by Lamb, Wally
“Branch Commerford Junior!” Erlene says. “You mind your mouth.”
Big Branch points his fork at him, a chunk of meat stuck to it. “Your Mama’s right, sonny boy. You’d best remember you’re at the dinner table, not in the locker room.” But I catch the smirk before he turns to his wife. “This is a fine dinner you’ve put on the table, Mama. If there’s another woman in the great state of Texas that can roast a chicken as good as Erlene Commerford, I’d like to know who she is.” Actually, I made states four times out of four. Only the third freshman in our school who’d ever done that.
Staring at that oversize family portrait, I try and picture myself in it: a Chinese-Italian-Irish mongrel among these blue-blooded Texans. It’s a stretch. I picture our wedding day, me looking out at Casey coming down the aisle with her dad, a picture-perfect bride. Full pews on her side and half-empty ones on mine. I picture our reception at that big, fancy hotel ballroom they’ve booked, everyone chatting and drinking, doing the Texas two-step and the Cotton-Eyed Joe. Having a grand old time, except for my family, huddled together at a table, watching everyone. Why’d she say yes that first time I asked her out? Was it God’s plan like she said, or was she just on the rebound? Rebelling against her father by dating a guy he wouldn’t have picked out for her? A blue state northerner? A nurse? . . . And why, if I’m the one she wants, is she trying to change me into someone I’m not? A husband who’ll order for her in restaurants and adopt the Commerford family values? Someone who’ll belong in that picture up there? . . . Does she love me? She says she does. And I love her, too. Enough to spend the rest of my life with her? Shit, do I even know what love is anymore? I thought my parents’ marriage was rock solid until. . . .
I turn on the TV to get my mind off all this heavy-duty shit. Find that Rangers game. Watch a little of it with the sound turned down. I’m bored and keyed-up both. First she wants me to come in with her. Then she wants me to sit in here by myself. I look down at the coffee table book in front of me. Frederic Remington: The Complete Prints. Look over at that brass Remington sculpture sitting on Daddy’s bar: a broncobuster, one hand on his bucking horse, the other up in the air. I start thinking again about that hooker at the Pink Lady. Her saying those filthy things while I was fucking her. I look over my shoulder to make sure the coast is clear, then put my hand between my legs. Make myself hard. Sitting here in Daddy’s den, it’s as much about defiance as it is about pleasure. But it’s too risky. I get up and head for their downstairs bathroom.
Go in and lock the door. Look around at the gleaming white fixtures, the blood-red walls. There’s a red orchid blooming on the windowsill, the same color as those walls and the matching towels. Above the towel rack, there’s a picture of the Last Supper, Jesus looking like the lead singer of Pearl Jam. It’s not the Son of God watching me, I tell myself. It’s only Eddie Vedder. I close my eyes, unzip. Start stroking myself to my memory of that night at the Pink Lady. But I was weak that night. Gave into temptation. Whoring’s a sin. So I replace Claudine with Casey-Lee: the way she looked that time standing there in her black bra and black panties when I walked in on her. Walked over and unhooked her bra. Put my mouth to her breasts. . . . But then I see her at the Olive Garden tonight, complaining, hitching her hair behind her ear. I want to keep feeling good. Want to finish. So I put that waitress we had in Casey’s black underwear. “Xan,” I whisper. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. But there was no wedding ring on her finger. There’s no husband. And she wants it as much as I do. Wants to spill wine on me and lick it off. When she takes off her bra for me, her beautiful brown breasts spill out. I slide her panties down. Reach out and caress her there. Feel her warm, wet pussy.
But when I open my eyes, there I am in the mirror over the sink, having sex with just myself. And there’s Jesus on the wall behind me, looking not like Eddie anymore. Looking sad and disappointed because He knows Judas is going to betray Him. That I’m betraying Him, too, doing what I’m doing. And man, if that’s not a buzz kill. What’s Jesus doing in the bathroom, anyway? And what the fuck am I doing? . . . Two women marrying each other? It’s unnatural, she’d said before. Well, what’s so natural about her out there and me in here, jacking off with the door locked? Limp now, I zip and buckle back up. Unlock the door and head back to the kitchen.
She’s at the computer. Does she think I was lying to her? That I made up those instructions? “I told you exactly what it said to do,” I tell her. “I checked two different Web sites.”
“I treated it already,” she says. “I’m on Facebook.”
“Facebook? I thought you had all that work to do?”
“I do. I’m just sending Janisse a quick message about seeing Miss Bascomb and her ‘friend.’ I have to tell her she was right all along. She’s going to die laughing.”
And that’s when I know, beyond a doubt, that I don’t love her enough. I tell her I need for her to turn around and look at me, and when she does, I say, “I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“Marrying you. I’m sorry. I can’t go through with it. I’m never going to fit into that picture.”
“What picture? What are you talking about?”
“No matter what else she is, she’s my mother. I can’t just—”
“Yes, you are going to marry me! I’m wearing your ring! You’re going to be my husband!”
The next several minutes are bad. Her sobbing, following me through the house as I head toward their front door, pulling on my arm so that I’ll stay and talk some more. So that she can talk me back into it. “Can we at least pray on it before you go?” she pleads. “Would you please just get on your knees and pray with me, Andrew? Maybe the Lord will take away your confusion.” I tell her I’m not confused—that I was, but now I’m not anymore. “Please, Andrew. Please don’t humiliate me like this. What am I supposed to tell everyone?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, but I just can’t do it. I would if I could, but I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Of course you can, Andrew. The save-the-date cards are already back from the printer’s. What am I supposed to say to my family and my friends? What about all those places where we made down payments?”
“I’ll pay you back,” I tell her.
“I don’t want you to pay me back! I want you to keep the promise you made to me! You have to!”
She follows me outside, pulling on me some more. If I don’t get out of here, get away from her, my head’s going to explode. “Can you just think about it for a day? What about Saturday night? Daddy’s counting on us being there. Mommy said the Halbachs are bringing us an engagement present.”
“I can’t,” I keep saying. “I’m sorry.”
“Can you please just go to the prayer breakfast on Saturday morning then? Maybe being in that big room with all those prayerful people—”
“I won’t be here on Saturday,” I tell her. “She’s my mother, Casey. I need to see my family.”
“Is this about her wedding? Because if you need to go to it, I’ll go with you. We can go together. You still have those plane tickets, don’t you? Let me go with you, Andrew.”
I shake my head. Get in the car and start it. “Take your hand off the handle,” I tell her. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, it’s too late for that!” she screams. “And I’m not giving you your ring back, either! You gave it to me! It’s mine!”
“I don’t want it back. Now stand away from the car.” And when I begin moving it forward, she finally does.
“Please, Andrew! Please don’t go!”
Gunning out of the driveway and onto the road, I shoot past Erlene, Big Branch, and Little Branch coming home. I feel relieved to be rid of them all, their daughter included. Feel, for the first time in a long time, like I’ve slipped that leash and can breathe again. . . .
Driving back to the barracks, I pray. Help me, Lord. Help her, too. Show her Your precious mercy. Thank y
ou, Jesus, for all your blessings. Forgive me my sins. Show me the way so that I may do Your will. Forgive me my trespasses, Jesus. Please forgive me and help her to forgive me, too.
After I’m prayed out, I put on the radio. They’re playing something off of that Rage Against the Machine CD I bought back in high school. I crank up the volume and let the bass shake the car. Because yeah, I’m sorry for what I had to do. But I’m pissed as hell, too. Furious enough to hurt someone. Nobody back at the barracks had better cross me or give me shit, because the way I’m feeling, I’ll take their fuckin’ head off, so help me god!
Chapter Sixteen
Orion Oh
When we get to Long Nook, there are only three other cars in the lot. We walk the path to the top of the dune and look out on the blue sky, the rolling gray-green sea below us. “Oh, my god, I forgot how beautiful it is here,” Ariane says. “But I can see what you mean about the erosion.”
“It’s high tide, or just about,” I tell her. “Yesterday when I ran here, a wave came in and soaked my sneakers. So I took them off and—”
“Daddy, look!” she says. I follow her pointing finger to the horizon where a whale is spouting. We continue to stare out there for another minute or more, and the whale obliges us—this time with a beautiful breach.
The beach below is nearly empty. I jump the two-foot drop, then take her hand and help her down. We walk single file down the footpath that beachgoers have trampled into the dune. At the bottom, we trudge a couple hundred feet then drop our stuff. I spread the blanket, unfold the chairs. We put on sunblock and sit, smiling, looking out at the rolling surf. “You chilly?”
“A little,” she says. “It’s windy here.”
“Then here you go,” I say, reaching into the knapsack for the sweatshirt I’ve brought for her. I toss it to her and she puts it on.
“Much better,” she says. She points to the four or five people way down the beach. “The nudies?” she asks.
“Yup. They still camp out down there. I see them in their glory when I run that way.”
She laughs. “One time? When we were kids? I walked down there looking for sand dollars, and when I realized no one was wearing bathing suits, I was shocked. But the next day, I walked down there again. And the day after that. I’d never seen grown men naked before, and I was fascinated.”
I laugh. “Remember how your brother used to call you Saint Ariane? I guess you weren’t so saintly after all.”
“No, I wasn’t. This one time Marissa started whining about going with me to find sand dollars, too, and you or Mama said I had to take her. I always tried to be cool about looking, but she sure wasn’t. I had to tell her to stop gawking. Then I had to bribe her not to tell you guys about what we saw.”
“Bribe her with what?”
“Sand dollars.”
“Sex Ed 101, huh?” I said. “And all this time, I thought it was shells you were interested in. But you already knew some stuff, right? I remember how nervous your mother was before you and she had ‘the talk.’ She wanted me to do it, but I said no—that I’d talk to Andrew and she could talk to you.”
“Yeah, and you know what the first thing she said was? That I should never, ever let a boy touch me below the waist. Or go someplace alone with a boy or a man because they couldn’t be trusted.”
“God, that’s weird. You sure she put it that way?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Well, she couldn’t have scared you too much if you went on those sand dollar expeditions.”
“Yeah, but that was later. By then, I’d found out all kinds of other interesting things about sex from my girlfriends. When Mama and I had ‘the talk’ and she started telling me how women bleed every month, I was terrified. I got mixed up and thought that if a male looked at you with sex on his mind, it would happen spontaneously. Like those holy statues you’d hear about.”
“Stigmata instead of menstruation, huh? Good thing she stopped making you guys go to church with her then. You probably would have followed the nuns out and disappeared into the convent.”
She laughs. Gets up and goes down to the water. I watch her shield her eyes with her hand, stare out at the horizon. Looking for that whale again, probably. She starts playing that game she used to do as a kid—backing up as the surf comes in so the water can’t catch her feet. Seeing her doing that makes me happy. Whoops, one of those waves just tagged her.
When she comes back to the blanket, I ask her if she wants a snack.
“Got a couple of bananas in my duffel. And some crackers.” She says okay, she’ll try a banana. I’m pleased when she eats over half of it.
“What should I do with the peel?” she asks.
“Just bury it in the sand. It’s biodegradable. You thirsty? I’ve got waters, ginger ale.” She shakes her head. Her doctor wants her to keep hydrating, she says, but she doesn’t want to have to go in the water to pee. She suggests we try that walk now. “Okay, sure. Just tell me when you want to turn around.” I get up, put on my sunglasses. “Which way, boss? Toward the nudies or not?”
“Not,” she says, and we start out.
After we’ve walked a while, she asks me what I’ve found out about my Chinese family. “Well, let’s see. They were peasant farmers in the south—a village called Guangnan. I looked it up on a map; it’s not too far from the Vietnamese border. That cousin I’ve been communicating with says her grandfather came over here first. Entered the country in your neck of the woods, actually. San Francisco. Just made it, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, apparently Chinese immigration was unrestricted in the years when the railroad lines were being built. They needed the labor. But once they were done, California started grumbling about all those pigtailed heathens polluting the good old American gene pool. So Congress shut the door on them. Passed something called the Chinese Exclusion Act. Your great-grandfather had to come here by way of Canada.”
“So much for ‘Give us your tired and hungry, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’ ” Ariane says.
“Yeah, well, that melting pot stuff was always more about what this country wanted to believe about itself than the way people really felt. But anyway, my cousin says her grandfather had two families, one here and another back in the homeland.”
“He was a bigamist?”
“I guess. Apparently, it was a pretty common practice back then. ‘Split-household’ families, they called them. According to Ellen, his wife over there had only produced daughters, but his concubine here had had a son, so that gave her preferred status.”
“Oh, you men,” Ari says, shaking her head. “Plant your seed wherever and then wave good-bye.” It’s ironic that she’d put it that way, given how she got pregnant. Ironic, too, because that’s what my father did. But I’m not going there with either of those thoughts.
“Ellen’s got some old letters and pictures that she’s going to send me after she gets them scanned. She’s had the letters translated.”
“From what? Mandarin?”
“Cantonese, more likely. Mandarin was the language of the upper classes. But it’s the photographs that I really want to see. She says there’s one of your great-grandfather taken shortly after he arrived, when he was in his late teens or early twenties.”
“Cool,” she says. Shakes her head. “The Chinese Exclusion Act. Boy, racism was right out in the open back then, huh? How about when you were a kid? Did you ever experience any of that anti-Chinese prejudice?”
“Here and there. From other kids in school, mostly. Slant-eyes, Charlie Chan. Stuff like that. One time I was playing basketball at the playground, and when I blocked another kid’s shot, he called me a ‘fucking gook.’ ”
“And you don’t even look very Chinese. Did you call him on it?”
“Not verbally. But when I went for a layup a few minutes later, I threw him an elbow. Gave him a bloody nose that, to tell you the truth, I’m still kind of proud of. How about you? Ever on the receiving
end of that kind of stuff.”
She says the only thing she can think of was one time in high school when she was trying out for the math team. “Just before they passed out the tests, this boy told me I had an unfair advantage because I was Asian. Wayne Ogilvie, his name was.”
“How did he even know you were?”
“Because of those registration forms we had to fill out at the beginning of every school year, where you had to put what nationalities you were. He sat in front of me in homeroom, and when we passed them in, he had looked at mine. He was such a pain, that kid.”
“You made that math team, didn’t you?”
“And Wayne Ogilvie didn’t.” She shoots me a mischievous look. “I guess you could say I threw him an elbow with my test score.”
“Atta girl. Hey, what do you say we head back to the blankets? I don’t want you to overdo it.” She nods. Says she’s getting kind of thirsty, that maybe she’ll have one of those waters I brought after all.
“Good. Your doctor’s right about keeping yourself hydrated. And hey, you wouldn’t be the first one who’s ever peed in the ocean.”
When we’re back at the blanket, I decide to go in for a swim. “Watch out for the sharks,” Ari says. I bare my teeth and tell her they better watch out for me. “I’m serious Daddy. Be careful.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The water is gorgeous. Cleansing. Whenever a wave comes, I stick my head into it and let it pass over me. Floating on my back, I think about becoming a grandfather. About my grandfather, my absentee father. I really want to see that picture she’s going to send. . . .
When I come out, I see that she’s fallen asleep. I watch her for a while. When the kids were little and I’d come home late from work, I used to love to go into their rooms and watch them while they were sleeping. Then I’d come back out and have to listen to Annie’s complaints about them: who’d fought with whom that day, who’d spilt their milk at lunch, which one she’d had to put on the time-out chair. One time, to short-circuit her bitching, I asked her if she ever enjoyed her time with the kids, or if it was just torture all day long. She’d poked out her bottom lip and run off to our bedroom to cry. Wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of that night, wouldn’t accept my apology. The ice didn’t start to melt until the end of the week when I’d handed her the flowers I’d bought on my way home from work and got her to smile. But that night in bed, I remember, when I reached for her in anticipation of some makeup sex, she kicked me, hard, and jumped out of our bed. And when one of the kids called for her as she was hurrying down the hall, she’d screamed, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Andrew, I guess it was; he was the one who sometimes suffered those nighttime fears.