Beach Music (18 page)

“No, Tee. I’m worried about Mom,” I said. “I’d hate to come to this hospital with bad breath. This place thinks a tongue depressor’s a major breakthrough in science.”

“It’s gotten better,” Tee said. “By the way, brace yourself, big one. John Hardin’s on his way to town.”

“How’s he doing?” I asked.

“Staying out of the mental hospital,” Tee said. “Dupree watches over him and rides herd on him pretty close. Mom still refuses to think anything’s wrong with him. But that’s her baby. She’s always cared most for John Hardin.”

“Does he know she’s sick?” I asked.

“I told him yesterday,” Tee said. “But he laughed too, once he heard it was leukemia. Thought I was pulling his leg. Be careful of John Hardin. He can be sweet but his temper is hair-trigger. He offends easily.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I said as Dupree and Dallas made their way down the long hospital corridor toward us.

“No change, huh!” Dallas said as he threw himself heavily into a couch. “You’ve been in to see her, Tee?”

Tee shook his head and said, “My value to the family lies in my waiting room manner. When you guys fall apart, you’ll need Tee, the Rock of Gibraltar, to steady you out and get you on course. I haven’t been in that room yet. The thought of Mom’s dying gets to me bad enough. I’m keeping clear of the real thing.”

“Makes sense to me,” Dupree said as he walked toward the door leading to the intensive care unit. “By the way, Jack, an early warning signal. John Hardin’s left his island house and is on his way here. Dad’s due to be released from jail right about now.”

“It’s a Norman Rockwell painting in the making,” I said.

“Forgot to tell you, Jack,” Dallas said. “Life in Waterford’s still interesting. Fucked up, but interesting.”

“Bad movie,” Tee added. “Lousy script. Poor location. Ham actors. Hack directors. But melodrama up the old wazoo.”

Jim Pitts, our stepfather, approached us from the other corridor, his step military and even spritely despite a noticeable limp in his right leg. He lifted his hand to stop Dupree from going in to check on Mom, indicating that he would like to talk to all of us. I found myself resenting Dr. Pitts for the single crime of having married my mother, yet I had rejoiced in Rome when she wrote me she was leaving my father. It was obvious he felt natural as Lucy’s sons gathered in a semicircle around him. My mother’s condition had forced us into an alliance none of us wanted. He was a measured, soft-spoken
man whose sentences took time in the saying. When he was nervous, a slight stammer caused an even greater logjam of words.

He said, “I went to see your father and gave him a full report on Lucy’s condition. Even though your mother didn’t wish to see him, the fact that she’s in a coma changes things. I did what I felt to be right. I asked him to visit her this morning.”

“That was nice of you, Doctor,” I said.

“Too nice,” Tee said. “Kindness gets my guard up. Makes me suspicious.”

“I never had children of my own …” Dr. Pitts began.

“You didn’t miss a thing,” Dallas said.

“What I mean is, if I can do anything for you boys …” he said. “I will always keep your wishes uppermost in my mind. If I make you uncomfortable, or if you wish to talk privately, I can always go outside and smoke a cigarette. I understand how a stranger could make you ill at ease at such a time.”

“You’re our stepfather, Doc,” Dupree said. “You’re Mom’s husband. You’ve got more right to be here than we do.”

“That’s very kind,” the doctor said. “But I’m aware of the discomfort I may cause.”

“You?” Tee said. “Cause discomfort? Wait till you see us around our real father.”

“We make you nervous, Doctor,” said Dallas. “But don’t take it personally. The McCall brothers have that effect on everyone.”

“Speak for yourself, bro,” Tee said.

Dupree said, “You’ve been nice to my mother. We appreciate that, Doctor.”

“Let me go check on my sweetheart,” Dr. Pitts said, moving toward the door at the end of the room.

“Nice guy,” Dupree said.

“If you like the type,” Dallas answered. “He’s too dull for me. No balls. No juice. No pizzazz.”

“I like it when a guy marries my mom and lacks balls,” said Tee.

“I don’t need pizzazz after Dad,” I said.

“Or juice,” Dupree said. “A perfect day for me is when nothing out of the ordinary happens, where I never lose my temper, or get
mad at my boss. I’d like the temperature always to be seventy degrees, the sky clear, and my car always to start. I’d like to stay this age always, never get sick, and have baseball played all year round. I don’t like surprises. I like routine. Patterns make me happy.”

“You sound like a dope,” Dallas said.

“He sounds just like you,” Tee said. “You’re a lawyer, the scum of the planet. You want peace and quiet in your life, but you want the rest of the world to blow up around you. If three hundred passengers die in a flaming plane crash in Atlanta, three hundred lawyers go to bed happy knowing a big paycheck’s coming up.”

“It feeds the family,” Dallas said, grinning.

“Human suffering feeds your family,” Tee corrected.

“Oh, cut the wordplay,” Dallas said. “Ah, what’s that lovely sound?”

“A siren,” Dupree said. “Mozart to Dallas.”

“A payday coming home to papa,” Dallas said, and none of us saw our father coming down the corridor in his classical mode of unsteadiness.

When our father entered the waiting room every one of us knew immediately that he’d been drinking.

“Ah! The source of all joy,” Tee whispered as the sons observed the father’s long entrance in silence.

“How did he get liquor this early in the morning?” Dupree asked Dallas. “He must bury liquor bottles all over town, then dig them up like a dog when he needs them.”

Dallas said, “I’m lucky enough to be his law partner. I’ve found a pint of liquor in a law book he hollowed out. Found another in the tank behind the toilet in the women’s bathroom downstairs. Another in a rain gutter outside his office window. If hiding things paid well, he’d be a millionaire.”

While my father was entering the room, I tried to see him with new eyes, not as the boy who grew up ashamed that his father was the town drunk. He still made an effort to carry himself with dignity and he still possessed that strange handsomeness that makes aging easy for some men. His hair was thick and silver, as though it were made from a tarnished tea service. His body had softened, gone to
seed in the usual places, but you could tell that this had once been a powerful man. I waited to hear the voice, that finely tuned baritone instrument that lent weight to every word he ever uttered. His bloodshot eyes fixed us to the spot and he stared at us as though he were waiting for someone to introduce him to strangers. His specialty, long since perfected, was to make every moment difficult.

“I guess you think I should hire a marching band to welcome you back,” my father, Judge Johnson Hagood McCall, said to me.

“It’s great to see you too, Dad,” I said.

“Don’t look at me that way,” my father ordered. “I refuse to accept your pity.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tee whispered.

“Say hi to Jack, Dad,” Dupree suggested. “It’s a question of manners.”

“Hi, Jack,” my father said, mugging, his words soft around the edges. “Great to have you back, Jack. Thanks for not calling, Jack. For not keeping in touch.”

“I tried to call you a couple of times, Dad,” I said. “But it’s hard talking to a man after he’s passed out.”

“Are you implying that I have a drinking problem?” the judge said, rising up to his full length, his head thrown back.

“An outrage,” Tee said happily.

Dallas said, “Like saying Noah had a problem with the weather, Pop.”

“Drink some coffee,” Dupree offered. “Sober up before you go see Mom.”

My father looked at me, then sat down on a chair, falling the last several inches.

“You heard that your mother deserted me for a much younger man, I suppose,” he said to me.

Dallas said, “The doc’s a whole year younger than Pop here.”

“There’s no need for your editorial comments, Dallas,” the judge said. “I am merely stating the facts. His money blinded her. Your mother always had a weakness for material things and ill-gotten pelf.”

“Pelf?” Tee said. “Mom likes pelf? I don’t even know what it is.”

“That’s why you’re only a public school teacher in the state that
ranks last educationally in this great nation,” the judge said. “They allow you to teach other idiots, I am told.”

“My kids are autistic, Dad,” said Tee.

“Aren’t you glad Dad’s drinking again?” Dupree asked me, trying to divert attention away from Tee. “I never feel closer to the old boy than when he’s going through delirium tremens.”

“I’m not drunk,” the judge said, “I’m on medication.”

“Dr. Jim Beam,” Dallas said. “Still practicing after all these years.”

“I have an inner-ear infection,” the judge insisted. “The medicine affects my sense of balance.”

“That infection must be hell,” Tee said. “It’s been around for thirty years or more.”

“All of you were in league with your mother against me,” said the judge, closing his eyes.

“Got that right,” Tee said.

“God help me ignore the whimpering of this pack of craven dogs,” the judge prayed.

Tee began barking and Dupree turned to me and said,
“Moi
, a craven dog.”

“Shape up, Dad,” Dallas said. “Don’t embarrass us in front of Dr. Pitts. It was nice of him to invite you down.”

“He is a home wrecker,” the judge said. “Nothing in the world could keep me from my wife’s bedside when she faces the Maker. The Lord will be very hard on Miss Lucy, I’m afraid. The good Lord is harsh with those women who abandon their poor husbands at the time of greatest need. Mark my words.”

“Time of greatest need?” Tee asked.

“Ear infection,” Dupree said, helping him out.

“Bulletin just in,” said Dallas, going over to brush dandruff off our father’s wrinkled suit. “She’s no longer your wife. You’ll need that information fresh when you go see her.”

“She only divorced me because she went through a midlife crisis,” the judge said, more to himself than to us. “It’s far more common than you might think. It usually occurs when a woman goes through the change of life—when she can no longer bear fruit.”

“We’re fruit,” Tee said to me, pointing to himself.

“Get hold of yourself, Dad,” Dupree said, bringing back a cup of hot coffee in a paper cup. “We’re gonna need you before this is over.”

“Where is John Hardin?” the judge asked. “He is the only one in this family who has remained constant to his father. Through all of this, he and he alone still loves me, still respects the institution of fatherhood. Can you believe it?”

“Tough,” Dupree said.

“Hard to swallow,” Tee said.

“Jack,” my father said to me. “There’s plenty of room at the house. Please feel free to stay with me.”

“I’m already there, Dad,” I said. “I slept there last night.”

“Where was I?” my father said and I saw the fear in his eyes as he tried to remember.

“Drying out,” Dallas said. “In your pied-à-terre over at the county jail.”

“Then tonight we’ll talk,” the judge said to me. “Just like old times. All of you boys come over. I’ll barbecue steaks in the backyard just like I used to do when you were kids.”

“That’d be nice, Dad,” Dupree said. “Thanks.”

“Sounds great,” Tee agreed.

“Tell them, Jack,” my father said, his eyes changing, glistening. “Tell them what I was like in the early days. I used to walk down the street and everyone used to step aside out of respect. I was a man of substance then, someone to be reckoned with, wasn’t I, Jack? Tell them what people used to say. The boys were all young then, they might not remember.”

“They said you were the best legal mind in the state,” I said. “The best lawyer before a jury. The fairest judge.”

“It got away from me, boys. A good reputation goes only so far. Mine was a vanishing act I didn’t see coming. It didn’t fight fair … came up behind me. Ambushed me. Tell them, Jack. You were proud to be my son.”

“Proudest thing about me, Dad,” I said truthfully.

“I’ve quit drinking three times this year, Jack,” the judge said. “But life wounds me in the places only hope can reach. This thing about Lucy. Lucy. My Lucy.”

“Not yours anymore,” Dallas said. “Get that straight before Dr. Pitts takes you in to see Mom.”

Tee was looking out the window, watching something closely, when Dr. Pitts came out of the intensive care unit and made his way to where my father was sitting. We heard the sound of a boat’s motor droning in a high-pitched whine on the river.

“No change,” Dr. Pitts informed us all, then said to my father, “Thank you for coming, judge. Her doctor told me the next day or two are critical. If she can make it through them, he believes she has a fighting chance.”

“C’mon, Mom,” Tee yelled by the window. “Give ’em hell, girl.”

“You’re in a hospital,” Dallas said, “not a sports bar.”

“Thanks for that timely bulletin, bro,” Tee said. “And get ready for a full-contact scrimmage. John Hardin’s tying up his boat down at the dock.”

“Help us, Jesus,” Dallas said.

“Worse than it used to be?” I asked Dupree.

“Still a bit off,” Dupree said. “But he’s become a little dangerous. He spooks easily.”

“Now, for the enjoyment of our live audience, ladies and gentlemen, we present madness,” Dallas said.

“First death,” Tee said, “then drunkenness.”

“Calm down, Tee,” Dupree suggested. “Don’t let him see that you’re nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” Tee said. “I’m scared shitless.”

“He hasn’t had his shot this month,” Dupree said. “He’s fine after he’s had his shot.”

There was a tap on the window and John Hardin made a motion for Tee to unlock it. Tee made a motion with his arm that John Hardin go around to one of the doorways and John Hardin answered him by selecting a brick that formed the border of a flower garden near a memorial fountain. When it looked as though he was going to hurl the brick through the window, Tee unlocked it quickly and John Hardin pulled himself up into the waiting room with catlike ease.