All Families Are Psychotic (9 page)

'How's Mom?'

'OK. Tired.'

Wade told her abou t Shw. And Bryan. And Nickie. Sarah listened, rapt, and then asked, 'What are you guys going to do abou t Nickie and Dad?'

'No idea. Sarah—?' 'Yeah, big bro ther?'

'Tell me something — how do you
deal
with so many responsibili ties?
How?
I really mean it. We've sort of talked abou t this before — when you visited me in Kansas. I can barely arrange dinner reservations at Jessie's Catf ish Grill , and I can' t even order Disney World tickets over the phone. I've never had to actually
do
things before. I never had any reason to. And I finally want to accompli sh things, but don ' t have a clue how. Meanwhile, you're orchestrating DNA strands in outer space, fostering world peace and landing the single most complex artifact ever made by the human species out in the desert.'

Sarah took a second. 'I never think abou t it like that, Wade. There are simply these things that need to be done, and it 's simpler to do them than to not do them.'

'You're
amazing.'

'You give me too much credit.'

'Wade—' Sarah cut Wade off. 'Sorry, but my break's nearly over, and I really need to ask you one thing.' 'Shoo t.' Wade braced himself.

'How is your health in measurable scientific terms?'

'Jesus,
Sarah.'

'Just tell me, Wade.'

Wade took a deep breath. 'OK then. Not too hot.'

'That's what I though t. You didn ' t look too groovy today.'

' My cell coun t numbers are falling bit by bit. My numbers just won' t stay steady.' 'How do you feel on a day-to-day basis?'

'A bit tired-ish. Otherwise OK. I had a rash, and some days I feel fluey. Anything more than this is complaining , so I don ' t want to go any further on that subject.'

The acid in Wade's stomach gurgl ed. He remembered back when he was eigh t and Sarah was six, out in the backyard trees, him puncturing a hole on the inside of his wrist with a safety pin, and Sarah

unsqueamishly poking a hole in the end of her left arm, and the tw o of them then mixing their blood

amid the sound of buzzing flies and rustling alder leaves. There had been a lot of aphids that year, and the wind was whistling through the holes they'd eaten in the leaves.

'Wade, I have to go. The Russkies are beckoning me — small vanilla shake, six-pack of McNuggets and a Happy Meal plastic toy. Call me tomorro w, same time, OK? — if you're awake. What plans do you have for the day?'

'Disney World .'

'You looking forward to it?'

Wade paused. 'You kno w what? I
am.'

'Have fun, big bro ther.' 'G'nigh t, baby sister.'

'Wade, what the hell are you doing ?' Ted came in the back door from work to find Janet and Wade watching TV.

' Mom and me are watching the
Sonny and Cher Show.'

'It 's a funny show, Ted.'

'You're not watching TV,' said Ted, 'you were
dancing.'
Ted spat this last word out like it was a pubic hair. 'Leave him alone, Ted. We're enjoying the show. How was your day? You're late again.'

Wade said, 'So what if I
was
dancing?'

Ted said, 'Jan, you're going to turn him into a pantywaist.'

Wade didn ' t kno w what a pantywaist was, but he didn ' t like the way his father was blaming his mother. 'Hey,
Dad,
how was work today?'

'Like you care.' Behind this talk was a laugh track completely out of sync with their words. The cat, Haiku, sensed a squall and leapt from the top of its alpine perch on the TV.

'Hey,
Dad,
when was the last time
you
ever danced?'

'Wade, stop bothering your father. I really do want to watch this show.'

Bryan, his radar att uned to free entertainment, poked his head into the room from the hallway. Sarah was nowhere to be seen.

'Hey,
Dad,
I asked you a question. When was the last time you ever danced?' Ted spoke to Janet. 'Time to buy our boy leotards, dear.'

'I bet the last time you danced was with a bunch of your frat buddi es when you were in college,' Wade said, pushing butt ons like mad. 'You were all probably naked and rubbing each other with shaving cream.'

Janet said, '
Wade
—' A song came on TV, a fast song with a strong beat.

'Ooh.
This is my favori te song. Hey, Dad, come in and join the fun.' Wade began dancing in his awkward fifteen-year-old way, ad-libbing lyrics along the lines of,
Ted Drummond is a pantywaist. In his clothes he has no taste. He likes to be naked and he likes to dance in a circle with men.

Wade saw Bryan's eyes widen and dilate. Good — this meant Ted was going to zoom in for the kill , and he did. He stormed over to Wade, who was by now adept at ducking his father's swings. Wade jumped onto the Naugahyde couch screaming,
pantywaist, pantywaist,
and Ted lunged after him, sending the sofa toppling , eliciting a (predictable) scream from Janet.

'You're a pantywaist and you can' t even catch me . . .'

Just then the power died, and to Wade it felt as if the entire house had been clubbed on the head. The

nigh t was dark and rainy, and nobod y could see anything. Ted tw isted his ankle, shou ted, 'Oh fuck—' and Wade ran off crying a victory whoop. But victoriou s or not, he knew he needed to hide out for an hour or so until Ted cooled down. He fumbled his way toward the basement door and headed down the stairs

where, with a candle, stood Sarah by the fusebox. Upon seeing Wade, she flipped the power on.

Hours later Ted had simmered down and gone to bed. Wade was watching the news with Janet and

Sarah. He said, 'You and Dad should get divorced.'

'Wade! Don' t talk like that. And you shouldn ' t taunt your father so much, either. He has to give a speech tomorro w, and his leg is all pranged.'

'Gee. What a tragedy.' The news went on abou t inflation and Gerald Ford. 'So why'd you marry him in the first place?'

'Wade,
stop it:

'No, I mean it. I did the math and I was born thir teen mon ths after you were married, so it 's not like you

had
to.'

'I don ' t have a clue. Or —
I don' t know.
He was
American.
He was studying rocket fuel systems and it was so sexy at the time. He was going to take us to the moon.'

'And?'

'And then — he started designing oil pipelines and we moved west and the moon got lost along the way, and I can' t believe I'm telling this to my own child.'

'You're always stopping yourself the moment you start saying something good.' 'I kno w I do.'

'You have this whole secret world that nobod y kno ws abou t, don ' t you?' 'Wade! Jesus, not even Helena cuts to the quick like you.'

'You should get divorced. He doesn' t deserve you.' Wade didn ' t mention that the week before he'd been playing hooky to search for illegal fireworks over on Lonsdale Boulevard, and he'd seen his father

lunching with his secretary in a schni tzel restaurant.

'Wade — the man is your father. Show him some respect.'

Wade noticed his mother didn ' t deny his suggestion of divorce. 'You kno w what Dad told me when I asked him why he married you?'

Resistance was futile; Janet pretended she didn ' t care. 'OK then, what?' 'I'm not telling you.'

'Wade!'

'OK, OK. He told me he liked you because he can never tell what you're thinking abou t.' 'Did he now?'

'That's what he said.' 'Really now?'

Tup.'

He could see that his mother enjoyed being mysterious.

The next morning Nickie was on the phone to Janet, who had the room to herself. She was luxuriating on the bed, tw iddling her toes and enjoying the blanket's soft ness. 'How's your mou th?'

'Better than yesterday.'

'Good. You kno w what? I'm going bonkers down here in Kissimmee. The place is like a mor tuary. Ted went to Disney World with the others. The very idea of Disney World makes me retch.'

'So—' began Janet, ' would you like to ... go out for an early lunch, perhaps?'

'Yeah. I would. I'll come by there in Ted's car. What abou t Her Holiness — we should ask her, too.'

Beth was vomi ting in the bathroom . ' Morning sickness. Not a good idea.' Janet paused. 'I ough t to call Shw, too.'

'What on
earth
for?'

'Protocol, I guess. She may or may not be the mother of my grandchild.' 'I don ' t kno w . . . she strikes me as bonkers. And that name of hers . . .'

Janet called Shw's room. 'Shw, it 's Janet. Have you eaten anything today?'

Shw's reply was almost silent. 'No.'

'Nickie and I are going out for coffee. Slap on some makeup, thro w on some clean clothes and I'll meet you downstairs in a half hour. Can you do that?'

'I don ' t wear makeup.' 'But you'll still join us?' A pause. 'Yes.'

Click

A half hour later Nickie picked up Janet at the hotel's main entranceway, like Pennsylvania Station with

its coming s and going s. Janet was wearing black wraparound sunglasses of the style favored by rock stars and seventysomething Hollywood agents, and young, Gappy clothing.
By wardrobe alone I could pass as a twenty-five-year-old male coffee clerk in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Nickie asked, 'Is Gwendolyn coming ?' 'Gwendolyn?'

'Shw just sounds so stupid.' 'There she is now.'

Shw hopped into the rear seat, offering an eff icient li tt le grun t as a greeting.

'I'm actually in a really OK mood,' Shw said. 'Don' t take my grun t the wrong way.' 'So — what's new today?' Nickie asked her.

'Bryan wanted me to go to Mauschwitz with him. He begged. I was disgusted.' Janet changed the subject. 'That valet parker is so handsome.'

Nickie said, 'Nah, you're just horny. That's all.'

'Finally! Somebody who treats me as a sexual being ! '

They drove. Janet watched the landscape melt by. Nickie asked, 'Is there any NASA stuff on today?' 'Nope. A clear slate.'

'Huh.' The car became immobili zed at a red ligh t amid a crowd of mobil e homes and red and white rental cars. 'Sarah's really smart, isn' t she?' Shw asked.

'I suppose she'd have to be.' 'Is she street smart?'

Janet considered this. 'Even if you're an astronaut I suppose there'd have to be
some
degree of treachery and backstabbing you'd have to confron t. If nothing else, think of the hundr eds of people who
weren' t
picked for the shutt le fligh t.' She lapsed into her familiar educational mode. 'But you kno w, they choose astronauts for evenness of personality the way breeders choose dogs — astronauts are like the black labs of the aerospace world.'

Shw asked, 'Do you think they chose Sarah only because she's handicapped?' 'You're the only person who's ever said those words out loud,' Janet said.

'It 's a natural enough question.'

'I kno w it is. I'm so tired of people never saying things. Silence reminds me of when I was gro wing up. Stifling.'

'What was it like?' Nickie asked. 'What was
what
like?'

'Sarah. The missing hand and all of that.'

Janet concentrated on giving an accurate answer. 'Growing up I was always told to be a good girl and to look good. All of my notions of self-worth were based on my appearance and demeanor. I don ' t think I ever really
knew
a person during my youth. And then with Sarah I'd be out shopping or at the

playground and people would see her hand missing and in a flash, through their reactions, I was able to see their cores -whether they were kind or bad or stupid or what have you. I didn ' t even kno w what I was seeing for such a long time. All of this new type of information being thro wn at me — I didn ' t want it — I didn ' t ask for it! And yet the information was still thro wn at me. I tried to ignor e it, and I never discussed it with anyone. In spite of what you hear, the 1960s were very
very
backward.'

'When were you born, Shw?' Nickie interrup ted.

'1982.' Shw's silence after this reply seemed to negate further probing .

Nickie asked, 'So, Janet, what's the deal with Bryan? I don ' t understand why he's not, like, a stockbrok er or something. He has the looks, if he'd just lose the hockey hair.'

Shw shot Nickie a pissy glare through the rearview mirror , and Janet answered that Bryan had always marched to his own drumm er. She turned her head back and asked, 'What's
your
story, Shw?'

' My story?'

'Yes. Where are you from? Your family. That kind of thing.' 'I'm from Lethbridg e.'

'Lethbridg e — that's a lovely part of Alberta. Is all your family there?'

' My father is. My mother lives in Nova Scotia with a guy who makes model ships. I never see her.' 'What does your father do?'

'He's a Marxist theorist at the university there.' 'A Marxist.'

'Yeah. And he's full of crap.'

'I though t you were sort of radical yourself.'

' Maybe. But he's so embarrassing. He still believes all that communi st bullshit — these days it 's like

believing in witch dunking . Globalization 's the
real
demon. Globalization mixed with science. Dad's head is so up his ass he can' t see past his pathetic disdain for the middl e classes —
whoops —
excuse me, the

bourgeoisie.'

Janet changed the subject. 'How abou t you, Nickie? What's your story?'

'Nothing big. I'm just a middl e-class girl who waited too long to make some of li fe's big decisions, and the ones I did make weren' t all too smart.'

'Such as?'

'Such as I'm really hungr y righ t now.' She poin ted to a mundane franchise restaurant. 'Let's go into that restaurant over there. The sign says that extra bacon's only nineteen cents this week.'

'I'm a vegetarian,' said Shw. 'And I've got morning sickness, too.'

Nickie steered into the parking lot. Once inside the restaurant, they claimed a boo th. Everything inside the restaurant seemed to be orange, purpl e or bro wn.

'Ooh, he's
hot,'
Nickie said as the waiter left.

'Everything in this restaurant has meat in it,' said Shw, wiping her nose — a cold in a formative stage. 'You vegetarians are just a bunch of control freaks,' Nickie said. 'Order a frigging frui t plate.'