“Goddamn right. Long time. I had the nuns. They ran the home, you know. Old nuns. You couldn’t guess how old. I’d try to guess. No way. You’d just go blank. You’d just sit there. Every number you’d think of, you’d go — unh-uh, older than that.”
He goes quiet for a second. The eyes open but stay fixed on the ceiling. He licks around his lips.
“They had this old, this ancient projector. Movie projector. Big gray monster. Bell and Howell. Weighed a ton. I used to carry it. Well, I tried to lift it once. Must have been, you know, I think now, must have been an old eight-millimeter. The big sprocket holes on the side. Every year at Christmastime, they’d haul out the projector. Put it down on its old rubber stub legs there, you know. This is after dinner maybe, still at the tables in the dining room. Always dark in the dining room. Guess they thought it was good for movies. So they’d put a big screen up in front of the room and they’d run this movie. Same freaking movie every year I was there. This cheap Life of Jesus movie. Practically a filmstrip thing. All narration. People on the screen, these actors, who were these people? These actors dressed up in these kind of robelike clothes, you know, rope belts and all. Sandals. They’d be playing, like, Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Well, Jesus is on the way, right? She’s expecting. She’s pregnant with God and all. And it’s the old story, right? Heading for the census, looking for a hotel, no room at the inn. The whole thing. Some guy with this Boris Karloff voice narrates the whole thing. Standard Christmas pageant thing. Holy family in the manger. I used to watch it. Every year, okay, same time. ’Bout a week before Christmas, bang, the old nuns in black haul out the projector and there’s Mary and Joe knocking on doors, no vacancy, the water’s about to break, hit the barn, lie down in the straw, the animals all around. I always expected the Karloff voice to do a cow. Give us a big mooo, Boris. Never happened.”
He brings a hand up to his forehead, leaves it there a second, then brings it down over the eyes, nose, mouth. It comes to rest, flat on his chest, like he was ready to say the pledge of allegiance.
“So one year I’m watching the movie. And something hits me. Something different. Little light flashes on in the brain. What do they call it? Kick in the eye, you know? Little epiphany. I’m watching it this one year, just like every other year before and, for some reason, this time something goes snap inside and I realize, for the first time, I realize — I am pissed. I’m angry. I’m furious. This kid being born in the barn, he’s got your standard mother and father. He’s got your basic family. And I’m in this dark dining room with these half-nuts old women in black who have us on our knees first thing in the freaking freezing morning. And I got no mother. And I got no father. And I reach down on the table and grab hold of my vanilla pudding dessert and I throw the fucking pudding up against the screen. I mean I haul off and pitch the goddamn pudding. I hurl it, okay? I pelt it. Fastball. Freaking bullet. And it splatters all over the movie, all over the wrapping in swaddling clothing and the shepherds all kneeling around on straw and the big freaking light from the star in the corner of the screen. And some of the pudding hangs there on the screen and some of it sort of rolls down in little, rubbery jumps, down the screen and falls to the floor.”
They sit silent until Gabe can bring himself to ask, “Wawhat’d they da-do to you?”
Flynn finally looks down from the ceiling and stares at him like he can’t understand the question. Then he says, “What do you think they did? The closest one grabs hold and beats the piss out of me.”
There’s a few more seconds of silence, then Flynn adds, “Tell you something, though. They never showed that goddamn movie again.”
Gabe nods slowly and sips at his bourbon. Flynn turns sideways in the booth, brings his feet up onto the seat, and lets his head loll back into the corner till it looks like he’s getting ready to take a nap. He folds his arms across his chest and tucks his hands up under his armpits and says slowly, “You’re not a lightweight kid. Bitch never should have said that.”
Gabe stares into his glass and just as slowly says, “Paplease don’t ca-ca-call her that.”
Flynn shrugs but he can’t help but press. “Why’d you stay with me, Gabe? You’re out of your mind about her. Why’d you stay with me?”
Gabe meets Flynn’s eyes, swallows, and says, “’Ca-cause we bu-bu-both wanted the sa-same tha-tha-thing.”
Flynn seems to think about this for a second, then brings his hands up to his face and rubs at his eyes. He talks as he rubs. “I’ve been thinking lately, okay? About all of us. About everyone at Wireless. All the jammers. I was thinking, it looks to me like we’re all missing something, or we’re all slightly, you know, off. We’re all marked a little.”
“Sa-sa-’cept for ya-you.”
Gabe doesn’t know why he’s said this. All he wants is for this awful night to end the only way it can. He wants simply to finish the drink, turn off his brain, and walk away. But something opened his mouth. Something pulled the words out.
“I’m not marked, Gabe?”
Flynn’s voice is a little high and rough.
Gabe shakes his head. “Not outside, na-na-no.”
“And that’s what counts?”
“Makes a big da-difference.”
“Maybe not.” The voice lower now, even threatening, the preamble of an argumentative drunk rolling toward a sloppy fight.
But Gabe can’t stop it. He can’t get past the fact that there’s something completely wrong with this moment, that the roles are being played totally wrong. That it’s Flynn who should be doing some consoling and showing some strength. And he can’t help knowing that for all her faults, at least Hazel had strength. Especially at the end. When it counted.
So he says, “Maybe not? How can you la-look at me, ta-ta-tell me it doesn’t ma-ma-make a difference? Ja-Ja-Jesus, Flynn. You are normal,” his own voice raising now and he doesn’t care. “La-look at yourself, the way you live and dress and act. The ca-ca-color of your skin, the shape of your bubones, the money in your pa-pa-pocket. Wireless. The j-jammers, it’s all a fucking ch-choice for you. It’s a fucking j-j-joke.”
Flynn sits rigid, his lips pulled so tight together they begin to turn a bluish purple shade. And then out of nowhere his hand comes up from his lap, grabs his water glass, tosses his bourbon into Gabe’s face, lets the glass fall to the table. He grabs Gabe’s T-shirt and yanks the boy into the table’s edge. Flynn pulls back a fist, but instead of letting it fly, he hesitates, takes a breath, lets go of Gabe’s shirt, and sinks back in the booth.
Gabe sits dripping, still shocked by the speed of both the outburst and its termination. Finally, he takes a paper napkin from the dispenser and begins to dab at his face.
“It wasn’t a joke,” Flynn says in a shaky voice. “Don’t ever say it was a joke.”
Gabe shrugs, shaken, maybe even ready to cry. He refuses to make eye contact. He looks at the wall clock and says, “Ma-maybe we should sa-say ga-good night.”
“We’re saying more than good night.”
Gabe shrugs again, but makes no effort to respond.
“Don’t try to tell me how I feel, Gabe.” The voice is low and taut as if the sudden burst of anger has killed off some of the booze.
Gabe reaches for another napkin and says, “I think mamaybe you d-d-didn’t understand—”
“Shut up. Right now. Just shut the hell up. Don’t you dare presume to tell me how I feel. I didn’t misunderstand a thing. You don’t know me, Gabe. You don’t know how I feel or why I do what I do. And I never knew that until just now. And it’s a shitty thing to learn. But once it’s clear, once you see it—”