The box of bullets in the top drawer of Paul’s desk reads, “Remington .22 Long Rifle.” I know they’re for the hunting rifle he keeps inside a zipped-up canvas bag in the loft of the barn. I take one out and hold it in my hand, feeling the weight of the smooth metal, scraping the circular lines around the bottom with my thumbnail. It looks harmless enough. I wonder if I can open it, if there is gunpowder inside and if so, how does it burn?
I take the bullet outside in the palm of my hand and I try crushing it with a pair of pliers but I don’t have the strength to dent the metal so instead I place the bullet on the wooden stump Paul uses to cut the firewood. I pick up the blue hatchet from the woodpile and begin to whack at it. On the third hit, the hatchet handle kicks back in my grip and I hear a “Pow!” as the bullet explodes under me. I jump up and look around to see if anyone heard the explosion but there’s nothing but the ghost of a thunderclap hanging in the air next to the toolshed.
“You fuckin’ idiot,” Tony says when I tell him about it. “Don’t you understand the bullet went off? It could’ve gone into your stomach or your face and you’d be dead.” He isn’t alarmed, more like impressed. He gives me a punch in the shoulder.
I don’t know why I like the fire so much, all I know is when something is burning, I feel like I made it happen and it feels good to have power over something, even if it sometimes gets out of control and almost burns the house down.
Derek steals Marlboro Reds from his mom when she’s at work. She keeps cartons of them in the back of her closet in a white shopping bag. He takes a fresh box every few weeks and we go up into the loft in the barn to smoke, which is easy since Paul is gone and Mom is at work and no one goes into the rabbit barn except me.
Tony is also a Marlboro Reds man because they can be found all over in the cigarette machines at the trucker diners and sporting goods stores on Market Street, at Lancaster Mall next to the Orange Julius or in the movie theater lobby. All you need is a dollar fifty in quarters and if anyone says anything to you about being too young to smoke, you just say, “They’re for my dad,” and people nod and turn back to their pancakes and coffee.
Tony and I always share our cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if it’s the nasty Winstons I swipe from the Plaid Pantry next to the Hostess stand or the Marlboros Derek brings over or the unfiltered Camels Tony lifted from the door of his baseball coach’s truck. It’s an unwritten code to share them, to break rules together.
Derek comes over with some Reds and we climb up to the loft with a pack of matches and lean against the wall. We light our cigs as the sunlight filtering through the spotty roof of the barn creates small towers of white smoke in front of our faces.
“I like a good menthol after a meal,” Tony says. He holds the cigarette casually between two fingers, a Red Vine in one hand. He takes a drag, then blows the smoke through the Red Vine. “It’s just like a smoky mint.”
“Yeah, menthols are good,” I say, even though I’ve never had one. “But I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t just smoke 100s. Right? I mean they’re bigger so you get more.”
“Hundreds are for bitches and fags,” Derek says. “I wouldn’t be caught dead smoking one of those chick cigarettes.”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh, I know. I know. I was only joking.”
CHAPTER 19
FAVORITES USUALLY LOSE
Dad comes home to the apartment in Playa del Rey one quiet Saturday afternoon when we get to California for the summer and drops an envelope on the coffee table. It’s thick and hits the wood with a smack.
He points at the envelope. “Open it.”
Bonnie turns the volume down on the TV and leans forward, pushing open the flap with her long plastic nails. There’s a flash of green.
Dad picks up the envelope and takes the money out. “I hit a horse.”
“You what?”
“I hit the Pick Six at Del Mar. This is the payout.”
“Honey!”
“Can I hold it?” Tony sits up.
Dad nods and Tony picks up the stack of hundred-dollar bills, licking his thumb like a Mafia accountant as he begins to count. “One, two, three…”
Bonnie puts her arms around Dad who says, “I knew the long shot was gonna win the sixth. That horse was due. The favorite scratched, so everybody bet the next horse down, but he wasn’t shit on the grass. He’s a front-runner. But it was a whole field of front-runners. So I says, ‘I know that closer is gonna take this sumbitch.’ Favorites usually lose, you know.” He pauses. “Everybody needs a little luck.”
“Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…”
“Everyone missed it, but guess who got it?” He points a thumb at his face. “I’m lucky, baby. Some guys got it.”
“Aw, honey, you are lucky.” She kisses him on the cheek.
“Forty, forty-one, forty-two. Wow.” Even Tony is impressed. “That’s forty-two hundred dollars.”
“No point in going unless you can walk out owning the place,” Dad says. “I knew I shoulda bet more.”
I look at Dad. “Are we rich now?” I don’t understand how much money this is. Can we buy a house or an island? Our own country?
“C’mon, let’s get dinner. My treat. Anywhere you want to go.” We decide on a big Mexican food meal so we go to the Red Onion and eat steak fajitas, shrimp, chips and guacamole, flan, and deep-fried strawberry ice cream.
When the check comes, Dad reaches into his wallet and drops a hundred-dollar bill on the tray. “Keep the change,” he tells the waitress with a wink, even though it’s only a forty-five-dollar meal.
“Honey!”
“What? We hit a horse. Got to spread the wealth around. Bad luck not to.”
The waitress thanks him and comes back with a big plate of candies for us, hard white licorice and mints, and Bonnie gets up to use the restroom. When we’re alone at the table with Dad, Tony says, “So when are you going to marry Bonnie?”
I look at him, excited. “Yeah. You’re basically married anyway. What are you waiting for?”
We both know he can’t tell if it’s a game or if we’re serious or if there’s some kind of new magic brewing around our lives. Maybe catching that horse means anything is possible and happiness is as simple as choosing the right number on a ticket. You hit your long shot and you go home with a fat stack of bills in your pocket and take your boys out to a big dinner. That’s the races.
“Maybe I will.”
When she sits back down, there’s a silence.
“What? What’s the big secret? What I miss?”
“Nothing. Ask Dad. Dad…” We point at him.
Dad turns to her and says matter-of-factly, “What? I just think it’s time.”
“Time for what?” She’s staring, smiling despite herself.
“You know, I mean, for us to get married.” She looks at him, a charmed smile frozen on her face.
Tony holds up his Sprite like a champagne glass so I hold mine up too and Bonnie throws her head sideways into Dad and nobody knows if any of it is real. The horse and the money and the marriage proposal there in the Red Onion on Manchester Avenue.
When pressed, they say they’re not sure people should even get married, it’s just a “piece of paper” after all. What matters is how people treat each other. Anyway they’ve both been married before, a thing they talk about like sand castles they once built, destroyed by the tide. Bonnie was married to Eddie in Synanon when she was twenty. When Chuck’s wife, Betty, died, the Old Man started talking about the impermanence of marriage and allegiance to the society, basically whatever needed saying so that everyone would have to go through what he went through by getting divorced. Some said they were relieved they didn’t have to kill their husbands. So they split all the couples up and Bonnie left Synanon with a broken heart. She moved to the apartment in Playa del Rey to live in the aftermath of an idea so big it imploded under its own weight, leaving everyone to start new lives in the wreckage it left behind.
&n
bsp; It left Bonnie wondering if marriage was a bigger idea or a smaller idea than a commune that tried to change the world before it went bad like sour milk. And now here she is, sitting across from this man and his two boys with salsa on their faces hoping their dad will marry her.
“We’ll see,” she says, red in the face, smiling as she grabs her purse and looks around for her makeup mirror.
* * *
MOM CALLS NEAR the end of the summer to tell us Paul has left on a binge again. She can’t take it anymore and doesn’t think “it’s good for you guys” to see him that way. She explains this calmly, with a tone like a TV reporter delivering bad news about rain over the weekend.
She says she’s sad that he’s gone but she decided they have to get divorced. Her voice is very certain, detached, like she’s talking about somebody else. “I have to let go of him. We’ll talk more about it when you guys get back, but I just need you to know I’m okay and I’ll be fine if I can find my way through this.” She says she’s been dealing with alcoholics and addicts her whole life and she can’t be a victim anymore. “I’m gonna get better, I know it. I need your support, though.”
Tony is silent. I say, “It’s okay. I’m sorry, Mom.” I say, “You’ve dealt with enough.” My first thought is that without Mom, Paul will have nowhere to live. I picture him lying in a gutter passed out with a bottle inside a bag lying on his chest. I know he doesn’t drink like this. He drinks in his truck in the woods. But in AA everyone talks about “functional drunks” who can have jobs and seem normal to outsiders and “gutter drunks” who can’t handle anything and I know that Mom has just decided that Paul is officially a gutter drunk. I wonder if he’s cold. I wonder if he’s lonely. I wonder who’s going to cut the wood and take care of the rabbits. Who is going to tell us jokes and take us fishing? I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.
“He loves you guys and he’s not a bad man, but he’s just too sick.”
I say, “I understand,” and I say, “I love you, Mom,” and I say, “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Bonnie looks worried. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I know you love him. I hope your mom is all right. This is going to be hard on everyone, but maybe it’s for the best?”
Dad says, “Well, that’s too bad. Some guys never get it together and they end up drinking themselves to death. There’s nothing you can do about it.” He shakes his head. They both hug us and tell us they love us, that they are here to talk if we need anything. We go for frozen yogurt and when we get back we watch George Carlin and we laugh until we’re red in the face.
It’s so different how they see us. Mom is always trying to find a way to make us take care of her. Dad and Bonnie’s first thought is always of us, how we might be sad, how it might be difficult for us that Paul is leaving. I know it’s my job to take care of Mom and that all boys are supposed to take care of their mothers because that was the reason they were born. But it’s nice to tell Bonnie I’m sad for Paul. Dad leans down and gives me a hug and says he liked Paul too and he seemed to be a good guy and he’s sorry to see him go because it made it a little easier on everyone to have him around.
I like when he’s gentle like this. The whole tough-guy exterior is gone in an instant and he seems more like a person trying to guide you through a storm. I remember that he did this for many people in Synanon. He saved their lives. People say he’s a good man to talk to in a crisis. There’s no judgment, even now, even of his ex-wife and our stepdad. There’s just this quiet sense that he’s seen it all, that it all can look pretty bad in the dark but starts to look better in the light and in any case he’s not going anywhere. He sits with me, his arm draped around my shoulder. He tells me some jokes, repeating George Carlin’s line about the words you can’t say on TV. He pokes my ribs and messes up my hair and goes to the kitchen and comes back with an ice cream sandwich for us to split. We turn on the Dodger game and he’s got a little half-cocked grin the whole time, making silly jokes about the players and umpires.
It’s a new feeling. This thing that I feel when Dad gets like this. Like the wind has stopped blowing and I can hear. I feel quiet. Like nothing is required of me. There’s no words I need to say and no problem I need to solve. I just sit with Dad and eat my ice cream sandwich as we listen to Vin Scully announce the batting order.
Bonnie and Tony disappear into the bedroom and close the door. You know it’s a Big Talk because it ends with a hug when they walk out and Bonnie has a tear in her eye. She sits down next to me and says, “We’ve been discussing it and Tony thinks he should come live here in L.A. There’s a junior high right down the street. I can drop him off in the morning and he can take the bus back. He’s getting bigger and maybe your mom needs a break from him. Besides, teenage boys need their dads. What do you think?”
My first thought is, Isn’t that against the rules? I didn’t know that was allowed.
The second thought I have is about headlocks and Indian burns, getting pinned on my back while he pounds on my chest.
“I think it’s a great idea!”
They look surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah!”
“You won’t miss him?”
This feels like a trap. I know if I say no then it will turn into a talk about “brothers forgiving brothers” and how we’re going to be best friends someday like Dad and Uncle Pete so we need to learn to get along. That all sounds distracting.
On the other hand, if I say yes, that might undermine the whole thing. I steal a glance at Tony who has an expression on his face that says something like Don’t you fuck this up for me you little son of a bitch.
I choose the most diplomatic answer I can think of. “He’s my brother. I want what’s best for him.”
They disappear to talk more in the bedroom and an hour later Bonnie announces Tony will come live in Los Angeles in the fall.
I can hear Dad’s muffled voice wafting through the apartment when they call Mom. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s for the best … He might just be too much for you to handle right now … I get it … No, we’d love to have him here.” Bonnie is crying which means Mom is crying. Dad walks out into the living room and says to Tony, “Why don’t you come talk to your mom?”
I hear Tony’s voice between pauses from the other side of the open bedroom door: “Yeah, I really want to be here. It’ll be fun … I’d rather go to a new school … I can join a new baseball team … We’re only a few blocks from the beach … I know you love me, Mom.”
I’m surprised she doesn’t put up more of a fight.
When I go back to Oregon at the end of summer, I fly alone for the first time. And when Mom meets me at the gate, it’s only her standing there. Paul is gone. She gives me a big hug and I try to smile, to act like I’m happy. But I can feel the weight of it. I know the depression is coming. It’s as predictable as the rain in Salem. When we make the drive from the Portland airport back to the house on Breys Avenue, it’s just the two of us and she talks the whole time about her feelings about leaving Paul, about how he’s sick and it’ll be better now and “it’s just you and me against the world, kid,” and I realize for the first time in my life that it’s true.
CHAPTER 20
ROBERT SMITH IS A FUCKING GOD
“We have a new student. His name is Jake.”
My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Wolfe, asks me to her desk and points to the back of the room where a giant, blond, pimply-faced kid in a T-shirt and green army pants sits awkwardly reading a Hardy Boys book. He’s way too big for the tiny desk. His legs stretch out beneath him nearly to the back of the next chair. He ducked his head in the doorway when he walked in, his shoulders hunched, as if trying to disappear. He is six feet three inches tall and all of eleven years old. “He’s a little shy, but he’s real smart, so I thought maybe you could take him under your wing and show him around?”
“Sure.”
My teacher says I’m not being challenged enough and that’s why I get such bad grades even though it’s the seco
nd time I’ve done fifth grade. I skipped fourth grade last year because it was determined I was in need of a “greater challenge,” but then over the summer Mom changed her mind and decided that “no child should have to face age-inappropriate challenges” the way she did because they will be awkward and have no friends and “grow up to marry whatever alcoholic pays attention to them and that kind of thinking is what got her here, I mean you can’t go around being a victim your whole life, at some point you’ve got to take charge and make changes for yourself.” So now I’m in fifth grade again.
“Hey, man,” I say and sit down at the empty desk next to the giant blond boy at the back of the room. “Where you from?”
“Nebraska.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s in the Midwest.”
“What do you do there?”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of farms. It’s boring, but the Cornhuskers are there, so that’s cool.”
“What’s a Cornhusker?”
“It’s a football team. Everybody watches them play because they rule.”
“Is that a good book?”
“It’s okay. I’ve read most of them. At least it’s not some Judy Blume bullshit.”
“Bullshit.” He tosses the word around like my dad talking about the Dodgers pitching staff. I know that this is a kind of test.
“Yeah, fuck that bullshit. There’s a lot of fucking bullshit in this class. Fractions and cursive and other kinds of fuckin’ bullshit like that.” He smiles.
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