How the Dead Dream

by Lydia Millet

  “Thought you might have eased up, is all. Mellowed out. But hey! No harm no foul.”

  “I’d like a vodka tonic, if you have one,” said T. “Sure thing. You?”

  “White wine, please,” said Beth. “Stay right there.”

  “Triple T.!” said a man with a beard, stepping back from the table. White dusted his mustache.

  “Stewart,” said T. “How are you.”

  “Great, great, great,” said Stewart, and clapped him in a bear hug.

  “So I see.”

  “Hey? You know what? Coincidence for ya. I was at this old-boy thing in Atlanta, right? A month ago or something. Mostly fossils. We’re talking Class of 1940 and shit.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “It was all ear hair and prosthetic legs and boring Okinawa stories. I went there for business, looking for investors for my new record label.”

  “Record label. Huh.”

  “It’s completely fucking brilliant, T.T.T. Talk about niches no one’s thought of grabbing. Get this: Aryan rap. More on that one later. But so guess who the fuck I fucking ran into there?”

  “I have no idea,” said T., and held out his hand to accept a drink from Ian.

  “Your old man! Your fucking dear old dad. I mean fuck me!”

  T. stared wordlessly. Finally he lifted his tumbler and sipped.

  “He was looking good,” said Stewart earnestly. “Real deep tan and shit. I didn’t remember him being so buff. Has he had any work done?”

  “Work?” asked T., still stunned.

  “Stew! Come here!” someone yelled from outside. “Hold your fucking horses!” called Stew, and turned back

  to T. “And he had this kid with him, your brother I guess?” “I was an only child,” said T.

  “Oh. Some young guy, then,” said Stewart. “I don’t know why I thought he was family. Maybe the age difference.”

  “Did my father happen to mention where he was living?” asked T.

  Stewart stared at him until the French doors banged open.

  “Stew! I’m serious!” said a woman in pigtails. “Laney’s having a bad trip or something! She’s like saying she’s gonna slide down the cliff on a wine crate! Like, now!”

  “My stupid wife,” said Stewart, “she always does this stupid shit,” and followed the pigtails out the door, shaking his head.

  Later, before they left, he went looking for Stewart but could not find him.

  Presently his father sent a postcard from Key West. Several days later he had a lunch meeting with Brad, a native of the Keys, whose mother’s building he had sold four years before and who now had a large stake in the Mojave project.

  “You run into my father around town?” he asked Brad casually, when business was winding down.

  “I guess he works in this one bar these days,” said Brad, signing the air for the check.

  “A bar?” said T.

  “This one is, you know … you know.” “I know what?”

  “You know. For queers.”

  T. found his mouth working without producing words. He saw his father putting an umbrella in a margarita glass, wearing a bright pink shirt festooned with sunsets and palm trees.

  “T.? You with me there, man?”

  “Sure. Yes. I’m just surprised. I always thought he was narrow-minded.”

  “Yeah. Hey! I’ll get this one.” And Brad slapped down his card.

  T. flew into the Keys on a propeller plane, the thin seat beneath him vibrating. Beneath him the blue was vast, and then he saw the gray precise line of a highway cutting its way across the ocean, between the thin islands. A man sitting next to him told him the road over the sea had been built on a bedrock of dead corals for a railway itself long since destroyed by a storm. One bridge alone was seven miles long, the man said.

  From the small airport he took a taxi to a condo Brad owned on the beach, which was pink and had tiers like a wedding cake. He hung his spare shirt in the closet, showered and lay

  naked on his back on the bed with the sliding door open to the terrace, waves crashing outside and the sea blowing salt wind across his body. The smell of crisp sheets was tinged with the smell of coconut and a breeze came in off the ocean and lifted the white drapes; it grazed the light hairs on his stomach, raising goose bumps and giving him an erection. He thought of Beth, cotton and skin. He should have asked her to come with him. But even with her this would not have passed for a pleasure trip. This was a gesture, but it rankled, it was awkward, even confining. She would not have thanked him.

  And it was still not too late to avoid a meeting. He did not have to go any further than this; he could stay where he was, lie low. The prospect was beckoning.

  But glancing through the open door to the bathroom he saw white tiles and was briefly touched by the body of his mother, naked and slack—there she was, and there the towel he had tossed across the darkness of her lap for the benefit of the paramedics, because he was ashamed.

  By night the bar was crowded and hot. A muscular black man in a net T-shirt handed beers over the counter and there behind him, though it took a few seconds to be sure, was his father.

  Newly blond, darkly tanned, his father wore a polo shirt and smiled whitely to a patron waving money at him as he shot soda into a highball glass with the bar gun. Both his father and mother, it struck him, had made themselves blonder: both of them had lightened their hair and darkened their skin—possibly, he thought, to attract attention through contrast, birds with bright plumage. They had turned themselves into summer people, as though they could stave off the winter ahead.

  Maybe, he thought hopefully, he had imagined his father’s coldness. Maybe his father was only reluctant to face him. He stepped toward the counter, waiting for a hole to clear between other patrons; he stood facing the bartender in the mesh, who nodded at him impatiently.

  “Actually, if I could talk to him,” he said, and pointed to the other end of the bar, where his father stood, back turned, punching buttons on a cash register.

  “Davy!” called the bartender.

  As his father turned he felt his stomach flip—carnival rides from way back, the roller coaster that went upside down or the fixed platform that seemed to drop in free fall and then swooped up again. His father’s face remained blank for some time. Then he came around the end of the bar, unsmiling, and the first thing that T. noticed, looking for him as he pressed toward him through the close crowd, was his feet. At the bottom of his cream-colored slacks his father, who had always worn plain black leather lace-ups, battered sneakers or a pair of Redwing work boots, wore a snow-white pair of espadrilles.

  When they met the next morning for breakfast his father was late—five minutes, ten, then twenty. As he came in he offered a brief, reflexive smile, quickly dropped, and barely glanced at how T. waited for him: ramrod straight in his chair, holding his Wall Street Journal rolled up in his hand as though he might have to deploy it in the swatting of flies.

  As he approached T. understood in a rush that he was not the same man. His bearing was different, his movement, everything: a dog, for example, would not recognize him. Strange as this altered man was to T., the new self suited him,

  that was clear. At the same time this new parent was closed to T. Not even the awkward intimacy of confession lay between them anymore; his face was shut like a door. He had simply moved on.

  He waved at someone behind T.’s shoulder. Then he sat down and adjusted the chair several times, back and forth, tucking himself beneath the table edge.

  “You order yet?” he asked, and opened up a menu, signaling to a waiter. “Could I get a cappuccino here?”

  “Of course not. I was waiting for you,” said T.

  “Oh, you didn’t need to do that,” said his father distractedly. He did not look at him, tracing a finger down the list of menu items. “I’ll have the eggs Florentine.”

  “Huevos rancheros,” said T. “So. I ran into Stewart Albin a couple of months ago and he said he saw you in Atlanta.�
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  “I always go to the reunions,” said his father, nodding. He seemed bored.

  “I know that. He said you were with some kid. He thought it was my brother.”

  “Stewart, Stewart. Oh yes. He was the one hitting us up for investments in a record or something.”

  “Aryan rap.”

  “No one had any idea what he was talking about. I think he’s insane.”

  “So then I got your postcard and then I was talking to Brad Deering and here I am. First off I want to tell you. My mother had a stroke.”

  “Oh dear,” said his father faintly, and clucked his tongue. He reached out and adjusted a daffodil.

  “We thought she was dead at first. It was an overdose and the stroke happened while she was unconscious. It happened in my bathtub.”

  “Oh dear,” repeated his father, still not meeting his eyes. “But she’s doing fine now?”

  “It depends what you mean. She’s all right physically,” said T. “As far as the tests go. But she’s not what she used to be.”

  “We’re not so young anymore, are we?” said his father comfortably. “I’ve had these tension headaches lately.”

  “Headaches,” repeated T.

  “Aspirin does nothing for me. Ibuprofen either. The only thing that does anything is Tylenol with codeine. That stuff is sheer magic.”

  T. stared at him, but he played with his fork and smiled vaguely.

  “I’m sorry about the headaches,” said T. slowly, “but I’d really like to think you felt some concern about my mother. That when I tell you she almost died, that you—you know— actually care.”

  “Sure, sure I do,” said his father lightly, but was looking past him again, smiling and waving.

  A woman in a straw hat descended on them. “Davy! Darling!” she said.

  She was nut-brown, like his father, and wore shimmering peach-colored lipstick. She was draped in scarves.

  “I haven’t seen you for weeks it seems like,” she said, and kissed his father on the top of his head. “I’m over there with Boolie. He can barely keep down his coffee. He overdid it last night.”

  “This is Carol,” said his father. “A friend. Carol, my son

  T.”

  “Well hi!” squealed Carol, as though she’d won the lottery.

  T. nodded curtly. Clearly his father wanted her there. “When did you start going by Davy?” he asked. “It was

  always Dave or David, my whole life.”

  “That was the old me,” said his father. “The new you is more jaunty,” said Carol.

  “Well, Carol,” said T., “it’s been nice meeting you.” “Join us!” said his father, and put his hand out to grab the

  back of a chair.

  “Are you kidding?” asked T., incredulous.

  “Not at all. Here, take a load off,” said his father, and patted the chair.

  “Just for a minute, while Boolie’s in the little boys’ room.” “I was telling my father how my mother had a stroke recently,” said T. resolutely. He would not be diverted. “But

  he doesn’t seem to be interested.”

  “Florentine?” inquired the waiter, plate-lifting.

  “That was so speedy!” enthused his father. “Right here.” The waiter tried to put the other plate down in front of Carol. “No, I’m the huevos,” said T.

  “I’ll say,” said Carol. “What?”

  “It’s important, when you’re starting fresh, to let go,” said Carol with a therapeutic lilt. She reached out and patted the back of T.’s hand.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said T.

  “Your father is like a beautiful butterfly,” said Carol. “For him to spread his wings he had to leave the dusty old cocoon behind.”

  T. stared at her and she stared back, smiling and blinking. Her two front teeth were different shades of white.

  His mother had no knowledge of any of this, yet he felt hurt for her.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” he repeated finally, and turned back to his father. Who seemed not to be listening; he was carving into his mound of spinach and egg with a fork as though he had been starving for days. “Are you there? This

  was a person who spent thirty years with you. This is your wife. My mother.”

  Carol played with her rhinestone-studded watchband and his father continued to eat, patting neatly at his mouth with his still-folded napkin.

  “Your son is an angry person,” she whispered finally, and his father shook his head ambiguously as she turned back to

  T. “You know, honey, that resentment is just like a poison. It will just eat away at you. You should work on it.”

  “Carol? This is a family conversation. Give us a minute, if you would,” said T. “Please.”

  She looked at his father and got up reluctantly. T. watched as she flowed over to a table in the corner, where a fat man in a baseball cap sat sucking a bright red drink from a straw.

  “That was very rude,” said his father.

  His father waved at the waiter and made a check-signing gesture in the air.

  “I have to admit, I really feel like hitting you,” said T. “I’m used to homophobia,” said his father, and patted his

  mouth with his napkin again. “I’ve been exposed to it all my life.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said T. wearily.

  He gazed down at his refried beans congealing beneath a dollop of sour cream. He felt disinclined to touch them.

  “I have to protect myself from people who are full of hate,” said his father.

  “Dad, listen to me,” said T. “So you’re gay? Great. Whatever feels right. You look good, you look healthy. But do you have to be cruel to her?”

  “I don’t have to listen to this, Thomas.”

  He felt a buzz in his ears, a wall of deafness rising within him. He was hot; he had to get out of the restaurant. He took

  a card out of his wallet and laid it down. “Her new telephone number. Please at least call her. Please at least tell her why you left. That you’re not coming back. Do her that small favor.”

  He rose, his father half-swiveled away from him in his chair, and tossed down a twenty; passed Carol and the morbidly obese man named Boolie, who glared at him with bulging eyes. He felt tamped down into fury, the tension of his rage making him want to burst into a run. As soon as he was away from the restaurant, enough distance behind him, he turned off the road down to the beach again and took off his shoes.

  He did run then, along the cool tidal sand: he pounded the wet grit with the tender soles of his feet, a shoe clutched in each hand, until the bottoms of his feet were raw and he was winded and gasping. Then he slowed to a stop.

  By nightfall he was on the West Coast again, curled warmly around Beth’s smooth back and listening to the whir of his own ceiling fan. There he drifted back to the sand, the beach beside the pink stucco building.

  The sand was full of fathers in bathing suits, sleeping; he was the only one awake, with fathers all around him. He did not wear a bathing suit but a body cast, and none of the sun or the sand reached his skin. In the cast he was cool. He felt no need for movement.

  The tide was so far out that the low white line of the waves breaking was barely visible on the horizon. Between him and the sea the sand was hilly with dunes, and yet past it he could still see the wide flat ocean. Everywhere fathers were dreaming in the warm sun, the fathers who

  had once been little boys, running; the sun that made them gleam. Crabs sidled up to them and wasps landed on their lax bodies.

  No, wait. Were the fathers asleep?

  Their eyes were wide open. They were there, gold and massive, but they saw nothing.

  The fathers lay still, their faces toward the sky: until the wind passed a hand over all of their eyes, closing them.

  3

  His first houses went up almost overnight—slab, frame, roof, electrical and plumbing, drywall, finish and landscaping— fast and cheap, designed not to last but to become o
bsolete. Retired people moved in, gathering in the desert from cold northern suburbs. In his downtime he presided.

  He strolled alongside the tennis courts, watching the vigorous play of sweating players through the green mesh and idly calculating the probability of atrial fibrillation. When she did not have other obligations Beth accompanied him, and together they sat in the Mercedes and purred along the newly minted neighborhoods as the sun rose, observing the early risers—a gawky racewalker in headphones, dog-owners with scoops and bags, brightly dressed matrons walking in twos as they chatted nasally. Beth liked to ride with him, either because she was captured, as he was, by the completion of this beginning, this forecast of greater growth, or because she was content to be in his company. She gazed out her rolled-down window, idly drumming her French-manicured

  fingers on the shining wood panel of the car door, the breeze slightly moving stray tendrils of her black hair. Pulling around the bottom of a cul-de-sac he admired the smooth action of garage doors rolling upward to disgorge shining sedans; he cast his eyes over sculpted xeriscape bushes in the rock gardens, the well-hidden spigots that watered them. There was no better way to behold this neatly emerging landscape than from behind the clean windshield of the 190, which framed external scenes and kept them at a perfect distance.

  There was a tidiness to his circuit, and satisfaction filled him from bottom to top like liquid. His profit was projected and beyond even that profit—the perfect and curtained margin that made liberty—here was a good settlement; here was a small country, planned step by step and now filled with citizens. It was a modest piece in a patchwork, stitched into the vast fabric by roads and cables and aqueducts, by cheap gasoline and abundant rubber and lumber from the northwest, by the dominance of car companies, the willingness to drain lakes and dam rivers, the invention of Freon and computers and urea formaldehyde. This was the apogee of civilization.

  And he was, in part, a designer of the lives that would wind down and likely end here—strange position, insignificant he knew to anyone but him. But out of his intention had sprung the last rooms, the final gardens.

  If he was harried he liked to force a pause in his day and sit down in the dimness of the community center weight room, seldom used, where he could look through the glass wall at the older women in their water aerobics class. The angle of their swim-capped heads above the water’s surface brought him a sense of calm. He thought how the world would feel if it were populated solely by elderly women—a