The Wonders of the Invisible World (19 page)

“I’ll be glad to,” he said. “I take it there’s been very little contact.”

“I guess it’s been a little better since—you know, since he’s been living up here. If anything, they’re—”

“Would you excuse me just a second?” Finn put the receiver down, wedging it between the heavy cut-glass vase and the dinette-style metal napkin dispenser so the tension in the cord wouldn’t pull it off onto the floor, then went over and fetched his cigarettes.

“I’m back,” he said, holding the receiver to his ear with his shoulder as he struck a match. “Carolyn, I’m very sorry to hear this about your father.” He took a deep, welcome drag and considerately raised the mouthpiece as he blew out the smoke. “We’ll hope it turns out to be nothing serious. And I’ll speak to James as soon as he comes down. Now, are
you
all right?”

“I guess,” she said. “I’m just trying to, you know, wait to hear something concrete and not panic until there’s actually something to panic about.”

“Good girl,” he said. “It’s a harrowing thing, I know. I went through this with
my
father.” Hardly a reassuring thing to say,
on second thought. “I can’t honestly tell you that the waiting is the worst part”—Christ, he was getting himself in deeper—“but in your case I truly hope it will be.” He had extricated himself by inspiration.

“So do I,” she said. Then she said, “I’m sorry about your father.”

“Oh, this was years ago. So meanwhile. What do you recommend? Should James go down there, do you think? Are
you
planning to go down?”

“No,” she said. “I think at this point all it would do is get everybody more upset. You know, people showing up like …” Had she been going to say
like vultures
? “Besides, Fort Myers isn’t all that divine in July. But I do think that if he would call or write—I don’t know, I just think it would mean a lot. If only for his own sake, you know? Like later on.”

“Right,” said Finn.

“I think he really is very ill. I just—something just tells me that.”

“I’ll go upstairs right now. And you’ll let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“
Ciao,
” he said, and stood up to put the receiver back in its cradle.

“So what’s going on?” Finn turned: James was standing, barefoot, in the archway leading to the dining room.

“I didn’t realize you were up,” Finn said. “That was Carolyn. It seems your father has gone in for some tests, and they’re not certain at this point, what if anything, is wrong. But apparently your mother’s quite upset, and your sister seems to think it sounds serious enough that you ought to get in touch with them.”

“And say what?”

“I don’t honestly know, Jamie. That would be up to you.”

James went to the refrigerator, took out a bottle of seltzer and drank from it. “Sort of tests are we talking about?”

“Again,” said Finn, and spread his hands, palms up. A long ash fell off his cigarette, and he saw it shatter softly on the floor. “It seems to be some sort of colorectal thing.”

“That figures,” James said. “So we’re talking cancer.”

“Again,” said Finn.

James said, “I want to call my sister.”

The test results weren’t in until the following Friday. On Saturday morning Finn drove James to Albany. He put James’s round-trip ticket on his Visa and got him four hundred dollars, the daily limit, from a cash machine. After a goodbye hug at the gate, Finn walked back out to the car, sat on the front fender and watched the plane out of sight. Watched himself watch the plane out of sight.

The drive down to JFK used to take Finn four hours; today it had taken four and a half. He no longer had the energy—no, the foolhardiness—to roll seventy and seventy-five all the way. Even so, he was half an hour early, so he tried to get comfortable on the narrow aluminum ledge of a giant window near the security station, and to involve himself in the last act of
Timon of Athens.
He’d deliberately brought nothing else: damned if he’d allow himself to get that far and not finish. But how was he to concentrate? About fifty people were clustered here, whole families with whining children; they sat against the wall, paced, stood shifting their weight from foot to foot. Only ticket holders were being allowed to go through security and down to the gates where there were seats. So decent, ordinary people, waiting for their loved ones, were denied a modicum of comfort all because—well, enough. It was unattractive to be querulous.

He’d driven all the way down here because James couldn’t find a direct flight. Flying to Albany would’ve involved shuttling from JFK to La Guardia, sitting at La Guardia for two hours … ridiculous. If the lights started to bother Finn’s eyes on the drive back, they could always stop and put up at a motel. He’d also driven down because he needed to make another foray into Times Square.

James had seemed in fine fettle on the telephone, but now that it was certain the old man (five years older than Finn) had only months to live, God knows what buried feelings were bound to come up. Finn was truly sorry for James: he himself had been forty-five before he’d had to go through this. But he hoped that whatever James had to endure over the next few months—and he was ashamed of how selfish this sounded—it would not prove too disruptive. During the week and a half James had been gone, Finn had written another three pages of his essay and had composed the covering letter. No doubt James would be upset that he intended to run an errand—particularly this errand—before going home. Had Finn not taken so much wine last night, he would’ve been able to get up earlier, to finish picking up the house earlier and to make his stop before coming to the airport. But if there had to be a showdown, then a showdown there would be. This was his only life, and he had only so much of it left.

He couldn’t concentrate on
Timon of Athens.

At last passengers with suitcases and garment bags began appearing. No one had even bothered to announce the arrival: the slipshod way everything was run nowadays would make a saint querulous. Yet he mustn’t visit this querulousness on James, who would need his support. And would find his bitching and moaning unattractive. And there was James now, his canvas duffel slung from his shoulder, and in his other hand—what? A net bag of oranges.

Finn gave him a brotherly one-armed hug. James bent to lay the oranges down, straightened up, gripped the back of Finn’s neck and kissed him on the mouth. “This is New York City,” he said. “Remember?”

“Forgive an old man,” said Finn. “When ye git my age, sonny …”

“If,” James said.

Finn looked at him. James’s tan, he noticed, was even deeper than when he’d left. So more had been going on, apparently, than just the compulsive TV-watching and the silent family dinners James had re-created so amusingly on the phone. “Ah, nature’s bounty,” he said, bending down to pick up the oranges.

“My mother insisted,” James said. “And she was very particular that they were for both of us.”

“Well well well,” said Finn. “God and sinners reconciled. But wouldn’t pink grapefruit have been more appropriate?”

James began walking. The sight of his firm buttocks under his white shorts made Finn suddenly furious.

“Your tan looks splendid,” he said, catching up. “So how are the beach girls down there? Really
stacked,
I’ll bet.”

James stopped. People passed by on both sides, paying no attention. “Hey, Finn? Why don’t you give it a rest, okay? I’m just really not up to it. This has not been a good week.”

“Yes, I can see it must’ve been hell,” Finn said, appalled that he couldn’t shut up.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” said James. “I’ve been off the plane for all of two minutes, and already we’re in one of these
things.
”

“I’m sorry, Jamie. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me.”

“Can we not stand here in the middle of all this?”

“Sorry. Here.” Finn touched James’s shoulder to guide him. “We’re parked down this way.”

They walked a few steps toward the escalator and James stopped again. “Look,” he said, “would you rather I just took a cab into the city and got out of your life?”

“Jamie, I’m truly—”

“Because I don’t seem to be making you very happy, and you’re driving
me
out of my mind.”

“You’re shouting,” said Finn.

“What, these people have never seen a pair of bickering
faggots
before?” Well, he was shouting now, at any rate.

“James,” said Finn. “For Christ’s sake.”

“You want to know about my tan? Well, my parents have a
pool,
man. In their
backyard.
Which is where I sat for nine days, man, watching game shows with my mother. She keeps a TV out there so she can work on
her
tan. She looks like distressed leather. My father, meanwhile, sits in the den with the blinds closed, watching—I’m not kidding—old Super Bowl games on his VCR. He’s got tapes of all but four of however many fucking Super Bowls there are. And he’s scared shitless and he eats so much Valium his flesh is turning to balsa wood.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Finn.

“Look,” James said, “do you mind very much if we get out of here?”

In the parking garage, Finn unlocked the passenger door first. James in turn reached over and unlocked the driver’s door, which Finn took as a sign of conciliation. He decided not to nag James about his seat belt. He reached over and stroked the back of James’s head. James allowed it.

When they came out into the sunlight—it was still only five o’clock—Finn put on the air conditioning. James had taught him that it was more fun to keep the windows open when the air was on, even if less efficient. On the Grand Central, traffic in the other direction was halted, but inbound it was moving right along.

“I hate to backseat-drive,” said James, “but shouldn’t we be in the other lane?”

“Ordinarily,” Finn said. “But I need to make a quick stop-off in midtown.”

“For what?”

Finn drew a long breath, let it out. “For something you don’t approve of.”

“Oh.” James looked at his watch. “You know, it’s going to take
hours
to get in and out of Manhattan at this time of day. You couldn’t have done this on your way?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll make this as quick as I possibly can, but I get to the city so seldom that I really mustn’t pass up the chance.”

“So that’s why you were so hot to come down and pick me up,” said James. “Tell me something. Do you ever think your tastes might be a little depraved?”

“We’ve been over this,” Finn said.

“Then let me put it in another light for you. Did it ever occur to you that it might be insulting to
me
?”

They were caught behind a huge yellow school bus. The lanes on either side weren’t moving any faster, but Finn cut to the left in front of a cab—the driver leaned on his horn—just to get behind something he could see past.

“You’re not going to provoke me,” he said. “We disagree about this project. I respect your view. I’m asking you to respect mine.”

“Project?” said James. “What project? This isn’t a
project,
for Christ’s sake. It’s one more old queen who likes to watch young dudes get it on. You can dignify it because you used to be some hot-shit filmmaker.”

Finn looked over at him, this idle boy with his dirty blond hair blowing. Who made him waste his time and now had contempt for him because of it. He had let himself become an aging man with no family, who no longer prepared before meeting his
classes and whose taste for good wines was giving him broken veins in his nose. He was this young man’s sugar daddy. He turned back in time to avoid ramming the BMW ahead of him by lifting his foot quickly from the gas pedal: to hit the brakes would call James’s attention to his bad driving.

“For whatever reason,” Finn said, his heart beginning to pound in delayed reaction, “I have done almost no work in the time I’ve known you. This is going to come to a screeching halt.”

“You haven’t done any work for five years, man,” said James.

Seven,
thought Finn. “I’m not putting it off on you,” he said. His heart was pounding harder. “But I won’t allow you to interfere with what I need to do.”

James said nothing.

“And I might add that it’s probably time for you to start thinking about what you’re going to do when
you
grow up.” The pounding began to subside. “It’s a waste of life, and it depresses me severely.”

“Would you like me to go to night school and become a hairdresser?”

“That, my dear, is up to you,” said Finn. “What I mean to do is to make a stop in midtown. For one hour, no longer. And then we’ll be on our way. If you’re coming.”

“Finn,” said James. “It’s your car, it’s your life. I don’t really have anything to say about it.”

“Now, if you prefer,” Finn said, “it
is
getting late-ish. We could have dinner in the city, leave when the traffic’s thinned out and maybe put up for the night somewhere along the way.”

James didn’t answer. Finn looked and saw that he was crying. Not sobbing, just letting the tears go down his face.

“Just please do what you’re going to do,” James said at last. “All I want is to get home.”

•   •   •

James had been back almost a week before Finn had time to sit down and go through the videos he’d bought in Times Square.
Made
time, he corrected himself. But James had come down with a summer cold, and Finn did have to nurse him, bring him ice cream and ginger ale and magazines, go to the drugstore for cough syrup and Comtrex. And they did have to ask Peter and Carolyn over to hear James’s report and to discuss what might have to be done in the time remaining. Which of course involved preparing a decent meal, and what with the shopping and the cooking, that was
another
day shot to hell. And the lawn had needed another mowing. He’d neglected it while James was gone.

But now, at last, a quiet day. James, recovered, had borrowed the car for the afternoon. Acting mysterious about it, too. Perhaps out buying a thanks-for-taking-care-of-me gift, since before leaving he had—wonder of wonders—done the breakfast dishes and straightened up the bedroom. So Finn, having run out of distractions, sat alone in his study with a notepad, watching something called
Hellfire Club.
Two men lay side by side on a bed as cheap, nasty music went
wacka wacka wacka
on the soundtrack. One, with mustache and short hair, decked out in leather jacket, leather pants and motorcycle boots, was propped up on a pillow, angrily puffing a cigarette. The other, with a platinum-dyed Mohawk, wore only a black leather collar with diamond-shaped silver studs. He lay facedown, his body a uniform dingy white; you could see sores on his legs. (At least this film wasn’t arty.) The leather one took a final drag, tapped off the final ash and stubbed his cigarette out on the Mohawk one’s white buttock. The Mohawk one twitched, then lay still again.