Trade Me (Cyclone 1)

“Hey, asshole,” my dad snaps back. “This is a heart attack, not a fucking teachable moment.”

“Technically,” Dr. Wong says, “I won’t know it’s a heart attack until I see an EKG. Until then, my official diagnosis is teachable moment.”

“Shit,” Dad grumbles. “You’re fired.”

Dr. Wong ignores this. “Once I get an EKG, it turns into a fucking teachable moment.”

No wonder my dad likes this guy. I can hear the ambulance now, a dim wail in the distance.

Dad grabs my wrist. “Hey.” His voice is getting softer. “About the narrative…”

I look up. His bag of cocaine is still sitting on the counter. I want to tell him to fuck the narrative. But he’s clutching at my sleeve and he looks even more desperate now.

I stand up and pick up the bag. “I’m throwing out all your stupid cocaine if I have to come through the house with a fucking dog, do you hear me?” Dad shuts his eyes in relief.

“Live,” I say, “because when you get back from the hospital, I’m throwing your stupid ass in rehab.”

The front windows fill with flashing red and blue lights. The ambulance is here. “Live.” I swipe my hand across the counter, gathering up the remains of the dust that sent him into this latest attack. I slide the plastic baggie into an oven mitt, obscuring it from prying eyes.

“Love you too, asshole.” His voice is weak. “Check my bathroom cabinet. And the nightstand.”

The EMTs are hustling through the front door, pushing a gurney before them. Dr. Wong meets them at the front and directs them as they strap my dad in. It doesn’t seem real. None of it seems real. Their boots crunch on glass. Dr. Wong hands me a card and tells me that my dad will be at the hospital, that I’m free to follow along.

I walk beside them, bringing him to the ambulance.

“Live, you stupid fucking bastard,” I tell him, again, leaning over the cot. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.” His eyes are shut. But the EMT grabs his head and slips a breathing mask on, and that’s the end of the conversation. I tell myself that it can’t be that bad—that if he’s talking and cracking jokes, this can’t possibly be the end.

I’m pretty sure I’m lying to myself. I wait in the cold night air until the EMTs slam the doors shut, until they strap themselves in their seats, until the lights seem to flare all the more brightly, and they let the sirens blare, briefly, warning the night that they’re starting off. And then they’re gone.

20.

BLAKE

I’m standing in the driveway. The lights of the ambulance are receding; a moment later, they slip around a corner and are swallowed by the hill. My awareness of the circumstances seeps back in slowly. It’s almost like waking up from a nightmare: first, there’s a sharp, shock of consciousness, where physical reality sets in. My feet are bare. The concrete underfoot is wet and cold. I’m wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, and my skin is so cold that I’ve begun to shiver.

Next, memory floods back. Except when you wake up from a bad dream, you have to remind yourself that everything is okay—that nobody has died, that there are no monsters.

This is exactly the opposite.

Dad is doing cocaine.

No, scratch that.

Dad has been doing cocaine. For years. My father has been killing himself. He’s been begging for my help, and I was too blind to understand how much he needed me.

I’m the worst son ever. Somehow, the cold feels appropriate. It pinches my flesh, robs me of feeling. I could put on a parka and I would never feel warm again.

Footsteps sound behind me. I turn around to see Tina holding a broom. Apparently, she’s cleaned up the glass. She’s watching me with dark, clear eyes.

Twenty minutes ago, we were in bed, closer than close. Twenty minutes ago, I knew I couldn’t go on without her. I know that even more strongly now. I have never needed anyone like I need Tina now.

“Come on, Blake,” she says, gesturing me in. Her voice is gentle. “You need to come in and get dressed. I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

“I don’t even know where they’re taking him.”

“You’re holding the card in your hand,” she points out. “Dr. Wong just gave it to you.”

Shit. So he did. I’m not thinking very well right at the moment.

She comes up and takes the card from me. “Here. He’s being taken to…the Reynolds Foundation Emergency Department? Huh. What a coincidence. For some weird reason, I’m going to guess that they’ll take good care of your dad there.”

I look down. It’s drizzling, and I’m wet enough that my jeans are plastered to me. Have to hope that the EMTs didn’t have a camera. I can imagine what it would look like if these photos hit Twitter. For the first time, I can see how I must look: sparse and still too scrawny. The entire world just landed on my shoulders, and I’ve been dicking around.

I take a deep breath. “All right,” I say. “But I have to get a few things ready.”

I don’t just get dressed. I get a bag. I tell Tina that I’m putting a few things together for my dad. I am getting a handful of things, because he will go crazy if he doesn’t have at least a tablet if—no, when—he wakes up. But it’s not just that. I send her off to find a blanket—I tell her it’s for me, while I’m waiting for him to come to—but the truth is I don’t want her to see this.

I ransack his room. I find a bag of white powder in the bathroom, another in his nightstand. I’m in a cold fury now—angry at him, furious with myself—as I toss it in a duffle alongside the stash from the kitchen. I gather up his personal items—computer, tablet, phone, headset, and, on second thought, a razor and a toothbrush—and throw those in a separate messenger bag.

Tina meets me downstairs. She’s packed up my bag as well as her own. She throws these all in the car, and then slides into the driver’s seat.

I can’t look at her yet. Instead, I pull out my phone, slip on a Bluetooth headset, and look out the window. The streetlights slide by between dark houses and dark trees. I glance at my phone, choose a number, and dial.

The phone rings three times before a voice on the other line answers. “Blake?” The voice of Amy Ellis, our head of public relations, is blurred by sleep. But she doesn’t complain about the time. She knows that if I’m calling, it’s urgent. “What’s going on?”

“We need a press release,” I tell her, “and we need it in five minutes, because chances are someone is going to squawk soon.” I don’t know how I manage to sound so calm.

There’s a pause. “Your dad told me things were being rearranged a few hours ago.”

“Fuck what my dad told you,” I say. “This is bigger than that.”

She sighs. “You know I have to have your dad’s approval to release anything. But hit me with the damage.”

“You’re not getting his sign-off on this.” I shut my eyes. “We need a press release saying that Adam Reynolds had a heart attack this morning.”

It’s easier to say it that way. Adam Reynolds, not Dad. As if I can pretend he’s the distant owner of some distant company. As if I’m not bleeding inside.

I hear her intake of breath. “Oh, God. Blake. Is he okay? Are you okay?”

“He’s in stable condition,” I tell her, which I hope is true. “I’m on my way to the hospital where he’s being treated now.”

“Which hospital?”

“Don’t release that.” I shut my eyes. “Not that they won’t figure out anyway. Still. The most important thing is to get the message out, to get ahead of any of the aftershocks. I’ll have more details in an hour or so.”

There’s a long pause. “What about the product launch today? This is short notice, and the press will kill me. But do we need to cancel?”

I look down at the clock. It’s one in the morning, and yes, the product launch is this afternoon. I imagine my dad, larger than life, striding across the stage with a knowing smile. He had such a flair for these things. How the fuck am I supposed to ta

ke his place at the launch? It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is. It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world.

And yet.

I watch the streetlights slide by on an empty, deserted world.

For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like his shoes are too big to be filled by me. I don’t feel like he’s impossibly strong, unbowed by any problems. His weakness is equally my strength.

One thing at a time. “I’m doing the launch,” I say.

I hear Tina suck in air beside me.

I should feel like I’m disappearing now, like my life doesn’t belong to me. But now, for the first time, this doesn’t feel like it’s taking me over.

I still feel all my grief shut up inside me. But now it has a cause, an outlet. I know the name of the thing that killed Peter, and it wasn’t Cyclone and it wasn’t the job. It was not being able to walk away when it got to be too much.

I can do this, because I am going to walk away. For the first time, this feels like a winnable battle.

“It’s better if I run the launch,” I continue. “It’ll give the investors a sense of continuity. It’ll give the community a sense of belonging. And I’m the only one who can tell jokes about my dad.” I can already sense it. If I tell jokes, everyone will believe it’s not serious. And they have to think it’s not serious—the less serious it seems, the better things will go. I shut my eyes. “Speaking of which. Amy, I need someone out there to make up some jokes about my dad.”