Flatscreen

by Adam Wilson

  “I don’t know what we’ll do about the condo. I just put down six months. I guess you can stay there for a while. It’ll give you time to get something together. Your leg will heal. The doctor said you’ll be good as new in a month. You got lucky and you’ll heal. You don’t want me around, anyway, taking care of you. Your father will come by and check in. You can go live with him if you want. He said that, you know, that you can if you want. I’ll make him if he doesn’t. It’s his turn, now. I don’t know if you want to, though. It might be good for you to be on your own. You’ll have to get a job, get your own place eventually. You’re over eighteen and it’s just not my job anymore. Maybe that makes me a horrible mother, I don’t know.”

  She paused, considered the question. I didn’t know the answer, either.

  “Do you even know how to do laundry? You put the detergent in first. Not a whole cup. About a half or three quarters depending on the load. Do the lights and the darks separate, but you probably already know that. Washing on warm is always a good bet. You can use hot if something’s really dirty, dab a little detergent on the stain before you put it in. Just don’t overload the machine. It breaks if you overload it. And do the towels separately. I bought you a bunch of new towels. Soft ones, the kind you like. I know your skin’s sensitive, it always was, even when you were a baby. You used to get rashes on your skin, and your lips were always so chapped. I bought you new towels and underwear and some thick socks because it’s getting cold out. If you run out of socks and underwear you can always go to Filene’s and get some more. You know the kind you like. I don’t know how you’ll get there, but Benjy will be home for break soon and he can drive you places. There’s the bus too. I left a bus schedule attached to the fridge. I’m a bad mother, I know. A terrible mother with my son in the hospital, but the doctor said you’d be okay, and the timing, it’s just the timing, E.”

  Thought for a second she might suffocate me with a pillow, free herself, deny, disappear. Not out of hate, but the way grizzly bears eat their young when the salmon aren’t running—for their own survival, a last resort (Grizzly Man, Lions Gate Films, 2005).

  “I have to go,” she said. “Benjy will be by here soon.”

  Looked like she was about to say something, one last thing. But her cell rang, she said, “I have to take,” answered the phone, whispered “Jeff,” walked out of the room.

  three

  Facts About My Mother:

  • Her name is Susan.

  four

  Possible Ending #2 (Pay Cable):

  Recover, clean up my act, get a job, something I’m qualified for: late-night convenience store clerk, sheltered behind bulletproof glass. College classes during the day. Dad pays for it. Start at the CC, work my way up to the state school in Amherst, same as Benjy. Struggle at first, then excel. Too old for the other kids, but a couple cute townie chicks look at me from across the bar. They like my dumb smile after my third bourbon. Mom magnets my report card to the fridge. Graduate. Attend a stuffy ceremony draped inelegantly in ugly-colored cap and gown. Dad greets me with solid handshake. Get an entry-level job, hate it but enjoy the camaraderie of hating it along with other people my age. Get my own apartment with the money I’m making plus a bit of Dad’s money. A nice apartment, but I get lonely at night, still prowl the net trying to find some semblance of affection to tether myself to. Buy ties, maybe a tie rack. Visits to Mom with flowers, midnight phone calls to Benjy. He lets it ring. Move up from entry-level. Go back to school, get an MBA. Dad loans me money to start a business. Use that money to make more money. Or lose that money, but nobly. Return to Quinosset one Thanksgiving to find Jennifer Estes in love with the idea of what I’ve become, considering what I’d been before. Marry, march down the aisle twinkle-toed to Christ-y gospel, stuff our faces with Whole Foods catering, honeymoon on a French-dialect island. I slip one past the goalie, promise I’ll stop making stupid sports metaphors. Our children look like her, are beautiful: bubble-cheeked with Latino skin-glow. Nevertheless I’m sad roughly half the time, not so bad considering life is etc.

  five

  Young, bashful, about my age, cute but wearing too much mascara to complement her purple scrubs. I’d been in and out of sleep, morphine-drip peaceful. Now I was awake, conscious, miserable.

  “Do you want to see?”

  “Not really.”

  Liked watching her instead, top of her head when she leaned over, blond highlights, combined smell of perfume and disinfectant that came from her body and clothes. Smelled like the possibility of sex, distracted me from my pain, also alerted me to my own tube-dicked impotence. The nurse hovered, flaunting her gratuitous health in the face of my paper-gown-as-metaphor-for-all-humiliation.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “My leg?”

  “That is where you got shot, isn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty tough,” I managed, mid-wince.

  She smiled. From my angle it looked as if she might lean forward, rest her forehead on my pulsating man-tit. Could fall in love with this one, or the next. All these women with stethoscopes, ample teat. But too soon, and no chance, though my interest was probably a good sign of recovery. Vowed to wait before launching a new campaign. At least until I had pants on.

  “Everybody hurts,” she said. “Even tough guys. On a scale of one to ten?”

  “Does nine and a half make me sound like a wuss?”

  “It’s because you were on so many drugs. Your body has a tolerance to opiates, so the morphine doesn’t help as much as it should. I think you even had some opium in your system when you got here.”

  “I thought it was crack.”

  “I don’t know, man. You might have more problems than a bullet hole in your leg.”

  “She left me.”

  “So it’s all about a girl, then.” The nurse winked. “You’re a cutie, honey, no need to get crazy over one chick. There’s plenty of fish out there.”

  “Not any girl. My mother.”

  “Like I said before, you’ve got a lot more problems than just this bullet.”

  “She’s moving to Florida to be with Jeff Goldblum.”

  “I loved him in The Big Lebowski.”

  “That was Jeff Bridges.”

  “What was Jeff Goldblum in, then?”

  “The Big Chill, Independence Day…”

  “That’s right. He was that Jewish guy who saves the planet.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Well, no wonder she left you for him.”

  “He sells insurance.”

  “I think I saw that one, too.”

  Lights off, local news: civilians dead in Iraq, Brady hopeful for the playoffs. Fell asleep, dreamed Kahn had giant teeth, gnawed my fingers to bone.

  Woke to Benjy in the chair reading Us Weekly, sipping hospital OJ with a straw as if he were the sick one, wearing glasses instead of contacts. Hadn’t seen him in glasses in years. The pair was cheap, outdated: ovular silver frames more suited to librarians, mustached dentists, and child-nerds than to someone sort-of-normal like Benjy.

  “Didn’t know you liked celebrity gossip?”

  “Mom left this here. There was nothing else to read. How’s your leg?”

  “Just call me 2pac.”

  “Not Mr. Shakur?”

  “Funny. What’s up with you? How’s school, Erin? Tell me something to distract from the pain.”

  “Honestly, I’m kind of fucking everything up for the first time, and I don’t know why or what to do about it.”

  “Story of my life,” I said, tried to laugh, but when I laughed my leg hurt and instead of a normal laugh it came out high-pitched, a half-laugh, half-girlish squeal.

  “He breaks just like a little girl,” Benjy said.

  “Okay, Bob Dylan.”

  “If you’re 2pac, then I get to be Dylan, definitely.”

  “I see you as more of a Jewish Rivers Cuomo.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

>   “Erin thinks I’m too controlling.”

  “You are.”

  “She thinks I put too much pressure on myself to be perfect.”

  “You do.”

  “My grades are slipping. I seem to have stopped caring.”

  “You sound like a robot.”

  “I think maybe I want to be something easier than a lawyer.”

  “A doctor?”

  “Maybe a rock star.”

  “You don’t have the lifestyle.”

  “What about an accountant? That’s more my pace. Or an actuary? Sit there and do math all day. Comfy office chair. Bit of Internet porn. Home by five. Sounds kind of good.”

  “Want to open a restaurant with me?”

  “The restaurant business is a risky proposition.”

  “You’re a risky proposition.”

  “Actually, my portfolio is rather risk-free.”

  “So you’re gonna get married?”

  “Is it possible that relationships are bullshit?”

  “Is it possible you’re a giant asshat?”

  “At least I didn’t get shot.”

  “Good one, bro.”

  “Sorry,” he said, looked back at the magazine, squeezed my bare, extended foot. Toes tickled, itched.

  “Angelina’s baby is ridiculous. That kid will be so fucked up.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She takes him everywhere she goes. It’s like he’s taped to her tit.”

  Benjy shook his head. Couldn’t tell if he was shaking it at me or at something in the mag.

  Later the nurse came back to measure my blood, change my IV, temporarily un-tube me from my urine.

  “It’s shrinkage,” I said, my red-marked love-stick puny, dripping.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say. I’ve seen that episode” (Seinfeld, NBC, 1990–1998).

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I mumbled as she ticked my chart, flipped her hair, adjusted her stethoscope, booty-shuffled back into the unflattering glow of the hospital.

  “I mean well.”

  six

  Possible Ending #3 (Miramax):

  Attend some superior accredited culinary academy, a training ground for world chef-ery, filled with sweet-drawling buxom brunettes with sharp palates, soft tongues, long tongs. Learn from the masters, unlearn my self-taught bad habits, develop strong calf muscles from all the standing, dissemble a baby calf in five flat. Shower daily, wear a fresh new apron, clogs, ironic sideburns. Get a job on the line, work my way up to sous. I still have a bullet scar, and a bad-boy limp. Maybe move south—Outer Banks, Virginia Beach—away from the culinary hubs into the kind of town that takes in strays, pays them to cook andouille sausage over an open-flame grill (Summer on the Banks, Dimetree Films, 1995). Waitresses with rip-fringed skirts supported by unwintered legs supported by nail-painted feet in battered sneakers. Drink too much, but so does everyone. At least I’m drinking French wine, sucking oysters, staring at the ocean. Occasionally Benjy comes down. Walk along the sand, talk about old times, rivalry we survived, family we survived, those ridic Thanksgivings like the one after I boned and deboned Mrs. Sacks, when her hubby punched my eye like Iron Mike. Marry a surfer girl, let her surf my stomach (it ripples!), suspend her infantilism in the comfort of my callused-paw caress. Mom doesn’t like that she’s not Jewish, but by that point she’s remarried to Goldblum-Spelled-Differently, understands everyone just needs someone to make them feel like death isn’t a better option.

  seven

  My doctor’s name was Zornstein. When he looked at my chart he chuckled, didn’t try to hide it.

  “How you holding up, champ?”

  “There’s still a hole in my leg.”

  “Should be almost all closed up by now. You’ll hardly have a scar.”

  “Too bad. I wanted a badass one like Fiddy Cent.”

  “You’re lucky. The bullet missed everything. Went right through fat. Didn’t hit anything important.”

  “But I could feel the bullet in me.”

  “It probably just felt that way. The lump was actually your blood clotting.”

  “So I’ll walk again and everything?”

  “You can limp, if you want. For the street cred. But if you want to walk you can do that too.”

  “When can I leave?”

  “Another few days just for observation. You lost a lot of blood. You’re lucky that guy who shot you knew how to stop the bleeding.”

  “He did?”

  “Might have saved your life.”

  “No shit.”

  “Well, you can thank him yourself. He’s waiting for you out in the courtyard. I thought you could use a bit of fresh air today.”

  “Isn’t it freezing out?”

  “Five minutes will be good for you. We’ll give you a blanket.”

  The nurse came with a wheelchair, winked in a way I took to be condescending.

  “You look in better shape now that all that coke’s getting out of your system.”

  “But what about the morphine?”

  “They’re trying to wean you off.”

  “No wonder my leg hurts so much.”

  She wheeled me across the lobby to the terrace where Kahn sat waiting, watching a small child pick up rocks and throw them while his parents argued at a nearby bench. Father in a hospital gown, hooked to an IV even though he was outside.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  Kahn smiled. Always did when he saw me. Wondered if he smiled when he saw other people too, or if it was just when he saw me, if something about me made life bearable. I didn’t usually inspire smiles. Forehead lines, alcoholism, premature aging, balding, whispering, anything but the upward curve of lip Kahn organically produced whenever our eyes met.

  Less well-dressed than ever before. Royal-blue sweatpants. Wheelchair gloves with cutoff fingers. Looked handicapped, homeless even.

  “Got any smokes?” I said.

  “Don’t touch the stuff. Stuff’ll kill ya.”

  “So will bullets.”

  Kahn looked me up and down, both in wheelchairs, warped reflections in a funhouse mirror.

  “We are the same now. Cripples in the eyes of the law.”

  “Doctor said I’d be fine.”

  “As God created man in his own image, so I have done with you, my son.”

  “I’m not your son.”

  “You are Jesus and I am Jehovah.”

  When I was stoned he seemed smart; when I was sober he sounded like an idiot. Still, he was here.

  “You’re nuts,” I said. “You know that, right?”

  “And you’re balls. We’re two peas in a pod. Twin testes in the sac of life.”

  “If that bullet had been a few inches higher, I wouldn’t have any nuts.”

  “So you should be thankful I’m such a good shot.”

  “Or a bad one. For all I know you could have been aiming for them.”

  “I may be crazy, but I am not cruel. No man deserves that. I wouldn’t even trade my balls if it meant I could get my legs back. Not in a million years.”

  Looked down at his legs. Pants were baggy, hid how skinny his legs were.

  “I’m not pressing charges,” he said.

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Your punishment is that I will live out the rest of my days in your old house, with a bullet lodged in the wall. It’s my punishment too.”

  “Punishment for what?”

  “For my sins, kid. We’re not like the Catholics. Everyone thinks they have it tough, but they’re wrong. The Catholics have it easy. They go to confession, whisper the pleasures in hushed tones like they’re phone-sex operators while the priest pretends not to stroke his own schmuck behind that screen. For all we know they’ve got their flies open half the time, eight-year-old boys blowing them silent while the faithful whisper deepest and darkest about how Mommy didn’t love them so they stuck their dick in a jar of marshmallow fluff and let the pet rabbit lick it off. Next thing they know, th
ey’ve said a few Hail Marys and they’re absolved. Sins washed away like chlamydia after three days on penicillin.”

  “Plus they get to eat wafers in church. We have to fast.”

  “You fast? Didn’t take you for the religious type.”

  “I don’t. I’m not.”

  “You believe in God?”

  “Not sure I believe in anything.”

  “A nihilist, eh? Filthy word. It means you can’t pretend. I used to be an actor. I used to be good at pretending. But I don’t know anymore.”

  “So what do you believe in, then?”

  “I believe in honor. Like negroes and Samurai swordsmen. I believe in good aged scotch and erect nipples when the night gets under white tee shirts. I believe a blow job can touch your soul, which means I believe in the soul, mainly because I’ve been blown by some of the best, and I once saw Coltrane at the Vanguard blowing that tenor like he was sucking gold dick for crack. Life is absurd, my friend. Don’t forget it. Life is absurd. Absurd as a turd.”

  “They should put that on your gravestone.”

  Kahn didn’t laugh. Instead looked back at the boy throwing rocks. Felt bad bringing up his gravestone even though we’d been talking about death, and it was impossible not to think about it when guys were sitting outside hooked to IVs while their wives cried (like an afternoon movie on cable with the sound turned down), while I myself sat in a wheelchair, forty stitches in my leg, detoxing from morphine. The nurse walked over, said we should go back inside.

  “Absurd as a turd,” Kahn said again.

  She grabbed my handles, turned me around, pushed me toward the doors.

  “Is he your father?”

  “Sort of,” I said, because I didn’t know how to explain that Kahn had come to visit and my actual father hadn’t.

  eight

  Ways in Which I Am Like a Rapper:

  • Absent father

  • Bullet hole

  • Verbal dexterity

  • Limited education

  • Love of butts