Authors: Edmond Manning
I
REAPPEAR
moments later with a black thermal box, appropriate for delivering pizzas but much fancier.
I can see disappointment in his face as he asks, “Are we getting dinner to go?”
“We’re eating here. This is for something later.”
“Are we doing a favor for another king?”
“You’re probably right.”
“I thought we retired that phrase.”
“You’re probably right.”
He dips his fork into the melted candle wax and makes a motion to flip it at me, but he doesn’t follow through.
When our server returns with our pinot noir, I ask her if she would please deliver this pouch to Anna Marie. Perry watches, and his eyes gleam. The next surprise.
Minutes later, Anna Marie bursts from the kitchen and makes her way to her dinner guests, stopping to chat with friends along the way. I’ve been here on nights when she makes the rounds, then stops almost midsentence as some invisible egg timer vibrates in her brain and she races back to the kitchen. She’s got the visiting thing down.
When I rise to meet her, she says, “Vin.”
We kiss on the cheek.
“This is the special man, eh?” she says, nodding at him.
“He is a special man. Perry, my friend, Anna Marie. This is her lovely restaurant.”
Perry beams during our introductions.
“I’m heating your stones, Vin, to keep the pouch warm. I like this pouch.”
“A friend in the restaurant business recommended it.”
“Restaurant friends other than me? Perry, do you know this other restaurant friend?”
“Me? Nothing. He tells me nothing.”
She says, “Ha. Good. I was ready to be hurt if you knew everything. He stays quiet about himself, this Vin. I have an aunt who moved to Minnesota. She said the people are reserved. I told her to find him up in the phone book, but there is no Vincent Vanbly.”
I say, “I will happily give you my phone number, Anna Marie.”
She ignores me. “Is he shy with you?”
Perry says, “I wouldn’t call it shy. More like intentionally cryptic.”
I do not love where this conversation is headed. Kill this.
I say, “Oh, c’mon. Ask me anything.”
Anna Marie says, “What’s your real name?”
I say, “Anything but that.”
The three of us laugh, and I make jokes to cover my fluster, but I’ll reveal my name if they both push me. It’s not magic. I just don’t like the name that belongs to him, the one before Vin Vanbly. No big deal, I guess. But saying a name aloud sometimes draws that person near. Like Billy.
Perry changes the topic, and I shoot him a thin, grateful smile. Even though I have been a dick all weekend, we’re still adventurers together and he has my back; he has faith in Bolinas. Anna Marie leaves us and chats her way back toward the kitchen until suddenly she bolts, her internal egg timer driving her speed.
As she disappears, Perry says, “How long have you known her?”
“I fixed her car once a few years ago. She’s a vacation friend.”
He looks at me expectantly.
“We talked for a few hours and ate leftover mussels on the curb. And her chicken marsala is—”
He says, “I love my dad, you know.”
Here we go.
I look into his face. “Okay.”
Calmly, Vin. Be casual.
He says, “While it’s definitely sad and I wish he didn’t die, I always do something special on his birthday, and I’m definitely keeping four of his paintings. The three in the art gallery aren’t the only ones I own.”
I return his steady gaze and say, “Okay.”
I wonder how long before this moment is considered a lingering silence. Nine seconds? Fifteen? I love the awkward pauses that underline the truth of a moment, an invisible red arrow blinking in and out of existence. He brought up this topic. Let him run with it.
Wait, how could an invisible arrow be red? Duh.
“I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person because I sold his paintings,” Perry says, pausing to breathe. “I want to buy a condo. I’ll never afford anything here otherwise. He’d want me to have a home of my own.”
“I’m sure he would. Personally, I think you’re crazy to try to get a mortgage in San Francisco, but hey, if I had to sell a few paintings to live that dream, I’d do it.”
He frowns and says, “Is this that thing where you agree to make me shut up? Or are you serious?”
“Perry, you loved your father. I’m not judging you for selling the paintings. I don’t think you’re a bad son. But doesn’t the earthquake factor freak you out? At least a little?”
Perry shifts in his chair. His irritated stare mixes with uncertainty.
He says, “Earthquakes.”
I say, “I don’t get it. Living on a fault line that you
know
is active, I mean, not like two hundred years ago but just recently—”
Perry says, “How much did you know about my father before you came in to the art gallery on Tuesday?”
Good. He’s tweaked.
“Last Friday before I headed north, I saw a flyer for the Tuesday night opening and figured I’d show up. I do like surrealism; I’ve read a few books. One book covered artists’ relationship to form and convention, particularly math and physics. There was a whole chapter describing the Golden Curve. Your dad got some paragraphs. You should check it out; the whole Golden Curve thing is fascinating. Kind of like all the people who are into pi. The number, not blueberry. I like people interested in weird laws of physics, patterns in nature, and the underlying mechanics of the universe, as I consider myself to be a mechanic of the universe. However, I would still have to say that I am more interested in blueberry pie than the other kind.”
“What book?”
“I don’t remember the exact title, but I can find it at home. I’ll mail it. It had the words ‘convention and form’ in the title, but half the books I read have the words ‘convention and form’ in the title, so, you know.”
He says, “That would be great. Or maybe just copy those pages.”
“I’ll mail it. I have too many books anyway.”
“Thanks.”
He doesn’t appear grateful or happy with the direction of this conversation.
Perry doesn’t know why he’s suddenly tense, and I’m sure doesn’t recognize how his face muscles tightened while he discussed his lack of father issues. He’s not furious. He’s just irked.
Irked
could be a happy-go-lucky word if it didn’t have that
k
stuck up its ass, right in the middle of everything.
He sips his wine and studies me.
Be blank, Vin.
The problem isn’t that Perry doesn’t love his father. Of course he does. However, mixed in with that love lives a strong resentment, a formidable and long-dragged grudge.
He says, “One of my best childhood memories is my father and me carving pumpkins for Halloween. I was eight. Mom said I was too young to use the big knife. But Dad stood behind me and we cut the eyeholes together. He had his arms around me. I felt safe.”
We are silent.
We stare.
I say, “What shape were they?”
“What shape were what?”
“The eyeholes.”
“I dunno, triangle, I suppose. Why?”
“Your face said you expected me to ask you a question, so I did.”
“That’s it?” Perry’s voice quivers. “That’s all you’re going to ask about my dad?”
“What should I ask?”
Perry clamps his mouth shut and unclenches immediately. He says, “Never mind.”
I’ll get him more riled up. I say, “Listen to this. One time when I ate here, sitting over there at that table, these two guys were clearly on a first date, but I wouldn’t say they—”
“No. I’m sorry to interrupt, Vin, but wait a minute. Aren’t you going to ask
anything
about him? You can, you know, ask anything. I’ll answer honestly, I promise.”
I keep my face blank and say, “Okay. Cancer?”
“Yes. Stomach cancer.”
There’s a long pause.
“I’m sorry, Perry, I don’t have any other questions.”
“How did you know about the cancer?”
“Well, he died young, and it wasn’t a sudden death since he had time to paint. Cancer seemed like a good guess.”
We are silent for a moment, and Perry sips his wine with deliberation.
“I could ask more questions about him if you want me to.”
This exasperates Perry further.
I say, “I admit I’m curious about him as an artist. That book I read showed a black and white painting of his I liked. I don’t remember the title—”
His tone is sharp as he says, “I don’t own that one. A relative has it.”
I nod.
Silence.
A relative? Conspicuously vague.
He says, “I thought this whole weekend was about, you know, trying to fix this father thing. You said a dying king painted those paintings, and then your note said, ‘remember the king’.”
I keep my face blank and say, “I was trying to get your attention.”
He studies me.
“Wow,” Perry says with a grimace. “Boy, I figured you all wrong. I thought you were going to be Mr. Sneaky Psychologist and secretly dig out all kinds of information about my father, so I wouldn’t catch it. Here I am, offering to answer anything.”
I incline my shoulders slightly. “We can talk about him if you want; I’m not averse. I don’t have any questions, though.”
“I love my dad,” he says again, simpler and stronger. “I don’t talk about him much because I don’t have a lot of great memories of the end. But I feel sad.”
“Okay,” I say, my gaze as soft as his is hard.
At this delicate moment I must give him little reaction; I have to monitor my expressions carefully for the next ten or fifteen minutes while he’s chewing this latest development. I’m in dangerous territory, where a subtle twitch or an overly nonchalant demeanor will convey a clue, a hint that he’s absolutely and completely correct. The whole weekend is about his father.
When Richard Mangin’s coffin descended into the earth, the child version of Perry wept, “I love you! I hate you!” The curse came true as curses do: a dragon arose. After this great abandonment, I imagine Perry often found a reason to walk away from just about everyone at the slightest provocation. Better he leaves them before they leave him.
Perry advertises this lifelong pain more than he knows. We all broadcast our most private miseries in unconscious displays, large and small gestures. Sometimes strangers see it more easily than best friends.
But Perry doesn’t need more blah blah with a therapist. He needs to get off his ass and fucking forgive.
In a sharp voice, he says, “Why did you pretend to steal a duck?”
“Are you sure that’s the tone you want to use?”
Perry scowls, but immediately after, his gaze softens. In the last few hours, he’s been coming around to loving this strange weekend, abusive host and all.
As he takes a deep breath, I imagine his brain fires a rapid communication to his heart: that Perry is not angry, that this irritation is the wrong response. It’s what the brain does in all of us when communicating with the heart, explains why the heart is wrong to feel what it feels. So, move on. If the brain could dictate a memo, I’m sure the last line would conclude, “Because I said so.”
His face melts further as he stares at me, unflinching.
This is good, very good.
I’m delighted Perry is so mercurial in his emotions right now—angry, trusting, happy, and suddenly tense. I tweaked him all weekend toward emotional and physical exhaustion, and we’re only a few hours away from the big showdown. His heart now runs on fumes, weary from loving, withdrawing, embracing, resisting, and then loving even deeper. I’m guessing his heart is currently penning a memo of its own, something like, “Dear Brain, fuck off. I’ve got enough going on without your bullshit.”
Perry says, “I’m sorry. I just—I had these expectations. That you were trying to be my therapist or something.”
“No problem.”
I probably shouldn’t mention that I read psychology textbooks at night to make me sleepy. That particular detail may not provide any comfort.
I stroke the side of his face with my thumb, and he doesn’t flinch with this public display of affection. “You and I had a long day. Not a lot of sleep. If I were you, I’d ask the same questions right now.”
His eyes well up with tears because he really is exhausted. Our King Weekend didn’t start yesterday on Pier 33. It began the minute he picked up my written invitation on Tuesday night.
Perry says in a halting voice, “If I may ask, why pretend to steal a duck today?”
While I’d prefer he not ask this right now, I’m ready with the truth.
“I wanted you to trust me. At the Golden Gate Bridge, your heart trusted me, despite plenty of left-brain proof that I am a criminal and a complete asshole.”
Perry laughs, and he wipes away a tear.
“Oh, man,” he says and wipes the other eye. “I have been racking my brain all afternoon to figure out how that damn duck relates to my father.”
Show nothing.
You’re absolutely right, Perry.
Remember the ducks.
I say, “You needed to learn that you could trust your heart even after your brain disagreed. You passed your kingship test. In case you didn’t notice, you just wiped away a tear. You can cry again.”
This makes him pop out a few more tears.
I say, “Next up, we enjoy dinner, an ocean sunset, and spend our last night together. Tomorrow morning, you greet the dawn as a king and I reveal your king name.”
Perry’s expression changes slightly, relief or triumph, some subtle shade of purple swirling with his fatigued smile.
“I passed?”
I raise my pinot noir. “To ducknapping.”
“Duck
ling
napping,” he adds, clinking my glass to his with a soft and satisfying ping. “I should have known that was the big test. It was pretty horrible.”
“True, true. You know, Perry, if you say the word ‘ping’ just so, the word sounds like the real-world sound.”
Perry lifts his glass. “To King Aabee.”
I raise my glass and respond. “To King Aabee.”
He says, “And to people with fucked-up word issues.”
“Who exactly are we toasting,
dude
?”
He says, “Piiiiiiiiiiiiiing.”
We lean across the table to kiss, and his thick lower lip tastes like red wine.