Homeland Elegies(84)
On Tuesday, my commuter flight from Chicago into La Crosse was delayed, and I didn’t get in until after 11:00 p.m. As I checked in at the front desk, I heard my father’s voice coming from the hotel bar. I stopped in before going up to my room and found him leaning into the counter, watching as the bartender poured him a double Bushmills, neat. He turned and saw me in the doorway. His face lit up. “That is my son,” he announced, stumbling from his stool to gather me in his arms. He reeked of whiskey. “My wonderful, wonderful son,” he chimed sloppily as he presented me to the bartender, a thickset bearded man pushing thirty, maybe. “A famous man now. More famous than his father.”
“Dad—”
“Killed the father. Isn’t that what they say? You did it, beta. You killed me.”
I made a show of ignoring him. “I’m sorry, sir. He’s under a lot of stress—”
The bartender shook his head, not seeming bothered in the least. “I was getting a kick out of your dad here telling me about your success. Working with the stars in Hollywood now, he told me. That’s gotta be neat.”
“I mean, I’m not really working in Hollywood, but…”
Father’s sudden angry frown was clownish. “Yes, you are!” he shouted. “You are working in Hollywood! Writing your own TV show. Why are you lying to him?!”
He needed a splash of cold water.
“Dad. I was working there. Then I got fired. Did you forget that part?”1
His cheeks dropped, and his smile vanished, the sudden, crestfallen look on his face revealing the nasty mood I knew was rumbling underneath this carelessness.
He retreated to his bar stool, dejected.
I signed for his bill and cajoled him into the hall and elevator. Upstairs I took him to my room, filled a cup with water, and made him drink it before heading into the bathroom. When I came back out, I found him watching CNN. The day before marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Senate vote rejecting Bork’s Supreme Court confirmation, and the channel was still running its segment about the man’s legacy. “I don’t care about this bullshit,” Father said, pointing the remote to change the channel.
“No, Dad. Leave it. I want to see this.”
“Ancient history,” he said. I sat down on the bed and watched, surprised by a report that didn’t once mention what I now understood to be the man’s real American impact—as the Robespierre of the consumerist antitrust movement. Father poured himself another whiskey from the minibar and got back into bed. When the segment ended, he muted the commercials, muttering to me about the day’s humiliations: the blatant lies in the plaintiff’s opening statement, his fellow physicians not bothering to phone him, the insulting message someone he called Quaker Oats had left on his voice mail. He was being treated like a common criminal, he complained, when all he’d tried to do was help that girl. “I would have done the same thing if she was my own daughter,” was the refrain he repeated as he dozed off to sleep.
The following morning: water, greasy eggs from room service, Advil. I walked him down the hall to his room and waited as he showered. He was gruff and complained as I got him into a blue shirt and black suit. Hannah, his lead lawyer, had picked his attire. Black for all her physician defendants, he told me, contrary to received courtroom wisdom. Black signaled status and authority and tended to alienate juries, but in the case of malpractice, authority was precisely what the plaintiff’s team would work to undermine, so black was best. It was a performance, and the costume had to be right, she’d said. He handed me the tie she’d brought with her, a simple midnight-blue pattern. “She’s a good lawyer. Nice person. I told her you were coming. She wants to have dinner with us tonight. If you can.”
“Of course.”
He nodded distantly. I could tell he was feeling fragile. “Not too tight,” he said softly, as I nudged the knot to his bulging Adam’s apple. I noticed his bottom lip start to quiver.
“Dad,” I said, and tried to hold him, but he wouldn’t let me.
The courthouse was a ten-minute walk away. By the time we got there, he’d mostly put his vulnerable state behind him, though when Hannah found us on the third floor—just outside the courtroom—she wasn’t fooled. She was an intense woman with intelligent eyes that scanned him now, mercilessly. He introduced us, and she shook my hand warmly. Then he shuffled off to use the restroom. When he was gone, Hannah dropped her gregarious front.
“He looks terrible,” she said bluntly. “Was he drinking last night?”
I nodded. “I found him at the bar when I got in. Close to midnight. He’d been at it for a while, from what I could tell.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she said as she bit into her lower lip.
I felt the need to make an excuse for him: “It’s really only been like this since my mom died.”
“I’ve been doing this twenty-five years, and I’m telling you: he needs to stop. When we’re done, he can go back to it—whatever the reason. But until then, not a drop. I’ve already told him: if the insurance company finds out he’s drinking like that—and we lose? There will be consequences. And he won’t like those.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“He needs to get it under control,” she said again, her nostrils flaring as she marched into the courtroom.