened. Showing him the back of his head.

  Fitz feels a boiling inside. Something hot and dangerous bubbling up, demanding release. He’d scream but he knows his lungs and vocal cords could never produce a sound loud and desperate enough. What he feels is beyond the human voice.

  He unzips the front pocket of his backpack and takes hold of the .38. Wraps his fingers around the grip. Right now, it feels just right in his hand. It feels receptive, as if it understands him. Maybe happiness really is a warm gun. It can be his voice, it can speak for him.

  Fitz sets down his backpack and steps off the porch. He slowly raises the gun. He half expects someone to scream, but no one is even watching him. He’s invisible. He’s a ghost.

  The wind chimes are tinkling. His mom is on her toes, picking dead leaves out of one of her hanging baskets of flowers. She’s not even looking at him. Hi
s father is just stepping into the street.

  Fitz cocks the hammer, pauses, then squeezes off a single round, upward, into the upper boughs of the big maple at the curb. The gun cracks and kicks, but he holds on. There’s a puff of smoke around his hand and the smell of the Fourth of July, gunpowder. A small splintered branch, a couple of twigs with leaves attached, comes floating down and lands on the lawn. Fitz thinks suddenly of the family of squirrels that lives in that tree, hopes they’re okay—he never wanted to kill anything; he wanted to make a noise, that’s all.

  “Fitz!” Annie shouts. She sees him now. “Fitz! Fitz!” It’s like she’s singing her own song, a song about shock and horror, and the only words are his name. “Good God!” she says. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “No,” Fitz says.

  “Listen—”

  “No,” Fitz says. “You listen. Listen to me.”

  He holds on to the gun. He’s not ready to give it up, not yet. He can’t bring himself to point it at his mom but holds it waist-high, pointing upward. With his left hand he makes a kind of stop sign, a don’t-come-any-closer gesture.

  He can see Nora and Caleb halfway down the block, turned back toward the house, frozen. Curtis has stopped and turned toward Fitz.

  “Slow down,” Annie says. “Breathe.” It’s like she’s trying to compose herself and him all at the same time. “Take it easy,” she says. Her tone is becoming professionally calm now—every day at school she deals with meltdowns and tantrums, opposition and rage. She’s a pro.

  Fitz’s chest feels like it’s vibrating. He may be crying, he’s not sure. He wants to say something, but words are slipping away from him. “You are so wrong,” he says. That’s the best he can do, as close as he can get. “You think you’re so right, but you’re wrong.”

  “All right,” she says. “All right.”

  “It’s not all right!” Fitz says.

  “Okay,” his mom says. “I hear you. Put the gun down and tell me all about it. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  It’s like she’s committed to listening now, but it’s phony, strategic listening—it’s like she’s stalling until the SWAT team arrives.

  “Everything,” Fitz says. “That’s what’s wrong. You did everything wrong.”

  “I’m sorry,” his mom says. She’s so quiet, so still—it’s how you face off with a mad dog. He hates himself for scaring her, but he can’t stop, he doesn’t know how to stop.

  “I know what happened,” Fitz says. “You didn’t want me to know, but I know. You drove him away. And now you’re doing it again.”

  “Fitz.” It’s his father’s voice. He’s standing now not more than ten feet away from him. Fitz never saw him move, but here he is.

  “And you,” Fitz says. He raises the gun. He has no problem pointing it in his direction.

  “Me,” Curtis says. He says this with a kind of sad calm, like a confession. He looks older than he did this morning, grayer. Is that even possible? Fitz wonders. He’s read about people whose hair goes white after some terrible fright. Is that what he’s done to him?

  “You’re a loser,” Fitz says. “That’s what you are.”

  “I am,” he says. Now, this time, he’s not talking to the gun. He’s looking right at Fitz.

  “I mean it,” Fitz says. “You lost out. Missed out. On so much. On me. On us.”

  “You’re right,” his father says. His voice catches a little. He’s inside some emotion Fitz can’t quite read. There’s sweat on his forehead, he’s pale. He doesn’t seem scared so much as feverish—it’s like he’s coming down with something.

  But Fitz likes the sound of his agreement. He likes being right. Maybe it’s just words. But it’s something.

  “I lied,” his father says. “About coming back to St. Paul.”

  “What?” Fitz says.

  “It was because of you,” he says. “To be closer to you.”

  Fitz is trying to take this in, to understand what he’s hearing.

  “You didn’t call,” Fitz says. “You didn’t visit.”

  “I was scared.”

  For the second time today Fitz is holding his father at gunpoint. He doesn’t want to shoot him. What do you want? That’s what his father asked him that morning when he got in the car. He didn’t really have an answer. Now he knows.

  He is going to make him say what he wants to hear. He can do that much, take that much of what he’s owed. He is almost beside himself now, his hands shaking, tears flying off his face. But he understands now at last what he wants.

  “I want you to say it,” he tells his father. “Say the words.”

  Fitz has not shot him, but his father still looks wounded. His face is white and wet, with sweat, with tears. Fitz thinks for a moment that he may be having a heart attack.

  Fitz lowers the gun. He feels his own foolishness, the insanity of it all. His doomed mission. Trying to extract love at gunpoint. He extends his arm to his mom. “Here,” he says. “I’m sorry. It’s over.”

  She takes hold of the grip of the .38.

  “I love you,” his father says. “I do.” He says it that way, like a vow. “I do love you.”

  He bends forward at the waist, hands on his knees, shoulders heaving. It’s as if before Fitz’s eyes his father is crumpling, as if he’s collapsing somehow. Deflating. Something is draining out of him—not just his bluster, not just his posture, his cool and confidence, but something more, his whole Curtis.

  What’s left is frail and sweaty, what’s left is a tearstained mess, what’s left is human. What’s left, Fitz could love.

  EPILOGUE

  Fitz is sitting on the porch of his house. It is Saturday afternoon; he’s waiting for his dad to pick him up. He’s got his earbuds in, and he’s listening to a recording he and Caleb and Nora made. A song that’s almost but not quite there, one of Fitz’s new lyrics. “No Safety.” The tone of the lyrics is vaguely menacing, edgy, dangerous even, but Nora’s voice brings some sweetness to it, some sad, knowing quality. It’s about getting someone in your sights, taking aim, getting ready to hurt them or love them, it’s not clear, maybe both. Caleb thinks they’re onto something. If Fitz could only work out a slightly less boring bass part, and if he and Caleb could get together on the ending, it might be all right.

  Nora is a full member of the band now, and they’ve got a new name: Dr. Eckleburg’s Spectacles. It’s a little shout-out to The Great Gatsby. Caleb likes the weirdness of it. He also thinks they should stay a trio. They’ve played together a few more times and the chemistry has been good, they sound good. They’ve worked up about a half dozen tunes, everything from more Ruth Brown to a bluesy, soulful version of “Something.” Fitz has some more new lyrics in his notebook he’ll show Caleb when the time feels right. One in particular might cause Nora some embarrassment, so he’s keeping it under wraps for now. Forget about finding a drummer. More trouble than they’re worth—that’s Caleb’s position. “Famously problematic,” he’s said more than once. “Curtis was so right. He nailed it.” Caleb talks about Fitz’s father quite a bit now, which he doesn’t mind, sort of likes, actually, although he hopes he’s got it through Caleb’s head that his father does not work for a record label.

  What happened last month, Fitz’s little spree—they don’t talk about it, Fitz and Caleb, at least not directly. Working their way through some Johnny Cash covers a couple of days earlier, when Caleb got to the line in “Folsom Prison Blues” about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die, he gave Fitz what he probably imagined was a significant look, some eyebrow italics. I didn’t shoot a man, Fitz felt like saying. I shot a tree. But he just kept playing, trying somehow to assume the air of a man haunted by a dark and guilty past.

  Fitz is wearing the same jeans he had on the day he kidnapped his dad, only today he’s got nothing tucked in his waistband. It’s way more comfortable. It’s been a month since then, and a lot has happened.

  His father has disposed of Fitz’s gun, for one thing. There was a
buyback program. He knew a guy. No questions asked. “I wiped your prints,” he told Fitz, “just to be sure.” Fitz couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  His mom was right—there were consequences—but not necessarily the ones he was expecting. She hasn’t grounded him or anything like that. She didn’t lecture him. Instead, she seems intent on treating him in some new, perhaps more respectful and adult manner. She’s helped to arrange these outings with Curtis but always checks things with Fitz, doesn’t presume to know his mind, asks for him to sign off: Saturday work for you? She doesn’t quiz him afterward, even though he knows she’s curious.

  Fitz is pretty sure she’s trying to make amends. It’s okay, he wants to tell her. That stuff I said, my rant, I was in some altered state. I didn’t mean it.

  For his part, Fitz has tried to be scrupulously honest with her. He suspects his lies probably wounded his mom as much as anything he did that day, and he wants to earn back her trust. They’ve had a long talk, several actually, and Fitz has explained in detail what happened that day, his whole scheme—his misguided, foolish, crazy scheme, the likes of which he made clear he’ll never attempt again. He’s kept her excruciatingly well informed as to his whereabouts, the times of his departures and returns. He’s found things to do around the house without being asked. Last night he made dinner, just spaghetti and salad and garlic bread, which he semi-burned in the broiler, but she was super-appreciative. He wants her to know that if he gains a dad, she’ll be no less his mom. But there’s no way to say that to her face, which is why he made dinner.

  Fitz is pleased that things between Annie and Curtis have been cordial. The night before, he heard her on the phone, and at first he assumed she was talking to her brother, Uncle Dunc—she had that smile in her voice. But it was him. Of course, he’s entertained the fantasy of the two of them together, but he knows it’s unlikely, Gatsby and Daisy living happily ever after. You can’t repeat the past. That’s like the theme of the book. Still. You can hope.