The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  We got in, Ma in the front seat, me in the back. We waited rigidly, silently, while outside Thomas bawled apologies, wriggling like a fish on a hook. St. Anthony’s parishioners passed by, some of them staring, others looking away from something that was none of their business. The Birdseys: that poor, mousy woman with the funny lip, those illegitimate twins of hers, and the ex-Navy man who’d been good enough to stand in as their father. He had his hands full, that poor guy. Worked down at the Boat and helped keep up the church grounds on weekends. It couldn’t be easy with that wife of his, afraid of her own shadow, and those two young hellions. Whatever that one who was getting the dickens had done to make his father mad, it must have been pretty bad.

  Ray was silent during the ride from St. Anthony’s to Hollyhock Avenue. We all were, except for Thomas, who shuddered involuntarily.

  Ray finished punishing my brother in the privacy of our home. “You’re dirt is what you are! You’re garbage! Your name is mud!” Thomas wailed and squatted on the kitchen floor in the duck-and-cover position we’d learned at school. “A goddamned embarrassment to your mother and me! A greedy little pig!” For the grand finale, Ray reached for his brand-new transistor radio, wound back like a pitcher, and hurled it as hard as he could against the wall. Plastic cracked, batteries flew across the room. “There you go, piggy boy! That’s for you! How do you like them apples?”

  That evening, Ma lit Ray’s birthday cake with a shaky hand. In a wobbly voice, she led us in reluctant rounds of “Happy Birthday” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” When Ray refused to blow out his candles, she leaned over and blew them out for him. Having married Ray Birdsey for better or worse, she was determined to believe in his jolly good fellowship, no matter what the evidence said. No matter what the feeling in our stomachs. “A small piece, please,” Thomas requested. “No ice cream, please.” Ray stood and left the room, his cake and ice cream untouched.

  Thomas never squealed on me—never told Ray that it was I, not he, who had smuggled the candy into Mass. And I never confessed—never picked up the heavy end of what had really happened that morning. That was the irony of it, the bitter pill I’ve swallowed my whole life since: that I was the guilty one, the one who deserved Ray’s wrath. But it was always Thomas he kept in his rifle sight. It was always Thomas who Ray went after.

  “Here,” I told my brother that night of our stepfather’s happy birthday tirade. “I don’t even want this crap. Take it.” And I’d flung Milky Ways, Skybars, and Butterfingers onto his bed.

  Thomas shook his head. “I don’t want it, either.”

  “Why not?”

  He burst into tears. “Because I’m dirt. Because I’m nothing but a greedy little pig.”

  Ray would lie in wait for him. Nail him every chance he got. But still, every Father’s Day, every birthday and Christmas: “To the best dad in the whole wide world!”

  Statute of limitations, I thought, sitting slumped in Ray’s Galaxy at Colburn’s Pharmacy, half zoned-out on Tylox. All that’s ancient history. Why dig up the past? Why go sit in that office every week and tell her your big tale of woe?

  When we got to the Roods’ house, Ray told me he’d swing by and pick me up as soon as he got out of the doctor’s. “Maybe I’ll stop by the medical supply place first and get you one of those collars,” he said. “Just in case you want it later. Get you a leash while I’m at it, too. And a flea collar.”

  I got out of the car. He warned me not to overdo it. He could help me tomorrow, he reminded me. If the Roods couldn’t wait one more day, then fuck ’em.

  I’d been there half an hour or more—had managed to pull most of the downstairs shutters—when Ruth Rood came to the window. She waved. I waved back.

  It was awkward working with one hand; it was a royal pain in the ass. Ray was right: my coming here to work today of all days had been a stupid idea. Blood was beginning to seep through the bandage—not much, just a little. I’d probably just busted a few of the stitches. My hand hurt. And how was I going to get these damn shutters back to my place, anyway? They weren’t going to fit in Ray’s Galaxy and I’d forgotten to ask him about borrowing Eddie’s truck. Maybe Leo could arrange a loaner at the dealership. Or maybe Labanara would let me borrow his truck. I couldn’t take any more painkiller until after that hearing at four o’clock. Once the stuff I’d already taken wore off, my hand and my neck were really going to let me know they were there.

  Ruth Rood came out onto the porch in her bathrobe. She just stood there, her hands wringing a dish towel the same way Ma used to do when she was nervous. Ruth looked like she wanted to say something.

  “How’s it going?” I said. I kept working, trying to loosen a rusted hinge screw.

  “I didn’t hear you drive up,” she said.

  I told her I’d gotten dropped off. “Had an accident last night,” I said. “Totaled my truck.” Her eyes said nothing. My well-being barely registered a blip on her radar.

  She walked to the far end of the porch and stood there for a minute, her back to me. Was she crying? “As it turns out, this isn’t a very good day for you to be here,” she said. “Henry’s having a bad time right now. He’s not in very good shape.”

  I stopped. Stared at her.

  “He’s depressed,” she said.

  Henry’s not in good shape? Henry’s depressed? Her saying that got me so mad, so fast, that the frozen screw I’d been working on creaked and started turning. Hadn’t she and Henry been running a three-week harassment campaign to get me over there? If I had a buck for every message those two had left on my machine . . .

  “I’m not going to be here that much longer anyway,” I said. “I just have to pull the rest of these shutters, like I told you on the phone. Should be out of here in an hour.”

  “It might be better if you just left now,” she said. “Can . . . can you just go?”

  I reminded her that I’d wrecked my truck—that I couldn’t leave until my ride got there. God, I hated these people.

  “All right,” she said. She turned and went back inside the house.

  I was pissed. Hand or no hand, sore neck or not, I dragged and yanked and raised my extension ladder until it rested against the second story. One-handed, I gripped the side of the ladder and started to climb. One thing about working angry: it made the adrenaline pump. Even with all the trips up and down the ladder, I got those second-story shutters off faster than I had the ones on ground level. Gimp or not, rusted screws or no rusted screws, I was cooking. Working up a sweat. Not thinking, for once, about my truck or my brother or who had knocked up my girlfriend.

  By the end of an hour, it had caught up to me, though. I’d removed and stacked all the shutters on both floors. Fuck that pair up on the third story, I thought. I made my good hand a visor and squinted up at that attic window, the little tar-roofed widow’s walk. Made more sense to just ring the goddamned bell and walk up through the house, anyway. Climb out onto that little porch from the attic window. But, hey, I wouldn’t want to disturb poor Henry while he was depressed, now, would I? Not when poor Henry was having himself such a bad day. He should trade places with me if he wanted to know what a bad day was really like. Trade places with my brother. That would cure his depression. As far as I was concerned, old Henry was living the good life.

  I walked to the sidewalk and looked all the way down Gillette. Looked the other way. No sign of Ray. Buying that friggin’ neck collar was probably what was holding him up. Either that or they were way the hell behind at the doctor’s office. I had to get home—go over those notes for the hearing. Whatever the holdup was, I was probably going to kiss that nap goodbye.

  I sat down on the Roods’ front wall. Looked back at those top floor shutters. I can give you a hand mornings. That’d be great: Putting up with Ray every day on the job on top of everything else. Listening to him tell me how he would have done something—how my way was all wrong. . . . Just a little numbness in my feet. That was all I needed: him up there on the ladder some d
ay and he can’t feel his feet on the rungs. What was that numbness from, anyway? The diabetes? I hadn’t even asked him.

  My hand was starting to throb like a bastard. Still no Ray. I reached into my shirt pocket, fished out the last of the pain pills. If I took it now, I’d be clear-headed by four o’clock. How was I supposed to go home and sleep if I was in this much pain? Sheffer would love that, though: me arriving for the big hearing stoned. If anyone’s going to convince the Security Board to release him, paisano, it’s going to be you. . . .

  I looked back up at those third-floor shutters. Fuck it, I thought. I was just sitting around waiting, anyway. If I got that last pair of shutters down, then that’d be all of them. Maybe I’d bring ’em down to Willard’s and have them dip-stripped instead of scraping them all myself. Bite the bullet. I was already losing money on this job anyway. Screw it.

  I flip-flopped my thirty-foot extension ladder over to the widow’s walk. It’d be easier than the second-floor windows, actually: just climb over that little railing and onto the porch up there. This isn’t really a very good day for you to be here. She had one hell of a nerve. . . . I climbed up, up—over the railing.

  From up there, I could see all the way to the end of Gillette and out to Oak Street. See a little sliver of the river, even. Still no sign of Ray. I had to get home, go over those notes for the hearing a few more times. Grab a shower; I must be getting pretty rank by now. Doctor had said not to get the bandage wet—to wear a plastic bag or something. God forbid Joy should be home to give me a hand. . . . Hurry up, Ray.

  The left shutter came off easily: the window frame was so rotted out, I could pull the hinge screws out by hand after the first few turns. It might be a bitch to get that shutter back in there tight, but getting it off was no problem. I lifted it, adjusting it as best I could for the climb back over the railing, the descent.

  Something moved against my hand—a leathery flutter against my wrist. “Jesus!” I muttered, letting the shutter go. It banged against the railing, bounced, fell over the side.

  I was watching it break apart on the ground below when a black blur flew back up at me. For half a second I thought, stupidly, that it was part of the shutter—shrapnel or something. Then I realized what it was. Saw it up close and personal: a godamned bat.

  “Get out of here!” I yelled, shooing it away. Man, I hate bats; I’m scared of them. You ever want proof that there’s evil in the world, go look at a bat up close.

  It circled back to where it had been sleeping, hovered, looking for the protection of the missing shutter. Then it landed on the top of the sill, three feet away from my face.

  I stared at it and it stared back—cocked its little walnut-sized head and studied me. When it opened its jaws and hissed, I was close enough to see the pinkish-gray inside of its mouth, its little saber teeth. My heart chugged. I broke out in a sweat. . . . This little fucker could have just wasted you, I told myself. It could be you busted up on the ground down there, instead of that shutter.

  It kept shifting its head, staring. Watching me. I reached into my tool belt and found some glazing points—started pelting them at it. It hissed again, flapped its wings, and flew to a nearby tree. “And stay there!” I said. Leaned against the house for a second to let the wooziness pass.

  That’s when I saw him. Rood. He was standing there at the attic window, staring. Was he looking at me? Past me? It was scary, the way he kept looking. And there I was, too, my reflection in the glass superimposed over him. “What?” I said. “What do you want?” Thought: Get away from me, man. Stop staring.

  He put the gun in his mouth. I stumbled back.

  Fell.

  The rush toward the ground was soundless. I could see them both—in slow motion and in a gleaming streak—my daughter and my mother. Angela spun in a kind of pirouette. She was wearing a pure white dress.

  30

  “Carry the corpse,” the monkey says.

  “Which corpse?”

  “He’s hanging from the cedar tree.”

  And then I see him, the rope around his neck, his naked body swaying back and forth, back and forth. I approach him slowly, reluctantly, and he raises his arms as if for an embrace. His severed hand has grown back.

  “But he’s alive,” I say.

  “Kill him,” the monkey says. “Carry the corpse.”

  My heart pounds. I’m afraid not to obey. When I step onto a rock, he and I are at eye level. I look away from his pleading gaze. Lift the bag over his head and pull. He bucks, flails, twitches. Then he’s still.

  I cut him down from the tree. Carry him over my shoulder, stumbling toward the sound of spilling water. And when I see the water, my burden lightens and I realize it’s no longer my brother’s corpse I’m carrying. It’s the monkey’s corpse.

  “Forgive me,” it whispers, its lips moving against my ear. I stop, surprised that the dead can talk.

  “Forgive you for what?”

  The monkey sighs.

  Miguel, the night nurse, pointed to the bag hanging from a pole next to my bed. “It’s not you, man,” he said. “It’s the morphine. Lots of patients freak out on this stuff.”

  I held up my hands to look at them—the stitched one and the other. I had smothered my own brother—had felt life leaving him. “It seemed so real,” I said.

  Miguel cupped his hand under the popsicle I’d been nibbling and held it in front of me. I took another bite. “That’s the kicker with hallucinations, right?” he said. “Is it real or is it Memorex? You ever do acid?”

  I shook my head, awkwardly because of the neck brace.

  “I dropped it a coupla times—back in my hombre days, before Wife Number Two got ahold of me and parked my butt in an LPN program. One time when I was tripping, I thought I was running with a pack of wild dogs. Thought I was turning dog, man. I could have sworn it was real. . . . Hey, you want any more of this? It’s getting a little drippy.”

  I said no. Reached up and grabbed the chain bar suspended above my bed. Shifted my position an inch or two. “What’s this for, anyway?” I said, tapping the soft cast on my shoulder.

  “Tore your trapezius muscle—caught a corner of the porch roof on the way down, I guess. I was talking to one of the EMTs that brought you in? This guy that goes to my church? He was telling me about it. Said they were working on you for a good five minutes before they realized they had the wrong guy. . . . Hey, how’s that catheter feel?”

  “Better,” I said.

  “You sure?” As he lifted the blanket and sheet to have a look, I raised my head. Looked down at my swollen, stapled leg, my purple eggplant of a foot. “Jesus, what a mess,” I said. Looked away and shuddered.

  “Coulda been worse, man,” Miguel said. “Coulda been worse.”

  According to Miguel, when the EMTs had arrived at 207 Gillette Street in response to Ruth Rood’s hysterical 911 call, they’d found me unconscious in the front yard, adrift on a pile of broken shutters. The medics made two incorrect assumptions: that I was Henry Rood and that the tumble I’d taken was the suicide attempt Mrs. Rood had been screaming about over the phone. My left leg was splayed beneath me; my foot was cocked at a right angle to where it should have been. My fibula had separated from its ball-and-socket joint, splintered, and was poking out of my leg. They had me sedated and were readying me for transport before someone finally deciphered Ruth Rood’s ranting about the attic, her husband, the gun he’d fired into his head.

  I remembered the fall but not the landing. Flashes of the aftermath flickered back at me: a barking dog among the sidewalk gawkers, someone screaming bloody murder when they tried to take off my work boot. (Had the screamer been me?) I told Miguel I didn’t remember the pain. “That’s cause your brain acts like a circuit breaker,” he said. “When it gets too intense, a switch flips you unconscious.” He flipped his hand back and forth to demonstrate. “Computer this, computer that,” he said. “If you want high tech, give me the human body any day.”

  Henry Rood had b
een pronounced dead on arrival at Shanley Memorial, Miguel said, although he’d probably died a second or two after he pulled the trigger. According to what Miguel’s friend had told him, the back half of Rood’s head was all over the wall and the floor. I arrived at Shanley shortly after Rood, I was told, in a second ambulance with a second trio of EMTs. Dr. William Spencer, chief of orthopedic surgery, was called away from a father-and-son golf tournament halfway across the state and arrived at Shanley somewhere around 6:00 P.M. It was he who made the decision that my shattered foot and ankle and the broken and dislocated bones of my lower leg required reconstructive surgery right away. That night. The operation began shortly after seven and lasted until sometime after midnight, by which time fourteen bones and bone fragments had been rejoined with screws and plastics and two curved steel plates. My leg had so much metal in it, Miguel said, it could probably conduct electricity.

  I asked him how Mrs. Rood was doing—if he’d heard anything.

  Miguel shrugged. “The funeral’s Monday. I seen it in the paper. Hey, you better excuse me for a minute. I gotta check on your buddy over there.” He tiptoed to the other side of the room and disappeared behind the drawn curtain.

  When I closed my eyes, I saw Rood at the attic window, staring. He’d gone out angry, that was for sure. I’d read that someplace: when they leave that much of a mess behind, they’re getting even with the cleanup crew. Ruth, probably: he must have been evening some score with his poor, pickled wife. But why had he dragged me into it? Gone up there and given me the evil eye just before he did it? I started to shake, a little at first and then uncontrollably.

  “Miguel? . . . Hey, Miguel?”

  His head popped out from behind the curtain. “What’s the matter? You cold?” He told me he needed to check on a few things but that he could come back in a few minutes with another blanket. He left the room.