Читать книгу Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride - Brian Sweany - Страница 11

Chapter Three

“This is really all Hatch’s fault, isn’t it?”

Dad made sure to wake me up early this morning, before my sister had to see anything. I’ve been back from the party for about five hours. I’m armed with a sleeve of Saltines, a glass of ginger ale, and one hell of a hangover. The smell of smoke and liquor is still on my breath, in my hair, in my clothes—the clothes I wore and slept in last night.

“Ease up, Dad.” I lift the ginger ale to my lips, drinking half the glass in one gulp. “Believe it or not, I’m perfectly capable of getting in trouble all by myself.”

The party at Gotham Lake ended badly, at least for me. After I got high with the hockey team, I walked in on Hatch losing his virginity to Mary on the bathroom floor. I hitched a ride home with the third-string goalie, trying not to replay in my mind the image of Hatch’s bare, sweaty ass bouncing up and down against Mary’s splayed legs, her feet propped against the edge of the toilet and the bathroom wall. I walked through the front door of my house around 2:00 a.m. to find Mom sitting in the family room. She told me my father was driving around Gotham Lake looking for me. I tried to string a few words together before falling face first at her feet. Dad came home an hour later to find me passed out on the family room floor.

“How much did you drink yesterday?” Dad asks.

I bite down on a cracker. “Beats me. A case maybe?”

“A case…of beer?”

I look at my father like he’s one step away from the short bus. “Yes, it was beer.”

“Did you happen to think about anyone else but yourself last night?”

My throat constricts, the cracker sticking to the roof of my mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ll tell you what it means.” Dad points at me. “Your father spent six hours driving around town to three different houses that you or your friends were supposedly spending the night at, until he ended up at a house on Gotham Lake at two in the morning.”

I can tell Dad is pissed off. He always speaks in the third person when he’s pissed off.

I’m reminded of how bad we fucked things up. Yesterday morning, I told Mom and Dad I was going sledding all day and then spending the night at Nicholas Truman’s house, Nick being my wrestling teammate. Nick told his parents he was going sledding and then spending the night at Joel Trudeau’s house, another wrestling teammate who I didn’t even hang out with. Joel, not in on the conspiracy, stayed home for family movie night and told his parents and my father sometime around midnight that he had no idea where we were. Meanwhile, a West German foreign exchange student named Marcus—name pronounced mar-KOOS who, like all European foreign exchange students, smells like dirty armpit, swears in English at inappropriate times, and wears ugly bowling shoes—told his sponsor family he was going sledding and then spending the night at my house. From what I can surmise from Dad’s manic rambling, he drove out to Gotham Lake, walked in on Hatch and Mary in an amorous state, figured out I’d already left, and then snagged Nick Truman as a consolation prize.

“Six hours.” Dad points to my mother. She sits across the table from me, arms folded. “Meanwhile, a four-months pregnant mother was up all night worried sick about her boy. I wonder when her son was drinking that twenty-fourth beer if he ever thought about the possibility of his mother losing another baby.”

I can’t believe Dad has the balls to even say this. Hell, his balls are the whole problem. I thought those few months before and after the vasectomy reversal were as close as the Fitzpatrick household would ever come to being dysfunctional, but Dad fucking Dixie cups and talking about sperm counts was nothing compared to Mom’s miscarriage.

She got pregnant three months after the operation, lost the baby three months after that. Dad stumbled through a disaffected malaise. His interaction with the family was measured by the stack of greasy boxes on the kitchen counter and the hours he spent fishing alone in our backyard pond for largemouth bass and channel cats. Mom wasn’t getting pregnant mainly because Dad wasn’t trying to get her pregnant. And I came to the realization that when faced with death, at least the sudden and tragic kind, the invincible John Fitzpatrick threw in the cards just as fast as anyone else.

“Are you listening to me, Hank?”

If we were playing a game of euchre, Dad probably thinks he has the high card, the right bower. But, at best, he’s holding a guarded left, three low trumps at the most. I was there with Mom in the days and weeks after her miscarriage. You remember that, Dad? Those nights when you couldn’t handle it? When Mom’s son, not her husband, crawled in bed with her and stroked her hair until she fell asleep?

I look at the hand I’ve been dealt. I don’t have an obvious play here, but I go for it anyway. “Don’t you need to go fishing or something?”

It’s the equivalent of throwing out an off-suite ace to sneak a point early in the game or else force your opponent to burn trump. Mom looks at me with her don’t-go-there eyes.

In Dad’s defense, he did put down the fishing pole. Although maybe not as soon as I would have liked, one day he put down the pole, scooped Mom up in his arms, and gave her an uncomfortably long kiss on his way out the door to work. That night, he stopped ordering pizza. The night after that, he stopped ordering Chinese. The night after that, Mom made us our first home cooked meal in a month. And the night after that, mere hours after Mom came back from her obstetrician with a clean bill of health, my parents starting locking their bedroom door again. They assumed I didn’t notice, just as I assume they don’t notice a son who goes through a box of Kleenex every other week without ever having a cold.

“What did you say, Hank?”

“Nothing, Dad.” Even with all this trump in my hand, I have no choice but to fold. “I guess I said I was sorry.”

“You guess?” Dad raises his open palm next to his head, closes it, and covers his mouth with his fist. He gets up from the table, refills his coffee, stands at the kitchen sink. He looks out the window at the willow tree stump in our backyard, its decaying roots at the water’s edge breaking the pond’s frozen surface. Dad stands there for what seems like a long time but is no more than ten seconds. He turns around and sits back down, pulls his chair closer to mine. “Look, son, I know kids will be kids. And I know there are a lot of temptations out there your mother and I never faced.”

“That’s an understatement.”

I’ve made it through the worst part of the storm, but Dad isn’t in the mood for banter. “Don’t start with me, Hank.”

Of course, what I hear is, Start with me, Hank.

“You and Mom met each other at your college freshman orientation,” I say. “You dated exclusively for five years, and you both lost your virginity on your wedding night. Never mind zip code, you two weren’t in the same universe as me growing up.”

“Don’t be so glib, Hank.”

“How many times have you been drunk, Dad?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“How many?”

“Maybe three or four times.”

“In your whole life?”

“Okay, son.” Dad dips his chin in deference to me. “For the sake of argument, I’ll concede your point.”

“Thank you.”

“Your point that you’re just a stupid kid.”

“Hey!”

I see the makings of a smile on Dad’s face. “Tell me, oh wise one, would you ever sit down and drink twenty-four Cokes in one sitting?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“Just answer it.”

“Of course not. I’d get sick.” I try to pretend the irony escapes me.

“Here’s the deal.” Dad stands up, walks around the table, and places his hands on Mom’s shoulders. “You’re grounded for four weeks. No phone, no going out on weekends, and you come home straight from wrestling practice after school.”

A slap on the wrist as punishments go, and yet what comes out of my mouth is, “No phone?”

“Except for…” Mom raises her hand in the air, index finger pointing back at my father.

Dad rolls his eyes as he sits back down. “Except for Laura.”

“Really?” I say.

Mom nods. “You can call Laura. No sense taking away the best part of your life just because the worst part got you in trouble. But no dates for four weeks.”

My eventual escape is secured. If things hold true to form, my parents will cave around the two, two-and-a-half-week mark. I push my chair back from the table, stand up. I try to look repentant, but I can’t help smiling. I walk around to stand between my parents. “I’m sorry.” Mom and Dad hug me, but briefly, as if to maintain the punitive illusion.

I reach down and place my hand on my mother’s distended belly beneath her old cotton robe. “Really…” I choke up a little, Dad’s earlier miscarriage allusion sneaking a punch into my midsection for real this time. “I am very sorry.”

Mom understands. “We know.”

I need to throw Dad some kind of bone, too. “Hey, Pops, how about I go shovel the driveway?”

Dad rustles the newspaper, not nearly as appreciative of my gesture as I had hoped. “Uncle Mitch is outside already doing it.”

“Uncle Mitch?” I say. “What’s he doing here?”

“I ended up buying that nineteen forty Series ninety from that farmer down in Kentucky.”

“That beat up old Oldsmobile?”

“That classic Oldsmobile. And yeah, that’s the one. Mitch volunteered to be my co-pilot. He and Aunt Ophelia are still going through a bit of a rough patch. I just thought a road trip would be a nice distraction.”

“Oh,” I say, pretending to care. Uncle Mitch and Aunt Ophelia have been separated for a year. Ophelia is seeking an annulment, but no one seems to know why. I have my theories.

“Is that a problem, Hank?” Dad asks.

Is that a problem? It’s a simple question without a simple answer. A part of me thinks I’ve imagined it all. Okay, so maybe there was some skin-on-skin heavy petting, but how awful is that? It’s not like I ever wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat as the repressed memories come rushing back to me. So he touched me. Big deal. I touch myself all the fucking time. Can the memories of a five-year-old or even a ten-year-old be trusted? I got past the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, the Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, even that fucked up episode of Little House in the Prairie where the girl gets raped by the guy in the clown mask. Maybe I need to stop looking underneath the bed for a reason to be afraid. What’s there to fear under that bed anyway? My dad’s discarded Playboys? Those old penny loafers, two sizes too small and scuffed beyond the reach of any polish? That paperback edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I’ve tried to read because I want the artsy college chick who moved in across the street to think I’m cool, and yet I never seem to get past the last sentence of Chapter Six: “But he took on so much and went so far in the end his real victim was himself.”

Who am I fucking kidding? That clown mask episode of Little House in the Prairie still scares me shitless.

“Need a hand?” I ask.

My godfather is a little underdressed for the weather, wearing a jean jacket, a pair of faded jeans, and old tennis shoes. “Sure I can’t interest you in a beer or something?” he says.

“You’re just so fucking funny,” I say.

“I’d like to think I am.” He laughs, handing me the shovel. His laugh starts in his throat and comes out of his mouth and nose at the same time, like a pig. He has a dark black receding hairline that frames a pitted face and a complexion made darker by his five o’clock shadow. A lit cigarette hangs out of his mouth. As he exhales, I can see and smell his three-packs-a-day breath.

Uncle Mitch smokes Merits. In the early eighties, he switched brands from Kool because someone told him menthol cigarettes were bad for you. The sound of crinkling plastic reminds me of Uncle Mitch and his Merits. Whenever I slept over, he’d spoon with me on the living room floor while we watched Charlie Chan movies. He always forgot to take his Merits out of his front pants pocket. I could hear the crinkling plastic during the whole movie.

“You gave your parents a scare last night.”

“I realize that.”

“You think you’ve learned your lesson?”

“Probably not.”

“I’m guessing John and Debbie want a bit more assurance.”

“Come on, Uncle Mitch, you’re a high school teacher. As the song goes, I am sixteen, going on seventeen.”

“Yeah, but your parents can’t hide you away from the real world in an Austrian castle and dress you in curtains.”

I shovel the snow in strips running parallel to the street as opposed to perpendicular. It’s an old trick Grandpa Fred taught me to keep the snow from piling up at the end of the driveway. He was a good teacher. Better than my godfather.

Uncle Mitch follows me. I point to the house. “You can go in now if you want.”

He extracts another Merit, lights it, and inhales long and deep. “I like the fresh air.”

I keep shoveling. I’m not comfortable around him, but I’ve had a lot of practice faking it. “How’s the job?” I ask. “You’re teaching health and driver’s education at East Catholic, right?”

“That’s right,” he answers.

“And you’re an assistant coach for the girls’ basketball team?”

“Assistant for the boys’ team,” Uncle Mitch says. “Great bunch of kids. After being lost for a really long time, I finally feel like I’m making a difference.”

“Lost? Is that what you call it?” I don’t know where the question comes from, but the fact is, I say it, and I’ve wanted to say it for years.

Uncle Mitch takes a tentative step toward me. “Hank, I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but you know—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mitch!” I turn the shovel in my hands until I’m holding it like a baseball bat.

“Please, Hank.” Uncle Mitch holds up his hand and waves it back and forth in a placating motion. “Life hasn’t been easy for me. Your aunt Ophelia and I are trying really hard to work things out. Give me some credit.”

“Give you some credit? For what?”

“I was a sick man.” He holds the Merit to his mouth with one hand, reaches for my shoulder with the other. “But I’m better now.”

“Sick?” I can feel my hands tightening around the shovel’s handle. “It’s not like you had a fucking cold.”

“Hank…” Uncle Mitch looks down, noticing my hands. “I need you to put the shovel down.”

“And I needed you to not give me hand jobs when I was ten years old.”

“Look, I don’t know what you think I did, but that never happened.”

“It didn’t?”

“No, it didn’t. I mean, yeah, I know I’m overly affectionate, but that’s just me. I’d never do something so horrible, so…”

“Monstrous?”

“You know Ophelia can’t have kids. For all intents and purposes, you are my son.”

Uncle Mitch draws closer, his steps more committed. I raise the shovel in the air, preparing to swing. “Don’t take another step, asshole,” I say.

We stand there for a minute or two, not even inches apart. A physical and emotional standoff.

Uncle Mitch hazards the waters. “What is it you want me to do, Hank?”

I look at the shovel in my hands. I shake my head, taking a few steps back. I throw the shovel on the ground. “Well, since you’re taking requests.”

“Yes, anything.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“What?”

“I know what you’ve done. You know what you’ve done. If you don’t want me to let Dad in on ‘our little secret,’ get in your car, drive out of this town and out of our lives.”

Uncle Mitch starts crying. “You can’t do this, Hank. You have no right. I was John’s best friend twenty years before you were even born. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“Tell him whatever you want. Tell him nothing. I suspect whatever you come up with will be preferable to what I have to say.”

“So that’s what this has come down to, son? You’re willing to break your father’s heart just like that?”

“No,” I say. “You are.”

He stands there for five minutes while I finish shoveling the driveway. But finally, irrevocably, Uncle Mitch gets in his car. I knock on the passenger-side window. He rolls it down.

“There’s just one more thing,” I say.

Red-faced and beaten-down, Uncle Mitch doesn’t even look at me. “What?”

“The next time you call me ‘son’ to my face, I’ll kill you.”

That comment catches him right on the jaw. He staggers a little, but he shakes it off. Now Uncle Mitch is looking at me. “What did you say, Hank?”

“Do you really want me to repeat it?”

Another standoff. I can see the conflict in his eyes. Dad’s best friend is itching for a fight, but it is a fight the monster Uncle Mitch has become knows he would lose.