All Families Are Psychotic (23 page)

Ted said, 'Ha!' and Janet giggl ed. 'What? What's so funny?'

'Dear,' said Janet, 'your past isn' t something you escape from. Your past is what you
are.'
His parents propp ed themselves up on pillo ws.

Bryan was comfy on a side chair. He asked Wade, 'Did you ever, like, actually
kill
somebody?' 'I can' t believe this is happening.'

Janet said, 'Well?'

'OK. Fair enough . Yes, but not intentionally. It was an accident, and it occurred in international waters,
so

I'm innocent and blameless.'

'What happened?' Janet asked.

'This moron , Ron, got beaned on the head with a jib pole during a run into Cuba.' Janet asked, 'A run into
Cuba?'

'Yeah. We had abou t five thousand Wonder Bras we were trading for cigars. This was before the Wall came down, and the Soviets were extra prickly abou t smuggling ladies' produ cts because they're so much harder to fence. This neighbor of Florian's bough t a Da Vinci sketch with the pro fits from a Greek sardine trawler loaded with Kotex. And this other guy, Rainer, retired after delivering a boatload of canola into a private facili ty south of Havana. He bough t a 1936 Cord with that one.' Wade didn ' t want to go any

further into his past. 'Shouldn ' t we go find Shw?'

'I suppose yes,' Janet said. 'Up you go, Ted, upsy-daisy.'

Ted lugged his body uprigh t then lumbered off to the bathroom to vomi t again. Janet put on her shoes and massaged her wrists. 'I want to phone Sarah.'

'I don ' t think so,' Wade blur ted. 'Now's not a good time.' 'No? Why not?'

'I was just talking to her — downstairs, on the pay phone. She's, uh, uh' —
think, think, think —
'loading tadpoles into a special tank, I think.'
Hey, that sounded good.

Janet didn ' t press the issue. 'Oh. OK. Ted, come on, let's go find the mother of your grandchild.'

Once in the orange van, the Drummond s seemed almost half asleep, drugg ed by the flattening afternoon sun. All birds had vanished, and traff ic was approaching zero. The hotels seemed beyond dead — hotel

mummi es. Wade wondered how a place like Florid a was sett led in the first place — the thorny, insect-

infested scrub and swamps; rancid waters; predators — the lack of air-condi tioning and freeways — with machetes and Bibles. In Wade's mind, Florid a wasn' t so much a place where one went to reinvent oneself as it was a place where one went if one no longer wished to be found.

'Turn left there.' Janet poin ted at a street up ahead. 'It should be on the left, in the middl e. Yes — there it

is — 1650.'

'That's Shw's car!' Bryan slipped out the moving car's side door. 'Bryan, you frigging idio t—' Ted snapped fully to li fe.

Wade hopped out of the car, ran Bryan down and tackled him on the driveway.

Life is just so much easier if we simply wing it. Maybe if we wing it properly, we can trick ourselves into winging death, too. Or is that too simple a strategy?

Janet was looking out the van's windo w at Wade, tackling Bryan on the terra cotta brick driveway of a Floridi an muff ler king. Janet though t a bit more abou t the muff ler king and what she'd read abou t him on the Internet back at the library:
Well, he isn' t really a muffler king, per se. He's really more of an in- dash cigarette ligh ter king, or an injection-molded-vinyl-insert-that-fits-into-the-windo w-rolling -up-

knobby-available-in-any-color king — or the king of standardized automotive snippets that can be made in one of those itty-bitty equatorial countries with no human righ ts or distinct regional cuisine.
Muff lers?

But to manufacture nothing
but
mufflers — an undiversified product line? How archaic. How sentimental. A formula for failure.

Ted, meanwhile, seemed to be kicking both his offspring with equal vim.
Isn' t this just peachy — whatever next?

Next
was a German shepherd seemingl y shot from a cannon on to Bryan's leg, its fangs and jaws like a wood-chipper. Behind the dog appeared Shw, clad in a white terry-cloth robe, her hair in a white towel,

at the top of a set of palm-kissed stairs. 'Kimba!
Stop!'
Kimba undamped from Bryan's tibia and sat down and made a relaxed happy-dog face, while Bryan was transformed into a concentrated, tw itching clot of pain. This pain, however, garnered him no sympathy from Shw. She skittered down the stairs, threw

Kimba a Milk-Bone, and said, 'Christ, Bryan, coun t on you to bring your family along. Look at you all — you look like a bunch of carnies.' She stuck an emery board in her righ t fron t robe pocket. 'Scram. Now. Before I give Kimba the attack signal.
Now.'

'Shw — you can' t sell our baby — it 's sacred. The baby's my love for you made into a person—'

'Bryan, put a gag in it.' Shw noticed Wade and Ted eyeing the rental car. 'What are you tw o looking at the car for?'

'I left my prescrip tion list in the trunk when you gave us a ride yesterday.' 'A prescrip tion list? What's that?'

'It 's a prin tout of all the medications I have to take.' 'Big deal. Get a new one.'

'I can' t. That one is—' Wade was obviously fumbling for a lie.

'That one is
what?
Look at me — you're shitt ing me, aren' t you? You're lying. What did you leave in there, money?'

'No.'

Shw was evidently X-times more shrewd than Wade, and immun e to his charms. 'No, you're not the

money type, are you? Well, whatever it was, Gayle probably hucked it in the trash. She cleaned the car for me.'

'Gayle?' Bryan asked.

'Yeah. The mom-to-be. They worship me, and they wait on me hand and foot. I have a good gig going here, and you losers are going to screw it up, so scram.' She turned to the dog:
'Kimba!'
The dog stood erect, awaiting her command.

Bryan cried, 'Oh, God, I love you, Shw, I love you. Don' t you remember we set fire to the Gap together? We destroyed a field of Frankenstein beans together — it was
real.
Did all that mean
nothing
to you?' 'Bryan, we had a moment, but it 's over.'

'Okay, sic the dog on me, do what you want, but don ' t sell the baby.'

Kimba's bloodb ath was forestalled by the sound of a jolly 'Ahoy, mateys!' in the darkness-free vocal tones of a cruise director.

'Shit—' said Shw. 'It 's Lloyd. Act normal. If that's possible.' Janet happily watched the show.

'Emily!' shou ted Lloyd, 'I can' t believe you brough t the Drummond family along. I'm' — he placed his hand over his heart — 'deeply,
deeply
touched.'

In unison, Bryan, Wade, Ted and Janet said,
'Emily?'

'Emily is the most though tf ul womb donor I could ever hope to meet, and you' — with his arms he took in the whole of the Drummond family — 'as the genetic forebears, are the embodim ent of kindn ess. Come! Come into the house. Oh my! What a feast we'll have tonigh t.' He turned around . 'Gayle! Gayle! Litt le

Emily has brough t us the entire Drummond family!'

Gayle, a pretty fortysomething, poked her head out the windo w. 'God bless you, Drummond family! Come in! Come in! But ignor e the mess. The place is a disaster.'

It was all Shw could do not to spon taneously combust, as the group entered Lloyd's house, a spanking new showcase of softw are modernism: 'I designed the place from a ki t I bough t at Off ice Depot,' Lloyd said. 'Something else, huh?'

The room 's contents all seemed to be ...
shiny.
Or pink. Or fuzzy. Or brass. Not a righ t angle was to be seen anywhere.
'Lovely,'
Janet said.

Gayle appeared in the room and spread out her arms and curtsied as if in a childr en's ballet: 'The

grandmo ther of my Chosen Child ! ' She hugged Janet with animal force. 'Oh my, the child is going to be so smart — and so pretty.' She turned to Ted. 'Or handsome. Lloyd! Lloyd! Let's have drink s for everybody

-open the bott le from France.' She turned to the Drummond s: 'It 's
French.'
Then she turned to Shw: 'Emily, come help me pour.'

The family could only crow at Shw's humili ation, as Gayle hovered over her. 'Careful now, you'll topple

the fluted glasses. And don ' t shake the bott le or else you'll make that lovely expensive Champagne spew, and it 'll be wasted. And apple juice
only
for you, mother-to-be.' Shw looked at the Drummond s and gave a martyred smile. Janet assumed that the loving daugh ter act was a sham, and that more money was still to come Shw's way.
Thank God Bryan has the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut.

'I want to use your phone to call my wife,' said Ted.

Gayle turned to him with a brief but unmistakable icicle of a stare.

'It 's a local call,' he continued, turning to Janet for confirmation. 'Righ t?' 'Nickie's long distance, Ted.'

'You have a calling card?' Gayle asked.

Janet said, 'Ted, I've got your phone, but the phone number's in the van. Nickie and Beth are just fine in Kevin's trailer.'

'When did Nickie say she'd call again?' 'I don ' t kno w, Ted.'

Bryan, who was swooning from the pain of the dog bites and sunburn , caugh t Lloyd's eye. 'Looks like you have one major ouchy-doodl e there, Bryan —
son —
I don ' t kno w what to call you. I feel so close to you.' 'Codeine. Vicodins. Percocets.
Now,'
Bryan wheezed.

'I'll see what I can rustle up.' Lloyd left the room.

Wade said, 'Hey, Gayle, Emily's been saying so many kind things abou t you.'

Shw's body visibly clenched, but Gayle beamed with deligh t as she passed the Champagne flutes around . 'Oh, now really, she didn ' t have to . . .'

'No,' Wade went on, 'she couldn ' t say enough good things abou t you, righ t, Mom?'

'Oh, yes. She even said she felt guil ty accepting so much money for being a Chosen Mother. She said that all that money didn ' t feel
righ t —
that she'd become too close to you, that it 'd feel wrong —
un-

Christian.'

'Did she now! ' Gayle's bargaining radar was in full operation.

Shw cut in, 'Oh, Janet, joking like always.' She turned to Gayle. 'Janet is always such a caution.'

Janet said, 'Oh, no, Shw . . .
Emily —
don ' t hide your ligh t under a bushel.' Janet turned to Gayle. 'She

actually said that if she could, she'd donate her womb services for free, but then she has to cover her expenses.'

Gayle said, 'Oh yes, you do have to cover your overhead.
That
much I can understand.' Lloyd came into the room with a prescrip tion bott le of Tylenol 3.

Gayle, almost squeaking with glee at the chance of a price break, burst out, 'A toast! To my loving and generous Emily, and to the whole Drummond clan.'

Everybody drained their flutes in one gulp. Gayle and Lloyd then bombarded Ted with NASA-related

questions, which were answered with pamphlet-like accuracy. Janet, left out of this conversation, asked to use the bathroom . Down the hall, her arm was painfully yanked behind her by a furiou s Shw. 'OK,

what's it going to cost to make you people shut up?'

'Shw —
Emily —
truly ask me if I care here. Because I don ' t think I do.'

From behind, Wade clamped his hand over Shw's mou th. 'I think Bryan's the one to worry abou t, you li tt le witch. He's stunned righ t now, but in a few minu tes he'll be in the pulpi t. And good for him.' Shw bit him but quickly undamped.

'Ow,
shit.''
Wade nearly yelped. 'Why'd you do
that?'

'I didn ' t break your skin, did I?'

Wade checked. 'No, you're unin fected, thank you.' 'Be quiet,' said Shw. 'They'll hear us.'

Wade looked at a steel door beside the vanity. 'A steel door? Why would anyone have a steel door in their house?'

Shw said, 'I dunno . A bomb shelter, I think.' 'A bomb shelter?'

Wade opened the door; it revealed a deep, fungal-smelling staircase. 'This is Florid a. People don ' t have basements here.'

'NASA's twenty miles south, bozo. This place was a primary nuclear target for forty years. It probably still is.'

Janet follo wed along.
Fascinating. All of this, fust fascinating.
They walked down the dimly li t stairway that smelled of concrete blocks. At the end there was another steel door.

Wade said, 'If this isn' t curiou s, I don ' t kno w what is. We're going in.' 'It 's locked. I tried already,' said Shw.

'Some Nancy Drew
you
are.' Wade pulled out his key-chain and used one of its keys to fiddle with the lock; in moments the door was open. He flicked on a ligh t switch just inside the door, and the three

entered. Inside was an obstetrical chair, isolated and cold, like a Mississippi prison's lethal injection facili ty

— it appeared to be a home delivery ward. On the wall behind the chair was an array of stainless steel medical instruments, handcuffs and leather straps. To the righ t, the three saw a perfect, pink and dainty bedroom for one person set behind a set of steel zoo bars.

None of them spoke. After the most cursory of inspections they fled up to the main hallway. Gayle shou ted, 'Did you find the li tt le girls' room OK, Janet?'

'Yes, and such a lovely home you have here. A clear sense of taste and vision. And very thorough , too. Did you or Lloyd do the interior?'

'I won' t let Lloyd even go near a color chip. He'd choose school-bus yello w or mental-ward green, and

then we migh t as well be living in a trailer park roasting Spam with pineapple rings tacked on to it with toothpicks.'

'Such a color ful word picture.'

'Forty-tw o hundr ed square feet of Gayle is what you see here.' She turned to Shw. 'Emily, come into the

living room. I found your letter for me in the car's trunk — such a though tf ul gesture. I though t we could open it now as a sort of bonding ceremony.'

'A letter?'

She's quick. And she knows she needs us here.
Janet took Shw's arm. 'Yes, dear, the one you were telling me abou t. Truly a generous gesture.'

'Oh yeah, that one. Of course.'