The Ask

Twenty-three

A firebird of new need had soared from the ashes of the need creation memo. Maura was stuck late at the office, couldn't pick up Bernie from Christine's. Maura's message made no mention of our trouble. All this searing silence, I worried we might be selling out, going Hollywood.

There was no time to visit Don before I got back to Astoria. The train climbed out of the tunnel, broke into a vista of rail-yards and brick. I called Don's cell phone.

"The flunky."

"Hi, Don."

"Greetings to you, sir."

"I need to speak with you. Can I make you lunch at my house? I'll have my kid at home, but I can keep him busy with a movie while we talk."

"Sure you want to show me where you live?"

I hadn't thought of that, though this was the first time Don, for all his posturing, had swerved into unadorned menace.

"Why not?" I said. "We have happy things to discuss."

"I have yook in my mouth," said Don.

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"I'm yooking in my mouth."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"I don't know," said Don. "What is it they say now?"

"Who?"

"The people I went to war for."

Bernie sat alone in Christine's concrete yard. He was chewing on a chunk of tire. The minivan was gone.

"Daddy!"

"Where's Christine?"

"She said she'd be right back. Told me to wait here."

I knelt to the pavement, put my arms out.

"I'm sorry, buddy. Come here. Everything's okay."

Bernie did not move. He picked up a candy wrapper, studied it.

"Daddy, look, it's a superhero."

"Bernie, I love you. I didn't mean for it to get like this. It'll never happen again. I promise."

"Aiden pooped on his winky."

"When was this?"

"I don't know. A million days ago."

"Please put that wrapper down, Bernie. It's garbage."

"When I'm five can I have the wrapper?"

"Yes, Bernie."

"Are we going home now? Let's say goodbye to Aiden."

"He's still here?"

"He's inside with Nick. Nick is cleaning his underpants."

"Nick's here?"

"His brother died. He fell off a roof in Connecticut. Will I ever die in Connecticut?"

"Bernie. We need to go now."

My boy looked up and smiled.

"But wait right here for a second," I said, took the broken side stairs, pushed into the dim kitchen. Nick squatted near the sink with a tissue in his hand. Aiden stood with his pants at his ankles.

"Just don't see how you got it on your johnson, little man," Nick said. "Well, hello, there."

"Everything okay in here?" I said.

"What does it look like?"

I didn't answer, glanced around the cramped room, the pots in teetering stacks, the econo-sized boxes of crackers and cookies and dried noodles, the bank calendars and rubber band balls and tins of allspice. Aiden's stink mingled with the scent of lentils on the stove.

"It looks like you are holding down the fort," I said.

"This is what I'm doing."

"I'm sorry about your brother."

"He got what he wanted."

"It's a tough thing."

"They found the remains of his last meal. Supermarket olive loaf."

"I've got to go now," I said.

"Look," said Nick, dabbed Aiden's testicles. "We don't need static. Life is short. The world is a bully. You want in on my show, just tell me. The offer still stands."

"Thanks for saying that," I said.

We took the back alley way to our house.

"Who's that?" said Bernie.

Don sat on our stoop, a newspaper in his lap.

"That's a friend of Daddy's. When we get inside I'll need to talk to him. You can watch a show."

"But I want to play with you, Daddy. I want to play guys."

"We'll play guys," I said. "We'll always play guys. But I need to talk to this man now."

"His legs are really skinny and there's a shiny part."

"They're made of metal."

It seemed a little chilly for cargo shorts, but then again, what did Don's girls know about the weather?

"Can I get some legs like that?" said Bernie.

We neared the stoop and Don waved. I laid my hand on my son's shaggy head. He was tall enough for that now. I wondered if this gesture, some compound of fond feeling and flight readiness, was hardwired by nature, or maybe television. It felt natural. But so did television.

"Boys!"

Don was doing sunny today.

"Hope you like smoked turkey," I said.

"Sandwiches?" said Don.

"Wraps."

I fixed lunch in the kitchen. Bernie and Don watched a DVD about dinosaurs. I'd seen it many times. The dinosaurs made cooing sounds and laid eggs by rivers and munched the leaves of primordial trees. The movie was for kids, so they never tore open each other's chests. They just growled, pawed the moist earth, marched off into the rainbow ooze.

"Those dudes are armored up, boy," I heard Don say. "Could have used some of those dinosaur hides in Iraq."

"I like this show," said Bernie, "but they don't have the asteroid."

"What asteroid?" said Don.

"Asteroid is what extincted them. It fell on their heads. Their raw eyeballs popped out."

"That's not what happened," said Don.

"What happened?" said Bernie.

"Wheels within wheels, kid. You a truther?"

"What's a truther?"

"You got it in you, I can tell."

"Where in me?"

"Where it counts."

"I can count to ten."

"Can you count to nine eleven?"

"That's a big number."

"It's small potatoes."

"How come you have metal legs?"

"My girls?"

"They're girls?"

"To me they are."

"Why?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

"I don't know a lot of stuff."

Don laughed.

"There was a guy who wrote a story," he said. "It was in a book my mother used to read. A story about a goose."

"I have Mother Goose."

"This is different. Anyway, one time, I was about ten, eleven, my mother was reading this story, and smiling, and she didn't smile a lot, so I noticed it right off. I asked her what she was smiling about. Then she read me the part of the story where the guy is describing this big tall army officer. I can't remember his name. I wish I could remember his name. I don't even have the book anymore. But this officer, he was a real mean guy with these high leather boots. Like up to the thighs. And the guy who wrote the story, he said the officer's legs were like girls coming out of those boots. It seemed weird to say that, wrong. But also right. And it made my mother happy for moment. It stayed with me. So, when… well, I call these my girls. And it makes me happy."

"How come you have girls and no legs?"

"Legs got blown off."

"Did it hurt?"

"Hasn't stopped."

"Was it the asteroid that did it?"

"Don," I said, "come on in the kitchen."

I'd laid out a plate of turkey wraps, a bowl of chips, a small dish of cornichons.

"Nice spread."

"Have a seat."

"Thanks. Getting a little sick of the dal and beans. This is nice bland American food."

"Dig in."

We ate without talking, like sad machines, our arms jutting out at robotic intervals for vegetable chips and pulls from our celery sodas. We ate quickly and then just sat.

"Coffee?" I said.

"Why not?"

I'd already brewed it, poured him a cup. Don studied the mug. Maura had brought it home from work, swag from the great swirl of need.

"World's Best Alcoholic Abusive Dad," said Don. "Is that ironic?"

"I guess," I said.

"See, I don't get that kind of irony."

"Maybe it's just glib," I said.

"I defer to your judgment," said Don. "So, you brought me to your lovely home for what reason?"

He rose from his chair, bounced a little where he stood.

"You can take them off," I said, "your… things."

Don's eyes went tight.

"I'm real grateful."

"Sarcasm," I said.

"What I was raised on. It's stupid but you can trust it. It's just there to hurt people. Nothing more."

"How's Sasha?"

"You like her? Did you like squeezing her tits?"

"I never did that."

"You think she wouldn't tell me?"

"She lied," I said.

"Doesn't matter," said Don. "Sasha and me, we're done. She went back to Pangburn Falls. Going back to school, she says."

"College?"

"High school."

"High school?"

"She's got a lot of road on her. I'm not even her first army of one."

"Sorry to hear she's gone."

"For the best. I'm not doing so hot, you know."

"No?"

"Not feeling that great."

"Oh."

Don took a sip of coffee. The stomps and shrieks of Tyrannosaurus rex drifted in from the next room.

"I'm not going to the zoo with my daddy, am I?" he said.

He looked almost disappointed.

"No," I said.

"What's the dollar amount?"

I told him the figure Lee Moss had shown me on the cashier's check.

"And I sign a bunch of shit that says I'm never to go here, call there, say this or that to X, Y, and Z. And I stay an orphan. Don't get invited to Vail for the ideas festival."

"How did you know about that?"

I saw a flicker in his face now, another Don, the vengeful one, the sneak, the creep.

"I'm informed. I'm a truther. A Purdy truther."

"What do you want me to tell them?"

"How much do you get?" said Don. "For brokering this crap."

"I get a chance to survive," I said. "It's a bad time. That money you'll get will carry you for years, as long as you don't burn it all in tinfoil."

"How do you know I chase the old dragon?"

"Your eyes are pinned. I figure you think snorting is for amateurs, and you are wearing short sleeves. You sure as shit aren't shooting between your toes."

"You're not all fool."

"Thanks for that."

Don sat back down at his plate, poked at some stray lettuce with his fork.

"I knew for a long time," he said.

"Pardon?"

"She had pictures of him in her drawer. I look like her but there were some things, my nose, my chin, I guess. She'd stare at me funny, like I was somebody else. Or also somebody else. I didn't know the name Purdy Stuart or anything. Just that I had to be related somehow to the guy in the pictures. To me he looked like a wuss. She told me my father had been a man she met in a bar. One time she said he'd moved away to Alaska. Another time she said he'd died. Maybe she had more bullshit ready if I ever said I wanted to find the man's relatives or something. But I didn't. What the hell for? My mother and me, and her sister, and my grandma, I already had a family. Sad fucked-up women, all of them. Dented cans, they call women like that. But I loved them. Besides, what the fuck was I? The most dented of all. But my mother, she was something, on a good day. Smartest person I ever knew. Worked her shifts and read her books. I wish more rubbed off on me. But it doesn't rub off. I always thought there was some big thing she was going to do. Had her acceptance letter from the fancy college. No diploma, just the letter, because she never finished. Hung it on the wall of every shithole we lived in. But she just went through her days. Pretty down a lot, but sometimes just, like, shining. And there were a few years there, at the end of high school, right before I signed up, when she was shining for a week at a time. It would build up for days, her happy, playing her CDs and even baking cookies and shit, and then she'd be off to visit some friends, or that's what she'd tell me, she was visiting friends for the night. She always left me a lot of food. She was only gone a night but the fridge would be stocked. Then she'd come home, be her depressed self again."

I heard a crash from the living room.

"Bernie! You okay?"

"Yeah, Daddy! I'm watching my show!"

"Sorry," I said.

"You're a good daddy," said Don.

"According to the manuals, I'm screwing up in more ways than I can count."

"You're a good daddy."

"I'm sorry. Please go on."

"I've said enough."

"I want to hear this," I said.

"Once I saw them. I was cruising around on a Saturday night and my friend called and he was at a party a few towns away and I took a shortcut I'd never done before, passed this motel right outside Pangburn Falls. Saw her car in the parking lot. I knew it was hers from her fucking lame-ass liberal bumper stickers. Always used to embarrass me. Save the abortionist polar bears and shit. Anyway, I pulled in and snuck up to the window. They were on a bed, it was still made, and they were dressed, drinking whiskey. I saw the bottle on the bureau. It was the guy from the pictures. A lot older, but him. They were just laughing. Easy. Reaching out for a gentle squeeze now and then. I couldn't hear what they were talking about. They both looked really thrilled to be there together in that shit room. I got out of there. Took some pictures and got the hell out of there."

"You took pictures?"

"With my cell phone."

"You have them?"

"She came home the next morning, seemed sadder than ever. That was the last time she went out for the night, at least while I was around. I joined up and deployed, eventually. You know, my convoy got lit up the day she had her car crash. Nothing happened to me that time, but still, kind of weird, right? Lot of rain up here, they said. She hydroplaned. Hit a tree not so far from that motel. Crash put her in a coma. They gave me leave to see her. It was a nice room, a decent place. They said it was taken care of. I thought she had some insurance from her last job. I didn't even go through her papers before I flew back. Then I get a message she's dead. Died in transit, from the nice place to a state place where they had to take her. Why'd they move her? I wanted to know. But there was nobody to ask. By the time I got home for good, after all that time recovering and rehabbing and learning how to not really get around on the girls, nobody could answer my questions. But I went through her stuff. Didn't find anything. Then the hospital had some papers they sent over. That's how I found out. Purdy had been paying for the nice place. But after a while he stopped. So they had to move her. I guess they didn't really know how to do it right. It's hard to move hurt people. I've seen plenty of that. A lot of people die on the way. Look, probably she wasn't coming out of that coma. Probably I would have had them pull the plug. But still."

Don leaned back in his chair, kneaded his legs.

"My fucking humps."

"I have aspirin."

"Aspirin. No. Never touch the stuff. They're scared of me. Purdy and Moss and them. Think I'm a psycho."

"Maybe."

"I don't mind."

"I'm not sure that's all of it."

"Purdy doesn't know a thing about the world I come from. The world his fucking son comes from."

"This is really about his wife."

"Melinda? She's okay. Just another rich bitch. Maybe I should take them all out. I've got PTSD. Got papers on it. Maybe I could do that. Live rent-free in a psych ward for the rest of my life."

"Don't do that."

"No?"

"Would Nathalie want that?"

"Would she want me to take the money?"

"I don't know."

"No, you don't. You don't know at all. Tell them I'll sleep on it. Which means I'll get high on it. Maybe the dragon will whisper the answer to me."

"I'm here, Don."

"That's your problem," he said, winced out of his chair. I followed him into the living room. Bernie clutched a pillow. A pterodactyl soared above some coastal cliffs.

"Nice to meet you, Bernie."

"Nice," said Bernie.

"Look at the man, Bernie," I said. "Say goodbye."

"Goodbye."

"The asteroid didn't fall on their heads," said Don.

Bernie stared up at Don.

"What about the asteroid?" he said.

"It didn't kill the dinosaurs," Don said. "It just killed everything else. The plants. The sunlight. It was cold and dark and there was nothing to eat. The dinosaurs got so sad, they died."

"In Connecticut?" said Bernie.

"Especially in Connecticut," said Don, heaved himself out the door.