LaRose(66)

Romeo pressed his kung fu ’stache down his chin like a sage pondering.

Hollis shrugged.

They wanna clobber Saddam, said Romeo. Saddam’s a greedy crazy dude, but not like Doe Eyes. That’s definitive!

Doe Eyes was Romeo’s nickname for Bin Laden.

Hollis let his mind drift while his father enlarged his speculations on the motives of this or that public figure or politician. He didn’t hear the nervous fear for himself in his father’s voice. Hollis drank his beer sip by sip, not wanting to leave because once he got home, he’d have to find the summer-read book, Brave New World. Couldn’t even remember if he had a copy. Josette and Snow had stacks of paperbacks, probably including that one. He’d get the book off their shelf. He’d speed-read. Maybe Josette would help him write his paper. Hollis saw himself staring at the PC screen, Josette leaning over his shoulder. A critical frown. Her breath in his ear. Happy birthday. That sweet voice she used with LaRose.

Shut up, brain! Hollis tugged his own hair to jolt himself back. Here he was with his actual father, on his own actual birthday. It occurred to Hollis he might ask about his mother, again, although it was always the same—a song of memory lapse, a dance of drunken veils. These days he asked the question mostly to hear his father’s inventive swoops and swerves.

Hey, it’s my eighteenth birthday. So, Dad. My mother. What was she like? What was her name?

Her name? Mrs. Santa Claus Lady. She brought you, right? Seriously, my son, I don’t remember. Those were insane times, my boy. But seriously, once again, she was holy shit beautiful. She would walk into an establishment. The heads would swivel off their necks. The eyes would beg like a pack of starving mutts. The shit-ass f*ckhounds. I was shocked when she allowed herself to be approached. By me.

Romeo shook his head, wagged his finger in the air. Ah, but you see . . . it was the drugs. Clouded her judgment. I hope she is alive today, my son, but the evidence of her addictions casts doubt on that. Don’t do drugs or nothing because . . .

Wait, Dad. Hollis ordered again, then another beer for his father. Wait, but according to what you’re telling me I would not exist if my mother’s judgment had not been clouded by drugs.

Ergo, laughed Romeo; his clattery heheheh went on until he wagged his finger again. Ergo sum.

That’s what for what?

Therefore I exist.

She took drugs, therefore I exist.

Ain’t life odd? But still, please refrain from getting mixed up with substances.

Okay, Dad, said Hollis, not even sarcastic. So you’re not going to tell me her name even on my birthday?

Hollis felt the cheer leak away and decided to sacrifice his beer, slide out the door before he got mad. Not getting mad was a life policy with Hollis.

He paid Puffy, pushed his beer over to Romeo.

Live it up.

Hollis walked out the door and Romeo watched him go, wounded. Here he was, a loving father in the reject chair again. The beer was nice, anyway, a consolation, and free. But as the door closed, Romeo suddenly pictured his blood-kin son making his way over to the Irons’. And giving Landreaux his filial loyalty. Landreaux, who was responsible for his whack arm and his leg that ached and sometimes trembled. To consider this caused Romeo to gulp down both beers. A mini-relapse! He could tell about it at the next meeting. He abandoned the barstool, tried to keep his balance, and set out for home in the throes of a mellow buzz. By the time he reached his room and removed a low-level painkiller from his stash, he was almost weeping with the contradictory joy of having celebrated his son’s eighteenth birthday and the knowledge that Hollis preferred Landreaux’s family and house to his own dad’s apartment. With a year-round Christmas tree.

So much betrayal. So many lies. Although Romeo could not remember if he’d actually asked Hollis to live with him.

Resentment is suicide! This group slogan often helped interrupt a chain of tigerish thoughts.

Romeo rocked back in his minivan captain’s chair, appreciating what he’d wrought. There it was, a glittering sight. The year-round fake tree cheered a father’s lonesome heart. Still, he could not get positive. Snap out of it! Romeo glared at the walls hung with special things on nails. Such attractive sacred yarn and chicken-fluff dream catchers! He spoke to the faltering TV picture where old Mailbox Head was trying to jolly an interviewer. Such finesse! And the arrogant aplomb.

No one to trifle with, Slot Mouth. Nor am I. Nor am I, ol’ buddy ol’ pal Landreaux Iron. According to my exceedingly detailed memories of our so-called runaway escape, said Romeo to a sky blue dream catcher with iridescent threads, the reason which I am rubbing Icy Hot into my sad ol’ leg, you Landreaux Iron have much to answer for, things you never have addressed!

The good stuff penetrated and his leg felt immediately warm. Pain melted away into the luxury seat. Yet things did not feel very good at all when Landreaux’s avoidance of their mutual past was considered.

You ol’ war bitch, cried Romeo, happily, waking later to Rummy’s interview, sound off, the glow of his mango-scented sparkle tree. Having drifted off, he was now comfortable with the resentment he’d stifled before. Landreaux maybe should have not acted high and mighty to the point of stealing my son Hollis’s affections. Leading my son to join the military, even! Landreaux was the one who dragged me into his plan, and he should have not pretended all his life that he didn’t remember. Landreaux should have shared and shared alike the stuff that he could acquire. Landreaux should not have imagined people had short memories, or would forget. Because people had long memories and never stopped talking around this place. Romeo had heard them and Romeo knew. Landreaux should have not imagined it was over and done with—because a man had ears, tough little pinned-back ears that pricked up when people whispered. A man had a brain that decoded guarded talk between professionals. A man’s heart, shriveled raisin, prune of loneliness, burnt clam, understood what it was to lose out on love. And lose to a lying liar. Romeo bet his livid black heart could burst Landreaux’s baggy heart sack. If he could just get something solid on Landreaux to bring him down.