Brewster (21 page)

E
VERY STEP YOU TAKE,
a million doors open in front of you like poppies; your next step closes them, and another million bloom. You get on a train, you pick up a lamp, you speak, you don’t. What decides why one thing gets picked to be the way it will be? Accident? Fate? Some weakness in ourselves? Forget your harps, your tin-foil angels—the only heaven worth having would be the heaven of answers.

I
DIDN’T SEE RAY
for a long time. For a while, I heard, they weren’t sure he’d make it, but the surgeons got the glass out of his mouth and stomach and sewed him up, then pumped him full of antibiotics and went to work on his jaw. People said he was different after, like something had gone quiet. I didn’t see it.

When he came out from under, they were already there, two cops and a guy in a suit, standing around his bed like he was Dorothy.

“Can you hear what I’m saying, son?” the guy in the suit said. His voice turned away. “Can he hear what I’m saying?”

Somebody said something he couldn’t make out. “Little out of it,” somebody said.

“Ray, there’s been a murder, Ray,” the guy in the suit said. “You understand what I’m saying?”

Ray blinked.

“Now I know you’re in a lot of pain, but I have to ask this officer here to read you your rights.”

One of the cops appeared behind him.

“Ray this is Officer Mayo—you’ve met him before.”

Remember me—your ole pal Hunk? Couldn’t forget my face, could ya?

“How you doin’, Ray?”

He blinked.

It was just like on TV.

He didn’t want a lawyer. He didn’t want anything.

“Can you tell us what happened, Ray? Can you write it down? Can he write?”

The cop held a pad in front of him, put a pen between his fingers and closed his hand on it.

“Gene?” he wrote.

“He’s fine, Ray. Your brother’s fine.”

“Go ahead,” somebody said.

“Ray—can you hear me? Who killed your father, Ray?”

“Me,” he wrote.

“You’re saying you killed your father?”

He blinked.

“I want you to think, Ray. I know this is hard.”

You just had a bad dream, honey.

“Ray?”

What happened to Glinda?

“I need you to think, Ray—this is very important.”

He was still holding the pencil. He underlined the “me.”

She’
d just been there. A second ago. Maybe if he slept, maybe he’d find her.

“You sure?”

He struggled up again.

“Give him the pad.”

“Think, Ray. Your dad.”

He still had the pencil. “Fuck him,” he wrote.

H
E WAS ASLEEP
so he didn’t hear them talking in the hall.

“What do you think?”

“Does it matter?”

“What do you mean, of course—”

“Not about what I think, about whether it matters.”

“You think they’re covering for each other?”

“What do I think? I think an hour ago I found something in a dumpster behind the A&P I don’t really want to think about—that’s what I think. I think somebody should have shot him a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t exactly solve the problem, does it?”

“Doesn’t it?”

I
N THE SPRING OF
1970 Brewster was still a small town, which meant the D.A. knew the judge who knew the cops who knew each other. You could be creative. Cobble something. Make it come out. Turn a blind eye.

I’d told them everything—I couldn’t
stop
talking—kneeling there in his blood with my sweat gone cold, babbling like a sleepwalker about how I didn’t know, hadn’t said, hadn’t meant, hadn’t thought … about Ray, about puppies. I was sorry, I said, and started to cry. I was sorry, I was sorry.

They put a blanket over me, the radios crackling like something in a fire.

I
TOLD THEM EVERYTHING.
It didn’t matter at all.

They weren’t stupid. Or cruel. It was a big fucking mess and they cleaned it up. Made the best of a bad situation. Played the hand. Cut their losses.

Your heart went out to the kid—it really did. Still, he’d taken a fire iron to his old man’s head. Bashed it in like a melon. An abusive bastard, sure—extenuating as long as your arm—but still. He coulda left, coulda run away from home, started again. Wasn’t the first kid born with a prick for a father. Or the last, probably.

The brother? No sign of anything—didn’t look like he’d touched him. Couldn’t say what might’ve been. Wouldn’t say much about his love for animals. Still … he’d taken an iron to the old man’s head. Plus the kid was no saint, even before. So what if he came from a fucked-up home—who didn’t?

The other one? Clean record, good kid. Lost a brother when he was four. Just got accepted to Columbia. The confession? Protecting his friend. He’s a good kid, they’re all good kids—that girl, the Krapinski kid.

Tell me about her.

Was in bad shape for a while. Parents are movin’ back to Hartford. Getting her out of town. The Krapinski kid’s big in the church—he’ll be fine.

So what do we do?

What do you
want
to do?

I don’t think there’s anything to be gained. Would you agree with that assessment, counselor?

He’s a good kid. Impressionable. He’s protecting his friend. No way I believe he swung that thing.

Heard he’s a track star.

That’s right.

All right, let’s cut him out of this mess, hope he runs in the right direction. The other one’s prints are all over everything, there’s no remorse—not that I blame him, still.

What are you proposing?

A little discipline, a change of direction. I’m not convinced he’s a bad kid at heart. Service did me a world of good, don’t see why it wouldn’t him.

And so it’s resolved. Doesn’t matter what the track star says—he can talk all he wants now. They’ll save him for himself. They’ll send you down to war.

A
SIMPLE OFFICE
—nothing fancy. He’s not wearing a robe. He doesn’t look mean. It’s March 4—two months to the day before Kent State, when we start killing our own.

They talk for a while. He’s like a father—kind, strong face, hair going white.

“Son, it’s not like we don’t have sympathy,” he says, “but it’s time to turn it around. Do something for your country for a change.”

I
T WAS A LONG WINTER
that year. Everything locked shut, the river half iced over. The Beatles broke up. “Let It Be”was on the radio that spring. “
Let it be, let it be
”—you couldn’t get away from it. I’d walk—I was allowed to walk—for hours sometimes, didn’t matter where. I could go back to school when I was ready, they said. I’d had a terrible shock. My parents tried to talk to me, drove me to the shrink, let me alone—whatever I wanted. Even my mother. I’d never seen them so shaken up. I’d been too young when Aaron died.

So this man—his father—he had beaten him, my father said. But of course—that was why he looked like that. All that time. That was why he had stayed with us. Why he did what he did. He was driven to it.

I hadn’t known, I said.

“And the baby,” my mother said, “my God, what will happen now to the baby?”

My father was looking into his cup of tea, shaking his head. “But this is not possible—any of this.” He picked up the teaspoon, started to say something, then lay it facedown across the saucer. “And this man, his father—you knew him?”

I went up to my room, took the volume of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
out of my closet, came back down and opened it. “He gave this to me,” I said, and lay the cloth on the table.

My father just stared at it like he was trying to understand what he was seeing. “These I remember,” he said.

“He said it was a gift.”

“These I remember very well.”

“
Mein Gott
—those boys,” my mother whispered, “this was their father?”

“
Aber nicht verstehe,
” my father said, confused. “You say this was a gift?”

I nodded.

“But why would he do this?” my mother said.

“To humiliate you?” my father said. “To hurt you? I don’t—”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“But why? Why would someone—”

“I don’t know,” I said. How could I explain that I hadn’t known what to do? That I’d been weak. That I’d taken his gift the way you’d shake a hand that’s suddenly offered—instinctively, trapped by politeness—but not for that reason alone. No, I’d taken it because he’d approved of me. Needed me. And because, for years, ignoring who he was, in some miserable, manipulated way, I’d needed him.

“But why would—”

“I killed him,” I said.

Maybe I did it to hurt them. To slap them awake. They just stared at me.

“
Was?
” my father whispered.

I said it again.

“
Du? Ich nicht—
”

“He would have killed them both.”

My father blinked twice, then reached up and adjusted his glasses with his right hand, wincing the way people do. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“There was nobody else,” I said. “I had to.”

It wasn’t until he put his hand over mine, his eyes blinking, confused behind his thick lenses that I realized my face was wet.

“They don’t believe me,” I said.

I could see his thoughts, racing to catch up.

“You have to help me,” I said. “Please.”

“I—”

“The police. They think it was him. Please. You have to tell them.”

He stared at me and I could see the understanding come into his face and then he reached under his glasses with his thumb and wiped under his eye and readjusted the frame on his face and smiled, a smile of such sadness and pity and resolve that I knew it was over. “This you cannot ask of me,” he said. “You’re our son.”

I hadn’t been able to look at my mother till then, too afraid of what I’d see. Her murderer son. Of course. She’d known all along.

She was looking right at me, looking at my hair, my nose, even my eyes as if seeing something inside herself she’d never noticed before.

“It’s over,” she said. She picked up a cup, turned it, then set it neatly back in its saucer. “There’s nothing to be done.”

K
AREN WAS GONE,
away in Hartford, recovering. She’d had a kind of fit when she heard, they said—had to be forcibly kept from jumping in the car. They thought it best—everybody did. Distance and time. Distance and time were the answer. A clean break. They kept saying that, she said, sobbing on the phone. A clean break, a clean break. Like your heart was a bone.

It was two in the morning—a little later. She’d snuck downstairs to use the phone. “Oh, my God, Jon,” she said, “oh, my God. I have to see him,” she said, “I have to talk to him.” She was crying so much I couldn’t make out half her words.

“I did it,” I said.

There was nothing but quiet.

“I did it,” I said again. “It was me.”

It was like she was whispering it at the end of a long tunnel. “Oh, my God,” she said again. “You have to—”

“I have.”

“You need to—”

“I have. Everybody.”

“I can’t—”

“Ray would’ve done it. He couldn’t. So I did it.”

I could hear her crying, then a tiny voice like somebody breaking in on the line, then quiet.

“Thank you,” she said.

She’d be finishing school in Hartford, she told me. It didn’t matter. None of it. “Tell him I love him,” she said.

“He knows that,” I said.

“Tell him anyway.”

“OK.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” I said.

I
T WAS A MONTH
before they let me. Early March. He looked smaller in the bed, like people do. There were still tubes coming out of him from the second operation on his throat. The wires had come out of his jaw. He couldn’t talk too much, they said.

We just looked at each other. The nurse did something with a bag and left. There was no one listening. They didn’t care. Their minds were made up.

“Hey,” he said, his whisper like a stocking pulled over bark.

“You lied,” I said.

“How’s she doin’?” he said. “They won’t talk to me.”

“She’s OK,” I said. “You know.”

He nodded.

“Stayin’ up in Hartford for a while.”

I could tell by his face.

“Hey, it’s not the moon,” I said.

He nodded.

“She says to say she loves you.”

He nodded quickly and I could see him working hard to hold it back.

“How you been?” he said.

It was my turn to nod.

“You missed your race,” he said.

It took me a while. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“For everything.”

He shook his head.

“You gotta tell ’em,” I said. “They’re not gonna believe me.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You gotta tell ’em, Ray,” I said. “Please. For me. You gotta tell ’em I did it.”

He looked around the room and for a second he was like when I’d met him. That “too late” look.

“Hey, Jon,” he said, and that may have been the other time he used my name.

“What?” I said.

He touched his throat like he was loosening a collar.

“Fuck you,” he said.

I
T HAD BEEN
a long time comin’. Like the song said. It would be a long time gone.

Everything worked out perfectly. I went back to school at some point because it didn’t make sense not to. People would nod, their voices would change. They’d walk up and touch me in the hall like I was a saint—my arm, my shoulder, my face, that needy, solemn look in their eyes. Like I was a goddamn saint. I talked to Falvo, told him about the deal they’d made. He shook his head. He’d written letters. Others had written letters. He didn’t expect they’d do much good.

I told him the truth and he sat there in his teacher’s chair and just looked at me and I could hear the clock making a buzzing sound on the wall. “It’s OK,” he said at last.

“It’s not OK,” I said. “You don’t understand.”

“I think I do,” he said, “we’re all in this, one way or another.”

“You don’t understand,” I said.

“I
do
understand,” he said gently. “They needed a lightning rod—they found one.”

“But he didn’t do it,” I said.

“I know that.”

“I fuckin’ did it.”

“I know—it’s not the point.”

“What
is
the point?”

He didn’t answer. I wiped my face on my sleeve.

“I hear the brother’s OK,” he said after a while.

“Gene’s down in Yonkers,” I said.

“And the girl’s in Hartford.”

“Karen,” I said. “Yeah.”

He nodded. “You hear about Mary?” he said. He smiled. “Who would have guessed—her of all people. She took five sick days in a row—the cafeteria almost stopped without her.”

Somebody knocked on the door.

“I’m busy,” he called. “Seems she gave the police some kind of note for him—wouldn’t take no for an answer. I hear he’s living with her now.”

Somebody knocked on the door again, more timidly.

He got up and went to the door—I couldn’t see who it was. “Not now,” he said. “Later.”

He came back, sat down. “Anyway, congratulations,” he said. He’d heard about Columbia. He’d gotten a call from their track coach—seemed very excited.

I nodded.

“You’ll be OK,” he said suddenly. “You can’t see it now, but life goes on.” He looked down at his left hand like a woman looking at her manicure, thinking about how her marriage has died. “That’s the thing—it goes on. With or without you.”

F
OR A WHILE
I thought it might be “with.” I went back to school. The teachers let me through, passed me for nothing. I hung out with Frank a bit, though we didn’t talk much. He’d cleaned up, gone back to church. For his parents’ sake, he said. It’d been hard for them—he didn’t want to add to it. He was his old self again. Only the smoking had stuck.

I don’t know why I didn’t tell him. I just didn’t, and the longer I didn’t, the easier it got. Maybe it was because I wasn’t sure what he’d say.

“What was it like?” he said once, almost wincing, like he didn’t want to ask but felt he had to—a choirboy forcing himself to look at dirty pictures. “I mean when you got there. I mean if—”

“Not good,” I said.

He nodded. “Never thought he could do something like that—did you?”

“Not like he had a choice,” I said.

He gave a little shrug, looked away.

“What’re you sayin’?” I said.

“Nothin’. I don’t know. I mean, don’t get sore an’ all—I know you were there an’ everything so it’s hard for you to see but, I don’t know, you think it’s right for somebody to kill their own father and not be punished? I mean seriously—if he wasn’t our friend and all, would you think it was right?”

I couldn’t say anything.

“I’m just thinkin’,” he said.

“He didn’t have a choice,” I said.

“Yeah, no, I know, but—”

“I gotta go,” I said.

“Yeah, sure, I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t’ve brought it up.”

“It’s fine. I just gotta go.”

“It’s just that, you know, in the Bible it says thou shalt not kill and—”

“But they do, Frank.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“I gotta go,” I said.

I
SAW RAY
a few times. He was bagging groceries thirty hours a week at the A&P. He had a little tag on his shirt with his name on it. He’d cut his hair. “Just hair,” he said when I came by. He smiled. “Like a bag for that, sir?” The smile hadn’t changed, really.

He’d had a letter from Karen, he said. Her parents weren’t completely against her seeing him before he left.

“When’s that?” I said.

“My date with Uncle Sam? August fifteenth, buddy.”

I hung around while he bagged some woman’s crap. “Thank you for shopping at A&P, ma’am,” he said.

Jimmy had offered him a job but the suits had wanted more structure, he said. Early to bed, early to rise—that kind of thing.

“Name tags,” I said.

He shrugged. “How
you
doin’?” he said.

“I’m OK,” I said.

He’d almost forgotten to tell me—Karen had got into some college in Boston. Wesley.

“Wellesley,” I said.

“That’s it.”

A short woman with short hair walked up and arranged the bags into a neater pile and kept walking. “Employees aren’t allowed visitors—you know that,” she said over her shoulder.

“Sorry,” Ray said.

“I better go,” I said.

“I called it, you know—said this was gonna be a big year.”

“Yeah. You did.” I could play along.

“I mean, Karen’s got into some great college, you woulda won States …”

“Frank’s stopped playin’ with himself,” I said.

“Think?”

“Maybe.”

He slipped one bag inside another, snapped them out. “And me? Me, I’m gettin’ the fuck outta Brewster.”

I could see his boss coming back around.

“Good average,” I said.

“Fuckin’ Ted Williams,” he said.

A
ND SPRING BECAME
a summer. Just not the one we’d planned.

Life went on, Falvo had said—with or without you. And Karen came down with her father in June and he left them alone at Bob’s for an hour and then she got back in the car with him and left. And Ray, shorn like a sheep and structured up the wazoo, handed in his name tag and kissed his brother goodbye, then hugged as much of Mary as he could and left for Fort Dix. And in September I took the train to the city, then the No. 1 local uptown in the heat and sat in a room on the tenth floor of an ugly dormitory called Carman Hall and tried to breathe.

With me, I thought. Please. Let it be with me.

I
HAVE A MEMORY
from that spring. For a few weeks, not that long after it happened, I started showing up to practice. Like I was walking in my sleep. Or running, I guess. I hadn’t trained. It didn’t matter.

It must have been May, a cold drizzle coming down. Falvo had put me in the mile. I’d had to convince him. He wasn’t sure. He wanted to bring me back more slowly. I wanted to run. I wanted to hurt in a way I understood.

I don’t remember if I won that race. I don’t. I remember coming into the third lap, just before the pain came on, and looking up and seeing him standing there on that little hill above the track, smoking. He’d taken off from work. He didn’t have much time.

We passed the start and the gun went off for the last lap and I glanced up through the rain as we hit the backstretch. He was still there—tall, thin, his face hidden in the hood of his sweatshirt. Watching me do about the only thing I could.