"I thought it was a manicurist."

The door opened and the three clomped in. They all wore oversized black combat boots that laced halfway up their shins. The rest of the uniform consisted of tattered jeans and Tshirts. Although it was cold outside, Elvis was the only one wearing a jacket. It was covered with oversized safety pins, chains, and b.u.t.tons that said things like "You Disgust Me."

They shadowed through the room, making no eye contact, and would have pa.s.sed without a word if I hadn't spoken. "Lincoln! Mary's here. Can't you even say h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, Mary," he said in a monotone, then made an exaggerated face at me as if to say, "Okay, are you satisfied?" As one, the gang smirked and kept going. A few moments later a door slammed at the back of the house.

"What a bunch of criminals! How do you live with it? Are they here every day?"

"Just about. They skulk into his room, lock the door, and turn on Carca.s.s. Have you ever heard of Carca.s.s?"

"I take it that's a rock group too?"

"Yes. Want to hear some of their song t.i.tles?" I reached for my wallet and pulled out the small pad I carry to write notes on possible ideas for "Paper Clip." "Here it is. 'Crepitating Bowel Erosion.' 'Reek of Putrefaction'"

"Delicious. Hey, they're not 'Wake Up, Little Susie,' but don't kids always have their own music? We did. What one generation adores, the next thinks is stupid."

"Mary, for Christ's sake, 'Crepitating Bowel Erosion' ?"

"You got a point. What else do you think they do in there? Whose girlfriend is she?"

"Lincoln told me both of them do her, but 'none of us are really into f.u.c.king, ya know? So it's just a kinda thing we do in between things, ya know?'"

"Wow, he said that? Times have changed, huh, Max? We spent half our lives thinking about s.e.x.

You think that's true, or was he only trying to impress you?"

"He doesn't want to impress me. Or anyone. He wants to lie on his bed and listen to Carca.s.s."

"And do drugs."

We looked at each other. I chewed the insides of my cheeks. "What did you find, Mary?"

"Names and places. I found what you expected."

"And? "

"And he does lots of drugs. The girl usually buys them because she's friendly with a guy in an East L.A. gang who deals. By the way, her human being name is Ruth Burdette. She got it because she was the girlfriend of a guy in a gang called the Little Fish. When you've screwed a Fish, you get to be called a Little."

The fact Little White had a real name and history surprised me almost more than the fact my son took drugs.

"As soon as Lily and I got married, we started talking to Lincoln about drugs. He was always so afraid of them. A couple of times I remember he actually had nightmares where bad guys were chasing him around with giant hypodermic needles. What kind of stuff is he doing?"

"Cocaine when they have money, crack when they don't.""Lily will go mad. She refuses to accept this. She only thinks he's going through his rebellious period."

"You've got to change that. Get her to accept it and work on the problem with you. Otherwise the kid will die. Simple as that. Get some counseling, maybe check him into a drug program"

"You sound like a public health pamphlet. Believe me, it's not so easy. He hates us, Mary. You don't understand. Anything we do, say, or think, he gets a look on his face of pure revulsion. We're the enemy. Us with our clean sheets, paid bills, cable TV... We can do nothing right in his eyes. Whatever we give him he a.s.sumes is rightfully his, but whatever we tell him he disregards."

"So he's an ungrateful little s.h.i.t. He's still under age. Stick his a.s.s in a rehab center and too bad if he doesn't like it." She lit a cigarette and flicked the match into the fireplace. "What the h.e.l.l happened to that boy? He was the most wonderful child. Funny, charming... Remember how Frank loved him? You guys did everything right. He was loved, you gave him the right amount of discipline. Read to him, took him places... What happened?"

"He grew up. When she admits to anything being wrong, Lily thinks it might be partly due to Greer."

"No way! I don't believe that. Why would a little sister turn him into the Creature from the Black Lagoon? Knowing you two, you probably bent over backward to give each kid their share of love. Plus the fact Greer adores him. He likes her, doesn't he?"

"Yes, I think so. He's nice and gentle to her. They actually have whole conversations and once in a while he'll even help with her homework. He seemed to be happy when Lily got pregnant. And you're rightwe spent a lot of time making sure each got their share, which wasn't easy in the beginning because Greer was such a handful. You remember."

"I sure do! If you'd asked me then, I'd have picked Greer to grow up and look like that. She was a large pain in the a.s.s."

"Yes, but look at her now. It's like the house is part.i.tioned between Us and Them . Aliens and earthlings. Lily, Greer, and I on one side"I jerked a thumb toward Lincoln's room"the Three Hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse on the other."

"What do you think they do in there? I mean, besides not s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and listening to Car Crash."

"Carca.s.s . They listen to music and watch horror movies. Every once in a while you hear a scream and other goofy sounds from those films."

"Yeah, but what else? Didn't you ever look through the keyhole or... you know?"

"I went in there once when Lincoln forgot to lock the door. That's another thing. He put a lock on the door that could keep an elephant out. The only one of us he lets in is Greer."

"What did you see?"

"That's what's strange; the place was spotless. He has no pictures on the walls, the bed was made without one wrinkle, carpets swept... It reminded me of a Marine barracks. It was too cleeean . Creepy clean."

"That doesn't fit, does it?"

I was about to answer when I saw Greer's school van stop in front of the house. She got out, immediately dropped her school bag, bent over, and patted her f.a.n.n.y with both hands for the benefit of someone inside the van. Then she wiggled it, picked up her bag, and walked toward the house without once turning around to see if her performance had had the desired effect.

She wore red jeans, a white polo shirt, and black sneakers. Her hair went up off her head in two pigtails. The face was more mine than Lily's but there was a lightness that brought it all together, an aura of combined humor and naughtiness that came only from her mother.

Greer was five. Our miracle child. The child born when we thought there was no hope in the world of Lily conceiving. From the day she came into the world, she was trouble. Born premature, she gave the impression she was angry at having been brought in on our schedule rather than hers. She needed blood transfusions, experimental medicines. For a shaky ten days they thought one of her kidneys was bad and might have to come out. In her first weeks we thought and talked of little else. One night I had to tell Lincoln his new little sister might not survive. Perhaps that is when it started with him. He askedrepeatedly if she was going to die. As calmly as I could, I told him I didn't know, three different ways.

"Well, why don't you do something about it? You're not just going to let her die, are you?"

"We're doing everything we can. The best doctors in the hospital are working to help her."

"So what? Why don't you get the best doctors in the world , Max?" He began to cry, but when I went to hold him, he pushed me away. "What if that happens to me? What if I get sick? Are you guys going to let me die?"

"We're not going to let anyone die. We're doing everything we can." I was tired and frightened, but that was no excuse for what I said next. "I think it'd be better if you thought about Greer now and not yourself. It doesn't look like you're going to die anytime soon."

He was a little boy. Life had grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved his face into its most vicious truth. He didn't understand. He didn't know how to handle it. Who does? All he wanted was rea.s.surance that we would always love and take care of him, but stupidly I heard it as selfishness and slapped him down with a mean line.

Then again, there is only so much you can do and there are final, unsolvable mysteries. With a clear conscience I can say that for the years we lived together, Lincoln had been my great obsession. Our children should be our obsession, but there is a critical distinction. Knowing they are a product of our love, combined genes, and the environment we create from resources, hopes, and effort is one thing.

Knowing they are literally us, only in another skin, is the difference between coincidence and fate. No matter how much trouble Greer was, all we could do for her was to give everything we had and then pray to G.o.d for the rest.

My parents began staying with us for a month every summer. When he could, Saul would join us.

Much of that time was spent reminiscing about our lives and I pumped all three of them for forgotten details, trivial aspects, and explanations about past days and experiences that would give me better insight into who I'd been. What ingredients was I wholly unaware of then that had gone into making me the man I was now? Can we ever really know ourselves without hearing what others think of us?

Sometimes they wanted to know why I was so interested in our past. Saul got angry one night when I overdid the questions. What the h.e.l.l did twenty years ago matter? Why did I persist in trying to dissect or put those days under a microscope? Why not just leave them alone, enjoy the memories of a family that had held together and continued loving one another right up to today? Luckily I had a ready answer which soothed all of them and permitted more questions. I had read about an artist in Europe who'd had a show of paintings she'd done of her own childhood. Pretending it was my idea, I said drawing my history had been a secret dream project for years but I'd only recently gotten up the courage to begin taking notes and do some preliminary sketches. It was something that would take years to complete but, if done successfully, might turn out to be my greatest work. The Fischers were proud of my success as a cartoonist, and once they knew what was going on, they were charmed by the idea.

Afterward, they talked and wrote letters or called me longdistance to say they'd just remembered something that might be useful...

I listened, read, worried. I worked so hard to learn the exact contents of, then clean up and order, the room that was my life. Not so I could one day draw it as it really was, but to use to help my boy make his life into something magnificent.

Mary Poe was correct in saying we had tried to do everything right for our son. But beyond the bedtime talks about G.o.d or how thunder wasn't dangerous, the carefully wrapped sandwiches and only two cookies in his lunchbox, the circus, the ball games, vacations, going over multiplication tables together, popcorn, mowing the lawn, talking about the death of the dog so that it became an acceptable part of life ...

Despite knowing what I did, what constantly surprised me was realizing the only appropriate way to raise this child was essentially no different from any other good and concerned parent's method. My history, the secret knowledge, the huge number of books I read and thought about for years all said basically the same thinglove them, teach them humility, balance, and restraint, applaud them, tell them no when it is necessary, admit your mistakes.Yes, you know these things already and I needn't go on. Maybe I'm only talking to myself now.

Like the man who has gone over his checkbook ten times but still cannot find out why he is in debt. I had a hundred dollars. I spent this for this, that for that. I can account for all of it, but why, then, is there less than nothing left? Why had our son turned into a dishonest, sullen, secretive knot of a human being?

There should have been something good left over from the years of support, careful guidance, and love.

But there wasn't. There was nothing in this "account."

"h.e.l.lo, Mary Poe."

"h.e.l.lo, Greer Fischer."

"Did you bring your gun?"

"I did."

"Can I see it?"

"It's just the same old gun you saw the last five times."

"Please? "

Mary looked at me and I nodded okay. She opened her blazer and undid the thing from its shoulder holster. Slipping the bullets out, she held it up for Greer to see.

"Is it heavy?"

I knew what she was moving toward. "Greer, you can't hold it. You know the rules."

"I was just asking ."

"I know what you were doing. Look, but no touching."

"Smith and Wesssson. That's the guys who made it?"

"Right."

"Do they make bombs?"

"I don't know."

"Do you have a gun, Daddy?"

"You know I don't. Only police and private investigators like Mary have them."

"Lincoln has a gun."

"What do you mean?"

Greer was very smart but she talked too much. Whenever she was in a room she wanted center stage and would do almost anything to get it, including lie. Looking from me to Mary, she knew she'd struck gold with this piece of information and her expression narrowed down into cunning.

Climbing into my lap, she cuddled up close to my ear and whispered. "Promise you won't tell?

Lincoln doesn't know I know. I went into his room and saw it behind the dresser. He has it stuck with tape there."

I nodded as if it was okay. Your brother has a hidden gun in his room? That's okay. I managed to say in an even voice, "I don't know what he needs that for. Oh well." As gently as I could, I pushed her down. "Okay, that's all right. Why don't you go in the kitchen, honey, and get a little snack. Mary has to go soon and we have to talk some more. I'll be in in a minute."

Disappointed her secret hadn't made a bigger splash, she put her hands in her pockets and scuffed out of the room.

When she was gone, I told Mary what she'd whispered. She closed her eyes and tightened her lips. "s.h.i.t. Okay, Max, stay cool. Don't fly off and get crazy, or you'll blow this. First, you've got to see what kind it is. Maybe it's only an air pistol or something, a pellet gun, he doesn't want you to know he has.

"If not, if it's a real piece, try and get the serial number off it so we can find out if it's hot. You've got to handle this right or we'll be in big trouble."

"I'll take care of it."

"Max"

"I said I'll take care of it, Mary. I'll do what you told me. There's nothing else to do, is there?"

"Not yet. But remember, it could be nothing. Teenage boys love this stuff, but it doesn't mean"

"I know that, but we also knew Bobby Hanley, didn't we?"Without making eye contact, she stood and b.u.t.toned her jacket. Bobby Hanley was a legendarily violent, frightening kid from our hometown who had ended up dying in a gun battle with the police.

"Bobby Hanley was a criminal. Your son's a messedup brat, not a criminal."

"He has a f.u.c.king gun , Mary. How do I know he's not?"

"Because he isn't. Okay? Because he is not. I'm going to go right now and talk to my friend Dominic Scanlan at the LAPD. I'll get him to check out... I don't know. I want to feel him out on this.

He'll know what direction to take. But we'll find out. You look at that gun and get the numbers off it, if it's the real thing. But don't take it. Don't touch it. If Lincoln's done anything wrong and knows you know about his gun, it'll complicate things. I'll call you in a couple hours."

When she was gone, I went to find Greer. She was out on the back patio eating a brownie. I put my arm around her and sat us down on a sun chair.

"Is Mary gone?"

"Uhhuh. Listen, sweetie, I was thinking about what you just told me."

"About Lincoln's gun? I know I shouldn't have gone in his room, Daddy. I know you and Mom said not to. Are you mad?"

"I'm not happy. Plus, I know you wouldn't like someone snooping round in your room."

She hung her head. "I'd hate it."