Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp (21 page)

“That’s amazing!” she exclaimed. “I dig older men, but Mr. Saunders makes my skin crawl. I’d dump Paul in a minute if he ever got to look like his father.”

“I feel the same way about Sheeni,” I confessed.

“Bernie did say his marriage has been on the rocks for years,” she admitted.

“What more proof do you need?”

Lacey nibbled her popcorn and mulled it over.

“Bernie’s a very sweet guy, Nick, I mean, Rick, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I could just be a spring fling to him.”

“You can land him if you put your mind to it, Lacey. I’m talking multi-carat diamond ring, trousseau shopping on Rodeo Drive, the whole nine yards. Men Bernie’s age are always looking to settle down with that second trophy wife.”

“It’d be awful to dump Paulie while he’s in jail, Rick.”

“A guy can do a lot of emotional healing while meditating in a cell. And don’t forget, he said the thought of marrying you made him barf.”

“Paulie did say that,” she conceded, “the rat.”

François suggested it might be helpful in making Bernie jealous if I were to spend the night with her on the daybed. She gave me a playful tap and said having a “cute guy like you” in the pool utility room would be enough “to get Bernie plenty steamed”—even if I was supposed to be her brother.

At least I persuaded her to try out François’s new lips. She liked them too.

9:50 a.m. When I crawled out of my cave this morning to cough out eight hours of accumulated chlorine fumes, Bernie Krusinowski was soaking his corned-beef body in the hot tub. He waved me over, but I approached cautiously and kept a safe distance.

“So, you didn’t listen when I warned you to stay away from my daughter. Now look at you. Do you have to iron those lips or are they permanent press?”

“They’re still a little swollen from my surgery.”

“How much did that quack soak you for?”

“$11,400, but I’m not complaining. Everyone missed you on the trip.”

“Mexico’s a nice enough place—if you’re a Mexican. I had more important matters to attend to here.”

“I hope, Bernie, your intentions toward my sister are honorable.”

“Hold it down, bub,” he cautioned, glancing about. “What did Lacey tell you?”

“We have no secrets in our family. I’ve advised her to look for a younger man who can satisfy her every need.”

“I can satisfy everything she needs satisfied, bub. Don’t you worry about that.”

“She wants children and a home, Bernie. If she doesn’t get a ring, she’ll walk.”

“She never told me that.”

“Don’t let her know I mentioned this, but the same sad story played out last year in Ukiah. The guy’s name was George W. Twisp—very big in concrete and lumber up there. He’s still a basket case.”

“Really?”

“She leaves a very big void, Bernie. And when she walks, she’s gone. My sister never turns back.”

“She’s got her pride, I suppose.”

“Why shouldn’t she? She’s one in a million.”

“Better than that, bub. Our Lacey’s one in a billion!”

OK, I’m trying to figure this out. Let’s assume I marry Sheeni. If Paul marries Connie, she becomes my sister-in-law. If Lacey weds Mr. K, she becomes Paul’s stepmother-in-law and Connie’s stepmother. Also my stepmother-in-law, though I doubt that would restrain François. If Mrs. K marries Sheeni’s father, she becomes her daughter’s stepmother-in-law, my stepmother-in-law as well (achieving parity with Lacey), and some sort of weird in-law to her first husband. Any way you look at it, I end up surrounded by millionaire relatives. And blissfully united to the ultimate Trophy Wife, who comes to the marriage bed already loaded with my money.

2:24 p.m. Connie was so pleased by my conjugal machinations, she took me out to breakfast again in West Hollywood. I ordered a full-stack of blueberry Bette Midlers; Connie tried the John Travolta waffles with pork sausage sideburns. Almost too realistic to eat. Afterwards, she drove me all the way out to East L.A. to pick up Rick S. Hunter’s new identity cards. Mr. Castillo marveled at my latest transformation.

“A very professional job, Mr. Hunter,” he said, admiring my face. “Very nice work. Most people play with the cards life deals them, but you’re a man who makes up his own rules.”

“I’m hoping to hold on to these cards for a while though,” I
admitted, counting out three more $100 bills from my meager stash.

Not only did Mr. Castillo provide my latest set of documents (complete with forged high-school transcript) for half price, he said that when I’m ready to apply for college he can supply me with perfect SAT test scores—double 800s on my verbal and math. Although I’d like to think Rick S. Hunter could score that well on his own, it’s nice to have insurance just to be assured of attending the same rigorously elite college as My Love.

It occurred to me as I was admiring my latest driver’s license that all my life Nick Twisp has been receiving “don’t exist” messages. And now, through the miracle of modern surgical and counterfeiting techniques, he no longer exists. Yet I have achieved a successful integration of these messages without resorting to the conventional recourse of suicide. You might say I’ve disappeared, but still I live. Even better, the waitress at the restaurant this morning actually flirted with me. What a revelation: Rick S. Hunter is attractive to women. Eat your heart out Trent Preston!

6:05 p.m. I desperately wanted to call Sheeni, but Connie advised me to play it cool. Instead, she suggested we visit the other Saunders sibling. The county jail facility sprawled across a treeless suburban tract like everyone’s worst nightmare of junior high school—enlarged about ten times and surrounded by parallel rows of razor wire. It even smelled like junior high. I was pretty nervous about subjecting myself to such a concentration of law enforcement, but Connie thought it would be a good test of my new IDs. My faith in Mr. Castillo’s art was vindicated. Rick S. Hunter’s driver’s license was examined at least a half dozen times and no one batted an eyelash. As we trooped down grim corridors and waited in line at metal detectors, I prayed to whichever indifferent gods watch over me to let me stay out of places like this.

I felt I blended in well with the other visitors, but my exotically garbed companion attracted many curious stares. Her hair had been styled in improbable upsweeps and she had removed her contacts (Paul prefers her eyes in their natural Polish state).

The visiting room was something of a disappointment. No dividing wall of bulletproof glass with greasy handsets dangling on short armored cords. No forbidding iron bars. Not even a steel mesh barrier to keep the lawbreakers separated from the law-abiding. It was just a large cheerless room furnished with banged-up tables and metal folding chairs. Lots of screaming kids chasing around and not paying much attention to Dad. The nervous atmosphere of forced sociability reminded me of hospital or funeral-parlor visiting hours—except the bored attendants here were heavily armed.

Paul looked sharp in his crisp orange jumpsuit. He gave Connie a friendly kiss on the lips and shook my hand. All through the visit he held Connie’s hand, which could have been just a show of good fellowship, except (as Connie pointed out during an exhaustive deconstruction of the visit on the drive back to Bel Air) he only held her hand and not mine. And when we were leaving, he kissed her good-bye and not me. Thank goodness for that.

Introductions were not required. Paul winked and said it was a pleasure to meet Rick S. Hunter. He said he thought Jean-Paul Belmondo was a good choice to impress diehard Francophiles.

“Well, he’s doing fairly well so far,” I admitted.

I asked Paul how a fellow with his street smarts and foresight could get nailed by the police. He shrugged and said these things happen. He said he was meeting some interesting guys in jail and had been invited to join a small R&B group. Real instruments weren’t allowed in prison, so they improvised. Paul was learning to play the tissue paper and comb.

Connie told him he might be getting a niece or nephew for Christmas this year, but probably not to count on it. Paul smiled
and asked Rick S. Hunter what he thought of that development. I said I thought it was extremely dire, but I was more than willing to do the honorable thing.

“That might have to take place over my mother’s dead body,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, probably your father’s too,” I conceded. “And maybe even your sister’s.”

“I can tell you what my mother wants,” said Paul. “She called me yesterday. She wants me to undergo a religious conversion, get married to someone other than Lacey, find a high-paying job, and adopt Sheeni’s baby. What do you think of that?”

“No problem, honey,” replied Connie, squeezing his hand. “Except we might have to fake the religious stuff.”

I only smiled. Sure I like Connie and Paul, but they may not be first on my list of potential foster parents. Kids only get one shot at childhood. If it’s not too much to ask, I think the next generation of Twisps should be raised by normal parents for a change.

TUESDAY, April 6 — On the bus to Oakland. Although adapting well to the challenging Bel Air lifestyle, I decided Rick S. Hunter should be getting on with his life. After a libido-inflaming farewell hug from Lacey, I went out to breakfast with Connie, who then dropped me off at the bus station. I said good-bye to my ally in amours at the curb, greatly impressing the assembled panhandlers. Connie gave me my second electrifying hug of the day, a semi-smoldering kiss on the lips, and the number of her most private cellular phone (she has three of varying exclusiveness). We have promised to keep each other fully informed on all developments.

I just counted my anorexic wad: fifty-nine $100 bills in my money belt, plus $42 in my wallet. And no more Connie to chauffeur me around for free and pick up the tab for my meals. Back to life at the margins. Good for my art, I suppose, assuming
Rick S. Hunter opts to specialize in gritty novels of working-class privation, relieved only by spectacular sex.

8:45 p.m. I slept most of the way up through the Central Valley. I can’t believe people actually live there. Aren’t they bored silly by pool-table-flat terrain sectioned into endless fields of anonymous plant life? I prefer vibrant, urban Oakland, even if it does have a high crime rate. Another expensive cab ride up to Oakland’s exclusive hill district brought me to my mother’s new home: a two-story Brown Shingle purchased with my inheritance from the late Bertha Ulansky. Not in the same league as the Krusinowskis’ imposing mansion, but it was a big step up from Nick Twisp’s humble origins down in the flats.

Fortunately, the lady of the house was still behind bars. When my sister opened the big oak door, I sucked in my lips, smiled, and said, “Hi, Joanie. Guess who had expensive Mexican plastic surgery?” She stared open-mouthed at my retooled visage. Yes, the handsome stranger on the porch was her long-lost brother.

“Well, it’s an improvement,” she said at last, “I guess.”

Good thing the Twisps are so undemonstrative. Had I been tempted to hug my sister, I would have been blocked several feet from my target by her grossly distended abdomen. We shook hands instead.

“Yeah, I’m pregnant,” she admitted, showing me into the living room—a gracefully proportioned room savaged by Mom’s shabby old flatlands furniture. And where was Jerry’s dead Chevy?

“What are you in your 13th month?” I asked.

“I was fine until I came up here, Nick. Being around little Noel has made Tyler balloon in size. I feel like a blimp.”

Could it be that My Love’s lithe form will be so misshapen in a few months? The thought made me shudder.

“You’ve named it Tyler?”

“Uh-huh. We know it’s going to be a boy. He’s due at the end of May. Nick, want to see your brother?”

“Is it compulsory? And please call me Rick.”

It was. Joanie took me upstairs to the lavishly furnished nursery. Noel Lance Wescott was lying in his crib and picking his nose. He took one look at me and started to howl. Joanie picked him up and he copped a nice feel. He was a Twisp all right. He even looked like Dad. I pointed this out to my sister when Noel’s 200-decibel screeching at last subsided.

“I finally got the whole story from Mom in jail,” Joanie replied. “When Dad was still living in Marin, she went over one weekend to hound him for your child-support payment. He opened a bottle of wine, they wound up in bed, and she never even got the check.”

“But they’ve hated each other for years.”

“I thought so too, Rick, but I guess there was some kind of spark left.”

Little Noel is a real Twisp. That is such a shock. And so gross.

WEDNESDAY, April 7 — I spent the night in the guest room, grabbing a few snatches of sleep here and there in between violent Noel outbursts. I can’t believe someone hasn’t made a fortune building soundproof isolation chambers for screaming infants. Just how is a person supposed to cope? Joanie thinks Noel has regressed because he misses his mom. That hardly seems possible, but I suppose he hasn’t known the woman for long.

Speaking of Mom’s male offspring, I’ve search all through the house without discovering a single Nick Twisp item. Not even a spare sock to add to my skimpy pack. I’ve been completely expunged from my maternal home. Good thing Nick is no longer with us to receive these gratuitous “don’t exist” messages.

Joanie stuck a bottle in Noel’s face so we could converse over breakfast. Sheeni’s check arrived on Monday. Joanie immediately deposited it in a laid-back bank in Berkeley in a new account she
opened under an assumed name. The bad news is it might take a week or more to clear. Meanwhile, Mom continues to chill in the slammer. The worse news is they want to use another big chunk of my $60,000 to hire a lawyer. I suggested Joanie find someone offering budget rates. Perhaps a student attorney whose legal training is still fresh in their mind. Besides, those kids have to start their careers somewhere.

Lance remains in the hospital, but is now out of intensive care. No, Joanie hasn’t visited him, but she did send him a card. Reconstruction surgery starts this week. I say why bother? Better yet, perhaps they could minimize costs and fuss by altering him into a Lancette.