My American Unhappiness (23 page)

My mom wants hot dogs for her final meal with the kids.

"Hot dogs?" I say. "Seriously? Hot dogs?"

"Hot dogs with ketchup and relish. You know, salt and fat and sugar, the perfect combo."

"I can make something nice," I say.

"Yeah, I can make a roast or something," Harmony says.

"We want hot dogs! We want hot dogs!" May says.

April adds, "And mac-and-cheese!"

"Perfect," my mother says, and the twins crawl up next to her on the couch, each of them taking one of her hands.

We are in her room at the Hospice Center, a quiet, plush building near the Fitchburg Starbucks, and my mother's room has deephued carpets, overstuffed furniture, a well-stocked kitchenette, and sparkling white linens on the adjustable bed. I'm sad to think that it's most likely nicer than any away-from-home lodging my mother has ever had.

The girls curl up with my mother under a blanket, and Harmony and I conference by the doorway.

"Why don't you stay here with the kids?" she says. "I'll head to the store, get some hot dogs and mac-and-cheese and stuff, and we can just cook in the microwave here."

"Fine," I say. "Do you need money?"

"Don't be silly, Zeke."

"Buy the good ones," I say. "Chicago Red Hots. Don't get the cheap ones."

"Okay," Harmony says, and before she goes, she gives me a quick hug. "Are you okay?"

"I'm terrible," I say.

I stand in the kitchenette and begin, out of anxiousness, to set up paper plates and plastic cups around the small table that's there. I hope Harmony remembers to get drinks and then call her cell phone.

"Maybe some wine?" I say. "Or beer."

"And some orange soda for the kids?" she says.

"Yeah. That's right. And get them the Dora the Explorer mac-and-cheese. They like that."

"Sure," she says. "Of course."

I can hear my mother talking to the girls and I stand there, frozen,l istening.

"Is this the last time we get to see you?" April asks.

"I think so, sweetie," Ma says.

"Until we're all in heaven?" May says.

"That's right."

"And you get to see Daddy and Mommy!" May says.

"Wow!" April says. "That's right."

"I hope so," Ma says.

"Aunt Harmony said you get to see them."

"Good," Ma says. She is trying not to cry and I have no idea how she is managing it. Maybe the morphine helps. Her doctor has also put her on an antianxiety drug and an antidepressant, and I worry that the drugs suppress some of the natural synapses that fire in the brain to allow the body to die. The doctor assures me that that's not the case, but I doubt anybody has studied my hypothesis. It takes a humanist, an anthropologist or something, to figure out things like that, to ask these questions that go beyond the biological.

"I don't know," May says. "I'd rather have you here with us than up there with them."

"Me too," April says.

"You know," Ma says. "You know what? If I could make the rules of the world, I would live with you forever and ever. You two are more precious to me than anything on earth."

When Harmony comes back from the store, she finds all four of us sobbing on the sofa.

My mother is able to eat her hot dog. No bun, no macaroni and cheese, but she eats the hot dog with a fork, dipping it into ketchup and relish. The girls are able to "cook" the dinner for her, and Harmony pours my mother a small cup of beer, and my mother, when she is done, pronounces it "the best meal I have ever had in my whole life." And then she begins to lose the thread of what she wants to say. And her voice weakens to the point of being inaudible and we all four of us lead her to bed, and we leave her sleeping there with our kisses and our tears. Back home, I help the girls bathe and dress for bed, and we all three brush our teeth together, and I tell them they are brave, and strong, and wonderful. I tell them they will have new bedrooms, painted any color they like, at Aunt Harmony and Uncle Malcolm's place. When Harmony comes in, she sits beside me on the bed, and she verifies my claim. "Any color," she says.

"Any color?" they ask.

"Except for," I say.

"Except for what?" they all say.

"Poop brown! No poop on the walls!" I say. And, for the girls, the evening ends in a frenzy of hilarity and giggles.

My night ends on a somewhat different note. I am not surprised when Harmony comes into my room again that night and locks the door behind her. We are exhausted by grief. What we need is anything that is something else. Quickly, madly, we give that to each other, and then afterward we lie in bed, far apart from each other.

"I can't believe the life those girls have had," she says. "Only seven, and they've essentially lost three parents in a row."

"Good thing you're not superstitious," I say.

"Jesus, Zeke."

"Sorry. I feel so bad for them," I say. "I can't imagine it."

"I feel bad for you too," she says, propping up on one elbow, the sheet half covering her breasts. "You're losing everybody."

"You know whom I feel sorry for?" I say.

"Who?"

"Malcolm," I say.

She flops back down on the bed and stares at the ceiling.

"He's such a good man," she says. "He's damaged. He's superdamaged. He had such a rough childhood."

"We all did."

"True," she says.

"I know this must seem crazy, Zeke. I like you. Living with you has been sort of fun, in a bizarre way. The last eight weeks or whatever, as hard as they've been, they've been fun."

"Good," I say. "I'm glad they've been fun for you."

"I don't know, I don't mean it in a casual, wahoo, yippee sort of way. I mean it hasn't felt like real life. It feels like I'm somebody else."

"If you're truly happy, that should feel bad. Not fun."

"It's fun to escape sometimes," she says. "Take on a new role, you know? It's almost healthy for a marriage, I think."

"I suppose."

"I've always liked you, Zeke, and when this madness is over, I hope you will visit. You have to visit. The girls need you. They adore you."

"I know. That's why they should live with me."

"They adore me too," she says.

"That's true," I say. "Are you sure you don't want to leave Malcolm and marry me?"

"I'm sure, Zeke," she says. "That wouldn't be good for anybody in the long run. I do love Malcolm, madly. We're not great to each other, not all the time. But we'll be great to those children, I promise. They'll make us be better people."

"I don't think you should adopt kids to fix your relationship," I say.

"I know. I'm not saying that! Jesus! I don't know what's what, Zeke. I don't know why your mother has to be dying, or why I felt a need to be in bed with you, or why your mother chose me over you. But everything happens for a reason, Zeke."

"No, it doesn't."

We both get out of bed then, suddenly, and fumble around naked, in the dark, dressing. I go over and stand in front of her as she slides on her underwear, touching her hips with my hands.

"You're right," she says.

"About leaving Malcolm and staying here with me?"

"No. About things not happening for a reason. It just occurred to me. What a bunch of bullshit. None of this—Cougar, Melody, Violet—none of it happened for a reason, did it?"

I shake my head. "No," I say.

"Jesus," she says.

"You should know," I say, "that I still plan to be married before my mother dies. So this is your chance. If it's not you, it will be someone else."

She lowers her head onto my chest. "Let's get back into bed," she says.

"Why?" I say. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"

"No," she says. "I just don't know what else to do."

The next morning, Harmony and the twins load their luggage into the back of Harmony's Subaru wagon. They plan to come back with Malcolm for the funeral, and he will drive a U-Haul van back to Michigan with the rest of the twins' things then.

After I kiss the twins, attempting to keep the epic casual with a phrase like "See you soon!" Harmony comes and hugs me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. I take her hand.

"'All my pretty ones?'" I bellow, my thunderous voice echoing along the bungalows of Commonwealth Avenue. Harmony gets into the car and drives away and I keep on bellowing. "'Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, at one fell swoop?'"

Elizabeth Vandeweghe appears in her front door and she invites me inside. I shed many tears; I tell her everything that's happened.

Actually, that's not true. I leave out all of the fucking.

Late that afternoon, I am back at my office. Lara is not at her desk and I have no idea what is happening at the GMHI, but it feels good to be at work, pretending things are absolutely status quo.

The phone rings. It is Mark Siegel, a colleague of mine who runs an environmental nonprofit organization near the Capitol. We have met at several conferences, though I am never really sure if he is listening to me. He is handsome, an ex-football player (Yale). He often tells jokes that I don't get.

"Hi, Zeke," he says, once he is sure I recognize him. "I'm actually calling to do a reference check. Lara Callahan has applied for a position—executive a ssistant—at N ew Waters."

"She has?" I say. Mark says the word
actually
a lot.

"Actually, she said I could call you. Can you tell me a little something about her? What has she been like as an employee?"

"Disastrous," I say. "I can sum it all up in one word. Disastrous."

"Seriously? Why is that?"

"Completely unpredictable. A big drinker. A secret drinker. She can be great one minute, the next minute she's puking in the conference room trash can."

"Are you pulling my leg?"

"Look, Mark, she's attractive. I know what you're thinking. If that's all you're after, well, yes, go ahead and hire her, she's easy on the eyes."

"No, no. I thought she seemed very impressive, actually. Super-professional. Bright. Experienced."

"Do what you must, Mark. I just want you to know you were warned. She's a complete pity case. She has children; she's a single mother. I can't bear to fire her and have those children end up out in the streets. But I can't, in good conscience, tell you that I would recommend her highly."

"Okay, Zeke. Thanks."

"Anything else?" I say.

But he's hung up.

My voice mail light is now flashing, so I check my messages.

I have two phone messages. One is from Farnsworth, and I delete the message without even listening to it. Fuck him and the mid-size sedan he came in on! Is this the biggest problem the federal government has or something? How much is his goddamn room at Extended Stay America and the rental of a metallic pine green Saturn costing the taxpayers of this great and economically floundering nation?

The second phone message is from H. M. Logan. He is drunk and he is speaking very slowly. "Zeke, it's H. M. I keep getting phone calls from a guy named Farnsworth. Zeke? Zeke, he wants to know about my last trip for the GMHI. I went somewhere I shouldn't have gone. They found it on the credit card statement, Zeke! Zeke?"

H. M. for all his business acumen has never seemed to grasp the idea that I have voice mail and not an answering machine. All of his messages assume that I am standing there, listening to him, refusing to pick up the phone.

"Oh, and Zeke, I called some friends in L.A., as promised. I have Sofia Coppola's cell phone number. Zeke? Are you there? Anyway, I wanted to do this for you, before everything changes."

He leaves the number, repeating it five or six times in his slow, slurred way before my voice mail program finally gives him the boot. I return his call and leave him a message to meet me at Starbucks at ten thirty on Saturday morning. I then take Sofia's phone number and program it into my own phone. Even if I never work up the nerve to use the number, I feel somewhat powerful—nay, invincible—with that number programmed into my phone. I imagine, for a moment, myself as the victim of a hit-and-run accident in a strange city. A Good Samaritan pauses to help me, but I am near-dead. Panicked, as he waits for an ambulance, he picks up the phone he sees dangling from my blazer's inner pocket. He opens the phone, sees the name of acclaimed and absolutely breathtaking filmmaker Sofia Coppola, and he knows that I am somebody, that my life had some meaning. He calls Sofia, and she answers, but by now the Good Samaritan has become whelmed with emotion and he can do nothing but weep. Sofia listens to his weeping and this becomes the opening scene of her next film: a woman gets a phone call from a strange number, hears nothing but agonizing and soul-stirring sobs. For the rest of the film, she tried to find out the identity of that crying man, because she wants to comfort him. She too is alone. She too needs healing.

But, yes, I digress. Reverie.

I check my e-mail and find another response to my query
Why are you so unhappy?
I have been advertising on Google, and often, when somebody searches on any variation of the word
happy,
there is a link to my website on the side of the page, and if they follow it, they tend to send me messages like these:

To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Re: Inventory of American Unhappiness

Hi, well, I know what make a lot of peoples unhappy! There boss! We can help you find a rewarding career working at home. No suits! No bosses! No meetings! No cubicales! No priar experience, no education neceserry! Visit our web site and SELL MORE, LIVE MORE!

Phil, 46, Crawford, TX

To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Re: Inventory of American Unhappiness

So the other day I was walking around in Davenport, Iowa. I was there for a convention. It was a convention for people who make disposable restaurant products. That alone made me sort of depressed. I had spent three hours in a seminar called "The Meaning of Green." The whole seminar focused on how we can market disposable products as eco-friendly. There was a lot of sadness in the room, mostly over the decreasing use of Styrofoam. People were also pretty upset that plastic bags were getting such a bad reputation. "But they are so convenient," somebody actually said. "They make so much sense."

Anyway, this is not what I had in mind when I got a degree in marketing but of course I didn't have anything in mind. I was young. I figured that there would always be work in marketing. So that made me pretty happy. But what made me unhappy came later. I was wandering around downtown Davenport, which is, surprisingly, quite lovely. I'm serious. It's a nice little town. And there was this lighted walkway, a strange sort of architectural art piece you can walk down to the riverfront. Like an observation tower. Very Asian, I thought. Very
Lost in Translation.
God, I love that movie. Anyway, when I got to the end of the long neon walkway, it felt very weird. A woman walking alone, at night, in a strange city, down a neon walkway that was empty save for me. And I got to the end and there was a casino. Not the river. The Mississippi River was behind all of that, but you couldn't see it, because there was a horrible, loud casino called Rhythm City and it had all this fake, shitty opulence. All these gang-bangers in Hummers as well as sweatpant-wearing people in sixteen-year-old minivans, and I thought, This is so outrageous, this is so unauthentic, this reeks and reeks of desperation and heartache.

I don't even know who is reading this. I don't even know why I wrote it. But it feels better. I am in an airport waiting for a flight to Erie, PA. I am giving a talk there at a seminar for restaurant managers. The seminar is called "Inside the Box: Why the Carry-Out Business Is Better than Ever."

I hate my life.

Peg, 34, Lexington, KY