Authors: David Gilbert
“You find what you’re looking for?” Richard asked, peering down.
A tired sigh. “Why are you here?”
“You were in bad shape last night.”
“As you can see,” Andrew said, crawling toward the couch, “I’m fine.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“You can go home, my prodigal son. I thank you for your concern.”
Richard stiffened. “I’m not prodigal.”
“Don’t be so literal.”
“If anything Jamie’s the prodigal son.”
“Fine, fine. Then return to your hoeing, my bitter eldest.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I heard you the first time.” My goodness, Andrew thought, when did Richard become so straight and sincere, unlike the son of his memory who rubbed their noses in his foul behavior and had the frightening air of murder-suicide, a phrase Andrew almost used as the title for
Percy, By Himself
. This change in Richard seemed almost untrustworthy. In the good old days Andrew would have had confidence that Richard had stolen his Vicodin.
“Andy’s not here, by the way,” Richard informed him. “Don’t worry, he’s okay. He’s with Emmett. The two of them spent the night somewhere without bothering to call. But they’re both fine. I talked with them about forty minutes ago.”
“Aren’t you the universal father?” Andrew said from the vicinity of the coffee table.
“Just thought you’d want to know. He was pretty upset with you last night.”
“Who?”
“Andy. But he was drunk, so was Emmett.”
“Who’s Emmett?”
Richard nocked a grin. “That would be my son.”
“That’s his name. Emmett. Emmett, Emmett, Emmett.” Feeling embarrassed and defeated, Andrew gave up on the Vicodin and climbed onto the couch, allowing pain its full rout. The comfort of soon dying was replaced with the palpable unpleasantness of Richard staring at him. “He’s sick, right?” Andrew said.
“Was sick, and that was a while ago.”
“What was it again? Jamie told me but I forget. A kind of cancer.”
“Leukemia.”
“Right. Leukemia. That must’ve been hard.”
“You could say that.”
“But he beat it.”
“So far so good.”
Andrew grabbed a ratty throw pillow and placed it on his stomach for support. “Of course, avoid the definitive,” he said, and then he coughed for a bit, trying to dislodge a hunk of awfulness from his lungs. “You know when you were, well, struggling, I used to have these fantasies—not fantasies, but daydreams, thoughts really, that flashed in my head, of you dead in a gutter somewhere, murdered, overdosed, another grim New York story of a wayward son, and I am the one tasked with identifying your body in that place where they keep bodies cold, not a mortuary, but a, a, a—anyway, I go and see you—morgue, a hospital morgue—I go and see you at the morgue and you’re all ravished, no, I mean ravaged, and in that moment I truly love you, seeing you laid out on that slab, I can finally love you without complication, even though it’s too late. But still I’m glad for the feeling, glad that I can, if this makes sense, mourn you for the rest of my life without guilt. How’s that for insanity. I can only be a good father to a dead son.”
Andrew wiped the perspiration from his forehead, checking his hand as if there might be evidence of blood. “I don’t think I ever wrote that anywhere. Did I?”
“Don’t think so,” Richard said.
“Good. But you never did die.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Don’t be like that. I was going to add ‘Thank God.’ ”
“Dad, I didn’t—”
“I’m trying to tell you something, I’m not sure what, but it is something, and I would think you’d want to hear it, that this is what you want, Richard. I’m so easily overwhelmed by the basics of how to live and I think of you as being a tremendous adult.”
“I hear you and I appreciate the honesty,” Richard said.
“God, no validation, please. We’re not in therapy.”
“I’m just saying I can relate to being scared about your sick son, I know that feeling. It’s miserable. Maybe I never really appreciated what you and Mom went through with me and my problems, but with Emmett I have those same exact flashes but instead he’s dangling over an abyss—I know, crazy—but he’s dangling and I’m holding him by the arm and trying to pull him up, but I’m not strong enough, and the horror in his eyes, it stops me cold, he’s begging for me to make things all right, please, Dad, make it all right, and I can sense his hand slipping, I know he’s slipping, I know my grip is loosening, I know that things aren’t going to be all right, that it’s about to get unspeakable fast, and even though I know it’s just the normal craziness running around my head, thinking it I get a full panic attack.”
Andrew considered his son. “This isn’t a competition,” he said.
“What?”
“Dueling dying-son stories.”
“I was just telling you my version.”
“Your version?”
“We all have our version, or I think we all do.”
“Well in my version you’re already dead, and in yours, you’re doing something with your son, you’re outdoors, in the mountains, rock climbing for Christ’s sake.”
“Now you’re teasing.”
“You’re trying to save him.”
“Please.”
“I’m serious. No doubt about it, your dead son wins.”
“Dead is dead,” said Richard.
“Dead is dead,” Andrew agreed.
Whatever the path, they had landed on a shared belief, after which they became quiet, the silence giving weight to the air, the seconds growing burdensome until they seemed to drop and cover every surface, including Andrew and Richard, who huddled against this increasing accumulation. Neither noticed the other, though there was the quality of mutual perseverance. Then, in a low tone, “Do you believe me?” and Richard knew that his father was asking about Andy and more than anything right then he wanted to please him, like a boy again, wanted to offer him his absolute blessing and atone for his part of the past. Why not let him believe what he wanted to believe? Where was the harm in that? And regardless of the facts, young Andy put a sweeter spin on the old man, especially seeing him last night with Emmett. Richard tried to tuck his father within that awkward adolescent shell, those milky eyes taking on the more identifiable gleam between desire and scorn, ignorance and certainty, the need to be loved and the need to be left alone. In that shudder Richard saw his son, saw himself. “I do believe you,” he said.
“You think I’m telling the truth then?”
Was this a trick question? “Yes.”
His father puffed his upper lip, testing its cubic limit, and Richard was ready for the final release, where forgiveness is exchanged with a simple gesture, apologies brushed aside, the mantle of father and son melting and leaving behind two flawed men trying to stay warm. But instead all he got was “Bullshit.”
“What?”
“I think you’re just amusing me.”
“Dad—”
“I think you think I’m lost, that I’m a goner, in another world.”
“Dad—”
“What’s the harm, that’s what I think you think.”
“Were you just setting me up?”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said, as though vengeful of Richard’s faith.
“I want to believe you,” Richard said.
“That’s not the same as believing.” Andrew sat up, newly energized. “I’m a pretty good reader of people and I think you think if you say yes I’ll let you have
Ampersand
. I remember things about last night, Richard, the angling and the flattery, the downright sorcery. And when I walked in here, you were practically drooling over the manuscript. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Mostly I was excited to see the original, that’s all.”
“I had more respect for you as a crack addict. At least it was your own pursuit. What’s next, Mr. Hollywood,
Here Live Angry Dogs and Brutal Men
? You could turn
Eloise & Tom
into a sitcom.”
“Dad, I swear I’m on your side.”
“My side?” said with a smirk.
Richard could sense the hopelessness of answering.
“None of what I’ve said is true?”
So instead he just pulled back—
“I’m out of bounds? You have no ulterior motives? Your intentions are pure?”
—and hoped he might retain his dignified whole, like a soul sacrificed to appease a greater irrational force. It was a thankless nobility. But rage would have only added to the show and he realized whatever he said could well be the last thing he ever said to his father, so best say something charitable, something worth remembering. “I like Andy,” Richard started, surprised by his own calm. “And no matter the logic I like the idea that maybe that’s you before whatever happened happened. To you. To all of us. You don’t have to worry about him being alone.”
“After I die.”
“Yes, after you die.”
“You’ll take care of him?”
“He is almost eighteen.”
“But you’ll be there for him?”
“In whatever way he wants, sure.” Richard shrugged at the uninspired view from the high road. “And I could give a shit about
Ampersand
. Honestly. I like the book and I’m proud I’m related to the man who wrote it, but I could give a shit about turning it into a movie. Those are other people’s dreams.”
“I think you mean you couldn’t give a shit.”
“What?”
“If you gave a shit, that would mean you cared.”
“It’s a shit we’re talking about.”
“Yes but—”
“And who cares about a shit except a lesser shit?”
“But it’s still something.”
“Something as seen by a turd.” Richard rubbed his face instead of screaming. “I need to get back to the Carlyle and check on everyone. Really need to give Emmett an earful. But Dad, regardless of everything, I’m glad I came back.”
“Regardless of what?”
“Regardless of your fucking insanity.”
Andrew clapped. “Finally a straight answer.”
“Glad I got one right.”
“When are you leaving?”
“We’re going to Mom’s tomorrow in Connecticut.”
“That’s right, she’s a country girl now.”
“And after that, back to L.A.”
“A Sharon girl.”
“Litchfield. I could come over with the kids this afternoon for a goodbye.”
Andrew frowned. “No, no, no, I have work to do.”
“Really?”
“I’m close to finishing. Then I’ll be done.”
Richard was amazed but also thankful for the man’s consistency. “I guess this is so long then.” He went over and patted his father on the shoulder. “Silk,” he commented playfully, “very nice. I’ll call you next week.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’d like to.”
“Fine.”
“And maybe we’ll visit again, over the summer.”
“The house in Bellport is small, not like the Southampton days.”
“Okay.”
“I couldn’t put you all up, even if I tried.”
“That’s okay,” Richard repeated. “Seriously.” He stood there and stared at his father. His face was no longer the fruit but the remaining pit. And Richard understood that his father, his dad—Didi, he used to call him when he was eight—was incapable of reaching across that divide, the distance simply too frightening, the chance of slipping too great, and to blame the man for this, to hate him for this, would be like blaming or hating someone because of what they feared. So Richard spared him the discomfort of his overflowing sentiment and just said goodbye with a neutral smile, closing the door behind him, which he did quietly and as a favor.
Where was I when all of this was happening? Walking back from the Hotel Wales, where I had spent a Dyer-free night. The police report puts the time at 9:12
A.M
. when all that occurred occurred, which incidentally is my birthday and is a detail I didn’t notice till now. Perhaps my role has been fated from the beginning. A dozen September twelfths have passed since the officer scribbled pen to paper, and while there is little joy in getting older, there is an appreciation of letting go and giving in. The cop was probably guessing the time, checking his watch ten minutes after the fact and approximating the chronology. That puts us in the same boat. Either way, on the sixth floor of 2 East 70th Street, in the Dyer residence, specifically the study, Andrew sat on that couch and suffered the aftereffects of Richard’s departure. It was roughly the size of a fist in his stomach. He leaned back and pitched his mouth open, like a baby bird. Feed me, feed me. So helpless. So far removed from soaring. I’m an awful man, he thought from his nest, even though in terms of being truly awful he knew he was minor-league, which made him an imposter, which only reconfirmed his overall sense of bogusness. Except for the books. The books were real. Andrew bent forward and rocked. Those goddamn books. The reflection
had replaced the man. How could he have crammed Charlie Topping into Timothy Veck? And Charlie never said a word, just played dumb. We are connected, intertwined, a whorl endlessly repeating. It came from love, this impetus to fashion a place in which they might belong, in which they might confirm their humanity by invention. It was meant as a kind of apology. How’s that for failure?
Andrew wished he had a shotgun here.
He dragged himself over to his desk. The draft of
Ampersand
was nearly two pounds of paper and still in need of an epilogue. Fifty years ago there was the original and the corrected proofs, which Random House had returned in two boxes. Back then this apartment was pristine and entirely too big. “This is not for you right now but for you in the future,” his mother had told him, and Andrew joked with newly-wed Isabel that they were living in pure speculation. “This is where we are heading,” he told her, his arms spread wide. Those boxes sat in his study for weeks until he heard the heartbeat, cribbed from Poe, and one night when drunk and ashamed and frightened, when life could no longer be undone, he opened those boxes and started to stack the paper in the fireplace, first with care but soon just dumping it all in. He knew he was slumming in gesture, but sometimes you have to give in to your baser symbolic impulses. When finished, the fireplace looked snowbound. Andrew pulled one of those red petals from the bloom of extralong matches and struck it against the bottom, the phosphorous sparking—at least it sparked the first time, but fifty years later the match snapped near the middle and Andrew had to pull another, which snapped as well, Andrew gripping the third closer to the top and flicking it more directly, skidding one … two … three times before snapping. “Fuck,” he muttered. By now his younger self was back on the couch and watching the fire cradle the paper in a weird kind of nativity. There it goes. But the older Andrew tried another match, then another, then another—“C’mon!”—the two dozen matches remaining like years in non-fire form. Heat rose on his forehead. He remembered how the Eaton twenty-pound stock burned and let loose wisps of black ash that took flight up the chimney as if commanded to give chase. It was easier back then. Of course. Finally a match—miraculous!—lit!
Andrew noticed how badly his hand shook, a possible sabotage, so he used both hands to reach forward and carefully touch the front and back corners of the manuscript. The flame seemed to consider the prospect of its own combustion before nodding with agreement. There was no snap of wood, only the whoosh of industry. Maybe it was the cockled finish that gave it a blue-green hue. Maybe it was the ink. Andrew didn’t recall the smoke from the first time, the speed of the blaze, sure, but not the smoke, which spilled up from the fireplace like a waterfall turned upside down. Rather than thinking this undesirable, Andrew thought it beautiful. A visible suspension of carbon, an entraining drift of warmth, from sierra to echo, pooling across the ceiling. Andrew breathed in without coughing. His respiration seemed rejuvenated. He breathed deeper. Who needed Vicodin? He lifted his hand and brushed at the smoke as if trying to glimpse the bottom. Or maybe the surface. It was everything but the epilogue. That would have to do. Another deep breath. Nearby a fleck of ash floated, its motion in league with his lungs.