Basket Case (28 page)

Now Emma is coming over and I'm pawing through the CD rack in a fevered search for something we both can stand, just in case. Anne's photograph is gone from the refrigerator door and I assume it was I who removed it, not wishing to give Emma the impression that I'm carrying a torch.

The first words I hear upon answering her knock: "Did Evan call yet?"

"He's fine, Emma. Safe and sound."

She ropes me with a fierce hug. You would have thought Evan had turned up alive after forty nights in a Himalayan ice cave. I might be jealous except that I recognize Emma's exuberant relief for what it is: To an ambitious mid-management newspaper editor, the only thing worse than getting one of your reporters killed would be getting one of your interns killed.

"I feel like celebrating," Emma says. She's wearing a pale cotton sundress and sandals. Her toenails, one can't help but observe, are painted canary yellow.

"You like U2?" Poised I am, disc in hand.

"Know what I'd really like to hear? Your man Jimmy Stoma," she says. "I'm dying to know what he was up to when he died."

I show her the stack of CDs from Dommie the Whiz Kid. "About twenty hours' worth. I've barely put a dent in 'em."

"That's all right," Emma tells me. "We've got all night." She smiles playfully and whips something out of her handbag. My desiccated old heart soars.

It's a toothbrush.

21

Something about the first time.

I'm never sure what it means, or how much to believe of what's said. Emma is parsimonious with clues. Meanwhile I hear myself whisper alarming endearments, including at least one spontaneous reference to love (this, while kissing a nipple!). Starved and pitiable I am; a goner.

Meanwhile Emma is as quiet and discreet as a hummingbird. In the shower I nuzzle a soapy earlobe and say: "Will this affect my annual evaluation?"

"Hush. Could you pass the conditioner?"

Later we drag the sheets and pillows off the bed and curl up in the living room, listening to the skeins of Jimmy Stoma's lost album. Within ten minutes Emma is fast asleep, while I slowly drift off to the two-part background vocals of a cut called "Here's the Deal," which is about either marital infidelity or methadone withdrawal—from the chorus it's impossible to tell.

Soon I sink into a dream with a familiar theme, co-starring Janet Thrush. She and I are at the funeral home where we viewed her brother's body, only this time we're staring into an empty velvet-lined coffin. In the dream I'm needling Janet about her belief in reincarnation, and she says there's no harm in keeping an open mind. In my lap is a bucket of fried chicken and I remark that if she's right, we're chowing on somebody's reborn relatives, possibly even my old man. The dream ends with Janet slamming the casket lid on my fingertips.

"Jack!" Emma, shaking me awake. "Someone's trying to break in!"

At the turn of the doorknob I snap upright. Since my burglary I've changed the lock and installed two heavy deadbolts, but my heart still races like a hamster. I bounce to my feet and brace my weight against the door; one hundred and seventy-seven naked pounds of determination. "Go away!" I shout hoarsely. "I've got a shotgun."

"Down, boy."

"Who's there!"

"It's me, Jack. Yer ole buddy."

Heatedly I yank open the door and there's Juan, a margarita glow in his eyes. With a loopy salute he says, "How's it hangin', admiral?" Looking past me, he spots Emma wrapped in a sheet. Before he can turn to flee, I grab an arm and haul him inside. The rustle behind me can only be my comely houseguest, retreating to the bedroom.

Juan topples into a chair. "Man, I'm so sorry."

"Now we're even," I say. "What brings you out at two-thirty in the morning?"

"I've been thinking I should quit the paper."

"You're crazy."

"See, this is why I need to talk."

It occurs to me that a proper host would put on some clothes, but after years of locker-room interviews Juan is oblivious to nudity. He says, "I want to write a book. Actually, I've been at it for about six months."

"That's fantastic."

"No, it isn't, Jack. Not yet." He cocks his head. "Who are you listenin' to?"

"The never-before-released Jimmy Stoma sessions. This is what Dommie pulled off the hard drive."

But Juan didn't come for music, so I reach over and turn it off. Emma emerges in a sundress and sandals. As Juan struggles to rise, spluttering apologies, she very pleasantly tells him to stay put and hush up. Then she tosses me a pair of pants, and heads for the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Her composure is somewhat deflating. I was hoping for a rueful glance or an impatient sigh—something to acknowledge the miserable timing of Juan's interruption. At least then I'd know that tonight amounted to something in Emma's private ledger.

"Is it a sports book?" I ask Juan.

Heavily he shakes his head. "It's about me and my sister. You know—what happened on the boat from Cuba."

"You sure about this?"

"It's a novel, of course. I'm not completely crazy," he says. "I've changed all the names."

"And you ran this by Lizzy?"

Lizzy is Juan's sister, the one who was attacked on the shrimp boat. She now manages an art gallery in Chicago, where she lives with her two children. I met her once, when she came to Florida to stay with Juan during her divorce.

He says, "I can't talk to her, man. We've never said a word about that trip."

"Not in twenty years?"

"What the hell is there to say? I stabbed two guys and threw 'em overboard." Juan blinks into space. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Lizzy understands."

He has recurring nightmares about the journey from Mariel harbor; wake-up-screaming, grab-for-the-medicine sort of nightmares. Sometimes he comes by to talk in the dead of night, which is therapeutic for both of us. Emma would understand, but Juan should be the one to tell her. So I'm trying to keep my voice low…

"Look, you can't write a book like this without letting your sister know. That's number one. Number two is don't quit the newspaper—take a leave of absence."

"But I hate my fucking job."

"You love your job, Juan. You're just down tonight."

"No, man, I don't wanna come back to the Union-Register after I finish this novel. I wanna move to Gibraltar and write poetry."

"Oh, for God's sake."

"In iambic pentameter."

Often I've advised Juan to stay away from the Cuervo. "Emma?" I sing out. Moments later she glides into the living room with three mugs of green tea.

"Juan wants to resign," I inform her.

"No kidding?"

"To do a novel," he pipes up defensively, "and after that, poems."

"The newspaper needs you," Emma counsels. "Unlike some of us," I add.

"I've probably had too much to drink. Way too much," Juan admits, between slurps of tea.

"What would your novel be about?" Emma asks.

Juan looks mortified until I say, "Baseball."

He flashes me a grateful smile. "That's right. Baseball and sex."

"Well, what more do you need," says Emma.

"How about a spy?" Perhaps I'm feeling inspired by the prose of Derek Grenoble. "Try this: The major leagues are infiltrated by a Cuban espionage agent!"

"A left-hander, obviously," Emma says lightly, "but what position would he play?"

"Middle reliever," I suggest. "Or maybe a closer, so he could fix a big game. Say! What if Fidel was gambling on the Internet, betting his whole cane crop on the World Series?"

Juan rubs his eyelids. "Man, am I wiped."

Emma and I guide him to my bed, tug off his shoes, tuck him in and shut the door. Wordlessly she leads me back to the living room and we make love again, intercoupled on one of my consignment-shop armchairs. This time she murmurs and moans, which I choose to read as expressions of pleasure and possibly fulfillment. An hour later she wakes me to ask if I'm really leaving the newspaper, as I'd hinted on our drive to Janet's house. "Hush," I say.

"You are, aren't you?" she persists. "Jack, don't do it. Please." Then she reaches between my legs and grabs me, something no other editor has ever done. As a style of management it proves surprisingly effective, at least in the short term.

Emma and Juan are still asleep when my mother calls at eight in the morning. She says she was planning to drive up from Naples and visit me on my birthday.

"That'd be nice," I tell her.

"Unfortunately, we've got a minor crisis here."

"Nothing life-threatening, I trust."

"At the country club," my mother explains, "a black family has applied for membership and Dave's gone ballistic."

"Dave ought to be ashamed of himself."

"The fellow's name is Palmer. Isn't that ironic for a golfer?" My mother is adorable at times. "The best part, Jack—he's got a five handicap and a teenaged son who can knock a driver three hundred yards. Naturally, Dave's out of his mind. He wrote the nastiest letter to Tiger Woods, of all people, but I ripped it up while he was having his sigmoidoscopy. Dave, that is."

"And you find this an attractive quality in a husband—seething racism?"

"Oh, come on, Jack. He's fairly harmless. It's all hot air."

I ask her what the country-club furor has got to do with my birthday on Saturday, and she says the membership committee is meeting that very afternoon to review the applicants. "If I'm not sitting beside him, Dave's likely to say something he might regret."

"Worse," I say, "there's a chance he'd rally enough support to blackball the black Palmers. Am I right?"

"We've got a few narrow-minded types. Every club does."

"So you need to be there to keep Dave muzzled."

"Let's just say he usually defers to me on public occasions. I'm sorry, son, but this one's rather important."

"Don't worry about it. We'll get together some other weekend," I say. "You stay put and hose down your harmless old bigot."

"Did you want anything special for your forty-seventh?"

"Same as last year, Mom—serenity, a cure for receding gums and a new TV set."

"Don't tell me the Motorola went off the balcony, too."

"Also, I'd like to know when and how my father croaked. Please."

"Jack, honest to God"—my mother, clucking in exasperation—"between you and Dave, I'm ready to pull out my hair."

"Look, just tell me where it happened. Which city?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then which state?"

"You think I'm a ninny? You think I don't know what computers can do?"

"How about the time zone? Come on, Mom, give me something. Eastern Standard?"

"I spoke with Anne—I'm sorry, son, but I was worried about you."

"Well, worry about her. She's marrying a defrocked RV salesman," I say, "and that's also happening on my birthday."

"She certainly sounded happy, Jack."

"Just for that, I'm sending you one of his cheesy novels. But here's some sunny news: I'll be off of obituaries soon."

"Oh?" My mother warily awaits more information before offering congratulations. I carry the phone into the kitchen in case Emma awakes.

"When will this happen?" my mother asks.

"No date's been set."

"But you'll continue to work at the newspaper."

"Not exactly, but I'll still be involved. It's an unusual set of circumstances."

"Can't you tell me more?"

"In a nutshell, Mom, I'm waiting for a crazy old coot to die."

My mother says, "That's not the least bit funny."

"It is and it isn't. The guy's eighty-eight years old and he's got a helluva plan."

"Yes, I'm sure he does. Jack, have you thought about going back to see Dr. Poison?"

Shortly after Anne moved out, I falsely promised my mother I would consult a shrink. I lifted the name "Poison" from a Montana road map, and awarded my fictitious psychiatrist an array of lofty credentials from Geneva, Hamburg and Bellevue. I pretended to attend two private sessions a month, and in bogus updates I assured my mother that the man was brilliant, and that he regarded my lightning progress as phenomenal.

"I would gladly go back to Dr. Poison," I tell her, "if he wasn't lying in ICU at Broward General."

"What?"

"The details are sketchy, but evidently a deranged patient assaulted him with an industrial garlic press. It's very tragic."

A familiar frostiness creeps into my mother's voice. "I wish you could hear yourself from where I sit. Surely there's someone you can talk to, someone who could help… "

"There is someone," I say. "You, Mom. You could tell me what happened to my father."

An inclement pause, then: "Goodbye, Jack."

"Bye, Mom. Good luck with the Dave crisis."

By nine Juan is gone and Emma's soaking in the tub. I'm scrambling eggs while listening to another installment of the Exuma sessions. The title of the current track eludes me, but my concentration has been slipping. Screening the material take-by-take has lost its eavesdropping novelty, and now I'm just slogging along in hopes of lucking into a clue.