Needless to say I am the shittiest basketball player in the gym, especially compared to these black guys who are half my age, but they respect veterans and sometimes they even let me get a shot off. I know every single one of them can jump over fucking skyscrapers, so I only get shots off when they let me. They don’t make it too obvious, and everyone on both sides—all of the brothers—whoop it up for me when one of my shots eventually tickles the twine because it usually takes me five or six tries, during which they yell words of encouragement.
Sometimes I even grab some chicken wings with these guys afterward at this local bar they frequent. Only I shouldn’t eat too many chicken wings on account of my shitty health, and Timmy has a heart attack himself whenever he finds out I’ve been eating chicken with the brothers. It’s his job to keep me healthy, and white people get extremely fat when we eat fried chicken slathered in hot sauce and blue cheese. I always argue, saying I eat the celery they serve with the wings too, but Timmy doesn’t give a shit about that.
My son gets real touchy when I talk about these basketball players. Hank is afraid of black people, although he will never admit it. I’m not afraid of anyone. And that’s mostly why I am down with the brothers, who even teach me their secret handshakes, which means I am almost an honorary black myself, no matter what the fuck my son says.
On the night of our homo-hetero rainbow dinner party, I combed Ella’s hair and told her that my friends Timmy and Johnny would surely notice how her hair was styled and so we had better pick carefully. Ella asked for a French braid, but I have already told you how I feel about the French, and so we went with traditional American pigtails, which was Ella’s second choice. Hank had gone all in for the dinner party, even though I didn’t tell him we would be having gay guests. He even cooked a small amount of meat, albeit tuna, which he seared for an Asian salad, no doubt thinking of Sue’s preferences.
He had purchased a new outfit too—some jeans that cost more than your car and a sweater that looked like you could not throw it in the washing machine but had to send it to a good trustworthy Asian dry cleaner. And he had styled his hair with gel so that he looked like a homo sailor from the fifties. It made me smile because it was exactly how Johnny and Timmy styled their hair, so I knew they would be impressed with my son’s effort, even though he was almost bald.
I was hoping that the new fancy outfit was for Sue, who hadn’t been by in some time and hadn’t talked to Hank on the phone either. I know, because I watched my son put in his cell phone code one night, and then I started checking his in-and outgoing calls when he wasn’t looking. On his phone I could also check his e-mail—which was mostly art-world business bullshit I will never understand—and it was clear that Hank and Sue had not been in contact. I wondered if my seizure at the art museum had fucked up everything.
One alarming bit of news my domestic espionage turned up was the fact that Hank had been talking to Femke nightly after my meds knocked my ass out for the day, which was strange, because that would be the middle of the night for Femke, who—according to my understanding at that moment—was on Amsterdam time, so two a.m. and sometimes even later for her. There was a story there, and I knew it couldn’t be good for any American patriot anywhere, but I also knew I’d catch hell if Hank found out I was spying on him via his phone, so I couldn’t say shit to him about it. Every night I would try to stay awake so that I could catch him red-handed, but the army of pills in my system would win out and overtake my consciousness around nine p.m. like clockwork. I was out cold a half hour later.
Me, myself, I was wearing nothing but camouflage those days. I feel safest in my lucky army-issued outfit, and I had been through a lot in a short amount of time at that juncture. My friends all understood and didn’t say anything about my dressing like a soldier. The black dudes at the fitness club sometimes wore camouflage too, which was another reason we got along, even though they had never been in the military. But I shined up my combat boots for that dinner party. That was my contribution to the night’s ambience. I also groomed my beard and used the brand-new nose-and-ear hair trimmer Hank had discreetly left on the guest-room dresser. I’m not a moron. I got that fucking hint.
My friends all took the train into Jersey from the city, so they arrived en masse. As soon as they were in Hank’s house, Timmy and Johnny began to freak out.
“Oh. My. God,” Johnny said, pointing at my son’s racist painting.
“Is that an original Eggplant X?” Timmy said.
The ends of Hank’s proud smile almost knocked his ears clear off his head as he told them all about his business relationship with his top-selling artist. It was a lucky night for Hank, because within five minutes of meeting my friends he had all but sold one of Eggplant X’s works in progress. Hank didn’t even know Timmy and Johnny’s names yet, but that didn’t stop him from inviting them both to Eggplant X’s forthcoming showing, which made them literally jump up and down. By the way they dressed and the twenty-thousand-dollar-plus matching Patek Philippe watches they each wore on their left wrists like gay wedding bands—I think they call them commitment watches or some such gay terminology, but I’m not sure—it was easy to see that Timmy and Johnny had a shit-ton of money.
Hank loves money just like everyone else, and I appreciate that about my son because love of money is American, but I hadn’t scheduled this dinner party to make Hank’s pockets fatter. So I said, “These are my very best gay friends, Johnny and Timmy. And this is my only son, Hank.”
“You don’t have to announce the fact that they’re gay, Dad,” Hank fired at me in this bitchy way that Johnny and Timmy picked up on immediately.
“Why?” Johnny said. “It’s not an insult, last time I checked.”
Hank’s face became the eggplant in the room, he was so embarrassed to have made a faux pas. I felt a little bad for him. Like I said before, the gays are a lot like cobras, and Johnny had definitely flared his hood at my son’s attempt to embarrass me. I appreciated Johnny’s getting my back, even though I didn’t need any help when it came to putting Hank in his place.
In an effort to deescalate the situation, I said, “Hank’s real name is Henri. I call him Hank, but he prefers Henri.”
Johnny and Timmy nodded, and an astonished Hank said, “Wow.”
“Why wow?” Timmy said.
“My father has never once introduced me as Henri,” Hank said.
“His mother named him, but she’s dead,” I said.
“Where’s Ella?” Sue asked. Once she learned that my granddaughter was in her bedroom, my best friend was up the stairs like a mother hen to round up her chick.
“These are for you,” Johnny said, extending a fancy bag full of wine to Hank.
Hank looked inside and said, “These are fantastic bottles. Thank you,” which probably meant everyone but me would be drinking wine that cost at least two hundred dollars a pop, because Hank wouldn’t have been impressed if it had been anything under that.