Lydia Millet - How the Dead Dream

"You gotta come, man," said the fraternity brother, now a pharmaceutical rep. "You being right there in the city and shit. I mean guys are flying in from Singapore for this thing. And you'd give it that real old-time flavor, you know? I mean shit, we haven't seen you since eighty-fucking-six. It's gonna be a hell of a shindig."

"I'll do my best," said T.

He took Beth with him and they headed up the front path through the garden, which was crowded with exotic plants. Near the front porch they found two men holding beer cans, ties loosened.

"Ron, how are you," said T., and they clapped each other on the back. "This is Beth."

"Pleased to meetcha," said Ron. "Wow. You got a keeper there, T. She a model or something? Whoo-hoo!"

"See you later," said T., and they left him standing with the other man, who leaned over a birdbath and retched.

"My," said Beth.

"Ron was never one of our very brightest stars."

"Reassuring."

Inside the house was palatial, with a spiral staircase and a massive window giving a view out over the light dotted hills in the dark. Caterers moved among the crowds, and in the corner of the main room a tubby man in late-model Elvis sang karaoke.

"T. holy fucking shit! My man!"

Down the stairs came Van Heysen, red hair mussed, his round and florid face shining.

"Ian," said T.

"My man! I can't believe it!"

He found himself clasped to Ian's chest, and when he was released a blast of whiskey breath almost floored him.

"What the hell you been doing? I hear something like real estate?"

"Something like. This is Beth," said T., and Ian looked her tip and down.

"Hot," he said, and stuck out his hand.

"Nice to meet you too."

"So are you like Asian or black or something?"

"You grill everyone about their ethnic background, Ian?"

"Hey. If she wasn't so foxy I wouldn't give a shit. So step on up to my garden of earthly delights. We got coke, we got weed, we got speed, we got X."

"No, thanks," said T. "You remember who you're talking to, right, Ian? Straight as a pin."

"Does a Pope shit in the woods? Is a bear Catholic?"

"What can I say."

"Thought you might have eased up, is all. Mellowed out. But hey! No harm no foul."

"I'd like a vodka tonic, if you have one," said T.

"Sure thing. You?"

"White wine, please," said Beth.

"Stay right there."

"Triple T.!" said a man with a beard, stepping back from the table. White dusted his mustache.

"Stewart," said T. "How are you."

"Great, great, great," said Stewart, and clapped him in a bear hug.

"So I see."

"Hey? You know what? Coincidence for ya. I was at this old-boy thing in Atlanta, right? A month ago or something. Mostly fossils. We're talking Class of 1940 and shit."

"Uh huh."

"It was all ear hair and prosthetic legs and boring Okinawa stories. I went there for business, looking for investors for my new record label."

"Record label. Huh."

"It's completely fucking brilliant, T.T.T. Talk about niches no one's thought of grabbing. Get this: Aryan rap. More on that one later. But so guess who the fuck I fucking ran into there?"

"I have no idea," said T., and held out his hand to accept a drink from Ian.

"Your old man! Your fucking dear old dad. I mean fuck me!"

T. stared wordlessly. Finally he lifted his tumbler and sipped.

"He was looking good," said Stewart earnestly. "Real deep tan and shit. I didn't remember him being so buff. Has he had any work done?"

"Work?" asked T., still stunned.

"Stew! Come here!" someone yelled from outside.

"Hold your fucking horses!" called Stew, and turned back to T. "And he had this kid with him, your brother I guess?"

"I was an only child," said T.

"Oh. Some young guy, then," said Stewart. "I don't know why I thought he was family. Maybe the age difference."

"Did my father happen to mention where he was living?" asked T.

Stewart stared at him until the French doors banged open.

"Stew! I'm serious!" said a woman in pigtails. "Laney's having a bad trip or something! She's like saying she's gonna slide down the cliff on a wine crate! Like, now!"

"My stupid wife," said Stewart, "she always does this stupid shit," and followed the pigtails out the door, shaking his head.

Later, before they left, he went looking for Stewart but could not find him.

Presently his father sent a postcard from Key West. Several days later he had a lunch meeting with Brad, a native of the Keys, whose mother's building he had sold four years before and who now had a large stake in the Mojave project.

"You run into my father around town?" he asked Brad casually, when business was winding down.

"I guess he works in this one bar these days," said Brad, signing the air for the check.

"A bar?" said T.

"This one is, you know… you know."

"I know what?"

"You know. For queers."

T. found his mouth working without producing words. He saw his father putting an umbrella in a margarita glass, wearing a bright pink shirt festooned with sunsets and palm trees.

"T.? You with me there, man?"

"Sure. Yes. I'm just surprised. I always thought he was narrow-minded."

"Yeah. Hey! I'll get this one." And Brad slapped down his card.

T. flew into the Keys on a propeller plane, the thin seat beneath him vibrating. Beneath him the blue was vast, and then he saw the gray precise line of a highway cutting its way across the ocean, between the thin islands. A man sitting next to him told him the road over the sea had been built on a bedrock of dead corals for a railway itself long since destroyed by a storm. One bridge alone was seven miles long, the man said.

From the small airport he took a taxi to a condo Brad owned on the beach, which was pink and had tiers like a wedding cake. He hung his spare shirt in the closet, showered and lay naked on his back on the bed with the sliding door open to the terrace, waves crashing outside and the sea blowing salt wind across his body. The smell of crisp sheets was tinged with the smell of coconut and a breeze came in off the ocean and lifted the white drapes; it grazed the light hairs on his stomach, raising goose bumps and giving him an erection. He thought of Beth, cotton and skin. He should have asked her to come with him. But even with her this would not have passed for a pleasure trip. This was a gesture, but it rankled, it was awkward, even confining. She would not have thanked him.

And it was still not too late to avoid a meeting. He did not have to go any further than this; he could stay where he was, lie low. The prospect was beckoning.

But glancing through the open door to the bathroom he saw white tiles and was briefly touched by the body of his mother, naked and slack-there she was, and there the towel he had tossed across the darkness of her lap for the benefit of the paramedics, because he was ashamed.

By night the bar was crowded and hot. A muscular black man in a net T-shirt handed beers over the counter and there behind him, though it took a few seconds to be sure, was his father.

Newly blond, darkly tanned, his father wore a polo shirt and smiled whitely to a patron waving money at him as he shot soda into a highball glass with the bar gun. Both his father and mother, it struck him, had made themselves blonder: both of them had lightened their hair and darkened their skin-possibly, he thought, to attract attention through contrast, birds with bright plumage. They had turned themselves into summer people, as though they could stave off the winter ahead.

Maybe, he thought hopefully, he had imagined his father's coldness. Maybe his father was only reluctant to face him. He stepped toward the counter, waiting for a hole to clear between other patrons; he stood facing the bartender in the mesh, who nodded at him impatiently.