Fortunate Son

“What we have is what we need,” she said with conviction.

Eric thought that he was directionless in this jungle of a girl, directionless but not lost.

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A year pas se d for the brothers. Thomas went twice to New York and found Clea there waiting for him. In that year he had not cut himself or fallen down, nor was he stopped by the police even once. Every day he woke up early and sat with his stepfather. They read the newspaper and talked about the events in the world. Minas seemed infinitely interested in Thomas’s ideas and point of view.

“You’re so much like your mother that it’s uncanny,” Minas said to Thomas.

“She was the kindest person in the world,” Thomas would say.

“Yes, she was,” Minas agreed, “and as long as you are here she will never be gone.”

Eric relaxed. He experienced a profound love for his daughter now that he wasn’t afraid he’d do her harm. They’d spend hours playing games and going to amusement parks and the zoo.

His feelings for Raela never changed, but this didn’t bother him. She was his sail, he thought, and he was her ship. They were ancient archetypes instead of real people.

Sometimes when thinking this, Eric became terribly sad.

He’d see himself like a reflection in a mirror, unable to reach out into the world of flesh and bone. But at those times Raela would come to him, and he realized that even in isolation he wasn’t completely alone.

And he also had Thomas. The brothers saw each other at least three times a week.

“You know, the more I think about what you said,” Eric was telling Thomas at the stone animal park, “the more I think that it’s true.”

“What?”

“That you’re the one who’s lucky. You loving life makes 2 9 8

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you like that. There’s nowhere you can go where you don’t feel at home.”

“Like a snake,” Thomas said, happy to continue the conversation he’d had so many years ago with Bruno. “A snake can go anywhere he wants to.”

“See that? If somebody called you a snake, even that would make you happy. You can’t get much luckier than that.”

M i c ha e l C ot te r was driving Thomas every day by the end of the year. Thomas had talked to Michael almost as much as to his brother or Clea. He’d told him about the alley parrot chanting “no man” and Alicia in her cinder-block tomb. He talked about his years as a drug dealer and in the youth facility and as the child husband of Monique and de facto father of Lily.

“I called Clea at lunch, and she told me that she applied to UCLA and that they accepted her,” Thomas said to Michael on their ride home after work one day. “She asked me if I wanted her to come out here and live with me.”

“And what did you say?” Michael asked.

“I said absolutely.”

“Congratulations, my man.”

“Thanks. You know, she says that after she graduates, we’ll figure out whether or not to go back to New York.”

“Hey, man, that’s great. We should celebrate that. I got to see somebody today, but why don’t we have a drink tomorrow to toast you and your girlfriend.”

“Okay. Great.”

That n i g h t th e whole family got together to celebrate. Eric, Mona, Raela, Ahn, and Minas were all there. Michael came with 2 9 9

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Doris. Michael had gone to live on a date farm in the desert.

He’d grown a beard and dropped out of college. He no longer communicated with Raela’s parents (that’s how he began to think of Kronin and Maya). Doris drank too much sometimes, and when she did she got rowdy. But Michael said that he loved her, and Raela spent weekends with them once a month.

“It’s been a long journey, Tommy,” Minas said, holding up a glass of cognac. “But I think you’ve made it through.”

They all drank and cheered.

Raela played the piano for them, and Ahn sang a Vietnamese song that she remembered from her youth before coming to America.

Sometime late in the evening, Eric took his brother into the garden.

Eric seemed older. There could often be seen a slight smile on his lips. His shoulders sagged slightly, and he paid a lot of attention to people around him.

“You think you’ll marry Clea?” Eric asked.

“She’s too young,” Thomas said. “She just wants to go to school and have some fun.”

“Will you live together?”

“Yeah. Maybe we’ll get a place near Fontanot’s or some kinda student housing thing.”

Eric put his arms around Thomas, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “You’re my brother, Tommy.”

Thomas went to bed happy and fell into a dream.

He was in his alley valley again, and all the trash was gone.

No Man and his wife were in the oak tree with a dozen parrot chicks crying for food. Skully was there and so was Pedro.

Bruno was sitting on the other side of the fence reading a Fantastic Four comic. Thomas was sitting in the shade of the big oak watching the sun creep across the floor of the alley 3 0 0

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toward his feet. He was feeling completely relaxed when the surface he was sitting on started to shift.