Tuesday Nights in 1980 (33 page)

Raul,

Did you know that in the long time that you and I have been brother and sister, I've never asked you for anything? I know what you're thinking: my sister is full of shit. But it's true. I've made a point of it. I've never once asked you to do anything for me. Instead, I wanted to do everything for you.

It backfired, I see that now. I should have asked you for something. I should have asked you to stay. Really asked you, not just cried like a baby on the stoop. When you left, everything went badly. Pascal could not save me—you were right about that. I acted like a child—you know how I can get when I'm sad, it's like I'm six again—and eventually he left. People think it was a kidnapping—that's what's happening here now, all over. I think he's at his mother's.

If you get this, it means something's gone wrong. I don't know what's in the news up there, but things are bad here. The kidnappings are happening to everyone, even people who aren't involved. People are going missing, disappearing right off the streets. I'm scared, Raul. I can't not be involved. But I need to know that Julian will be safe.

Yes, I know. I wanted to tell you about him, I swear. But I couldn't send a letter; they're opening all the mail now. And I didn't know what number to call. He's the one thing I've done right in my life, and it is only because I owe him my entire sanity and my entire happiness that I will now ask you for something.

Raul, please take care of my son.

He's five years old—probably almost six by now—born on February 16, the year after you left. He's smart—probably too smart—I think he takes after Braulio. He likes his steak almost black, like Pascal. He likes sweets, like me. He likes to draw, like you. Please love him for both of us.

Yours. Always yours.

F

Julian Morales is
sure of two things in this life: that nighttime is just daytime with an eyelid over it, and that his mother, if he does everything right, is coming to get him tonight, when the clock makes a backwards L. The first thing he knows because his mother told him so. The second thing he also knows because his mother told him so.

His mother knows everything. She knows how many cups of flour to put in and how air pushes on birds' wings to make them fly. She knows multiplication and voodoo. She knows the right stories for every situation and she knows that Tuesdays are Julian's least favorite day, since he has to go to Lars's house. She knows everything he thinks because she's telepathic, which means she can see what's happening in other people's heads. It only works with people she loves a lot, though, like Julian, and like the Brother. One time, the time she likes to talk about the most, she told the Brother (in her mind) that he needed a haircut. The Brother had gone into the bathroom right then, chopped off his thick hair himself so that it became a spiky plant. His mother had to fix it. His mother fixes everything.

Julian watches the clock, poised above Marge and James's refrigerator like an eye, like he used to watch his fish, Delmar, in its bowl. The clock chugs and bubbles and looks at him. It's too slow, just like Delmar was. Where is she?
Swim faster.
She is late, late, late. But wait, also, where is Delmar?

He prays:
Dear God, send Mom a telepathic message. Tell her I drew all the pictures in my head and baked all the cakes in my head. Tell her I would do it in real life if I could, but I'm in a house with people who talk funny. Their ovens are funny, too, and I can't find any paper. Tell her to get here fast, please. And Delmar. Remind her to feed Delmar because sometimes she forgets. Amen.

He's sent a lot of telepathic messages lately—he'd spent many Tuesdays in a row at Lars's house, with no sight of his mother—and none of them have worked. But now things are different. He's no longer at Lars's house, where the walls were made of thick, gray cement and probably didn't let any messages through. Now he's in a house with paintings on the walls where his mother is going to meet him. Why else would Lars's mom have taken him all the way here, on an airplane and a train and in the back of a yellow car, unless this was where his mother was going to meet him? It was the only thing that made sense.

Plus, it's Tuesday, the day his mom always picks him up. He knows its Tuesday because he heard the lady at the laundry place say so, when he went there with Marge this morning.
It's only Tuesday and I'm exhausted,
the woman had said, finally in Spanish words he could understand.
Thank you, God
, he had thought. Because sure, Tuesdays were his least favorite day because his mother left him for a little while. But they were also his favorite, because when his mother came to pick him up he felt more happiness than he ever felt at any other time, the kind of happiness that made him actually jump. As if the ground couldn't handle his happiness. As if he had to give the ground a little break.

The lady who's taking care of him while James and Marge are gone is painting her fingernails with pink and then clear and it smells like poison. Julian doesn't really like her, just like he didn't really like Sofie, Lars's mom. He doesn't really like anyone who's not his mother. And why should he have to? He watches the slow clock. The sun is going down like a big ball somewhere, but Julian can't see it, only feel it. Finally he hears some keys; James is home, with a mean face on.

Julian's least favorite thing is when a face looks mean. This can be the face itself (lines in the wrong places, a mouth like a hole), or something that happened to the face (James's puffy cheeks and reddish-blackish eyes). Sometimes his father's face would look mean without anything happening to it. But only sometimes.

James tells the lady, who now has pink fingernails, something and she gets up to leave, which scares Julian because he does not want to be alone in the house with James's mean face. In his mind, he draws with his imaginary pen:
a face that doesn't look mean, a face that doesn't look mean, a face that doesn't look mean.
James says nothing, rubs Julian's head, puts a pack of peas on his eyes, bleeds from his mouth.

When Marge gets home right afterward, she has a line in the middle of her forehead like a worry. She's carrying many bags and her hair's messed up. Julian has seen his mother look like this before. He hadn't liked it then: the person who's supposed to take care of him, out of control. He doesn't like it now.

But it doesn't matter that James and Marge look mean and worried, he tells himself. Or that they are yelling at each other in the other room now, or that Marge's eyes look like almost-crying. It doesn't matter because he is leaving. His mother is coming for him. Just watch the clock and be patient like an alligator.

Be patient like an alligator.
He wants to ask his mother why she always says it. Why is an alligator patient? He'll ask her when she comes. When she knocks. Three times like a
pow wow wow
. Three times like a nice face. Three times like a voodoo spell that brings mothers directly to sons, like gifts.
She's here.

He rushes to the door. He soars like a bird with air under its wings toward the knocks.

Marge leans over him, tugs on the knob. Latches squeak and hinges sing for his mother. She's here. She's just like he remembers her: feet, legs, dress. He grasps the legs, which make a backward L with the feet. The legs laugh. It is not his mother's laugh.

He looks up.

It is not his mother's dress: his mother doesn't have a dress with fish on it.

He feels a cry like a train moving up through his body. When he opens his mouth, it comes roaring out, loud enough for his mother, wherever she is, to hear him, to come running. He gets the feeling that the cry won't stop, not ever, not until she's here. He sees James coming for him: the meanest most broken face in the world.

On James's Running
List of Worries: that his face is broken; that Raul Engales's only remaining hand is broken; that his marriage is broken; and soon, if this child's cry does not come to an end, the collective ear of the neighborhood will be broken. He wants to fix it. He wants to be the glue for once. He wants to collect the pieces of his marriage and his face and Marge's face and Raul Engales's hand and
fix it.

Marge: scooping up Julian and rocking him to silence. Simultaneously dealing with this woman—who is she?—
Don't worry about it
, Marge says repeatedly, but the woman lingers. Should James intervene? But how might he? The space near Marge is off-limits, this she has made clear. He stands paralyzed in the living room as the red-haired woman pushes her way into their home. She stands, booted feet apart, in front of the mantel.

“No fuckin' shit!” she says, in a distinctly New York accent. “You've got one of Raul's pieces in here? Right here in the middle of all these big shots?”

“Sorry, who are you?” James says.

“Name's Arlene,” she says. “I bumped into your wife. Today. But before, too. On New Year's. I always meant to check up on you, you know. Never knew where to call.” Her gaze lands on Julian, her eyes engorging with the manic wideness that the childless used on children, either to seem unthreatening or to disguise that they themselves are threatened. “Well, look at
this
little adorable person. Why so sad? Huh, little adorable person? I
am
new. You gotta get used to people, right?” The lady scrunches Julian's wet, teary face in her hand.

James knocks a quick glance over at Marge, evaluates her. She's holding Julian like a baby and looking right at him, her eyes saying:
It's not worth it.
It's not worth it, he agrees. He gives her what he hopes is a comforting nod.

He sees the scene from Arlene's eyes. He is a father, with his family. With his wife, her bangs, their boy. They are not rich enough for airplane trips but can rent a car and go to Maine. They have dinner out, once a week, maybe Tuesdays. They take baths, all three of them, crowded into the little city tub. They go to the park and watch the roller skaters. They find beauty in the small parts of life. They find beauty in one another. It's all they need.

He sees the life from his own eyes: a crying boy whom he did not father, a woman he loves who has revoked reciprocation, a room full of paintings he doesn't deserve. His face is swollen into what feels like one enormous lump. There are no sensations, no colors, no smells—perhaps Engales had punched them all right out of him, stealing them back as quickly as he had given them in the first place. There is just a room full of things he loves that don't want to love him back. He feels suddenly and deeply exhausted.

“I'm selling it,” he says, perhaps too softly for anyone to hear.

The room goes blank and quiet. Then, at the same moment, both Marge and Arlene say: “You're
what
?”

“I'm selling it. I'm selling that painting you're looking at, Arlene, because it is a no-good piece of shit that has ruined my life. And I am selling the one next to it because a guy gave it to me for free at a garage sale even though it's worth fifteen thousand dollars and I was too much of an asshole to tell him, even though I knew precisely how badly I was ripping him off. And I'm selling that one there, the Nan Goldin picture, because even though I was the one to
discover
Nan Goldin, I found that picture in a goddamned Dumpster outside her studio. That one there I bought entirely with Marge's money, and that one I bought with what was supposed to be my share of the rent. I didn't earn any of this. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you, Marge. But you do deserve my help. Now if you'll excuse me,” he says, feeling stirred up and dizzy now, “I'm going to call Winona.”

James walks into the kitchen, where there is a red phone mounted to their white wall. A phone that, even if it doesn't fix everything, will at least free him from it. He imagines the walls with nothing on them, a clean sweep. From the living room he hears Arlene's flummoxed voice. “Does he mean
Winona George
?” He knows Marge won't answer. He knows Marge like the top of his own foot. He knows Marge like he knows his Hockney painting and his Kligman, and his Engales. She will be quiet now, letting the lie that the boy is theirs sink into her, soften, sweeten, stop . . . no, keep going. Arlene is insistent: “
Winona the rich lady? With the hair?
” James dials a number he now knows by heart.

Winona is ecstatic.
Has wanted her paws on this collection for
years.
Already has it all planned: they'll do it at the new spot, the first show in the new space, in December, yes, the perfect festive nip before all the festive nips. Have Warren come down to hang it, do a few olives, a nice Chard. She'll wear her leather pants. OH FUCK YES: HER LEATHER PANTS. Phenomenal. It will be phenomenal, James, you just wait. Everyone who's anyone will be there. We'll sell every last thing, I'll bet my boob job on it. It will be gone before you can say
surrealism
three times, James. You won't have to worry about a thing.

Ooh! The sunset is insane tonight, James. Have you been outside? I'm on my roof, James. On the cordless. You heard about these things? NO CORDS. It breaks up sometimes—can you hear me, James? Yes? You can't see it? Oh, it is quite the thing. Orange and pink, smeared all over the river like a goddamned painting. I guess that's the problem with sunsets, though, right? You can't keep them. Sigh. Maybe that's why they're beautiful, though? Are you still there, James? The cordless. Because we can't keep them?

“Fuck sunsets,” James says flatly, just as Winona sees that much-coveted green flash. She knows it's a mirage—refraction, is what they call it—but she'll take it. She loves nothing more on this earth than fleeting beauty.