All Families Are Psychotic Read Online Free PDF Page B

selecting those that spoke of his mother — Janet using canned mushroom s to enliven a pot of spaghett i sauce and
    enculturate her bru tes, only to see her family pick them out and mock them; Janet sneaking a twenty-
    dollar bill into Wade's electric gui tar fund; Janet feeding the backyard sparro ws crumbl ed-up melba toast when she though t nobod y was looking — Mom!
    Janet saw Wade, shou ted his name and cried. Wade held her close to him.
    ' Mom, just so you kno w, Dad's going to be pretty pissed off with me, and he migh t well come looking for me.'
    'Did you steal from him — or do you owe him money?' 'Neither.'
    'Then why should he — oh, who cares') He deserves whatever you thro w him. Have you eaten yet? Come in! Have you had dinner? Oh there's so much I want to ask you abou t, and there's so much for you to catch up on.'
    She made a delicious pasta primavera — God, I miss home cooking — and Wade fell qui te eff ortlessly into his version of Wade Ten Years Ago. But throughou t the jokes and fun and memories, he had the
    sensation that within the past few hours his li fe had morph ed into a horror movie, and that this was the sequence where the axe murderer is outside the house, scoping out the patsies, while the audience
    squirm s and shou ts, 'Leave, you idio ts! '
    The doorb ell rang and Wade nearly jumped out of his skin. It was Bryan, his depressed bro ther, in
    drenched thri ft store clothing — still, at his age — in need of a shave, his eyes blood shot, all crowned with a finely maintained mullet hairdo.
    'Bryan, you ring the doorb ell at Mom's house?' 'It was locked.'
    'OK. Hi.'
    'Hi.'
    An awkward silence follo wed as Bryan removed his soaked pea coat and threw it onto a chair. 'So much for formalities,' said Wade. 'Are you hungr y? There's tons of food.'
    'Nah. Wine would be nice, though .'
    Bryan seemed to be in good enough spiri ts and had a glass of white wine with Janet and Wade. Wade had the impression that none of the three was being particularly truthful, and the lack of truth was making the conversation wooden. They stuck to neighborhood gossip and Sarah's career, yet Wade was aware of the deeper, unasked questions: Is Mom imploding with loneliness? Is Bryan on the verge of
    another meltdown? And you'd think Dad never existed. And why don' t they ask me about my li fe? Not that I'd tell them but geez —
    Wade broke the conspiracy of silence. 'Bryan,' he said, 'you've tried to off yourself, what — three times?
    — and never got it righ t. Are you sure you really do want to off yourself?' Janet said, 'Wade! Don' t go giving him fresh impetus.'
    'No, Mom — it 's good to be talking abou t it like this,' Bryan said. 'Everybody pretends I never did anything, but I did.' He registered the looks his mother and bro ther gave him. 'I can see that you're
    wondering if I'm going to try it again. And the answer is no. But then these moods hit me. Shit. I don ' t kno w any more.' He sloshed around what li tt le wine remained in his glass. 'It 's depressing to think that
    my moods aren' t even remotely cosmic, that all they are is the result of lazy li tt le seratonin receptors in my brain.'
    'Are you taking anything for it — your depression?'
    'I've taken everything. I don ' t think I'll ever reset my brain back to zero again.' Janet said, 'Bryan is working .'
    'Really? Where?' Wade asked.
    'I play bass in bar bands, and the TV commercial work is pretty steady. I get by. A nine-to-five job would
    really do me in.'
    The doorb ell rang. The three of them stared down the hall at the fron t door as though the next few seconds were beyond their control, like an eclipse. Bryan went to answer it. Whoomp ! Ted charged past Bryan, booming , 'Where is that sleazy li tt le fuck?' Nickie burst through the door moments after him, her Nissan Pathfinder parked akimbo on the fron t lawn just outside the door. She was shou ting, 'Ted, don ' t be a moron . It 's not as big a deal as you're making it. Shit.'
    Ted's