The Tragic Age (15 page)

I enjoy Beatrix. I always sense that like me, she's on the outside looking in, but unlike me, she's not so much dismayed as she is exasperated by what she sees. The world would be a better place if she was writing the decisions for everyone.

Another thing I like is that Beatrix is always asking me what I'm reading, and when I tell her, chances are she's already read it.

“
Martin Eden
by Jack London,” I'll say.

“The story of a disdainful drudge who thinks the world revolves totally around him,” Beatrix will say.

“It's called individualism,” I'll say.

“It's called nonsense. An egotist so filled with life he has no other option but to kill himself. And then the idiot actually
does
it by jumping off a ship in the middle of the ocean. After making self-aggrandizing speeches for a good half hour, he finally goes down and good riddance to him.”

“Gee, now I don't have to finish it.”

Beatrix also tells me about books that she thinks
I
should be reading. “
Brideshead Revisited.
Explores the act of love by which God calls souls to Himself. Written in 1945 by Evelyn Waugh, who at the age of twenty-three, in a fit of homosexual panic,
also
decided it would be a good idea to drown himself. According to him, he was talked out of it by a jellyfish.”

“Good thing that jellyfish didn't run into Martin Eden.”

Beatrix's lips don't smile, but her eyes do.

“Indeed.”

Beatrix has a photographic memory.

I do too.

Beatrix knows a little bit, sometimes quite a lot, about everything.

I do too.

Which sometimes makes me wonder if I'm not a high-functioning autistic lesbian. Anything's possible though I don't think Beatrix lies awake nights unable to sleep.

Fact.

Thanksgiving dinner is a disaster.

“I think it'd be nice if everyone individually gave thanks for something,” says Mom when we sit down at the dinner table.

“The 49ers's are ahead at the end of the half,” says Gordon, pouring from a bottle of expensive champagne. You can see Mom's jaw clench. The San Francisco 49ers are Dad's favorite football team. By telling us the game's at halftime, Dad's letting us know dinner will be over, at least for him, at the beginning of the third quarter.

We eat. The housekeeper has prepared this massive turkey with all the trimmings with the idea that there will be leftovers. And there will be a lot of leftovers because nobody at the table really
likes
turkey. Or
aligot
mashed potatoes. Or French green beans with caramelized onions. Or pomegranate-cranberry relish. Or a field-greens salad in a white balsamic dressing with crushed, toasted walnuts. Dad might if they were all deep fried.

“It's the tradition,” says Mom.

“Meaning what?” says Dad, checking his watch.

“Meaning the Pilgrims ate it,” says Mom, trying to smile.

“Pilgrims wouldn't have known a green bean if they shit one,” says Dad. “Pilgrims mostly starved to death.”

“Mmm, this is great,” I say, my mouth full. Storm clouds are gathering and I'm trying to head them off at the pass. “Thanks a lot for Happy Thanks-a-lot-giving!”

It doesn't work.

“Well, Gordon,” says Beatrix, pushing oyster stuffing around her plate, “I suppose you're still dressing right these days.” Totally out of nowhere. As if she's been saving it up.

“Dressing left” and “dressing right” are terms used by tailors when fitting suit pants. It refers to the direction a man's balls sag in relation to the zipper and for some reason is Beatrix's way of discussing politics. She seems to feel that liberal or conservative is totally based on which way your dick points.

It's as good a reason as any.

Dad, of course, began dressing solidly right around the same time he realized he had money. Before that he was a member of the “go away and leave me the fuck alone” party. Actually I suppose they're one and the same thing.

“We don't talk politics at the dinner table,” says Dad.

This is because, unlike Gordon, Mom is a liberal who cares about immigrants, war orphans, homeless people, social services, and puppies. I'm not sure if this means Mom's left breast is slightly bigger than the other but, regardless, Mom and Dad are always getting into arguments over politics, especially when Dad points out that although Mom says she cares about all these things, she doesn't do anything about them, not even vote.

“It appears to me,” says Beatrix, “you don't talk about
anything
at the dinner table.”

“What would
you
like to talk about, Bea?” says Mom. She's looking more and more nervous and upset. She really wants holidays to go well, which is why they usually don't.

“Why don't we talk about how many times I've asked you not to call me that,” says Beatrix.

“You're right, I apologize,” says Mom.

“You apologize too much,” says Beatrix. “You either don't mean it or you have identity issues. Which is it?”

“Gordon,” says Mom. “May I speak to you in the kitchen?”

“No,” says Gordon. Which is his way of saying he's not going to touch this with a ten-foot pole. To which Mom gets up and leaves the table and comes back five minutes later with her eyes red. To which Dad leaves the table and comes back ten minutes later with a half-consumed bottle of Willamette Valley pinot noir. To which Mom leaves the table again and this time doesn't come back at all. To which Gordon takes his wine into the family room, where no one ever gathers, to watch football.

“Our family is very odd, Billy,” says Beatrix, as she wipes her mouth with her napkin. “I doubt you'll find much to be amused with in life unless you make it happen yourself.”

“What are your thoughts on breaking into strangers' houses?”

It might be my imagination but I think I detect another one of Beatrix's small smiles. “Knock twice to make sure no one's home.”

I go over to Gretchen's house just in time to see San Francisco lose in the fourth quarter.

 

40

We go over the wall. The house looks expensive from the outside. All stucco and glass. I knock twice, then EZ-pick the lock and push the side door to the kitchen open. We're good at this now. Ephraim moves to the beeping security system and punches in the codes. I move to the phone to wait for the call, if it comes. Twom and Deliza move quickly into the kitchen. It's only when we turn on a light that we realize it's a pigsty. Drawers and cupboards are open. Open cans, milk and juice bottles, and Chinese takeout cartons are on the counters. There are unwashed pans on the stove. The sink is full of grimy dishes and there is the smell of rotting food.

“Maybe the maid didn't come,” says Ephraim, weakly.

“Billy?” We hear Twom call from the other room and we move to join him. He and Deliza stand in the entryway to the living room.

“Whoa…” says Ephraim.

It is beyond badly decorated. Ashtrays overflow. Carpets are soiled. Wine bottles, glasses, and junk are everywhere.

It's as if hyenas live in this house.

“Maybe it's a rental,” says Ephraim.

“Maybe you're an idiot,” says Deliza. “Choosing a house like this.”

“I didn't
know,
” pleads Ephraim.

We don't split up. We move as a group, going from room to room. Beds are unmade. Sheets are stained. You wouldn't lie down for fear of what you might come up with. The bathrooms reek. Discarded clothes and trash are everywhere. There are no computers. There are no photo albums. There is no art on the wall, just faded paint where something once might have hung. The bookshelves are completely empty.

Maybe no one lives here. Maybe even now they're running to save themselves.

“Billy.”

It's Twom. I hadn't realized he left us. He has a look on his face I've never seen before. He takes us to what in another house might be the maid's quarters.

No. Someone lives in this house. Monsters live here. Grendel lives here.

The room smells of piss and shit. Vials of pills, chips, boxes of cold cereal and crackers, and an empty half-gallon bottle of Coke are on the bedside tables.

The old woman's eyes are rheumy. Her thinning hair, the scabs on her scalp, her nightclothes, her bedding—all are beyond sickening. Her skin is green parchment. You can see where she's scratched herself with her ragged nails. Her mouth works. Opens and closes, opens and closes. Like a sucker fish. She makes no sound.

I see a cell phone on the side table. Well beyond the old woman's reach. Using a napkin, I pick it up. I put the phone on speaker. I don't want to get it any closer to my mouth than I have to.

The firemen are the first to arrive. Then the paramedics. The cops come last. We've turned on the alarms before we left, When they force their way in, they go off. A few minutes of it and then neighbors come out onto the street to see what's going on. We join them.

We watch when the medics wheel the old woman out of the house. Her eyes are closed now. She looks asleep. Or dead. I hear somebody whisper to someone else that the woman's caregivers, a married Russian couple hired by her children, often take off for the weekend. What's a few days alone to someone who has no sense of time and never comes out of their room?

 

41

I've come in the house and am heading toward the stairs when I hear Dad call me.

“Billy? Billy, is that you?”

Dad—
Gordon
—is sitting on the couch in the living room. Like me, he also watches TV with the sound off. Maybe it's a genetic thing. There is a glass and a bottle of expensive, single-malt Scotch in front of him. Two thirds of it are gone.

Fact.

A functioning alcoholic is able to maintain a seemingly normal life, all while drinking alcoholically. He is often in denial as to his drinking as are his friends and loved ones. He thinks that drinking expensive wine or spirits means he is not alcoholic. He drinks habitually. He drinks compulsively. He drinks alone.

“Where you been?” says Dad, alone and drinking.

“I've been to a place where parents, when they grow old, are put into the hands of people who don't know or care about them,” I say. “A place where cards that are no longer in play are thrown into the discard pile.”

I don't say that.

“Just out.”

“Still seeing that girl, huh?”

“Her name's Gretchen.” I shouldn't have to remind him.

“I'd jump on that if I were you,” says Dad. He sort of grins as he says it, so I'll know he's joking. I couldn't have imagined the evening getting any worse but, joke or not, the thought of my father jumping on Gretchen makes it official. At that moment I really dislike him and I turn to leave the room.

“Wait a sec.”

When I turn back, Dad is looking me and he looks sad. “Billy, I—kiddo, that was … out of line. Little too much of the ol' whisky-doodle here.”
Whisky-doodle
. He actually calls it that. And then, just when you think he
really
can't make it any more terrible, he does. “Know the worst part about getting old, kiddo? Regret. Things you should have done, things you shouldn't have. Even with all this…” Dad gestures vaguely around the room. “I just always thought…” He trails off.

“You don't
do
anything!” I yell, suddenly furious at him. “You have no job or hobby! You have no friends! You have no reason to live!”

I don't say a word.

Dad stares into space a moment. He sighs. When he looks back at me it's like he's surprised to still find me there. He makes himself smile.

“Just always remember I love you, okay?”

What kills me at this moment is that I know he does. And the thing is, I love him too. Maybe the old woman's kids loved her once as well.

“Okay,” I say.

“G'night, kiddo. Sleep well.”

“I will.”

But I won't. Nightmares have followed me home. I can't help but picture myself old and alone someday, sucking on my tongue as if it's a pacifier. Sleep is out of the question. I go downstairs to the drum room, and accompanied by the Reverend Tholomew Plague, I thrash far into the night.

 

42

This is the day at the end of the first semester that Twom and I get our report cards. The two of us get straight Cs. For different reasons, we're both incredibly proud of ourselves and each other.

 

43

Maybe it's just my opinion but Christmas is the absolute worst time of year imaginable, it really, truly, totally, completely, fucking is.

First of all, about a billion innocent trees get turned into mulch so that mail worldwide can get bogged down with Christmas cards from people you don't know, don't think about, and who don't know or think about you the other 364 days of the year. As a matter of fact, that's why they're usually photo cards of the entire family so you can be reminded what they look like. Mom puts them on the refrigerator. Dad throws them unopened into the wastebasket. On this, I'm with Dad.

Second of all, Christmas decorations start going up right after Thanksgiving. In our neighborhood, it's like a corporate competition to see who can throw the most blinking, blistering lights up on the outside of their palatial house. This is not to mention the reindeer, stars, Santa's sleighs, plastic snowmen, full-blown nativity scenes, and giant menorahs they set up on their lawns. Most people hire
workers
to do it. And then, just like on All Hallows' Eve, people from the less affluent communities, entire extended families of them, come and drive up and down the street, totally stupefied that people anywhere could foot this kind of megawatt electric bill.