Apologize, Apologize! - By Elizabeth Kelly Page 0,26
to the exclusion of all other considerations.” He paused for a sip of spiked coffee, the full cup raised to his lips. Lovingly, he inhaled the steam. I intuitively took two steps back. You could have gotten drunk on the fumes from his coffee.
“When it comes to looks you’ve got nothing to apologize for, Collie. You’re a fine-looking lad, Jesus, you look like an Irish prince, and more important, you wear the clever pants in this family, and that comes right from your cousins the Hanrahan twins—”
“I know, Pop. You’ve told me about those idiots a million times. . . .” But it didn’t stop him. His chin hit the floor.
“Idiots?” he thundered. “They graduated from the university when they were only fifteen years old. They were the smartest boys who ever lived. The only thing is they weren’t practical, and it cost them their lives. They hadn’t a clue about water and electricity. Who would ever have thought a plugged kitchen sink and an old toaster could wreak such havoc? Always be practical, Collie. To paraphrase the great Mr. O’Brien, pragmatism’s your only man.”
Probably because he was so hopelessly inept, Pop viewed practicality as if it were the mother lode, a treasure as elusive and fulfilling as the Holy Grail. This was a guy with an unreasonable reverence for duct tape, which he deemed a discovery of enormous cultural significance surpassed only by fire and archery. He once backed Ma’s car out of the garage in a drunken stupor with the passenger door wide open, nearly tearing it off the hinge. The next day, he proudly showed me how he’d fixed it using miles of duct tape.
“Now that’s pragmatism,” he said.
I’d never seen so much tape. The whole side of the car was sealed up so tight you could have used it to safely transport the plague. Ma drove around for months with the car door sealed shut. I don’t think she ever noticed—all that money, and we were some can of piss.
Ma and Pop used to stay up all night and sleep all day, stumbling into the kitchen to make coffee, her hair wild as the wind, sleeping mask worn like a necklace, his eyes watery and red.
“It’s the circadian rhythms,” Pop would say. “Each man is a prisoner of his internal clock. God help the man who won’t make peace with his circadian cycle.”
“What are you doing up? Washed and dressed. Have you already eaten?” my mother asked. I was teetering back and forth on a swivel chair in the corner near the window, the bad-humored ocean bubbling and hissing in the background.
“Ma, I’ve been up since seven. You were supposed to take me back to school, remember? I should have known. Next time I’ll get to the ferry myself.”
“Oh, I know. In bed by eleven, be up at seven. The drivel they espouse at that school of yours. You know, of course, nothing interesting ever happens before one o’clock in the afternoon. You and your pasty face and your banker’s hours.”
“What am I supposed to do? I’ve got school! I need to get back.”
“And God knows we wouldn’t ever want to miss a day of school. Aren’t you the good little comptroller.”
Her conversation was turning into one long protracted sneer. I could feel something warm glowing at the base of my skull. The years away at school spent among teachers who liked me for my ordinary urges and common interests had made me bold with Ma. It must have happened somewhere between all those weekend trips from the house to the campus and the campus to the house. I finally had decided I wasn’t going to want her to love me anymore.
“Leave the boy alone, Anais,” Pop said, speaking up from the other side of the room, where I could see him pouring more brandy, like cream, into his coffee. He sighed. “He can’t help himself. It’s right in him.”
I got up and stared out the window; the skyline and the waves were an identical slate color, the greater world a stark monochrome, the frayed white curtain blowing, one of the little dogs standing on all fours, trying to catch the fluttering lacy edges in his teeth.
“Did Tom feed the dogs? Did Bingo get something to eat?” my mother asked me.
“Yes,” I said with no small hint of frustration as I turned away from the window to face her.
“Is that exasperation I detect? The nerve of you.”