Prodigal Sons

by Mike Miner

  “Okay? You sure?”

  “No, but what the fuck.” He took a long sip of beer.

  “Great. Let’s say Harvard Square. Around two-thirty?”

  In his reflection in the funhouse mirror against the wall, his eyes were too big. He rolled them.

  “The Cambridge Coffee House?” he asked and instantly regretted it.

  “Oh, you remember. How sweet.”

  He felt like he’d stepped into a bear trap. “Is your head still shaved?”

  “I’ll keep you in suspense.”

  She hung up. Bear lumbered out of his room and down to the kitchen. “Need another?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely,” Luke said though he still had some work to do on the beer in his hand. He was curious to see what was happening with her, but he knew he’d regret it. Bear came back with a beer. They toasted.

  “Who dat?”

  “Old flame.”

  “Ah, she looking to fan an old fire?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And you’re just gonna run after her?”

  Luke shrugged as the flashback hit him.

  They’d met at the Institute. Luke had avoided thinking about that hellhole for months. It came back to him like a commotion of movement from a deep, toxic cave.

  Before Dana, it had been Molly Benson. His first love, first everything. Homecoming queen, captain of the soccer team (state champs), top one percent of her class, blonde hair, a milky way of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Her blue eyes had noticed his own, the same keen color as his father’s, but haunted. He saw things that weren’t there. It was his daydreamy gaze that, according to her, she had fallen for. But in the end, they were too delicate, his eyes, and they scared her. She couldn’t look into those eyes anymore, didn’t want them looking at her. And the letter he sent her, full of beautiful, scary emotions, full of poetic despair. She was not scared of him, she was scared for him.

  Molly told her friends, her parents, the school nurse. Then Luke sat in a conference room at a long oval table. A dozen sympathetic eyes wanted to help. Try denying that you’re going to check yourself out to a room full of people convinced you’re contemplating Hamlet’s big question. Impossible. But he did his best, ranting like a lunatic. His mother’s tears were the worst—they almost drove him to it. All of which led to his being committed to the Institute of Living, formerly known as the Hartford Retreat for the Insane—where he met Dana.

  The Institute was in downtown Hartford. The main building—where they used to do the electro shocking and lobotomizing—was on the top of a hill and resembled a fairy tale castle constructed of brick and stone. Arriving in an ambulance from his family doctor’s office—Dr. Mordavsky had been in on it—he recalled feeling like a prisoner from some crusade, swordless and hopeless. The weather was just warm enough to be raining not snowing; it matched his mood. He didn’t know how long he would be staying, patients under eighteen could be kept up to thirty days without consent. He would never forgive his mother, not that she would ever forgive herself. Surrounding the keep was the “campus,” it said on the brochure, home to an arboretum and some of the state’s oldest and largest trees. Who gave a shit about trees in November?

  Through a lab rat’s maze of narrow, taupe-colored hallways, he was led to an office where a nice enough female doctor explained the situation and questioned him in a practiced monotone. As she spoke, he observed his fellow inmates through a glass wall. A snatch of overheard conversation between his parents echoed in the caverns of his brain.

  “He needs help,” his mother whispered. “The kid,” came the harsh hiss from his father, “is bats.”

  The Doctor rambled. He didn’t hear anything she said after “indefinite stay.” He wondered how “bats” the people he was looking at were and how “bats” he was and he put his head in his hands and sobbed like a five-year-old waking from a nightmare, not quite sure the monsters weren’t still under the bed, and he tried to get hold of himself but couldn’t. The doctor’s face changed, lips pursed, eyebrows arched like Spock’s, with as much emotion. This one is a hard case, the expression said. From beyond the stern, sterile face, behind her, over her shoulder and down the hall, came the familiar, unwelcome noises. The screeching, fluttering, whispering, marauding of the bats, his old companions.

  To avoid answering Bear, Luke slugged his beer. The phone rang again. He picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Luke?”

  “Mom?”

  “I’m sorry if I’m waking you.”

  He smiled and took another taste, “I’m up.”

  “Oh. Good. I just wanted to warn you that Dana might be calling.” He winced. “She called for your number and it wasn’t like I could say I didn’t have it.”

  More romantic advice. His mother had never forgiven Dana for walking out the way she had. She never forgave a slight, real or imagined, to one of her boys. Mrs. Flanagan had put the hex on a lot of ex-girlfriends over the years. Luke was pretty sure that half the reason Matthew and Mark were married was because they finally found women their mother approved of. Although he had to admit, both of their wives were pretty good catches, as different as the two brothers themselves. Peggy did a pretty good job of holding the reins on Mark. Luke often worried, as his mother did, that Lucy had a much tougher job with Matthew.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “She already called, didn’t she?” The police could save a lot of money on lie detectors by hiring his mother. Even Matthew had had trouble lying to her as a kid. Sometimes it seemed like Matthew lied just to stay in practice. “Don’t worry about it, Mom.”

  There was a long pause. “I’m not saying anything. I trust your judgment.” This was her way of warning him. She knew from experience to avoid conflict when it came to women. “You boys and your girls,” she sighed.

  “Okay.” He was annoyed.

  “You’re not going to see her are you?”

  “I wish I could squeeze her into my busy social calendar.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Girls, you’ll have to get out of here,” he hollered. “I’ve got two more coming in fifteen minutes.”

  Bear poked his head out of his bedroom looking for the imaginary women.

  “Okay you’ve made your point. Sorry for prying.”

  “Bye Mom,” he spat through gritted teeth.

  “Bye. Love you.”

  He hung up.

  His mother had visited him every day he was in the institute. Tired, grim puddles of brown eyes waiting for their beating. He had never thought of her as old before. His weapon had been silence. After a week, he had allowed one word answers. “How are you?” “Terrible.” “How are the doctors?” “Miserable.” “I’m so sorry.” “Sure.” “Can you ever forgive me?” “Nope.” “I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Great.”

  Luke sat on the couch and stared out the window. It looked like he would be venturing out after all. Bear was murdering Bob Marley in the shower. “No Woman, No Cry.” The television reminded him that tomorrow was Super Bowl Sunday. BC was playing at Villanova tonight. His plans to watch the game in a bar downtown were broken. He sighed. In truth, a little x-rated entertainment sounded pretty good—it had been a while. It was like learning a new dance every time he met a new woman. The last action he’d seen was over a month ago with a girl who picked him up at Who’s on First? down by Fenway. A cop. They’d gone to her place. She had to get up early the next day. Watching her put on her uniform was strangely more provocative than taking her clothes off the night before. Maybe it was the firearm at her waist. He was tired of putting in the effort. Boston was full of women who didn’t want to know him. Would he ever get married? Stop being referred to as the gay brother.

  Bear blundered out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and another one wrapped around his head like a turban. His skin was a pale pink and loose like a baby elephant’s. It jiggled as he hollered, “Chicks love me!” and ran into his room. Luke had to laugh. Sometimes it was hard to believe Bear was a la
w student.

  Karl, “with a K,” had been his roommate in the Institute. Karl wore black or dark shades of gray. He was sixteen, pale as chalk dust, and junkie thin. “Heroin,” he said, though Luke hadn’t asked. “What’s it like?” Luke was unsure of the protocol.

  Karl perked up. “What’s your favorite thing to do?”

  Luke was stumped. When he started to speak, Karl said, “Absolute favorite.” Luke looked up at the ceiling, at the fluorescent lights, for nests.

  “Sex, maybe?”

  “Maybe,” Luke allowed.

  “Who’s the hottest girl in the world? For you?”

  His first smile. Their tastes might diverge a bit. He started to speak again but Karl didn’t let him start.

  “All time.”

  “What?”

  “All time—she can be dead. Like my shrink says, it’s just a hypothetical exercise.”

  “Oh.” Luke fanned through black and white stills of the girls in the movies his parents watched: Bergman, Davis, Bacall. “Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Who?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Okay. Whatever. So imagine having sex with Marilyn Monroe—but not just sex, like marathon, no holds barred, cage match sex. Stick it anywhere you want and that’s where she wants it—and she always wants it. Wants you.”

  Luke was half aroused.

  “Heroin’s kinda like that.”

  “Sounds awesome.”

  “It is.”

  Kurt talked a lot, his conversation relentless, turning in circles, going down dead ends as his focus wandered, it was exhausting. Luke was ready for bed early.

  The nightmares were severe: vampire bats like deformed pigeons, fiendish, airborne rats, buzzing with melted, zombie faces grinned perfectly yellow smiles, flashed their teeth then dove for him. Tearing, rending, masticating.

  After the first night, he was allowed a private room.

  Luke showered and shaved. Looking into the mirror, he thought of his brother, Matthew. People were constantly mistaking one for the other. Some people thought they were twins at first even though they were four years apart. Luke was a bit taller, a bit heavier than Matthew—but at first glance, it was hard to tell them apart. Some people figured Matthew for the younger of the two. Luke suspected this was because his brother acted younger, but he had not always been so footloose.

  He remembered when Matthew was in high school and the famous wars with their father. Barely a week went by when Matthew wasn’t involved in some feud over a broken curfew or coming to work late or drunk, or a hundred dollars in phone sex charges. Matthew had escaped to college, and everything changed. He’d seemed to find himself. What had Fitzgerald said? Forgotten is forgiven. That summer between freshman and sophomore years, Matthew had even worked at the store without complaining. Postcards arrived during the school year from all across the country, Chicago, Denver, Tampa—infuriating and elating their parents, who wondered when he was studying. A smile of reluctant admiration and maybe a little envy from their father, an expression Luke could never imagine himself inspiring.

  Matthew was a junior at BC when he came home to see Luke at the Institute. In the visitor’s lobby, Matthew tried his best to hide his discomfort and give Luke a genuine smile. Luke didn’t hide his discomfort. Marvin, a twelve-year-old, six-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound glue sniffer, was spread across four cushioned chairs. He vigorously pounded his face against one of the chairs, stopping occasionally to grin at Luke.

  “Marvin, take it easy,” Luke said, which only got Marvin started again.

  “I’m getting you the fuck out of here.” Matthew never took his eyes off of Marvin.

  Luke was all eyes and ears.

  In Luke’s room, they found almost identical pairs of jeans and two blue t-shirts. It wasn’t a supermax prison. They looked alike. All they needed was a little misdirection. They waited until a few other people were in the waiting room. Matthew pretended to forget something on his way out and asked to be buzzed back in. The sleepy receptionist, dealing with two sad parents, buzzed without looking. Instead of going in, Matthew went outside. Luke, posing as Matthew, knocked on the door and was buzzed out a minute later. “Thanks,” he remembered to say as he strolled out of the lobby. He was sprung.

  The getaway car was their father’s red Ford F-150.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Somewhere with a view, somewhere I can run.”

  Matthew nodded.

  Wickham Park rose to a hill just east of Hartford, with a beautiful skyline, charming and small for a city. They watched the blue leak out of the sky and the city lights gradually throb to life. Luke ran up to the top of the hill. Breathed in the taste of dusk. Free air. Matthew smoked a cigarette.

  What now? Luke wondered. Just go home, sleep in his own bed—could it be that easy? And tomorrow at school, when he saw Molly, what would she say? The sun seeped beneath the horizon, leaving a radioactive glow, and they swarmed. The trees seemed to breathe, and the winged rats leapt like goblins off their branches.

  With his arms clutching his head, Luke looked at his brother. Matthew’s eyes told Luke the story, the diagnosis. Crazy. Bats.

  “Let’s go, bro.” Matthew’s voice was too gentle, like he might upset the patient.

  He didn’t ask where they were going.

  Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan—seething volcanoes moments from eruption—were waiting in the Institute’s lobby when Matthew and Luke walked inside. Mr. Flanagan’s eyes, the palest blue, didn’t look at you, they pierced you, they grabbed your shirt front and pulled you in close, bully’s eyes. Luke hugged them both, weeping, while Matthew squirmed under the one-two punch of their gazes.

  The truth was that most people were puzzled by Luke, not quite sure how to read him. The double truth was that he puzzled himself. Maybe that was why he wanted to see Dana. She seemed to have answers to his complicated riddles.

  He stared into his closet, looking for the perfect shirt. This one he’d worn the first time she had lied to him about being pregnant. She didn’t like orange. This closet had history. He remembered some advice. When in doubt, go black. A black sweater and a pair of faded blue jeans revealed themselves. It would have to do. A long overcoat topped it off.

  Outside, the wind mugged him, tore through his open jacket, around his torso, picked his pockets. Cold hands fumbled with his jacket buttons and turned his collar up. His short hair froze stiff in an instant. Harvard Avenue was a prison for parallel parked cars, buried under ten inches of snow. The crunch of his footsteps swirled away with the stinging breeze, huffing and puffing past him. A coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts kept him warm as he waited for the T to come down Commonwealth Avenue and rescue him from the cold. There was nowhere to sit at this hour so he stood and held onto a pole. The trolley lurched into movement. Luke sipped his coffee without spilling a drop or burning his mouth. He felt the warm satisfaction of being a local and rolled his eyes as a tourist stumbled to find a seat.

  At Park Street, he changed trains and caught the red line to Cambridge, the Harvard Square stop. Outside, a shrouded cloud of a day. Too cold for the usual street performers, he realized. No juggling or guitar playing or balloon animals until spring. It was warm inside the Cambridge Coffee House and the smell of roasted coffee and baked bread were a sweet relief from the cold outside. Half an hour later Dana still hadn’t shown up. He ordered a coffee, sat in a corner and amused himself with the Phoenix classifieds. A SWM wanted an open-minded SWF, 18-21, to throw pickles at him in her underwear. Would Dana be game for that kind of diversion?

  When she finally arrived, he felt that old black magic in his stomach. What the hell was he doing there? An oversized blue pea coat kept her warm, and a purple hat hid her hair, if she had any. She smiled her crooked smile. He nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. As she walked toward him, he noticed that her cheeks were red from the cold and the beauty mark on her right cheek stood out brown against the red. Before she sat, she whipped off her hat and her thick, wavy b
rown hair fell to the base of her neck.

  “I was hoping to see it shaved.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.” The hat landed soundlessly on the table. “Am I late?”

  Luke shrugged.

  “You look good,” she said, appraising him. “Right back at you.”

  A nod from her.

  She did look good. Large, chocolate eyes that didn’t quite make contact with anything. Her round but not chubby cheeks dimpled as she smiled at him. Once she adjusted to the warmth, her face changed from red to winter white. He wondered what she was on.

  Group therapy was every day there. A gaudy maze of scars decorated Dana’s arms, an ostentatious display, the asylum version of a low-cut blouse. Most of the wrist slashers or needle addicts wore long sleeves. The wounds hypnotized Luke.

  “Whatchya lookin’ at?” She had a raspy voice, like she’d been screaming at someone. It was the first time she’d spoken to him. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She held them in front of him. “Forty-two stitches.”

  He looked closer. Bruises, scabs, stitches like shoelaces held her arms together. How could that ever heal? “You sound proud.” For some reason, he wanted to touch them.

  She shrugged. “War wounds.” Speaking about her condition, she was eloquent. Held the group’s attention like someone about to jump off a ledge. “Between the voices and the suffocating feeling, I just couldn’t take it. I just wanted them to stop.”

  “What voices?” Dr. Zern ran group therapy like a kindergarten teacher, using simple words and soothing tones. It seemed impossible that he could understand any of their problems.

  “I don’t know, sometimes it’s my mom, sometimes it’s my dad, but not really them, like, I hear the voices sometimes when they’re in the same room as me, but it’s not coming from them.”

  “Maybe they’re ventriloquists.”

  “Fuck off, Herbie.”

  According to Dr. Zern, Herbert Sadosky compensated for his fears with humor. According to Dana, Herbie compensated for being a pussy by being an asshole. Her diagnosis seemed closer to reality; something she only grasped tenuously.