by Wally Lamb
“So, Birds,” Leo said. “You got any idea how long that hearing thing’s going to take this afternoon? I got an appointment at five thirty. If it starts at four, I should be back here by five thirty, shouldn’t I?”
My leg pumped up and down. My fingers drummed on his desk. I told him Ray could take me. “I’ll take you,” he said. “I don’t mind taking you. I just gotta—”
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take,” I snapped. “I’ve never been to one of these things before. Okay? It’ll just be simpler if Ray drives me.”
“Hey, don’t bite my head off. Wasn’t me who fell asleep at the wheel.”
In the next breath, he started yapping about his stupid movie—telling me how he was waiting for them to FedEx him the script and then the next step was blah blah blah.
I checked the clock again. Did some calculating. If that insurance idiot showed up in the next fifteen or twenty minutes, I could probably still salvage an hour or so over at the Roods’. Pull those shutters off, minimum, so I could take them back to my place and prep them. It’d be awkward with my hand bandaged up like this, but I could do it. . . . Except how was I going to get the damn things home with no truck? Shit.
“But don’t worry, Dominick,” Leo was saying. “The old man and I’ll take good care of you. Put you in a Dodge or an Isuzu five-speed, no problemo. That Isuzu’s a good little truck, actually. You wanna have a look-see while you’re waiting?”
I said I doubted they’d total the pickup. We both looked out at it and Leo shook his head. “That truck is gone, my man,” he said. “That ve-hicle is DOA.”
11:12. My hand was starting to hurt like it meant it. If I moved my head to the right, pain shot up my neck. Okay, here’s what I’d do, I thought: I’d take another one of those painkillers right after I was through with the insurance guy, go over to Roods’ and pull the shutters—see if Ray could borrow Eddie Banas’s truck. Then I’d go home and get a couple hours’ sleep. Set the alarm—give myself an hour to clean up and go over my notes. If my hand hurt this bad by afternoon, I’d just have to tough it out until after the hearing. Be great, otherwise: me standing before that Security Board, zoned out on narcotics.
I asked Leo if I could use his phone again. “Dial nine first,” he said.
“Mutual of America. How may I direct your call?”
It was the same woman I’d talked to the other three times. She was getting a little less polite with each call. “Look, lady,” I told her. “I spent half the night in the hospital, I got about a thousand things I’ve got to take care of today, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend my whole day waiting for your representative to show.” She told me there wasn’t really anything else she could do, but that she sympathized with me. “Yeah, well, your sympathy isn’t doing me a goddamn bit of good, is it?” I snapped back. Banged the phone down louder than I’d meant to. Every God Bless America! cap at the dealership turned its bill in my direction.
“Hey, Birdsey, chill out a little,” Leo said. “No shit, you’re stressing me out, man.”
I got up. Walked to the other end of the showroom and back. Sat back down. “What time does the old man usually get here?” I said.
“Gene? What is it—Wednesday? Any time now.”
“Great,” I said. “Just what I need: seeing Daddy Dearest.”
“Yeah, the guy’s got a hell of a nerve showing up at his own place of business, don’t he?” He threw up his hands. “I’m kidding, Birdsey. I’m kidding.”
A waxed white Firebird pulled into the dealership and coasted down to the body shop. A young guy in shades got out, walked around my truck, squatted in front of it. Strictly business, now that he’d finally managed to arrive.
“I’ll be out in a couple of minutes,” Leo said. “I just want to try my producer again. See if he can tell me when they’re sending me my script.”
The investigator aimed his camera at my wreck. It whined, shit out a Polaroid. “You the claims guy?” I said.
“That’s right.” When he turned around, I recognized him: one of those weight lifters at the health club. He practically lived down there. “Shawn Tudesco. Mutual of America.” He held out a square, manicured hand for me to shake—withdrew it when he saw my bandaged hand. Down at Hardbodies, this asshole strutted around like a little bantam rooster.
“You’re late,” I said.
“Right again,” he shot back. Which was all I was getting in the way of an apology.
He propped the Polaroid in a tuck of the pickup’s mangled bumper, aimed, took another. A third. A fourth. He had one of those slicked-back Pat Riley hairstyles, a tiny red earring in one ear. Couple of times, I’d seen him leaning against the counter down there, chatting it up with Joy. Spandex Man—God’s gift to women. Took steroids, was my guess.
“What’s this?” he asked me.
I followed his fingers along my smeared windshield. “That? . . . It’s egg.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Egg?”
“Kids last night. Celebrating Halloween a day early.”
“Yeah?” He just stood there. I was the first to look away.
He stretched on a pair of plastic gloves and pulled some glass crumbs from the windshield. There was a brown smear where my hand had busted through the glass, some dried drips on the hood that he bent close to look at. What was he doing? Doubling as an FBI agent or something?
Leo came out of the showroom and crossed the lot toward us, whistling. Holding his patriotic cap instead of wearing it.
“Where’d the accident happen, anyway?” the insurance guy asked.
“Route 22. Out by where the Indians are building the casino.”
Leo approached, placed his hand on the small of my back. “Numb Nuts here was driving down to play some blackjack with Tonto and the boys. Didn’t realize they haven’t broken ground yet.” He held out his hand for the investigator to shake. “Leo Blood.”
“Shawn Tudesco. Mutual of America.”
Leo nodded. “You work out at Hardbodies, right?” Leo said. “Weight lifter, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “You go there?”
“Me and him both. We play racquetball,” Leo said. “His girlfriend works there.”
“That right?” he said. “Who? Patti?”
Patti: little pot belly pushing against her leotard, Geraldine Ferraro hairdo. Joy told me once she hoped Patti got the rest of the way through menopause without driving everyone off the deep end. “Joy,” I said.
“Joy? Really?” He looked at me for the first time—inspected me up and down like I was a dented vehicle. “I know Joy,” he said.
“Everyone knows Joy,” Leo chimed in. “She’s world famous.”
The investigator nodded at Leo, then back at me. Smiled. I took both their grins, took the pain that shot up my right arm from the fist I was making. What did “world famous” mean? How was I supposed to take that little remark?
Mutual of America squatted down and passed his fingers over one of the truck’s front tires. “Rubber’s good,” he said. “Road slippery last night?”
I shrugged. He could read the police report if he was so goddamn curious. Behind the inspector, Leo grabbed an imaginary steering wheel and pantomimed me sleeping. Asshole. Dick-for-brains. . . . World famous as in how? She circulates? She’s a slut? What made Leo the big expert on my girlfriend?
The investigator leaned against the truck and rocked it. It made a metal-against-metal screech. “Buddy of mine grew up out there by the Indian reservation?” he said. “Just sold his parents’ farm to the tribe for a million and a half.” He shook his head. “They must have cash flow up the wazoo from the way they’re buying up land. Getting it from some billionaire Korean investor is what I heard.”
“Malaysian,” I said.
“What?”
“Malaysian investor. It was in the paper.”
“Well, they’re getting big bucks from somewhere,” Leo chimed in. “One of the chiefs or whatever
came into the showroom the other day, him and his two assistants. Mr. VIP. Couldn’t talk to anyone but the GM. Ended up paying cash on the barrelhead for this top-of-the-line New Yorker. That damn car was so loaded with extras, it did everything except wipe the guy’s ass for him.”
The inspector walked over to his Firebird, took out a clipboard and some forms. “It’s just like what’s happening down in Manhattan,” he said. “The way the Japs are buying up the whole damn city, Radio City Music Hall included.”
“Hey, speaking of New York,” Leo said, “I was just down there this week. Had to go to a meeting with my producer.”
Mr. Insurance didn’t take the bait. “If that casino goes over,” he said, “I hear they’re putting in a resort, a golf course, the whole nine yards. And every square inch of it tax-free. That’s what burns my butt.”
“I’m an actor,” Leo said.
The investigator got down on the ground, poked around underneath. “You and me pay taxes, right?” he said. “No one’s giving us a free ride.” He’d stuck a bumper sticker onto that briefcase of his: Power lifters give good thrust.
I fished around in my shirt pocket, felt those three pain capsules. That’s when Big Gene rolled into the dealership in his silver LeBaron. He was scowling his permanent scowl, surveying the Ponderosa. He braked as he was passing us. His power window whirred down. “Hey, Gene,” I said. “How’s it going?”
Looking right through me, he snapped at Leo. “Where’s your hat?”
“Right here, Pop,” Leo said, waving it at him. “I just took it off about two seconds ago. To let my head breathe a little. I swear to God.”
“Well, put it back on again! We’re in the middle of a promotion!”
Hello to you, too, Gene. Nah, I got shaken up a little, but I’m all right. Thanks for asking, you prick. She divorced me remember? . . . Sometimes I didn’t know how Leo stood it—working there, getting reprimanded all the time like a seven-year-old.
Leo suddenly looked older than his age, despite that classy suit, and the role in the movie, and the forty-dollar haircut. “Hey, you can say what you want to about the Indians,” he said, “but it’s going to go from bad to worse if the Navy cancels those Seawolf contracts and EB lays off as many guys as they say they might. I heard they’re going to employ a couple thousand people down at that casino once it gets rolling.”
“The Navy’s not going to cancel those subs,” Mutual of America said. “Not with this Persian Gulf situation. You watch. The Russians’ll back that lunatic over there and Bush’ll have no choice except to escalate. Electric Boat won’t be able to crank out submarines fast enough.” He totaled something on his calculator, wrote something else on his clipboard. “If Saddam keeps screwing around over in Kuwait, Bush’ll kick his ass like he kicked Noriega’s. Bush rules, man. He wasn’t the head of the CIA for nothing.”
“Hey, how old are you, anyway?” I said. Truck or no truck, I couldn’t help it. Leo started jingling the change in his pockets.
Mutual of America looked up from his clipboard. “What?”
“What are you? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?”
“I’m twenty-eight,” he said. “Why?”
“Because you haven’t seen the shit that guys our age have seen.”
“Like what, for instance?” Don’t smirk at me, asshole.
“Like Vietnam. The last thing this country needs is for Bush to turn Kuwait into Vietnam II.” Leo gave me a zip-the-lip gesture. But I didn’t want to zip my lip. Mr. Weight Lifter. Mr. Hang Around Down at Health Clubs Impressing All the Women. When he laughed, the sun caught his little red earring.
“Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam,” he said. “No offense, but it’s like a broken record. Get over it.”
I saw those camouflage washouts down at Hatch. Unit Six. Those guys whose brains Vietnam had eaten. “We can’t,” I said. “We can’t get over it. That’s the problem.”
Why was I doing this—picking a fight with the guy who was going to either make me or break me, insurance-wise? Why couldn’t I just shut up?
Leo must have seen the mood I was in because he positioned himself between me and Mutual of America and started talking a mile a minute. “You were saying before about the Indians. Heh heh. . . . All’s I know is, if the defense industry goes down the toilet around here, half the state’ll be down at that casino, begging for jobs. Who knows? Maybe the Wequonnocs will end up scalping us and saving our sorry asses at the same time. You know what I mean?” He turned back to me. “Hey, Birdsey, didn’t you say you needed to call Ray? Have him pick you up? Go up there, use my phone. Hit nine first.”
I waited for a second, then started up toward the showroom. Heard fragments of Leo’s conversation: “Poor guy’s been under a lot of pressure . . . sick brother . . . if you can diddle the numbers a little for him.”
Inside, I passed by Omar. Passed Gene’s office. He looked away when I nodded at him. Fuck you, Gene! It was your daughter who wanted out of that marriage. Not me.
I went back into the bathroom and locked it. Waited for the shaking to pass. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. That was the scary part: Dominick, the tough guy, the uncrazy twin. . . . I was falling apart at the seams. I reached in my pocket, fingered those three Tylox. “The Father,” I said. “The Son.” I opened my mouth and popped a pair of them. Decided I’d save the Holy Ghost for later.
When I got out of the bathroom, I stood behind the god bless america! window sign and dialed my stepfather’s number. Watched the weight lifter through the O in GOD. Had he ever diddled my girlfriend was what I wanted to know.
I listened to the phone ring over at the duplex on Hollyhock Avenue. Crooked the phone against my sore neck. Outside, a sudden breeze blew that stupid cap right off Leo’s head. Sent Mutual of America’s Polaroids flying. The two of them went chasing after their stuff. Assholes, I thought. Idiots.
The phone clicked at Ray’s end. “’Lo?”
When I got back down there, the investigator said he’d decided to total the truck. We’d make out better that way, he told me. He said he’d try and work the numbers a little; there was a little bit of play in there, not too much. He could probably get us about five hundred dollars better than book value. That was about the best he could do.
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Oh, it’s better than ‘fair enough,’” he said. “Say hello to Joy for me.”
“I will.”
“You do that.”
He shook Leo’s hand, got back into the Firebird, and roared out of the dealership. Leo and I stood there watching him. “You all right, Dominick?” Leo said.
I told him I’d live. Told him thanks.
He waved me away. “Thanks for what? I didn’t do anything. What’d I do?”
29
Leo approached my stepfather, holding out his hand. “How you doing, Mr. Birdsey?” he said. “Long time no see. Not that I’m complaining.”
“Where’d you get that jazzy suit from?” Ray fired back. “You mug a Puerto Rican or something?” It was the way they always sparred with each other. Over the years, against the odds, my stepfather and Leo had come to a mutual appreciation.
Ray walked around the truck, whistling at the front end. “Congratulations,” he said, turning to me. “You really outdid yourself. What’s that gunk on the windshield?”
“Egg,” I said.
“Egg?”
Ray braked slowly, cautiously, gliding over the speed bumps on the way out of the dealership. “You didn’t say over the phone that you got hurt,” he said. “What’s the matter with your hand?”
I filled him in on the seventeen stitches, the pain in my neck. Those two Tylox pills had begun to kick in nicely, though. The pain was still there; I just didn’t give a shit about it. Even riding with Ray was a breeze.
He turned onto the post road, accelerating steadily. “She with you when it happened?” She. Never her name. No love lost between Joy and Ray.
“Nope.” I could feel
him looking at me.
“How about insurance? Your insurance paid up?”
I nodded.
“So what are you planning to do for transportation?”
I told him I hadn’t gotten that far yet—that Leo was trying to talk me into an Isuzu.
“Bullshit on that!” Ray said. He rolled the window down and spat. “Why should you buy some Jap piece of shit? So you can stuff money into the pockets of that son of a bitch father-in-law of yours?” Ex-father-in-law, Ray. The guy didn’t even bother to speak to me anymore. “Get yourself a Chevy,” he said. “Or a Ford. Ford’s a good truck.”
“God bless America,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
We rode for a while in silence. At a traffic light, I felt him looking over at me again. “Why didn’t you tell me over the phone that you got hurt?” he said.
“You didn’t ask.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask,” he said. “You’re my kid, aren’t you?” He fished into his jacket pocket, brought out a couple pieces of hard candy. “Want one?”
I told him no thanks. Asked him what he was doing with candy in his pockets with his diabetes. They were sugarless, he said.
I looked out the side window—watched Three Rivers go by. You’re my kid, aren’t you? Much as I hated to admit it, it was more true than untrue—by default. He was here. I’d called and he’d picked up the phone. Had come and gotten me.
“Why didn’t they give you one of those collar things at the hospital? If your neck’s bothering you?”
“I’m all right, Ray,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Well, you don’t look fine. You look like hell. You had any breakfast?”
I told him I wasn’t hungry—that what I wanted was to get my prescription filled and then go over to Gillette Street, pull those shutters, and get back home. Grab a nap if I had time, clean up, and then get ready for the hearing. He gave me an argument, of course—how was I going to remove shutters with my neck hurting and a banged-up hand?