Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“Look,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “I brought you here because I thought you might be curious about what I do —and have compassion for what’s happened to these people. But all you’re doing is giving me shit.”

“Fuck you!” he shouted. “You’re not even here ! You think that because you told me about Marcus— your version —you couldn’t even do it yourself , you needed Grandpa there! — you think that because you tell me some bullshit , suddenly you’re the great mother ? You’re just a drug addict!”

“No one’s ‘just a drug addict,’ Tull,” she said wearily.

“You think because you get chauffeured to AA meetings, that makes you a great mother ? That because you pay someone to come to the house and show you how to meditate that makes you a great mother ?”

“I wish you’d stop saying that.”

“That you’ve been sober six weeks? Who cares! At least he left . I never had to even meet him — but you —you keep — coming — back! Keep coming back! Keep coming back!” He shrieked, flapping his arms in furious mockery of the famous slogan. “You don’t even care what it’s like to — for me to try to find you and you’re just gone ! You don’t give a shit about me! When were we supposed to have gone to San Francisco to see some cathedral? When , Trinnie? That is such a joke ! You don’t even know who I am —all you care about are your clothes and your drugs—”

“I’m not taking drugs.”

“But you will ! You will !”

“Thank you, Tull. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“And Grandpa gives you money , like, every day . And you hate him! You hate your father—”

“Don’t project on me, Tull.”

“You hate everyone but yourself . Don’t tell me about compassion when you don’t even care about your own parents . You’ve done nothing but practically kill them! All they do is worry about you, you think Bluey doesn’t have any feelings, but Bluey just doesn’t show it like Grandpa does. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead! You don’t care about anyone! Not me or stupid Rafe or Grandma or Grandpa or Pullman —Pullman cares more about me than you ever did! You fucking make me sick !—”

She slapped him, and he stared at her in shock.

Sobbing with anger, he tried to leave the garden, but the gate, like all doors, locked from inside to corral the guests. He put his foot on a tree and boosted himself to scale the fence, dropping down on the other side.

Trinnie watched, heart in throat, as he ran up the hill of the former onion field. She couldn’t help but notice the valley oak at its crest, fairly rare for Southern California.

Trinnie thought: Everything he said is true . And if then and there the gods had transmuted the very dirt to morphine, she’d have sunk to her knees and choked on the earth.

While the drama played out in Woodland Hills (ending with the winded Tull’s safe on-ramp apprehension), another scene unspooled at a Westwood cemetery with which the reader is already familiar.

The old man stood on his parcel. Instead of the Silver Seraph, the plush Mauck had been maneuvered past the gate; it did not present a serious encumbrance, for today park tourists were scant. Edward sat in his buggy a few paces away, ramrod straight thanks to the trusty titanium brace, which Lucy had adorned with decals of wasps and figs. Sling Blade, leaning on a rake to watch the summit from afar, completed the tableau.

The cousin smiled as beatifically as possible, while a fawning Dot discoursed. His grandfather tolerated the woman with a customary wince. Her flannel dress, to the old man’s offended eye, looked like a stained tent cinched at the waist by a thrift-store belt and pinned by a fun-house brooch — a medal given to the sartorially challenged.

“What an honor it is to meet you!” she said, pumping his webbed little hand. Edward’s mood was markedly Zen. “Those gloves! That marvelous veil! Are they — what was the word Mr. Trotter used? — ‘bespoke’? You’re just like your grandpa — so stylish . You are definitely going to be added to Dot Campbell’s Best-Dressed Hall of Fame, and that’s a hard thing to achieve!”

“Mrs. Campbell, please —”

“It’s all right, Grandpa! She’s a wonder!”

“Don’t mind me — it’s just that you’re so personable . May I ask what exactly is wrong with you? Physically, of course.”

“Oh God!” eructed the old man.

“Not at all, you may ask and ask away! They call it Apert Syndrome.”

Dot looked deep within herself. “Never heard of that one. My sister Ethel — who’d adore you — sent me an article about a special school in Long Island for children with deformities. ‘Inner Faces,’ they call it. They put on theater pieces— extremely talented. There’s a few with cleft palates; you don’t see those much anymore. You don’t see cleft palates or clubfeet. One of the kids had — what did they call it? Möbius Syndrome! The muscles in her face completely paralyzed—”

“Good Lord, Mrs. Campbell,” cried Mr. Trotter, who had by now reached the end of a long, low string of chuffs — so low, only Pullman might have registered the last. “That’s quite enough!”

“Grandpa, it’s fine. Seriously.”

“Then tell me,” said Dot, eyeing him intently. “Why do you cover up your face?”

“Personal choice. I suppose I’m vain. The eyes are a bit far apart. Dentition is … eruptive . Forehead veiny and elongated, with a ‘bregmatic bump.’ ”

“Apert, did you say?—”

“Yes. Like Herb Alpert, without the ‘Herb’ or the ‘l.’ ”

“Now, Edward, is that — is Apert’s by any chance an ‘orphan’ disease? The ones not enough people actually have for them to go and commit research funding? They make television movies about them, it’s terribly unfair. Oprah even did a show on ‘orphans’—they do amazing things with prosthetics now. I read in People about a girl with a hole in her face—”

“Oh God!” muttered Mr. Trotter as he strode off.

“Are you sure you don’t mind us talking like this?” whispered Dot to her new friend.

“Not at all.”

“I feel so comfortable with you, you have that gift . Besides, it’s much better to be frank — that’s the way we learn.” She spoke softly now, taking him into her confidence. “I do worry about your grandfather sometimes. He’s here so much — even at night. I don’t think it’s healthy. To provide for oneself, yes, but well … you know, Edward, my sister Ethel would love to meet you, you’re so poised . There was that girl in People with a cancer. They took her nose, poor thing — and her left eye, part of the forehead, part of the cheek and part of the sinus. Left a hole the size of a papaya. Now, evidently, there’s a Romanian doctor who specializes in maxillofacial surgery. Makes ‘clip-on’ prosthetics — they drill screws right into the skull and the thing just snaps on . Though for the life of me I don’t know how they get the screws to stay . Ethel says—”

“They’re titanium. Titanium bonds with bone.”

“Yes! That’s what they said on 20/20 , the faces clip on like sunglasses— so beautifully done. The quality of a Tussaud’s!”