The Summer Son (20 page)

T
OBY AND
B
RAD
waited in the booth at the diner. Toby had taken Dad’s shot and come back. My respect for him rose, as did a fear of what he might have unleashed.

“Morning,” Dad said. The hands mumbled in kind.

The waitress we saw most mornings sidled up to the table, looked us over, and said, “The usual?” We all nodded our heads, and she left straightaway to get to it. Coffee, black, for Dad and Brad, orange juice for Toby and me.

Slowly, the torpor lifted, and the men chatted about the coming day. I watched and listened, and I tuned in particularly to the words between Dad and Toby. When Toby spoke, which was rare, Dad wore a measured gaze. I knew the look. Dad was watching for clues about where Toby’s sensibilities lay. Whatever trouble existed between them, Dad wouldn’t soon forget. I imagined that Toby wouldn’t either. Having struck out with Dad, I resolved to ask Toby what had happened in the bar.

Dad caught me watching.

“Eat up,” he said. He waved at my plate. “It’s going to be a long day.”

Our bellies full, we milled around the counter while Dad settled the food bill.

The manager ambled up to Dad. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Get on out there,” Dad said, shooing us toward the truck. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Outside the door, Brad jabbed Toby in the ribs. “I’ll bet he’s telling Jim to have you shit somewhere other than his bathroom.”

“Screw you,” Toby said.

We sat in the truck a good while. I saw through the glass door that Dad had turned animated. The restaurant manager shook his head slowly and pointed repeatedly at something at the cash register.

Dad reached into his back pocket for his wallet and fished out cash. He walked out the door, his right hand aloft, as the manager talked to the back of his head. A few jabbing steps brought Dad to the pickup.

“That fucking bitch,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Marie. She drained the credit card. I’m down to what’s in my pocket.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Never mind. Enough to get us through the day. I’ll figure something out.”

I thought about the money folded into my wallet. I had done as Jerry instructed. Dad didn’t know about it, and I hadn’t spent it. It seemed to me that the right thing to do was to hand the cash to Dad and improve our lot, even slightly. But I knew that doing so would bring a lot of unpleasant questions my way, and I didn’t want that. Further, Jerry had given me the money as a contingency, and as far as I could tell, that possibility remained in play. If Marie were up to no good, Dad could soon be in orbit. I might need the money yet.

I kept quiet and listened instead to Dad’s profane composition as we rolled toward the work site.

Marie threw us all off-kilter. Dad, chewing on concerns that stretched beyond the patch of ground we stood on, wanted things done faster than usual, and even Brad couldn’t keep up with his demands. The morning devolved into a series of half-comical errors. Toby tripped and fell while rushing with a bag of powdered mud, tearing it and sending a cloud of dust billowing across our faces. Brad missed a pipe as it slid down the chute toward him, and it came within inches of clipping my head as it sailed past. Toby dropped the hooked poles, and they scattered. With each misstep, Dad’s burn gathered speed.

Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t escape. With Toby and Brad screwing up, Dad said, “Stay off that motorcycle, Mitch. We need your help today.” I was back on shovel duty.

And then, in a single moment, the day ended. As Dad pulled the pipe from the third hole of the morning, Toby yelled at him. “Hold up there, Jim.”

Dad eased down from his perch and peered underneath the rig. The drill bit had thrown a cutter, probably while Dad coaxed it through a layer of rock deep below the surface.

“Son of a bitch,” Dad said.

“Can you fix it?” Brad asked.

“Hell no. Don’t have the money for it, either. We’re done, boys.”

Dad kicked at the ground and spat out Marie’s name.

Nobody spoke on the ride back to town. Dad was a phantom driver, his head lost in the problem of what to do about his dire straits. He intermittently mumbled to himself, and I began stitching together his plan. When we dropped off Toby and Brad, he filled us all in.

“I’ve got to go to Cedar City and see if I can get this bit fixed and do something about the money,” Dad told us. “Can Mitch stay here with you guys?”

“We done for the day?” Toby asked.

“At least.”

“I’m going to head over to Beaver.”

Dad looked blankly at Toby, and then he shifted his gaze to Brad, who hung on the doorframe, peeking into the cab.

“Yeah, sure,” Brad said. “We’ll hang out.”

“Appreciate it,” Dad said. “I’ll bring him by in a bit. I should only be a few hours.”

“It’s no problem,” Brad said.

Dad didn’t even change clothes; when we got back to the trailer, he made us bologna sandwiches and poured Cokes.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“One of the bosses on this job is there,” he said. “I figure I can get an advance from Stanton to tide us over. I’ve got to get to the bank and shut her down. If I’m lucky, I can pick up a fresh bit while I’m at it.”

“What if you’re not lucky?”

“Don’t want to think about that,” he said.

I had nearly screwed up the courage to ask if I could tag along when he said, “Look, sport, I know you want to come. I have to see a lot of people, and you’d get bored. You’ll have more fun here.”

Brad and I went over to the burger joint near his and Toby’s place and had soft-serve ice cream. He showed me some cool tricks at pinball, like catching the ball with a single flipper, then letting it roll to the sweet spot for another shot up the gut. He hung out with me and talked to me like I was a grown-up, like him, and not just a dumb kid.

“That’s crazy, what happened with your mom,” he said.

“Marie’s not my mom.”

“Your stepmom. Do you think she took all that money?”

“Yeah, probably. She can be pretty mean.”

“How so?”

I told Brad about the night at the Livery when she ignored me and instead hugged Jeff, and then ignited a barroom brawl with her catting around.

“Wow, that’s crazy,” he said.

We left the burger stand and went downtown. Brad wanted to check out eight-tracks at the convenience store.

“What do you listen to, Mitch?”

“I really like the Bee Gees.”

Brad clutched at his chest and staggered around the store, a blond, blue-eyed Fred Sanford.

“No, no! Not them.”

“They’re good,” I protested.

“They’re not good, bud. They’re popular.” He pulled a tape off the shelf and handed it to me. “Here’s what you need.”

“Molly Hatchet. Who’s she?”

Brad busted out laughing and took the tape from me and put it back on the shelf.

Swear to God, it was five more years before I figured out what was so funny. By then, nobody liked the Bee Gees anymore.

We walked back into the sun. It was damned hot, the temperature stretching toward three figures, and the ever-present wind propelled the oven waves fast across the landscape.

“Too hot,” I said.

“Yeah. Want to go sit under the air conditioning? Maybe we can find something decent on TV.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

On the way up the hill, I told Brad about my nightly stalks in Split Rail, exploring the old hotel, slinking through backyards, and especially, about my first beer.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

“I guess.”

“Warm beer,” he said. “That’s pretty gross.”

“I guess. It’s the only beer I’ve had.”

Brad unlatched the door and ushered me in.

“Want another?” he asked.

“A beer?”

“Yeah. I think that dipshit Toby has some here.”

“Sure, I guess.”

I sat on the couch while Brad went into the kitchen. I heard the clank of bottles and then the caps hitting the countertop.

He came back into the living room and handed me a bottle. He kept one for himself and plopped down on the couch next to me and fired up the TV.

I drank in gulps, the cold beer sliding through my throat and into my chest, infusing my midsection with a shot of refrigeration. Brad nursed his beer as we watched cartoons broadcast from a station in Salt Lake.

“Don’t drink it too fast, man,” Brad warned. “It only seems like it’s quenching your thirst. Beer’s a diuretic.”

“What’s that?”

“It wrings water out of your body.”

I drained the bottle. I could feel the rush in my head.

“Jesus, Mitch.”

We gazed at the cartoons for another ten minutes or so while Brad took slow draws on his own beer. Finally, he knocked back the last of it.

“You got it out of your system now?” Brad asked. “You want to try another one and take it a little slower this time?”

The beer, so quick to go down, hit me with urgent force. Still, I didn’t want to appear weak.

“What if my dad finds out?”

Brad stood up.

“He won’t know if neither of us says anything. I’m not.”

“Me either.”

“Piggy promise?”

We locked fingers and gave them a twist.

“Another beer, coming up,” Brad said.

A grin flopped across my face. I was glad I hadn’t gone to Cedar City. Milford, to my delight and surprise, was just perfect.

D
AD STOOD WITH ME
in the ticket area of the Billings airport. I thought of when I was a boy and how he would walk me all the way to the gate and sit with me while I waited to board. But I wasn’t a boy anymore, and 9/11 took care of something as innocuous as waiting at the gate to see a loved one leave. The security line had mostly cleared out, and the TSA guy looked expectantly at me while I tried to make my legs move.

“I’ll be back in a few weeks,” I said. “This isn’t good-bye.”

“I know.”

“We’re bringing the kids. They need to know their Grandpa Jim.”

“I know.”

Emotion had been battering me for two days, knocking me back each time. It happened again, right there.

“Don’t you die on me,” I said, my voice cracking.

“Mitch?”

“Yeah?”

“Get on the fucking plane.” Dad grinned at me.

I half stepped toward the X-ray machines, and then I came back.

This time, Dad wrapped me in the hug.

On the flight, my heart kept leaping into my throat, goosed by anticipation. I had been gone less than a week, and yet the tingle in my body reminded me of my first trip to Europe and the sense of wonder that poured over me as I saw, with my eyes and through the eyes of my bride, sights that had existed only in imagination and on postcards. A week in Billings—or, to be fair, the decades Dad and I crossed during a week in Billings—had turned San Jose into terra nova, my promised land. New beginnings awaited me, in my work and in my home. I made a promise and crossed my heart. More than eleven years into our marriage, Cindy and I would start anew. All I needed was to see her sweet face.

When the jet banked left over the Santa Cruz Mountains and made the turn, my heart thumped hard against my breastbone. Below, I could see our neighborhood. Tennis courts and swimming pools and the sports arena passed beneath me, and as the jet glided ever lower, I looked right and saw the skyline of San Jose, so close that I could almost reach out and touch it. I was nearly home.

I came off the Jetway at the tail end of the terminal, as far from the baggage area as I could be. Two other flights unloaded with mine, and I fell into a sea of humanity swimming up the concourse. When we hit the confluence, our mass broke down. Some of us continued straight to another gate, some of us peeled off for coffee, and my group headed for the exit. I looked down the row at the expectant faces that awaited friends and loved ones and business associates. I didn’t see her. I scanned left and then right, searching every face.

And then she stepped out, her hands attached to the smaller hands of our twins.

“There’s your daddy,” I saw her say, and my freckle-faced progeny barreled toward me in an arm-flailing run. I scooped Avery and Adia up and kissed them until they begged me to stop.

“Hi, stranger,” Cindy said, sidling up to me.

I set my children down, cupped my wife’s cheeks in my hands, and I kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

While we waited for my luggage to come off the carousel, I pulled the notebooks—five of them, filled front and back with my scrawl—from my carry-on bag and handed them to Cindy.

“These are yours,” I said.

“Do you mean…”

“Yes. It’s all there.”

She opened the first one. I had left the opening page blank until the very end, for the words I saved until I was on the plane home.

My darling Cindy,

You were right. You always were. I’ve worked it through, and I’m done with it now. No more secrets.

I love you,

Mitch

T
HE ROLLING THUNDER
and a flash of lightning stirred me. The gauze pulled back from the corners of my eyes, revealing a world cloaked in nighttime gray. The hallway light strained against the dark but gained little purchase. I lay on the couch and swam through the fog in my brain, trying to find my bearings.

When I sat up, the blood rushed to my head. I had to brace myself against the table to keep from passing out.

When I finally dared to look up, I saw her staring at me. Toby’s girlfriend.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Your dad asked me to look after you for a while.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say.”

My breathing leveled out and the fuzziness in my cranium receded. I lifted my head slowly and tried to make sense of where I was. I peered into the half light and tried to bring the clock on the stove into focus. 11:12. Where had the hours gone? And what was I doing back here?

“Are you OK?” my watcher asked.

“No.”

She said nothing else. The rain pelted the trailer.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Teresa,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you.”

She hadn’t answered me, though. I ignored that and moved on to the most pregnant question, one I had asked too many times.

“Where is my dad?”

“I’m not sure. Out.”

“Where are Toby and Brad?”

She looked away.

“They’re with him.”

I screwed up the gumption to stand. My head throbbed at the scant exertion it took, and my legs turned rubbery. I paced in the trailer’s living space and tried to clear my head.

“How long was I asleep?”

“A long time,” Teresa said.

I tried to reconstruct the day. I was missing a hell of a gap. Brad and I returned to the house in the afternoon. I remembered drinking one beer, then another. Things got hazy fast after that.

Remembering the beer frightened me. I wondered if I should ask Teresa what Dad knew. I wondered what she knew. If my illicit drinking were common knowledge, it would be to my advantage to be aware of that. If I was telling on myself, it could be quite bad for me.

“Does Dad know I was drinking?”

She looked away from the floor and back at me.

“I think so.”

“Is he mad?”

The pause between question and response seemed interminable.

“Mitch, I don’t really know.”

I ran to the bathroom and heaved my guts into the toilet. On wavy legs, I returned to the couch, and sleep overtook me again.

My eyes flickered open. Dad’s face greeted mine. He sat in a chair and hovered over me from the edge of the couch. He studied my face. The stench of dirt, sweat, and booze peeled off him.

“What time is it?” I asked.

His eyes didn’t leave mine, and he didn’t answer.

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” he said.

“Where?”

“Places.”

Each word sent alcohol-laden breath crashing into my face.

“Why did you leave me here with that girl?”

“You were asleep.”

“So what?”

“You were asleep,” he said again.

“I’m sick of this,” I said.

“What?”

“Everything. Sick of you. Why do you always leave me?”

Dad kept a steady gaze on me. Finally, he spoke.

“Mitch, I think it’s time for you to go back to Washington.”

My heart cleaved into two imperfect pieces. I tried to shove the hurt back down into my gut, where he couldn’t see it.

“Why?”

“It’s time. You’re better off at home.”

“Is this because I drank beer?” My voice had gone shrill.

“No.”

“Why then?”

“It’s time.”

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer. Tears made tracks down my face.

“Take a shower and change clothes,” he said softly. “I’ll pack up your gear. We’ll go to Salt Lake tonight and get you on the first flight out.”

I didn’t move.

“Don’t make me go, Dad. I’ll be good. I’ll never drink another beer, ever again. Please let me stay.”

Dad looked back at me with red eyes.

“It’s better that you go.”

“Can’t I stay just a few more days? I want to say good-bye to my friends. Jennifer, Brad, Toby. Please?”

Dad stood up and reached for me. “Come on, Mitch. I’ll tell those guys good-bye for you. Hop in the shower.”

I slapped at his hand.

“I hate you,” I said. “I did one thing wrong, and you’re sending me away. What about all the things you did?”

He pursed his lips. I shoved him as I made my way to the bathroom, and there I hid my tears in the spray of the showerhead.

When I came back into the main trailer, I bore in on Dad again and begged him to reconsider. The grim look never left his face, and he never wavered.

“I hate you,” I said.

“I know.”

I loaded up my right hand and I punched him in the gut. Dad winced. I punched him again and again, and he took every shot. When he stepped closer to me and said, “Mitch,” I belted him in the mouth, and my hand felt as though it shattered.

Dad punched me in the breastbone. I slumped to the trailer floor.

“Goddammit, Mitch. Grab your stuff. We’re going.”

I slept most of the way to Salt Lake, and in my moments of consciousness, I turned to the window of the pickup and faked it. I didn’t want any more words. They hurt too much.

Dad kept a firm grip on the wheel and his eyes forward.

In Salt Lake, I stood apart from him at a pay phone while he called and woke up Mom and told her I would soon be on the way. Ever the skillful liar, he spun a good cover story. He told Mom that things had blown up with Marie and that he was going to have to shut down for a while to deal with it—all of which might well have been true, but it also skirted the fundamental truth that his decisions had brought us to this point. Jerry was gone, Marie was gone, and I was on my way, a month ahead of schedule. A summer that had started with such promise had gone to shit.

“Your mom wants to talk to you,” he said, handing me the phone.

I said my hello. She asked if I was all right, and I said I was. She said she would see me soon. I told her I loved her, and I handed the phone back to Dad.

“I don’t want you sitting next to me,” I told Dad. We were at the gate, waiting for the boarding call.

He stood up and moved a couple of chairs down.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked him.

“It’s for the best.”

“Best for you. Not for me.”

The quiet settled back into the space between us.

“Mitch, maybe someday you’ll understand this.”

I had grown weary of the it’s-for-your-own-good bullshit. He wanted me gone. I wished he would just say so. Just acknowledge that I was in the way. Just be honest.

“I’ll never understand.”

He looked at me and smiled. It turned my stomach.

“In time, you will.”

“Dad,” I said. “I’m never coming back.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You don’t want me. I don’t want you, either.”

The airline agent called for my row number.

“That’s you,” Dad said, standing up. I rose.

Dad tried to hug me. I offered a handshake.

Then I pulled out my wallet and removed Jerry’s sixty dollars. I handed the money to Dad. I didn’t need it anymore.