"I know this is going to insult you," said my brother, turning now to look at me. "While we're here, she wants to prepare the food for her and Daniel. Separate." A dry sound like a dead laugh escaped him. His hands at his sides lifted in a helpless shrug, as if to say they were tied. His disgust was palpable.
I pulled the afghan closer around the hunch of my knees. "It doesn't matter," I said quietly.
When he turned back to the fire, I had the feeling he would've preferred it if I'd flown into a rage and pummeled him, just like she did. For I saw now that he wasn't the same as our father, after all—who attacked without warning, like a preemptive strike, raining down blows when you least expected. Brian the bully, my father's legitimate heir, had somehow been put to rest. Now it required Susan to beat him up till he lashed out, a goad to draw the bully from his cave. He shook his head wearily.
"I'm not sure they can keep me out of jail."
"Oh, these lawyers are pretty smart," I retorted, realizing only then how I sounded like all my useless friends, ducking the unpleasantness.
These doctors are pretty smart,
they said.
"Would you believe I didn't know about any of it for years? It was all Jerry's thing. And when I realized what was going on, I tried to look the other way. Except I kept getting these bonuses." Another dry and dusty laugh. "So I figured what the hell."
The confession ceased abruptly, if that's what it was. Still I felt not the slightest urge to judge him. "Sure, I believe you," I said, staring down at the puzzle on the coffee table, about two-thirds complete. You could definitely see it was
David
now, but still he had no dick.
"They're going to take all my money. This RICO law." Strange, how he didn't sound bitter. He'd gambled and he'd lost. End of story.
"Didn't you put some away?"
"You mean like Switzerland?" His voice quickened with irony. "Naaah—I didn't think that far ahead. I'm a putz of a gangster, Tommy." He stretched his pitching shoulder, kneading it and rolling it around, as if he ached to throw a few balls. "Fuck, I had about two mill in stamps and coins at the house. In a safe." Again that parched laugh, almost a cackle, like someone on whom the truth has dawned, say at the final frame of "The Twilight Zone." "Safe from what, huh? Either the fire got it or the cops did."
Funny, what you remember when. As kids we collected two-bit stamps and coins. Pennies we scrounged and pressed into slotted albums; worthless stamps ordered in bulk from the back pages of comic books. For all our fighting, I couldn't recall that we argued over any of that. I could see us just sitting together in the kitchen, filling our albums, when it was too rainy to play outside. What ever happened to those, I wondered. The hours more than the albums.
"You can live without money," I said. "I've done it for years."
I meant it facetiously, but he didn't laugh. He continued to gaze intently at the fire, unblinking, till I thought he would scorch his eyeballs. Then he said very distinctly, "I can't imagine what I'm going to do."
Slowly he swung away from the mantel. Though he faced me now, I wasn't sure if he could just see dark after the dazzle of the flames. One hand seemed to grope before him, and then he was leaning down. Toward me. Instinctively I huddled deeper, turning my face to the cushion, always protect your face. Then I felt the flat of his hand between my shoulders and his lips against my hair, just above the ear.
"G'night Tommy," he said. "And thanks for putting up with us."
He lumbered away, leaving me in a stunned silence. My jaw was so slack I couldn't even return his "good night." He'd never embraced me before, nor I him. We wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing. Though I knew it was a gesture left over from kissing his son—the very same spot above the ear, I was sure of it—I was no less overwhelmed.
And what a pushover I turned out to be, racing now to forgive him every slur, every torment. What did it say about my self-respect, that I would happily give the world away for certain kisses? Such a needy little devil. Even then, it wasn't all roses. In some dim and cankerous recess of my heart, I felt a spurt of triumph over Susan. I thought: So,
did you get a kiss tonight, honey?
My wickedness shocked even me sometimes.
I was in bed in twenty minutes, bareass under the molting comforter. But I must have fallen asleep with the light on—not reading, just staring around my room and thinking of Gray. I forgot about my brother and all the craziness, the beach house bursting with people. I just wanted to sleep with Gray—period. This was called taking it one step at a time. "Low and slow," as my brother used to say on the field. I don't remember which sport.
So the light was on, which must have drawn him. It was two or three o'clock—I don't know if I ever looked. I felt a tug on the comforter, and I swirled up out of sleep trying to remember who was sick, who needed to go to the hospital. My eyes blinked open, expecting a figure looming over the bed. Nobody there. Then I dropped my eyes a couple of feet, and Daniel was leaning on the edge of the mattress, propped on his elbows. He wore pajamas with cowboys all over.
"What's wrong?" I whispered, half sitting up.
"Can't sleep," he said, lips pursed in a coy pout. "Can I sleep with you?"
"No," I said sharply, wide awake now, and suddenly frightened by my own nakedness under the comforter. "I don't think that's a good idea," I said, softer because he seemed a little hurt.
"But I get scared." His voice trembled. "I keep having dreams about my dogs."
Oh, I could see the manipulation, plain as the quiver of his chin, but that didn't mean it didn't work. "Well, why don't you just sit up here for a minute?" I said, scooting over to make room for him, tucking the comforter tight around me so he wouldn't get any ideas about crawling in under. He hopped right up, sitting cross-legged against the pillow. His knee touched my chest. "Don't be afraid of dreams," I said, a trifle singsong myself. "That's how we get rid of a lot of bad shit—I mean stuff."
He studied his toes thoughtfully. "All they do is fight."
"Yeah." We weren't talking about the dogs anymore.
"If they don't stop fighting, how are we gonna figure out where to go?"
The weight of the world on his shoulders. It must have seemed to him an impossible obstacle course, between here and being safe in school again. "They'll be okay," I said, a comment that struck me as being about as empty as my paean to the smarts of lawyers. "Just give 'em a little more time."
Happily these banalities didn't fill him with contempt. He scrunched down and tucked in closer to where I was curled on my side. I sucked my belly in, trying to keep some distance, but it was useless. He was completely unselfconscious, burrowing like a bear cub. I had an awful feeling he was going to ask me to tell him a story, and all my stories were X-rated, picketed by the likes of Susan. In vain I cast my mind to try to think of a fairy tale that was clean, animals singing and dancing in a circle, cuddly and neuter.
Daniel said drowsily, "I used to have a picture of you in my room. I found it at Gramma's. I kept it in my toy box."
How could I not be flattered, being let in on his secret?
Being
his secret. "What kind of picture?"
"You and Dad.When you were little."
I had a sudden fierce desire to see it, then remembered the fire. Black-and-white, but taken by whom? My parents weren't the type, in the long unraveling of their lives, to memorialize their kids. A hundred pictures of Brian, yes, in all his myriad uniforms, but not of the two of us. "How old—" I started to say, then realized the kid had fallen asleep, practically in my arms.
His breathing so light I had to hold my own to hear it. And for a moment there was nothing else but this, me cradling my nephew in the curl of my body. Thinking,
What if I'd never met him
? And
What would he remember,
years from now when I was gone? It would only be the briefest meeting, that I knew already. Soon they would go, wherever they had to, leaving me to the hourglass of my disappearing island. But at the moment, I couldn't get it up to feel melancholy or cheated. No matter what else, I'd had this taste of being an uncle. And I enjoyed it most shamelessly.
I was gently stroking his head, patting him like a dog really, not having a lot of practice with human puppies. It couldn't go on—I was too aware of the dangers of his parents freaking out. Inching away, I slipped noiselessly off the bed, one hand shielding my genitals. It seemed very important somehow that he not see me naked.
David
was quite enough for one day, thank you. I glided across to the closet and slipped my seersucker robe from the hook behind the door. I drew it on, tugging the belt tight. Then I walked around to where he lay, one hand batting idly at an itch on his nose.
I'd never done this before, but figured he wouldn't be any heavier than my cross. I crouched and scooped him into my arms, lifting him up, ready to hush his protest. The deadweight of him shocked me, and I staggered. But instantly he helped me, groping his arms about my neck and holding on, still fast asleep. I reeled around and clumped to the door, gently heaving him onto my shoulder so I could reach the knob.
As we came out into the hallway I started to get the hang of it. We moved in perfect balance, like a peasant hauling water. We skirted around the stairwell, and only now, as I passed his parents' door, did I feel a thrill of fear. If Susan should come out right now, if I tripped and made too much noise, words would be said whose scars would never go away. For a second then, it was a high-wire act, teetering forward on the balls of my feet, the boy secure in my arms.
Through the arched doorway and up the four steps. As we came into his room I'd forgotten the windows all around. I was used to it only by day, drenched in sun and wide open to the rimless cerulean of sky and water. Now in the dark there was only velvet black all around, scattershot with the diamond glints of stars. The nightshine was sufficient for me to find the bed, no jarring lamp required. I bent over and laid him softly down, cradling his head onto the pillow. He slept as deep as his father. I covered him with a light cotton blanket, tucking it under his chin. Then I glanced out to the ocean, the last watch of the night.
The moon was down. I could see the clouds rolling across the sky, milky pearl and amorphous, still unsure what they were bringing.
Let it rain,
I beseeched the heavens. Then looked down at Daniel one last time, reaching out and stroking his cheek with the back of my hand. I didn't kiss him because—I just didn't. But I was so glad he was in my house, sleeping in my tower.
I sailed down the steps and whirled around the stair hall like Isadora, as if I was capering round a Greek vase. And in the middle of one of those leaps, I bashed my head on the wall fixture—a bronze tulip sporting a single bulb. The light flickered as I grabbed the side of my head, swallowing the groan, though I'd made enough noise already to wake the dead. I reeled into Foo's room and shut the door, lurching forward and tumbling onto the bed.
Laughing.
I don't know why the pain was funny, except it was. Hilarious.
I wanted to take care of them all. How's that for the son of a drunk? Always wanting to fix things. I could see Mona's groaning shelf of books on codependency, the pinnacle of her self-help Ph.D. Please—I've been through the program. But I knew right then, as the worst of the throbbing began to abate, I wouldn't let them out of here without a little headwork. Wouldn't let them fall into total dysfunction, the legacy of West Hill Road, without a fight. I probably had a slight concussion, but I was too ornery to black out.
Still faintly whinneying with laughter, I stood up shakily and moved to the bureau. Right away I saw in the mirror the swelling bruise on my left temple, a small seep of blood along the hairline—just about the spot where Brian had grazed his lips. Maybe that's why the pain struck me so funny. Brian's address on Pequod Lane was tucked in the corner of the mirror. One of my most Italian qualities: I never throw anything out. Complete pack rat. I opened the top drawer of the bureau. My Jockey shorts were folded neatly on one side, good little Catholic boy, and on the other side a battered leather box tooled in gold, of the sort in which Fred Astaire would have stowed his studs and cuff links, but used by me for a catchall.
As it happened, the box had been given to me by Teddy Burr, may he rest easy. I opened it, just the stray bubble of laughter now and my head starting to spin in earnest. My UConn class ring, my upper retainer, my cock ring. I lifted out a card and squinted at it:
Daphne.
Oh sure. How about a nice hundred-dollar hour with Dr. Dyke, a little family therapy as we all stared at the smashed clock on her desk. No thanks. Then I picked up the card that lay beneath it.
Kathleen Twomey. Salva House Women's Center.
My lesbian nun fan.
Angels are all gay too.
I tucked it just above Brian's address in the mirror.
I could've turned away then, I was ready to crash. But I burrowed once more in the box, brushing aside the ephemera—buttons, shillings, subway tokens—and lifted out a crumpled snapshot, furred around the edges. Brian was probably ten, in his baseball whites, a bat across his shoulders. A few feet behind him, more or less blending into the shrubbery, a small child is turning away, blurred because he's in motion. Only I would know it was myself. And not by the slightest stretch of the imagination would you say it was a picture of the two of us. I just happened to be walking by when my father recorded his Little League hero.
Was Daniel's picture from the same roll? Was there one with the two of us arm in arm? I was really going to faint if I didn't lie down. I remember closing the box and the drawer, I remember wanting to prop the picture in the mirror's opposite corner. But you get to a point where you've pushed your limits so far you're dancing on thin air, and the best thing to do then is free-fall, knowing your bed is right there—the way it would be in a normal house.