American Boy - Larry Watson [20]
And so that New Year’s Eve, Johnny and I lugged his record player up to the attic, along with a bag of potato chips, a log of summer sausage, a few cigars, two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and a fifth of blackberry brandy I’d stolen from Palmer’s. The large dusty space smelled of mold and unfinished wood from the heavy dark timbers slanting overhead. And because that night was exceptionally cold, we plugged in a space heater; its glowing bars and an old floor lamp illuminated the corner where we would usher in 1963. The attic was a deliberate choice. We’d both been drunk a few times, but that night we planned to reach a new level of inebriation, one that would require sequestration. We even designated a tin wastebasket as the receptacle if either of us had to throw up and couldn’t make it down to the bathroom in time.
I loved the Dunbars’ attic in part because my mother was ruthless about throwing out or giving away anything that wasn’t essential to our lives. What other families saved for future generations or emergencies, or simply because they couldn’t bear to throw it away, my mother banished as “junk.” So when I entered the Dunbar attic, I felt as if I were in a place where time meant something more than the present moment, and items were saved for reasons other than mere utility. The Dunbar attic contained the usual assortment of old clothes and outgrown toys, broken furniture and holiday decorations, but all of it seemed to me part of an effort to perpetuate and preserve a family and its traditions. To me, it was as much museum as storage area.
We listened to our favorite album—the soundtrack to West Side Story—over and over that evening. We’d seen the movie the previous summer, on a trip to Minneapolis with Mrs. Dunbar. (While the doctor tried to provide us with a medical education, Mrs. Dunbar tried to encourage our appreciation of culture.) It was the musical’s sadder songs that best matched our mood that New Year’s Eve. For while we tried to convince ourselves that the big party didn’t interest us—after all, we were above the immature antics of our adolescent peers—we both knew we really wanted to be at Buzz Mallen’s place.
We finished off the sausage and chips and washed them down with the beer. And we had just cracked the seal on the brandy and lit our cigars when I made the suggestion I’d had in mind all along.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound as if the idea had just occurred to me, “why don’t you go find Louisa and see if she wants to join us?”
Johnny was sitting in an old armchair whose upholstery had torn and begun to leak stuffing, and I was in a rocker whose cane back had begun to unravel. “Louisa?” he said.
“You know—she lives in your house?”
“I thought this was going to be a stag night.”
“She has to hear us up here. And she’s sitting down there all alone on New Year’s Eve. It’s kind of rude, don’t you think? Go ahead. If she doesn’t want to, she’ll just say no.”
He puffed on his cigar and stared at me for a long moment. “Fine,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
While Johnny was gone, I looked around for another chair. I finally found a small metal folding chair, once part of a play set the twins had only recently outgrown. I sat down to try it, and then, confident the chair would support one of us if necessary, brought it over and put it under the lamp. I was using it as a footrest when Johnny reentered the attic.
He came toward me with an expression so glum I was certain he had failed to persuade Louisa to join us.
Then Johnny said, “We’re over here,” and I looked past him to Louisa Lindahl, who was just ascending the final step.
She paused for a moment to adjust to the dim light. “Is this where the party is?”
“Over here,” Johnny said again.
As if she couldn’t be sure of the safety of the planks beneath her feet, Louisa walked slowly toward us. When she stepped into our little circle of light, she took a long moment to gaze down at the arrangement. The record player. The empty potato chip bag. The beer cans. The ashtray, with Johnny’s cigar still glowing.
“Well, this looks comfy,