Donorboy (18 page)

I didn't really have anything to say about that. But I said I don't hate Sean but he does get on my nerves and I miss my moms a lot.

He was like, yeah, well, this will define your life for a while but don't let it get in the way of following your bliss, because your bliss is still there.

I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but I kind of nodded because I liked hearing him talk. He said how he doesn't actually smoke anymore and asked me did I smoke and I was like well, I haven't but I am keeping my options open, and he was like that's so good, don't close yourself off to experience, but then he was like he felt like this fog in his brain lifted when he stopped smoking and how he was writing this novel that he thinks is what he was always meant to do or something.

Then he told me some stories about Sean as a little kid that were pretty funny. Then I was tired and really thirsty from all those fries, and I was like I need to hit the sack, and so we went back.

I don't know—I like him. I mean, I don't know what Sean thought was the point here, because I was not like oh my God this is so horrible I never want to turn out like this guy or anything. It's not like he smells and lives in a shelter or something. He's just this old guy who I guess is a little more cool than most people's grandfathers. I mean it's not like he falls asleep and golfs which is what I think grandfathers do, but I guess I only know that from TV, since Mommy was excommunicated or whatever by her parents and obviously I never met Grandpa Joe but he did die on a golf course so there you go.

TRUTH IS BEAUTY BAR AND GRILL

A NOVEL

BY NIALL CASSIDY

Chapter 24

It was four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. I was drying glasses. I was just about to wrap my brain around the depths of
Tarkus
that had always been obscured when a girl who couldn't have been seventeen came in and sat down at the bar. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't imagine how I knew her. I saw a kid this age about once a year in here, and I always abused the hell out of them, like I was about to do to her.

“You know, this is just depressing,” I told her. “What are you, about sixteen? And you're about to whip out some piece of shit fake Missouri license or something, right? Can we just skip this part? Isn't there some latchkey kid's basement you could be drinking in?”

“Well, I guess he got the asshole part right,” she said. “Listen, Jack, I'm not here to drink. You are Jack, aren't you?”

“I don't think I know you. Should I?”

“Probably. I'm your granddaughter.”

Well, that would explain why she looked familiar—those were her grandmother's eyes boring into me. She might not have been here to drink, but now I damn sure needed one. I poured myself a Maker's Mark and took a gulp. “I guess Alan's been busy since I saw him last,” he said.

“Kind of. It's a complicated story. Anyway, he says you're an asshole and a drunk. I guess I wanted to find out for myself.”

“Well, I guess I'm guilty on both counts. How is Alan doing, anyway?”

“He's okay, except I guess I'm giving him fits or something. I'm some kind of problem child. I guess I'm kind of fucked up since my moms died.”

“Hey, I'm sorry, kid. How old was your mom?” I was sorry for the kid. I hated to see my dead wife's eyes looking sad. I was also sorry for myself for everything I didn't know about my son. He lost a wife and didn't even invite me to the funeral? Not that I would have wanted to go, but I would have liked the invite.

“One was forty-two, the other was forty-six.” I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. My world in here was pretty small, but I suppose that outside, things were different. I couldn't imagine what the arrangement was here, and it seemed like a waste of time to try and figure it out.

“I'm sorry. I guess losing one mom is hard enough.”

“I don't have to tell you, do I? Look what it did to Alan. And you. Or anyway, Alan says your wife bit the dust, you upped your drinking a notch, started chasing pussy like they were about to make it illegal, and generally fucked up your life.”

Well, that hurt. I suppose if I had really thought about it, I would have figured that was what he thought of me, but it was still kind of shocking to hear it right out there like that. “I guess that's more or less right. The pu … uh, the ladies actually pursued me, but I guess I found out what they were really chasing when I stopped dealing weed. All of a sudden I was a lot less interesting. Then I woke up one day and found I had gray hair and this.” I patted my substantial gut. “But I don't have any regrets about the life I chose. Now Alan, on the other hand, puts on a tie every day, puts on that uniform of conformity and American ‘success,' marches in to serve his corporate master, and lets other people run his life. He lives for money and the approval of a corrupt society. I live for myself. You tell me who's fucked up.”

She looked at me with those sad, familiar eyes and stood up. “If you ask me, old man,” she said, “you both are.”

Without saying good-bye, she walked out of Truth Is Beauty and into the hot Philadelphia afternoon.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: My big weekend

Well, it is Sunday night and we are back from Philadelphia. It was a hell of a trip. I hardly know where to begin. All right. I will begin with the most important part. I seem to have reconciled with old Niall. On Saturday morning Rosalind was sleeping in, and we went out and ate scrapple and just talked things out. Or, rather, I talked and he listened. I said that I felt bad for not talking to him, that having Rosalind around has made me reevaluate things, and one of the things I've decided is that I don't want to be a stranger. I didn't say this, but I have been feeling increasingly embarrassed about my estrangement from Dad since Rosalind arrived. How do I explain that I have a living parent that I choose not to speak to to someone who lost two? It seems wasteful.

I then laid out this catalog of his parenting failures, and he nodded calmly and did not dispute any of what I had to say. He asserted that he has a young soul, whereas I have an old one, and that if I look at my life I seem to have done okay, while he is still in pretty much the same place he's been for thirty years, with the exception of some semi-autobiographical novel he claims to be writing.

I think what he was essentially offering was the “Boy Named Sue” defense: I resented him, but his neglect helped make me strong and successful and to realize that I could not depend on other people. I suppose I can see that point of view, but I think it's a cop-out and a fraud on his part.

But, surprisingly, I didn't say that. I just said that I wanted to stop dwelling on the past and have a future with my daughter in which he was a part of our lives. But that he was not allowed to ever talk to me about
Tarkus
again. He appears to be able to live with that.

Now, of course, the question is whether I can. As much as Rosalind's presence reminds me that I need to have some contact with him, every time I make an attempt to be a parent to her, I feel the anger that he didn't make the effort for me.

Rosalind says she believes he actually did the best he could, but that, to judge by the condition of the apartment and the information she gleaned about his last twenty-six years, his best simply wasn't very good. Perhaps that's true too. Apparently they had some sort of late-night heart-to-heart, and she came away from it really liking him. He told her to follow her bliss, and she seems to be contemplating what exactly her bliss is. I suppose this is an okay activity for a teenager, as long as she arrives at different conclusions about the nature of her bliss than old Niall did.

We spent a fair amount of time walking around the old neighborhood, just the three of us, looking at all the old sights. It is difficult to find a lot of the stuff I remember because Penn has done so much construction in the last few years. Fortunately, the law school is much the same, so we walked over there, and I remembered sitting on the steps with Dad waiting for Mom to come out of class. That was a nice time. Or so it seems. Perhaps everyone thinks that way about when they were seven. I must confess that I did get somewhat annoyed with old Niall. It seems that every block in Philadelphia contains a Niall Cassidy History Spot, and so he was regaling Rosalind with tales of the party at this house, the crazy woman he dated who lived down there, the time he was shot at over there, et cetera. Objectively speaking, it was entertaining, but I couldn't help thinking that he was out getting material for his wonderful geriatric tales while I was home by myself trying to be my own parent.

But, as I said, I am trying to put that behind me. It is just much easier said than done.

In any case, we agreed to get together for Christmas, and he promised to write regularly. I offered to get him a computer, but he said that he was too old a dog for such a new trick. (I resisted telling him that personal computers have been around for more than twenty years and therefore hardly constitute a new trick.)

Rosalind and I had a nice conversation on the way home today. I think she was relieved to have something to discuss besides her troubles, and she happily gave me her perspective on Niall. She asked to play this cassette he had given her of
Tarkus
, and I told her that it might cause me to drive off the road and that, further, she was never to play it in our home without headphones or mention the subject to me again. I could almost see her filing
Tarkus
away in the “ammunition” file. I am sure she'll be saving it up for a really choice moment. In any case, this appeared to put her in a good mood.

Since things were going well, I decided not to try to bug Rosalind about her grades. I remain very concerned about this, but I do feel like she is making progress in other life areas, and I don't want to mess it up by getting on her back.

I also want to try to have some sort of relationship with Dad, and I have agreed in principle to put my anger about the past aside, but as I sit here tonight, I wonder if I can do it. I guess we will find out.

Any word from Kimberley? (You knew I was going to ask, so there it is.)

—Sean

Dear Fluffy:

I am back. Niall is hilarious. We spent a long time walking around the neighborhood with Sean being all like “this is where my mom did this, and this is where my mom did that,” and he was bumming me out because of course as long as we are on the subject of dead moms, I have two, and I have been doing better and didn't want to get sad right then and even Sean was kind of getting that misty look like he gets watching sappy commercials or whatever. (This was after we walked all over Penn and Sean was all like, look how good college is, of course you need good grades to get in here, blah blah blah like he is being slick or like I'm going to start doing math homework because I saw where dumb kids in sweatshirts eat bad food.)

So I was getting bummed out about even just being there, it started to feel totally unreal, like who the hell am I and why am I walking around Philadelphia with this guy I didn't even know on my last birthday getting this family history lesson about some family I don't even feel like a part of. I started getting all sad and quiet, all just get me home to my room so I can forget about why I'm here, and then Niall starts in with all these stories about here's where this girl lived who tried to cut my dick off when she found me with her sister, here's where I sold weed to the guy who's now the junior senator from a certain state, and stuff like this.

Anyway, it made me forget for a while and actually was pretty entertaining. So then we drove home and Sean and me were talking and I totally thought we were going to hear now don't end up like him, blah blah blah, but it was just much more normal and he was like telling me about how he was still mad which was kind of weird I guess but it wasn't like he wanted me to pat him on the back, it was like he just wanted me to listen which was kind of weird but at the same time it was nice to hear something from him besides you need to shape up blah blah or when my mom died blah blah, and then we just talked about normal stuff and so that was okay.

IM from Rosalind90

Rosalind90: K8! R U THERE?

Redchordfan03: K8 IS IN THE HOUSE. WHERE R U?

Rosalind90: ALSO IN THE HOUSE. BACK FROM PHILLY. MET DONORBOY'S DAD, MY GRAMPS I GUESS

Redchordfan03: EVIL STONER?

Rosalind90: I LIKED HIM. WAY LESS UPTITE THAN DONORBOY. REALLY FUNNY & HAS LOTS OF FUNNY STORIES ABOUT DEALING WEED TO STUDENTS WHO LATER BECAME SENATORS AND STUFF.

Redchordfan03: COOL. I CALLED JEN.

Rosalind90: AND?

Redchordfan03: SHE IS FINE. I TOLD HER CARSTEN IS A CREEP, SHE WAS ALL HE CARES ABOUT ME, U DON'T, HANG OUT W/YR GOODY GOODY FRIEND THEN, ETC.

Rosalind90: WHAT A BITCH! WEIRD SHE WAS SO NICE TO ME B4.

Redchordfan03: YEAH SHE WAS NICE 2 ME 4 LIKE 9 YRS.

Rosalind90: SORRY.

Redchordfan03: MAKES ME SAD