You Remind Me of Me (34 page)

Jonah’s hand trembles as he puts it up to his face, up to his scar. The man named Randy lifts an eyebrow, uncertainly, his eyes moving from Loomis to the woman. But she is staring at Loomis, as if trying to make a decision.

“He’s confused,” Jonah says, but his voice wavers. “It was quite a shock.”

“You’re lying,” Loomis says again, and he gazes up at the woman, because he knows that she will see in his face that he’s telling the truth. She will not believe Jonah, he thinks. She will help him find a telephone. He watches her mouth growing small as she thinks. The woods seem to freeze for a moment. The darkness settles over the small circle of firelight like a lid over a box.

35

December 18, 2002

Troy wakes up to a gray light that could be dawn or dusk or afternoon, a pale cloudy day outlining the edges of the window shade. He sits up. Today is Little Man’s twelfth birthday, he thinks, and though he knows it’s a fact he has a moment of uncertainty, a free-floating gust of Rip van Winkle time in which he can imagine his son, aged four or six, asleep in the next room, his cheeks still soft and peach-shaped, his face solemn, pressed against the pillow, dreaming hard. “Little Man,” he thinks: an old nickname they haven’t used in years and years, coming back to him out of the past. He rubs his hands over his eyes. Hard to believe that his child will soon be a teenager; hard to believe that they’re still here, in this same old house that Troy had grown up in, that they’ve managed, after all, to stay together.

He opens the shade and looks out to where a light snow is falling and imagines that it is probably near the end of morning, the beginning of afternoon. He was up very late, and he pads blearily down the hall, glances into Loomis’s room. Loomis—Loo, as he calls himself now—has left for school already, of course. The days of shaking him gently by the shoulder to wake him, the days of packing lunches and making breakfast are long gone, and though he’d never relished pulling himself out of bed after a late night at work, he does miss that morning ritual a little. These days, Loo is like a considerate roommate. He rises to his own alarm clock long before Troy is even aware of morning, and most often he’s already asleep when Troy comes home at night, his homework stacked neatly on the kitchen table, the dishes washed, the clothes taken out of the dryer and folded. It makes Troy nervous to think of Loomis growing up, moving away, growing distant.

He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. Though he is only thirty-six, his dark hair has already begun to show some gray.

He is not crazy about the way time moves forward. Thirty-six is not old, he knows, but five years, ten years, seems like less than it used to. Loomis is in middle school now, and in ten years he will have graduated from college. You ought to make the time precious, he thinks, and he is pleased to see that Loomis has opened the presents that he left out on the kitchen table the night before—some books, shirts and pants, a new watch. A laptop computer—he’d had to juggle the finances a little for that one—and he smiles, imagining the look on Loomis’s face when he unwrapped it.

When he opens the front door to grab the newspaper he sees that the mail has already arrived. He is aware again of that shudder of timelessness, that sensation of being unmoored. He could be twenty-five, or fifty. He could wake and find that actually Loomis had disappeared long ago and never come back, nothing left but a computerized age-progression photo on a card that advertised missing children. He could wake up and find that he himself was only twelve years old, listening to the refrigerator open in the next room, listening to the hiss of carbonation as his father cracked open a morning beer. There is a little snow on the ground as Troy extends his hand out the front door and sinks it into the mailbox. December 18, 2002, he thinks. That’s where I am.

And the dates on the letters confirm it. Here, look: a few bills, some junk mail, a Christmas card. He glances at the return address, then down to where his bare foot has left an imprint in the dusting of snow on the stoop.

——

He is halfway back across the living room when a voice calls out behind him.

“Troy!”

He is still sleepy enough, still deep enough in his head that it startles him badly. He whirls around, his hands coming up instinctively to shield his face, half expecting— What? An intruder? An attack? His eyes scope the room quickly before he locates the source of the voice: Here is Ray, sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the television.

“Jesus Christ!” Troy says. “What are you doing in my house?”

“Hey, Mr. Zombie Man,” Ray says, and Troy slowly untenses. Ray is setting up a video game console, poking at some buttons on the controller. “You are really out of it, do you know that? I said hi and you strolled right past me like you were sleepwalking. What’s the deal, man? Did you finally decide to start smoking weed again?”

Troy frowns. “No,” he says, and he folds the Christmas card in half and puts it in his pocket. “I just woke up.”

“You just woke up?” Ray exclaims. “Dude, it’s one o’clock in the afternoon. What were you getting up to last night?”

“Nothing,” Troy says. He shifts from foot to foot as Ray fiddles with some more buttons. The screen comes to life. There is the blast of heroic music, and a wrestling match announcer begins shouting.

“Geez,” Ray says. “Look at this. This is fan-fucking-tastic. It’s like the most realistic I’ve ever seen.”

“Ray,” Troy says, “what do you think you’re doing?” But Ray doesn’t look up. His eyes are focused on the screen as he starts up a game.

“It’s a present,” he says. “And not necessarily for you, my friend.” Troy watches as Ray begins to flex and flinch along with the wrestlers he’s controlling onscreen, his face hardening as the computerized action heats up.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, but Ray doesn’t look up. “That’s an expensive piece of equipment.”

Ray only shrugs. He’s not really that much different than he was when he was a teenager. He has a shaved head now, and a bristle of goatee, but his attitudes have remained the same, and even his body is as toned and neat as it had been when he was a stripper. He has never married, never even had a serious girlfriend. Looking at him, it would be hard to believe that he is a respectable business owner now, a member of the St. Bonaventure Commerce Association and the local Rotary Club.

“Look,” Ray says. “I didn’t buy it for you anyways, so don’t worry about it.” He glances up briefly, uncertainly, and their eyes meet. A myriad of things.

——

There has been some awkwardness between them lately. There have been more than a few times when they’ve had sharp words about the finances of the Stumble Inn, more than a few times when Troy has been made aware that he is, essentially, Ray’s employee. “You’re the manager,” Ray used to say, when Ray first bought the bar from Vivian. “As far as I’m concerned, you run the place. Your decisions are my decisions.” And mostly this had been true, but at the same time it was always clear that Ray was the
owner
of the bar. He was the owner, by this point, of four bars and one liquor store in St. Bonaventure and the surrounding towns. A local entrepreneur. They have never broached the subject of how much wealthier Ray was than Troy. No mention had ever been made of that valise full of drugs, which had been the original source of Ray’s good fortune. It was clear that Ray was much shrewder with his income than Troy had ever been.

But even after all these years, Troy’s social life still revolved around Ray and Loomis: a rock concert in Denver, a grade-school band concert in the tinny auditorium, a double date at a restaurant in which Ray and his girl played tag underneath the table, while Loo discussed species of birds with the woman Troy was supposed to be getting to know.

Troy watches as a tablet with the words
GAME OVER
hovers on the TV screen, and Ray smiles up at him sheepishly.

“Sit down,” Ray says. “I challenge you to a battle, man.”

——

Troy probably thinks too much about the past. He finds himself distracted by things he should have put out of his mind a long time ago—thinking about people like Lisa Fix, his old parole officer, whom he had dated for a couple of years after his release, before she’d left town for a job in Denver; or Vivian, who continues to sit regally at the same bar stool every night, Monday through Thursday, ever since her retirement. He can imagine how Ray would chide him: “What are you dwelling on that stuff for?” Ray would say. “How many years ago was that? Like, ten?” The truth is, he still thinks of these people almost every day—Judy Keene. Carla. Terry Shoopman. Jonah.

He lifts his head. Kick! Punch! Dodge! A couple of hours later, when Loomis gets home, Ray and he are still sitting there, and Troy hasn’t won a single game.

Ray is the first to notice when Loomis walks in. “Hey, Birthday Guy!” Ray calls, and he holds out his hands dramatically toward the television screen. “Behold!” Ray says, and Troy smiles sheepishly, looking up from his seat on the floor into his son’s face, as if Loomis is a grown-up and he is a small child.

“Hey,” Loomis says, and he lets his eyes rest softly on Troy—as if to say “Are you doing okay, Dad?”—before he grins politely in Ray’s direction. “Oh, my gosh,” he says. “Uncle Ray, that’s
really
cool. Thank you very much.”

“You just have to remember that it’s for you and not for your dad!” Ray says. “He’s been sitting here playing all afternoon. I can’t get him away from the thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Loomis says. He is reserved, as always, standing a little apart from them—still small for his age, though his shoulders are getting broader, his jawline is squaring off and becoming a man’s. He waits there at the edge of the living room as Troy stands up. He allows Troy to hug him, to push back his messy bangs and plant a kiss on his forehead.

“Happy birthday,” Troy says hoarsely, and Loomis accepts the fierceness of his father’s affection with quiet dignity. He grunts a little, gasping good-naturedly as Troy squeezes him hard. “I love you, son,” Troy whispers into his ear. “I love you so much.”

——

After Ray is gone, a quiet settles over the house again. They sit at the kitchen table eating cake and ice cream, comfortable enough in each other’s company. Happy enough, Troy thinks. He has tried hard to be a good father, and he knows that Loomis has made an effort to be a good son. They have had a solid life together, Troy thinks, though he wishes that they’d had a few more special moments, outside the routines of work and school, outside the rituals of watching television together and hiking out in the hills beyond the house. They don’t argue about things. They seem to live their lives together smoothly.

Still, as they sit there at the table, Troy can’t help but wish there was more time. He thinks about all the vacations they’d talked about and tentatively planned—to visit Washington, D.C., or Ireland, or South America—that they’ve never managed to afford. He thinks about the time he told Loomis he was thinking about taking some college correspondence courses, and Loomis had been so excited.

“We should just move someplace where there’s a college,” Loomis had said. “I wouldn’t mind moving.”

“Well,” Troy said. “There’s the money issue to consider. I can’t just up and quit my job, right?”

And Loomis had shrugged. There was a deflation that Troy was aware of.

“I guess not,” Loomis said, and Troy knew that he had said the wrong thing, that he had brushed against the edge of some different life that Loomis had fantasized about.

“You know, Loo,” he’d said then. “I think it’s a little late for me to become a different person.”

And though Loomis had only been ten at the time, he’d made an irritable face. “Why do you have to be a different person to go to college?” Loomis had said. “Doesn’t it sound like it would be fun?”

“Yeah,” Troy said. “Sure.” And he didn’t meet Loomis’s eyes. That was when their relationship started to change, he thought. When Loomis started to worry about him.

He had begun to be concerned about Troy’s girlfriends. Suddenly, Loomis had recalled Lisa Fix and her pancake breakfasts, her stern help with grade-school math problems. “Whatever happened to her?” Loo said, and he had abruptly started to take an interest in the women that Troy went out with, even though no one serious emerged.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married again?” Loomis had asked him once, trying to be casual, but it had taken him aback.

“I doubt it,” Troy had said, as if it were a joke. “Who would I get married to?”

“I don’t know,” Loomis said. “One of these people you go on dates with, maybe.”

“Any of them that you like in particular? Just give me a name and I’ll propose.”

“Oh, right,” said Loomis, who had never liked to be teased. He turned his eyebrows downward, seriously. “What about Lisa Fix? She wanted to marry you, didn’t she?”

“Ha,” Troy said. “Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Loomis said. “I just thought . . . you guys were together for a long time.”

“I guess so. And we liked each other well enough. But, you know, I think Lisa Fix was interested in finding somebody a little more ambitious than I turned out to be.” He considered for a moment, looking carefully into Loomis’s eyes. “So what are you driving at, man?” he said, and ran his hand gently over the back of Loomis’s hair. “You miss having a mom, I guess.”

“Not really,” Loomis said.

“Do you ever think about your mom? I know we don’t talk about it much, and . . .”

“I don’t know,” Loomis said. “Not exactly.”

“Oh,” Troy said. He didn’t think this was true, but what could he say? Over seven years have passed now since they last spoke to her, and still there was no word. Would it do any good to tell Loomis that he was fairly certain that she was still alive, that she was out there somewhere, in a new life? Would it do any good to tell Loomis that he still half expects the phone to ring, one of these years?

“You know you can talk to me about it, if you want,” Troy had said, and Loomis glanced down at his fingers. “I mean, she’s your mom. You’ve got to think about her sometimes, right?”

“I guess so,” Loomis said. “I don’t remember her that well. Besides,” he said politely, “it’s not like I want her to come back and live with us or something.” And he paused for a moment, weighing his words. “I was just thinking that it might be good for
you
if you got married. I mean, I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”

And Troy had smiled, though Loomis’s earnest, worried eyes made his heart hurt. “I am happy, son,” he said softly. “I’m a very happy man.”

——

He thinks of this all again as he watches Loomis stirring his ice cream, turning it into soft-serve. They have a good relationship, he thinks. They love each other. Loomis is doing very well in school. He seems content.