Lake City
Page 10
“I started working at fifteen too.” He starts to regurgitate his life spiel. Lane Bueche: A Primer. “Used to do the morning shift in the meat department, hosing it down before school.”
“No, I mean, I left school. My mom needed help so I—Can I get a fork or something normal?”
He gets up and grabs her a plastic fork and knife. Throws in a Dixie cup of tap water and a paper napkin for good measure. Not a gentleman; a consummate gentleman. She continues: “What do you do in New York to be able to do all this charity and stuff?”
“I go to Columbia.”
No response.
“The university, not the country. In Manhattan. I’m a PhD student.”
“But what do you do for money?”
“That is my work.”
She focuses on turning over a piece of teriyakied thigh meat with a plastic fork.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re not into teriyaki?” he asks.
“I don’t like Oriental stuff.” Then she puts her paper napkin in her lap, adjusts her posture and considers for a moment, digging for an insightful question. “You gonna be like a teacher?”
“A professor? I mean, I’m in the social sciences in an interdisciplinary field, so it’s hard to know what the path looks like as a professor. Plus, with tenure like it is these days, young professors get shuffled around on one-year contracts. It’s Duluth this year, Spartanburg next year.” He’s never liked answering the career question. The height of banality. He falls back on modified language from his PhD application essay. “I feel that, considering where I came from and the obstacles I’ve overcome in achieving this level of academic success, coupled with my personal insights regarding the underprivileged, it’s my calling to choose the path that will give back and impact the greater good.”
“You’re like the Mother Teresa of Lake City Way?”
He tries to maintain a positive, if not neutral, expression, but he’s annoyed by her oversimplification. “I like to think I’m more like the—By the way, people don’t say Oriental anymore.”
“Chinese?”
“Teriyaki’s not Chinese. It’s Japanese originally. See the sesame here? And the garlic? That’s American. It’s more of a Hawaiian thing that got reinvented in Seattle.”
“It’s still Chinese to me. They reek of garlic.”
“Teriyaki?”
“No, Orientals. I don’t like to sit next to them on the bus.” She pinches her nose.
He doesn’t know how to respond.
“I ain’t racist, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m sure you’ve actually got a lot of Asian friends.”
“No, none. But I hate everybody equally. People suck.”
“Uplifting way to look at the world.”
“I’d work for the greater good of dogs.” She sweeps her hair back with her hand, showing the whorl of hair on her neck to Lane. “No dog ever screwed me over.”
LANE AND INEZ SMOKE CIGARETTES as they wait at the Metro stop for her bus to come. They laugh about people at work. Tom with his dumb mustache and baseless swagger. The tall married guy in the fish department and the obese cashier who don’t think anyone knows they’re fucking. The lady at the Customer Service desk who manages to never shut up while never saying anything. Inez steps closer to Lane, closer than strangers would stand, but they don’t touch.
They could have walked the other direction to a different stop. But Lane wanted to come here, to the bus stop that was the site of his first heartbreak. The one he could compare in magnitude to that of Mia. He brings it up to Inez. Nonchalant. Like he didn’t remember until this moment. “Hey, you know what? I think this is the same place where . . .” The perpetrator was his girlfriend for all of ninth grade, his first love, the girl he almost slept with dozens of times (maybe once or twice), but they were suspended between childhood and adulthood and didn’t know how to transition from taking clothes off to having intercourse—or, at least, he didn’t. She was the girl who worked with him to almost cure his stutter.
Back then, he’d believed that if you were honest and invested love, your efforts would be rewarded. That relationships failed if the guy was a deadbeat or an asshole. It was at that bus stop where she detonated not only his emotional well-being but his concept of love and relationships. And control. She told him the breakup was necessary for them to grow, that it was a good thing.
Four days later, Lane found out that she was already dating his former best friend. The best friend who’d said he was too tired to talk when Lane called him in tears. The friend who already turned sixteen and whose dad had bought him a used Mitsubishi with a car stereo connected to a Discman.
Rumors spread through school that his friend let slip in woodshop that he’d slept with Lane’s girlfriend even before she’d had the crushing conversation with Lane at the bus stop. That same bus stop where Lane stood weeks later in the rain while his ex-girlfriend and ex–best friend stopped at the red light in his car, singing along to a Queensrÿche CD.
If anything positive came out of it, it was that Lane got serious about school. It was the same time that he first saw Clinton’s “Hope” ad. He couldn’t afford a used Mitsubishi, or a Discman for that matter, but at least he could get better grades and become a more important world citizen than that traitorous fuck.
Lane would become better than him. And better than her. Better than his mom’s boyfriends. Better than all of Lake City. And now, after years of work, these goals were within Lane’s reach. No, they had already been in his hand. But, all of a sudden, he has nothing to show for it.
He doesn’t tell Inez the whole story, preferring to focus on the parts that make him a sympathetic protagonist. He doesn’t admit that he stuttered for a week straight and was unable to be emotionally available to a woman again until, well, perhaps until he met Mia.
“You still never told me your kid’s name.” He tries to turn the conversation back to her before he hangs himself with too much detail.
“Jordan.”
“That Biblical? Like the river?”
“Like the shoes.”
“OK, I see . . .” He has to pretend to be someone else, perhaps Bizarro Lane, in order to not shit all over that bit of information.
She stares back at him: flat.
“How do you say it in Spanish? Hordan?”
“The fuck should I know?”
“Oh, I thought you—Where’re you from?”
“Here.”
“OK. Here. I know that. But you speak Spanish?”
“I love how white people never say nothing direct. You trying to say I look Mexican?”
“No, I wouldn’t—”
“I never knew my dad, but his family’s all Yakama. From the rez.”
“Eastern Washington?”
“Yeah, I got a grannie out there I’d like to visit again someday, but I always lived with my white trash hippie mom. She means well—or used to mean well before she became a full-blown alky—but the path to hell is paved with good intentions, right? I mean, quartz crystals and astrological charts don’t put no food on the table.”
“And your son, he lives with you too?”
“He’s my son. Why wouldn’t he live with me?”
“I don’t know. I thought his dad could be—”
“His dad?” Her laugh rattles away like a pebble ricocheting down a well. She regroups. “Well, it’s complicated. There’s these two Richie Rich dykes, ‘The Aunties’ as the caseworker makes me call them, who—”
Lane spots a purple Saturn over her shoulder. He jumps back into the bus stop shelter, pulling her with him.
“What the?” She looks straight into his eyes again.
He doesn’t know how to explain and, instead, leans in for a kiss.
She counters with her forehead. “The hell, dude?”
“I dunno.” He opts to go down swinging. “I like you.”
“You for real?” She turns away. He feels her insecurity for the first time.
He’s not sure but thinks she is a little embarrassed.
“No. Look. I got one too.” He shows her his teeth. “It’s coming back in style. Nice to have a few flaws. Makes us human. I mean, not that it’s a real flaw or anything.”
He leans back in for a kiss. This time she accepts. Slowly. Not opening her mouth. He keeps one eye open, looking for the Saturn, but doesn’t see it again.
“You were telling me. Some Richie Rich Aunties. The situation with your son—”
The bus pulls up to the stop and opens its folding doors. Inez jumps aboard and turns to Lane as she climbs the stairs. “Next time, let’s eat someplace American.”
SIXTEEN
“YOU USED UP ALL THIS time to do what? Find out she’s a racist? A homophobe?” Nina shouts through the phone. “What are you gonna tell me next? She’s a liar?”
Lane pulls the quilt up over his feet. His mom’s space heater has gone out again. He presses the landline to his ear while watching another end-of-year TV special about September 11 with the volume off. He flips the channel: same thing, different network. It seems that they are starting to brand the whole tragedy as “9/11.”
“Crazy how the legal system works.” Lane comments. “Lesbians are bad. But racists are OK.”
“Only a straight white guy would be surprised by that.”
“Easy now, c’mon, I’m not—I’ve studied a lot about the effect of patriarchy and white entitlement in our society. And there’s a whole other discussion if someone of Native American descent can be racist and not just prejudiced within our power structure, but my point is—”
“No, the point is: Try to imagine what my son will be like if he grows up with her and whatever pedophile relatives and rabid dogs she lives with. Where will he end up? It’s theoretically possible that he’ll overcome all of that ignorance, all of those obstacles and still make a decent life for himself. But it’s not probable. In fact, it’s massively improbable. Jordan’s already lost the attachment to his biological mother—I can’t even bring myself to say her bullshit name anymore—and he lost it or never had it with the other foster family. He’ll forever feel those breaks. I mean, even though Jordan’s bio mom is a stranger to him, she’s already inflicted incalculable pain on him. That’s why attachment parenting is so important to Tracey and me. Jordan needs to heal that scar, not be forced to accept another, deeper cut.”
“The timing, it wasn’t right tonight,” Lane says. “But I’m getting close.”
“You better be close. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”
THE FIRST FEW TIMES THE process server disappeared, Lane hoped the guy was giving up. Or at least calling a truce and taking a few days off for the holidays. Doing the decent thing. The compassionate thing. But he always came back. It was a siege. He was orbiting, waiting for Lane to give up or slip up.
Lane spent enough time watching the guy through the toy telescope that he gave him a name: Brett. And a backstory: Brett was from outside of town. But not too far. Edmonds. Shoreline. Someplace unambitious. He had three kids with his high school sweetheart. Either way, she left him because she could no longer stand his complaining, his negativity about that fact that nothing ever happened in his life. He not only had to do this process server work out of pure desperation to pay his alimony and child support, but he got his satisfaction from visiting on others the same pain he felt himself. It was Brett’s little bit of revenge against the world for failing him. For failing his dreams. He once imagined a career in the FBI, as a PI or even as a regular cop, but ended up as a glorified delivery boy. He’s a sad man who eats a solitary dinner of mini-mart burgers and instant coffee while bathing in his own farts in his purple Saturn, his single remaining possession other than his stupid blue rain jacket that’s not even a real North Face or Patagonia. Not even a Columbia.
As Lane studies Brett, he starts to wonder if the dude knows Mia’s real motives. Maybe he’s seen something on one of the legal papers. Something about how Mia’s father was able to put her up to this. Some bit of essential information that could be used to turn all this around.
Lane wants to march out to the car and demand that Brett tell him why Mia, why her father, are going ahead with this. Mia told him—almost every day—that she would only marry for life and never split like her parents did. She had been so wounded by her parents’ separation and what it did to her mother. Mia’s dad kept the main apartment. Traveling for board meetings. Occupying his free time with high-end Ukrainian escorts. Dating women Mia’s age, never for more than a couple of months. While her mom turned in on herself. She was the outsider in the extended family, but she didn’t have the skills to live outside of the family. Mia was sent off to a New England boarding school, and all her mom had left was her charity. She had started it years before and not done much with it. Mia couldn’t explain in under ten minutes the purpose that it served. Something about sustainable global art parks for peace for children. All with like a Rolfing, Esperanto or Feldenkrais element to it.
Why divorce? Why go the same route as her parents? He was a good person who wanted a chance to love Mia as a committed companion, to become his best self and to give back to her and others. Was it such an indelible stain that he was born poor? Why not give the marriage a chance?
If Brett understood this, maybe he would help Lane out. Save him from a life like his own. But, no, Brett was another hurdle, another bit of interference between Lane and the life he was supposed to live with the woman he was supposed to live it with.
“IT’S GORGEOUS,” LANE’S MOM SAYS, picking up the purple reading pillow with both hands and cradling it as if it were her first grandchild. “I don’t remember the last time you gave me a Christmas present.”
“You mean such a nice Christmas present?” Lane smiles to Toby.
“No, a present.”
“Put it under the tree, Ma. Christmas isn’t until tomorrow.” Lane motions to the plastic tree cocooned in tinsel. “And sorry, Toby, didn’t get anything for you, but you know how it is.”
“No worries, Lane,” Toby says. “But as I was trying to say before, me and your mom, we want to talk to you. About your plans.”
Lane’s mom trains her eyes on the ground.
Lane starts to walk to the TV room. “I have an important call to make. Maybe tomorrow.” Toby brought this up a couple of times already. Some sort of parental come-to-Jesus chat, even though Lane thinks of Toby as closer to the random dude sleeping on the couch than a parent. Lane had hoped the preemptive pillow present would be enough of a distraction for today.
“Can we please talk now, son?”
“Man. What’s your problem?”
His mom steps in, her eyes still following the floorboards. “Please, Lane,”
“Fine. This is ridiculous because you already know my plans. I’m home . . . for vacation. To see my mom. A little longer than usual, but, you know, some pretty crazy shit went down in New York. Maybe you’ve turned on the TV or seen a newspaper in the last few months? And then, after the holidays, like everybody else in America, I’m going home. Home to be with my—to be with Mia.”
“You sure?” Toby asks.
Lane’s mom redirects for him. “She’s such a nice girl. So pretty. So smart.”
“What do you mean ‘You sure?’ Of course I’m sure. I said I was going, didn’t I?”
“That’s great news because Dottie and I, we got some news too,” says Toby.
Lane hasn’t heard his mom’s first name in ages. “Please tell me I’m not gonna have to call you Dad.”
“No, but, well, since a little before you got back—”
“I’m gonna be a big brother?” Lane laughs.
“No, nothing like that. Your mom and me . . . we’re heading south for the winter. Becoming snow
birds.”
“Congrats?” Lane imagines his mom in a bedazzled sweat suit, loading up on fake turquoise and nachos at a Tempe road stop.
He would not be sharing this with Mia, whose father flies select friends and family down to Mustique for New Year’s Eve. But Lane is fine with it, overall. At least he’ll have the house to himself for a few days until he gets his cash from Nina.
“We’re gonna drive my camper rig to Nevada. Come back in June,” Toby says, putting his arm around Lane’s mom. “We’re so done with Pacific Northwest rain. I’ve put in about fifty too many winters here already.”
“Vegas, huh?” Lane asks. He’s never been but has always looked down on its crass materialism and tacky hedonism.
“Laughlin,” Lane’s mom beams. “I’ve never been south of Portland.”
“A friend has some grounds work for me down there,” Toby says. “We were planning to go in early December, but your mom wanted to stick around a bit longer once you showed up.”
“I couldn’t leave you.” His mom’s voice trails off.
“Yeah, you coulda left me here, Mom. I’m a big boy. And if—for any reason—I end up staying for a few extra days in January, I can hold down the fort then too.”
“See, that’s the thing.” Toby clears his throat and gauges Lane’s reaction. “Can I get you a beer and then we talk about this, Lane?”
“No, tell me ‘the thing.’”
“The thing is that we rented the house,” says Toby. “My nephew and his family from Nome, they’re here starting in January.”
“January? Like when in January?”
“Like next week in January,” Toby says. “January first. Can I get you that beer now?”
SEVENTEEN
CAMBODIAN TEENAGERS IN KOBE JERSEYS call each other negro while smoking by the garbage cans at Dick’s Drive-In. Inez weaves through the crowd and then steps out from under the shelter of the awning. She runs through the rain to the passenger side of the old Dodge truck with the Winnebago camper in its flatbed. Lane argued that it was too tall to park close to the awning, but she’s confused as to why he picked the furthest corner of the lot.