“Boys!”
Mama looks around. “Is this where you go to do your . . .” The light from the TV coats her glasses. “. . . darkest things, your most sadistic activities—your pleasures, huh? Is this where you plot to bring the employees of Robards International to their knees? At your feet?” Her voice sharpens, and she tightens, leaning in, the stock prices streaming across her lenses. “Is this where you get back at the world, Dickie, you sick . . . empty . . . sociopath?”
I know she’s talking about Dick Rayborne, but I feel a little guilty.
The boys thunder back down the stairs, and Collin leads them around the corner and into some kind of walk-in closet, hollers, “Whoa.”
I turn to Mama. “Okay, so what are we doing here?”
She looks at me, bites her lower lip, thinking.
“And I swear, if you don’t give me my phone back, I’m just going to leave.”
“This thing?” She peers into her fanny pack, struggles to pull out my phone. She studies it. “Looks like your sister called another eight times.” She glances up at me. “I can call Cujo over right now, have him call your sister back, put the kid on the phone, see how that goes.” The glasses regard me. “No?”
“Listen, Mama. Tell us what you want, and as long as it’s not too crazy, I’ll help. Then I need to take Collin and get going. It’s a very important day.”
She stands there, swaying a little, her jaw trembling. “I want my family back.” She looks away. “I want my goddamn family back.” She turns and shuffles toward the stairs. “Why did it all have to change?”
“Mama. C’mon. Would it help if I played along?”
She nods.
“Okay, listen.” I bite my lip, close my eyes—okay, here we go. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, baby. You know we tried. I’m very very very sorry.”
She seems to deflate a little.
“But the past is the past. We both know we can’t go back.”
She nods, wipes her nose with her wrist. “But I can stop you from destroying more families.” She turns angry again. “Mr. Paperwork.” She considers it, then adds, “Plus, I have a new man. I couldn’t wait around for you forever.”
“Okay, baby.” I ask for her hand. “I might not want the details—that’ll always be hard. But I understand.”
This seems to please her.
“Now let me show you the house.”
“Boys, let’s go,” Mama says. “We’re headed back upstairs.”
They giggle.
“Quit your mischief and get out here.”
The rustle of metal, and more giggles.
“One . . . Two . . .”
Collin emerges from the dark wearing a steel collar attached to three thick shackles, steel wrist cuffs, and an oversize, crotchless harness. Chortling. When it sinks in, my body tenses and I lunge forward. “Collin, what are you . . .” But I can’t finish.
Cujo and Ernie step out of the dark, snickering. We all gasp.
Cujo sports a “spider gag,” which has turned the lower part of his face into a giant mouth hole. In one hand, he’s holding a studded spanking paddle. In the other, he’s tugging on a leather leash, bringing Ernie out of the dark. Collin lets out a wild laugh as Ernie tiny-steps into our full view, his head encased by a black, openmouthed slave mask, his neck encased by a spiked steel collar, his wrists cuffed behind his back, his ankles shackled together by a short metal chain. His prongs are tucked into his jumpsuit so the fork end nearly grazes his chin.
I’m speechless.
The mouth hole frames a dopey smile.
“Actually, we shouldn’t be surprised.” I look around, motioning to the items in Dick Rayborne’s HR dungeon. “Collin, you need to get out of that stuff right now. Put it all back.”
Mama shuffles up to me, whispers. “If this was what you wanted, you should’ve told me. You know I was always willing to try things. Remember that time in Turlock? With the turkey farmer?”
* * *
Back up on the main floor, I feel like I’m walking through the Pillsbury Doughboy’s house.
A plump older lady is baking cookies in the enormous kitchen, and the aroma seems to follow us as we explore deeper and deeper, discovering room after room of lemon-yellow walls, white crown molding, ten-foot picture windows, and crystal vases of freshly cut daisies, sunflowers, and carnations. A symphony of tweeting birds and babbling brooks eases out of an unseen sound system. The HR dungeon seems a million miles away, except for the fact that Cujo refused to remove his spider gag, and Ernie still sports his openmouthed slave mask, his grin more prominent than ever—those lips protruding excitedly—as Collin leads him by the hand. We’d managed to get everything off Collin except for his steel collar (Cujo lost the key).
Mama looks around in wonderment. “I couldn’t have guessed this.”
And then the hint of a woman’s voice.
We freeze, look at each other.
My chest tightens. He’s here. That Porsche outside? He’s obviously here.
From around the corner, a woman says, “Fertilization is absolutely critical.”
Mama keeps shuffling, and we keep following.
We enter a master bedroom the size of a 7-Eleven. There’s no one here. Then, from the master bath, a woman says, “I know this can cause an odor . . .” I look at Mama. Not sure I wanna hear this. “. . . but the benefits can dramatically outweigh the assault on your senses.”
“Okay.” Mama yanks the prongs from Ernie and shuffles to the bathroom.
From the bathroom, a man asks, “Gloria?”
Cujo follows Mama into the bathroom, and I quick-step to catch up.
“So if you can get over the odor, they’ll enlarge to proportions you never thought possible.”
Mama and Cujo disappear into the bathroom.
“Gloria, bring me another bowl.”
“Oh,” Mama says. “This is just choice.”
I ease into the bathroom. It’s enormous, of course. And white-tiled with peach walls and white trim. Sunlight is shooting though a wood-framed window, illuminating a giant bathtub overflowing with bubbles. Protruding out of the bubbles is Dick Rayborne’s balding head, facing away from us. Watching TV. Humming. Helping himself to a bowl of marshmallows placed on a chrome tub rack as the TV flashes an Angela Lansbury look-alike walking through an English garden. “Your noses may not love fish emulsion,” she tells us. “But your roses will.”
Mama takes Cujo by the hand and shuffles closer.
Dick Rayborne turns his head halfway—his chin in the air, his eyes shut—and barks. “Gloria?”
“Gloria?” Mama and Cujo step into Dick’s view, and he jerks so hard the bowl launches into the air, marshmallows shooting across the tub. Mama lowers her head, glowers. “Do we look like Gloria to you?”
Dick seems so scared, he’s speechless. And frozen.
Cujo takes the opportunity to tiptoe a little closer and retrieve a marshmallow from the rim of the tub. He fingers it through the spider gag and into his open mouth, realizes there’s no way to chew and swallow, so he forces a cough to launch it into the bathtub. Dick’s throat releases an odd noise, and he tries to recede into the bubbles, his eyes registering a look of utter horror as they settle on Cujo’s seafoam-green jumpsuit, and then on Ernie, who’s wandered into the bathroom giggling, wearing the slave mask, his hands out.
Another distress noise.
Mama stands over him, playing the role of an utterly baffled old lady. “Dick?” she rasps.
Collin reaches the threshold and stops.
Mama somehow succeeds in making her lower lip quiver. “Dick? I thought you were—” She places a trembling hand over her brow, lowers her head. Then she takes a peek at me, winking. “I’m so confused.”
Dick eases deeper into the bubbles.
“Mr. Rayborne,” I slur, swaying, “I can explain all of this.”
A hand eases out of the bubbles and floats toward a drink ledge beside the tub, only, there’s no drink the
re—just a black device with a small red button. So much for reasoning with him. Now it’s a matter of avoiding arrest. “Mama?” I say. “He’s trying to grab something there.”
Mama shouts at the bubbles. “You sent your little brother?” She glances at me, winks again. “Your little brother to clean up the mess you’ve created?”
The hand scuttles across the tile, searching for the device.
“Mama,” I say and motion to the hand.
Mama turns and huffs. She stabs the prongs into the hand, sinking the fork into the knuckles. From the bubbles, a yelp. The hand scurries back into the foam, the prongs trailing before detaching.
Mama sniffles. “You thought you could sidestep your responsibilities? Just send your bozo brother and try and fool an old lady? And not just any old lady, but the mother of your children. Come here, boys. Yeah, come over here. You, too, Collin. Someone help Ernie to the tub—he can’t see. Come here. There you go, honey. Yeah, so look at us, Dick.”
Dick’s eyes rise from the bubbles.
“These are our children. The fruits of our loins. You promised them the world, honey. You promised me the world. You sold us all on a vision we couldn’t resist.”
The scalp twitches, sinks deeper into the bubbles.
“Yeah, you sure fooled us, didn’t you?” Mama sharpens, taking an acidic tone. “Sold us—sold the world, really—on a lie. Only they don’t realize it yet, do they? But the boys and I? Your own brother?” She snarls and glares. “We know what kind of man you really are. We know you’re the man who abandoned the values essential to family. The man who shits on the world so he can . . .” She motions to the bathroom like a game-show host revealing a bounty of prizes. “. . . sit in his bathtub on a Tuesday eating marshmallows and watching TV while everyone else sinks deeper into a . . .” She puffs out her cheeks, bulges her eyes. “. . . an abyss. Layoffs. Pay cuts. Benefit cuts.” She lowers her head, shows her teeth. “Paperwork.”
Collin says, “Paperwork?”
“Yes, sweetie. Your dad here has created a lot of paperwork for people at Robards.”
Collin looks up to me. “Is that true, Uncle Rick? Paperwork?”
I open my mouth, and Mama says, “You bet it’s true, sweetheart. Your so-called dad in the tub here—”
“He’s not my dad, Mama.”
“Just humor me, kid.” She pulls up her pants, twitches her nose. “When your uncle and his friends at work see a doctor—when they have a boo-boo, or when their children have a boo-boo—the doctor will charge them a lot of money. That’s why they pay for medical insurance through their employer—in this case, Robards International. Most companies also help their employees pay for the insurance.”
Collin blinks and nods.
“Then, when they have a doctor’s bill, the insurance company pays for part and the employee pays the other part.”
“That sounds fair.”
“That would be fair,” Mama says. “The only problem is, your so-called dad in the tub here has worked with the insurance company to create a system that makes it hard for employees like your uncle . . . or Cujo . . . or Ernie to get reimbursed.”
“To get their money back?”
“Exactly.”
“What did he do?”
Mama says, “He created a system of paperwork that is so confusing . . . so complicated . . . so cumbersome and flawed . . . so annoying . . . that lots and lots of people just give up, or don’t give up but make a small but critical mistake along the way. And guess what?”
“Are Neanderthals covered?”
“Robards International and its insurance provider don’t have to pay their share. Meaning . . .” She tugs on Cujo, who’s unstrapping the spider gag from his face. “. . . employees like your brother here are effectively cheated out of their medical coverage.”
Collin looks at the bubbles, then at Mama, and then back to the bubbles. “Is that true?”
The bubbles shift.
Mama shuffles to the tub and reaches into the opposite end of the bubbles, yanks hard. The sound of draining bathwater pulls me back to the evenings of my childhood when I’d take long soaks as my parents watched the Nightly News.
“I think it’s time for Dickie to come out.”
* * *
A few bubbles remain stuck to Dick Rayborne as we escort the nearly naked executive to a vast area that looks more like the lobby of a midsize luxury hotel—plush sofas and chairs, yellow-white porcelain lamps, large oil paintings of stately properties in England, and a seemingly endless series of crystal vases and figurines on side tables and wall ledges. I am not sure what to feast my eyes on—this grotesque spectacle of decadence, or the sight of Dick Rayborne wearing nothing but a small, peach-white bath towel, his sagging, cottage-cheese breasts and arms slick with bathwater, his belly dripping over the towel, his head hanging low, his brows down in some type of embarrassed glare.
Mama shuffles up and prongs him in the throat. He recoils with a snarl.
“When you lived with us . . .” Another pronging, another snarl. “. . . you never needed . . .” She lowers her head, forces him to look her in the eye. “. . . maids and cooks and security men.”
He sways back from her and forces an uneasy grin, showing those enormous teeth. My lord, they’re huge.
“And knowing you . . .” Another poke—this time in the belly—and he steps back and rubs the area with his injured hand, dots of red showing through the tissue. “. . . you probably don’t give them benefits or a decent wage.”
Dick offers a weak, have-mercy grin, his eyes enlarging.
“Or any vacation days. Or sick days. Or holidays.”
Cujo announces, “I’m bored.”
Mama returns to Dick. “Send them home, honey.”
“Home?” His voice is weak and lispy—it’s not what I expected. “Send who home? I’m confused . . .” He bobs his head, and his eyes enlarge again, measuring, sensing, hoping. “Do I know you?” He recedes a bit, looks at her, then at me. “Were you all part of Wave 93?”
Collin looks at me. “Wave 93?”
“Sometimes a company will tell a large group of people their jobs have been elimated, and so they kick these people out. Robards calls these waves—endless waves. I think Wave 93 was last week.”
Another forced grin from Dick. Reddening jowls. “Those things are out of my hands.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Mama wags a finger in his face. “No more running from your responsibilities, Dickie.” She lifts her chin into the air, yells, “Gloria?”
I grasp a sofa to stabilize myself—damn, those minis were a bad idea. “Maybe we don’t need more people right now, Mama.”
“Exactly.” Mama hollers into the air. “Gloria honey? Dickie needs you in the living room.”
From a distant room, Gloria hollers, “Coming.”
Mama turns back to Dick, reaches into her fanny pack, and pulls out my phone. Lifts it into the air with a trembling hand. Takes a few big breaths. Juts her jaw out. Slits her eyes. “This cordless telephone is loaded with dozens and—” She suppresses a burp, tries to catch her breath. “—and dozens of kinky photos of your HR dungeon and S and M playroom. Just the kind of photos that can go—how do you say?—bacterial on the computers.”
“Viral,” I correct.
“Viral,” she says. “Dickie, your kinky sex toys are about to go viral.”
Dick whitens.
“So when Gloria comes in . . .” She sharpens again, yells. “. . . you’re going to do exactly as I say.”
Dick has begun to pant. He looks to me. “If you’re on the Wave 93 roster, I can reinstate you.” He glances at Cujo, who’s struggling to remove Ernie’s slave mask. “Same with the conployees. Not a problem.”
A woman enters from the far end of the living room. I recognize her as the sweet-looking, plump lady who was baking cookies when we came in. Up close, she’s older than I’d first thought—easily in her midsixties—and her expression looks more like fatigue than sweet
ness. “Hello,” she says to us, forcing a smile. “I’m not sure we’ve met properly.”
“Listen, sweetheart.” Mama pumps the prongs in the air. “There’s a very logical reason you’ve never met us. We’re his family.”
Gloria looks at me, smiles. “I can see that.”
I didn’t need to hear that.
“Yes.” Mama seems to lose her train of thought, frowns, and whispers to herself before looking up. “Well, Dickie is hiding from his family. In fact, your boss is probably the least family-friendly businessman around.”
Gloria bows her head, steps back.
“Does Dick even know about your family, Gloria?”
Gloria looks at Dick, who shoots her that uneasy grin, his eyes sinking.
“Didn’t think so.” Mama points her prongs skyward. “Today is going to be a family day, Gloria.”
“Okay. Do you want a family dinner tonight?”
“No. Dick and I want you and the other employees here on the compound to take the rest of the day off. Okay? And spend some time with your friends and family. Or go get drunk or laid or whatever your thing is.”
Gloria brightens, looks at Dick, who nods reluctantly.
“That includes the security team, okay, Gloria? Those guys who clicked open the gate for us. Okay?”
Gloria checks with Dick, who seems to have frozen.
“Dick says, Do it.” Mama shuffles to Gloria, taps her on the shoulder with the prongs. “Have a wonderful day, honey. I mean it. And don’t forget to tell the security guys, okay?”
Gloria nods, removes her apron. “I’ll go tell them and the others.”
“You understand, right?” Mama softens. “Sometimes, a family just needs some private time.”
Gloria nods. “I have a fresh batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies in the oven, but I can—”
“Go, honey. Tell the others and go. Let those cookies burn to black little balls.” Mama turns to me, and nearly coos, her eyes twinkling. “It’s time for some family bonding.”
* * *
Dick says, “Just tell me what you want, and we can talk about it.”
“What I want is, Family Game Night.”
Dick gives Mama an oooooo-kay look, eyes widening, chin tucked in.
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