Bucky F*cking Dent (19 page)

“Nice grab, Mariana.”

Ted seconded that. “Yeah, helluva snatch.”

What? No, please no, he hadn't said that, had he? Not again? He had. He heard it echo on the air, cutting through the birdsong. His head got crowded with thoughts, all vying for his tongue, but for some reason a snippet of Robert Frost came forward farthest and fastest, describing the effect on Adam, still dewy from Creation himself, of newly created Eve's voice, an “oversound, her tone of meaning without the words,” on the voice of the earth—“Never again would birds' song be the same. / And to do that to birds was why she came.” Never again would birds' song be the same. Fuckin' A right, Bobby F. What was the matter at hand again? Oh yeah …

“No. Not snatch. No. Never snatch.”

“You didn't like my snatch?” Mariana asked.

“Paging Doctor Freud,” Marty said.

“No, yes, no, I don't know, it's a homophone … come on … I'm sure it's … that was technically a snatch, what you did, I mean…”

“Stop saying ‘snatch.' Stop talking altogether,” Marty offered, oh so helpfully.

“Okay, I simply mean. Again, Freud schmoid. Just toss it back. The wing's not quite warmed up. Can you reach me? Let me move up…”

And as Ted jogged toward her, she cocked the ball with minimum turn like a catcher throwing out a runner at second, and rifled a frozen rope from behind her ear to Ted's ear. Ted could not even flinch, didn't even move his hands, until the ball had already ricocheted off his dome with a hollow coconut sound. Ted looked at Marty, who was now laughing.

In a delayed reaction, Ted's eyes fluttered and he then just fell face forward into the grass. Out cold. And to do that to birds was why she came.

 

41.

“That's a concussion,” Mariana said as they were dropping her off.

“I'm fine, I'm fine,” Ted said, still mortified.

“Don't fall asleep this afternoon. Keep an eye on him, Marty.”

Marty seemed distant, worried. “Yeah, don't fall asleep.”

“I am fine.”

As Mariana leaned back in to kiss Marty goodbye, Ted thought she was coming for him, and he made a move toward her face as she went past him to his dad. Both Marty and Mariana sensed the miss. Mariana took pity on him, so she doubled back to kiss Ted goodbye as well. It made the kumquat-sized lump on his forehead almost worth it.

“You want me to drive?” Marty asked.

“When was the last time you drove?” Ted asked him.

“Kennedy administration.”

Ted threw the car in gear.

When they got back home, Ted chipped a bag of peas out of the freezer with a chisel. The freezer hadn't been defrosted in so long that excavating them was like an archaeological dig for dinosaur fossils. He was tickled and horrified that the “best if used by” date on the peas was 10/72, a good six years ago. He sat icing his noggin, while rolling a joint expertly with his free hand. Marty was still overly concerned about the injury, it seemed to Ted. “Yankee game is on soon,” he said. “You should call in sick.”

“Shit.”

“You should take the day off after getting smacked like that. I'm beat, too.”

Ted ran to the windows and pulled the shades down in all but one. He opened that window and stuck his body halfway out and up, turning his torso entirely to the sky. “Looks like rain!” he shouted.

“What?” Marty asked. “Sky was blue all day.”

“No,” Ted yelled again, beseeching the heavens closer. “Looks like rain!”

Up on the roof, the panthers had gathered to sunbathe in their Speedos, equipped with little plastic eye guards, silver sun reflectors, and Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil. Tango Sam held his space-age silver reflector up to his face for maximum sun and cancer exposure. They heard Ted's desperate call. Ivan checked his watch and nodded. Benny turned a nozzle and water spewed out of a long green garden hose.

Ted got hit with way too much water, so Tango Sam put his thumb over the opening to create a finer spray, angling it close to the building. Water started running down the pane. A decent-looking effect. Ted turned back in and grabbed a cassette he had bought for the occasion called
Sounds of the Rainforest
, and he put it in a little boom box. The sound of thunder filled the room, and also the sound of some tropical birds rarely heard in Brooklyn.

“Look at that. That's a huge storm. That's a rainout. If you're tired, take a pill, you should just lie down and take a nap.”

He crossed back over to Marty and handed him a pill and a sip from a glass of water.

“Thank you.” He helped Marty lie back down on the couch. Marty looked across at the water streaking the window. “‘Blow, winds, crack your cheeks!' Lear. That storm came outta nowhere.”

“Sure did.”

“I think I hear a parrot.”

“No way.”

“I definitely hear a parrot.”

“I think Mr. Sawyer's son mighta gotten one.”

“Yeah? A parrot in Brooklyn. That's idiotic.”

“Well, you know the Sawyers.”

“I bet he's scared half to death all the time. That bird. All the concrete. And in the winter, he's probably like, What the fuck is this shit?”

“I bet that's true.” Ted plumped up a pillow and placed it under his father's heavy head.

“You ever feel like a parrot in Brooklyn, Teddy?”

“What?”

“Do you ever feel scared and out of place, like a parrot in Brooklyn?”

“That's an interesting question, Dad.”

“People always say a question is interesting when they don't wanna answer it.”

“That's an interesting perception.”

“I do.”

“You do what?”

“Feel like a parrot in Brooklyn. Much of the time. My whole life.”

“That surprises me. You always seemed so … masterful.”

Marty laughed. “Masterful. No, not masterful. I'm sorry for being scared. A father shouldn't be scared.”

He reached out tenderly and stroked Ted's cheek. It was the first time Ted could remember his father touching him softly like that. Ted's body froze, but his insides melted.

“That's okay, Dad. It's human.”

“Dads can't be human.” Marty dropped his hand from Ted's face, and his eyes fluttered sleepily. “Not to their sons. You'll see one day. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. Get some sleep, Dad. It's a rainout.”

“I am beat. I'll shut my eyes.”

“That was a big day.”

“
Snatch
was funny.”

“Hilarious.” He closed his eyes.

Marty was already drifting off. “Teddy,” he said, “you were getting better. Just in that little time. You were throwing better. I'm sorry I didn't teach you when you were little. You hear me?”

Ted heard him and had to fight back a sob.

“That's okay, Dad.”

“Stop forgiving me so easily. If it's easy, it won't last.”

“Okay, Dad, I'll take more time. I don't forgive you.”

“Yes. Ssssh. Be quiet. Let things sit. Let things sit on your heart. You will learn of them by their weight. I'm sorry, Ted, I'm sorry for a million things.” Ted opened his mouth to forgive, but stopped himself. And Marty was asleep.

Ted felt a million little things sit down upon his heart, yet somehow he felt lighter. Marty was so still. Like a dead man. For a moment, Ted was afraid this was the end. The end right at the beginning. Then Marty inhaled. When Marty began to snore, Ted jumped up with his BA from Columbia and hustled to go throw peanuts. Jose Canucci.

 

42.

Ted made it to the stadium by the second inning, and got chewed out by his supervisor. The guy was a martinet. Absolutely no power corrupting absolutely. It was all trickle down from Steinbrenner. The Yankees owner's ethos was win at any cost, and reminded Ted of nothing more than an inflated baby with a helmet of hair. His default facial expression was that of a petulant scrunched-up five-year-old who was not getting enough candy. The country was full of Steinbrenners and Steinbrenner wannabes. This hagiography of winners. Poor human, fallible, honest, indecisive Hamlet, peanut farmer, lusting-in-his-heart Jimmy Carter was losing the country, had already lost it, actually, to this vainglorious idea. Out west in Hollywood, some handsome monster was already cast, slouching forward, waiting to be born. Steinbrenner fed into and fed the inflated self-image that Ted perceived was growing stronger in New York City every day. As it became less important culturally, this notion of the city being made up of “winners” took up more and more psychic space, like a cancer. Steinbrenner was a symptom of that spiritual cancer and a cause. Proud to be a New Yorker. New Yorkers demand a winner. Really? Why? What gives that particular geographical location the right to demand a winner as opposed to, say, Cleveland? “Yankee Pride”? What the fuck was that? Mickey Mantle should have had pride that he could hit a home run hungover and drunk at the same time. That was a human feat, relatable, stupendous, and flawed. But it meant nothing to be a Yankee, to be a New Yorker, to be an American. It was a uniform. The pinstripes. Like Wall Street. This city on a hill. To cater to this nationalistic heart lurking in all men was evil, and damn good business.

Ted had a book of poems with him, and by the seventh inning, the Yankees had a comfortable lead over the Sox, and the fans started leaving to beat the traffic like Phil Rizzuto. Good thing it was a rainout. The sun was hanging in the late summer sky, like it didn't want to set, like Ra knew that fall was coming so soon.

Ted liked to let the world sometimes offer up thoughts unbidden, by opening books to random pages and reading what was written there as a missive intended for him. In high school, he would go to the library, close his eyes, and walk blindly through the stacks, reaching his hand out, pulling a book at random, and forcing himself to read it as if sent by God. It was the closest he ever came to believing in Providence. The God of Books. God lurking in books by men. This was how he learned so much about particle physics and neutrinos, of which he now retained little, no doubt exhaled from his frontal cortex on a wave of pot smoke. What stuck with him about neutrinos was that they were massless and chargeless particles and therefore could not be seen, except in the effect they had on other particles as they passed by, banged into them, altered their behavior. In effect, neutrinos were actual ghosts. Ted felt like the opposite of a neutrino; you could see him but he had no effect. He made no particles shift. He liked how sometimes science helped him to know and hate himself more thoroughly.

Fuck science for now, he thought, all it has is truth. Poetry has truth and lies and is therefore truer than science, a more encompassing discipline. He let his finger stop on a page. This was the poem decreed for him. It was by Emile Bronnaire:

Strolling one evening

In the puritan city

We'll go seeking …

Beyond life the dark fountain

Where the child sleeps.

There the bitter brooks of faded illusions

Will dry up.

In the day without decline in love

Without complaint

We shall live again.

If only, he thought, if only. Without decline in love, without complaint, we shall live again. Somebody yelled, “Señor Cacahuete!”

 

43.

By the time Ted got home, it was dark. He had some takeout from Jade Mountain, set the containers on the kitchen table, and lit a joint. He inhaled deeply and exhaled long and slow. “You're home. I was worried about you.” Marty's sudden appearance startled Ted.

“Jesus, Dad, why aren't you asleep? You scared the shit out of me.”

“See, they say the pot makes you paranoid.”

“I'm not paranoid, you came at me like a fucking jack-in-the-box.”

“I slept all day. I can't sleep now.”

Marty came to the table and looked at all the Chinese.

“I don't have much of an appetite these days.”

“This shit'll give you an appetite.”

“No, I hear it leads to harder stuff. It's a gate drug.”

“Gateway drug.”

“I don't wanna become a drug addict, fuck up my future. I don't know if my lungs can take it. Mariana would be mad.”

“Let's see. C'mere. Shotgun. Come here. Open your mouth. When I exhale, you inhale.”

Ted turned the joint around in his mouth, lit end inside, as he gestured for Marty to lean in. Mouth to mouth now, Ted shotgunned a huge hit of thick smoke into his father. Marty held it in like a champ. It was the first time Ted could ever remember kissing his father.

 

44.

They went through about eight containers of Chinese takeout in twenty minutes. Marty had not eaten this much in months. After finishing the last of the moo goo gai pan, Marty belched and said, “When's it gonna kick in?” Which they both found hysterical. Marty stared at the joint in his hand, rotating it, appreciating it.

“Where do they hide this stuff? It's fantastische.”

“They don't hide it, Dad.”

“Marvelous. Marvelous. Get me the phone, I want to tell the world about it.”

“The world knows, Dad.”

“Can I have more? Should I have more? Does it just keep getting better?”

“Not necessarily. Pace yourself.”

“Ah yes, pace. The ol' pace. Can I have ice cream, then? I'm thinking that ice cream is a good idea.”

“Ice cream is an excellent idea.” Ted went to the fridge, pulled a quart, and handed it to Marty with a spoon. Marty stared, uncomprehending, at the container.

“The ice cream you want is on the inside of that carton, Dad.”

“Froooooozen glah-juh. Froooozen gladjehhhh.”

“That's right. Frusen Glädjé.”

“What does it mean?”

“You know what it means, Dad, you made up shit like that yourself. It means to sound like ‘ice cream' in a fake Nordic language conjuring blond images of tasty Scandinavian deliciousness. Fuckin' works, too, hand it over. What flavor is that?”