Opposite of Always(89)

Apparently, some suspicious neighborhood-watcher spotted Franny cutting through her gated community and called the police. She decided to follow him in her slippers and housecoat.

“I called the police,” she called out to Franny. (And this is according to what she told the police, so, of course, it may or may not reflect what actually happened.) Franny shrugged, or shook his head, or something else that rubbed her the wrong way. “Whatever, lady. Let them come,” he’d said.

“Take your hands out of your pockets, and sit on the curb.”

“Fuck you. I’m going home.”

“Put your hands up where I can see them.”

“You’re not the police. Give it a break.”

And then he made a sudden move for his pocket and removed something shiny. I was afraid for my life. I just reacted. I didn’t have time to think, she’d said. So, she shot him. Bang. Square in his chest. Watched him crumple to the ground, a weird smile on his face, she’d said. She said it was only afterward that she heard the music playing, that she thinks maybe she’d heard it before, but it was only after she’d fired that she registered the sound. It was the Bee Gees that she was hearing, a twenty-second ringtone coming from the shiny phone Franny held in his hand.

“The Bee Gees,” I ask the officer. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” the officer said, referring to his notes. “That’s what she said, anyway.”

I nod because I know why Franny was so anxious to answer that call. “That’s his dad’s ringtone.”

We’re not allowed to see him.

But we’re told he’s out of surgery and resting in the recovery room. If everything goes okay, they’ll move him to critical care.

Abuela hasn’t stopped sobbing.

Franny’s dad finally shows up and his eyes are a deep pink, like he’s been drinking, or maybe crying. Or both.

“How’s my boy?” he says from across the waiting room.

I stand. “He’s in recovery. We’re waiting to see him.”

The Coupon nods, hugs his mom, then steps away. “I need coffee.”

“I’ll walk with you,” I volunteer.

It’s a short walk to the vending machine, but I’m not interested in the eighty-five-cent lattes.

“Where were you tonight?” I ask him when we’re out of earshot from the others.

“Excuse me,” he says.

“You missed his game.”

“I called him.”

“Yeah, afterward,” I say, when what I want to say is yeah you did, which is partly why he’s in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, but the other responsible party stares back at me from the shiny vending machine glass, so.

“Easy, Oprah,” The Coupon says. “What I do with my son isn’t your concern.”

My voice leaps out of my body, even surprising me. “What happens to the people I love is my concern. And this is the worst. You popping in and out of his life like a jack-in-the-box, it’s tired, man. It’s selfish and it’s old and it’s hurtful. You don’t even realize how awesome your son is. But you don’t want to know, do you? Because then you might have to be a real dad for the first time in seventeen years.”

The Coupon shoves me hard against the vending machine. I wait for someone to intervene, except the hallway’s clear.

“I suck as a father, that what you wanna hear? Huh? There, I said it. Now we can all go back to the business of living, right? Secret’s out.” The Coupon relaxes his grip on my chest, lets my shirt go. Starts to walk away but stops. “Do you have any idea how it feels to walk around the world knowing you ain’t shit? That nothing you’ve done means anything? When you look out at the sky and you don’t see a limitless horizon, when the sky doesn’t shine for you how it does for everyone else, when you know . . . when you KNOW that there’s nothing to look forward to because you’ve already lost all the good things that you were supposed to take care of? I haven’t woken up happy in forever, Jack. I don’t even know if happy is a real thing anymore. You think I’m cold? Hard? You goddamn right I am! That’s the only way I can go about my day. That’s how I got through prison, how I got through being a shitty dad, a shitty son, once upon a time a shitty husband. That’s how I get through.”

I swallow hard. “Maybe if you told Franny all of that. Maybe if you . . .”

He jumps toward me, a red cyclone of anger and hurt in his eyes. “Tell him what? You don’t think he knows his pop is a failure? That that’s some kinda news flash for him. He been knowing that about me. All his damn life.”

“It’s not too late.”

“It’s been too late. It’s the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes, and I’m in that batter box, man. And that pitcher on the mound, I ain’t never got a hit off him, I’m zero for a million against him, and he’s throwing heat that I can’t even see, let alone catch up to. And I know what you thinking, ’cause I’ve thought the same. Maybe if you just swing one more time, maybe you finally get that hit that’s long overdue. But I don’t ever get on base, Jack. You looking at the strikeout king, my friend.”

He laughs. Slaps me on my shoulder like he’s just delivered a punch line, except his eyes are wet. “Hell, that’s not even true. In reality, you gotta be in the game to strike out. When it comes to that boy, I’ve never even been in the stadium. I was never there. So, you don’t have to tell me how much it would mean to my son. I lived with that disappointment every day of my life. And the sun ain’t never gonna set on that. Never.”