by Lamb, Wally
You go downstairs now, Dominick. Tell us if Ray comes. I made a special treat for you in the refrigerator. . . .
I looked over at Ray. He was scowling, pulling on the tips of his pallbearer’s gloves. My teammate, my accomplice.
What goes on in this house is nobody else’s business. You hear me?
Aye aye, Admiral! Yes, sir! . . . My eyes found Doc Patel’s eyes. She gave me a nod, a half-smile. Can you read it on my face, Doc? That worst day—the one I’ve edited out of all our little powwows? Can you see our secret, Doc?
Go downstairs, Dominick. Watch out for Ray. This wouldn’t be any fun for you.
Yes, Ma! Sure thing, Ma! Will you love me then, Ma?
And she was right, too. It wouldn’t have been any fun up there. It was stupid, what they did. Ladies’ hats, ladies’ gloves, those tea parties up there. The older we got, the more their “playing nice” humiliated me. . . .
More tea, Mrs. Calabash?
Yes, thank you, Mrs. Floon.
I hated them being up there. Hated being their stupid lookout, eating whatever bribe she had put in the refrigerator that day. Listening for Ray, watching out for the Big Bad Wolf. I hated it, Ma. I wanted you to stay downstairs. To love us both. . . .
I remembered everything about that day: the weather (gray and drizzly), the clothes I was wearing (dungarees, Old Yeller sweatshirt). Our supper—beef stew—was simmering on the stove; the kitchen windows dripped with moisture from the bubbling pot. Ma had left me pudding that day: butterscotch pudding and whipped cream in a squirt can. We’d been begging her for weeks to buy that canned cream. . . . We were fifth-graders now. It was humiliating. He was too old to “play nice.”
I made five of them, Dominick—four for our dessert and an extra one just for you. Not too much cream, now. One nice-sized squirt and that’s it. Save the rest for supper.
I lined them up on the counter, assembly-line style, and squirted: five puddings, five leaning towers of whipped cream. I ate them one after another—ate so fast, it gagged me. Why shouldn’t I? What was she going to do about it? Tell Ray? Squeal on me to Ray? I looked in the toaster at my cream-slopped face. He’s got hydrophobie, son. You got to shoot Old Yeller because he’s got hydrophobie. . . .
I heard them laughing up there. Why, Mrs. Calabash, these crumpets are absolutely divine. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
The sugar canister caught my eye. I reached over, removed the lid, and knocked the canister onto its side. Dry rivulets spilled onto the counter, then onto the floor. A white sugar waterfall. I flicked my wrist, made sugar fly. Crunched sugar under my shoe.
More tea, Mrs. Floon?
Yes, thank you, Mrs. Calabash.
I picked up the flour canister next. Plop, plop-plop-plop onto the floor. A fog of flour swirled at my feet. It felt good, making this much of a mess. It felt like justice. Snatching the can of cream, I shook it until it blurred before me. Began at one end of the counter and finished at the other. Thomasisabigstupidfuckfacejerk. The spout bubbled, gurgled; the empty can hissed. I lobbed it, as hard as I could, against the refrigerator.
“Dominick?”
I didn’t answer her.
“Dominick?” The clatter had interrupted their little game; she’d come to the top of the stairs. “Dominick?”
“What?”
“What’s going on down there?”
“Nothing.”
“What was that noise I just heard?”
“Nothing. I just dropped something.”
“Did anything break?”
“No.”
For several seconds, silence. Then her footsteps retreated back to the spare room. Mrs. Floon, these crumpets are simply delirious! You must give me the recipe! The door squeaked shut again.
I walked the length of the counter, my fist pounding through the whipped cream message. Pow! Pow! Pow! Fuck! Face! Fuck! Face! Whipped cream flew everywhere. I spotted our supper on the stove, pulled open the drawer and got the ladle. Ladled stew—our supper—onto the floor, onto the flour and sugar. Mixed up the mess with the toe of my sneaker. Stomped on it. Skidded through it. My head banged; my heart pounded. I felt powerful. As powerful as Hercules, Unchained. She’d cry when she saw it. They both would. Ma would be mad and scared. . . .
I turned back to survey the wreckage I’d made and there he was: Ray.
He was standing at the entranceway from the dining room. There’d been no car driving up the driveway, no warning. I had no idea how long he’d been watching me.
He didn’t yell. He just kept staring at me, studying me. We waited.
I felt weak-kneed, dazed. Relieved for my brother. Ray had finally caught me, red-handed, standing in my own evidence. It’s over, I thought; now he knows: I’m the bad twin. I’m the troublemaker. Not Thomas. Me.
He looked scared, not angry. And that scared me. “Where’s . . . where’s your mother?” he asked.
I touched my face. Felt whipped cream in my eyebrow, my hair.
“Answer me.”
Why wasn’t he screaming? Walloping me? Was the mess I had made somehow invisible? “It was an accident,” I said. “I’m going to clean it up.”
“Where’s your mother?” he asked me again.
He’d had car trouble that day—that was why I hadn’t heard him. He’d gotten a lift home, been dropped off in front. I stood there, the failed sentry.
I wanted to keep them safe from him; I wanted them caught. Ray stood there, waiting. “Upstairs,” I said.
“Upstairs where?”
“In the spare room. They’re playing their stupid game. They always play it there.”
“O Gentlest Heart of Jesus, have mercy on the soul of Thy departed servant, Thomas,” Father LaVie said. “Be not severe in Thy judgment but let some drops of Thy Precious Blood fall upon the devouring flames. O Merciful Savior, send Thy Angels to conduct Thy departed servant, Thomas, to a place of light, and peace. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”
“Amen,” we all said. “Amen.”
The noon siren blew. False Teeth stepped forward. “This concludes our graveside service, but at this point in time, the family of Thomas Birdsey would like to invite you to the home of Mr. Raymond Birdsey, 68 Hollyhock Avenue, for a luncheon and a continuation of fellowship and remembrance of the deceased.”
I had driven over to Ray’s that morning like I’d promised—had vacuumed, set everything up. He was already up and out of the house. No note, nothing. He’d brought metal folding chairs down from the attic—that was it. The guy from Franco’s delivered the food while I was there: Fiesta Party Platters number 4, 6, and 7, enough to feed a turnout six or seven times what we were going to get. I realized, as soon as I saw those trays, how ridiculously I’d overordered. . . .
Ray and I stood a moment longer at the coffin than the others. Neither of us spoke. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ray’s fist reach out, hang in the air above Thomas’s casket, knock softly against it. Once, twice, three times. Then he walked away.
I couldn’t think of any profound farewells for my brother. How do you say goodbye to a polished box? To the half of yourself that’s about to be covered over with dirt? I’m sorry, Thomas. I was mean because I was jealous. I’m sorry.
Back by the cars, people shook my hand, hugged me. Told me I’d been a good brother—that now I could take care of myself. As if, now, everything was over. As if his being put in the ground meant I wasn’t going to keep carrying his corpse. Angie said she had talked to Dessa that morning—that Dess had said she was coming. I shrugged, smiled. “Guess she remembered she had to wash her hair or something.”
Father LaVie approached me. Father George Carlin. I thanked him, slipped him the fifty bucks I’d remembered to put in my pocket that morning. Two twenties and a ten, curled up as tight as a joint. From my nervousness. From my hands needing to do something during that service. I should have put the money in an envelope or something. Should have uncurled i
t, at least. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you to get here,” I said.
“No trouble at all,” he told me. “No trouble whatsoever. We men of leisure have flexible schedules, you know.”
“Yeah?” I said. “You retired?” Which, asking him, was a big mistake. He was one of those needy guys—one of those ask-him-one-question-and-he-volunteers-his-whole-life-story types. Semiretired, he said; he’d just recently relocated in Connecticut after twenty-three years out in Saginaw, Michigan. Great Lakes country. God’s country. Had I ever been out in that neck of the woods?
I hadn’t been, I said. No. What was Three Rivers? Godless country?
“I’m a cancer survivor,” he said.
“Yeah? No kidding?” My eyes darted around for Leo—for anyone who might get this priest away from me.
It had been exactly a year ago—a year to the day—since the doctors had found a tumor in his groin, he said. Malignant, inoperable, the size of an orange. They’d advised him to get his things in order. Had given him six months to a year. So he’d resigned his parish and come home to be with his mother, who was eighty-eight but sharp as a tack.
People were always doing that, I thought: comparing tumors to citrus fruit.
But then, he said, a miracle. A medical mystery. He’d refused chemo, special diets, etcetera, etcetera; he’d accepted his disease as God’s will. But to everyone’s surprise, his tumor had started shrinking all on its own—had gotten smaller and smaller with each examination. Had diminished, in nine months’ time, down to nothing at all. It had baffled all the test-takers and technicians, he said. “But doctors are Doubting Thomases. There’s mystery in the world. Either you accept that or you don’t.”
“Huh,” I said. “Wow.” Where the fuck was Leo?
Cancer had enhanced his life, Father LaVie said—had challenged his complacency. Had, as a “for instance,” made him much more sympathetic to AIDS sufferers, and to the poor, and to the oppressed. To people who fought against bigotry. To bigots.
“They got bigots out in God’s country?” I said.
He laughed. “Indeed they do. I’m afraid bigotry is everywhere.” But back to his cancer, he said. It had clarified things for him. Humbled him. Reminded him that the Good Lord’s challenges—hard as they were sometimes to bear—were also opportunities. “I’d lived an entire adult life of religious contemplation,” he said, “and it still did that for me.”
Shut up, I’d wanted to scream at him. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
Ray was already in the limo, tapping his foot, itching to get the hell out of there. He slid over; I got in. False Teeth closed my door for me. Part of the package, I guess: chauffeur service to and from, with the Grim Reaper at the wheel.
We rolled through the cemetery. Passed my grandfather’s ornate tombstone, a groundskeeper on a tractor, a guy sitting in his Jeep with the motor running. We rode through the iron gates and back onto Boswell Avenue.
“I wonder who planted those tulips,” I said, half to myself, half to Ray. “What do you want to bet it was Dessa?”
“It was me,” Ray said.
Neither of us said anything for several seconds. “When’d you do that?”
“This morning.” Which explained where he’d been when I’d gone over there to help him get the house ready.
“Yeah, well. . . . I just hope we don’t get another frost.”
He put his hands on his knees, turned away from me, and looked out the side window. In the silence that followed, it dawned on me who the guy in the Jeep had been: Ralph Drinkwater. Ralph had shown up after all—had stayed apart from things but been there. I looked out the window on my side. Wiped the wet out of my eyes.
“We get another frost, I’ll just go over there and plant some more,” Ray said.
False Teeth drove us through Three Rivers instead of skirting around it on the parkway. We passed the construction site for the new casino, the state hospital, the McDonald’s where, four days earlier, Thomas had gotten his Happy Meal. We rode over the Sachem River Bridge and through the middle of town.
“Remember when I used to take you kids there?” Ray said.
“Hmm?” I glanced past him and out the window on his side. We were passing a computer store that had been, once upon a time, the Paradise Bakery. After church on Sunday, Ray would drop Ma back at the house so she could start Sunday dinner. Then he’d drive Thomas and me to the Paradise Bakery and buy us crullers. Then he’d take us to Wequonnoc Park.
“The park, too,” I said. “We’d go to the bakery first and then over to the park.”
He nodded. If I had blinked, I would have missed his smile. “You always wanted to play on the monkey bars and he always wanted to play on the seesaw,” Ray said. “I used to have to referee the two of you. Make you take turns.”
What I remembered about those seesaw rides was the way Thomas would get mad at me, midride, and evacuate. Send me crashing back down to the ground. . . . It was sort of what his death felt like: fed up, fucked up, Thomas had just jumped off the goddamned seesaw. Had banged me back down to the ground where I sat, jarred. Stopped cold.
The Paradise Bakery, Wequonnoc Park. . . . Was that how Ray was getting through this? Remembering all the fatherly things he had done? Denying the rest of it? Denying, even, that worst day—the day he and I had destroyed Mrs. Calabash and Mrs. Floon?
They’re upstairs.
Upstairs where?
In the spare room. They’re playing their stupid game. They always play it there.
He’d sloshed through the mess on the kitchen floor as if it wasn’t even there. Tracked soupy, floury footprints from the back of the house to the front. He tiptoed, I remember. Up the stairs, down the hallway toward the spare room. Had he suspected something about them? Why else would he have tiptoed? . . .
He banged open the door. Raided them like the vice squad. From down below, I heard screaming, wailing—Ma’s tea set getting smashed against the wall. It was Thomas he went after, not Ma. A goddamned girl! . . . No son of mine! Ma’s arm got broken because she stood in his way—came between his rage and Thomas.
“Run, honey! Run!” I remember her shrieking. All three of us screamed and wailed—my brother and mother upstairs and me below. Then Thomas was at the top of the landing, heading down toward me. Run! Run!
Ray caught him halfway down. Grabbed him by the back of his shirt, lifting him, choking him, batting him in the head. Now get down there! Get down these fucking stairs!
They lost their balance. Toppled the rest of the way together, landing in a pile at the bottom. I’m sorry, Ray! Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me, Ray!
Thomas lay flat on his back, pinned beneath him, and I watched Ray grab him by the wrists, wave Thomas’s white-gloved hands in front of his face. These are what little girls wear! You understand! What are you—a goddamned little girl? He kept snapping his wrists—making Thomas slap himself in the face with his own white-gloved hands. Over and over, again and again and again.
I wanted to scream at him to leave my brother alone! Wanted to kick Ray and punch him and yank him away from Thomas. But I was afraid—paralyzed by his anger.
Ray got up, out of breath, and pulled Thomas, bucking and screaming, toward the front hall closet. He yanked open the door and shoved him in there. Thomas landed hard in a pile of boots, rubbers, umbrellas. Ray slammed the door. Locked it. Shouted over Thomas’s screaming that he had better think long and hard about what he’d been doing up there. And when I get good and goddamned ready to let you out, you’d better walk out like a goddamned boy! You understand me? He gave the door a kick, then went out to the parlor to cool off and watch TV.
Jesus, he kept muttering, over and over. Jesus, Jesus. . . .
At the top of the stairs, Ma’s wailing quieted to a whimper. She was clutching her broken arm as she came down, sideways, her shoulder blades scraping against the stairway wall. “What’s this?” she asked me in a tiny, quivering voice, and I followed her eyes to the footprints—the mess t
hat Ray and I had tracked from the kitchen through the whole downstairs. Ma followed the footprints out to the kitchen. When she saw the mess I had made, she turned back and looked for me—looked me in the eye. She just stood there, looking at me. Her fist went slowly to her mouth; her whole body was trembling.
They had to take a cab to the hospital because Ray’s car was on the fritz. They were gone for hours. Ray’s orders to me when they left were to clean up the kitchen, clean the footprints off of the rug, and not let my brother out.
I began as soon as they rode away. Sopped the soupy mess off the floor with towels, washed it with Spic and Span. Mopped, washed again, mopped, scrubbed and vacuumed the living room rug. There were cream splatters everywhere—no matter how many times I wiped the kitchen walls and counters. After my third mopping, the floor still felt sticky beneath my feet.
They were gone for hours—gone so long that, illogically or not, I was afraid that Ray had kidnapped our mother. That they were gone for good. Had left us.
Thomas screamed at first—Let . . . me . . . out . . . of . . . here! PLEASE . . . let . . . me . . . out! Then he whimpered. Then he got so quiet that I thought he might have died in there—that Ray might have killed him. From the other side of the door, I sat and spoke to him, sang to him. And when I ran out of songs, words, I read aloud from that week’s TV Guide. “Donna and Mary Stone organize a mother-and-daughter fashion show. . . . Luke and Kate plan a surprise birthday party for Grandpa Amos. . . . Frontier scout Flint McCullough is kidnapped by hostile Comanches.”
Thomas wouldn’t answer me. He wouldn’t say a thing.
They came back a little after ten. They had a pizza. Ma’s arm was in a cast. When Ray unlocked the closet, Thomas emerged, staggering like a drunk, his eyes dazed, his face still swollen from crying. “Can I go to bed now?” was all he said.
“Don’t you want some pizza pie?” Ray asked him.
“No, thank you.”
Was that the night that triggered it—set into motion whatever had blossomed in Thomas’s brain? Biochemistry, biogenetics: none of the articles I’d read—none of the experts I had listened to—had ever been able to explain why Thomas had gotten the disease and I hadn’t. Had we given it to him—my mother and Ray and me? . . .
