“You’ve got a cute bum,” she blurts to me. “I noticed the other night what a neat little bum you have.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I always tell people if I think something about them looks nice. Because if you don’t—Oh I just said that, didn’t I? But it’s true. People tell me I make their day!”
“I bet you do.” I try to keep my tone light. I told Francis I likely wouldn’t get back till nine or ten. Right now, all I want to do is go home. I wonder if I’m beginning to display agoraphobic tendencies.
“Are you free tomorrow afternoon?” Lucy asks. “Tomorrow’s my birthday. I was hoping you could drive me somewhere.”
“Tomorrow’s your birthday? Eighty-one! Um, sure, where do you want to go?”
“There’s a special Greetings from Spirit over at the, ah, the whatsits—There’s a tea group that meets once a month at four. I just—I felt like I missed out the other night and I thought it would be nice to hear from Lloyd on my birthday.”
“Is that medium you like going to be there? Monica something?”
“Monique Fontaine? No. It’s just a little tea group. I thought it would be something fun to do.”
Oaxacan folk art sits on a nearby shelf, all purples, yellows, and blues, dotted wings and striped quills. “I worry about you spending so much money on me as a chauffeur. You don’t want me to vacuum or something? Do your dishes?”
“Don’t be silly. I know what I need. And I have money. I think we make a good team, you and I. Who’s that rich guy who used to say, ‘You don’t get paid for the hour, you get paid for the value you bring to the hour’?” She looks at me until I nod. “Anyway, I felt a little gypped when I didn’t hear from Lloyd the other night. You in?”
Looking at the shelf of demented beasts again, I think of Frankie, and how he’d have climbed the walls to get his hands on those things. The thought brings a memory of the United Church of Spiritualism and Frankie ghosting in my lap. Recalling the sense of him is like rolling in warm cotton.
What does it matter if it’s all a delusion? If I could spend all day in that dream, I would. “Sure, okay.”
Lucy gives me a wink and digs into her flauta.
“How many times have you heard from Lloyd?”
“I bawled my eyes out the first time. I could always feel him near but the first time I heard from him—Oh!” She puts a small, blue-veined hand to her heart. “Lloyd believed in the afterlife. He wasn’t so much afraid of death as he was of ending up on life support, and I swore I’d never do that to him. So when he collapsed in the living room that night, the ambulance came and they started taking out their gizmos like they were going to try and resuscitate him and I said, ‘Don’t bother with that. He’s dead. I didn’t call you till I knew he was dead.’”
My mouth hangs. She what? What is she saying?
In my head now is a picture of Lloyd on the rug, shuddering with pain, unable to speak, and Lucy in their kitchen, filling the kettle, chattering away.
When Lucy finishes her main course, she pulls her purse into her lap and tugs on a stretchy silver cord attached to the lining with a safety pin until she gets hold of the magnifying glass at its end. She uses it to pore over the dessert menu. “Oh, I don’t know. I think I’m too tired for Scrabble,” she says and closes the menu. “Would you mind just dropping me off and calling it a night?”
She dumps the magnifier back in her purse and pulls on a gold cord until she gets hold of an old leather glasses pouch. Digging two fingers in, she ferrets out a stack of credit cards and ID. “Could you catch her eye and ask for the bill?”
ON THE DRIVE home, Lucy asks what time it is. When I tell her, she says, “Seven’s not very late but I’m ready to get into my cozy bed.” She looks over at me. “You must be tired too. You had to spend all that time with the oil change.”
“Yeah, I’m ready for my PJs too.”
As I turn onto her street, she says, “Just pull up front. You go ahead and take the car.”
I want to say no. Keeping Lucy’s car seems like a kind of hostage taking. Except I’m the hostage. But I can’t say that and I feel like an ingrate for thinking it. “Lucy, I can’t keep taking your car. It’s—”
“You’ll need it tomorrow. Why take the bus all the way—Where the hell did I put that?” She’s rummaging in her purse. She pulls out a billfold attached to yet another stretchy cord. “Here we go.” She hands me two fifty-dollar bills. “For the oil change and your time. The value you bring to your time!” She grins and puts her hand on the door handle. “Who’s that?” She looks up at the entrance of her building. “Can you see—is that a woman?”
“Looks like it.” I jump out, haul her walker out of the trunk, and wheel it over to the passenger side as I watch the woman key the handicapped entry. Both doors open wide for her. “It’s a lady on a scooter. Blond hair, kind of heavyset, probably in her sixties.”
“Oh her.” Lucy puts her hands on the walker and hoists herself up. “Odette, that big, fat slob. She’s so judgmental.”
I check Lucy’s face for a smile, some hint that she’s in on her own absurdity. Nope. She’s busy shaking her head, scowling at the very thought of Odette, that big-fat-slob of a judger.
ON THE WAY home, my cell rings. Lucy. I pull over. Maybe she left something in the car.
“Just wondering if the gas is getting low. Maybe you could put a few bucks in and I’ll pay you back.”
The fuel gauge is at three-quarters. “Okay. I’m on the road now, so we better hang up and I’ll see you tomorrow at three-thirty.”
Not two blocks go by before the phone rings again. I hit SPEAKER and keep going. “Hey, Lucy.”
“I hope you weren’t insulted that I didn’t feel like playing Scrabble. If you’re keen, I could probably keep going for an hour or so.”
“I’m pretty bushed. I’ll take a rain check.”
“Okey-dokey, then, dear. Oh by the way, do you like the color blue? Because I have a pretty blue scarf that I never wear. I’ve also got these tubes of conditioner that come with my hair dye. Would you be able to use—”
“Oh Lucy, there’s a roadblock ahead. Better hang up. Talk tomorrow, okay!” I end the call.
I don’t remember feeling this kind of impatience with Mary or Cecily or any of the others who used to employ me. What if I’m turning into an irritable asshole? What if this is all part of my transition to misanthropic hermit?
Coming upstairs to my apartment feels like deliverance. I just want to close my eyes and think of nothing.
Key in hand, I hear music on the other side, disco beat, techno music.
I open the door to find the living room deserted, but for some clothing on the couch and a nearly dry fifth of vodka on the coffee table. Two glasses.
On television, a young woman is popping her barely clad butt while singing in a voice so heavily pitch-corrected by AutoTune that she sounds like a robotic goat.
“Francis!”
I switch off the TV.
“Hey, baby!”
Baby? Who the hell is that? I stare at the half-closed door of my room. I walk over and push it open.
A man is on my bed. A very young man in a pair of jeans and nothing else. He looks up from the magazine he’s reading—the magazine I left on my nightstand this morning.
“Oh! I thought you were Frankie,” he says. “You must be his sister. He went, um, he went to get cigarettes.”
Frankie? He speaks with the lazy bounce of a high school girl. “Who are you?”
“I’m Tyler.” He looks down and turns a page. Tyler is lying on his stomach. Dingy blue-black barbed wire is tattooed around his slim right bicep.
“Why are you on my bed?”
“Is this yours? I thought it was um—” He rolls over, sits up, and dumps his feet on the floor. He looks me up and down with sleepy, drunk eyes. “You want a drink? I could do you a Purple Jesus. Grape juice and vodka.”
The front door opens. I turn to face my brother.
“You’re home,” he says. “Early.” Cigarette in his mouth, he squints through the smoke as he crams the keys back into the front pocket of his jeans.
“Where the hell were you?”
“Miss Congeniality . . .” His eyes look as slurred as his speech. “Did Tyler leave?”
“Who is Tyler? And what the fuck is he doing in my bed?”
“Tyler?” Francis pushes past me just as his friend comes out of my bedroom.
“Hey, Frankie.” Tyler grabs his shirt off the sofa. He pulls it on and fumbles with two or three buttons.
“Where you going?” Francis says. He watches Tyler pull on his socks.
I step back against the wall by the front door and watch. I’d be surprised if this kid is even twenty.
Tyler’s voice is lighthearted when he says, “I’m going to split, man.”
“Because of her? Don’t pay attention to her . . .” Arm limp at his side, Francis’s cigarette dangles between two slack fingers. The lengthening ash drops to the floor as he watches Tyler step into his shoes. “Don’t—you don’t hafta—you want to go somewhere? Let’s go to a club.”
Tyler heads for the door, but Francis intercepts him.
“I’m wiped.” Tyler takes my brother’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and kisses him on the lips. “You’re sweet. I’ll catch you later.”
“Oh no you don’t, Tallulah.” Francis grabs Tyler’s wrist and weaves with the effort. “I’m coming with you.”
“Just heading home to chill. Okay, man?” Tyler’s smile has a plastic quality.
Francis shakes his head. “No, no, none of that.” He looks around him and pats his pockets with his free hand. “I just gotta get my cigarettes.”
“Seriously. I’m going home.”
“Oh pullease!” My brother closes his eyes and opens them as if he can’t quite focus. “Come off it. We have a whole night ahead of us.”
Tyler tries to pull away but Francis holds tight. Tyler glances at me. He looks down at the hand on his wrist and his face turns hard. “Dude, I’m done. I’m leaving—you’re staying. Get it?” He jerks free.
“Fine. Fuck off then, you little shit.” Francis takes a quick, dramatic puff off his cigarette. “Don’t come sniveling back to me when you want your cock sucked.”
Tyler snorts, opens the door, and slams it behind him.
Still against the wall, I let my breath go. “You bring some kid home and—and fuck him in my bed? What is wrong with you? What—”
I don’t even have the words. Who are we anyway?
Another chunk of ash falls from his cigarette as he raises it to his lips. “What’s wrong with me? You can’t stand to see me happy. You had a shit fit the first time you found me with a guy and nothing’s changed. I’m a fag, Maggie. Suck it up.”
“Are you nuts? I don’t give a crap who you fuck. But your bishop probably does.”
“My bishop. He’s too busy getting his own blow jobs, but you—I looked after you, I took care of you, and all I ever got was, was, homophobic, jealous, angry . . .”
“You’re drunk, Francis.”
“Yeah? And you’re . . . a dried-out, miserable old bitch.” His eyes have never looked so full of disgust.
Here come the tears. Christ. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
I cross my arms. “I think you should leave.”
He laughs and nods and then shakes his head. “You think I don’t have pain? You think you’re the only one? Goddamn Vatican sends their minions around to root out the homos . . . and then I get it from my own sister!”
Francis studies the nub of his cigarette and looks around himself, presumably for some place to put it out. When he can’t find anything, he looks at me, holds his hand up, and then grinds the burning cherry into his palm.
“We can both go to hell,” he says, then drops the butt in his shirt pocket and walks out the door.
EIGHT
Ben
Sounds as if the days leading up to your hospitalization were spent looking after a father who didn’t do much fathering,” Lambert says.
Here he goes again with the father shit. Father this, father that. Digging in the dirt and making mud pies.
“But you kept showing up,” he says. “Must have been difficult to bite your tongue.”
Bite your tongue. Bite the dust. All your enemies with their mouths open against you. Ben’s the kind of dupe who gives them more teeth to do the job right. Even the old man, lying there toothless and diapered: perfect place to leave him. Not old Ben. He keeps showing up like a kicked dog. Circling, waiting.
Those chill pills, those antipsychotics they gave his old man, they made him seem almost human. Wrists still tied, but he was talking, not trying so hard to rip out the tubes.
Ben showed up with his dentures. Maybe the nurses could put them in and the old man would start to look human too.
“Wondered where the hell those were,” the old man said. Hard to make out when he’s all gums. “Can ’ou shash my nose?”
You scratch my nose, I’ll scratch yours. Never works out that way, does it?
Ben stared at the old man’s sunken eyes, his sunken lips. He reached past the bed rail and rubbed his father’s nose. The old man moved his head around like a cat, and looked at Ben as if he loved him.
Ben pulled back, stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Can you get these things off me?” The ties on his wrists. Fit to be tied. Even with one hand tied behind his back.
“No. I can’t.”
A nurse came to the foot of the bed. “Are you his son?” She told Ben they’d had to give the old man another unit of blood. Pressure kept dropping. Had to send him down for another scope and an MRI. “You can untie one of his hands if you want. Just make sure you tie it back up before you go. He’s fast!” She went back to the monitor at her desk.
Fast and furious. When he was a kid, Ben heard a story about Willie Nelson and what a miserable prick he was when he drank. His wife waited until he passed out one night, tied him up with the kids’ jump ropes, and then beat him black and blue. Why didn’t Miriam do that? Why don’t we do that?
He looked away. “I gotta take off.”
“My teeth?”
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Ben looked at the denture container. “You want me to get the nurse?”
The old man shook his head.
Ben opened the box, took out the upper. His old man stared up with the trust of a lamb. He opened his sad mouth as if he was about to receive Communion.
Ben slipped it in, watched him try to push it in place with his tongue. The teeth flopped around his mouth. Christ. Ben untied the nearest wrist, unwound the long cotton strap.
The old man’s eyes teared up. He raised his freed hand as if he wanted to touch Ben’s face.
Forget it. Ben’s had enough of that hand.
The old man brought the shaking thumb to his mouth instead, pressed the upper to his gum.
“Ready for the bottoms?”
He opened his mouth again, looked up at Ben. Looked at him like Cola. Baby Cola and his bottle. Round brown eyes staring up like worship. Like he would love him forever.
Both sets in his head now, the old man clacked his dentures together and winced. “Hurts,” he said.
“I better get going,” Ben told him. “We’re cleaning your place. Me and Cola. Getting a new carpet.” He retied the old man’s free wrist.
“My place?” Like he wasn’t sure what the words meant.
“Your apartment.”
“My apartment . . . in Ireland?”
Ireland? Maybe Cola was right. Maybe his mind went with that chunk of colon.
“Your apartment here. On Jackson Avenue.”
“Jackson,” he repeated. His fingers groped at the side rail, trembling, looking for a hand to hold.
Put your hand in the hand. All hands on deck.
He searched Ben’s face and said, “I’m scared.”
Ben st
ared at the knot of fingers against the sheet. “I’m scared” bored into his head, rushed up and down until it found his heart and piled on. His tongue roamed around in his mouth, hunting for words. A faraway voice whispered, “Me too,” but nothing came out.
A HALF HOUR later and there’s Ben on the sidewalk out front of the old man’s building. He checks his watch. Fucking Cola. Ben went through the online classifieds after work this morning, looking for someone who could do laundry and scrub the bathroom while he and Cola hacked away at the rest of the place.
He checks his phone and hits redial.
“Hey!” Cola says. “What’s up?”
“Where the hell are you?”
Cola’s voice lowers. “I got something going on.”
“Are you shitting me? We have to drag all his crap into the hall so they can rip up the carpet tomorrow. They’re painting tonight!”
“Come on, man. Anyone can do that. I gotta be here. This is going to save my bacon.”
“You little prick. And what about that thousand bucks I gave you? Did you talk to the guy—”
A woman pulls up to the curb in an old junker. She jumps out. “Are you Ben?”
He hangs up on Cola. “Janet?” He swallows. The sight of her hauling that bag of cleansers and rags, like the old days: dropping Maggie out front of some old lady’s apartment, kissing her goodbye, Frankie in the backseat.
He offers to take Janet’s bag.
In the elevator, he stares at the floor. Looks nothing like Maggie. She’s got a brassy yellow mullet, bangs teased up over her forehead, the back tied with elastic.
Ben fidgets. Elevator feels like it’s closing in. “My brother was supposed to be here but he pulled a Houdini on me.”
She chews her thumbnail. “Guess he didn’t feel like workin’ today.”
The doors open and Ben’s out in a shot. He sucks the hall air with relief.
Then reality starts to push in. Now he’s got to be alone with her in the old man’s pigsty.
“You’ll have to forgive the smell,” he says. “It’s like something died in here. I mean—nothing did. My dad’s sick. He’s in the hospital.”
The Crooked Heart of Mercy Page 10