All Families Are Psychotic (17 page)

'Wade! You're my hero — Omar's going to love these mice. Have you been feeding him properly?' 'Oh, yeah.'

Ted opened the liquor cabinet door and removed his favori te brand of rye, which he then poured into a tumbler. He made puzzled sounding noises. 'What the—?' He slammed the bott le down on the coun ter. 'Come here, you li tt le creep.'

'What's wrong, Ted?'

'There's a dead fucking mouse in the rye bott le.'

Wade looked at Sarah with conspiring eyes, and Sarah said, 'Dad, the alcohol in the rye will have sterilized the mouse. It 's perfectly drink able.'

Ted ignor ed this and grabbed Wade by the collar, busting his puka shell necklace and sending the small beads around the ki tchen.

'Put me down, you alcoholi c goon.'

Ted tossed him out the ki tchen door way into the hall.

'Oh,' said Wade, 'I guess that's supposed to prove you're not an alcoholi c? Well, you
are —
you're a goddamn drunk and it 's the worst-kept secret in Vancouver.'

Sarah stood up and barricaded the door with her arms. Nothing in the world would make Ted lay a finger on Sarah. 'Dad, the mouse is Wade's idea of a joke. Laugh, OK?'

'That li tt le—'

'Stop.' Sarah turned around to Wade. 'Wade, the mouse is dead, so Omar's not going to eat it. You owe me a mouse.'

'But it died on the way home from the store,' said Janet.

'Oh,' said Sarah. 'Then we're even Steven. C'mon. Let's go feed Omar.'

The three men headed down to Kissimmee in the orange van. Traff ic was a mess and they lost nearly half an hour at the tollboo th scraping together $1.25 in change. Bryan's skin was flaring up in an ominou s

uni form bubbl e-gum pink color, and Ted stubbed his unshod toe on the van's running board just as they found their final nickel. When they arrived in Kissimmee, the shadows of the local cypress trees, cycads, grapefrui t trees and Washing tonia palms were lengthening; the men were cranky and bored, and

withou t a plan as to how to locate Shw. Wade looked at Ted's opulent borro wed lodging s and hoo ted, 'Viva Las Vegas!'

'Shut up. It 's free.'

Inside the fron t hallway was a foun tain. A shiny curlicued celebration of the brassmonger's craft. A peeing cupid suppli ed sound effects.

Bryan asked, 'When's Nickie back?'

'Hell if I kno w. She's out. Not spending money. I hope.'

Bryan went righ t upstairs to soak in a cool bath. Ted went to change into fresh clothes. Wade checked out the fridge: a family-pack of forty-eigh t hot dog wieners and a four-gallon tub of salsa.
I didn ' t even know salsa came in sizes that big.
In an instant he was ravenous. He stuck six hot dogs in the microwave and over by the sink dug into the salsa tub with an opened bag of tortilla chips. The microwave
pinged
and Wade grabbed the hot dogs, sending them into his stomach only partially chewed. He missed being

hungr y and he loved the abili ty to slake the hunger so easily and pleasurably, like sex.

Wade heard water running upstairs and the taps ratt ling. Full, he sat on a ki tchen chair. Ted walked into the ki tchen. 'I need a rye. You want one?' He pulled a bott le out from a cupboard. 'I still inspect my

bott les for dead mice, you asshole.'

'We have to go to the hotel. I need my pill s.'

'Relax. We'll be there soon enough . I hope that mental case Shwoo or whatever her name is has left us a clue at the hotel. Or she doesn' t dump the car in the Everglades.'

'Dad — if I don ' t take my pill s, then my insides get tw ice as bad as they were before.'

Ted stared at Wade; Wade sensed that this was the first time Ted was ackno wledging his disease on an adul t level. 'OK. I'll get Bryan, we can stop by the hotel so you can load up on pill s. And then we should go to the hospital and find him something to numb his skin. He's like a pig on a spit.' Ted was abou t to leave the room, but turned around . 'Shouldn ' t you call that kraut Florian guy again?'

Wade checked his watch. 'Good idea. He ough t to be pretty hungr y by now.' Wade dialed and once again got the bored woman, but the line died a few seconds into the call, and when he tried again, he couldn ' t reconnect. 'It 's no big deal,' he said to Ted. 'The Bahamas are connected to the U.S. by a fishing line and a lot of wishful thinking .'

Bryan came downstairs, so pink that Wade wondered how white people ever got called white. They drove to the Peabody hotel and once up in the room Ted caugh t the scent of Nickie's perfume. 'What the hell?' Bryan was pro wling through Wade's shaving ki t for Tylenol; Wade again dialed the Bahamas, but got the same useless connection that died after five seconds. The men then drove to the local hospital, where

staff saw Bryan, recognized his condi tion immediately and plopp ed him onto a gurney, only to spend a half hour examining his insurance history before electing to treat him as a patient. In the end he received various injections, plus a prescrip tion for painkill ers and some oin tment, which was paid for with the last hundr ed dollars remaining on Bryan's MasterCard.

Bryan was lying on the gurney, blissed out on painkill ers, when Wade and Ted looked across the hotel's emergency room and saw Janet and Nickie.

What the bell?
' Mom?'

'Wade? Ted? What are you doing here?' She saw Bryan. 'Dear God!' She ran over to Bryan.

Ted said, 'Cool your jets. It 's just a sunburn . He's in LaLa Land at the moment. More to the poin t, what are

you two
doing here? And was that your perfume I smelled up in the hotel room, Nix?'

'Yes, Ted, it was. Janet and I are having a lesbian romance. You can' t deny us our forbidd en love.' 'Very funny.'

Janet said, 'We were involved in a restaurant holdup this morning . We came here to see the waiter who was shot. We just arrived.'

'Holdup ?' said Wade.

'We're fine. Shw was there, too.'

The men's ears perked up at the sound of Shw's name. 'Really now?'

'I honestly wonder if that woman is evil,' Janet said. 'She's selling the baby to some auto parts magnate in Daytona Beach. Selling the baby! Ted, we're going to have to put our differences aside and hire some lawyers on this one.'

'Daytona Beach . . .' said Wade.

'Did you get the guy's name?' Ted asked. 'No. Why?'

'Ted? Wade?'

'Is she headed there now, you think?' asked Wade. 'Who kno ws. Probably.'

Wade and Ted swapped looks. ' Mom,' said Wade, ' we have to go.' 'Go where?'

'Long story.' Already Wade was halfway to the automatic doors, as Ted dragged Bryan off the gurney. 'Ted . . .' called Nickie.

'Can' t talk now, Nix — we have to go.' And in a blink they were gone.

Janet and Nickie walked through the emergency room doors, a swoosh of hot nigh t air blasting their faces. Across the lot the three men were barreling away in Howie's orange van — with no Howie inside. Wade burned some rubber as they left the lot, making Janet turn to Nickie: 'How do men
do
that? I've been driving for forty years and I've never once burned rubber.'

Back inside the hospital they learned that Kevin's condi tion was stable and that he was sleeping. The tw o women bough t a stack of pinki sh silver Mylar balloon s and a sympathy card and placed them beside his bed. A nurse asked if Janet and Nickie were family. Janet said, 'No, but—'

The nurse zipped her finger up to her lips:
'Shhhhhh !
Don' t tell me anything more. I don ' t kno w who you are in this guy's li fe, but this guy is taking some serious meds. We don ' t kno w who to contact, and

someone has to go to his place and get his stuff. Could you do that?' 'Sure.'

The nurse handed Janet a Post-It with an address on the back copied from a driver's license. 'And here are keys that were in his pocket. One of them ough t to do the trick.'

The tw o women elevatored downstairs. Janet said, 'You kno w, this was supposed to be a happy family week that drew us all closer — all that NASA hokum : prayer breakfasts, zodiac boat tours through swamps, a chance encoun ter with a Kennedy family member . . . And you wouldn ' t
believe
the other astronaut families. They're practically astronauts themselves -shoes buffed like mirror s; too many teeth; half of them are mili tary and talk in barking Navy SEALs voices. They drive me nuts, they're so

enthusiastic. Our own family is a disaster.'

Nickie said, 'I doub t it. People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's family. The only family that ever horri fies you is your own. Hey — do you get along with Sarah?'

'Sarah? I think so. Yes.'

'What do you mean you " think so " .'

'The tw o of us have never actually had a figh t, per se.' 'I don ' t believe you.'

'Then don ' t. But I'm serious. Not one in nearly forty years.' 'Then why do you say you
think
you get along?'

'Sarah's always been Ted's baby. I was so scared and frigh tened when she was born. Ted wasn' t. He leapt in. He's stronger than me in some ways. He saw a spark in Sarah that I didn ' t. I feel ashamed of that.' Janet looked down into her lap and said, 'Sarah sees something in my eyes; I don ' t kno w what it is — but she's always held back with me.
Nicely,
mind you, but she's never truly opened up to me. Ever.'

Nickie was quiet.

After deliberating over a map, the tw o women drove to Kevin's neighborhood . The nigh t air was dark and floral, oily and infected. Janet saw a flock of birds off to the righ t and realized what a rare thing it is

to see birds after sundo wn. They passed a black Mercedes with an engine fire, and a pile of lemons sitt ing at the roadside for no apparent reason.

Florid a.

Minu tes later the women were in a trailer park in the nor thwest section of Orlando. 'Welcome to Kevin's house,' said Nickie, as they opened the door to the gently listing trailer. Janet sat at a ki tchen table, one of its legs propp ed up by a pile of unopened bill s stained with coffee and cigarette burns. She looked at pho tos inside $5.95 WalMart frames, mostly Kevin clowning with his friends amid bits and pieces of Disney characters in mid-mock copulation — a cast party? There was also a field of magnetized words on the fridge door.

'These magnet-word thingi es drive me crazy,' said Nickie.

'How come?' Nickie was pouring herself a grapefrui t juice; Janet was jealous because grapefrui t juice was off limi ts — its acidi ty burned her gums.

'Nobody ever makes anything good with them. But people never thro w them out, either.'

Both women's eyes landed on a beefcake calendar by the phone. 'It 's so faggy in here,' said Nickie. 'What

a rio t.'

'Let's just retrieve the pill s. I'm sleepy. I want to go to bed.'

They found tw o dozen bott les of Kevin's pill s, which they placed in a supermarket bag. Nickie dropp ed off Janet at the Peabody then left to deliver the cache.

Janet yearned only for a quick shower and sleep, but upstairs she opened the room 's door to find Beth wearing panties and a singlet, well into a series of cocktails, and qui te snippy. The room smelled like a steakhouse.

'Where's Wade?' asked Janet. 'And what's that smell?' She saw tw o fully disembo weled room service trolleys.

'The crap I tolerate from your son
—Jesus.
He dumps me to go to DisneyfuckingWorld , and so I waste the day piddling around the tourist traps. When I get back there's a guy from Budget Car Rental on the

phone and it turns out he wrecked my car — my credit's trashed for ever now, thank you — and then he takes off with that moron ex of yours, and Bryan.'

She is drunk. She is random. Play this carefully, Janet.

'I see.'

'Then he goes and leaves some lame message on the machine abou t having to do some work for
Norm.''

'Norm?'

'One of Wade's old lowlife pals. Owns a baseball team or something. He radiates darkness as the sun radiates ligh t.' Beth opened a minib ar bott le of tequila. 'You kno w you're scraping the dregs of the

minib ar when you drink the tequila.' She poured it into half a glass of water, took a sip and then looked at the carpet. 'Wade is lost. It 's hell for him.'

'Well, whatever. Who ate all the food?'

'I did — steak — not just one order, but
two.'

The notion of steak being somehow . . .
swanky
struck Janet as dated and sad. 'Wait until he sees the room bill ,' Beth said. 'He'll shit.'

'Yes, well, won' t he, though ?'

Janet had li tt le patience for drunk s, but saw this as an excellent oppor tuni ty to milk answers to a few lingering questions. 'Beth, you must be excited abou t the baby.'

'Yeah.' Beth looked stubborn .

' Maybe you could drink something other than alcohol. Can I get you a juice from the minib ar?'

'No. My mother was pickled when I was a bun in the oven. A drink here tonigh t isn' t going to make a whiff of difference.' Her grip on the glass tigh tened.

Janet said, 'You seem worried.'

'Wade's going be dead and in hell, and I'm going to be alone with another mou th to feed.' 'Why is Wade going to die?'

'You're cursed just like him. You have the same mark.'

'The same
mark?
Beth, Wade and I have a chroni c but manageable condi tion, as did you until recently, I migh t add.'

Beth spat out some air, and her head sagged sligh tly as the alcohol slackened her muscles.

'OK, tell me, Beth, what does your family have to say abou t your pregnancy? Wade's told me nothing abou t them.'

' My family migh t as well be dead. Their brains are like moldy bread. Booze.'

'Beth, you're drunk and this conversation is going nowhere. Today's been too long and I just don ' t have the energy to suss it out of you. I'm going to bed.'

Janet went to her suitcase and removed her nigh tie, and was heading into the bathroom when Beth said, 'He has lesions on his shins. Big ones. Lots of them. And on his calves.'

Janet stopped and turned around . 'When?'

'Two mon ths now. His legs look like Gorbachev's head.' 'I see.'

'It 's the beginning of the end.'