“Don’t mind him, Dad,” Anna said kindly. “He didn’t mean it.”
Billy nodded, unable to speak. Ivor seemed oblivious, punching buttons on his PlayStation, sending up rapid gunfire. The boy’s stomach pushed against the table. Breast buds poked through his school shirt. Tricia blamed Billy. “Monkey see, monkey do.”
“What did your mother say about gadgets at the table?” Billy said, suddenly cross. “Put that away.”
Tricia returned and ordered Anna and Ivor upstairs to do homework. As soon as they left, she started in on him. “You couldn’t have talked to me first, before you came out with all that in front of the children?”
“I thought you’d support me, thought you’d see the good I can do.”
Her blue-veined hand pressed her forehead. “My God, why would you want to bring any more attention on us?”
Billy looked down at his chubby hand on the table, his thick fingers moving back and forth on the wood, as if clawing. She wasn’t just referring to the scandal his size had caused them over the years. Her head was also full of accusations out of small mouths and dour faces, people saying Michael was selfish. Weak. Mad. A sinner. Billy didn’t know why she cared so much. To hell with those people.
Four
The next morning, Billy pushed aside his dread and readied to return to work. Yet his late-night fears about his public diet and march nagged. He told himself all of his concerns, all of Tricia’s, would be sent running once he got a strong show of support. For that, he needed to return to the factory and spread the good word.
He had almost made it out of his driveway when his father pulled up in his red Nissan. The seventy-eight-year-old strode toward Billy, one of his dark braces dangling off his shoulder and catching above his elbow, as if trying to get away. The old man brought his white head level with Billy’s open window, his pinched face shrinking his eyes and exaggerating his crow’s-feet. When he spoke, he revealed wet, pink-red gums that took up too much of his mouth. “Quare talk about you carried into Kennedy’s last night.”
Billy felt the sting of betrayal. John must have mouthed off about him and his plans. “I haven’t time for this, I’ve to get to work.”
“Oh, don’t let me keep you.” His father straightened and slapped the car roof. “You might want to phone your mother, though, and let her know there’s no truth to this march and sponsorship business. She’s in a right state.”
“I won’t be phoning her, then, unless you want me to tell her a lie.”
His father’s expression softened. “You’re not in your right mind yet, there’s none of us the same. Can’t you wait and see how you feel down the road? Get the first year over you, at least, before you go putting yourself and the rest of us through something like this. It’s too soon. Too much.”
“I can’t wait, there’s too much at stake,” Billy said.
His father curled his hands around the base of the window. “I’m telling you not to do this. You’re making a mistake. We’ll be all the talk.”
“That’s all you’re worried about, isn’t it?” Billy gunned the accelerator and pulled his car around his father’s Nissan, coming within a sinew’s breadth of the vehicle.
The entire drive to work, Billy seethed. The old man might have looked shaken by what Billy had said, but they both knew he’d spoken the truth. Billy was always all the talk. Even before Billy had become a fat boy, back when fat boys were a rarity, he was considered odd because he hated the family farm, and didn’t ever want to work it, or inherit it, either—a prison that would dictate to him for the rest of his days.
No one understood it. “What’s wrong with him at all?”
His father would look away, embarrassed, maddened. “I don’t know where we got him.”
Once, outside the church, when Billy was about ten, he’d overheard his father lament to Willie Birmingham, a neighbor and big-time farmer, “It doesn’t look as if herself has another one left in her, either, to give me a right son.”
Decades later, and Billy could still hear those words, as fresh as ever inside him.
*
Inside the factory, Billy hurried toward the black phone on the far wall, his head full of what he was going to say. The phone looked like a glossy insect on the red brick. Maybe it was a sign? Maybe he should rethink all this? No. He couldn’t let his dad, anyone, get to him. He grabbed the receiver and pressed Tony’s number, fresh fear blooming.
Right as he was about to hang up and let panic win, Lucy, Tony’s longtime secretary, answered.
“Hello,” he mumbled, his mouth dry and his tongue clingy. “It’s Billy Brennan.”
“Ah, Billy, how are you? No, don’t answer that stupid question. How could you be? How could anyone be? I’ve been praying for you all.”
“I know, thank you. Everyone’s been very good. Listen, I was hoping to meet with Tony sometime today? There’s something important I’d like to discuss.”
“Can I ask what it’s about? You know what he’s like.”