All Families Are Psychotic (16 page)

Wade told him abou t the episode the day before, abou t Shw showering to remove all traces of

thalidomid e from her body. Bryan's face became a living, morphing before-and-after pho to. The cabbie, Wade noticed, couldn ' t help but listen in.

Ted asked, 'So what's the deal with this Florian guy in the Bahamas?'

'Here's the deal,' said Wade, 'I used to work for him a few years ago. He's the heir to a Swiss

pharmaceutical fortune. He makes half the painkill ers and pesticides on earth, but he's a total " I worship England " freak — his gardener told me his nanny used to diddl e him every Sunday after church — so he lives in the Bahamas now, which is very English and also the shadiest place on earth — like a theme park of shade. People become caugh t up in the scene, but when they try to rejoin the rest of the world, it

always looks so boring that they end up staying in the Bahamas. The place is like a drug. That, and from the Bahamas he can fly anywhere in the States any time he wants. Oh -there's also no taxes in the Bahamas.'

'There's always the tax thing,' said Ted.

'Yeah, Dad, like you're a high-flyer,' Wade said. 'Lay off me.'

'Do you want to kno w abou t Florian or not?' Ted was quiet.

'Anyway, he's big on science. He really gets turned on by all this stuff his company cranks out, so he's not piddling away the company. He's actually a wicked businessman. If I had money, I'd invest in him.'

'How do
you
kno w him?'

'I used to do deliveries for him.'

'Deliveries? What — drugs and shit?'

The cabbie lurched to a halt at the side of the road, before a gang of prisoners on labor duty stripping

the roadway sides of crushed pop tins, dead socks and crumpl ed-up cardboard french-fry containers. The lurch caused Bryan's righ t side to rub against the door, and he wailed in pain. The cabbie turned around , livid. 'If you people talk abou t drugs even once in this car, you're out on your butts. Got it?'

'Christ — yeah, we've got it. No need to foam.' 'Stop taking the name of the Lord in vain.'

' My back's hur ting really bad,' said Bryan.

'We'll find you some oin tment at Howie's house,' said Wade. The cabbie pulled onto the road and Wade then turned to Ted. 'No, Dad, I wasn' t shipping
drugs.
It was plant specimens. Endangered and semi-

endangered things from all over the States. For molecular studies. Or so I was told.' 'So
that's
what you were doing ,' said Ted.

'What do you mean?'

'Your mother and I always tried to guess what you were doing after you took off like that. It always boiled down to smuggling .'

'I did other things, too.'

'Like what?' 'Forget it.'

They drove on withou t speaking. Wade figured they were three minu tes away from Howie and the

Brunswick family home. 'By the way, Howie is having a fling with Alanna Brunswick, so he's going to be acting all funny around me. Around you, too, I guess. Just so you kno w what's up.'

'You're kidding me.'

'No. Why would I? I caugh t them being all kissie-poo yesterday morning .' 'That sono fabitch. He's screwing around on Sarah?'

'Dad, you can' t kill him. At least not until the shutt le lands.'

The cab pulled up at the Brunswicks', where a picnic was going full-force on the lawn, a garish space-

themed tribu te to one of the abundant Brunswick childr en. Parents were seated in folding chairs around the yard, eating noisily with their spawn. Howie was manning the barbecue, and when he saw Wade and Ted hop out of the cab, his face went blank.

Ted, in his one shoe, walked up to Howie. 'Howie, pay the cab driver.' 'Ted — I don ' t have my wallet on me — I . . .'

Ted poured a pitcher of lemonade on the grill , making a steam mushroom . 'Pay the cab driver.' Howie stood silent for a moment. 'Will do.' He went to pay.

All eyes were then riveted on Ted, who paid no heed, his own eyes squin ting meanly on Howie.

Wade walked over to the grill , as did Alanna, now fully clicked into cheerleader mode. She approached Ted as one would approach a
grrr
ing dog. 'You're Ted — I'm Alanna.'

Ted grun ted.

Alanna looked down at the last whispers of steam lapping up from the grill . 'I see you didn ' t like our li tt le barbecue . . .'

'Don' t push it, lady,' Ted said under his breath.

He turned around ; Bryan was in the wading pool, with his body covered up with soaking towels to

preclude more sunburn . One of the childr en started to cry. Howie came back from the taxi. 'Looks like we could use some fresh lemonade, Alanna.'

Ted said, 'Give me the keys to your van, Howie.'

'Hey, father-in-law, why don ' t you join our party?' Howie giggl ed nervously.

'I'd love to join your party, Howie, but if I did I'd probably have a drink , and if I had a drink I'd start

talking in a loud, graphic way abou t how you and the missus here are humping each other like a pair of Dobermans.'

'You wouldn ' t do that,' said Howie. 'I wouldn ' t, would I?'

'No. You wouldn ' t. Because Sarah would find out, and she'd go up into outer space as if you'd taken a big staple gun and gone at her heart a hundr ed times. As far as I can see, she's the only thing in your li fe

that's sacred. The one soli tary single thing. Hey — that's pretty pathetic, when you think abou t it.' He smiled. 'Turkey burger?'

Ted obviously hadn' t expected balls from Howie and was temporarily quiet. Alanna looked at Ted, then to Howie. 'So it seems things are hunk-dory here.'

'I think so,' said Howie. 'Ted here is abou t to help religh t the barbecue.' 'I need Tylenol,' said Wade.

Howie said, 'Up in the bathroom . You kno w where it is.'

Wade went upstairs and showered. Drying off, as though some prankster in another dimension had

flipped a switch, his energy suddenly surged — he felt great, like a teenager headed out to vandalize on a Friday nigh t.
God, I love it when this happens. I used to be like this all the time — like a poseable action

figure: GI Joe with Kung-Fu Grip — I am going to see my kid grow up!

Wade's energy came in surges that could vary in length from hours to weeks, and these surges seemed unrelated to any kno wn form of cause and effect. They simply came.

He looked at his soaked, dir ty, oily clothes and decided he couldn ' t be bothered to pick them up —
wait a second . . . I'm too lazy to pick up the laundry — my energy really is back!

Wade faced yet another messy wardrob e change at the Brunswicks'. He looked out of the bathroom and saw what was probably the guestroom.
Locked.
A piece of coat-hanger took care of that, and he entered what proved to be the room assigned to his bro ther-in-law for the weeks leading up to the launch. He

ri fled through Howie's personal effects, cozied inside a wicker duck that had once held gift soaps.
Hey, hey, my, my — Volkswagen keys!
He then sifted through Howie's cupboard and selected a nondescrip t shir t and pants —
should events ever reach the police ID lineup stage I don' t want to be too memorable- looking .

On Howie's bedside phone he then dialed directory assistance for the Bahamas and asked for the number of Buckingh am Pest Control, Florian's shop fron t in Nassau. He soon connected to a pro foundl y

disinterested female Bahamian voice: 'Buckingh am Pest Control.' 'Hi, I'd like to leave a message for Florian.'

'Uh-huh.'

'It 's Wade Drummond . I used to mow his cricket field.' ' Mmmm.'

'A few years ago.'

' Mmmm.' The voice at the other end migh t just as well have been a patient on a respirator. 'Tell him I have a message from his
mother.
A letter.'

' Mmmm.'

'He'll be very interested to kno w abou t it.' ' Mmmm.'

' Make sure he gets the news.' 'Uh-huh.'

'I'll call back in a few hours with instructions.'

He hung up. Then he brushed his hair and loped down the stairs onto the fron t lawn, where Howie was all smiles; Ted stood glaring at the guests like a bulldog on a chain. 'Dad, let's go.'

'I'm going to kill Howie.'

'Wait until Sarah's in orbi t. Besides—' He held up a key. 'I have a key.' He walked over to Bryan lying in the wading pool, face up. 'Bryan, get out of there. And bring a big towel to cover yourself.'

Bryan snatched a Tweety Bird in Space towel, and the three men walked over to Howie's van. Wade got

into the driver's seat. Howie was frozen with indecision as Wade leaned out. 'Howie! Thanks for lett ing us use your van! I told Sarah we'd have it back to you in an hour. She's righ t, man — you're the nicest guy in Florid a.'

The year was 1970-something, and Wade and Janet were in a pet store to buy white mice for Sarah's pet snake, Omar.

' Mom, was Dad always a prick?' 'Wade!'

'Well, was he?'

'Look for good mice, Wade.' Sarah was returning that evening from a school field trip to a Portland science Olympics; the mice were a surpri se.

'Those ones there,' Janet said, 'They look . . .' 'Juicier?'

'I suppose.'

' Mom, I think snakes prefer " crunchy" over " juicy".' 'They do not.'

Wade watched his mother smile. He said, 'Juicy mice take too long to go through the length of the snake. Juiciness is constipating.'

'Wade!'

'You didn ' t answer my question abou t when Dad started being a jerk.' 'He used to be nice, you kno w. Fun. He was
fun.'

'Har-de-har-har.'

A clerk walked over. 'Looking for feeder mice?'

'Yeah,' said Wade. 'A dozen.'

'Those ones there,' Janet said, poin ting to the fat ones. 'Are they more expensive than the regular ones?' 'Yup. They're pregnant, so they're a buck more.'

Wade and Janet
ee-yoo
'ed in unison. The clerk said they could upgrade to nonpr egnant hamsters for only

$1.25.

'Just the mice,' said Wade. 'Unpregnant. A dozen.'

'How could anybody feed pregnant mice to a snake?' asked Janet, more to herself than to elicit any real answer.

'What I can' t figure out is why don ' t they just eat hamburg er?'

The clerk spoke up: 'No good withou t a kill . The kill releases enzymes to aid in digestion. You can' t kill hamburg er.'

'Oh dear,' said Janet. 'I never would have believed buying mice was so hard.'

As the clerk gathered mice, mother and son walked over to the bird section, shrill and hot, ri fe with the sharp phosphate zing of guano. Wade looked at the budgi es and wondered how such a toy of a creature could ever have existed in the wild.
It 's like the poodle of the bird world.
Wade tried to imagine small

white poodl es hun ting alongside cavemen. He spoke up: 'You said Dad used to be fun once. When? Prove it.'

'When he was younger. When I met him in university. He was so unstuffy. He'd say
anything,
and I've always liked that in people, maybe because I'm such a wallflower myself.'

'What's a wallflower?'

'You kno w. Those girls who stand along the walls at school dances who never get asked to dance.' 'You?'

'Nobody ever told me how to pluck my eyebro ws. Until university I looked like a female East German weigh t-li fter from the 1960s.'

'You did
not.
I've seen pictures.'

'I used to be so passive. I'd never think of asking a man to dance with me.'

A cage of budgi es erup ted into a bou t of squabbling over what appeared to be terri torial righ ts to the perch beside the tiny mirror . Janet said, 'Your father was sort of like Helena. She's so outrageous. Helena drove my parents batty. So did Ted, but not as much as Helena did.'

'Hmmm.' Wade found Helena disturbing ; he'd caugh t her sizing him up in the ki tchen a few weeks

before. She was, even to his as-of-then presexual eye, dangerous. She'd looked at Wade, narro wed her eyes and said, 'You're
just
like your father. You try to pretend you're not, but you are. You li tt le
faker.'
Wade returned to the moment. 'But we were talking abou t Dad — do you have, like,
any
proo f that he isn' t a jerk?'

'I just don ' t understand why the tw o of you can' t get along. You're both so much alike, you kno w.' Wade froze. 'No. No
way
are we alike.'
Uh-oh.

'Struck a nerve, did I?'

Had she?
'He drink s too much.'

'Drinks too much?' Janet looked puzzled. 'He drink s as much as any other man his age.' 'What does that prove?'

'I don ' t kno w what you're implying, Wade. Everybody drink s.'

The mice were ready at the coun ter. Janet paid. In the car driving home, Wade looked in on the mice, scampering abou t the bott om of a picnic cooler. 'Uh-oh—'

'What?' asked Janet.

'We've got a deadie.' He li fted a dead mouse up by the tail. 'Wade, get that thing out of the car immediately.'

Wade placed the dead mouse in the vest pocket of his down coat. Tm not going to just thro w it out. It 's not an apple core or li tter. It was a living creature.'

'Stick it in the compost out back when we get home.'

Back at the house, Wade went to Sarah's bedroom . 'Hey, Omar, time for your delicious mousy treat.'

From behind him, Janet said, 'No. Let him build up his appetite so when Sarah feeds him, he jumps on it.'

' Mom, you have a tw isted side.'

'Wade, any mother will give you the same answer. Why do you think we always eat so late in this house? I want the food I serve you to be
eaten?

An hour or so later, Ted came home from work just as Sarah was dropp ed off by her science teacher. Ted carried Sarah up to the house on his should ers. She was beaming: 'Oh,
Daddy!'

'You won, honey, you're my li tt le winner. Look, Jan — three trophi es!'

A small buzz of activity ensued as Sarah relayed tales of bridg es buil t of macaroni holding fifteen-pound payloads; a lens that burned paper from across a room; frogs that were flash-frozen in baths of liquid

nitrogen and then sprung back to li fe. Wade brough t in the cooler containing the mice.