When he rejoined me at the table in my clothes, I saw myself in twenty years. He’d slicked back his squirrel-gray hair. He had a wad of cotton in both ears. I said, Did you bring along any medication? He had, he said, but it made him catatonic, and he didn’t like to take it. He opened his duffle bag and took out a pad and pen. He set the bag on the floor and sat on the chair. I asked did he want some lunch. He said he wanted a can of sardines, if we had any. Brain food, he said. It’s got RNA in it. I said, How about baloney and Cheddar? He settled for that. As I made his sandwich, Ronnie wrote down numbers on his writing tablet. Strings of numbers that intersected on the page like words on a Scrabble board. He closed his eyes and held a hand up to quiet me, went back to his figures. When he stopped, he told me that what he was doing was translating these phrases he hears into numerical language. Here you go, I said. I set the plate on the table. Beer? Water? A clever little Cabernet? The water, he said. Is it fluoridated? I don’t know. Milk, he said.
He told me that the phrases came to him the hard way—in code and through the limbic brain. He tapped the back of his skull. He’d been forced to use the lizard brain, as he called it, because his cerebral thoughts were being scrambled by the Voice of America; the Bank of America; the Boy Scouts of America; Good Morning, America; and AAA. Besides, his cortical synapses were being monitored by the FBI.
Ronnie didn’t eat his crusts. He asked me how Judi was doing. I said, Holding her own. It’s hard for her. He asked me what any father might ask: Do you love Judi? I would have said yes, but I didn’t get the chance. He handed me his business card. I would have said yes, but would I have meant it? The card read: “Ronnie” Dubey, Pope of the H.U. Dubey Church of the Galaxy. aka Czar of Czars, His Royal Empirical Holiness, Quasar the Omnipotent, Pulsar the Powerful, Charmed Quarkmaster Plenipotentiary and Fountainhead of Atoms. And there’s a halftone of Ronnie’s face being orbited by electrons.
I said, “Can I keep this?”
“What do you think of it?” he said.
I turned the card over as if the answer might be there. I looked at Ronnie.
“I think you ought to take that pill now,” I could have said. I said, “Interesting.”
“It’s a joke,” he said and smiled for the first time. He went to the sink, held the counter, and did two knee bends. He came back to the table. He raised his eyebrows. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. He went to the fridge, read the shopping list held there by a Buick-shaped magnet.
“What’s that?” I said. “What I’m trying to do.”
“Biofeedback control,” he said. “Remote video of my silent thoughts. Transistor hipster, silicon chipster.”
I said, “How about dessert? Strawberries? Ice cream?”
“Your forehead,” he said.
“What about it?”
“The cross on your forehead.”
I actually felt my forehead, wrinkled it. No discernible cross.
Ronnie sat. He said he was sorry He put his face in his hands.
“You want to take a nap?” I said.
“A walk.” He put his sneakers on. He looked around the room like he couldn’t find the door.
I walked to the door, opened it. “Don’t get lost,” I said.
“Is that a joke?”
When he’d gone I cleaned up the table, put his gear into the duffle bag, and stashed the duffle bag in the mud room for now. I went out to feed Spot. He sniffed me all over, sneezed, woofed.
46.
Fathers of the Fatherless
JUDI SAID, YOU MAKE ALLOWANCES FOR YOUR FAMILY. THEY MAY NOT SEEM normal to the world, but they’re normal to you because you’ve been dealing with them all your life.
We sat relaxing in the parlor, sprawled on the couch with our feet on the glass coffee table, waiting for Ronnie to get back from his walk. Judi had spent three hours at the hospital earlier waiting for X-rays. Three hours being ignored by gossiping techs: We’re doing the best we can, miss. Please have a seat. Three hours wanting to storm out of there, but worried, of course, that today’s exam would be the crucial one. She had a headache. I was drinking bourbon; Judi, spring water with a twist. She told me I was drinking too much. I guess when you can’t drink the hard stuff yourself, you begin to notice. I didn’t want to hear this. I never do. She said, You are, you know. Better slow down. I used to tell Martha that my dream was to live like William Powell in those Thin Man movies. Wake up already shaved and spruced, put on my silk robe, have someone serve me eggs and vodka martinis for breakfast. But I didn’t mention this to Judi.
She asked me to massage her temples. She closed her eyes. “All families are dysfunctional,” she said. “That’s part of the definition of family.”
I couldn’t argue. I told her, “Shush.” In minutes she seemed to be asleep. I figured I’d ease her head back against the pillow, go out to the kitchen, and put away the supper dishes.
She said, “Fathers don’t come off very well in your stories, Laf. Why’s that?” She opened her eyes.
I sat back and reached for my glass. Of course, I knew she was right, but, in fact, I didn’t have an answer. My fathers were either missing or away on business or drunk on their asses or simply nasty. This wasn’t my own father’s fault. Blaise was none of the above. I think I gave them problems to see what made them tick. Problems were like new clothes to them. Something to get used to; something to sport around in. What is it with men?
“Where do you suppose Ronnie is?” Judi said.
“He’s got your number if he gets lost. He’s got a key.”
“I wonder why he came.”
“To see you.”
“He’s had a lifetime to see me.”
The telephone rang. The machine answered. Beeped. Nothing.
Judi said, “He was always around when we were young kids, but never there, you know? Always somewhere in his head. He stared at the TV but never watched it. You could sit on his lap and he’d rock you, but wouldn’t talk.” Judi smiled. “He wasn’t loopy like he is now, I guess. Never carried a duffle bag full of notebooks. Never called himself, what was it?”
“Quasar the Quarkmaster.”
Judi shook her head. She said Ronnie was kind but ineffectual as a dad. But not crazy. A little vague and withdrawn. And she was sure he was no kind of husband for Trixie. And then he was gone.
Judi sat upright, sipped her water, held the glass with both hands on her lap and looked at it. “My poor brother.” I leaned toward her. She held me off with her hand. “I was outside when I heard Trixie scream. The next thing I know, Ginger Margoupis from next door is running past me and into our house. I was on the tire swing, and something told me not to move. And then Ginger’s daughter Cookie, who was like fifteen, took me over to her house and we watched TV Rawhide. Clint Eastwood. And I never saw my big brother again. I did see them wheel the body out to the ambulance, one of those old Cadillac station wagons they used to use. Later, I saw the length of rope on the kitchen table, coiled like an eight.”
We were quiet. Judi started to say something. Finally, “How does anyone so young get so hopeless? He always seemed a little sad, but was so sweet to everyone.”
Judi said, After that Ronnie just sort of drifted away. Stoni blames it all on Trixie. Thinks her mother’s a shrew who drove the quiet man on the La-Z-Boy to the nuthouse. Judi checked her watch. It was almost nine. She said she wasn’t going to be able to make it much longer. She took her shower, got into her nightgown, robe, and slippers, while I poured myself another drink, cleaned up the kitchen. I saved some shepherd’s pie for Ronnie in a casserole dish. I brewed some herbal tea for Judi, set her cup and spoon on the kitchen table. She came into the kitchen yawning. She said now wasn’t I sweet. She kissed my cheek.
We sat. Judi said one reason people become therapists, herself included, is to work out their own shit. To continue the search that began in childhood, the search that will help them understand why things played out the way they did. She said without passion, thoug
h, you’ll never get back to those memories, the ones you need. “Passion, that’s the door to memory But passion takes a lot of energy and will and persistence. And tenacity.” Judi said, “Right now I don’t have a lot of any of those.”
“Every crisis is an opportunity. You told me that.”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “And every crisis is a chance to be creative, to make yourself over, to become the person you want to be.” She smiled. “But if you’re nauseated half the time, if you’re always exhausted, if every goddamn nerve in your body is dull with pain, it’s hard to be creative. It’s hard to be very imaginative if you’re depressed.”
“Don’t get pissed off.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
I shook my head. “You should.”
“Look at me, Laf. My skin’s gray My mouth’s full of ulcers. My lips are cracked and bleeding. My toenails are loose. I’ve got hot flashes. My hands are red. My tongue is brown. There’s a ringing in my ears. And my fucking hair’s fallen out.” Judi cried. I stood behind her chair and hugged her. I wanted to tell her to just go ahead, let it all out, but that sounded patronizing and false. I wanted to tell her that everything would be all right, but that sounded foolish and heartless. I didn’t say anything, which may have been the right thing just then. I hoped Ronnie didn’t choose this moment to come home.
Judi caught her breath. I kissed her neck. I got her a damp facecloth and some ice for her eyes. “And it’s not just the cancer,” she said. “It’s the cure.”
I didn’t want to get into this discussion. I’d end up saying she had no real alternative, did she? But I knew that her night table was piled with books on alternative cancer therapies. I’d read through them. Yin foods for yang cancers. Colonic irrigations. Hypnosis. Coffee enemas every four hours. Twenty pounds of organic fruit every day. Clay packs. Laetrile. Massive doses of flaxseed oil and selenium. Glucose drips. Chelation. Ozone treatments, whatever they are.
Judi said something.
“What?”
“The cancer,” she said. “It’s so quiet.”
I took the dripping cloth and ice and put them in the sink.
“When this is over,” she said, meaning the cancer, “then we’re going to work on your issues.”
Did she say this to lighten the moment? to let me off the emotional hook? and herself off? Anyway, I went along. “What issues are you talking about?”
“Your anger and resentment.”
“You’ve been giving this some thought.”
“You’d better sign up for the lifetime therapy plan, bozo.”
I made a face, said I was an emotional he-man. What was she talking about? “I’m practically the wolverine of the here-and-now, of dealing with it.”
She said, “You’re still pissed at the boy in second grade who didn’t pick you on his side in some football game.”
“First grade,” I said. “I was in first, he was in fourth. Big stud. And it was baseball. Did I tell you that story?” I was back in the schoolyard, standing in front of the captains, hoping to get picked, punching my glove, my pathetic, four-fingered Don Buddin infielder’s glove, trying to look like a heavy-hitting speed-demon. It goes down to the last pick. Paul Assad looks at me and my ripped dungarees and my torn Keds and he says, like it made any sense, “This kid’s no spring chicken,” and he picks Mouse O’Toole instead of me. Mouse, who couldn’t catch a ball in his pocket. Today Paul Assad owns an insurance agency and his face is on billboards. I wouldn’t buy an umbrella in a shit storm off Paul Asshole.
“Laf?”
“What?”
“I said why don’t we go to bed. I'll talk with Ronnie tomorrow”
“Just let me walk Spot.”
“I want to try to make love before I conk out.”
“In that case, Spot can wait.”
47.
Who Are They Who Are Like the Clouds?
RONNIE BORROWED MY TYPEWRITER AND LOCKED HIMSELF IN THE BATHROOM for three hours. I busied myself making dinner. Black-eyed peas, yam soufflé, chicken-fried steak, and cornbread. I’d been reading Eudora Welty. I heard the irregular slap of keys, the occasional toilet flush, the running of water. Ronnie emerged at last, told me it was time for a new ribbon, asked to borrow an envelope. I told him he could keep it. In the top drawer I said, and motioned with my head. How about a stamp? he said. I gave him fifty cents. He walked to the post office and mailed the letter, came back as I was heating a brown sugar glaze for the yams. He told me I should keep my eye on the mailbox for the next couple of days. It was for me? I said. Why didn’t you just hand it to me? He said, No can do.
The letter arrived the next day while Judi was at work and Ronnie was off looking for old friends in an assortment of taverns. The envelope was addressed to “Lafayette Silk Fynbo” in care of “Judi Kazootie Dubey” He had printed “Confidential” and “For Your Eyes Only” in the upper lefthand corner. On the back of the envelope, in green ink, he’d written, “Who are they who are like the clouds?” I assumed I’d find the answer inside. So I made myself a cup of coffee and sat at the table. I read:
Dear LSF:
They spray me with toxic nerve gas from automobile exhausts
and even lawnmowers and snow blowers and leaf dispersers,
which is why I can hardly go outside anymore. When I leave my room at the Aubuchon and descend the stairs, I usually run into a couple of “tenants” trying to look like they live in the building, pretending to chat, staging a neighborly scene for me to observe. Very clever. Many would have been fooled. When I open the door to Mechanic Street, the cars begin to cruise by, just as if they’d been doing so all morning long. This is the “Refrigerator Light Effect,” which you might be familiar with. Anytime I stroll into a convenience store there’s a Pakistani clerk waiting to sell me anything I want. How convenient indeed. I want you to understand my life, but this is to go no further than, well, you know what I mean: this computerized, non-evolved, leftbrained, new fake urban landscape and that ersatz starry sky.
Our planet, which you call Earth, is the only one in our universe where there is life before death.
They are the nebulous, veiled, drizzly Jesuits who planted this silicon chip in my brain, which is the mark of the beast. This happened in 1977 at Monson State Hospital where I suffered electro-shock therapy which turned me into a thermonuclear reactor and sent my mind into the cosmos of infinite space/time. I operate all satellites. I refused to go to Jerusalem to be coronated King of the Earth. This foiled their neat plan all right. Which is why they began their regimen of bio-feedback beta wave control via bacteriophagia viral contamination, which is why I have been incapacitated from my life for so long and am only now re-ionizing. They have tried to erase my memories with cathode-ray oscilloscopic brain invasion therapy. This causes me to suffer tremendous cranial pain. I want you to understand this. Pain that feels like all my wetware is being ground by a Black and Decker power sander.
The Christians are getting away with it—world domination, what else? They want to control our schools, our government, want to fill our children’s minds with superstitions of divinity. They’ve done it in the Cygnus-369 solar system. Help me to oppose their cyber-charade and fight these enemies of our civilization. We must stop the suffering. It may seem like a lost cause, I know, but remember that in the real cosmos, entropy does not exist, anything can come from nothing, sand runs up the hourglass, life begins at death, darkness is both an obedient wave and a discrete particle. Peek around the darkness, Laf, and into the light.
Your Humble Servant,
H. Ronnie D, Q of O
(in disguise)
I wondered what Ronnie made of me, of this house, of his ailing daughter—the daughter he had yet to speak with—how all of that fit into his skewed cosmology. I had noticed how he touched and examined objects in a flippy, dismissive way, like anything might hold the answer. He might smell a light switch, hold a key to his ear, taste cellophane tape. I’ve seen him put a salt shaker agains
t his thigh and then lift his arm. He told me it was a form of hyperkinesiology a method of checking his cellular chemical balance. I have to be sturdy, resolute, alert. Anything could happen, he said.
He told me about an estate auction he once went to in Saco, Maine, and how it was nearly the end of our universe as we know it. The item in question was an innocent-seeming gallon jug of Seroco Egg Preserver, probably from the turn of the century When I saw that Calderón de la Barca from the wormhole in Betelgeuse X-9 was bidding on the jug, I knew I couldn’t let him have it. So while you were probably snuggled up with my daughter and the rest of the world was watching Benny Hill or passing gas or licking their greasy fingers, I went toe-to-toe with evil and annihilation and won.
I said, “Your daughter’s very sick, Ronnie. You know that, don’t you. Very, very sick.”
He nodded.
I knew what he was thinking—why hadn’t I said “dying”? I said, “Are you hungry?”
48.
Pozzo and Richie Unplugged
POZZO BECKETT, THE SUN, DRILLED A HOLE IN HIS HEAD IN ORDER TO OPEN HIS third eye. The process, as you might imagine, was an arduous one. It began with a carpenter’s brace. Layla told me the story on a visit to the house to see Judi. While we waited for Judi to wake up from a nap, I made Layla a black cow, and we sat out on the deck. She showed me a Ziploc bag in her purse filled with Pozzo’s matted blond hair. She smiled. She said that as long as she had Pozzo’s hair, she had control over him, over his love part, anyway. She said, Nobody really controls the sun.
Give Pozzo an A for ingenuity and an A for tenacity First thing he did was fit a double-twist auger bit into the hand brace, hold the knob, and crank away He broke the skin and he bled, but the brace wasn’t doing the job. He had trouble keeping the lead screw straight, for one thing. And then the two hits of Green Daze that he had dropped kicked in, and he forgot what he was doing. The next day he designed and drew up plans for a new tool and gave his sketches to his cousin Luci Gilberg, who taught sculpture at the Craft Center. She built it for him. Essentially, the Becket Manual Trepanner, as he called it, was a simple hand drill with a very short drill bit and a hacksaw blade—a ring of serrated teeth—wrapped around the chuck. As the drill is turned, both the bit and the teeth enter the skull, cutting an easily removed disk from the bone. Layla shaved Pozzo’s head. She watched. His first attempt took four hours with a break for lunch. He was left with a circular groove and a puncture that already, Layla pointed out to him in the mirror, resembled an eye. On his second attempt a week later, Pozzo fainted from the pain.
Love Warps the Mind a Little Page 20