Bucky F*cking Dent by David Duchovny Page B

exactly the same as back when he was a kid, which just reinforced his own feeling of oddness and stuntedness. He kept his foot poised above the gas pedal to drive off and never come back again. But how far could he really get in the Corolla? He pulled into an open parking spot. On closer inspection, the neighborhood was certainly a bit better than he remembered, having gone through the sporadic “gentrification” process that New York endures in its American cycles of boom and bust. Ted hated this change, he even hated the word gentrification ; it offended his Communist leanings and sounded medieval to him. Where the fuck was this “gentry”? He grabbed a couple of plastic bags of clothes and toiletries, and looked around to see if he recognized any indentured servants or serfs walking by.
    He got out of the car and headed up to the house. He looked on the sidewalk where once he had scratched his name in the wet cement, but it was no longer there. It was smooth, like when a wave washes away initials in a heart someone drew in the sand. So many waves. Always more waves than words in hearts in the sand, it seemed.
    He imagined what he as a boy would make of the man he was now, staring up at the window. As if in a Twilight Zone : “Consider Ted…” The beard, the belly, the aura of homelessness. He probably would’ve scared himself. The young him might’ve made fun of him now. I’m not letting you in, ya fat tie-dye fuck, not till my parents get home. He shook his head—that was a crappy thought. Ted ascended the reddish clay steps of the old brownstone and tried the door. The feeling he had was not quite déjà vu. He had the sensation that he had already done the things he was doing right now, walking the stairs, opening the big door, because he had done them thousands of times as he grew up. So while this day had never happened before, it felt like it had already happened over and over. But he felt no comfort and he felt no hope. He instinctively checked up in the sky to see if planes were falling to earth, worlds exploding. Nope. It all seemed pretty copacetic up there in the wild blue. He walked in.
    The house was messy and didn’t smell right. A bad scent, but not one he could immediately identify; it smelled something like a frightened animal had been slaughtered. An unholy brew of menthol, egg, urine, and smoke. “Marty?” Ted called out for his father.
    Marty appeared around a corner in an old, dark purple robe untied in the front, so Ted could see his tighty whities, so old and worn, you’d have to call them loosey grayies. “Teddy, you came,” the old man said, and the genuine surprise and thankfulness of his tone disarmed and moved Ted, gave him an unexpected hitch in his throat. Marty shuffled toward him and hugged him. He smelled terrible. Ted gagged, but held it down and covered it; he felt stuck, felt no agency, like he himself was not at home. His arms hung at his sides.
    â€œHug me, ya faggot,” Marty whispered mock-lovingly in Ted’s ear. Ted put his arms around his father, who was so thin, it was like hugging a child or a suit on a hanger. “You smell. Like the pot.”
    â€œYou smell like the shit.”
    â€œDon’t squeeze so hard,” Marty said. “You tryin’ to hug me, fuck me, or kill me?”
    â€œAh yes, this is just how I pictured our reunion.”
    Marty pulled away. “I think you broke a fucking bone. Let me help you with your bags,” he said. “Your plastic bags.”
    Ted said, “I’m into recycling.”
    They walked up to the second floor, Marty stopping several times to catch his breath. He put his hands on his knees and his head down after only a few steps. Ted got the image that the old man’s ruined lungs had the capacity of two empty envelopes to hold paper-thin volumes of air. That collapsible and sticky. “I gotta get one of those elevator seats for