The Gate (20 page)

“Look, Dad,” I said as we walked through the garage and into the house, “I never minded helping. I knew that you were as
devastated as he was about that, and it was my turn to step up. I just did what I could do, that's all.”

Dad slumped into a big leather chair in the living room and spoke softly. “The only problem was that when I stopped treating him special, you started treating him special. You gave him a job, you looked out for him, you looked the other way, and you bailed him out when he messed up. And don't you even try to deny it because he's already told me all about it.

“He came to me and asked for his inheritance early. And what could I do? I'm his father and I'm your father, and to hear that you two were at odds with each other broke my heart. It was my fault and it was mine to fix, so I sold a piece of property I had to cover the prodigal's debt. He and I went down to the bank and paid off the note yesterday.”

“Property?” I said. “What property?”

“Remember that cottage we used to rent when you were a kid?” he asked, and I nodded that I did. “Well,” he said, “there was this piece of property down the road from there called Promise Point. Your uncle Herb and I used to go bass fishing off the rocks by the bay, and one July I caught a five-pounder. I was telling your mother about it later that night and she wanted to see it, so the two of us drove over there just before sundown. We sat on a picnic table underneath a couple of white pines, and we started talking about you kids and how much you loved it up there, and then she noticed a For Sale sign hidden in the weeds. She took out her lipstick and wrote down the number on an old bulletin in her purse, and I told her I'd check it out. ‘Do you promise?' she said. ‘I promise,' I said, and then I carved the words and our initials into the top of that old picnic table. I said, ‘This place is a little taste of heaven, and someday we'll build a house up here.'

“We never did, but I did check into it. The lot was listed by a place called Paradise Reality, and when I called them they said they'd sell it to me on a land contract. I made monthly payments
on it for the longest time, but by the time I got it paid off, life had changed. First there was Ben's accident, then Sharon and Jim moved out of town, after that you went back to school, so I sat on it. Then, right after Ben came over and told me about what was going on, a guy named Michael DeAngelo from Paradise Reality called me out of the blue and told me he had a buyer for the property if I'd be willing to sell it.

“I can't explain it, and you probably wouldn't understand if I tried, but it just seemed like a God thing to me, so yesterday I signed the papers, got the check, and Ben and I went down to see Jake at Old State and made things right. I told Ben that when I die that money gets deducted off the top of his share of my estate, and I expect you to make it happen, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll see to it, but I hope I don't have to do anything about it very soon.”

“None of us can know that,” Dad said, “but I do know that I'm eighty-nine, and I'm ready.”

“Well, I'm not,” I said. “I want you to stick around for a while.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “But I wanted to make this right. And I also wanted to tell you how sorry I am for what I said the night of the accident. I never should have done that, but I needed to unload on someone. I thought you could take it, but I realize now how much pain my words caused. The truth is, in the things that count, you're the strong one, and you always have been. In that way you're the one who's most like me, because when times get rough, everybody leans on you. I should say this more, but, well, you know how it is. Son, I'm proud of you.”

By this time both of us were starting to get a little emotional. “It's true,” he said, “and you know it's true!” After a long, awkward moment of silence, he gave me a hug and silently walked out the door. I wanted to yell, “Dad, wait, there's something I've got to tell you,” but he looked over his shoulder and said, “I'm going over to your sister's for supper, and I'm already late. If you want
to come I'm sure you're welcome, but Ben asked me to tell you that he'd be out in the barn if you wanted to talk.”

The barn was a four-stall pole barn nestled in the pines behind Dad's house. He used it as a workshop and a place to store his boat. I used it as a place to rebuild cars when I was younger. Most nights Ben would come out and help, or at least try to. Once in a while Dad would come too, but most nights it was just Ben and me.

We'd spend hours twisting wrenches and tinkering with things, and we'd get into deep discussions about everything from girls to God. Around ten we'd often end the night by going down to Vitale's for a pizza. We both enjoyed those nights in the barn, and at some point out there we went from brothers to best friends. In the past few years we'd sort of put that part of our lives on the shelf, and I'm sure that was part of the reason that we'd grown apart. Ben was still my brother, but the relationship was heavier now. It was something we both had to work at.

As I drove out to the barn, I regretted letting things between the two of us get the way they were, and I wondered if inviting me out here was Ben's way of inviting me back into his life. I hoped so, and I let my mind play with what might be, but as always with Ben, I really didn't know what to expect.

The barn was about a quarter of a mile down a little two-track back through the pines, and when I turned into the clearing, I felt like I was stepping back in time. The barn was wrapped in turquoise and white ribbed steel siding that was rusted and weathered. It had two windows in front, each of which was propped open with a stick, and one of them still had a cracked pane in it from a baseball that got away from me when I was about eight. Weeds had grown up around the cement slab by the front entrance, and the horns off a nine-point buck were mounted above the door.

There was a gunmetal gray 2002 BMW Z3 parked out front,
and I knew from the dealer plate that it was Ben's. He liked to drive hot cars, and this one sizzled. It was the mirror image of the one Pierce Brosnan drove in the Bond movie
GoldenEye
, and the car sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

On the east end of the building, the old single-stall wooden garage door was partially rolled up. As I ducked underneath it and walked inside, it was like seeing an old friend. The barn was dimly lit by four fluorescent lights that hung off chains that dropped from the ceiling. The floor was cracked, yellowed concrete that sloped to a drain in stalls number two and three. Oil and paint had been spilled and sprayed on it over the years, and it kind of had the appearance of a speckled bass.

In the first stall Dad's weathered old fourteen-foot Starcraft sat on the trailer. It had a flat tire, but the boat looked pretty shipshape. The fifteen-horse Evinrude was tilted up on the stern ready for travel. The poles, cushions, and life jackets were stowed neatly in the side bins. The oars were fixed in the locks and tucked inside the fins on the back, and the chain link anchor dangled off the bow. There was a small dent in the starboard side of the hull from when I ran her into the dock one night coming in from bluegill fishing. As I looked at it, I thought,
It's been too long since I've taken Dad out fishing
.

In the next stall was a scuffed-up old Honda 90 motorcycle we used to run up and down the two-track when we were younger. Like the boat trailer, it had a flat tire, plus the brake handle was bent, the mustard yellow paint had faded, and the seat was torn and tattered. An open can of Quaker State sat on top, and by my guess it had probably been there for five years or more. Propped up against the side of the cycle was a faded piece of blue plastic with the letters
VW
on it. It had been part of a Volkswagen lollypop sign we'd had in the car business. Ben said that he wanted to frame it and hang it up at the car lot, but by the looks of it he never got around to it. Next to the Honda was the Lawn-Boy we used to cut down the weeds around the barn and a fire engine–red
Radio Flyer wagon with wood rails. Inside the Flyer were a pair of garden gloves, a little trowel, and a three-tined weeder that Mom used to use in her garden.

In stall number three a Coleman lantern, a blue hand-crank ice auger, and Sharon's purple Schwinn Stingray bike hung from hooks in the ceiling. Dad's old workbench stood up against the wall behind them. The top of the bench was made out of a piece of salvaged bowling alley, and he'd made the legs out of four-by-fours. On one end there was a vise bolted on the top and on the other end was an anvil. To say the bench was sturdy was an understatement. On the wall behind the bench there was a four-by-eight piece of pegboard with tools outlined and labeled in Dad's block-style capital letters. A calendar from the forties with a picture of Betty Grable on it hung from a hook. She was in a bathing suit with her hair stacked up on top of her head, looking back over her shoulder and smiling, and Dad said he put it up there because it reminded him of Mom when she was younger. By a row of screwdrivers on the other end of the bench he'd tacked Mom's high school graduation picture, and when I saw it I thought,
If only he could see her now
.

It was in this stall, where an old Volvo now sat covered in dust, that I rebuilt the motor of the first car I ever owned, a black Triumph TR2 with two white racing strips that ran across the hood and trunk. I bought it from a guy who'd raced it, and when I got it, it had the number three piston sticking out of the side of the block. Piece by piece I took the front end off the car, sequentially numbering each piece with masking tape labels as I went. Dad came out and saw the parts scattered around the barn floor and bet me a hundred dollars that I'd never get it running again. He'd have won the bet if Herby hadn't come to my rescue. Herb came over every night after supper for three weeks and helped me put it back together with a used short block I'd gotten from the junkyard.

For a time I was lost in the nostalgia of the place and wondering
why I'd kept my distance from Ben and the barn. Then without warning he came sliding out from underneath the old Volvo that was parked in stall number three. It was a dark khaki–colored 1962 544 with red-ribbed leatherette interior. The design of the car was totally retro, and it looked like a '46 Ford coupe that shrunk when it got caught in the dryer. Ben looked up at me from the creeper and said, “Hey bro, Dad called and said you might drop by. I'm glad you did. You know more about these old ones than I do, and I could use some help.”

He told me that he'd taken the vintage Volvo in on trade from a guy who'd had it parked in his grandfather's garage since 1973. He said it ran when he drove it in there but it didn't start now. Ben confessed that he probably put too much money into the car but had fallen in love with it. It reminded him of an old ice racer we use to have, and I said that I agreed.

“These things are built like a tank,” he said, “and that little fourbanger tractor engine will run forever.” He was hoping to restore it for Easy and said he thought it would make a great high school graduation present for him. “Can you imagine being on campus your freshman year driving a chick magnet like this old Volvo?”

“I don't think Easy is going to have any trouble attracting girls,” I said, but I had to admit it would make a sweet ride. “You could trick it out with chrome wheels and custom paint.”

“I'm thinking about maybe keeping it original,” he said, “but first I've got to get it running. I put in some fresh gas, got a new set of plugs and points sitting on the bench, and I'm charging the battery, but when I tried turning it over earlier I don't think it was getting any gas. I'll bet it's got something to do with those Zenith-Stromberg carbs. They always were a little touchy. You want to take a look?”

“Sure,” I said, “but you might have to have Dave come over if you really want it done right. I was always better at dolling them up than tuning them up.”

“I've got complete confidence in you, bro,” he said. “I'm going to slide under here and finish putting new oil and fuel filters on this thing, and while I do, why don't you tackle the electrical stuff?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said as he slid back out of sight.

A half hour later he crawled back out, grabbed the keys off the bench, and slid awkwardly behind the steering wheel. I could tell his leg was bothering him, but before I could ask about it he said, “You feather the butterfly on those carbs, and I'll try to breathe a little fire in this beast.”

It took a little coaxing, but after a few misfires and some sputtering, the old Volvo was humming like a sewing machine. Ben hollered in delight as he revved it a few times and then shut it down. Then he ran around to the front of the car where I was standing and swallowed me up in a big bear hug.

“You and I always did make a great team,” he said, still holding me close, and almost whispered the words, “Whatever happened to that?”

It was a rhetorical question. We both knew what happened. The accident and its aftermath had driven a wedge between us.

“I know it won't be easy,” Ben said, “but I think we've got to talk about this. At least I know I've got to talk about it. This is the elephant in the room every time we get together as a family, and I'm sick of dancing around it. You know as well as I do that it's been eating us both up, and it's got to stop.”

“I've been talking to Pastor Bill,” he continued as he let me go and looked me in the eye. “He's been helping me see things a little clearer. He said that if I'm going to really give my life to Jesus, then I've got to give him all of it, and that includes the stuff between us. Then last week as he was about to break the bread he said that communion was a feast of forgiveness, and that the opposite was just as true. Unforgiveness is a meal in itself. We feed off our anger, and our resentment, and our disappointment, and the more we taste it the more we want. Before you know it we're licking our lips imagining the sweet taste of revenge. The
problem is that rather than satisfy our hunger, it eats us up inside, and when the meal is over, bitterness and guilt have picked the meat off the bones of our souls. And that's where I've been for too long.