The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(21)

She looked up at him and smiled. You can talk and I’ll listen. For a change.

While the waiter was pouring the coffee she took out another of the little Cuban cigarettes and he took the lighter from the table and held it for her. Do you ever get to Greeneville? he said.

She blew a thin stream of smoke over her shoulder. You’re not supposed to inhale these. Which is why I smoke them. That and the way they look of course. And smell. But I inhale them anyway. A little bit. They’re contraband, naturally. From Mexico. Or from Cuba by way of. No. It’s too hard. It just makes her miserable. I call her every week or so. Hi. How are you. I’m fine. How are you. That’s good. Maybe I should, I dont know. I’ve never really told you about my life. I dont like to talk about sad things.

Has your life been sad?

No. It hasnt. But hurting people is sad. I suppose I handled it wrong. I should have broken the news to her gradually. Although I’m not sure how you would go about that. Maybe we could go in your Maserati. A road trip. I’ve never been to Wartburg. How long would it take?

Not long.

I had tried to tell her. Sort of. But of course she wouldnt listen. God. I pulled up to the house in a rental car and got out and walked around back and she was in the garden. I’d no idea what to wear. I just walked up to the fence and said hello. She couldnt even guess who it was of course. She looked up and she said: Yes? And I said: Mama, it’s William. And she knelt there for a minute in the dirt and then she put her hand over her mouth and these big tears started to roll down her cheeks. She just knelt there. Shaking her head back and forth. As if she’d been told that someone had died. Well, I suppose someone had. Finally I told her I thought we should go in and she got up and we went in the kitchen and she made some instant coffee. Which I detest. And there we sat. Me trying to smile at her with these teeth that I’d spent four thousand dollars on. I was dressed pretty conservatively but I suppose the blouse I had on was somewhat revealing and anyway she just kept looking at me and finally she said: Can I ask you something? And I said sure. You can ask me anything. And she said: Are those real?

Well. She was taking it all so poorly that I thought I’d mess with her and I had on these gold earrings with a single pearl. Good pearls. Japanese. About nine millimeter with good luster and a nice pink overtone. So I tweaked one of them and I said: Yes, they are. They were a gift. Which they were. And she got even more flummoxed and she said no. She said: I mean your…And she sort of waved at my tits with the back of her hand.

So I just put my hands under them and pushed them up under my chin and I said: Oh. You mean these? And she was looking away and she nodded and I said: Yes, they are. As real as hormones and silicone can make them. And she started to bawl all over again and she wouldnt look at me and finally she said: You’ve got bosoms.

Bosoms, Darling. God. The only thing I could think of was this restaurant where we used to eat in Tijuana. It was about the only place in town where you could get a decent steak. Argentine beef. And the menu was in Spanish of course but they had these English translations on the facing page and there was a dish on the menu called pechuga de pollo and when you looked over at the English it said chicken bosoms. I guess someone had told them that breast was suggestive. So bosoms. Jesus. That just tore it. I dont know why. It just totally pissed me off. I looked at her and I said: Mama, try not to think of it as losing a son. Try to think of it as gaining a freak. And then she really went to bawling. So. There you are. I think I told you that she wouldnt go anywhere with me. Wouldnt be seen with me. I stayed two days. I had a purse full of—what is it that John calls them? Crisp caesars?

Crisp caesars.

Probably about three thousand dollars. My big homecoming. I’d fantasized about it a hundred times. I was going to take her to Knoxville and take her shopping at Miller’s and have lunch at Regas. God. Such a fool. What was I thinking? She asked me if I used the ladies’ room. I mean did she really think that I could walk into a men’s room looking like this? So that was it. Total fucking fiasco. Sorry. I’m trying to quit cussing. My sister came home from school in about an hour and of course she had no notion who this creature was. Sitting in the kitchen with her mother. Until I spoke to her. She was twelve. And she just looked at me and she said: William? Is that you? You’re beautiful. And then I busted out bawling. God I love that child.

I know you told me that your father was dead.

Yes. He died when I was fourteen. I was having an awful time. He loathed the sight of me. He used to pay the other kids to beat me up after school.

You’re kidding.

Darling I dont kid. After a while even they got tired of it. They wouldnt take his money anymore. And they were a pack of the most despicable little shits you can imagine. He’d gotten tired of waling on me himself because he had these vertebrae…brae? Is that right?

Yes.

Vertebrae in his neck that were always giving him trouble and every time he beat me his neck would ache for days. I told him that it was probably a legacy from having been hanged in a previous incarnation but as you can imagine he failed to see the humor in that. Or anything else for that matter. So what happened was there was this dog that lived next door to us that used to terrify me. It would launch itself against the fence snarling and slobbering and it had these eyes that were just crazy and my father and this horrible animal both died on the same day. And the next morning I woke up and I just lay there in my bed and this extraordinary peace had come over me. It was transcendent. No other word for it. I knew that I was free and I knew that freedom was just like it says in the speeches. It’s worth whatever you have to pay to get it. And I knew that I would have the life I dreamed of. It was the first time in my life that I was ever happy and it made up for everything. Everything. It was just a gift. I was just transformed. And I had this strength. And I wasnt angry anymore. My heart was full of love. I think it always had been. I’m sorry. I’m going to be a mess.