Chapter 10
Thirty seconds later, we’re walking the plank on this sinking fucking ship because he’s here. Angus. Slimy green robe. Velour. Same green as those pillows in India. Cigarette holes in the sleeves, and I am silent. Dead. He isn’t holding a Heinie, and he isn’t holding a crack pipe.
He’s holding a fucking gun. You put your hands up and I put my hands up and my Moleskine heart is pounding—this is the worst kind of first—and you extend a hand like he doesn’t have a gun, like this is fucking normal and you smile at the gun-toting crackhead.
“You must be Uncle Andy, right? I’m Joe’s friend Vail.” Friend. “And I gotta say…I am kind of in love with your robe.”
He looks at you and he looks at me, and he takes the two steps down into our sinking ship. Your scarf is right there, and I’m begging that fucker, please. Don’t touch that fuzzy red scarf. Don’t kill us. Don’t wreck us.
He spits. “The hell do you think you’re doing, Jimmy?”
You get it now—this ain’t my Uncle Andy—and that’s why you put your hands back up.
You’re scared again. I want to tell you it’s not loaded, but last summer, he got mad about something Oprah said and shot a hole in the wall.
It very well might be loaded, and you are never going to forgive me for this, for any of it.
“Angus,” I say. “I can explain.”
He leers at you and laughs. “Did you get me a present?”
You are not a present and I howl at him—Drop the fucking weapon—but you rest a hand on my arm—Gently, Joseph—and you look at me like I’m a child. “Let me, Joe,” you whisper.
I can’t say no to you. I am useless. I’m the reason you’re in this mess, and you are so good at the world. You negotiate like a pro, like that lady on SVU. You ask Angus if you can sit down, and when he says no, you say that’s okay, that we will do whatever he wants.
“You’re the boss, babe. Truly.”
He waves the pistol at you, at the sofa. “Sit, Ubu, sit.”
You sit, and he calls you a good dog. I’m still standing here like the teenage loser that I am, and you’re a genius, a regular Miss Frascatore.
You stay calm, asking questions about his day, about his night.
His answers make no sense. I didn’t have a day…
. I don’t do night. You know to let it go, to let him lead, and so he leads.
He says I don’t belong here. He says I’m a book bitch and sometimes he calls me Jimmy and other times it’s Jerome or fucking Jimbo and all the while I stand here with my hands up because he never told me to Sit, Ubu, sit.
“Hey, Angus,” you coo. “Do you want some chocolate, hon?”
Hon and he falls under your spell, and drops the gun (junkies do like their sweets) and you dig into that messenger bag and peel the foil off the mints, the Andes. Uncle Andy. Andy.
I catch my breath. I try not to puke. Useless juvenile delinquent. Liar. Felon?
Angus eats his chocolate, and blubbers and mutters that we don’t understand, and you sit by him, not me.
“How’s that taste, hon?” You put a hand on his knee.
I want your hand on my knee and he says it’s good and you give him another and I’ve never been smaller in my whole fucking life.
Angus eats your chocolate, the chocolate meant for me, and you pat his knee (don’t touch him, you’re killing me) and he shakes his greasy head.
“You do not play Peter Frampton after dark.”
“Amen,” you say, and how do you know how to work him?
I come here every week, and I still freeze up when he pisses me off.
Not you. You met him at gunpoint, but you’re bonding with him over some record store I never even heard of and how?
Do you like him more than me? Are you over me already?
I would be over me. I wrecked it. I lied to you. Did I kill it?
You slap your thighs (no), and I was gonna do that, Vail. I was gonna slap your thighs. Love them. Touch them. Squeeze them. Angus says you can go meet your friend and you put on your boots. The end is nigh, the dream is over, and I’ve never felt quite so young and dumb.
I catch your eye. I’m sorry.
You wink at me, and I don’t know what that means. What’s a wink? Is there hope?
“All right,” he says. “I’m bored.”
He’s on his feet and we’re on the move, following him down the hall to the elevator and maybe there’s a chance.
A way out of this for us because we are getting out now and that means we lived.
I owe you my life, and I squeeze your hand and thank you.
You chuckle and roll your eyes like it was nothing, and the earth splits open.
An abyss that is the difference between us.
You are older than I am, Vail. In this moment you know it.
I know it. You’ve been places. You’ve seen shit.
But you’re still with me, walking by my side as Angus swerves off and kicks at Raymond Carver.
I’ve read about this kinda stuff. Trauma bonds.
We’ve been through something together, our own little September 11, and okay, you saved my ass.
In an ideal world, I would’ve saved yours, but maybe that makes me seem like a feminist or something.
My fun, fucked-up not-an-uncle hits the elevator button and the door opens fast. Schwing. I wave you in and you’re in the clear, and I’m on my way to join you and stay up all night talking about our crazy families and fucking our brains out the way we wanted to, but nope.
Angus slings his arm around my back. “Boys’ night. Someone needs a spanking.”
You wave goodbye to him, and he flips you the bird and I’m stuck.
Invisible. Owned. And it hurts. The light agrees with you in the elevator (all light agrees with you), and the worst is when you take one last look at me and see it all.
My impotence. My youth. You adjust your messenger bag like a doctor who made a house call, like a mother leaving her terrible sons alone to trash the house.
And then the doors close and Angus lets out a fart from the southernmost bowels of the gates of fucking hell.
“All right,” he says. “Daddy needs a Heinie.”