Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride

by Sweany, Brian;

  “Don’t kid yourself.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I love you to pieces, but we are not compatible.”

  “That’s a little harsh,” I say.

  “Is there chemistry? Sure there is. But true compatibility? No offense, Hank, but the idea of waking up every day with you and wrestling with all your psychological repression, sexual dysfunction, and emotional transference just sounds exhausting. Beth deserves a medal, not a fucking ring.”

  “Speaking of emotional transference,” I say, “I’m not Chris. You know that, right?”

  “Sorry, Hank.” Lila rubs my arm. “That just all kind of came rushing out.”

  I respond to her gesture by grabbing her hand. I rub it between my thumb and index finger. “Maybe you just need to get out of here for a while. Get away from the New York scene.”

  “No arguments from me.”

  “You’ve done all you can do here: the editing thing, the writing thing…”

  “The lesbian band aid thing.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “Funny you should say that.” Lila pulls an envelope out of her purse. She hands the envelope to me. It’s addressed to her, and the top line of the return address reads Brigham Young University–Hawaii.

  “What’s this?”

  “You don’t want to read it?”

  “I’m sorry, have we met? Why would I want to read anything from BYU?”

  “They’ve offered me a teaching position in the English department. Full benefits, and I could get tenure as early as seven years.”

  “But it’s a Mormon university, in fucking Hawaii.”

  “I’ve made my peace with my church after those wretched books I wrote.”

  “Wretched? Those things put food on both of our plates for the better part of the last decade.”

  “Money and notoriety isn’t everything, Hank. I want stability. I want to put down roots. BYU–Hawaii is offering me all of that and more.”

  “Why do I suddenly feel like you’re telling me this is happening as opposed to asking if I think you should do it?”

  “Because you know me, and we’re compatible.”

  “See, I knew it!”

  “Come on, Hank. Be happy for me.”

  “I am, Lila.”

  “You are?”

  “If this is what you want, I’m ecstatic.”

  “Thanks. Now what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You seem to be losing your steam at College Ave.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “What do you call it?”

  “I call it tired of being a figurehead for a shitty list. I’m not an editor anymore. I’m just a paper pusher.”

  “Then do something about it.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think you know that answer.”

  “Right now, I’m having a hard time even figuring out what the fucking question is.”

  “You need to be a writer, Hank.”

  “Are you insane? I have three kids and a mortgage.”

  “So?”

  “Now isn’t exactly the opportune time to explore a hobby. Besides, what the hell am I going to write about?”

  “Tell your story.”

  “My story?”

  Lila stands up from the table, closing her eyes. “‘My morning gets off to its usual start,’” she recites. “‘I wake up. Masturbate. Eat some bacon and eggs. Drink a cup of creamed and sugared coffee. Have a frank discussion with my father about his testicles.’”

  “How in the hell did you—”

  “I read it on your laptop one of those various nights you passed out on my couch.”

  “So you’re suggesting I write a memoir? Uh, hello, welcome to two thousand six. Did you see James Frey on Oprah? It’s not exactly a growth industry in publishing right now.”

  “Hank, I’m not telling you to quit your day job or pen the next great memoir. I’m just telling you to write. Just sit down with your computer, a pad of paper, whatever, and write something. All that shit that’s in your head? Just let it out. There’s a story there. I know there is. I can feel it wanting to come out.”

  “Problem is there are a lot of people who would probably prefer that this story stay in my head.”

  “Fuck ’em.”

  “Debbie would certainly need to take a long hard look in the mirror.”

  “And that’s her problem, not yours. Besides, what’s Debbie care now that she and Dad are essentially abandoning you?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know, with the move and all. I mean, converting to LDS is one thing. I pretty much saw that as inevitable with your mother. But actually moving to Salt Lake City? Debbie is in for one hell of a culture shock.”

  I prop my elbows on the table, burying my forehead in my hands. Grinding my teeth, I look up and hold my right index finger in the air. “Waitress, we’ll take our check now.”

  “Wait,” Lila says, finally picking up on my body language. “You didn’t know?”

  I shake my head. “That’s a negative, Ghostrider.”

  Chapter ninety-nine

  Mom invited Jack and me over for dinner. I brought a box of red wine, mostly just to piss Gillman off. He invited me to say grace prior to the meal, but I declined. The four of us sit around the long Amish table Mom found at an antique store in Gnaw Bone, a peculiarly named bend in the road about halfway between Bloomington and Empire Ridge.

  “What exactly are we eating here?” Jack asks me under his breath.

  I eye the spread: cubed steak, Spanish rice, and green beans stewed in bacon grease. “It’s a Fitzpatrick specialty.”

  Jack shakes his head. “No it isn’t.”

  “Yes it is,” Mom says. She ladles mushroom gravy over the cubed steak on Jack’s plate, following it up with the rice and green beans. “This meal was an old staple when Hank was a kid. Try it. You just might like it.”

  Jack sticks his fork in the Spanish rice, dissecting it more than eating it. He eats a small bite.

  “Well, what do you think?” Mom says.

  “Isn’t this just white rice mixed with tomatoes?”

  “Eureka!” I say. “Someone has finally cracked the code. Four-star restaurants everywhere are now doomed to irrelevance by this seventies culinary masterpiece.”

  “Give it a rest, Hank,” Gillman says. “Your mother made this meal especially for you.”

  “Yeah, I kind of assumed that.” Grabbing the napkin from my lap, I reach up and wipe my mouth. I place the napkin to the side of my plate. “Truthfully, though, I don’t really have an appetite right now.”

  “You sick or something?” Mom asks.

  “Or something,” I answer. “Can we just get on with this?”

  “Get on with wh—”

  “Utah, Mom?” I say.

  “Oh.”

  “Fucking Utah?”

  “What about Utah?” Jack says.

  I nod in my mother’s direction. “Your grandma is moving with Gillman to Salt Lake City.”

  “It has the highest quality of life of any major metropolitan area in the continental United States.”

  “Says who, Mom? Your oh-so-impartial husband?”

  “Says a Gallup poll for the fourth year in a row,” Gillman chimes in.

  “Gillman, shut the fuck up.”

  “Hank, you will not talk to your stepfather like that in front of me.”

  “I think I just did, Debbie.”

  “It’s just time.”

  “Time for what? To run away?”

  “I don’t see this as running away from anything,” Mom says. “I see it more as running to something—to a new life, to some place where I’m wanted.”

&nbs
p; “Oh bullshit. You’re not just moving to another state. You’re moving to another planet. A planet of weird white people, weird white gods, and weird white underwear. You’re moving to fucking Honkeytown.”

  I back away from the table. Standing, I turn and walk into the living room, my back to the kitchen. Gillman follows me.

  “When was the last time you really included your mother in anything, Hank?”

  “What are you talking about? I include her. We see each other for the holidays, and I always take her out for a birthday dinner.”

  “What about the other three hundred sixty-odd days of the year?”

  “I call Mom all the time.”

  “You call Debbie for three things…” Gillman says. He moves close to me, now nose to nose, holding up three fingers. “You call her when you need a last-minute babysitter, on your father’s birthday, and on your parents’ wedding anniversary.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is true. In fact, that’s one of the reasons we’re moving. It’s time to lay John Fitzpatrick to rest.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Gillman sticks his finger in my face. “I think I’ve earned the right not to stand in his shadow anymore.”

  “Careful, Gill-man.”

  “I’m tired of being careful, Hen-ree. I’m tired of hearing about the perfect John Fitzpatrick. He was a flawed person who struggled at being a husband, a father, and a man just like you and me.”

  “I would seriously shut your piehole right about now if I were you.”

  “Heck, Hank. Far as I’m concerned, John failed you. He shielded you from the truth about his abusive mother. He lied to you about Jack. When Uncle Mitch abused you all those years, it was on John’s watch. His death didn’t mess you up. His life did.”

  Because of the way Jack is positioned at the kitchen table, he’s the only one who has a clear view of my right arm, which is partially hidden behind my back. He sees me clench my fist, but by the time he stands up he’s already too late.

  I underestimate Gillman’s substantial gut. I land a solid punch into his midsection that I assumed would knock him off his feet. Instead, he’s merely doubled over and gasping for air.

  “Gillman!” Mom shouts.

  “I’m okay, Debbie.” Gillman waves her off with one hand, his other hand on his knee.

  “Holy shit, Hank!” Jack says to me, trying not to laugh. It’s just the distraction Gillman is looking for.

  A word about my stepfather. He was an all-state linebacker in high school and walked on at BYU before blowing his knee out.

  Gillman crouches low, his feet shoulder-width apart. He slides his head to the side of my waist and reaches his arms around my thighs. He wraps my legs, raises me up in the air, and slams me through the coffee table. It’s a textbook tackle.

  My wrestling instincts kick in about halfway through the spray of glass and splintered wood. Right before I hit the ground, I turn my right shoulder in just enough so I won’t get caught on my back. I secure Gillman’s right arm with my left while bringing my right elbow down on his right ear. His grip grows slack from the blow, his ear bleeding profusely. I slide out from under him, raising my right fist for another shot.

  “Dad, stop!”

  Jack’s hand squeezes my wrist, my fist hovering inches in front of Gillman’s face. I think Jack might be stronger than I am, although I’m not going to admit it to him anytime soon.

  “Please,” Jack says to both of us. “No more.”

  Mom helps Gillman to his feet. She leans his head over the kitchen sink, cleaning his ear with a cold washcloth.

  Jack offers to help me up, but I refuse. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can,” Jack says. He still grabs my elbow, steering me toward the couch. We both sit down.

  “Nice move,” I say.

  “What move was that?”

  “Calling me ‘Dad.’”

  “Snapped you out of your fucking ’roid rage, didn’t it?”

  “That it did.”

  “Hank?” Gillman says, walking up to us.

  “I think we’ve said all we need to say to one another.”

  “I just wanted to let you know I didn’t mean what I said. I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck you and your apology.”

  “I suppose I deserved that.”

  “Come on, Hank,” Jack says. “Be nice.”

  “Be nice?” I stand up, walking into the kitchen where Mom sits stone-faced and silent at the Amish table from Gnaw Bone. “Someone just accused my dead father of enabling a pedophile. You call that being nice?”

  “I said I was sorry, Hank.”

  “And I said ‘fuck you and your apology, Gillman.’”

  “Just get out of here,” Mom says, tears now running down her face.

  “What?” I say.

  “I think you and Jack probably need to leave now,” she reiterates. “Some of the things Gillman just said to you were cruel and unnecessary, and I’m sorry for that. But his heart is in the right place. I love you and Jeanine and Jack more than life itself, but I also love Gillman. And for him and for me, I can’t be Mrs. Fitzpatrick anymore. It’s time for me to be Mrs. Prestwich.”

  “But, Mom, you can’t go.”

  I don’t say these words. They come from the family room—from Jack.

  He runs across the room crying and into Mom’s arms, just like when he was a little boy and the tornado watch would flash across the television.

  “There, there,” Mom says. Jack sits in her lap. She strokes her seventeen-year-old boy’s hair. “You know the difference between a tornado warning and a tornado watch, right?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” he answers. “A warning means a tornado has been spotted in the area, and a watch means the conditions are right for a tornado.”

  “So when there’s a watch?”

  “There’s no tornado.”

  Mom kisses Jack on the forehead. “And when there’s a warning?”

  “It doesn’t matter, because you’ll always keep me safe.”

  Chapter one hundred

  Jack and I are in the driveway playing a game of H-O-R-S-E that’s just recently morphed into a game of S-T-U-P-I-D.

  “How late is she?”

  “About three weeks,” Jack says.

  “What’s her name again?”

  “Her name is Caitlin.”

  “Of course it is. Please at least tell me she spells it with a ‘C’ and not a ‘K”.”

  “That she does.”

  “Good,” I say. “And she isn’t sleeping with anyone else?”

  “No, Hank. We’re in love.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are.”

  Whenever you hear someone characterized as a “player’s coach,” it’s really a pejorative cloaked in a superlative. The players love him because he “speaks their language” and because “he’s a mentor first and a coach second” who “knows how to put them in the best possible position to succeed both on and off the field.”

  Translation: He’s a shitty coach that loses a lot of fucking games.

  I think that as a father, I make for a great player’s coach. A player’s coach who at the moment is trying to wrap his head around the fact that exactly seventeen years after his own conception, Jack has apparently decided to double down.

  “I feel like I gave you the information you needed so you wouldn’t get into a situation like this.”

  “You did.”

  “So what happened?’

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “I guess we just got caught up in the moment.”

  Statements like this should scare the living shit out of parents. In the nearly two decades since I was Jack’s age, nothing has fucking changed. Sex education still usually devolves into on-the-job training. All those parents, teachers
, and taxpayer dollars assailed against the ignorance of youth, vanquished in one split second because I guess we just got caught up in the moment.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  “Caitlin is taking a pregnancy test today, so we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “You’re not thinking about keeping it, are you?”

  “What if I was?”

  “Then you’re a dumbass.”

  “Gee. Love you too, Dad.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “So you regret that Laura didn’t abort me as planned?”

  “Apples and oranges, Jack.”

  “All I see are fetuses and fetuses, Hank.”

  He still bounces back and forth between “Hank” and “Dad” as the mood suits him: the former if we’re having a bad day, the latter if we’re having a good one. It doesn’t take a player’s coach to figure out where this day is heading.

  “Can I give you one piece of advice?”

  “Go for it.”

  “No matter what happens, you let this be her decision.”

  “I think I have the right to—”

  “You have the right to keep your mouth shut.”

  “But that baby inside Caitlin is half mine.”

  “And a dude presuming a prenatal fetus to be ‘half his’ is like the guy who sold paint to Leonardo da Vinci being called the co-creator of the Mona Lisa.”

  “I dispute that analogy,” Jack says.

  “It’s not an analogy for you to dispute. It’s a fact. You’re not the one carrying another living organism inside you for the next nine months. You’re not the one whose body is going through a physical and chemical metamorphosis. You’re not the one who has to endure the stigma of being a pregnant teenage girl day after day. Look at Caitlin as the owner of a bank and you as a depositor who will never be allowed to own a bank. All you did was deposit your money in the bank and walk away. And if I’m not being clear enough, the bank is Caitlin’s vagina.”

  “Uh, yeah, I got that part.”

  Jack’s phone vibrates in his pocket as he shoots the basketball. It ricochets off the back of the rim to give me the undisputed H-O-R-S-E driveway title yet again.