by Dave King
Sylvia says, “Didn’t he even . . . ,” and lets out a heave. “You were supposed to make him come.” At this, Carlos puts an arm around her, but she shrugs him off, and I’m glad she does because I’m sick of him already. He pats her arm before moving away, and Sylvia catches me watching this exchange. “So what the fuck brings you here, Howie?” she says.
I start to slide my hands under my overall bib, then realize I’m dressed up today: knit slacks and a short-sleeved madras sport shirt. I put my hands in my pockets and glower at the distant traffic light, and Sylvia says unconvincingly, “I didn’t mean that.” She pokes in the big bag for a Kleenex and blows her nose, then I follow her inside.
There’s a welcome from the shrink who runs the place, but I can’t pay attention. Beside me, Sylvia sits like a stone, and when we’re separated into client and family groups, she stalks off without looking back. Carlos goes out shoving and goofing around with the big pale guy I noticed earlier, and I realize that two thirds of the clients are men my age and younger. Compared to the rest of us, they seem to be having fun.
The family group watches a slide show about the facility, then a staff member named Paula tells us that children of addicts come in several basic types. The first type, she says, is called the “family hero,” and as she describes the hero’s characteristics I think of Ryan in the putty-colored house, keeping a watchful eye on his mother. I think of him making coffee at my place and watering the new flowers, and I realize he’s been a pretty good guest. Maybe “hero” is a fair term. Then Paula moves on to other categories—there’s one who acts babyish and one who’s sneaky and misbehaves—and each time she introduces a type I think that’s him, too. So I don’t know.
When the clients return, we form a circle, and Paula makes us introduce ourselves. The suited guy’s wife, Mary Ellen, is a flat-faced older woman who announces grimly that she’s an alcoholic, but everyone else is in for drugs. A few say they’re one-thing-or-another survivors, and after their introductions they seem more like addicts than clients. It’s a sorry lot.
When my turn comes, Sylvia jumps in. “Hi, I’m Syl,” she says, “and I have a problem with cocaine abuse. This is my friend Howard, who’s looking after my nine-year-old son, Ryan, until I’m able to be a better mom.” She sniffs loudly.
I raise a paw, and three dozen faces stare at my scar. Paula says, “Welcome, Howard. We’re happy you could join us.” They all know. She nods at a dark-haired muscleman who looks like Carlos’s brother. “Go ahead, Raymond.”
The next activity is one the clients all know. “Think of it like a game,” Paula tells us. “Did anybody play Twister when you were kids?” She says we’ll be creating a kind of living sculpture that will depict one addict’s relationship to his addiction and also to other factors in his life. She selects John, the pale guy, because he’s almost completed his program. John lumbers to the center and starts talking, and I tune him out. I don’t give a shit about his poor, sad trip. I look at Sylvia and wonder if she’s changed in three weeks, but I really can’t tell. The little herpes blister I noticed that first morning has bloomed and died, leaving a rose-colored silhouette, and her hair looks clean, but her eyes are puffy. She could use some sun. Paula says, “John, try not to intellectualize so much. Remember the exercise.”
I touch Sylvia’s forearm. Her skin is covered with thousands of pale freckles that lie in patches on her arms, legs, and shoulders, as if placed there with an atomizer. I touch her arm with my knuckles, just to say I’m here, no matter what, and maybe to reassure myself that she’s here, too. But Sylvia only gives me a tight glance and looks pointedly at John, still standing dumbly in the center of the ring. He’s scratching his head.
Paula says, “Go ahead. Choose someone to represent your addiction.”
John says, “I know, I know.” He turns once, assessing the stock of pathetic-looking wives and visitors, plus all his new buddies who are in his same boat. He turns once more and points at me.
I don’t know what to do. I heard Paula say I was to portray his addiction, but I can’t imagine how I would do such a thing, and I’m not prepared to get up and act. I start to stand, then sit down with a smile, and I hope it seems I’ve been paying attention. I’m afraid John’s chosen me because of my scar, but maybe it’s just that we’re the biggest guys here. I turn to Sylvia, who stares back as if I’m a bug. “Go ahead,” she says.
I get up, and John says, “Just like lean on me, man.” He’s uncomfortable, too. I put one hand on his biceps and the other on his shoulder, and I tilt forward, shifting my weight. John murmurs, “Okay, so, um . . . What else now?”
Paula says, “Is that how it feels, John? Is that how your dependency really feels?” On the other side of the circle, I see John’s wife cradling their little baby, and I’m glad the kid won’t remember this foolishness. I’m glad Ryan’s not here, too. Paula says, “Tell Howard how it should feel.”
John blushes. “That’s good,” he mumbles, “but maybe it—could be more like a weight. Like kind of weighing me down?” I wonder if he’s prepared for this brand of closeness, because I’m certainly not, but I press harder on the soft, slack flesh of his shoulder. “Like really bear down,” he says.
So I do. I don’t share John’s quarrel with recreational drugs, but I know what it means to carry a burden, so I lean my chest against my hands and put all I have into crushing his big frame. And to my astonishment, he goes right over. He topples to the floor, and I fall on top of him, knocking my face on his chin.
In an instant the addicts are on their feet. I’m a little stunned, and before I’ve even gathered my wits, Carlos is pulling me from John’s chest. John says, “Sorry, man. Guess I wasn’t prepared for that,” and offers his hand. I take it, but I let the others help him to his feet. I’m feeling shaky. I turn aside and touch my cheekbone where I bumped it, and Paula tells us that though this wasn’t the intended result, it’s an analog for all the pressure we take on when we let an addiction rule our life.
We do the preposterous exercise again, and this time we don’t fall down. John braces himself against my weight, and I try to look like I’m leaning more than I am. He chooses a busty redhead to portray family responsibilities, though his real wife’s on the scrawny side, and the musclebound Raymond as the demands of his job. The alcoholic Mary Ellen is in here somewhere, and a few others, but I don’t care how. I’ve got a sudden dull headache, and my cheek hurts where I bumped it, so I stand like a packhorse until the living sculpture’s complete.
Paula asks the spectators to talk about what they observe. The observations are as fatuous as can be—the suit points out that Raymond and I are working in opposition—then we break up, stretching and shaking out our hands. John says, “Thanks again, man,” and I gesture that it was nothing, but he looks sharp and adds, “You okay?” John’s wife gets up and re-creates the sculpture from her point of view, but she selects different actors, and this time, fortunately, I’m not asked to participate.
At lunchtime, we head for a little lounge where box lunches are stacked beside a coffeemaker. Sylvia’s mood has deteriorated, and she barely looks at me as we take our boxes to a back yard fenced off from the neighbors. Evidently, the addicts love to smoke, because there are sand-filled tubs beside the doorway and big ceramic ashtrays on each of the six picnic tables. All are filled with butts. I look out over the dappled lawn to where Carlos and Raymond are sitting under a big tree, and I expect Sylvia will want to join them, but she takes a seat at the first table, settling herself neatly, with her elbows tucked in. For a moment I remember how she was at sixteen, and I’d like to tell her her hair looks nice. But when I move the big ashtray she gives me a cross look. “I may need that,” she says. I want to tell her to go take a flying fuck.
I eat in silence, barely glancing at her. Sylvia takes a bite of her sandwich and puts it down in disgust, then commences a lot of sighing and heaving to drive home her displeasure. I see Raymond return to the coffee room for a couple of Cok
es, and as I watch him and Carlos chatting I realize that for some people today’s a reunion. Sure, there’s stuff to be worked out, but this isn’t the day they’ll decide whether they love each other. My head throbs, and I wish we were like that. I wish I could tell Sylvia that Ryan’s just fine, and what a time we had at the fights! That he planted flowers and that I’ll bring him soon for a visit, by hook or by crook. But today wasn’t the day—she must understand that. I think how disappointed she must be not to see him, and I’m looking for a route out of our standoff when she waves dismissively at her lunch. “You want any of this?” she says, in a tone that implies only a real garbagehound could eat such crap, and again I feel like telling her to fuck off. I take her pretzels and turn away, and she says, “You’ve got something on your cheek.” I ignore her, and perhaps she wishes I’d fuck off, too. We’d be stuck like this forever if John and his family did not suddenly appear at our table.
“So how’s it going, guys?” John says. He squints crazily at me, and I realize I’ve got the sun at my back. “Having a good time?” Oh, yeah. As he digs into his sandwich, he adds, “Interesting place, isn’t it?”
There are people who can only deal with a nonspeaker by asking questions. I get it: silence isn’t golden, and for some people any dialogue’s better than none. But the upshot is that John edits out everything interesting he might tell me, and I’m left responding to a bunch of yes-or-no’s. So I agree that the clients are a pretty good crowd, and also that Paula really knows her stuff, and when he asks if I’ve ever been to a place like this before, I shake my head no. At this John tells me it’s his third facility, but he feels three’s a charm. This program is one he can really get his head around.
John’s wife has a look of weary complacency and a smattering of acne across her chin. She’s placed their baby in a basketlike carry thing, and as I watch her poke the child’s pacifier into his soft little mouth I guess she’s not a bad egg. John says, “So what line of work you in, Howard?” then instantly checks his blunder. And though I could answer by pointing at the big lawn and making a mowing gesture, he won’t let me. “I’m a project manager over at GE,” he blurts out, reddening. “Environmental management, pollutants. It’s not as bad as it sounds.” I nod, and Sylvia shoots us a look of disgust.
John’s wife picks up the ball. “I understand you’re looking after Sylvia’s little boy.” Nod. “How old?” I hold up nine fingers, and she squints in the sunshine. “You must be a wonderful friend,” she says.
I shake my head. That has nothing to do with it. I pat my chest to show it’s love more than charity, and I hope Sylvia sees this. Instead, she explodes. “Oh, what the hell?” she says shrilly. “What the fuck is the point?” John’s wife stares at Sylvia, but I know this is just beginning. “You can’t even tell me how my own son is!” she goes on. “You can’t describe anything about what he’s been doing or how his schoolwork’s going, if he misses me, or—You won’t learn to write or make even the slightest concession to what it’s like to communicate with you, and you come out here with the idea that everyone is just gonna jump through hoops so you won’t feel left out!” She glares at me, her lips pale. I get up.
“I mean, is it worth it, Howie? Is it fun?” She grimaces, baring her lower teeth. “Do you enjoy making us talk to you in baby talk and play these stupid . . . these stupid guessing games? Do you think this is the way we ordinarily talk? We’re not idiots here, Howie. Sure, we have problems, but at least we’re capable of some intelligent give-and-ta—”
“Hey, I don’t mind.” John throws up his hands.
Sylvia glares at him. “Well, I do, John. The one thing I wanted from today was to see my little boy, and instead I’ve got this one just occupying space. The two of you trading inanities and—” She goes on, but I stop listening. I could kill her. My head’s hot, and I’m churning with bile. I could fly across the table and break her into fragments with my bare hands and never look back. I feel like Nagy the bear. I lean down and take a swing at the box lunch, and it all flies off the table. My Coke spills across the concrete, and one of the sandwich papers is picked up by a breeze. Everyone’s looking at us.
I step back into the sunlight, and John says, “Wait a minute.” Sylvia’s telling me what a sponge I am and how she’s through feeling pity. I can’t be bothered with this big pale fuck, but he says, “Wait a minute,” and takes hold of my shirt. “You’ve got a real shiner coming. Did I do that?” His voice is helpless and dumb, and I touch the spot where our faces collided. My cheekbone’s sore, but that’s nothing. Nothing! “You better put ice on that,” John says.
I can barely move. I stand stock still, but I’m trembling, and whether people are staring or not, I feel a roaring descend. Across the lawn, the white sandwich wrapper blows into my field of vision and then out, and I think this day—this month!—has been disastrous. Even Sylvia’s abrupt silence is no compensation. When she looks up in astonishment and murmurs, “Oh, Howie. Are you hurt?” I am out of there.
21
I STOP AT A 7-ELEVEN for a bag of ice, holding my head down so the cashier won’t notice my eye. I keep a stash of rags behind the seat of my truck, but none of them is very clean, so I take off my madras shirt and make an ice pack, then I drive to a shaded corner of the parking lot and lie down in the bed of the truck with the ice on my face. Above me, the leaves of a maple branch look painted onto the blue sky. I doze off, and when I look again, the leaves have begun to sway slightly, as though a film is running in very slow motion, and the sky has turned the color of tin. Most of the ice in my little pack has melted, and I can feel trickles of wetness across my cheek and on my T-shirt. But for the moment I seem to have misplaced my headache, so I don’t move. As a few little pebbles of rain tap the chassis, I indulge the fantasy that I can lie here forever, and the water will fill the bed of the truck. The rainwater will rise until it covers me, and still I’ll lie here, my eyes closed. In the sky above my box, wind and darkness will lash out at daylight, but I’ll ignore everything that goes on in the world. And maybe lightning will strike the maple tree, and . . .
I can’t, of course. I have to pick up Ryan at five.
The rain passes over, only dampening my clothes. A little jigsaw of blue appears and gobbles up the metal clouds while I watch, and the maple leaves shake in a single spasm and then are still. I sit up and wring out my sport shirt, then look at my watch. I’ve an hour and a half before I’m due to pick up Ryan, and I have nothing whatsoever to fill the time. I stare at my hands for a while, trying not to think of Sylvia, then it occurs to me I can go over early and find out what Ryan’s up to.
The elementary school looks abandoned, except for two girls playing cat’s cradle on the sidewalk. I go inside and make a quick circuit of the shadowed halls, half expecting to see Ryan sitting out a detention. A custodian with a broom nods at me, then a woman’s voice calls sharply, “Can I help you, sir?” and I skedaddle. I don’t want her thinking I’m a pervert, and I’ve seen enough to know he’s not here.
Outside, the cat’s cradle girls are gone, and I stand by the truck, wondering where a nine-year-old goes on the sly. After a few minutes a boy appears, climbing a dirt mound across the oval parking lot. When he sees me he drops a cigarette in the dirt and hurries off.
I walk over and climb the mound. Behind it, a path leads under a festoon of grape vines, then through a small woods. Up ahead, I can hear high-pitched voices and the sound of a lawn mower starting and stopping. The path comes out behind a half-finished residential development, and though I don’t leave the cover of the trees for the moment, I can see what’s happening. Fifteen or twenty boys have made a civilization of the dusty clearing. For a moment I think of a song I once knew, about bears who set up a picnic in the woods, and then I remember the camp above the half-burned valley, where I spent sixteen days.
It’s not a lawn mower the boys have, but a go-cart. They’ve commandeered an area adjacent to the construction and created a little driving course. The track
starts on a flat, in the open area by the trees, and winds toward the nearest unfinished house before disappearing behind a gravel pile. It reappears on the far side of the clearing, where a half dozen cinder blocks have been set up, slalom-style, to create turns. There’s a gully with four planks laid across it as a bridge, then a spot where a kid in a green shirt is holding something in his palm. Most of the boys look about twelve, and Ryan ought to be easy to spot, but I don’t see him. In the center of the clearing, a few boys are dragging a piece of plywood toward a small mound of dirt, and nearby, a whole cluster of kids stands gathered around the go-cart. There’s just too much bustle for me to pick out my guy.
I hear a pop as the motor starts, then it coughs and cuts off. The boys put their heads together. The motor starts and stops again. I watch them tinkering—it sounds like the plugs—and I’m tempted to go over and take a look, but the engine suddenly revs up with a blast. In a wave, the boys draw back, and the cart leaps onto the course with Ryan at the wheel. The vehicle’s retreating from me, but I recognize his brown neck and close-cropped dark hair above the seat back. In his wake, a screen of dust.
Ryan’s cautious at first, but he’s a good little driver. I look over the milling crowd and guess the kid in green is holding a stopwatch, and though I’m not crazy about competitive times, so far I’m not worried. But when the cart moves behind the gravel pile, it doesn’t reappear on the far side, as I expect. I hear the motor grinding, and it hits me that the cart’s climbing the back of the pile. I cast an eye toward the plywood the boys were arranging. It’s a jump, set to catch the momentum as the cart hurtles down the hill.
The landscape shifts. Everything’s wrong, I can see now. The jump is too close to the gravel descent, and the angle’s dangerously steep. Why, the plywood’s not even square! One edge cuts in so raggedly that I doubt it will accommodate the cart’s wide axles, and the boys have braced it with a flat stone in an attempt at a springboard. I glance at the packed ground where the cart will land, and my blood rises in a kind of floating nausea. Then the go-cart appears at the crest of the gravel pile, and the boys toss up a cheer.