Safe as Houses

North Of

33 There are American flags on school windows, on cars, on porch swings. It is the year I bring Bob Dylan home for Thanksgiving. We park in front of my mom’s house—my mom, who has been waiting for us at the door, probably since dawn. Her hello carries over the lawn. Bob Dylan opens the car door, stretches one leg and then the other. He wears a black leather coat and has spent the entire ride from New York trying to remember the name of a guitarist he played with in Memphis. I pull our bags from the trunk. “You always pack too much,” I say. North Of 3 4 N o r t h O f He shrugs. His arms are small in his coat. His legs are small in his jeans. “Hello hello,” my mother says as we amble toward her. “This is Bob,” I say. My mother was married with a small son in the sixties and wouldn’t recognize the songwriter of our time if he came to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. She has been cooking all morning , and all she wants to know is whether somewhere in his overstuffed Samsonite my friend Bob has packed an appetite. He has. “We’re starving,” I say. The vestibule is charged with the cold we have brought in. She puts her finger to her lips and points to the dark family room. I can make out a flannel lump on the couch. “Your brother is sleeping . We’ll go into the kitchen.” The kitchen is bright with food—cheeses, meats, heads of cauliflower , casserole dishes. My mother wipes her hands on an apron she’s had for years. “I wanted him to have his favorite foods before he leaves. For Iraq.” She pronounces it like it’s something you can do. I run, I walk, I raq. “Bob,” she says, “Do you know how to behead a string bean?” She arranges Bob Dylan at the counter with a knife and a cutting board. I excuse myself. The downstairs bathroom is lit by a candle. Over the toilet seat, an American flag. When I return, there is a new voice in the kitchen. I am in time to hear my mother say, “He came with your sister,” referring to Bob, who has amassed a sorry pile of gnarled beans. “Jeeeeesus.” My brother recognizes him immediately. “It’s nice to meet you.” They shake hands. “Wow, man, wow.” My brother’s face is blurred with nap but in his eyes grows an ambitious light. It is a spark that could vanish as quickly as it came or succeed in splitting his face open into reckless laughter. I know it can go either way. I make my voice soft. “Hi there.” “Hey.” My brother turns, lifts his nose, and sniffs. His smile recedes. “Still smoking?” I nod. I say, hopefully, “You met Bob.” He nods. “Can you beat that?” I say. N o r t h O f 35 “I didn’t know it was a contest.” His smile is gone. My mother leans over Bob, to reexplain how much of the string bean is “end.” “I thought you would like to meet him,” I say. He shrugs. “I thought it would just be family.” I can tell when Bob Dylan needs a cigarette. We excuse ourselves before dinner to the backyard, where everything is dead. In the corner near the fence is a pile of lawn ornaments my mom will put up in the spring. She’s had everything for years. The newest thing is the dining room table, a mahogany affair, and even that is only allowed in the house two days a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bob Dylan never has his own cigarettes. I thought this was charming at first. “We’re going to get you a pack today, buddy.” I hit mine against the inside of my wrist and unwind the plastic. I brought Bob here to remind my brother how he used to be, before American flags and Iraq. I thought at least it would give us something to talk about. I give myself the length of a cigarette to admit it; my plan is not going to work. Bob and I smoke on the edge of the yard. There are no lights on at the Monahans’ house, our neighbors. They normally go to a cousin in New Jersey’s for Thanksgiving. The grass is frozen. Every so often I stamp on it...