As they turn onto 9W, Vincent’s sitting forward, charged with gopherlike alertness now that there’s something to see, signposts to his future. It’s touching how he’s practically sniffing at everything they pass: the gas station, the supermarket, the garden center.
“Clairmont,” Vincent says.
“Ever been here?” says Bonnie.
“Once, I think. Some…firemen’s carnival. Years ago. Before—”
“Every July.” It gives Bonnie the creeps to think of Vincent and his white supremacist pals hanging out in her town on beer night.
They pass the candle store, the antiques shops, the organic health food café, all of it seeming more precious and middle class and privileged by the minute. An African-American couple cross the street, pushing a high-tech baby stroller. Nothing like a skinhead riding shotgun to make you see your town clearly. Well, sorree! Bonnie likes what she sees, the diversity, the small businesses trying to survive, the pretty houses, the families who want the best for their kids and don’t feel compelled to burn a cross on the lawn of anyone who’s different.
They stop at the traffic light in front of the Methodist church, where for a couple of weeks now the billboard has read, THE TOMB IS EMPTY.
Vincent says, “Tomb. Empty. Those are two words that shouldn’t exist in the same sentence. Is that some Easter thing?”
“I live on the next block,” says Bonnie. “The not-so-great house on the great block.” Meaning: Don’t get excited or worried when we pass the huge stately Victorians. Don’t judge until we pull into the driveway of the nondescript two-story frame house that seems to have been transported from another, shabbier town.
When she and Joel first moved here, they liked saying that they lived in the not-so-great house on the great block. But eventually it got old. She’s gotten so used to apologizing for the house she’s still apologizing, just in case her guest room happens to be a step down from the Nazi cousin’s living room couch.
Bonnie should have known that Joel was planning to leave when he had the house repainted. She has to give him credit for not sticking her with that. But why he didn’t do it earlier, when domestic neglect was one of many topics of low-level squabbling masking the real problem, which was Lorraine? Lorraine is the widow of Joel’s former partner Jeffrey, who died suddenly of a coronary, and before that the widow of one of Jeffrey’s cardiac patients. Lorraine has written a book about it, a successful memoir called Heartbreak, an account of how it feels to lose two husbands in a short time, both to coronary occlusion.
Maybe Joel wanted the painters around to minimize the hysterical fits he assumed Bonnie would throw when she learned he was leaving. When in fact she was admirably calm, if you don’t count a few shaming episodes of weeping and begging and promising to change. Until the house is painted again, which will probably be never, she’ll always be able to measure the time since he left. A marker, as Meyer and Vincent said about their tattoos.
Bonnie pulls into the driveway.
“Nice crib,” says Vincent. “Good living.”
“Thank you,” Bonnie says.
“What does your husband do?”
“Ex-husband,” Bonnie says. “Cardiologist.”
“Got it,” Vincent says.
“What’s so funny?” Bonnie says.
“I don’t know,” says Vincent. “I figured a shrink.”
“He needed a shrink.” Why did Bonnie say that?
“Well, obviously,” says Vincent. “The guy blew a good thing.”
Should Bonnie say thank you again? She busies herself with leaving the van. Vincent waits till she’s gathered her purse, keys, and briefcase, and disentangled from the seat belt. Then he goes around to the back and wrestles out his duffel bag. It’s heavy. The poor guy’s exhausted. He’s had a tough day. He catches Bonnie watching.
“Books,” he explains.
Right. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries. Having Vincent along makes her so self-conscious that she enters her own house as if someone else lives there.
“Hello-o? Max? Danny? Kids?” Meanwhile she’s rehearsing. Boys, this is Vincent Nolan. He’s come to work with the foundation. He’ll be staying with us for a few days until he gets his own place. Very up, very straightforward. Very don’t-ask-me-now.
But there’s no one to try it out on. She calls their names. Neither boy seems to be here. So what? Max is twelve, Danny’s sixteen. There are a million places where they could be on this lovely, unseasonably warm evening. Playing basketball. Strolling up Main Street for a predinner Big Mac. Bonnie knocks on the wooden banister. The most unlikely possibility is that something bad has happened, but that’s what Bonnie imagines first. At least she can suffer in private. Joel always found her maternal terrors so pitiful and annoying.
She returns to the kitchen to find Vincent still standing near the door.
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” Bonnie says. “Let me show you where you’ll be staying.”
“Are you okay?” says Vincent.
Bonnie says, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m fine. I was just wondering where my kids are.”
“Out having fun?” Vincent suggests.
“Probably,” admits Bonnie. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Maybe later.” Vincent hasn’t put down his duffel bag.
“Come on,” says Bonnie. “It’s this way.”
Vincent waits a beat after Bonnie starts up the stairs, perhaps so his face won’t be directly in Bonnie’s ass. His face. Bonnie’s ass. Those are four words that shouldn’t exist in the same sentence.
If only Meyer could have trusted the guy to stay in a hotel for one night and given her time to clear out the guest room, to deal with the striated layers of family junk dumped in a space intended for a life that never happened. What guests did she and Joel imagine spending the night? Visiting friends from the city? Those friendships dropped off soon after they moved here. Even Joel’s parents, in from La Jolla, stayed in Manhattan and drove up for the day.
She and Vincent linger in the doorway, contemplating the piles of boxes, old clothes, papers, outgrown toys stuffed in lumpy plastic bags. Bonnie should have predicted the hard knot of anxiety that would swell in her chest at the prospect of this stranger sleeping in a room with her kids’ outgrown stuff. Their baby pictures. Does she think Vincent will hurt them? That’s what Meyer would ask. Somewhere, he’d say, there’s a mother with baby pictures of Vincent.
“Sorry about the mess,” says Bonnie.
“Please,” says Vincent. “You should see the rathole I’ve been staying in. Not that it was my mess. I’m basically a neat person—”
“Glad to hear it,” says Bonnie. “I’ll get you some clean sheets. And if you need to rearrange some stuff…”
“I’ll be careful,” Vincent says.
“The bathroom is at the end of the hall. You’ll be sharing with the boys.” Bonnie can hardly say it, the thought fills her with such revulsion. “I’ll leave the dark blue towel for you. It’s the only one like it, so you won’t confuse it—”
“I won’t,” promises Vincent. “That’d be great. Man, I could use a shower.”
And Bonnie? She could use getting through the lifetime from now until the boys show up. Once they’re home she can relax and get on with her evening. Read, watch TV. Danny will go to his room. Sometimes Max still consents to cuddle on the couch.
Bonnie should have given Vincent the house and taken the kids to a motel. Maybe she could get comfortable there. She certainly can’t, not here. At least her bedroom is on the other side of the house. At least she has her own bathroom. Everything could always be worse. She can stand it for one night.
She goes to her room and lies down without taking off her shoes. The unmade bed increases her sense of languor and self-pity. She closes her eyes and tries to calm herself by making plans for tomorrow. She and Meyer are having a staff meeting to discuss how they can use Vincent to generate some buzz. And help him in the process.
Suddenly, Bonnie jumps up. Has she fallen asleep? Are the kids home? She’d just as soon Vincent not meet the boys while she’s napping upstairs.
The first disappointment is that the kids aren’t home. The second is that Vincent is back in the kitchen, looking fresh and scrubbed. The duffel bag must contain some clothes. He’s changed into a short-sleeved black T-shirt. Bonnie tries not to stare at his tattoos. Do Max and Danny need to see that right away? They’ll see it sooner or later.
On the table before him are two books.
“What are you reading?” she says.
He says, “I like to read two books at once. “This one’s The Way of the Warrior. That’s The Complete Pogo.”
“Pogo?” says Bonnie. “The comic? Why?”
“I like how those swamp creatures sound like guys I know.”
“Pogo?” repeats Bonnie. “They don’t sound like anyone anyone knows.”
Vincent shrugs. “I’m also reading Crime and Punishment.”
“You’re reading Dostoyevsky? I haven’t read that since college.” What has Meyer sent her? A neo-Nazi intellectual?
“My mom was a reader,” Vincent explains. “I guess I got it from her. The funny thing was, I didn’t start until I was, like, twenty-five—”
“I’m always so relieved to hear that. Neither of my kids read. They’d watch TV nonstop if I let them—” What kind of mother is Bonnie? Complaining about her children for some Nazi’s entertainment? If something happens to Danny and Max, Bonnie will have deserved it.
Vincent says, “Are those them? Your kids?”
Bonnie spins toward the window. The boys are walking up the back steps. Her relief is so euphoric it works like a stiff drink, persuading her that she can get through anything. Max and Danny are safe. In the face of that blessing, who could worry about something so minor as introducing her kids to a guy who’s changing his life by coming to work with Brotherhood Watch?
WHAT’S STRANGE IS THAT DANNY isn’t more surprised to come home and find some geek leaning his nasty tattooed arms all over the kitchen table. It’s as if he’s been expecting it. In fact it hasn’t been that long since he and Max saw that Chandler show about the former skinhead working with the famous Nazi hunter in California. Danny remembers telling Max: Trust me, it won’t be long until Mom and Meyer get a Nazi of their own.
Now Danny gives his brother a look: Did I call this, or what? But Max has already left his body, vacated, as he tends to do in tricky family situations.
“Boys, this is Vincent Nolan. He’s come to work with Brotherhood Watch. He’ll be staying with us for a few days until he gets his own place.”
Danny says, “Mom, can I talk to you?” Six words practically guaranteed to make her start hyperventilating.
“In a minute, honey. Vincent, this is Max, that’s Danny. Danny, Vincent, Max, Vincent—” Mom comes up for air.
Max rolls his eyes at Danny. Does Max know what those tattoos mean? Danny’s often shocked by the gaps in his brother’s basic knowledge.
“Mom,” says Max. “Take a deep breath. Chill. Say it again.” It’s one of those annoying things Max says to Mom when she’s wound tight and ready to snap. And Mom listens, she obeys, she gets all girly and smiles, and repeats herself more slowly. Normally, Danny resents the inside jokes Max shares with their mother. What makes it even more annoying tonight is that Max is too young to know to skip the chintzy family humor in front of the guy with the death’s-head and the Waffen-SS bolts on his arms.
Obediently, Mom pauses, exhales. “Boys, Vincent Nolan, he’s come to work—”
“Hi,” says Danny, cutting it short.
“This is Danny,” says Mom. “Did I say that?”
Vincent Nolan acknowledges him with a nod that’s more like a spasm. Has Mom not noticed that her new friend is Timothy McVeigh’s clone? What the hell is Mom thinking? Inviting some demented tweaker to stay here until one night, high on crystal meth, he figures out that they’re Satanists and that God needs him to hack them up and stash them in the freezer. How ridiculous that Mom’s not concerned about bringing this maniac home when she worries about every little thing. Danny fears that obsessive worry is an inherited trait.
Danny and Max keep sneaking glances at the tattoos, until Mom catches them looking. “You guys should have been there. The most amazing thing happened. Meyer rolled up his sleeves and put his tattoo, you know, the numbers from the concentration camp, near Vincent’s, and it was so moving, seeing them like that together.”
“It was something,” the skinhead agrees.
The thought makes Danny want to puke. Meyer and Vincent’s tattoos. Tattoos in general gross him out, though his friend Chloe has an eyeball on her shoulder blade that winks when she twitches her back. Just this morning, in homeroom, Danny longed to reach out and touch it.
Danny doesn’t like Meyer. He’s one of those guys who don’t have kids and think that kids are a waste of time. He can never remember which one is Danny and which one is Max, but he fakes it as long as their mom is around. What grade are you in? How do you like school? Mainly, Danny doesn’t like how Mom does whatever Meyer tells her, how she’s always quoting the guy. Meyer says this, Meyer says that. Meyer could be David Koresh. The Jewish Charlie Manson. Danny blames it on the divorce. Mom needs to be deprogrammed.
Naturally, some part of him admires what Meyer does. Even Danny has to admit that Meyer is trying to do good in the world and make a positive difference. But whenever Danny tries to tell his friends what the foundation’s about—sending aid to global trouble spots, keeping tabs on hate groups at home, getting guys sprung from jail—it sounds like such a downer, he’s sorry he brought it up.
Mom says what Danny knew she’d say. “Where were you guys just now?”
“Does it matter?” asks Danny.
“Danny, sweetheart, I’ve told you. Don’t answer a question with a question.”
“All right. We were out.” Danny wants to answer, to make this easy on her. But it’s as if he’s possessed by a demon insisting that his independence and self-respect depend on giving her maximum attitude and minimum information.
“Out where?” Mom’s determined to drag out the Big Interrogation.
“Mom, we were playing basketball in the grade-school yard.”
“Thank you, Max,” says Mom. “Was that so hard?”
“Whatever,” Danny says.
“Anybody hungry?” says Mom.
“Starved,” Max says.
“I could eat,” says the Nazi.
“Sure. I guess,” Danny says. “No Chinese.”
“I was thinking Chinese,” Mom says.
“We had it last night,” Danny points out. The most irritating thing is that she’s so nervous she forgot. You’d think the guy was a visiting rock star. It’s how she acts around Meyer. Even though his mom and dad fought a lot before the divorce, at least they were comfortable with each other. Like normal screwed-up grown-ups.
“Then maybe we should go out…” Mom’s voice has that wispy tremble it gets when she can’t cope and makes Danny and Max decide.
They’re certainly not going out. Danny would rather starve to death than run into someone he knows. By second period tomorrow it will be all over school that Danny was having dinner with a skinhead. By lunch they’ll be saying the guy is Danny’s mom’s new boyfriend.
“Pizza,” says Max. “Call.”
“Sure,” says Danny. “Why not?”
“Will pizza be enough?”
“Fine with me,” the Nazi says.
“Simple!” Mom picks up the phone. “What about toppings? Anything you don’t eat?”
“Nuts,” says Vincent. “Any kind of nuts. I’m fatally allergic. I wind up in the hospital. I nearly died several times.”
“God,” says Mom. “How scary.”
Danny says, “I guess that kind of rules out the peanut-butter pizza.”
Suddenly, everyone’s staring at him. He should probably smile at Mom to show that he wasn
’t making fun of the guest. But on the way to Mom’s face he gets sidelined by the hairy eyeball he’s getting from the Nazi, checking to see if he is making fun, because if he is, Vincent’s going to kick his ass. Is Mom picking up on this?
Obviously Danny is goofing on the guy. What did the moron think they would order? Macadamia pizza? And why do they need to know about his loser allergy problems? Vincent narrows his eyes. Whatever passes between him and Danny is silent, scary, and over in a second, at the end of which Vincent chooses to believe that Danny is making a joke, but not a joke about him, and he laughs, a jagged dog-bark that makes Max flinch.
Danny says, “Pepperoni,” his brother’s favorite. He hates pepperoni. So there’s usually a fight.
“Danny!” says Mom. “How generous of you! Danny hates pepperoni.” As if the guy needs to know. She orders two large pies, one with pepperoni, one with mushrooms and green pepper. “Fifteen, twenty minutes,” she says, first triumphant, then defeated as she wonders: What will they do until the pizza arrives?
Max saves the day. “Hey, Danny, want to watch TV?”
“Okay,” says Mom. “But come upstairs the minute I call. Don’t let the pizza get cold.” Usually, she goes insane when he and Max get home and head straight for the TV. Danny grabs Max and fake-shoves him down the stairs to Dad’s room.
They still call it Dad’s room even though it’s been years since Dad cleared out everything but the thirty-six-inch TV and a couple of beat-up couches. He couldn’t have found a better way to yank Mom’s chain. She despises the humongous TV. She never comes down to Dad’s room. But then, she never did. At the time, it had seemed normal. But later Danny wondered: Wouldn’t you think something was wrong if your husband came home from the office and spent every minute downstairs couch-potatoed in front of the tube? Once again, his mom worries about everything except the things she should worry about. Which is what Dad said once about Danny. So it gets confusing.
Everyone fights with their parents about how long they’re allowed to watch TV. But only Danny and Max get to fight about watching it in their dad’s old room, on a television so expensive that Mom can’t make herself throw it out.
A Changed Man Page 6