“I can’t live here,” I hear my mother say.
“The shame,” I hear her say.
And then I pull the pillow down harder on my head so I won’t have to hear any more. There isn’t anything else from that argument to recall now.
She keeps her word, though. She does call all the time. She talks to Cindy, and then my sister hands the phone to me, and she asks me what is going on at school, and whether I am doing my homework, and what I am doing with my friends, and I tell her everything I can think of, about Star Trek and this episode where Kirk and Spock go back to Earth in the 1920s to find Dr. McCoy, who’s met this woman who will change the course of history, and I am ready to tell her every detail of the entire episode because I want to talk to her for as long as possible, but finally, Dad nudges me aside, mumbles something about long distance, because Mom is staying with her sister in Toronto, but what he really wants is to talk to her himself.
Once he has the phone, he asks me and Cindy to leave the kitchen, to go watch TV or something, but sometimes I hide around the corner and hear my father say, “I still love you. It’s my fault, not yours. I’m ready to start all over again. How are you feeling? Are you feeling okay?”
After six months of this, Mom comes home, and our house is whole again.
They are both different after that, but especially Dad. He still has his quirks and phobias. He gets the oil changed in the Dodge every four thousand miles, and if he’s even a hundred miles overdue he can’t sleep at night for fear the engine will seize up and cost him a thousand dollars to fix. He still drives me and Cindy nuts, but he is never so critical of Mom again. He lets stuff go. He even trades Mom’s Volkswagen in on a compact Ford with automatic transmission, doesn’t care anymore whether she uses the emergency brake. And maybe, after a year or two, they are signs that they actually love each other.
But there are also times when I notice a faraway look in Mom’s eyes, and I will ask her what she is thinking.
“Oh, nothing,” she says. “Nothing at all.”
It’s the day she leaves that stays with me. Her standing in the door, waiting to leave, the suitcases at her side. The rain coming down outside.
Cindy rushes to give her a hug, but I hold back. I am so angry that she’s going. That no matter what Dad has done, she can’t put it aside to take care of us.
“Zachary,” she says, “can you give Mom a kiss goodbye?”
I run to my room and watch from my window as Dad helps Mom take her bags to the car and toss them into the back seat of the Volkswagen. And then she gets in, Dad standing next to the car as though he expects her to roll down the window and say one final thing to him. But she does not.
The Bug comes to life with its distinctive, throaty roar. She puts the wipers on, then backs out of the drive.
That’s when I notice that one end of the belt to her raincoat has become caught in the bottom of the door, and is dangling down, swinging an inch above the wet pavement.
I run from my room and descend the flight of stairs in two jumps, burst out the front door, run past Dad standing in the driveway, and after my mom’s car, screaming, “Your belt! Your belt!” But Mom does not look back, and then the Volkswagen turns the corner and is gone.
Standing there, in the rain, I cry enough tears to drown the world.
24
I CAME OUT OF DAD’S STUDY and walked past him and Lawrence at the kitchen table. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Dad, not directly, anyway. I reached into the fridge, found some orange juice, and poured myself a glass.
“Lawrence here was saying,” Dad said, “that you don’t really choose to be gay. You’re born that way.”
I said nothing. I looked at Lawrence, who was smiling at me.
“That’s kind of interesting, don’t you think?” Dad said. “Maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense to pick on gay people if they can’t help it.”
“That’s very charitable,” Lawrence said.
“Well,” said Dad, who’d evidently detected some sarcasm in the air, “you know what I mean.”
I leaned up against the counter. “You’re not joining us?” Dad asked, nodding toward an empty chair. “What’s with you?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“It’s this Leonard thing,” Dad said, happy to provide me with an excuse for my unwillingness to participate in the conversation. “I’m upset, too. Shit, I’m the one, I guess, who’s going to have to find some sort of family, have them come up here and pick up his car and his stuff. Hey, where’s Leonard’s backpack?”
“My car,” Lawrence said. “I can go get it for you.”
“No hurry. I just don’t want to forget about it.”
“What do you want to do?” Lawrence asked me. I was looking at the floor, and when I didn’t say something right away, Lawrence said, “Hello? Earth to Zack?”
I raised my head slowly. “So, Dad,” I said, “I finally remembered Lana Gantry.”
Dad looked around. “Hmm?”
“From when I was a kid. I didn’t remember her at first, but it came back to me today. All kinds of memories.”
“Oh,” Dad said. “Okay.”
“She and her husband, they used to come over, right? I can remember you guys barbecuing in the backyard. Coming over to play cards, watch stuff on TV.”
Dad made an effort at trying to recall. “Yeah, yeah, I think we did, now that you mention it.”
“I seem to remember you guys laughing, having a good time. There was even a time, I think, when I walked into the living room and you were all playing charades.”
“Charades,” Lawrence said. “People really did that, huh?”
I said, “You all seemed to get along really well. You and Lana, you were friends years ago before you reconnected up here.”
Dad swallowed. “We all got along very well.”
“So, what happened? Did they move away?”
“That’s what Lana told you the other day,” Dad said. “Weren’t you listening? They sold their house, moved away, and years later, I ran into Lana in town here, and we kind of renewed old acquaintances. Her husband’s long since dead, you know.” Getting a bit defensive. “And your mother’s been gone a long time, too, Zachary.”
“Did I say something?” I said. I looked at Lawrence. “Did you hear me say something?”
“Hey, man, I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“I’m entitled to a life,” Dad said. “Who I see is none of your goddamn business.”
“Did I say it was? Of course, who you see now is none of my business. I couldn’t agree more. But what about when I was a kid? Still living at home. Under your roof. Would it be any of my business then?”
Dad’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He was getting ready to say something, but then stopped himself.
“Tell me about Orville,” I said. “I’m a bit curious about him. You go out of your way to defend him sometimes. Have you noticed that? You tell me I’m being too hard on him. Why do you do that? What do you care? What’s he to you?”
“He’s Lana’s nephew,” Dad said quietly. “I just want you to show a bit of respect, that’s all.”
“Is that really what he is? Lana’s nephew? She’s his aunt?”
Now it was Dad’s turn to be sarcastic. “That’s sort of how it works, Zachary. If you’re my nephew, I’m your uncle, or aunt.”
“It’s not possible that he’s something other than Lana’s nephew?”
Dad stared at me, hard. “Zachary,” he said slowly, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, or what you’re getting at, but you need to leave this alone. It’s none of your business. It’s not any of your concern. I’m telling you, don’t go stirring up all kinds of shit. It’s not going to help anyone.”
I looked Dad in the eye. My mouth felt dry.
“Here’s my other question,” I said. “About Orville.” I took a breath. “What exactly are you to Orville?”
“Zachary, for Christ’s sake, what the hell ar
e you talking about?”
“I guess what I’m wondering is, if Lana’s not exactly his aunt—”
“I never said that.”
“—if Lana’s not exactly his aunt, and I’m just supposing here, isn’t it possible that you’re more than just some citizen of Braynor that Orville’s sworn an oath to protect?”
Again Dad started to say something, then stopped himself.
“I sent Sarah a picture of Orville,” I said.
“You what?”
“On the computer. I told her that ever since I’ve arrived, there’s been something about him that seemed familiar to me. Couldn’t put my finger on it.”
Shouting. “You had no business using my computer!”
“Dad, I’ve been using it since I got here. And I didn’t snoop around in it. I downloaded the picture into it. That’s what I sent Sarah. And you know what she said? I felt like an idiot when I read her note, it suddenly seemed so obvious.”
Dad waited, thinking he knew what I was going to say, but not sure. Lawrence was looking pretty interested, too.
“She said he looked just like me. That we could be brothers.”
Dad glared at me, and then, in a flash, he swept his arm across the top of the table, sending his and Lawrence’s cups and plates and cutlery and the salt and pepper shakers and napkin holder crashing onto the floor.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” he bellowed. “Mind your own fucking business!”
Lawrence had jumped back in his chair when everything hit the floor, and now he was on his feet, looking at Dad, then at me, then back at Dad again. He stooped to start picking things up off the floor.
“Leave it!” Dad said, and Lawrence straightened. No one moved, no one said a word for several moments.
Dad eyes were welling up, and he put his hands over them so we couldn’t see.
“Dad,” I said.
He took one hand away and waved me off, then put it back over his face. Lawrence took a step toward me, caught my eye, and said quietly, “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
I felt this was the wrong time to walk out, that we were on the verge of something here.
“Dad, I just want to know—”
“Get out,” he said to me. The tone suggested he was not in a mood to debate it.
I slipped out the door with Lawrence. We started walking, with no particular destination in mind.
“Well,” said Lawrence. “I don’t know whether I’ve had a chance yet to thank you for inviting me up here. I’ve only been here for, what, three hours, and we’ve already had a guy killed by a bear and you’re having a family meltdown. What’s happening after dinner?”
I picked up a stone from the gravel lane that led up to the highway, threw it into the trees. “I think I have a right to know about these things,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure that right is enshrined somewhere,” Lawrence Jones said.
“Don’t you think, if Orville Thorne is my half brother, that I have a right to know that?”
Lawrence raised his face to the sun. “I don’t honestly know whether I’d want to find out Orville Thorne was related to me. Although, from what I’ve seen and what you’ve told me, he’s inept, easily intimidated, and totally unsure of himself. So I guess it’s possible.”
We were coming to the bend, where the lane branched off to the Wickens place.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t ask you up here to get in the middle of a dispute between me and my father. I didn’t expect that e-mail from Sarah, what she’d say, but when I read it, pieces started fitting together.”
“What sort of pieces?” Lawrence asked.
“There’s the whole thing with my mother, how she was so angry with Dad that she left home when I was twelve. Then, Lana and her husband moving out of the neighborhood, after they’d been so close to my parents. And now, years later, with her husband dead and my mother passed on, it’s like they’re picking up where they left off years ago. And look at Orville, he’s about twelve, thirteen years younger than I am. It’s been bugging me from the first moment I saw him, thinking that he looked like somebody I knew. He looks like me, Lawrence. The son of a bitch looks like me.”
Lawrence thought about that. “Yeah, there’s a passing resemblance, I admit. It’s not really obvious, but if you know there’s a connection, you can see it.”
“No wonder I’ve been wanting to give him a wedgie since the moment I first met him,” I said. “I just want to put him a headlock and run my knuckles over his head.”
We were twenty feet away from the Wickens gate. Lawrence took in all the threatening signs. No Trespassing. Beware of Dogs. “So these are your friends,” he said. He looked into the yard, at the abandoned appliances, the piles of wood, the old white van with blacked-out windows, a couple of beat-up trucks, an old four-door Pontiac economy car.
“Looks like they’re going to open a used-car dealership,” he quipped.
“Dad’s got so much work ahead of him, if he ever gets them out of there.”
We’d been spotted. Gristle and Bone appeared from around the far side of the house and were running toward the gate, their paws pounding the dirt, propelling them forward, their hackles raised. Their chorus of angry growls sounded like broken gears trying to mesh together. They locked their jaws on a gate board, went berserk chewing on it, splinters of wood dropping to the ground. They seemed to think they could eat their way through to get to us, and given enough time, probably could.
“Cute,” Lawrence said. “What do you think you’d have to do to dogs to make them this mean?”
“Let’s walk back,” I said.
The dogs remained in their frenzied state until we’d disappeared behind the trees. “Think they could eat someone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Lawrence. “But then, so could a bear. Actually, those dogs could probably eat a bear.”
We headed down to the lake and perched ourselves on a large rock at the water’s edge, upwind from the fish bucket.
“What should I do, Lawrence?” I asked.
“About your dad, or about everything else?”
“My dad is my problem. How about everything else?”
“Well, even if there really is a bear, and Morton Dewart was killed by one and not by Satan’s puppies up there, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve still got a bunch of McVeigh worshippers living on your dad’s property. You’ve got another dead guy and a shitload of missing fertilizer that’s ideal for making things blow up good, your mayor’s getting death threats, and you’ve got a public event coming up, what, tomorrow, that has a lot of people riled.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like when they issue a tornado watch. It’s not a warning. There’s no tornado on the horizon. But all the conditions are right for one.”
“You think there might be a tornado coming.”
“The conditions are right.”
“So, what next?”
“I guess we start doing a little surveillance, talk to the people involved. I need to get to know these Wickenses a little better.”
I heard a plop in the water, and craned my neck around to look farther up the shore. It was ten-year-old Jeffrey Wickens, his jeans rolled up, standing in six inches of water, tossing stones.
“I guess we could start right now,” I said. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
We got off the rock and ambled along the shoreline. Jeffrey was hunting around in the water, looking for flat stones, then attempting to skip them. He got his index finger wrapped around the edge of a stone, then flicked it out across the water, but he couldn’t seem to manage more than a single skip.
“Maybe the water needs to be a little calmer,” I said, and Jeffrey whirled around. He smiled warmly enough at me, but as soon as he noticed Lawrence, his expression turned wary.
“Hi, Mr. Walker,” he said.
“Hope you’re not still in trouble about going to play video games,” I said, thinking back to when I
was having the coffee with his mother.
“Grandpa was mad for a while, but not anymore,” he said. His eyes kept darting to Lawrence.
“I’d like you to meet my friend,” I said. “Lawrence Jones.”
“Hi,” Lawrence said, and extended a hand out over the water. Tentatively, Jeffrey took a couple of steps and shook it, then withdrew his hand quickly, like he might lose it if he didn’t act quickly enough. I saw him glance at Lawrence’s light-colored palm.
To Lawrence, he said, “Do you know about Lando Calrissian?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think. From Star Wars, right?”
“I don’t have him anymore,” Jeffrey said. “How about Mace Windu?”
Lawrence looked doubtful. “You got me there.”
I stepped in. “The new crop of Star Wars movies. Starting with Phantom Menace. Played by Samuel L. Jackson.”
Lawrence nodded, getting it now. The black contingent from Star Wars.
“Would those be real Negroes?” Jeffrey asked. “I mean, because it’s another galaxy, and there’s no Earth there, if there are Negroes, are they really the same as Negroes here on this planet? Because they’d have different origins, right? And blood? And wouldn’t they have different DNA and stuff?”
Lawrence looked at me, but I figured he could handle this one, even if he wasn’t as well versed in science fiction lore.
“Those are actors,” Lawrence told Jeffrey. “Black actors.”
Jeffrey rolled his eyes. “I know that. But if they’re playing people from other planets, are they still Negroes in the movie?”
Lawrence paused. “What makes you ask?”
“Well, if I could explain to my grandpa that they’re not really colored people, because they’re from another planet, then maybe he would let me have their figures.”
“Figures?”
“Action figures,” I told Lawrence. “They’re very collectible.” I paused. “I have a number of them.”
“Okay,” he said. “Jeffrey, why wouldn’t your grandpa want you to have those figures, regardless of whether they’re…Negroes or not?”
“Because they’re an inferior race,” he said innocently. He added, with the utmost politeness, “I don’t mean that personally.”