All Families Are Psychotic (12 page)

'You migh t say that.'

Wade looked at his father and could tell from his eyes that he was already feeling solvent.

'You three lads are going to have
such
fun,' said Norm. 'I gather you don ' t socialize too often.'

'When was the last time the three of us did anything together — just the three of us?' Bryan asked. 'Oh, geez—' Ted hated this kind of question.

Wade said, 'We went to see
Diamonds Are Forever
at the Odeon.'

Norm said, 'You
must
be kidding . That movie came out in 1973, at
least:

Wade said, 'Let's be practical. How are we going to get to the Bahamas? If we're going to go, I suggest we hop to it, because we can only fly there in sunligh t. We should be driving to the east coast, pron to.' 'How come you kno w so much abou t this stuff?' Ted asked.

Wade said nothing.

'Let's just charter a jet from downtown,' Bryan said. 'Yeah, us and our triple-A credit ratings,' said Ted.

Norm said, 'I need to take Peter Pan to the men's room and give him a severe shaking down.' He stood up. 'Wade, guard the case for me.' Norm began to walk away.

'Boy,' said Ted, 'he trusts you big-time.'

Norm turned around . 'Wade is qui te trustw orthy, Mr. Drum-mond. You should give him a chance to display this trait.' Wade smirked and then the power went off. Everybody froze.

Norm said, 'A power failure — in
Disney
World ?'

A hive-like chatter began to rise in the restaurant. Outside, the rides went dead. 'You never think of power being a factor in a place like this,' said Ted.

'I kno w,' Wade said. 'It 's like the place is fueled by Tinker-bell's pixie dust.'

'Speaking of which, Peter Pan still needs his shakedown.' Norm went to try and use the men's room at the restaurant's rear, but returned shor tly. 'Too dark.'

'You're afraid of the dark?' Ted asked. 'I am.'

'I'm going to try and find a men's room.'

Once he was out the door, Ted said, 'He's a freak.'

'That
freak
is bailing you out of hock,' replied Wade. 'You could be a bit more poli te, you kno w.' 'How far away is the Bahamas?' Bryan asked. 'Is it near Mexico?'

'It 's 120 miles east of Miami.' 'That's close,' Bryan said.

The three sat and waited for Norm to return. In silence Wade contemplated the letter. What could it possibly say?
I miss you. I had things to tell you I never said. Come back. Don' t leave me like this.

A waitress said they'd have to wait for power to order food. Minu tes passed. Wade was becoming aware of how the three were utterly unin terested in one another's company. Beth had once said that males

within a family were never really close with one another; it was only with women that intense family relationships were born. Wade saw what she'd meant.

The power came on and the restaurant's guests clapped. Wade said, 'I'm going to go find him.' In the nearby men's room Wade found only a dad changing a diaper and a teenager washing his hands; the bank of toilet stalls was empty. He asked the dad if there had been a guy with a ponytail in there recently, and the reply was no. He looked for and found the next nearest men's room. No Norm inside.

Then, down Main Street USA, he saw a small crowd clustered around something; Wade immediately knew the something would be Norm. He pushed his way through the crowd to find a doctor on holid ay with her family, crouched by Norm 's body, saying, 'He's dead.'

'Dead?'

The woman looked at him. 'Are you related?'

The last thing Wade wanted was an association with Norm. 'No — it 's just that people don ' t actually
die

in a place like this, do they?'

'This guy did. Cardiac, it looks like.'

Wade quickly scooted back to the restaurant. He sat down with the gravity of a person bearing bad yet

interesting news. 'Guys, it would appear we're now on our own.' He grabbed the case and unclasped the lock.

Ted asked, 'What are you talking abou t?'

Inside the case, sandwiched between the upper and lower lids of the case's foam, were an empty schnapps bott le and the letter.

The last time the Drummond s had been together as a family was a warm June nigh t in the 1970s. Ted and Janet Drummond were thro wing a party for no other reason than that they owed one to a lot of people.

They still had friends then, and they still cared a good deal abou t what their friends though t. The three kids were in high school, and Ted and Janet still though t of themselves as being younger rather than

older.

Sarah later told Wade that she and Bryan had spent a few hours talking with the guests, most of whom had been smashed. They then went and sat at the top of the stairs and ogled the guests below. Mr. Laine, Ted's tax guy and self-styled rogue, was hitt ing on Janet like crazy. Ted was telling crude jokes to a cluster of people by the stereo console, purchased new that afternoon . Wade had helped his father wire it.

Kitty Henry put a cigarette burn in Mom's favori te couch, and Helena, Mom's best friend, was shamelessly hitt ing on Russ Hallaway, a single Romeo with a tree-trimming service, who was rumor ed to have an oval- shaped bed.

All of this was happening as the RCMP car, cherries flashing, with Wade in the backseat, pulled into the driveway. The fron t door of the house had been open that evening so as to let in both fresh air and

confused moths. Guests saw the cruiser's cherries, and they melted away from their respective cliques toward the open door. At this poin t, the Herb Alpert record finished, and the party's earlier shrill roar became a low and curiou s buzz.

Ted, along with some of the guests, was out the door. An RCMP off icer was unlocking the cruiser's rear door to allo w Wade, his long hair covering his face, to slump out of the car.

The off icer and his partner spoke to Ted, who then swatted Wade on the neck, using the full heft of his chest and should ers, which hurled the boy across the lawn. The guests went silent. Wade stood up, shook his head, and dove, tackling Ted onto the lawn, starting a brawl in which a choppy, seedy narrative

emerged:

'Stay out of my li fe, you goddamn Nazi goon.'

'Why don ' t you keep your pecker in your pants, you li tt le shit?'

'Oh, stuff it. Her father made her get rid of it, Dad, and losing a grandchild means fuck-all to you.' 'And so you had to go and attack him, did you?'

Janet came out shrieking, and a quartet of the guests managed to pull Wade and Ted apart, grass-stained and speckled with blood .

The cops left and guests quickly dribbl ed away.

Wade came up to Sarah's bedroom and climbed through her windo w out onto the roo f. He heard Ted putt ing on fresh records, but the music was playing to an empty, still smoky room. Mom was in the TV room downstairs, and Wade could hear her crying, with Helena feeding her sympathy and Kleenex.

Around tw o, Sarah climbed out across the cedar shingl es and joined Wade for a cigarette — her first and last. 'So, how do you feel — abou t almost being a father?'

'I don ' t kno w. The baby was alive. Now she — or he — isn' t.'

Later, Sarah placed graham crackers and a bott le of Spri te on the windo w's ledge. She said good nigh t to Wade. T feel like I'm leaving milk and cookies out for Santa Claus.'

'Sleep tigh t, baby sister.'

Sarah said, 'We're never really going to be a family again.' Wade said, 'What are you talking abou t?'

'All of us — together under one roo f. It 's over.' Wade considered this. T guess it is.'

He left early the next morning .

The three men were driving Wade's rental car down a pristine new toll high way, with Ted at the wheel. The high way seemed as if it had been opened only ten minu tes ago, the shapes of its bends and curves

and hill s dictated by the coun tless untameable lakes and swamps that pocked the state. High way signs had promi sed an interchange a few miles down the road that would then connect them to another near- identical road.

They were en rou te to Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral. From there, Wade intended to dump Ted and Bryan in the lap of Connor , an old paramutuel bett ing friend whose li fe had been reduced to his thir ty-tw o-foot Chris-Craft plus whatever he could cadge off people witless enough to rent both boat and captain for the afternoon 's fisheries. One last phone call before Ted's cell phone's batteries died

confirmed that Connor could use a bit of extra cash and would do a Bahamian run for Ted and Bryan. Good. After that, Wade was going to wash his hands of the day's idiocies and return to the hotel and take his pill s plus some extra antinauseants. He'd then call his loan sharks and ask for an extension.

Dealing with them seemed safer than dealing with his father and bro ther.

They were apparently the only car driving on the clean white lanes free from even the faintest of tire skids. The only thing marring the experience was Ted, who was in a nasty mood from not having eaten and from having to be around young people far longer than he preferred. He said belligerently, 'So let me understand this, Wade. You tw o are going to have a kid even though you're going to die any day now.'

Wade would have tackled and strangled anybody else. But seeing as it was his father, Wade only regretted having broken the news. 'Dad, I'm not abou t to die, and Beth's negative and so is the kid. We're gonna be just fine.'

'Yeah, righ t.'

'OK. Be an asshole. See if I care. You can let me out of the car at that tollboo th up ahead and you can kiss your ass-saving jackpo t good-bye.'

'Calm down. Jee-
zuzz
. Give me fifty cents.'

Wade roo ted abou t his pockets for coins. He could feel Bryan pulsing with jealousy over Wade's upcoming not-to-be-abor ted child. 'Bryan, you can check your pockets, too, you kno w.' He looked around : Bryan had taken Prince Willi am's letter from within its pro tective covering of Plexiglas sheets and was fondling

it. 'Jesus, Bryan, put the letter back in the bag! I can' t believe you even unzipped it.' 'I just wanted to touch the paper. Is that a big crime?'

Bryan slid the letter back in its bag and made a feeble attempt to locate money in his pockets. The car pulled up to the tollboo th; they paid and drove through .

Wade looked at his father. The ligh t in the car was harsh, and Wade suddenly saw a cragginess there that he hadn' t seen before. He knew his own face looked shrunk en and beleaguered in this same ligh t. 'So, Dad, you honestly think I'm going to be dead next week, don ' t you?'

'Well — no. Cripes. Sorry I even brough t it up. But it just seems to me like you could have though t abou t who'd take care of the kid a few years down the road.'

'A few years down the road.' 'Yeah.'

'Down the road meaning what — five? Twenty?' 'I don ' t kno w. Two?'

'So, we have a number on it now. You estimate I'll be dead in tw o years.' 'Well, yeah. Is that a crime?'

'Stop the car.'

'Don' t be so melodramatic. So you may not be dead in tw o years. So I'm wrong, and you don ' t die. Big frigging deal.'

'I said stop the goddamn car!' Bryan snor ted from the backseat.

Wade stuck his index finger in his mou th, removed it, tip glistening, and held it out toward his father. 'Stop the car.'

'Don' t be a jerk, Wade.'

'Stop, or I'll touch you — and likely
infect
you at that.'

Wade saw a vein in Ted's forehead pop out. He waggled his index finger even closer. 'Stop the car . . .

Dad.'

Wade touched his father's cheek. Ted screamed and slammed on the brakes, jol ting the sedan sideways perpendicular to the lane. There was a squeal, the hiss of gravel, and then the car did a neat doubl e flip, as if in a 1970s cop show. It hopped a tiny roadside fence and landed on the ground beneath an

embankment, righ t side up, amid a thicket of sharp, wild, prickly grasses. The engine still purred calmly. A road map fluttered from the ceiling down onto the center console. There was no noise outside; the empty freeway was out of both sigh t and mind. Everything was just the same as it had been a few minu tes

before, but at the same time completely different.

The three sat quietly, as though the smallest of gestures migh t reactivate the violence. They swore and

looked around themselves slowly. Bryan began to whoop. 'Oh,
man,
Dad — this is the most heinous thing you've ever done. You are a
stud!
You
rule!'

There was no possible way to get the car up and onto the road. The righ t fron t tire was sinking into the edge of a drab, unscenic swamp. In a crisp, eff icient manner, they had traveled back in time to a

nonhum an epoch. Ted turned off the engine and his body went rigid with shock. Wade opened his door, and the car's
ding-ding-ding
warning sounded. He looked at the car's body from the outside. 'You

asshole! This car's rented in Beth's name. Do you have any idea how long she worked to regain her fucking credit rating? The roo f looks like a goddamn cheese grater.'

Ted thawed sligh tly, got out, and looked at the car. 'Relax. We're OK.'

'This is
not
OK — we're
fucked.
And I'm the one who told her not to buy maximum insurance. She's going to fucking
freak.'

Bryan's hormon es and enzymes, still in shock, bulleted abou t his system. 'Dad, you are a total
stud.
Not a single broken windo w. Even the rearview mirror s are untouched. Man — that was so cool it — ouch! Ow! Oh
shit . .
.'

'Bryan,' asked Wade, ' what is it now?' 'An ant just bit me.'

'A what?'

'A
fire
ant.
Shit.
There's a colony of fire ants righ t here.' Bryan had placed his righ t leg squarely into the center hole of a fire ant colony. 'Hey, Bryan — they're swarming all over you -even righ t up to your neck. Shit.'

Squealing like a braking train, Bryan started brushing himself off with ineff icient, powerful windmill strokes. His screaming became almost inaudibl y high-pitched.