Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong

Author:Jane Wong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tin House Books
Published: 2023-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

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HOW CAN I DESCRIBE to you what it feels like to protect my brother from our father’s refusal to be in our bloodline? In this one moment in time, he’s 26, and has been recording year after year of the NBA playoffs to watch with our father. He wants to visit him now, our father, but wants me to come. They live only 20 minutes apart. The plan is to deliver the tapes and to set up a time to go over the next week to have some “father-son time.” “You can stay in the car,” my brother says. He knows I’ll be too angry to leave the passenger seat. He knows to keep me strapped in my safety belt or else I’ll lunge.

I drive with my brother to our father’s house. I am sitting in his car, watching them. It has been years, maybe five, since they’ve seen each other; it has been longer since I’ve seen him, but I’ve lost count. My brother opens the screen door and it squeaks like a dog toy. My father is there, the door only half-open. In my brother’s hands: the old VHS tapes, the ribbons curled neatly inside like a bundle of fresh pasta. He knows our father only has a VHS player, and so he held onto our old, clunky machine all these years despite having a DVD player. My brother also knows our father loves basketball, and so he’s been practicing his layups even though he’s a seasoned hockey goalie.

How swiftly, how easily.

My brother holds the tapes out with his arms, smiling awkwardly. Our father shakes his head and puts his hands in his pockets, closing the door so slowly. He doesn’t notice me at all in the car. I swear they both age another five years. The dead grass sways in the wind around them. My brother returns with the tapes, hugged tightly to his chest.

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I ask again, reminding him that we are a team.

My brother puts his hands on the steering wheel and stretches his fingers out as if to keep them from becoming fists. He turns to look at me and, for once, I wish I’d turned away. His face, marveling at his own fear, realized. His eyes flicker about like silverfish.

“He said he was too busy.”

I can’t describe to you my anger. I can’t describe what I wanted to do to that screen door, what I wanted to say to my father. I can’t describe the vicious ventricles of my heart or the depths of revenge and devotion. I can see myself giving my writing students advice: Try! See where it goes, even if you fail. And I can’t even take my own advice. Sometimes I’m at a loss. Sometimes I have to quit, sword down.

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