Like Grownups Do (17 page)

Many in the crowd jumped when the next brief moment of silence was punctuated by a loud bang. It was the sound made when Russell Eckhart slammed both of his hands into a door lever as he stormed from the building.

Babe, Jack, and Jordan pushed back their chairs after devouring one of the finest steak dinners in the country. Jack treated them to the celebratory meal at a posh Georgetown restaurant. Loosened belts made room for a few welcome beers.

“This feels like the end to a rather anti-climactic day, but I’m not complaining,” Babe said. “I’ve been a nervous wreck for a week.”

“I played a hunch because I didn’t want to roll the dice with a full blown conference of Bureau and Pentagon,” Jack said.

“That was going to be too many players, too many careers, and
way
too many emotions. After I convinced the Director to get me thirty minutes with four principals from Bureau and four from Pentagon, I thought we had a good shot at wrapping this up.

“It’s a week before Christmas and everybody wanted this over and done. I passed around the transcripts from the journal, but it was the video compilation you made up that did it, Babe. When that last scene froze on the screen, I looked around the room and I believe I saw every man there imagining that picture appearing on every television screen in America. They were more than ready to deal.

“I’ll be back here the first week of January with the Lelands, and everything will be taken care of: Hospital, doctors, the funeral, a financial settlement and an NDA, of course. The Bureau will be handling everything but you can bet that the money is going to be coming straight out of the Pentagon’s budget.

“The Bureau has shut down the investigation into the shooting incident. We’ve agreed to turn over the journal and any videos that are not original. That was to be expected, of course. I think we did the best we could.”

“No doubt on that one, Jack. That was a good call on your part, and RCI never came up, whatever you want to make of that,” Jordan said.

“Babe, I had every intention of having you in the room but the Director wouldn’t have it. He wanted Jordan in there. I hope you’re not disappointed. I told you from the beginning that we were a bunch of dinosaurs and the Bureau fights change as hard as it fights crime,” Jack said.

“Oh, hell no. I don’t think my career was going to take any giant steps by my pissing my pants in front of the Director of the FBI and a row of four star generals. I can’t say the same for Russell Eckhart, though. Did you see him after the Director dismissed everybody? I had been watching him rehearsing in that empty conference room for an hour. He was good and pissed,” Babe said.

“Russell’s been acting more desperate since his stepfather died, probably because Stemple was responsible for his entire career,” Jack said.

“Eckhart got hammered by that one. The old man got a cancer diagnosis—drove to the lake and got drunk, had a heart attack, and then launched his car into the forest—all in one day. I don’t know what to expect from Eckhart with Stemple out of the picture, but I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

“I wish you had told me what to expect in that room, Jack,” Jordan said. “Oh, man, that video— God. That is going to haunt me.”

“I know. I’m sorry it happened that way but this has been…this has been all fucked up,” Jack said.

“Yeah, agreed,” Jordan said.

He raised his bottle.

“Here’s to getting shit-faced stupid and catching a cab to a nice hotel to sleep it off. Gentlemen?”

Babe and Jack clinked bottles with Jordan to the unison cheer of “Hear, hear.”

RCI shut down two days before Christmas Eve. The last day ended at noon. Jordan arranged this schedule. There was no business done, but Jordan and Samantha stopped by on their way out of town for the annual gift exchange.

Babe received mostly gifts for Mr. Pendleton, and he was glad for it. Babe gave Millie a classic Alabama University jacket and she gave him an Alabama jersey. For a dog.

Babe continued his tradition of gifting MG imported chocolates from exotic locations. This year he gave her one box from Germany and another box from Brazil. He learned the hard way that one box was not enough because MG would start on the chocolates as soon as she opened them. She shared them as well. Babe felt bad the first year they had exchanged gifts because MG’s gift lasted five minutes. If MG was indeed Super Woman, Kryptonite was made of chocolate.

Babe and Tom continued their tradition of exchanging gag gifts. Babe gave Tom a rubber vomit, a collection of lewd fake tattoos, and a pair of glasses that had the latex eyes of a caffeine junkie molded into them. Tom countered with a coffee cup with a ceramic dead mouse in the bottom, a set of extremely gross fake teeth, and a t-shirt that declared “I like Boobies”.

Babe’s gift from Jordan and Samantha left him speechless—a large framed print of Curt Schilling on the pitcher’s mound during game six of the 2004 American League championship game against the Yankees.

Schilling stood prepared to pitch, wearing the infamous ‘bloody sock’ from a hastily repaired and sutured ankle tendon. The game was one of the most memorable in Boston Red Sox history and one near and dear to the hearts of all Red Sox fans, of which Babe was a loyal member.

Babe arrived at Jack’s home at about sunset on Christmas Eve. He brought Mr. Pendleton at Jack’s request. Mr. Pendleton immediately embarked on categorizing everything in Jack’s house by smell.

“Help me keep an eye on him, Jack,” Babe said. “He’s potty trained pretty well but he hasn’t been here before and he isn’t neutered yet.”

“I can deal with that better than I can deal with anyone being left alone on Christmas Eve.”

“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” Babe said.

Jack chuckled.

“Damned if that name doesn’t fit. Look at that sad excuse for a tree. Do you do egg nog?”

“Yep. It was required in the state of Missouri.”

Jack handed Babe a cup of eggnog and sat a full bottle of rum down on the table between them.

“There. Adult beverage conversion optional.”

“Jack, do you mind if I go through your photo albums? I want to scan some copies if that’s okay.”

“Not a problem. I’ll get them.”

Soon the two men sat in the floor across the coffee table from each other with a sea of loose photos surrounding them. Babe had never seen most of these because this family had gone from thinking they had all the time in the world to having too little future to spend time looking back.

Jack provided a soundtrack for a number of the pictures. Some of the pictures were fading away, having come from Polaroid cameras. Babe found much of the collection to be hilarious.

“Jack. Are you serious? An afro? That is groovy, man. Pork chop sideburns and a baby blue leisure suit. Jack Englemann; stayin’ alive. Let me guess, is this what you looked like when MG took you shopping?”

“It’s hard for me to believe that this was the fashion back then, but it was. Nobody asked for my opinion.”

Babe took over the running commentary as he continued to shuffle through thirty five years of history.

“Jack, Larry Bird called. He wants his shorts back.”

“Hey, Jack, your mustache is as wide as your tie.”

“Jack is a baaaad mutha — shut yo mouth— just talkin’ ’bout Jack.”

Babe opened an album that contained pictures from Jack’s and Helen’s wedding. This effectively brought the joking to an end.

“You know what, Jack? This may sound… I don’t know, maybe it sounds wrong, but Helen might be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

“Well, you did marry her daughter so it has to make some sense, don’t you think?” Jack asked.

“Now are you going to ask how the hell this fashion-starved nerd pulled that off?”

“Never crossed my mind,” Babe said with a smirk.

“Lying little shit.”

Jack reached for a distant stack of pictures that he only succeeded in pushing farther away from him. He stretched farther until he rocked back and fell over backward.

Babe laughed.

“You okay there, Jack?”

Jack started laughing.

“Sisk! Bentley!”

Babe took his cue. “Everett!”

And in unison: “Whip up a liver and whey shake, right away!”

Babe fought to his feet as the effects of the rum rushed to his head. He offered a hand to Jack and helped him to his feet.

“Let’s open presents,” Jack said.

Babe went first; a Red Sox jersey. For Mr. Pendleton. Jack knew that Babe owned no less than eight Red Sox jerseys. The next box contained an assortment of gourmet dog treats. A final box contained a portable snow blower.

Babe looked at Jack with a puzzled look on his face.

“Would you like to wade through snow every time you have to pee?” Jack asked.

“Oh, yeah. That’s good thinking.” Babe scratched Mr. Pendleton’s head.

“Good thing Jack is a smart guy, huh boy?”

Jack opened a box. He lifted up by the shoulders a circa 1976 Los Angeles Rams jersey—blue and gold, number sixteen with the name ‘Pendleton’ across the back. Jack held it up for several seconds and then lowered it slowly while he bit his lip.

Babe’s stomach clenched.

Uh, oh.

“I’m sorry Jack. Did I—”

“No, no, Babe. It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. It’s the best gift I can remember. Thank you.”

Babe breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“I got a box from Dad; one for you and one for me, from Dad and Uncle Zach.”

The packages were identical and contained DVD copies of the videotape that Zach had taken of their family reunion, the one with Jill pitching softball to Zach’s sons.

With Jack’s permission and directions, Babe put the DVD in the player. Before he started the video both men filled their mugs in an adult fashion. They watched the video play without commentary. Babe caught sight of himself a couple of times.

My God, I’m getting old
, he thought.

As Zach carried his video camera around the park, many scenes featured a background of his boisterous laugh. This left the feeling of being present for a pirate adventure or perhaps a boar hunt with King Henry the Whichever.

The first time Jill appeared she was pushing a little boy and a little girl on side-by-side swings. Their high pitched voices could be heard across the park as they screamed the mantra of kids-in-swings everywhere—

“Higher. Higher. Higher, Jill.

“Higher!”

Babe watched Jill switch between the two children and on video it was almost terrifying. She pushed them so high that they defied gravity to stay in the swings. When the ride was over, they hugged Jill and ran off to brag about their death-defying swing adventure.

Jill showed a tinge of sunburn and the beginning stages of a tan—the result of the two week Caribbean cruise that she and Babe has just returned from. She appeared so
healthy
in the video.

Babe’s thoughts began to wander.

Should I have moved her out of the cold? Did the climate make her worse? Surely the doctors would have mentioned that, if it would have made a difference. But look at her pushing those swings like a teenager.

There was plenty of heat on her pitches that day, too.

Babe closed his eyes and shook his head.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking about— well, you know, about how people lived for thousands of years without being able to look at their own past; all they had was memory—memory and stories. Then suddenly there were pictures. And now we can watch the past move by in real time. That’s awesome, but it’s also…”

“Painful,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Babe said.

“It can be. Dealing with regret is nothing new, but seeing the past right in front of my eyes, I always hear questions. Survivor’s guilt, I guess—could you have done this? Could you have made a difference if you had done…whatever? So is it a good thing or a bad thing? I know that it fucks with my head.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “same kind of questions I’ve always had. That’s why I wanted to study psychology in the first place. But in the end it seems that the deeper you look the more you find that human beings are a collection of arrogant, intellectual slugs—convinced that we are gods—at the same time knowing deep down that we are as dumb as a box of rocks.”

Babe laughed.

“Which textbook are you quoting? I want to look that up.”

“That’s the First Book of Jack; Chapter One, Verse One. Not to be confused with the Book of You Don’t Know Jack Shit.”

Babe stood and picked up Mr. Pendleton’s leash. His cell phone rang.

“Hello, Mom? Yes, Merry Christmas. I’ve been trying to call you for two days.

“I’m doing great. I’m at Jack’s house.

“Yes, I talked to him earlier today. He’s with Uncle Zach. They were going to rent a boat.