Today is only different in that his father sits on a broken-down couch, on his broken-down porch, that’s barely attached to his broken-down house. He’s sipping a bottle of beer, a cigarette hanging from his lips, a shotgun slung across his lap. His eyes are trained on me, waiting, wishing—hoping?—I’ll cross the fence line. The boy releases my hand and starts off toward his father before turning back with a crooked smile and a salute. I wonder if his old man taught him that? Probably the only positive behavior he’s taught him.
I watch him walk up onto the bowed and rotting porch and skip past his father through a half-hung screen door. I wonder if I’ll see him tomorrow. I wonder what will become of him. I wonder if he’ll ever make it out of here. I’d like to think so. I’d like to believe that he has a fair shot.
His father trains the gun on me and fake fires, letting the barrel float up toward the sky. He laughs maniacally, slapping his hand on his thigh, as dust flies from his filthy pants.
The boy comes out onto the porch and stares at his dad. He laughs in echo, just because it seems like the right thing to do. It’s a beautiful sort of madness, thinking…or rather believing…that anything will ever change.
Chapter Nine
Eve straightens my bowtie. “You know I hate these things.”
“It’s good for you,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You need to get out of here every now and again.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Don’t pout, love.” She pulls tautly on my collar, adjusting the tie’s position, temporarily cutting off my oxygen supply. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Tilting her head in one direction and then another, she checks her work. “I want you to go and have fun.”
“There’s nothing about this that I find fun.”
“Oh, come on.” Taking me by the shoulders, she turns me so that I face the mirror. “You’re getting an award, not going to a funeral. Would it really kill you to show a little appreciation?”
“It might.”
“It’s dinner, George. A fancy dinner. I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“I’d manage better if you’d come along.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m not feeling—”
“Your head. I know. You’ve said it a thousand times.”
“You don’t have to sound so bitter. When’s the last time you had a migraine?”
I glance down at my watch. “About ninety minutes from now.”
She swats at me and I duck. “I swear you act like you’re eighty-nine, not fifty-nine.”
“Black tie events make me feel eighty-nine.”
“Just go. Act gracious. Don’t complain. Then come home,” she tells me with a smile. “I promise to make it worth your while.”
The car picks me up at six sharp. I’ve asked Liam along, God knows why, except for the fact that apparently Eve is God, because she suggested it.
I couldn’t exactly say no, seeing that she said it right in front of him, and he was also invited by the Writer’s Guild.
So here we are sharing the town car the coordinators sent. Here we are acting like proper friends. I guess this is why he takes the liberty to test my limits.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about the boys.”
Staring out the window, it never ceases to amaze me how much things can change when you aren’t looking. “The who?”
“Your children.”
The landscape fades into a mirage, blurred together and out of focus. My throat goes dry. Not just out of shock but also because it’s been so long since those words were used in the same sentence. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re right. I understand. It must be very difficult to talk about.”
“You could never understand.” I feel an anger rising in me, a sense of injustice that I haven’t felt in quite some time.
“You’re not the first person to know grief, George. And I hate to break it to you, but you won’t be the last.”
I don’t answer. He’s looking for a fight, and I’m not interested in competing in a suffering contest.
“It’s just—” he presses. “I think maybe it would help your writing.”
I imagine taking my elbow and smashing him in the face.
But then I realize that it wasn’t just my imagination, because suddenly his nose is pouring blood and it’s running down the front of his tux. “It’s okay,” he says after awhile. “I probably deserved that.”
Resting my forehead against the window, I do my best to push the memories to the furthest corners of my mind.
“Eve has been telling me stories. It’s been really good for her.”
“Are you really telling me what you think is good for my wife?”
“You’re living in a prison, George. And pretty soon its walls are going to come tumbling down around you.”
“And you know all about that too, I presume.”
“You’d be surprised by the things I know.”
I suspect he isn’t wrong about that, but there’s no sense in admitting it, so I don’t say anything.
“You were very successful once,” he remarks, deftly changing the subject, pulling something out of my wife’s bag of tricks. “I’d like that for you again. And I know, without a doubt, she wants that too. I think you owe it to her. And to your children.”
I turn to him, years of pent-up rage bubbling to the surface. “You’re just a punk kid who hides behind other people’s work. What would you know about what anybody deserves?”
He offers an infuriating smile. “Believe me, I know enough.”
The nerve of that smug little bastard. I couldn’t get out of that car fast enough. I was afraid if the drive lasted any longer I would have killed him. Sitting in silence in a confined space, plotting a person’s death, mustering restraint you’re not sure you have, is no small feat.
My first stop was the bar. I couldn’t wait to have a drink. I don’t remember most of the event. I only remember Liam and his goddamned popularity. Certainly, I had underestimated him. He knew everyone worth knowing and then some. By the time we took our seats, I knew that if one more person told me how lucky I was to be working with such talent, I was liable to cause a scene.
I’ve never murdered a person before, not in real life, and it’s probably best not to start now, considering my advanced age.
When they call my name for the award, it takes me a second to get out of my seat, only I can’t blame that on being over the hill but rather nearly under the table.
I manage to make it up to the stage unscathed despite the fact that I’ve had too many drinks to count. I’m pretty sure I don’t even slur my words throughout the entirety of my acceptance speech. Also no small feat considering that I hadn’t even rehearsed it.
I don’t recall exactly what I said, except that I give some utterly charming story of how I pulled my neck pursuing a long list of honey-do’s and how it’s all in a day’s work. Ah, the life of a writer.