The Family Fang: A Novel (26 page)

“I remember when you came into the room for our creative writing group,” she began. “I kind of thought you were cute, even with the bruising on your face, and then you started to talk about some kind of ridiculous bubble gum that you liked to chew and then I saw that you were missing a tooth and you seemed so nervous that I immediately realized that you were a very weird person. And that, for some reason, made me more interested in you. And then that girl came and took me outside, and you were standing there, and then you said that you liked my story and I thought that was the nicest thing I’d ever heard. You just showed up and made me happy.”

“You make me happy, too,” he said, though he wished he had said it before she did. He wanted to say it in a way that showed her that he was not just parroting her, but Suzanne smiled at him, and he knew he’d said it well enough.

“You talk as if you think there’s going to be a time in the future when things aren’t completely weird. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, based on your life history. And I guess all I want to tell you is that it isn’t really that big of a deal to me. If this is how strange your life is, that’s okay with me. It’s fun.”

Buster didn’t know how to respond to her, was dumbfounded by her easy kindness, but also by her belief that his instability was “fun.” She was, he began to realize, as weird as he was. Perhaps weirder. If she had been born a Fang, she might have become the focal point of the art, leaving Annie and Buster far behind, of no further use to their parents. And though being face-to-face with someone who possessed a strangeness that could outpace the Fangs should have made him hesitate, he quickly pulled her close to him and let the riotous sounds of children past their bedtimes and unafraid of the darkness, kung-fu masters punching their way through all evils, and the sound of Suzanne’s breathing, so steady that he thought she might be dead asleep, lull him into a state that he imagined was what other people referred to as serenity.

A
nnie and Buster were carefully boxing up each painting, bubble wrap and cardboard and packing tape creating a sea of detritus in which the siblings seemed to be floating. Holding a sheet of bubble wrap in her hand, Annie twitched slightly, popping one of the plastic pods, a sound like she was snapping her fingers in discovery. Her face flushed with whatever secret knowledge she had acquired and Buster watched the darkness sweep across her face. She tried to speak, but could only stutter, which caused her to grow even angrier. Finally, the bubble wrap going off like fireworks in her tightening fist, she found her voice. “If you think Caleb and Camille had planned all of this,” she said, gesturing toward the paintings, “then doesn’t it seem like they would want to document this?” She spread her arms as if to suggest the frame of their house, everything under this roof, and Buster instantly nodded. “I have thought that many times,” he replied. Annie frowned, looking out the window, seeing nothing. “I don’t like that,” she said. She put down the bubble wrap and stood up, her eyes searching the room. “If they are taping us,” she continued, “I will kill somebody.”

Buster also stood, and the two of them moved slowly throughout the living room, starting out with their backs to each other and moving outward. Annie touched the stereo, listened for the hiss of a recording device, and then unplugged the machine. Suddenly, she thought better of this decision and turned it back on and played, at a high volume in order to drown out their voices, the first record she could produce,
Rock for Light
by Bad Brains. The sound was frenetic and intense and it made Annie’s heart beat three times faster than it should, which felt necessary for the task at hand.

Buster clicked the lamp on and off, as if the change in brightness might help focus his vision, and then hefted a paperweight that seemed incongruous to the décor, a pewter gavel. He lightly tapped it against his open palm. He shook it, expecting a rattle, and then opened the drawer of the desk and placed the object inside, shutting it in the dark.

“Mirrors,” Annie said, but there were none to be found in the living room. They both quickly turned to the entryway of the house, where there was a tall mirror that allowed the Fangs to check their appearance right before heading out of the door. Buster nodded toward Annie and placed his index finger against his lips to quiet her. He walked to the linen closet, produced a paisley sheet, and, holding it like a net used to capture a wild animal, he padded over to the mirror. He was as close as he could get to the mirror without being caught in its reflection, and he looked over at Annie, who nodded her approval. He expertly draped the sheet over the mirror, pulling the edges free so that it cascaded down the length of the glass. “Well done,” Annie said, and Buster smiled.

They spent the next half hour cleverly obscuring every mirror in the house. When the task was finished, their actions unobserved by any outsider, they unscrewed the cordless phone, unsure of what they were looking for, having some confidence, thanks to spy movies, that they would recognize a bug if they saw it. Finding nothing suspicious, or accepting the suspicious nature of all the elements that made up the hardwiring of a phone, Buster screwed the thing closed, wondering if he had damaged something in its internals, if the phone would ever ring again and if he would care one way or the other.

“I can’t believe I’m letting this happen,” Annie suddenly shouted, grinding her teeth, her hands balled up so tightly her knuckles were fish-belly white. “This is what they want us to do. This is what they love.” She was on the edge of hysteria, about to cry, and she placed her hand on Buster’s arm for balance.

“Is this going to work, Buster?” she asked him.

“It’s the only thing I can think of,” he answered. “I guess, if it’s the only thing you can think of, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s going to work or not. What else can you do but try it?”

“I want you to say that it will work,” Annie said. Buster was not used to being in this situation, the source of certainty. “It will work because it has to,” he said, and he watched as Annie’s form sagged slightly and then stiffened, became strong again. He stood beside his sister, who seemed lost in a trance. The music that spit out of the speakers was loud enough to make the tips of each carpet fiber vibrate with the force of the bass.

He imagined that his mother and father were the orphans in his novel, hidden at the edge of civilization, waiting for the inevitable footsteps of someone who would soon wrap them in their nets and cart them off to another, stranger place. He then imagined, shocked by the understanding that it might be true, that Annie and Buster were not tracking down their parents, but that their parents, who, in his mind, controlled even the rising and setting of the sun, were simply pulling their children closer and closer to them.

the last supper, 1985

artists: caleb and camille fang

T
hey had reservations at the most expensive restaurant in Atlanta, the Fangs dressed in such finery that Buster and Annie felt like models for an unattainable lifestyle. “If the menu is in French, how will we know what we’re eating?” Annie asked her parents. “That’s part of the fun,” her mother said. Neither Annie nor Buster, itching in their new clothes, unaware of the exact nature of their parents’ plans, believed they would ever totally understand what their parents meant when they said
fun
.

“Fang, party of four,” the hostess said as she checked the reservation against the leather appointment book. “Right this way,” she said. The children watched as their parents, smiling, at ease in this strange situation, settled into the high-backed chairs, surrounded by people who wanted only a quiet evening. Annie and Buster felt a sickness deep in their stomachs, were certain whatever transpired would be anything but quiet.

“Are you not going to tell us?” Buster said, his hands cold and clammy, his nerves jangling around inside his body. “No,” Mr. Fang replied. “You just have to be ready. You’ll know it when it happens. And when it happens, you do whatever comes naturally.”

“Can you at least tell us if it will happen before or after the food comes?” Annie asked, desperate for some clue. “We cannot tell you,” Mrs. Fang said, smiling, sipping a glass of wine from a bottle so expensive that Annie deduced that the “event” would be skipping out on the check, running in all directions the minute they had finished dessert. She looked at her brother, who was taking deep, controlled breaths, willing himself to die and come back to life, and so she took the opposite approach, holding her breath until the dim, candlelit room began to bend and tick and turn wavy, finally taking a breath and feeling electric, aware of every single utensil scraping against a plate.

The food arrived. “Eat your food,” Mrs. Fang said to Buster. “I’m not hungry,” he replied, a thin strip of liver, soaked in burgundy, sitting in front of him. He looked around the restaurant for the umpteenth time and confirmed, once again, that he and his sister were the only children in the entire dining room. “You have to eat it,” Mr. Fang said. “Is this part of the piece?” Buster asked. Mr. and Mrs. Fang smiled at each other, clinked their wineglasses, and said in unison, “Eat your food.”

Buster dug his knife into the liver, the sauce shimmering as he delicately sawed a bite away from the meat. He placed the liver in his mouth, allowed the taste of it, the overwhelming gaminess of the meat, to settle on his tongue before he swallowed, no attempt to chew. His parents stared at him, and he tried to smile, beads of sweat on his forehead. “It’s good,” he said.

More wine, no conversation, classical music coming from a source that Annie and Buster could not determine, the dinner continued. Buster, somehow, sheer force of will, had eaten the entire liver without once chewing. He had the constant, insistent need to gag, but he fought the urge. He would not ruin the evening before the evening had been ruined.

Annie thought that perhaps it was the subdued lighting in the restaurant, but Buster’s skin was the most distinct shade of green, sea-foamy and pale. His tongue seemed enlarged, too big for his mouth. She ran her finger along the edge of her spoon, over and over, feeling the dull edge of the utensil dig into her fingertips, erasing the whorls of her fingerprints. Her parents, who rarely drank, disapproving of the way alcohol slowed their responses, continued to sip their wine. They seemed so happy, sharing a secret of how the world would end. It was as if Annie and Buster were not present, as if the children were watching a movie of their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Fang checked their watches, exchanged a glance, and then continued to drink their wine.

Buster stared at a chandelier with such intensity that he hoped the force of his desire would snap the cable and send the hulking, sparkling mass of light and glass crashing to the floor. Something had to happen. Something had to disrupt. Buster wanted only for something to happen so that he could run, could leave this building, could return to the safety of his room. He felt an insistence running electric through his body. He felt hot and cold at the same time, his joints aching. He felt, all of a sudden, a relaxation in his muscles, the slightest shift in tension, and he could not control the machinations of his own body.

Annie turned to her brother just as he sent a stream of vomit across the table, deep brown and dark red, the remains of a shredded animal. Mr. and Mrs. Fang gasped; Mr. Fang tried to hold a saucer under Buster’s chin but it was too late for that. Buster made a sound like the air had been kicked out of him, and the other patrons in the restaurant turned to face the Fangs. A waiter began to rush toward the table and then, hesitating, turned back to the kitchen. Buster’s hands covered his face, and he muttered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and Annie watched as her parents seemed incapable of action. They were watching the event with surprise, with interest. Annie pushed her chair over, rattling the glasses on the table, and took Buster in her arms. Somehow, Annie did not understand how, she lifted her brother without effort, and he wrapped his arms around her neck. She carried him through the restaurant, a blur of color around her, out the door, into the open air. She set him on the sidewalk, and she stroked his hair. “I’m sorry,” Buster said, and Annie kissed his forehead. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

The van was locked, and Annie searched the parking lot for some implement to pick the lock or to smash the window. She would leave her parents behind to do whatever it was that they had waited so long to enact. Buster, his color returning to him, rested against one of the tires, suddenly hungry again. And then, just as Annie had begun to wrap her coat around her arm in order to bust into the van, their parents appeared.

“I’m sorry,” Buster said, but Mr. and Mrs. Fang surrounded their son and embraced him. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” Mr. Fang said. “You did great.” He lifted Buster onto his shoulder and then unlocked the van, slipping his son into the backseat. “Did you get to perform your event?” Annie said. “We didn’t have an event,” Mrs. Fang said. “You did. You children did it for us.”

Annie, the van now on the interstate, heading home, felt heat radiating through her body, her hands clenching and unclenching. “That was mean,” she said to her parents. Buster rested his head in her lap and she stroked his hair, sticky with sweat, cooled by the AC. “That wasn’t nice,” Annie said.

“It’s no different than other times, Annie,” Mr. Fang said. “We always tell you that something is going to happen. Even if you don’t know exactly what it is, you are always a part of it. You see now, don’t you? You and Buster are Fangs. You are a part of us. We put you in a situation and, without even trying, you made something happen. You created something amazing.”

“It’s inside of you,” Mrs. Fang said. “It’s what we do; we distort the world; we make it vibrate, and you kids did it without any help from us. No direction. No idea of what would happen, and you created such chaos. You manufactured it from somewhere inside of you.”

“You made Buster so nervous that he made himself sick,” Annie said.

“You think we’re mean, but we’re just trying to show you how it all works,” Mr. Fang said. “Even if we die, when it’s just you and Buster, you’ll be able to do this. You are true artists. Even when you don’t want to make it, it manifests itself without your permission. It’s in your genes. You make art. You cannot help it.”

“We’re mad at you,” Annie said. “We don’t care about this.”

“You’ll be mad at us sometimes,” Mrs. Fang said to her children. “We’ll make you unhappy, but we do it for a reason. We do it because we love you.”

“We don’t believe you,” Annie said. Buster was now asleep, twitching and yelping.

Mrs. Fang turned around to face Annie, her hand resting on Annie’s own hand. “You have no idea how much we love you, Annie,” Mrs. Fang said, and then she turned around again. She and Mr. Fang held hands, the van traveling through the night. “No idea,” Mrs. Fang said.