Smacked

by Eilene Zimmerman

  We walk around Main Street, Liberty Street, and Washtenaw Avenue looking for a place to eat. Evan suggests Five Guys Burgers, so that’s where we land. Since finishing up at the dorm, Peter has been listless and pale. I think that maybe he just needs some red meat, or anything that’s full of iron and fat. He’s thin and shaky and completely exhausted. It’s not even a particularly cool night, but he’s got his leather jacket zipped up. “Are you okay?” I ask him. “Are you feeling sick?” He looks like he might have a fever or the chills.

  “No, I’m fine,” he says. “Just wiped out from moving Anna in.”

  I order Evan and Peter burgers and fries and get a veggie burger for myself. We eat silently. It seems it’s taking all of Peter’s energy and focus just to chew and swallow. “Do you want another? Either of you?” I ask, looking from one to the other. Evan says yes, so Peter says he’ll have one, too, and I go to the counter and order each of them another cheeseburger. I would order Peter three if he would eat them. I look back at the two of them in the booth, introverted in similar ways, starting to chat a little as I wait for my turn at the counter. Beneath the table I can see Peter’s bony white ankles peeking out from beneath his pant legs, unexpectedly fragile.

  The next morning my phone starts buzzing at six A.M. It’s a text from Peter. Evan is asleep in the other bed.

  “You up?” his message says.

  “Yes, are you working?” I can’t imagine any other reason he would be up this early. Peter is the type of person that has to set two or three alarms to go off at five-minute intervals to compensate for how often he hits the snooze button. But for work, he’ll get up. The guy rarely took a night feeding when our kids were babies, but if there was a two A.M. conference call, he was on it.

  “Actually, I’m in a cab on the way to the airport. Something is blowing up at work.”

  I reread it several times.

  “Are you kidding?” I text back. “You are taking a flight back to San Diego right now?”

  “Yes, I have to. It’s work. I’m sorry.”

  I look over at Evan, sleeping. I’m not even angry, I’m confused. I don’t understand what is happening. Peter is not down the hall; he is on his way to the airport? I pull back the covers as quietly as I can, tiptoe out into the bathroom, close the door, and call him.

  “Hey,” he answers.

  “Peter, what about the game tomorrow? What about Evan? You were supposed to do this with us. You were the one who suggested it. You bought the tickets! And what about the car? It’s rented in your name. And I can’t afford to pay for it. What is going on? You are leaving?”

  I am bone-tired already and the day hasn’t even begun. Why is there always a work crisis?

  “Eilene,” Peter says, calmly. “Do you think I want to leave? I have to. It’s my client. I’m the partner that’s responsible for what happens and there’s a problem and so I’m going back now. I’ll get it taken care of, and I’ll be on a red-eye back to Detroit tonight.”

  “This is insane,” I say. “It’s the Friday of Labor Day weekend and you’re telling me that there’s a problem with one of your clients and there is no one else, not one single attorney in the entire San Diego office, that can handle it for you? Do they know you are taking your daughter to college for the first time? Did you tell them that?”

  Peter blows air loudly out of his mouth, an angry sigh. I know he is rolling his eyes.

  “Eilene, there’s nothing I can do, I’m sorry. I feel really bad. But I have to handle this.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But you can’t miss the game, Peter, I’m serious. You can’t disappoint Evan. He’s looking forward to it and you guys don’t do many things together.”

  Peter assures me he, too, is looking forward to it. That he really wants to go. It’ll be fun, he says. “I promise, I will be on a plane to Michigan tonight. I’ll get back at six A.M., I’ll sleep for a few hours, and then we’ll go to the game together. I didn’t even check out because I’m coming back.”

  He always finds some way to avoid being a parent, I think. The three of us were supposed to explore Ann Arbor today. My son doesn’t want to hang out with me all day, he was looking forward to time with his father, to Peter actually being here and doing things with him. I was hoping I might get some of my freelance assignments done while the two of them spent time together meandering around, chatting, shopping at the M Den. I have a bunch of looming deadlines. But Peter has to work and his work has always—and will always—be more important than mine. He reminds me regularly that I need his financial support to live in San Diego. The recurring message is clear: We may not be married anymore, but you still need me. I’m already so sick of this trip and of move-in weekend and of my daughter’s embarrassment at having parents. I want to go home too.

  “If you miss the game, Peter…” I say, trailing off.

  “I will be there,” he insists. “I promise.”

  When Evan wakes up, I break the news to him that Peter had to go back to San Diego, but just for the day, and that he’ll be on his way back to Ann Arbor tonight.

  “He’s not coming back,” Evan says flatly. He isn’t even looking at me. He’s just sitting up against the headboard, staring at some spot above the television mounted on the wall across from him. Peter doesn’t do so many of the things he says he wants to do with Evan—like watching his band perform, going for a bike ride or a run on the weekend, watching a ball game—that Evan has stopped counting on his father to actually do anything he says he’ll do. There is always an excuse, Evan has told me. And it’s almost always work.

  “Look at me,” I say. “He wants to go to the game; he’s very upset he has to leave today. He will be here tomorrow morning. He promised. He’s taking a red-eye tonight.”

  “Mom,” Evan says, turning his eyes to mine. “He’s not coming back.”

  At 10:45 that night, my phone rings with a call from Peter. His flight was supposed to have left fifteen minutes ago. I pick up. “I missed the flight,” he says. Evan is in the bed next to me, reading ESPN on his laptop. I glance at him but he refuses to look up.

  “Peter,” I say into my phone. “You promised.”

  “Would you listen to me? I’m at the airport. They wouldn’t let me on the plane. They have some rule now that they close the doors twenty minutes before takeoff, and if you’re not at the gate you can’t get on the plane. It’s fucking bullshit.”

  I can’t believe this. I can’t believe Evan was right.

  “How late were you getting to the gate?” I ask, trying to find a way to excuse this, some way to explain this to Evan.

  “I got here just as they closed the cabin doors. I always used to be able to get here fifteen minutes before takeoff, and it was no problem getting on the plane.”

  I can’t remember a time when you could get to an airport gate just fifteen minutes before the plane is set to depart and expect to be allowed on, at least not in the post-9/11 world. Months from now, Peter will tell me a story about a business trip to Pittsburgh he had recently taken. On the way back to San Diego, he and a colleague were running late and when Peter reached the gate, he demanded the agents hold the plane because his colleague was, at that very moment, racing through the airport to meet him and make this flight. When the agents refused, he became indignant.

  “They couldn’t hold the plane for two minutes?” he will ask me, although I won’t be expected to answer. “Come on, two fucking minutes? She was right behind me.”

  In what world is it reasonable to ask a pilot to reopen doors that have already been locked and secured? To interrupt flight attendants getting the cabin ready for takeoff? I will tell you in what world—the world of an addict, where the absurd seems reasonable and can even be convincingly rationalized, not just to themselves but to those around them.

  With addiction, the value of drugs becomes overblown at the expense of oth
er things that really are important, says Rita Goldstein, a professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, well known for her studies of cocaine addiction. “An addict will tell you they love their children, their spouse, their work, but that these can wait. The need to consume drugs cannot wait,” she says. “There is a change in how things are valued, with the brain needing the drug more than anything else.” For someone with a cocaine addiction—which I will learn is one of the drugs Peter is using regularly—the part of the brain that monitors errors becomes smaller and doesn’t function well, says Goldstein. That might have been why Peter didn’t think it was a mistake to leave his family to feed his drug habit. He didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong.

  But I didn’t know that then, in Ann Arbor, when I was angry at Peter’s colleagues for insisting he fly back right away and handle whatever issue had arisen. I didn’t have the slightest understanding of any of this that weekend in 2014. I thought Peter was telling the truth. I couldn’t see any reason why he wouldn’t have wanted to be at that football game with us. The morning after Peter misses his flight, Evan and I, along with a whole bunch of families staying in the hotel, hop on the shuttle bus to the Big House—the name of Michigan’s massive stadium—where we will watch the university’s football team crush Appalachian State.

  Evan and I sit steaming in the ninety-degree heat and humidity with 110,000 drunk, rabid Michigan fans screaming “Go Blue!” at the top of their lungs. It becomes a thunderous background noise to everything else happening around us—the colorful inflated beach balls making their way around the stadium, spontaneous eruptions of “the wave,” announcers emphatically calling plays, the smell of hot dogs and nachos, popcorn and spilled beer. I send Peter some photos of the field, an ocean of blue and yellow clothing, pom-poms, hats, face paint, hair—you name it, it is blue and yellow. I send him photos of Evan and me there, without him. That is the essential message of my texts: You are not here. And you promised to be.

  That night, after we’ve packed up, we head down the hall to Peter’s room (he left a card key for me at the desk, just in case) to pack up his things, strewn about as he rushed out the door and into the waiting cab. I feel like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be, violating Peter’s privacy, but I remind myself he asked me to get his things. He brought only a few pieces of clothing with him and those are still in his bag. Otherwise it’s a bunch of uneaten protein bars and candy lying on the bureau; in the bathroom, a razor, some pricey shave gel from Kiehl’s, a bottle of Advil, and a small container of Tums tablets. We throw them into his blue duffel bag, which will go with us to the airport.

  It’s a warm, breezy night in San Diego when we land. Peter picks us up, running late, as usual. I notice again that he is wearing the heavy leather jacket and jeans; Evan and I are in shorts and T-shirts. I climb into the front seat of the Tiguan, spacious again without all of Anna’s luggage. Evan isn’t in the car yet; he’s putting our bags into the trunk.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t come back,” I say quietly to Peter. I notice a half-full pack of cigarettes lying inside a compartment in the center console and a large sweaty soda in the cup holder. “Evan said you wouldn’t come back, but like an idiot, I believed you.”

  Peter rolls his eyes. “You don’t know how bad I felt about missing the flight. I felt terrible.” I want to snap back that I don’t care how bad he felt, I care how bad our son felt, but at that moment Evan enters the backseat and straps himself in. Peter glances in the rearview mirror, then turns in his seat to face his son. “I’m really sorry, buddy,” he says. “I really wanted to be there.” His tone with Evan is as it always is, gentle and loving. And Evan, who cannot bear to make anyone feel bad, simply says, “That’s okay, Dad. I know you had to work.” Peter reaches back and pats Evan’s knee before putting the car into gear and driving us home.

  ■ FIVE

  December 2014

  IT’S FOUR MONTHS LATER, a Saturday, the first weekend of December. Evan and his band, Galaxy, are performing in San Diego’s Balboa Park, 1,200 acres dotted with museums, theatres, and restaurants. It is the start of December Nights, an annual two-day festival to kick off the holiday season, with vendors hawking handmade jewelry and ceramics, food trucks selling everything from tamales to cotton candy, and stages with a variety of bands and dancing troupes. The afternoon is all blue sky and gentle breeze. I lean against a tree in front of the stage, chatting with the keyboardist’s mom.

  Evan is the bass player and a singer in the band, a pack of four teenage boys who have been playing together since elementary school, rehearsing in their parents’ garages. I remember them as little kids, their instruments bigger than they were, and now here they are, the size of men, going through their sound check with an audio engineer who works for the park. Last night the boys rehearsed in my garage, the door up and open to the warm night, a few neighbor kids hanging out in the driveway watching. I sat on the front steps of my house waiting for pizza to be delivered, sipping a Pacifico with a slice of lime floating in it. It was about as close to perfect as a Friday night could be.

  Peter, also a bassist, taught Evan how to play, even though Peter plays by ear because he never learned to read music. That didn’t stop him from performing with several different bands over the years. For more than a decade, Peter played with the unfortunately named cover band the Free-Range Chickens, and when I could get a babysitter I would go and see them.

  That band broke up years ago, and after a couple of false starts with other ones, Peter gave up and hasn’t played regularly since. He and Evan used to practice together now and then, listening to a song they both liked and picking out the bass line, note by note. But it’s been a long time since that’s happened; now Peter is hardly ever at home when Evan spends the night there.

  Wednesday night is their night together, and Peter is supposed to pick Evan up at school after cross-country practice, which ends about five-thirty. But he has been late every week for months, sometimes two hours late, and Evan sits outside of school alone, in the dark. A few times Peter has called to tell him to walk up the road to the Mexican place and get some dinner, and that’s where he picks him up. Evan will be sitting at the bar of the Super Bronco, his backpack and athletic bag on the stool next to him, eating a burrito and watching whatever sporting event is on the television, in Spanish. A few months ago, I asked Peter why he is always so late—it takes twenty-five minutes to get from his office to the school. He said it was traffic.

  “I check traffic,” I told him. “There is never two hours of traffic. Are you just forgetting?”

  “I’m doing the best I can, Eilene,” he said. That is his standard line now. He is doing the best he can. In late October, I started picking Evan up after school on Wednesdays and told Peter to get him at my house. But Peter has rarely made it; there is always a deadline he is scrambling to meet, or a late meeting, or dinner with a client. Soon Evan will have his driver’s license and then he can drive himself up to his dad’s. No more waiting for his father, only to get a text at eight-thirty on a Wednesday night saying something came up: “Can you just stay at Mom’s?”

  Even on Thanksgiving, Peter was half an hour late for dinner, claiming his GPS misdirected him. Thanksgiving is a holiday we still spend together as a family, usually at my cousin’s house in Los Angeles. This year my cousin was away, so we made reservations instead at a French restaurant known for its views of downtown San Diego and the bay. The kids and I, dressed up and hungry, sat at the table for half an hour looking at menus while the maître d’ stole irritated glances at us.

  When Peter finally arrived, saying he had gotten lost, it didn’t make sense. “There is only one Mister A’s restaurant in all of San Diego County,” I said. “And I texted you the street address.” But Peter and Anna were already deep into perusing the menu, so Peter looked up, annoyed at me for interrupting. “Can we not talk about this now?” he asked. When
the check came, Peter announced that he had also forgotten his wallet. I could not figure out what was going on with him. Was he experiencing some sort of cognitive decline or deficiency? Was he bipolar? Was he just being a selfish asshole? I never even considered that he was late because he was getting high or buying drugs or sick from the lack of them. All I knew was that nothing with him made sense anymore. Yet no matter how many questions I asked, Peter had an answer that made me feel like an idiot for asking. “I was up until three A.M. because we have a brief due today” or “I was waiting at the shop for my car and didn’t see your texts” or “I was in a meeting I could not get out of and my phone was in my office” and on and on.

  In hindsight, it’s easy to see the signs of addiction, but in real time, it’s not. I had known Peter for decades and he had always put work before everything else; his excuses felt legitimate. They felt like the truth. In the past, they had been the truth. Peter may have been a closeted addict, but he was also a workaholic lawyer whose sense of importance allowed him to behave in ways that hurt other people—being late, not showing up, breaking promises. And I had never known someone in the crushing grip of addiction, which can look like other things—the flu, exhaustion, depression.