He came out five minutes later with a loopy grin.
“One bet,” he said. “See? A man of his word.”
“Asshole. How much did you lose?”
“Five large.”
“Asshole. Feel better?”
“Fuckin a I do. Fuckin a, b, and c too!” Then: “I’m a disciplined motherfucker. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. But it’s fuckin weird, man. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gone into a casino and placed one bet. I mean for bupkes! For ten, twenty, a hundred. I cannot tell you how many times I have done that in my fuckin life. And you know what? Man, tell me the odds, but I have never fucking won, not even once.”
Rusty roused himself from a stupor to laugh, without opening his eyes. Cassandra laughed, then Grady too. Becca was blasted and smiled only because the others were merry and mellow. “And half the time, the dealers get blackjack!”
“What does that tell you, niggah?” said Rusty.
Becca stirred, clinging to him.
“Tell you what it tells me, dog,” said Grady. “The house always wins.”
Synchronicity
HIS SON LAUGHS wildly at something on TV. Burke makes sure the only fare is DVDs like Shrek or Sound of Music or Chariots of Fire. Nothing violent or sexual. And no channel surfing: he guards against Kit mistakenly stumbling across one of his own films, or news reports about his injuries. Doesn’t want him watching Viv Wembley cavort on that idiotic series either.
Lately, Kit erupts into hysterical outbursts in the middle of the night. (The sanghanistas like to say he’s finally getting in touch with the cosmic joke of it all.) Sometimes he sings himself to sleep like a child, but that’s the only time he comprehensibly strings more than a few words together, albeit slurred. He possesses an amazing surplus of energy — the sanghanistas call it ch’i—and Burke makes certain that energy is properly channeled, that his son is occupied by some form of therapy each waking hour.
His father wants him out of there.
His father wants him home in Riverside, where he belongs.
He speaks in monosyllabic plosives. He says fuck a lot, eerily reminiscent of the patient with whom Kit and Darren Aronofsky visited months ago. One day, an inspired Tyrone brings Roy Rogers to the private wing for a summit. Seeing the two together — trepanned superstar and blastomaed McDonald’s franchiser — watching the Blown-Mind Twins sniff each other like tentative street dogs was a rocky horror show for sure — more like one Special Olympiad passing the torch to another, because it just so happened that Roy was at the stuttering tail end burnout of “I fuck fuck fuck” just as Kit was coming into his full-throated, full-chorus own. Like that summer Tyrone went to New York and John Stamos replaced Matthew Broderick in “How to Succeed”… but try as he might, Ty couldn’t get a dysfunctional duet goin. Connie Chung enjoyed the impromptu reunion, though Ty didn’t think she fully dug the interaction. She wasn’t twisted enough; it was a cultural thing. But he thought the way Nurse Connie kept wrangling the veggies so they’d be face-to-face like sexy toy soldiers was beyond dope. Tyrone shook his head and smiled. It was so messed up.
• • •
HE ASSIDUOUSLY LIFTS himself a few inches on the parallel bars. He grins madly, wily and rabid, flashing the erotically mischievous Kit Lightfoot of old. (A bad haircut ruins the effect. Fearful of “anecdotal” leaks to the press, his father shot down Kit’s stylist’s request to come give a trim.) His body glistens, the layer of posttraumatic fat belying its good bones; Portrait of a Bruce Weber almost-ran, with bad breath.
• • •
WITH MOUTH CLOSED, unspeaking, only the wobbly, jerky gait betrays him. After all, he was in perfect shape at the time of the assault; not so many months have passed. He never stopped moving — Burke forbade that — not even in coma. Therapists and sanghanistas threw his limbs around more than Christopher Reeve. Tyrone said, We the A-Team. Put Mr. Reeve to motherfuckin shame.
• • •
“HELLO, PIRATE!” said Tyrone.
Kit wore an eye patch because the left lid drooped. He no longer tried to tear it off. Burke arranged for surgery; the docs said it was a simple fix.
“Find any sunken treasure today, Captain Cook?”
• • •
VIV LEFT A MESSAGE on Becca’s pager that she needed her to pick up the Ambien refill at Horton & Converse.
When she got to the house, Becca punched in the ROCK* code at the gate. As she wound up the drive, the FooFighters blasted. The front door gaped open.
She set the pharmacy bag on the table and called out, “Viv?” She corrected herself: “V?” She thought she heard a response, muffled by music from upstairs. “V?”
Barely audible: “Come up!”
She went to the master bedroom. Viv was on her back, fucking. “Did you get the Ambien?” Becca had already shyly turned around. She said she brought it, and Viv said, “Where?” “Downstairs.” “What about the Norco?” Becca asked what was Norco and Viv said testily that they should have filled that along with the Ambien. Becca said she didn’t look inside the bag. Viv told her to go bring it. This time when Becca came back, Viv was on her stomach and the man fucking her faced the door instead of the headboard.
It was Alf Lanier.
Becca loved Alf Lanier.
(It looked exactly like Alf Lanier.)
Viv said to put the pills on the dresser and leave. Setting the Ambien down, she couldn’t help glancing over to see them sweat-coiled, and Alf caught her eye, either laughing or wincing, she wasn’t sure what. She thought that maybe the actors were making fun of her, “having sport” as Dixie used to say whenever Dad was being mean.
• • •
KIT WAS STONED — that was Burke’s idea. Pot helped with the pain and the muscle spasms. The staff looked the other way. Half of them were hemp-heads, anyway.
There was so much fear that he couldn’t verbalize, which terrified him even more. So much shame and embarrassment. What had happened to him, really? Got his head hit. What hospital was this and what was the one before? Sometimes he went monkey nuts, throwing food and masturbating in front of staff and guests. He was hungry all the time. Ate and ate and started to get doughy. Sometimes he got confused that he couldn’t dress himself. He had blinding headaches and threw up, and they gave him shots that made him dreamy all the next day. The Shaved-Head people visited, some in robes but different from the flimsy hospital gowns that he didn’t even wear anymore. (Burke liked his boy to be in real-world civvies.) They made him laugh. Things were funny, especially when he smoked the reefer. Things on TV, and things his caregivers would say or do. It was funny when they read from books or said their prayers. They taught him mantras, those were funny too, repeating words he couldn’t understand, strings of words, one after the other, going to the end then beginning again. The sounds were strange, and sometimes he panicked he should know what they meant. He would grimace and nervously try to ask if he should know their meaning, and wonder if he ever would or if that was beyond him now, but in his crowned and crowning agitation, in his disorder, could not get inquiring words to form, and the benevolent patience and solicitousness of the sangha only made his fear and panic grow.