Flatscreen

by Adam Wilson

  “Your eye okay?”

  “When you disappeared for those six months, where did you go?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, in 1975, when you disappeared.”

  “Sal is crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I never went anywhere.”

  I shivered. Dad nodded toward the door. We walked inside. Hand didn’t grace my shoulder. Don’t know if it lingered over it, as he stood behind me, holding the door open.

  Pam gave me frozen peas to put on my eye. Aside from the Sackses, everyone was still there, though the twins had been fed, pushed aside, enough trouble for one night. Turkey on the table, cold. Sweet potatoes—not bad. Nobody ate much. Wine had been put away.

  “Pats are looking good this year,” Steve said.

  “By the second half Belichick figures out their defense,” Dad said.

  Judy said, “If you guys are gonna talk about football, then we’ll talk about Desperate Housewives. Who else watches?”

  I watched. I was one of them: desperate. Imagined my neighborhood was like the fictional one—filled with sexy, lonely women looking for a little action, venues for their winter tans.

  “I can’t stand that Lynette,” Pam said.

  “Eva Longoria’s hot,” Steve said. Doug nodded. Uncle Sal ate slowly. Four years since I’d seen him. Couldn’t remember what he’d been like before, probably because his family never came to Thanksgiving. Do remember Mom saying, “They think they’re better than us.” Didn’t know why: we had a bigger house, nicer cars.

  Only been to their house once, age eleven. Dad had taken Benjy and me to the Baseball Hall of Fame. One last bonding experience before the divorce.

  On the way home we’d stopped at Uncle Sal’s. House was small, no paved driveway. Adults drank tea instead of coffee. Julie put on the TV. Watched Sesame Street even though we were much too old for it, because they didn’t have cable. Next time I saw them was four years later, year following the divorce, when everyone came for Passover at Dad’s new house, and Julie allegedly revealed her sweet pink nip to Benjy. She was older than Benjy, conservative. I think the flashing was inspired by the house—by a foreignness in the architecture—the same foreignness that drew her into the worlds of high finance and eternal silence.

  Pam hurried out dessert. Apple pie, my blueberry pie, brownies, ice cream, other stuff. Pies were decent. Dessert was quick. No one took coffee. It was cold, dark. People wanted to get home. Not a cozy house. Automatic fireplace, but I couldn’t picture it warming anyone as they cracked chestnuts, sipped mulled cider, book in hand, ready to doze on the couch, awake to light dew on the windows, delicate aroma of embers. The house was like an anorexic mother—sexy but dysfunctional, all ribs and angles, no bosom. Meant for warm seasons. Would have made sense in Florida.

  “I think we’re gonna get going,” Benjy said.

  “Okay,” Pam said. “So nice having you boys.”

  “Take care,” I said to Uncle Sal.

  He leaned over, kissed my cheek. Minty breath, dry lips.

  “If you ever feel like making it to Albany, you’re more than welcome.”

  For a moment considered joining Sal in mellow-mourning, a monk’s life, cigarette-free, walks in the woods, growing my own tomatoes.

  Dad said, “I’ll walk you guys out.”

  Stood in the doorway while Benjy got his coat. Good moment to ask about money. No time for politics. Best shot was to play dumb, ask straight out for cash, not mentioning I only needed it because my last few installments had never arrived.

  “Can I have some money?”

  “I can’t give you any more money.”

  “Why not? I know you can afford it. You’re rich.”

  “I’m not rich,” he said, because rich people never admit to being rich.

  “You are,” I said.

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “So what then?”

  “I won’t support your drug habits anymore.”

  “I won’t spend it on drugs.”

  “Eli.” He said my name in a way that seemed to explain his entire argument.

  “C’mon, Dad, for old time’s sake.”

  “You should be nicer to Pam. She really wants you to like her.”

  “I know. Look, I won’t spend it on drugs, okay?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I want to buy my girlfriend a birthday present.”

  “Mrs. Sacks?”

  “Someone else.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Just this girl. Look, I just need some… I just…”

  “Why don’t you just get a job?” he said.

  Obvious solution. Maybe it was. Simple economic law: work, get paid.

  “Who would hire me?”

  Benjy came back with his coat. Dad shook Benjy’s hand, then mine, slipped something into my palm.

  Only a twenty.

  “Better then nothing,” I said to Benjy. “How much you get?”

  “More,” he said. “I deserve it more.”

  “I know.”

  Road was dark, mostly empty. No lights. All that existed was the car itself, lit orange by the dashboard, clock blinking 12:00, never set, Benjy’s eyes on the road, my eyes on Benjy, watching as he steered with just two fingers, making infinitesimal corrections as the road turned and widened like a living being.

  twenty-one

  Spaghetti Bolognese:

  • He made it every Wednesday when Mom was at tennis.

  • First he cracked a beer, tuned to ZLX (Boston’s only classic rock!), rolled up his sleeves, undid his tie, aproned himself.

  • I popped the tab on a root beer.

  • Benjy was in his room doing homework.

  • “Don’t you have homework too?”

  • Said I did it already.

  • A recipe handed down from his father, who got it abroad in World War II, at least that’s what he told me.

  • An inauthentic version of an authentic Italian dish.

  • But Dad made the sauce carefully, methodically, taking time to evenly chop the onions, tear the basil, simmer low and slow, stirring occasionally, salting to taste.

  • Each time it tasted different. Not better or worse. Just different.

  • After, we’d watch some seasonal sporting event, rooting silently, horizontal like men who deserved their rest.

  • Even in this time-tweaked nostalgic dream, we don’t share anything but space, occasional head nods; wind whips at the window; Mom arrives clucking about women we don’t care about, whose mother is remarrying a gentile, what the Samuels kid got on his SATs, and wasn’t there a game on last night?

  twenty-two

  Mrs. Estes answered the door.

  “Hola,” I said, like an idiot.

  “Hi, Eli.” She looked tired. Hair pulled back, forehead-skin stretched.

  “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “There’s dessert on the table. Apple tart’s my best.”

  Adults in the dining room, slouched in chairs, loosening belts. One guy asleep at the table. SportsCenter danced noiseless on the wall-mounted Sony. Athletes mocked us: the slovenly, stomachs drooping like sad eyes; or the women: so skinny, plastic straws bent in all the wrong places.

  Wife Three had wine-stained lips. Sat on Dan’s dad’s lap in purple velvet (low cut, one freckle on the lip of her cleavage) sipping champagne, feeding him chocolate covered strawberries while he stroked her hemline. She fed him without looking at him. Gaze wandered the party, fixing for a moment on the TV, passing to other guests, walls, windows; legs crossed, bouncing slightly, right foot bent down like a ballerina’s. Mascara had caked, flaked off her lashes. It stuck in little pieces to her cheek, resembled one of those tear tattoos people in prison get to commemorate their dead homeys. Dan’s dad had his eyes closed. Licked his lips, then Wife Three’s finger, pretending to bite her wedding ring. When he opened his eyes he saw me.

  “Big E. Hit up that desse
rt cart.”

  “No thanks. I’m stuffed,” I said, rubbed my stomach for emphasis.

  “C’mon, buddy, there’s still some apple tart left. Wife’s specialty.”

  “Too full.”

  “More leftovers for me, then.”

  “Dan around?”

  “He’s down there with his chica.”

  “Dan’s quite the stud these days.”

  “A real Adonis.”

  “Right,” Wife Three said. “Like father like son.”

  “We’re all the same. Wild animals in the kingdom of love.”

  Scratched the air with imaginary bear claws. Wife Three pretended not to notice.

  “What happened to your eye?” she said.

  “I was fighting for my kingdom.”

  “Thatta boy,” Dan’s dad said.

  “I’m gonna go find Dan,” I said, walked toward the basement. Passed people I’d known once, former friends of my parents, members of the temple. They kept talking. Didn’t interrupt. Offered silent condemnation: “You were all at my bar mitzvah. You told me I was a man. You were lying.”

  Lights off downstairs. European techno pulsed steady like a robot heartbeat. Two figures merged in the center of the bed. Hardly resembled the way people fuck in movies. Facing each other, backs straight, legs bent like squatting baseball catchers, together a multi-limbed Hindu god (Buddha of Pittsburgh, Enscott LLC, 1995). Movement so slow it felt like I was watching through a strobe light. Large tattoo in black ink covered Nikki’s back. Not meant to be anything specific, just curving lines, dipping and bending with her body. Resembled a page of sheet music rippled by a fan from across the room. Dan’s eyes closed, face void. Like Buddha beneath the tree, body light, unweighted by thought, almost floating on her rippling body, not like a boat, more like buoy: bobbing, forgiving.

  Faces inched toward each other like they were leaning in to whisper. Muscles in Nikki’s back tightened; tattoo changed form. Dan’s eyelids fluttered like a butterfly’s wings. He yelled, “YOWZA!”

  Stepped back onto the stairs, waited five minutes (timed on my cell), knocked on the wall.

  “We’ll be up in a minute.”

  “Dan. It’s Eli.”

  “Hold on.”

  Waited in the stairway, scratched the skin on my hand until I drew blood, rubbed the blood on Dan’s wall.

  “Okay, come in.”

  He wore a white terry-cloth bathrobe, the kind you get in hotels, only his had “Daniel” in gold stitching. Loading a bong. Nikki sat next to him on the bed in an oversized basketball jersey that functioned as a nightgown.

  “Nice robe.”

  “That means a lot coming from a robe expert like yourself.”

  “I know a thing or two.”

  “What happened to you?” Nikki said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was conceived by a weak sperm” (Bill Hicks: Sane Man, Sacred Cow Productions, 1989).

  “I meant what happened to your eye?”

  “Oh. Got punched in the face.”

  Dan lit the bong, coughed.

  “You need one of these.”

  “Was thinking of something a little stronger.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Heard about your football game mishap,” Nikki said. “What were you doing on the field, anyway?”

  “Reliving old glories?” Dan said.

  “Something like that.”

  “I heard they were going to arrest you for indecent exposure,” Nikki said.

  “Didn’t I have all my clothes on?”

  “It was still indecent.”

  “Call of the wild,” Dan said, beat his chest, howled. Bong hit made me hyperaware of my black eye. Thought I could feel the color changing, turning blue, swelling fast.

  “I’m feeling light-headed.”

  “Good shit, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “So who all’s gonna be at this party?” Nikki said.

  “’Dem hos,” Dan said.

  “You’re retarded,” Nikki said.

  “You know you love it,” Dan said. He was cutting up coke on the coffee table. She scratched his back. Dan sucked up a line.

  “Take two,” he said. “For your eye.”

  “So generous,” Nikki said.

  “I have twenty bucks.”

  “Keep it,” Dan said. “It’s the holidays.”

  “Look at old Santa over here,” Nikki said.

  “It’s Thanksgiving,” I said. “Not Christmas.”

  “I’m Jewish, anyway,” Dan said.

  “All you Jews,” Nikki said as I did my snorting. “And what are you thankful for?”

  “Less than I should be,” I said.

  “You should be thanking me,” Dan said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Give me some of that,” Nikki said, sat up.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Dan said.

  “I don’t want to see all those people,” I said.

  “I have more coke, too,” Dan said. “And booze. Let’s take some tequila shots.”

  “Okay,” I said, rolled off the bed, onto the floor, spread my limbs like I was making a snow angel.

  twenty-three

  Uncle Ned:

  • Uncle Ned’s TV was an old Panasonic with wood-colored plastic frame. The color green came out blue.

  • TV was so old it didn’t have a place to plug in a cable cord. He’d had a guy come, attach a device.

  • “Why don’t you just get a new TV?”

  • He said, “What’s the point?”

  • He in his bed, me on a living room armchair I’d dragged into the bedroom, left there because Ned said it wasn’t like he hung out in the living room anymore.

  • By the end, they had him hooked up to morphine. Wanted to die at home, not in a hospital, but in his own bed, between the sheets where he’d lain with a hundred women (so he said), some beautiful, some less so; each markedly singular. He’d watched them scream, cry, dig nails into his flesh, whisper demons in his ear, sleep across his chest.

  • Ned would tell me about these women, speech between poetry and gibberish. Sometimes he’d turn down the morphine. Words took on the clarity of a ringing bell: precise, mournful.

  • Usually he’d pump up the drugs, become less coherent, quoting Lennon, Lenin, Lenny Bruce. Sometimes whispering, often veering into the incomprehensible, where the words lost meaning, simply became sounds, sounds of a failing body, still alive, pushing forward, even so.

  • Watched the hawk tear its claws into the field mouse, blood squirting, eyeball crushed by its beak.

  twenty-four

  Things I Remember:

  1. Tequila tastes like urine mixed with fire.

  2. Dan’s basement is a merry-go-round, complete with childhood pictures of Dad running through his own backyard naked, mammoth dick between his legs, slapping against his inner thighs.

  3. Upstairs. Standing of my own accord, poor posture.

  “Wife Three,” I say, “you know Mary was getting some on the side when God knocked her up.”

  “Get him out of here,” Dan’s dad says.

  “His brother was such a good kid,” someone else says, about me.

  Touch Wife Three’s arm, but it isn’t soft.

  “I thought you were Jacob, but you are Esau,” I say.

  4. Traffic lights are the same colors as Christmas. Need to bend my legs in order to lie down in the backseat. Nikki has her hand down Dan’s pants. Not helping his driving.

  5. The music is inside my colon but I am constipated. Recognize some faces. Mostly look the same as they did at graduation. “I am constipated,” I say. Lucky. Otherwise I’d shit my pants.

  6. I am on TV. On TV on the football field with an erection and a cop is shaking me, laughing. On TV and also at a party. In two places at once. I am being hoisted in the air. Am I God?

  7. “Schwartz, Schwartz, Schwartz!”

  8. “Shelly Peters,” I say, because I see her in the kitchen smoking a cigarett
e, black tights clinging to her thighs. “You gave me love once when I needed it, when the world spun, and it’s spinning now, let me suck your nipple like a pacifier?”

  9. Outside on the ground. Cold. Other eye hurts.

  10. Where are you, Jeremy Shaw? What has happened to your body? Have you been eaten, crapped out, used to fertilize dying grass? Am I lying in your liver, swimming through your bowels, crying in your eyes?

  11. In a car, smoking crack.

  12. Home. Home is where the heart is but I can’t get in so I climb through the window.

  13. Bloody, covered in glass. A pain in my leg like no pain I have ever experienced.

  twenty-five

  So I guess we drank tequila, took more bong hits, blew lines of coke, Oxy. Dan said, “You sure you want to come to this party?” I said something incoherent, either “Fuck me up the ass, my balls are hungry for maiden fair and bleached blond hair,” or “Fuck you, fat ass, I’m still hungry from Thanksgiving and I want to eat pussy,” depending on if you’re listening to Dan or Nikki. Either way, they both agree I wanted an eligible female to accept my touch in an abandoned bedroom or locked bathroom.

  Went upstairs where the Thanksgiving party was winding down. Wife Three sat on the couch with her girlfriends. They drank cognac, watched the Thanksgiving episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I grabbed Wife Three’s arm, screamed unintelligible theological musings. Dan’s dad saw me harassing his wife, instructed Dan to assist me in vacating the premises. Dan dragged me out to the car.

  In the car, passed out then woke up because Nikki was giving Dan road-head while he smoked a joint, and he was swerving all over the road. Cop pulled us over, but the cop was Jason Newmark, who’d graduated a few years ahead of Dan. Used to sell thirty packs of Miller High Life to underclassmen for thirty bucks, insisting it really was “the champagne of beers,” he wasn’t ripping them off. He was going to arrest us, but Dan slipped him a fifty. Newmark said, “Have fun, you fuckups.”

  Dan found a parking spot in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway. When he slammed the car into park I woke up, said, “Now I am a nomad. I used to be a first baseman. It was Little League but it still counts for something.”