All Families Are Psychotic (4 page)

was the last time he'd seen another family member.

The fligh t attendant took his empty beer can away for landing . Within an hour, around tw o o'clock in the afternoon , as the rain drizzled out in the parking lot, he was in his old drinking haunt, the Avalon.

Down the bar, Wade noticed a cute blond with a whiff of a mean streak abou t her pantomiming a 1950s starlet sneaking peeks at John Wayne in her powder compact. He laughed in spite of himself, and mimed a
Who me?
response. She wagged a naugh ty-naugh ty finger at him through her mirror . Wade moved over to the stool beside her, whereupon she said, 'Oh my, the
wolves
in this city.'

'Geez, you movie stars.'

'You have a thing against us hard-working girls of stage and screen?' 'Excuse me for interrup ting your beauty cocktail.'

She snapped her compact shut and turned to him, saying, Til have you kno w, I had tw o lines in a motion picture just this morning .'

'Oh, excuse me again. What motion picture migh t this have been?'

She placed her hands on his knees, looked him in the face and said, 'A godawf ul hunka shit for some junky American cable netw ork. Mind if I sip your scotch?'

'Go righ t ahead.'

She downed it. 'You live here?' 'Used to. Not any more.'

'Where now then?' 'Las Vegas.'

' Mmm. Charming . So tell me . . .' 'Wade.'

'So tell me,
Wade,
what are you addicted to?' 'What do you mean?'

'You kno w what I mean.' 'Do I?'

'You live in Las Vegas, your eyes are blood shot and I saw you diddling around with coins on the coun ter like John Q. Barfly. You don ' t shave regularly, because if you did, your skin would be tougher and you

wouldn ' t have the' — one, tw o, three, four, she coun ted them — 'nicks on your neck. You're also in a pub in the middl e of a weekday and you're ji ttery, but your drink s aren' t really quenching the ji tters. So I'd hazard a guess you're into a thing or tw o.'

'Pussy-pussy,
don ' t be so
negative.
Let's focus on the good stuff, like the six million twelve-step meetings I've seen in my time.'

'You mean, let's find the
joy
in your situation.' 'Yes. The joy.'

'Are you staying at the hotel here?' 'Yeah.'

Withou t another word they went up to Wade's room. Two hours later the blond was gone, her cell phone number penned onto the base of Wade's righ t thumb. She was a decorator. Stoked by sex, Wade felt

strong enough to call his family. He dialed his mother and got her machine:
Hi, this is Janet. I'm not in

righ t now, so please leave a message and I'll get back to you in a ji ffy.
It was her poli te voice, the one she used when speaking with checkou t clerks and the insurance man, never with the family.

Beep

' Mom, Wade here. Yes, your firstborn male child. Guess what — I'm in town. Yes, that's correct, the

stranger returns. I'll call you later tonigh t or maybe I could just stop by and say hello. And, uh, Mom — it 's not too good an idea to leave your name on a machine like that. The world 's full of creeps. See you soon. Love ya.'

He hung up:
I'm a bad son, a bad, bad son.
He looked up his father's number,
Drummond , Edward B.,

apparently living a few miles away from Janet in Eagleridge, doub tless in one of that neighborhood 's gee- whiz cli ff side houses. 'Dad?'

'Wade? Hello ! '

'Hey, Dad.'

'Wade, where are you — wait, you're not in troubl e, are you?'

'No. No troubl e. I just got into town and though t I'd come visit. I'm not
always
on the lam.' 'Come on over. Where are you staying?'

'In North Van. With friends.' Best keep an excuse within arm's reach. 'Come visit. I'm over in Eagleridge these days. Meet the wife.

High way exit number tw o. It 's a no-brainer. You got the address from the phone book. Come on over.' 'Now? Sure. I guess.'

'We're having Chinese tonigh t.' 'I'll be there in twenty minu tes.' 'Wade—'

'Yeah, Dad?'

'Nice to hear your voice again.' 'You, too, Dad.'

Wade left for his father's house in a rental car. His driving was lazy and he had a mild hangover from earlier on. Sheets of rain kept dumping , intense at times, never stopping .

Dad — oh, man. Still the hypocritical prick acting out some corny 1960s idea of manhood.
Wade knew

that his father had dropp ed his mother qui te cruelly and was now living the li fe of Mr. Salt-and-Pepper Chest Hair, with his shir ts wide open, his gol f clubs leaned just inside the fron t door, and a trophy wife somewhere in the near distance plopping a Gipsy Kings CD into a slot.

Wade felt that at a certain poin t in their lives, most people passionlessly assess what they have and what they lack — and then go abou t making the best of it — like an actor who goes from playing leads to

playing character roles; like a party girl who goes from being a zany kook to being a cautionary tale for

the younger girl s. Wade believed that the adul t world is a world of Ted Drummond s, and Wade hoped his father would be proud that his son understood this.

He arrived at the house, which was an event in itself — glass and steel and concrete blocks inset into a cli ff overlooking the Pacific. Wade half expected to find his father in an eye-patch overlooking a backli t map of the world, stroking a white Persian cat and planning ICBM attacks on New York. Instead Ted

opened the door, shou ted 'Wade,' and hugged his son so hard Wade though t blood would squeeze out of his pores like juice. 'Come on in. Have a look around . Quite a place, eh? I got sick of that suburbi a crap.'

Ted poured generous drink s for them. He'd obviously been to a gym and somebody hip was shopping for his wardrob e. And then Wade saw a flash in his father's eyes. The flash said,
It 's all shit, Wade, just don' t say the words out loud, because then even the shit goes away and we're left with nothing.

Drinks in hand they took a tour of the main floor, high ceiling ed and enclosed in glass, on which the rain continued to drum. The fact that Ted had yet to mention any other family member was leaving Wade feeling a touch disoriented.
Who is this old guy? What am I doing in his James Bond living room?

Wade asked, 'Where's, uh, your wife?'

If Ted was awkward abou t Wade meeting her, he didn ' t let on. 'Nickie? She'll be downstairs in a second. She's just in from work.' 'She works, huh?'

'You kno w these modern young ponies. Keep them in the corral and they get testy. They've just gotta have their jobs.'

'Huh. You don ' t say.'

An awkward silence draped them. Ted asked when Wade's fligh t had arrived.

'Around noon. I'd have called sooner, but I got waylaid with a piece of action from the bar down at the Av.' This seemed to arouse his father's conversational energy, and Wade found himself needing to please his father, so he gave him a soft-core version of the events. Ted hit him on the should er with a that's-my-

boy slap.

From the ki tchen there came a tinkling sound. 'Nickie!' said Ted. 'Come on in and meet your son.'

Nickie came in, carrying a tray of martinis, an ironi c smile on her face parodying the demure wifeliness of the 1950s that Janet had once believed in. Wade quickly saw that Nickie was the afternoon 's blond ; the

insigh t was reciprocal. Their faces blanched; the martini tray lurched sideways, glasses toppling onto the polished slate floor. Ted and Wade stepped forward and awkwardly helped Nickie pick up glass shards, whereupon Ted saw Nickie's cell number penned onto Wade's hand.

Wade walked straigh t to the fron t door, got into his car and drove off, heading for home — Janet's house. Janet was in the driveway removing groceries from her car in the rain.
Mom -ditched by her

ingrate family, mateless and brave.
Wade's brain ri fled through a billion images, selecting those that spoke of his mother — Janet using canned mushroom s to enliven a pot of spaghett i sauce and

enculturate her bru tes, only to see her family pick them out and mock them; Janet sneaking a twenty-

dollar bill into Wade's electric gui tar fund; Janet feeding the backyard sparro ws crumbl ed-up melba toast when she though t nobod y was looking —
Mom!

Janet saw Wade, shou ted his name and cried. Wade held her close to him.

' Mom, just so you kno w, Dad's going to be pretty pissed off with me, and he migh t well come looking for me.'

'Did you steal from him — or do you owe him money?' 'Neither.'

'Then why should he — oh, who
cares')
He deserves whatever you thro w him. Have you eaten yet? Come in! Have you had dinner? Oh there's so
much
I want to ask you abou t, and there's so much for you to catch up on.'

She made a delicious pasta primavera —
God, I miss home cooking —
and Wade fell qui te eff ortlessly into his version of Wade Ten Years Ago. But throughou t the jokes and fun and memories, he had the

sensation that within the past few hours his li fe had morph ed into a horror movie, and that this was the sequence where the axe murderer is outside the house, scoping out the patsies, while the audience

squirm s and shou ts,
'Leave,
you idio ts! '

The doorb ell rang and Wade nearly jumped out of his skin. It was Bryan, his depressed bro ther, in

drenched thri ft store clothing —
still, at his age —
in need of a shave, his eyes blood shot, all crowned with a finely maintained mullet hairdo.

'Bryan, you ring the doorb ell at Mom's house?' 'It was locked.'

'OK. Hi.'

'Hi.'

An awkward silence follo wed as Bryan removed his soaked pea coat and threw it onto a chair. 'So much for formalities,' said Wade. 'Are you hungr y? There's tons of food.'

'Nah. Wine would be nice, though .'

Bryan seemed to be in good enough spiri ts and had a glass of white wine with Janet and Wade. Wade had the impression that none of the three was being particularly truthful, and the lack of truth was making the conversation wooden. They stuck to neighborhood gossip and Sarah's career, yet Wade was aware of the deeper, unasked questions:
Is Mom imploding with loneliness? Is Bryan on the verge of

another meltdown? And you'd think Dad never existed. And why don' t they ask me about my li fe? Not that I'd tell them but geez
—

Wade broke the conspiracy of silence. 'Bryan,' he said, 'you've tried to off yourself, what — three times?

— and never got it righ t. Are you sure you really
do
want to off yourself?' Janet said, 'Wade! Don' t go giving him fresh impetus.'

'No, Mom — it 's good to be talking abou t it like this,' Bryan said. 'Everybody pretends I never did anything, but I did.' He registered the looks his mother and bro ther gave him. 'I can see that you're

wondering if I'm going to try it again. And the answer is no. But then these
moods
hit me. Shit. I don ' t kno w any more.' He sloshed around what li tt le wine remained in his glass. 'It 's depressing to think that

my moods aren' t even remotely cosmic, that all they are is the result of lazy li tt le seratonin receptors in my brain.'

'Are you taking anything for it — your depression?'

'I've taken everything. I don ' t think I'll ever reset my brain back to zero again.' Janet said, 'Bryan is working .'

'Really? Where?' Wade asked.

'I play bass in bar bands, and the TV commercial work is pretty steady. I get by. A nine-to-five job would

really
do me in.'

The doorb ell rang. The three of them stared down the hall at the fron t door as though the next few seconds were beyond their control, like an eclipse. Bryan went to answer it.
Whoomp !
Ted charged past Bryan, booming , 'Where is that sleazy li tt le fuck?' Nickie burst through the door moments after him, her Nissan Pathfinder parked akimbo on the fron t lawn just outside the door. She was shou ting, 'Ted, don ' t be a moron . It 's not as big a deal as you're making it.
Shit.'

Ted's face was bruise-colored in fury. Wade had dealt with Ted's anger more times than he could coun t. His instinct was to pro tect his mother. He stood up and placed himself between the tw o. He said, 'Dad, calm down!' but instead Ted raised a .233 and shot Wade through the side of his stomach. The bullet passed through him and lodged inside Janet's righ t lung, entering just below the ribcage.

'Jesus, Ted!' Nickie came toward Wade, who was clutching his side, his blood puddling freely there in the ki tchen.

Wade was incredulou s. 'Ten years in the States and nothing happens. I'm in Canada for eigh t hours and—' He heard a
thunk
and turned around to see Janet on the floor. 'You shot Mom, you goddamn freak! Jesus

— Bryan, call 911. Dad, you're gonna bake in prison the rest of your li fe. I hope it was worth it.' He bent down to cradle Janet.

Sirens were audibl e almost instantly. Ted slumped on a plastic ki tchen chair, swaying, white as paper. Wade screamed out, 'OK it was an accident — everyone got that? An
accident.
He was trying to show us his Clin t-fucking-Eastw ood gun moves, and he didn ' t kno w the gun was loaded. End of story.' He looked down at Janet, saying, 'Sorry, Mom -it 's my fault. I'm sorry.'

Nickie forced Ted to remain seated. He was stuttering, his head between his knees. Bryan put down the phone and came over to Wade and his mother. He squatted on the floor beside them. 'God, Wade,' he said, 'I'd
kill
to be murdered.' Paramedics banged through the door.

Howie drove up to the fron t of Janet's motel, looking angry and distracted. As far as Janet could remember, this lack of spaniel good cheer was a first. For a quick moment she hoped that the drive to

NASA could be interesting. She wouldn ' t have to hear abou t lively meals with the space-crazy Brunswick family, or the weather, or string or pebbles or lin t or starling s or regular sugar versus sugar cubes — or

just abou t anything that popped through Howie's brain. 'Good morning , Janet — another beautiful day in F.L.A.'