Randy and Jude had been born with their mother’s handsome bones and straight white teeth. They had been blessed with her piercing eyes and frightening intelligence.
From Seth, they had received their four-cylinder engines that moved them slowly along, and with little direction or passing power or drive. Randy and Jude were happy enough simply to exist and go nowhere in a hurry. They drew gratification and joy from their dreams, and from regular customers in whatever restaurant employed them from one year to the next. They were happy with the understanding women who loved them anyway. Randy was proud of his bit parts in movies no one saw. Jude was thrilled to be in any jazz bar he and the guys got gigs in, and he played the drums with passion, whether the audience was ten people or eighty.
Oddly, it had never been their rocket-charged mother who could not live with the sons’ something less than stellar accomplishments in life. It was Seth who was disgusted and ashamed. Their father had proved so totally lacking in understanding and patience, that the sons had moved far away. Of course. Hammer understood the psychological dynamics. Seth’s hatred for his sons was his hatred for himself. It didn’t take great acumen to deduce that much. But knowing the reason had changed nothing. It had required tragedy, a grave illness, to reunite this family.
“Mom, you holding up?” Jude was in back of Hammer’s personal car. He was rubbing her shoulders as she drove.
“I’m trying.”
She swallowed hard as Randy looked at her with “Well, I don’t want to see him,” said Randy, cradling flowers he had bought for his father in the airport.
“That’s understandable,” Hammer said, switching lanes, eyes in the mirrors. It had begun to rain.
“How are my babies?”
“Great,” Jude said.
“Benji’s learning to play sax.”
“I can’t wait to hear it. What about Owen?”
“Not quite old enough for instruments, but she’s my boogie baby. Every time she hears music, she dances with Spring,” Jude went on, referring to the child’s mother.
“God, Mom, you’ll die when you see it. It’s hilarious!”
Spring was the artist Jude had lived with in Greenwich Village for eight years. Neither of Hammer’s sons was married. Each had two children, and Hammer adored every fine golden hair on their small lovely heads. It was her bleeding, buried fear that they were growing up in distant cities with only infrequent contact with their rather legendary grandmother. Hammer did not want to be someone they might someday talk about but had never known.
“Smith and Fen wanted to come,” said Randy, taking his mother’s hand.
“It’s gonna be all right. Mom.” He felt another stab of hate for his father.
West didn’t know what to do with her prisoner of the evening. Brazil was slumped down in the seat, arms crossed, his posture defiant and decidedly without remorse. He refused to look at her now, but stared out the windshield at bugs and bats swirling beneath lights. He watched truckers in pointed cowboy boots and jeans strolling out to their mighty steeds, and leaning against cabs, propping a foot on the running board, hands cupped around a cigarette, as they lit up like the Marlboro Man.
“You got your cigarettes?” Brazil asked West. She looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
“Forget it.
“I want one.”
“Yeah, right. You’ve never smoked in your life, and I’m not going to be the reason you start,” she said, and she wanted one, too.
“You couldn’t possibly know whether I’ve ever smoked a cigarette or pot or anything else,” he said in the strange tone of intoxication.
“Ha! You think you know so much. You don’t know shit. Cops. And their dark, narrow alleyways for minds.”
“Really? I thought you were a cop. Or have you quit that, too?”
He stared miserably out his side window.
West felt sorry for him, mad as she was. She wished she knew what was wrong, exactly.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” She tried another tactic, poking Brazil, this time not playfully.
He did not respond.
“Trying to ruin your life? What if some other cop spotted you first?”