The Family Fang: A Novel (16 page)

“I’m sorry you lost your job,” Annie told him. “That wasn’t right.”

“I knew what I was getting into, my dear,” Mr. Delano said. “I told your parents many times when we were preparing this whole thing that only difficult art is worthwhile, something that leaves behind scorched earth after it takes off.”

Annie and Buster felt their bodies levitate, a sickness entering their systems.

“What?” Annie asked.

“What?” Mr. Delano asked, the drunken blush leaving his face.

“What do you mean,” Annie said, speaking through her gritted teeth, “
when you were preparing this whole thing
?”

Mr. Delano tilted his empty glass to his lips, his face suddenly ashen. Buster and Annie scooted their chairs so that their knees were touching Mr. Delano’s, the sharpness of their bones digging into his skin. The Fang children, when angered, could make the coiled threat of their bodies crystal-clear.

“Your parents didn’t tell you?” Mr. Delano asked.

Buster and Annie shook their heads.

“This,” Mr. Delano said, gesturing toward the room filled to overflowing with the Fangs’ latest piece, “was all planned well in advance. Your parents approached me when Annie was selected to play Juliet. I loved the idea. You may not believe it, but when I was a young man in New York, I was at the forefront of the avant-garde movement in American theater. I got arrested for eating broken glass and spitting blood into the audience during an Off-Broadway performance of
A Streetcar Named Desire
. Your parents are geniuses. I was happy to help.”

“What about Coby Reid?” Buster asked. “How did you know he’d drop out of the performance?”

“Your parents took care of him,” Mr. Delano said.

Annie and Buster made simultaneous faces of shock and Mr. Delano corrected himself. “No, no, goodness no. They paid Coby five hundred dollars to drop out of the play. He simply wouldn’t show up on opening night. The car crash was Coby’s own bad luck.”

“They did all this to us,” Annie said, “for art.”

“For art,” Mr. Delano shouted, raising his empty glass over his head.

“They used us,” Buster said.

“No, Buster, that’s unfair. Your parents withheld certain information in order to get the best performance possible from you. Think of your parents as directors; they control the circumstances and make all the independent pieces come together to create something beautiful that would otherwise not exist. They directed you so skillfully that you didn’t even know they were doing it.”

“Fuck you, Mr. Delano,” Annie said.

“Children,” Mr. Delano cried.

“Fuck you, Mr. Delano,” Buster said.

Annie and Buster, still holding wineglasses, unable to put them down, left their former drama teacher and walked into the crowd of people that surrounded their parents, pushing their way to the center.

“A and B,” Mr. Fang said when he noticed the children standing in front of him. “The stars of the evening,” Mrs. Fang said. Buster and Annie, knowing each other’s desires without having to speak, slammed the wineglasses against their parents’ heads, shards falling to the floor, their parents’ mouths gaping, perfect
O
s of confusion.

“We’ve always done whatever you asked us to do,” Annie said, her whole body shaking. “We did what you said and we never asked why. We just did it. For you.”

“If you’d told us what was happening,” Buster continued, “we still would have done it.”

“We’re finished with you,” Annie said, and the Fang children walked softly into the main exhibit room as the shocked audience, unclear as to whether this was some sort of artistic performance or simple assault, made way with haste.

Their hands dripping blood, their own and their parents’, granules of glass under their skin, Annie and Buster watched themselves on the screen, two children so unwilling to follow their parents’ decree that they would rather end it all as spectacularly as their limited means would allow.

Chapter Seven

W
hen Annie awoke the next morning, Buster asleep in his room, she was in possession of a terrific happiness. Of course, she hadn’t really done anything of note to warrant this happiness. She’d wasted two hours at the movie theater, sneaking mini bottles of bourbon throughout the film, but Buster had done enough for both of them. He’d left the house, misaligned face and all, met with a group of students, and talked about the thing that made him special. As a result, the two of them had ended the day happier than when they’d woken up, and she could not remember the last time that had happened. It was a small thing, perhaps, but there it was.

Annie slipped out of bed, still fully clothed from the day before, and grabbed the pile of stories that Buster had picked up at the community college. She leafed through them until she found Suzanne’s story and then she walked to the other end of the house, into the kitchen, far enough away from Buster that she could get to work on the unenviable task of keeping her brother from falling in love with this strange girl. It had once been her job, to beat back any trouble that might try to find them, A & B, and she was out of practice. She skipped the alcohol this morning, sipped a tall glass of tomato juice, and felt, her parents an entire state away, that she could handle shit on her own.

The story wasn’t great, a little too obvious, but she could see how it would appeal to Buster, her brother being obsessed with undeserved pain. If it came down to it, if she saw Buster slipping further away, she would have a talk with this Suzanne character, give her the Fang family history, send her on her way. As it was, Annie was already worried about this mysterious Joseph from Nebraska, for whom Buster had admitted a lingering affection. Joseph had shot Buster in the goddamn face, undeserved pain, and so Annie also wouldn’t mind a minute of Mr. Potato Gun’s time if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Annie took Suzanne’s story and placed it in the trash can, pushing it as far down as she could. She returned to her impressive glass of tomato juice, which she began to wish had vodka in it, and batted away the suspicion that she was jealous of these interlopers, who pulled Buster’s attention away from anything except this house, their own unhappy circumstances. No, she decided, she was taking care of him; someone in this family had to make sound decisions, even if they weren’t as fascinating in the end, the lack of any explosions, no screaming or crying or psychological scarring. Then she thought of Daniel, growing an impressive beard in Wyoming, writing the most ridiculous bullshit a human could think of, and began to reconsider her judgment regarding potential love interests. She removed the story from the trash, smoothed out the pages, and left it on the table. When Buster arrived fifteen minutes later, worrying the healing scar above his lip, he noticed the story and looked at Annie. “Did you read that?” he asked. Annie nodded. Buster frowned, embarrassed, and then said, “Well, what did you think?” Annie took a long sip of tomato juice and replied, “Very good.” Buster smiled. “Very good,” he repeated, and then nodded.

O
nce they ate breakfast, Annie decided that it was necessary, now that some forward momentum in their lives had been achieved, to discuss their situations and figure out how to build upon yesterday’s success. As she said all of this to Buster, she felt like someone in an infomercial. But then Buster agreed that it was a good idea and Annie felt like Oprah. They pushed away their plates and began to brainstorm. If there had been a dry-erase board in the kitchen, they would have used it.

For Buster: He had surely been evicted from his old apartment in Florida by now, and he owed the hospital twelve grand that he did not have. His face was still not completely healed; Annie stared at the light bruising and healing scabs that ran across the entire right half of his face, the scar above his lip, the busted blood vessels that still clouded his right eye.

Annie, feeling capable and assured, began formulating a plan of action. She imagined that she was talking not only to Buster, but also to a studio audience. “I can pay the hospital,” she said, and Buster did not try to argue. She had money, she realized. A ton of money, she realized. A ridiculous amount of money, she realized. It was nice to see that money, for all the bad press it got, could sometimes solve your problems. “After we get ourselves straightened out here, you’ll come back to Los Angeles with me. Do you think you could write a screenplay?” Buster shook his head. He did not. “Do you think you could write a teleplay? It’s shorter.” Buster thought about it for a second and then shook his head again. Annie waved him off. “It’s fine, really. You can just get a regular job, something that will give you time to focus on your own writing. I mean, honestly, I can loan you some money and you wouldn’t have to worry about work for a long while.” Buster shrugged, unable to find anything objectionable about the plan. Annie smiled. This was easy, Annie thought. She should have her own television show, doing this for any number of fucked-up people. “And your face is healing,” she reminded him. “A month or two and you’ll be back to normal.” Buster smiled at that kindness, the gap from his missing tooth showing. She would, she made a mental note, get a dentist to fix that. It was done. Buster was taken care of, his life, for the moment, on steady ground. Was it possible that life could be this easy? Now it was her turn.

She was, for the foreseeable future, unemployed. She had lost her role in one of the biggest blockbuster series in movie history. Her tits were on the Internet. She had slept with a reporter. Her ex-boyfriend, who was fast becoming one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, probably did not care for her right now. Buster whistled when she finally finished reciting the particulars of her unpleasant situation. “Not bad,” he said. “Thank you,” she replied.

She thought about it for a second, staring at the table. Okay, she would get some supporting roles in smaller movies, focus on the quality of the script. Or better, yes even better, she would go back to theater. She would do a Tennessee Williams play Off-Broadway for a month or two, get back into fighting shape, and see what came next. Her tits, oh well, nothing to be done about that. She’d just be a little more careful in the future. A lesson learned. “Don’t worry about the magazine writer,” Buster offered. “Nobody cares about freelance writers, trust me.” Annie nodded. As far as questionable people to fuck, she’d done okay, nothing she couldn’t recover from. Same with Daniel, just a bad decision that she’d outlive. The point, she realized, was that, yes, she had made some substantial mistakes, as evidenced by the fact that she was living with her parents, but she could handle it. She could take the things that were broken and, if not put them back together, get rid of them with a minimum of unpleasantness.

Then there was the small matter of their drug and alcohol dependencies. “How about this,” Buster offered. “No pain pills unless I absolutely need them, and no alcohol for you until after five
P.M.
” Annie thought about this for a few seconds. Yes, she decided. That was sound reasoning. “What next?” Annie thought. Though it was only talk, nothing yet having been accomplished, she felt better, stronger, faster. And she was not drunk. “This,” she thought, “could work.”

If an agenda had been prepared for this morning’s meeting, they would be checking off the bulleted points headlined
Buster’s problems
and
Annie’s problems
. Annie began to rise from the table, ready to turn her words into actions, when Buster gestured for her to sit back down.

“I was thinking about Mom and Dad,” Buster continued. Annie had not been thinking about them, not even a little bit, but she let Buster go on talking. “I know they, whatever, fucked us up beyond belief, but they are letting us stay here. They’re taking care of us, as well as they can.” Annie could not disagree. Her parents had indeed fucked them up. They were indeed letting them live in their house. “So,” Buster said, “whatever project they have planned next, I think we should take part.” Annie shook her head. “We’re trying to get better, Buster,” she said. Buster, always so sweet, always trying to be good, frowned. “Our participation in what Caleb and Camille do is bad for us,” she continued, the muscles in her hands tightening like a spasm. She felt herself growing angry and then made a conscious effort to control it before she went on. “It’s toxic. It turns us into children again, the way they just use us for what they want, and we’ve spent this whole morning trying to figure out a way past that.”

“You saw that Chicken Queen fiasco,” he said. “We could have helped them. We could make sure whatever they do next actually works. We’d only do it once, to get them back on their feet, and then we’d never do it again.” Annie was not ready to commit to this, inserting herself into the craziness of her parents’ desires, but she could not forget how feeble Caleb and Camille seemed at the mall, how ridiculous their efforts had been, and so Annie allowed herself to consider the possibility. “Maybe,” she told Buster. “Good enough,” he replied.

H
aving organized the particulars of their own lives, Annie and Buster began working on their environment, cleaning the house, which was no small task. Annie carried bag after bag, rattling with empty bottles of booze, to the garage. Buster removed the dozens and dozens of gauze and bandages from his night table, crusted with blood, still wet with ointment, which he’d never bothered to throw away, had simply put aside to grow into some strange, living sculpture of his recovery. They helped each other make their beds, vacuumed the floors, and organized their meager belongings. They met in their shared bathroom and made it sparkle. It wasn’t even noon and they had accomplished more than they had in the previous year.

The living room, the largest room in the house by far, was filled with old Fang projects, notes, and outlines, stacked from top to bottom with ephemera. She had no idea where anything went, how to even begin devising a filing system, and so she focused on the scattered LPs on the floor, a collection of sound that, to this day, baffled her.

Caleb and Camille liked two kinds of music—esoteric, impenetrable things like John Cage and the apocalyptic folk of Current 93, and then the dumbest, loudest music possible, punk rock. When they were little children, their parents had sung Black Flag’s “Six Pack” to them before bed as if it were a lullaby. “I was born with a bottle in my mouth,” their mother would sing, and then their father would chime in, “Six Pack!” At the end, before kissing Annie and Buster on their foreheads, Caleb and Camille would whisper, “Six Pack! Six Pack! Six Pack!” and then turn off the light.

While she organized the albums in the cabinet beneath the hi-fi, she placed the James Chance and the Contortions album
Buy
on the phonograph and cued up the fifth song, which she remembered her parents often playing before they would all head out into the world to create some new form of chaos. It was not an unpleasant memory, which surprised her, the excitement of not knowing what would happen, watching her parents get more and more worked up about the thing they were making, knowing it wouldn’t work without her and Buster. The strange, jangly music made its way out of the speakers and it wasn’t long before Buster emerged from the hallway, tapping his foot. Annie waved him over and they stood in front of the speaker, nodding their heads, singing along, “Contort yourself, contort yourself.” If Annie could not drink, if Buster could not overmedicate, then dancing to abrasive, atonal jazz-punk would have to do. The music screeched and spilled over the edges of normal rhythm, but Buster and Annie did not miss a step, dancing the only way they’d ever known, poorly, but with great enthusiasm. If there was a name for this dance, it would be The Fang.

The phone rang three times before either of them even heard it, was able to tease the sound out of the tangle of noise that surrounded them. Annie reached the phone in the kitchen just as the answering machine was saying, “The Fangs are dead,” and Annie said, out of breath, “We’re not dead! Sorry, we’re here. Sorry.” There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, and Annie figured the caller had been scared off, until she heard a man’s composed, patient voice answer, “Mrs. Fang?”

“Yes,” Annie said.

The voice became slightly more interested. “Camille Fang?” he said.

“Oh! No, I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I’m Annie. I’m Mrs. Fang’s daughter. I’m Camille’s daughter.” Was she drunk? She thought for a second. No, she definitely wasn’t drunk. She tried to get it together.

“My mother is not here,” she continued.

“You’re her daughter?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, this is Officer Dunham,” he said, and Annie was already prepared for what would follow. Arrests had been made. Her parents were in trouble, just enough to be a nuisance. Bail would be arranged. She felt, for a brief second, a slight admiration for her parents that, after the incident in the mall where they could hardly elicit an emotional response from anyone, they had managed to create something difficult enough to require police intervention.

“What did they do?”

“Excuse me?” the officer replied.

“Are they in trouble?”

“Yes, well, perhaps,” the officer stuttered, before attempting to regain control of the conversation. “I’m afraid to say that your parents are currently missing, Annie,” Officer Dunham said.

“What?”

“This morning, we found your parents’ van parked at the Jefferson Rest Stop on I-40 East, just before you head into North Carolina. Near as we can tell, the van has been there since the previous evening. We are . . . concerned about their whereabouts.”