by Jason Myers
“Me too,” Amy says.
I finish my glass of water.
Nope.
My sister scrunches her face. “Christ. What are you good for if you don’t have any drugs?”
I fill the glass again.
If you want drugs so bad, why don’t you call Katie? I’m sure her and Cliff are doing some right now.
“No one knows where she’s at,” my sister snaps. “Her parents are in Turkey and no one can find her or Cliff. Not since that bitch Natalie kicked Cliff out.”
“That’s not totally true, Vanessa,” Amy blabs, lighting a cigarette. “Josh told me that some guy told him that his girlfriend’s brother saw Cliff and Katie at some dealer’s house in Sioux City.”
“Who the fuck cares, Amy? That doesn’t do us any good right now. Don’t bring up irrelevant shit.”
Amy blushes and looks down at the table.
And my sister goes, “There are ways to get drugs besides my lame brother and Cliff. Cliff’s a fucking loser anyway. I’ll make calls if I have to.” She looks at me. “I don’t need your fucking help anymore, Travis.”
I shrug.
That’s good to know.
Then I finish what’s in my glass, fill it up again, go back to my room, pop a Valium, and watch Donnie Darko for like the ninth time since I’ve been home.
40.
I TAKE A CAB TO get my car from Michael’s the next afternoon, and before leaving, I go up to his pad and knock on the door and this hot girl with short black hair, wearing a sleeveless hoodie and a pair of pink yoga pants, with the words “Man’s Ruin” inked across her knuckles, answers and tells me that Michael and Dave are at band practice.
Who are you?
“Who are you?” she asks.
I don’t know.
“You don’t know who you are?” She looks confused.
My name’s Travis.
“I’m Serenity. I tattoo at Dead Rick’s parlor.”
Pause.
“You wanna come in?”
No.
“What do you want, then?”
I’m not sure.
Pause.
Has anyone ever told you that you look like the actress Gina Gershon?
“No,” she laughs, rubbing her tattoo covered arms. “But when I was younger and lived in Madison, I was real frail and skinny and some boy told me I looked like an anorexic, female version of Nikki Sixx.”
That’s pretty cool.
“Pretty?” she shrieks. “Shit, I was stoked for like a month.”
I smile. Ask, How do you know Michael?
“I fuck him sometimes.”
Are you going to their next show? The one coming up.
“Maybe.”
Well, maybe I’ll see you there.
I turn to leave and Serenity yells, “Hey.”
What’s up?
“Are you on MySpace?” she asks.
No.
“Why not?”
I don’t know.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, you should be,” she says, and closes the door.
I walk back to my car. I feel like seeing a movie. I drive to both the big cineplexes but nothing good is playing at either of them, so I drive to the Victoria Theater to see what’s playing but the ticket booth is closed. I try to yank the doors open but they’re locked.
I step back and look at the building and I don’t get why it’s closed, but it is, so I start to walk away when I hear one of the doors creak open.
I spin back around.
Poking a head out of the door is an older, bald man with a round face and glasses. “Can I help you?” he asks.
Is the theater closed today?
“It’s closed for good,” he says.
For good? Since when?
“Since yesterday. It was our last operating day ever. The city sold the theater last month.”
So that’s it? No more Victoria?
“That’s right. We tried to save it. All we needed was two thousand signatures on a petition to at least hold hearings in front of the city council, but we fell about five hundred short.”
I swipe at the fly hovering in front of my face.
What are they gonna turn it into?
“They’re gonna try to put a Wal-Mart in. They’re trying to clear the whole block for a goddamn Wally World, if you can believe it.”
I can believe anything.
The guy smiles and I start walking away, but turn around again.
Wait!
The guy pokes his head back through the door. “What now, kid?”
What was the last movie you showed?
“The greatest movie ever made.”
Which is?
“Chinatown. You seen it?”
Yeah. It’s a Polanski film.
“You bet it is. When it first came out in seventy-four, we showed it right here. This was the only theater for a two-hour radius that you could see Chinatown, starring the great Jack and Faye.” The guy takes a deep breath. “But nothing lasts forever. This city is changing for the worse. Sure it’s getting bigger and it looks nicer, but the novelties are disappearing. The culture is fading. This isn’t progress, kid. It’s neighborhood genocide. You think about that.”
I nod.
And the guy slips back into the theater and shuts the door and locks it.
41.
A FEW DAYS LATER, I go to the hospital to see Chris. He’s in a room all by himself, lying on a bed, draped in a white hospital gown decorated with little violets, watching a rerun of The Simpsons. A gnarly purple gash runs from the top of his upper lip to the bottom of his nose.
“Hey, Travis,” he says, a forced grin emerging on his face.
Hey.
Chris lifts his hand and we bump fists, then I sit down on the chair beside his bed.
“So, what’s going on?” he asks. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
I didn’t expect to come, Chris, until I started thinking about some things.
Chris stares at me but his eyes seem distracted, as if he’s not really here. “Like what?”
I wanted to say thank you for not giving Cliff the money for Laura’s abortion.
Chris flips his chin up. “You’re welcome. I guess.”
I appreciate it, man. And also you giving me the heads-up about the whole thing.
Chris makes this grunting noise and pushes himself forward. “It was gonna come out sooner or later.” Wincing, he falls back against the pillows stacked underneath him. “Broken ribs suck,” he groans. “It hurts to breathe.”
What exactly happened? I only heard bits and pieces of it from Michael.
Chris takes a series of short breaths. His eyes close.
Are you okay Chris?
He grimaces, slowly prying his eyelids apart. “I’ll make it.” He forces another grin. “April’s dad can fucking fight. Dude used to be an amateur boxer I found out a couple of days ago.”
Pause.
“He musta been pretty good, ’cause”—more short breaths—“I’ve never lost a fistfight before.”
What are the police charging him with?
“Nothing. I told the cops I didn’t want to press charges. Me and April and her parents and my parents made a deal.”
What kind of a deal?
Chris turns very slowly, very precisely to his right, and reaches for a paper cup full of water.
I jump to my feet.
Relax, man.
I grab the water and hand it to him and he takes a sip.
“Thanks, Travis.”
So tell me about the deal.
“The deal is”—he breathes—“April is going to have the kid and she’s going to move in with me.”
To yours and Kyle’s house?
Shaking his head slowly, Chris goes, “No. My parents are making me move home once I get out of here and she’s moving in with us.”
He hands the water back to me and I set it down and walk back to the chair.
How did you come up with that?
>
“She wanted to have the kid,” he snaps, holding his arms against his chest. “She said she had a dream about it and that she had to go through with it. So her parents told her if she wanted to have the baby, she was gonna have to live somewhere else. That’s how we came to the deal.”
I roll my eyes.
Is that what you want?
Chris closes his eyes. More short breaths. “No,” he grunts. “But if she’s going to go through with it, I’d rather be a part of it and try to make it work.” He inhales carefully. Opens his eyes. “I just wish I hadn’t hit her. Every time I look at her, I wish that. There’s a lot of bad shit I’ve done that I wish I could take back, but that’s the very first thing I would.”
Does her dad know you hit her?
“I don’t think so. My parents don’t know either. I talked to her. She says she’s past it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be, so I’m trying to make up for it.”
Pause.
He exhales slowly, stammering, “Sitting in here for the past few days has got me thinking about everything, ya know. It’s weird. I never knew how much I had to hate about myself until I had the time to think about it.”
Pause.
“It’s been ugly.” Deep breath. “But it’s been good.”
When do you get to leave?
“Maybe next week. Around the third or fourth of August. The doctor says I’m recovering faster than she thought I would.”
Has anyone else come to see you?
Chris shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Why would they? I’m sure everyone thinks I’m a giant asshole, and they’re right. I have been. The only people that show up are my parents and April. She’s here all the time.”
Is it nice?
“It’s nice to know someone else outside of my family cares.” He wipes his eyes. “Shit.” He wipes them again. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
I look down at my hands and they’re shaking. I wish that I could take back the horrible things I’ve done to people. I wish I could go back in time and make things right, because even though I’ve been trying to, I might be making everything worse.
I do not know what to do.
And Chris says, “Have you been to see Kyle?”
I look up.
Only once.
“When you go again, will you make sure he knows why I haven’t been there in a while?”
I can do that.
“Thanks, man.”
I get back on my feet.
“Are you leaving?” Chris asks.
Yeah. I think so.
Chris holds his fist out. “Thanks for coming. I’ll see you soon.”
Right.
I bump his fist.
Soon.
• • •
From the hospital, I begin driving for Claire’s, but like four blocks away from her place the traffic on the road comes to a complete standstill. Apparently someone’s found some sort of mysterious bag, some sort of out-of-place backpack near a bus stop, so what the police have done is block off the surrounding eight blocks and send in the bomb squad.
I know all of this because some guy on the radio knows all of this.
But it all ends up being a whole lot of nothing: just a backpack full of schoolbooks that some kid left behind. And by the time the armed officers are waving the traffic through again, the sun is already setting and I realize, Wow, I’ve been sitting here for almost two hours. Sitting there waiting because of a bag of outdated physics and sociology books. And when I do get to Claire’s, her roommate answers the door and tells me Claire got called into work and left about ten minutes ago.
42.
TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT OF the awards ceremony where my father is to be honored. It’s being held downtown at the Morton Convention Center, and the four of us—my father and I swagged out in the Gucci tuxes we were fitted for, my mother and sister strapped into black Gucci dresses—arrive at the center in a limo after an entire ride of silence.
We spend the first hour being introduced around to all of my father’s business acquaintances and clients and close friends of his we haven’t met before. We’re introduced to city officials and their families. We pose for two family pictures. We split a bottle of champagne between the four of us in the Jefferson Room of the center, a private room set up for those being honored and the people speaking and presenting the honorees.
At one point, while my father is at the bar getting another bottle of champagne, I look at my mother and she looks like she’s almost ready to cry, and when she looks at me looking at her, she tries to smile but it’s weak and vague and it doesn’t work and she looks away.
My sister is high. It’s so fucking obvious. Her eyes are jacked. Bright. Red. And she’s having a hard time following what little conversation there’s been between any of us. When she does speak, her thoughts are incomplete, and even though I know that my parents realize what’s going on, they just nod their heads like they understand because it’s much easier than asking her to repeat herself.
After the second bottle of champagne is gone, my mother, sister, and I are seated at a round table in front of the stage, and my father takes his place behind the enormous table on the stage. A waiter comes by and asks us what we want to drink.
My mother: Manhattan, please.
My sister: vodka, um, yeah, and cranberry.
Me: double whiskey sour.
And by the time the ceremony has actually begun, the waiter has hit our table three times, and I’m getting pretty drunk and I want to do some coke, so I text-message Michael about making a possible delivery, but then I get a text message back that says “Fuck you, gnar pillager. I’m going to bed. Even Satan’s gotta nap. Lamborghini Dreams on Saturday, bioooooooootch!”
I shut my phone off.
Then there’s a short introduction by this very pretty, much younger woman, who, according to what she has to say, “works very closely with my father.” The waitstaff brings around all these appetizers and salad plates but neither my mother, sister, nor I touch a thing.
I just wanna get loaded. That’s it. Maybe fuck one of the hot waitresses or one of the hot wives or one of the hot daughters. I almost hit my sister up for drugs, but I don’t, because fuck OC’s. If I’m getting jacked, I want some fucking cocaine. And by the time the main course—prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, deviled eggs—comes around, I’m wasted. My skull feels heavy. My speech is pretty off. Then my father gets honored. One by one, men in tuxes, women in suits and dresses, march up to the podium and stand in front of the microphone and sing the praises of Lance Wayne. “An amazing businessman.” “A revolutionary dream builder.” “A loyal husband.” “A loving father.” “A great family man.”
We all order another drink.
Then it’s my father’s turn. He stands proud and tall, god-like as he looks over the three hundred or so people gathered around him, listening as he talks about dreams and possibilities and the future: “As we forge forcefully into an age when everyone, no matter what walk of life they come from, will have the chance to flourish, and the world becomes a place where every goal can be obtained, and every aspiration realized.” Then he thanks everyone, especially his marvelous family—my high sister, my uninterested mother, and me, drunk, the ungrateful son—and after the standing ovation is over, my father walks off the stage and sits down with us at the table, and by the time he’s looked over each one of us, his huge smile has been wiped away, replaced by a blank expression.
So he gets up and walks around. He shakes hands with everyone, and then the reception starts. It’s a ballroom-type dance party with a jazz orchestra, and about ten minutes after the music has begun, I slam my sixth whiskey drink and pull my father aside and tell him that I’ve made up my mind about the fall.
“What’s it gonna be, son?”
I’ll go to USC.
My father’s face lights up.
But only if you do one thing for me, Dad.
“And what would that be?”
Rawson
Park.
“What about it?”
You bought it, right? It’s going to be your property in about a month?
“It will.”
I’ll only go to USC if you donate the park back to the city with a written agreement that it will never be developed into anything else and will always be open to the public.
My father stares me dead in the eye. He’s waiting for me to blink or look away but I am not going to this time.
I am not going to back down from him.
That is the only way I go to school out there, Dad.
My father slides his jaw out. He bobs his head back and forth, back and forth, as if he’s weighing it all out. “Done,” he finally says.
Really?
“Yes. If that’s what it takes for you to be at my alma mater, then I’ll do it, son. I’ll have one of the lawyers draw the papers up first thing tomorrow.”
Thank you.
My father’s smile returns and he pulls a cigar from the inside pocket of his jacket and lights it. “So here’s what I’m thinking.”
What’s that?
“I have some business to do in LA on the twentieth.”
Okay.
“So we’ll drive out to LA. Just the two of us. We’ll leave on the fifteenth, get there on the eighteenth, and that will give us two days to get you situated before I need to take care of my own needs.” My father blows a ton of smoke into the air. “Sound good?”
Sounds great, Dad. Just as long as the park deal is done before we leave.
My father smacks me in the side of the arm. “It’ll be done before the end of the week, son.”
43.
CLAIRE AND I MAKE PLANS to meet for dinner at eight at a small, upscale Korean restaurant near her apartment.
Wearing a navy blue dress with white trim and a black chiffon scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, Claire sits across the small table from me and tells me she saw the picture of me and my family at the awards ceremony on the front page of the paper yesterday. “You look good in a tux,” she says.
That’s good. I haven’t seen it yet. But my sister was all over her phone blabbing about it.
Claire lifts her glass of ice water. “Is everything all right with your sister?” she asks. “I’ve heard some things.”