But Buck wasn’t exaggerating, Hayes could tell. Deacon had died flat broke—worse, in debt. Hayes thought guiltily of all the money Deacon had given him over the course of the past few years. Probably close to forty grand. Deacon had allowed Hayes to live beyond his means, keeping an apartment in Soho where he stayed only four or five nights a month. Hayes felt monstrously selfish. He never thought to ask Deacon if the payments to Hayes’s co-op board were a stretch. Deacon had offered! He was the dad. Was Deacon one of those people who gave and gave and gave, even when he was having a hard time? Apparently so.
Laurel asked about Deacon’s cookbook. Was there any potential there? Angie laughed, saying the “cookbook” was a folder filled with disjointed notes and untested recipes.
Hayes decided to take a stab at the conversation.
“But Dad wanted to write a cookbook?” Hayes said. “There’s something to work with?”
Angie shrugged. “I guess so, yeah.”
Hayes wondered why his father hadn’t asked him for help with the cookbook; he was the writer in the family. It could have been a father-son collaboration, with both of their names on the cover, both of their photographs on the cover. It would have made Deacon some money, and it might have been the thing Hayes needed to top the masthead at Fine Travel or make the leap, finally, to Condé Nast Traveler. Hayes loved his job, make no mistake, but there were a few rungs on the ladder above him, and every once in a while, ambition swirled in him like smoke in a bong and he thought about climbing up higher, higher, higher.
“He knew he was never going to get it done,” Angie said. “It was killing him.”
Everyone was silent after that. “Killing him” was no longer an appropriate euphemism. But the idea of the cookbook stayed with Hayes. What if he and Angie took Deacon’s notes and wrote it together? She had the food knowledge, and Hayes the writing chops. It could be a posthumous tribute to their father, with both of their photos on the cover, a son and daughter, one white, one black, one biological, one adopted—it would be a public relations bonanza! But they probably couldn’t get it done in time to save the house. Nope, definitely not.
Angie threw her napkin on top of her untouched food. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t talk about this any more tonight.”
Laurel reached over and rubbed Angie’s back. “This too shall pass away,” she said.
Hayes stared at his roll. Laurel had been saying that phrase since time immemorial, and, although it was meant to be encouraging in this instant—what felt bad today would be less painful tomorrow and even less so next month or next year—in general Hayes found the sentiment depressing. Everything would pass, the next thing would happen, we were alive now for an inconsequential thirty-four or fifty-four years of all of human history—then we died. It was going to happen to everyone; there would be no avoiding it.
He was no longer hungry. He stood up.
“May I please be excused?” he said. It was being in the presence of his mother, perhaps, that caused him to act like a nine-year-old.
“Honey, you haven’t eaten any—” Laurel said, but Hayes didn’t stick around to hear the rest. He carried his plate into the house and headed up to his room.
Later, when it was dark and the rest of the house seemed to have settled into some semblance of peace, Hayes called Pirate, the taxi driver. Could Pirate come pick him up? Could Pirate help him score some drugs?
There was a pause. Hayes panicked: had he called in over some dispatch line?
Pirate said, “Yeah, man, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Pirate showed up, as promised, in the ’65 Lincoln, wearing his velvet coat and eye patch, his hair looking as though a raven had died on his head. “You ready to party?” He asked Hayes. He shouted the question with the enthusiasm of a meathead frat boy—John Belushi, perhaps, minutes before he overdid it.
“Yeah, man,” Hayes said. He was, essentially, sneaking out of the house like a teenager. He had considered leaving Laurel a note saying he’d gone out, but then he figured she wouldn’t know any better, and if he left her a note, she might worry. She had been giving him some suspicious looks, so if she knew he was out, she might search his room. She wasn’t naive; she had made a career out of dealing with liars and thieves, drug addicts and miscreants.
Pirate took the Polpis Road—where streetlights were few and far between—at breakneck speed. Hayes looked over at him. His uncovered eye was focused with a maniacal intensity on the road.
“Are you already high, man?” Hayes asked.
“Yeah, man,” Pirate said. “We’ve been partying down. I hope you’re ready for a slammin’ time.” He took the next curve so fast, the Lincoln’s tires screeched and Hayes feared he might get carsick. He should ask Pirate to turn around and take him home. He needed sleep and water and a string of clean hours. But then, that thought evaporated. What Hayes needed was to get high, higher, higher. Sad fact.
But Hayes was also looking for something else. He was looking for information.
“So, Pirate,” Hayes said, his voice pitched low so as to be calming. “Dude, I have to ask. Do you remember any details about my dad? Do you remember anything he said or did, or what he was like?”
“Yeah, man,” Pirate said. “I do.”
Hayes waited for him to say more. A few moments of silence passed, and Hayes figured Pirate—there was no way this was his real name; Hayes should have asked—was collecting his thoughts, but then, when it seemed no answer was forthcoming, Hayes said, “What? What do you remember?”
“Oh,” Pirate said. He shook his head as if awakening from a dream. “He was just really cool. I mean, it was Deacon Thorpe, man. I’ve been watching his show since I was… I don’t know, a kid. And then, all of a sudden, he’s climbing into my taxi.”
“Right,” Hayes said. He was used to fan dribble. Deacon was recognized everywhere, and he had married a woman even more famous than he was. Hayes had seen statements on Twitter from Mario Batali and Bobby Flay and Eric Ripert, and incessant use of the term “cultural icon.” While all of that was gratifying, it wasn’t what Hayes was after. He wanted something more personal. “How did he seem? When he climbed into your taxi, I mean? Was he upbeat? Was he quiet? Did he make any jokes?”
“He was cool,” Pirate said. “He asked me to take him to Thirty-Three Hoicks Hollow Road. He said, ‘Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.’ It’s from Monopoly. A board game.”
“Well, yeah,” Hayes said. Deacon had been a fiend about playing Monopoly. He had a tattoo of Rich Uncle Pennybags on the inside of his right forearm.
Pirate leaned forward against the steering wheel as if to see better, and Hayes thought, If you want to see better, take off that stupid eye patch. “He told me about the first time he ever came to Nantucket. The day trip, with his old man.”
“He told you that?” Hayes asked. “Did he say anything about the house?” Hayes became transfixed by the glowing circles on the dashboard. They were only going forty miles an hour, but because the top was down on the Lincoln and it was dark and the road was winding, it felt as though they were about to hyperspace into another reality. “Did he say he was going to lose it?”
“Lose it?” Pirate said. “No, man. He was all excited when we turned onto Hoicks Hollow Road. He said it was his…”
“Home away from home,” Hayes finished. “Right.”
Pirate pulled over on the Polpis Road. He got out of the car, walked down the bike path, and made a phone call. Hayes rested his head against the seat. He should go home right now: Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. American Paradise was going to be repossessed just like one of the little green houses in Monopoly, plucked off the board and placed back into the coffers of the bank. Hayes had to find a way to save it. But first, he needed drugs. At the rate he was going, he would run dry by tomorrow. Just thinking about it nearly brought Hayes to tears. How had he gotten this way? He had meant to be careful. He had meant to stay ahead of it.
He should get out of the car and call Angie to come get him. He could tell Angie the truth, and she would know what to do. She would be pissed, but she would come up with a plan.