Michael Tolliver Lives (21 page)

Which made me think of Florida. And Irwin.

“My brother called,” I began. “He’s coming out to visit.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s not exactly to visit. It’s just to talk, apparently.”

Her brow wrinkled as she munched laboriously on her sandwich.

“It’s not about our mother,” I said. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Was there…friction when you were in Florida?”

“Nothing to speak of. He was sweeter than usual, actually. We got drunk together in his boat.”

“That doesn’t sound very safe.”

I smiled. “It wasn’t moving. It was out in his yard. He goes there to get away from his wife.”

Anna dabbed demurely at her mouth with a napkin. “I’ve always wondered why you don’t talk about him.”

I shrugged. “Nothing to talk about. I’m going to hell and he’s not.”

“Oh…
that
.”

“And I think he’s pissed at me now, to be honest.”

“Why?”

“Because Mama told me something she didn’t tell him.”

“Oh, my.” She widened her eyes melodramatically as if to suggest that this was merely about two grown boys quarreling, a conventional case of sibling rivalry.

“I know it sounds silly,” I said, “but he really seemed to be hurt. I felt bad for him. For better or worse, he and Lenore have been tending to Mama ever since Papa died…and she ends up confiding in me…a virtual stranger in the scheme of things.”

“You’re hardly that.”

“No…I am, believe me. She’s wanted it that way. She’s been terrified of me for years. We’re from different planets now.”

“So…what did she tell you?”

“That she tried to leave my father several times.”

Anna set her sandwich down. “For any particular reason?”

“I presume because he was a domineering old bastard.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s all?”

“Does it take more than that?”

“Well…usually.”

I smiled at her sardonically. “In the strange twilight world of the heterosexual.”

Anna wasn’t having it. “In
anybody’s
world. When did she last try to leave him?”

“Just before he died. Almost twenty years ago.”

“Well, that’s even more peculiar.”

I shrugged. “It sort of…solved the problem, I guess.”

“Dear…how could it have solved
anything
? There must be huge unresolved feelings. No wonder she wanted to tell you.”

“I guess.”

“You
know
. It’s mostly the
un
spoken things that always cause trouble later. They find their way out of us one way or the other.”

I wondered for a moment if that was code of some sort, if she was really referring to my awkward silence in the tower when she called me her son.

But I knew she didn’t work that way.

Shawna, amazingly, was on time, striding into the café in a butt-gripping tweed skirt that embraced her calves almost as snugly. She wore big clunky librarian glasses and her hair was more Bettie Page than before, draped on the back of her neck like a sleek black pelt. I thought of Mona, strangely enough, someone Shawna had met only once or twice as a child and did not particularly resemble. There was the same sense of fashion, though—studied and anarchistic all at once—and the same bubbling volcanic spirit. It gave me an unexpected pang. I wondered if Anna ever noticed the similarity.

“You guys,” Shawna piped as she approached the table. “I have to show you something really fierce.”

“And a good afternoon to you,” said Anna.

Shawna kissed Anna on the top of her head by way of a greeting, then twiddled her fingers at me. “You look like you’re finished. Is this a bad time?”

“No,” said Anna. “It’s a wonderful time.” She pushed back her chair and attempted to rise, wobbling slightly in the process.

Shawna reached for her instinctively, supporting her under the elbow. “It’s not that far, don’t worry.”

“I’m fine,” said Anna.

“We’ve already been up to the tower,” I explained, casting a glance at Shawna. “We’re a little pooped.”

“No problem,” said Shawna, turning back to Anna as she steered her out of the café. “That bag is the bomb, by the way.”

“Thank you, dear. It was my mother’s.”

“No shit? At the whorehouse? How fierce is that?”

Shawna has lately been fascinated by the fact that Anna was raised in a brothel in Nevada. Anna had no shame about this, of course, but she felt the need to clarify things.

“It was actually her
good
bag. She took it into Winnemucca with her. Usually to church.”

With her free hand Shawna petted the bag as if it were a small, delicate mammal. “The velvet’s held up beautifully.”

Anna nodded. “It was much better in those days. The velvet.”

“I’m sure.”

“I’ll put your name on it.”

Shawna looked puzzled.

“The bag,” Anna explained. “I’ll put your name on it.”

Shawna shot me a stricken glance, grasping her meaning. “Say thank you,” I told her.

“Oh my God,” said Shawna, looking moved and a little bit shaken. “Thank you…yes…thank you so much, Anna.”

“Where are we going?” asked Anna, all business again.

“Just up one level,” Shawna replied. “This thing just blew me away.”

The object of her awe was an early-twentieth-century oil by Arthur Bowen Davies called
Pacific Parnassus
. It was basically the ocean side of Mount Tam, Marin’s own pinnacle of the gods, made riotous here by swirling fog and golden slopes above a cobalt sea. It was painted in 1905 but it could easily have been yesterday. The things that made it enchanting were still here, still ours. I saw what Shawna meant. Or thought I did.

“This is what I’ll miss,” she said. “You know?”

“I do,” said Anna. I knew she’d be missing Shawna as much as any of us, but her tone was more celebratory than sad.

I told Shawna the painting was captivating, but I’d expected something a little more avant-garde from her.

“The guy was totally avant-garde. He was practically a pagan. He identified with the Ashcan school…and he was even a Cubist for a while.”

“Still…this could be a jigsaw puzzle.”

“I’ll forget you said that. Look closer.”

I leaned into the painting, studying the landscape. “Is there a giant penis in the clouds or something?”

“Close. Check out the mountainside.”

It took me a while to find them, since they were almost the color of the fields and barely bigger than a paper clip. “People,” I said. “Naked people, in fact.”

“You are
correct,
sir,” said Shawna, imitating Ed McMahon on the Carson show. She used to do that when she was seven years old, charming the dickens out of grown-ups. She might be young, I thought, but she does remember Johnny and Ed.

“Where are they?” asked Anna, stepping closer to the painting. “I don’t see them.”

“Here,” I said, pointing. “And here…and there’s a couple down here in the trees.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Anna yanked open her bag and removed an enormous magnifying glass with an ornate handle fashioned from junk-shop silverware. I don’t know exactly
why
it struck me as hilarious but it did, seeing her there in her sneakers and her turban and Chinese grandma pajamas examining the canvas like Inspector Clouseau on the trail of a murderer. Shawna, I was glad to see, found it humorous, too, so we both dissolved in giggles—to Anna’s mounting annoyance.

“Stop it, children. Don’t make a scene.”

“Are they girls or boys?” Shawna asked, prolonging the mirth.

Anna’s eyes were still glued to the glass. “I presume they’re gods, if this is Parnassus.”

“Maybe they’re picnickers from Mill Valley.” This was my contribution.

“Really,” said Anna, putting the glass away. “How old are you two?”

Shawna looked chastened. “I just figured you’d think it was cool.”

“It is, dear. It’s extremely cool.”

“We weren’t laughing at
you,
” I put in, taking her arm. “Just that thing.”

“It’s very handy,” said Anna. “You’ll see.”

We spent another half-hour drifting through galleries until Anna discreetly expressed her need for “the ladies room.” When we found it, Shawna asked if she needed assistance. Anna shook her head with a smile. “I’m fine, dear,” she said, before turning to me halfway through the door. “I’ll need to go home, though, after this. Notch will be cross with me.”

The door swung shut. Shawna turned to me with a slack expression.

“Who the hell is Notch?”

I grinned at her. “I’d introduce you, but she’s still under the armoire.”

21

Memory Foam

M
y husband was doing yoga in the bedroom, attempting the union of body and soul, while I was nattering away. I was pleasantly stoned by then and lobbying for a quiet evening on the sofa with
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
. Ben had never seen the film, so I had TiVo’d it in the hope of enlightening him. I was droning on about this wonderful, moody, romantic story and its brilliant author, John Fowles, and the other atmospheric movies—
The Collector
and
The Magus
—made from Fowles’ novels.

This is typical of me. Given pot and the nearness of Ben I can be a crashing bore. Ben has a master’s degree (and I don’t, of course), but I somehow feel compelled to play teacher when we’re together, to tell him every little thing he missed by being young. It’s tempting to do this because he listens so generously, even with a foot behind his head.

When his cell phone rang, he sighed at this final invasion of his peace.

“Shall I check it?” I asked.

“Please.”

I took the phone from the nightstand and looked at the readout. “It’s Leo,” I said.

Ben untangled his limbs and took the phone from me. I returned to my Morris chair and picked up a magazine, knowing that Ben would not require privacy.

“Say hi for me,” I told him.

I’ve met two of Ben’s exes: this one, Leo, the retired Suburu dealer from South Bend, and Paolo, the Italian stockbroker from Sardinia. They are both nice guys, but except for the fact that we’re all (I’m told) uncut and pushing sixty from one side or the other, we are wildly unalike. It intrigues me to think that each of us has spent significant time with Ben; each has been his answer to something. But I don’t feel especially competitive in their presence; I feel like a clue, a piece of the puzzle. It’s much easier not to be threatened by your lover’s exes if you don’t want to fuck them yourself.

Ben took the call on the bed. This was our new Tempurpedic mattress, designed by Swedes or NASA or somebody to conform to every contour. We ordered it on an impulse at the Denver airport last Christmas when we were visiting Ben’s family. Seeing him there on his stomach, pale and glistening in his briefs, I imagined the imprint his package would make on the memory foam, like a nifty Jell-O mold.

“So how’s our favorite Wilted Flower?” Ben asked his ex.

Leo and his friend Bill, who worked for Allstate back in South Bend, had recently moved to Fort Lauderdale and bought a little ranch house in Wilton Manors, the gay neighborhood. Most of the homeowners were fairly old and fairly well off, so Wilted Flowers had become the pejorative-of-choice for locals who saw themselves as neither.

Leo’s friend Bill is just that, by the way—a friend. The two have never been lovers. They just got tired of selling and wanted to share a place in the sun. As far as I can tell, they’ve both relinquished romance without a fuss. They garden and play bridge and throw luaus for their neighbors and never have to negotiate the politics of three-ways and afternoons at the baths. They will grow old together, those two, tucked in their separate beds (with their separate collections of porn). There must be a certain comfort in knowing that the guy across the cornflakes in the morning has noticed, just like you, how short the days are getting. At least you’re at the finish line together.

There’s something to be said for that, no doubt.

But would I trade it for what I have with Ben?

God no. Not in a million years. Not while love is still something I can taste and touch and nurture and pull down the pants of. Not while I still have a shot at this.

I’m the lucky one here, of course. It was Ben who got the short end of the stick. The double whammy of HIV and advancing age makes me a pretty shaky deal in the happily-ever-after department. I can at least
dream
of one day dying in my lover’s arms, but he can’t do the same with me. He’ll have another life entirely, for better or worse.

“Hey,” he said, speaking to me but still on the phone. “What’s twenty feet long, shaped like a snake, and smells like urine?”

I looked up from my magazine. “Say what?”

“It’s a riddle. Leo just told it to me.”

“I give up. What’s twenty feet long, shaped like a snake, and smells like urine?”

“The conga line at Chardee’s!”

I frowned at him. “What the hell is Chardee’s?”

“You know. The restaurant in Wilton Manors. The supper club. Where the older guys go to get drunk.”

I made a face at him. “Lovely.”

Ben laughed. “It was Leo’s joke.”

“Well, tell him he’s a sick fuck. A sick
old
fuck.”

Ben obliged. “He says you’re a sick old fuck.”

I could hear Leo hooting, enjoying the hell out of this.

“Ask him,” I told Ben, “if he can spell
gerontophobia
.”

Ben wouldn’t take it that far. It wasn’t fair to pick on Leo, however gently. He was too harmless for that. “Cut him some slack,” Ben whispered. “It’s funny.”

“Hilarious,” I said, returning to my magazine. “Old people pissing themselves.”

Ben ignored me and spoke to the phone again. “Yeah, sure…he loved it…he always loves your jokes.”

It must have been the Florida connection that got me thinking about my brother’s impending visit. That steel-trap mind of mine had me gnawing off my leg again. As we lay on the sofa after the movie, Ben noticed the distraction in my eyes.