Asiya-less. Wasn’t that what he was getting at the whole time? She called the next day, suggesting their breakup — something she didn’t entirely mean — and he agreed.
“Asiya, I think I’m depressed, like you said. I think I’m in trouble. . I’ll be fine. . no, what I mean is, I just need you out of my life. . This has nothing to do with you, no. But, yes, you have to go, too. . The Ken Lee job is gone, yes. . but so are you. I’m hanging up now.”
He thought about going to the ER, he thought about turning to his father, he thought about calling Rhodes, he even thought about telling Silber he’d love to have dinner. But none of it seemed possible. The only thing that did, as is often the case with truly depressed people, was the thing that seemed the most impossible: he thought about escaping, leaving New York.
And go where, Zal? he imagined someone, anyone, somewhere asking. The only answer he had for that someone sounded like the punch line to a pathetic joke or just some one-off cheap insult.
To hell, Zal would answer.
For months, naturally, Hendricks had been worried, but Rhodes had urged him to stay away. That this was a good thing, an important thing, the boy asserting his independence. When in the history of ferals had anyone seen anything like this? It was what most men did as teenagers.
“He’s trying to be a man, Hendricks,” Rhodes said. “Let him try. Maybe he’ll come out close to one. Who are we to say?”
But Hendricks didn’t know what to do with that. Did he simply just pretend Zal never existed?
Rhodes thought of making the empty-nest analogy, but saw it was unfit just in time, for too many reasons.
Hendricks stopped by his apartment twice, both times armed with the excuse of having forgotten something there, but both times Zal was not there. He still continued to mail Zal checks, and they would get cashed, but he never received a phone call, an e-mail, any proper acknowledgment.
Finally, on Zal’s birthday — Persian New Year and the first day of spring, a day Hendricks had decided would be fitting, since Zal’s proper birth certificate had never been found — Hendricks decided to camp out at Zal’s apartment from morning to night, with a small vegan cake that said, in frosting, happy 23rd, zal! The Zal he knew would not turn his back on a cake. So he waited. And even though he had the keys to his son’s place, he still stood outside. If there was any way to win his boy back, it was through showing him the utmost respect, he had learned.
His boy was, after all, maybe a man now, in spite of everything, considering everything.
Zal returned to his apartment at 11 p.m. — earlier than had been the norm in that period — after six straight hours of drinking at the Irish pub where he had had his first Manhattan bar drink. He had recently discovered the Long Island Iced Tea — it was apparently everything behind the bar and maybe more. He had no idea. It did not taste like tea, and it was very strong — that was all he knew. He’d had more of those than he could count.
Hendricks almost didn’t recognize the stumbling gaunt Zal, drenched in the stench of booze, muttering to himself like a typical city indigent. When the thing almost fell over him at the door, Hendricks suddenly realized it was him, his son. He took him into his arms, to which Zal responded with a failed punch, not realizing whose arms he was in, but Hendricks caught the blow.
“Oh, Father, what the hell are you doing here!” he tried to say, casually, as if amused, as if it was nothing.
“Zal, I came to wish you a happy birthday. Are you okay? What’s happened to you? God, you’ve lost weight!”
“Of course — it’s my birthday! Happy birthday to me!” Zal hooted loudly.
Hendricks took his keys from him and let him in.
The inside of the apartment was a wreck, as he expected, but a worse wreck than he imagined, given Zal’s appearance: crumpled newspapers all over the floor, something that looked like sunflower seed covering the couch, empty bottles of beer and wine, and bulbless lamps. The place was dark, completely dark.
“What do you do for light, son?”
“I don’t,” Zal muttered as he lay on his couch. “Cake time?”
“Cake time,” Hendricks agreed, still depressed, feeling his way to the bathroom light. “When did you start drinking, Zal?”
“I don’t drink!” Zal shouted.
“Okay, okay,” Hendricks muttered. “Where is Asiya?”
“Dead,” Zal snapped.
“Dead?!”
Zal made a barking sound, cleared his throat, and said finally, “We broke up.”
Hendricks could not help but be wide-eyed at that. “Really?”
“Another cause for celebration!” Zal said, applauding.
Hendricks remained silent. “Any matches, Zal?”
“I don’t want light!”
“For the cake, Zal, for the cake,” he said. “I wanted to sing you ‘Happy Birthday.’”
It was then that Zal burst into tears, horrible endless tears, the ones he hadn’t bothered to shed for months and months. They had been so bottled up, he hadn’t even known how badly they’d wanted to come out. He cried and he cried and he cried in his father’s arms.
“Don’t worry, son, you’re back with your father, you’ll be okay,” Hendricks cooed, rocking him. “And we’re going to my house for a little while. Let’s gather what you need in a moment.”
When Zal finally stopped crying, he had one question: “Why do you think I can cry so easily, but can’t smile?”
Hendricks tried to tip his head back so his own tears wouldn’t fall out — for Zal, that night especially, he had to be strong. “I don’t think anyone knows, Zal,” he said. “But if it’s going to happen to anyone, it’s gonna be you.”
Neither Hendricks nor Zal told Rhodes about their reunion. For Zal, Rhodes was still a part of a past he didn’t want to face, but for Hendricks it was purely too risky — he couldn’t have another professional tell him that what he was doing was bad for his own child. On this, there was nothing to do but follow his heart.
So Zal stayed with him, in a semi-permanent manner, constantly saying that the next day he’d leave, but when the day would come, there would be no sign of any change. Zal would still be lying on the sofa, eating and eating and eating — Hendricks was determined to get the boy to gain weight, so he filled his home with Zal’s favorite foods, at least the favorites he knew of — and watching television, never wanting to go out, never wanting to do anything really.
It occurred to Hendricks that Zal might be depressed and that he would have to call Rhodes if this was the case, but he refused to accept it fully. Hendricks was back to the mind-set of the decade before: he told himself all his boy needed was his father.
And Hendricks, of course, needed him, too. He began to take up a Zal-like existence — they spent their days together in pajamas, buried in junk food, entranced by talk shows. Once in a while Hendricks got them both to take a walk or go out for a meal, but aside from that, they were like roommates dorm-bound over spring break while the rest of the world celebrated blue skies and perfect temperatures.
One day in early April, Hendricks got a call from, of all people, Asiya.
Zal was, as usual, on the couch just a few feet away, and Hendricks was determined not to let Zal know who it was.
“Oh, hello,” Hendricks said, trying to sound casual, and then in a lowered voice, “How did you get this number?”
“You’re listed,” Asiya sighed. “Anyway, I’m sorry to call you out of the blue — I know we don’t know each other very well and that it’s been quite a while.”
“Right, we don’t, and yes, it has.”
“Right, so I had to call because I tried to call Zal and his phone was disconnected and his cell has been off for weeks, it seems like, and I went by his place and no one was there, at two different times. I don’t know if you know, but we’ve broken up. .”