Cliff asks me if I like my new meds, and I tell him I do, even though I really have not noticed any effects at all and have only taken about half the pills my mother gave me last week—hiding a few under my tongue and spitting them into the toilet when she leaves me alone. He asks me if I have experienced any unwanted side effects—shortness of breath, loss of appetite, drowsiness, suicidal feelings, homicidal feelings, loss of virility, anxiety, itchiness, diarrhea—and I tell him I haven’t.
“What about hallucinations?” he says, and then leans forward a little, squinting.
“Hallucinations?” I ask.
“Hallucinations.”
I shrug, say I don’t think I have hallucinated, and he tells me I would know if I had.
“Tell your mother if you see anything bizarre or horrifying,” he says, “but don’t worry, because you probably will not hallucinate. Only a very small percentage of people hallucinate while taking this combination of meds.”
I nod and promise I will report any hallucinations to my mother, but I do not really believe I will hallucinate no matter what type of drugs he gives me, especially since I know he will not be giving me LSD or anything like that. I figure weaker people probably complain about their drugs, but I am not weak and can control my mind pretty well.
I am in the basement doing shots of water, taking my three-minute break between crunches on the Stomach Master 6000 and leg lifts on the weight bench, when I smell the unmistakable buttery flavor of my mother’s crabby snacks and I start to salivate unmercifully.
Because I love crabby snacks, I leave the basement, enter the kitchen, and see that my mother is not only baking crabby snacks, which are buttered crabmeat and orange cheese on English muffins, but she is also making her homemade three-meats pizza—hamburger, sausage, and chicken—and those buffalo wings she gets from Big Foods.
“Why are you cooking crabby snacks?” I ask hopefully, because I know from past experience that she only cooks crabby snacks when we are having company.
Nikki loves crabby snacks and will eat a whole plate if you set it in front of her, and then she will complain later on the ride home, saying she is feeling fat because she has eaten too much. Back when I was emotionally abusive, I used to tell her that I did not want to hear her complaints every time she ate too much. But the next time Nikki eats too many crabby snacks, I am going to tell her she did not eat too much and that she looks too skinny anyway; I’ll say she needs to gain a few pounds because I like my women looking like women and not like “Ms. Six O’Clock—straight up, straight down,” which is another term I learned from Danny.
And I do hope my mother’s making crabby snacks signifies that apart time is over because Nikki is on her way to my parents’ house, which seems like the best coming-home surprise my mother could cook up—and as Mom is always trying to do nice things for me and my brother, I mentally prepare myself to be reunited with Nikki.
My heart pounds at least fifty times during the few seconds it takes for my mother to answer my question.
“The Eagles are playing the Steelers tonight in a preseason exhibition game,” my mother says, which is weird because Mom has always hated sports and barely knows that football season is in the fall, let alone what teams are playing on a given day. “Your brother is coming over to watch the game with you and your father.”
My heart starts beating even faster because I have not seen my brother since shortly after apart time began, and like my father, he said some really awful things about Nikki the last time we talked.
“Jake is looking forward to seeing you, and you know how much your father loves the Eagles. I can’t wait to have all three of my men gathered around the couch again, just like old times.” My mother smiles at me so hard I think she is going to break out in tears again, so I turn around and go back into the basement to do knuckle push-ups until my pecs burn and I can no longer feel my knuckles.
Knowing that I will probably not be allowed to go for my run later, because we are having a family night, I put on a trash bag and run early, passing my high school friends’ homes; passing St. Joseph’s, which is the Catholic church I used to attend; passing Collingswood High School (class of ′89 rules!) and the house my grandparents used to own by the park before they died.
My old best friend sees me when I run past his new house on Virginia Avenue. Ronnie is just getting home from work, walking from his car to his front door, when I pass him on the sidewalk. He looks me in the eyes, and after I have passed, he yells, “Pat Peoples? Is that you? Pat! Hey!” I run even harder, because my brother, Jake, is coming to talk to me; Jake does not believe in happy endings, and I do not have the emotional wherewithal to deal with Ronnie right now, because he never once came to visit Nikki and me in Baltimore, although he promised so many times. Nikki used to call Ronnie “whipped,” saying that his wife, Veronica, “keeps Ronnie’s social calendar where she keeps his balls—in her purse.”
Nikki told me that Ronnie would never visit me in Baltimore, and she was right.
He never visited me in the bad place either, but he used to write me letters about how great his daughter, Emily, was and I guess is, although I have not yet met Emily to verify the letters.
When I return home, Jake’s car is there—a fancy silver BMW, which sort of implies that my brother is doing well now when it comes to “pockets getting fatter,” as Danny says. So I sneak in the back door and run up the steps to the shower. After I wash and put on clean clothes, I take a deep breath and follow the sound of conversation to the living room.