A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (62 page)

On the other hand, though, it would be hell on the documentation. Could I really take appropriate notes and make comprehensible recordings...while tanked?

I get my rental car and while driving to Lake Forest I have not yet ruled out the drunk-all-the-time notion. Though I
’
ve never been intoxicated more than three hours in a row without falling asleep, and have rarely been drunk more than once a week, I leave the option open, resolving to decide at the wedding, where I will surely be soused—at that point, I can choose, if the mood seems right, to continue the binge, stock up, have some with me at all times, in a thermos maybe—

The driving though. The driving would be hard.

I head north to Lake Forest. The highway, 41, in late December, and the entire Chicago area, looks as mothy and sad as it
’
s supposed to. No snow, just silvery cold and exhaust, black slush.

In twenty minutes I
’
m outside my old house and I feel nothing. I
’
m in Lake Forest, on my block, across the street from my house. I
’
m in the car, listening to a college rock station, and the thing that
’
s occupying me most of all is the state of the neighbors
’
yard. Something is different. Have they cut down trees? It seems as if they have cut down trees.

The car is
getting
foggy inside, and I am not crying. As I wound up my street, I was sure that I would do something emotional when I saw the house—a part of me hoped briefly that it would not be there, that it had been removed, carried off by a
tornado. Or that the new owners had razed it, built from scratch. But then, at the bend of the road, it was clear that it was still there, is still here. They have painted blue the wood that we had left gray, but otherwise it looks the same. The shrubs I planted in front, to discourage the toddler-Toph from running into the street, are still there, have not grown.

I rip a piece of paper from my notebook and write a note—

Dear resident of 924 Waveland,

I used to live here, most of my life. I would love to come inside and look around, but didn
’
t want to arrive announced. If

you
’
re amenable to the idea, please call me at 312-------. I
’
ll be

here until Saturday.

and put it in the mailbox. I do not expect much from it, because in their position I am not sure I would invite me in. Maybe I would pretend to be on vacation, would lose the letter.

I go to the train station in town to use the pay phone. It
’
s freezing. I am looking for Sarah, whose number I don
’
t have. I don
’
t know where she lives—last I saw her she lived at home, with her parents—or if she still lives in the area, or in the state. I try a Sarah Mulhern in Chicago.

“
Is this Sarah?
”

“
Yes?
”

“
Sarah Mulhern?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
Sarah Mulhern from Lake Forest?
”

“
Uh, no.
”

“
Sorry.
”

I hang up, blow hot air into my hands. I
’
m a moron. Someone will see me here, back in town for the first time since I left, using the phone outside the train station. No one uses this phone. Then again, no one will be surprised. They will have expected something like this, from me—they know what happened, will assume that I
’
ve finally hit bottom, that I
’
m homeless and on crack. Did I ever belong in this town? Another wrong number and then:

“
Sarah?
”

“
Yes?
”

“
Sarah Mulhern?
”

“
Yes?
”

“
Sarah Mulhern from Lake Forest?
”

A pause and then, slowly,
“
Yeah...
”

It has been four years. But she
’
s warm, right away she
’
s warm. We talk about the last time we saw each other, when we had to sneak out of her house in the morning so she could drive me home, how her dad would have killed me.

“
He died last year, you know.
”

“
No, I didn
’
t, actually. I
’
m so sorry.
”

Jesus. I
’
m not sure what I say at that point, but soon enough I ask if she
’
s going to Polly
’
s wedding; they were in the same class. She is not. I ask her if she has time for lunch, coffee in the next couple days.

She says any night is fine.

The wedding is wonderfully normal. I had wanted desperately to be at an unsurprising wedding, as rigid and traditional as possible. The idea of them frightened me enough to begin with, but deviation from rote made weddings somehow more absurd. I could not shake the memory of Beth
’
s ceremony, six months earlier. The groom was a nice young man named James, baby-faced and blond, and the whole affair took place on a deck in a cluster of cottages near Santa Cruz, high above the Pacific.

Beth had long dreamed of having the wedding on the beach, to be barefoot, to be in white, on the sand, windblown, all of us itv front of the shushing waves, at sunset. But the permit was impossible to
get,
so she settled for this group of little houses, beach or no a wonderful setting, all buttery green and white-white— though Toph and I barely made it.

We were already late, had gone to get Toph some pants, and were driving through San Francisco in our little red car, up Franklin
’
s rolling thoroughfare, toward home to get changed.

We stopped at a light at the top of the hill. Then a thump, a jump forward, a crash of glass. We had been hit from behind by some kind of truck, something huge.

It was a woman, mid-forties, in a Jeep Grand something. A huge car. In the woman
’
s car was a family, two teenaged daughters, the husband, all tall, well dressed, normal. They looked down from their truck with mild concern. The sun was right overhead, and I stood under it for a minute, in the road, the shattered glass flickering on the road. Toph and I walked to the sidewalk and I sat down, dazed. He stood over me.

“
You okay?
”
he asked.

“
Move over. I can
’
t see you in the sun.

“
That
’
s better. No, I
’
m fine.
”

“
What are we going to do?
”

“
We have to go. We
’
re already late.
”

We had an hour. Our car had been halved. There was no back bumper, no back window, the hatchback
’
s door was twisted, shattered, unhatchable. We exchanged names and information, and the woman offered to call a tow truck, but there was no time, and when I tried it, the car started, so we left. Back home, changed and then back in the car, back down the hill, onto the highway, the wind screaming through the car
’
s naked frame, south to San Jose, where we picked up Bill at the airport—who thought the car situation very funny, sitting in back, the wind pouring in—even while I feared with all my soul that the gas tank had been damaged, that we were leaking fuel, that the fumes would spark and we would all explode en route, that it was all too fitting—

We rolled in, rumbling and pathetic. The grounds were white with fog, the green was gray, the ocean invisible. Toph and I had nothing approximating formal clothing, were wearing wrinkled white shirts and my fathers frayed ties. Everyone knew who we were, that we were
them.

We met the minister, a lesbian agnostic named Reverend Jennifer Lovejoy, with the flowing robe and wild, steely hair. We said hello to our family
’
s representatives. First, our cousin Susie, out from rural Massachusetts, who had been shopping in the small beach town earlier, and was wearing a thrift-store hat she bought, straw, eight inches tall, with four woven birds perched on it. And then Aunt Connie, my father
’
s sister, a synthesizer composer (her music is called Sacred Space Music), who had come down from Marin, at the last moment, a surprise, though without the talking parrot or cockatoo usually perched on her shoulder. Before long she had cornered me and John—who showed up just beforehand, had been drinking tall boys on the way—and had for fifteen minutes debated with us the likelihood that the government was hiding knowledge of alien visits from the public. She of course knew firsthand of the coverup, having been receiving, for some time, messages from outer space through her computer. I asked how she knew the messages were from outer space and not from, say, AOL. She looked at me with pity, in a way that said,
“
If you have to ask.

Bill and I were supposed to walk down the aisle with Beth, to give her away. She had asked, and we had said yes, of course, that it would be nice, an honor—but then, as Bill and I waited outside in the clearing fog, she decided that, come to think of it, she did not want to be
“
given away,
”
did not like the patriarchal implications of the custom, that she would walk down the aisle alone, under her own power. And so Bill and I sat in the front row and waited, as Connie complained about the quality of the pre-wedding music (Mark Isham, she guessed, with a sniff).

But the music would change soon enough. When Beth and
James came walking down the aisle, under a sky that had cleared and was now immaculate, the first notes wafted toward us, piped through two speakers on the deck—it was not the wedding march. Or Pachelbel. It was—I was panicked, scanning the crowd for a reaction because I was almost sure that this song was—oh, now it was unmistakable, this song—

This song was
“
Beth,
”
by KISS.

Not an instrumental version. The original recording.

And she was barefoot.

Did she think this was funny? Surely she couldn
’
t—

There was a cliff only thirty yards away, and I wondered if I would be noticed, if I could just slip away quietly, as they were all watching the entrance, and fling myself over.

For Pollys wedding, my first since Beth
’
s, I am clinging to the hope for simple, tradition-bound Protestant solidity. It is at a church, First Presbyterian in Lake Forest, which is a good start, and they
’
ve asked us to wear tuxes, which is just fine. The reception is at Shore Acres, the country club in the next town where Bill spent a summer waiting tables. A nice place. Completely respectable.

At the reception, what everyone wants to talk about is the English teacher
’
s sex change operation. One of the high school
’
s teachers, and my former (intrepid, spirited) J.V. soccer coach, has announced that after a spring regimen of hormones, and a surgical procedure over the summer, he will be returning, in the fall, as a woman. We cannot believe it
’
s happening. It
’
s the best thing we
’
ve had since Mr. T

When the subject is exhausted, there is the inevitable:

“
How
’
s Toph?
”
from Megann.

“
Still limping.
”

“
How old is he now?
”
from Kathy.

“
I forget.
”

“
Where is he?
”
from Amy.

“
Funny you should ask. He
’
s been hitchhiking...
”

Conversation dissolves and we stare at each other. They know I am not them. I am something else. I am deformed, am a hundred years old. I will spend the next day looking for the remains of my parents.

“
How
’
s that magazine going?
”
Barb asks.

“
Probably not for long.
”

“
Why?
”

I explain. We
’
re all exhausted, tired of having other jobs, that we
’
ll either get some funding soon and move it to New York, or fold. It
’
s the last thing I want to talk about, think about. I don
’
t want to talk about my failures, or theirs. Maybe we
’
re all stunted. Is anything happening for any of us? The celebrity of the night is the date of a girl Marny went to college with. He
’
s the host of a children
’
s television show in Chicago, and has just starred, with one line, in
Space Jam,
not to mention an even larger role in a recent Jack in the Box commercial. He performs for us—jokes, does imitations of other guests. We adore him.