Killing Time in Crystal City Read online

  “What’s with the arm?” he asks, and I hold it up for him to examine as he tugs me inside. “And who wrote ‘fuckwad’ on it?”

  • • •

  “Your father. Did that?” Sydney asks, rather flabbergasted. He is referring to the injury beneath the cast, not Derek’s defacement of it.

  “My father. Yes.”

  He stares at me a few more seconds, working it out, doesn’t get too far.

  “Your father? When we were kids, flies used to pull his wings off.”

  “Listen, Sydney, we had a fight, all right? And I didn’t get the better of it. I’d really just rather leave it at that, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says. “I have all I need to go on anyway. So, it’s agreed, I’m going to kill your father for you.”

  “What? When did we agree to that? No, Syd, please, that’s not the kind of thing I’d want at all.”

  “Really? Here, have another cookie.”

  “Thanks, and really.”

  “It wouldn’t be any trouble. I’ve thought about killing that guy so many times over the years, the job would practically do itself. Pretty sure I have some plans drawn up somewhere.”

  “Well, no. I appreciate the gesture, though. Anyway, I’m fairly certain just my being here would kill him.”

  “Excellent point,” he says, and points to make his point. “So, he knows you’re here.”

  “Oh no, I just bolted, so he has no idea.”

  Uncle Sydney starts drumming his fingers loudly on the Formica table between us. He swivels a little side to side in his chair. His whole place is done up like a diner.

  “You’re not giving me much here, Nephew.”

  “Sorry, Sydney.”

  “Your father’s not dead, he’s not emotionally tormented by me, either . . .” He reaches across and snags the cookie package from in front of me. “And a whole pack of Pepperidge Farm Sausalitos. Is that all a whole pack of Pepperidge Farm Sausalitos buys a guy these days?”

  He is having fun with me, but we both recognize the hot spots in his words just the same.

  “He is emotionally tormented, Syd,” I say weakly.

  He sighs, nods. “Yeah, he is. But he always was.”

  I reach across and take the empty cookie pack back again, for no other reason than to seem less paralyzed than I feel.

  “Can we not talk about him anymore?” I ask.

  “Done,” he says with an emphatic nod. Then we stare across at one another for several seconds before done comes undone. “Would be nice to ruin his career, at least. Can’t be too many child-beating high-school headmasters out there in full employment.”

  “I’m not a child,” I say.

  He raises his hands in surrender. “Fair enough, Kevin. Still, I’d think he would be considered a danger to a school full of students.”

  “You know,” I say, rising from the table as if I had someplace to go, “if I believed that, I would do something. But the truth is that the only two people he’s a danger to are me and him.”

  “And his daughter and his wife, they don’t count?”

  There aren’t enough Sausalitos in the world to make this hurt less.

  “They don’t count because they’re gone, Syd. And because he never hurt them. Not physically.”

  He nods sadly. “Why didn’t you stay with them, Kev? You should’ve gotten away clean and left him to rot away from the inside. What were you thinking?”

  This is not a hard question to answer, in the sense that I know what I was thinking. On the other hand, it’s very hard to answer, out loud, because most people—starting with the one I’m talking to—will never, ever get the logic of my dealings with Dad. Some days I have trouble piecing the logic back together myself, so I understand.

  Dad didn’t ever hurt the girls physically, this is true. But he hurt them.

  The first of his midlife crises made a big mess of things. But it wasn’t Armageddon.

  The second, after he had slowly, incrementally, carefully been let back into the bosom of our family, was the one that brought the walls down.

  Mum and Alice were wounded and enraged to the point where it is not conceivable that they will ever reconcile with Dad. It was faith betrayed, and to be forgiven once, to be given a do-over on that, would seem to be something that would make a man count himself blessed.

  And so my father counted his blessings, and he took that do-over . . . and he did it over, again, a year later.

  He left the house, the family, the town. He got a new job at a new school just far enough away. Everybody got a do-over.

  Until I undid my do-over.

  “I couldn’t leave him by himself. I had to go back. He needed somebody. He needed me. He’s a lot better than that, Syd, better than it seems on the outside, and somebody had to stick with him.”

  “Bullshit. He is what he is.”

  “He is a wonderful guy, a wonderful dad . . . almost all the time. I always thought I could help. And I always thought it was my job to do that. He needed me. I know nobody understood—”

  “That’s correct. I’m glad the girls got away from him anyway.”

  Glad. It’s not a word that occurs often around the subject of Dad.

  “Yeah,” I say, failing to produce glad. “They saw red when I told them I was moving back with him. They were so livid, it was like when Mum threw him out, all over again. Screaming and breaking things, it got . . . fairly unpleasant. Things were said . . . some of them by me . . . It was bad. Is bad.”

  “Well, that I am sorry about. But, I am very glad you’re here,” he says, extra brightly for both of us. “I’m your whole family now.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “That really does make me feel better. And it’ll make me feel even more better if that’s the end of that subject, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says, “done.”

  “Which way to the bathroom?”

  He points, I start toward it, almost make it out of the room.

  “Do your mother and sister know, Kevin? About the latest? I bet they’d agree with me about your father’s job situation.”

  I stop and spin back toward him.

  “I wouldn’t know, since I talk to them now about as often as I do you, and by the way, does the word ‘done’ have a different meaning here in Crystal City?”

  He laughs. “I think you’ll find that pretty much everything does, Nephew.”

  That sounds quite exciting to me at the moment.

  “I’m going to look forward to that, Uncle.”

  “I like your style, boy.”

  “I’m glad. And right now, my style says ‘done’ means ‘done.’”

  “Done.”

  I run to the bathroom before “done” can try to mean anything else.

  • • •

  Uncle Sydney’s house is very small, and the second bedroom is his office. But it’s a nice little spot with a window overlooking a dusty Little League baseball field, a chain-link cage of an asphalt tennis/basketball court beyond it, and a section of slow narrow waterway beyond that. The couch, being covered in some kind of vinyl leatherette material like practically everything else in the place, needs a lot of sheet, pillow, and blanket help to achieve true comfortability, but we do eventually get it there.

  And once I lay my head down, I crash, plummeting through all layers of consciousness and unconsciousness to the point where my uncle’s knocking on my forehead like a door thirteen hours later still sounds like he’s eight feet away and rapping on the actual door.

  “Wow,” I say, lying flat and staring up at him as he continues knocking just for kicks.

  “Yeah, wow. Guess you needed a little nap there.”

  “It was great. Could you stop the knocking now?”

  “Sure,” he says, straightening up and walking away. “Meet me in the kitche
n, breakfast is ready.”

  “Oh, that’s really thoughtful, but I usually don’t eat till—”

  “Most important meal of the day, Kev. So get your ass out here, unless you want to look like that for the rest of your life.”

  He shuts the door behind him with a pop.

  Thanks for that, Syd. I must be clashing with his décor.

  The breakfast that awaits me is a steak so big it has to have been made from more than one cow. It’s covered in sautéed onions and mushrooms and sitting on a bed of raw spinach, with an honor guard of bright red plum tomatoes all around the periphery. Just breathing the air of this kitchen makes me satisfied and stronger.

  “Well, you’re not gonna get the color back in your face just by looking at it, Kevin. Sit, boy, eat.”

  “This is a color,” I say, pointing at my face, “and it is my color.” I sit.

  “Yeah, well there is a cure for it, and this is it,” he says, taking a seat across from me with an identical plate of abundance. “And never mind the color, what’s with the texture? Looks like you had skin grafts or something.”

  “Jesus, you’re a kind uncle. I had some acne a while back, okay? Doctor said stress probably had a lot to do with it.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But what did he treat it with, paint stripper?”

  I feel like the muscles at the back of my neck have just given up entirely. My head falls forward, I am staring at the edge of the table right in front of me, and I have no desire to ever look anywhere else again.

  How is a guy supposed to outrun everything, including his own face?

  Next thing I sense is that my stealthy uncle—he is quiet like a cat burglar when he wants to be—has come around the table, circled behind me, and has his cheek pressed alongside my cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Kevin. I was just playing with you. I never had any kids or zits. So I’m kind of an oaf with some things. I’ll get better.”

  His kindness helps, and I feel like raising my head. But I don’t, not until he pulls away from me and I am left with the sensation on my skin, the scent in my nostrils.

  My dad. Every element of that moment for me was crawling with his brother, my father, right down to the opening “I’m sorry, Kevin,” which prefaced so many repairs, so many recoveries.

  He retakes his seat across from me, points his steak knife at my steak, and I think I get his point.

  I start eating, though I cannot envision ever finishing.

  “What I should have said,” he says, “is that I never had a kid, until now.”

  I have to smile at his gesture, a cube of beef suspended on the tines of the fork in front of my lips.

  “That’s a damn nice thing to say.”

  “Well, I damn mean it, dammit.”

  “Okay, but this is only temporary until I get myself oriented. I will not be bothering you for long.”

  “Well, there ya go, I was just about to tell you the exact same thing.” He laughs heartily, though we both understand that he means every syllable, as I believe he means every syllable of everything he says. Chowing down is how we seal the deal.

  I make the appropriate moans of approval as I chew—as much as I even need to—the first buttery bite of beef. “Fantastic, Uncle Sydney, no kidding.”

  “That pleases me greatly,” he says.

  “There’s no way I could eat all this food, though.”

  He is chewing, so he holds up a hold-on finger till he’s ready. Then, he’s ready.

  “There is a way. And you will find it.”

  “But it’s massive.”

  “There’s a big T-bone in there somewhere, so it’s really not as much meat as it looks like. In this place, we get our protein, our fresh fruit and vegetables to the tune of at least eight portions a day, seeds, nuts, whole grains, plenty of hydration. Gimme a few days and I’ll turn you into the man somebody else couldn’t manage in seventeen years. Not certain how much I can do for that complexion, but we’ll start by cutting out sugar and see where we go from there.”

  Since nothing in there seemed like an invitation to debate, I don’t debate with him. I still don’t think if we managed to clone me, twice, all of my selves could finish, but this one is going to give it a try.

  My uncle is a methodical eater. It could well be that he is putting on a how-to-eat clinic for my benefit, but the way he fully interacts with each item and each mouthful makes me think he’s a natural. The result is that there is a calm, welcome quiet to the meal while he focuses, and a jarring breaking of that calm after he neatly wipes his mouth with his napkin.

  “I’ll be away for a few days on business,” he says while pretending not to stare at my slow-moving knife and fork.

  “Okay,” I say.

  My father always said that his brother was a filthy criminal. I can see for myself he has the fussy cleanliness of a cat, so that’s one myth busted. Also, my father’s unique take on truth was, “A statement containing an inaccurate detail or two is not a lie if it is serving a larger, more honest narrative.” So, you could say his pronouncements about his brother or anybody else’s were not necessarily take-it-to-the-bank reliable.

  “Can I ask you a question, Uncle Sydney?”

  “You want to know what it is I do.”

  I nod.

  “You know, Kevin, I’m happy to tell you anything. But, sometimes just knowing things is enough to get you into trouble or play havoc with your inner peace. Maybe safe and simple is the better way to go with your life.”

  I look at him for a long minute while he does the same to me, a something across his mouth that could be a smile but is not quite declaring itself. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite as sure as he is, and I have to say I find that extremely powerful and alluring.

  “Are you telling me that you recommend ‘safe and simple’ as a rule for life, Uncle?”

  His smile declares itself fully now and he reacts as if I have flipped over the right card.

  “I am categorically not telling you that, Nephew.”

  Who could resist?

  “I would love to know what it is you do.”

  “I am a large-scale transporter, basically, of luxury goods. Mostly fine cars, but whatever high-margin items come available. I see to it that these items find their way far, far away from their stinking-rich former legal owners, to distant places where their new, somewhat less well-off owners can enjoy them without suffering undue anxiety over it. It is perfectly reasonable redistribution of wealth in my opinion and a victimless crime. Like necrophilia.”

  “I can see what—whoa, the last part there just caught up to me.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. That’s just a thing I say. And until somebody with dough comes along and offers me good money to do some necro-pimping, that is not a part of my portfolio.”

  “Oh,” I say, still kind of stumbling over it all. “Yeah. Sure. Right.”

  “So then, there. I have given you my full confidence and trust. Feel good?”

  I am shocked—on several levels, actually. But shocked, really, at how good that does make me feel. I’m bigger than I was a minute ago. Could be the steak, I suppose. Steak and confidence, more like it.

  “I feel good,” I say.

  “And are we good, with the reality and all? I don’t need to worry about you knowin’?”

  “Not at all, Syd. No worries, and we are good.”

  “Good. So, the house is all yours, three, maybe four days. I take off later this afternoon. Rules. Keep it clean, just like you see it now.”

  It glistens. “Yes, sir.”

  “Stay outta my room. Even if it’s on fire.”

  “Understood.”

  “And the place is all yours, but only yours. No guests, no exceptions. If you get lucky, go out and use the baseball field like everybody else.”

  “Tha
t would not be a problem, Uncle Sydney. Much as I wish it would be.”

  “Sheesh. Is that why you were inquiring about sex with dead people?”

  “I never in—”

  “With confidence like that, it’s no wonder you can’t bag a live specimen. Eat your steak, practice your swagger, and when I come back I want to see some rotten punk attitude.”

  He makes me laugh, at myself, and it somehow doesn’t even hurt.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I say. “But here, first can you sign my cast before you go?”

  “It would be an honor.” I offer him my stubby marker and he snorts, before walking past me. “Gimme a break with that thing. I got about a thousand Montblancs in the office.”

  He comes back and signs with a flourish. Once we finish eating we take our plates together out to the kitchen where we each wash our own stuff. Then he guides me around, showing me what I need to know about the washer-dryer, what’s available to me in the freezer and what’s not, and vitally, his vast armory of cleaning products and accessories underneath the sink and the garbage disposal. We move on to the hallway, the linen cupboard, the bathroom, the towels and toiletries, and eventually every last item in the house that has a button, switch, plug, or any remote possibility of a dopey rookie like me creating havoc.

  “How are you for dough?” he asks me, all serious as he fishes a single key on a moose-head key chain out of the small single-drawer table under the coat hooks by the front door.

  “I’m good,” I say. “I’m okay for now.”

  “But you’ll let me know,” he says, opening the door to the street and ushering me out ahead of him.

  “I’m hoping I won’t have to,” I say, “but yeah, it’s huge, knowing you’re there covering my ass like that. Thanks a whole lot, Sydney. But right, when you’re not here . . .”

  No idea why I expected a guy like Syd to step in and finish a sentence I could not finish for myself. His raised eyebrow would have to do.

  “If you’re away on business, and it turns out I have to contact you in an emergency because I am short of dough or whatever, and my ass does need covering . . . well, how will I reach you?”

  I know that I’m stretching a bit. That I’m looking for a key to a special exclusive club that I may never need, but jeezuz I want that key all the same just to be special and exclusive.