Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel

Ch. 10

139 10 OUR GOOD-BYES THE NEXT MORNING were awkward. My mother rose to the occasion and hugged and kissed all three of us after privately warning us to be on the lookout for Cheney. “He seems more mean than smart,” she said. “I’ve spent my life avoiding men like him and you should too.” Our father came outside while we were loading up the car and asked me how Camaros drove. It meant either he was no longer angry or had decided to pretend that he was no longer angry. With my father’s emotions, that was about as specific as you could get. When it was time to leave, I knew I might never see him again, and even though I felt like an imposter son, I said, “I love you.” Then he said, “I love you, too.” I could have burst into tears. Of course, I didn’t. I was standing in front of my father and my crying would have embarrassed both of us. Leaving Buffalo, we drove past the closed, desolate Bethlehem Steel plant that runs for miles along Lake Erie, the cold smokestacks reminding me of columns remaining standing after a temple has fallen into ruins. Taylor asked how many people once worked there. “I think thirty thousand in its heyday.” I expressed my wish that the steel plant would 139 140 magically disappear, giving us the shoreline back. In the rearview mirror, Junior sulked, staring out the window while Ravi slept next to him. “In my time, they’re talking about building wind turbines there,” I added. “It sounds like it’s going to happen.” “Wouldn’t that be great?” Taylor said. “Buffalo’s bad weather finally turns out to be an asset.” “I think Buffalo will have a renaissance in the twenty-first century,” I said, surprising myself. I apologized again to Junior for not being as forthcoming as I should have been. “Well, is that everything? Anyone else dying that I should know about?” I tried to think if I needed to warn him about his skin cancer. Would it help if he was aware of it and sought treatment sooner? I’d never realized that so many awful things happened in my life. I guess I’d never really noticed. Life usually doles out horrible events in increments, allowing us time to slowly digest pain like an anaconda after a capybara meal. And in between there are a lot of good and great moments. Here I was giving Junior overnight delivery of his life’s low points without any of the highlights; no one deserved to have all of the worst events in his life revealed like guests at a surprise party. “Now what?” Junior said when I didn’t respond immediately. Even though he was a pain in the ass right at that moment, he deserved to have his youthful sense of immortality last throughout his twenties and thirties. He’d deal with his cancer when it arrived. I wasn’t going to tell him about it. Taylor sighed. “You’re like Santa Claus handing out lumps of coal.” “More like Santa Claus handing out urns of ashes,” Junior corrected. Their mutual rapport answered one question. I’d slept in the back bedroom by myself while Taylor and Junior shared the middle bedroom. I’d suspected they were going to have sex; all night they both had the expectant air of cats brushing up against their bowls. They must have hooked up, since they were behaving like a couple, each backing up the other. 141 “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything,” I said. “But I was afraid you’d become depressed if you heard everything at once.” “Well, it worked.” I felt the blood rushing into my face as we turned onto the exit for the Thruway. “What the fuck would you do in my place? Let Carol and Dad die because it might hurt your tender feelings? Grow up.” A snide grin appeared on Junior’s puss. “I don’t want to. I’ve seen the result.” Someone who shares your skin knows how to get under it. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?” I said. There was a moment of silence before Taylor began to laugh. “You guys could actually make that happen,” he said. “And it would be a first.” “If he wasn’t such a prude,” Junior...