Creamy Bullets (9 page)

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Reunion

H
e wondered who they all were, this family of his. There were three clans here, clustered around several picnic tables at the largest State Park in Oregon, and he could barely distinguish his own. David was a Sullivan. Then there were the Cardells and the Wellers.

Families confused him, mostly because he never gave them any thought. Shouldn’t they all be Sullivans? Why are his aunt and uncle named Weller? Why are the Cardells mostly half-Mexican or half-black?

His mother, a small bear of a woman named Dora, tried to explain it to him before. But he was a young brat and refused to focus on the path of her words, their genealogy. He daydreamed until nothing real stuck to his brain. It would be uncomfortable to ask her now. He was 38, still working the kind of jobs that seemed cool fifteen years ago, but sad now—record store clerk, dance club doorman, stadium vendor/peanut thrower. Currently, he worked as a ticket taker at a discount movie theater. Just over nine dollars an hour, but he got free popcorn and soda. He had to wear a nametag. It said,
David
…
Director
.

David wondered if anyone else at the family reunion made less money than he did. He had learned you can’t gauge how much someone makes by how they look. Some of his cousins, even a few nephews, looked poor as hell but made three times as much as he did, working construction or landscaping. Most of the Sullivan/Cardell/Weller family plodded their way through life with whatever rewards a GI Bill or GED could get them. College was a foreign concept to their teens, scads of pimply youths that viewed higher education with anxiety and suspicion. He counted ten of these kids among the fifty or so adults present. There were some younger ones as well. Two babies, a toddler with dirt or food caked around its mouth, and a pair of ten year olds who hovered around the picnic table of sweets, punching each other and sometimes swearing. One of the longhaired biker types of the family, presumably a father, urged them to “eat something healthy.” He gave them each a carrot. They used them as swords before tossing them into a bed of burnt charcoal.

Shading the sun from her eyes, Francine, David’s new girlfriend, grew restless in her lawn chair. David rubbed her shoulders from behind and wished he could remember more names. Some of them he hadn’t seen in twenty years. A tall black man approached David and Francine. His t-shirt said
King of Beers
and he wore his kinky hair in a style that looked similar to a mullet. He held out a large hand. “Uncle David,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

David squinted and groped in his memory for a name. “Roger?”

“Ricky,” the man corrected him.

“Oh my God,” said David. “I used to give you basketball lessons. Now you’re a foot taller than me. What happened?” His clichéd conversation skills embarrassed him sometimes.

Ricky rubbed his chin with one of his hands and smiled. “Once I got into high school, I just started growing.”

David introduced him to Francine and then took the opportunity to get the lowdown on some of the others at the reunion. “Those are my two kids,” Ricky said, pointing out two huge teens that looked like offensive lineman. “And you probably saw my mom, and there’s Randy and Gary and Jeff.” As his nephew pointed people out, David trapped each face in his sight, aging them backward like computer animation until he remembered them. David himself was young-looking and was convinced that he hadn’t changed much besides the glasses he started wearing after turning thirty. “Here comes your family,” Ricky said, nodding his head in the direction behind David.

David turned around and saw them, his brother Paul, his mother Dora, and his father, James. Paul lugged a large ice cooler awkwardly in front of him, banging his knees and shuffling his sore hands on the handles. He was probably the most successful of the family. At least the most recognized. He was a sports announcer for a local television station and he looked the part—broad shoulders, square jaw, easy-going eyes, coiffed hair. Paul was two years older than David. They were close growing up, playing football with the neighborhood kids, making up comedy routines, throwing snowballs at cars in the winter. Their father was a small but fiery man who commandeered their childhood home with an unpredictable temper and a Catholic style of parenting that stopped shy of compassion. His rule, when it came to what he saw as his children’s bewildering behavior, was often denouncement before understanding. Once, when David and Paul were playing an imaginary ghost game in their backyard with some other neighborhood kids, their father came out yelling something about sacrilege and then spanked them in front of the other kids. Word got around the elementary school the next day and none of their friends would come over to their house after that. Talking to their father was impossible and it was never easy confiding in their mother.

When Dora and James started to sleep in separate beds, and later, separate rooms, it made the silence of the home even louder. David and Paul reasoned at some point, probably during their early teen years, that it was because Dora and James were older than most of their friends’ parents. Dora was forty-three when David was born. He was an accident. Maybe Paul was too.

“A little help?” Paul said to David, nodding at the cooler. David jogged over. He grabbed one of the handles and they made a space on one of the tables for it. “I’m not as strong as I used to be,” Paul joked in an old man voice. He stuck his hand out to his younger brother for a shake. They were not the hugging kind of family. Their father would not allow it. “You keep staying away for longer,” said Paul. He searched his mind for a calendar but gave up when he noticed Francine. David introduced them.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Francine said. She was already starting to feel a little boxed in, like she had to be the polite girlfriend with a smile on her face. She wasn’t part of the family and wasn’t sure if she’d ever be. Everything she did felt like it was from a script she didn’t have a chance to read before the reunion.

A crackle of feedback sounded behind Paul and David. It was their father. David turned and saw how he had deteriorated since he last saw him. He was in a motorized wheelchair now, the result of a stroke the year before. Although his body was always small, it now looked slack and lifeless instead of sturdy and strong. His spotted right hand rested, twitching next to a controller that powered his chair. A pilled wool blanket wrapped around his waist and legs. He wore a blue flannel shirt that looked too big for him and a brown newsboy hat. Because he could barely speak above a whisper, Dora had recently bought a headset microphone that he struggled to use. An amplifier, the size of a first aid kit, hung squealing from the side of his chair. His left hand swatted helplessly at the volume knob. “Hello, David,” he was finally able to say. It sounded like someone dying of thirst, alone in the desert, throat full of sand, walkie-talkie to his dry lips.

“Hi, dad,” David said. He took his father’s hand and shook it. It felt like picking up an empty glove.

“Are you…going…to stay…weekend?” It seemed to take him forever to say these few words.

“We have to leave on Sunday.” David looked at Francine. Talking to his father was already excruciating.

“I’m…James,” David’s father said to Francine. He tried to smile but even that was a challenge.

“Hello, Mr. Sullivan. I’m glad you were able to come out.” Francine felt sad for saying such a thing.

“James,” David’s father said again. “I’m…James.”

“We’d better help with the food,” said David. He gently pressed Francine to where his mom stood.

“I’ll get the football,” Paul called over to him. “Let’s show some of these kids how to play.” He ran back to his car.

David could sense that Paul wanted to get away from their father too. He remembered one time when their mom and dad got into a fight that Paul tried to break up. Their father slapped Paul over and over, daring him to slap back. “This is my house and nobody attacks me in my house,” their father said. “This house needs order.” David hid in his bedroom when these fights happened. He put his hands over his ears and cried. Later, Paul told David that the fight was about another woman. Their mother said he was having an affair with someone from church. David wasn’t really sure what an “affair” was. But that summer before junior high school he learned the definition of that word and one other:
will
. Paul surprised David one night when he asked him to write out a will with him. David thought it was just a game until they signed each other’s will.

“Well, hello there, David,” his mom said, walking over to them. “This must be Francine.” They stood there, in the middle of all the picnic tables, talking for several minutes. David found himself relieved to be talking with a relative he actually knew and it seemed like Francine was finally comfortable. Just a few feet behind them, he noticed his father nodding to sleep in his chair. Every once in a while, even when he wasn’t trying to speak, a yelp of feedback came out of his amp.

“Is this thing on?” Paul said, pretending to tap on a testy microphone. He had snuck up behind David with the football. “It’s just like in the movies,” he said. “I have an announcement to make.” He made a high-pitched feedback sound in his throat and laughed. They walked over to the area where the grass was greener and softer and began tossing the ball. David saw Francine watching them from the drink table.

“Did you hear about Bo?” Paul asked him. Bo was a Cardell. A Mexican with a wife fifteen years younger than him named Janey. Distant hairy cousins.

“I heard Janey left him for a P.E. teacher,” David said.

“Then Bo tried to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of their house. On a pile of bricks and glass.”

“Shit. Is he okay?”

“No, but he’s not dead.”

Roger and some of his family came over to start a game. A couple of the young boys were just friends of Roger’s kids. David wondered why they would come to someone else’s family reunion. One of them had a girlfriend standing away from everyone else. She was sunning herself in a small red bikini that barely held her. David couldn’t help looking as she rubbed lotion across her chest and belly. She had dyed blonde hair and the body of a personal trainer. Even though she was wearing sunglasses, David could tell that she had caught him gaping at her.

Paul organized everyone into teams. Five on five. Since he was the sportscaster, they listened to his organizing and rule making. They had about thirty yards to play on. The endzones were marked by a barbecue pit and an inexplicable patch of dead, brown grass, where it looked like a UFO had landed. David was on Paul’s team. He lined up in wide receiver position with Paul playing quarterback. There were no huddles, but Paul yelled a play over to David before each down. Deep post, hitch, quick slant. Plays they perfected when they were younger, quicker, and more in shape. They played for twenty minutes before David started to feel his right foot cramp. He quit playing after diving for a catch that skimmed off his fingertips. He walked lightly over to Francine, trying to hide his pain. She seemed distant and cold to him. She got up to help his mom set out more food.

“You work in movie place for movies?” someone called to David. It was another cousin or nephew. David wasn’t sure. This one was Korean and very short. “Movie guy,” he said to David. He struggled with his English.

David was trying to figure out who this man was. He figured he was probably about twenty years old, though barely five feet tall. “I’m David,” he said in a loud voice. He noticed some of the other relatives watching them with pained concentration. “I work at a movie theater,” he said a little more quietly. Was he a Weller? he wondered. No one stepped in to help.

The man said his first name and held his hand out. David wasn’t sure if he heard him correctly. “Phat?” he said. The short man was doing that thing where a normal handshake turns into a series of complicated positions and gestures, before frowning and letting go suddenly.

“David,” his mom shouted over. “Take your father for a walk.”

“Okay,” he said back to her, though he wasn’t sure what she meant. He walked over to where his mom and Francine were cutting sandwiches into tiny squares. His father was just behind them, his wheelchair possibly stuck in the grass.

“He’s getting bored,” his mother said. “Just go push him around the park or something for a while.”

David looked at Francine, who gave him a serious look. He didn’t like being around her when she had that look. Maybe she was just bored too. He felt like he was disappointing her somehow. He looked over at Paul and saw him still playing football with the others. After each play, his brother would lift his shirt and wipe the sweat from his face. “Okay,” said David. “I’ll be back.”

He pushed his father through the grass a little until they got to a narrow path. It looked to be paved with black tar and made the heat feel more intense. He never liked to be alone with his dad. Before the stroke, his father would start every conversation with, “Are you still going to church?” But that would take him too long to get out now. Every word was an immense strain for his father. David enjoyed the silence.