Between Me and You Page 24

  “To know my brother was to love my brother,” he says, then stops. He winces, shakes his head. I know he is criticizing himself, telling himself that if there were ever a time for him to display his command of words, of language, it is now. Or at least I think he is doing this. He looks so different from the man I’ve grown older with that it’s hard to even say what is running through his mind. If I could reach him, speak to him, though, I’d tell him that his words could start to heal us, heal him; his words, like many of the brilliant ones he’s penned before this, can help someone see something in a whole new light. Not that Leo’s death should be seen in a whole new light. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But Ben will have to try to see it in a different light, or else the weight of his grief will bog him down forever.

  “Come on, baby,” I whisper under my breath, and Joey looks at me and says, loudly, “What, Mama?”

  Ben’s eyes move from the dirt at our feet toward me, then toward Joey, and something steadies in him. I think something steadies in him at least, but then his gaze is back at our feet, then toward the deep hole in which Leo will be lowered, where he’ll rest next to Paul, his father, forever.

  “I should have saved him,” Ben says to the mourners. “I always worried that in the end, we could save only ourselves. But that’s not true. Because I could have saved him. I didn’t. And I don’t know how you ever let go of something like that.”

  I want to race to Ben, I want to tell him that he’s not alone up there, that we can save each other, that this is the entire point of everything we’ve done, everything we’ll do. But I find that I’m unable to move, weighed down by what—my shame? my guilt? the crevasse that is growing between us?—and instead, I lower my head to my chest, and I weep.

  27

  BEN

  SEPTEMBER 2003

  I am greeted like Moses at the Red Sea at Toronto, the figurative waters parting in front of me. We are here to screen All the Men, my follow-up to Romanticah, and the studio has sent early clips and bits and pieces to all the important press: Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, all the papers whose reviews can launch a career into the stratosphere. The early buzz is hot—Spencer, my agent, calls it “so fucking hot it’s like an all-ten stripper joint,” and I’m swept up in the wave of accolades, despite knowing better. Despite the fact that what matters most to me is Tatum and our life back home, well, fuck, who wouldn’t want the praise and the heralding and the calls that I might be the once-in-a-lifetime voice of my generation? I never thought this mattered, the fawning attention, the over-the-top praise, but it turns out that I was wrong about parts of myself, that it’s more than a little bit gratifying to be told that you’re “the fucking shit, man.”

  The studio flies us out to Toronto first class, and Spencer and I each drink four Bloody Marys and don’t notice the turbulence or the bump on the landing. I invited Tatum to come, but she’d snagged a few decent auditions this same week, and given how hard she’d fought to even be seen by casting directors, I wasn’t about to tell her to abandon it for a few days in Toronto. And I don’t think that she would have wanted to anyway: that’s not who Tatum is, and that’s not what I’d want from her, to ask her to set her aspirations aside for mine.

  Instead, I sent Leo a ticket for the long weekend. That the dates coincided with the second anniversary of our father’s death wasn’t coincidental. I mean, coincidental on the part of the festival, but not on my part. I didn’t want to jet to New York to wallow in grief that only makes me angry. I’m still grieving, of course, but I take it out on my early morning runs with metal rock playing too loudly in my ears or by racing down the 405 too quickly, jutting in and out of traffic, like my grief has made me more dangerous, like it cuts through me like a knife’s edge, and if I move quickly enough, furiously enough, I won’t feel the pain.

  Tatum will ask me about it on those mornings when I come home, my T-shirt clinging to my chest, the music still blaring in the headphones around my neck.

  “Your dad?” she’ll say, and curl up on the couch and wait for me to answer however I need to.

  Sometimes just that she is asking, absorbing my rage, is enough. The grief quiets itself for the moment.

  Other times I’ll sink next to her and talk about how angry I am that he isn’t here to see my success, how angry I am that he was such an unforgiving bastard, and yet also, how much I miss him because it’s not like he was like that always—how goofy he was in the way he loved our dog, Bitsy, how he’d insist on buying my mom flowers every Friday, delighting in how he could surprise her with a new type each week. And it’s not like he wasn’t right most of the time too. About what it took to drive me, about the motivation and work ethic that I needed to succeed.

  “It’s OK that it’s complicated,” Tatum will say. “God knows that nothing about my own parents was uncomplicated.”

  “So why aren’t you as angry as I am?”

  She’ll rest her head on my shoulder and consider this, and I can hear her breathing, her chest rising and falling, and then she’ll say something luminous like: “I had a long time to mourn that my mom was sick, so it’s easier to get past the injustice of it, you know?” She doesn’t mention her dad, the injustice of his alcoholism and how it stripped so much of her adolescent innocence.

  We’ll sit that way until my rage has subsided, as if she can soak up my angst just by proximity, and then I’ll rise and shower and go to work and pretend, for the moment, that my grief isn’t still there, as present as my heartbeat.

  So no, now, come September on the two-year anniversary of his death, I was not going back to New York for the anniversary, to stew in the injustice of it all.

  I tell myself that, instead, I grieve for him by honoring his work ethic, by being my best, by being the best and not accepting anything less, by steering Leo toward the same.

  Leo’s already in the room when Spencer and I coast up to the arching hotel driveway in the town car arranged by the studio.

  “Hey, big bro,” he says, slapping my back after I slide my keycard into the hotel room door. He surprises me by pulling me into a hug. I’m still a little tipsy from the flight. “Let’s party.”

  “I gotta nap,” I say. “Then I have to work.” I face-plant on the bed.

  “Whoa, dude. What’s my responsible big brother doing drunk in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “Tired,” I say into the pillow. “So, so tired.”

  “I’ll occupy myself, no worries.”

  “Call me,” I mumble, and then the Bloody Marys take hold, and I sleep.

  I wake to the darkness. Leo must have pulled the blackout shades, which is so endearing it slays me. That kid trying to take care of me. That’s supposed to be my job. Taking care of him.

  I push myself up to my elbows, then gingerly swing my feet over to the floor. This hangover, though. My head is beating like a marching band. I never day-drink, and even when I night-drink, it’s not usually four or five in a sitting, like on the flight. A glass of wine or two, maybe two martinis to take the edge off, kick back at the end of the day. Over the summer, when I had the time, Tatum and I would grill fresh fish on the tiny patio in the back of the bungalow, and then, yes, a cold beer with a lime wedged down the neck was perfect. But I’ve never done well with waking to regret, never been the type to be OK vomiting into a toilet at all hours. (Not that anyone is really OK with this, but some of us choose it more often than others.)

  I check the nightstand clock. I’m due at a dinner in forty-five minutes; then I have three party invites. The thought of eating and/or partying is enough to raise a small burst of bile, but I swallow it down and reach for my phone in my back pocket. I debate whom to call first: Tatum or Leo. I settle on Tatum but I’m shot to her voicemail. It’s almost four o’clock in LA; she’d be leaving one of her auditions.

  “Hey, babe, hope you slayed it. I must have missed you but let me know how it went. Love you.”

  I buzz Leo but he’s also not answering. I shoot him a quick e-m
ail:

  Dinner until prob 10pm. Meet me at the Sony party after?

  I stand up in the darkened hotel room, arch my back, groan, then peel off the dank airplane clothes and head toward the shower.

  Spencer wants me to handshake with Marvin and Steven Feinberg. (“Marv” and “Steve” if you know them.) Tatum had told me insider stories about Marvin that would curl your hair (involving but not limited to casting couches, bribery, blackmail, and some vague, potential felonies), but there is no one hotter right now, and if Marvin fucking Feinberg wants to shake my hand and butter my bread, I’m certainly not going to spurn him. Welcome to Hollywood, baby, where half your job is deciding how to shave slivers off your moral compass while still keeping it just enough in check for it to guide you toward superstardom.

  Spencer put Leo’s name on the guest list, so the bouncer informs me that he’s already arrived when we roll in around eleven p.m.

  I wade through a sea of half-dressed starlets who look both angular and bored, shake hands with a few executives who assure me of my greatness, stop for a quick catch-up with James Austin, inarguably the hottest actor around right now. I’m considering penning a Kennedy biopic that focuses on his assassination—One Day in Dallas is my working title. He tells me he might be game, to send it to him when it’s done. When he meanders off to fawn over a girl who looks no more than eighteen, it’s hard not to puff out my chest, feel the rush of confidence that comes from playing in the big leagues, of orbiting in this kind of stratosphere. I’m Hollywood’s It boy. Fuck it, I enjoy it.

  I find Leo in the corner, lounging on a purple velvet couch, his arm draped on an actress who won a Golden Globe a few years back. Tatum and I had watched the show together, and I remember Tatum saying: “Good for her. She’s so untalented, this is a real coup.” I laughed so hard at the backhanded compliment that I had to run to the sink and spit out my drink.

  “Dude,” he shouts, leaping to his feet. “Where have you been? Have you met Mina?”

  “No.” I extend my hand. “Nice to meet you, Mina.”

  She curls her face into something like a constipated smile, then removes a vial from her purse and eyeballs my brother.

  “Be right back,” he says. “Don’t move. I’ll never find you again.”

  “Leo . . .” I feel the blood flush my cheeks. Too much booze I can ignore, I can even indulge in; drugs are a more dangerous territory for a mostly buttoned-up me.

  “Don’t be a prude, man. It’s coke. Big fucking deal.”

  “Since when do you do coke?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t. No time like the present.”

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s get a drink. Don’t start with this shit.”

  “Just a line or two.”

  “How the fuck do you know what just a line or two is or will do?”

  He shrugs again. “I’m not a kid anymore, Ben. I get to make my own choices.” He brushes past me, then turns. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like Dad,” he says. “Right now, you look exactly fucking like Dad. So don’t.”

  I want to say a million things, like: He wasn’t perfect, but he actually knew a thing or two, and if I could look or act even fractionally like him, it would be a blessing, or, Don’t shit on his grave by being an asshole tonight and snorting away his memory, or, Come on, Leo, I love you, man.

  But I say none of this. I’m not my dad, and even if I were anything close, he mostly parented with tough love that I don’t have in me at eleven p.m. at a Hollywood party in Toronto where everyone is singing of my genius. Leo detects this momentary weakness and salutes me, and then disappears into a crowd of people who aren’t too different from me: along for the ride, unsure where they’re going, unsure of where they’ll land when the carousel stops but willing to take the chance anyway.

  28

  TATUM

  SEPTEMBER 2012

  The road trip seemed like a good idea when I proposed it. Let’s drive to Texas like we did years ago! Bring Joey! It will be the perfect way to spend Labor Day weekend, the last gasp of vacation before I have to report to work.

  I was due in Austin the first week of September, not ideal timing because Joey was starting a new school for pre-K, and I’d have to fly to LA for the morning drop-off, then fly right back to Texas to make the day on set. But the Oscar win had given me all sorts of clout, and when the studio told me I could direct the little project I’d agreed to star in—nothing big, just a fifteen-million-dollar gimme about Roe v. Wade that won’t generate a huge box office but will generate some critical praise (if I direct it correctly, as I intend to, of course)—I wasn’t about to turn it down because I’d be jetting back and forth for day one of school.

  I’ve forgotten how hot it is, in these canyons through Arizona, how boring hours on end trapped in the back seat can be for a four-year old. Ben is driving because I am returning e-mails on my phone, when Joey starts whining again that he’s hungry. I hand him a granola bar, which he throws on the floor. I hand him a ziplock bag of Cheerios, which he whips open and dumps on the floor. I pass him an apple juice, which seems to placate him for a hot second, and then he squeezes the box and turns the straw into a fountain, which sprays Ben on the back of his neck. He’s been going through this phase—we call it the terrible fours—where he pushes our buttons to see whom he can set off first. It’s always Ben, who tells me I try to be too much of Joey’s friend, while he’s left playing the heavy, the bad cop, the enforcer, which just makes Joey press his buttons all over again.

  “Jesus Christ!” Ben barks, swerving momentarily across the yellow line of the mostly deserted highway.

  I place a hand on his leg, try to calm him. He’s been this way for the full year and ensuing months since Leo died: like a live grenade that, if touched the wrong way, could detonate without warning.

  “I want French fries!” Joey shrieks. “French fries!”

  I type “McDonald’s” into the map on my phone, but service is terrible, and my in-box tells me that e-mails from the past hour have not gone through. Locating a McDonald’s isn’t happening for the foreseeable future.

  “We’ll find you McDonald’s, Jojo,” I say. “But you have to hang in there.”

  Ben sighs audibly, as if he can’t believe I’m placating this shit. I shouldn’t be. Probably. But we’re in the middle of nowhere, and the kid wants McDonald’s, so this doesn’t feel like the hill (or mountain canyon) I want to die on.

  “How long?” Joey crosses his arms. With his angry red cheeks brought on by repeatedly lowering the window, gasping at the whoosh of heat, then raising it again, he looks just like my father used to when he’d come home drunk.

  “I don’t know, buddy, but try to go to sleep. That will make it go by faster.”

  He narrows his eyes at me, suspicious. Like time can’t go by faster than time can go by. He’s not wrong. Like Ben and I wouldn’t will this horrific year to fast-forward until his grief has abated, until we’ve recalibrated and found our way back to normal.

  “Remember when we did this?” I say to Ben, who has turned the radio up too loud in an effort to signal to Joey that we won’t be held hostage to his complaining, that we can possibly drown it out. I notch the dial down again, and Ben glances toward me as if to say: I don’t want to hear his whining, so please don’t give him a voice. “Remember how we ran out of gas?”

  “How you ran out of gas,” he says, without the humor to match my own.

  “It was fun!” I poke his side, and he adjusts just a tiny flicker of a movement away from me. He’s doing this more often now, pulling away, flinching as if he were in pain. He is in pain, though, so I try not to take it personally. Even though, of course, it is personal. Our greatest strength had always been that we saw in each other exactly what the other needed, that we could intuit it without words, without anything other than being in the other’s presence. Now, who knows what Ben needs? Not me. Because he won’t let me see him, becau
se he doesn’t try to see me. I tell myself that maybe I brought this on us: like he senses that I deceived him with Leo, and this is my just reward.

  I pull my hand away from him now, rest it back in my lap. Maybe I deserve his coolness; I could have done better by him, could have told him the truth, even if he’s not aware of my deception. Maybe he is, in the way that we always understood each other. Maybe now he knows, without even knowing it, that I have done him wrong.

  “I seem to remember that I reminded you about ten times to fill up the tank,” he says, as we curve around a bend.

  “But if we had, I’d never have given you such a perfect story for the script you’ll write for me one day.” My voice is too light. I can hear myself trying too hard.

  I see something clench in his jaw. This is a sticking point between us—how many times I’ve asked; how many times he’s deflected. I probably should have just let it rest since we’re trapped in a car together until we reach McDonald’s or wherever we pull off because Joey can’t take it for another second. Ben dropped out of Code Emergency in the spring, despite its huge ratings for Fox, despite its multiyear pickup, which was almost unprecedented. He didn’t want to write “some bullshit hospital garbage,” he said. He didn’t want to waste the best years of his life on “fucking shitty TV.” I’d said fine. I’d said, “Do whatever you have to in order to be happy,” but Ben was like a weathervane on a windy day, spinning back and forth with no direction at all, no idea whatsoever what would make him happy. So I’d propose writing something for me, and unlike when we used to banter about how it could be our something great we’d do together, now he just tells me that he doesn’t want to ride on my coattails, that he doesn’t want people to think that I’m the only reason the project had wings. If I argue, he’ll remind me that I once said the very same thing to him back in my early years. And then he usually leaves the room to pour himself a drink.