David Gates - A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

“I wouldn’t mind just a touch of that port you had the other night,” Aunt Lissa says. “And I bet Carl would take you up on the hot chocolate.”

“Yeah, let’s go crazy,” Carl says. That vodka could use a booster, but he can bide his time. Shit, if he gets a second alone in here, he can tip up a decanter.

“Carl, you haven’t changed a bit,” Connie says.

“Me either,” Carl says. She gets a look on her face like, What ?

They eat while watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire; Connie says she’s “totally hooked on it.” It’s a new one on Carl, but he likes the part where the host guy and the person are sitting across from each other in the middle of space and the damned-soul voices are going, “Ah, ah, ah.” There’s a question asking if Mata Hari was a spy during (a) World War I, (b) World War II, (c) the Vietnam War or (d) the Gulf War? The person says, (b) World War II, and Aunt Lissa says it amazes her what people don’t know. Henry says it amazes him what people do know, like when they get into those questions about rock bands. Connie wants to know, what exactly is trivia? Because to one person it may be trivial, but. When the show’s over, Henry gets out the cards for gin rummy and asks what would anybody like. A touch more of that port for Aunt Lissa, Diet Coke for Connie, same for Carl. Henry gets himself a glassful of ice and pours in scotch. Carl is absolutely fine with this. If nothing else, he’ll eventually get another crack at that vodka. He fans his cards out and holds them up to his face for a sneaky smell of them.

At ten o’clock, Henry puts on the news. Big fire in Albany, hoses arching icy rooster tails in the dark and a young woman talking into a microphone and blowing out white breath. “The apparent cause?” she says. “A faulty heating unit.”

“A faulty crack pipe,” Henry says.

“Now, you don’t know that,” Connie says.

“I know that part of town .”

She gets up. “I better put that stuff in the dishwasher.”

Aunt Lissa gets up too. “Let me give you a hand.”

Now there’s a thing about the dredging, people in parkas holding signs. “Those GE fuckers have got the yahoos stirred up,” Henry says. “The money they spend buying ads, they could have cleaned up the fucking PCBs.”

“Wait, so you think they should dig up the river?” Carl had assumed Henry was a Republican.

“What do you, just let sleeping dogs lie? That philosophy hasn’t gotten you too far. You go to court tomorrow, right? I guess if you manage not to lose your shit in front of the judge, they’ll let you off with a fine. Yank your license, of course.”

“I don’t plan to lose my shit,” Carl says.

“They’re going to want cash, probably. How much you have?”

“Couple hundred.” That was before the clothes.

“It’s going to be more than that. So you were going to do what? Hit her up?” Henry tosses his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Look, call my office. Here.” Lifts a hip as if to fart, digs out his wallet, hands Carl a card. “Or call my cell. I might be out showing. That’s got all my numbers. Let me know how much, and I’ll drive up there.”

“You’re kidding. Well. Thanks.” Carl looks at the card, then reaches up under his sweatshirt and puts it in his T-shirt pocket.

“So I’m assuming you don’t need to be here past tomorrow. Correct?”

“I honestly haven’t been thinking.”

“Well, why don’t you honestly get cracking and do a little thinking. I mean, I know you’re the one damaged soul in God’s green universe.”

Carl gives him the finger, but Aunt Lissa’s coming in from the kitchen and he converts it to scratching his nose. “We should think about getting down the hill,” she says to Henry. “We need to be there by ten.”

Henry gets up. “Well, let me run you down.”

“The air’ll do us good. Do me good, anyway. That last glass of port was one too many.”

“Then you should definitely let me drive you.”

“Oh, pooh,” she says. She crooks her elbow at Carl. “I’ve got my protector here.”

When they get outside, the moon’s up: big, round, alarming. Carl says, “George Lassos Moon. You remember she draws the picture?”

Aunt Lissa stops walking. “This looks a little slippery through here,” she says. “Could I have your arm till we get past this part?”

Carl raises an elbow and feels her hands clamp around the puffy sleeve. He takes a couple of baby steps: now she’s got him worried. “So what movie?” he says. “Easy one.”

“I’m sorry, dear,” she says. “I’ve had enough for one night.”

—

The morning sun’s on their right as Aunt Lissa drives them up to Albany. Carl’s pulled the visor over, but he can’t face too far left because he had a couple of pulls at that vodka bottle when she went up to brush her teeth after breakfast; he’s opened his window a crack to let out fumes. He also shook his Paxils into an envelope and poured the vial full; only a shot, but it could come in handy. Another blinding day. The Eddie Bauer is draped over his seat back. The pavement’s wet and Aunt Lissa has to keep squirting fluid and using the wipers to clear the salt spatter.

“I wonder,” she says. “Do you remember much about when you first came to live with us?”

“Yeah, I thought it was weird that all my stuff was there but it was in the wrong room,” he says, at the windshield. “That incredible wallpaper. The bucking broncos?”

“Now that,” she says, “was Martin’s idea,” and he knows the whole rest word for word. I remember he came “I remember he came back from the store with the rolls under his arm, and he said,” Now this is what “ ‘Now this is what a six-year-old boy would like.’ ” Aunt Lissa’s spin on this deal has always been that she and Martin just picked up where his parents left off, as if it deeply made no difference who anybody was.

“You know,” Carl says, “I don’t think I ever even said I appreciated what you guys did.”

She does another wiper thing. “You can’t be serious. I still have that lovely letter you wrote the day you graduated from high school.”

“That,” he says. “Yeah. But I guess the point is, here I am again.”

“This too shall pass,” she says. “I’m just glad I’m still able to help.”

“What, the son you never had?” He says this as an experiment, to see how it would feel to do a one-eighty and be mean.

“I imagine there’s something of that.” Aunt Lissa shakes her head. “Do you want to really talk?”

“Probably not,” he says.

Sign for the New Baltimore Travel Plaza.

“I need to use the restroom,” she says. “Shall we get you some coffee? They have a Starbucks now.”

“I thought it was bad for you.”

“You told me I was an enabler,” she says. “You know, you still make the mistake of thinking you can see everyone and no one can see you. It was cute when you were six.”

He shades his eyes and looks out his window below the visor. A farmhouse with a metal chimney goes by.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do?” she says.

“I guess take a bus back down to the city.” He needs to make some calls and see who he might be able to stay with.

“I mean in the longer term.”

“Oh. Yeah, I thought I’d run for Congress. Mah fellamericans…”

“Give me strength,” she says. “Isn’t there a chance that you and Elaine…I don’t know. I’ve barely met Elaine.” She swings left to pass a station wagon, a golden retriever pacing behind the dog gate, then into the right lane again.