by Wally Lamb
But lost or not, Thomas could still walk. Could still be sprung from Hatch.
The second unexpected phone call I received from Ralph Drinkwater came a few weeks before the story about Morrison and Taylor hit the papers. “I have something for you,” he told me. “Something you might be able to use.”
“Use how?” I said.
“That’s up to you. Just keep my name out of it. You coming to see him in the next couple days?”
I told him I could get down there by midafternoon the next day.
“That works,” he said. He told me I should park at the far end of the visitors’ lot. Leave my car unlocked.
What was this—Watergate? Drinkwater as Deep Throat? Why was he doing this?
After my visit with Thomas the next afternoon, I got back in the Escort. Looked in the glove compartment, under the seats. Nothing. But on the drive home, I thought of the sun visor. And when I flipped it down, a piece of paper fell into my lap: a memo from Dr. Richard Hume to a Dr. Hervé Garcia, stamped “Confidential.”
He was a cynical bastard, Hume. That much was obvious. Whatever his reasons had been for entering the healing profession, he’d lost his way in the woods, too. In the memo, he advised Garcia against Hatch’s “trumpeting these numbers to Hartford” but asked, rhetorically, whether “John and Joan Q. Public” wouldn’t silently approve of the HIV stats if they ever were released—the “weeding out of the population,” courtesy of AIDS.
Social Darwinism, I thought. Mr. LoPresto rides again. Jesus. I was beginning to understand, I thought, how Drinkwater fit into all this. Future casino millionaire or not, Ralph still needed to take a whack at the oppressor. He was still looking for justice.
Well, for whatever reason Ralph had stuck that stolen memo under my visor, I had him now: Hume. If I played it right, that confiscated memo was the key that could spring the lock. Get my brother out of there. La chiave, I thought. Here it is, Ma. This is what we’ve been waiting for.
The first two attorneys I talked to declined to represent me on ethical grounds. The third one didn’t seem to understand what I needed. “We’ll sue as a group,” he said. “The families of the infected inmates. They might pay millions to make this go away.”
“My brother’s not infected,” I reminded him.
He nodded. I’d be an “unofficial” member of the families’ group, he said. A silent partner. The terms could be discreetly hammered out beforehand. He wouldn’t be representing me per se, but because I’d provided the memo, he’d make sure I ended up sitting just as pretty as the rest of them.
I stood up, shaking my head. “You know something?” I said. “You’re like every sleazy lawyer joke I ever heard rolled into one. Go fuck yourself.” For emphasis, I kicked his wastebasket on the way out of there, sent his trash flying every which way but loose.
“Constantine Motors. Leo Blood speaking. How may I help you?”
I asked him if he still had that fancy suit of his.
“My Armani? I’m wearing it as we speak, Mr. Birdseed. Why do you ask?”
“Because I need an actor in a fancy suit.”
He was resistant at first: Leo, who had taken stupid risks his whole life. Who’d thrived on asshole stunts like the one I was proposing. It was illegal, wasn’t it? Posing as an attorney? What if this Dr. Hume recognized his picture from the car ads?
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Like you’re some big celebrity.”
“Well, what about Gene? If he ever found out about a bag job like this, he’d fire my ass on the spot, son-in-law or no son-in-law.”
“Best thing that could happen to you,” I said. “Come on, Leo. You don’t have to say you’re an attorney; you just have to imply you’re one. This is the role of a lifetime.”
“I don’t know, Dominick. I’d like to help you out, but—”
“Look, I need you, man,” I said. “Tommy needs you. This is our only shot.”
It was the first day of April when we finally “communicated directly” with Hume. I’d made three appointments by then; his secretary had called at the last minute and canceled every one of them. “Fuck it,” Leo said after he stood us up the third time. “Let’s ambush the prick.” By then, I think he’d convinced himself he had passed the bar exam.
We waited across the highway from the state hospital’s main entrance. “I just hope it doesn’t backfire on Thomas,” I said.
Life had backfired on Thomas, Leo reminded me. All we were trying to do was start a little forward motion for the guy.
When Hume’s silver Mercedes left the grounds, I started the car, pulled into traffic behind him. Tailed the lead-footed bastard down the John Mason Parkway, onto 395, and then to I-95. “This asshole related to the Andrettis or something?” Leo said.
“I just hope we’re not making a mistake,” I said.
Leo told me to stop thinking and just follow the bastard.
Hume exited the highway in Old Saybrook, drove along Route 1 for a couple of miles, and then pulled into the parking lot of some little seafood restaurant. Soon as he got out of the car, the doors of a red Cherokee parked a couple of cars away swung open. A young couple approached Hume—early twenties, maybe. The girl was a dead ringer—had to be his daughter. There were hugs and kisses, a slap on the back for what looked like the boyfriend. “So how’s Yale treating you two?” I heard Hume ask.
I told Leo this was a bad idea—that we should just go. We could catch up with him at Hatch. He couldn’t keep canceling appointments.
“Look, Dominick,” Leo said. “I been wearing this stupid suit to work three days in a row now. Even I’m getting sick of it. Come on. It’s showtime.”
Briefcase in one hand, the other outstretched toward Hume, Leo led the way. “Dr. Hume? Excuse me, sir. If we could have a minute?” He introduced himself as Arthur verSteeg. Pumped Hume’s daughter’s hand, the boyfriend’s. “Arthur verSteeg. Pleasure to meet you. Arthur verSteeg. And this is my friend Dominick Birdsey.”
That was when the smile dropped off of Hume’s face. He told the two Yalies to go inside and order him a Glenlivet on the rocks.
He stood there, scanning the memo for a couple of seconds, scowling. Then he ripped it up. Sent the pieces fluttering into the breeze coming off Long Island Sound.
“Go ahead, there, Doctor,” Leo said. “Do your thing. We got plenty of copies.”
“What is it you’re after?” Hume said. “Money?”
“Justice,” I said. “The only thing I want from you is—”
Attorney verSteeg cut me off. “Why don’t you let me handle this, Mr. Birdsey?”
On April 11, 1991, the Psychiatric Security Review Board, meeting in executive session, reversed its decision of the previous October and transferred Thomas to the custody of his family, effective at once. The Board strongly advised, however, that Thomas be placed immediately in a fully staffed, fully secured nonforensic psychiatric hospital.
“Well, congratulations,” Sheffer said, shaking my hand in the hallway outside the conference room. “I don’t know how you did it—and hey, I don’t want to know how—but it worked. You got him out of here.”
I nodded, not smiling. “Be careful what you wish for. Right?”
Sheffer warned me that after six months in maximum security, freedom was going to be a shock to my brother’s system. That as tough as it had been for him at Hatch, there had been a kind of safety in all that surveillance, regimentation, and predictability. He was apt to feel unmoored, unsafe—too free. And it had happened so abruptly; she’d never seen such expediency. There’d been no time to prepare Thomas, emotionally, for his release.
Or to get him placed.
She was doing some “fancy footwork,” she said. Settle, Thomas’s old stomping ground, was out of the question. With the facility definitely closing later that year, they weren’t admitting any new patients. They were transferring people out of Settle. No exceptions. Her second choice, Middletown, was still a possibility. She had a call in to admissions there;
she’d try to get me an answer by the end of the day. All of them, she said—she, Dr. Chase, Dr. Patel, the nurses—advised against Thomas’s staying with me. It just wasn’t safe, she said.
“Hey, my cooking’s not that bad,” I told her.
Sheffer didn’t return my smile. “Dominick, I’m going to say something to you that you’re probably not going to appreciate. But I’ll say it anyway.”
“Now there’s a surprise,” I told her.
“You’re arrogant, Dominick. You’re a real good guy and everything. I know you’re trying hard to do what’s best for him. But . . . well, I just hope your arrogance doesn’t end up putting him at risk. Just be careful.”
It was arrogant for a guy to want to keep his brother safe? If I hadn’t managed a little arrogance, he’d still be stuck down there indefinitely. But I didn’t want to get into it with her—it wasn’t the time or the place. So I smiled, thanked her for all she’d done. Hugged her back when she held out her arms to me.
If Sheffer thought I was arrogant, she ought to read that thing of my grandfather’s.
When I walked with Thomas through Hatch’s front security gate and out into the sunlight, he stopped at the top of the stairs and squinted. Looked up at the sky, the swaying trees. He moved a step or two closer. Slipped his stump into the pocket of his jacket.
“Well,” I said, “you’re a free man.”
“I’m a walking target,” he said.
Dr. Chase had changed his medication the week before the hearing—some new psycholeptic the FDA had just approved. If there was going to be any improvement, it would take a couple more weeks to kick in. But I was hoping to avoid having to hear who was after Thomas now—hoping to savor one afternoon’s worth of victory. It was only later that I realized how scared he must have been walking out of there—how terrifying all that sudden open space would be to someone who saw the enemy behind every tree, every steering wheel.
“You want to go over to my place and watch some TV?” I said. “Stop over and see Ray? . . . You hungry? Want to get something at McDonald’s or someplace?”
He wanted to go to the Falls, he said.
“The Falls? . . . Yeah, all right. Sure. You’re a free man now. You can do whatever you damn want to. We got the whole afternoon to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” he said.
“Your freedom,” I said.
He snickered. Mumbled something I didn’t catch.
“What’d you say?”
But he didn’t answer me.
I pulled into the little six-car lot adjacent to the Indian cemetery. Together, we passed the graves on the way to the path that led up to the Falls.
“Remember her?” Thomas asked. He had stopped—was pointing at Penny Ann Drinkwater’s small stone.
I nodded. Saw Penny Ann’s body going over the Falls, the way it had in my nightmares. Saw Eric Clapton’s son dropping from the sky like Icarus. . . .
“You, uh . . . you seen much of her brother while you were down there?”
“Who?”
“Ralph Drinkwater. Her brother.” The guy that got you out of there, I thought. The guy who gave me the ammunition I needed to make you safe again. “He’s on the maintenance crew. Remember? You told me you saw him once down there.”
“Down where?”
“At Hatch.”
He looked over at me. Looked me in the eye. “We’re cousins,” he said.
What was he talking about? “We’re brothers, man.”
“Her cousins,” he said. He nodded toward Penny Ann’s gravestone.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go check out the river.”
We trudged up the dirt-packed path at the far end of the graveyard. It was a muddy mess from that two-day deluge we’d had. Thomas was out of shape—winded from the sloping incline. A breeze tossed the boughs of the pine trees, the bare branches of the pin oaks. My emotions were all over the place.
When we got to the mountain laurel grove, I told Thomas something I’d never told anyone before, not even Dessa: that we were standing at my favorite spot. “Another couple of months and these bushes’ll explode with flowers,” I said. “Early June, it happens. I’ll bring you back here. I come out every year.”
Thomas told me that mountain laurel leaves were poisonous. Had he mentioned that there’d been several attempts to poison him while he was at Hatch? He was pretty sure the Republicans were behind it.
I didn’t answer him. Some celebration, I thought. Started hiking again toward the sound of spilling water.
When we got to the clearing—the waterspill—we stood there, side by side, watching the river drop over the edge and down. It was roaring something fierce that day—spring thaw, plus all that rain we’d had. I looked over at Thomas, studied his grooved, joyless face. It showed, out there in the sunlight: all the wear and tear of the past six months, the twenty-odd years before that. He looked older than forty-one. Old. Part of me was scared to death about what the next weeks and months were going to entail. But another part of me was happy, in partial disbelief, still. He’s here, I remember thinking. He’s with me, Ma. I got him out of there.
And now what?
Turning to me, Thomas said something I couldn’t hear over the roar of the water. I cupped my hand against my ear and leaned closer. “What?”
“I said, this is a holy place.”
I nodded. Stiffened a little. The Holy Roller rides again, I thought. But as I looked into his eyes, I felt my annoyance turning into something else. Pity, maybe? Relief? Love? I couldn’t say, exactly. I started to cry. Like I said, my emotions were all over the map.
Thomas asked me if I believed in God.
I didn’t answer him at first. Groped around for some response that wouldn’t trigger one of his Jesus speeches. Then I said something I hadn’t planned on at all.
“I wish I did.”
He took a step closer to me. Reached over and put his arm around me. In my peripheral vision, I could see his stump.
“The Lord Jesus Christ is your savior, Dominick,” he said. “Trust me. I enflesh the word of God.”
“You do, huh?” I said. “Well, whattaya know?” With the sleeve of my jacket, I wiped the tears out of my eyes. Took a step or two away from his embrace.
Neither of us said anything else for a while—two or three minutes, maybe. It was me who finally broke the silence. “Know what someone told me once?” I said. “That this river is life—that all it’s doing is flowing from the past into the future and passing us along the way. . . . Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”
He kept looking at me. Said nothing.
“Hey, speaking of the past,” I said. “You know what I’ve been reading? Papa’s life story. Our grandfather. . . . He dictated this whole long thing before he died. In Italian. I had it translated. . . . Ma gave it to me. To both of us.”
“Papa,” Thomas repeated.
“You remember the way she’d go on and on about him? Papa this, Papa that. . . . Turns out, though, that he wasn’t quite the big superhero she made him out to be. He was, I don’t know . . . he was mean. Some of this stuff I’m reading is really—”
“Can we walk down to the water?” Thomas asked.
“What?” It miffed me a little, him interrupting me—not giving a shit about it.
He wanted to take his shoes and socks off, he said. Wade into the river.
The water was too cold right now, I said. I’d take him back there again when it got warmer and he could wade as much as he wanted. In June, maybe, when the mountain laurel came out. “Come on,” I said. “You hungry? I’m getting hungry.”
I’d planned just to grab some stuff at the drive-thru. Going out in public was something I figured I’d reintroduce him to gradually. And restaurants were always a wild card with Thomas—even before Hatch. But when we pulled into the parking lot at McDonald’s, who pulls in right behind us, honking, but Leo. He jabbed his finger, pointing to the parking space next to his
.
Leo talked too loud. Shook Thomas’s hand a little too vigorously. He insisted we join him inside—that we let him treat us both to lunch. Since our victory against Dr. Hume, Leo had begun calling himself Victor Sifuentes, after that guy on L.A. Law. Righter of legal wrongs in his designer suits. He didn’t really get it; it was all play-acting for Leo. But this was partly his celebration, too, I thought. So we went inside.
The whole friggin’ place was decorated in Little Mermaid. The bright lights and colors, the jostling into the crowded line: it made my brother edgy. He kept squinting, blinking his eyes. At the register, Leo and I gave the woman our orders and I turned to Thomas. “You know what you want?” I asked him. He just kept staring up at the menu board, dazed.
“He’ll have a Big Mac and a shake,” I told the cashier. “What kind of shake you want, Thomas? Chocolate?”
He said he wanted a Happy Meal.
“Thomas,” I said. “Those things are just for little kids.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” the counter woman butted in. “He can get one if he wants. Anyone can buy them.”
I told her thanks, but he didn’t want one.
“Yes, I do,” he insisted.
“Come on, Birdsey,” Leo said. “If my man here wants a Happy Meal, then that’s what I’m buying him. What kind you want, Thomas? They got hamburger, cheeseburger, McNuggets.”
“McNuggets,” Thomas said. “And black coffee for my drink.”
The cashier told us Happy Meals didn’t come with coffee. Just soda or milk.
“Get him a coffee if he wants a coffee,” Leo told her. “Charge me extra for it.”
When she went to get our stuff, Leo recited lines from some movie: something about a chicken salad sandwich, hold the bread, hold the chicken between your legs. Shut up, I felt like telling him. It had been a mistake to come here. I’d wanted to take things slow, keep everything nice and simple. I felt scared. Felt like screaming at someone.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Thomas said.
“Oh. Okay. I’ll go with you,” I said. “Leo can get our stuff.”
Thomas said I didn’t need to go with him.
