The Business of Naming Things (15 page)

The whole thing took all of two minutes.

When we got out into the barnyard, the day looked drained, like it, too, had been bled. I felt cold. I guess I was the one who was drained. But Tommy didn't look any better. His head was alarmingly white. It almost made me faint to look at it. At him. The low sunlight took some adjusting to after the dark interior of the barn. Queenie circled us as we stumbled some holding the mooley, who stepped carefully and kept shaking
her head—quick little shakes. When I looked at Tommy, he had his eyebrows raised, which meant he was thinking, and was about to speak.

And I so wanted him to speak, because I was speechless. He rubbed his face hard and kept rubbing his face hard with one hand and he just never said anything.

We let the mooley pull us, guide us. We held on. It was a slow, sad parade, a staggering band with a cow and a dog. We sloshed through mud and cow shit till the mooley got to a destination—one of the salt licks. Her pink tongue stippled with black dots worked along the length of the white block, and it sounded like sandpaper. Then she seemed to sigh.

Tommy and I stood there, on opposite sides of the mooley, looking at each other. I don't think that we ever had another word. We drove back in the truck in silence, dropped Tommy off, and went home. The Newman family left Oreville in a matter of weeks.

III

“W
HAT
'
S THIS?
I
S THIS IT?
” It was Everett coming in from the stoop with the
Times
and the mail.

“Have you canceled the
Times
delivery for the month?” asked Michael.

“Have
you
talked to Ruben about picking up our mail?” parried Everett, handing Michael a small package that appeared to be a reused Jiffy bag, though it was carefully wrapped and Scotch-taped.

“This must be the Ellington CDs,” said Michael.

Everett and Michael were having a Duke Ellington period—and they were about to take a road trip. The Public Theater was closed for renovation, freeing Everett, and Michael had finished his paper for the Math Society—it was now out for
peer review. It was July 1 and they were quite ready to get out of New York.

Everett still played a little piano. He'd just read
Lush Life
and was obsessed with Billy Strayhorn. Michael thought a good selection of the Ellington band was in order—that lovely sonorous orchestral coloring, and the drive—to keep them driving all the way to Maine. And here it was—3 CDs, the Blanton-Webster years.

Michael noticed that the return address on the paper packaging—this was a used CD boxed set, ordered through Amazon but fulfilled by some private citizen selling his collection—was “P. Newman, 17 Harrison St., New Haven.” And inside, taped on the edge of the jewel case, a tag read “From the library of Gerald F. Newman.” Minutes later, Everett found Michael at the kitchen table, the CDs half-unpacked in front of him, the thumb and fourth finger of his left hand to his temples, staring at the opposite wall.

M
ICHAEL AND
E
VERETT DROVE UP
95 and listened to Ellington on the way. Michael was happy to have the new music—it relieved the need to talk. They found Harrison Street easily—they knew New Haven very well, having met at Yale in the late seventies when they were both in grad school. The big pale yellow house, three stories, however, they didn't know by sight—it was off Whalley Avenue, huddled in the shadow of West Rock. “A classic Queen Anne,” said Everett as they got out of the car.

Phillip was getting a little portly and his hair was thinning, but Michael noted the same spunky grin that Phillip had when he was a kid, as if he was visibly savoring something he didn't need to share, but would, if you insisted. Michael had
liked that in him. Michael, now sixty-five, figured Phillip to be about sixty-two. Phillip delivered a genuine hello and the men shook hands, all three around.

Phillip wore a pale yellow linen shirt with the sleeves rolled and twill trousers, while Michael and Everett, perhaps now a little embarrassed, were in sandals and cargo shorts. A woman stood on the porch, tall and trim in a floral skirt and white-collared blouse, looking, thought Michael, a lot like Mrs. Newman had looked on the porch of the house in Oreville when she watched them playing in the yard eons ago. This woman was Phillip's wife, and he introduced her as Janet. Bright blue eyes, a close-cropped head of silver hair. They invited their visitors in, and they sat around a large oak table in a room decorated with Palladio prints. There were fresh-cut flowers on a mantel; rugs; ivory-colored fabric lamp shades, like the old days.

“Original trim,” whispered Everett as they sat down, “and wainscoting.” This irked Michael at first, but perhaps it was polite to look around. “I think I recognize that piano,” Michael said. A black upright sat in the corner. “Do you play?”

“That's a classic Story & Clark,” said Everett.

“Janet does,” said Phillip. “And yes, that piano's been in the family for years. We moved it to Oreville. And out of Oreville.”

“
Used
to play,” said Janet, correcting her husband. She'd left momentarily and was now returning with a plate of cookies.

“Molasses,” said Phillip. Janet laughed self-consciously. Michael and Everett hadn't eaten since an early breakfast in the Village. There was already a silver coffeepot in the middle of the table, along with cups and saucers.

“Phillip told me that his mother always gave you molasses cookies when you used to visit their house.”

“That's so true,” said Michael, looking at Phillip, touched to have been remembered in that way—as a boy eating cookies.

“Mom also talked about it years later,” said Phillip. “She remembered those times, short as they were, in your town. She also said that Tom was happiest then. You were his friend, Michael. She used to say you were his last friend.”

There was a silence. Everett poured coffee for all. With some difficulty, Janet removed the plastic wrap from over the cookies. She seemed to have a bit of arthritis in her thumb. A smell of nutmeg and ginger wafted forth warmly when she succeeded.

“Well, how have you been, Phillip? You go first,” said Michael.

Sleek blades of light came through the tall windows, the color of jade. The burl on the oak table swirled like nebulae. Michael felt a kind of radiant warmth from it all, suddenly very comfortable at this table in New Haven on a summer afternoon. He even put sugar in his coffee.

But Phillip remained silent, as if he didn't think it was his turn to speak, even though invited.

“So where did you move to?” Michael asked after a time, prompting.

Phillip then explained that the family had moved to Providence, for the children's hospital there—Rhode Island Children's. Tom—he was now Tom in memory, it seemed—had deteriorated rapidly. “The hydrocephaly stopped his brain from developing. It was like a slow flood. He gradually lost his senses. Sight, smell, et cetera. He was just shy of sixteen. The last months were rough. For everyone.”

The reality of it hit Michael, even though his father had assured him that Tommy Newman “would never see eighteen,” and his mother had agreed.

“We never heard from you,” Michael said. Everett shot him a glance, but Michael shot it back in their secret semaphore, meaning, “That was no reproach.”

And it wasn't taken as one. “My mother was devastated,” said Phillip, looking down at the table.

“And how are they? How is she ... Hilda? And your father ... Gerald.” Everett and Michael had already surmised that Gerald—“From the library of”—was deceased, though they could find no obituary online.

“Mom lost a battle with stomach cancer,” said Phillip, straightening up.

“No!” Michael said, as if in protest. Everett shifted a little, knowing that Michael's mother had suffered the same fate.

“When?” Everett asked. “
His
mother died of that two years ago.”

‘I'm sorry to hear that, Michael. Mom died ten years ago last month. A blessing.”

“Our mothers might have been good friends, you know, had we stayed,” Phillip continued. Michael was instantly ashamed that it was Phillip saying this, and not he. “It's too bad,” Phillip went on. “But we had to . . .” He hesitated, as if reconsidering, then plowed on. “To help Tom. Dad really thought it was best.”

“Now you look good,” Phillip said to Michael, lightening the mood. “Hair!”

Michael rapped his knuckles on the tabletop, looked at Everett, and said, “We've been lucky. Our health is good.”

“I miss the paisley shirts,” said Phillip with a straight face that meant the opposite. A tease. Everett and Janet exchanged exaggerated looks.

“And how's your father. How's Mr. Touhey?”

“He's no longer with us,” said Michael. Everett managed to suppress some derision.

Michael went on. “Dad ended up at Sloan-Kettering. Bladder cancer. Just before Mom.”

A dog barked then, somewhere in the house.

“I'm sorry, Michael,” said Phillip. “Speaking of fathers, Dad's upstairs. That's his mighty mastiff barking now, Barley.”

“Can I see him?” Michael blurted out. He might have regretted it . . .

Phillip assured him that he could. “Once the nurse comes down. Barley's barking at her; she's new.” The faces of both Phillip and his wife were awash with affection, for exactly what, Michael couldn't tell, but what did it matter? Affection for the new nurse, the old man, the dog, each other. No, it didn't matter. There was plenty to go round.

“But catch
us
up,” said Janet, now seeming nervous. “Oh, and let me say—we have no kids. Perhaps that's clear. I studied abroad and worked abroad, all over the continent, for twenty years.”

“Neither do we,” said Everett with a kind of theatrical fatigue, as if life were tough enough. And then he laughed. Janet smiled, but thinly.

“Janet was a portfolio manager with Deutsche Bank and then Credit Suisse,” interjected Phillip, taking over, as Janet seemed to lose power. “We settled in New Haven when I became part of the faculty. I still lecture one term a year. And I have a little practice, restoring some of the old New England housing stock—like this place. I have a small staff—two partners—up in Hamden.”

“It's good, then?” Michael said, unusually offhand for him.

“It's gorgeous,” said Everett. “I hope we get a tour.” Everett checked himself; his neck twitched, a signal that he was
backtracking. He made things slightly worse, though. “Oh, but first, about us!”

Everyone waited out the awkward moment and let the goodwill return to the surface in the lovely room.

Everett reached for his third cookie. Michael commenced their overview.

“I graduated from Oreville,” he said.

“He
escaped
Oreville,” amended Everett, unable to resist.

“I studied at Cornell and took a degree in mathematics. Everett here and I met right in this town. I was in the grad school, applying theoretical models to biological processes. That's still my field. Everett was doing an M.F.A. Everett's in theater, at the Public Theater. Director of communications. We spent the eighties in New Haven. I've been at NYU, in the city, now for about twenty years, doing research mostly. Everett's gig with the Public is great. We travel. No children, two cats. We married last year. What else is there? Is that our life?”

“And Everett?” asked Janet. She'd just returned from the kitchen, again, and seemed restless. “Where are you from?”

“Oh, nowhere,” he said, laughing his nervous laugh. Everett didn't like to talk about his military upbringing. He preferred to talk about decor or other people's families.

P
HILLIP LED
M
ICHAEL UP THE STAIRS
to visit with Mr. Newman. Everett moved onto the front porch with Janet. Going up the stairs, Michael was reminded of the stairs in the Dashnaw house, and how it was down those stairs that first Phillip had come and then Tommy, when he first met them. Now it was in reverse, another mystery to be found. At the top was the big mastiff, swinging a light drool and eager for company.
Barley led the party across the hall to a large, sunny room. There in the bed, a big four-poster, was Mr. Newman, wearing blue pajamas, his right sleeve pinned.

He smiled broadly, his teeth gone gray, the skin on his face tight and shiny, cleanly shaven.

“Can this be Michael?”

Michael shook Mr. Newman's left hand, his one hand, like he had years ago, a loose gnarl of bones now. He shook it delicately, but Gerald Newman returned his grip with a sharp, strong squeeze.

“I remember you. You were good to our Tom,” said the old gentleman. He smiled and sniffed a little, and brought a floral handkerchief to his nose.

“Thank you, Mr. Newman.”

“You can call me Gerry now. No formalities. And frankly, you're older than I ever dreamed I would be. And here I am now, eighty-four. Five,” he said, correcting himself, and Phillip, who stood some distance away, giving space, laughed.