J. Lennon: The Funnies

“Dad’s dead,” said my brother, as if it were my fault. This was Bobby, five years my elder, who once tried to make me drink a bottle of aftershave I had stolen from him. He was fifteen at the time, and I was ten, and he only stopped when he realized I would vomit the aftershave and everything else onto his bedroom carpet. The last word he’d spoken to me, during our last phone conversation a couple of years ago, was fine , followed by the climactic silence of an abrupt hang-up. Now, with the telephone receiver in one hand and a backgammon dice cup in the other, I might have welcomed a nice, clean disconnection. Instead the silence was filled with Bobby’s measured breaths, rustling mintily in my ear.

I said, “What?”

“Heart attack. In his studio. There’s a funeral tomorrow.”

I said, “Jesus, when?”

“I just said, tomorrow.”

“No, I mean…”

A crisp tsk reached me, barely perceptible. “Last night. He passed away last night. Bitty’s already here, Rose is coming in the morning.”

“How’s Pierce? Is he okay?”

Bobby’s pause again seemed to carry the suggestion of blame, as if our younger brother were a wayward urchin in my charge. At twenty-eight, however, Pierce was the only one of us who hadn’t left home, and thus fell under our father’s care, whatever that was worth. Not much, anymore. “Maybe when he comes out of his room we’ll find out.”

“Bobby,” I said, “why didn’t anyone call me?”

“I am right this minute calling you.”

This time I was the one to pause. After several bloated seconds, he said, “Well, Tim, there’s been a lot to take care of. We tried last night…”

“What time tomorrow?” I said, savoring the interruption.

“Noon. Come early, to the house. And please do not be late.”

“Lay off, Bobby.” And this was enough to trip, finally, his circuit breaker. My brother Bobby did not blow fuses. He hung up. I gently set down the receiver.

“Roll,” said Amanda. She was sitting cross-legged in her nightgown on the floor, inspecting the backgammon board with rapacious pleasure. She was winning. I lowered myself to the carpet, put my hand over the cup, rattled the dice and let them fly.

“Yes!” she said.

“That was my brother Bobby,” I told her. “Our dad had a heart attack. He’s dead.”

She looked up, the afterimage of her predatory grin bobbing gracelessly in her eyes, and I felt bad for her, worse, for a change, than I felt for myself: how did you react to the death of your boyfriend’s father, when the only things the boyfriend ever had to say about him were rotten? When, in fact, the boyfriend had, at times, wished the old man dead? She rearranged her expression, looked for a time down at her hands, then offered one of them to me. I took it. To her credit, she pushed aside the backgammon board, upsetting the pieces, and pulled herself over. She put one arm around me, then the other. We hugged.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Me neither.”

“Are you okay? How are you?” She pulled back and took my face in her thin fingers.

“Uh, I suppose I’m fine. I guess I have to go. Home. The funeral is tomorrow.” My sisters and brothers, I thought, all together at once: when was the last time that happened?

“Do you want me to come? I can get off work. Why don’t I come.” Say no , said her eyes.

“Don’t. You’ll probably never see them again anyway.”

“Are you sure?” she said, with an obvious relief she must have thought she was concealing.

“Sure I’m sure.”

* * *

That night, while Amanda slept, I sat on the sofa, tugging at upholstery threads torn loose by a previous owner’s cat and reading randomly from a stack of five-year-old fashion magazines. Already I was feeling guilty for not going home immediately. But for whom? Not Bobby, who would be pleased to have one more reason to scorn me; or Rose, the oldest, with whom I had barely spoken in ten years. Not poor Pierce, either, who would likely see me as just another conspirator against him. Maybe it was Bitty I should have been there for, the baby of the family, newly married at twenty-five to a man I’d never met but who I bet was a lot like our father.

Considering how eager we all were to disown our childhoods, none of us had fallen very far from the cradle. West Philly, where I lived, was a quick paddle down the Deleware from the family compound in Riverbank, New Jersey. Rose lived in upper Manhattan, Bitty in nearby Frenchtown, Bobby somewhere in the landscaped landscape of Bridgewater. And Pierce, of course, lived in his bedroom. I wondered if the rest of them, like me, hated to travel.

I thumbed through the ragged pile of scrap papers that served as our address book until I came to my mother’s number, standing alone on the back of a grocery receipt (hardware, alcoholic bev, bakery, bakery, bakery, dairy). “MOM,” it read. “IVY HOMES.” And then the number. Before I could change my mind, I dialed it.

“Ivy Homes Care Center.”

“Dorothy Mix, please.”

There was a long pause, a string of clicks and tones like the language dolphins speak, and a woman’s voice. “Yes?”

“Is Mrs. Mix there?”

“Who is this?” said the voice, stern and subdued, like a marriage counselor’s. Lite rock played softly somewhere.

“Her son Tim.”

“She’s sleeping now. Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes,” I said. “I mean no, but I just…”

“They shouldn’t have put you through,” she said with finality. I hung up.

I hadn’t visited her for at least a month — or had it been two? I tried to figure out how that was possible, but of course, as I quickly grasped, it was more than possible, it was true. Small comfort to think that I’d be seeing her soon enough.

* * *

Amanda’s car broke down fifteen miles from Riverbank, an hour and a half before the funeral was supposed to start. It was a Chevy Chevette. I used to have my own car, a red 1982 Datsun station wagon with a cream interior that I bought in high school and paid for in tiny increments with tip money. I drove it for six years before the brakes needed servicing, and another four before the exhaust system and fuel lines gave out. Beyond that, it was just oil changes and spark plugs. All through art school I used it to lug around supplies, and when I graduated, loaded it with my installation pieces for delivery to galleries. I had slept in it for a year’s worth of nights. But not long ago Amanda had somehow convinced me to sell it. Let’s just keep one car, she said, the Chevette. It’s easier to park. We sold the Datsun and split the money.

So why, I wondered, sitting in the Chevette in the hot July sun, on the shoulder of the only stretch of Route 29 that was not shaded by a canopy of trees, with the driver’s side window permanently rolled up, did I feel like I was borrowing it from her?