by Daniel Smith
“It’s occurred to me.”
“But you don’t see us walking away,” Dawn say with her best fierce look.
“Damn straight!” Danny agrees. “Last week I could’ve punched Dawn.”
“That’s nice,” Dawn responds.
“But now I’m looking at things differently.”
“And why is that?” I have to ask.
“I don’t know exactly,” Danny says, turning thoughtful. “There’s something about her—she’s a little like me: she’s got a fight in her—and if you haven’t got that, what’s the point, huh? So I figure together, we are one tough team. Aren’t we, honey bunny?”
“Never would’ve put it that way, but yeah.” She nuzzles his neck, gives him a peck on the cheek.
“And you know damn well who wouldn’t put up with this hopeless, I-ain’t-got-no-fight bullshit: Grandpa!”
How rich: my son, the 30-year-old who won’t grow up is now dispensing life advice to me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But he’s right about one thing: my dad would find me a complete embarrassment if he were to learn that I simply caved to the Dean. He’d be appalled that I even got into such a situation. “Every Fenton man I know,” I could imagine him saying, “is a leader not a follower. He sets a high standard, and never looks to crawl over the lowest bar.” Thank God he’s not able to see how low his oldest son has fallen.
“So please tell me you’re gonna fight this thing, right?”
Before I can answer, we all hear a car drive up. Dawn runs to the door, which is odd since this is not her house.
“What are you doing, Dawn?” Danny asks.
She looks over at Danny then me with a worried look. “There’s something I haven’t told you, Danny.” Alarmed, Danny joins her at the door peering out the window into the twilight air.
“Oh, my God! Is that—?!” Danny exclaims.
“Look, I told him not to come”—Dawn says, her voice starting to tremble.
“Was that him texting you all day?” Danny wonders, his alarm mounting.
Now I’m getting worried and rush to the front window and look through the curtains. I see a sleek-looking black Lexus parked in the driveway.
“That’s Shithead!” Danny explodes.
“I told him not follow me,” Dawn says. “You gotta believe me, Danny.”
“Looks like he doesn’t take orders real well.”
“Well, he is the boss at the restaurant.”
“He’s not the boss of me.” With that, Danny bounds out the door, like a man possessed, and runs straight for the Lexus. Dawn goes outside too but at first hangs near the front porch. “Shithead,” I manage to see through the diminishing available light, is on his cell, and seems quite unaware of what is about to go down. As Danny arrives at the driver’s door, he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out what looks like one of his infernal prized knives, and begins scraping the side of the car, making a big, long gash all the way across the driver’s side door. Sensing unwelcome danger on my little St. Louis street, I step outside the house. Just as I do, the car door flies open and Calvin jumps out.
“You crazy shit! Get away from my car!” Calvin roars.
“You get back in your car and drive it the fuck home!” Danny responds waving his knife around threateningly. Meanwhile, Calvin takes a good look at the side of his car and proceeds to have a come apart.
“Look what you did! Look what you fucking did to my car!”
“Yeah,” Danny replies, admiring his work, “and it wasn’t even one of my sharper knives.”
At this point, I figure I’d better make a move and stop this confrontation from escalating any further, but Dawn rushes out to the car first, distracting Calvin just long enough that Danny seizes on the moment: as Calvin looks over at Dawn, Danny suddenly throws himself at Calvin, knocking him against his car, then onto the ground. Calvin futilely tries to punch up at him with his baby fists, but Danny sits on Calvin’s hands and pounds him into the ground.
I rush over to them and tell Danny to get off the poor guy. Slowly, Danny does get up, letting Calvin pick himself up off the ground. He’s kind of pathetic looking: a slightly overweight man in his late 30s with an early balding pattern, whose tailored sport coat and slacks suggest he believes that when it comes to women his well-to-do status must compensate for everything. As he stares balefully at his gouged car, Calvin keeps glancing over at Dawn, as if somehow she’s the root cause of his current predicament: “I came here for you,” he mutters to Dawn, wiping blood off his nose.
“You came for nothing, Shithead,” Danny informs him. “You and Dawn are over!”
Not willing to take Danny’s word for it, Calvin keeps staring at Dawn to settle the matter. Clearly unnerved by this scene, Dawn hesitates for a moment, which serves to alarm Danny. He glares at Dawn, a look that practically begs for her support.
“I told you not to come,” Dawn finally says to Calvin in a calm measured voice.
“I only came because I thought you might be in danger,” Calvin says.
“Oh, come on, Cal. I’m in no danger here and you know it.”
“I cannot believe you’re even thinking about crawling back to this guy,” Calvin responds throwing a withering look at Danny.
“I’m not ‘crawling back’ to anyone. It’s called working things out.”
“You need to hit the road, pal,” Danny says, taking a couple of threatening steps towards Calvin. “Unless one ass-whooping isn’t enough for you.”
“You put down those cheap little knives and I’ll gladly take you on!” Calvin responds and begins to take off his sport coat. With round two of this redneck street fight about to get cranked up right in front of my own home, I realize I can’t let this go on any more. So I step in between them, pushing them both back. “Hey! No more fighting, guys. Not here. You got it?”
Calvin and Danny throw each other some real serious death stares until finally Calvin slinks back towards his car. As he does so, he points to the damage Danny did to his car door: “You’ll be getting a bill for this, asshole!” Then Calvin gives Dawn one last “sure you don’t want to reconsider?” look. After she tells him to go on home, he throws her a fuck-you smirk, gets in his Lexus, and drives off in a hurry.
I glare at Danny and Dawn, shake my head, and can’t resist a “What is wrong with you??” I cannot believe that these two show up unannounced at my house, and proceed to turn my driveway into an outdoor redneck bar fight. First Dawn’s drug dealer pulls a gun on Danny, then her revenge boyfriend dukes it out with my son—over what, I’m not exactly sure. What I AM sure is that I’m not going to allow this appropriation of my home as a staging ground for the violent melodrama that is Dawn and Danny.
“You guys are going to have to move on,” I tell them.
Dawn is at great pains to apologize for bringing all this crazy to my little neighborhood, but I can tell that Danny—my son, my only child—feels a touch entitled to my support. He points out that he rarely comes back to St. Louis and he’d like to believe I’d appreciate the opportunity to “work through” his issues. I’m not sure what there is to work through other than the bizarre emotional dynamics that somehow keep him and Dawn together. But right now there is just too much going on in my own life, I point out, to give me sufficient breathing space to try to help these two sort out what they should do next. Assuming there is a “next.” I manage to coax them into a commitment to returning to Arkansas tomorrow morning.
Just then, the front door opens revealing Corinne home from a day at court. I run and give her a hug as she drops her brief case on the floor. She looks exhausted.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She nods. “Just a bit worn out.”
“How about a glass of wine?”
“Or two or three. Yes!”
I go fetch some Chardonnay while Danny saunters up to Corinne. “Hey, Mom, I’m sorry I missed court today.” Corinne waves his concern away. As he glances over at Dawn, “Things got a little crazy.”<
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When I come back in the living room and hand Corinne her wine, she finally takes notice of the stranger in the room. “So you’re Dawn?”
“I sure am. Glad to finally meet you.” Corinne holds out her hand and Dawn shakes it enthusiastically. “I bet you weren’t counting on all these unexpected visitors.”
“I’ve learned not to count on anything really.”
“Well,” Dawn continues, “I want you to know, Danny and I will be going home to Arkansas real soon. Isn’t that right?” she asks, turning to Danny.
“Yeah,” Danny replies with more fear than conviction.
“Wow, I leave home one day and by the time I return everything’s changed,” Corinne observes as she drinks her wine.
I desperately change the subject to her day in court, which seems to have been a mixed bag. Her opening statement went well, but their new little theory—first suggested by legal eagle Danny—got beat up by the prosecutor, who pointed out that their new star witness (one of the husband’s card-playing friends) is worth nearly a million dollars. So why would he care about a lousy 25 thousand bucks as his share of the wife’s life insurance?
Danny, I notice, is pacing the room like he’s Corinne’s legal partner plotting their next move. Suddenly the legal genius stops in his tracks and turns to Corinne: “Maybe it’s exactly because he’s got plenty of family money that he wasn’t even thinking about the dough. He was just having fun with his good buddy, Jack. Maybe he never realized how serious Jack and his friends really were about offing the wife.”
To my amazement, Corinne carefully considers this wild speculation, as if it may be a piece of legal gold. “That’s worth checking into, Danny. Thanks.” She heads off into the kitchen no doubt for more wine.
Dawn is beside herself. “Sweetheart, you should be a lawyer!” Danny looks uncharacteristically a bit sheepish at the suggestion, but then smiles broadly as if he just made partner at a major firm.
I hear my cell buzzing from another room. I must have left it in the kitchen. “Brian,” Corinne calls from the kitchen, “you want to take this?” As I walk into the kitchen she hands me my cell. I can see it’s Claire calling. I take the phone and start to click ‘talk’, then slam it down on the counter. “You’re not going to talk to her?”
“I don’t know. Sure, but, goddamnit, Corinne, this has been such an insane day. I just don’t know if I can take any more.”
“Any more what?”
“I talked to the Dean.”
“Oh.”
“And I told him to go fuck himself.”
“Uh-oh.”
My cell starts buzzing again. I look and this time it’s Jeff calling. Jesus, what else can go wrong? I am so pissed I’m tempted to heave the cell through a window.
“You want me to talk to Claire?” Corinne asks.
“No. I just want all this . . . to be over. My dad, my job, our son, my future . . . it’s too much. It’s like I’m just trying to run my life and I’m finding out everywhere that I’m WAY IN OVER MY HEAD!!”
Danny and Dawn, overhearing my little freak-out from the living room, throw me a concerned look. Corinne gives me a hug, which thankfully helps me hide some tears starting to form in my eyes. I hold onto her a good long moment, then decide I should at least man up and talk to my stepmother. I grab my cell, walk out onto the porch for some privacy, and click on Claire’s name.
“Hey, Claire, sorry I missed your call.”
“That’s okay. Listen, Brian, your dad fell last night and hit his head pretty hard on the floor.”
“Oh, my God, Claire.”
“He’s conscious and all and says he’s fine—of course, he always says he’s fine—but this morning he’s been acting very disoriented and is having real trouble getting into and out of bed on his own and for the first time . . . .” Claire chokes up, a rare thing for this indomitable woman.
“For the first time, what?”
“For the first time, I don’t think Robert recognized me.”
Oh, Jesus. This has always been our biggest fear: what help can Claire be if/when we get to the point where Dad doesn’t know or appreciate who she is? And at that sad point, what would Claire be getting out of such loving care? It’d be like she’s providing abiding love to a man who considers her little more than a kindly stranger. How could anyone possess the selflessness to remain so utterly devoted when one’s partner no longer knows or cares about the relationship?
It must be all about the pact. After a few years of marriage, Claire’s first husband was killed in a car accident, and it so shocked her that she made a pact with herself never to marry again. Just too much risk putting your feelings and your life out there like that again. She stuck to her pledge for a dozen years, passing up scores of set-up dates and offers. But after so many years of being alone, she agreed to meet my dad, got swept up, fell in love, and totally captivated by the allure of a shared life together: she relented and accepted his proposal, made after a night out dancing—something they both discovered they loved doing together. This time she made a new pact with herself: nothing, ever, would make her give up on her marriage. She and my dad would go their graves married, no matter what the pain and the forbearance required. Little did she know.
“I am so sorry to hear about this new development, Claire. I hope to God it’s not permanent.” She goes silent on me. I don’t know if she’s quietly crying or simply stunned. “What do you think we need to do?” I ask.
Now she does break down. And I realize in all my years of visiting and spending time with Claire—at dozens of Thanksgiving and Christmas visits, family reunions, and even a few joint vacations—I had never heard her cry. She is such an eternally sunny, effervescent person; it never occurred to me that she could cry. But here she was, on the phone, letting it go. It began with a quiet muffled sound, but quickly turned into a torrent of anguished sorrow that nearly tore me apart just hearing it.
“Oh, Claire, don’t cry. I mean, of course, all this is upsetting, but let’s try to figure out a plan.”
Sniffling, Claire says, “I told Jeff last night that I can take care of him, but it’s getting harder and, well, for the first time, Brian, I don’t know how much longer I can do it. So . . . maybe you boys can decide?”
“’Decide?’ Are you, are you talking about putting him in a nursing home?”
“Please, please don’t make me say it.”
This is not what I ever wanted to do: be the decision maker for my own father’s final stage of life. What kind of perverted life is it where everyone BUT him gets together and figures out where and how he’s going to live?
“Look, Claire. I’m going to come down there.”
“But you were just here last week. And what about your job—?”
“I know, I know, but you know how it is with us professors: we don’t really have a job.” Interjecting a touch of self-deprecating humor, I figure—even in this awful situation—might help lighten the moment a little. “I’ll come down, spend a little time with Dad, see if he improves or not, and if he doesn’t, well, we’ll all be together and we can make a plan. Is that okay?”
“You always do the right thing, Brian.”
“I’ll fly in tomorrow. Tell Dad I love him.”
I slump onto the porch sofa and stare out at the fireflies briefly lighting up little pockets of the dark night. I realize that despite ample warning I am not prepared for my father’s demise. Just as I’m not ready to take a new step with my faltering career or help Danny “work through” his issues. At my age one should have more life skills or courage or vision or something. The way forward looks dark and uninviting. But I can’t just sit still and do nothing.
I tell Corinne and our uninvited house guests about my dad’s condition and my plan to fly down to north Texas tomorrow. As usual, Danny, despite his own obvious confusion and dubious life choices, feels he has to step in with his own action plan. “You have to let me go with you, Pops,” he informs me. “Dawn, you come too.”
“No,” I quickly announce. “I will handle this. You two have enough to work out yourselves.”
“But I haven’t seen Grandpa in, God, ages,” Danny protests.
“That’s not my fault or Grandpa’s. I’ll keep everyone posted.”
I head upstairs to pack up for the trip to Texas. Moments later, Corinne joins me. We give each other a strong, silent hug.
“I wish I could go with you, Brian.”
“I know. But I have to deal with this and you have court.”
“Well, just for a few days—this is not going to be a long trial—but, yeah, I need to finish strong.”
She sits on the bed and gestures me over next to her. We sit there a moment staring out together at the bedroom wall in silence. The last time we sat like this, worried about the future and conflicted about how to face it, was the day nearly 30 years ago when Corinne suffered a miscarriage in our one successful effort to get pregnant. After that loss, she felt like it just wasn’t in the stars for her to become a mother, and she was never able to conceive again. So it was then we made our own pact—to adopt a child.
Corinne reaches over and kisses my cheek. I kiss her on the lips and embrace her again, taking in her familiar earthy smell which has always proved intoxicating to me. Soon we are lying on the bed rolling around in each other’s arms, so that what began as a painful act of sorrow-sharing turns into tender love-making. Aggressive and forceful in public, Corinne has always been surprisingly gentle in private. It’s as if she spends so much of her day vigorously and often loudly proving herself in court that in bed she becomes the opposite, making love mostly in silence as the supreme act of connecting. In a lifetime full of half-starts and abject failures, being with Corinne represents an enormously good choice. I sleep like a baby.
9 | danny
So I have to take Pops to the airport. Mom has some early morning conference call or whatever to get ready for, leaving yours truly to get up at six damn thirty in the morning. Dawn is dead to the world at that hour so there’s no way she’s joining me on the airport run. She barely moved when my dad knocked at the door, startling me out of a pretty hot dream, btw.
