Addison’s roses floating on the breeze. Plus there was the whole issue of being nice, decent people, how you had to feel good about yourself when you went to bed at night. This was true, basically, Robbie knew—his parents were trying their best to do what they thought they were supposed to do on planet Earth. An admirable project, all things considered, but one that required a certain facility for lying to yourself in the dark at the end of the day, a way to smooth and finesse your prejudices and your shortcomings.
At any rate, there he was in the breakfast nook forcing the recalibration of the extended family dynamic, yawning, wiping away crusty stuff from his eyelashes. “Aaah,” he said again. He seemed to be eating some sort of granola out of a bowl, the other family members staring at him.
“Julia made omelets,” his mother said. “They’re wonderful. Try one.”
Robbie performed reconnaissance, sipping orange juice with one eye open over the glass rim. The night before, he’d been at a kegger at a campground and done four beer bongs in twenty minutes on a dare, after which he’d thrown up on himself and jumped in the Sammamish River with his clothes on.
“That’s all right,” Julia said. “He doesn’t look like he’s hungry.” And she laughed.
It was the laugh that did it, that declared some secret alliance with Robbie and all his fucked-up-ness, that made them outlaws where the parental units were concerned. And there was another thing. When Julia laughed, she locked eyes with Robbie. “Are you okay?” she asked, and he said, “What, yeah, okay,” but he wasn’t okay, of course not, the whole fucking stream of human life and his participation in said stream bothered him and somehow Julia’s question had tapped into this bothersome problem and somehow his answer had been an inadequate defense against it and suddenly everybody—even his parents—knew that there had been a moment when all these things escaped from under their usual cover. And ever since that moment there had been an awareness that Julia was her husband’s brother’s keeper.
It was that same voice he heard right now, from long ago, Julia that morning in the kitchen, but still repeating just that one word, Robbie, as if joining the two syllables often enough could convey some critical message—Julia’s voice echoing, receding, faintly calling his name.
And then he was somewhere else, staring up at a dead plant hanging in a dirty window. It was the same dead plant he’d seen when he started his lonely sojourn. He sat on the stairs and watched his breath clouding out, dimly visible in the half-light of the snowy sky through the window. Had he been sitting here for hours? He must have been sitting here for hours. There had been footsteps at some point, the sound of a hand sliding on a banister. Julia had called his name. He had felt himself transported elsewhere. But here he was, still sitting, and he couldn’t even be sure whether he’d slept, really. In some way it seemed that he’d been conscious of the dusty floor and the flat yellow light of the infinite hallways and the broken stairway the whole time. It took him a while even now to understand that he was shaking. He was freezing to death here. Somewhere out there on the verge of himself this almost made him laugh, the idea of freezing to death on a stairway in some shitkicker ghost town in Idaho. It wasn’t all the drugs that had taken down Robbie Addison in the end—no, it was a snowstorm, like he was some old-timer who’d gotten lost on his way to the gold mine, some pioneer of fucking yesteryear. This was only humorous for a moment before it became kind of terrifying.
He had pissed his pants. That much seemed clear. Or whoever’s pants these were. That had happened before, and it was generally a bad sign. He was all alone and he couldn’t find his way out of this goddamn place and he hadn’t had a drink or even so much as a beer for several hours now
At any rate, there he was in the breakfast nook forcing the recalibration of the extended family dynamic, yawning, wiping away crusty stuff from his eyelashes. “Aaah,” he said again. He seemed to be eating some sort of granola out of a bowl, the other family members staring at him.
“Julia made omelets,” his mother said. “They’re wonderful. Try one.”
Robbie performed reconnaissance, sipping orange juice with one eye open over the glass rim. The night before, he’d been at a kegger at a campground and done four beer bongs in twenty minutes on a dare, after which he’d thrown up on himself and jumped in the Sammamish River with his clothes on.
“That’s all right,” Julia said. “He doesn’t look like he’s hungry.” And she laughed.
It was the laugh that did it, that declared some secret alliance with Robbie and all his fucked-up-ness, that made them outlaws where the parental units were concerned. And there was another thing. When Julia laughed, she locked eyes with Robbie. “Are you okay?” she asked, and he said, “What, yeah, okay,” but he wasn’t okay, of course not, the whole fucking stream of human life and his participation in said stream bothered him and somehow Julia’s question had tapped into this bothersome problem and somehow his answer had been an inadequate defense against it and suddenly everybody—even his parents—knew that there had been a moment when all these things escaped from under their usual cover. And ever since that moment there had been an awareness that Julia was her husband’s brother’s keeper.
It was that same voice he heard right now, from long ago, Julia that morning in the kitchen, but still repeating just that one word, Robbie, as if joining the two syllables often enough could convey some critical message—Julia’s voice echoing, receding, faintly calling his name.
And then he was somewhere else, staring up at a dead plant hanging in a dirty window. It was the same dead plant he’d seen when he started his lonely sojourn. He sat on the stairs and watched his breath clouding out, dimly visible in the half-light of the snowy sky through the window. Had he been sitting here for hours? He must have been sitting here for hours. There had been footsteps at some point, the sound of a hand sliding on a banister. Julia had called his name. He had felt himself transported elsewhere. But here he was, still sitting, and he couldn’t even be sure whether he’d slept, really. In some way it seemed that he’d been conscious of the dusty floor and the flat yellow light of the infinite hallways and the broken stairway the whole time. It took him a while even now to understand that he was shaking. He was freezing to death here. Somewhere out there on the verge of himself this almost made him laugh, the idea of freezing to death on a stairway in some shitkicker ghost town in Idaho. It wasn’t all the drugs that had taken down Robbie Addison in the end—no, it was a snowstorm, like he was some old-timer who’d gotten lost on his way to the gold mine, some pioneer of fucking yesteryear. This was only humorous for a moment before it became kind of terrifying.
He had pissed his pants. That much seemed clear. Or whoever’s pants these were. That had happened before, and it was generally a bad sign. He was all alone and he couldn’t find his way out of this goddamn place and he hadn’t had a drink or even so much as a beer for several hours now
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