THE SEVENTY-FIRST DAY . . .
(Friday, August 21, just after lunch
shift)
CÉCE:
Ma’s at the bar. She
sips her coffee. Sober a week. She and Vic pretend to do the
crossword.
Last night the doctor
called to tell us the second surgery on Anthony’s larynx went well.
He can’t talk just yet, but in a few days he’ll probably be well
enough to have visitors. We can come down and see him next week,
what’s left of him.
Ma’s phone blips with
an e-mail. She checks the sender, pushes the phone toward me. “I
can’t.”
From: [email protected]
Subject: Yo
I can’t either. I
give the phone to Vic.
Vic clears his
throat. “ ‘ Ma, Cheech, Vic, it’s all good. We’re gonna get through
this. I’m doing great. One request: Don’t come down here, okay?
You’ll only get freaked out. I’ll be home soon and we’ll figure out
this whole thing then. Do me a favor, keep sending that cornbread
to the guys, okay? They love it and they sure could use it. Rehab
is going great. I’ll see you in a month or so. Love you all like a
madman. Chin up, folks. xox Ant.’ ”
Vic frowns, clicks
the e-mail closed. “Well,” he says. He puts his hand on Ma’s
shoulder.
Ma nods. “Well,” she
says.
“You know,” Vic says,
“I really think you ladies should get a dog.”
“Please?” Ma says to
me.
“No,” I
say.
“Yeah, a rescue,” Vic
says. “Just think about it, I’m saying. You know, mull it.”
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“Oh absolutely,” Vic
says. “One of those vet buddy dogs for Anthony, maybe a pit
bull.”
“A pit bull?” I say. “Are you insane?”
“Almost certainly,”
he says. “Kid, you need to do this.”
“I don’t and I
can’t,” I say.
“Sure you can. You
just do it. Perhaps I’ll make some inquiries.”
“Will you
stop?” I say.
“Never,” Vic
says.
“Céce”
“No, Ma.”
(Saturday, August 22, 3:00 a.m. of the seventy-second day.
. .)
I’m in Ma’s bed.
She’s not. I check the bathroom. No. Downstairs, probably cruising
petfinder.com
again. “Mel?” Not in the den. Kitchen? Nope. She dumped all the
alcohol in the house after that last binge. Maybe she went out to a
bar?
The
basement.
The downstairs
pantry, where we keep all the Costco crap. She’s on the floor, an
empty bottle of vodka at her side. She started in on a jug of
cooking wine with a straw. She’s slurring so softly, but I think
she’s saying, “Was that bad, what I did? You and Mack? Saying you.
Could sleep down. Here? Was that wrong?” Her eyes flutter and she
passes out. I’m shaking her and screaming her name, but she won’t
wake up. I call Vic. He calls an ambulance.
They pump her
stomach. The doctor says, “The good news is, based on what you’re
telling me, your mother isn’t so much the paradigmatic alcoholic as
a self-medicating addict who engages in heavy episodic
drinking.”
“What a relief, Doc.
Really, thanks so much.” I head back into her room.
Ma’s asleep, Vic’s at
his iPad. “You gotta keep going,” he says.
“Do you,
though?”
“The answer to the
Vaccuccia family’s situation is a dog.”
“Vic, say it again,
and I’ll get the Hammerhead to sucker you into another game of
cards.”
“Céce,” Ma says,
except it comes out “She-she,” because she has an oxygen mask over
her mouth. She’s still out of it. She waves me to her bed and works
up a smile. “Ah ah ee.”
“Huh? I can’t hear
you with the mask.”
“Ah ah
ee.”
“Anthony? Anthony
what?”
She shakes her head,
frustrated. “Ah ah ee.”
“I can’t
understand you.”
“Easy, ladies,” Vic
says.
She’s crying. “Ah
ah ee. Ah. Ah. Ee.”
“Goddamn it,
Ma—”
“She’s sorry, Céce,”
Vic says. “She’s saying I’m
sorry.”
(Five days later, Thursday, August 27, morning of the
seventy-seventh day . . .)
Anthony e-mails me a
video: His face, throat and hand are bandaged. He’s balancing on
the back wheels of his chair. His hospital buddies cheer him on.
The video is pixilated and dark, and you only see him from the
side, but I don’t see any feet on those foot holders. I see no
calves. No knees. When he left home, he was taller than Mack, and
Mack is six one. Was six one.
The video zooms to a
close-up. Anthony rasps, “Don’t worry, kid.
It’s all good. Love ya like a crazy person.”
Ma calls up from the
kitchen, “Ready, babe?” We’re going to market with her cornbread,
the flea market.
I can’t show her this
video.
Bobby is at the curb
with the Vic-mobile. Ma’s flipping him a few bucks to help us out.
He wears old-man glasses. “I lost one of my contacts. I think it
might be behind my eye.” He drives forty miles an hour in the
fifty-five zone.
Steamy rain. The flea
market is empty. We’re pretty much the only car in the lot. We’re
sitting in the Vic-mobile. We have the back open with the lamest
hand-painted poster: C&C CORNBREAD. YUMMY. Hail pounds the
windshield. Cue balls. Ma is knitting a hat for
Anthony.
“It’s August,
Ma.”
“Not
forever.”
“But fuchsia and
yellow stripes?”
“Only yarn I
had.”
Bobby’s glasses are
fogged up. He’s reading zombie Manga. His mouth is open a little,
and his tongue kind of sticks out. I’m studying my belly button
lint.
Rapping on the
window. The one moron who bought a loaf. “This bread
sucks.”
“I’m very open to
suggestions on how to improve it,” Ma says.
“Next batch should
not smell like hand soap and burned ketchup and be softer than the
bow of an icebreaker. You should advertise it as a
weapon.”
“We have several
other varieties,” Bobby says.
“Get a load of this
kid. Several. Like seven ain’t good
enough. You don’t fool me, champ. What are you, three dollars an
hour at the car wash, right? ‘Vacuum the seats for you, sir?’ Gimme
my money back.”
I trade him five
dirty wilted dollars for the loaf, minus one very big bite. “Well,
we sold negative one loaves.”
“Better than selling
zero,” Bobby says.
I squint at Bobby. Ma
pinches his cheek. “Let’s wrap it up and head back.”
Me and Bobby pack the
bread into the boxes. Bobby knocks over a box: cornbread puddles.
“Yup, yes, uh-huh . . .”
We drop the stinking
bread off at the VA, but they don’t want it. The soup kitchen will
take it only after Ma makes a forty-dollar donation. We drop off Ma
at this support group for mothers of wounded soldiers, and then
Bobby drives me home.
“You take the G and
T, Bob?”
“Yeah, I think I did
okay on the multiple choice, but my essay was ass. I’ll probably
take it again. Maybe I’ll write something metaphorical about the
tuba. Problem is, I’m not that good. Really the only thing I’m good
at is watching movies. I like food-related activities too. Do you
mind if I tell you something about your brother?”
“Absolutely. I mean,
no, I don’t mind.”
“He remembered my
name every time he saw me in the hall.”
“He remembers
everybody’s.”
“Yeah, but he was the
quarterback and I was in the band.” He takes out his old-man
umbrella and waddles around to my side, slipping just once on the
way. He walks me to my stoop.
“Wanna come in for
some ice-cream sandwiches?”
“Definitely.”
“Seriously?”
“What kind?” he
says.
“Carvel, Skinny Brown
Cow, and this tofu-type thing.”
“Tofutti?”
“No, a Tofutti
knockoff. I forget the name of it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m
relatively certain I’ll like it.”
“The tofu might be
rotten. I bought it like three years ago.”
“Let’s check it out.
The preservatives they use these days are excellent. You’d be
surprised how that stuff keeps.”
We go
in.
“Do you mind if I
scroll through your DVR SAVED list?”
“Scroll
away.”
I’m getting the ice
cream. He calls to me, “Biggest Loser
season finale? Loved it.”
“We can watch it
again.”
“Do you have two
computers?” he says. “We can totally do a World of Warcraft
team-and-slay.”
“I’m more an
EverQuest girl.”
“Me too!” he
says.
“God, I haven’t
logged in since June.” Since I started hanging with
Mack.
“Can I see your DVDs?
Oh no you didn’t. The Outsiders deluxe
edition? I might have to Mac the Ripper this. I totally wore mine
out.”
“Exactly how high up
is it on your favorites, might I ask?”
“Are you serious? On
my list of coming-of-age novel-toscreen adaptations featuring one
or more Brat Pack actors, it comes in at number three.”
“Holy
shit.”
“I know. And it ranks
even higher on my list of flicks featuring Matt Dillon when his
hair was parted in the middle—number two in fact, second only to—”
“My Bodyguard.”
“Sorry, the correct
answer is Rumble Fish.”
“Rumble Fish,” I say, nodding. “Of
course.”
“Has anybody ever
told you that you slightly resemble Cherry Valance?”
I try not blush as I
throw off a “Like, maybe once, sort of.” Yeah, right after the
hair-frying episode and hunting fifty stores for the same exact
baby blue bow-tie sweater she was wearing, and I asked Anthony, “Do
I look like Cherry from The Outsiders?”
And he said, “You look exactly like you’re trying to look like Cherry.” I rack my brain for a
return compliment, but the only thing coming to me is, has anybody
ever told Bobby that he greatly resembles Kermit the
Frog?
We hang and eat and
he drops and spills stuff and apologizes. We play slap cards while
we watch the gang fight scene from The
Outsiders and then Polar Express
for the seven hundredth time—he has the DVD too. He says stuff out
of the blue, like, “Some people think that if cats grew thumbs
before we did, we’d be their pets.”
“That’s actually
rather interesting.” I pretend I don’t want to cry. It’s happening:
I still think about him, worry about him, still love him when I’m
not hating him, but I’m starting not to miss him so much
anymore.
I reach under the
couch for the Wii controls and I hear clinking. So this is where
she’s been hiding her empties. I’ll wait till Anthony comes home to
bring this up. It’s all good, huh? Then you handle
her.