When he got home, his uncle wasn’t there. His mom was in the kitchen.
“Where’s Lucas?” Dene said.
“They’re keeping him overnight.”
“Keeping him where overnight?”
“The hospital.”
“For what?”
“Your uncle’s dying.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, honey. I wanted to tell you. I didn’t think it would happen like this. I thought it could be a nice visit, and then he’d go and—”
“Dying of what?”
“He’s been drinking too much for too long. His body, his liver’s going.”
“Going? But he just got here,” Dene said, and he saw that this made his mom cry, but only for a second.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her arm and said, “There’s nothing we can do at this point, honey.”
“But why wasn’t something done when it could have been done?”
“There are some things we can’t control, some people we can’t help.”
“He’s your brother.”
“What was I supposed to do, Dene? There was nothing I could have done. He’s been doing this most of his life.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Please,” Norma said. She lost hold of the plate she’d been drying. They both stared at the pieces of it on the floor between them.
* * *
—
At the Twelfth Street Station Dene runs up the stairs but then looks at his phone and sees that he’s not actually gonna be late. When he gets to street level, he slows to a walk. He looks up and sees the Tribune Tower. It’s a faded pink glow that seems like it should be red but lost its steam somewhere along the way. Aside from the plain, average-height, checkered twin buildings that are the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building complex just before I-980 on the way into West Oakland, the Oakland skyline lacks distinction, and is unevenly scattered, so that even when the newspaper moved down to Nineteenth, and even though the paper doesn’t exist anymore, they keep the Tribune light aglow.
Dene crosses the street, toward city hall. He passes through a cloud of weed smoke from a gathering of men behind the bus stop on Fourteenth and Broadway. He’s never liked the smell except for when he’s smoking it himself. He shouldn’t have smoked last night. He’s sharper when he doesn’t. It’s just that if he has it around, he’s gonna smoke it. And he keeps on buying it from the guy across the hall. So there it is.
* * *
—
When Dene came home from school the next day, he found his uncle there on the couch again. Dene sat down and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared at the ground waiting for his uncle to say something.
“You must think I’m pretty despicable, what with me turning into a zombie out here on the couch, killing myself with the drink, is that what she told you?” Lucas said.
“She hasn’t told me hardly anything. I mean, I know why you’re sick.”
“I’m not sick. I’m dying.”
“Yeah, but you’re sick.”
“I’m sick from dying.”
“How much time—”
“We don’t have time, Nephew, time has us. It holds us in its mouth like an owl holds a field mouse. We shiver. We struggle for release, and then it pecks out our eyes and intestines for sustenance and we die the death of field mice.”
Dene swallowed some spit and felt his heart beat fast like he was in an argument, though it didn’t have the tone or feel of an argument.
“Jesus, Uncle,” Dene said.
It was the first time he’d ever called his uncle “Uncle.” He hadn’t thought about doing it, it just came out. Lucas didn’t react.
“How long you known?” Dene said.
Lucas turned on the lamp between the two of them, and Dene felt a sick sad feeling in his stomach when he saw that where his uncle’s eyes should have been white they were yellow. Then he felt another pang when he saw his uncle get his flask out and take a pull from it.
“I’m sorry you gotta see it, Nephew, it’s the only thing that’s gonna make me feel better. I been drinking for a long time. It helps. Some people take pills to feel okay. Pills will kill you too over time. Some medicine is poison.”
“I guess,” Dene said, and got that feeling in his stomach like when his uncle used to throw him up in the air.
“I’ll still be around for a while. Don’t worry. This stuff takes years to kill you. Listen, I’m gonna get some sleep now, but tomorrow when you get home from school, let’s you and me talk about making a movie together. I got a camera with a grip like a gun.” Lucas makes a gun with his hand and points it at Dene. “We’ll come up with a simple concept. Something we can knock out in a few days.”