by Jim Kokoris
* * *
I had just drifted off, when the hotel phone rang. I groped in the dark to answer, heart racing. Good news, I knew, did not come in the form of late-night calls.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Dad, it’s me, Karen. You need to help. We’re locked out.”
I sat up, glanced at the clock. It was one thirty. “Karen? Where are you?”
“Outside the hotel. In the parking place. We forgot our keys. Mindy’s puking.”
I sat up. “Is she sick?”
“She’s drunk. Wasted. And she’s throwing up. Heaving. It’s gross.”
“Okay, I’ll be right down. Give me a second.”
“Daddy-o?”
I was on my feet, searching for my pants. “What?”
“I’m really drunk too. I mean, really wasted too.”
“What? Well, don’t move. Don’t drive. Stay there! Just stay there!”
“Whatever you say, Daddy-o.”
* * *
Mindy was on her hands and knees in the parking lot, a small pool of vomit in front of her. A streetlight was bathing everything in a bluish-white glow, and in that glow, my daughter looked unearthly, a zombie dog on the prowl. Karen was standing over her, gently petting the top of her head. Under normal circumstances, I would have been heartened by this, applauded her big sister efforts, but Karen had her shirt off and was standing there in a black bra.
“Really hot out,” she said when she saw me.
“Put your shirt on! What is wrong with you?”
“She’s airing her tits out,” Mindy said, wiping her mouth with the bottom of her shirt.
“Yeah,” Karen said. “Men don’t know what it’s like. Tits sweat.”
“Put it on.”
“She loves showing her tits off,” Mindy said.
Karen started struggling back into her blouse. “You’re the one who took your shirt off in the bar.”
“You took…?” I walked closer, giving the vomit pool a wide berth. “Get up. Stand up. Watch where you’re walking. Don’t step in it.”
From of the corner of my eye, I spotted a very short man wearing a tight black T-shirt and a plethora of gold chains. In a heavy Spanish accent, he shouted, “Hello!” and smiled.
I jumped. “Who’s he?”
“Manny,” Mindy said. She was sitting on the ground, eyes deranged.
“Who?”
“Manny,” Mindy said, “He bought us tequila. So I was going to have sex with him. It’s the least I can do. He bought us a lot of tequila.”
Manny nodded his confirmation, smile widening. “Hello!”
I discerned from his size and just-happy-to-be-here smile that he didn’t pose a real threat. “Thank you, Manny, for walking them here,” I said. “I can take it from here, though. I’m their father. You can go now. Gracias.”
“I think he wants a blow job,” Mindy said. She heaved air, a dry gravelly sound. “He implied that at the bar. He bought us tequila. Shots.”
“Be quiet. Don’t talk. Just be quiet.” I turned back to Manny. He kept smiling and nodding in a way that suggested English wasn’t even a second language. “Vamos,” I said. “Gracias though. Gracias very, muy mucho.”
“Dad, he’s not going anywhere until one of us blows him,” Mindy said. “You might have to do it,” she said to Karen.
“My blowing days are over,” Karen said. Her eyes were closed, and she was wobbling, her arms out to her sides like she was surfing.
“Hello!”
“Dad,” Mindy said. “Would you mind blowing him? Take one for the team? I don’t think he’d mind.”
That was it. I pointed at Manny. “Go! Beat it! Get out of here. Vamos! Run!”
The tone of my voice did not require a UN translator. Manny’s smile quickly disappeared. He gave the girls one last furtive look and skulked away.
“And I thought he was the one,” Mindy said.
“Get up. Come on, it’s late.”
We crossed the lot slowly, Mindy stopping every few feet to dry heave and then marvel at the night sky. “So many stars. So many stars. We don’t have them in New York. We have, like, nothing in New York. I don’t think we even have a sky. It’s like a big nothing.”
“A void,” Karen said.
“A what?” Mindy said.
“A void.”
“Yes! A void! That’s it! There’s nothing above us there. Nothing above us, just, like, nothing.”
“That’s weird when you think about it,” Karen said. Then they both started laughing very hard for some reason.
“Have you done drugs?” I asked.
“No, why? Do you have any?” Karen asked.
“Keep moving. Both of you.”
Just outside the hotel door, Mindy came to a complete stop, stuck her neck out like an ostrich, and threw up. This started an ugly but not unpredictable chain reaction. Karen covered her mouth, gagged, then threw up an amazing volume of spew, some of which splattered on my pants. Surrounded now by an inlet sea of puke, with vomit shrapnel embedded in my jeans, my own gag reflex, which was historically at threat-level orange, kicked in. I ralphed right alongside my daughters.
“Family! Family!” Mindy yelled, pumping her arms upward.
“USA!” Karen screeched.
“I feel bad Mom and Ethan are missing all this,” Mindy said, wiping her mouth again with her shirt. “We do so little together as a family.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, disgusted. The night had devolved from making love with Mary to this. I opened the door wide. “Get inside. Come on. Take the damn stairs. The stairs. Over to the right. Hurry. Second floor. Come on, I don’t want anyone to see us. You’re going to my room.”
* * *
It took us a while to manage the stairwell and hallway, which had to be the longest in the vast Marriott chain. Every few feet, Mindy sat down on the floor and had another acidlike revelation. (“Indoor carpeting is nice. Think about it, I mean it’s nice.”) When we finally made it into my room, she stumbled over to the queen-size bed and fell on it, face-first.
“Take off your shirt!”
“That’s what that guy at the bar said,” Karen said.
“That’s why I did it,” Mindy said.
Karen flopped down next to Mindy, but at least had the good sense to stay on her back. Both girls had puke on their fronts.
“Take your shirts off. Both of you.”
They sat up obediently and pulled off their tops while I rifled through my bags. “Put these on.” I handed them each a T-shirt and watched as they wrestled with them. Karen was trying to force her head through the arm sleeve.
“For God’s sake, how much did you drink?” I helped untangle her, then threw their shirts in the tub, rinsed out my mouth, and returned with two clean washrags.
“Sit up. Both of you. Sit up.” I started in on Mindy first, wiping her face and doing the best I could with her hair. “What did you drink?”
“Tequila,” Mindy said.
“Anything else? Anything else?”
“More tequila,” Karen said.
“Yeah, that’s right. That was it. Tequila, and then we had more tequila. They go good together.”
I kept at Mindy’s face. “Where did you go?”
“Pinky’s,” Karen said. “Down the street.”
“How did you get there? I know you didn’t drive.”
“We used, you know, our feet to get there,” Karen said. “Our feet.”
“We walked.”
“Right, that’s the word I was searching for. So good with words, are you.”
I moved over to Karen, scrubbing down her cheeks and chin and neck. Then I propped them up with pillows, made them each drink a full glass of water, and pulled a chair close to the bed.
“What are you doing?” Mindy asked.
“Just close your eyes and try to sleep.”
“You worried we’re going to choke on our own vomit, aren’t you?” Karen said.
“No. I’m wo
rried you’re going to choke on each other’s vomit,” I said.
“You’re funny, Daddy-o,” Mindy said. “You’re officially a funny person. I’ve always respected your comedic abilities. You’ve been a secret inspiration of mine. You could write for the show. We have some shitty writers. I mean, they’re shitty.”
“Where’s Ethan?” Karen asked. Her eyes were closed.
“With your mother.”
“Are you two getting back together?” Mindy asked.
I pulled the top of my shirt over my nose. Despite my efforts, both girls still had a fine stench wafting off of them. “Not that I’m aware of. Unless you know something I don’t know.”
“She still loves you, you know,” Mindy said.
“Yeah,” Karen said, “I concur with that sentiment. I sense the love. Chemistry. You two still have it. It’s electric.”
“You should repropose,” Mindy said. “Someone in this family should get married.”
“Yeah, Mom can have my dress,” Karen said. “It’s in the van. No, I shipped it back, that’s right.”
“You can get married at a Cracker Barrel,” Mindy said. “We got to reunite the family, get the band back together.”
“You know, Dad, you know, we broke your car window that time, after you left Mom,” Karen said. “Did you know that?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“After we found out about your mistress,” Karen said. “You know, the woman, the slut.”
“Yeah, Miss Slut Hooker Whore, our almost stepmom,” Mindy said. “We smashed the windows of your car in honor of her of amazing sluttiness. I was home on break, and Karen you were there, weren’t you? Yeah.”
“Yeah, that was me.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. We used my golf club. A seven iron, my favorite club. Distance and height. Distance and height. My favorite club.”
“Yeah, Tiger Woods’s wife got that idea from us,” Mindy said. Remember, you called the police, and they thought it might have been that kid across the street. That kid, that basketball-playing kid. Looked like Opie.”
I wasn’t surprised by this confession. “I knew it wasn’t Kyle. I realized later it might have been you two.”
“Yeah, suspicions confirmed,” Mindy said. “I mean, I mean, wouldn’t you do that? You left our mom. Mom Nichols. Mrs. Mom Nichols. You left her. Momma Pajama.”
Karen belched. “You mean Mama Drama. She was pissed.”
“Just for the record, I didn’t leave her. She threw me out, technically.”
“Same thing,” Mindy said.
“Try to sleep.”
“Do you ever regret what you did?” Karen asked. “To Mom?”
“Of course. But I can’t do anything about it.”
“Why did you do it then?”
“I was stupid.”
“Men are weak,” Mindy said.
“Men are the root of all evil. They suck,” Karen said. “Especially Roger.”
“He really sucks,” Mindy said. “It doesn’t surprise me what you said about his dick.”
“The crooked banana? Yeah, that was weird. I used to close my eyes when he got a boner. It was scary.”
“You know, I don’t need to hear all this. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep like this,” Mindy said. She was sagging toward Karen.
“You two are both going to feel like hell tomorrow.”
“We’ll survive,” Karen said.
“Yeah, my big bad older sister is tough. She’s a tough bitch. I wish I were as tough as my big, bad, bitchy, bossy, beautiful, bitchy…”
“You said that already,” Karen said.
“Older bitchy but beautiful older sister who’s bitchy.”
“You said that already.”
“You’re the one who should have gone into show business. I should have followed my passion.”
“Passion?” Karen mumbled.
“Hamsters. Hamsters love me. I could have been like that woman with all those apes. Living in a jungle with, like, all these jungle hamsters. A herd of them.”
“Jane Goodall,” Karen said.
“Yes. Her.” Mindy burped. “You know, I never told you this, but I think it’s time I do.”
Karen was slipping down her pillow. “What?”
“In high school, at WT, I used to sell your panties to guys on the football team.”
Karen’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
I pulled the shirt away from my mouth. “You did what?”
“Yeah, I made like ten bucks a pop, or pair. Those guys were such fucking creeps.”
“That’s why I never had any,” Karen said.
“Yeah. That’s why.”
I was understandably horrified by all of this. “What is wrong with you? Why would you do something like that?”
“I needed the money. Someone had to support those hamsters. I wanted them to go to college.”
“I never had any panties in high school,” Karen said. “Mom was always yelling at me, asking me what I was doing with them. I thought I was going crazy. Mom used to make me write my name on them to keep track of them.”
“I know. I got, like twenty bucks for the signed ones. I mean, autographed panties from Karen Nichols, head cheerleader. Come on, it was a steal.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Karen said.
“I can’t believe you never figured it out. Didn’t you think it was strange that I always wanted to go panty shopping with you? Who wants to go panty shopping with her sister? Who wants to go panty shopping, period?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything anymore. Which is good, sometimes. We had pretty fucked-up lives at home.”
“Really fucked-up. Like, reality-TV fucked-up.”
“Your lives weren’t that bad,” I said.
“We had a crazy house, Dad. A crazy house,” Mindy said. “Do you remember Silent Nights?”
“Yes,” I said softly.
Mindy was referring to the darkest part of the War Years, when the blitzkrieg raged. We were experimenting with Ethan’s medications, and things weren’t taking. His tantrums were worse than ever, and the slightest thing would set him off. Desperate, we agreed to keep all noise—TVs, radios, and even talking—to a bare minimum. Consequently, we turned into a house of mimes, pointing to things we wanted, rubbing our stomachs when we were hungry, waving hello, good-bye, clasping our hands together and holding them close to our heads when we wanted to sleep. The whole thing was tragically ridiculous and, to make matters worse, it didn’t work.
“We survived,” Karen said.
“Kind of,” Mindy said.
“You two both turned out fine.” I reached over and turned the lights off.
“Who do you love more?” Mindy asked. “Be honest. Karen can take it.”
“Lie down now. Lie on your stomachs.”
They slid down on their backs so I had to turn each of them over.
“Good night, girls.” I kissed them both on the tops of their heads.
“Where’s Stinky Bear?” Mindy said, her voice muffled by the pillow. “Where Stinky. Bear. Be?”
“Go to sleep.”
“I miss Ethan,” Karen said.
“Yeah, so do I. Where’s his room?” Mindy said. “Get him in here. I miss the big galoot. He always smells so clean.”
“Because I’m always giving him baths.”
“I love him,” Mindy said. “Every time I think I am incapable of love, I think about him. I think, man, I love him, like a pure love, so there, I’m not as fucked-up as I think. Ethan kind of makes me normal. He makes me be nice. I’m not a nice person, but around him, I’m not that bad.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re saying. That’s his thing,” Karen said. “He gives you a chance to be nice. Ethan gives everyone a chance to be nice.”
“Sometimes I think that without him, we’d all, like, fall apart. He’s, like, our center or something. Hey, Dad, do you really think you can leave him
? Just leave him like that?”
“I’m not going to just leave him, but, yes, he’s going to stay there, yes. We all agreed we were going to give this a try. It’s a good place.”
“No, you’re not,” Karen said. “When it comes down to it, no, you’re not.”
“He’s your whole life.” Mindy said this softly, like she was dreaming.
“This whole trip is a joke,” Karen whispered.
“When it comes down to it, no way are you leaving him there, no way, not for six weeks. Not for one day.” Mindy said. “We’re just waiting for you to realize it and go home.”
“This whole trip is a joke,” Karen whispered again. “A big, fat, joke.”
11
The next morning began much too early with a knocking, followed by the sound of Ethan’s excited voice: “Hello! Hello! Hello!”
I sat up in a fog. I had had my Ethan-is-talking-normal dream again, but couldn’t remember specifics, just that we were together and that he was speaking, clearly, in complete sentences. I did not like those dreams, didn’t like them at all; after I woke, a feeling of loss would cling to me.
“Hello! Hello! Hello!”
“Okay. Hold on!” I suddenly had a strong desire to see him, give him a squeeze. I got to my feet and wobbled, stiff-legged over to open the door. And there he was, standing next to Mary, bright-eyed bushy-tailed, Mindy’s Bud Light cap on backward. He may as well have been wearing a T-shirt that read, CARP DIEM! I leaned down and kissed him on his forehead, then gave him a solid hug.
“My man,” I whispered.
I smiled at Mary. She looked summery that morning: sunglasses, a soft yellow sleeveless dress, sandals. I wondered how far we were from the ocean.
“Where. Girls. Be?” she asked.
I released Ethan, put a finger to my lips, and motioned with my head. “Enter.”
Ethan walked past me, followed by Mary. When she saw Karen and Mindy lying side by side, facing each other, breathing heavily out of their mouths, she took off her sunglasses and said, “I don’t even want to know.”
“Stinky!” Ethan cried.
“You don’t.”
“Girls!” Ethan said, pointing and smiling. “Girls. Sleeping.”
“Girls,” I said. “Right. Very hungover girls. Girls who were out very late last night.”