Then MINE IT!Kamen

Two days later, when Jack came by to ask if I wanted to run errands, I said I wanted to go to a bookstore and buy a book of Salman Dalí ’s art.

Jack laughed. “I think you mean Salvador Dalí, ” he said. “Unless you’re thinking about the guy who wrote the book that got him in so much hot water. I can’t remember the name of it.”

“The Satanic Verses, ” I said at once. The mind’s a funny monkey, isn’t it?

When I got back with my book of prints — it cost a staggering one hundred and nineteen dollars, even with my Barnes & Noble discount card, good thing I’d saved a few million out of the divorce for myself — the MESSAGE WAITING lamp of my answering machine was flashing. It was Ilse, and the message was cryptic only at first listen.

“Mom’s going to phone you, ” she said. “I did my best talking, Dad — called in every favor she owed me, added my very best pretty-please and just about begged Lin, so say yes, okay? Say yes. For me.”

I sat down, ate a Table Talk pie I’d been looking forward to but no longer wanted, and leafed through my expensive picture-book, thinking — and I’m sure this wasn’t original — Well hello, Dalí. I wasn’t always impressed. In many cases I thought I was looking at the work of a talented smartass who was doing little more than passing the time. Yet some of the pictures excited me and a few frightened me the way my looming conch shell had. Floating tigers over a reclining nude woman. A floating rose. And one picture, Swans Reflecting Elephants, that was so strange I could barely look at it… yet I kept flipping back to look some more.

And what I was really doing was waiting for my soon-to-be-ex-wife to call and invite me back to St. Paul, for Christmas with the girls. Eventually the phone rang, and when she said I’m extending this invitation against my better judgment I resisted the urge to smash that particular hanging curveball out of the park: And I’m accepting it against mine. What I said was I understand that. What I said was How does Christmas Eve sound? And when she said That’s fine, some of the I’m-covered-up-and-ready-to-fight had gone out of her voice. The argument that might have nipped Christmas with the Family in the bud had been averted. Which did not make this trip back home a good idea.

MINE IT, Kamen had said, and in big capital letters. I suspected that by leaving now I might kill it, instead. I could come back to Duma Key… but that didn’t mean I’d get my groove back. The walks, the pictures. One was feeding the other. I didn’t know exactly how, and I didn’t need to know.

But Illy: Say yes. For me. She knew I would, not because she was my favorite (Lin was the one who knew that, I think), but because she had always been satisfied with so little and so seldom asked for anything. And because when I listened to her message, I remembered how she’d started to cry that day she and Melinda had come out to Lake Phalen, leaning against me and asking why it couldn’t be the way it was. Because things never are, I think I replied, but maybe for a couple of days they could be… or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Ilse was nineteen, probably too old for one last childhood Christmas, but surely not too old to deserve one more with the family she’d grown up with. And that went for Lin, too. Her survival skills were better, but she was flying home from France yet again, and that told me something.

All right, then. I’d go, I’d make nice, and I would be sure to pack Reba, just in case one of my rages swept over me. They were abating, but of course on Duma Key there was really nothing to rage against except for my periodic forgetfulness and shitty limp. I called the charter service I’d used for the last fifteen years and confirmed a Learjet, Sarasota to MSP International, leaving at nine o’clock AM on the twenty-fourth of December. I called Jack, who said he’d be happy to drive me to Dolphin Aviation and pick me up again on the twenty-eighth. And then, just when I had all of my ducks in a row, Pam called to tell me the whole thing was off.

Vi

Pam’s father was a retired Marine. He and his wife had relocated to Palm Desert, California, in the last year of the twentieth century, settling in one of those gated communities where there’s one token African-American couple and four token Jewish couples. Children and vegetarians are not allowed. Residents must vote Republican and own small dogs with rhinestone collars, stupid eyes, and names that end in i. Taffi is good, Cassi is better, and something like Rififi is the total shit. Pam’s father had been diagnosed with rectal cancer. It didn’t surprise me. Put a bunch of white assholes together and you’re going to find that going around.

I did not say this to my wife, who started off strong and then broke down in tears. “He’s started the chemo, but Momma says it might already have metas… mesass… oh, whatever that fucking word is, I sound like you! ” And then, still sniffing but sounding shocked and humbled: “I’m sorry, Eddie, that was terrible.”

“No, it wasn’t, ” I said. “It wasn’t terrible at all. And the word is metastasized.”

“Yes. Thank you. Anyway, they’re doing the surgery to take out the main tumor tonight.” She was starting to cry again. “I can’t believe this is happening to my Dad.”

“Take it easy, ” I said. “They do miracles these days. I’m Exhibit A.”

Either she didn’t consider me a miracle or didn’t want to go there. “Anyway, Christmas here is off.”

“Of course.” And the truth? I was glad. Glad as hell.

“I’m flying out to Palm tomorrow. Ilse is coming Friday, Melinda on the twentieth. I’m assuming… considering the fact that you and my father never really saw eye to eye…”

Considering the fact that we had once almost come to blows after my father-in-law had referred to the Democrats as “the Commiecrats, ” I thought that was putting it mildly. I said, “If you’re thinking I don’t want to join you and the girls for Christmas in Palm Desert, you’re correct. You’ll be helping financially, and I hope your folks will understand that I had something to do with that—”

“I hardly think this is the time to drag your goddam checkbook into the discussion! ”

And the anger was back, just like that. Jack, almost out of his stinking little box. I wanted to say Why don’t you go fuck yourself, you loudmouth bitch. But I didn’t. At least partly because it would have come out loudmouf birch or maybe broadmouth lurch. I somehow knew this.

Still, it was close.

“Eddie? ” She sounded truculent, more than ready to get into it if I wanted to.

“I’m not dragging my checkbook into anything, ” I said, carefully listening to each word. They came out all right. That was a relief. “I’m just saying that my face at your father’s bedside would not be likely to speed his recovery.” For a moment the anger — the fury — almost added that I hadn’t seen his face at mine, either. Once more I managed to stop the words, but by then I was sweating.

“All right. Point taken.” She paused. “What will you do for Christmas, Eddie? ”

Paint the sunset, I thought. Maybe get it right.

“I believe that if I’m a good boy, I may be invited to Christmas dinner with Jack Cantori and his family, ” I said, believing no such thing. “Jack’s the young fellow who works for me.”

“You sound better. Stronger. Are you still forgetting things? ”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember, ” I said.

“That’s very funny.”

“Laughter’s the best medicine. I read it in Reader’s Digest. ”

“What about your arm? Are you still having phantom sensations? ”

“Nope, ” I lied, “that’s pretty well stopped.”

“Good. Great.” A pause. Then: “Eddie? ”

“Still here, ” I said. And with dark red half-moons in the palms of my hands, from clenching my fists.

There was a long pause. The phone lines no longer hiss and crackle as they did when I was a kid, but I could hear all the miles sighing gently between us. It sounded like the Gulf when the tide is out. Then she said, “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

“I am, too, ” I said, and when she hung up, I picked up one of my bigger shells and came very close to heaving it through the screen of the TV. Instead, I limped across the room, opened the door, and chucked it across the deserted road. I didn’t hate Pam — not really — but I seemed to still hate something. Maybe that other life.

Maybe only myself.

Vii

ifsogirl88 to EFree19
9: 05 AM
December 23

Dear Daddy, The docs aren’t saying a lot but I’m not getting a real good vibe about Grampy’s surgery. Of course that might only be Mom, she goes in to visit Grampa every day, takes Nana and tries to stay “upbeat” but you know how she is, not the silver lining type. I want to come down there and see you. I checked the flights and can get one to Sarasota on the 26th. It gets in at 6: 15 PM your time. I could stay 2 or 3 days. Please say yes! Also I could bring my prezzies instead of mailing them. Love…

Ilse