In 1985, my mother was driving by the Larry Fricker Company when it caught fire, sousing the air with methyl bromide. Not long after she developed a cough, followed by a cancer from which she died two months later. I was fifteen.
It took time, but my dad acquired a second wife, which he still has. Mostly, though, he sits in a La-Z-Boy, wears a mouth guard, and watches TV, which pleasure is slain twice a week by epileptic spasms that have revoked his driver’s license and aptitude for work. For the money I spend on his care — that’s him grousing down the hall, by the way — I could have financed a cure for epilepsy, I’m sure. He and my stepmom have been living with me for years. They don’t ask questions about my life, and I venture nothing. It seems to have worked so far.
I guess that’s not the story I meant to tell. But my dad’s calling, so I have to go. If I don’t have time to edit this thing, try to be kind when you air it later.
“Thurlow! Answer me, son!” Wayne was seventy-nine, and since he couldn’t be bothered to move, he’d just yell for people across the house. His wife had the same habit. It drove Thurlow nuts. They’d yell for each other and for him, and now Wayne was just deaf enough to go ballistic when he couldn’t hear you, as though you were to blame. “Son!”
He was actually using the intercom, which Thurlow had asked him not to do. But he did it just the same, because the more he called, the more apparent it would be that Thurlow had not come, that Thurlow was neglecting him, the son grown too big and famous to tend his old man.
He headed for his father’s quarters. He had installed a keypad just in case Wayne had a seizure and couldn’t let him in, but mostly he endured the charade of being asked who was there and how could Wayne know for sure.
He found his dad eating a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. Most of the hair on his head had fallen off years ago, which made inexplicable the flocks spilling from his ears and nose. Today he wore a turtleneck and sweater-vest twenty years old, and jeans that were cropped at the ankle. His sneakers were white and of no recognizable brand. Who knew why older men always seemed to buy no-name sneakers, but it was a phenomenon common to his kind. He offered Thurlow some sandwich.
“Dad, what do you want? I’m having a busy day.”
“Yes, yes, too busy for your old man, I heard that before.”
Thurlow sat opposite his father and folded his hands on the table. They had never been the best of friends.
“Son, I saw something on TV just now that has me wondering what the hell is happening to the world. Something about a kidnapping. Four people who work for the government, and poof! they’re snatched up by some fanatic who wants to change the world.”
Thurlow sighed. His dad rarely took an interest in anything besides sports. He was so out of touch, he seemed to think Thurlow had acquired wealth from a well-placed investment portfolio. It also helped that he was half-blind without his glasses and kept the TV on mute. Still, Thurlow made a note to disable his cable box.
Wayne reached into his mouth to free a bit of peanut that had wedged under his denture plate.
Thurlow began to lose patience. “Dad, what do you want?”
Only Tyrone got in the way — Tyrone, who was his father’s bird. “Silly bird,” Wayne said, and he disappeared down the hall. It was times like these that Thurlow rued having made his dad’s quarter of the house so big.
“Dad, I’m leaving.” But instead he followed Wayne until brought up short by Deborah, who was standing in the doorway to their bedroom. She wore a thin pink nightgown. Her curly white hair, generally stiff, was wilting down her face. She’d been married to Wayne for fifteen years and seemed to be the worse for it every time Thurlow saw her.
“A visitor!” she said. “What’s the occasion?”
Wayne reappeared with Tyrone on his shoulder.
Thurlow blenched. He didn’t like animals, domestic or wild. He especially did not like this bird.
Apparently, the feeling was mutual, since Tyrone, whose wings had been clipped, took one look at Thurlow and thudded to the floor. Then went under the bed.
Wayne got on his knees. Thurlow looked at Deborah and asked for an umbrella. She looked at him, and the look was not nice.
Wayne said, “Come on, Ty, everyone loves you, just come out.”
Deborah said, “Wayne, please, you are being ridiculous. All you care about is this stupid bird.”
They carried on this way for some minutes. Thurlow didn’t understand much about what was going on. It was true their repartee had always featured what rankled most, only this bravado felt new.
Deborah went to the bathroom to change clothes. Wayne enticed Tyrone back into his cage. Then everyone returned to the living room.
“Son,” Wayne said, “the reason I was calling you is because Deborah and I, well, maybe it’s obvious, but we’re not getting along too well these days.”
Aha.
“What your father means is that we are ready for counseling. You’ve given us a wonderful life here, but it’s also a little strange and it’s put a strain on things and we think we need to talk to an outsider.”
Thurlow began to shake his head even as he tried to seem amenable. “Are you sure? Because I don’t think counseling is a proven science.”
Wayne snorted and stubbed his index finger on the table. He was about to slay Thurlow with evidence of how little he knew about marriage. “Maybe if you and what’s-her-name had tried counseling—”
Deborah cut him off, but she looked pleased. She lit up a Virginia extra-slim cigarette and brought it within inches of her lips. She had quit smoking years ago, and this was how.
Thurlow swatted the air to clear a path. “Okay, okay,” he said. “But leave it to me. I’ll find Ohio’s best,” which meant he would hire from within and they would never know.
04:25:32:08: A marriage counselor? Now? The universe laughs at me, but I can’t take a joke. Especially since my dad is right: I understand so little of love. Love and marriage. It’s as though all my experience ramped up to these days has taught me nothing. My first billow of desire? Fifth grade, improper fractions with Mr. Coombs, and to my left one Esme Haas in striped tee, navy-blue short shorts with white piping, and Tretorns, which she’d had the foresight to wear years before they were a fad. She’d been assigned to buddy me through class. She was older and adept in the augmenting of her self-esteem via charity; I was stupid and courting a one-and-seven-fourths chance of failing fifth grade. We sat at adjacent desks. In the tradition of another famous love capsized on food, I had an apple in class the day she showed. Every time Mr. Coombs wrote on the board, we’d pass this apple between us, our fingers mating in the relay of this fruit. I took to offering her an apple a day. But she stopped being interested. She had always been good at tiring of a thing the moment I realized it pleased her. Also, my grades were better; her work was done.
The years went by. We’d see each other in the halls. The summer before eighth grade, the rumor was that Esme had free passes to Disneyland because her dad understudied for Pecos Bill in The Golden Horseshoe Revue. She gave the passes out, and on my day, because I got winded quick and was not much for walking, I headed for the skyway funicular. There I found her on the floor, on a blanket, reading Steinbeck. We spanned the park, then walked for a while, but still, I never touched the ground.
Fast-forward to sophomore year of high school, Sunday in the market. Esme in a sleeveless denim vest and carmine mini. Bangles around her wrists, ankles, neck. Hair in a high ponytail, strafed green. Me beholding the cereals the way some people look at art. I was sixteen, and two years shy of a myocardial infarction because of my bad diet and weak heart. I listened to soft rock, had never kissed a girl; I did not know the president’s name. I was, essentially, an archetypal American boy growing up in the wealthiest, most enlightened country on earth, staring at Esme Haas, who had stalled in front of the cereals, too.