The Slide: A Novel (24 page)

“Yakuza,” she said.

“Which is why nobody would help. Stuart was seven. They kept him in a windowless room with only a small table and three chairs. They addressed him in English as if he were a full-grown man, speaking formally even as they made a fist of all but that one finger, then laid it across the table. He describes the pain as something he felt everywhere but his finger. Then they left him to wait in that room while his dad gathered the cash, arranged the exchange, and so on. They provided soup and bandages, very organized and businesslike. All told, he was gone for just under forty-eight hours.”

“Jesus, is that sexy,” she said, and I quickly gathered my papers and said goodbye.

The door from the basement opened into the Hoyne kitchen, a softer-hued and more sheep-covered reflection of my own mother’s kitchen. There were sheep on oven mitts and towels and the small chalkboard by the phone. I stood lingering at the kitchen island across from Zoe’s mother, my mother’s dear friend. I assumed she had known long before me of Carla’s displeasure, and I wanted to ask her about the progression as she saw it. When had she first noticed a change in my mother’s behavior? Did Carla point, when pressed, to a small but ultimately devastating moment when she knew the marriage was finished? But all I could muster was a halfhearted question about the origin of her kitchen sheep.

“About six years ago we found that stool at an antique store in Herman. Then Derrick brought this home one day.” She reached both hands across the sink for a painted clay jar sitting in the windowsill. “From there it just kind of snowballed for us both. There are cookies in here if you’d like one.”

“Would you say the sheep have had a positive effect on your marriage? Life in general?”

She looked at me the way you might look at a three-legged dog. “Have a cookie, Potter. Go ahead.”

When I made it to our sheepless kitchen, Carla was in the middle of pouring herself a glass of wine. I sat at the counter and she was at the sink, no more than three feet away.

“Are you enjoying the tutoring?”

“To be honest I feel redundant down there. I’m basically a glorified egg timer.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case.”

“There’s just so much trust coming from every angle. To instruct another person, in basically anything, is to approach volatility. So many things hang in so many states of balance.”

“I loved teaching. I really did. I could have taught forever.”

Her shoulders were pulled forward to accommodate her crossed arm and drinking posture, the glass held a few inches in front of her chest. Her upper arms were strong where they showed at blouse-sleeve ends. Her hair parted in the middle and spread outward like mist—thin, increasingly gray hair mist. Here was a woman I’d looked at so many times that I had no option but to take her for granted. A face too much like my own to register as anything else. Halfway-to-death woman, twice mother, future divorcée, looking down on me. I looked to the wine bottle on the counter briefly, then back into her face. Older female mirror of ancestral me.

“What’s news from the garden?”

“It’s not easy, son, figuring out how to be a mother once the normal duties are complete. Of course they keep going, I’ll always be your mother. But once you were gone and schooled and now ready to begin your life.”

“Mom.”

“I’m sure you understand that none of this is easy. And that right now your father and I are in the middle of a very difficult time.”

“I have to be going in a minute.”

But going meant deciding where. I remained at the counter, sitting quietly and staring into the face of my mother. As she sipped her wine, I found myself blaming her for almost everything.

“I can see that you’re upset. Of course. Your father’s upset and I’m upset.”

“We’re like a club.”

“Honey.”

I reached for the glass, took enough of a sip to finish it. She poured another.

“You and your father didn’t make it to a game.”

“No. And now they’re in the middle of a major West Coast road stretch of Giants, Dodgers, then Diamondbacks. Then it’s here against Chicago, which will be sold out. Then they’re in Houston.”

“I know he was really hoping to go,” she said.

“Tell me this much. Be honest for one second.”

“Don’t attack me, Potter. Don’t use that tone.”

“Tell me this much. How often do you see Freddy?”

“Oh. Son.”

“Please don’t make me feel crazy. Asshole is plenty for now.”

“How are you an asshole?” she said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“That is false.”

“There’s no reason to yell.”

“I don’t mean to!”

My mother set down the empty glass and poured another before recrossing her arms in the manner from before.

“We never lied to you, Potter.”

“Fuck.”

Still holding the wine, she leaned over the sink and spoke calmly into my face.

“I see Freddy everywhere I look. I see him in the basement by the washing machine and in our closet while I’m getting dressed and in the office. Right now your brother is sitting next to you. He’s right there, Potter.”

I left her in the kitchen and went to my car. I was halfway to Ian’s before I realized his father would be home, and I turned around.

At Stuart’s, a man was standing among the automobiles. I waited at the end of the driveway and watched him peer into one car, bending at the waist before stepping back and glancing over each shoulder, at which point he spotted my car and came toward me. It took me a minute to realize who it was. He was dressed in a clean white button-down shirt, a slim blue tie, shiny black loafers, and dark-gray dress pants. Dark-gray slacks. As he approached the passenger side of my car, I saw he was freshly shaven, leaving stark tan lines where the beard had been.

“If it isn’t Potter Mays.”

He got inside and held down the button to move the seat backward. The last person to sit there was Ian.

“Edsel.”

“I have to get to Shannon’s Bar and Grill downtown.”

“You were going to steal one of these cars. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Seven cars sitting here and the cockblower won’t let me drive the ugly one he got for free.”

“Is that gabardine?”

“Big event tonight. Start of a new moment, crucial step in what I plan to become. You’ll be underdressed, but so what. Lessgo.”

I had no reason to resist a trip downtown. Yes, why not, Richard’s downtown, surely something to learn from the deserted shells of once-prosperous buildings and the ignored, downtrodden people who lived among them. As I drove, Edsel read to me from the pamphlet he was holding.

“Successful St. Louisan’s monthly Meet ’n’ Greet Happy Hour is the
region’s premier opportunity for fiscally motivated, success-driven men
and women to expand their network of connections and further their
goals of career triumph.”

Behind us, the sun dipped into a sky the color of scotch and water.

“There’s a two-dollar lot just around the corner.”

I paid the attendant and found a spot. Here was the ogre, beardless and wearing some sort of costume. I sensed we might be sitting in the car for a bit and left the windows down. He pulled a crumble of aluminum foil from a pocket along with a palm-sized vanity mirror. Inside the foil were two milky-green trapezoidal pills. He placed the pills and mirror in the console’s cup holder, then leaned back in his seat.

“What are you doing here, Edsel?”

“You’re here,” he said.

I considered this.

“Making my move,” he said. “Everything I’ve done in the past six years has been preparation for this moment. I’ve hustled Talkative and Relaxation. I went to bed with roughly a hundred different women. Give or take. I have traveled and treated my body like it’s my favorite hammer. I got no other option but some bovine cattle commitment to following this thing through to its end.”

“You shaved. I assumed the beard was linked to the size issue. Your force.”

“One way these people level the playing field is by frowning officially on facial hair at the lower levels. This world of theirs believes in the concept of reward. Facial hair is part of this. If I ever get high enough here, I promise you I’ll grow another beard. I’ll look forward to it. By the way, Stuart paid me five hundred dollars to take you off his hands. Did you know that?”

I didn’t, but it sounded about right. A sedan parked next to us on my side and two men in business attire got out, each holding a suit jacket in one hand. These men had careers. The driver of the car had bought the car. It was his.

“Bigger point is, I agreed to a job and plan on following through on that job. Stuart is gone. Found himself a woman and he’s made his way into commitment. And part of me understands, because a woman like that will make anyone think twice. Even me. Even me. As for you, personally I give half a nut what you think. But the bigger thing here is customer satisfaction. I agreed to do a service. I intend on following through on that.”

“It’s not just your appearance. Your voice has less country in it.”

“If you’re not refining, then all you’re doing is waiting around and sitting still. You should learn that soon as you can. I got the uniform and the necessary personal skills. I have learned the languages. Now I go in there and perform. Wish I could have rustled up a jacket, though.”

There was a warble. His voice shook a bit. I heard it in
gu-o
and in
perforum
. And if it didn’t seem impossible it would have been obvious: Edsel was nervous. He placed the mirror and pills on his left thigh, then held out his hand. I pulled the Visa from my wallet and gave it to him. Edsel carefully crushed the pills and herded their powder toward the center of the small mirror.

“Here. Smell this.”

“You going to tell me what it is?”

“Placebo.”

When we got inside, Shannon’s Bar and Grill was in that early stage of attendance when any slight move would reverberate through the rest of the night. The few who were there watched us enter. Vacant pool tables and bar stools, an unused pinball machine. A small group of men and one woman huddled around a video golf game in a corner. We secured a table smack in the middle of the room. My nasal passage wanted to bust free and whip about like some balloon slipped from a clown’s fingers. A slow trickle of nicely dressed young adults filed through the door, and Edsel went for beer.

I watched him at the bar and felt the confessional momentum gathering steam. I had no therapist, no priest behind a screen, just this depraved, remorseless soul. I imagined a wet cloth wiped across a countertop, requisite purgation and atonement. Edsel sat back down and handed me a beer.

“Took that out of Stuart’s five hundred.”

“I fear you, Edsel. You scare me in a way I want to go find somewhere else to live. I fear the implications of you. I fear the reality of a world run by people like you.”

“Good,” he said. “Keep talking. I’m going to try to appear interested and nod my head. Don’t be scared to move your hands. Try and give the impression you’re discussing something financial.”

“I’ve been tutoring the daughter who lives next door for the SATs. She’s sixteen. I think based on her test scores and the way she laughs at me that she’s very smart.”

Edsel nodded and looked around the room. “And you wanna wrestle with this girl.”

“If I call her blond, it’s a clear case of a word not doing justice. Last night I counted eight different shades on her head.”

His pretend listening skills were stellar. His eyebrows rose. He shifted his weight and opened a palm to ask follow-up questions.

“This girl, she’s around all the time?”

“If I’m home later, she’ll be there. It’s as if she knows exactly when I’ll look outside my house, either just coming out or just going in. So I’m forced to either think long and hard about going and talking to her, or think how I wish I had seen her earlier. Yes. Tonight we’ll talk and she’ll be there and I’ll try not to want her.”

“Now shake my hand and I’ll walk away.”

As soon as he left, another hand smacked my shoulder. I turned and was looking up at Matt from Saturdays at the pool house. He wore a blue shirt with a white collar and a solid red tie. He set a bottle of Budweiser on the table and draped his suit jacket over the back of a chair. Eric was a step behind him, also holding a Budweiser.

We all touched bottles and drank and then sat quietly for a few minutes. Shannon’s was filling up quickly. Groups were forming around the bar, then being pushed into the middle of the room as newer groups formed closer in. The smoke was growing thicker, and the layers of chatter soon became loud enough to drown out the music. I saw Edsel on the outskirts of a group, working his way to its inner circle. He nodded and shrugged and shook hands. It was a terrific sight to behold, his first nibbles at legitimacy. Reminded me of that movie where the reformed hooker runs for Congress. Soon he was inside, centrally located, towering over the heads around him, having punctured their circle and this new world. He was just so
big
. Someone behind the bar turned up the music.