All That I Can Fix Page 7

I laughed. Steel balls. “Why don’t you?” I asked.

  “The poster’s too big,” Sam said. “I’ve taken other things, but it’s framed.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “And what’s so important about this poster? Huh? Some hot girl?”

  Sam paused. “It’s a John Lennon poster. I think Nick wrote down where he was going on the back.”

  I whistled and pretended I was looking for the house key on my key ring that only had three keys. Why can’t people take care of their own problems? Why does everyone come to me? And, can I mention that an hour ago a very amazing and hot girl just told me to get out of her life? I shook my head. “Sam. No. Now go home.”

  Sam threw me an intense look. For a moment I was afraid he was going to cry, but then he turned around and headed back to wherever he came from. The kid didn’t know he had asked me for help only twice. That was the only good thing that happened, for a Thursday.

  • • •

  The media were delighted over the fact that, despite the police being out in full force for almost a week, there were still that cheetah, a tiger, a panther, a cougar, a hyena, a python, a lion, a wildebeest, and the stupid camel on the loose. Dan the News Man’s face was all over TV, telling us, blow by blow, how the polar bear had been taken down in the McDonald’s parking lot. Supposedly it had attacked the drive-through window, banging on the glass until the employees started chucking Filet-O-Fish sandwiches at it.

  So I was wrong: Exotic animals do go through drive-throughs.

  Anyway, over the next couple days, the wildebeest was found in Mrs. Bruno’s backyard, where it had electrocuted itself by chewing on the wires near the garage; the whole neighborhood smelled like a cookout until folks followed their noses and found the carcass. Speaking of carcasses, somebody at the Makersville morgue had propped open the door, waiting for a delivery, and the hyena had snuck in and ransacked the place, including devouring a couple of preserved bodies, for which the mayor told the grieving-again families that the town would hold a special service for the parts that remained. The authorities announced that the hyena was probably dead from consuming the formaldehyde and everything else that was inside the bodies, but nobody could produce the hyena’s body as proof. Word on the street had it that the hyena had now turned into a zombie hyena, and kids of all ages went looking online to see if Mace could stop a zombie.

  The lion had the most unfortunate luck to come across Rockfeller, who was in his BMW at the time, grabbed a gun from under his seat, and blasted that cat six times in the head. The man is an ass, but he’s also a straight shot, and six times is a little unnecessary. Regardless, that meant we had to see Rockfeller’s ugly face for forty-eight hours on TV, and on the front page of the regional paper, and images of that bloody cat everywhere else you can think of in this wretched town. The worst part was that Rockfeller was suddenly driving his shiny car everywhere, slowly, waiting for people to wave to him like he was his own one-man parade. What a jackwad.

  Turns out that other people thought Rockfeller was a jackwad too, because the animal rights group, which had been in town and keeping rather quiet since the zoo breakout, started screaming that his killing of the lion was bloody murder, because, well, it was. Then the gun rights people thought that the people who thought Mr. Rockfeller was a jackwad were jackwads themselves, because he was only exercising his constitutional rights as well as defending himself, which, well, he was. Then the gun control group rallied and shouted that with all these guns and all this fear, somebody was going to get hurt; only the government officials should be shooting anything. A few renegades were yelling that guns or no guns, these creatures were still on the loose and we were not seeing the real issue here, and before you knew it, all these folks started making a little hoo-ha in our downtown City Park, which is hilarious since we don’t have a downtown, but we do have a downtown City Park, and now there was a hoo-ha in it. All this ruckus was quite exciting for the brave and opinionated citizens of Makersville, and no matter what group you belonged to, Rockfeller’s downing of that lion was all that anyone could talk about.

  Except, of course, for my family. I had unplugged the TV, and no one plugged it back in. Mina went back and forth to school and carried her bouncy ball with her, as usual, but I didn’t see her bounce it anymore, which bothered me. One week after Sam followed me to my garage, that Thursday evening, we were eating dinner when Mina said, rather out of the blue, “Sam had bruises on his arm today.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really? You finally beat him up?”

  Mom’s lips puckered.

  Mina rolled her eyes. “Noooooo. I didn’t do it. Someone else did.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I’m not supposed to say,” Mina said, taking another bite.

  “You just did,” I said.

  Mina gave me a confused look. “I did?”

  “Sure,” I said. I put another spoonful of lamb stew into my mouth.

  “Ronney,” Dad said finally, “stop confusing her.”

  “I’m not confusing her,” I said, swallowing. “Mina knows exactly who gave Sam bruises. She said it was one of their classmates.”

  “No I didn’t,” Mina retorted. “It was his dad.” Then she slapped her hands over her mouth. “You tricked me, Ronney!”

  I snickered.

  “Ronney,” Mom warned.

  “What?” I said, all innocent.

  “It’s true, though,” Mina insisted, wide-eyed.

  I nodded at Mina. “Absolutely. Dads don’t care about harming their kids.”

  Dad stood up. “I’m done.”

  Mom looked at Dad. “Honey, you didn’t even touch the stew.”

  I kept looking at Mina. “And dads lose their appetites when you tell them the truth. Their stomachs are just too sensitive.”

  Mina’s wide eyes went from me to Dad’s plate of food to Dad. Her bottom lip started to tremble.

  “Ronney,” Mom said. But her heart wasn’t in it.

  Dad went to his room.

  • • •

  I remember the exact moment that my sadness and anxiety about Dad turned into anger. It happened about a year into his depression, one long year of Dad staying in bed and of Mom, Mina, and me begging him to do things again—like mow the lawn or just fucking talk to us. Well, Mom got the flu. It laid her up, bad, and suddenly she was in bed all day too, like Dad. And Dad didn’t know what to do because she was in his space now, and so the second day of her fever he grabbed the keys, packed up the car, and announced that he was going away on a fishing trip. He didn’t say for how long. And he didn’t come back the next day, not even when Mom had to go to the hospital because her fever had spiked so high, not even when I called him to tell him that she had been admitted to the intensive care unit. He didn’t ask how serious it was; he just said that it was “pretty good” in his fishing town. But when will you come back? Dad, we need you, please, I said, and when I said that, I felt a tremor of anger deep in my gut because I realized I was sick of saying that; I’d been saying that for a year straight: That was the very first time there was anger. He never answered the question and hung up shortly after that. Dad ended up coming home three days later, when Mom was home and feeling better.

  The funny thing is that you would think that would have been the time the anger came to stay. But no. It was in the littlest way: I got home from school one afternoon, about a month after Mom’s flu, and set right to work mowing the lawn because the grass was freaking high. And just moments after I had finished, just as I was putting the lawn mower in the garage, Dad came outside into the backyard. He was wearing his pajamas and was walking on the lawn that I had just freshly mowed; the smell of cut grass was still in the air. Dad was drinking a can of soda, and I saw—with my own two eyes—that he tipped the can back and finished it, and then dropped that can of soda right there on the lawn. Like he knew I was going to pick up after him. What the fucking hell? I shouted, and he pretended he didn’t hear me, so I stomped over to him, but he p
ushed past me and into the house, into his bedroom, and closed the door.

  It was at that moment I realized that the dad I knew and loved was never coming back, never. When I told Mom about the soda can that night, she made some lame excuse for Dad that made me lose all respect for her, too. Around three o’clock that morning, as I was lying awake in bed, it hit me: He’s treating me exactly like a piece of trash. And I will feel like trash only when I trust Dad, when I open up to him.

  Never again, I promised myself. I will never again let him in.

  And that’s when the anger came.

  • • •

  Hearing that Sam was getting bruised up bothered me. I just kept seeing Sam’s face and what he would look like if someone were hitting him so hard it’d leave marks. Even though I knew the kid could probably handle it with those steely balls of his, the only thing that really made me feel better was going to the secondhand store that very evening and picking up that lousy John Lennon poster. It was squished behind a My Little Pony poster and some religious crap. It was the only decent poster they had, and I could tell Sam had put it precisely there, because if you only looked at the first twenty poster frames, you’d think they’re all junk, which was true, with the exception of that twenty-first one way in the back. Anyway, I picked the thing up for five bucks and got Mom to drive me home with it.

  As I was putting it in the back seat, Mom glanced at it and her eyebrows popped up. “I didn’t know you liked John Lennon, honey.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  She gave a confused smile. “Oh.”

  “It’s a gift, I guess.”

  Mom smiled again, differently this time. “For George?”

  My stomach tightened. It had been a week since she told me I was too high-risk for her perfect little life. “No, not for George,” I said, and I left it at that. As we were driving home, we kept an eye out for the cheetah, tiger, panther, python, cougar, maybe the hyena, and the camel, as instructed to by the authorities. I was kind of getting used to having them around. I mean, what’s wrong with having a couple exotic animals in the state? Indiana’s big. We can all get along. Maybe they just need to spread the animals out a little bit. And if somebody goes down, well, it’s all part of the “getting back to nature” that the climate change people have been harping about. Or maybe the whole “nature” thing is one big scam—because nature, by its definition, is wild, and what we want, at heart, is to control every bit of it.

  • • •

  Of course, Mina saw me haul the poster in from the garage, and of course she asked me if it was for Sam, since she knew he was on the lookout for posters. Of course I said no, and of course she saw through my lie and texted him right away.

  I sighed. There is no better surveillance than a kid sister. Secretly, though, I was relieved; it’s not like I wanted to contact Sam, anyway. Better that she did it for me.

  He was over within the hour. Dad was in his room, and Mom was in the living room, reading her political magazines, when the doorbell rang. Mina materialized out of nowhere, bounded past me, and flung open the door.

  “Sam!” she cried, as if this were all a surprise.

  Sam smiled at her in a fourth-grade-kid kind of way.

  I was a little ways behind Mina. “Hey, Sam,” I said as normally as possible.

  Sam’s eyes shone when he looked at me, like I was the best thing on the face of the earth. I wondered for a moment if maybe that’s how he looked at his older brother. Then I wondered where the hell that thought came from and told myself to shut up.

  I led him to my room. I didn’t know what to say to him—I mean, how do you make small talk with a ten-year-old? I doubted that ten-year-olds even made small talk. Based off of how Mina talks, everything they say carries the weight of the world.

  So I didn’t say anything until I showed him the Lennon poster, which I had leaning up against my bed. Sam’s face gleamed. He was a nice-looking kid when that intense look was taken off his face. That look aged him eighty years, no joke.

  We stood there for a moment in silence. Then I said, “Well, take it.”

  Sam shook his head. “I can’t take it home. My parents wouldn’t be happy knowing I’m getting Nick’s stuff back.”

  I fidgeted. “So, I guess you check out the poster here, then.”

  Sam gave a small smile—almost imperceptible, but I caught it—and slowly turned the poster around. He jiggled the fasteners.

  “Do you want help?” I asked.

  “No.” His voice was somber, quiet.

  Was there going to be an address? A phone number? A note from big brother to doting little brother?

  Sam carefully slid the poster out of its frame, exposing the back of it with the delicacy that an art historian must do to some great, lost treasure. He slid it out all the way.

  I didn’t move.

  Sam didn’t move.

  The back of the poster was blank.

  We both stared at it. My stomach tightened.

  “He said he’d write his location on the back?” I asked softly.

  Sam shook his head. “He said he’d tell me where he was going. He loved this poster. I went through his room, all his papers, checked everything else he could write on. This was the last place I could think of. I could have sworn it would be here.”

  I looked away from Sam. You can’t just watch someone go through shit like that.

  My eyes roamed the walls of my room while Sam sniffled. When I thought he had calmed down, I turned to him and said, “Sam, I’m really sorry.”

  To my surprise, a red-eyed Sam launched himself at me. At first I threw my arms up in defense, but then I realized he was holding me around the waist. A hug. And then the kid started sobbing. Like a the end of the world is upon us sob. And what could I do? Sam’s little body was shaking so hard, like he had poured every last bit of hope into this poster, into this last communication he’d ever have from his brother. And somehow, the love that he had for Nick was big enough to hold up the sky.

  It’s amazing how long you can hold up the sky. Everyone does it. For me it was a year, the way I believed that Dad would snap out of it one day, stop being so withdrawn, maybe kick the ball around with me. The thing is, it’s tiring to hold up the sky. It’s fucking heavy. And even though you get pretty good at propping it up, you never know when it will all come ripping down.

  It sucks when that day comes. Maybe for some people that day will never come, but for those of us who know, that day is one goddamn awful day.

  I think that’s why I awkwardly put my hands on Sam’s back and gave a little pat every once in a while. The kid cried on and on. I tried to think of things I could say that could help. Life sucks, kid. It’s one disappointment after another, so get used to it. It might get better from here, but then it might not. But all of those things sounded like something an ass would say, so I just shut up.

  After a long time Sam stepped back and wiped his nose with his sleeve. His face was puffy.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  My brow furrowed. “For what?”

  “For getting the poster. You didn’t have to.”

  “Oh, that. You’re welcome. Even though it didn’t help.”

  Sam’s eyes got even sadder, and I kicked myself for talking like an ass anyway.

  “But,” I said, wanting to say anything to make him feel better, “you can come and hang at our place any time you want.”

  Sam’s face lit up. “I can?”

  I swallowed. My mouth went too fast. “Sure, Sam,” I said. “Of course you can.”

  After Sam left, Mom started making dinner, and Dad was actually helping a little and they were talking, which meant he’d had a good day. While they were cooking, I stared for the longest time at the Lennon poster. To my surprise, I ended up hanging it on my wall, just to the left of my dresser. It looked all right, too.

  10

  ONE OF MY FAVORITE MEMORIES of Dad was when I was eleven years old—a little older than Sam. We were at
this lake in Indiana, this big wide lake that families go to to swim and fish and hike. Mina was just a little runt and Mom was taking care of her, and Dad decided to take me fishing. It was my first time fishing, and Dad led me to this quiet little spot with some deep water; he said it had the best fishing on the entire lake. He was in the process of showing me how to hook the worm; it looked really cool and I couldn’t wait to stab that worm through its guts, but then Dad said, “Ronney, remember this worm is going to give its life for that fish.”

  I had no idea what he was getting at, so I said, “Right. Sure,” and I grabbed for the worm.

  “So,” Dad said, taking back the worm from the hook—and from me—and holding it in his hand as he gestured with it so the worm kind of flew around his head, “you need to appreciate life when it gives itself for you, son.”

  This suddenly sounded too wacky for me, so to stop him from going further I said, “Right. Appreciate life.”

  Dad nodded his head, his eyes focused on me like lasers. “And when it gives its whole essence, you really appreciate that. Even if it’s just a worm.”

  I squirmed. “Right. That too,” I echoed. But I was still thinking of stabbing the worm with the hook.

  “Good, Ronney,” he said. “I’m glad you understand.”

  And with that, he stuck the worm in his mouth and ate it.

  I started screaming like a lunatic—I shit you not. I ran as fast as I could back to our toweled spot on the sand, where Mom and Mina were playing patty-cake. There I was, howling and screaming and jumping up and down and holding my face with my hands, and Dad was there laughing at me, laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face, and his laugh was big and raucous and free. I’d never heard Dad laugh like that—he was gasping, and through his tears he told Mom what had happened, and she started laughing too, although she had a slightly confused look on her face. I didn’t want Dad to touch me, as if his worm germs would somehow infect my body, and my sudden worm fear of Dad made him laugh even harder. “You’ll never forget: Appreciate life, right?” he howled.

  I wondered if he still remembered that story.