IT WAS MY IDEA to drive down. Doctor Berman was against it, said maybe I wasn’t so ready yet, said it maybe wouldn’t do me any good but I said Doc it’s their anniversary Doc, I said. I gotta, right? I pack smart: a couple of shirts that’s easy to drip and dry if I stay in motels on the way which is kind of inevitable, a pair of jeans, a pineapple shirt straight out of Hawaii 5-0
, a fave, and a pair of sharkskin slacks I lay out neat on the back seat so the crease stays sharp in case I’m ever in the position where I have to look like someone who knows the difference between a glass of beer and a Stoli on the rocks, not that I do but it’s the look that counts. I’ve been working on my pecs too, so an open-necked shirt really shows off the goods. I see myself walking into a bar a Tiki bar a bar with a palm tree décor and mai tai cocktails and ceiling fans and tight skirts slit to …
I’m holding a little umbrella between my teeth as I drive and I belch the sour taste of rum … A mai tai? Probably ‘cause my pants pocket’s lumpy, as when I jam in loose bills with a damp fist and don’t iron and fold them later but who was the skirt …?
~
I take the main roads, the route mapped out with a phosphorescent marker so I can see it in the dark since I plan on driving till my eyelids droop. I told this to Doctor Berman and he was against that too. I said: Doc, you’re discouraging me and I’m in a position I want to be propped up, I want to hear you say I’m on the right track going to see them and however I go is the way to go, see? So? DB laughed at that, I could always make him laugh, told me not to forget to pack my pills and here’s one scrip extra especially if you’re going to make the visit longer than a week or so which is the outside edge of what I have in mind. There’s only so much contrition I can take before things start cracking with me and them.
Why you driving? It’s dangerous. You still got a license? They didn’t take it away? What if you get stopped? What if it starts to rain? What if the radio says tropical storm Marvin? What if when they pull you over you get one of your headaches? You have extra pills? Your doctor knows? What’s that shirt supposed to be? What if they call me? What’m I supposed to say? You hopped up, sonny? You on something? I’m not covering for you. I’m through with that. How much you think I can take? You’re on your own this time. We don’t know you.
The damned radio doesn’t stick with its signals. It’s the wind it’s the rain it’s the damp it’s the car. Rented. Fuck it.
~
They have a little condo on an artificial lake just above the Keys. Those condos kill me. No basement because of how all the building’s done on coral reefs and if by chance there’s heavy rain, there’s a foot of water to slog through in your slippers. Last time I helped with the grunt work. He just sits there, man he’s fat. She does the grunt work, crying half the time, him slapping her when she walks past, half the time half looped on lager. Place stinks like bleach, she’s got a thing for germs or something. I bet she puts it in his Sanka. Her hands’re red and raw. Hey, the condo’s theirs so what’s it got to do with me? They bought it when I was away. I wasn’t part of the real estate consultation.
I’m doing 75, 80 without even thinking about it. When it’s this dark you don’t feel your feet or your hands, you don’t hear anything, you’re moving through space but you don’t feel anything, next thing you blink and you’re fifty miles from where you were the last time you looked and what the hell, what was I just thinking about? Blank. Another one. It’s like being underwater. Can’t wait.
~
This time’s not going to be any different from last time but my scrip’s new see, so things will be at least different on my upper end. When I get there, they seem glad to see me. Seem glad because they have a way of making me guess what’s really up. Both of them have droopy eyelids, her from drink, him from fat, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if they’ve even registered I’m present. Neither of them wears their glasses. Or their hearing aids. Or makes much use of the walkers I spent good money on time before that or time before that. Gratitude’s not something I expect but would it be too much for her to run a church key around a can of beans or for him to offer me one of his unfiltered cigarettes like any buddy’d do? They both know what I like and the fact that it doesn’t happen, that time stands still while we’re looking each other up and down, that my needs aren’t met even now, even after all this time, says to me they don’t care even if they seem glad to see me.
The sun’s setting red as blazes. Even dark glasses my eyes hurt. Route 1, right but how long have I been on it? I check the map and I’m much closer than I thought though still plenty far.
… I’m in the shower at a Motel 6 on a strip mall next to a Mobil station and it’s raining and the television’s on and where was I when all this happened? I use a generous amount of nasal spray and watch Law and Order to clear my head. It’s where there’s a double murder in an upstate condo. Blood blood blood. It’s a rerun. I’ve seen ‘em all half a dozen times apiece but these shows are worked out so even if you did see it before, you never know how whoever did it did it and how the Law part finds him and solves it.
I must have drowsed off because I just saw a sign for the scuba shop and hey right yeah, my mitts’re on the wheel! Ten miles to the water!
When I’m in the water deep, deep in, and there’s no sound, just blue, just warm …
Ever since I was a kid it’s where I feel the most comfortable. Mom, I used to ask her, can anyone breathe underwater? No, she’d answer, so sure of herself. What about Mark Spitz the Olympic champion? Thinking I had her on that one. Uh uh, she says. What about Esther Williams the swimming movie star? I’ve seen her last ten minutes without coming up for air! No can do. Yeah, okay, but wouldn’t it be great?
I can imagine what they’d say if they knew about scuba, how you put a tube in your mouth and a tank on your back and then, yes, you’re breathing, ma. Breathing underwater, see? I’d like to see the look on her face. I’d like to stretch that smile right on her, slit the corners of her mouth so she’s always smiling, so she quits with the uh uhs and the no ways and smiles at my questions and promotes my good will. And him, smiling from the shock of it, me, it, the news, the blows, the blues, the blood. Him too.
I’m at the Keys. Unbelievable. Five minutes ago I was sucking a mai tai … in the shower … watching Law and …
No that was yesterday or …
I pull over onto a gravel patch and check the pills because I’m a little confused and Berman says if confusion was to cloud my jungle I should make sure to take the blue lagoon and even that I should never let things get to that point but to keep track, to be a good boy and take my hydro regular so I don’t get the headaches and so my eyes don’t burn and so I can keep on track and not forget. The whole thing about not forgetting is that it involves remembering first not to forget in the first place which is like someone or other says, a challenge.
Davey Jones Locker, Cap’n Mike, Prop. That’s a laugh. Such a cornball name but hey it’s his boat and his equipment he rents out so as long as I’m wet and all tubed up scuba-wise, he’s good old Cap’n Mike to me.
The water is clear as no water. I’m sinking very very slowly, not even trying to go under, just letting air out of the tube and feeling myself sink. Down below me there’s coral and flanks of fish banking left and right, flicking gold to green, up then down, coming at me veering off. It’s very quiet. It’s really quiet.
Jesus Christ holds up his arms to me. Whoa! I jerk back. Bubbles pour out of my tube, my legs are cycling but I’m getting nowhere, I’m drifting down to Jesus with his arms outstretched like he’s asking for a favor, like he’s begging for air. I touch his hand then I’m screaming, then I’m streaming up, then I’m on the boat, then I’m being slapped, then I’m in a bar, then I’m in the car, then I’m at their house and there’s police cars there and someone opens the door of my car and says who are you. I’m the son I’m the son. And I’m crying because I don’t know how’d I get here, I’d like to know.
~
I’m standing in the doorway. The sun in the room is very bright. Your parents have been slaughtered. I see blood on the rug. I see blood splattering the walls and a familiar suitcase in the corner. What happened, I want to know.
Is this your knife? someone says. It looks familiar. Maybe I possess some passing knowledge, I say and he says he found it in the back seat of my car lying on a pair of sharkskin slacks and there’s blood on it. I look back at the room the rug the splatters. I’m sinking again, the air’s rushing up beside me and I’m just letting myself go. I wish I could tell you what happened. It would be a fun thing to remember.