Leave them to work on the play, and find canned soup and sandwich fixings for dinner. Make another note: to go grocery shopping before heading back to San Francisco.
Leave the patio door open as you slap mayonnaise onto six slices of Wonder Bread at the counter, and listen to them talk. Your father says his protagonist has just enlisted in the navy, which is why he’s in such a rush to see Geraldine. Lloyd says the snow itself can’t be the only obstacle between them. Maybe the bus is late because of the weather, and he’s waiting there at the stop, freezing to death, debating whether or not to go on foot. Note that your father likes this idea — hear the pencil scratches. Lloyd wants to know what Geraldine wants. Other than Teddy, the protagonist, your father doesn’t have an answer. Lloyd says Geraldine needs to want something other than Teddy. Something concrete. Like, like a … car! A car, to pick Teddy up at the station, where he’s waiting, freezing, et cetera, et cetera. Hear your father say that Geraldine wanting a car is “a definite maybe.”
Bring them food, bring them drink. Of the latter, a little will go a long way: your dad wants the cup for any further toasts, but won’t drink a sip of the arak. Remember to wave your arm periodically to keep the light on. When Lloyd excuses himself to use the restroom, wait a beat, and then ask your father how the revision is going. Nod along as he says the word “progress.” Then he tells you, quickly, knowing Lloyd could return at any moment, that although he is happy to see you happy, et cetera, et cetera, he would still very much appreciate it if you and Lloyd would sleep in separate bedrooms. Cut him off to say “of course.” Thank him again for his hospitality, but don’t stop there. The lion’s milk has kicked in, and you’ve summoned the courage to ask him a question.
“Why are you being so nice?”
“That unusual?” he says.
“No, but don’t you think Mom would’ve disapproved? Don’t you still want to be loyal to her?”
When Lloyd returns, he compliments the hand soap in the bathroom. “What’d I miss?”
Your father says, “I was just about to tell Daley about the first time I met his mom’s family.”
At that point, her family had been in the country for just over a year. The only person aside from your mother who spoke any English was her older brother Gaspar.
“Her father invited me over for a glass of arak,” your father says. “I was never a drinker, but I agreed to the visit anyway, expecting the meeting was more important than the drinking. But when I got to the apartment, I saw twelve men — every man in the family, cousins and brothers and uncles — sitting in chairs arranged in a semicircle, with her father at the center. Everyone had a foggy glass of arak and a pack of cigarettes within reach, and the room was full of smoke. One empty chair sat facing the jury. Her father said something in Armenian, and Gaspar translated for me: ‘Ed, have a seat.’”
Notice how Lloyd’s jaw looks unhinged. He looks at you and says, “How have you not told me this story before?”
You’ve never heard this story. Say, “I’ve never heard this story.”
“They passed me a glass of arak, and even though I had no intention of drinking, I held on to the glass, trying to keep my hand steady enough so that the ice didn’t rattle. One by one, each of the men asked me a single question, with Gaspar translating. Most of the questions were easy: ‘Are you a Christian?’ ‘What is your job?’ ‘Why do you love Lena?’”
Lloyd, beaming, says, “What was your answer to that?”
Your dad doesn’t have to think: “The first time I met Lena, I forgot the name of every woman I’d ever known. Hell, I barely remembered my own name. I knew — I swear, I knew—hers was the only name I needed to know from then on.”
Lloyd grabs at his heart.
“And then came the final question,” your dad says. “Her father was a tailor, and until he was in the hospital at the end, I never saw him out of a suit. At that point, I’d never even seen him wear a smile, let alone a T-shirt. He sipped his drink seriously, took a thoughtful drag from his cigarette, and asked his question. I looked to Gaspar for the translation.”
The light switches off. You’ve forgotten to wave an arm. In the brief moment of darkness, remember the name of the first boy you loved, Robert Karinger. He used to take you to the desert and show you how to siphon water from plants. He’d pinch the prickled flesh of an ugly cactus at just the right spot, and you’d kneel to catch the stream in your mouth like a wanderer in the holy land.
Lloyd waves his arm, and the light returns. “Her dad was asking you the final question,” he says.
“Right. And Gaspar translated. Only it wasn’t a question. Her father had given me an instruction: ‘Drink the arak.’ I explained to Gaspar that I didn’t drink. I’d made a vow, because my father had been a drunk, and I didn’t want to be anything like him. Gaspar listened to me and slowly relayed my message. And then her father stood up and shook my hand. Gaspar said the old man respected me for my convictions. I had his approval.”
“Bravo!” Lloyd says, for both young Ed’s victory and for old Ed’s telling of the story.
So your father had to pass a test to join the family, and he’s being nice because he doesn’t want to put Lloyd through the same wringer. Why does this make you feel uncomfortable? Call it an early night, and stand up from the table. Brush your teeth, and head to your childhood bedroom, which, aside from a new futon your father probably brought home wholesale from the furniture store, looks and feels eerily well preserved from your high school days. Glide your fingers along the glossy surface of the poster of John Lennon. Scan the colorful spines of the Goosebumps novels and volumes of Encyclopædia Britannica lining your old desk’s oak shelves. Pick up the baseball signed by Mike Piazza and Eric Karros. Karinger always envied you over that baseball, and you would’ve given it to him if he’d asked. He was the only person who could teach you — a boy obsessed with escaping — to love the desert. He was the only person who’d taken you past the tall fences of the driving range to hunt for golf balls, the only person who’d convinced you to brave the aqueduct’s currents and risk your life only to prove you could.
A long time ago, that boy rapped his fingernails against this window. You were sixteen, and you opened it. Maybe you hoped he’d shake the world that night by coming into your bedroom and touching you. Instead, he told you that Dan Watts, licensed driver as of noon that day, was parked in his dad’s pickup at the end of the block, waiting for you to join them on their way to a strip club in Los Angeles. You hesitated — you’d never sneaked out before. You were nervous to break the rules, even though your sister, the only person who would’ve heard your window slide open, had already moved away for college. You were nervous, too, about your ability to mask your apathy for naked women. Your friend promised to have you back soon, and so you climbed through the window thinking, you remember, of that Beatles song.
Later, after failing to convince security to let you into the club, you all three packed into the cab of the truck and drove back home — un-sexed, yes, and un-glittered — but exuberant still, aware for the first time of what you thought would always be true: that you could leave home, return to it, and nothing would be different except for you.