The Portable Veblen (42 page)

“Marion?” he said abruptly. “We need to tell Paul what happened. It’s time he knows. We’ve screwed him up.”

“What happened when?”

He felt a flash of anger, for there was nothing else that had
happened
compared to this.

“When Justin was born, Marion.”

She opened her purse and looked into it, as if trying to locate a secret passageway to escape through.

“Why?” she cried. “What good would it do? Can’t you leave it alone?”

“Marion,” he said. “We feel so guilty over Justin’s birth we can’t even talk about it. That’s what Paul grew up with, the feeling something wasn’t right. We were always so busy with Justin, trying to make up for our mistakes that we hung him out to dry.”

“We didn’t make a mistake,” Marion said. “We did everything exactly right.”

“We’ll never know, and that’s why we’re doomed to wonder.”

“That’s all we need is for Paul to know.”

“Marion, he’s more capable of forgiveness and understanding than we’ve given him credit for. We’re not giving him the chance to grow.”

“I stopped trusting myself,” Marion said quietly. “I didn’t want to decide anything anymore. Here’s one more thing to decide.”

“Let me decide,” Bill said.

      25

T
HE
C
YBORG

I
n her home office before her monitor, Cloris was reassuring her former husband that reporters were not bothering their son and that she was more than happy to put him on a plane to Washington tomorrow.

No, of course she hadn’t hit the idiot on purpose. It was a huge pain in the ass and her father wasn’t speaking to her and she didn’t want to answer any more questions or she might explode.

Morris had been creeping along the wall, holding Paul’s device as if it were one of the four-barreled guns in the cyborg game.
“Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!”
He wasn’t listening to the words his mother was saying, but he registered the tone—definitely cyborg.

“Don’t give me that. He gets more attention than any child should.”

“I think you need to take a look at yourself, Cloris,” said her ex-husband.

“Morris, get over here and tell your father you’re ready to go home.”

Morris didn’t come. Cloris was rocking violently in her ergonomic executive chair, siphoning liquid from a large tumbler.

“Morris?” called the cyborg father. “Come here, son. I’d like to see you.”

Morris began to shuffle around the perimeter of the room, keeping his back on them, trying to figure out which of his special powers to use.

“I’ve made an appointment with Patricia’s psychologist. The one her son sees.”

“What about sports?” Morris’s father said. “If you could just get him busy on a team of some kind, soccer, Little League, maybe swimming?”

“Do you know how stressful that would be? He doesn’t want to do anything normal like that. He will not go.”

“Son, you need to get yourself active, okay?”

“How soon we forget. Last year he agreed to the soccer then moved around the field like a robot.”

Morris was directly behind his mother’s chair now, going through his defense options:
Teleport? Shape change? Energy shield? Perplex?

“I don’t have that kind of trouble, Cloris. Morris is more than happy to play tennis when he’s here. Aren’t you, son?”

At that moment, Morris spun around and placed the Pneumatic Turbo Skull Punch on the top of his mother’s head, and squeezed the trigger. This was the perfect weapon to use on a cyborg. There was a loud report and the device kicked back in his hands, pinching out a bone-white disk, cascading with blond hair and a strip of skin.

“Cloris?” Morris’s father said. “Cloris, what is it?”

“What . . . was . . . that . . . sound?” Cloris said, in a slow, rasping voice.

Then she crumpled forward, fluid spilling from the large, vulnerable opening (LVO) on the top of her head.

“Morris? What is happening to your mother? Morris!”

“Mommy?” Morris cried. “Want to play a game?”

      26

W
E
C
AN
B
E
T
OGETHER

A
ccording to Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, the Swiss analyst and author of
Marriage: Dead or Alive
, a wedding is more than a party or a legality. It’s no less than a boxing ring, two people facing off, acknowledging their separate identities rather than their union, in the company of all the people who lay claim to them. A wedding is the time and place to recognize the full clutch of the past in the negotiation of a shared future.

Try devoting a few pages to that,
Brides
magazine!

Three days before the wedding, Linus called to say Melanie wasn’t feeling well, that her blood pressure was sky-high, that her ankles were as big as hams, and that her heartbeat was as irregular as everything else about her physical being. But he assured her they’d be there. (
As if they wouldn’t?
Veblen wondered.)

On Friday, Bebe Kaufman called to report difficulties getting Rudgear into the van assigned to deliver him, and Veblen had to implore him over the phone.

“Did I say I was coming?” he asked, vaguely.

“Yes, Dad, you did.”

“I mess up everything, don’t I?”

“No. Dad, it’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive and you can watch the History channel when you get here, how about that?”

“I get a little tired of the History channel.”

“Fine, you can watch whatever you want. Get in the car and I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Veblen was meanwhile stitching her dress and pressing open the seams. The dress was a simple white A-line made of rayon that had cost her all of thirty-two dollars in materials, and seemed to fit nicely, though she hemmed one sleeve higher than the other and had to rip it out with the expensive Swiss seam ripper and do it again. She wasn’t very good at sewing, but did her best.

Then Albertine, with her long legs and horn-rimmed glasses, arrived and set up in Veblen’s kitchen to begin food preparations, which she had offered to do as soon as she’d heard about the date and plan.

“Two girls from Cobb, doing the job,” Albertine drawled, tying up her hair.

Veblen said, “Just promise that whatever you witness today and tomorrow, that you won’t hold it against me more than anything else in your arsenal.”

“I’ll try my best,” vowed Albertine.

By midafternoon the Vreelands came to Tasso Street, and Bill stayed with Justin a long time in the car before bringing him in. Marion began to help in the kitchen without a moment’s pause.

“Oh, my, you girls have done such a good job organizing everything,” she said.

Paul would be back soon. He was out doing errands with his best man, Hans Borg.

The Sunny Hill van arrived at two-thirty, and a muscular man with a shaved head helped Rudgear out of the back. Rudgear wore one of the new plaid shirts Veblen had brought him, blue jeans, flip-flops, and a Panama hat. “Hey, Dad, you’re looking good! Come in.” She took his arm, which was covered with Band-Aids to hide bleeding spots in his thin skin.

Bill came forward and shook Rudgear’s hand and told him what a great daughter he had, though Rudgear did not comment, perhaps because he’d never registered Veblen as his daughter, which made sense given how little time they’d spent together, but also, because of how much work she’d put into being a daughter, was kind of sad. He straightened up at the sight of Marion, and even more so at the sight of Albertine, but when he was introduced to Justin he stepped back and said, “What are you staring at?”

Marion said, “Rudge, Justin is a special person and when he stares it just means he’s interested, right, Justy?”

Rudgear said, “Don’t get too interested, buddy.”

Veblen said, “Dad, how about some pretzels?”

“I’d like that, ma’am,” he said, taking a spot at her table.

She pulled a heavy bowl from the cupboard and the bag of pretzels from another, pulled the plastic apart, and sent pretzels cascading across the counter and floor. She rubbed her eyes, felt a pain in her collarbone. She poured the remaining pretzels in the bowl and for a moment envied them for being senseless scraps of gluten. She noticed how uneven her fingernails were on the eve of her wedding. What a clod she was! It had never occurred to her to do anything about them.

Music came from her living room, Jefferson Airplane’s “We Can Be Together,” which was Justin’s favorite song.

“Here you go,” Veblen said, bringing Rudgear the pretzels and a cool glass of water.

“Thanks much. Nice bowl,” said Rudgear.

“Thanks.”

“Used to know a kid who had a voice,” he said.

“Oh, really? You mean, in Waukegan?”

“Yep,” said Rudgear.

“‘Tear down the walls! Tear down the walls!’”
Justin sang.

Rudgear winced. “Are we prisoners here?”

“No, Dad. Would you like to take a walk?”

“Yeah. I better use the facilities.”

“Back there,” Veblen said, fearing he would crawl out the window and run away. Well, the window didn’t really open so he was trapped.

“Veblen!” called Marion. “Do you have any oven mitts?”

“Somewhere. I usually use dish towels.”

“Veb? Do you have salt?” said Albertine. “The shaker’s out.”

“Try the cupboard over the stove. We might have to get some.”

“Veblen, do you mind if we move the furniture around in the living room? If Justy can dance he’ll get rid of some energy and that will be good for everybody,” Bill said.

“Sure, go ahead,” said Veblen, and the song started up again, twice as loud. The cottage shook under Justin’s feet.

Rudge returned to the room, shrinking from the noise. “Lord, have mercy,” he cried out, as if in pain.

“Rudge, don’t you like music?” called Bill.

“No. Is that what you call it?”

“Bill, maybe turn it down a little?” Marion asked.

“I need some air,” said Rudge, moving for the door.

“We’ll turn it down, Rudge, no problem,” Bill said, and Justin reached out and touched his arm.

“Get your paws off me!” Rudge shouted, even more desperately.

Justin latched on to Rudge’s sleeve, whereupon Rudge took hold of Justin’s arm and twisted it like a peg. Justin screamed.

“Hey, none of this!” Bill said.

“Dad, stop it!” Veblen cried.

“To hell with all of you!” Rudge yelled, and charged out the door.

“Dad!” cried Veblen. “Come back!”

Justin jumped up and down like a jackhammer.
“He hurt me! He hurt me! He hurt me! He hurt me!”

She cleared the cottage in time to see Rudgear running to the end of Tasso Street, where he disappeared down the bank of the San Francisquito Creek.

Okay, no big deal! Probably lots of people had to chase their parents to get them to their weddings, at least metaphorically. She smiled for a second, and then she started to laugh.

A cramp seemed to be forming around her heart.
Did the cramp go round the heart—or not?
She wondered if she could get a bunch of intellectuals excited about it.

At the arroyo’s edge, she could not see her father or tell which direction he’d taken, so she ran along the edge, surveying the historic gully next to which Gaspar de Portola and his men camped during their 1769 exploration of California. An acorn woodpecker worked on a tree. “Dad, I’m worried about your blood sugar levels. Where are you?” she called out.

“Dad?” she cried out. “I need you!” Maybe this was the wrong thing to say, he didn’t like being needed. “Dad?” Maybe that was wrong as well. “Rudgear!” she tried, and then slid down the bank.

“Well, this is swell. Why are you doing this?” she cried. Didn’t anyone care how she felt, didn’t anyone care if her wedding was fun for her? She had an actual hair appointment coming up, Albertine had insisted on it, though her hair never held a style, was always lank and floppy. Now she’d probably miss it, but who cared. No one cared, that’s who!

“Stop,”
she told herself, trying to tap her resources. “Stop.” She sat on an uprooted log, typing on her thighs to mend.

When you’re weary, feeling small

Even on a phantom keyboard, typing did so much to alleviate stress!

When tears are in your eyes . . .

Faster!

. . . I will dry them all

Through her wet lashes she saw lilies embedded in the mud shale bank, just like the ones around her cottage, and wondered how they got here. Possibly transplanted by squirrels. Creeping snowberry and a few saplings of dogwood grew along the bank too. Gazing through the fluttering leaves, she saw geese overhead
in a V, at such an altitude they made no sound or ripple. Then came a rustling in an oak, a shredding of bark, and a wiry cry, much like a tin noisemaker spinning at a New Year’s party. Next thing she knew the squirrel was perched on a small tuft of dry grass protruding from the sandstone embankment, staring right at her!

“Ah, it’s you! Boy, am I glad to see you!”

She didn’t even have to squint to make it real.

Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!

“What are you trying to say?” She coughed, and noted the round outline of something the size of a grapefruit, flat, rusted, jutting up through the alluvium; she dug her fingers in around it and kept wiggling it until it came loose. It was a large can, mostly rusted, with some print still visible—Hawaiian Punch. The top of the can had been punctured by a church key, in two triangles on either side.

“Oh my gosh, this is from such a long time ago. I remember gagging this stuff down at school parties. I remember someone using the church key thing and asking my mother why you had to do it on both sides, and how I felt proud that she thought it was a good question and how she explained it released the pressure to flow better.” She drifted into thoughts about that time in her life, when her mother’s knowledge seemed so potent, there was no need to go anywhere else for the truth. Then she detected something else, the size of a ring, caked in dirt, and she dug it out and brushed it off. It was a ring, all right, possibly made of silver, with suns and moons pressed into it, and even with the dirt caked on, it fit her ring finger perfectly. “Hey, I can’t believe it. I’ll have to wash it
and see, but I think I like this ring!” She smiled and said, “You wanted me to find this, didn’t you!”