Tumbledown

by Robert Boswell

  “We wouldn’t all fit in the car,” Barnstone noted. “I’m not certain all of us want to go.” She looked down the hall at Andujar.

  “Not so much,” he said. He returned, carrying a pencil and a sheet of white paper.

  “Are there any quiet beaches?” Lolly asked. “James makes them sound like outdoor meat markets.”

  “Mick knows a secluded beach,” Maura said.

  Mick nodded, afraid now to speak, his mind tumbling, running, time sputtering about, now and later all the same. The beach in Mexico where the grunion ran. He could find it, he was positive. He would never find it, and he was positive of that, too. But it had to be there, didn’t it? He had changed, but the coastline would be the same. The world hadn’t turned upside down, no matter that it felt that way.

  Maura suddenly blurted out, “I think it’s crazy that you’re marrying Karly.”

  “Are you engaged?” Lolly asked. “I’m engaged, you know.”

  Violet started coughing and set down her wine too hard, sloshing it over the rim.

  Mick retrieved a sponge from the kitchen, moving so quickly that he was in the kitchen while he was still on the couch, the same sponge he had used to wash the dishes—there was a pile of plates and utensils he had missed! No, new dishes, what they’d eaten from, soap like thoughts bubbling in his fist, and purple bubbles where the wine had been, and somehow he was back in the living room.

  “I’m so sorry,” Violet said softly as he cleaned up the spill.

  “You can’t stain that table,” Barnstone said. “It’s already the color of mud.”

  In the kitchen again, alone, the sponge in the sink and a wine bottle already to his mouth before his hand could grasp the neck. Four times he lifted the bottle. He counted. Slowing himself. Four long gulps, which finished off the bottle. He set it down with such care that the noise was no more than a tick, like a fingernail against the wooden rail of a flight of stairs, which led up to another level. Hadn’t he always known there was another level?

  Maura had sneaked in behind him, taking his elbow, and again her mouth to his ear. “I shouldn’t have said anything about Karly,” she said and apologized. His mind slowing again. Losing steam. That mad steam. He was okay, after all. Wasn’t he? Okay? Back into the living room they went. The energy of the conversation dissipated, and the braying of Cecil Fresnay made a brief appearance, almost visible, like a ghost. The Candler girls began the shuffling-about business that anticipates departure, but Lolly had another question for Mick.

  “If I were a counselor?” Mick said.

  “This should be interesting,” Maura put in.

  “Who or what am I dealing with?”

  “How about with you yourself,” Maura said. “You’re the client you have to deal with, and your mom has called you to say, My Mickey didn’t take his meds this weekend.”

  Mick nodded, suddenly serious, heavy, the chair squeaking with his weight. “I’d want to ask him why—and really find out—why he didn’t want to take his medicine. Like what was going on in his life. What did the drugs do to him besides what they were supposed to do?”

  “You’d want him to really talk to you,” Lolly said.

  “How is this different,” Violet asked, “from what Jimmy would do? Jimmy is your—James, I mean. James is your counselor, isn’t he?”

  “Mr. James Candler is my counselor,” Mick said, his mind now as clear as glass. “He sent someone, a nice person, to give me a note, reminding me that I need meds. He tries to understand, and I try to be understandable.”

  “And once you hear him,” Barnstone said, “then what do you do?” Maura leapt in. “You don’t dope them up,” she said, and proceeded to rail against the overuse of medication.

  Mick thought of a dozen different answers to Barnstone’s question, and then a hundred answers, and he knew he was letting the illness get in his head again. But really, if he could answer this question, would he even need Mr. James Candler?

  Maura had a thesis about letting people be whoever they really were, that they shouldn’t be forced to adhere to society’s norms if they didn’t share those norms. She had a convert’s fervor and a good argument, so long as no one scratched beneath its shiny surface. Not only Barnstone but Violet, too, could see that this was about Mick and her desire to love him, to treasure him as he was. The medications did not, in Maura’s mind, serve to restore him to his former self. She had never known that Mick and did not want to believe in his previous existence. This was the only Mick she knew, and it was plenty. She quoted a line from a book Barnstone had recently given her, altered to fit her own obsessions. “Medicated schizophrenics are all alike,” she said. “Each unmedicated schizophrenic is his own person.” She paused for a dramatic second before adding, “So in conclusion,” hamming it up precisely because it meant so much to her, “people have to be free to be exactly who they are.”

  “What if they don’t want to be who they are?” Lolly said. “What if they’re not anyone?”

  “Everybody’s somebody,” Mick said. “Even if he can’t remember being the somebody he is, he’s still him even when he isn’t.”

  “But what if,” Lolly began but she shook her head. “Maura’s right, of course.” She joined in the harangue, one of those general and insubstantial and never more than half-articulated tirades that serve to unite people in a general fury against them.

  Violet took a stab at changing the subject by asking Andujar whether he worked at the Center.

  “Hmm,” Andujar replied.

  “Andujar is a graduate of the Center, staying with me until he can manage a place of his own,” Barnstone said. “He works, has a couple of jobs actually. He can tell you about them, maybe, or maybe he’s feeling shy. He keeps the house in running order. Plays the piano. Your basic Jeffersonian man.”

  “Jimmy had that nickname,” Violet said and blanched. The nickname was one Dlu had given him, and it wasn’t quite Jeffersonian Man but Renaissance Boy. There was no way not to tell it now. “He was good at a lot of things, but they were all boy things, dancing and basketball and making up stories . . . I mean, he’s not like that now.” Before the subject could switch to her brother—something she knew he would hate—she said to Andujar, “I wondered who played the piano.” He had seated himself on the bench, his hands inches above the keys.

  Andujar did not respond. It was Mick who spoke. “I’d give him another chance.” He had all this time been thinking of what he would do if he were counselor to himself.

  “Won’t Jimmy do that, too?” Violet asked.

  Mick nodded. He didn’t want to try to explain that the chances he got from Mr. James Candler were always chances to become the person Mr. James Candler wanted him to become. Not that it was all that different from the person Mick wanted to become, but what was a person but this small difference and that one? Like if you were kind or too kind, quick or too quick. Thoughts flooded him again, and he knew he had to let them go, let them wash away. It was just his mind.

  “Jimmy became a counselor because of our brother,” Violet said. “At least, that’s what I believe.”

  “Pook,” Lolly put in. “James will hardly talk about him.”

  “Our parents are both artists,” Violet said, “and they didn’t believe in . . . well, they never had Pook examined or studied. There was something wrong with him, but he wasn’t so very different from other people. Awkward and—I don’t know how to put it. Gruff, I suppose. Jimmy has told me that he might have been autistic.”

  “High-functioning autism,” Barnstone said. “Most people call it Asperger’s now. Usually means that the boy—it’s almost exclusively males who are given this diagnosis—the boy is bright, especially in math, for some reason, but socially inadequate. Blunt and self-centered. Often, they don’t care to be touched. Sound like him?”

  “Not exactly. Partly, maybe. He loved animals,” Violet said. “And he painted. He was quite
a gifted painter. My parents thought art would be his redemption.” She told them the story of Pook’s paintings and the opening in New York, but she did not describe the way he died.

  “I’ve seen one of them,” Mick said. “It’s in Mr. James Candler’s office. It’s got a man you can see through.”

  Violet shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like one of Pook’s.”

  “And behind him is a wall with pieces of paper.”

  Violet touched her fingers to her lips. Pook’s room. Could there be a painting of Pook’s she had not seen?

  “James never told me the whole story of his brother,” Lolly said. She could not hide the distress in her voice. “What happened to Pook’s paintings? Do you have any of them? Are they valuable?”

  “Unless this painting in his office is one of Pook’s,” Violet said, “I’m afraid they’re all gone. I wish we had at least a few. I think my mother may have one, but I’m not sure.” Her mother owned a painting, but Violet did not believe it was actually the work of Pook. Following his suicide, his paintings were in demand, and her father sold all that had not been in the show. Once they were gone, her father began painting them himself. He sold a few of them before his friend, the art dealer in Phoenix, figured out what he was doing.

  This story had come to Violet from her mother, who’d been so upset with her husband that she briefly left him. “The funny thing,” her mother said, “was that they were not as good as Pook’s. The craftsmanship was far superior, but the paintings . . .” She frowned and shook her head. This conversation had taken place in London, on the eve of Violet’s wedding. “Now I wish I’d never gone back to him,” her mother had said. After a moment, she added, “Poor, poor Pook.”

  Violet was not willing to reveal this final chapter of family scandal to these strangers. She had surprised herself by talking about Pook. She wanted to go to Jimmy’s office and look at the painting. Pook’s real name was Paul. His middle name was Knowles, their mother’s maiden name. Somehow, Paul Knowles became Pook. Poor, poor Pook. What Violet actually believed was slightly different from what she had said: Jimmy became a counselor to understand Pook. Perhaps he thought he could spare other families the sorrow that had damaged theirs. No one could know the real reason, not even Jimmy, but some things are compelling because they touch on one’s history in secret ways.

  When Barnstone stood to gather the dinner plates, Violet leapt up to help her. They were in the kitchen when the doorbell sounded.

  Maura yanked open the door. Mr. James Candler stood on Barn-stone’s stoop. He smiled at her. “Hi, Maura.” He introduced himself. “Do you remember me?” People evidently liked his smile because he knew to offer it. “How do you like William Atlas at the sheltered workshop? He doing okay?”

  She shook the hand he offered. “Big improvement over Crews,” she said. “But no one calls him William.”

  Candler laughed. “No, I guess no one would.”

  She had to admit that he had a swanky smile. “You want to come in or something?”

  “Could you tell Ms. Barnstone that I’m here to pick up my sister and fiancée?”

  “I can hear you,” Lolly called. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hello, guys, sorry to interrupt the session.”

  “It isn’t a session,” Lolly said. “Why would you call it a session?”

  Mick could almost hear a lid clamp down over the afternoon. He felt vaguely accused. He needed to breathe and count, but he didn’t want these people to see him counting.

  “Well, hello, Mr. Coury,” Mr. James Candler said, the lilt in his voice slight but there, a lilt that meant he felt less friendly than he was acting.

  Mick nodded hello, but Mr. James Candler had already turned his attention to Andujar, and he was not entirely successful at hiding his surprise and disapproval.

  “I’m James Candler,” he said. “Do you remember me, sir?” He paused for a moment, but nowhere near long enough for the shy man to respond. “Just the four of you?” he said to Lolly. “Isn’t there supervision going on?”

  “We’re just talking,” Lolly said. “We had lunch. Violet and Patricia are in the kitchen.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to be volunteering.”

  “We’re not.”

  “Volunteers aren’t supposed to be left unsupervised for the first three weeks.”

  Lolly colored. “We came here to have lunch with Patricia and her friends.”

  Candler stepped across the room to the kitchen. Violet and the Barnstone had their heads through the sliding glass door and were talking to a person in a hot tub. Candler rapped on the glass. The women pulled their heads in.

  His sister looked relieved. “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said. “Came to get you. Hi, Barnstone.”

  “ ’Lo, Candler.”

  “Billy called from his new place to say he was unpacking and wondered if I could pick you guys up.”

  From behind him, Lolly spoke. “Did he say to come now?”

  “I thought that’s what he meant.” He offered a shrug. He hadn’t expected this gathering—or this greeting. “I thought I was doing Billy and the two of you a favor.”

  “I texted Billy.” Violet set her wineglass on the kitchen counter. “I didn’t mean for him to quit packing or to call you. This is awkward. I’m sorry, Patricia.”

  Barnstone rocked her head. “No biggie.”

  “Mick says you have one of your brother’s paintings in your office,” Lolly said.

  The group migrated to the living room, waiting for Candler to reply.

  “You could have a sandwich,” Mick said. He had enjoyed the conversation too much. It made him bold. His mind was racing, but he spoke carefully. “We have some sliced roast beef left over. Perfectly sliced rose beef.”

  The smile Mr. James Candler flashed was unmistakable—not one of gratitude but of comic disbelief. “I’ll see you tomorrow, hombre.” He turned to his sister. “It’s Pook’s, but it’s never been catalogued. There’s a story behind it. I’ll tell you on the drive.” With that, he fled, holding the screen door for the women. “Sorry for the misunderstanding,” he called.

  “Don’t think too badly of us,” Violet said.

  “I’m so bloody embarrassed,” Lolly added.

  “We’ll do it again,” Barnstone offered.

  They stepped through the portal and the screen door slapped shut, but they paused on the stoop. Lolly faced them through the screen, her mouth opened to speak. Finally, she addressed Andujar. “Maybe next time we’ll hear you play.”

  “Okay,” he said and shifted around on the bench in preparation. “Oh,” Lolly said. Violet’s head appeared beside her through the screen, and then Candler’s head, above them.

  Andujar played, both hands in the lower keys, more a thunder than a tune.

  “This is one of his own compositions,” Barnstone said, and then whispered through the screen, “It’s very short.”

  The piano rumbled and then his right hand shot out and touched a single high key, without interrupting the rumble, which seemed then to coalesce around this single note. It reminded Mick of something basic in the world, something more elemental even than the thunder it initially called to mind. Again the hand shot out for a single note and returned.

  Cecil Fresnay, in the hot tub, stood up, naked, his quite adult genitalia swinging with the rocking of his head. The final high note was hit and held while the rumbling ceased. The man in the tub slapped at the water in delight, making his whale sound.

  “Thank you,” Violet said.

  Andujar kept his eyes on the floor, but nodded to her as he stood and slipped his hand through the door to hand her a wadded sheet of paper from his pocket. Then he fled the room. The Candler girls likewise fled.

  “Well,” Barnstone said. “I think the day is complete.”

  In the Porsche, from her grocery compartment, Violet thou
ght she might be watching them tear apart their love. The idea that they might shred their bonds did not much bother her, but having to witness their boorishness did. If she turned her head, she didn’t have to watch them, but there was no way not to hear. She and Arthur had rarely fought, at least not with heated language and loud voices. Once, in a restaurant, after a young man they knew had openly flirted with Violet, Arthur said, “I’m not entirely acquainted with the finer details of American manners, but in this country, when a married woman wishes to behave seductively with a random man, she is encouraged not to do it in the presence of her husband.”

  Violet denied being flirtatious. “I was merely being polite.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d be less polite in the future.”

  “I will not. I did nothing wrong.”

  That was the extent of the argument—the verbal part of it, anyway. They ate in silence, and Arthur buttered a roll so fiercely that the knife cut it in half. On their way to the tube, he took her arm and said, “I suppose I’ll have to get used to the attentions offered you by men half my age.” She put her arm around his waist, and the argument was over.

  Violet twisted around to save her aching back and they pulled her into their personal storm.

  “Aren’t we?” Lolly demanded of her.

  “I wasn’t listen—”

  “I’ve told James that you and I accepted Mick’s invitation to go to the beach, and we’re damn sure going.”

  “You can’t go with Mick,” Candler said.

  “I would very much like to see you make an attempt to stop us.”

  “I’ll take you to the beach.”

  “You may or you may not, but you don’t have the power to tell me what to do with my time.”

  “Mick is my client. I can tell him what to do. That is my job, telling him what to do.”

  “Is that so? I thought your job was to help people like Mick, but if you think his spending an afternoon with me and your sister would be such a corrupting influence, then I suppose you’d only be doing your job in advising him to avoid bad influences.”