Lamentation (6 page)

Watching Aiden play, I thought about the day he was born, seeing him for the first time, the overwhelming feelings that washed over me. I’d understood kids were an extension of you. Circle of life,
The Lion King
and all that. But that’s not it. They’re not an extension of you. They
are
you. Like, literally. I stared down at that tiny, squirming thing, crying and fussing, and when I looked in his eyes, I didn’t see pieces of me, I saw me. Actually
me
. This newer, better, cleaner version who would now be running the race, and my sole job as a father was to make sure he had the tools to succeed.

Driving Jenny and our son home from the hospital, I was gung ho, up for the challenge, confident I could rise to the occasion like my dad had done. Only I didn’t. I wasn’t him. I couldn’t get out of my own way.
No matter how hard I tried to go all in, something held me back, like a governor on a motorbike restricting full throttle. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t a lack of love. I’d never loved anything so much in my whole life. But despite that love, I was unable to produce, which had made me feel like a failure.

“Cheer up. It’s not that cold.”

I craned my neck and saw Gerry Lombardi, Chris’ old wrestling coach, looming behind me. Bundled in a North Face ski jacket and gloves, unruly gray eyebrows poking like brush bristles. Shiny cheeks and crinkling eyes, he smiled kindly. The guy was forever smiling. He had these big horse teeth that bucked out, which made him appear to always be happy. Hell, maybe he really was. A broad-shouldered man like his sons, but older now, with a chronic bad back and abysmal posture, Mr. Lombardi appeared to be shriveling, hunched over, like an old lady with a dowager hump.

With strained, creaking effort, Mr. Lombardi sat beside me, gazing over the playground.

He motioned to Aiden. “Getting big, eh? It’s a fun age. I remember when Michael and Adam were that big. Just starting to find their way in the world, coming into their own, developing distinct personalities. Y’know, I could tell even then that Michael would go into some kind of public service.”

I glanced over skeptically.

“No, it’s true! The boy loved forms. When the UpStart kids would come by the house for pizza parties and sleepovers, Michael would make everyone fill out forms. A born bureaucrat.”

“He was writing forms when he was two?”

Mr. Lombardi squinted into the sun, cheeks pinking in the wind. “Well, maybe he was older than that,” he replied, softly. “And Adam? He loved to build things. Erecting Lincoln Log resorts,
LEGO
skyscrapers. I’d catch him bossing friends around, delegating responsibility. Like a little foreman.” Mr. Lombardi laughed to himself, like he was privately recalling a terrific, precious memory that he’d always hold close to his heart, the kind I was sure to miss out on.

He scowled at me. “There’s that look again.” He gestured toward Aiden, who squealed as the older boys spun him around. “It’s a lovely winter’s
day. You’re here with your son. What could possibly be so bad? You hear all those boys laughing? Have you ever heard such a beautiful sound?”

I pulled my cigarettes, trying to smile. “Just got some bad news, Mr. Lombardi. No big deal.”

“Gerry,”
he said, clamping a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry about your bad news. But—” he stabbed a stout finger at Aiden, “
that
little boy there makes it all worthwhile. Don’t you forget that!”

“I won’t, Mr. Lombardi. I mean, Gerry.”

He sighed. “Trouble with the ex?”

I shook the match head. “Sort of.”

“It’s so hard on these little ones coming from broken homes. See it all the time with UpStart. No matter how much parents love their children, it isn’t the same when Mom and Dad aren’t together. How old is he again?”

“He’ll be two in a couple months.”

“That’s a
bit
young for UpStart. But in a few years, you might want to think about enrolling him. Getting to at-risk kids early is key. Wait too long, there’s the danger of drugs or gangs, or worse.”

“Aiden’s not ‘at risk,’” I said.

“You know, eighty-five percent of the boys in UpStart come from single-parent households. It’s true. Statistically, boys who grow up in a single-parent household are almost fifty times more likely to experiment with drugs before they are in high school. Did you know that? Fifty times! And we now know a large component of addiction is genetic.” He shifted his gaze to me, touchingly. “How is your brother?”

“Good,” I said. “He just opened up a business for himself, in fact.” Which was, technically, true.

Mr. Lombardi raised his bristly gray brows. “That’s great to hear.”

With much effort, he pushed himself back up, smiling over the sea of cavorting boys, before fervently gripping my hand. “You think about what I said.” He pointed at Aiden. “When you’re ready, you enroll your boy in UpStart. We’ll take good care of him.”

I don’t think I did as good a job of hiding my stress from Aiden on the way back. I knew Mr. Lombardi had only been trying to help—he was really active in UpStart—but it struck a sour chord. What if Jenny and I already were doing irreparable harm to Aiden, simply by not being together? I didn’t think a two-year-old child was in danger of ending up like Chris, but who knows how that works? Lombardi scared the hell out of me. I was a nervous wreck by the time I’d dropped off Aiden at Jenny’s.

Brody’s truck was gone. Jenny asked if I wanted to come in for coffee and talk. I told her I had to go to work. Then I gave my boy an extra-long hug.

I rang Tom and was in the middle of leaving a message, telling him that if anything came up, anything at all, I sure could use the work, when the call cut out. Didn’t matter. He’d already told me the score. But I needed to be moving, feeling like I was doing something. In times like these, doing anything is always preferable to doing nothing.

I stared out my fogged-up windshield, panning over the cluster of dumpy efficiencies and converted attic apartments like mine, the spattering of depressing bars and discount retail stores, all crammed into a claustrophobic downtown center. I’d lived here practically my entire life. Even when I went to stay with my aunt and uncle down in Concord after the accident, I was never really gone, taking bus rides back on the weekends until I was old enough to drive myself, calling my best friend Charlie to stay up on the latest. I attended all the Ashton High proms and homecomings. I could never escape Ashton. I had remained tethered to its earth like an old farmer rooted to withering, diminished crops, simply because I couldn’t think of anything better to do.

It wasn’t yet eleven o’clock. I had no work for the foreseeable future, which meant I finally had the chance to do all the shit I’d been complaining about not having the time to do. Only, I couldn’t think of a damned thing.

I didn’t feel like going back to my shithole apartment and being alone, watching the same DVDs I’d already seen half a dozen times and drinking beer until it was time for a nap, so I called up Charlie, even though I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be out of bed yet. For
Charlie, Friday nights meant tying one on in order to forget another soul-sucking week working for the phone company. He’d be passed out till three, at least. He didn’t pick up. I headed there anyway.

I’d known Charlie since elementary school, and when I’d come back from Concord for the weekends, I’d often stay at his house, which he inherited from his mother after she’d died of cancer his senior year. I didn’t understand how he could still live there. Even if the bank hadn’t swooped in and snatched our house, I doubted I could’ve stayed long. It felt weird roaming the same rooms where people you cared about, but who now were gone, had once called your name.

A split-level on over an acre and a half of land, Charlie’s place was before the foothills in the low-lying plains that stretched for miles, countryside awash in a sea of white and spired evergreens. His mom’s old red Subaru was still parked in front of the garage, tires deflated, shell coated in grime and tree sap. Flowerbeds, long left untended, were now overrun with brush and bramble, buried beneath fallen limbs from the storm.

I rapped on the aluminum frame of the screen door. Doorbell hadn’t worked in years. No answer. I pounded with the ball of my fist. When Charlie crashed, he crashed hard.

I knew he was home. His repair van was parked drunkenly beside the grounded riding mower that he’d given up on fixing. Last night he’d asked me to stop by the Dubliner, the pub along East Main where he played in a dart league, the primary social activity in his life. I might’ve done so had it not been for Chris. Probably not, though. I didn’t have much patience for the bar scene any more. I preferred to drink my beer alone, without being subjected to the inane banter of idiots. The girls who went to the Dubliner kept getting younger and easier, which sounds good on the surface, except that I didn’t give a damn about singing competitions or vampires, and it got depressing after a while, pretty heads full of rocks.

Even when I’d pick up a girl, winning was still losing. After a regrettable night of pissing away money on some dopey girl I didn’t even like, I’d wake up in a hungover fog, having forgotten who was in my
bed. When I’d roll over and see that it wasn’t Jenny, my heart would break all over again.

“What time is it?” Charlie asked, shielding his eyes from the harsh morning glare.

“Almost eleven.”

“Jesus Christ. I was sleeping.”

“Try waking at a normal hour.”

His head looked like it’d been trampled by the business end of a harvester, deep pillow marks grooved into his puffy face, the kind you get from passing out and remaining in the same position for hours. He whisked me inside and then shut the door, sealing us in musty darkness.

Charlie hadn’t redecorated since his mom died, and the house retained that old-lady feel, all décor left over from the 1970s—paisley print sofas and wagon-wheel coffee tables, shitty paintings that you could buy for a quarter at any garage sale up here, because at one time or another every retiree in New Hampshire tries their hand at painting. The spice rack that hung by the sink housed herbs that had to be at least thirty years old. Don’t know why he needed spices. Charlie didn’t cook.

Charlie scratched his naked, pink belly, which slung over his gray sweats like a jumbo canned ham, before retying the drawstring, as if that would make a difference. He’d started to inherit that classic drunkard’s face, where the head seems to swell a bit, pulling back roots at the temple, nose blossoming, complexion permanently rosy, entire visage swollen like a bad allergic reaction. Charlie used to be a good-looking guy, but he was seriously slipping.

Still not fully awake, Charlie dragged his bare feet to the cupboards, swatting aside bags of chips and packages of cookies, other junk foods, searching for the coffee tin. “Where were you last night?”

I sat at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. “Had to pick up my brother from the police station.”

“What’d he do this time?”

“Does it matter?” I rearranged the salt and pepper shakers, fingered the saucer he used for an ashtray. “Jenny and Aiden are moving to Rutland.”

“Vermont? When?” Charlie filled a pot under the faucet.

“Soon as Brody finds a house.”

Charlie chuckled as he sifted coffee grounds. “I wouldn’t sweat it. That dipshit couldn’t find his own ass with both hands.”

“Supposedly he’s got this manager’s gig waiting for him down there. Foreman position. Been in the works a while, I think.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Charlie flipped the switch. The rich smells of brewing coffee wafted over the small room. “Either way, you’ve got plenty of time.” He dug out the sugar, spooned some into a bowl. “Can’t buy a house overnight. Gotta get a loan. There’s a mortgage and pre-approval, realtors, banks, short sales, foreclosures, haggling on a price. It takes a long time, man. Fisher’s going through it right now, trying to sell his mother’s house.”

“Fisher’s back?”

“No. Still lives in Concord. Just up here helping with the sale. Taking forever.” Charlie leaned against the counter. “If they haven’t even started looking yet, could be a year or more.”

“But it’s going to happen,” I said. “Eventually. Even if it’s a year or more, it’s still going to happen.”

“This was your problem back in high school,” Charlie said. “You undersell yourself.”

“We didn’t go to high school together.”

“Like you weren’t back every weekend. Man, you never left this place.” Charlie winked. “But you should’ve.”

“And gone where?”

“You were the smartest guy I knew,” Charlie said. “You read actual books, took school serious, got good grades. And you were creative too. Remember that story you wrote? The one about your parents going on vacation and leaving you with your brother, and he locked you under the porch with nothing to eat but spiders?”

“I was goofing around.”

“It was funny as hell. You gave me that story up at the reservoir, and in the fall I passed it around to everyone in class. We busted our guts over it. You could’ve been an author or something. Nobody
thought up shit like you did. You had talent. Could’ve gone to college, somewhere far from here. California or whatever.”