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It turned out that, like me, he had a history of varied employment. “I got my first job when I was twelve, babysitting,” he said. “I only lost one.”
“A kid? You lost a kid?”
“Just the one, though,” he explained. “And I found him pretty quick. It only took a few hours.”
After that, he’d worked in a library, as a pizza delivery driver, moving furniture, and selling candles. “That was awful. I couldn’t get the smell of the store off myself. I would go to practice and everyone would start sniffing…” He winced.
“Did they make fun of you?” I asked sympathetically.
“I was almost the same size in high school that I am now. They were a little intimidated by that and didn’t say much, even if I did have the aroma of Bahamian Breezes and Apple Spice Autumn. I got fired anyway, because I knocked over a huge display and broke more candles than I sold. That was probably for the best.”
“You have a good work ethic,” I complimented him.
“I didn’t have much choice. You may not have noticed, but I’m a big guy. I needed to eat. My father never worked anything steady and he wanders, too. Sometimes he would leave for weeks at a time. And my mom…” He stopped and looked at me for a moment. “She drinks. I think you understand how that is.”
I nodded, understanding it well.
“So you know how nothing’s regular. Nothing’s a given, like getting your permission slip signed, finding clean clothes to wear, having food in the refrigerator.”
I thought of how much he’d bought today, how the cupboards in his kitchen were full and half of the dining room table was also covered in neat stacks of cans and boxes. It must have felt comforting for him to know that it was there if he needed it. “It’s hard for kids,” I agreed. “Did you help your younger brothers?”
“As much as I was able. I tried to make life steadier for them, but when I left for college, things went to hell for a while until I could start sending real money. Well, actually, I don’t send money. I buy stuff.”
“Stuff?”
Bowie nodded. “No one’s too great at handling cash. I bought them a new house rather than filling up their bank account so they could fix up and pay off the mortgage on the old place, because I didn’t know if they’d follow through on that. I have groceries delivered every week so there’s no temptation to spend food money on other things.” He winced. “I treat them like children and I know I’m doing it. It’s probably wrong.”
“No, you have to!” I said. “I don’t think there’s a right answer, except that you have to do things like that. You have to get a handle on whatever you can.”
“To control the uncontrollable.” He shrugged but I nodded. “It works ok. My parents are grateful for the help and so far, they haven’t complained about me keeping them on a leash. Both my brothers are out of the house now and that’s good. I don’t worry as much about them.”
“Are you close? Are you guys friends?”
He sighed. “The way we grew up, with all the chaos and people, with everything always up in the air—I don’t know if that’s the way to cultivate bonds. It kind of becomes every man for himself, but I try. What about Aubin? Does she help you out with your father?”
“They fight a lot. He loves her so much but he makes her crazy. She just used to leave, you know, spending the weekends with her girlfriends or all her time with her boyfriend, whatever she could do to get away. She went away for college, too, because she got a dance scholarship to a school downstate.”
“That was lucky.”
“I also—yes, it was great, but it wasn’t luck. She worked hard for it and she deserved it.”
“We don’t always get what we deserve, though.”
I knew that. “I think it was harder for Aubin because she remembers our mom more, and she remembers how our family used to be before it fell to pieces. I understand why she didn’t want to be a part of things when they were so different.”
“But where did that leave you?”
“I don’t remember our mom as much,” I explained. “For me, our life was normal. Not normal-normal, because I did realize after a while that other families didn’t act like ours, but I could deal with it better than my sister could because I wasn’t making the before-and-after comparisons. Every once in a while, she’ll still say things about when we were a real family and I can see how much it hurts her. That’s why she avoids us a lot, that and my dad getting all over her.”
“For what?”
“He’s always thought that she had potential, that she has so much promise. The Fraziers have been in a spiral for a little while. Like, when my family built our cottage, they were really wealthy,” I said. “They had a big house in Grosse Pointe, outside of Detroit. Then the next few generations didn’t do quite as well, and they had to sell that big house and move to a smaller one in a suburb that wasn’t so fancy. My dad couldn’t hold on to that, either. He’s always struggled and…anyway, Aubin gets tired of hearing how she’s the salvation and then they get into a fight.”
We sat quietly for a moment and when Bowie finally spoke, I jumped. “I sure didn’t invite you over here to make you sad,” he said.
“You didn’t!” I said. “I was only thinking about things.”
“About sad things,” he elaborated.
