How It Ended Part 4

"You people are way f.u.c.ked-up," Derek says as we lay rubber out of the cul-de-sac. "What the f.u.c.k's wrong with y'all?"

There's not much to say to this, so far as I can see. I hear a sniffling sound from Susan's side of the car and I see that she's crying.

"f.u.c.kin' crazy white folks."

"It's true," she says.

I feel like pointing out that he was down with the program until Bongo bit his a.s.s, but I decide to keep my counsel. I mean, n.o.body was holding a gun to his head, were they?

Derek can't contain his indignation. "Wha.s.sup with you people? You pick up strange white dudes, too, or is this some Mandingo thing?"

"No, it's not." Susan wipes her nose and sniffles. "It's not just-it's both."

She looks over at me, as if trying to read something in my face.

"I think maybe, I don't know, Dean likes it better when it's, you know, a black guy."

"Me? What are you talking about? Don't put that on me. You started that."

"If I did, it was only because I felt like you wanted me to."

"I never said that."

"You never complained, either."

"And that gave you license to go for it," I say. "Which is obviously what you wanted."

"Deeply f.u.c.ked-up, man."

"Hey," I say, "we never forced anybody."

He leans forward in the backseat and slaps me on the head. "Shut the f.u.c.k up," he says. "I want to hear what she say." To Susan, he says, "You into this s.h.i.+t?"

She looks over at me, and I don't like what I'm seeing.

"I don't know. I guess I've gotten used to it."

"Gotten used used to it?" I can't believe this. She's completely rewriting history. to it?" I can't believe this. She's completely rewriting history.

"You know, after a while it was just ... something we did."

"Give me a f.u.c.king break," I say. "You love getting f.u.c.ked by strange men. And you really love getting f.u.c.ked by strange black men."

Derek smacks me again, harder this time. "Shut up and keep your eyes on the f.u.c.kin' road. And show the lady some G.o.dd.a.m.n respect."

We're coming up on the hospital.

"How long's this s.h.i.+t been goin' on?"

Susan is slumped over in the front seat, as if she's suddenly gone boneless. I notice the little blond Kelly doll sprawled, arms and legs akimbo, at her feet. I'm getting fed up with this inquisition. I mean, what the h.e.l.l difference does it make how long it's been going on, and what does he care?

"I can tell you exactly," Susan says. "It was after Dean ..." Her voice catches and a sob escapes her pursed lips. "It was after he found out about something I'd done."

"Somethin' you done? Or someone someone you done?" you done?"

"Well, yeah, someone I'd slept with."

"What are you talking about?" I say. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Oh come on. As if you don't remember."

"I don't know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about."

"I'm talking talking about you finding out about me and Cleve Thompson." about you finding out about me and Cleve Thompson."

"What the f.u.c.k does that have to do with anything? And why are we talking about this now?"

"Come on, Dean. That's what really started this. How long was it between you finding out about Cleve and you telling me to pick up that man at the Last Exit."

"That was like ... That was way later. And you're the one who brought up the idea of coming on to that guy."

"Oh please."

"Even if it was my idea, which it wasn't, I didn't hear you protesting real loud."

She turns and gives me a look, which is worse than anything that's led up to it. "No, you didn't," she says. "But let's at least all be honest about our motivations here, for a change."

None of us says much of anything as we wait in the ER. I give them my credit card because Derek doesn't have any insurance and it seems we're pretty much responsible for his being here. I'm wondering if the guy who got shot at Tini's came through here. Across from us is a rail-thin country boy in a b.l.o.o.d.y NASCAR T-s.h.i.+rt, clutching a b.l.o.o.d.y towel to his neck, sitting beside his fat mother, who's wearing a voluminous pastel sweatsuit. "I done told you," she says several times over the next ten minutes.

Finally, after they take Derek in to be st.i.tched up, I turn to Susan. "You don't really believe what you said back there," I say. "That our ... little adventures ... that I'm, what? Punis.h.i.+ng you?"

"For Christ's sake, Dean. Wake up."

Forty minutes later, I'm dropping Derek off at a bar on Sixth Street.

"Why'n cha come on with me?" he says to Susan.

To my amazement, she seems to be considering the offer. "I should."

"Give old n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s here somethin' to think about."

"I appreciate the offer."

"You know where to find me," he says, climbing out of the back and slamming the door.

I can't imagine what to say now. Neither, apparently, can Susan. We drive past the bright neon signs of one franchise after another in silence. It's a little past one. A gibbous harvest moon hangs over the interstate, leaking an orange glow into the surrounding sky. It's a beautiful sight, even now.

I look across at Susan. A s.h.i.+ny tear moves down her cheek. "What?" I say.

"I was just thinking of the first time."

I almost ask the first time for what, but I don't. That would be hostile. Instead, I pull over in front of the Outback Steakhouse.

"You remember?"

"Of course I do."

"We drove up to your uncle's place on the lake. In that terrible car of yours."

I remember all right. It was a Friday night, the week before graduation. We drove up to Center Lake in my old Subaru, which had a hole in the m.u.f.fler and smelled inside of gas. The mattress in the bunk bed at the shack smelled like mildew, but my new sleeping bag had a fresh, synthetic smell that was eventually canceled out by the heady, deeply organic funk of our mingled secretions-the first time I'd encountered the smell of s.e.x. I remember the furious creaking of the rusty old bed and the lapping of waves on the sh.o.r.e outside and, eventually, afterward, Susan's m.u.f.fled sniffles. I didn't know what to think except that somehow I'd failed. "What's the matter?" I'd finally asked. "I'm fine," she'd said, wrapping herself around me in the sleeping bag, her cheek wet against my shoulder.

"You thought I was unhappy," she says now, as if she's reading my mind.

"What was I supposed to think?"

"I was crying because it was perfect, and because it would never be the first time again."

I shake my head and shrug.

"I was crying because I didn't want to ever lose you, but I knew that if we stayed together, sooner or later we would hurt each other."

"You didn't lose me," I say hopefully, reaching over and taking her hand.

"Yeah," she says, wiping the tear from her face. "Actually, I think I did."

"We can go back."

Susan shakes her head and stares straight ahead out the winds.h.i.+eld.

I look out, too, trying to remember what made it a harvest moon, and wondering if it was waxing or waning. Of course I remember when I found out about Cleve Thompson. I thought I'd lose my mind. I thought my heart would burst with rage and grief. I couldn't sleep for days. I imagined the two of them in every possible position, in every nuance of l.u.s.t and carnality. I raged, wept, broke her entire collection of Staffords.h.i.+re figurines, demanded an explanation. She sent the children to her mother's and I took three days off work. I couldn't eat, and when I did, I vomited. I asked if she still loved me and didn't believe her when she said she did. How could she f.u.c.k him if she loved me? I couldn't reconcile the two facts. I thought I would die of heartbreak. I'd always believed I would be her only.

So I made her tell me everything. I was tortured by visions of her treachery, by my own roiling, filthy imagination. The reality could hardly be worse, I figured. I demanded more and more details. I needed to picture her, with him, in the explicit postures of betrayal. I made her repeat and expand on the sordid details, asking questions, demanding more and more specificity, until I could see it all, or believed I could, as clearly as a p.o.r.n clip, until I could almost imagine it was something I'd created for my own pleasure ... until we both realized that the actual circ.u.mstances would never be enough to match the images in my head.

I needed more.

2007.

The Madonna of Turkey Season It came to seem like our own special Thanksgiving tradition-one of us inevitably behaving very badly. The role was pa.s.sed around the table from year to year like some kind of ceremonial torch, or a seasonal virus: the weeping and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth, the breaking of gla.s.s, the hurling of accusations, the final nosedive into the mashed potatoes or the s.h.a.g carpet. Sometimes it even fell to our guests-friends, girlfriends, wives-the disease apparently communicable. We were three boys who'd lost their mother-four if you counted Dad, five if you counted Brian's best friend, Foster Creel, who'd lost his own mother about the same time we did and always spent Thanksgiving with us-and for many years there had been no one to tell us not to pour that pivotal seventh drink, not to chew with our mouths open, not to say f.u.c.k f.u.c.k at the dinner table. at the dinner table.

We kept bringing other women to the table to try to fill the hole, but they were never able to impose peace for long. Sometimes they were catalysts, and occasionally they even initiated the hostilities-perhaps their way of trying to fit in. My father never brought another woman to the table, though many tried to invite themselves, and our young girlfriends remarked on how handsome he was and what a waste it was. "I had my great love, and how could I settle for anything less?" he'd say as he poured himself another Smirnoff and the neighbor widows and divorcees dashed themselves against the windowpanes like birds.

Sometimes, although not always, the mayhem boiled up again at Christmas, in the sacramental presence of yet another turkey carca.s.s, with a new brother or guest in the role of incendiary device, though memories of the most recent Thanksgiving were often enough to spare us the spectacle for another eleven months. I suppose we all had a lot to be thankful for, socioeconomically speaking, but for some reason we chose to dwell instead on our grievances. How come you went to Aidan's high school play and not mine? How could you have f.u.c.ked Karen Watley when you knew I was in love with her? How come you went to Aidan's high school play and not mine? How could you have f.u.c.ked Karen Watley when you knew I was in love with her?

We would arrive Tuesday night from prep school or college, or on Wednesday night from New York, where we were working at a bank while writing a play, or from Vermont, where we were building a log cabin with our roommate from Middlebury before heading up to Stowe at first snow for a season of ski b.u.mming. Dad would take the latter part of the week off, until he retired, which was when things really became dangerous. The riotous foliage that briefly enflamed the chaste New England hills was long gone, leaving the monochromatic landscape of winter: the gray stone walls of the early settlers, the silver trunks of the maples, the white columns of birch.

Manly hugs were exchanged at the kitchen door. c.o.c.ktails were offered and accepted. Girlfriends and roommates were introduced. The year of the big snow, footwear was sc.r.a.ped on the blade of the cast-iron boot cleaner outside the door. Dad was particularly pleased with this implement, and always pointed it out to guests, not because he was particularly fastidious about mud and snow, but because it seemed to signify all the supposed charm and tradition of old New England (as opposed to, say, its intolerance of immigrants and its burning of young girls at the stake), although he'd bought this particular boot sc.r.a.per once upon a time at the local True Value hardware store. But somehow Dad had convinced himself that it had been planted here by the early settlers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony, in between skirmishes with the Wampanoags and the Mohicans. He liked to think of himself as an old Yankee, despite the fact that when his grandfathers arrived in Boston, the windows were full of NO IRISH NEED APPLY signs and they weren't likely to be invited to sc.r.a.pe their boots at anybody's front door. A century and a half later, though, we lived in a big white house with green shutters, which Dad inevitably described as "Colonial," though it was built in the 1920s to resemble something a hundred years older.

Most of the girls we brought-a cavalcade of blondes-were judged by their resemblance to our mother, except when it seemed, as was the case a couple of times with Brian, they'd been deliberately chosen for their controversial darkness. Each of us could see how his brother's girlfriend was a pale imitation of Mom and our own were one-offs who shared some of her best qualities. The girls, for their part, must have been a little daunted at first to discover the patterns of traits they'd cherished as unique. As different as we were, we were all recognizably alike, with the same unruly hair, the same heavy-browed, smiley eyes and all our invisible resemblances, born and bred. Brian, the eldest, kept things lively by bringing a different girl every year; we called him "the Kennedy of the family." The rest of us took after Dad, who liked to say that Mom was his only true love. Mike had been with Jennifer since his freshman year at Colby, and Aidan met his future wife, Alana, before he was twenty. Actually, Brian showed up two years in a row with Janis, whom he eventually married, much to our and then his own chagrin. The second time, she threw the entire uncarved turkey at Brian's head, a scene that eventually showed up in his second play. Another year, he and Foster nearly came to blows at the table when it came out that they'd lately been sleeping with the same girl. It took two of us to restrain Brian.

Brian's personal life, with all its chaos, Sturm und Drang, was the workshop version of his professional life, a laboratory for drama. And of course he wrote about us. Mike said at the time that the phrase "thinly disguised" was too chubby by half to describe Brian's relation to his source material. His first play revolved around the death of a mother from cancer. There seemed to be a number of those that particular season, but his was the most successful. We all went down to the opening night at the New York Theatre Workshop. The play was directed by Foster, who'd been his best friend ever since Choate, and had gone with him to Yale Drama. We sat there, stunned in the aftermath, as the applause thundered around us. It was hard to know how to react. In the play, Brian seemed to be making a special claim for himself with regard to our mother, in that the character who was obviously him had been more loved and more devastated than the others.

Then there was the question of his portrayal of the rest of us. On the one hand, as brothers we wanted to say, Hey, that's not me Hey, that's not me, and on the other, But wait a minute; that is me But wait a minute; that is me. He'd put us in an untenable position. Brian was a great sophist, and if you complained about the parallels between his life and art, he would start declaiming about the autobiographical basis of Long Day's Journey into Night Long Day's Journey into Night or point out that "your" character had gone to Deerfield, when you'd actually gone to Hotchkiss. And if you complained about inaccuracies-denied that you'd ever, for example, had carnal relations with the family dog-he would cite poetic license or remind you that you'd been banging on a moment before about resemblances and that this clearly demonstrated the fictionality of his masterpiece. or point out that "your" character had gone to Deerfield, when you'd actually gone to Hotchkiss. And if you complained about inaccuracies-denied that you'd ever, for example, had carnal relations with the family dog-he would cite poetic license or remind you that you'd been banging on a moment before about resemblances and that this clearly demonstrated the fictionality of his masterpiece.

At first, it was hard to tell how Dad felt about it. He put on a brave face and went over to Phoebe's, the bar down the block, to celebrate with Brian and the cast. He seemed to be in shock. But later, in the cab back to the hotel, and in the bar there, he kept asking us, over and over again, some variant of the question "Was I such a bad father?" In truth, he didn't come off all that badly, but we all had a hard time not viewing the play as a flawed family memoir. He also cornered Foster, our unofficial fourth brother, whom for years Dad had consulted as a kind of emotional translator in his efforts to understand Brian.

"Every artist interprets the world through the prism of his own narcissism," Foster told him that night. "He doesn't think you're a bad father. He forgot about you the day he started writing the play. All the characters in the play, even the ones who look and sound like you, are Brian, or else they're foils for Brian." I don't think my father knew whether to be rea.s.sured or worried by this. Of course, he'd long known Brian was ma.s.sively self-absorbed, p.r.o.ne to exaggeration and outright mendacity. But he seemed pleased with the judgment, repeated to us all many times later, that Brian was an artist. At last, he seemed to feel, there was an explanation for his temperament, and his deviations from what my father considered proper behavior: the drugs, the senseless prevarications, the childhood interest in poetry. For Dad, Foster's a.s.sessment counted as much as subsequent accolades in the Times Times and elsewhere. and elsewhere.

That year, Brian brought Ca.s.sie Haynes, the actress, who played his former girlfriend Rita Cosovich in the play, although of course he denied that the character was based on Rita, and we all wondered if Rita would, on balance, be more offended by the substance of her portrait or flattered by its appearance, Ca.s.sie being a babe of the first order. She caused a bit of a sensation around the neighborhood that Thanksgiving, husbands coming from three streets down to ask after the leaf blower they thought they might possibly have lent to Dad earlier in the fall. When we heard she was coming, we all thought, Great, just what we need, a prima donna actress, though we couldn't help liking her, and hoping she would come back during bathing suit season.

Brian's play gave us something to fight about at the Thanksgiving board for years to come, beginning that first November after the opening, when the wounds were still fresh. Mike, the middle brother, was the first to take up the cause after the c.o.c.ktail hour had been prolonged due to some miscalculation about the turkey. Mike's fiancee, Jennifer, had volunteered to cook the bird that year, and while she would later become our chief and favorite cook, this was her first attempt at a turkey, and rather than relying on Mom's old copy of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, she'd insisted on adapting a chicken recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Mastering the Art of French Cooking. When Dad attempted to carve the turkey the first time, the legs were still pink and raw and the bird was slammed back in the oven, giving us all another jolly hour and a half to deplete the bar. We might have given Jennifer less grief if she hadn't initially tried to defend herself, insisting that the French preferred their birds rare and implying that a thoroughly cooked bird was unsophisticated. When we finally sat down to eat, Brian said grace without letting her off the hook: "Notre pere, qui aime la volaille crue, que ton nom soit sanctifie-" "Notre pere, qui aime la volaille crue, que ton nom soit sanctifie-"

Mike interrupted him, asking how he'd like a well-done drumstick up the a.s.s. Dad demanded a truce, and for several minutes peace prevailed, until Dad started to talk about Mom in that maudlin way of his, a recitation that always relied heavily on the concept of her sainthood. Usually we all collaborated in changing the subject and leading him out of this quagmire of grieving nostalgia, but now Mike wanted to open the subject for debate.

"She didn't deserve to suffer," Dad was saying.

"Apparently, the person who suffered the most was Brian," Mike said. "At least that's the impression I got from the play. I mean, sure, Mom was dying of cancer and all, but I never realized it hurt Brian so much to administer her shots the one night that he actually managed to sit up with her. Maybe I'm a philistine, but it seemed to me like the point was the one who really suffered wasn't Mom, it was Brian."

"Okay, okay," Brian said. "I'm sorry I said grace in French."

"That's not really the point," Mike said.

"Oh, but I think it is."

"I don't blame you for trying to change the subject, you self-centered p.r.i.c.k. But you know what? We all grew up in the same house. And we all saw the play."

"Now, boys," Dad said.

"You, of all people, know what I'm talking about," Mike said, pointing a fork at our father. "Let's be honest. You were freaked-out by the play."

Dad didn't want to go down this road. "I had a few ... concerns."

"Don't p.u.s.s.y out, Dad. We've talked about this, for Christ's sake. Why are we all so worried about Brian's feelings? It's not like he lost any sleep worrying about ours."

"Actually," Ca.s.sie said, "I happen to know he was very worried about your feelings. I think Foster will agree with me."

"It's not like he shows it," Mike said.

"I think it's wonderful how women attribute lofty ideals and fine feelings to us," Foster said. "But, I'm sorry, if Brian had spent much time worrying about your feelings, it wouldn't have been much of a f.u.c.king play."

This quip might have defused the situation, but Mike, like a giant freighter loaded with grievances, was unable to change course. Brian parried his continuing a.s.sault with glib little irrelevancies until Mike eventually stormed out of the room, spilling red wine all over the Irish linen tablecloth, but the rest of us considered ourselves fortunate that it wasn't blood. Mike had the fiercest temper in the family, and he was three inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than his elder brother.

The whole exchange was pretty representative. While Brian had always charmed and finessed and fibbed his way through life, Mike had a fierce stubborn honesty and a big hardwood chip on his shoulder, which was in some measure a reflection of his belief that Brian had already claimed the upper bunk bed of life before he came along and had a chance to choose for himself. If Brian were a.s.sailing a castle, he would try to sneak in the back door by seducing the scullery maid; Mike would b.u.t.t his head against the portcullis until it or he gave way. Mike's youthful transgressions weren't necessarily more numerous or egregious, but, unlike Brian, he was inevitably caught and held accountable, in part because he considered it dishonest to hide them. Brian never let the facts compromise his objective, and he seemed almost allergic to them. When he got caught with marijuana, he had an elaborate, if hackneyed, story about how he was holding it for a friend. But when Mike decided to grow it, he did so out in the open, planting rows between the corn and tomatoes in the vegetable garden, until someone finally told our mother, who'd been giving tours of the garden, the true ident.i.ty of the mystery herb. Back then, none of us could have predicted that Mike would eventually be the one to follow our father to business school and General Electric, that he'd be diplomatic enough to negotiate the hazards of corporate culture. His reformation owed a lot to Jennifer, starting that first year at Colby. It took us a long time to learn to love her-my father was furious over her soph.o.m.ore art-cla.s.s critique of our parish church-but there was no denying her anodyne effect on Mike.