How to Talk to a Widower

1

    RUSS IS STONED. YOU CAN SEE IT IN THE WHITES OF his eyes, which are actually more of a glazed pink under the flickering yellow porch light, in the dark discs of his dilated pupils, in the way his eyelids hang sluggishly at half-mast, and in the careless manner in which he leans nonchalantly against the pissed-off cop that is propping him up at my front door, like they’re drinking buddies staggering out into the night after last call. It’s just past midnight, and when the doorbell rang I was sprawled out in my usual position on the couch, half asleep but entirely drunk, torturing myself by tearing memories out of my mind at random like matches from a book, striking them one at a time and drowsily setting myself on fire.
    “What happened?” I say.
    “He got into a fight with some other kids down at the 7-Eleven,” the cop says, holding on to the top of Russ’s arm. And now I can see the lacerations and bruises on Russ’s face, the angry sickle-shaped scratch across his neck. His black T-shirt has been stretched beyond repair and torn at the neck, and his ear is bleeding where one of his earrings was snagged.
    “You okay?” I say to Russ.
    “Fuck you, Doug.”
    It’s been a while since I last saw him, and he’s cultivated some facial hair, a rough little soul patch just beneath his bottom lip.
    “You’re not his father?” the cop says.
    “No. I’m not.” I rub my eyes with my fists, trying to gather my wits about me. The bourbon had been singing me its final lullaby, and in the freshly shattered stillness, everything still feels like it’s underwater.
    “He said you were his father.”
    “He kind of disowned me,” Russ says bitterly.
    “I’m his stepfather,” I say. “I used to be, anyway.”
    “You used to be.” The cop says this with the expression of someone who’s tasted some bad Thai food, and gives me a hard look. He’s a big guy—you’d have to be to hold up Russ, who at sixteen is already over six feet tall, broad and stocky. “You look young enough to be his brother.”
    “I was married to his mother,” I say.
    “And where is she?”
    “She’s gone.”
    “He means she’s dead,” Russ says contemptuously. He raises his hand and lowers it in a descending arc, whistling as it goes down, and then hissing through his teeth to generate the sound effect of an explosion. “Buh-bye.”
    “Shut up, Russ.”
    “Make me, Doug.”
    The cop tightens his thick fingers around Russ’s arm. “Keep quiet, son.”
    “I’m not your son,” Russ snarls, trying in vain to tear himself away from the cop’s iron grip. “I’m not anybody’s son.”
    The cop presses him easily up against the doorpost to quash his flailing arms and then turns back to me. “And the father?”
    “I don’t know.” I turn back to Russ. “Where’s Jim?”
    Russ shrugs. “Down in Florida for a few days.”
    “What about Angie?”
    “She’s with him.”
    “They left you alone?”
    “It was just for two nights. They’ll be back tomorrow.”
    “Angie,” the cop says.
    “His father’s wife.”
    The cop looks annoyed, like we’re giving him a headache. I want to explain everything to him, show him that it’s really not as screwed up as it all sounds, but then I remember that it is.
    “So the kid doesn’t live here?”
    “He used to,” I say. “I mean, this was his mother’s house.”
    “Look,” the cop says wearily. He’s a middle-aged guy, with a graying caterpillar of a mustache and tired eyes. “Whatever he’s been smoking, I didn’t find any of it on him. My shift is just about over, and I have no desire to spend another hour processing the kid over a stupid parking-lot scuffle. I’ve got three boys of my own. He’s being a hard-ass now, but he cried in the squad car and asked me to bring him here. So this is how it works. I can take him to the station and write him up for a handful of misdemeanors, or you can let him in and promise me that it will never happen again.”
    Russ just stares sullenly at me, like this is all my fault.
    “It will never happen again,” I say.
    “Okay, then.” The cop releases Russ, who whips his arm away violently and then bolts into the house and up the stairs to his room, shooting me a look of unrefined hatred that pierces the blubber of my drunken stupor like a harpoon.
    “Thank you, Officer,” I say to the cop. “He’s really a good kid. He’s just had a tough year.”
    “Just so you know,” the cop says, scratching his chin