All Families Are Psychotic (20 page)

culture.
How long can it take to stick a sperm into an egg? And could this country be any more expensive if it tried?

At five he retrieved Beth, who was pooped, and the tw o went to bed. Beth began playing with Wade's eyelids. 'Hey, Wade -what are you thinking abou t?'

'A li tt le baby quail dancing on my eyelids.' 'Do you want a boy or a girl?'

'A girl . Boys are pricks — no, wait — maybe a boy so I can undo all the scary evil shit my dad did to me.' 'Like
what?

Wade though t abou t it. 'Nothing specific. I mean, he hit me
all
the time, but that's not even the thing that sticks in my craw.'

'None of that matters any more, Wade. Your parents are lost. They can' t help you any more. They no longer dream or feel. The only valid viewpoin t for any decision is eterni ty.'

'No, Beth, hang on—' Wade opened his eyes and sat up. He looked down into Beth's eyes. 'We've been

through this before. If a parent ignor es you for your first fifteen years — never even says hello, let alone holds you or teaches you to shave or go to a ball game — and he only ackno wledges you with a fist —

that's cruelty — it 's like confining a kid in soli tary.' 'I'd rather have had your kind of cruelty.'

Wade plopp ed down on to the matt ress. 'Don' t wish cruelty on to yourself. Not even theoretically.' He

turned sideways and stroked Beth's cheeks. She'd had bad acne as a teenager and the scars made Wade sad. 'Don' t.'

Beth said nothing.

'Our baby's never going to be afraid,' said Wade. 'Our baby's never going to be yelled at. Our baby's going to be loved for ever and always. We don ' t drink . We don ' t drug. We don ' t preach. We—'

'Stop.'

'Huh? Why stop?'

'We'll jinx what we have. We're not normal people any more, you and me, Wade. We're not doomed or anything but we're—'

'We're what?'

Beth sat up, li t an Italian cigarette with a pink Bic ligh ter and exhaled her first drag. 'Growing up we used to have this garden out back. Everybody did, I mean, it was South Carolin a. My parents — my mom mostly

— they were terribl e gardeners, but the vegetables made it through each year OK: boring stuff like

potatoes and cabbages — some lett uce, some tobacco plants and pumpkin s my dad tried gro wing every year. No flowers.' She took another drag from the cigarette. 'But then one year the booze kicked in, and that's when they really started losing it and going in for the kill on each other. They just kind of stopped doing the garden work. They just ignor ed it, and I was only abou t twelve, and in my head gardening wasn' t an activity for twelve-year-olds. I was into smoking and older guys with cars. But I always kept my eyes on the garden. Weeds came in real quick. And rabbi ts. The cabbage went wild, and when cabbage goes wild it looks kind of, I don ' t kno w — like a homeless person. Then the bugs ate it up. And the peas never did come back. I'd go out to the garden to smoke when the furni ture started flying. I'd go watch what happened to the garden once it lost its pro tection. Only li tt le bits survived here and there — a

potato plant; some chives. Mint.' 'And?'

'That garden's you and me, Wade. We're a garden that's lost its gardeners. The garden still goes on but it 's never a real garden ever again.'

'Beth, that is so totally not true.'

'Wade. You're already in God's house. Now it 's just a matter of locating your room.' Three floors down, a police car honked past their
pensióne
windo w. Beth looked away. 'I hate Europe, too.'

'What's on your mind, Beth?'

'Shush, Wade. I kno w we've taken that Course in Miracles stuff in our seropositivity group , but it 's what I believe. We're the untended garden.'

Wade's heart broke like an egg on the ki tchen floor. His sense of time quickened. Here was the moment where the hammer strikes the anvil and the chain is forged and the love gro ws only stronger, more real, deeper and permanent. Wade saw the truth in what Beth said. He agreed in his heart and though t of his child, who would flouri sh and bloom long after the rabbi ts and weevils had taken him away.

'God saw me in that insemination room today, Wade. He did. He saw the test tubes and sheet metal and the ultrasound stuff and—'

'And what?' Wade propp ed himself up on his elbo w and traced circles on Beth's forehead.

'He sees everything. I don ' t kno w how I feel abou t that. He saw me. He saw the test tubes. The sperm spinner. The
News at Six.
Icebergs in Antarctica. Inside my heart. Everything.'

'I want a girl ,' Wade said.

'I want a boy,' said Beth. 'Girls never have good lives. God hates girl s.'

Bryan and Janet continued writing Mummy cards, and Wade slunk off to a pay phone. 'Wade?'

'Beth, God, I'm sorry, sugar, I'm so sorry.'‘I kno w you are, honey.'

Wade was humbl ed. 'I'm weak. I'm a shit. I
am
shit. You're too good for me.'

'No, you're too good for me. I drank again last nigh t. Four years, three mon ths and tw o days of sobriety, all gone.'

'Beth, you drank because I left you alone. I stopped to get my pill s, but you weren' t back yet. You were out shopping or something.'

'What's going on, honey? Something 's fishy. Did that Norm creep land you guys in troubl e?' 'Norm? Uh, no, but we're going to help him on a business deal.'

'What kind of deal — drugs? Because if it 's drugs, I'm leaving you, Wade. You kno w that's our agreement.'

'Drugs? God, no. Mom's even helping us out.' ' Mom? Your mother?
Janet?'

That's righ t.'

'Well, she's not here, so I guess she's with you. When are you returning ?' 'Tonigh t I guess — I promi se.'

Beth was unimpr essed. 'Well, just so's you kno w, I though t I migh t go to Kennedy Space Center. I—' Beth's voice vanished as Wade looked across the parking lot and saw the orange van's panel doors slide open and the trussed lump that was Ted drop out onto the pavement. 'I have to call you back, hon.' He ran over to the van, follo wed by Bryan and Janet. 'And what do you think
you're
doing , Dad?'

Ted mumbl ed into the bandage over his mou th. A clean-cut family walked past en rou te to a spor ting goods outlet store.

'Nothing to look at,' said Wade, but this seemed not to appease the family. ' Move along.'

'It 's OK,' Janet said in her 1965 hostess voice. 'He has Klemperer's palsy. It can overwhelm him.' Once they were gone, Wade said, 'Klemperer's palsy?'

'After Colonel Klink on
Hogan's Heroes.
I made it up on the spot.'

Wade looked down at Ted. 'Come on, Bry — let's lock the Gimp back in his cage.' Ted writhed in a full

lather. 'Dad, calm down, because your spazzing out like this isn' t going to help you, and it only makes our job harder.'

'Our
job?'
Bryan asked.

'Yeah,' said Wade, as his father landed on the floor. 'We need to sell Florian his goddamn fake card.' 'But we don ' t need Dad to do that.'

'Bryan, we can' t just thro w him off on the side of the high w—' Wade stopped, and his eyes caugh t those of his bro ther and mother. Ted squealed as he foresaw a possible fate.

'How's he going to get home, then?' Bryan asked. 'He's a big boy,' said Janet.

'Yeah,' said Bryan. 'But he and Nickie are going to need their share of the money for all their medical bill s.'

Wade instantly regretted having told Bryan abou t Nickie's hiv status.

Janet looked at Ted. 'Oh, God. Just when I was building up the nerve to become a callous soul.' Ted's eyes showed that he knew he was abou t to receive a humding er of information. Janet sat down and removed the bandage from his mou th. Before she could say anything more, Wade said, 'If you say or do even one

tiny mean thing to Mom I'm going to cover your whole body with duct tape, not just now, but the rest of your li fe. Got it?'

Ted was more interested in Janet's news.

'Ted, now's as good a time as any to find out. Nickie was going to tell you, but here goes.' She took in her breath. 'Nickie's hiv positive—'

No reaction.

'—and I have to say, Ted, she's one good egg and you're damn lucky to have found her, or rather, that she puts up with you. Or whatever your deal is.'

'He's going to go apeshit,' Bryan said to nobod y in particular. 'I dunno , Bry—' said Wade.

Ted remained motionless.

Janet went on: 'It doesn' t mean that you're hiv, Ted, but there's the poss—'

Ted broncoed abou t the van's interior, swearing with such force and thrashing with such violence that Janet, Wade and Bryan scattered like bits of broken glass.

'Jesus, Dad, calm down.'

Janet kept calm and said what soothing things she could. Wade said, ' Mom, could we continue this conversation as we drive up the coast?'

They became mobil e, and a half hour later, Ted lay in stunned submission. Wade was at the wheel, and Janet sat in the passenger seat as the orange van hummed up Florid a's Space Coast, the sun having resumed its daily role as a permanent flash cube popping over a world of vitamin huts, gol f shops, strip join ts, car washes and gas stations.

This landscape is from an amusement park. I'm on a ride — a ride shaped like an orange VW camper.
Bryan and Ted were in the rear seats, with Ted unbound . By no means was it love holding the three men together — rather, only the prospect of quick money.

Janet sipped from a bott le of Volvic water she kept in her purse and took a 3TC capsule, clasping her pill bott le shut with a defiant click.

'Are those 3TCs? Can I borro w one, Mom? Mine are in the back of the camper.' 'Sure.'

Ted said, 'I really don ' t see why we have to slip this kraut a fake letter. Thanks, Jan. Coun t on you to come in and screw up a good thing.'

'Thank
you,
Ted,' said Janet, 'and such a good plan of operation you were having this morning , too — stealing breakfasts and sleeping on beaches. I smell a winner.'

'Dad,' Wade said, 'I'm not calling Florian until we rescue the real letter. Love it or leave it. It 's wrong that he should buy it.'

'You.
Morals. Perfect.'

. . .
police station . . . discount mattresses . . . a pain clinic . . . liquor . . . pet food.

Wade ignor ed the comment and kept steady at the wheel.

Janet sensed that her opinion of her li fe was changing . Two days ago, it had felt like merely a game of connect the dots — a few random dots, spaced widely apart and which produ ced a picture of a scribbl e. But now? Now her li fe was nothing
but
dots, dots that would connect in the end to create a magni ficent picture — Noah's Ark? A field of corn flowers? A Maui sunset? She didn ' t kno w the exact image, but a

picture was indeed happening — her li fe was now a story.
Farewell, random scribbl es.

She heard Bryan speaking to Ted: 'Geez, Dad, you've already finished that bott le?'

'I need another.' Ted had polished off a mickey of golden rum found in the van's fridge. Wade said, 'Gett ing sloshed isn' t going to fix anything.'

'
You
shut up. I've heard enough out of you.'

'No, Dad, I'm
not
going to shut up.' The car came to a red ligh t and Ted bol ted out the door to a nearby convenience mart. Wade was abou t to race after him, but Janet restrained him. 'Just let him have his li tt le drink , dear.'

From the door of the liquor store, Ted shou ted at Wade, 'I have
bugs
crawling underneath my skin because of you, you li tt le prick.'

'Yeah? Well, cry me a river, you cruel shit.' 'Wade,' said Janet, 'your language. Please.'

'Sorry, Mom.' He stuck his head out the windo w: 'Buy yourself shoe polish and mou thwash and go suck it and
die
and then see if any of us care.'

'We're never going to find her,' Bryan croaked. 'Don' t be such a gloom y Gus. It 's a piece of cake.' 'How?'

Janet leaned out the windo w and asked a passing pedestrian for the location of the local library. Ted returned to the van with a bott le of gin: 'Bulk martinis.'

'How did you pay for that?' Janet asked. 'I didn ' t.'

'Oh, good Lord.' She got out and went into the store to pay for it and returned with the Yello w Pages.

Minu tes later they were at the local library's Internet bro wser section. The library's insides were cool and normal-seeming, a place visited by people whose lives contained no randomn ess, whose families gave one another CD box sets and novelty sweaters for Christmas, and who never forged each others' signatures or had affairs with pool boys named Jamie or girls in payroll named Nicole. Outside the library, Ted was

underneath an ancient live oak draped with Spanish moss.

As Janet keyboarded, she though t out loud: '. . . If this Mr. Baby Buyer is in the auto parts business, he's most likely a Republi can. Car dealers and car people love Republi cans — all those Rotary and Kiwanis

lunches and handshake pho tos taken with vice presidents. So he probably donates heavily and lives in a fancy zip code.' She continued on her search.

Bryan said, 'I don ' t think I've ever been in a library.' His voice was empty of any ironi c trace.

'I have,' Wade said. 'In Las Vegas, when I became sick. They're so weird, aren' t they? I mean, all these . . .

books'

The tw o bro thers went silent.

After a few minu tes during which Wade thumbed through a copy of
Teen People
and Bryan looked at picture books of punk rock stars, Janet announ ced that she had narro wed the selection to three

candidates, and they left the building . Outside they found Ted passed out; tw o young boys in private school uni forms were using his nose as a paper airplane target. Wade boo ted his father's bott om. 'Jesus,

Dad, you're like the town wino. You're embarrassing us — get up.' Ted promp tly vomi ted into the tinder- dry lawn.

'Plop him into the van,' Janet said. 'Lay him on top of that striped awning Howie hangs over the camper door at barbecues.'

Once they were in the van and moving, Ted rolled around on the floor like a log; Bryan stopped this by laying a foam cushion between his father and the door.