Unreliable

by Lee Irby

  No, I don’t want to kill Graves, but I do want to teach him a lesson. After all, that is my profession.

  “Can you take me to Goodwill?” he asks blandly. “It’s by the Chesterfield Towne Center.”

  “You’re getting your tie at Goodwill?”

  “I’m not going to the mall.”

  “Fine. Goodwill it is.”

  What lesson should I teach him? I could leave him at Goodwill, for example, and force him to walk back home, while I drive deeper into the wilds of the old Confederacy, heading for Appomattox Court House, which lies barely eighty miles to the west on this very road, Route 60, on which we now travel. There I’ll surrender, because all good Southerners know that Appomattox Court House is where we must lay down our arms.

  And the wedding will be ruined. This I can’t do to my mother.

  “I don’t belong to the Bastard Sons,” he emphasizes as I pull into the parking lot, thronged with late-model sedans in various states of disrepair.

  “I don’t care if you do or don’t, just so you don’t mess up the weekend.”

  “I’m not a member. Just so we’re clear on that point.”

  “Fine, I’ll take your word on that. So it’s a group of what? Anarchists? Jugglers? Who are they?”

  “I don’t know what they are.”

  “Is Avery a member?”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  He gets out and I decide to wait in the car so I can check my phone. There’s a chance Lola has contacted me but probably not because she’s out for blood now. This is what it feels like to sink to the very bottom. You’re at a Goodwill with the others who’ve been battered by life, and you’re stuck. You’re trapped. You have no options. All that remains is pointless ceremony. A sham wedding, a holiday that long ago lost meaning, and a dean closing in…

  Then my phone buzzes and I get a text. Not from Lola. From Leigh Rose. I inhale sharply, my fingers trembling…

  Can you meet me at the Hotel Jefferson in an hour? I’ll bring your hat!

  I glance at the clock on the Honda’s dashboard: 3:22 p.m. And just then I see Graves leaving the store and heading back toward the car, a white plastic bag dangling from his fingertip.

  I reply:

  Sure, c u there

  10

  Back home, I don’t have much time to get ready. And I want to look and smell my best, to give myself a fighting chance with Leigh Rose because I might not get another. I hope I don’t blow it…there’s so much pressure on me I feel like I’m being crushed by peine forte et dure, a form of punishment reserved for those who’d plead neither innocent nor guilty…rocks were placed on the body, one heavier than the last, until the prisoner confesses or dies…

  The house is quiet, the dishwasher is humming away, and all have scattered to bedrooms behind closed doors. I hurry down to the basement to begin my beautification. If only I could get a tan and lose ten pounds in the next fifteen minutes!

  Even before I reach the bottom of the stairs, I hear the shower running, which strikes me as odd, and so I proceed carefully so I don’t barge in on anybody. I knock on the door to the room I’m staying in before I enter it, and from where I’m standing I can see that the bathroom door is ajar and I can hear music playing from a smartphone—a song I recognize as belonging to Led Zeppelin, meaning that Gibson most likely is using my bathroom. I decide I should probably head back upstairs to give her some privacy, but then the shower shuts off. I don’t want to startle her and so I call out with a friendly “Hey!”

  “Who’s that?” she cries fearfully.

  “It’s Edwin.”

  “You scared me to death!”

  “I’m sorry!” Inexplicably, my face turns red from shame. Now she’s going to think I was peeking at her, which I wasn’t. You saw me. I was trying to be polite and avoid this exact situation. “I’ll wait upstairs until you’re done.”

  “I’ll be out in a second.”

  Growing up as an only child, I never had to share my living space with anyone, and it never bothered me that I had no siblings. In college I’d lived with enough men to approximate what life with a brother might have been like, but until I moved in with Bev, the only woman I’d ever played house with was my mother. Hanging out with Gibson comes as a novelty—we’re strangers thrown into an intimate setting, and yet somehow we seem to understand each other. Not to say I trust her, because I don’t—but there is fascination as I await her next move.

  “I’m dreading this,” she tells me as she steps out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and another that barely covers her sleek and slippery body, smooth skin accented by white strap lines at her shoulders. “I feel like crap and they’re forcing me to go, and it’s going to suck.”

  The towel starts to sag down in front but she doesn’t seem to care.

  “They’ve both been married before,” she continues scornfully. “Why all of the pomp and fuss? Just elope or something. Why drag us through it? What point are they trying to prove?”

  “That they love each other?”

  “Yeah, whatever. Good for them. They’re both drunk, you know. Tonight ought to be a riot.”

  “My mother isn’t a drinker.” I shake my head in disappointment, trying not to stare at Gibson, who continues to reveal more of herself to me with an air of complete indifference that only adds to my confusion. She obviously feels comfortable around me, too comfortable, and thus she displays not just her flesh but her own problems with boundaries.

  “I’m going to get so stoned for this, it’s the only way I’ll survive.”

  “Maybe dinner will be fun. Aunt Paula sounds like an interesting person.”

  “She’ll come on to you. That’s how she is.”

  I laugh and wave her off. If only Gibson knew the truth! If Aunt Paula stripped her clothes off, got on her hands and knees, and begged me to give it to her, I could only politely applaud and offer her a cold drink. But what would Gibson know of erectile dysfunction? She’s at the stage in her life when she encounters the opposite problem, a plethora of erections, such as the one that nearly got us killed earlier today.

  “I’m serious,” she insists, finally repositioning the towel to completely cover up her breasts. “She is a huge partyer. She got married when I was like ten or eleven, and there were like a hundred naked people running around at her wedding. I’m pretty sure one of them was my mom.”

  “She lives in Richmond, right?” I’m still a bit hazy on the details of Mead’s prior life, and still unexplained is why my mother was having a panic attack in front of the restaurant where Mead’s ex-wife works.

  “Yeah. That’s why we moved here. At least that’s the story I got anyway, which doesn’t make sense because we barely see her. She works and drinks and pretends she’s fifteen. She’s got a new boyfriend every month, it’s hard to keep up.”

  “So why move here then if you never see her?”

  “I have no clue, dude. My dad does some crazy shit. Ask him and tell me what he says.”

  “No thanks. I’m staying out of it.” I slap my hands on my knees like a judge banging down his gavel. “Anyway, I need to get ready. I’m meeting an old friend for drinks.”

  “Oh, you’re not coming to the rehearsal?” Gibson sounds sorry about that, and it’s touching, as it shows that she too recognizes that I’m a kindred spirit, even a part of her family now, a safe port in the storm of her crazy life.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. And then I hear we’re having dinner at the Tobacco Company.”

  “Oh my God, I used to date a waiter who works there. He was a fool. He was only good for one thing. Not that! Dude, get a grip. He got us free drinks everywhere. He wasn’t my type, trust me.”

  “What is your type?”

  “You saw him. That’s my type. Except the married part.”

  Footsteps above, and then on the steps coming down. I can tell by the pacing that my mother is descending. A stricken look appears on Gibson’s face and she hurries back to t
he bathroom and shuts the door.

  “Edwin! Are you down there?”

  “Right here!”

  She reaches the basement and then is transfixed instead by little puddles where Gibson had been standing. “Why is there water all over the floor?”

  “Because Gibson took a shower.”

  “These kids are so messy! They think this is a hotel or something and I’ll just clean up after them like I’m the maid. Is she in there?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  My mother charges the bathroom door and pounds on it with wine-fueled irritation. I need to get out of here, this basement, this house, this life. And maybe Leigh Rose is just the person who can deliver me from evil…

  “Can you please wipe up the water on the floor?” my mother shouts, in an annoyed and agitated voice that once was directed at me for my own sloth. Why doesn’t she kick them out on the street, these two miscreant wastrels who deserve the boot? Is it perhaps that my mother enjoys at some level the challenge of parenting her stepchildren? She’s told me repeatedly how much she hates living alone, and while she’s had various man-friends since the divorce, none had worked out. Now she’s getting an entire family to fill up the loneliness she abhors. Her protests, while genuinely expressed, are muted by the fact that she is very much emotionally invested in Gibson and Graves, warts and all. Once a mother, always a mother.

  “And didn’t I tell you not to come down here and use our shower instead?”

  “I don’t mind,” I interject, sounding at once gallant and perverse. Of course I don’t mind, not with Gibson’s penchant for too-small towels.

  My mother turns and walks back down the narrow hallway, and in horror I watch as she slips on the very same wet spots that she’s just instructed Gibson to wipe up. She falls like an ice skater who trips on a crack in the ice, and so she doesn’t tumble backward as much as lunges forward and sideways. Had the pullout sofa not been extended, she would have landed awkwardly on the hard floor, breaking an elbow or hip, but since I am staying in the basement, she crashes into the mattress instead, her knee buckling into the metal frame.

  I rush to her and, dazed, she looks up at me with a weird smile. “Are you okay?” I ask, clutching her hand to lift her up.

  “I think so,” she answers unsteadily, sitting up. “That was stupid of me.”

  I conduct a quick inspection and see a line of blood snaking down the front of her shin. “You’re bleeding,” I announce calmly. She bends down to look.

  “I cut my knee.”

  It’s more of a gash, and fairly deep at that. She won’t like hearing this, but I think she needs a few stitches, which means a trip to the ER, which means the dinner reservation could be in jeopardy—as is my date with Leigh Rose. “We should clean that up.”

  Gibson emerges from the bathroom, still wrapped up in towels, and wordlessly she drops to a knee and begins to sop up the water from the floor with a colorful hand towel. My mother doesn’t curse her or blame, but remains pacific and serene, a study in measured poise.

  “Thank you,” she says pleasantly. When Gibson looks over, her petulant expression quickly turns to concern when she sees the blood. I get up and go to find a washcloth and bandages. Maybe my initial assessment of the wound was overblown and no doctor’s visit will be required. The best-case scenario is that my mother will limp stiff-jointed down the aisle on her wedding day, and the worst is that she’ll spend it in the hospital with a severed ligament. But this won’t be the last of the blood we’ll see this weekend, rest assured of that.

  There’s no first-aid kit in the basement bathroom, but I do bring a washcloth back. Gibson is crying, sitting next to my mother with her head slumped on her shoulder. My mother is cooing into her ear and comforting her the best she can.

  “I’ll be fine,” she insists over Gibson’s muffled sobs and breathless apologies. I bend down and begin to wipe away the blood on her leg, and though the wound isn’t long, it does look deep.

  “You might need stitches,” I finally inform her, holding the washcloth in place and applying gentle pressure, the failed Boy Scout using what little he knows of wound management.

  “Nonsense. It’s your basic cut. You always assume the worst, Eddie.”

  “Can I see?” Gibson asks, sniffling back her tears.

  “Only if you don’t freak out.”

  Gibson slides down and together we examine my mother’s knee. In many ways my future hinges on that bloodied hinge. We encounter many forks in the road and the paths we choose to take all veer off in wildly different directions. An ill-conceived crush becomes a spouse and a miserable marriage or a great one; a trip to the store for toilet paper leads to buying a lucky lottery ticket or getting crashed into by a drunk driver. The son of the Chinese farmer breaks his leg and avoids war, but then maybe gangrene sets in, the kid loses the leg, and he ends up begging on the streets of Peking. Or he stays in the village and discovers fireworks and the abacus. What if I never get to meet with Leigh Rose? I want to, very much, thinking I’ll be happier with her than without—and likewise the prospect of seeing Lola terrifies me. But what proof do I have to support my hunches? None. Just blind faith.

  Gibson and I both think the cut is too deep to avoid seeing a doctor, but it makes no difference. My mother won’t budge. She has the right bandages in the upstairs bathroom, and tonight she’ll wear a dress long enough to cover up her knee. The show will go on.

  11

  It’s ten minutes after five, and I’m sitting near a gaunt bald man playing a Steinway grand piano, one of Chopin’s Nocturnes, and around me in large, comfortable chairs, beneath a breathtaking skylight that causes the sun’s rays to dance in miraculous ways, men in elegant suits toss back bourbon and converse in hushed tones. The lobby of the Jefferson Hotel throngs with plutocrats, and in my frayed khakis and generic blue blazer I feel like a fish out of water against the august backdrop of tailored refinement. Leigh Rose couldn’t have picked a more alien place for us to meet.

  Interesting fact: until the 1940s, the Jefferson Hotel kept full-grown alligators in its fountains, and now these saurians are memorialized by a slew of clever bronze replicas placed in various spots around the capacious lobby of what is arguably Richmond’s most luxurious setting. Not atypically, the grandeur of the hotel was the brainchild of a tobacco magnate, who considered the alligators to be a clever complement to the Beaux Arts refinement, punctuated by the enormous staircase of red carpet falsely rumored to be the model for the one Scarlett O’Hara tumbles down.

  The alligators, though, serve as a potent metaphor for what awaits me. Just getting to the hotel proved to be arduous enough, requiring me to slog through rush-hour traffic on a Friday to penetrate the heart of downtown, 101 West Franklin Street, and then to circle around looking for a place to park, which I did, near the venerable Commonwealth Club, a bastion of old Richmond money where Leigh Rose’s father surely has his own wing. Talk about a collection of dangerous reptiles! And yet, not six blocks away, some of the greatest punk rock bands in history thrashed on stages long since demolished, and it’s that quarter of the city that I long for. But Leigh Rose must have her reasons for picking the Jefferson.

  But where is she? I’ve sent her a text announcing my arrival but haven’t gotten a reply. She might be driving and thus prevented from checking her phone. Whatever, I won’t have much time to spend with her if I plan on being punctual for the rehearsal. I’m nursing a glass of house red, overpriced but robust, and anxiously studying the faces of everyone who passes by, much like the sickly narrator of Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd,” who imagines a life story for each person he sees. But since almost all these faces in this hotel are white, with the same haircuts and attire, there’s not much in the way of fanciful diversion, just a parade of homogeneity. Given what Leigh Rose knows of me, why would she ever think I’d be comfortable here? Even if she has her logic for selecting this monument to Crassus, just a few blocks away are funky watering holes—we could walk to them from
here. Maybe I have no real shot with Leigh Rose—I don’t deserve her anyway, but regardless, could we really click as a couple?

  But what other choice do I have? If this doesn’t work out…I really don’t know what I’ll do or what will become of me. My phone rings, instantly drawing me out of my nest of self-pity. Because it’s Lola. Lola!

  “Hey there,” I answer sweetly. “Where are you?”

  “I’m sitting in traffic outside Washington, D.C.”

  Lola is calling me? Hell has frozen over after all, because Lola hardly ever calls me. I can’t remember the last phone conversation we had. Three days ago? Four? She wanted to tell me about some guy whose nickname was Horse…my face grows flush and I begin to gulp for air, caught unaware by this surprise interruption.

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It sucks. I don’t know how people live like this. I’d go crazy.”

  “Isn’t it too late for that?”

  “Very funny, but the last time I checked, you were a certified pervert.”

  “Not certified. Aspiring.”

  “You know you’re a complete creep and I love that about you.”

  Love, hate: makes no difference to Lola, who can vacillate between these two emotions like a quantum particle. Do we love each other? Let’s put it this way: can love bloom in a sewer? Maybe between two rats, but Lola is more like a swan, while I’m a decomposer, a bottom-feeder, which might actually give me too much credit because decomposers play an important role in a healthy world. Yet there are moments I think I love her, though now isn’t one of them. The real problem is that she is about three hours away from Richmond, placing her here well in advance of her estimated ten o’clock arrival.