Blazed (16 page)

“Me too,” James goes.

“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK
so far, son?”

Me and my father, we're in his Benz again driving to the restaurant, just the two of us, while the National plays from the speakers.

And I'm stoked about this. The music, I mean. It's cool my father likes the National. They're one of my favorite bands. I guess my mother, despite despising every ounce of my father, was telling the truth after all about how rad his musical tastes are.

“Your house is nice,” I say. “The maids are cool. Rad car.” I shrug. “It's okay.”

“That's it,” he says.

“Yeah,” I groan. “What were you expecting me to say? Thanks for picking me up at the airport and listening to Pulp before you went to bed last night.”

He laughs. “You heard that.”

“Duh, dude.”

We stop at a red light. “Okay,” he goes. “I'm sure you hate me and don't want to be here, but could you do me one favor?”

I don't say anything. I just look at him and fold my arms.

“Address me as something other than ‘dude' or ‘man' or whatever else. I know I haven't been a part of your life, Jaime, but I am your father.”

I roll my eyes. “Why should I care what you want me to call you?”

“I'm only asking, son.”

“Fine,” I say. “Deal.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I'll address you differently as long as you address me as something other than son.”

I watch his jaw clench. He appears to be agitated, but it's only fair. To me at least.

“We have a deal?” I go.

“Sure,” he says. “Deal, son—I mean, Jaime. We have a deal.”

“Great, Justin.”

My father turns left onto Market Street, which is really busy right now.

He says, “Kristen told me you guys had a nice visit last night.”

“She's great,” I say. “I like her a lot. She seems to really appreciate all the nice things she has. Must be nice for her.”

“Jaime,” my father says. “Come on now. Don't start this.”

“I'm not starting anything,” I tell him.

“I give your mother two thousand dollars a month in child support, and I send you a check for a thousand dollars every birthday and Christmas.”

My body goes numb. This ringing in my ears starts now. Like someone's punched me in the gut or the back of my head. I've never seen a thousand-dollar check from my father. I've never even seen a goddamn card from my father. But I don't say anything about that. Instead, I take a deep breath and keep in mind what my mother has told me about him. How he's the world's biggest liar and how he's selfish and such a dick.

I say, “It doesn't matter anyway. It's not like I'm jealous of Kristen. My life is dope back in Joliet.”

“That's good,” my father tells me. “Your mother is a wonderful person. Despite all of our problems and what happened in the past, Morgan has one of the best souls in the world. When we found out that she was pregnant, to this day, I have never seen someone look so happy. She was beyond thrilled, Jaime. That look on her face was pure joy. She gave me a hug and squeezed my neck and went, ‘There's gonna be a little us running around. What a dream. We're going to have the most beautiful child in the world, and he's going to have the best life.' ”

Tears form in my father's eyes and he looks to his left, away from me, and wipes them.

“I know it hasn't been the best life, Jaime. God, I wish so many things had happened differently. But I look at you, and you're handsome and healthy and so talented, from what your mother has said, and I couldn't be prouder of anyone.”

“Ha,” I say. “That's rich. It's been fourteen years since you got that news about me. Fourteen damn years. And now I'm seeing you. Now I know what my father looks like, what his voice sounds like, how he dresses. I don't care how hard you try and revise the past in order to look good in my eyes this week. All that stuff happened. It happened and you can't change what you've done. No amount of money or words can change the way you treated someone else. What you did to someone else. Okay?”

“You've only heard one side, Jaime.”

“Shut up,” I say. “Just stop. Nothing you say can justify what really happened that night. So don't even try.”

My father doesn't say anything. I can actually hear his grip on the steering wheel tighten. See his knuckles turn white.

“Do you understand that?” I go.

“Sure,” he whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome,” I say. “Thanks for working with me on that . . . dude.”

I put my shades back on and stick two fingers into the tiny pocket on the right side of my jeans and touch the two blues inside it.

Everything is better now.

I wish more of life was this way.

THE CIGAR BAR & GRILL. IT'S
on the edge of the Financial District. A valet takes the keys from my father immediately after we pull up, and the two of us, we head down a steep set of stairs and walk through a heated patio full of men in expensive suits, smoking cigars and drinking cocktails.

A hostess takes us to a large room that's been reserved by my father just for this dinner party.

Also, everyone on the staff we've encountered knows who my father is. The hostess, this pretty Latina girl with short hair and big brown eyes, even winks at my father.

She winks twice, actually, and looks back over her shoulder at him before she leaves the room.

This server hands my father a glass of red wine and tells him it's a Malbec, then asks me what I'd like to drink. I order a Coke.

Leslie is here already with two other couples. She's wearing this purple strapless dress with a slit on the left side, leaving her thigh and the “stay up” part of her stocking exposed.

My father introduces me to his friends, including the other founding member of my father's hedge fund and his wife. The other couple work out at Bay Club San Francisco, this super-nice health club in the city.

They ask me all this cheesy question bullshit, like what do I think about the city so far and if I'm excited to be in the city and if I hate my father yet.

That last question is sorta relevant and funny, I guess.

But I spare that man the embarrassment and say, “You can't hate someone you don't know, right?”

It's the most honest way to answer that question without being a total dick about it.

Still, though, a moment of total awkwardness definitely follows this answer and only dissolves when two different servers bring in these two big trays of appetizers, which they set on a small table a few feet from ours.

They're followed by the first server, who hands me my Coke and sets two more bottles of wine—a red and a white—on the table. He opens them both and pours a small sample into two different glasses for my father to breathe and taste.

My father tips the three servers twenty bucks each.

“Help yourself to some food, Jaime,” Leslie tells me.

There's a quesadilla platter on one tray and what I'm told are house-made tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa sides on the other.

I grab a plate and place a tiny bit from both trays on it and sit down.

Kristen finally shows up. Thank fucking god for her. I'm pretty sure she's drunk, too, and possibly high with the way she's talking really fast and rubbing her nose. She even checks her nostrils for powder residue with a glance at the back of a spoon.

She's with her boyfriend, that dude Tyler, and he's a real fucking treat too.

Dude's about as tall as my father. He's got thick black hair that's parted cleanly from the left to right, the sides about an inch shorter, with a fucking lightning bolt shaved into the left side of it.

Lame.

He's wearing a Cal-Berkeley letterman's jacket with a charcoal-colored cardigan and a deep black V-neck underneath that. Also tight purple jeans that are rolled past his ankles, a pair of black TOMS, and a large gold chain that hangs past the middle of his chest.

My father is, like, the happiest person ever right now. He practically tackles Tyler and they hug and high-five, and I look up at Kristen. Her jaw is pretty alive right now, and she flashes me a smile and points at my father and Tyler and then makes a gun with her right hand and shoves it in her mouth, squeezing the fake trigger with her thumb.

She's wearing skintight black jeans, a white Nirvana T-shirt that's two sizes too big, and a brown cardigan the same size as her shirt, with darker brown patches over the elbows. A black bandanna hangs from her neck.

My father introduces Tyler to me. I stand up and he extends his hand and goes, “There he is.”

“Excuse me?”

“There you are. The kid I've had to hear about all day. I'm Tyler,” he snaps.

“What up?” I decide not to shake his hand and shove my hands in my pocket. “Sorry you
had
to hear about me all day, dude. Hope it didn't impede too much on whatever . . . ya know, whatever it is you were doing.”

My father jumps in and goes, “Don't be offended by his bluntness.”

I make a face and look at Leslie, who says nothing. Just takes a drink of wine and looks at the ground.

“He gets that from his mother.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” I snap.

“Jaime,” Kristen says. She turns her hand to the side and moves it back and forth real quick.

Dude's a dick. I can tell.

“Anyway,” my father goes. “We've got some hors d'oeuvres and some wine. Help yourself.”

I sit back down.

Tyler glares at me.

I glare back.

“Thank you, Mr. Miles,” he says. He picks up a bottle of wine and pours a glass.

I'm wondering if anyone besides Kristen knows he's a drug dealer. I'd never say anything, cos narcing is bullshit,
but I wonder if they know at all or if Kristen and him lie about it to my father and Leslie and make up some kind of ridiculous story about what he does for work and how hard his days are sometimes and his plans for the future.

But as I'm processing through all the scenarios, I watch my father and his hedge fund partner pull Tyler aside. I see Tyler nod and my father smile, and then I watch the three of them leave the room together without telling anyone.

Kristen sits down across from me.

“Is that what I think it is?” I ask her.

“My boyfriend selling coke to your father and Mark?”

“Yeah.”

Her lips squeeze together, and she nods. “It sure is. Justin's been texting Tyler for the last hour to make sure he's coming.”

“Jesus,” I go. “How does that happen?”

Kristen laughs out loud. She pours herself a glass of wine and says, “Your father was looking for it one night. This was a year ago, probably. Him and my mother were drinking before a David Byrne show in Oakland, and me and Tyler happened to walk into the house right before their car service showed up. Justin just asked if we knew anyone who could get them some cocaine. He said his normal guy moved to New York. I never knew he had a normal guy. Like, I already assumed they did coke. I've seen Baggies laying out upstairs. I've seen both of them walking
out of bathrooms together at parties and restaurants just sweating and talking all fast. Like, duh, ya know. When Tyler said he had some, I thought I was going to get sick. I couldn't believe it. But they didn't even bat an eye. They've never said anything to me about it. I guess as long as I've got that 3.8 GPA and kicking ass with my clothes, it doesn't matter that my boyfriend deals coke, which means that I'm probably doing it too. It's crazy. They've been letting me drink since I was fourteen.”

“Damn,” I go.

“It's kinda like you,” she says.

“No, it's not. With me, my mother is too fucked up to know I'm drinking and stealing her Oxy. No way would she ever sanction that shit if she found out.”

“Doesn't matter,” says Kristen. “It's still the same. Just because you're too fucked up to pay attention doesn't make you any less guilty of being negligent.”

Nodding, I say, “That's a great fucking point.”

“You want some wine?”

“I can't.”

Kristen looks around and laughs. “Sure you can, dude.” She pours me a glass.

I lift it and take a drink, and then Leslie says, “It's really good, huh, Jaime?”

“I guess.”

“Cheers,” she goes.

“As long as you don't make them parent you too hard or
become some kind of big nuisance in their life, you've got the freedom to indulge, Jaime.”

“Great.”

“Welcome to this life,” she says.

“Welcome to
your
life,” I say back.

FINALLY, LIKE FORTY MINUTES AFTER
me and my father arrived, after listening to these people talk about million-dollar trades, shopping for new BMWs, this twenty-thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee that Barack Obama spoke at that my father and Mark attended, about skyboxes at AT&T Park and Oracle Arena, and after five more bottles of red wine have been ordered and brought to the table, Savannah shows up with James.

“Oh my god,” Kristen says. She's still sitting across from me, next to Tyler now. She turns back to me. “That's James Morgan. He's one of my favorite authors.”

“I know,” I say. “I met him today.”

“What?” she snorts. “And you're just telling me. How?”

“I was at the gallery, and he showed up to see Savannah.”

“No way,” she says. “Did you talk to him?”

I nod. “I went to his place, the Whip Pad, and kicked it for about an hour. He's a cool dude. I thought he'd be a bigger dick than he was. He throws parties now with that rapper dude Omar Getty. I also met Michael, the drummer for Lamborghini Dreams.”