Джонатан Троппер - This Is Where I Leave You

Dad didn’t seem to know how to be around us when he wasn’t working. He was great with us when we were small, would cradle us in his massive forearms or bounce us on his knee while humming Mozart . . . As toddlers, we would cling to his sausage fingers as he walked us down the block, and he would lie down with us at bedtime, often falling asleep on the bed with us, until Mom came to get him. But he seemed hopelessly bewildered by us once we got a little bit older. He didn’t understand our infatuation with television and video games, seemed bewildered by our able-bodied laziness, by our messy rooms and unmade beds, our longer hair and our silk-screened T-shirts. The older we got, the further he retreated into his work, his weekend papers, and his schnapps. Sometimes I think that having Phillip was my mother’s last-ditch effort to find her husband again.

The hunter-green awnings of the shop, usually speckled with dried bird droppings and water stains, have recently been cleaned, and the windows, anticipating the fall season, are crammed with hockey, ski, and snowboard gear. The mannequin in the corner is wearing a goalie mask, and in the ominous flicker of the fluorescent light he looks like Jason, the serial killer from those Friday the 13th movies. Elmsbrook is the perfect town for a serial killer, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s always the picturesque towns, with clean sidewalks and clock towers, where Jason and Freddy come to slaughter oversexed teenagers. Centre Street has a cobblestone pedestrian walkway with benches and a fountain, the stores have matching awnings, and the overall vibe is pleasant and well kept.

And maybe because I’m thinking of serial killers, when Horry suddenly knocks on my window, I jump in my seat. Or maybe it’s because he looks kind of scary. His long hair is held off his face by a white Nike headband with the price tag still attached, flapping against his forehead, and there’s a good inch of ash suspended at the tip of the cigarette wedged between his lips.

“You scared me,” I say.

“I have that effect on people.”

I laugh, not because it’s funny, but to be polite. You can’t help but feel bad for Horry, but you’re supposed to treat him like anyone else, because he’s damaged but not an idiot, and he’ll sniff out your pity like a dog sniffs out fear.

“Shouldn’t you be at home, sitting Sheba?”

“Shiva.”

“Shiva is an Indian god, the one with six arms. Or maybe it’s four arms and two legs. I don’t know. Six limbs, maybe.”

“Well, it also means ‘seven’ in Hebrew.”

“Six limbs, seven days . . .” He pauses to ponder the potential theological implications for a moment but reaches no conclusions other than now would be a good time to take another drag on his cigarette. “Well, shouldn’t you be there?”

“Yes, I should,” I say. “How are things inside?”

“Dead.” He shrugs. “You coming in?”

“Nah. I just stopped by because your mom thought you’d want a lift home.”

“She sent you?”

“She knew I was going out.”

He shakes his head and grimaces. “I need to get my own place, like, yesterday.”

“So why don’t you?”

He taps his head. “Brain injury. There are things I can’t do.”

“Like what?”

“Like remembering what the fuck it is I can’t do.” He opens the passenger door and throws himself down in the seat. “You’re not allowed to smoke in Mom’s car,” he says, blowing a ring.

“I’m not. You are.”

“I have plausible deniability.” He flicks his ash onto the floor mat. “You used to date Penelope Moore, didn’t you?”

“Penny Moore. Yeah. We were friends. Whatever happened to her?”

“She teaches ice skating over at the rink. The indoor one, where we played hockey.”

“Kelton’s.”

“Right. I still skate there sometimes.”

“You were a pretty good hockey player.”

“No, you were a pretty good hockey player. I was a great hockey player.”

“I never would have thought she’d still be living here.”

“Why, because she doesn’t have a brain injury?”

“No! Horry. Jesus! I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

But he’s grinning at me through the haze of smoke that has filled the space between us. “I’m just messing with you, Judd. Lighten up.”

“Fuck you.”

“I am already good and fucked, my brother from another mother.”

“Wow. Penny Moore. What in the world made you think of Penny Moore?”

“She’s in the store.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. She works the register on weeknights. You should go in and say hello.”

“Penny Moore,” I say. The name alone conjures up her wicked smile, the taste of her kiss. We once made a pact, Penny and I. I wonder if she still remembers.

“She’d be happy to see you, I bet.”

“Maybe some other time,” I say, starting the car.

“I say something wrong?”

I shake my head. “It’s just hard to see people from your past when your present is so cataclysmically fucked.”

Horry nods sagely. “Welcome to my world.” He fishes around in his pockets for a moment, spilling some loose change onto his seat before pulling out a sloppily rolled joint, which he lights from the dying embers of his cigarette. He inhales deeply and then offers me the joint, still holding his breath.

“None for me, thanks,” I say.

He shrugs and lets the smoke dance around his open mouth. “Helps me keep my head right,” he says. “Sometimes, when I feel a seizure coming on, this kind of heads it off at the pass.”

“Won’t your mom smell that?”

“What’s she going to do, ground me?”

His voice is suddenly, uncharacteristically belligerent, and I get the sense that Linda asking me to pick him up was a salvo in a long-standing battle between mother and son.

“Everything okay with you, Horry?”

“Everything is swell.”

He swings the blunt my way.

“I have to drive,” I say.

He shrugs and takes another long drag. “More for me.”

The shiva is still in full swing when I return to the living room. “Judd!” my mother shouts as I’m trying to slink quietly back to my seat. Every eye in the room finds me. “Where were you?”

“I just needed to get some air,” I mutter, sliding back down into my shiva chair.

“You remember Betty Allison?” she says, indicating the birdlike woman sitting on the chair directly in front of me. The shiva chairs, by design, are lower than the chairs of the visitors, and so my view tends to be up the nostrils and skirts of the people seated directly in front of me.

“Sure,” I say. “How are you, Mrs. Allison?”

“I’m so sorry about your father.”

“Thanks.”

“Betty’s daughter Hannah was divorced last year,” my mother says brightly, like she’s delivering a nugget of particularly good news.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.

Betty nods. “He was addicted to Internet porn.”

“It happens,” I say.

“Judd’s wife was cheating on him.”

“Jesus Christ, Mom!”

“What? There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

There are about twenty other people in the room, talking to my siblings or each other, and I can feel all their heads turning to us like a stadium wave. In the third grade, I briefly suffered from the paranoid delusion that when I went to the bathroom during class, the blackboard became a television screen and my entire class watched me piss. That’s what this feels like.

“Hannah and her son are here visiting for the summer,” Mom says, undeterred. “I thought it might be nice for you two to catch up, that’s all.”