Page 35 - WTP VOl. X #3

Then a pounding on the door startled him and in a continuous motion he flushed the toilet, ran the sink for three seconds, and stepped out, through the crowd, up the stairs. He didn’t see Cousin Andy watching him with curiosity as they exchanged places.
III.
It was a merry scene on December 23rd. Jason’s mother, Miriam, rummaged through the refrigerator while still wearing oven mitts. Jason’s father had just gotten off the phone with Cousin Andy and leaned his forearms on the counter, so he was level with Jason. A glass of wine in his hand, he was trying to explain Andy to his son:
“The thing is, Andy is brilliant. I don’t mean you-or- me smart—I mean he just—say someone’s talking about Darwin, Einstein, all these names you hear and think you know. He speaks their language. One of them could walk through this door tomorrow and they’d start right up together.”
“Why doesn’t Aunt Olivia like him?” said Jason.
“It started when Andy declared Ernst Mach a Bud- dhist and Einstein an Epicurean,” said Miriam. “And she called him a goof. Or was it ‘nincompoop’?”
“He was talking about gravitational waves,” said Jason’s father. “You’ll understand better when you’re older... but essentially he said a Buddhist would side with Ernst Mach—you haven’t heard of him, but: ‘a Buddhist would side with Ernst Mach and an Epicu- rean would side with Einstein.’”
“And to this day nobody has any idea what that means,” said Miriam, as she searched through the wine rack for a cheap bottle for marinade, still wear-
ing oven mitts.
Cousin Andy loomed like a lesson over Jason’s father’s earliest childhood. Ten years the elder, he was a model of good hair and teeth, well-bred athleticism, good grades, and vigorous friends. He doted on his younger cousin, who idolized him in return.
“I learned more from your Cousin Andy than any teacher,” Jason’s father continued. “For one thing, he was a genius when it came to inventing games. You know, with hidden traps, goblins behind every door, hooded riddlemasters out front. And then his card tricks, and the way he mocked our teachers, called them ‘the wise and learnèd men’—and they all loved him anyway.”
A clatter of glass and scooting chairs called attention to the far end of the table. Andy had knocked over a saltshaker with his elbow and, in his apology, a glass of red wine. He whipped out a napkin, dabbed the wine, and almost knocked over a water glass, all while hur- riedly talking about the new legislature.
“I wish you could have known him then. Do you re- member his ex-wife? Carol, not Sunny. Nothing like Sunny, that bony—what was it you said Miriam? ‘Always trying to move furniture around.’ How many times did I end up on one end of a couch, with Sunny bracing herself against the other end? Remember when I drove the foot over the toe of her shoe, and she called me a—?”
“Yes,” said Miriam.
“And their pistachio game—”
“They would look into each other’s eyes,” said Miri- am, allowing herself to be amused, and holding an imaginary pistachio in steady focus before her eyes, “With a pistachio between them. And they’d take turns guessing the calories, and then he’d pop it into her mouth, or his own, without breaking eye contact.”
“Fitness was her thing,” said Jason’s father. “But he stuck with it after they split up. Remember last year? Olivia wanted his head when he finally showed up, stinking from the tennis court, you know. But your mother kept a straight face. I’ll never forget her look- ing over his shoulder at those pictures he wanted to show us and steering him upstairs to a shower and change of clothes. Polite, asking him questions, and just physically steering him toward that staircase!” laughed Jason’s father.
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