Thicker Than Blood

I hailed a cab for Cynthia and kissed her on the cheek before she climbed in. She told me to call her the following week, and I promised I would. As her cab drove away, she stared through the back window, her earnest eyes penetrating me, gnawing at the root of my restlessness.

You have no idea.

When her cab was gone, I started down the sidewalk, and for several blocks, I didn’t pass a soul. Though hidden now from view, the filthy East River flowed into the Atlantic. I could smell the stale, polluted water. Four ambulances rushed by, their sirens shrieking between the buildings. With my hotel only ten blocks north, I hoped a stroll in the cool September night would sober me up.

I dreaded going home. Since mid-June, I’d traveled the country, filling my days with appearances and readings that kept me grounded in the present. I never wanted a moment alone. My thoughts horrified me. Now, as I returned to North Carolina, to a slower way of life, I knew the torture would begin. I had no book to write. There was nothing for me to do but inhabit my lake house. To exist. And it was there, I feared, that the two weeks whose existence I’d denied all summer would come for me.

When my mind drifted back to the desert, I’d force-feed myself the jade green sea, ivory sand, sweaty sunlight. Distinctly, I could picture the stuccoed beach house and veranda where I’d watch bloody sunsets fall into the sea. I was aware of the self-deception, but man will do anything to live with himself.

15

I filled the begi

Dawdling on the end of my pier late one afternoon, nursing a Jack and Sun-Drop, I watched a bobber swaying on the surface of the lake. Early Octobers in North Carolina are perfection, and the sky turned azure as the sun edged toward the horizon. I’d been holding a fishing rod, waiting for the red-and-white bobber to duck beneath the water, when I heard footsteps swishing through the grass.

Setting the rod down, I looked back toward the shore and saw Walter step onto the pier. He wore sunglasses and a wheat-colored suit, his jacket thrown over his left shoulder, tie loosened.

For two weeks, I’d been home. Though he called often, I’d spoken to Walter only twice, and the conversations had been vapid on my part. Each time I’d hung up as soon as possible, revealing nothing of my May disappearance and shying away from his questions. Solitude and self-oblivion had been my sole desire, and as I watched my best friend stroll down the pier, his face sullen, I knew I’d hurt him.

Several feet away, he stopped and tossed a manila envelope onto the sun-bleached wood. Walter looked down at me, and I could see myself in his sunglasses. He sat down beside me on the edge of the pier, and our legs dangled out over the water.

"Your novel’s selling well," he said. "I’m happy for you."

"It’s a relief."

As I fumbled with the envelope, Walter said, "I never opened it."

"You don’t have to tell me that."

"Something’s on your line." I grabbed my rod and yanked it back, but the bobber resurfaced without tension in the line. When I reeled it back in, the bobber didn’t move.

"Shit, he was big. That was a large-mouth." I tossed the rod onto the pier and picked up my drink. "Come on," I said, standing up. Though the air was mild, the long day of direct sunlight had turned the surface of the pier as hot as summer concrete. It toasted the soles of my feet. "Let’s go inside. I’ll get you a beer."

In swimming trunks, I ran up the pier toward the shore, leapt into the grass, and waited. Walter came along sluggishly, his usual pace. We walked together up through the yard, a narrow green slope rising from the shore to the house. I hadn’t mown the grass in two weeks, so it rose several inches above my ankles, a soft, dense carpet.

As we climbed the steps to the deck, I glanced into the woods on my right. I thought of the corpse buried out there, the one that had flung my life into this disarray. For a moment, I relived finding her — the smell, the fear, the rush of discovery.

Inside, I got Walter a bottle of beer out of the fridge and led him into the living room. Not quite as soused as I wanted to be, I mixed another Jack and Sun-Drop as he lay down on the sofa.

"I’m sorry I haven’t been over," I said from the wet bar.

"Book tour wore you out, huh?"

"Just wasn’t in the mood to be in front of people constantly. To be on all the time." After dropping several shards of ice into the glass and filling it half with citrus soda, half with bourbon, I stirred my drink, walked into the living room, and sat down in the tan leather chair across from Walter.

His eyes caught on Brown No. 2, looking down on us from above the fireplace in all its pretentious glory. He smirked, but the tension between us made him withhold comment.

"I know," I said, "A real piece of shit. Loman. I’d like to kick that fucker’s ass. Don’t know why I leave it up there. It’s not like it’s growing on me. Fact, I hate it more every day."

"Deep down, he must’ve known he was a hack. Had to. Should’ve listened to me, man."

"I know, I know." I yawned. I’d be passing out when Walter left. "How’s the fam?"

"Ah. The obligatory inquiry. They’re fine. I’ve been trying to spend more time with them lately. Less at the magazine. I’ve actually gotta be at a school play in two hours. Thirty six-year-olds on a stage. Can you imagine?"

"What are they doing?"

"Mamet." We laughed. We always laughed when we were together. "Poor thing — Je

"Ooh," I shuddered. "The thrill of parenthood. I’d miss it for the world."

"You serious?" Walter asked, kicking off his wing tips and balancing the bottle on his chest.

"Hell yeah. Everybody feels sorry for me when I tell them I don’t wa

He laughed kindly. "Karen did a number on you, but you won’t always feel bitter."

"How the hell do you know how I’m always go

" ’Cause it’s impossible for someone to go through life without repeatedly falling in love."

How sad. He really thinks I want his life. He thinks I’m Gatsby to his Daisy. Maybe I am.

"I was in love with Karen," I said, and a lump swelled in my throat, but I stifled it. "Where did that get me? So I loved her and thought I wanted to spend my life with her. For two years, I felt this way, and suddenly, she didn’t, and wanted nothing to do with me. Not even friendship. Said I was a phase. A fucking phase. That’s two years of my life wasted. I think about what I could’ve written during that time — fucking irks me." I shook my head and sipped the soured citrus soda. "I’ll tell you — it’ll be a genuine miracle if I ever do get married, ’cause I’m not looking for it. I just don’t think it’ll happen, and after two years of Karen — hell, I’m fine with that. I make a great mate."