We Were the Mulvaneys (53 page)

 

I love you so, Michael darling. Why is it so hard now for you to love me?

These words were whispered, never spoken aloud. And then only in the dark. When, under pretense of sleep, he could pretend not to hear.

Yet he heard, and turned away; didn't care to hear again, so he began to sleep elsewhere in the house. Another wife might have screamed
Bankrupt! Failure! Impotent!
but never Corinne who had given her life to him, and would surely have died for him. Hadn't she sacrificed their only daughter to his blind, raging self-righteousness?

So Michael had stopped coming upstairs to their bedroom, to sleep in that bed, weeks and even months before the move to Marsena. Long before his actual declaration of bankruptcy. Maybe it had nothing to do with the collapse of Mulvaney Roofing and the public humiliation, maybe it was simply the wearing-down of their marriage. Like one of Corinne's “antique” clocks that one day ceased ticking.

Frequently Michael fell asleep on the sofa in the family room, or in Mike's room where the bed was neatly made, surfaces kept free of dust, in readiness for their Marine son should he come home to visit. (He'd come home only twice, in three years. For brief weekend visits.) He slept on top of the bed, inhaling a faint melancholy dogodor—poor Silky, a ghostly presence. Drifting off to sleep amid shiny sports trophies and plaques, framed team photos signed by all the boys, laminated newspaper features and banner-headline clippings devoted to “
mule
”
mulvaney
. In that almost mystical state of consciousness that accompanies just the right degree of drunkenness Michael Mulvaney came to realize
It's a boy's world in America—but only if you're a winner
.

Once he woke with his feet tangled in the bedspread, alert and agitated. Somehow confused thinking
he
was Mule Mulvaney. Damned good-looking kid, but young. Smart-ass. What's required is a few punches to the jaw to wise a kid like that up.

 

Married but no longer married. A husband and father but no longer. He'd taken away with him from the house in Marsena, carelessly dumped into a box with financial papers and documents, a handful of snapshots from Corinne's albums. Stone cold sober, he dared not look at these snapshots; drunk, he had no need.

There were women sympathetic to him, women he'd buy drinks for to whom he spoke not bitterly but bemusedly of his past life—you could sum it up, thirty years of it, in one word:
Betrayal
.

How exactly was he betrayed?—that's nobody's business.

Saying,
I don't discuss my personal life with anybody.

In Rochester, he worked for Ace Roofing & Siding, not regular employment but when they called him. The business was run by a man given to dishonest tactics, cheating on estimates, inflating bills, substituting inferior materials where he knew he could get away with it. Michael Mulvaney saw, and saw that others of the work crew saw, but they said nothing. Ace hired nonunion workers, you had to be grateful. At this time Michael lived on a south-side street above the Golden Pavilion Chinese Restaurant & Takeout where sometimes he ate, pork-fried rice and “chow mein” which were the cheapest dishes on the menu and he'd drink from a bottle in a paper bag placed discreetly beside him in the booth. He was a sunburnt-looking man in his fifties with squinty eyes, deep creases in his cheeks, fleshy-muscled shoulders and arms, a hefty paunch growing out of his midriff like a giant fetus. He wore not workmen's clothes but rayon shirts, gabardine trousers. Not a visored work-cap but a fedora. He chain-smoked Camels, the first and second fingers of his right hand were stained the color of jaundice. Black raging moods swept over him like sudden storms in this part of New York State south of Lake Ontario but when he was in a good mood he was in a
good mood
and let the world know. Smiling at the shy Chinese waiter who looked like a kid of fourteen and even, when he had the cash, tipping generously—a one-dollar bill discreetly tucked beneath his plate. In the Golden Pavilion, sitting in his usual booth, he felt pulsing-warm faded-pink neon light falling upon his face from the sign in the front window like the blessing of a God distant and rapidly receding as in that terrifying vast universe of which his son Patrick used to speak, with glib schoolboy pedantry, a lifetime ago.

Patrick. One who'd betrayed. As young as eleven, that frowning scrutiny had been unnerving. Gone away to fancy Cornell University and never returned. Four weeks before his graduation they'd received from him a terse, typed pronouncement on a sheet of paper with the letterhead
cornell university dept. of biology memo
. The first words as if he'd spat into their faces.
When you read this I will be a thousand miles away.

Corinne had almost fainted, reading these words thinking the boy had killed himself.

And there was Judd. Damn, it was heartbreaking, the mistakes he'd made with his youngest child—who'd turned stubborn, and hotheaded like his dad, moved out of the Marsena house and refused to speak to Michael. Well—let the kid go. He'd be sorry. Maybe he
was
sorry, right now. Serve him right.

And there was Marianne.

He could talk about his sons, his sons who'd betrayed him, but never about his daughter.

Once, he'd bloodied a woman's nose, she'd been pawing through his things and came across the hoard of mostly creased and torn snapshots and waved a snapshot of Marianne in his face asking was this his daughter. Might've killed her, he hadn't been so drunk.

Marianne he'd loved most. Who'd hurt him most. Betrayed. He could not always remember why, exactly. But there was a reason.
Michael Mulvaney always had reasons.
Oh, but never mind about Marianne—have another drink.

It was in the Golden Pavilion that he and Mike Jr. had a meal together. Their first in years, and it would be their last. Late August 1986. How Mike had tracked his elusive father down in Rochester, the elusive father didn't know and didn't inquire. It was a humid-sulfurous evening. About ninety degrees and a single antiquated air-conditioning unit vibrating at the rear of the narrow tunnel of a restaurant. The look in Mike Jr.'s eyes taking in this place his ravaged old dad was bringing him—just downstairs from where he lived! The look in Mike Jr.'s eyes taking in his ravaged old dad. Staring, and swallowing. For a moment speechless. They'd shaken hands, wasn't that what you did? Mike Mulvaney Jr. was a Marine sergeant now, a grown man, in neat pressed civilian clothes and his hair trimmed so it looked sculpted on his head. Yet those were a boy's eyes, a scared-son's eyes, seeing Michael Mulvaney after how many years.

“Not exactly the Blue Moon, eh?”—the old dad laughed wheezily, leading Mike to one of the sticky plastic booths. There was a smell of something brown-scorched in the stale-circulating air. They sat, and the effort began. Mike Jr. had to do most of the talking. He'd driven up from—the information drifted past, lost in the air conditioner's rattling. He was engaged to be married to—the girl's name was something bright and perky ending in
y
. The wedding was scheduled for—whenever. Michael Mulvaney who was playing the role of the ravaged old alcoholic dad in this TV sitcom nodded and grunted and grinned and cupped his hand obligingly to his ear. Blame it on the goddamned air-conditioner, he was missing syllables now and then.

They must have ordered from the stained menus, for food was brought. Mike Jr. had splurged and ordered beef Szechwan-style and prawns in garlic sauce and General's Chicken. No liquor license so the old dad had brought his usual bottle of Gallo wine in a paper bag, poured into one of the teacups, would Mike like some?—thanks, Mike did not. After a moment's hesitation he'd declined buying a six-pack of cold beer up the street to drink with the meal. Explaining he had a long drive back that night to—wherever.

“Well. Good to see you, son.”

“Good to see you, Dad.”

Those eyes so like his own had been, once. A boy's eyes. Gazing at his dad in pity, misery, disbelief.
Dad? My dad? That's my dad? Michael Mulvaney?

Polaroid snapshots were being passed across the table to the shaky-handed dad, or was it the air-conditioning unit that made everything seem to tremble? Dad picked them up, dropped them, squinting and grinning. Hard to see in this wavering light, his eyesight grown unreliable. Nor was it clear why exactly he was being shown these snapshots of happy strangers, why the transaction was important and what sort of response was expected. How seriously human beings took themselves!—it really became clear, when you're asked to examine pictures of strangers. Mike was identifying X, Y, Z. That girl with the name ending in
y
, and some others. Was Mike already married, and this was his new family? A pretty moonfaced girl with caramel-colored hair and bright lips smiling so happily you'd worry her face might crack. Cinched-in waist and heavy full breasts in a shimmering red dress that looked like liquid coalesced on her body. And there was Mike Jr. with this voluptuous girl, good-looking Marine-Mike, arms around each other's waists and both grinning like they'd won the lottery. Other scenes at what looked like a barbecue, unknown men, women, children some of them with caramel-colored hair and moon faces, grinning happy as lunatics on a Sunday outing. “Mighty pret-ty,” the ravaged old dad said, sighing. Pushed the snapshots back at his son after a discreet interval of trying to figure them out.

Son and shaky-handed dad were eating, or going through the motions. Salty-gummy food, tasting of something brown-scorched. Always at the Golden Pavilion they brought you tea in a tin pot though you'd as soon drink warm piss.

Mike talked, and his dad gave every impression of listening, leaning forward, belly creased against the tabletop. In fact he was distracted wanting very badly to maintain his
good mood
in these trying circumstances. The
good mood
had been initiated early that day, as soon as he'd gotten out of bed in fact. An antidote to the other mood which was not good and which had a foul tarry taste. Hadn't worked in two weeks, his money about gone. Well, in fact gone. He'd had an accident, slipped and fell from a ladder onto a concrete drive practically smashing his kneecap, twisting his spine, his neck. Sure they claimed he'd been drinking and it was his fault, the sons of bitches. And the aching in all his joints, really bad in humid weather. And the spongy sensation in his head. But none of this was going to get him down, spoil his
good mood
he deserved. This evening with the only child of his marriage he guessed loved him any longer or at least tolerated him. So maintaining the
good mood
required concentration. Tricky as the performance of a high wire artist for whom the slightest misstep or even hesitation could be fatal. So he had to concentrate on the spacing of wine and food, food and wine, wine, food, and wine, mouthfuls in discreet alternation and succession. Though it was only the liquid that mattered: warm, tart, reverently swallowed, making its way down his gullet into what felt like the very cavity of his heart, empty, cavernous as the Grand Canyon, and yearning to be filled. Gallo, red. Sour-sickish aftertaste but cheap, couple of bucks a bottle. Did the job.

Then these words sprang out, with no warning.

The way he'd grabbed the youngest kid, Judd—slammed him against a wall.

“Eh, son—you're looking at your father like he's some kind of dog.”

But he was grinning, chuckling at the kid's face. For Mike Jr., taken by surprise, looked guilty as hell.

Mike said quickly, “No, Dad! Hell—” his big-boned handsome face reddening, how like his mother, that instant blush, acknowledgment he'd been found out. Saying, shrugging, with a frowning glance at other customers in the restaurant, “—it's just that I have a hard time, sometimes, places like this, I mean the civilian world—not you, Dad, really. On the base you get used to a different atmosphere. Off base, things are—” staring at a couple close by, the woman obese, sallow-skinned, some sort of glittery rag tied around her head, laughing and swilling noodles out of a bowl, the man in a paint-stained undershirt, crinkly-haired, pigeon-chested, baring his gums and laughing loudly, drunk. In the booth behind Mike, an elderly Chinese man was coughing in prolonged spasms, rapid staccato barks that caused the Mulvaneys' booth to shake. “—kind of coming apart, you know? No purpose to them. Nobody seems to know what the hell they're doing, or why. Why they're even
alive
.” His voice gave him away, quavering with contempt.

Ravaged old dad said, chuckling, “
You
do, eh?”

Long as he had his Gallo in its upright bottle snug against his thigh. Mellow, riding the crest of whatever happened.

“That's right, sir! I do.”

“Which is—?”

“A Marine fulfills his responsibility, basically.”

“Which is—?”

“On a day's basis, his assignment.”

“Which is—?”

“What his superior officer tells him to do.”