My Sister, My Love (58 page)

Skyler bit his lower lip, mortified. He could not believe this conversation and yet, he seemed not able to push himself out of the booth, and escape. Something like a fistful of blood had rushed into his face. “Yes I would know. She wasn’t. And I don’t w-want to t-t-talk about it, Dad. I told you.”

In fact,
was
Skyler certain? Had Skyler ever been certain of anything? Very likely there were ways for a girl to become pregnant of which naive/innocent/clumsy/ill-coordinated Skyler Rampike had had little knowledge at sixteen, as he’d had little experience.

For some minutes, Bix spoke of Leander Harkness. Marveling at the pitcher with the “demon arm” and “steely-cold nerves” and how “unjust” it was that Leander Harkness would never be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and in this way the great American tradition of the Hall of Fame itself was “compromised” for Harkness’s pitching skills were nonparallel and “after all” Harkness had never been found guilty of the crimes charged against him in any court of law.

Through this impassioned speech, Skyler cowered before his father looming above him like a death-dirigible. Bix Rampike had long been a Yankees fan and a particular admirer of Leander Harkness and so Skyler was waiting for his father to ask him if he had ever actually met Leander Harkness and (maybe) shaken his hand; and trembling Skyler prepared to say in the cool wry tone of a young film actor delivering a dynamite line to an elder
Hell no Dad, one murderer in one lifetime is enough for me
.

Instead, following a mysterious stream of associations, Bix took up the subject of his own life, about which Skyler had not asked him a single question; not only Bix’s new family but Bix’s “terrific” new job as CEO of New Genesis BioTech, Inc.

Skyler thought
He’s hurt! He wants me to care for him
.

Grateful to be spared the ominous subject of Leander Harkness, Skyler obliged his father by asking about New Genesis BioTech, Inc.

For some minutes then, with something of his old animation, Bix spoke of the “exciting”—“revolutionary”—“state-of-the-art” research being done by a team of international scientists at the company’s laboratory in New Harmony, New Jersey. With boyish pride Bix told Skyler that, of the numerous, very profitable subsidiaries of Univers, Inc., New Genesis was the “most heavily capitalized” and that he had been invited to head the new company by the CEO of Univers, Inc. himself—“That midnight call from Hank took me totally by surprise, Skyler. Has to be the
piece-resistance
of my professional life.”

“Dad, that’s swell!”

(Was “swell” still idiomatic? In his actual childhood Skyler had never uttered this childish expletive but he had the idea that, in the comic strips and cartoons enjoyed by Bix Rampike, “swell” remained an American favorite.)

“…‘miracles of genetic engineering’…‘donor specimens handpicked to grow your new kidney!’…‘organ transplants soon to be common as dentures, toupees’…‘organ regeneration à la mode of self-replicating amphibian-lizard genus
Caudata
(your common lizard)’…‘VSP’: ‘Volunteer Specimens Project’…”

Something about this last item roused Skyler to bratty-adolescent curiosity. “‘Volunteer Specimens Project’? What the hell is that, Dad?”

In a grumpy-Daddy lowered voice, as if the Old Dutch Tavern with its scattered and inconsequential patrons might be avid to overhear the secrets of corporate America, Bix explained to Skyler that the “VS Project” was his particular brainchild. In “restricted environments” in the United States and abroad, individuals were “invited to volunteer” in New Genesis experiments, and were “pretty well-paid” for doing so.

Frowning Skyler asked what sorts of “restrictive environments” were these. He’d begun to notice that his father’s words were just slightly slurred and a tic-like smile played about the Rampike pike-mouth.

“Prisons, treatment centers and psychiatric facilities, state hospitals and VA hospitals and some church-related hospices exempt from over-zealous federal and state regulations. As I said, ‘VSP’ has been my personal brainchild, son, and in our first twelve months of implementation, in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida alone—”

“Dad, wait. What do you mean, these are ‘volunteer specimens’? Do they have any choice about ‘volunteering’? Do you tell them that the experiments might be dangerous?”

A dramatic pause. At the bar, a tipsy female patron was laughing like a runaway zipper. Bix hunched his fullback shoulders and said, with the imperial air of a chief-executive-officer reciting a script to a vast audience: “New Genesis volunteers are duly informed of any risks involved in our projects. They are given waivers to sign, and these waivers have been thoroughly vetted by our legal team in strict accordance with federal and state regulations, when applicable. Under the current administration, there has been much-needed ‘reform’ of over-zealous regulatory legislation designed to hamper and place unnecessary financial burdens on business. Of course, foreign countries are another matter. And there are frequently beneficial side effects to our experiments, of course—the ‘regeneration’ of destroyed brain cells, for instance, or a diseased liver—and many more instances—in addition to the generous payments New Genesis volunteers receive for their participation in scientific progress.”

“Jesus, Dad! Are these helpless, incarcerated people? Prisoners, psy
chiatric patients? Retarded people? ‘Specimens’ in hospices, on their deathbeds?” Skyler’s hoarse voice rose in alarm. He had not been so excited in a very long time and had no idea what was happening except he saw that he’d spilled club soda onto the wood-plank table and had gotten his shirt sleeves wet.

Bix said furiously, “Keep your voice down, son. You are disgrace enough already to the Rampike name.”

Bix Rampike’s face glowered like a rotted pumpkin. In his displeasure with his son he brought the flat of his heavy hand down on Skyler’s outspread fingers, like a mallet.

STUMBLED AWAY TO THE MEN’S ROOM. CONSIDERED HANGING HIMSELF IN
one of the toilet stalls except (1) Skyler’s luck, someone would come whistling into the restroom to piss into a urinal and discover him; and, (2) at Hugo Boss, Skyler had left behind his sexy newly purchased leather belt so he had not the means to hang himself anyway.

Thinking
Having come so far, my epic journey, I can’t give up now. Can I?

“…WORLD MIGHT’VE THOUGHT, INCLUDING YOU, PRISSY SKY-BOY, HEAD UP
your Ivy League ass, that your mother and I were not on the very best terms because of the divorce and the bullshit in the tabloids, but not so!—”

Badly Skyler wanted to nudge the Italian-leather briefcase toward his ranting father; or, with the childish audacity he’d never had as a child, appropriate it and open it himself.

“…though it did hurt, have to admit, when Betsey went on those damn TV shows promoting her damn ‘memoirs’ and spoke of me, her ex-, like I’m the woman’s beet-noir…as if our marriage ending was my fault alone. God damn, son, you’re said to be high I.Q., if fucked-up as hell, so you know that things are never that simple. Onan’s Razor—know what that is?—means that things have multiple causes. Like history, like why we fought the Civil War, or World War II, or the difference between asbestos and asbesteosis, it’s ‘over-determined.’ Y’know what Freud means by ‘over-determined’…”

Impatiently Skyler nodded yes! Yes he knows what S. Freud meant by “over-determined.”

“…anyway not true. Betsey and I remained in contact till the ghastly end. We had our ‘troubled’ son to deal with—we had joint lawsuits, like the ‘KILL BLISS!’
*
outrage—we had ‘copyright infringement’ on the name ‘Bliss Rampike’ and her likeness. (The most repulsive, some sneaker company using Bliss’s picture on girls’ damn
footwear
.) Our lawyers are interbreeding, their kids are marrying! Naturally Betsey contacted me before she went into the hospital last week. ‘Bix, I have written to Skyler again, I have pleaded with Skyler to come see me or at least speak with me but he
has not
.’ I told your mother not to cry, not to judge you too harshly because there are reasons not to judge you like a normal American kid, or even a normal American fuck-up kid. Anyway, your mother and I were on close terms and nothing like the monsters those jackals and hyenas have painted us in the gutter-press. No one can understand how close we were, joined at the heart—when you have had children together with a woman, and when you have lost a child.”

Abruptly Bix ceased speaking. A film of perspiration had broken out on his deep-furrowed forehead, Bix wiped on his shirt sleeve. When the waitress brought him his drink, Bix disappointed her by scarcely acknowledging her for he was staring broodingly at Skyler. “This ‘fiancé’—‘Nathan Kissler’—Betsey turned a deaf ear to my investigator, who’d turned up some frank evidence that Kiss-my-ass would’ve been arrested for embezzlement not once not twice but three times, some fund-raising scam he’d had going up in Darien, Connecticut, also a history of forged checks, but it’s been elderly widows he’s romanced, not the kind to ‘press charges.’ Anyway, Betsey contacted me to tell me that a ‘precious document’ was being sent to me by certified mail, which I could read ‘if I so wished,’ but I was not to speak to her about it, would I promise? and so, what the hell, I promised.
Betsey said the ‘precious document’ was a letter for Skyler, she had been wanting to write for years. And with the letter there will be a video: ‘Bix, you remember.’”

Video! Vaguely Skyler recalled a video. Swallowing hard thinking
Maybe I don’t want this after all. Maybe I am making a mistake
.

“…y’see, son, this surgery of Betsey’s, she had a ‘premonition.’ Betsey was a woman for ‘premonitions’—most of which never came off—but this time, she was right. She’d had a half-dozen ‘surgerical procedures’ that I knew of, that were kept secret. This famous New York publisher who came to her, after that sex-pervert Roosha killed himself, offering Betsey an ‘undisclosed sum’ to write her memoir, not that Betsey had to ‘write’ it, they hire people to do the actual writing, like speechwriters, the crucial test is can you go on TV, do you pass the TV test, and damn right, Betsey Rampike did. But for TV, and these ‘promotional appearances,’ Betsey needed surgeries, for which the publisher paid the bill.”

“Surgeries? Like for—cancer?”

“No, Skyler. Not for cancer.”

“But it was cancer of the—” Skyler faltered, shy of the word
service
, “—that’s what Betsey died of, wasn’t it?”

Bix lifted his glass and drank. For a long bemused moment contemplating his son’s anxious face. Then he said, with the air of one speaking to a very young child, “Sky-boy, no. It wasn’t ‘cancer of the cerxiv’ or cancer of anything. Your mother’s surgeries were all cosmetic. Back in Fair Hills, Betsey began with ‘eyelid tucks.’ Those injections—‘Botox’—‘collagen’—‘laser wrinkle remover.’ Her first face-lift, we were separated then, had to be 1999. The surgery that killed her, son, was the nastiest one: ‘liposuction.’” Bix shuddered, and took another large swallow of whiskey.

“‘Lip-o-suction’—?”

“Of course, it was ‘cancer’ that was leaked to the press. Betsey’s PR team is very skilled at ‘leaking’ what is said to be secrets, and the press just gobbles it up. See, if the press gobbles up a wrong factoid, they can ‘correct’ it in the next issue, or on TV. It’s all bullshit, but it’s lucrative bullshit, just between you and me, son, I have invested in some of these ‘gutter-tabloids,’ they do turn a profit and that’s the bottom line. But the tragedy was, Betsey died of ‘liposuction’ and not cancer, and Heaven Scent is frantic to keep
that secret. Because Betsey Rampike has been such a ‘role model’ for the Christian-consumer community. Poor Betsey was saying, she could not ‘diet off ’ a roll of fat around her waist, and hips, God knows the poor woman did try, it was hell living with Betsey when she was ‘dieting’…and if she did drop ten, fifteen pounds, it was the Dark Night of the Soul, and then the damn skin hung loose. I felt sorry for her, God damn. Like a part-deflated elephant-balloon, skin hanging loose. Poor woman’s rear, that had used to be so smooth and bouncy, you would not want to have seen, Skyler. Some sights, like fallen-down tits, that’d once been stand-up beauties, you do not want to see, son. Your dad will shield you from such precocious knowledge. Anyway, the surgery went bad. Had to know it was a disaster, Kiss-my-ass called me. This conniving fucker, called
me
. ‘The liposuction went wrong. Parts of Betsey’s stomach got sucked into the vacuum. And some intestines…’ Poor guy was bawling. Maybe he did love her. Maybe he hadn’t gotten her to change her will yet. ‘Bix, she isn’t going to make it. The doctor says, the stress to her heart…’ She was on life-support for three days. He was saying he was her business partner and fiancé but he didn’t have power of attorney and I said, ‘Look. I am not “next-of-kin” any longer, Betsey and I were divorced years ago.’ Kiss-my-ass was in over his head. Two-bit embezzler, he’d fucked this up and knew it. Makes me sick, thinking of her and him in bed together, so I don’t think of it, and advise that for you, too. See, son…”

Bix’s voice had thickened. Tears swelled in his eyes and trickled down his flushed cheeks. Skyler was trying to comprehend the fact: his mother had not died of cancer but of “liposuction”—cosmetic surgery. His mother had died, and that was why he was here.

“Son, this is yours.”

At last, Skyler’s father opened the briefcase. With surprisingly steady hands he removed a peach-colored envelope, and what appeared to be a battered and water-stained videotape. “This material is yours, Skyler. Your mother prepared it for you ‘in case God calls me’ and it was her wish that you do with it whatever you want and, son, that includes destroying it which is what your dad recommends
toot sweet
. Betsey entrusted these items to me, she said, as the ‘great love of her life’—or was it ‘the great tragic love of her life.’ You see, your mother and I agreed never to reveal what passed
between us. That is, what happened to your sister on that terrible night. Though I was not present, I was responsible, as you will learn. I may be drunk right now and I may be a son of a bitch lacking a soul, but I readily concede an existential fact, that I am responsible for the tragedy of our family, for I believe in truth without flinching. Son, truth is the bedrock of the scientific method. And the scientific method is the bedrock of western civilization. That controversial pioneer of the Unconscious S. Freud has said, the female of the species is not so ‘morally evolved’ as the male and so it is the case, son, we males must take responsibility for female acts, at times. Though your mother and I were divorced and never appeared together in public yet we remained ‘amicable’ through the years—like nations with nuclear weapons poised to kill each other. Now that poor Betsey is gone, I can give you these in the hope that you, Skyler, will be granted a new lie—I mean, a new life—by what you discover here. I did not read every word of the heartfelt letter your mother wrote to you, Skyler: it was too painful. Nor did I watch that damned video again, that I’d seen years ago and that had so misled me about you, son. No need to reopen festering wounds! I hope, Skyler, that after you have examined these documents you will call me, and forgive me, son, for misjudging you, all these years; and I hope that we can be father and son again, as we’d been in Fair Hills, in happier times. I will pay your tuition at any university or college you can get into—if you stay sober!—and you are free to study anything you wish though keeping in mind the challenge of the future—‘Ever evolving’ which is the axion of New Genesis, Inc. How proud your old dad would be, son, if you took a course of study, molecular biology for instance, or gene-splicing, so you could join up with our New Genesis team. And I will buy you a new car: frankly I was shocked to see that piece of shit you’re driving, pulled up into Betsey’s driveway when I got there. My ‘new family’ will welcome you, Skyler, though probably you would not want to live with us which would be an unfair strain on Danielle but you are welcome to visit us often, in the condo on Central Park or at ‘Harmony Farm’ which is our two-hundred-acre country estate over in Jersey. Son?”