All About Lulu (35 page)

I suppose before all of this is over, you’re going to want some type of accounting for my decision to drop everything—including what was shaping up to be a burgeoning, if not vaguely dissatisfying, future for Will the Thrill—and set out for Sausalito. You’ll probably want to know what I expected to gain by any of it, and if I don’t tell you, then you’ll probably just assume the answer is Lulu. But you’d be wrong, because I can’t honestly say that I allowed myself to believe for even one minute that I was actually going to claim Lulu’s heart. I was simply driven as a moth to
fl
ame. I could no more resist seeing Lulu than I could operate a hydraulic scissor lift blindfolded, or cure Klinefelter’s syndrome with a croquet mallet.

In my heart, I knew that the real question was not what did I expect to gain by going to Sausalito, but rather what did I stand to lose by not going to Sausalito. And the answer, of course—though I didn’t know it yet—was clarity.

Joe wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of covering my ass inde
fi
nitely, especially on such short notice. The very evening of my departure he was scheduled to party with a chick in Cerritos who worked at Stereo Lab.

“Dude, she looks like Kim Basinger. Except she’s got braces.”

Indeed, it was a big night for Joe—preparations were in order.

And I was really gumming up the works. He wanted to polish his rims
fi
rst. He had to square off his sideburns and gel his thinning hair. He wanted to stop by Sam Goody and pick up the new Whitney Houston.

“Chicks dig Whitney Houston, dude. I’m gonna bang this chick, for sure. No way, I’m closing.”

“I tell you what, guys,” Eugene interjected, stocking the napkin dispenser. “I close.” He clicked the chrome cover shut. “Joe, you go have party wis chick, and Will, it’s not to worry about. Is no problem. It freshes me to stay late. I am winding down when I am closing.” He gave the chrome surface one
fi
nal wipe for good measure, checked his re
fl
ection in it, and replaced it on the counter. “I cover for you tomorrow, too. As many days as you need. Sree Muskateers stick together. You want also I feed your cat?”

“He’s dead, Eugene. He doesn’t eat.”

“I leave bowl of milk, anyway.”

“Look, Eugene, the thing is, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t even know why I’m going, really, or how long I’m staying. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I may need a lot of covering for a while. I just don’t know.”

He waved it off. “Bah! For however long you are talking, is no problem. We build Hot Dog Heaven so we can make for this kind of freedom.”

Good old Eugene. I think he knew all along I was in love with my stepsister. All those hours he spent listening to me as we diced onions side by side, all that talk about Lulu, surely he intuited it. Somewhere in his Russian soul, he understood the complexities without knowing them, I’m almost sure of it. I really loved that guy. I loved it when he called me
Will Za Srill
. It was never the least bit ironic—it was always genuine. It made me feel like somebody. I’m not sure that anyone ever believed in me more, or ever expected more of me, than Eugene Gobernecki. So how do you thank a person like that? How do you thank a person who never asks for anything more than a little solidarity in return, a little companionship, a guy who would walk to the end of the earth for you—and then cook you a duck once he got there? Maybe you never thank him, maybe you just mean to. That’s all I ever did. And I’m just guessing, but I’ll bet at the end of the road, when I’m cashing in my regrets, I’m going to wish I thanked Eugene Gobernecki for being the
fi
rst real friend I ever had.

“And whatever you do,” he shouted from behind the counter as I was leaving, “don’t crash za Srill Mobile.”

Maybe I should have stuck by Eugene, maybe I owed him that.

Maybe together we could’ve taken China by storm, or maybe just gone bankrupt trying, like he did. But that was not my destiny. I’ve always suspected that Eugene had an inkling my journey north was the
fi
rst step in my incremental disassociation with Hot Dog Heaven.

I can’t really say that I had an inkling myself. Certainly I had no inkling that I would allow Eugene Gobernecki to slip away for good—not by design, or by any act of agency, but simply by the force of changing winds.

Last I heard, in the wake of the Chinese hot dog debacle, Eugene had moved up near Torrance and started a hugely successful lawn maintenance service with none other
than Joe Tuttle. Two muske
teers. I saw a TV commercial for Heavenly Gardens late one night during a Clippers rebroadcast. It was one of those shoestring budget commercials, where the colors are all blown out, and the audio sucks, and the graphics leave ghostly tracers in their wake. Despite his thinning hair and some new wrinkles, he was the same little potato of a guy; his gold tooth was still gleaming, the light of optimism still showing in his silvery eyes. And, by God, he still knew how to sell it—whether it was hot dogs or hedge trimming—that is to say, Eugene knew how to believe.

“So, why you waiting for, then?” he asked. “Why you not calling Heavenly Gardens right now? Heavenly Gardens making
your
garden out of this world!”

At the end of the commercial, they left the camera trained on Eugene at least two beats too long. But his smile never wilted. His tooth kept gleaming.

On that Wednesday in August when I left Hot Dog Heaven, I was inside of myself, knowing and forgetful at the same time. I shot like a gray bullet through the basin and over the grapevine and right up the gut of the Central Valley with the hot gritty wind in my face. The Dodgers were in Cincinnati, I remember, still three and a half games up on Atlanta in the West. I lost Jaime Jarrin in the third somewhere north of Bakers
fi
eld, and I was forced to listen to Vin Scully, my old god, on KNBC. I had to admit it was comforting to hear his voice again, warm and steady with a touch of the nasal. A voice to lean into, whose calm authority and unwavering con
fi
dence called down out of the ether, inspiring a sense of well-being in an increasingly chaotic universe.

The Dodgers were up two–zip when I lost Scully around Kettle-man City. After that I just listened to my thoughts and the riotous wind rocketing past my ears. And crossing the Golden Gate into Sausalito I tried harder than ever to see the future. All I saw was a tollbooth.

The sun had already set when I reached Willow’s condo, which looked identical to the condo next to it, with the lone exception of a lighted walkway.

Big Bill’s girth soon
fi
lled the doorway, a nimbus of light from the foyer wrapped around his head. He wore a beard, with little
fl
ecks of gray. The ponytail was gone. His hair was lopped off in an even line in back, like he cut it with a buck knife. He wore his bangs like Ray Conniff. My people are shape-shifters, I guess. You never really get used to it. I could hear the television in the living room, and something smelled like onions.

He looked down at me and shook his head grimly. “Darnit, Tiger, you driving up here doesn’t change a thing.”

“I want to see Lu.”

“She needs rest. We’ve been through this for weeks. Now I’m sorry, I really am. I wish I—look, let me give you some money for a ho—better yet, let’s go to dinner
fi
rst, you and me.”

“I’m not hungry. Let me in, Dad, I have to see her. You have to let me see her.”

“I can’t do that, Will. I promised your sister. C’mon, we’ll talk about it at dinner.”

I tried to push my way past him into the house, but he blocked my way, clutching one of my wrists. Breaking free of his grip, I took a step back, and no sooner did I step back than I rushed him again.

But he caught my head under his arm and held it there in a rather gentle headlock, as if my head were an Egyptian vase, until I stopped squirming. He released me slowly and stood me up straight, holding me at arm’s length. He smiled sympathetically.

“Not now,” he said. “Give it some time, Tiger. Give your sister a couple of weeks to recover. You’re not helping her by being here. I know that may sound harsh, but that’s the truth.”

“You can’t do this.”

“I’ve got no choice. Now c’mon, we’ll grab a bite and get you a hotel.”

I tried to rush past him again, and he restrained me in a bear hug. He lifted me, effortlessly, it seemed, and carried me kicking and squirming outside to the driveway, where he set me down like a mannequin. His patience was wearing thin.

“It’s over,” he said. His shortest ending yet.

I darted past him for the door. He clotheslined me from behind and tackled me. We tumbled across the walkway,
fl
attening the low hedges on our way to the grass, where the sprinkler was making its rounds. I was no match for Big Bill. Despite his girth, he was quick. I tried to roll away through the soggy grass, but he had me covered. He sat on my stomach and pinned my arms to the ground and looked down into my face. I struggled halfheartedly to free myself. We were both breathing heavily. I could smell his aftershave. He had onions on his breath.

“We need to talk,” he said.

We crossed the bridge silently until about midspan. After a year, the minivan still smelled new. Big Bill looked more hulking than ever behind the wheel. My back was wet, my pride smarted. I was an incorrigible prisoner, beaten but not defeated.

“Where are we going?”

“The city,” he said.

“Where in the city?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t got that far. The Haight, I guess.”

“Goodie. What for?”

“To talk.”

“Why do we have to go to Haight-Ashbury to talk? Why not the living room?”

What did it say about the Millers that we were forever driving off somewhere to talk? Anxiety drove us to the open road. At the
fi
rst sign of crisis we were off and running, over bridges, into deserts, always into our past.

No sooner had I asked than Big Bill provided the answer.

“I don’t know. Just because.”

I gazed sullenly out the passenger window, away from the twin-kling city and out over the mutinous Paci
fi
c toward the horizon.

Big Bill released the breath he’d been holding. “Will
…
sometimes life comes at you pretty fast. Things happen. Sometimes a lot of things at once. You’ve got to manage it all somehow so that you don’t lose everything. You try to do the right thing, but sometimes there’s not a right thing. Sometimes just a less-wrong thing.” He cast a sidelong glance at me. There was something hopeful in it.

“Keep talking,” I said.

“Okay. Good,” he said. “Good.” He was gripping the wheel tightly.

His knuckles looked old. There were blue spots on his hand. The muscles of his forearm had grown sinewy. “I just need you to understand that
…
I thought I was
…
I didn’t know that— Oh, Christ, Will, all of this is my fault. It was a big mistake, all of it. Not telling you, letting things go on so long like they did.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Lulu. I’m talking about
…
”

“What about her?”

“Oh, Will, damnit, all about her,” he groaned.

“Such as what?”

“Such as
…
” He broke off to sigh, and when he did his throat rattled. “Such as you’ve got to let go of her, son. You’ve just got to. It’s just not healthy. It’s not
…
right.”

“What’s not right?”

“The letters, the notebooks, the rest of it. Yes, I’ve read them, Will. I know. I’ve known. I should’ve put a stop to it years ago.”

“
Years?
You’ve known for years?”

“I thought it would pass. It didn’t. Now it has to. You’ve got to stop loving your sister the way you do.”

“She’s not my sister.”

“She’s your
half
sister.”

“So what?”

“No, Will,” he said, leveling a meaningful gaze at me. “Listen to me:
half
sister.” He gave the statement a moment to sink in. His eyes were drooping like a bloodhound. “I’m her father.”

Abruptly, the green of the Presidio closed in on both sides of us.

My ears started ringing. You really can’t assume the conformity of the future with the past. Sometimes there’s an invisible line between cause and effect.

“I did it to protect your mother,” he said. “She never knew.”

“What are you saying? You did what?”

“I was going to
…
I intended
…
we intended, Willow and I, as soon as you were old enough, to
…
explain it all.”

“So what happened to that plan?”

“You’ve got to understand, Tiger, when your mother died
…

you lost so much. I couldn’t see depriving you of something you never knew you had in the
fi
rst place. What good would it have done? All this explaining about the past? It would only create more confusion. And there was confusion, Will. Chaos. And if it hadn’t been for Willow—”

“And what’s her excuse?”

“She doesn’t need one. She wanted you to know all along, ever since Annie died, anyway. She wanted Lulu to know.”

“So she told her.”

“No. Yes. It was Vanessa, Grammy. She let something slip. Lulu started asking questions.”

“Vermont.”

“Yes.”

“Jesus. Well, what—how come—at that point, why the hell—”

“You were your mother’s son, Will. You were her pride and joy.

Her little man.”

“Forget about me! Forget about Mom! What about Lulu? She didn’t deserve to know who her father was?”

“It was the only way.”

“How? How was it the only way? How was it that I got the honor of having you as a father, while Lulu got to
fi
nd out when she was
fi
fteen years old that the guy she thought was her new stepdad is the father who never claimed her in the
fi
rst place! How is that the only way?”

“There’s more to it than you understand. It was more complex.

I just didn’t ever want you to think
…
” He trailed off into a dense silence.

We hit the tunnel in a rush of sickly light. Everything I never understood about Lulu was illuminated in an instant—her eternal ambivalence and her maddening evasion, all of it had a context at last. The little girl in the yellow socks had died in Vermont, and poor Lulu had been changing ever since. People really do change. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. That the future does not conform to the past is not the exception, but the rule.

By the time we emerged at the far end of the tunnel, I understood for the
fi
rst time, with excruciating clarity, everything that Lulu endured, all that she owned in the name of illusion. I understood why she mutilated herself and dis
fi
gured herself, and why she ultimately tried to destroy herself. She did it all to push me away. To make herself ugly so I wouldn’t want her. That’s how much she loved me.

And I thanked her by never relenting, no matter how hard she tried to repel me.

Neither Big Bill nor I ventured to speak again until we were skirt-ing the park on Fulton.

“To think what?” I said. “What didn’t you want us to think?”

“That I was unfaithful to your mother. That I ever loved anyone else, that I ever loved any of you less than completely.”

“
Were
you unfaithful?”

He didn’t answer right off. He swung a right on Stanyan and continued down the hill. “No,” he said. “Yes. Technically, once. It was
…

there was more to it than—it was an ending with Willow. It wasn’t a
fl
ing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I dated Willow before your mother. It means she introduced me to your mother at a party on Oak Street, not four blocks from here. They were good friends, best friends at the time. That was 1967, the beginning of the end. It was awkward, Will. We were all friends for a while, and
…
damnit, I don’t know, it’s all so complex, and so far in the past.” Big Bill squinted, as though trying to intimate the past. “You’ve just got to understand,” he continued. “Willow and I were on different paths at the time. We were broken up. It just
…
happened one night. It shouldn’t have. I loved your mother so much, and Willow knew that, she loved her too. She was okay with raising Lulu by herself. She was. She told me that. She wanted a child, not a husband.”

He hung a left at the golden arches. “I always sent support for Lulu, every month for ten years. Your mother never knew that, either.”

“If you loved Mom so much, why didn’t you tell her anything?”

“I couldn’t tell her.”

“Why not? Why couldn’t you tell her?”

“She was pregnant with you, and we were getting married, and it just seemed
…
”

I turned away, looked out the window. “It wasn’t fair to Lulu. It was a dirty trick.”

“I only meant to
…
I thought I was doing the right thing, Will.

I thought it would work.”

“Work? What does that mean, work? That you’d get away with it?”

“No. Not
…
I don’t know. I didn’t want to muddle things. I loved your mother more than I ever—look, I didn’t want to screw it up.”

“If you didn’t want to
muddle
things, you should have kept your dick in your pants in the
fi
rst place!”

He stopped the car in the middle of Haight Street and looked out his side window at nothing. “Okay,” he said calmly. “I deserved that.”

“Of course you did! And why didn’t you tell me Lulu was pregnant? Why did I have to hear it from Troy?”

Big Bill piloted the van slowly forward, then stopped again and looked me dead in the eye. “Because that was
Lulu
and
Troy’s
business, now, wasn’t it?”

And what could I say to that w
ithout laying bare my own shame
ful secret?

We parked on Cole Street and sat in the darkened car without speaking. Silence is the sound that gravity makes. I was comfortably numb, strangely peaceful and accepting, like a guy who’s fallen off a cliff and broken his neck and lies in the dust watching the buzzards pinwheel above him. I was outside myself again in the silence.

After a moment Big Bill started drumming incessant little rhythms on the steering wheel with his
fi
ngers.

“Stop,” I said.

He stopped. But the silence had
fl
ed.

“I’m sorry,” he said.