The Flying Troutmans Read online

  I’d show you our plecostamus, said Thebes, but we haven’t seen him in four months. She was talking about their fish, a bottom-feeder. Logan feeds him every night, she said, but he has to turn the light off first so nobody sees him when he grabs his pellet of food. That’s the only way he’ll eat it. Thebes told me she sometimes tried to stay up all night to catch him swimming but it never worked.

  Our only pet ever, she said, and we never see him. I wondered if their poor plecostamus was dead. How much faith does it require to feed a fish you haven’t seen in four months? Other people’s plecostamuses grow to be this big, said Thebes, holding her hands about eight inches apart. But our little guy doesn’t do a thing. She and I stared at the murky water in the aquarium.

  Should it be cleaned? I asked her.

  I’m afraid to, she said.

  Min was weak and starving and could barely walk. Logan carried her to the van, no sweat, lighter than his backpack, almost, he said, and sat squished in a corner of the back seat with Min stretched out and her head in his lap on the way to the hospital.

  Don’t worry about a thing, he told her. She looked up at him. You’ll be back, he said. You’ll get better. He stared out the window and smiled and drummed his fingers against the glass and cleared his throat several times. He stroked Min’s hair, awkwardly, beautifully, and then stopped but didn’t seem to know where to put his hand. I drove and Thebes rode shotgun, and she told me that I was an excellent driver, very prudent, very defensive, everyone should drive as well as I do, and then looked over her shoulder at Logan, who didn’t notice because he was busy trying to hide his tears.

  At the hospital a big guy whose name tag said “Bernie” checked Min in and told her she’d be safe there.

  She was safe at home, said Thebes.

  Bernie ignored her. What’s your mood like, Min? he said.

  She looked at Thebes.

  Her mood? said Thebes.

  How’s she feeling right now? he said. Min stared at him. Okay, good stuff, said Bernie. A parade of patients shuffled past us for their hourly smoke and Min slowly got up out of her chair and started to walk towards the elevators.

  Oops, nope, said Bernie. This way, sweetie. Then he asked us if Min had any sharps or fire or belts or shoelaces on her, and Thebes told Bernie to ask Min herself. Good stuff, said Bernie again.

  Min tried wandering over to the elevators again, but this time I took her hand and kept her close to me.

  Logan had disappeared inside his hoodie and giant pants. His headphones were around his neck but I could hear the music faintly. He cracked his knuckles a few times and stared out the window. Then he smiled at Min and shrugged and smiled again. We heard someone moaning and a nurse saying, That’s enough, in a loud, too loud, voice. Like she was so sure of the limits, but the limits to what?

  Fucking nightmare on Elm Street, eh, Mom? said Logan. Min closed her eyes and opened them.

  Why aren’t you at the beach, said Logan and Thebes in unison, which I found out later was some kind of in-joke because the last time they had to bring Min to the hospital it was a really hot day and everyone in the waiting room was hiding behind newspapers that said in giant black letters, Why Aren’t You at the Beach?

  Min was checked in. We walked with her to her room and stood around her bed for a few minutes. Hey, I said, this will be great, Min, this is…look, here’s a button you push for help. She closed her eyes. Thebes unpacked her Little Mermaid backpack and put a photograph of her and Logan and Min, smiling, laughing, even Logan, on the bedside table. She pulled out one of Min’s pillboxes and opened it up and showed it to me. She’d replaced the pills with tiny cinnamon hearts, one for every day of the week.

  They’ll give her new ones here, she said. Right, Min? Min didn’t say anything. Right, Thebes, said Thebes. She wrote a note on a piece of paper and stuck it into the cardboard frame. We love you, Mom, and we always will. You’re the best mom in the world. We love you!!! Min opened her eyes again, smiled and patted the bed for Thebes to sit down beside her, but gently, very gently.

  Min looked at me and crooked her finger. She wanted to talk to me. I put my head next to hers and she whispered in my ear.

  Logan leaned against the wall and fiddled around with his headphones.

  A bald head popped around the curtain and said, Hello, my name is Jeanette. We all said hello and she told us she was Min’s roommate. She was a really heavy breather. She was wearing dark shades and a Superman T-shirt and no pants. Min raised her hand and then let it fall back onto the bed. Jeanette told us she’d been there for thirteen weeks. She’d had lots of different roommates. She said she stayed in shape by walking the halls, incessantly. She’d been a military supplier. She’d look out for Min. She said it was nice that Min had this little family to visit her. Jeanette’s family weren’t allowed to visit her, she said, because they made her too agitated.

  Okay, thank you, it’s nice meeting you, too. I turned back to my sister. Min, I said. Hey, Min. There was something I wanted to tell her, too. But she was out, fast asleep, or zonked on whatever Bernie had given her when she arrived. I leaned over and whispered into her ear. No, never, I said.

  Logan and Thebes stood there staring at her and then Logan pulled the blanket up so it covered her shoulders and Thebes moved the family photo a fraction of an inch on the bedside table, lining it up with Min’s eyes so it would be the first thing she’d see when the drugs wore off.

  A woman asked to speak to me in the hall. She was a social worker. She asked me if I knew of any arrangements that had been made for the children, and I told her yes, I had come from Europe to look after them for as long as they needed me to. The words sounded as though they belonged to somebody else, or like I was reading from a teleprompter or a karaoke screen.

  The social worker said that was good but they might have to conduct a home assessment and perhaps a background check on me to make sure I was competent and didn’t have any outstanding arrest warrants or my name on any abuse registries. That’s fine, I said, but Logan and Thebes can’t go to a foster home.

  Well, said the woman, very likely not, but that would have to be determined by others. I thanked her for her concern. She thanked me for my understanding of the situation. We shook hands.

  two

  WHEN WE GOT BACK TO THE HOUSE Logan grabbed his basketball, threw it really hard against the hallway wall, knocked the framed family photo to the floor—it didn’t break, he didn’t pick it up—and then left with a couple of his friends. Thebes picked up the photo, hung it back on the wall, sighed heavily like she’d travelled to every corner of the world, on her knees, with a knife in her back and a boa constrictor wrapped around her chest, and then made us a couple of blueberry smoothies.

  The phone rang.

  Don’t answer it, said Thebes. We’re screening. It was the principal of Logan’s school again, wanting to know what was up, when he could get together with Logan’s mom for a chat. Thebes and I stood next to the phone and listened to him talk. He asked if they had moved, if this was still their number. He didn’t want to be pushy, he said, but it was really important that he and Logan’s mother have a conversation.

  Should I pick it up? I asked Thebes.

  No! she said. She told me I had to go and be Min.

  Yeah, but doesn’t he know what she looks like? I asked her.

  No, he’s clueless, she said.

  Yeah, but can’t I just go and be myself and explain the situation, that Min’s in the hospital?

  No, said Thebes. No, she said again. She shook her head slowly, gravely. She didn’t want to go to a foster home.

  You won’t go to a foster home! I said. I’m here to take care of you.

  Yeah, she said, but for how long?

  I tried to reassure her. I tried to convince her that she wasn’t going to a foster home, but I knew my tone was tentative and that she was having a hard time believing me.

  Cross your heart and hope to die? she said. I wondered how often, on averag
e, a parent makes a preposterous promise to a kid and then begins to panic.

  Well, yeah, I said. Definitely.

  Thebes and I sat at the kitchen table and drank our blueberry shakes. She told me about some of the stories Logan had been writing in English class. The principal is worried about him, she said. She told me that Logan had almost gotten suspended for telling the principal he was lame, or his jokes were, or something like that. And that the principal had told him to smarten up and then Logan had said he hated that expression, smarten up, because it makes the person saying it sound like an imbecile.

  It’s kind of true, though, I said.

  Do you miss your boyfriend? asked Thebes.

  Yeah, kind of, I said.

  Are you sad? she asked.

  I am, yeah, I said. But I’m okay. I told her she looked a little tired.

  No, she wasn’t tired, but we could lie down on the living room floor if I was tired.

  Thebes and I lay on the living room floor and talked. Well, she talked. She talked about her friends. We’re all mostly white nerds, she said, with minor physical and emotional flaws that do not require medication but do brand us as losers in the bigger picture.

  Who’s Mojo? I asked her. She had mentioned him, or her, in some of her e-mails.

  My imaginary band mate, she said. Bass player.

  She talked about the purple bulges under Min’s eyes, how they were getting bigger and bigger. How Min had tried, in the beginning, to cover them up with some makeup but it was too light and she looked like she had a goggles tan. Sometimes at night, said Thebes, before she stopped getting out of bed completely, I could hear her pacing downstairs, humming to herself, making cup after cup of camomile tea. Or playing darts by herself in the basement. Thebes described the way it sounded. Three small thunks, she said, the darts hitting the target, and then approximately eleven or twelve seconds of silence while Min walked to the dartboard, removed the darts and returned to the throwing line. Then three more thunks, and another eleven or twelve seconds of silence. Over and over, like someone knocking softly, patiently, but persistently on the front door.

  She told me about a city in India where monkeys are a holy manifestation of some god and are allowed to run wild wherever they want to go. One of them stole a tourist’s glasses and there was nothing the cops could do, she said. What I would have done, she said, is look for the monkey wearing glasses and then try to exchange them for something else. What was your boyfriend’s name? she asked me.

  Marc, I said.

  Did you want to get married?

  No.

  Why not?

  I’m…I don’t know.

  Did he?

  No.

  Was he good-looking?

  No, not particularly. Not conventionally.

  Was he good at sports?

  I don’t know.

  Did you know I had an operation on my brain and part of the scalpel broke off and is still in there?

  Yeah, I had known, Min had told me.

  Logan tried to stick magnets to my head, said Thebes. Thebes had become a talking machine. Maybe she was attempting to use up all the words that Min had left behind, taking whatever popped into her head, any thought, idea or fact, and transforming it into sound, noise, life. She was talking for two, in double time.

  When we were kids, Min would go for months without saying a word. Her muteness was her voice, her retreat was her attack. It was all upside down and disconcerting and it had made me nuts. I used to do the same thing that Thebes was doing now, blather away non-stop about anything that came to mind, and really it was only when I got to Paris and Marc told me that silence was golden, especially mine, that I realized how much I talked.

  Do you want to watch TV? I asked her. There was a thick layer of dust on the screen. Someone had written Deborah Solomon, be my girlfriend in the dust. Or, hey, maybe you should have a nice, hot bath.

  She said she was too nervous to stop talking. She wanted to talk. She had to talk. She got up and walked around while she talked. Hopped onto the couch and off again. She told me about Logan’s X-rated stories, the ones he had been getting in trouble for. The last one had been about a boy who was disturbed from having to listen to his mom having “mind-blowing sex” with her new boyfriend, and from then walking in on his dad, who’d just hung himself. She said Min had been upset by it. She imitated Min being upset. Logan, she said, we talked about this stuff. Can’t you just…You’re making me…These stories are not…, said Thebes. It was an uncannily accurate impersonation. It was obvious that Thebes had been spending a lot of time observing her mother, trying to understand, trying to find a way in. It was the same thing I’d been doing all my life.

  Thebes yanked at her purple hair and groaned. We were quiet, thinking of Min.

  You know, she used to write kind of racy stories herself, I told Thebes. But she could get away with anything at school because all the teachers were afraid of her.

  Why were they afraid of her? said Thebes.

  Well, not afraid of her, I said. They were wary of her. She had this ability to make every outrageous thing she did seem prescient, as though it would be the thing that all enlightened people would soon be doing and wondering why they hadn’t thought of it first. Which was great, I said, but also lonely. For her. It reads well in a biography but it doesn’t make real life easy. You know how most parents encourage their kids to be themselves, to speak their minds and not follow the crowd? Well, our parents did the opposite with Min. They begged her to succumb to peer pressure. To follow the pack and be content with it. Let other people get ideas first, they’d say. Wait around for normal people to map things out. They’d say it jokingly, with their arms around her.

  Thebes stood still for at least seven seconds. I had said the wrong thing again. I had implied that radical thinkers automatically go crazy, which wasn’t true, and definitely wouldn’t be any consolation to a kid like Thebes. I wanted to say something else, to take it back and start again, but then she told me about another story Logan had written.

  It revolved around a man who worked in a paper factory and became so bored he decided to set a goal. He’d become the fattest man in the world. It went on about the inner workings of this guy’s brain, how some parts were overdeveloped and some not at all and the guy wondered why, if it was something that occurred in his childhood, or because there were only women in his life.

  Hmm, I said. I didn’t know either. At least he had a goal.

  I was so tired. I’d been dumped for Buddha. I had jet lag. I’d just put my sister into a psych ward. I was suddenly responsible for two kids, one who hardly talked and one who couldn’t stop, with no clue how to take care of either of them.

  Hey, said Thebes, what did Min whisper in your ear at the hospital?

  Nothing, I said.

  Yeah, she did, said Thebes. I saw her whisper something in your ear. What?

  I can’t remember, I said.

  Yeah, you can, said Thebes. C’mon. Think. She stood over me, a scrawny leg on either side. She still had streaks of candy necklace powder all over her face and neck. She pointed her finger at me like a gun. Tell me! she said in one of her character voices, or I’ll go right ahead and bust a cap in your ass.

  She said we should find your father, I said.

  That wasn’t true. I had made it up on the spot. Please help me die, is what she’d actually whispered in my ear. And I had said, No, never. Was that the right thing to say? I don’t know. I remember standing outside Min’s bedroom door, I was probably around twelve years old, and hearing my mother telling her that if she really, seriously, genuinely wanted to die, there was absolutely nothing that my mother could do to stop her and she would be devastated but she would give Min her blessing and she would love her forever. It bothered me. No, I thought, that’s not the thing to tell Min. Tell her she can’t die. Absolutely not. No fucking way. We had every way of stopping her and we’d never let her go. But now I’m not so sure. There is not one single thing that
I am certain of, except that I have to make sure Thebes and Logan are taken care of. But not necessarily by me.

  Did she really say that? asked Thebes. She sat down beside me on the floor.

  Yeah, she did, I told her.

  Really?

  Really. Yeah.

  Why?

  Because, Thebes, she understands now just how sick she is and that she needs Cherkis to help her out.

  With me and Logan? said Thebes.

  Yeah, I said.

  But I don’t want to live with Cherkis, said Thebes. I want to live with Min.

  I know that, I said. Don’t worry. If we found Cherkis we would just ask him if he wanted to come back here to take care of you for a while.

  But Min doesn’t want to see him, said Thebes.

  I know, I said, that’s true, but I think she’s realizing that she needs some help.

  Yeah, said Thebes, but you’re here.

  Yeah, I said. I know…that’s true too.

  I wished my mother was alive. She could tell me what to do. Or she could do it herself. She knew how to talk to Min and bring her down to earth, at least most of the time. She absorbed Min’s despair but recycled it into dark comedy, or something. She’d joke around with Min about death and hopelessness, and Min would respond. In a way it was like Min’s own theory that everything is bullshit, except that my mother took it one healthy step further: yup, everything is bullshit but it’s also funny. She died two years ago from a ruptured aorta, her heart exploded, but neither Min nor I found it all that hysterical.

  Anyway, I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t know how to talk to the kids. I loved them, but I didn’t want to live with my sister. Even in her weakest, most defeated and delusional moments Min was in control. If she was again at that point where she wanted to die, where she was begging me to help her die, then there was no point in keeping Cherkis at bay. What difference did it make? I had no idea whether Cherkis would be interested in seeing his kids again, let alone moving back and taking care of them, but he was a decent human being, a caring guy. He was their father. He had loved them once and could again, or maybe he still did but from a distance. A safe distance. If there is such a thing.