The Flying Troutmans

three

THAT NIGHT LOGAN CAME HOME DRUNK. I heard him fall down in the kitchen. I went in and switched on the light and he said, Oh man, dude, that is a seriously diaphanous nightgown you’ve got on. I switched the light off again and knelt down beside his head. C’mon, let’s get you up to bed. He wanted to stay there.

What’s that smell? he asked.

Cascade, I said. C’mon, let’s go. He pawed at the box of Cascade and spilled it all over the floor and himself.

Shit, he said. Thebes came downstairs rubbing her eyes, still covered in candy necklace crap, and asked us what was up.

We’re at the beach, said Logan. Check out the sand. He moved his fingers around in the Cascade crystals.

Logan’s hammered, I said. Help me get him up to bed. She grabbed one of his feet and began to drag him across the kitchen floor and down the hall.

Okay, okay, don’t, don’t, he said. I’ll walk. He rambled on about renaming the thumb. We should totally rename the thumb, just the three of us, tonight!

What do you want to call it? asked Thebes.

Renée! said Logan. No, Shenée! Yeah…

We helped him up the stairs and pushed him onto his bed. He fell face down, and I punched the pillow next to his head so he’d have an air hole. Thebes took off his shoes and a condom fell out of one of them.

Yeah, right, she said.

Does he have a girlfriend? I asked her.

Deborah Solomon, she said.

Logan moaned. I love her! he said.

She’s a writer with The New York Times, said Thebes.

Logan’s arm slipped off the bed and he picked up a Public Enemy CD that was lying on the floor and held it to his face.

He thinks that’s Deborah Solomon, whispered Thebes.

Logan was out. Thebes hustled off to her bedroom, took a running jump from the doorway and landed on her bed. Righteous air, I said. Sweet dreams.

I went downstairs and cleaned up the Cascade and then headed back up to make sure Logan was still breathing and hadn’t choked on his own vomit. He was fine, snoring softly, hadn’t moved at all. But I could hear Thebes crying. I went into her room and sat down beside her on the bed. Hey, I said. She was hiding her face behind a book. What’s up, buttercup? I asked. She couldn’t talk. I gently pulled the book away from her face so I could have a look at her. I smiled. She was a mess. I put her book down on the floor and held her and sang a few lame songs and told her Min was going to pull through, she always does, she’s strong. She’s so strong.

Thebes told me she’d stuck her arm in a machine at Pharma Plus and found out that her blood pressure is high but not dangerously high.

High’s the new normal around here, I think, I told her. I rocked her like a baby. I sang every lullaby I knew, and some old Talking Heads and even some George Clinton. She told me I’d lost her place in her Quidditch Through the Ages book but it was okay. Eventually she fell asleep in my arms.

That night I had a dream that Min had showered, and the kids and I had thrown a party. Hundreds of people showed up, people from around the world. Logan was in charge of the music and Thebes poured the champagne. Even Cherkis showed up, but he stayed in the yard and the kids scampered in and out of the house bringing him stuff and exchanging furtive messages.

Thebes was all business in the morning, running around the house getting her school stuff together, talking non-stop. Every so often she’d inhale sharply like she really needed an infusion of air right then to get her through her next story. It reminded me of Min and how she used to demonstrate her hyperventilating technique. Her goal had been to pass out in our tree house and then “accidentally” fall out of the tree to her death.

Thebes was still wearing her blue terry cloth outfit, but she’d washed her face and combed her hair a bit, on the sides, in the front. I was still stretched out in her little bed going, Mmmm-hmmmm, mmmm-hmmmm, really, yeah, wow, mmmm-hmmmmm, while she motored around the place getting ready.

You know what I hate? she said.

No, what.

When my teacher uses carpet as a verb, she said. She put on her teacher voice. We’re carpeting. After carpet I’ll help you work out your personal problems. When we carpet we keep our hands in our laps.

What’s carpeting? I asked.

We sit on a carpet and talk, said Thebes.

That sounds nice, I said.

Show me ten! said Thebes.

What? I asked.

My teacher says that all the time, she said. It means show me ten fingers, like show me your hands so I know you’re not fooling around with them during carpet. I told Thebes that the next time her teacher asks them to show her ten, she should say she’s only got two, and hold up her middle fingers.

Uh, no, said Thebes. She stopped shoving things into her backpack long enough to give me a look. First of all, she told me, eleven-year-olds at her school don’t do that, yet. Well, not the girls. And second, she already was not enjoying a lot of status at school, partly because of her prodigious kung fu skills that she couldn’t help, and partly because of her habit of knocking herself in the head in a vain attempt to dislodge the fragment of scalpel stuck inside. I’m on thin ice in the social hierarchy department, she told me. I’m not exactly a popular girl.

Hey, but, I said, where do you think it would go?

Where what would go? she said.

The scalpel, I said, like if you did manage to dislodge it. I mean, it would still be stuck in your head, right?

Yeah, she said, but not in my brain. It would be somewhere between my brain and my skull, in that nook, and then it would be a simple laser procedure or something like that to remove it.

Where’s Logan? I asked her. She didn’t know. He’d left already. Oh, okay, I said. Does he often come home drunk?

No, said Thebes. That was an aberration. Then she started talking about her commemorative-plate project. She had to glue things onto a paper plate, things that had sort of defined her world in the last year. Her teacher had told her that she couldn’t glue on pictures of the World Trade Center towers.

Why can’t you? I asked her.

Because, said Thebes, that didn’t involve me personally.

Well, I said, but in a broader sense, yeah, it did…

Other kids, said Thebes, have Stomp ticket stubs and birthday cake candles and photo-booth pictures, things like that, and now I have to start all over again.

Hey, I said, why don’t you put some of your lyrics on the plate. That would be cool.

On my plate? said Thebes. Which will be pinned up in public along the blackboard with all the others? Are you insane? Like that wouldn’t totally clinch my status as top dork of the universe. Are you going to stay in bed all day? She frowned.

No, I said. Definitely not. We have to get ready.

She came over and put her hands on my legs and her face close to mine. I’ll flip you later, she told me. You’ll love it.

Hey, I said, really, your lyrics are beautiful, you know.

No, they’re embarrassing, she said.

Why? I asked her. I told her that I wrote sometimes. Poems or short stories, I said, whatever, if I’m feeling…you know…

Thebes looked at me like I’d just admitted to occasionally starting grease fires at old folks homes or something, just every once in a while, just to make sense of my world. Hmmm, yeah, she said. Well, what are they about? she asked. Wait! Let me guess! Sex and death?

And love, I told her.

Sick, she said. She told me that tonight she had to start working on her “Helping the United Nations Rid the World of Racial Discrimination” speech and read an entire book for the read-a-thon to raise funds for the children of some Vietnamese province.

Holy shit, I said, and lay down again. Can I just give you twenty bucks? Like, who would know if you’d read the book or not?

She said no, that would be cheating.

I’ll be home at 3:45 precisely, she said. Shalom. She waved from the hall and left. I stared at the ceiling. She returned.

Hey! she said.

Yeah?

Did you know that I’ve been banned from Zellers for two years for having a perfume testers war with my friends?

No, I said, that’s funny.

That I have friends? said Thebes.

No! I said.

Just kidding, she said. I had a mug shot taken, she told me. They had those measuring lines and everything. That’s why my hair is purple now. I dyed it after they took my photo so I can still cut through Zellers undercover on my way to school.

Okay, I said. See ya later.

Not if I see you first, said Thebes. Psych. She left. She came back again.

Thebes, I said, you’re killing me. She asked me if I was going to see Min today.

Yeah, I said.

Tell her I love her, said Thebes. Hug her and kiss her for me. But gently.

I will, I said.

Remind her of the singing orange on the patio at Hermosa Beach, said Thebes.

Okay, I will, I said.

I had this singing orange, said Thebes, you know? And it killed Min. I had like this face on it — oh craps! Thebes had just looked at her clock radio, next to the bed. She said she had to go or she’d get “written up” and she could not afford a third “death note” or…She grabbed her throat and pretended to choke herself.

You should really go, Thebie, I said.

Okay, but one last thing? she said. Are you serious about trying to find Cherkis?

Yeah, I am, I said.

High-five, said Thebes.

I got up and went to Logan’s room and knocked on the door. There was a tiny tag from the dry cleaners stuck to the door that said “Press Only.” No answer. I knocked again. Logan? I said. I opened the door.

Empty room. I walked over to his desk. He’d carved the words Are You a Ghost? into a jagged heart. And had also written in black ink the words It’s Official. That grade 12 girl is now more imagination than reality. Shitty. And also: Hey, there, even if you do get your braces off, there’s still nothing the orthodontist can do about your sad, sad eyes. And next to his computer he’d written a message to himself: No, you will not type the letters you believe make up your father’s name into that small rectangle. Don’t be a loser. And beneath that, he’d carved a rough drawing of the planet Earth and inside it the words: No one can stay.

Okay. I went downstairs and looked around. Messy. Grey light. Dust everywhere. Piles of books and clothes. Dirty dishes in the kitchen. Crumbs. Old newspapers. No problem. I sent a telepathic message to Marc. I hope you’re having a blast at your ashram. I put on one of Logan’s CDs and started cleaning up. There were small though emphatic stick-it notes all over the kitchen. Cups! Glasses! Coffee off! I love you, Min! No more fires! Don’t forget your vitamin B stress therapy! You’re the best! All in Thebie’s loopy handwriting.

The phone rang and I picked it up and said hello. It was the secretary at Logan’s school. Logan hadn’t shown up for his first class. He’s got a doctor’s appointment, I said. That was all right, they said, but next time I should let them know first thing in the morning. Done and done! I said. I appreciate your call. I hung up. Was I supposed to find him? I finished cleaning up and went into the backyard for a smoke.

The next-door neighbour came out, a big guy in a yellow Haile Selassie T-shirt. Hey, I said. How’s it going?

Not bad, he said, but it’d be better if you guys weren’t throwing hatchets into my yard all night.

Oh, yeah, I said. Yeahhh…it won’t happen again.

No, it won’t, he said. Because I’ve got them all over here and I’m not giving them back.

Oh, I said, all right. Freaking uptight guy considering the shirt he’s got on, I thought. And there’s got to be a hatchet store around here where I could get reinforcements.

Who are you, anyway? he asked.

I’m Hattie, Min’s sister. I’m visiting.

Yeah? he said.

Yeah, I said.

You don’t look anything like her, he said.

I’ve had a lot of work done, I said. I stared off into space, hoping he’d disappear.

Hey, I don’t mean to be rude, he said, but your sister there, Min, what’s up with her? What’s her deal?

Min’s cool, I said. There’s no deal. I got up and went into the house and watched from a window as he and his man Selassie walked away. Then I went back out and sat down on the deck. There was a Ping-Pong table in the centre of the yard, and behind it, up against the yellow fence, a purple playhouse plastered with stencils of frogs and cars and suns and lizards. Three bikes were chained to a tree. There was a little dilapidated shack that had once been Min’s studio, and a fire pit piled with charred logs. I noticed two birdhouses up high in a tree, one painted with pink and purple hearts and the other with orange flames and streaks of dripping blood against a black background. Min had told me about the kids’ birdhouses, how she’d climbed the tree in a dust storm and nailed them to a branch.

Everything in life, except her kids, made her impatient. She had tried to do a million things. She’d wanted to be a documentary filmmaker and then a painter and then a tiny-ceramic-figure maker. None of it panned out. She’d be full of enthusiasm at first, full of big ideas and energy and drive, but it would all gradually evaporate and disappear. She could never maintain the momentum or the concentration or the confidence she needed to get anything done. She’d fight with the people who were helping her get set up or she’d hate what she had created and destroy it in a spectacular way or she’d get it into her head that everything was so damn futile, anyway, why bother, what’s the point, what difference does it make. And then she’d go to bed for four months. Cherkis was supportive at first; he believed in her abilities and he loved her. He’d run around trying to get the supplies she needed, setting up a darkroom in the house, building the heated studio in the backyard, making the meals, cleaning the house, doing the shopping, while she attacked yet another project with gusto and then threw her arms in the air and shit-canned it for something else…or nothing.

I threw my cigarette into the pit and went back inside. The phone rang again. It was the hospital.

Who am I speaking with?

Uh, Hattie?

Are you family?

Yeah.

Logan was staging some sort of sit-in in the waiting room, refusing to leave until he saw his mom, and they were wondering if I would come and get him.

I had to call a cab again because Logan had taken the van. When I got there he was lying on his back in the grass outside the front entrance of the hospital. I guessed they had managed to kick him out of the waiting room. There was a plastic Safeway bag next to him. I pulled the headphone off one of his ears.

What are you doing? I asked him.

What are you doing? he asked me.

They called and said you weren’t going to leave until you saw Min. And you missed your first class. The school called too. And the neighbour guy is keeping your hatchets and you shouldn’t take the van if you don’t have a licence. Plus you were really drunk last night and Thebes and I had to put you to bed. Is this all normal or what? I’ve been here like seventeen hours. I sat down beside him on the grass.

I have some stuff for her and I wanted to give it to her, that’s it, he said.

What stuff?

Yogourt and some other stuff, he said. We decided to try going back in. We took the elevator to the sixth floor and banged on the locked glass doors to the psych ward. A nurse buzzed us in but with the very least amount of enthusiasm I have ever witnessed within the helping profession. She might have been brandishing a switchblade behind her stacks of patient folders.

Yes? she said.

Hi, I said. My name is Hattie Troutman. I’m Min’s sister. And this is Logan, her son. We were here yesterday when she was admitted and Logan would really like to give her a few things. They’re not flammable or sharp.

Visiting hours begin at 4 p.m., she said.

I know, I said. And then didn’t know what to say after that. I know, I said again. But can you make an exception just this once? He’s come all the way out here. He’s got yogourt and—

We provide our patients with meals, she said. We don’t need family to bring food from outside.

Yeah, I know, but—

You can leave the bag with me and I’ll give it to the patient after rounds. Logan started walking down the hall towards Min’s room. Excuse me! said the nurse.

He deked into Min’s room and disappeared, and the nurse got up from behind her files and flew after him. Bernie, the “good stuff” guy, saw her running and got up from his desk and followed her, and I followed him. Logan was sitting in a chair next to Min’s bed. He was hunched over her and wiping away tears with the rim of his hood. Min was asleep or looked that way anyway. Jeanette, her bald roommate, was there too, standing next to Logan and gently rubbing his back. She was still wearing her Superman T-shirt and her dark shades but this time she was also wearing pants.

Hey, buddy, she whispered. She took really deep, loud breaths. Hey, buddy. Things will work out.

She was a crazy, institutionalized superhero but still she was probably somewhat correct, and I was touched by her concern. Bernie and the nurse talked about their strict policies and the need to respect those policies and a bunch of other things that I wasn’t really listening to, although I repeatedly told them that I understood. I asked Bernie if I could speak to Min for a minute alone. Logan said he’d go back to the waiting room.

I put my face close to Min’s and told her again that I loved her. I told her what I had told her so many times when we were kids. You’ll be fine, I said, you’ll get better. I promise.

She opened her eyes and looked at me, but she didn’t say anything and she didn’t smile.

I told her I’d be right back. I just wanted to talk to her doctor for a minute. As I walked towards the door I heard her whisper my name, so I went back to her bed and said, Yeah? And she asked me please not to come back.

What? I said.

She mouthed the word sorry and then closed her eyes, and I just stood there staring at her.

But, Min, I said, I want to see you. That’s why I’m here. I want to be with you.

She opened her eyes again and whispered, No, Hattie, please don’t come back here. And don’t bring the kids, it’s too hard.

And that was it for her, no more talking, so I left.

I told Bernie I wanted to talk to Min’s doctor. He said Min’s doctor was busy with other patients at the moment. I told him I’d wait. Logan slowly, silently raised his middle finger to Bernie’s back and said, Good stuff, as Bernie walked away.

Hey, don’t, I said. I told Logan to take the van and go to school. Oh, and if anybody asked, to say he’d had a doctor’s appointment. Keep our stories straight. I’d get the scoop on Min and meet him at home.

I thought you didn’t want me driving without a licence, he said.

Yeah, I know, I said, but just be careful. Stay in your lane, don’t speed. Take your hood off. I reached out to pull it down, but he moved his head back and smiled.

Don’t, he said.

Keep the music down, too, I said.

Fine, said Logan. He bent over, reached under his chair and grabbed his basketball. He spun it on one finger and then threw it against the wall, against a What is Schizophrenia poster, caught it again, yanked his headphones up around his ears, and slid on out of there. The nurse behind the desk reminded Logan that this was a quiet zone, and he threw his ball gently against the elevator down-button. The doors opened, and he disappeared.

Min’s doctor told me that she was psychotic, entirely out of touch with reality, and it wouldn’t make any difference to her if she had visitors or not. It makes the family feel better when they visit but it does nothing for the patient, he said. In fact, I’ve found it distresses the patient more.

Are you sure? I asked him.

Uh, yes, he said, I’m quite sure. Anything else? he asked.

How long will she be here? I said.

Hard to say, he said. As soon as she begins to participate in her own care we’ll have something to talk about. But that seems a ways off.

I imagined a nice long, fireside chat with this guy. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but he had torpedoes to issue and other brains to jump-start and he’d given me enough face time. He smiled awkwardly, tapped his pen on his chart twice and began to walk away. I grabbed his arm and said, hey, thank you, have a great day, I’m sorry, and then he was gone.

When I got back to the house, Logan was there watching TV. And school? I asked him. I held out my hands.

Expelled, he said. You’re supposed to call them.

What? I said. What are you talking about?

Call them, he said. He stared at the TV. I could still make out the words Deborah Solomon, be my girlfriend written in the dust on the screen.

You tell me, I said. I sat down next to him and put my arm around his shoulders. He flinched but he didn’t move away. I stared at the TV with him. What do you like so much about Deborah Solomon? I asked him. He shrugged. No, really? The older woman thing? I asked.

No, he said.

What, then?

I don’t know, he said.

Well, what? I asked again.

She’s solid, he said, finally. And she doesn’t back away from shit.

So why were you expelled? I asked.

It was just…nothing, he said.

You got expelled for nothing? Like, your principal just pulls random names out of a hat.

Logan sighed. I felt his shoulder rise and collapse. Okay, he said. And then we had this conversation.

Logan: I was shooting hoops with this kid whose older brother is with The Deuce.

Me: Really?

Logan: Yeah.

Me: Oh. So. Hmm.

Logan: Yeah.

Me: Okay, so how was it?

Logan: Do you even know what The Deuce is?

Me: No. A gang?

Logan: Yeah. So did you know their colour is baby blue?

Me: Oh, that’s perfect.

Logan: What do you mean?

Me: The irony of it.

Logan: No. It’s just their colour.

Me: Well, it’s a nice one.

Logan: And the kid I was shooting hoops with was wearing a baby blue shirt.

Me: I thought colours weren’t allowed at your school.

Logan: Well, you can’t…it’s just a colour. You can’t really ban a—

Me: No, but, you know, explicit gang colours.

Logan: No.

Me: Okay, you’d know.

Logan: So, we’re there and—

Me: School property?

Logan: Yeah. Don’t say “school property.” I hate that expression.

Me: Okay.

Logan: We’re there and these guys come up to where we are, only I’m off a bit, a little away from them, and these guys are talking to the kid I’m playing with.

Me: Yeah?

Logan: And then he goes off a bit with them, over to the side, by the wall.

Me: Uh-huh.

Logan: And I can’t really hear what they’re saying or anything, but then a few minutes later he comes back and he tells me they took his shirt.

Me: The baby blue one?

Logan: Yeah, he had another one under it. Me: Oh, that’s good.

Logan: And his Walkman.

Me: Poor kid. All calm, just like that?

Logan: Yeah.

Me: Well, that’s scary. Did you go report it?

Logan: (Doesn’t say anything, just looks at me for a second.)

Me: What?

Logan: Okay. Hattie. This kid said they were I.P.

Me: So?

Logan: You don’t go to the principal’s office and say you just got robbed by the Posse.

Me: No? You don’t?

Logan: Okay. Hattie. What do you think would happen?

Me: I don’t know.

Logan: Yeah. Nothing. They don’t go to school.

Me: Well, he could phone the cops.

Logan: No.

Me: Well, I would.

Logan: No.

Me: No?

Logan: So then this kid said that they had a knife.

Me: Oh my god.

Logan: And then the kid said, Well, at least they didn’t see this.

Me: See what?

Logan: His binder.

Me: What would the I.P. do with a binder?

Logan: ’Cause it said “Posse Killers” on it.

Me: Oh my god. That kid is a deuce?

Logan: Not “a deuce.” Deuce.

Me: That kid’s Deuce?

Logan: No, that doesn’t sound right either.

Me: How about, is that kid a member of The Deuce?

Logan: Okay. No. But his older brother is.

Me: Okay. But, you know, I’m concerned that—

Logan: But this kid used to be in The Deuce.

Me: Really?

Logan: He just got out of jail.

Me: What? Seriously? You’re playing basketball with gangsters who’ve been in prison?

Logan: He’s a nice guy, though.

Me: Well, god, listen, Logan—

Logan: He’s trying to get his shit together.

Me: Hmmm. Well…

Logan: So anyway, I go back inside and like five minutes later on the P.A. it’s like, Logan Troutman, would you please come to the office, so I go and they say, Oh, we saw you playing basketball with certain individuals known to have gang ties and we’ve already warned you about this blahblahblah, and I’m like, So? I had a spare. And they’re like, That’s three strikes, you’re out. Lame.

Me: Really.

Logan: Mmm-hmmm.

Me: But like how were you technically supposed to know that they were in a gang? Or gangs, plural, whatever.

Logan: They obviously know I know.

Me: Oh.

I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but it seemed like we’d exhausted that point and it didn’t matter anyway.

We’re hitting the road, I said.

What road? he said.

You, me, Thebie, we’re going on a road trip, I said. We’re gonna look for Cherkis.

Logan stared at the TV like it was the only thing standing between him and eternal happiness. Like a retriever stares at a squirrel before all hell breaks loose. Then he loosened up.

Where? he asked.

I don’t know, I said. South Dakota…I’m not sure. I have one lead.

What do we do if we find him?

I don’t know, I said.

What do we do if we don’t find him?

I don’t know that, either, I said.

Awesome, he said. But why?

I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or not. Min wants us to, I said. It was her idea.

Really? said Logan. She never even talks about him.

I know, I said, but I think she understands now that she needs his help. We can phone her from the road.

I don’t know, said Logan.

What don’t you know? I asked.

Logan got up and walked to the kitchen.

I phoned the hospital again and asked to speak to Min. The nurse told me that Min did not want to talk to me. I know, I said, but I don’t think she means it.

She’d prefer not to see you, said the nurse.

What about her kids? I said.

Min doesn’t want any visitors, said the nurse.

I wasn’t surprised. I had refused to help her die and her kids reminded her of important reasons to live. She had done this before when she was deeply psychotic, turned her back, flipped us the bird, walked away. My parents once drove for days to the West Coast trying to find out where she’d disappeared to and when they got to her apartment she refused to open the door and then called the cops to say they were harassing her. There had been so many times that she told me never to call her again. I would come all the way from Paris to see her and she’d tell me to go to hell. I love you, Hattie, she’d say, but please go away. At first I was hurt and mystified. One time I waited all night in minus-twenty weather outside her front door, begging her to open it and let me in. I’d spent hours, days, following her around town, trying to get her to talk to me, to acknowledge me, to realize that all I wanted to do was help her. She phoned the cops and told them I was stalking her. I was used to it now. I understood. She would eventually change her mind, let me back into her life, and the temporary banishment would never be spoken of.

But this was the first time she’d refused to see her kids.

Logan came back into the living room and sat down on the couch. What don’t you know? I asked him again. He said he didn’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know? I said.

Well, he said, I’d kind of like not to be interrogated. I know that.

Do you mean you don’t know if we should be leaving Min? I asked him.

I don’t know, he said.

We’re obviously coming back, though, I said. I mean, you know, obviously.

I know, yeah, he said. Obviously.

But you just don’t know, I said.

Yeah.

Yeah…but I kind of know, I said.

No, you don’t, he said. But it doesn’t matter. He smiled sympathetically, then picked up a magazine and started to read.