Francine padded over, pecked me on the cheek.
"Beer?" she said.
"Sure."
But for a moment she didn't move. Together we watched Claudia breathe rather ostentatiously, palms up, eyes shut. The tent had cost my mother a bundle, a seventy-first-birthday gift to herself. I sensed the purchase had less to do with the milestone, more with the recent interment of Claudia's mother. I could picture Hilda at this very moment, a skull with orange fuzz on it, yapping at the Auschwitzers in the afterworld about the temple newsletter atrocity.
"My beloved son," said my mother.
"Your eyes are closed. How do you know?"
"I'm peeking. By the way, the answer to your question, whatever the question might be, is that I wish I could. Pretty good, right?"
"Pretty bad, Mom," I said.
"Pardon?"
"Pretty bad mom."
"Would you like to come inside the tent?"
"No."
"There's room."
"I don't think there is."
"No, maybe not. There was something in the instruction booklet about that, I think. You know, when you were born they put you in something like this. An incubator. Did you incubate sufficiently? I always wondered. I always worried. Are you incubated? Are you hungry? We have some leftover Chinese. There's a fantastic place that just opened on Spartakill Road."
"The sweet-and-sour soup!" said Francine, back in her computer cranny. "I creamed my friggin' Danskins!"
Francine's head poked out over the piles of throw pillows and external hard drives. Through a gap in them I could make out part of the monitor. Two Filipinas had at it with a strap-on. The words "Home Aide Ho's" flashed on the screen.
"Really great," says Claudia. "Right where the hobby shop used to be in Eastern Valley. Remember I used to take you there for your figurines? You were very particular. Very nervous they wouldn't have the Welsh Grenadiers."
"I don't really remember you taking me," I said. "I think Dad took me once. After that I walked."
"Memory is a tricky thing," said Claudia.
"Could I have that beer?"
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I forgot your beer!" Francine fetched two from the kitchen. "They're from Costa Rica. I'm sure the Costa Ricans think it's piss, but I like the bottle. See that eagle on it?"
"Thanks, Francine."
"You're welcome, honey."
"So," said my mother, her eyes open, "to what do we owe this wonderful surprise?"
"What surprise? I called a few days ago and said I was coming out."
"The plot thickens."
"Mom," I said. "Why don't you come out of the tent? We can hug or something."
"I can't, baby. I really can't."
"She can't," said Francine. "She's in the middle. Her cells'll explode."
Claudia rose from her lotus position, an old bony flower.
"It's true we haven't been talking a lot lately," she said. "How's the boy?"
"Bernie's fine, Mom. Why don't you come to see him sometime? He misses you."
"He hardly knows me. How could he miss me?"
"That's why you should come by. Spend some time with your grandson."
"Please don't say that word. It's a cudgel. Come sit near the tent."
I squatted on the fringed rug near the zippered door. Claudia frogged her fingers on the tent's translucent wall.
"You're still my little boy, you know. How's the wifey?"
"Maura's okay, Mom. You know she really admires you."
"Why, because she's too frightened to cross over? Still thinks she needs a man in her life?"
"Something like that."
"She's okay. For a straight girl. She's pretty tough. You guys will be all right."
"Mom, I don't know how to say this."
"How much?"
"I've never asked for-"
"How much? If I win the race next week it's five hundred dollars."
"I thought it was a charity race."
"It is. We're raising money for osteoporosis. But there's always side action."
"Well, we're really behind. I'm not sure five hundred is what-"
"Say a number."
"Excuse me?"
"Say a number."
"Ten thousand."
"Ten thousand."
"You could do that for us?" I said.
"Absolutely not. Francine and I are hitting a rough patch. The settlement from her lye burn is being delayed. Real estate is hell. My savings have been chewed up."
"A rough patch," I said. "Okay. I understand."
"Oh, do you, Milo? You're so selfish. You don't see the bigger picture."
"What's the bigger picture?"
"You're still here looking for handouts. Who's going to take care of me?"
"I'm on my knees here, Mom. Not for me, for my family. For my wife. For a beautiful grandson you have totally ignored."
"He's kind of a brat. I'll be in his life when he gets a little impulse control."
"He's not even four."
"I have needs. I'm tired of this child-worshipping culture. You're just a slave to it, Milo."
"I'm only trying to be a decent dad."
"Don't waste your time. It's not in your genes. Besides, try making some money. That might be a good dad move. For heaven's sake, the system's rigged for white men and you still can't tap in."
"You're right, Mom. What can I say? But still, it would mean a lot to me if you made a little more of an effort with Bernie."
"Bernie schmernie. This is my decade."
"Okay, you wrinkled old spidercunt, have it your way."
Francine sucked in her breath.
"Holy macadamias," she said.
Claudia regarded me somewhat clinically.
"Spidercunt?"
I shrugged.
"Look, honey," she said. "I think you better go. I need to stay calm. I'll call you after I race on Sunday."
"Mom, I'm sorry. I just-"
"It's okay, Milo. I just need a little time now."
"We'll call, cutie," said Francine, hugged me.
"Okay, I'll see you guys later," I said, edged to the door. "And I'm sorry, Mom. About… about the thing. What I just said."
"Hell, honey," says Claudia. "I murdered your father when you needed him most. I can take a few impotent barbs from my only son."
"That's nice to hear."
I shut the heavy oak door and walked back down the gravel drive toward the plaza. I glanced back once, spotted Francine through the big bay window, in her underwear, climbing into the tent.
Eleven
The next morning I sipped coffee on my stoop, waited for Nick to pick me up. Women in tight slacks charged past to the subway, supple organic forms supplemented with technological grafts-earphones, telephones, wraparound shades. I watched them and recalled those cyborg liberation essays from the postmodern feminism class I took in college. I'd run home after every lecture, jerk off on my futon in a fever dream of blinking vaginas.
Now an old man with a ducktail haircut and rolled T-shirt sleeves sauntered by, climbed into his wine-dark beater. A retired mechanic, I figured, but not so old on second look, forty-five, forty-seven, tops. His 1950s drag-strip hood shtick had to be retro from the jump, a mid-70s reaction formation, some cold Fonzian rhapsody. The man's hands looked ruined, though, rheumatoid, nicked and pinched by gruesome machinery. I'd done many odd jobs in my life, but hardly any heavy lifting. I stared at my own hands, soft, expressive things, gifted, even, like specially bred, lovingly shaved gerbils.
A corroded pickup slid to the sidewalk. Nick leaned out the window.
"Get in, buddy," said Nick. "Big day ahead of us. You eat?"
"Some cereal."
"Cereal? Never touch the stuff. Too many carbs."
I got in the truck and Nick pulled off the curb, steered with his belly and his forearms, his hands tasked with shoveling up a bacon-and-feta omelet from a foil container. We turned the corner and bounced, shockshot, down the boulevard. The cab smelled of breakfast and weed, and I recalled Christine once letting it slip-perhaps taking me for a potential customer-that Nick sold eighths and quarters of a few decent varieties. It was not clear whether the drugs or the decks were the sideline, but Nick, I was now to learn, had a grander dream, which he announced before we reached the next traffic light. He wanted to break into television. He watched a lot of reality shows, he informed me, especially the ones about breaking into television. He believed he had a handle on the business, the lingo. All he needed was a leg up. He already had the idea: his extravaganza would revolve around the last meals of condemned prisoners.