A. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

He's floundering. He's lost. He goes farther, trips over a stone or a stick, and collapses as if cleaved open. "Marco," he screams into the silence. "Marco."

"Polio," his brother used to call back. Richard remembers his brother calling "Polio" and starts to sob. It's all too much.

Out of the darkness, Ben appears, face dissolving as though the scotch were a solvent. He approaches Richard, his jaw drops, and he vomits, splashing Richard's ankle. Ben kicks sand over the vomit and sits next to Richard.

"You were supposed to come and then there was a blizzard and I kept thinking you'd come anyway, you'd find a way. I thought nothing would stop you, and you never showed up. There was a kid in my class at Dalton whose father came and stole him and they went to Brazil and never came back. The mom went crazy. Every day I hoped for something and there was nothing. You were the missing man."

Richard stands up and Ben knocks him down.

"I'm so sorry," Richard says. He gets up again and offers Ben his hand, and Ben takes him out at the knees.

Richard has no choice but to wrestle with him. They go at it, digging themselves into the sand, turning around and around in a circle of frustration, kicking, spinning, until Ben is not fighting anymore, until he's limp in his father's arms.

"I'm cold," Ben says.

"That's the thing about L.A. — you can freeze to death under a rosebush," Richard says.

BEN IS PASSED OUT on his lap. Richard holds him, grateful just to have him, to feel his breathing, his chest moving evenly, his features flaccid, his lashes so long. Despite the fact that Ben is grown, he's still a boy, a small boy.

Even though it is not cold, Richard begins to shiver. It is his sweat evaporating, the moist night air. He gets up and half leads, half carries Ben back to the house. He undresses the boy and tucks him into bed.

Richard hangs a bunch of silverware tied with twine off Ben's doorknob, figuring if Ben wakes up, either to puke or kill him, he'll hear him.

And then he goes into bathroom. There's vomit everywhere, around the toilet, in the tub, up the wall. He gets a roll of paper towels and every cleaning product he can find and scrubs. He scrubs with everything and anything — Mr. Clean, Comet, the brush made for cleaning a barbecue grill. He scrubs the tile, the grout, the shower curtain, and then finally gets in the shower and scrubs himself.

In the shower, he catches the scent of the Gyrotonics instructor, the woman with one breast. It already seems like so long ago. Her scent is on him like an animal's. She is in the hair on his chest, his cock and balls are coated with an intermingling of their juices. He lathers himself, scrubbing clean, trading the smell of sex for the smell of soap.

Out of the shower, he goes to the window, looking for lights at Nic's, wishing he had someone to tell the story to. The house is dark except for the computer screen, glowing blue, like a swimming pool.

He thinks about the woman. Was it nice, was it good, was it handicapped sex — they're both so handicapped this was the best they could do? He thinks it was good, he thinks it meant something to both of them. He wonders if it will happen again.

His mind goes back to Ben — the image of Ben pulling down his pants and flashing his ass at Richard, Ben telling him about giving men blow jobs. What does it mean to want your father to fuck you?

He is tempted to call his ex-wife, but waits. He thinks about the single-breasted woman, the way she told him; it just about makes him cry. He takes out his pornography and jerks off — maybe it will help him sleep.

At four in the morning, 7:00 a.m. in New York, he calls his ex-wife. "He's gay," Richard says.

"Good morning."

"He tried to sleep with me."

"He needs a father."

"He drank all the scotch, threw up everywhere, and made a pass at me. He wanted to fuck me, or me to fuck him, I'm not clear which, but, whatever it was, he meant it."

"He meant that he feels confused, that the situation is confusing; he's testing you, that's what children do, they constantly test you. This trip means a lot to him; don't blow it."

Richard hears a noise in the background, paper rustling, the scratch of a pencil. "Are you editing while we're talking?"

"I've been at it since six."

"He told me that whenever he was mad he used to give blow jobs to our friends, your friends."

"I have no doubt. It's not easy. It's never been easy. I've been a working mother, a single parent in New York City, for thirteen years. I did the best I could. Are you calling me at seven a.m. to complain?"

"He talked about wanting to kill me."

"Can you blame him? It makes perfect sense," she says, siding with Ben. "Look, Richard, he's had all of these feelings for years, they have to come out. I'm sure it's not pretty, but I doubt he's going to kill you. Lock your door if you're scared."

"I locked his."

"That's great, hold him captive."

A flash of pain — Richard was trying to keep Ben safe, to protect him, not hold him hostage. "I'm doing the best I can," Richard says, knowing it is not enough — the situation requires more.

"If I can get a few things off my desk, I'll come out for a day or two. Maybe if we all spend some time together that will help. Be kind to him; he loves you very much, despite what he says. And set limits, make sure he knows what you will and won't tolerate."

"I'm trying," Richard says.

AT 7:00 A.M. he scrambles a beautiful bunch of eggs for Ben and thinks of someone waking up hung over — his stomach turns. Richard gives the eggs to the dog, makes some toast for Ben, pours a glass of juice, and goes down the hall.

"Ben, time to wake up." He puts the juice on the night table and nudges the boy's shoulder. "Up and at em." Ben stirs slightly. Richard keeps shaking him. "OK, guy, let's go." Ben's eyes open; he squints, looking at Richard as if to ask, Who are you?

"How're you feeling, long night?"

Ben sits up.

"You OK?"

"Yeah," Ben says, and that's it.

Nothing more, no explanation, no elaboration, no idea if Ben even remembers what happened.

"I made you some toast," Richard says.

Ben gets up, takes a shower, eats his toast, drinks some water.

"I think maybe I'm still drunk," he says when he falls over trying to put his pants on. "I feel pretty weird."

"Are you all right to drive to work?" Richard asks.

Ben walks across the living room in a straight line, one foot in front of the other; he does it again, backwards. He closes his eyes and touches his finger to his nose.

"I think you'll be fine," Richard says. "Drink a lot of fluids, you need to flush everything out."

"Did I do anything totally weird?"

The father shrugs.

"Were you ever a fuckup as a kid?"

Richard shakes his head. "I don't think so. I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, when I was in my twenties I smoked pot. I thought it was really radical."

"You didn't have to clean my puke in the bathroom, I was going to do that. No one should have to clean up someone else's puke."

"It's not like it could wait, and, besides, I didn't want the dog to eat the vomit."

"That's nice, very dadlike."

"I enjoyed it," he says, telling the truth. "I felt very dadlike, very parental."

Ben pours himself another glass of juice. "You got laid," he says, speaking into the refrigerator.

"Yeah."

"I think I sort of knew that's what you were doing, and I freaked out; I figured once you got a girlfriend you'd dump me."

"I'm not going to dump you. Now go to work; call me later."

BEN LEAVES, and Richard is sick with exhaustion. Drained but agitated, he lies down, tries to follow his breathing, but can't. He sees Madeline, the swimmer, go by and wonders why he didn't think of it sooner. A swim. At water's edge, he remembers dipping his feet into a milky-blue antiseptic bath before entering the high-school pool; his skin was perpetually chapped from the extreme chlorine. He plunges in — the act of immersing, the sand sucking at his feet, the salt stinging his eyes, is delicious. He swims towards Santa Monica, crawling, turning his head to breathe, seeing only water and sometimes a flash of beach. The resistance of the water is a strange relief. It is as though he is high from the tumult of last night — the tsuris, his mother would call it. Ocean rolling, he swims, and when he runs out of breath he lies on his back, pacing himself. He is not alone — there are surfers and dolphins — and whatever discomfort he felt earlier is replaced with a buzz, a positive charge, a sense of having survived.