“Oh shut up! This is about your guilt! It’s about all the years I was doing the heavy lifting while you were working late and avoiding the problem.”
Paul eyes flashed.
“Avoiding the problem? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the problem being that our son is autistic! Our son is not normal, and while I was dealing with it you were busy in denial land! Well guess what, you have a son who has a serious LD issue and that is never going to change!”
I was shouting and Paul looked pretty distressed. I took a deep breath. We were coming up to some kind for fork in the road we had been dancing around for years.
“I am stopping this now Paul,” I said in a low voice. “I will not be one of these broke destitute old people trying to exist on Social Security by eating Ramen noodles and canned spaghetti.”
He sat back and rubbed his eyes under his glasses.
“I got news for you. You already are one of those destitute old people and the best we can do is give our son something before the ship sinks.”
I stared at him with my eyes blurring.
“You bastard.”
“Yeah well. The money is spent so we might as well play our hand now because we got nothing to lose.”
And that’s when something happened. Something just sort of closed like a circuit breaker tripping and I realized fundamentally we were different people. Paul’s ethos for his whole life was built around a make or break strategy. You either went down with the ship or triumphed like an Olympic athlete. But I couldn’t live that way any longer.
So I threw the glass of merlot I had poured but not touched. It dribbled down Paul’s face and stained his polo shirt. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt with that wine still beading on his collar.
“I think you should find somewhere else to sleep Paul.”
He stared at me.
“You’re a coward Julie.”
“And you’re an asshole who disappeared when the real work came along! Who got Toby to the point where he only needs nine credit hours to graduate? Not you, Paul. No, you were off with your bimbo assistant!”
“Fuck you.”
And then he just walked out. I mean walked out in the separated way. I heard the front door slam and the rumble of the Mustang screeching down the street. I sat in the cold silence of the town we had landed in to save our son. I was facing a separation and possible divorce and we were broke. I wondered then how Kristina would have handled this in Parenthood. Adam would have never spent all their money trying to give Max one great memory to hold for all time. He was just too practical. The truth is we were probably more like Dwayne and Georgia than we liked to admit.
STAYIN’ ALIVE
PAUL
I BELIEVE PEOPLE CHANGE every twenty years, like a snake shedding its skin. It might have been when Toby started his senior year and all those years of parenting began to draw to a close. And maybe that is where all this started. Maybe I wanted to grab onto something to hold before it all slipped away. When you are sleeping in an office chair in an empty warehouse strange thoughts go through your mind. I kept seeing Georgia leaning down with her plunging neckline and her cigarette breath, saying, “I really loved high school.”
It messed with my whole idea of what high school meant. If she was in the group of people who loved high school wouldn’t she be doing better? Shouldn’t her good years have parlayed into something better than working in a diner and fighting it out with her ex-husband Dwayne? Should the confidence of those years have allowed her to slip over the obstacles placed in her way and navigate the bad choices? I mean, that is what I am banking on with Toby. I want to give him something that he can cling to and hold up for all time, but what if high school has nothing at all to do with what follows?
But if there is one reason I started this whole thing then I would pin it on Bob Docker. When I was growing up we didn’t have ADD kids or autistic kids. We didn’t have Ritalin or Focalin or Adderall. What we had was Bob Docker. He was this kid in eighth grade with thick glasses and a nose that was always running. He was overweight and wore loafers and baggy pants. He squinted all the time and spoke through his nose. There was something wrong with Bob and all the kids knew it. Once during recess Bob was acting up and screaming and jumping up and down. Someone had taken the kickball from him and Bob in his Coke-bottle glasses was lunging at people trying to get it and screaming hysterically. The kids crowded around him until it was like a small rock concert of the strange kid.
And I know now that Bob Docker was probably autistic. They just didn’t have a name for it then. And maybe that is why I have done what no sane parent would do. I want to give Toby something so he wouldn’t become Bob Docker.
“Getting an early start?”
That is how I woke in the office chair and saw the fresh eyes of Amber with coffee in hand, staring at me.
“Yeah, I figured I’d get some work done,” I muttered, feeling immense back and neck pain. Truly, the modern office chair was not built for sleeping.
“Your clothes look suspiciously like yesterday’s clothes.”
“That’s because they are,” I said, sitting up totally disorientated.
I drank the coffee that was not Starbucks. Sycamore did not warrant a Starbucks but did have Myrna’s Coffee Clutch. The coffee was horrible but hot and it did wake me up. Amber set hers down and looked at me. She looked so young and fresh it hurt.
“Anything I can do?”
“Yeah, call up our old clients and see if you can dig up any work.”
“Okay, anything else?”
I looked at her and realized then I was a man without a home. At least temporarily, because I just didn’t want to go back home, and for all I knew Julie had thrown my clothes on to the lawn and we could well end up in a Georgia-Dwayne confrontation, two snapping dogs trying for the jugular. I stood up and stared at the sunshine outside the windows of the warehouse.
“Can I use your shower?”
YOU AND ME
AMBER
I WAS ALWAYS ATTRACTED to Paul, but we kept everything very professional. I answered the ad on Craigslist for an assistant in a startup computer company and there was Paul. I told Jackie and Doreen that my boss was pretty cute.
“Like how cute?” they asked.
“Oh I don’t know, maybe in that Modern Family or Parenthood way,” I answered.
“Is he old?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t seem old. I mean he seems like he’s my age when I’m with him.”
Anyway, I didn’t ask any questions when he wanted to use my shower. I mean, I think Julie is great. She is like one of those women on The Good Wife with her slicked back blond hair and these tiny diamond earrings she always wears. She and Paul both went to like Big Ten universities and if I had to sum her up it would be like smart, pretty, sexy. I mean she is a mom, but she doesn’t seem that way at work. Anyway, I knew something had happened because Paul just kept his same clothes when he came out, and we went back to work. Julie never came in and when we got off Paul asked if I wanted to get something to eat and we went to this cute little diner.
“You know Paul, if things are too tight I can go back to Chicago,” I said over our burger and shakes.
He shook his head with a two-day stubble on his cheek. “Absolutely not. We have the Homecoming dance and the game and then we are done. I have sunk too much money and time into this to let it go now.”
I picked up my milkshake and sucked on the straw.
“Well, the account is pretty low. We haven’t had any receivables for a while, and none of our old clients has anything they need right now.”
Paul held his burger with both hands and stared out the window. I felt bad for him. He just seemed so alone and I knew he was doing this all for his son. I almost asked then what happened but he just waved it all away and picked up his shake.
“I have one more fund I can break into and that should float us until the end.”
&nb
sp; I looked down and nodded.
“I don’t want to be a burden on you Paul.”
“You aren’t.” He sat back in the booth and looked at me. “It might be just you and me now.”
I felt a sort of thrill go through me. I really didn’t have anything going until I went to work for TJ Computers. I was going to the community college and living at home and then suddenly I had a career. So I don’t know, I reached across and took his hand then.
“I am so sorry Paul.”
He stared at my hand and then his finger climbed around mine.
HEAD FIRST
COACH
WE WERE GOING THROUGH some hitting drills when I saw Linda walking to her car. I know exactly when she leaves—I set my watch to it. Then I turned back and watched Randy working on passing to the Clampet kid. It wasn’t good. The kid can’t run and can’t follow simple patterns. He couldn’t catch a fucking watermelon with a shovel. But I told Clampet I would get the ball to him somehow in the Homecoming game.
I turned back to the parking lot again.
“Hey Linda,” I called, starting across the field. “Let me help you with that.”
She was carrying like a hundred books and some big thing made out of papier-mache. She was always doing special things in her class. She is a really good teacher and makes class fun for the kids and here’s the thing—she actually teaches. She doesn’t turn away from the kids who don’t get it.
I jogged up to her in the parking lot and took the books.
“You don’t have to do that, Ronald,” she said.
“Don’t be crazy,” I said, taking the papier-mache bird. “What the hell is this thing?”
“Oh, some of the kids are making creatures from legends. That is a Pteradactyl.”
I stared at it. “It looks like a crappy parrot to me.”
“Ronald,” she murmured in a way that set me humming.
So I carry the stuff to her little Nissan Versa.
“So big plans tonight?”
She smiles and I can see a touch of grey has settled against her auburn hair.
“No, just me and the cat having dinner.” She squinted toward the field. “Is that Toby Clampet out there?”
I turned and breathed heavy.
“Yeah. He’s pretty bad.”
“I have him in my class. He is highly intelligent.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, he is autistic, but once you break through he has amazing insight on the stories we are reading.”
“Yeah, I had him for Driver’s Ed. Thought I had bought the farm that day.”
Linda looked at me.
“He is not coordinated then?’
“You could say that.”
Linda giggled, something I had never heard her do. I don’t know. Things have been weird lately. I mean, we are both looking at losing our jobs with the school year ending and you just don’t know what’s next. That could be it. I mean, I might never see Linda again. So maybe that is why I did it.
“Hey, you want to get a bite to eat tonight, you know maybe at that Holland Steak House?”
Linda looked kind of shocked because in the ten years we had been teaching together we had never done anything outside the cinderblock walls of Sycamore High. She stared up at me in her little car and I shook my head. I mean, I was the idiot coach and the Driver’s Ed guy and she was the erudite English teacher who loved Virginia Wolfe and Tolstoy and played classical music in her class.
“Look. You don’t gotta say anything. Maybe I shouldn’t–”
“What time Ronald?”
I ran my hand over my mouth and my heart started pounding like I was dropping down and banging out twenty pushups. I figured I could tell the wife I had a booster club meeting. She didn’t care because I was always doing something after school.
“Ah … seven?”
She put that little car in gear and smiled pretty as a picture.
“See you then Ronald.”
I stood there and felt like the first time I ever went on a date. Like there was some great thing suddenly out there on the horizon that hadn’t been there before. I walked back to the field whistling. I went over to where the numbskulls were doing absolutely nothing.
“Talking to Miss Fielding there huh coach,” Randy says with this big shit-eating grin.
I look at him and it’s like I suddenly woke up. I was the coach and she was Miss Fielding—and I was married. I mean it just made me realize the kind of dynamite I was playing with. In this country if you fuck around you end up broke and in some crappy apartment. So I shook my head and scowled.
“Yeah I was helping her carry her shit to her car. Why aren’t you throwing passes to Clampet?”
“Because he sucks.”
“Yeah. Well now you can go give me five laps for doing nothing.”
I turned and Clampet was throwing a football up to himself. Of course he was missing it every time.
LECHEROUS GURU
PAUL
I DON’T EVEN KNOW why I did it. But some of things Julie said to me hit home. I just didn’t feel like going home yet, and it was one of those early October days where the air is perfect and reminds you of when you were a kid. Besides, I still had that convertible, so Amber and I just took a drive out into the cornfields with a cold six-pack and a pack of Marlboro Lights.
And Amber didn’t say a thing after I suggested we go for a ride. She just laid back and looked really beautiful and young in that white Mustang. I opened her up and we were flying and then I realized where I was going and turned off on to that cornfield from years before. We bumped down the road and then I turned around and turned off the motor. I cracked open a couple beers and handed one to Amber.
“You want a cigarette,” I asked pushing in the car lighter.
“Sure.”
I lit hers then mine and we toasted, and that beer never tasted so cold.
“This is beautiful,” she said looking out over the cornfields.
“Yeah. “ I inhaled deeply and felt the lull of the nicotine. “I used to go parking here when I was in high school.”
Amber raised her eyebrows.
“And?”
I nodded slowly.
“And it was great.”
She smoked then and I felt where her hand had been on mine on the drive out. Something was going on and had really been for the last year. I was changing and I wanted to touch something one last time before I was too old to care.
“Maybe Julie is right. Maybe this is all nuts,” I muttered feeling the strong hit of smoke in my lungs.
Amber turned to me with a strand of hair painting her right eye.
“What’s that?”
“Doing all this crazy shit so Toby can have a good feeling about high school. It’s like some guy putting reindeer on his roof to make his daughter believe there is still a Santa Claus.”
Amber feathered back her hair and tipped her head back.
“You seem like someone who would do something like that.”’
I hung my hand outside the convertible and stared off across the cornfields.
“That’s the problem.”
“That’s what I like about you, Paul. You’re different. You would do anything if you thought it was the right thing to do. I mean, what you told me about it’s an eat-what-you-kill world changed my life. I was waiting for someone to come along and tell me what to do with my life but you’re right. We have to make it up for ourselves now. That old world is gone and if we don’t do it then no one will.”
I winced and stared across the long roll of land. The role of guru to the young is easy to play, and I played it very well to a beautiful young girl in her twenties.
“I’m so full of shit,” I muttered.
“No you aren’t. And what you are doing for your son is remarkable.”
I shrugged.
“Maybe I’m doing it all out of guilt. I was a lousy father. When the shit hit the fan I couldn’t take it. Toby would throw a fit and I’d lea
ve. All the nights Julie fought it out with him over his schoolwork…and I didn’t do anything.”
Amber sat up and looked at me, putting her hand over mine.
“But you are doing something now. You are trying to give your son a wonderful memory of growing up.”
“Yeah …well.” I took another swig of beer. “That’s not going so well.”
“How do you know? He might be having the time of his life. I wish somebody gave me a car like this.”
It was getting toward dusk and the sun was lower on the horizon. What I couldn’t explain to Amber was that actions do have consequences. That is something that comes with age. I never really believed it until recently, but a lot of our friends are talking about the colleges their kids are going to. Some of them are Ivy League and I am wondering if Toby will go to college or will he be flipping burgers, and what difference does anything I do really make?
“Do you know how Julie and I met?”
“No.”
I slumped down in the seat and held the beer on the steering wheel.
“I was an actor in a supper club place and she was a waitress. I saw her during the performance and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
Amber put her arm over the back of my seat.
“I didn’t know you were an actor.”
“That was my chosen profession. But I started doing some computer work for people on the side—the rest is history.”
Amber paused. “Did she support your acting?”
“As much as anyone can when their fiancée isn’t making shit,” I replied, shrugging.
Amber and I drank a couple more beers and then she leaned in close. The funny thing is I have always been faithful to Julie. That was always our secret pride. Other couples could slip off but not us. Amber ran her hand through my hair and I felt electricity slip down my spine.
“I don’t know what happened between you and your wife, but you are doing the right thing. You are trying something nobody else would,” she said with a hint of beer and tobacco in her breath.
My Best Year Page 8