All Families Are Psychotic (19 page)

'You don ' t say.'

'Numb-nuts got sunburn ed walking on the freeway,' Ted added, 'hence our brief visit in the hospital last nigh t.'

' My,
my.'

The men had stopped by the hotel to pick up Wade's pill s, then drove towards Daytona Beach, but took the wrong exit somewhere along the way and then ran out of gas. With no money between them, they spent the nigh t on the beach.

'Aren' t you all so clever.' She was waiting for a lull in the discussion so she could ask
a
set of questions:

Why do you have Howie's van? Where did Howie go? Why is finding that grotesque li tt le Shw creature so impor tant to the three of you?
Cheerfully colored greasy li tter lay strewn across their boo th's coun ter.

' Mom,' said Wade, 'I need money.'

Janet's expression indicated not a whiff of surpri se.

'If you could lend us a li tt le, it 'd be great,' said Wade. 'We need to do this road trip, and otherwise we'll probably keep on doing stupider and stupider things until one of us ends up in the U.S. jail system again, and won' t that be a treat?'

'I want to hear abou t your figh t with Sarah,' Ted said. 'What happened?'

Janet's guard was down: 'If you must kno w, I told her I was taking thalidomid e for my mou th ulcers. I felt I owed that much truth to her.'

The flesh of Ted's face leapt away from his skull. 'You're taking
thalidomid e?
Tell me I didn ' t hear you say that, oh,
Jesus.'

'Ted, shut up. It 's not like I'm going to get myself knocked up.'

'Putt ing that shit into your body is evil. They should take every last molecule of that vile crap and burn it.' Ted's depth of feeling on the subject took Janet aback. 'Ted, I don ' t see why
you
have to be so ratt led over this.'

'You wouldn ' t. Oh, Jesus.'

'I'm not going to tell you any more, then.' 'There's more?'

'Yes, there's more. She asked me if I would have . . . abor ted her if I'd kno wn abou t her hand. I didn ' t

blast out the word " no " righ t away. I was obviously
going
to say " no " , but I was just speaking the way I normally speak, but then she took offense and—'

'And
what?'

'She hung up. That's all.'

' My li tt le girl 's abou t to go into space, and you tell her you never wanted her in the first place.' 'Don' t be an idio t, Ted. You kno w that's not the case.'

'I do, do I? Since when are you a mind reader?'

Their voices were escalating. Wade grabbed Janet and said, 'Let's go, Mom.' They walked out the door, Bryan acting as a shield from Ted, who follo wed them outside, continuing to berate Janet.

'How could you do that to her?'

'I didn ' t do
anything
to her, Ted. It 's in her mind.' They were now out in the parking lot beside the orange van.

'You were never close to her,' said Ted. 'You never opened up to her. You were cold.' Janet stopped in her tracks and turned around . 'I beg your pardon?'

'You heard me,' said Ted. 'You felt guil ty abou t her hand. You felt ashamed—'

'How dare you even
think
of accusing me of—'

Wade stepped in. 'Dad, you apologi ze to Mom.
Now.''

'No. I won' t. Because it 's true. Look at her eyes. It 's there. At least I saw Sarah as being marked for greatness. Your mother here only saw her as marked.'

'That's it,' Wade said. He dove into his father's midri ff and yelled out, 'Bryan, get the rope.' 'What are you doing ?' Janet asked.

'Get
off
me, you frigging chowderhead.'

Bryan quickly retrieved coils of rope from the van's emergency box while Wade straddled his father's should ers, police-holding Ted's arms behind the small of his back. In a flash, Bryan's Boy Scout training kicked into gear and Ted's feet were neatly bound like a rodeo steer, while Ted swore like an army

platoon.

'Grab his arms,' Wade said. 'Rope 'em up.'

With considerable finesse Bryan completed his father's trussing. 'That rope hur ts, you cretin. Untie me.'

Bryan said, 'No. I don ' t think so.'

Ted said, 'Jan, call these goons off me. Jesus.'

Janet looked him over and said, 'You kno w what, Ted? I think not.'

Wade said, 'Bryan, grab his feet. Let's dump him in the van.' Swift ly the tw o men did a one-tw o-three —

heave!
and Ted was dumped on the van's floor like an old gym bag. 'There,' Wade said. 'You're our hostage.'

'Hostage from
what?'

Mother and tw o sons paused to consider this. Janet spoke: 'From Sarah's launch. No li ft -off for you, Ted.' 'You stupid fuckers, you insane li tt le—' but his invective was brough t to a muff led halt by Bryan, who'd rustled abou t inside Howie's plentifully stocked first-aid box, finding a thick coral-colored bandage and

slapping it onto his father's mou th. 'Voilà.' Bryan beamed.

There then follo wed a brief quiet moment as Janet and her sons stood outside the van, looking at Ted. ' Mom,' said Wade, 'Hop in.'

Janet paused for just a beat and said, 'OK. But let me get my stuff from my rental car.' They did this, and Janet felt . . .
fabulous
as they pulled out onto the road. 'Hey, I though t you guys were out of gas—' Wade and Bryan smiled.

Don' t ask.

'Wade, could you be a darling and tell me a bit more abou t what exactly is going on here?'

Wade shrugg ed and he told his mother abou t Disney World , Norm 's cardiac death, the letter, Shw's trunk, the race to Daytona Beach ... At the end of it, Janet was silent and stared at the passing marsh grasses,

condo development signs and squashed animals. 'So, Mom, what do you think?'

Janet though t of the letter — such a perfect crystal of all words left unspoken between mother and child. And then up in the sky she saw a mound of mashed-potato Columbi a Pictures clouds. She had an idea — or the germ of an idea. 'I think we should stop at the next mall we come to.'

'Why?'

'We need to buy envelopes and make dupli cate letters.' 'What are you talking abou t?'

'Wade, look in my eyes. Look at me and tell me that you would hand over a letter as precious as that to some monster who'd actually pay for it.' Janet waited a second. 'See? You can' t. If you were able, then you wouldn ' t be my son.'

Wade absorbed this; Janet though t he seemed to take to the idea rather well. Wade said, 'OK. Sure. But why would we make dupli cates, then?'

'What — and not make that easy money? I may be your mother, but I'm not nuts.' Bryan said, 'Good. We don ' t have to bother finding the real one in Shw's trunk.' 'Over my dead body. That letter is going to be rescued.'

'But the royal stationery—' said Bryan.

'Nonsense. It 's Hallmark or a similar brand. Norm just didn ' t want you taking the card yourselves. Did you take measurements?'

'I did,' Wade said. 'It 's seven by five.'

'Did you use a ruler?' Janet felt like a Mafia kingpin .

' My fingers. The tip of my index finger to the tip of my thumb is exactly five inches. My pinky to my thumb is seven.'

'Pull into that mall.'

The next mall up the road was sligh tly more touristy. They parked and left Ted on the floor like a bag of groceries. The greeting card store opened for business just as they arrived. 'See?' said Janet. 'A good sign

— the universe
wants
us to make dupli cates.'

They went through the store and ended up with several boxes of wedding invitation envelopes that were a close match, dozens of assorted cards to go inside, and a variety of pens and scribbl er pads.

'What next?' Bryan asked.

'Over there.' They went to a discoun t book mart, and quickly found books abou t Princess Diana, and one with a pho to of the envelope on the coff in. They bough t it and walked to a Starbucks clone, bough t

coffees and sat down with a selection of pens.

'OK, boys,' she said. 'Let's practice our penmanship here.

First thing is, we have to make the envelope just righ t. We can do the card inside afterwards.'

They began writing the word ' Mummy', over and over, trying to perfectly mimic the origin al. Bryan said, 'Wade, shouldn ' t you phone Beth? I mean, you pretty much abandoned her at the hotel.'

Wade's face flushed and he looked at Janet. 'Dad's cell phone died. For now I just want to do these envelopes.'

Janet though t abou t her own mother, who had died of a stroke during a holid ay on Lake Huron in the 1970s. Her death, in and of itself, didn ' t sadden Janet. What saddened her was that she had never really kno wn who her mother was as a person. Janet was frigh tened that her mother migh t actually have been unkno wable, and by extension, maybe all people were unkno wable. So much of her mother's li fe had been coloni zed by her husband. Once, after Janet was three childr en into her marriage with Ted, she asked her mother if she missed her maiden name.

' Miss my maiden name? Good heavens, no. I threw it away the moment I said, " I do " .'

Threw it away?
Such self-erasure was beyond Janet. To her such a gesture evoked pictures of Quebec nuns allo wing themselves to be bricked into walls in a backfired idea of devotion. But for all that, Janet's

mother had, for a human being born withou t a penis in the year 1902, done qui te well for herself,

whereas Janet, given an infini tely larger array of options and freedoms, had blo wn it.
Blown it? By what standards? If I'd played my cards righ t I'd be what, now — a judge? Wearing shoulder pads while heading some electronics corporation?

Owning a muffin shop? That's success? Success is failure; failure is success. We were given so many mixed signals at once that we ended up becoming nothings. But my daughter — she escaped.

Blink . . .

' Maybe we should let Dad go to the bathroom ,' Bryan said. 'No,' said Wade.

Janet said, 'It was very naugh ty of the tw o of you to tie him up like that.' 'He deserved to be tied up.'

'I'm not saying he didn ' t.'

'Oh. OK.'

They continued writing out the word ' Mummy'. Bryan, to Janet's surpri se, was the best of the three. 'You kno w, you're very good, Bryan.'

'Thanks. Playing the gui tar makes my fingers more dexterous.' 'I can see.'

'What are you thinking abou t?' Wade asked his mother. 'You have that I've-got-a-secret look on your face.'

'Nothing really. Well, actually my mother. You never really knew her.'

'I did a li tt le bit,' Wade said. 'Grandma Kaye. She never talked and she smelled like skin cream.' 'No, she didn ' t talk much,' Janet said. 'Did she?'

Wade went on: 'What were you thinking abou t her?'

'How her li fe wasn' t much of a story — nothing wrong with that — look at
mine.
But I keep on thinking that if I look at my li fe long enough , there'll be a sort of grand logic to it — a scheme. But I don ' t think there is.'

'Does that scare you?' Wade asked.

'No. And I think the future is pretty poin tless, too.' ' Mom,' said Bryan, 'You sound like the Sex Pistols.' 'Those dreadful punk rockers.' Janet's lips pursed.

' Mom,' Wade said, ' the thing I can' t figure out abou t you is how can you be so moral and TV mom abou t li fe, but not believe in anything at the same time. I don ' t understand.'

'What made you think that those TV moms believed in anything, Wade?' 'Uhhh—'

'They didn ' t. Not really. We weren' t robo ts but we weren' t complete people, either.' Small birds fli tted abou t Janet's feet. 'Anyway, that was so many eras ago. So long ago. I feel like a fraud living in the year 2001. I'm not supposed to be a part of all this.' She put down her pen and looked at her son's eff orts at

forgery. 'Bryan, you're going to be our off icial calligr apher.' She handed him a stack of envelopes. 'Wri te on these, please.'

Bryan, happy to be chosen for a task, penned away with scientific calm. Janet turned to Wade. 'Beth says you have lesions on your shins. Can I see them?'

'Why not?' Wade rolled his pants up and his mother looked at the purpl e lesions, shaped like the states and coun ties of the United States, scrambled together.

'Do they hur t?' Janet asked.

'Nah. Not at all. But it 's hard to look at them. I feel like an apple that's been in the basket for a mon th too long and I'm rott ing from the inside.'

'Can I touch them?' 'Be my guest.'

'Let me.' Janet bent down and touched her son's shins and she though t of Sunday School and Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and yet again became angry at the way the past was always inserting itself into her present. 'Can you do anything abou t them?'

'Yes. No. They're not going away, if that's what you mean.' 'I'm sorry, Wade.'

Wade and Beth's trip to Milan was a somber, penny-pinching experience — a charter fligh t cramped in

tiny seats, which made Wade motion sick for much of the fligh t — He was almost hallucinatory when they got to the tiny
pensióne
in Milan — a city the color of graham crackers and soot that resembled Toron to more than Wade's preconceptions of rustic fishing villages where everybody drank Chianti and drove itty- bitty bumper cars. And the taxi ride to the fertili ty clinic was a sci-fi experience as they passed through

Milan's industrial outskir ts, devoid of color or plant li fe and feeling like the year 2525. Once there, Wade was told to cab back to the city, that Beth was 'going to be admini stered to' — a creepy choice of words

— and would stay for the day. Wade could come back around five.

Wade walked around the streets all day and became crash-ingly homesick. And when he wasn' t homesick, he was worried abou t money and abou t the procedure's success. He was a tangle of shor t-circuiting

though ts.
Could Europe be any bleaker-looking ? Where's all this history I've been hearing so much about?

Instead Wade kept seeing only things that looked . . .
old.
The shops had been not merely closed, but barricaded in metal shutters laced with graff iti.
Graff iti? That's so 1992.
The streets felt drab in the extreme. Stores seemed to open and shut down again shor tly thereafter for unexplainable whims of