Flatscreen Read online

  flatscreen

  a novel

  adam wilson

  dedication

  for my brother

  epigraph

  An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

  —Sir Isaac Newton

  Hold steady.

  —The Hold Steady

  contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  Part II

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  Part III

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  thirty-seven

  thirty-eight

  thirty-nine

  forty

  forty-one

  forty-two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Part I

  one

  But maybe Mom’s not the place to start, though she’s where I began (in her I took shape, grew limbs, prepared to breathe oxygen, albeit with a slight asthmatic wheeze that has not been helped by cigarettes), and where all this coming-of-age stuff inevitably buds then barely blooms, like the pale azaleas Mrs. Todd put on her porch every spring but never watered, letting the rain try to raise them up, make them stand and receive sunlight, just as the constant dull glow of the television tried with me, equally failed.

  No, this is not about Mom, Dad, or anything Freud said—books I haven’t read, though I’ve seen Siggy’s Sexy Secrets (Cinemax, 2005), get the general gist. It’s about a house, should begin there, just as it will end there, not before guns, drugs, strippers, and other tenets of contemporary suburban life enter the mix like Kool-Aid, leaving the water blood-red, sickly sweet.

  If it is about Mom, I don’t want to know. We’ve all sucked a nipple or two, trolled MILFSandtheirILKS.com, seen a late-forties peroxide blonde bent over at Whole Foods, imagined licking between her legs, then being sucked in like a vacuum, condensed, resting in her expanded torso, suspended in fluid like floating gizzards in a jar of chicken fat.

  I’m getting off track.

  Mom got the house in the divorce but it belonged to Dad. His hands had placed the I beams; his sweat had dripped into the foundation, manifested itself in the basement’s musty stink. Dad was there in the contours: tall-man toilets, sleek jut of post-deco faucets, abundant closet space. Still, we stayed for four years post-divorce. Then Benjy left for college. She and I: separate solitudes, separate floors.

  I also finished high school. Instead of college, sank deep into my basement abyss. Watched TV for months, barely attentive, broadening my knowledge of subjects I’d missed in school: politics and current events (MSNBC), contemporary culture (E!), home economics (Food Network), geography (Travel), the secret life of fauna (Discovery), the last days of Eva Braun (History), Beavis and Butthead as cultural barometers for the Clinton years (MTV2), Jon Stewart skewering the world with Sunday crossword witticisms (Comedy Central), Humphrey Bogart’s slow-cool-sad-but-fuck-me eyes that I wanted to steal, to wear through the streets beneath my thickening, Dad-inherited black brows (AMC). I kept the lights off, rarely went upstairs.

  The physical isolation was too much for Mom, who understood that cramped-ness equals intimacy. She put the house on the market.

  No offers. It’s a McLovely McMansion Jr., well structured, formally fine-tuned. But it’s also a ranch-style split-level (hence the Jr.), doesn’t give the appearance of affluence homeowners in the neighborhood wish to radiate. School district is the nation’s finest, location prime, but the price was too high for most, not show-offy enough for those who could afford it.

  When the Kahns showed up, I wasn’t expecting much. Actually, I wasn’t expecting anything, because Mom hadn’t told me they were coming. We weren’t communicating. She was mostly couch-anchored, sipping chardonnay, knitting an endless scarf, sobbing gumdrop tears into her pink fleece Slanket. I wasn’t capable of dealing with her pain, of being the man who makes everything okay. I wanted to be that man—to hold her defeated body while we shared in the promise of televised sunrise—but I didn’t know how to approach her. Everything scared the shit out of me.

  So: I was surprised to be interrupted from sleep by a man in a wheelchair pushed by a brunette in a V-neck blouse—the V weighed down by a pair of large sunglasses to reveal a freckled valley of cleavage.

  I said, “What the fuck?” as the lights went on, and Mom said, “This is Eli’s room,” without mentioning the fact that I, Eli, was lying pantsless in said room, drooling.

  First reaction was to cover my erection. The brunette smiled. Mom rolled her eyes. Mr. Kahn didn’t seem to notice.

  “Erin, my love, I think this space will suit your erotic needs charmingly,” he said.

  “Dad,” Erin said. “Please … we’re in … besides … maybe we should come back when … um … maybe when… Eli, is it? … has had a chance to … wake up a bit.”

  Kahn eyeballed the room: dusty collection of kid soccer trophies, old prom pic.

  “Should we see the rest of the basement?” Mom said.

  “Yes,” Mr. Kahn said. “It’s as if you’ve read my mind.”

  Benjy was in the kitchen, effortfully ensembled in ironed jeans and starch-stiff white tee, tucked. Hair had been trimmed, slicked. Each time I saw him he looked distinctly older, like Dad’s absence had sped the aging process. Ate standing up, checked his watch like he was late for something, which he wasn’t.

  “Shouldn’t you be at college?” I said.

  “High Holidays. You forget?”

  “Didn’t know y
ou came for round two.”

  “Yom Kip’s the important one. Day of Atonement.”

  “When is that, tomorrow?”

  He looked me over. Open bathrobe revealed a defeated-by-gravity stomach. Hair was a bird’s nest. I was a wounded, well-fed bird.

  “You got a suit?” he said.

  “I don’t know, dude. Who are those people downstairs?”

  Benjy took a bite from his sandwich, looked at his watch again, plucked a nose hair—unmirrored—with impressive accuracy.

  “Don’t think you’ll fit into your old suit.”

  “Downstairs,” I said. “People? Wheelchair guy? Brunette?”

  “They’re the Kahns. Buying the house. Good wheelchair access because there’s only two floors and the garage opens into the basement.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yes, I am. Daughter’s quite attractive.”

  “Quite,” I said in a tone that accused him of douche-baggery. “Any coffee?”

  Benjy nodded at the empty maker.

  “It’s three in the afternoon.”

  “Who tucks a tee shirt?” I said, went out to my smoking chair.

  A rusted deck chair next to a soda bottle filled with ciggie butts. Lit up, looked at the trees, imagined they didn’t lead to the Mitchells’ landscaped lawn, but to a deep forest filled with soul-singing, silicone-enhanced Amazon women.

  Screen door opened. Mr. Kahn wheeled himself out.

  “Nice boner in there.”

  Dark eyes, almost black. Waves of lightly salted ginger hair hung feral from his head like the abused dome-bristles on an expensive, over-loved doll. Slim-cut burgundy suit; gold-stitched lapels accented by matching, pointed pocket square. Bow tie dramatically untied. The man was anywhere between forty and eighty. A squint accompanied his smile. Face was familiar.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Kahn didn’t look at me. Instead scanned the backyard, not with a prospective buyer’s assessing gaze but with a ferocious stare, as if, not bound by the wheelchair, he might dive onto our lawn, attack weeds with his dirty fingernails.

  “It’s good to be young,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Time is a harsh mistress. Not as harsh as my actual mistress. She’s a real nut job. My first wife was the craziest, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  “Oh.”

  “I noticed a distinct odor in your bedroom. Cannabis sativa, if I’m not mistaken. Sweet leaf. Panama Red. Mexican dirt. Rub it on me belly like guava jelly. I don’t have connections like I used to. Think you could help an old man score?”

  “Probably.”

  “I can offer you money and goods. I get a world of prescriptions these days. There’s nothing they won’t give an ex–movie star in a wheelchair.”

  “You were a movie star?”

  “TV. It’s the new film. Or the old Internet. The small screen keeps getting bigger. Soon they’ll be downloading my dick into outer space.”

  Pictured Day-Glo laptops floating through atmosphere, forming cock-shaped constellations.

  “What does that even mean?” I said.

  “It means posterity is bullshit, and pussy is gold. It means nighttime is the right time. You get my drift? It means the world turns, my friend, no matter if your blood runs red or blue. But I see that you’re a philosopher. That’s a good place to start. You remind me of someone, an old friend.”

  It’s a thing women say when they don’t want to fuck you—notification upon entering the friend zone. This was different. Kahn made eye contact. Face on pause, unsure whether to balloon into giggly animation or fall frown-ward: the look of remembering something funny about someone dead.

  I’d seen it on my mother on a number of occasions, when she’d caught me red-handed in petty insubordination—stealing wine or loose dollars—and remembered her brother Ned, the way his guilty pink cheeks were a splash of expressionist sunlight.

  The look passed. Kahn opened his hands, palms up, as if awaiting an offering, or checking for rain, or else hinting that I too must outstretch, place my paws on his. He’d had his share of lotions and treatments, that much was clear, but the papery remains of wheelchair calluses still speckled his hand skin, and new blisters were already forming on the tips of his fingers and lower halves of his palms.

  “I’m a philosopher?” I said.

  “A seeker of truth. Like scholars and nymphomaniacs.”

  Considered myself neither, with the potential to be both.

  “You really want to buy this place?”

  “I want to live forever, but I’ll settle for suburbia.”

  “Meaning death don’t have no mercy?”

  “Meaning tits are built for milking.”

  In the kitchen, my brother had Erin’s rapt attention. We could see them through the screen door. Her face was chubbily attractive: dimpled, blushing. Northeast sensitive skin, light makeup. Eyes: hazel. Build: athletic. Strong shoulders. Standard-issue outfit: black blouse, blue jeans, brown giddyup boots.

  Benjy tucked a fugitive flyaway behind her ear, said, “Applying to law school.”

  “She’s a sucker for men who are the opposite of me,” Kahn said. “In that I taught her well.”

  “My brother’s no prize. Trust me.”

  “Who said anything about prizes? What I’m talking about is pain, and the ability to avoid it. She has an ear for the silence of easy money. Got that from her mother. Guys like you and me prefer bang-bang, shoot a can.”

  “You and me?”

  “I recognize my own kind. Don’t deny it. You’ve never worked a day in your life and don’t plan to. It’s a noble pursuit, but it’s also supremely selfish. We’re carried by our daughters and brothers, wives, mothers, lovers. We’re pathetic wards. We’re anchors and they’re beautiful ships stuck in dock until we unhook ourselves. I’m trying but it’s hard. I cling to those highs and lows, those legs wrapped in fishnet hose. Those legs just walk on past. I’m dragging behind, holding on for dear life. I can see from the look in your eyes that you too are a failure in that regard.”

  “I’m a failure in many regards.”

  Kahn removed a business card. “Call me when you can help me out.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  He turned his chair, wheeled back toward the kitchen. Erin opened the screen, lifted him inside. Her biceps bulged from a lifetime of lifting. The card said: Seymour J. Kahn: actor, cripple. Cell and e-mail listed below.

  two

  Establishing Shot:

  V.O.:

  My mother was born for the grainy light of classic American cinema. With her tennis whites and platinum highlights she might look beautiful in that forgiving light, the testaments of age, white wine, and heartbreak erased by the camera’s flattering eye. But this is the high-def era. Every blemish is mercilessly illuminated.

  Cut to: Through the window she’s graceful in the kitchen, flickering like lightning in the streetlamp shadows. Zoom in and we see that her motions are jagged, her fingers shake. Face is creased, cavernous. Natural gray of her hair shows in the roots.

  three

  Bird’s-eye view: Congregation Beth Shalom might appear to be part of the Pine Hill Mall, which is sometimes referred to as the Mall at Pine Hill. If the mall is Quinosset’s Mighty Mississippi, then Beth Shalom is a tributary akin to the Yazoo River (Fire on the Yazoo!, Left Hat Pictures, 1987).

  Large building with a larger parking lot. High Holidays: front lot like a rap video removed of black people. Mercedes, Lexus, Beamers. This is where we used to park until Dad left. Then we drove a Camry, and they stuck us out back.

  Jennifer Estes waved us in. Her orange mesh vest was the kind crossing guards and trash-spear parolees wear—a servitude marker, sun-bright. Visible from fifty yards: her bounce and hip shimmy, wind-borne hair.

  Jeremy Shaw used to be the parking attendant. A Head-First kid—from an alternative school within my high school—a good guy. His dad was janitor at the synagogue. They li
ved in the Beth Shalom basement. We weren’t friends but shared nods and thin joints by the old bomb shelter, not saying much, passing it back and forth.

  Last year Jeremy hung himself in his bedroom while Henry Villeva and Jamal Green played Grand Theft Auto III in the living room. I heard Alison Ghee—his ultra-skinny, no-less-sexy-for-it girlfriend—had cheated on him. People said she gave him herpes. I never believed it. Thought he was just a sad guy living in a basement. Once dreamed I was sitting shotgun in his pickup doing 120 on the Zakim Bridge when Jeremy turned, drove us over the rail. A peaceful moment. We spun like a failing propeller. Watched the bridge lights recede. Sank to the pavement, fell on the sleeping city as if it were a mattress, as if death itself were a soft mattress.

  Jennifer smiled at me. Couldn’t tell if it was the type of smile that said, “Do me!” or “Time for a new suit. You’ve had that one since you were fifteen, and you’ve put on a few pounds.”

  Gave a half-wave that I thought looked cool, disaffected. As we walked past, my mother tried to fix my tie.

  We had the good seats, up front, won from Dad in the divorce. If there was a single person making peace with God as the Schwartz family strutted up the aisle, she was doing so while mentally commenting on the fact that my pants only came down to my shins. Not that we were special. Whole show was a social affair. Women showed off new outfits, men showed off new wives.

  Like Dad. Pam wore a leather miniskirt, applied lip gloss, added a seven to her Sudoku panel. The twins passed a pack of Lifesavers. I patted Dad on the shoulder. He looked up, nodded, offered a handshake, but I was already halfway up the aisle. His hand dangled, retracted.

  Walk to our seats took fifteen minutes. Mom had to stop-and-chat with six groups of people. I flanked her dutifully. Avoided eye contact with my former classmates. They went to liberal arts schools in Maine or Connecticut, majored in IR, econ, etc., returned to proud parents, maple-glazed brisket, younger girls—QHS seniors—sweating in halogen classroom deserts, waiting for Prince Cohen to arrive via Amtrak.

  Older siblings were I-bankers, traders, account managers, other things I only understood in theory. No clue what they did, but the result was money, piles of it, stored in steel vaults, spent on tools of entertainment pricier than the super high-def 120-inch plasmas now on sale for a low, low price at Robot World in the Pine Hill Mall.