Laura Lippman - The Most Dangerous Thing

The Most Dangerous Thing

Laura Lippman

For Georgia Rae Simon

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,

Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

J OHN G REENLEAF W HITTIER , M AUD M ULLER

Contents

T hey throwhim out when he falls off the barstool. Although it wasnt a fall, exactly, heonly stumbled a bit coming back from the bathroom and lurched against the bar,yet they said he had to leave because he was drunk. He finds that hilarious.Hes too drunk to be in a bar. He makes a joke about a fall from grace. Atleast, he thinks he does. Maybe the joke was one of those things that stays inhis head, for his personal amusement. For a long time, for fucking forever,Gordons mind has been split by a thick, dark line, a line that divides anddefines his life as well. What stays in, what is allowed out. But when hedrinks, the line gets a little fuzzy.

Which might be why he drinks. Drank. Drinks. No,drank. Hes done. Again. One night, one slip. He didnt even enjoy it thatmuch.

You driving? the bartender asks, piloting him tothe door, his arm firm yet kind around Gordons waist.

No, I live nearby, he says. One lie, one truth.He does live in the area, but not so near that he hasnt driven here in hisfathers old Buick, good old Shitty Shitty Bang Bang they called it. Well, notthis Buick, but the Buick before, or the Buick before that. The old man alwaysdrove Buicks, and they were always, always, crap cars, but he kept buying them.That was Timothy Halloran Sr., loyal to the end, even to the crap of the crap ofthe crap.

Gordon stumbles and the bartender keeps him steady.He realizes he doesnt want the bartender to let go of him. The contact feelsgood. Shit, did he say that out loud? Hes not afaggot. Im not a faggot, he says. Its just been so long since his wifeslipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, so long since his daughters puttheir sticky little hands around his neck and whispered their sticky littlewords into his ears, the list of the things they wanted that Mommy wouldnt letthem have, but maybe Daddy would see it differently? The bartenders embraceends abruptly, now that Gordon is out the door. I love you, man! he says, fora joke. Only maybe he didnt. Or maybe it isnt funny. At any rate, no oneslaughing and Gordon Go-Go Halloran always leaves em laughing.

He sits on the curb. He really did intend to go toa meeting tonight. It all came down to one turn. If he had gone leftbut insteadhe went straight. Ha! He literally went straight and look where that had gottenhim.

It isnt his fault. He wants to be sober. He strungtogether two years this time, chastened by the incident at his youngerdaughters first birthday party. And he managed to stay sober even after Lorikicked him out last month. But the fact is, he has been faking it for months,stalling out where he always stalls out on the twelve steps, undermined by allthat poking, poking, poking, that insistence on truth, on coming clean. Making amends. Sobrietyreal sobriety, as opposed tothe collection of sober days Gordon sometimes manages to put togetherwants toomuch from him. Sobriety is trying to breach the line in his head. But Gordonneeds that division. Take it away and hell fall apart, sausage with no casing,crumbling into the frying pan.

Sausage. Hed like some sausage. Is there still anIHOP up on Route 40?

Saturday morning. Sausage andpancakes, his mother never sitting down as she kept flipping and frying,frying and flipping, loving how they all ate, Gordon and his brothers andhis father, stoking them like machines. Come Saturday morning, Im goingaway. Hey, hey, hey, its Fat Albert!

When he moved back home six weeks ago, he asked hismother to make him some pancakes and shed said, Bisquicks in the cabinet.She thought he was drinking or whoring again, assumed that was why Lori hadthrown him out. It was easier to let her think that. Then it turned out it waseasier to be that, to surrender to drink and badhabits.

When it comes down to it, drunk and sober are justtwo sides of the same coin, and no matter how you flip it, you are still yourfucked-up own self. It sure didnt help that his current AA group meets in hisold parish school, now a Korean church. Its too weird, sitting on the metalchairs in an old classroom. Drink and the line gets fuzzy. Get sober and theline comes back into sharp relief, but then everyone starts attacking the line,says he has to let it go, break it down. Take down theline, Mr. Gorbachev . Boy, hes all over the place tonight, trippingdown memory lane in every sense of the word. Funny, he has a nice memoryassociated with Reagan, but it feels like he was really young at the time. Howold was he when Reagan made that Berlin Wall speech? Sixteen? Seventeen? Stillin high school and already a fuck-up.

But to hear everyone tell it, he has always been afuck-up, came into the world a fuck-up, is going to leave as a fuck-up. Thenagain, whoever followed Sean was destined to be a disappointment.Sean-the-Perfect. You would think that with three kids in the family, the twoimperfect brothers would find a bond, gang up on that prissy middle fuck. ButTim has always taken Seans side. Everyone gangs up against Go-Go, the nicknameGordon cant quite shake even at age forty. Go, Go-Go. Go,Go-Go. Go, Go-Go. Thats what the others had chanted when he did hisdance, a wild, spastic thing, steel guitar twanging. Go,Go-Go. Go, Go-Go. Go, Go-Go . GoGoGoGoGoGo.

Give Sean this: Hes the one person whoconsistently uses Go-Gos full name. Gordon, not even Gordy. Maybe thatsbecause he needs two full syllables to cram all the disappointment in. Actually,he needs four. Jesus, Gordon, how many times can you move back home? Or:Jesus, Gordon, Lori is the best thing that ever happened to you and youve gotkids now. Jesus, Gordon. Jesus, Gordon. Maybe he should have been Gee-Goinstead of Go-Go.

He thinks about standing up but doesnt, althoughhe could if he wanted to. He isnt that drunk. The beer and the shot hit himfast, after almost two years of sobriety. He was doing so good. He thought hehad figured out a way to be in AA while respecting the line. They dont need toknow everything, he reasoned. No one needs to knoweverything. There would be a way to tell the story that would allow him to makeit through all twelve steps, finally, without breaching any loyalties, withoutbreaking that long-ago promise, without hurting anyone.

He gets up, walks down the once-familiar avenue. Askids, they had been forbidden to ride their bikes on the busy street thatessentially bounded their neighborhood, which should have made it impossible tofind their way to this little business district, tempting to them because of itspizza parlor and the bakery and the Highs Dairy Store. And there was a craftstore with an unlikely name, a place owned by the family whose daughters haddisappeared. He was little then, not even five, but he remembered a chill hadgone through the neighborhood for a while, that all the parents had becomestrict and supervigilant.

Then they stopped. It was too hard, he guesses,being in their kids shit all the time and the children slipped back into theirfree, unfettered ways. Nowadays... he doesnt even have the energyto finish the clich in his head. He thinks of Lori, standing guard at thekitchen window of their starter home, a town house that cost $350,000 and towhich he is now barred entry. Is that fair? Is anything fair? Sean is stillperfect and even Tim does a good imitation of goodness, Mr. States Attorney,with his three beautiful daughters and his plumpish wife, who was never that hotto begin with, yet Gordon can tell they still genuinely like each other. Hesnot sure he ever really liked Lori and he has a hunch Seans in the same boatwith his wife, Vivian, whos as frostily perfect as Sean. Tim and Sean, stillmarried to their first wives, such good boys, forever and ever. Hey, he got anannulment, hes technically in the clear. Besides, fuck the church! Where wasthe church when he needed it? And now its Korean Catholic, whatever the fuckthat is, probably Kool-Aid and dog on a cracker for communion.