Home Again

He felt a stab of disappointment, and it pissed him off. “Nothing.”

She flicked the still-burning cigarette onto the driveway. “Francis brung me his report card yesterday. It was the best present a mother could get.”

Angel fought the immediate resentment, refused to let it get the best of him. It had always been this way with his mother, and it always would be. Francis was her golden boy, her fair-haired child. Francis the good and pure, Francis the altar boy. Her ticket to Heaven. And Angel was her shit-kicking, hell-raising mistake. How many times had she told him she “shoulda had an abortion”?

“You wanna drink?” she asked, still eyeing him.

“Sure, Ma,” he said tiredly. “I’ll have a drink.”

“Martini?”

He knew what her martini was—eight ounces of gin and two ice cubes. “Fine.”

Without another word, she turned away from him and headed for the kitchen.

Reluctantly he followed her into the murky interior. Pale light shone through a dirty beige lampshade, reflected on the shag carpet. A faded bronze velour sofa was pressed against the fake-wood-paneled wall. Press-board end tables were littered with celebrity magazines and piled with ashtrays. There was a fine dusting of ash on the floor beside a black Naugahyde La-Z-Boy.

Angel sat down on the sagging sofa. Within seconds his mother was bustling back toward him, drinks clanking in her hands. He tried not to care that she didn’t speak. She didn’t want to talk with Angel, didn’t want to be with him, but she always had time to drink with him.

Back when he was a kid, ten, eleven, she’d started him on the road to alcoholism with a motherly shove. She’d wanted someone to drink with, and she’d never ask pious Francis. Angel was the perfect choice—as long as he didn’t talk much.

It was pathetic how much he’d valued that time with her. For a while it had felt as if she’d chosen him, wanted to be with him. By about seventh grade, he understood the truth. She’d share a drink with Adolf Hitler if he stopped by at “cocktail hour.” Anything or anyone to prove to her soggy brain that she was a social drinker.

For the longest time, they sat there, he on the sofa, she on the La-Z-Boy, drinking silently. The rattling ice and swallowing gulps seemed inordinately loud in the quiet room. Angel wanted to tell her what he came to say—good-bye—but he couldn’t face the look in her eyes when he said the word. She’d know instantly that he was running from trouble, and her triumphant smile would confirm everything she’d ever said about him.

After a while, he heard a car drive up. The engine roared, sputtered, died. Footsteps clanged up the metal steps.

Ma put down her drink and flew to the door, wrenching it open. She threw her arms wide and squealed with delight. “Frankie!”

Angel put his drink down and got to his feet. Anxiety twisted his gut into a knot. He stood there, waiting. His heart started beating hard in his chest. He wasn’t ready to tell his brother good-bye, not yet….

Ma moved aside and ushered her savior inside.

Francis came into the trailer and dropped his book bag on the sofa. “Heya, Angel,” he said.

Ma thumped Francis on the back so hard, he stumbled forward. “You’re just in time for dinner. I’ll go to the kitchen and make sure I got your favorites. Franks and beans for my Frankie.” With a final squeak, she hustled down the hallway and disappeared into the kitchen.

Francis looked at him. “There’s a brand-new Harley-Davidson in the yard.”

Angel shifted nervously. “I’m in trouble, Franco. I gotta leave town. I just …” To his humiliation, he felt tears burn his eyes. “I just came to say good-bye.”

“Don’t do it, man,” Francis said softly, shaking his head. “Don’t just run away. Whatever it is, we can talk about it. Figure out what to do. Don’t go. Please …”

“I have to.” He turned away from the disappointment in Francis’s eyes, and ran out of the trailer. Jumping on the motorcycle, he started the engine and roared out of town. He never let himself look back. He was afraid that if he did, he’d start crying … and wouldn’t be able to stop.

The antiseptic smell returned, sharp and bitter. The hospital lighting stabbed through his watery eyes. He’d stayed away from Seattle for seventeen long, lonely years. Now, after all this time, he was going back.

Going home.

Chapter Two

Angel stared at the pockmarked ceiling.

It was too damned quiet in here; the stillness grated on his overstretched nerves. He wanted suddenly to fill the silence with noise, loud, boisterous noise that said I’m here, I’m still alive. He wanted to take strength from that simple sentence, pleasure from the knowledge that his lungs still pumped air. But it wasn’t enough anymore, not nearly enough. Now there was a vial of liquid nitrogen inside his chest, a dark, ugly splotch that could explode at any second. Any second.

Just a blip on the screen and it was over. Flat line.

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the headache pulsing behind his eyes. He didn’t want to think about this crap anymore. He wanted it all to just go away.