Pacific Boulevard

Today the blinds are open, no matter how hot it is outside. Mom and I look down all twelve floors. My brother’s red car, the size of a pack of cigarettes, parallel parks between a motorcycle and a pickup truck. When he gets out of the car, he’s the size of a matchstick. Some girl staggers after him.

Mom leans into my arm. “I hid my rings. I hid your watch, okay?”

“When my brother dies, I’m gonna piss on his headstone,” I say. “Then I’m gonna kick it.”

“Your brother,” she says.

Here comes Stuart. Little guy, opposite of me. Short and bowlegged like he’s crouching—a catcher’s stance. Eyes in the back of his head, expecting something outta nowhere. He flinches, maybe a bee. He’s scared of bees. The girl he’s with, she starts tucking his shirt into his pants. Brand-new shirt, nightclub shirt, sparkling in the sun. The girl brushes his shoulders, musses his hair. One of Stuart’s girls. Chubby in the waist but skinny arms, long hair in a high ponytail, a flared skirt with one of those giant elastic belts. They stare at each other for a minute, then he motions up the length of her body, and she goes back to the car, puts on a sweater.

I look at Mom. “He’s got a girl with him.”

It’s bright in here, it’s the end of June.

“Eddie,” Mom says. “This is our place.”

Brand-new apartment. The good side of Pacific Boulevard, border of Yaletown, close enough to say we live there. Washing machine. New place, new life. New life, new summer. Mom’s jogging. She does the books for a mattress company, and I go to WORKFORCE every day. I can pick up Mom with one hand. For the first time, I qualified for a credit card.

The second Mom got home, she took out the napkins, hid the crystal, and spent forty minutes stuffing Cornish game hens with lemon and salt, then an hour in front of the mirror putting on lipstick and rouge, curling strands of hair in her fingertips and cinching them with rhinestone clips, until her head looked like a chandelier.

“I’ll put some coffee on,” she says and kicks a sock into the laundry room on her way to the kitchen. We owe my brother $5,000, but we’re not talking about it. We’re not talking about it at all.

It’s been six months since Stu and I were in the same room. I want to go to sleep. I want to play Scrabble. The way I see it, you come into some money, and then you don’t. Mom was in bad shape after her chemo. But she was holding on. The $5,000 was Stuart’s idea. Get her out of the shithole she was renting. Give her enough for a damage deposit, first and last month’s rent on a nice place. So we teamed up, her and me. I got cleaned up. Found her the apartment. It was good motivation for both of us, the money from Stu, and I’m not complaining. Thing is, he meant the money to go to Mom, not Mom and me. Not me. I didn’t have cancer, Stu said, I had bad habits. Once he found out I was here, he gave her six months to pay him back.

When the buzzer rings, I don’t speak, I just push the button and unlock the door. I worked a night shift, got home this morning at eight, went back to WORKFORCE, picked up another shift till three. All I want to do is order a pizza and eat it in bed with the lights off. I wish we had one of those elevators with slow-opening doors like in rest homes so that no matter how slow the old people go, they don’t get caught in the door. Ours is like a fucking jet.

“A-hoy!” Stuart’s voice slithers into the living room. Doesn’t even knock, just lets himself in. I hear him whisper to the girl to take off her boots. “Eddie? Ma?”

“In the kitchen,” Mom hollers, and then Stuart and the girl are in front of me.

“Hey, bro,” he says. He has pleats down the front of his pants, and he smooths them with his hands. His shirt is made of silk, a purple wine color. He looks like a bank teller. He looks okay.

Mom appears with two cups of coffee and looks at the girl. “Sugar’s in the kitchen,” she says, “if you take it.”

“Raz,” Stuart says. “This is my girl, Raz-ma-tazz. Evening, Eddie. Evening, Ma.” He slings his arm over the girl. She looks fifteen. She looks like she wants to wiggle out of there, fast.

“That’s my bro, Eddie,” Stuart says. “My little brother.”

Mom hands them each a coffee and fiddles with one of the clips in her hair. She’s a little shorter than Stuart but at least a head taller than the girl. Munchkin world around here. I stand up from the couch and tower over them all.

“Don’t want it, but thanks,” Stuart says and looks for someplace to put his cup. He gives it to Raz and takes Mom by the waist. She wraps her arms around his neck and puts her head on his shoulder. They hold each other like they always do, a little too long.

“Stuart says you’re in construction,” Raz says. Minute she opens her mouth, I can tell she’s a smoker. Big yellow teeth with a gap. She puts the coffees down, steps toward me, and offers her hand, which I don’t take. Her hair is pulled back so tight it looks like her forehead’s been stretched. Her eyes are too far apart. I’d say fetal alcohol, but Stuart’s been going for the good girls lately. Bet he found this one at the community center. Salsa lessons. Poker night. When she unzips her sweater, I take a step back.

“You two wear the same cologne,” she says.

So here we are—me in my 49ers sweatpants, and there’s Stuart’s girlfriend, eyeing my crotch, trying to hide the fact she’s got a hole in her sock.

“White carpet and everything.” Stuart releases Mom and gestures to the window. “Fuckin’ view of the whole fuckin’ city!”

Mom gives me a look and picks up the coffee cups. “We’re both working. You working?”

“Raz and I are starting a business. Aren’t we, Raz?” Stuart takes a minute to run his hand over the wall, then pats the leather couch. “You guys lucked out with this place.” He reaches for my shoulder, tugs the sleeve. “That my shirt?”

“We each have one.” I knock away his hand. “This one’s mine.”

“We gonna watch the game tonight, bro?” Stuart asks. He sits on the couch and puts his feet on the coffee table. Mom disappears into the kitchen.

No matter how good my brother looks, he still wears tube socks. Raz comes over and sits on his leg. “Can I get a beer, Stu?” she says, but she’s looking at me.

“Eddie’ll get it.” He pats her thigh. “Long day today, Eddie. Longest day of the year.”

She wraps her leg around Stuart’s body, and they start rubbing their faces together like no one’s around. Booze is what’s keeping these two together. Wine and song.

There’s this picture of Mom holding Stuart and me when we were just babies, one in each arm, and she’s wearing a tank top so you can see her muscles. These skinny girls with muscles look good to me. All I ask of people is that they try. I’m trying. I’m not skipping out on the rent. I’m paying the hydro. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a shower curtain. I even work on my days off. Gotta try. Gotta keep moving. First thing I do when I wake up is fifty push-ups and fifty sit-ups. Then I make a cup of coffee and watch the news. Then fifty more push-ups and fifty squats. I bring Mom some coffee and a piece of toast on a plate. No butter, we’re eating the low-cal margarine right now. Another thing we’re doing is loading the dishwasher at night instead of in the morning. Wake up to clean dishes instead of a mess. All these things make a difference, they make up a new mental attitude. No alcohol except for Friday night. I buy a six-pack. Three each. If Dale wants to come over, he has to bring his own beer. But Mom and I try to keep the lowlifes out of the house. It’s about what’s around you. I took down the old pictures and put up neutral images of flowers and beaches. Mom has wild horses in her bedroom. That’s neutral. That’s fine. No art. When things are clean, you think clean. Thinking clean. That’s all I’m doing. No mismatched furniture. It went to the dump. All a person needs is a couch and a place to put their feet. A TV. Kitchen table and some chairs. A bed. Couple of lamps. When you’re done with the newspaper, put it in a bag and toss it. None of this is rocket science. I tell you, if I pass the wrong person or let myself have the wrong kind of thought, by the time I round the corner I’m headed straight for the Money Mart, and the next time you see me, I’ll be getting off the bus with some girl on my arm and I won’t even know her name.

“Hey, asshole,” Stu says. “How ’bout that beer.”

I leave the room and get the beers. When I come back, I hold ’em slightly out of Stu’s grasp, make him fight a bit.

“Hey, Eddie,” Stu says and grabs his beer. “I saw Coral. I told her you were gettin’ buff working construction—you like that? You like that I said that? I said she should come visit you. I never see her with anyone, you know.”

“Okay, you guys,” Mom shouts from the kitchen. “Come and give me a hand.”

“You want me to tell Coral something for you?” Stu says. “You could write her a note and I could pass it on. I bet she’d like that, Eddie.”

“I don’t want you to say nothing to Coral.”

I get so lost in my head. I think about everything that has ever happened to me, everything that has ever happened to Mom.

“Ma.” I walk into the kitchen and put my hand on her shoulder. Whole place smells like chicken. White appliances, white microwave above the stove. Fridge spits out its own cubes. Mom stands in her apron and mitts, basting the hens one last time. Always scared of fucking something up.

“You want me to do it?”

She shakes her head, but I take the baster anyway. Gotta tip the pan so you can suck up the oil in one go. “Looking good in here, Ma.”

“I burned the pan.” Her eyes are watery from the grease. She takes off her apron and ties it around my waist. “Don’t wreck your clothes.”

“Not gonna.”

There are no new stories. I can only think straight when I move around, when I change rooms. Sometimes I need to leave the kitchen in order to complete a thought, and once I’m in the living room, there it is, clear in my mind.

Instead, Stuart appears in the kitchen doorway and points at me with his beer. “Buddy of mine,” he starts. “Buddy of mine has a lead on kit cars. Buy ’em for five grand, sell ’em for almost double, 45 percent. Making a fortune, this guy.”

“Like Mom said, Stu, we’re working.”

“Everyone can use a little extra cash,” he says and winks. “Nice apron, man.”

I’ve never been clever like Stuart. He’s the one with the ideas, the jokes. When it comes to talking, I don’t have much. I want to take this course called “The Confident Conversationalist,” but every time it’s offered, I’ve got work. I feel like if someone just asked me the right questions, I could tell them all they ever wanted to know.

Raz comes up behind Stuart and nuzzles him, then asks if she can use our bathroom. Whole thing makes me want to throw rocks at her head.

“She likes me,” Stu says, and we watch her walk away. He juts his chin at me to follow him. I look back at Mom, but she’s concentrating so hard on putting the hens on a platter that I know she won’t hear a word.

Once we’re alone in the hallway, Stu tells me he went to see Dad. “Porch was covered with garbage and newspapers,” he says. “He wanted me to take it all to the dump so he could get his walker down the stairs. Thought we could go out there together one day, help him out.”

“I don’t got nothing to say to Dad.”

See, if I loved someone in their entirety, I could really love them. But no one’s like that. Everybody’s got to go and have something shitty about them too.

“Speaking of Dad,” Stu says, loud enough now for Mom to hear. “He got the Mustang running again.”

“That’s fine,” she says.

Same story, nothing new. Dad left when I was eight and Stu was ten. Stu started seeing him again when we were teenagers, but I refused. That’s the difference between Stu and me: he sees the good in people, and I don’t. He kept seeing Dad even after Mom asked him not to. I was the loyal one. But that’s all in the buried past now.

“They’re makin’ movies all over the city, Eddie,” Stu says. Quick as a fly, he gets another beer from the fridge, kisses the top of Mom’s head, sets his empty on the counter without washing it out. “Seriously, you can just walk up and get paid to be an extra—a person in the background, you know? Get paid to stand around. You could do that.”

“I told you, man, we’re working.”

“Two minutes.” Mom waves her oven mitt at us, and Raz reappears from the bathroom, her lips shiny. “Raz,” she says, “you’ve got such pretty skin.”

“I could tell you about this great product,” Raz says. Two of them seem to have bonded. “All-natural seaweed scrub for your face. It’s organic. There’s vitamin A in seaweed.”

“Everything’s ready,” Mom says.

“I’ll help you put stuff out,” Raz says, and they march off like friends. We’ve got one of those kitchens where you can see into the dining room through a rectangle cut out of the wall. I’m sure this feature has a name, but I wouldn’t know it.

“Dinner, fucker!” Stuart pushes me ahead of him, and we walk into the dining room single file. Raz carries the steaming plates, and Mom lights some stubby candles and pulls out the chairs so we can sit down. Stu is standing so close to me I can feel his breath.

Mom sees my eyes. “Let’s be delicate,” she says. “Let’s sit down now.” So we do. Stuart sits by Raz, and I grab the chair beside Mom. She takes our plates and gives us each a scoop of mashed potato, a yam, and a game hen. We bought a dining set from Sears last week, and it’s going to work out. I talked Mom out of the glass top, and we got this cherrywood set instead that looks antique. Don’t need a tablecloth the thing is so nice.

Stu runs his finger through the lit candles and the rest of us unfold our napkins and give our thanks to God, and it’s nice for about five minutes, the candlelight and the way Raz makes a hole in her mashed potatoes and lets a big glob of margarine slide in. I don’t have to think she’s a snake. I don’t.

“Thank you for this meal,” she says.

“So, these kit cars,” Stu starts again, and the whole room darkens. “These kit cars are a sure thing.” He flicks his napkin up and down, then tosses it over his lap. He pushes up the sleeves of his shirt to unearth his tattoos. “Anyway, it’s fast cash. Easy.”

“Okay, Stuart,” Mom says.

Mom looks good in the candlelight, like a lady. She tried three or four different lipsticks tonight before she got it right. I want my mom to be a good-looking woman. I want her to try.

“This is so fancy,” Raz says. Her bra strap is peeking out of her shirt. She looks around the room, then at Mom. “When my family gets together for dinner, we sit in front of the TV.”

“You got those baseball cards still, bro?” Stu drums his fingers on the table. “The ones Dad gave you.”

I shrug, take a bite. “Somewhere. You want them?”

“Nah. They might be worth something, though.”

I shoot him a look, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Mom.

“Anyway.” Stu puts down his fork and takes his beer by the neck. “Anyway, Mom.”

I shoot him another look. “Let her eat.”

“Slow eaters,” Raz says. “I’m going to have a bit more.”

Everyone looks up. She walks across the room, stomach held in tight by that big black belt, cheeks suctioned. Her skirt flutters up, brushes against her knees. She throws her shoulders back and winks at Stuart. Woman knows how to move.

“She’s so slim,” Mom says.

“Skinny,” Stuart says.

She heaps a mound of mashed potatoes and a big spoonful of yams onto her plate and drenches the whole affair in a downpour of gravy. There goes my fucking lunch.

“You gonna marry my brother or what?” I holler at her.

She widens her eyes. “That okay?”

But Stuart isn’t in the mood for love. He looks at me and then at Mom. “I came here in good faith tonight.”

“We can’t pay the whole thing back right now.” I say it fast. “It’s too much money.”

“I’m not talking to you, Eddie.”

“The problem, Stuart,” Mom begins, “is that your brother’s trying to get himself on the right track here.”

“You owe me money, Ma.”

“Stuart.” I say his name as deeply as I can. I stand up to remind him how tall I am. “There’s no money right now.”

“No money, Eddie? Fuck no money. White carpet and these fucking little chickens here, no money?” He takes another bite. Now that I’m standing, I can see that his hair is starting to thin. “Sure, okay, no money.”

Raz is just sitting there, eating her food like a dumb kid, like nothing is going on. She looks like a doe. I want to punch her in the face.

“I said to get yourself a nicer place,” Stuart says in a low voice. “I didn’t mean a fucking palace.”

“You have so much more than we do,” Mom says. And she’s right. He’s got a girl and a car, and it doesn’t matter what kind of work Stuart has, he always has someone to collect from, someone who owes him a favor. He’s like a million guys out there, floating through life while the rest of us hold on. Someone asks if he has the time, and the next thing he knows he’s got tickets to a ball game.

“You think you’re entitled—you think you’re entitled,” I start, but there’s no point in finishing. He should know better. If he ever knew anything in his whole life, he should know this. I was the one who looked after Mom when she got sick. And I was still looking after her. The way I see it, my “bad habits” were beside the point.

“All right, take it easy.” That’s when Stuart’s voice gets real soft. He seems real calm. He drinks the last of his beer. He scoots out his chair and throws his napkin on the table. He takes Raz by the arm and pulls her out of her chair, but gently, as though he’s going to ask her to dance. She starts to say something, I guess to thank us for dinner or tell us what nice people we are or how much she enjoyed meeting us, but Stuart tells her to meet him by the door. She isn’t the type to ask why. “We’re out,” he says to her. “We’re done here.”

He waits until she leaves the room, then walks to Mom and stands behind her. He puts his hands on her neck, and for a second I think he might lose his mind and strangle her, right then and there, at the dinner table. Instead, he takes one of the rhinestone clips out of her hair and turns it over in his hand. He takes out another clip, then another, until her hair hangs loose around her shoulders.

“You always choose him over me,” he says.

He puts the clips in his pocket, then bends down and kisses the top of her head.

“Bye, Ma,” he says.

When he leaves, I stand by the window and look at the city so hard I burn it into my mind. Sound gets distorted up here. Feels like the fire trucks are coming through the walls. Something about wave forms, decibels, my ears. Cranes. Cranes everywhere in the city—they say that means the economy is booming.

“Eddie?” Mom says, but I act like I don’t hear. “We got to pay him back.”

So much of the evening is left. I could go out and get a drink. But I have to go to work tomorrow. Then I want to get a haircut and buy some leather shoes. Get some of that toothpaste that whitens your teeth.

Finally, Mom shuts the door to her bedroom. It’ll take me an hour to do the dishes. Maybe two. I like to clean a kitchen thoroughly if I’m going to do it at all. I turn on all the lights, then eat the rest of the mashed potatoes with a spoon. Work the chicken off the bone.

I don’t see Stuart after that. Mom sells the couch and the dining-room set, cobbles together a grand in twenty-dollar bills, which she gives to Stuart in a big white envelope. Few weeks later, her cancer is back. A year later, she is dead. I keep the apartment on Pacific Boulevard for a while, then find a cheaper place, where I live now. Am I drinking again? Are my bad habits back? I walk the city to kill it. I walk the city and see Mom looking at me. When she died, I thought she’d be looking down from the clouds—like in the movies—but it’s the opposite. No matter where I am, she’s six feet under, looking at the soles of my shoes, as if the ground were made of glass.

But tonight I take what’s left of the yams into the living room and stand at the window. I watch the sun go down. Soon all I can see is my reflection, the bowl of yams. One by one, the lights come on in the building across from ours. You might think that when I lived in that apartment on Pacific Boulevard, I spent a lot of time watching women undress, but no. Just other men. We stood in front of our windows. We moved from room to room. Eddie. Eddie, my man. It’s Stuart’s voice in my head now. That time, years ago, when we did lines until our jaws hurt. Back when he had bad habits too. We drove to a lookout in one of his fancy cars and stared at the city. He swept his hand across the sky as if he could brush it all away with his fingertips. Eddie, he said to me. Eddie. Why is life such a struggle for you?

Read more from Issue 19.1.