Mom calls Dad back as soon as I’m off the phone with him. He didn’t ask to talk to her. He’s taking me to the indoor stock-car races tomorrow. He said he might come by for dinner afterward. I report this to Mom, who is staring at the phone, like she can’t believe he didn’t want to talk to her. She squints her eyes and says, “What?”
“Don’t yell at me. I’m just telling you what he said.”
“I didn’t yell at you.” She has a point, but I think she’s pissed off enough to yell, and I don’t want her to do it at me since I didn’t do anything but answer the phone.
I shrug. She looks at me for a long moment and says, “So this is the way it is.” I know what she means. He hasn’t come home since the trip to the ER. Mom calls him back and doesn’t even say hello, she just snaps, “What?”
She listens, opens her mouth, and I think she’s going to let him have it. Then she looks at me and says into the phone, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow night. . . okay . . . see you then.”
Then she claps her hands once and says, “So what should we make for Dad tomorrow night?”
I have no idea why she’s asking me until I see her eyes are glassy and she has this huge fake plastic smile on her face, and I realize this is what she looks like when she’s trying not to fall apart. I say, “I don’t know. Spaghetti?”
She claps her hands again. “Yes! Spaghetti!”
Karen comes into the kitchen. “Don’t make spaghetti for me. I’m eating at Amanda’s.”
Mom is opening cabinets and making a grocery list. “Karen, we’re talking about tomorrow night. Tonight were having chicken.”
“I ate already. I’m going over to Amanda’s.”
Mom sighs. “You didn’t eat already. You can see Amanda after your dinner. Set the table, please.”
Dad picked me up this morning. He just beeped the horn in the driveway, didn’t come in. He did wink and wave at Mom and Karen, who were standing in the doorway. I guess that’s something. Mom will take Karen to counseling today, her first appointment. I’m not supposed to know.
Here’s a secret: Dad sometimes talks to me about when he was little. It’s a secret because everyone acts like Dad didn’t even have a childhood. It’s so weird, the family rules that you learn without ever being taught. Asking Dad about when he was a kid is against the rules. Ask him about it, and he’ll stand up and walk out of the room. Or if you’re in the car, he’ll just turn on the radio and act like you’re not even there. Ask Mom about it, and she’ll say it’s not your business and it’s no big deal, there’s no big story to tell. Ask Karen about it, and she’ll either snap “I don’t care” or we’ll compare information and try to put Dad’s past together, like a puzzle. The other rule is that even though we’re not allowed to ask Dad about his childhood, he can sometimes bust out with a story from when he was a little kid. When this happens, you have to sit quietly and not ask questions, or he’ll clam up and not say any more. I don’t tell Karen everything he tells me, I keep some of it for myself.
Five minutes into the ride to the races, I wish I hadn’t come. It’s like being in a car with a stranger. He’s wearing a winter coat I don’t recognize, his hair is different, and his face looks kind of fat.
“Your mother says you’re not friends with Chris and Benjamin anymore.”
Way to get right to the point, asshole.
I’m almost yelling, “I’m still friends with them! Did Mom tell you that? That I’m not friends with them anymore?”
Dad calmly shakes his head. “I must have misunderstood. She just said you never got together with them after school or on weekends anymore. She told me about that night at the movies.”
“So?” I say. “We still sit together at lunch.”
“Oh. Well, then.”
I hate that the few times Mom talks to him, she talks about me. I hate that she thinks she has any idea what’s going on in my life and that she passes her bullshit theories on to Dad. He has no idea what’s going on in my life. That’s fine by me. I don’t know him now. I debate telling him Mom told me not to talk to strangers. But I shrug instead, hoping he’ll shut up about this.
“What happened, son, you just don’t get along with them anymore?”
Way to completely miss the point, asshole.
“I told you, we’re still friends. We just don’t hang out as much,” I say, and realize it’s a lie. Chris and Bean barely acknowledge my existence anymore. The lunch table we share is divided in half. They’re at one end and I’m at the other. They haven’t talked to me in weeks. Apart from Mom and Karen, no one’s really talked to me in weeks.
Dad nods. “School is hard.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. What a stupid thing to say.
“Dad, you are a true master of the obvious.”
It’s fascinating. You can actually see the blood rush up his neck and into his face. I bet he’s counting to ten so he doesn’t push me out of the car.
“When I was a kid, we’d say ’No shit, Sherlock.’” The red goes out of his face.
“Like Sherlock Holmes, right?”
He nods and says again quietly, “No shit, Sherlock.”
We don’t talk for a long while. When we pass a rusting VW bus with surfboards strapped to the top, Dad says, “Wow, they must be really, really lost.” I say, “Let’s make a sign that says, ’Landlocked state, asshole’ and wave it at them.”
Dad smiles. I watch the VW get smaller and smaller behind us in the side-view mirror, a cloud of black fumes disappearing behind it. I could be a surfer. Cousin Bobby surfed when he was out in California. His band was on tour and all of their L.A. shows got canceled. They met these surfers that let the band stay at their house and taught them all how to surf. We got a picture in the mail of Bobby on the beach. Karen laughed when she saw it. It did look kind of funny. Made up, almost. Bobby on the beach, looking out at the ocean, a hand shielding his eyes from the setting sun, like he was scoping out the waves. He was tan, healthy looking. Karen snorted and said, “When did Bobby get muscles?” His hair was wild, the way hair gets when you swim and then let the sun dry it. It’d be salty if he put it in his mouth.
After graduation I could leave for California. No, Hawaii. Right after the ceremony. I’d be in my gown, and underneath I’d be wearing surf shorts. No one would have any idea. The ceremony would end, I’d hug Karen and Mom and shake Dad’s hand. Everyone would be throwing their caps into the air, hugging each other, crying, and ignoring me. Then this ancient VW bus would rumble up, beep, and the side door would open and I’d jump in. And I’d be gone. Everyone would stop what they were doing and watch us drive away. I’d never satisfy their curiosity. I’d never talk to any of them again.
“Your grandmother was tall.”
I’m not in the VW anymore. I’m not peeling off my graduation gown. I’m in a car with Dad and he’s just said something.
“What?”
He looks at me nervously and swallows.
“I said your grandmother, my mother, was tall.”
One night last winter Karen and I were out behind the house kicking at the snow, waiting for Mom and Dad to finish fighting. I was bending over, packing a snowball to throw at Karen, and I felt her fingers on my wrist. At first I thought she was going to try to pin my arm behind my back and push my face in the snow, and then try to sit on me, but then I looked up and saw a deer in the dark by the shed. Karen barely shook her head, telling me not to move. We looked at the deer, the deer looked at us. We all three breathed white breath out of our noses. I knew I wasn’t supposed to move, wasn’t supposed to speak, or it would run away.
It’s the same thing with Dad when he decides to open up. If you make any sudden moves, he’ll bolt, or at least get real quiet and ignore you. I’m supposed to be touched that he’s opening up. It’s supposed to be a “special moment.” I’m supposed to sit here and ask gentle questions about when he was a kid, and maybe hell poop out a tiny turd of information and I’m supposed to think it’s a diamond. Forget it. I’m not playing. I don’t care if he’s looking at me like a kicked puppy, waiting for me to ask . . .
“How tall was she?”
If I could suck the words back into my mouth, I would. It’s just so hard, he sits there looking wounded, like every second I don’t say something is tearing his heart out of his chest.
Dad exhales and smiles.
“She was six feet, one inch. Her mother was taller: six three.”
“Wow,” I say. I mean it. It’s something I didn’t know. I’ve seen one picture of them, and that was just of their heads. They both looked old. I picture long bodies reaching out from where the picture cut off.
He nods.
A nod. That counts as him saying something, meaning now it’s my turn. Sneaky bastard.
Fine, he wants to play that way . . .
“Really?” I ask.
He looks at me, brows creased. He’s on to me. He nods again. I’ve got it.
“Did they play basketball?”
He smiles. “Yes. Both played in high school.”
I wait for him to say more. He looks at me, waiting for another question that hell either answer or ignore. I can’t play this game for very long anymore. It pisses me off too much. I used to think it was fun, figuring out exactly what to say to him so that he’d answer back with actual information. I thought it was like being a spy. I’d report back to Karen what I’d learned. Then we’d put it together with what we already knew and try to tell each other the story of when he was a little kid. It was always full of holes. I can’t believe he expects me to sit here and spoon-feed his attempts at opening up.
“Did your dad play basketball?”
He looks at me. I think, Not the question you expected was it, asshole? I broke the rule, the talk-only-about-people-that-Dad-mentions-first rule. I’m tired of tiptoeing.
“Did he? Did my grandfather play basketball?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he says, and then looks at the road. This answer is supposed to shut me up. I’m supposed to give him a long look and then stare out the window and not talk for two hours.
“Why wouldn’t you know?”
I swear I can hear Dad telling himself not to punch me: Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.
“That’s the sort of thing,” he finally answers, “that boys who grew up with their Dads would know.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Note to self: Learn difference between thinking of brilliant things to say and actually saying them.
Dad’s gone cold next to me.
“Dad?”
He shakes his head.
“You’re wrong, you know,” I say. “Growing up with your dad doesn’t mean you know jack shit about him.”
We’d go to California first. Kind of inevitable on the way to Hawaii. I’d be a quick learner, the quickest anyone ever saw. I’d work for a couple months at an open-air taco place on the beach that all the locals go to, till I was ready to move on. Then I’d be gone again.
I’d go down to the docks and make a deal with some rich guy to take me with him to Hawaii in exchange for working on his yacht. He’d have a daughter. Hot.
My first day in Hawaii I wouldn’t have anywhere to go, so I’d hitchhike from the docks and get dropped off at the first beach I see. I’d ditch my stuff under a palm tree, grab my board, and head straight for the waves. I wouldn’t know it, but it’d be a locals beach, and as I paddled out, the locals would move together in the water and plan how to beat the crap out of me. They’d watch me catch my first wave and ride it all the way into the beach. I’d get out of the water, feeling all of their eyes on my back. I’d jam my board in the sand and hold my hand up above my eyes to block the sun and watch the locals in the water. I’d hear a voice next to me, turn, and see the local legend they call Dingo standing next to me. I’d think he was going to beat the snot out of me, but instead he’d say, “You’re raw, but you’ve got talent.”
He’d offer to train me and tell me I can crash with him in the house where all the local surfers live. The house would be this sort of ramshackle sprawl on a bluff over the ocean, so you could see how big the waves were from the porch, which is where Dingo would cook on the grill for the whole house. There’d be a lot of people living in the house, so you would just have to find a place to sleep wherever. At first I’d crash out on the couch in the living room, then Kula, this really hot girl, would tell me I could room with her. We’d spend a lot of time making out, facing each other on my surfboard in the water.