* * *
—
Louis’s mother had been advised to walk, for her heart, and she insisted on company. When we visited, we walked to the bottom of her hill before breakfast, and where her gravel road met the main one we’d find a neighbor and his developmentally disabled son puttering about their yellow house: putting up the flag or weeding or once, in the wintertime, shoveling a path to the street. Louis would shake the kid’s hand, which he seemed to love, then he’d chat about chores or stamps or some small pet that was always getting out of its cage or even what the kid had eaten the night before. Louis was good at this. Small talk is, after all, a hairdresser’s trade. But Mrs. Prevala had limited patience for the son, and if Louis kept talking she could get rather edgy.
Once, as we made our way back up the gravel road, she said tartly, “I’m really not interested in Stevie’s meals.” Her hair, newly colored by her son, shone in the summer light, and she wore green dangling earrings that matched her shift, but her face was puffy and the color of oatmeal. I knew she kept a bottle of scotch in a drawer in her bedroom, and I knew what it meant to be thirsty in the morning. But Louis’s mom had a black belt in facade; it was one of the differences between her and me. Each day she got done up and behaved like a duchess.
Louis did not take his mother’s bait, and after a moment she said she felt for the boy’s parents. “I don’t know what I’d do if I had a child like that.”
“I’m sure Stevie feels the same,” Louis muttered, eyes fixed on the road. Mrs. Prevala stopped short.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. It was a good question, and I’m not certain Louis had any answer. He trudged grumpily forward, leaving me wondering whether my role was to soldier on with him or remain like a chevalier at his mother’s side. Then the roadside bushes rustled in a breeze, and Mrs. Prevala inhaled dramatically. “Mmm. Smell the bayberry!” she said, and when Louis still didn’t turn she said, “Excuse me, Joe,” and bumped me aside as she ambled after him — though as far as I knew I’d been sniffing the breeze and hadn’t crowded her at all. But Mrs. Prevala had a black belt in condescension, too.
It must have been one of my dry weekends late in our time together, when Louis convinced me to join him in East Duffield and avoid the temptations of the Boston bars. The pressure of me and his mother together could make Louis snappish, but we did pretty well when we slipped off alone, so we spent an hour at an animal shelter looking at puppies, then took our sweet time with his mother’s many errands. At dinner I visualized a big tub of Maker’s Mark instead of Louis’s famous chicken, but I kept to my seat and ate what was before me.
Mrs. Prevala, though, barely touched her dinner. Louis had banned wine on account of my struggle, and his mother made numerous trips to that drawer in the bedroom, growing slightly more querulous each time she returned. Taking her plate to the kitchen, she’d heat it in the microwave, then set it on the placemat and disappear into her room. Louis and I remained at the table, and for an hour he urged her to come and sit down, but at last he snapped. “For the love of God,” he cried, balling up his napkin. “What does it cost a person to act civilized?”
Mrs. Prevala stared widely at him. “Aren’t you lucky, Louis. You have such freedom.” She let her gaze pass coolly over me, and I felt so unmanned that I tore a banana from the fruit bowl, just to put something, anything, in my mouth. “Beholden to no one and so free to judge,” she said. “Well, maybe you think life is easy for everyone.”
“Mom,” said Louis, “I’m gonna help you to bed. Joe and I are—”
“Civilized !” Mrs. Prevala said bitterly. “Like it’s an attitude. Or some chic hairstyle!” She took a step toward the bedroom, and I thought she might fetch that bottle and wave it about, as I’d certainly have done, for once I’m drinking I can’t pretend that I’m not. But even three sheets to the wind, Mrs. Prevala acted as if she was only high-strung, and Louis never acknowledged his mother’s alcoholism the way he did mine.
Mrs. Prevala pointed a manicured finger. “Get yourself a little dog, Louis! So you can monitor its behavior. Buy stamps for the retarded neighbor boy, whose actions can’t possibly disappoint. Or find some—” She glared nakedly at me. “Get some hapless hanger-on to follow you around!”
Mrs. Prevala went into her room, closing the door with surprising softness. Louis stormed to the kitchen and noisily attacked the dinner dishes, and I could perhaps have followed, whether to show my skill with a dish towel or fuck him hard on the floor by the range. But by then I was mentally halfway to Boston, more than halfway to a package store. And it was only years later, on my way to that hospital after the accident, that I realized the stamp collector wasn’t even a boy when I first met him, but a man not much younger than Louis and I.
* * *
—
The little hospital had lost its Columbus Day sleepiness, and the lobby was bustling. I ducked into the men’s room to put on a shirt I’d picked up at an outlet place, and as I did the buttons I imagined Louis up and counseling nurses about their hair. But he was just as I’d left him, under the beige blanket, and the sight of him lying there made my head ache. Even worse, April, the Prevala Salon manager, was by the bed, and I almost snuck off before she spotted me. There are those in his circle who view me as a nuisance.
But April flung her arms around my neck. “Oh, Joe! Thank you for being here yesterday! Why didn’t you call me?”
I shrugged. “They say when he’s gonna wake up?”
“Not much change, I guess. The doctor will be around soon.”
“Could be the swelling’s down.”
She nodded, slipping an arm in mine. When Louis first hired April, she had a look that was down-the-line New York City: black outfits, spiked hair, tough-tough mouth. But over time she’d made an asset of her pixie qualities, and now she cuddled against me. “Joe’s here,” she called out wistfully to Louis. “He just arrived. It’s Joe and April, honey, who love you very very very much.” With her free hand she stroked Louis’s fingers.
There was a step behind us, and we turned. “The family of Carole Prevala?” A man in a tight suit stood at the foot of the bed. He had a Rhode Islander’s ruddy complexion and sun-lightened hair, and he looked like a dressed-up lobsterman. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Thank you for meeting us here,” said April. “Joe, we have decisions to make.”
The man stuck out a hand. “Al Flaydon, funeral services. Very sorry, sir, for your loss.”
“We’ve had no loss,” I said. “He’s this close to coming to.”
“For Carole, Joe.” April squeezed my elbow.
I turned away. Louis had a coterie who moved in his orbit, who called his mother Carole and weren’t ashamed of their behavior, but I was not in that club. Still, no one knows drunkenness as well as a drunk, and Mrs. Prevala was driving drunk—of that I was certain. And here was Louis, a plastic breather on his face! I let out a sob, and April’s pixie voice trilled my name. The pixie fingers scampered over my arm, but I’m not a salon patron, and I will not be managed.
“This was her fault,” I said at last. Who else would say it?
“Joe!”
I felt April’s grip tighten, but something was caught in the beam of my wayward headlight, and I drove right at it. “It’s her fault!” I cried—as if they all didn’t know! “And you thought I was trouble.” Turning to the lobsterman, I said, “You want a decision? Take her down to the beach. Leave her for low tide, for the fishes, what do I care?” Recalling those dangly earrings, I could have wept in despair! The facade, the hauteur: I could have torn off my ears! “I came here for Louis, April. Certainly not for fucking Carole—” From their glassed-in office, the nurses stared.
April shot the undertaker a look, and he stepped away. “Joseph,” she said. “We do not know what caused this tragedy.”
“I mean it!” I
wailed. For the moment, everything I’d done since I’d won my big money seemed like only a failure to watch over Louis. Louis and me. “You think it’s coincidence they called me yesterday? After sixteen years?” I grappled for his pants with those emergency contacts. “Take a look in his wallet! He respected my judgment!”
April jerked me by the collar. “You fucking sociopath, don’t make me laugh. And get your fat ass off the floor.” I stood up, wiping my nose, and she said, “If you want to be part of this, cut the crap. Sit down and think of what Louis would want. For his mother’s burial. Which is no picnic for anyone.” She slid a chair across the linoleum. “Sit!”
I sat down and stared at Louis. His skin still looked like it was brushed with yellow, but his nose was reemerging in his swollen face. I sniffed, laying my hand on the bedside rail, then set my chin on my fingers. Before me, Louis breathed in and out. I reached down and touched the crook of his elbow, which was warm and a bit moist, then I moved my fingers to the sleeve of his hospital gown, where I could feel his biceps, more pumped than when he’d belonged to me. “Mmm,” I said, and remembered that I could talk to him. I ran my knuckles down the hairs of his arm, and as the skin pebbled to goose bumps I said, “Mmm,” again; he’d always loved it when I moaned. I reached over and rubbed his stomach, and my dick jumped.
The doctor arrived, accompanied by the foreign guy from the night before. “Morning, Joemeegan,” bubbled the foreign guy. “Mr. Pervawa seem much better.” He and April had met already; she called him Ricky and said he was a love. Flaydon was gone.
The doctor was pudgy and pink and could have been Louis’s overachiever brother. He said he was optimistic, then said it again in various other phrases, but my only question was when would Louis wake up, and I’d already figured that was one thing they wouldn’t discuss. The doc said, “Remember, it’s only the second day. These things take time,” and Ricky nodded. “I gather there was another party in the car,” the doctor said. “So sorry for your loss.”
We watched him examine Louis’s chart and do everything Ricky had done the night before. At last he picked up Louis’s hand and pinched the palm, and the four of us watched the fingers contract. “That’s good,” said the doctor. “Response to pain stimulus is normal, in fact.”
“So he’s miles ahead of me,” I said. The doctor grinned.
* * *
—
I drove up to Boston to get some clothes and see Mr. Navy, and I decided to bring him back with me. All down the interstate he sat on my lap, but at the exit he stood and began to meow, then he disappeared under the seat and continued his complaining from there. “Psst,” I said. “Pss-pss-psst.” It was midnight, and no one else was on the road. I’d stayed longer than I intended at my apartment, always planning to stand up and get moving, but really just lingering on the fold-up couch. It wasn’t April who’d made me feel helpless, but Louis, lying stonelike until visiting hours ended.
I turned toward the coast, and the yellow house looked cozy, lit by its single lantern. I slowed for the curve, then suddenly braked, and instead of continuing to the Franklin Arms I turned up the gravel road.
Louis’s Miata was parked in a turnaround; the top was down. I caught my breath, thinking for just a moment that—but of course, it was Mrs. Prevala’s car that had been in the crash. I got a flashlight from my glovebox and peered at the leather seats, which held puddles from last night’s rain, and as I poked around for something to soak up the water there was a whish of fur, and Mr. Navy darted into the blackness. I called, but heard only crickets, and as I waited for him to come back I took off my sweatshirt, then my shirt, and sopped up the water in Louis’s car.
The house was unlocked. I went around turning on lights, and as I passed the pantry I saw two fifths of Mrs. Prevala’s cheap scotch peeping from behind a half-open louvered door. In Louis’s room, one twin was unmade, under the same poster of Diana Ross that had always hung there, and on the bedside table sat the same clock radio beside the same book of movie-star portraits. Louis’s dirty laundry was on the floor, and on the second bed a weekender contained his clean clothes: Calvin Klein underwear; nylon running shorts; a cashmere sweater. The sweater was too small for me, but I draped it over my shoulders and hugged the sleeves to my bare chest, and suddenly I was thinking about that scotch.
The first pull was like heaven, and I let the bottle touch the back of my throat like a glass dick, until it made me gag. A little stream ran down my chin and onto my stomach, and I dabbed at it with the sleeve of Louis’s sweater. Another slug, and when I screwed the cap on I was gasping for breath. I leaned my forehead on the cool kitchen counter and knocked a dirty cereal bowl into the sink. It landed with a terrible clatter.
I picked up the bottle again and called for Mr. Navy and felt very sorry for myself. Outside, the crickets were still making their deafening pulse, but I stood on the deck and said, “Pss-pss-psst,” as loud as I could, and when nothing happened I said, “Well, fuck you, then.” On the patio was an ashtray with a couple of Mrs. Prevala’s butts in it, and I said “Fuck you” to the ashtray and then “Fuck you” to the porch furniture and the half-open kitchen door and the gabled roof of the bathroom and Mrs. Prevala’s Polident and ugly toothbrush and Metamucil inside on the sink and the little area of cleared lawn and all the overgrown bayberry and honeysuckle bushes that crowded the hillside: “Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.” I spun around a couple times and flung the bottle into the night, thinking as I waited for the sound of the crash that if it would make Louis wake up this would be my last taste of alcohol forever, despite that second, unopened fifth still waiting in the pantry. But the bottle just bounced on the hard ground without breaking, and I walked over and picked it up. “Fuck,” I said. The air was cold, and I forced my head through the neck of Louis’s sweater, letting it sag around my shoulders like the neck ruff in some old-fashioned painting.
I went around to where the Miata was parked and reached down to feel the upholstery. It was damp and flabby, but I didn’t use Louis’s sweater to mop it up. Instead, I had another drink, and then another, and then I decided to see how quickly I could finish the bottle, and I did the best I could. After this I could no longer stand, and I got down on my knees and pressed my face to the fender, which was wet with condensation and felt delicious. I crawled the length of the car with my cheek to the metal, imagining the swath as my face slid along the side panel, and when I reached the rear bumper I lay down in the dirt. The ground was damp and a bit soft, and I inched myself under the trunk, putting my arms at my sides and getting in tight behind the rear wheels, until I was pinned there and could no longer move. I pressed my face to the ground and rubbed my nose back and forth until it seemed I’d abraded the skin, then I picked my head up and slammed it against the undercarriage, and though I wasn’t quite sobbing yet, I started to heave. I knocked my head around until stars fluttered before me and all I could manage was a few whimpery squeaks, then I opened my mouth and bit the soil, scooping up all I could with my tongue. I’ve done this before, this wallowing in abasement, and it always feels good. There’s a theory that a drunk won’t clean up until he hits rock bottom, so each new incident might perhaps be the one.
* * *
—
Sometime in the night I moved my face out of the dirt, and I woke to feel something soft strike my cheek. I opened my eyes and saw a limp mouse in front of me and the gray-yellow morning shimmering beyond the car. In a patch of sunlight sat Mr. Navy. “Hello, there,” I said, and he stepped toward me with a new kind of proud chirp and reached out to bat the mouse, and when the corpse hit me in the face again it was time to rise and shine.
It wasn’t easy climbing out from under the Miata; I’d wedged myself in with the kind of ambition I only muster when I’m wasted. Louis’s sweater caught on a bolt and nearly choked me, and I slid out of it and left it hanging from the undercarriage; and as I emerged I saw the scotc
h bottle a few feet away, with two fingers of amber liquid capped in like a message. I didn’t drink it. Instead, I took it into the house and replaced it on the pantry shelf, and I was in Mrs. Prevala’s bedroom rummaging for Excedrin when I heard knocking on the screen door.
It was the neighbor from down the hill. He nodded at me, and when I stepped outside I saw the son trying to sneak up on Mr. Navy. “I’m a friend of Louish,” I said. “Been at the hoshpital, got in late.” The man leaned back, and I realized my breath must be something. My face was undoubtedly pretty bad, too, and I hoped it would make him take his kid and go. “It’fine. I won’t break anyfing.” My mouth was so dry.
Mr. Navy scampered under a bush, and the stamp collector ambled toward us. He had short, very black hair and a large mouth, but he wasn’t ugly or crazy looking. He eyed me deliberately, then said, “You got in a fight.”
His father said, “Stevie.”
I looked myself over. My pants were streaked with dirt, and there were patches of mud in the hairs on my stomach. Rubbing my hand over my face, I felt the sting of torn skin, plus some crustiness on my stubble, and I wondered if I’d spat up during the night. I nodded at Stevie and tried to think of what to say, and at last I stuck out my hand. “I’m Joe.”
Stevie shook my hand enthusiastically. “Your kitty caught hisself a mouse.”
“Probably his first. Mr. Navy’s an apartment cat.”
“What’s that mean?” he said.
The old man sighed, shaking his head. “I hear Carole’s viewing is today, over to Flaydon’s. Terrible thing.” He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket and picked a scab from his forearm. “She was some lady, for all her frailties.”
“I’ll stay with Louis,” I said. “I won’t go to the viewing.” I started to tell him I’d never bought into Mrs. Prevala’s gentility, but my mouth was too cottony to say very much. And of course, the man was just being polite. How people do that I really don’t know.
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018 Page 29