All Families Are Psychotic (25 page)

Ted said, 'Do we need to dig in for a long, cozy chat?'

Janet shushed the group of them, and the men sett led in to listen to the call as if it were yet another CBC radio documentary abou t New Brunswick barrel-making.

Florian continued, 'You kno w, Janet, there are a number of ways of treating cancer that the
New York Times
hasn' t heard abou t yet, and migh t well not for a while.'

'How so?'

'You see, fixing cancer is one thing, but fixing society is another. Curing a huge disease like cancer would effectively wipe out the insurance industry and consequently the banking system. For each year we

increase the average li fe span, we generate a massive financial crisis. That's what the twentieth century was abou t — absorbing , year by year, our increased li fe spans.'

'Florian, surely—'

'Oh no, Janet, I assure you. I run one of the world 's biggest pharmaceutical firms. Glaxo Wellcome or Bayer — or Citibank, for that matter — will chop out my tongue for what I've just told you.'

'Do you ever have a chance to talk abou t this? Is there someone in your li fe?' A pause: 'No.'

'Oh, you poor dear! It must be awf ul for you.' 'Oh, it
is:

I don' t believe it — Mom is bonding with Florian.

'You must be in kno ts inside. I have coli tis from worrying. What do you get?' 'Shingl es.'

'Ooh — shingl es is bad.'

'And a rosacea rash. All over my nose and forehead.'

'Have you found anything that works for it? Rashes are so iff y.' 'A few things, but nothing that's a magic bullet.'

' My friend Bev has rosacea. I found her this cream sold out of Arizona that's done wonders for her.' 'Really?'

'You should try some.'

This is not happening. This is not happening.

'At this poin t I'll try anything.'

Ted cut in, 'Sorry to bust into your sewing circle here, gang, but, uh — are we going to talk abou t moolah?'

'Ted, how can you be so vulgar at a time like this? Florian, I'm sorry.' 'You are a
dear,
Janet.'

Janet said, 'Florian, come have dinner with me.'

Florian sounded taken aback, almost teary. ' Me? Really?' Wade, Ted and Bryan mou thed,
What?

Janet continued: 'Yes, and it can be just the tw o of us. I'll send the others out to Shakey's for pizza.' Florian was touched. 'I — don ' t kno w what to say, Janet.'

'Say yes. And I'll give you this ridiculous letter, too. Good riddance. We're in Daytona Beach. Is it driveable for you? I assume your compu ters have already located our address. How does six o'clock sound?'

'Perfect.'

'Very well, then. Six o'clock.'

Janet hung up. 'The poor boy misses his mother.'

Shw walked into the room,
grimy
with automo tive oil and carrying a thick stack of snapshot folders. 'I think we're finally having fun.' She dropp ed the folders on the desk.

'Excellent,' Janet said. 'Now, could all of you make sure those tw o dreadful people are safely locked up, and then could you all get out of my hair? Go meet Nickie and Beth at Kevin's trailer.
I
have a date.'

'Ooh, look at her — isn' t
she
a plump one.'

A few hours later around dinner time, Shw, Beth and Bryan were sitt ing in Kevin's trailer ogling the pho to album of womb donor applicants Shw had found under a steel plate beneath Lloyd's Buick

LeSabre. Shw was in a good mood — her brush with captivity had made her uncharacteristically pleasant to be around . Watching from across the room, Wade caugh t a flash or tw o in which he could see the

att raction she migh t hold for Bryan. Meanwhile Wade tried to pretend he wasn' t roasting, but failed. The

trailer's interior, while punishing, was nothing compared to outside, where even with the sun below the horizon anything alive was being turned into a festering variant of beef jerky.

In the trailer's tiny ki tchen, Ted and Nickie were sitt ing on the floor, backs against the sink cupboard,

holding hands and not saying much of anything. Nickie now knew abou t Ted's liver cancer; their shared medical sagas bound them more closely together than migh t have any joyful experience. On the fridge

opposite them was a snapshot of Kevin attending what appeared to be a bash for Disney mascots. He was defiantly smoking a Virgini a Slim, and the lower part of his torso was clad in the body of Scrooge McDuck, while he bandied abou t Scrooge's head as though it were a bracelet given to him by an unwelcome

suitor. Beside this pho to was a letter from Disney management, giving Kevin notice of his dismissal for mascot pro tocol violation.

When Wade had first imagined this week in Florid a leading up to the shutt le launch, this trailer was
not

part of the scenario. He'd envisioned — what? — noble dinners inside jet hangars, food served on

aluminum plates, with sixteen-millim eter films of past launches played for him and his fello w diners, after which silver-headed astronauts of yore would emerge from behind a curtain and swap tales of close calls and post-fligh t dinners along with starlets wearing skimpy dresses with spaghett i strap should ers. Young sexless childr en in jumpsuits would take him on tours of complex underground facili ties in which he'd be exposed to blinding white ligh ts that made him smarter and stronger and kinder. Afterwards, up on the tarmac, Bruce Spring steen and Pamela Anderson would be waiting inside a Hummer, and they'd go out

for a smart French dinner, at which Wade would understand French and his tales would amuse and deligh t the assembled crowd.

Ted called from the floor: 'Is this thing a cockroach? What the fuck is it?' 'It 's a palmett o bug,' Wade said.

'You can' t even see it from where you are. How can you tell?' 'Everyone asks the same thing when they see them.'

'Aren' t
you
Mr. Florid a-the-Sunshine-State? Nickie, smash the bastard with your pump.' 'Righ ty-oh, dear.'

Thunk

Was this a new low? Was it a new high? Yet again Wade could only wonder at this new place he and his family had entered.

'So, how long do we stay here?' Shw asked. 'A li tt le while,' said Wade.

'How much is a li tt le while?' 'Until my mother phones.'

Wade said he was going out for a walk and took the cell phone with him. On impul se he called Sarah, and, luck of luck, reached her. 'Baby sister?'

'Wade.'

'Hey.'

'Hey to you. You feeling any better?'

'A bit. I'm preparing for a sleep cycle. Gordon patted me on the butt a few minu tes ago, but then a camera crew came in, and so that was the end of that. Our zero-G biologi cal experiment migh t still be on, but frankly, I'm sick of myself at this poin t. Tell me some news that'll temporarily transpor t me out of this metal dump. Where
are
you? What's going on, huh? I
know
you, Wade. Something 's stewing. Confess to me now. You are powerless against my will.'

Why not?
'Fair enough . I'm standing outside a trailer in Orlando 's shitt iest neighborhood . It belongs to a guy named Kevin whose arm was shot up in the restaurant holdup yesterday. By the way, Mom and

Nickie are best friends now. What else . . .'
Probably best not to tell her that we're biding out here from the thugs who kidnapped her husband. Should I go on? Why not,
'And then a few hours ago, me, Mom,

Dad and Bryan rescued Shw from these freaky rich people in Daytona Beach who were going to lock Shw in their basement prison, steal her baby, and then probably kill her — so suddenly Shw's all nicey-nicey, and Bryan's like a pig in clover. Oh, by the way, Shw's real name is Emily.'

Silence — and faint mechanical sounds on Sarah's end of the phone.

'There's more. Righ t now Mom's having dinner with this whacked-out German-Bahamian pharmaceutical billion aire I used to work for. She's going to sell him this, uh, historically impor tant document I inherited from my pal Norm, who had a heart attack yesterday in Disney World . Splat, righ t onto the pavement.'

More faint mechanical sounds on Sarah's end.

Why not tell her about Dad? Go for it . . . No — don' t.
'Sarah?' 'I'm listening, Wade. I'm digesting, actually.'

'I figured you migh t be. Where's Howie?'
Good — no sign of hesitation in the voice.

'I don ' t kno w. If you were Howie, what would you be doing righ t now?' 'Groveling to you like a truff le pig.'

'That's what I though t. But he's being out of character on this one. And I
still
don ' t kno w what NASA was doing picking him up at the Brunswicks'. Usually I can read his actions like subtitles. This is infuriating.' 'Don' t lose sleep over it.'

'Why not?'

'Howie's not buil t for mystery. He'll come to you soon enough .'

'I can' t give the matter too much though t, Wade. Anyway, I have to have a full sleep cycle if I'm going to use lasers tomorro w. Say hi to the gang for me.'

She was ringing off a bit too quickly. Wade asked, 'Hey -
whoa!
Are you pissed off at us? Are you pissed of because we're not there on the sidelines 24/7 holding balloon s and sheets of twenty-four-by-thir ty-six

cardboards with Bible quo tes? Is that what the other families are doing ?'

'Good
God,
no. It 's the pressure here. People can' t even pee in this place withou t Tom Hanks coming in and making a documentary, or IMAX capturing the moment. This phone probably isn' t secure — we're probably going out on live webcast. The only thing I don ' t like abou t this whole astronaut thing is the lack of privacy. But then I was chosen for my compatibili ty with group s as well as for my low body mass and varied skill sets.'

'Romantic.'

'I'm practical, Wade. Always have been.'

'Are you going to be up at four a.m. again?' 'I will. Let me call you.'

Wade gave her Ted's cell number and they hung up.

A few minu tes later back inside, Shw looked behind a panel and said, 'Have you seen the A/C in this rig? It 's like a hamster on a running wheel. Couldn ' t we at least go to a restaurant and kill time that way?' 'No,' said Wade. 'We're all broke, and besides, this way Mom kno ws where we are.'

The others were too listless to comment.

Ted said, 'Was it really safe to leave your mother with that carnivore Hun?' 'He's Swiss, Dad. And since when did you start caring abou t Mom?'

Ted ignor ed Wade's baiting. 'German-Swiss. These days it 's the same thing. We migh t just as well have

tossed her into a wood chipper. And God only kno ws what he's done to Howie. Made into ravioli filling , probably. Bryan probably ate him.'

'And so now you care abou t Howie? Hypocrite.'

'Wade, use the brains God gave you. You kno w damn well Howie has to be in the bleachers for li ft -off, even though he is a grating li tt le shit.'

How can I tell Dad that the lives of Sarah, Howie, Alanna and Gordon Brunswick had devolved into a low- budget 1970s sex comedy with an aerospace theme.

Beth said, ' Mr. Drummond —' 'Ted. Call me Ted.'

'Ted — have you always told Wade he was useless?' 'Yeah, sure.'

'Why?'

'Why?' He paused. 'Because the li tt le shit kept on landing in troubl e — BB guns and ri fles — neighbor s showing up with half of their cats in each hand . . .'

'That was an
accident.
Dad.'

'Wade, let me finish here: cops arriving in the driveway every other day; sett ing fire to the neighbor 's house—'

'Accident! '

'I could go on. A disciplin e nigh tmare. Wait until your centrifugal zygote turns into a teenager. You'll be coming to my grave and asking for advice from the Beyond.'

Nickie threw down her hand. Ted, stop talking like that. Liver's the one cancer they have under control.' Ted hummed the funeral dirge; Nickie stormed out of the trailer.

Beth said, 'You spread love and sunshine wherever you go, don ' t you?' 'Skip the Sunbeam rou tine. Nickie's a survivor.'

Beth asked, 'Did you tell Bryan he was useless, too?'

'I didn ' t have to. With him, it was always self-evident.' 'And Janet?'

'Well, yeah. I suppose.' 'And Sarah?'

Ted clenched his body. 'I see what you're doing . You're trying to pin the results of their lives on me. Don' t bother.' Ted shuff led a deck of cards, with rather too much noise and flouri sh.

Beth said, 'I barely kno w your entire family, but they strike me as textbook evidence of proph ecy fulfilled.'

'Is this religiou s?' 'No. It 's reality.'

Ted turned to Wade. 'Wadey-poo, if I'd hugged you back when you were eigh t, or pretended to give a damn abou t your scale model of the Pyramids at Giza, do you think you'd have been any different as a person now?'

'Let me think.' Wade sipped his drink . 'In essence, yes, but in circumstance, no. I think my li fe would be much more traditional-looking . I'd have a house and a wife and tw o kids and a dog. Maybe a—'

Beth shot a glass of lemonade in his face. 'What was
that
for?'

'Because I'm not a wife and tw o kids, Wade. Screw you.' She flew out, on the tail of Nickie. 'Thanks, Dad.'

The phone rang; Kevin's machine answered:
Kevin's gone out to play, but he'll be back soon.

Beep

'Kevin, it 's Mickey. I mended your slacks for you. Slacks -what a
scream
of a word. 'Bye, dear.'

Click

Almost as soon as that call ended, the phone rang again, Janet this time.
'Wade? Ted? Anybody there?'

Wade grabbed the phone. ' Mom. Hey.' 'Hello, dear.'

'Are you OK?' 'Fit as a fiddle.'

To judge from the background noise, she was on the road. 'Where are you?' 'Flor, dear, where are we?'

She's calling him 'Flor, dear'?

Florian replied, 'We're in Kansas, dear.'

'Flor, don ' t be such a silly Billy. Where are we really?' 'Interstate 95 headed up to Daytona Beach.'

'We're headed up to Daytona Beach, dear.' 'Is Howie there?'

'Yes, Howie is here.'

'Did they do anything to him?'

'Howie is fine, dear. Come meet us.' 'Where?'

'Chez Lloyd and Gayle.'