The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (13 page)

The summer’s hesitant hope for Roosevelt’s New Deal and National
Recovery Administration had soured in the past few weeks
as things seemed only to backslide. Governments could change and policies could
be enacted and banks could temporarily close and then reopen, but the disease
was still festering. When the depression had first hit, everyone talked about
it as if it were a hurricane or tornado or flood—another horrible act of
God that simply needed to be endured. They were resigned villagers bucketing
out the floodwaters or sawing the felled trees, expected to trudge patiently
through the aftermath. But now people weren’t so sure. Maybe depressions
weren’t God-made but man-made, bound to all the messiness and contradictions
and barely concealed flaws that plagued us all. But if the depression was the
result of human nature, how could you escape it? Preachers on the radio told
listeners to repent, socialists and communists tried to recruit the
dispossessed to their revitalized creeds, and people in the vast middle
wondered whom to blame— God or themselves or someone else. Blame had
become the only thing more precious than money.
Little Patrick was asleep in his mother’s arms. The last time Jason had
seen his nephew, he looked like a bald-headed monster. Now he was kind of cute.
Veronica was living in a tiny apartment on the third floor of a dilapidated
building in a Dayton neighborhood where Jason wouldn’t have wanted a pet
dog to roam, let alone his wife and child. He silently cursed his
brother—Jason had handed him a healthy amount of dough, and this was the
place Whit rented?
Jason had managed a glance into the small pantry and saw that its shelves were
sagging from age and poor craftsmanship but not from the weight they were carrying:
two sacks of cornmeal, half a dozen cans of beans and vegetables. At least Whit
had bought his new wife some decent clothes; she was wearing a pretty yellow
dress, though from the look of it she’d been wearing it for a few days
now. Her hair was messily pulled back and unwashed. The pouches beneath her
eyes were the color of used tea bags and looked just as heavy.
Whit’s disappearance had not been precipitated by a particularly bad
fight, Veronica claimed, but Jason wasn’t sure he believed her. Even in
her current state, she wasn’t the type to admit pain or reveal weakness.
“Any idea where he might have gone?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. Few days before he left, one of your
uncle’s old war buddies stopped by and they went out drinking. An
Italian. Name was Gustavo something-that-rhymed-with-Confetti. Whit told me the
guy lives in Columbus and was goin’ on about him knowing a guy who knew a
guy who had jobs.”
It was as good a hunch as Jason was likely to stumble upon. Columbus was no
more than four hours’ drive, so he was relieved to hear that his
expedition would be a short one. Still, there was something particularly sad
about running out on your family and making it through only a few counties.
Part of him had wanted to believe Whit was staking out for the bounty and risks
of California, or testing himself against the anonymous lottery of greater
cities like Chicago or New York. The thought of Whit trying to reinvent himself
in goddamn Columbus only made Jason shake his head.
“Did he say he was going there to work a job and send money home?”
She shook her head. “I just woke up one morning thinking he was out
looking for work. I thought he’d be back for supper, but he never came
back.”
Jason slipped her money for rent—enough for at least three months, he figured,
plus food. She protested the charity only halfheartedly before accepting.
“I’m sorry he did that to you, Veronica. I’ll talk some sense
into him.”
“He’s having trouble growing up,” she said.
“I guess I haven’t been the best example for him.”
“He’d yell and scream one night and cry the next. Not unlike this
one.” As if insulted, the baby uttered a little yelp.
“You know you’re welcome to stay at Ma’s. We don’t want
you to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be a burden on her. She has enough on her hands with
June’s kids.”
“You’re not a burden, you’re family.”
“What’s the difference?”
The baby cried again, and this time his eyes opened. The cries were short but
constant; Jason had never heard anything more grating. He could imagine how it
must have sounded to Whit.
“I should feed him,” Veronica said.
“I’ll talk some sense into Whit,” he
repeated as he stood, grateful for the excuse to make his exit. He told himself
he was doing the right thing as he walked out of her apartment, down the
creaking steps, past the bum in the first-floor hallway, and out the front door
with the broken lock.
Despite Marriner’s advice about lying low, after Jason’s
uncomfortable talk with Ma he’d felt the only way he could salvage her
opinion of him was by doing as she had asked. So here he was, poking into this
Columbus bar and that, checking in at a veterans’ office for the
mysterious friend of his dead uncle, walking up and down breadlines in the hope
of spotting Whit. At the eighth bar Jason checked, the barkeep said a guy who
sounded like Whit had been by a few days ago, drinking with a Gustavo Colletti,
who lived around the corner. When the barkeep mentioned that Whit had skipped
out without paying his tab, Jason paid the amount, plus a fat tip. The
barkeep’s eyes froze on Jason’s thick billfold.
Colletti’s neighborhood was a modest block, tree-lined but lacking shade,
as the maples were spindly things that had been planted recently, probably in
’29, before every municipal budget had zeroed out. Long shadows sprawled
on the sidewalks beneath the late-afternoon sun. Though it was barely five
o’clock, Jason saw a dispiriting number of men smoking on porches or
watching him from behind windows.
“Gustavo Colletti?” Jason asked when a man in an undershirt and
patched trousers answered the door. He was Jason’s height, and though his
arms and chest were thick, they seemed to sag a bit from fat that had once been
muscle.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m looking for Whit Fireson.”
“He ain’t here anymore.” The man had curly dark hair that had
lost an inch or two of real estate to his forehead.
“You two had a spat?”
Colletti folded his arms. They were not insignificant arms. “I said,
who’s asking?”
“I’m family of his. He left his wife and kid high and dry, and I
want to talk some sense into him.”
“All I tried to do was help out the nephew of an old buddy who’s
down on his luck. He overstayed his welcome, and I told him as much.”
“He doesn’t have a job in town?”
Colletti laughed as if he had long ago stopped seeing real humor in the world.
“Where’s he staying now?”
“Got me.”
“He alone? Or does he have a frail in town?”
“Last couple times I saw him he was chatting up a girl named Alice
Simmons, but he can’t be staying with her, since she lives in a
girls’ dorm.”
“Buddy, if you have any idea where I might find him, I’d appreciate
it. As would his two-month-old son.”
Colletti unfolded his arms and let his heavy hands fall into his pockets.
“Know where I’d look? Greater Columbus Presbyterian—the
school, not the church. He and Alice were talking about going out for the dance
marathon.”
“You mean, to watch it?”
“I mean to win it. Two-hundred-dollar pot.”
Colletti invited Jason into his tiny kitchen to check his copy of the
Dispatch
.
Jason found the story in the front section, no less, under the headline
WALKATHON DOWN TO 12 LUCKY COUPLES. They were officially called walkathons for
propriety’s sake, when in fact dancing was what the contestants did until
they collapsed. Jason skimmed the story, which noted that the contest was in its
twelfth day now, and though there was no mention of a Whit Fireson, he saw one
couple identified as Alice Simmons and Will Franklin—the name Whit had
used when signing for his Dayton apartment.
“I know who you are, by the way,” Colletti said. He had lit a
cigarette while Jason read the story, and he spoke with it dangling from his
lips.
“That so?”
“Your brother can be quite a talker after a few drinks.”
“And quite a liar. Don’t believe everything a guy says.”
“Oh, I don’t. But I believe enough.” He removed the cigarette
from his mouth and tipped it into a dark-red ashtray. “Last April, bank
threw me and my wife out of a house we’d bought five years ago. Had never
been late on a payment before, and they didn’t care that I had that army bonus
due me eventually.”
“That’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear.”
“Was three times as big as this rathole. And now
we got another kid coming. Anyway, I’d just like to shake your
hand.”
It was the third or fourth such overture Jason had received, and during the
next few months it would be followed by many more. He always told his
well-wishers they had the wrong guy, denying his identity while secretly being
warmed by them. But he also found these gestures puzzling—the way people
thought of him, how they attached their hopes and grievances and fears to his
every movement. They placed great meaning on his acts, which they didn’t
understand. He felt undeserving of their praise but also somehow above them and
their flailing despondency, both unworthy and superior.
“Tell me,” Colletti said as Jason released his hand and tried to
make his exit. “It true what they say about you tearing up mortgages when
you’re in the banks? You really do that for folks?”
Jason’s shoulder had already forced the door open. He could hear a bus
trawl by, kids insulting one another.
“Like I said, don’t believe everything a guy says.” He donned
his hat and turned out the doorway in one fluid motion, wondering how Colletti
might color the encounter when retelling it to friends.
Jason’s stomach was begging for food, but he felt close to finding Whit
and didn’t want to let supper cost him his chance. He drove to the
school, a long, two-story gray box beside which was a smaller structure with
the tall windows of a gymnasium. In front of the school building, a sign announced
COLUMBUS FIRST ANNUAL WALKATHON! $250 PRIZE! NIGHTLY CONTEST EVENTS! LIVE
MUSIC! NOW IN TWELFTH DAY! SPONSORED BY VFW. ADMISSION 25¢.
He was surprised the promoter had been able to land a church’s school
gym, as most preachers strongly opposed the contests, given the licentious
dancing, the depraved crowds, and the announcer’s lewd jokes. The
promoter must have offered the church a cut of the take.
Jason parked at the spot closest to the exit behind the building, backing in,
always prepared for a hasty escape. He could hear the music when he was halfway
to the door. In the small entryway hung banners boasting of football and
basketball championships. Below them a dimpled blond
girl
sitting at a collapsible desk and cash register charged him a quarter. From the
gym a waltz faded, followed by the sound of a needle scratching on the
phonograph. Next up was another waltz, sleepier.
“Things will really get moving again at six o’clock,” the
girl told him. He thanked her and walked through the doors.
Two dozen spectators were scattered on bleachers on one side of the gym. The
tall windows provided little light at that hour, yet only half the lamps above
the main floor were lit. The markings of a basketball court lay beneath the
feet of eleven dancing couples—apparently the twelfth had been
disqualified since that morning. Before taking a seat, Jason scanned the faces
of the dancers. Calling them dancers was inaccurate. Their slight movements may
have been enough to pass muster with the judge, who darted among them with
birdlike inquisitiveness, but it certainly wasn’t dancing. Many of the
contestants were leaning on their partners, faces wan, arms hanging loose like
corpses. Some of their wrists were bound with rope, and knotted kerchiefs
connected a few slumbering necks to their more responsive mates. The waking
partners gingerly nudged the feet of their dozing companions, keeping in
accordance with the rules. The balding floor judge carried a white yardstick,
and he flicked it at the calves of a short woman who was nearly crumpling
beneath the weight of her partner. She moved faster after the strike, and began
shaking her man’s shoulders.
“Allllllrighty, people!” The announcer’s energetic voice was
in such contrast to the torpor on the floor. It sounded inhuman, a sinister
force. “After this song it will be five o’clock! That means the
live band will be setting up, that means the tempo will be picking up, and,
most important, that means—”
The thin but lively audience, mostly female, chimed in: “No
breaks!”
Jason spotted the pin-striped announcer, standing at a desk at the far end,
beneath one of the retracted basketball hoops. Beside him two headphoned men
sat among consoles of electronics, wires spilling in every direction. Local
radio, of course, set to broadcast the night’s events. Jason had never
attended one of these, but he’d once talked up a traveling promoter for
such events. The man had been soused and bragged about his lucrative calling,
how he would skip from town to town, putting on the events only at locations
that had never hosted them before, so the crowds
would
be enthusiastic and the local hosts wouldn’t realize that he was likely
to disappear without paying their take. He talked about how he rigged the
contest with his small legion of professional dancers, whom he referred to as
“horses”: ex–vaudeville players who needed the work and had
the endurance to outlast even the most desperate of participants. He described
the ridiculous nightly games and wind sprints, the insults they lobbed at the
contestants, the ice baths they dunked them into if they fell too deeply asleep
on their cots during the hourly fifteen-minute breaks backstage. The promoter
had been with a circus in his youth, he’d explained, until he decided
that torturing animals wasn’t enough of a challenge.
Finally, Jason spotted his brother. Whit was one of the sleepers, and at first
Jason hadn’t recognized him, since his face was pressed into the padded
shoulder of a green dress. Whit’s dance partner was a tall redhead. She
was wobbling in a clockwise slumber, and now Jason could see only the back of
Whit’s head, the pale right ear sticking out like a crumpled white flag.
Pinned to both of their backs were yellow pieces of paper displaying the number
37.