“About what? What’d he want?”
He sighed wearily. “Well,” he said, “the thing is, Even, you’re a trusting boy, but people will try to take advantage. They know that I have money, and that you’re my son, that Gabe’s my son. Girls are going to go after you. They’re going to want to get pregnant by you. So that they can get my money. They see it as an easy street, a shortcut. That’s just the way it is.” He squinted at me shrewdly. “Do you understand?”
Surprised by his explanation and unprepared for it, I stared at him and didn’t say anything.
“It’s about money,” he said, sensing my disbelief. “It always is. The sooner you learn this fact, the better.”
“How do you know he wants your money?” I asked.
He leaned forward to ash his cigarette, his face thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” he said. He cleared his throat, and then he said that most people always wanted something from him, and that it came down to money ninety-nine point nine percent of the time.
18.
JULY 7
AFTER TURNING OFF our home answering machine, I went to my bedroom with the handheld cordless kitchen phone and lay down on my bed, trying to make sense of it all, startled by my dad’s lecture, and by his conversation with Ben. I still thought of him as Ben, and not Mr. Kagan, since he and Luanne had insisted that we students call them by their first names. A flash of a memory came to me: Luanne leaning over to help me paste glitter on a paper-plate holiday wreath, her hand on my shoulder, my sense of pride. “Beautiful, Even. Look at those colors.”
I planned to keep the phone from Dad’s reach, and I put the ringer on mute. As if by kidnapping our home phone, I could ward off the future.
Did Ben know what had happened? What had Tove told him? What did Tove know? I imagined the Kagans sitting at their dining room table, Ben and Luanne interrogating Tove.
I opened a book—Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men—but set it down almost immediately and went over and sat in my desk chair by the window. I thought, or rather tried not to think, about the Kagans, while staring through the crack in my curtains at the fat palm tree in our front yard, the sun glittering on its fronds.
I remembered the inside of the Kagan home, and how a breeze would come through their open window. One wall composed entirely of a bookshelf, and flowers and plants everywhere—dead, dying, and fresh—on desks, tables, windowsills, and counters. Fragrant, and another scent heavy in the air, one that I now know must have been sandalwood incense. Everywhere I looked, something unusual to see, something that wanted to be touched: porcelain figurines, knickknacks, strange-looking clay sculptures, pieces of dried-out wood and rocks and seashells.
In third grade, Tove and I watched musicals in the late afternoons at her house, and when we finished, the light outside the windows would be darkened to a day-ending blue. Grease; West Side Story; Hello, Dolly!; Guys and Dolls; Oklahoma!; The Sound of Music; Singin’ in the Rain; Mary Poppins.
I’m not a musicals type, but at the time these strange hybrids of forced optimism and story lines, with accompanying soundtracks and lyrics, fascinated me. I couldn’t believe things like musicals existed without my knowledge, and I wouldn’t have been exposed to them if not for the Kagans.
“I’m agnostic,” Ben told me once, around the time I was in fifth grade. “That means I have no idea,” he added, “whether there’s a god or not.” He owned a watch-repair business called Tick-Tock, but he fixed other appliances as well.
“What about your religion?” I asked.
“Religion,” he said, “is the opiate of the masses.”
For a few long seconds, I tried to wrap my head around what he’d said. It’s one of the most paraphrased statements of Karl Marx’s, but I’d never heard it before, and I thought he’d simply come up with it.
“You’re Jewish,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. He smiled. “I’m Jewish. Luanne isn’t, but I am.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Know any Jews, Even?”
“None,” I said.
“You do now,” he said. “You know a Jew now.” And in my head, I repeated: I do now; I do now; I know a Jew now.
“For me,” he said, “it’s not a religion. It’s about culture.”
I wanted to tell him that I was also an agnostic. As soon as he’d explained, I’d decided. But I wasn’t sure how to pronounce the word, so I said nothing.
My comforter jiggled, startling me, the phone vibrating beneath it, and I rose and picked it up. The area code from caller ID showed that it was from Rancho Cucamonga, and I let it ring at least twenty more times.
I’ve thought about it—why’d I answer when I knew that it was probably Ben? How stupid. What could I have been thinking? And I’ve never come up with an adequate explanation, besides Ben’s persistence in not hanging up, and my curiosity.
“Even,” he said, his voice tinged with affection when he heard me on the phone and not Dad, “what a nice surprise. So good to hear your voice. It’s been years!”
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” I said, terribly upset, understanding immediately my mistake in answering. Unthinkable that I should betray my family more than I’d already done.
“It’s okay,” he said in a pleading tone. “Don’t hang up. Please.”
I said nothing, feeling myself break into a sweat.
The line went silent, and then he said, “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry to bother your family. I really am. I wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t so important. We’ve been having trouble with Tove. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Maybe,” he suggested, “I can tell you what I know, and then you can tell me if you have anything to add?”
When I didn’t respond, he said, “It’s like a puzzle. Your dad thinks I’m accusing him of something. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“I don’t know anything,” I said.
“That might be,” he said, “that might very well be.”
“I should go,” I said.
“The thing is,” he said, “we found out that she lied to us about her Fourth of July weekend. She said she spent the night with Crystal and another girl, but we found out later that she didn’t. We know she spent the Fourth at your house. We contacted her friends when she didn’t come home and we found her car outside her friend’s house. She wouldn’t leave.” He paused, took a breath. “I couldn’t get her to come out until I threatened to call the cops. That’s how bad things have gotten, Even.”
He paused again, in case I wanted to respond, and when I didn’t, he said, “Anyway, she finally came out, and I took her home. She admits that she spent the Fourth at your house”—his voice took on an embarrassed, discreet tone—“and that she and your brother”—he coughed—“got together,” he finished. “But that’s all we know. I’m trying to piece the rest.”
“I spent the Fourth at my friend’s,” I said.
“She said that she didn’t see you.” He laughed in false merriment. “Hey,” he said with sarcasm, “she told us the truth!”
It wasn’t funny, and I didn’t respond.
“Sorry to bother you and your family, Even,” he said in a gloomy tone. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I have to go now.”
“All right,” he said.
We said our good-byes and I didn’t speak to him again until over a year later, when we happened to be in the same courthouse bathroom during a break at the trial.
A ridiculously inane and brief conversation that did little to mask our deep discomfort: a mutual, agreed-upon complaint concerning the lack of paper towels. That he spoke to me at all was, I realize now, significant.
GABE ARRIVED LATER that afternoon in a foul mood. “Even,” he said, kicking at my legs outspread at the couc
h, “get out of my way.” He took the remote from me and switched the channels, sitting in Dad’s recliner.
I’d been watching Hitchcock’s Rear Window, and though I’d seen it before, I got rather involved at the midpoint. But I felt exhausted and guilty and not prepared to fight him for television control.
So we watched what he wanted, The Anna Nicole Show, a depressing reality series—every ten minutes or so deluged by commercials—depicting the drug-induced downfall of a plus-size model.
“She’s so hot,” Gabe commented, when Anna wobbled into her kitchen, high as a kite, lipstick smeared around her mouth, and sat in a chair. A close-up of her globe-like breasts, and then her staring-into-space face, lips parted with lipstick-flecked teeth, her cheek on her closed fist, an elbow on her kitchen table.
“Gabe.”
He glanced up absently.
“Gabe, change the channel. This is stupid.”
He stared back at the screen. “Fuck you,” he said, waving me away with a tired hand. “Leave me alone.”
I saw red. I did. A blazing red as I went for him, tackling him, slinging him to the floor, where we wrestled, my thigh grazing the edge of the coffee table. “Fuck you,” I said, feeling the spittle fly from my mouth, “you fucking dick piece of shit!”
“Fuck!” Gabe said. “Jesus, Even, calm down.”
He loosened my grip and crawled a few feet from me. Squatting and staring at me, he breathed heavily. His hair looked like the feathers on the back of a turkey, standing straight up, as if also wondering what to make of my outburst.
We stared at each other, not knowing what to do. I’d never exploded like that before and it scared me. My arms and legs still tingled with adrenaline, and it took a long time for my breathing to settle.
“God, Even,” he said at last, using the same aggrieved, underappreciated tone as our mom. “I didn’t know that you wanted to watch that movie so bad. Next time, just tell me.”
AFTER OUR FIGHT, Gabe tried to get me to stay—“We’ll watch the movie together! I’ll watch it with you!”—but I went for a long drive on the 55 freeway instead, to nowhere in particular, only in the direction of Saddleback, a saddle-shaped landmark formed by the ridge between the two highest peaks of the Santa Ana Mountains. Despite my love for the ocean, when troubled I revert to my Cucamonga roots and seek refuge inland near mountainous terrain. As a kid, I used to like to imagine myself mounting the mountain-saddle like a cowboy on a horse.
Looking at the landscape in the copper glow of smoggy sunlight, I wished I could go back to my childhood vision and ride away like John Wayne.
But instead I turned around and came home.
Dad and Gabe sat in front of the TV, finishing a dinner of pork roast, biscuits, potatoes, and corn.
Gabe gave me a wary glance and said, “Hey, little brother,” to let me know that he didn’t hold a grudge.
I couldn’t eat—the smell made me sick—so I went to Dad’s bathroom and procured two of his sleeping pills from his cabinet.
One would have done the job, but I took the second just in case, and pocketed a few Demerol for the future. The mere thought of having another dog-beheading dream, or of not being able to sleep, scared me.
When I came back into the room, Dad was giving Gabe the same lecture he’d given me earlier, about being cautious and always using a condom, since people—girls—would try to take advantage. He mentioned the phone call from Tove’s dad. I could see only the side of Gabe’s head as it went down.
The sleeping pills kicked in quickly, and soon I slept, as if someone had taken a mallet to my head.
19.
JULY 8
I WOKE EARLY ON Tuesday to a quiet house. Dad wasn’t up yet to brew his coffee. I sat at my desk chair for a few minutes and waited to hear him. I would’ve liked to have slept much longer, but the sleeping pills’ efficacy seemed to expire in a burst of wakefulness. Outside my window I saw the early-morning, lilac-colored sky and the front lawn sparkling with dew, and I heard a few birds singing to each other.
The neighbor’s fat tabby cat, Walrus, sauntered past, pausing to give me a deliberate stare. I tapped my fingers on the glass. Walrus’s hair rose on his back, and he sprung from view.
I tried not to, but I thought about the video. A flash went through me, a hit of a visual of Tove and my brother—implanted as clear as if I were seeing it again—and in a trance, I slapped my cheek hard to make it go away.
I rose and watched in morbid fascination in the bathroom mirror as the handprint on my face went pink, pinker, ending in red.
I wanted something—I didn’t know what it could be—to relieve my anxiety. Then it occurred to me that this might be the way it would be from now on: permanent, tireless, endless isolation and unease.
But later that morning—after my hand-slap mark faded, and after I showered and dressed—Mike stopped by for a visit.
“You’re not answering your cell,” he said, slouching in a chair in the living room. “And you’re not checking your messages. Your phone’s turned off. What’s up?”
His face was flushed. He’d been working out at the YMCA beforehand, his sideburns and some of the surrounding hair still wet with sweat.
Sitting on the couch near him, I ran a hand through my hair, not sure what to say.
“No, it’s cool,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
“Really?” he said, trying, not very successfully, for sarcasm. A flash of anger and impatience crossed his face, surprising me.
We didn’t speak for a long time. He picked his fingernails, something he did when he was uncomfortable. It was like he knew I was lying and he couldn’t look at me.
I felt taken aback. “I’m sorry,” I said finally, my voice saturated with emotion. I wanted to let him know about everything. But I didn’t think I could tell him. That he cared meant a lot to me.
“Sorry for what?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. I could hear Gabe in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, making himself something to eat. Dad had already left for his office.
Mike listened to Gabe’s noises as well, and he noticed something in my observance, saying, “It’s Gabe, isn’t it? What happened?”
“What?”
“What happened with Gabe? Your face’s really red right now.”
“It’s not Gabe,” I said.
He went quiet again, picking at his fingernails.
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” I said. “There’s nothing going on.”
He looked at me but said nothing.
Gabe walked through the living room, nodding at us in passing, eating a slice of toast, and I felt my body stiffen.
After Gabe left, Mike continued to stare at me, and I saw that he knew I was full of shit.
I had to look away, overcome with a rush of emotion, afraid that I would cry or do something stupid.
My heart sped in panic, and I felt as if the blood were draining from me. For a second, the walls and furniture seemed to slip and shift in my vision.
“Oh,” he said, as if to help me, “I almost forgot. Emily’s birthday is today. She wants you to come to dinner tonight. She asked me to ask you.”
I laughed in relief. The idea of escaping into their family appealed.
“It’s not her birthday party,” he said. “That’s next weekend. So don’t get a big head. You’re not invited to that. This is a family dinner.”
I threw a couch pillow at him and he caught it lazily with one hand, and then—when I wasn’t looking—he whipped it back at me. It hit my shoulder and then skittered behind me on the floor.
We both raced to retrieve it, each grabbing a corner, wrestling for control. I laughed along with Mike, and it surprised me a great deal.
Gabe passed through the living room again on his way out the front door. He gave us a sullen stare, and then he left. We heard his truck start and then move down the street.
“Something bad happened,” I said.
; Mike waited.
It took a while but I told him. Everything I’d been hiding inside me came out. Mike made it possible. He got the whole story.
Every now and then he looked at me with a pained, sorrowful expression. He spoke only twice to say, “Slow down, you’re talking too fast,” and “Oh, shit, Even, this is awful.”
Somehow, I got off track and told him about how Tove had been my first kiss—fourth grade, behind the handball courts—and how I wished I’d told him about her that night at our house, before we’d left for the girls’ volleyball party.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone,” I said when I’d finished.
“Sure,” he said. “What are you going to do?”
“Wait.”
He invited me to the beach (“A swim in the ocean always helps me,” he said), but I declined.
He hugged me before he left, saying, “Let me know what you need. If I can do anything, let me know.”
When he released me, I could see the tears in his eyes. “That poor girl,” he said.
After he left, I lay on the couch and watched Wheel of Fortune. I felt better, but I also worried that Mike would let his parents know, and that they’d tell my family what I’d done.
I zoned out in front of the TV. One of the contestants on the game show—a giggly black woman with dimples—was about to solve the puzzle. But she spun and landed on Bankrupt—that awful Waaahoooom falling bassoon sound—leaving the puzzle for the greedy, bespectacled lawyer.
“I’d like to solve the puzzle, Pat,” he said, blurting out the answer in a self-satisfied voice to lights and music and applause.
Unable to stand it, I switched the channel to a remake of Carrie, not recognizing any of the actors, and settled in for the entirety. But it was so dull that I fell asleep on the couch.
When I woke in the afternoon—the room stuffy and somewhat dark (no lights on) and the TV off—my dad was standing with his back to me, wearing khakis and a yellow collared shirt, his hands clasped behind him. He stared out the sliding glass door toward the pool and the garage.
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