Drinking Closer to Home

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “You meant she needed to get weighed?” Buzzy asks. He had a 4.0 grade average all the way through college and law school, yet often has trouble following the simplest ideas. When she spends too much time with her father, Anna begins to imagine his head as a coconut. She often wants to take that coconut and crack it against a rock.

  “Yeah, she needed to get weighed,” the doctor says.

  “She probably needed to get laid, too,” Portia says, and now her mother actually laughs.

  Anna wants the doctor to leave so she can eat the twenty-four-pack of red licorice she has in her purse. She ran an extra forty-five minutes this morning just so she could eat the licorice. Anna realizes that if she simply pulled out a single strand of licorice and nibbled, it wouldn’t look strange. But she doesn’t want to nibble. She wants two ropes in her mouth at once, she wants to fill herself with sugar, and food coloring, and the taste of red. Her family is accustomed to her eating habits, but she knows that, beyond her family, a thirtysomething woman’s shoving double sticks of neon licorice in her mouth and eating straight through the box in about fifteen minutes would be seen as odd.

  But the doctor won’t leave. Buzzy is asking questions as if there’s going to be an exam at the end of the day. He wants to know the names of the different medications Louise is on, the exact dosing, the possible side effects, how long she’ll be on them. Anna is feeling the coconut-crashing urge. She is growing furious at the pace of this conversation. If the doctor doesn’t leave shortly, she herself will leave—she’ll sit in the grubby little carpeted waiting room, hold a Time magazine up as if reading, and get to it with the licorice.

  By the time the doctor walks out, the nurse reenters. Anna doesn’t care if the nurse thinks she’s loony. She rips open the box and starts eating.

  Portia is sitting on a chair with People magazine, her feet tucked under her rump. Her eyes tick across the page in a way that lets Anna know she’s only reading the captions beneath the pictures. She hopes Portia is engaged enough not to notice the licorice. Anna wants the entire box for herself.

  Portia looks up, puts her hand out for a piece. Anna reluctantly lays it across her palm.

  “What’s for dinner tonight?” Anna asks.

  “Baked ziti,” Portia says, and looks back to the magazine. Portia always serves ziti when she’s with the family—a simpleton concoction made by cooking pasta al dente, throwing it in a pan with a jar of red sauce and piles of cheese, then sticking it in the oven for forty minutes or so. Everyone complains about Portia’s meals. But Buzzy doesn’t cook, and for Anna this time away from her family is a vacation from cooking. When they’re home in New York, Emery and Alejandro only eat in restaurants. Anna doubts either one even knows how to make tea.

  In spite of their griping, everyone eats Portia’s meals as if they are ravenous, as if they have never tasted anything better. They are like that when they eat in the hospital, too.

  A social worker pauses at Louise’s room during a moment when the nurse has stepped away. Buzzy, Anna, Portia, and Emery are surrounding Louise’s lunch tray, which has been pushed as far from her bed as it can go. They are busy eating Louise’s grilled chicken, steamed vegetables, dinner roll with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, and Jell-O cup. Alejandro sits on a chair accepting the morsels Emery hands him.

  Anna looks up and says hi to the social worker, then gets back to eating before everyone else finishes the tray. Louise’s heart alarm is dinging. It has been dinging off and on all day and they have grown immune to it: Louise sets it off every time she bends an arm or leg, kinking the small hose that has been connected to her heart.

  “What seems to be the problem here?” the social worker says. She is thick, long-headed, and tall: a human rectangle.

  “She’s constantly setting that thing off,” Anna says. “It would take handcuffs or a rope to keep her still.” She has a bite of roll in her mouth and the remainder of roll in her hand which she waves as she speaks. There is no way she’ll put down the roll because Portia will grab it. Her sister’s always been a pig when it comes to breads.

  “Oh, I see,” the social worker chirps, “you’ve got to put your arm down.” She tucks Louise’s arm into her side and remains there, next to Louise, who seems only half-conscious, as the family continues on with the meal.

  “Well, then,” the social worker says, “I guess I’ll check back later.”

  “Oh,” Buzzy says. “Did you want to talk to us?” A booger of red Jell-O quivers at the corner of his mouth.

  “I really wanted to talk to your wife,” she says, “talk about how she feels now, see if there’s anything she needs.”

  Louise shuts her eyes and either instantly falls asleep or feigns sleep. If Anna were betting, she’d put money on the fake sleep.

  “I’ll come back later,” the social worker says, and she quietly squirms out of the room as if she were leaving a viewing in a funeral home.

  Moments later, the nurse returns and tells the family that the social worker did not approve of their behavior.

  “She thought you were an uncaring family,” the nurse reports.

  Louise opens her eyes, suddenly awake, and laughs in a big, open-mouthed way. It is the most vociferous she has been all day.

  Buzzy is insulted. “I don’t understand,” he says. “What are we doing wrong? What do other people do?”

  “Most people sit quietly in the room,” the nurse says. “I told her you weren’t like most people.”

  “She probably didn’t like us because you talk too fast,” Portia says to Anna. The teachers in elementary school wanted Anna to go to speech therapy because she talked too fast. She never went, of course, as Louise and Buzzy only snickered at the suggestion. She still speaks quickly and has an acute intolerance for slow talkers.

  “Maybe she’s upset that we were eating Mom’s lunch,” Emery says.

  “Well, she’s not eating!” Buzzy says. “Why shouldn’t we eat it?”

  The nurse finishes writing on Louise’s chart, smiles pointedly at the family, and leaves. Anna wonders if the nurse hates them, then she decides fuck it, who cares if the nurse hates them. They don’t need her love. They have each other.

  “Listen,” Louise says. “The next time the social worker comes, shut up and sit down . . . but Buzzy, you’ve gotta come over here and stroke my head or something.”

  “I’ll stand on the other side of you and stroke your forearm,” Anna says, and she gets into position.

  “Maybe I should pray,” Portia says.

  “Yeah!” Louise laughs so hard that she snorts. “And tell the social worker that I don’t need to talk to her because our family pastor—”

  The word itself, pastor, is so foreign to them—like block parties and Christmas caroling and other civic-minded activities that they as a family have never known—that everyone breaks down laughing.

  “Tell her the pastor,” Louise continues, “is on his way here to see me!”

  They are almost in tears at the idea of Louise being visited by a pastor. Buzzy is hooting. Alejandro claps his hands. Portia leans into Emery as if she’s going to fall down from laughter.

  “He needs a name,” Anna says. “You have to give him a name.”

  “Ken,” Portia says.

  “Yeah,” Louise says, and her voice weakens as she runs out of energy. “Pastor Ken. Our family pastor.”

  Chapter 8

  1976

  Buzzy and Emery were both wearing blazers—Buzzy’s was navy blue and Emery’s was sky blue—because, as Buzzy told Emery, one should never board an airplane without looking respectable. The family was standing outside the white rental car at the Burlington, Vermont, airport. It was four in the afternoon, almost ninety degrees, and they were going to drive to Fulton Ranch to visit Billie and Otto.

  “Take your blazer off and fold it over the seat like this,” Buzzy said, and he draped his blazer over the velvety console behind the back seat. Emery leaned into the open car door, did as he was
told, then paused and stared at the two blazers, big and small. He liked getting dressed up. He enjoyed feeling like he was a grown up, maybe even important. Anna was standing outside the car waiting for Emery to sit down. He would be in the middle, as he always was; Portia and Anna both refused to sit in the middle seat.

  “Get in!” Anna said, and she pushed Emery lightly on the shoulder.

  “How long will it take to get there?” Emery asked. Buzzy was adjusting his seat, fixing the mirrors, looking for the blinker and lights.

  “Not long.” Louise began rummaging through her shoulder sack; she was probably looking for cigarettes. She, and about a hundred other people, had made full use of the smoking section on the Pam Am flight. Anna, Portia, and Emery were the only children in the smoking section and, other than Buzzy, the only people who weren’t smoking. Emery’s lungs felt like they’d been roughed up with a nail file and his throat felt like it was wrapped in sandpaper.

  “How long’s not long?” Portia asked.

  “As long as a piece of string.” Louise lit her cigarette from the car lighter, then rolled down her window as Buzzy pulled out of the rental car lot.

  Emery looked out the window and wished the people in his family could give a straight answer every now and then. He decided to try a new angle. “How many miles away is it?” he asked.

  “Around seventy,” Buzzy said.

  “Back roads or freeway?”

  “Half and half.”

  Emery guessed they’d be there in ninety minutes. He couldn’t wait to see if he had figured correctly.

  About an hour into the ride Louise asked Buzzy to pull over so she could pee. Emery looked at his watch so he could deduct the minutes from his estimated travel time.

  “Go far off into the bushes, Mom,” Anna said. “Make sure no one can see you.”

  Emery was certain that no one peed as often as his mother. Louise had peed at the airport in Los Angeles before they took off, peed on the plane, peed at the airport in Burlington. And now, only an hour away from the last toilet, she had to pee again. Emery thought maybe his mother’s bladder was damaged from having had kids. Or venereal disease. A few years ago, when Portia fell asleep reading to him, Emery corralled Anna into telling him a story until he fell asleep. Anna had refused to read Portia’s book, but stood next to Emery’s bed and told him the story of syphilis: its symptoms, how it spreads, and the very real possibility that their parents would eventually die from it. The supposed pending death didn’t worry Emery; other than his parents’ outlaw behavior, he had never noticed insanity in either one of them, and insanity, according to Anna, was the final stage of the disease.

  “Don’t worry,” Louise said, “no one will know I’m peeing.”

  Louise stepped out of the car, her burning cigarette in hand. She stood no more than arm’s distance from Portia’s open window, lifted her gauzy skirt to her knees, and, with her legs stepped out into second position, she simply peed. It suddenly occurred to Emery that this might be the reason his mother often wore skirts and dresses.

  Buzzy laughed and clapped his hands. Anna lifted her hand over her eyes as if she were shielding them from the sun, turned, and looked away out her window. Portia laughed along with her dad as she leaned out the window and watched. Emery crawled over his sister’s lap and looked out the window, too. The stream of urine trailed toward the car, then separated into two streams as it hit the front tire.

  “Mom!” he yelled. “That’s probably against the law!” Emery had three chronic fears: 1. The law and what it would do to his family if they were caught for any of their numerous infractions. 2. His sisters’ moving out, running away, marrying early, or otherwise leaving him alone to fend for himself (wake himself up in the morning, pack his own lunch, etc.). 3. Not being the best and smartest kid in school. His father was convinced he was a genius and so far he seemed to be able to perform to the level expected of him. But what if he really weren’t that smart? What if his school happened to be the easy school, and what if they moved and he was suddenly in the smart school and what if, then, everyone found out that he was only average?

  “Don’t worry, Noble Citizen!” Louise said, laughing. “We’re in Vermont! There’s only one cop in the state and he’s your second cousin Randy, so we’ll be fine.”

  Louise wiggled her hips a little, as if she were trying to drip-dry, then let her skirt drop. She lifted her cigarette to her mouth and got back in the car.

  “How do you know my second cousin Randy won’t arrest you?” Emery asked. Surely Randy had taken some kind of oath that would require him to stop any lawbreaker even if she were his cousin.

  “Because I know everything.”

  Anna rolled her eyes.

  “If you know everything, then tell me what’s going to happen in the future,” Portia said. Emery thought that was a pretty good question.

  “For one,” Louise turned in her seat to look at Portia, “your brother will outgrow this fucking pain-in-the-ass upstanding citizen phase he’s in!”

  “Don’t say the F-word and don’t say A-S-S!” Emery knew you couldn’t be arrested for swearing. But swearing seemed like a Slip ’n Slide to him. One step on that slick platform and you couldn’t stop yourself from swooshing to the bone-breaking end.

  “Ass!” Portia and Anna both said, then Anna leaned across Emery and tapped Portia’s knee to jinx her.

  “Mom!” Emery said. He knew there was no one in the family who would help him bring the swearing under control, but sometimes his mother would take pity on him and spoil him in a way that she never spoiled the girls. Like when she’d make him cocoa and toast for a snack (his favorite), even though she wouldn’t pour a glass of water for his sisters or Buzzy.

  “They’re just words, Emery! Besides, sometimes you have to say ass and fuck to get your point across. Sometimes people won’t listen to you unless you use those words,” Louise said.

  “Fuck yeah,” Anna said.

  “Listen to your fucking mother!” Buzzy said, in the screechy voice he used only when he was teasing the kids.

  Anna, Louise, and Portia laughed and hooted. Emery crossed his arms and dropped his head, pretending not to look at them. There was no chance of winning against the force of all four.

  “Oh, read your book!” Louise pulled James and the Giant Peach out of her sack-purse and tossed it over the back seat toward Emery. Then she stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray, reached for the radio dial, and cranked up the volume.

  The last time the family had seen Louise’s parents was five years earlier, when Emery was four and Buzzy and Louise had taken the kids on a tour of the East Coast from Maine to Rhode Island. When Emery had asked his mother why Billie and Otto never came to California, Louise said, “Otto thinks there are too many weirdos and freaks in California and Billie does what Otto wants just to make him happy.” Emery thought that one day he’d like a wife who did what he wanted just to make him happy.

  The rental car turned onto the long drive that led to the house. Emery closed his book and read the double-posted sign aloud: “Fulton Ranch. Private Property. Trespassers will be shot.” Emery gasped. He didn’t remember the sign from the last visit. Were they trespassing, he wondered? Or was it not trespassing when you were related to the person who posted the sign?

  “Do they know we’re coming?” Emery asked. “Otto won’t shoot us, will he?”

  Louise lit up another cigarette. “Not if you stay out of his way.”

  No one spoke during the ten minutes it took to drive from the trespassing sign to the shingled house overlooking the lake. Buzzy pulled the plain, dull car up behind Otto’s convertible sports car. When he cranked up the emergency brake Emery checked his watch. He was thrilled that he’d correctly guessed how long it would take to get there, but knew better than to announce this feat for fear of being teased about his wonkish attraction to schedules, timing, promptness.

  “Porsche,” Buzzy said, aloud.

  “What?” Portia said.

/>   “No, the car,” Buzzy said. “Otto’s got a Porsche.”

  “He’s always had a Porsche,” Louise said, opening the door. “You know that.”

  “Not when you were a baby. That convertible couldn’t have been a Porsche, they weren’t making them then.”

  “Tell that story again!” Portia said.

  “Yeah, tell it again!” Emery said, although his mother had never told it to him. Portia had told him one night, lying cozy in his bed, her voice slurring as she tried not to drift off to sleep.

  “You guys are so rude!” Anna said. “How could you even bring that up right before we visit Otto and Billie?”

  Louise appeared not to hear. She pushed her glowing cigarette into the ashtray, then stepped out of the car.

  “Mom doesn’t have to tell it!” Emery said. “Portia will tell it!”

  He was referring to the story of Louise’s infancy. When Louise was three months old, Otto and Billie drove thirty minutes out of town for a drink at a tavern owned by Otto’s cousin. Otto didn’t want his mother to watch baby Louise; he thought she spoiled her by holding her continually and coddling her when she cried. So, they tucked the baby into a basket that was placed on the opera seat of Otto’s convertible. The top was down, as usual, even though it was early spring and only about forty degrees outside. Louise’s parents went into the tavern, leaving baby Louise asleep in her basket, bundled like a worm in a cocoon. After many drinks, Otto and Billie seemed to forget that they had a baby, but they did remember that they were fairly far from home. They checked into one of the rooms upstairs, had what Otto called a rollicking good time, and passed out. In the morning, Billie woke up, looked out at the snow falling like miniature fairies outside the window, and suddenly remembered her child. She ran, barefooted and without a coat, to the car where she found Louise purple and frosted, like a sugarcoated plum.

  Otto came out, dressed and carrying his wife’s extra clothes, which Billie put on in the car while they raced to the hospital. Of course Otto didn’t tell the hospital that they’d simply forgotten about the child—he claimed she’d been left by an open, screenless window where the snow blew in.