With a Little Help (32 page)

Ethan said, "Yes."

"Always the bachelor, my boy. But it wasn't for lack of opportunity. You had to beat them off with a stick, didn't you, son?"

Ethan said, "Yes."

"I always hoped for a grandchild to hold, but you have to let your children live their own lives, isn't that right, Brice?"

"Yes," Grampa said, with a kind of horrified fascination.

"Ethan was always too busy for romance."

"Yes," Ethan said.

"Working and working and working for that transcription service. You must have typed a million words. Did you ever count them, Ethan?"

"Yes," Ethan said. "I typed roughly fifteen million words."

"Nowadays, of course, no one types. It's all talking to computers now. When I was a girl, they all said that you'd always have a job if you just learned to type. Times sure change, don't they?"

"Yes," Ethan and Grampa said together. Grampa startled like he'd been shocked.

"Dad's coming tomorrow?" Sean said.

Grampa said, "Yes. He's catching the 6 AM. He'll be here by 10."

"Isn't that
nice
," Adele said.

#

They left Grampa and Ethan sitting at the table together. Sean looked back over his shoulder before they got on the elevator, and Grampa was still switched on, staring hard at him.

"You must be
excited
about seeing your father again," Adele said to him when they were sitting around the pool.

Sean was getting the hang of talking to Adele. "Ethan and my grandfather seem to be hitting it off."

"Oh, I certainly
hope
so! Ethan could use some friends at that place."

Sean pictured the two of them, seated across from each other at the ward table, running maintenance routines at each other, saying, "Yes," "Yes." Unbidden, a grin came to Sean's face.

"Why did you put Ethan in the Home?" Sean asked, shifting to catch more sun on his face.

"He wanted to go," she said. "The doctor came by and told him about it and asked him if he wanted to go, and he said 'Yes.' That was it!"

Sean snuck a look at Adele. She was wincing into the light, following it like a sunflower. "Adele," he said.

"Yes, Sean?"

"Ethan was in maintenance mode. He was switched off. He said 'Yes,' because his subroutines didn't want to be any trouble. You know that, right?"

"Oh, that foolishness again! Ethan's a
good boy
, is all. He remembers my birthday and Mother's Day, every year."

"Subroutines, Adele," Sean said, straining to keep an inexplicable anger out of his voice.

"Humph! Subroutines!"

"Adele, he's a robot. He's a walking coma. He's been switched off for so long, all you're talking to is a goddamn
chip
, he's not a goddamn
person
anymore. None of them are. My goddamn
Grampa
's spent three-quarters of his goddamn life
away
. He's either an angry old bastard, or he's a goddamn
zombie
. You
know that
, right?"

"Sean, you're very upset," Adele said. "Why don't you have a nice lie-down, and we'll talk in the morning. I can't wait to meet your father!"

Sean stalked off to his room and tried to record some field notes while flipping around in the weird, poky corners of the motel's cable system, Japanese game-shows and Hindu religious epics. He smoked half a cigarette, drank half a beer, tried to masturbate, and finally, slept.

#

Adele rang his room-phone at eight. "Rise and shine, sunshine!" she said. "Your father will be at the airport in an hour!"

Sean dressed, but didn't bother shaving or brushing his teeth. He staggered out to his rental and gave Adele a sheepish grin. Acid churned in his gut.

Adele waited by the passenger door, in a pair of slacks and a light blouse. She had hung a pair of sunglasses around her neck on a gold chain, and carried an enormous sisal handbag. Staggering in the horrible daylight, Sean opened the passenger door for her, and offered his arm while she got in.

He put the car onto the Bee Line Expressway and pointed it at the airport.

"Oh, won't this be
fun
?" Adele said, as he ground the crap from the corners of his eyes and steered with his knees. "I'm sure your father is
charming
. Maybe the five of us can go to Universal for an afternoon."

"I don't think we can take them off the ward," Sean grunted, changing lanes for the airport exit.

"You're probably right," Adele said. "I was just thinking that Universal might be enough to keep them both switched on."

Sean shot her a look and nearly missed his exit.

Adele rattled a laugh at him. "Don't look so surprised. I know which end is up!"

Sean pursed his lips and navigated the ramp-maze that guarded the airport. He pulled up to the loading zone at Air Canada arrivals and switched off the engine. He looked past Adele at the tourists jockeying for cabs. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I guess I'm a little wound up."

"Yesterday?" Adele said. "Oh! By the pool!" She put a frail hand on his forearm. "Sean, you don't get to my age by holding grudges. Ethan's father --
he
held grudges, and it killed him. Heart attack. He never forgave the doctors. I'm just happy to have a chauffeur."

Sean swallowed hard. "I'm sure that somewhere, Ethan knows that you're visiting him, that you love him. He's in there." He said it with all the sincerity he could muster.

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't," Adele said. "But it makes me feel better. He's what I've got left. If you'd like, I'll wait with the car so you can go in and look for your father."

"No," Sean said. "That's all right. Dad'll come out for a cab. He's not the sort to dawdle."

"I like a decisive man. That's why I talked to you by the pool -- you just jumped in, because you wanted a swim."

"Adele, that was
stupid
. It was like swimming in a urine sample."

"Same difference. I like a man who can make up his mind. That's what Ethan's father was like: decisive."

"You'll like my Dad," Sean said. He drummed his fingers on the wheel, then lowered and raised his window. He whistled tunelessly through his teeth. Adele gave him a considering stare and he stopped, and started in on powers of two in his head.

"There he is," Sean said, 224 later.

Sean had barely been in Florida for three days, but it was long enough that his father seemed as pale as freezer-burned ice cream. Sean checked the traffic in his rear-view, then pulled across the waiting area to where his father stood, acing out an irate cabbie for the spot.

Sean's father glared at the car and started to walk behind it to the taxi. Sean leaned on the horn and his father stooped and stared. His expression was bland and grim and affectless.

Sean powered down Adele's window. "Dad!"

"Sean?" his father said.

Sean popped the locks. "Get in, Dad, I'll give you a ride."

#

Adele turned around as Sean's father was buckling in. "I'm Adele. Sean and I were thinking of taking you to Universal. Would you like that?"

Sean's father stared right through her, at Sean. "It's an obvious question, I know, but what are you doing here?"

"It's my thesis," Sean said, and floored the rental, headed for the Home.

"Whee!" Adele said.

"How's Grampa?" Sean's father asked.

"Oh, he's delightful," Adele said. "We introduced him to my Ethan yesterday, and they're getting along famously. Sean, introduce me to your charming father, please."

"Dad," Sean said, through grit teeth, "This is Adele. Adele, my father, Mitch. We were thinking of getting day-passes for Grampa and Ethan and taking them to Universal. You ever been to Universal, Dad? I hear you come down here a lot." His normally fragmented attention was as focused as a laser, boring into his father through the rear-view.

His father's stern face refused to expose any of his confusion. "I don't think I want to go to Universal," he said.

"Oh, but it's
wonderful
," Adele gushed. "You shouldn't knock it until you've tried it."

"I don't think so," Sean's father repeated. "What's your thesis?"

Sean plunged headlong into the breech. "It's called 'The Tri-Generational Deficit: What's My Father's Excuse?'"

Sean's father nodded curtly. "And how's it going?"

"Well, you have to understand, I'm just warming up to the subject with Grampa. And then I'll have to do an interview series with you, of course."

"Did I miss something? When did I become the principle ogre in your pantheon? Are you angry at me?"

Sean barked a laugh and turned onto the Home's exit-ramp. "I guess I am, Dad. Grampa had the operation -- it was
easy
for him to switch off. You needed to make a special effort." The words flew from his mouth like crows, and Sean clamped his jaw shut. He tensed for the inevitable scathe of verbiage. None came. He risked a glance in his rear-view.

His father was staring morosely out at the Home. Adele patted Sean's hand and gave him a sympathetic look. Sean parked the car.

#

"Hi, Pop," Sean's father said, when they came to the table where Grampa sat. Ethan sat across from him.

Grampa glared at them. "This guy won't leave me alone. He's a fucking vegetable," he said, gesturing at Ethan. Adele pursed her lips at him. He patted her arm absently. "It needed to be said."

Sean's father reached around the table and gave Grampa a stiff hug. "Good to see you, Pop."

"Yeah, likewise. Sit down, Mitch. Sit down, Sean. Sit down, Adele." They sat. "Ask your questions, Sean," he ordered.

Sean found himself tongue-tied. He heaved a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He thought about why he was here: not the reason he'd given his thesis advisor, but the
real
goddamn reason. He wanted to
understand
-- his father, himself. He wanted to reverse-engineer his father's childhood. He looked at Ethan, slack as Grampa had been whenever they'd visited. An inkling glimmered. "Does Ethan scare you, Grampa?"

Adele
tsk
ed and scowled.

"Do I scare you, Mitch?" Grampa said, to Sean's father.

"Yes," Sean's father said.

"Yes," Grampa said. "Next question."

"Do you think that switching off is a sign of weakness?" Sean said, sneaking a glance at his father, seeing his grandfather's features echoed in his father's face.

"Yes," his father said.

"Of course," his grandfather said.

"Then why?" Sean said.

"You know why," Ethan said, his eyes glittering.

They all swiveled to look at him. "Because the alternative is the purest shit," Ethan said, standing up, starting to pace, almost shouting to make himself heard over the din of the ward. "Because if you have to ask, you'll never understand. Because dessert is better than dinner, because the cherry on top is the best part of the sundae. Because strength is over-rated."

Grampa applauded briefly, sardonically. "Because holding your nose and taking your medicine is awful. Because boredom is a suppurating wound on the mind. Because self-discipline is over-rated. You getting all this, Sean?"

But Sean was watching his father, who was staring in fascinated horror at Grampa. Nauseous regret suffused Sean, as he saw his father's composure crumble. How many times had he tried to shatter that deadly cool? And here he'd done it. He'd really done it.

Still looking at his father, Sean said, "Do you ever wonder how it feels to rank below oblivion in someone's book?"