A Marriage Made at Woodstock (19 page)

“My diaphragm just stimulated my larynx, Mr. Bator.” He focused his eyes on the index, searching for the S's. There it was. Thelma Stone, bless her heart. Bless every sleepy inch of her. He had no idea what number he dialed on his first try, but he got someone's answering machine, “the Thompson residence,” a home out there somewhere in one of the fifty states. He felt an instant fondness for the Thompsons, and, at the tone, wished them all good things in life.

On his second try, he punched each digit with careful and slow deliberation. She answered drowsily on the fourth ring. At first he said nothing. He was struck by the sound of her voice, his mother's voice. Had it been the first sound he'd ever heard?

“Hello?” she said again.

“I know it wasn't your tonsils,” Frederick told her, working hard at the words. Why couldn't they have told him the truth about Polly's birth? Didn't they know that such a monstrous lie could mess a child up for good? It was probably all connected, in some circuitous way, to why Chandra had left him.

“What?”

“Tonshills.” He could almost smell her lilac scent.

“I beg your pardon?” She was getting angry. Well, it was late, it was pretty fucking late to be begging his pardon.

“I know it wasn't your goddamn
tonshills
!” he shouted, his words slurring into one another.

“Who the hell
is
this?” his mother asked. Then she hung up.

On Monday, Frederick's car wouldn't start. He had left the parking lights on Friday night, little beacons out in his driveway. The car had been sitting there all weekend, drinking up electricity, while Frederick was inside drinking up gin. Now the engine was dead, not even a sputter when he turned the ignition key. He got out and slammed the door. The noise of it resounded inside his head and rattled his teeth. He went into the garage and led his bicycle out. He hadn't used the thing in years and now he dusted off the seat. It would hurt his ankle a great deal, but he would pedal to Cain's Corner Grocery for a bottle of Tylenol. If he didn't, he would die. He was experiencing the worst hangover of his entire forty-four years on the planet. He rued the day that his supply of prescription Percodan for his ankle had run its course. He wasn't sure which hurt more, the ankle or his head. The Big Drunk, like some insensible Mardi Gras gone awry, had spread into the next day and the next. He had spent the entire weekend in a maudlin stupor. Sunday was only a blur to him. He vaguely remembered falling asleep to the words of “Woman, Woman,” and waking up to the sound of the phonograph needle batting against the last ridge of the record, as though it were the last ridge in the roof of Gary Puckett's mouth. Then he had fallen asleep again to “Lady Willpower.” And speaking of Lady Willpower, to hell with Chandra Kimball-Stone—that had been his weekend philosophy. He didn't need her. He had his own friends. He had Gary Puckett and the whole goddamn Union Gap. He hadn't leaned out the bathroom window and shouted at poor Walter Muller, had he, some horrible obscenity during this period? He conjured up a mental picture of watching Walter plant a tree in his front yard, of undoing the latch of the bathroom window, of leaning far out. Please let that vague memory be a dream! He supposed he wouldn't know the truth until the next time he saw Walter Muller out in his yard.

The only positive element of the three-day stupor was that his ankle had not hurt at all. But it did now; it hurt a lot. What had he done to torture it so? Had he kept up a steady Scottish reel for three days, dancing from room to room? Had he used the sore foot to keep time to the Union Gap? Theirs wasn't exactly foot-stomping music. Whatever he did, the ankle pained him terribly.

“You take care of that ankle now,” Mr. Cain cautioned him, and Frederick promised to nurse it back to health. He then left with his Tylenol. Had anyone at the monstrous IGA ever inquired as to his health? Never. Oh, sure, if he was to have a coronary in the frozen foods, some complaining bag boy would be sent with a shopping cart to haul the body away. He was done with the IGA forever!

On the return trip, he let his good ankle do most of the work, and coasted whenever the opportunity presented itself. On a whim he turned down Bobbin Road, just to see what emotions the yellow house might stir up in him, now that he knew she had never even been there. Gliding past, he viewed it as just another yellow house, with a lamppost, a maple tree, a veranda, and at least one battered shrub. The maroon Camaro was gone from the driveway. Just another house. He watched in his bicycle mirror as it disappeared behind him.

As he coasted toward the house on Ellsboro Street, his eye caught a sudden movement, the shape of a human being peering into his den window. Frederick spun the pedal with his good foot and sped on by. Yes, it was indeed a man, a Peeping Tom, right there on Ellsboro Street! He pulled up to the curve in front of Mrs. Prather's house and got off the bicycle. The man was now gaping into another window, the one to the laundry room. This was no Peeping Tom. This was a bona fide burglar. Quietly, Frederick slipped the bicycle up onto its kickstand. Then, hunched over to avoid detection, he limped along the thick row of hedge that separated his yard from Mrs. Prather's. At the corner of the hedge he crouched, his head easing up above the shrubs for a view. There the man was, heading back to the screened-in front porch. He must have decided that the owners were definitely not home. He would no doubt be ready now to jimmy the lock. Frederick considered, for a few fleeting seconds, that perhaps he should slip over to Mrs. Prather's and telephone the Portland police. A few fleeting seconds. That thought was replaced by a huge surge of endorphins, mixed with some of that
hubris
Chandra was always lamenting about. How dare a perfect stranger infiltrate his privacy, not to mention rob him! He crept forward, his ankle forgetting all previous pain, his eye on the stranger's lurking form. The culprit was now peeping through the glass of the front door. Frederick accidentally crunched one of Chandra's batch of marigolds. He paused, hoping that the noise had not alerted the burglar. But the man was now rattling the doorknob. Then he knocked loudly.

Assuring himself no one's home,
Frederick decided.
The bastard.
He inched forward again and paused behind one of Chandra's larger shrubs, a thing with big white flowers. He peered around the white blossoms. The intruder had again left the screened-in front porch, the door slamming behind him with a resounding
bang
. Today's thieves were so brazen! Frederick watched him walk to the lower side of the house, stopping to squint through another window, this one a portal to Frederick's private office. Rage filled him. He limped forward. He would duck behind Walter Muller's lilac bush and wait for the thief to come back. He saw Mrs. Prather come out onto her front porch to tend to her flower boxes. The burglar was now on his way back to the front yard. Frederick waited. When an arm swung past the lilac bush and into view, he lunged.

“Aha!” he shouted. He jumped onto the prowler's back and wrapped an arm about his neck. He felt them both falling through air, earthbound. He tried to protect his ankle by thrusting his leg out from his body. They hit with a deadly thud. Frederick could almost feel the air empty from the lungs beneath him. Good. He himself had had experience with that problem just a few days earlier. He knew that, without air, lungs were nothing more than a couple of douche bags.

“Gaaah,” he heard the man beneath him say. He applied more pressure to the neck region, then brought his knee up to connect with the stranger's groin. “Gaaaah!” Frederick smiled. He wondered if the Three Harpies were watching this. He hoped so. He hoped to Christ so. Let them see how little he really needed them.

“Mrs. Prather!” he shouted. She lifted her head, looked up and down the street. Frederick could only hold the thief so long. When he got his air back, there would most likely be a scuffle. He needed someone to call the police. He tightened his arm more firmly around the broad neck of his victim.

“Mrs. Prather!” She shook her head, perhaps to brush off the feeling that someone was calling her name. Then she went back to watering her flowers. Frederick rearranged himself upon the body beneath him. It had gotten that aforementioned air and was now squirming desperately. He could tell by the back of the head, the cut of the hair, the line of the shoulders that he had tackled a strong young man. A flash of pride coursed through him. He wondered when the last time was that Herbert Stone had tackled a good-sized man. Probably not since Nam, and yet he had had the gall to scream all that stuff at Frederick, that night at the emergency clinic. It was lucky for the Viet Cong, it was damn lucky, that the pacifist Frederick Stone, the biggest goddamn conscientious objector since Meathead on
All in the Family
, had not made an appearance in the Mekong Delta. He administered another worthy squeeze about his opponent's neck and then, surprisingly, he was airborne. He'd seen professional wrestlers fly through the air after being tossed by their opponents, but he had always known it was fake. Now he flew up off the body beneath him with genuine certainty and landed with a thud a few feet away. The burglar was now struggling to his feet. Frederick jumped up, too, not wanting to have the disadvantage. His ankle reminded him that it was not ready to fight.

“Shit!” he heard the intruder say. He was shielding his testicles as though they were dainty eggs. “Are you crazy, man?” He turned around then and glared at Frederick, who was flabbergasted. It was Robbie, Purloiner of Wives. Had he come for the television set? Or Chandra's box of Tampax? After all, Frederick didn't have much left for him to purloin. But what did it matter why he'd come? It was
Robbie
. Frederick was allotted a second round of endorphins by his brain, that legal pusher—if his life didn't straighten up, he would OD on them—and again his ankle numbed itself above his busy foot. How many nights had he lain awake and watched the green numbers on the clock and wished his hands were around Robbie's throat? How many nightmares had he awakened from, shaken and sweating, nightmares in which he was forced to watch Chandra wrap her arms about this man, leaving Frederick out, leaving him behind. He lunged again.

This time Robbie fled, but Frederick blindsided him at the front steps of the screened-in porch. He gave him a good punch up against that prominent jawbone. Robbie went down beside Chandra's hydrangea. Good. Let
him
water the damn thing. Frederick was tired of playing gardener to the green things his wife had left behind.

“She's right!” Robbie shouted. “You
are
a fucking lunatic!” He attempted to escape yet again, getting to his knees and beginning a slow crawl across the yard. Winded, Frederick grabbed Robbie by the ankles and lifted his legs, creating a human wheelbarrow. He had the sensation that he was maneuvering an immense work animal. Robbie continued to crawl, his hands and arms now doing all the work. Frederick found himself being pulled helplessly along. What did Chandra see in this young bull? Surely, the brain had to have shrunk greatly in compensation for all that brawn.

“How dare you come to my home.” It wasn't a question, but a proclamation. He dug his heels into the lawn, hoping he could hold Robbie that way. If he let go of his feet, he was sure to escape. Was Mrs. Prather blind as well as deaf?

“Neighborhood Crime Watch!” he heard someone shout. It sounded like Walter Muller. “I'm getting it all on tape for the police, Frederick!” Frederick twisted his head just enough to see Walter Muller, standing at the edge of his yard with a video camera. His face obscured by the body of the camcorder, Walter nonetheless waved a neighborly wave. Frederick's immediate thought was for his hair. He could feel it standing tall, bucking in all directions. His shirt was now torn. He must have dirt on his face. He had driven it into the lawn on that first tackle. What if this ended up on the six o'clock news?

“Not now, Walter,” he said, with some difficulty. He was winded, already past the limits of his physical abilities when he jumped Robbie from behind the lilacs. He felt Robbie buckle under him and then flip over onto his back. Frederick fell upon him and worked at pinning his arms back. But Robbie didn't seem to be struggling.

“For fuck's sake, Uncle Freddy,” he said. “You're making a fool of yourself.” Frederick felt his grip loosen.

“I'm getting it all, Fred!” Walter Muller sounded jubilant. “Lean back so I can zoom in on his face!”

Frederick stared at Robbie's face.
Uncle
Freddy?
He felt an upheaval in his stomach, a sickening sense that the universe was giggling at his expense. As quickly as they had appeared, his endorphins disappeared, leaving behind an ankle that throbbed wildly. Robbie said nothing. A soft trickle of blood was beginning to inch down from one nostril. Frederick tried to kick a thinking mechanism into working order.
Uncle
Freddy?
Could this be one of Polly's sons, one of the ones who was supposed to be living in Connecticut? He tried to remember what her sons looked like, the last time he'd seen a picture of them, but no faces developed in his memory. And yet Robbie was now beginning to look unnervingly familiar.

“I only came to talk to you,” Robbie said. “I been feeling bad about Aunt Chandra not telling you the truth.” Frederick noticed a sizable welt appearing above Robbie's left eye. He was torn between pride at having caused it and terror over a potential lawsuit. And then he saw it: his brother-in-law's face, Reginald's face, the flattish nose, the broad Neanderthal forehead, a gleam of inherited dullness in the boy's eyes. If Robbie hadn't had a crew cut, a shock of red hair would be hanging just above one eyebrow.
We've invited Robert to dinner
, Joyce had said.
But
he's at that age where he doesn't want to eat with us anymore.
Yes, well, so was Frederick. He tried to think further about these inherited nephews of his, a gift from Chandra. Surely he had seen Robbie before, just as he'd seen Condom Boy. But they had always remained at the periphery of the family gatherings, as teenagers will. How could Chandra expect him to remember them? Everyone under twenty-five all looked alike to him anyway. And
why
should he remember them? What could be gained from it? Frederick freed the boy's arms.

“Be careful!” he heard Walter Muller say. He was still zooming.

“There's been a mistake, Walter,” Frederick said. “This is Chandra's nephew.” He got to his feet and brushed the grass from his jeans. Then he reached a hand down to Robbie, who refused it.

“Aunt Chandra said it served you right.” Robbie was more annoyed than pooped. “She said it would teach you to pay more attention to people.” Frederick thought about this. Well, her little lesson had backfired, hadn't it? So much for her skills as an instructress.

“I'm sorry,” Frederick said, and honestly. “At first I thought you were a burglar. Why were you peeping into my windows?”

“Because your car is in the driveway and you didn't answer your freakin' door,” Robbie said. “Mom says that you're on the verge, so I figured this was the day you bought the farm. You're lucky I didn't fight back. I'd have kicked your freakin' ass.” He was wiping the small dribble of blood with the back of his hand. “You're a freakin' idiot, man.” Frederick could only nod in agreement. Over Robbie's shoulder, he saw Walter Muller, Big Brother, inching his way across the lawn, his camcorder glued to his face. He imagined a gaping well in the front yard, and Walter stepping out and into the blackness of its mouth, never to film again.