The first Saturday after he got paid, Paul invited me out to lunch. My mother stood watching from the front window as we drove off down the driveway.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the Wahoo,” Paul said. “Thought you might like to see Rayner.”
The Wahoo Bar and Grill was full of people about Paul’s age, drinking draft beer and longnecks. The walls were covered with personalized license plates and felt pennants. We met Rayner Newcomb back behind the pool table in a wooden booth festooned with carved graffiti. Rayner, once the lean, wiry thug par excellence, was now a balding attorney in pressed khakis and a cashmere sweater, with a belly that pushed up against the table when he sat down in the booth.
“Hey, Rocky,” he said, his mouth forming a familiar leer. “You whore.”
“Jeez, Rayner,” I said. “How’d you get so fat?”
“A little mouthy, isn’t he?” Paul said.
“I wonder where he picked that up,” Rayner replied.
We ordered cheeseburgers and fries. Paul and Rayner ordered beers; I had a Mexican Coke. I couldn’t stop staring at Rayner. As nasty a piece of work as he had always been, it seemed somehow unjust that the sharp cheekbones and the dark, deep-set eyes and the coiled, aimless aggression had been replaced by the potbelly and the gin blossom and the aw-shucks grin. It seemed equally unfair that while Paul and Leigh’s lives had unraveled so spectacularly, Rayner had survived and prospered.
“We all get what’s coming to us,” Rayner said, “but we don’t all get what we deserve.”
“What kind of lawyer are you, Rayner?” I asked.
“He’s what you call an ambulance chaser,” Paul said.
“I admit,” Rayner said, “my heart quickens with delight at the sound of sirens.”
He removed his wallet to show us pictures of three cherubic little girls with pale blue eyes and faces framed by garlands of blond ringlets.
“Serves you right, having girls,” Paul said.
“I am well aware of the torments that await me,” Rayner said. “And I’ve prepared for them. In recent years I’ve been collecting assorted firearms and military weaponry. When the young scoundrels come a-courting, I plan to show them my collection of bayonets and demonstrate how I sharpen them on my custom-built grindstone.”
“Come on, Rayner,” Paul said. “You of all people should know that not even the threat of being sliced off by a razor-sharp Confederate bayonet can hold a teenage hard-on at bay.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up from the table.
“Cinnamon Girl,” I said.
“Hey,” she said.
In one hand, she held a cigarette; in the other, a pool cue. Behind her, at the opposite end of the pool table, stood a sullen-looking fellow with auburn hair that hung down onto the shoulders of his black leather motorcycle jacket, smoking absentmindedly as he scanned the arrangement of balls with comical seriousness.
“Thanks for the tape,” she said.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
“Most of it,” she said.
She puffed on her slut butt and grinned. Smoke piped out from the gap in her two front teeth. Behind her, the reddish-haired fellow glowered at us over the rim of his beer glass.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“That’s Yanni,” she said.
“Yanni?”
“He prefers John, but his parents call him Yanni, so I call him that too. It’s cute, don’t you think?”
“I’ve never seen him at school.”
“He’s, like, twenty-four. Have you heard of Predatory Nomad?”
“No. What’s that?”
“A band,” she said.
It sounded like something that should be written on a sign beside a museum diorama of Cro-Magnon man stalking a woolly mammoth.
“What does he play?” I asked, trying to look as unimpressed as possible.
“Bass,” she said.
“You seem like more of the drummer type to me,” I said.
“Jealous ever?”
“You can do better,” I said.
“With who?” she asked. “You?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
“That’s cute,” she said.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“I don’t like that word, boyfriend,” she said. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
I was afraid to ask what she would call it.
I looked over at Paul. He and Rayner had become engrossed in the basketball game on television. Back in their prime, I thought, Paul and Rayner could dispense with guys like Yanni the Bass Player without even having to extinguish their cigarettes.
“So,” Cinnamon said, pausing to puff on her cigarette, “how do you know Rayner?”
“He’s my brother’s oldest friend,” I said.
I elbowed Paul in the rib cage, drawing his attention back from the television.
“This is Paul,” I said. “Paul, Cinnamon.”
“The long-lost brother,” Cinnamon said.
“That’s right,” Paul said.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Cinnamon said.
“You have?” Paul asked.
“No,” she replied. “Just that you were gone, like, with the wind.”
“Well, I’m back,” Paul said.
Paul wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “How do you two know each other?” he asked.
“We’re buddies, sort of,” Cinnamon said. “From drama class.”
“No kidding,” Paul said. “Rocky here was once the budding star, you know.”
“I heard that,” Cinnamon said.
“Cinnamon,” Yanni the Predatory Nomad said. “It’s your shot.”
“Gotta go,” she said. “Guess I’ll see you at school.”
“Right on,” I said.
Her Guatemalan wrap skirt swayed as she turned back to the pool table and Yanni the Bass Player.
“Right on?” Paul said. “Do people still say that?”
“You say it,” I said. “All the time.”
“Who might that fey-looking scoundrel be, young Rocky?” Rayner asked, nodding at Yanni.
“That’s Yanni,” I said. “He’s in a band or something.”
“If you want to knock him over the head with a barstool, I’ll be happy to defend you, free of charge,” Rayner said.
“No thanks,” I said.
“That little gal has a different Yanni in here every other week or so, if that makes you feel any better, Rocko,” Rayner said.
“It doesn’t,” I said.
“Try not to look so lovesick, brother,” Paul said. “Girls don’t like guys who act like they care.”
“Is that your secret?” I asked.
He shrugged and lit a cigarette.
Their game apparently finished, Yanni grasped Cinnamon by the hand and pulled her behind him, past the pinball machines and out the door. She turned back briefly to wave and smile, cigarette still perched in the corner of her mouth. Her eyes passed over me and rested on Paul, as if she thought he ought to have recognized her from somewhere else.
FOR MONTHS THE Old Man’s dementia had been steadily worsening, so that by the time Paul arrived, the lucid moments were increasingly rare. Within weeks of Paul’s return, the Old Man’s more sentimental delusions were all but gone; more often his eyes rolled madly and the rage spilled forth in gushing torrents aimed at whoever was unfortunate enough to be around—usually Paul, who hurried home after work to take over for William. My mother took some obvious satisfaction from seeing Paul bear the brunt of these attacks. Only William knew how to disregard these rants as meaningless. The rest of us had to wrestle with the suspicion that the dementia was loosening words he’d always believed but would never have uttered before his sense of restraint abandoned him. When it came to finding our rawest insecurities, the Old Man’s sickened brain was like a hog rooting up truffles.
One afternoon I came through the front door to the sound of the Old Man’s bellowing fro
m all the way down the hall in the Royal Chamber.
“What you’ve done with yourself,” the Old Man said. “What you did to that girl. You ruined her, don’t you know that?”
I crept down the hallway and stood outside the door, listening. Growing up as I had, I learned early on the value of eavesdropping, both as a means of discovering truths unintended for my ears and as a strategy for survival.
“Would you like to know the worst mistake I ever made?” the Old Man said.
“Please, Dad,” Paul said. “Enlighten me.”
“When your sister fell ill, I felt grateful,” the Old Man said, his voice shaking with bitterness, “grateful that it was her, and not you. I wanted a son, you see? Did you know that?”
“No, Dad,” Paul said. “I didn’t know that.”
“Think of the pain we’d all have been spared,” the Old Man said, “if it had been you.”
It was a cruel thing to say. But I doubt Paul had never thought of it himself. As for me, instead of going in to save Paul, as I should have, I stood on the other side of the door and pondered the question, what if it had been Paul who died, and Annie Elizabeth who survived? Would she have lived up to her angelic reputation, or would she have been just as irresponsible and thoughtless as Paul had been? Would we now think of Paul as a blessed holy martyr? Would the Old Man’s first marriage have lasted? Would he ever have met my mother? Would I even exist?
“I’m sorry God let you keep the wrong one,” Paul said.
“You should be,” the Old Man said.
“Wasn’t it one of the saints who said that answered prayers bring more tears than those that go unanswered?” Paul asked. “Which saint was that, Dad?”
“Go to hell,” the Old Man said. I imagined him sitting in his chair with his arms crossed, pouting like a petulant child.
“Fortunately for you,” Paul replied, “God gave you another son. Maybe he won’t be such a disappointment to you.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat.
“But you tried to take him from me, didn’t you?” the Old Man said. “You’d have done it too, if you hadn’t lost your nerve.”
“Do you remember that story you used to tell about the old Indian and the blanket?” Paul asked. His voice took on the old, bitter tone I’d not heard since his return. The sound of that voice frightened me. It must have scared the Old Man too—he was suddenly speechless.
“You couldn’t possibly have forgotten,” Paul said, his words dripping with scorn. “You must have told it to me half a dozen times. Don’t you remember? You’d get all solemn going on about the noble Sioux and how when they were no longer useful to the tribe, they went off in the woods alone with a blanket and just sat down to die. Remember what you used to tell me at the end of that story, Dad?”
The Old Man still couldn’t answer him.
“Old age is a damned disgrace. That’s what you said, Dad. I can still hear you saying it, as clear as day. Well,” Paul said, “you’ve already got the blanket, haven’t you?”
I stood on the other side of the door, afraid to move. I pictured the two of them facing each other, all that pain and pride and hatred burning up the air between them. Later I would wonder whether Paul meant what he said, or whether he had just lost his temper. The Old Man had been right, I thought, when he told Paul that story. Old age is a damned disgrace. Wasn’t that what Neil Young meant when he said, It’s better to burn out? Wasn’t that what Townshend meant when he wrote, I hope I die before I get old?
I heard the television being turned on but waited a few more minutes before entering. The Old Man’s face had gone slack; his eyes were dull with weariness. Likewise, Paul wore an expression of complete exhaustion. I sat down on the couch next to him, and together the three of us watched The Andy Griffith Show in silence.
After my mother came home, Paul and I went upstairs. Paul put on Hunky Dory and sat in his chair, chain-smoking and staring coldly out the window while we listened to Bowie sing about changes and pretty things and life on Mars. At the end of the side, when I slid off the bed to flip the disc, Paul spoke.
“Did he ever tell you that story about the Indian with the blanket?” Paul asked.
“Which one?” I asked.
“The one you heard me talking about down there,” he said.
I held my breath. Paul lifted his cigarette to his lips and took a long, slow drag.
“No,” I said.
He delicately tamped the edge of his cigarette in the ashtray, blowing a long plume of smoke out the cracked open window.
“Turn it over, will you?” he said.
Before I could put the needle back on the record, we heard my mother’s voice below us, crying out the Old Man’s name.
We hurried back to the Royal Chamber, where we found my mother standing frozen in front of the Old Man in his armchair. On his lap, on top of an oily rag, sat his .38 revolver.
“For Christ’s sake,” the Old Man said. “I’m just cleaning it.”
AFTER THAT, MY mother gathered all the guns and brought them up to Paul’s room, where she laid them on the bed.
“I want them gone,” she said. “Out of the house.”
“Even that one?” Paul said, pointing to the Old Man’s shotgun, a Browning Sweet Sixteen gold-trigger automatic.
“All of them,” my mother said.
“You know he bought that gun in Belgium,” Paul said. “After the war. It means a lot to him.”
“Maybe your pal Rayner will store it for you,” she said.
“And what about the others?” Paul asked.
“Just get rid of them,” she said.
Paul wrapped up the three guns—the pistol, Dad’s Browning, and his own old sixteen-gauge—and took them out to the truck. A few days later, he handed my mother a crumpled wad of bills.
“Here,” he said.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Four hundred and fifty bucks,” Paul replied.
“What did you do with them?” she asked.
“Rayner knows a guy,” he said.
19
BY THE SECOND WEEK of March, the lingering snowdrifts disappeared from the long meadow between our house and Twin Oaks. For the first time in months, we saw Brad Culver again, out in his field pulling a shiny new Bush Hog behind a blue tractor. Back and forth he went across the field, up and down along the fence line. Culver passed our house at close range no less than half a dozen times, his eyes fixed on the air in front of his nose, never turning or even tilting his head to make a sidelong glance.
“Son of a bitch,” Paul muttered, rubbing his thigh where Culver’s bullet had pierced it.
When I passed the test for my learner’s permit, Paul took it upon himself to teach me how to drive stick. We spent a few afternoons in the church parking lot, Paul patiently advising me on how to balance the clutch and the gas pedal. Once I mastered the art of engaging first gear from a stop on an uphill slope, Paul started picking me up and letting me drive home from school while he smoked in the passenger seat. Paul had gathered that I preferred him to show up a little late so that I could linger on the loading dock with Cinnamon as she waited for the latest bass player in his Pontiac Fiero or Mustang 5.0 to pull up and sweep her off, either for her shift at Kroger or, I assumed, to some dingy garage to listen to his stupid band practice.
They developed a curious rapport, Cinnamon and Paul. Whenever he pulled the red truck up to the curb and hopped out to walk around to the passenger side, Cinnamon would wave and grin at him, as if they shared some private joke. Paul always waved back sheepishly, without looking at her.
“Why does she wave at you like that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “I guess she thinks we’ve got something in common.”
“Like what?”
“She grew up around the same kind of people I used to be,” he said.
“The same people?” I asked.
“Not the same people,” he said. “The world isn’t that small.
But we have some common experiences. Cinnamon’s a pretty cool chick, if you want to know the truth.”
“You’re on a first-name basis now?”
“We had a conversation.”
“When?” I demanded. “Where?”
“At the Wahoo,” Paul said. “She came up to me.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Relax, Rocky, I’m not interested in your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said.
“Put it into third, bro,” he said.
I eased the stick forward and accelerated into the turn onto Boone’s Ferry.
“We ought to go up to the parkway one afternoon,” I offered.
“When the weather gets better, maybe we will,” Paul said. “If your mom’s cool with it.”
“Maybe we could take Cinnamon with us,” I said. “And Leigh.”
“Might be a little tight in the cab,” Paul said.
“Me and Cinnamon could ride in the back,” I said. “I bet she’d like that.”
“She probably would,” he said.
Paul’s face was shrouded beneath his beard, his eyes soft and sad behind the spectacles. I remembered how those eyes had flashed in the glow from the end of his cigarette in the blue darkness up there in John’s Gap—how I could feel their muted spite even through the nausea and delirium.
“You used to tell the best stories,” I said. “Remember all those stories you used to tell me?”
“It runs in the family,” he said.
“The Old Man sure loves a good story, doesn’t he?” I asked.
“The Old Man never heard anything sweeter than the sound of his own voice,” Paul said.
“He never talked to me the way he talked to you,” I said.
“That’s because when I was a kid he didn’t have anyone else to talk to,” Paul said.
“I guess.”
I took a deep breath.
“Say, Paul,” I said, “why don’t you tell me a story?”
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 20