kind of a contest? Are you with the radio? Am I winning something?' They don't come much dumber than Wendy Sidawell. She's just your father's type. I asked her what color her hair is and she said 'The hair on my head?' When I asked Winnona Spears she threatened me with a lawsuit. The two of them are running neck and neck in my book. Which do you think it is?'
I'm spraying the oven and the fumes are making me dizzy. I back away, frightened that I might tell the truth. W.S. Wife's sister Aunt Margery. Even if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes the 'Sack of Hammers' would have given her away. 'I still think it was Wanda Sparks,' I say. Wanda Sparks was the one W.S. whose phone has been disconnected. 'I think that after he died she packed up and left town. I think she's probably living somewhere out west, somewhere in the desert. I think she's maybe in a rehab center, trying to pick up the pieces.'
I'd like for my mother to drop the whole thing, forget it, leave it alone. I try to lead her in another direction but I can't stop thinking about Nick. Why would he have taken off with that TV set when he hardly ever watched it? I was always the one to turn it on. Then he would ask me to get up and change the channel, wanting, I guess, to watch me naked and bending over. Perhaps it was just a prop.
'Make the thing stop talking now,' he would say. 'Only the picture if you want it there.'
'The thing to do is to call them both and have you listen to their voices,' my mother says. 'We'll give them a call later tonight, when their guards are down. You call them and say you're Les Poppins's son, then we'll hear what they have to say. Use that little-boy voice of yours while I listen in on the other line. Tell them your father just died and we'll flush them out, the bitches.'
I'm bucking for a way out when my mother's sister Margery pops in. That's Margery's word, 'popped,' as if she's the cork in a bottle of champagne, the symbol of fun Margery has just re-turned from an AA meeting. She goes twice a week as a show of strength for her third husband, Chet Wallace, an alcoholic real estate broker. Margery opens the door, 'Yoohoo!' and she says to me, 'Dale, run upstairs and bring your tired old aunt a beer. After three hours of hearing those people whining about it, I need a drink.' She removes her coat and shakes it as though she were provoking a bull. 'Goddamn, those alcoholics can smoke quit drinking so they can turn around and die from cancer. I leave those meetings with my clothes stinking like they're woven from cigarette butts.' She takes a seat on my mother's folding chair, spreading the coat over herself like a bib. 'Are you people cold or is it just me? Jesus, it's cold in here. No wonder you can't keep a tenant. Dale, did I ask you for a beer or did I not?' I love to make her ask me at least twice as it always makes the request sound more desperate: booze, booze, booze, booze. The longest I've held out is five times.
'Dale, go on now, get your aunt a beer,' my mother says.
I give Margery my 'I have seen you naked' look, but, as always, it has no effect. She studies her coat for lint and says, 'Did you hear your mother?' Margery is under the impression that I was set upon this earth to act as her personal slave. This time though, I don't mind.
On my way out the door I grab my mother's smock off the kitchen counter. I wait until I'm in the upstairs bathroom and then I remove the pictures from the pocket. There are three of them, Polaroids. One is a picture of Nick standing proud and naked against a paneled wall. His stomach catches the light. It is pale, covered with thick black hair and it stands out, like some-thing held before him. He's got a drink in one hand and is using the other to point at his flaccid penis, as if it were not a part of himself but some rare, exotic creature briefly resting between his legs. In another picture I see his short, ringed fingers petting a woman's breast. In the third I find a washed-out, horrified woman sitting naked upon an orange bedspread, waving her arms and trying to stop this from happening. The picture is blurred but I identify the woman as Elaine Petrakis, the hostess over at The Golden Key, the restaurant where Nick worked as a cook. I fan the pictures before my face and cast them into the sink, pretending to care. It's a bit like trying to force yourself to vomit. I look up into the mirror and wail, 'Nick, Nick how could you?' My face looks best when it is screwed into an expression of turmoil in repose my features tend to come across as flat, like a face painted upon a plate. I examine my tortured self in the mirror and I like what I see a guy who hurts, who really cares. 'Nicky, how could you do this to me? Especially with Elaine Petrakis, the hostess, that same hostess who smiled my way every time I snuck into the restaurant to see you. Nick, you son of a goddamned bitch, don't you know that I love you?'
I force myself to cry and admire the tears upon my cheeks. I watch in the mirror as my hand moves, broadcasting the sorrow across my face. 'I loved you. Sweet Jesus, I loved you so much. Hold me. Just hold me.'
The perfect moment suddenly turns sour and I find myself embarrassed at the sight of myself. I didn't love him. I do not feel betrayed by the photographs. Rather, I find myself thinking of that squirrel in his freezer, of squirrels baking away in that oven of his, and I say, 'Nick, how could you? Why didn't any-body tell me?' To eat squirrels that the cat dragged in that's sick. And to think I ever even thought about kissing him! I mean, I might allow Popeye to lick my face every now and then, but that's different. Popeye only caught the squirrels, he never ate them.
'Nick Papanides,' I say, spitting into the sink. 'Let me tell you a little something, Mister. You can rot in Hell for all I care. You can. .' I watch my saliva clinging to the rim of the basin and wonder where the bubbles come from. Is that air or are we all naturally carbonated? If Nick were to appear before me right this moment I might ask him that question but find myself bored with his answer. That's the kind of guy he was. I wouldn't even have thought of asking my father that question as the answer would have been both dull and uninformed, a double whammy of tedium. That was his claim to fame, we all knew it. My mother though, she seems to cling to an idea of this man. She never seemed to want him alive, but dead he assumes a potential for change. His corpse is something to be claimed and fought over while his life, like Nick's, is transparent to a fault. You'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know what you're getting yourself into, so if there's blame, blame yourself.
It suddenly becomes clear that a cat has more sense than Nick Papanides. I slip the pictures back into my mother's smock pocket and go down to the kitchen where I take Margery's beer out of the refrigerator. I open the can, take a deep swallow, but spit it back into the can. I don't get it, beer it's nasty tasting. I follow it up with a tug of Pepsi and close the refrigerator, the door of which is decorated with inspirational messages provided by Aunt Margery. There is a bumper sticker reading 'Keep It Simple,' and a sympathy card reading 'You are not alone!' But she is alone, my mother. She just doesn't know it. It's like falling asleep in your bedroom believing that someone else is quietly sitting in the living room. You feel their presence when actually they're not home at all, they're down the block, living it up. But if the false idea of your company helps them to sleep then why tell them otherwise? It's pitiful. You might look upon a child or a simpleton with pity, no problem, but it's ugly work to see your mother that way. It's much more tiring than cleaning an empty apartment or attending a football game. Like seeing my naked father, clumsy, the words pouring out of him like brown water I never wanted to see him like that. These thoughts become my job and I clock in and out, every day of my life.
I laughed when I heard the news that my father had died. I celebrate his death every time his name is spoken. In my opinion, the driver of the Mayflower van deserves the keys to the city. The hero responsible for Margery's eventual death should have a national holiday named in his or her honor. They should have their head placed on stamps.
I return to the basement apartment and, entering the kitchen, I pretend to trip. My aunt covers her hair with one hand and her coat with the other unconcerned for my safety but frightened that I might shower her with the stinking beer.
'I swear,' she says, recovering herself. 'I shouldn't but I do.' She settles back into her chair and takes a greedy sip. A golden stream dribbles out of her mouth and falls upon her coat. Margery removes a Kleenex from her purse and, frowning, mops at the stain. 'My coat,' she whispers.
'You're looking very pretty tonight,' my mother says. Margery has spruced herself up since marrying Chet Wallace. She has stopped bleaching her hair and currently wears it cut short and heavily gelled, brushed toward her face. She's wearing heavy red blush, which, combined with her hairstyle, makes her look as though she has just come up for a quick breath while bobbing for apples. She studies her reflection in the dark window and then looks down into her beer.
'So, how is my big old baby sister doing today?' she asks. 'I worry about you here all by yourself.'
'I've got Dale,' my mother says. 'He's with me.'
Margery pulls her coat close to her neck and says, 'I worry about you, I can't help myself. Chet wanted me to go with him to the Angus Barn for dinner, him and his sponsor and a few other people, marvelous people, but I said, 'No, thank you, I've got to check in on that baby sister of mine because I worry about her.' ' She takes another sip of her beer and beams.
