I’m not a sex addict, thought Carsky as he walked home. I’m a prisoner of my needs. How am I supposed to function without Tara?
His second bedroom was for guests from LA. He invited them, they never came, but in the master bedroom, he consoled himself, he and Tara sure did.
“Came a lot,” he sang to her. He had to explain the joke: Camelot. And then explain that in New York, everyone, regardless of race, color, creed or sexual orientation, grows up on show tunes. It was the sort of statement that amused Tara and her brothers and made them love him. Or at least refrain from hurting him.
But even confidence that he was not about to suffer physical pain wasn’t enough to make Kyle’s shitcan of a car parked in the street and Kyle himself sitting on the porch—the patch of bare concrete under the awning where Carsky had never placed a chair or laid a welcome mat—a welcome sight. He held his grocery bag to his chest and hoped Kyle hadn’t noticed the slight hesitation hitch in his step.
“Kyle,” he said. “Tara’s not here.”
“But she’s on her way, right? I’ll wait.”
He was going to have to open the door and let Kyle in if he didn’t want to stand outside till the ice cream melted and the frozen foods thawed.
Inside, Kyle regarded what was supposed to be Carsky’s dinner. “You gonna nuke it?” and to Carsky it sounded less like Dr. Strangelove and more like a foreigner showing off his acquisition of American slang. “You want real Chinese food? The two of you take a ride up to Tehachapi with me.”
“Your sister and I have plans,” he said. More an exaggeration than a lie. They planned to go out and do something. They just hadn’t talked about what.
“Come on,” said Kyle. “I want you to meet Yoli. My girl.”
Carsky tried to get his head around this. “You have a daughter?”
“My girlfriend.”
That was even harder to believe. A woman who actually wanted Kyle? Everything about him spoke of bad luck. His right arm was half the length of the left, just a little kid when Casey broke it and being tight inside a cast for too long, it never grew the way it should. Casey treated his kid brother like an idiot and Carsky was still trying to decide whether this was an under- or overestimate. Kyle looked better, as he did this day, with his head shaved because when the hair grew out, in certain light, it took on an olive-green tinge. Instead of an earring, he had an asterisk—he called it a star—tattooed on his right ear, and on his short arm, a seahorse. Why a seahorse? Carsky had asked him once, and Kyle narrowed his eyes and grinned.
Food safely stowed in the freezer, Carsky tossed a bag of chips onto the kitchen table. “Beer?”
“Naw. Got something else.” Kyle rolled a joint.
Carsky joined him in smoking it. He did not, after all, consider marijuana a drug.
Now Kyle carried the joint daintily to the counter and turned on the radio. He was in his usual camo, the fool, and today instead of cowboy boots he was wearing those running shoes the kids liked, the kind where lights flashed on and off with every step. Carsky hadn’t known such things came in adult sizes. Kyle. Twinkle Toes. The country station was on a nostalgia kick. Kyle’s lips moved while Lefty Frizzell asked How far down can I go? Oh, man, that’s the question.
The song ended and the DJ spun Teddy Bears’ Picnic and referred to the worldwide protests against war as the Terrorists’ Picnic. At least the son-of-a-bitch acknowledged that millions of people were marching.
“Yoli,” he said. Funny name, maybe a foreigner looking for a green card. As though there weren’t already too many foreigners in his life. “So where’s she from?”
“Dana Point,” said Kyle.
Should’ve been a surprise, but Carsky knew damn well that two things erase any distinctions of social class: drug addiction, and living in a place like Desert Haven.
Tara showed up. “Separate vehicles,” said Kyle. He used his jumper cables to start Carsky’s Range Rover. They would need the extra space, he said, and Carsky chose not to ask what for.