by Pete Nelson
“At any rate, we never had another drink from that point on,” his mother said.
“I can imagine,” Paul said.
“I know you always thought we were prudes. We changed a lot of things after that. I know, Paul, that you never cared for church, but for us, God spoke to us and told us he was going to give us a second chance, but if he did, it was on the condition that we become better Christians. He gave us a second chance.”
“I had no idea,” Paul said.
Harrold was looking at his wife again.
“Pastor Wilson helped us a great deal at first,” his mother said. “And we talked to a man at the VA, a psychologist, and then your father attended meetings for years. I had to stay home with you kids.”
“AA meetings?”
She nodded.
“When?”
“Every Monday night.”
“I thought he was bowling,” Paul said. “We thought he was bowling. We bought him a bowling ball.”
She smiled. “That bowling ball was one of the best presents you ever gave him.”
Paul recalled a time when the whole family went bowling and how his father wasn’t very good and barely broke one hundred, and he remembered thinking, “Wow, he sure sucks for somebody who bowls once a week.” Now it made sense.
“I’m sorry if it’s taking me a while to get this,” he said. “I can imagine a bunch of navy buddies sitting around getting loaded and telling war stories, but I always figured Dad would have been the guy sipping iced tea.”
His mother had been somber before, but now she was grave.
“I don’t think you understand what ‘telling war stories’ means,” Beverly said. “It’s not like telling jokes around a campfire. By then, two of your father’s friends had taken their own lives. That’s why they called the reunion. They’d seen some horrible things during the war. A psychiatrist suggested it would be a good idea if everybody got together and talked about it. The wives were locked out.”
“Do you know what happened?” he asked. “What horrible things?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know the answer.
“I thought the right thing to do was not to ask,” she said. “Maybe he’ll tell you someday, when he’s better. Let me get you some more cocoa.”
She took his cup and left the room. While she was in the kitchen, Paul looked at his father, whose eyes were cast down.
“Dad?” Paul said. “I had no idea.”
His father watched the hockey game.
“Would you mind if I told Carl and Bits what Mom told me?”
“NO.”
“No, you won’t mind?”
“YES.”
“Okay then, I will. I was going to go over to Carl’s house tomorrow morning before my flight. You know, if you want to turn the sound back on, I don’t care. I know it isn’t easy for you to — ”
“CN YOU,” his father typed.
“Yeah?”
“FRGIV ME?”
“Absolutely.”
He saw his father raise the pointer finger on his right hand and hold it up. It looked like a baby bird in a nest. Paul took his father’s hand and squeezed, surprised at how hard his father squeezed back. Three squeezes. Three squeezes back. Paul put his arms around his father’s neck and hugged him, not for the first time, but for the first time since he was six, when he’d come to understand that men didn’t do such things.
27
Brothers
Paul drove out to see his brother the next day. Minnesota in late November was both bleak and expectant, bleak because the trees were bare and the grass was brown, but pregnant with the possibility of winter. Growing up, Paul had watched for the first snowfall, yearned for it. The temperature was in the thirties. He drove around Lake Harriet, then Lake Calhoun. In a month, they’d be frozen over, and a few weeks after that, people would be skating on them.
Over the phone, he’d told his sister everything he’d learned the night before. They’d talked for nearly an hour. She was surprised at first but then saw how much sense it made, a piece of a puzzle she hadn’t known was missing.
Paul’s brother was in the basement rec room, lacing on a pair of running shoes and dressed in fleece running attire. Despite having taken the scenic route, Paul had arrived half an hour early. Erica had taken Howie to soccer practice and Katie to skating lessons. Carl said he’d hoped to get in a run before Paul got there.
“Go ahead,” Paul said. “I can wait.”
“You wanna come with?” Carl said. “Bits told me you’ve been running. I can set you up.”
Paul agreed. Carl found him a pair of Yale sweatpants and a matching hooded zip-up sweatshirt in blue and white and an extra pair of socks and shoes, his and Paul’s feet being the same size. They stretched in the driveway. Paul wasn’t so much into stretching but knew it was something he was supposed to do. The sky was a mat of slate, but there was no wind.
“I hate running into the wind,” Paul told Carl. “It feels like the whole universe is against me.”
“What makes you so sure it’s not?” Carl said, smiling. “Let me know if I’m going too fast. Three and a half okay?”
Paul nodded.
Carl set a good pace, maybe a bit faster than Paul ordinarily went. He felt strong, but then he always felt strong for the first quarter mile. They turned left at the end of the drive and headed up the bike path along Mirror Lake.
“So what was it you had to tell me?” Carl asked. Paul had warned him on the phone that he had some news. “You talked to Arnie?”
“I did,” Paul said. “There’s some paperwork, but that’s about it.”
“That’s what you had to tell me?”
“There’s more,” Paul said.
He told Carl the story their mother had told him the night before, leaving nothing out. Carl listened, slowing the pace a bit as he concentrated without comment.
“Pretty interesting,” Carl said at last.
“That’s an understatement,” Paul agreed. “Do you remember anything about the accident?”
Carl didn’t answer at first.
“I remember thinking I’d done something wrong,” he said.
“Do you remember ever seeing Mom and Dad drunk?” Paul asked.
Carl thought.
“I remember them being goofy. If they were drunk, I didn’t know it.”
“Did Dad ever talk about the war? He never did with me.”
Carl thought again, his pace steady and even.
“I remember him having bad dreams,” he said. “Hearing him. And being frightened. He never went bowling?”
“Apparently not,” Paul said.
“Mom told you all this?”
“Dad wanted her to,” Paul said.
The water on the lake was choppy and broken, the wind picking up now. They ran past a small cove where a dozen mallards had taken transient slippage before heading south, their green heads shining despite the gloom.
“You sleep last night?” Paul asked.
“Nine hours,” Carl said. “Triazolam. Point one two five milligrams. It takes about an hour to fully wake up, but it seems to do the trick.”
They left the bike path and cut across a footbridge leading to Interlachen Country Club, the famous golf course where Bobby Jones won the United States Open on his way to completing the grand slam in 1930. Despite its being late in the season, a lone foursome of diehards made its way over a hill in the distance, golf carts like beasts slowly grazing.
“I remember,” Carl said.
“Remember what?” Paul said.
“Mom and Dad. Drinking. That must have been it. You were crying in your crib and I couldn’t wake Dad up.”
“Where was Mom?”
“I don’t know,” Carl said. “He must have been passed out when he was supposed to be babysitting. You were crying and I didn’t know what to do. I never thought about it until now.” They ran. “Maybe I’ll bring it up with my therapist.”
“You’re seeing one?”<
br />
“Friday,” Carl said. “A woman Erica knows. She thinks I’m OCD. I’m kind of nervous.”
“Don’t be,” Paul said. “The whole idea is to listen for as long as you can before you realize they’re just as big an idiot as anybody else. Then you’re cured.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Karen and I saw a marriage counselor,” Paul said as they ascended a hill, staying in the rough next to the twelfth fairway. “Talk about a fucking racket. If they were real doctors, they’d be sued for malpractice for losing so many patients. I quit drinking, by the way.”
“Bits told me,” Carl said. “High time.”
“Quite the opposite, actually,” Paul said.
They picked up speed at the crest of the hill, moving downhill toward the green, where the pin had been set in the grass just in front of the apron. They turned right at the green for the par-5 ninth hole, heading toward the tee box 518 yards away. Eventually they came back to the shore of Mirror Lake. They saw a man in a wooden canoe, whipping a fly rod back and forth in the air. He looked like a walking Orvis catalog.
“Maybe we should go fly-fishing sometime,” Paul said.
“You fly-fish?”
“I tried it a couple times. I didn’t catch anything,” Paul admitted.
“Me neither,” Carl said. “I think it’s a crock of shit. I think all those guys who say it’s the best way to fish are lying, but they can’t admit it because they’ve already spent so much money. Show me the fish.”
“You could be right,” Paul said.
“Paul,” Carl said, “I never said I didn’t think you’re smart. You’re probably the smartest kid in the family, in a multiple-intelligence way. All I meant, when I compared you to a sea urchin, was that it didn’t make sense that you weren’t equally smart at everything. Everybody has things they’re good at and things they’re not. I think I was jealous because you were so much better than me at so many things.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Paul said. “I’m not better than you at anything.”
“No,” Carl said, “that’s ridiculous. I couldn’t write a book if my life depended on it. And don’t argue with me — that is one thing I’m better than you at.”
“Are not.”
“Am too.”
“Are not.”
“Am too.”
Paul paused.
“Fuck you.”
“Touché. You mind if I sprint the last half mile?” Carl said. “I always try to finish with a kick.”
“So do I,” Paul said.
When Carl picked up the pace, Paul stayed next to him, though conversation was no longer possible. Paul felt good, strong, exhilarated. When Carl increased the pace again, Paul kept up, then surged ahead a few paces as the pavement flew beneath his feet. He felt weightless, the way he’d felt as a kid, streaking across the playground.
He slowed himself when he got too far ahead, realizing that although a kind of final victory was within his grasp, a chance to at last beat Carl in a footrace, it wasn’t the time or place to make Carl feel any worse than he already did. When Carl caught up to him, Paul tried to stay close, only to feel his brother slow again. Then it occurred to him: Carl was letting him win.
Paul slowed. Half a block from Carl’s house, both men were walking, out of breath, hands on hips, hearts racing.
Carl turned to face Paul. Paul looked his brother in the eye. Carl waggled his eyebrows.
“Dink,” Paul said, sprinting for the house as fast as he could, Carl beside him, both men racing at top speed, laughing in clouds of steam, more full of joy with each other than they’d ever felt before in their lives.
28
Every Mother’s Child Is Gonna Spy
The Wickenden Street Café was crowded with young, happy people sipping Grey Goose martinis and manhattans and Long Island iced teas. Paul found a seat toward the back of the bar, in a dark corner where no one would see him, and told the waitress all he wanted was a cup of decaf. She grunted her disapproval.
It had precipitated all the way from Northampton, freezing rain and sleet farther north turning to rain the closer he got to Providence. It had been something of a last-minute decision to come, and against his better judgment, in terms of highway safety, but his mission was critical. The stage in the far corner of the room was lit by colored spots, illuminating a drummer and a bass player, both about twenty-five, and a piano player old enough to be their father, as perhaps he was, for Paul noticed a strong resemblance. The stage was strung with miniature white Christmas lights. At the microphone, Tamsen wore a black dress with a black sequined top, baring her shoulders, and larger earrings than she ordinarily wore, but then she had to sparkle enough for the people at the back of the room to see.
Paul knew he was biased, but he thought she sounded great, with good pitch and phrasings that were unique. Moreover, she seemed utterly confident and unafraid, though he could guess what was going on inside her.
He applauded when she finished. People were for the most part actually listening and not trying to talk over the entertainment. Tamsen looked slightly embarrassed by the applause, but pleased too. She stared at a piece of paper at her feet, then picked it up and showed the audience.
“You guys want to know why I’ve been squinting at this piece of paper all night?” she asked. “This is how new I am at this — look at this. It looks blank to you, right? It does to me too. I wrote my set list in a red pen. The spots are red too — my set list is invisible.”
The crowd laughed. Her stage patter seemed natural and relaxed. He knew all she had to do was be herself onstage and she’d win over any crowd. He felt proud of her. Sheila Clark had taught her well. She seemed happy, which was one of the reasons he’d come, to make sure of that. He saw a man seated at a front table with an extra chair next to him and guessed that he was probably Stephen, a nice-looking guy in a dark turtleneck. Paul would have gone to shake Stephen’s hand and congratulate him, but he didn’t want Tamsen to know he was there. She sang “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and “Old Folks” and “This Will Make You Laugh.” Finally, after conferring with the bass player, she introduced the last song.
“Thank you so much for coming. You have no idea how much it’s meant to me to have you here. We weren’t going to do any holiday songs, because I know you’ve probably been hearing them in every elevator and supermarket, but we’ll do this one,” she explained. “Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. As sung originally by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis.”
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” she began. Paul had never listened so closely to the words of the song before. They were really quite sad, if you paid attention to them. It was vain of him, he knew, to imagine that she was singing the song directly to him, but he indulged the notion.
He cut out quickly before the lights came up. Crumpled in his pocket was the note he’d scribbled on a napkin, to give to the waitress, to give to the singer, which read:
Soon you will be known by only one name.
Paul
29
Nature for Morons
When a fare war between airlines, and gasoline prices that were the lowest they’d been since 1949, brought the cost of a roundtrip ticket to Minneapolis below three hundred dollars, Paul bought one with the intention of going home for Christmas and surprising his parents. Only his sister Bits knew of his plan. He needed to shop for presents and headed downtown. It was just after noon and snowing lightly.
Christmas in Northampton meant crowded sidewalks and distant parking spaces, but he couldn’t complain. Main Street shopkeepers walked with the extra bounce in their step that only nervous greed could put there and temporarily suspended their petty feuds, with the exception of Stanley Prochaska, the ostracized jeweler and town cheapskate who refused to pitch in to help pay for the strands of small white lights that transformed Main Street into a magical fairyland each year from approximately Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day.
Paul strolled,
shopping with nothing particular in mind. He found himself in front of the window of the WindSpirit Gallery, a store featuring western art and Native American crafts. Paul looked at rings, bracelets, pins, picture stone and silver, and earrings made from porcupine quills and feathers, thinking he might find something for his sister, but it was not her style. He could imagine her replying, “What am I — Pocahontas?”
He kept moving. He bought a scarf at Betsy’s Threads, and an assortment of Kiehl’s lotions and potions for his mother, who liked fine soaps and skin-care products but never bought them for herself, thinking them too extravagant. He found a Gore-Tex running suit for his brother at the Runner’s Shop.
UPS had delivered a package from Carl that morning, in which Paul found a Plexiglas cube containing a baseball autographed by Harmon Killebrew, with a note that read, “This is not from Santa — this is just to say thank you for all you’ve done, for Dad and for the rest of us. Carl.”
He bought a whoopee cushion and a fake rubber rat for his nephew Howard, then ran out of steam and went to his office, where he picked up the phone and called his brother. He asked him, just to make chitchat, if he’d finished his shopping, to which Carl replied that he’d been finished since midsummer. Of course.
“I just wanted to thank you for the baseball,” Paul said. “Did you know Harmon Killebrew had over eight thousand career at bats and not a single bunt?”
“His arms were bigger than my legs,” Carl said.
“Anyway, thanks,” Paul said.
“Well, you did a great job with Dad,” Carl said. “I don’t think I could have done it.”
“What do you mean?” Paul said. He was fishing for a compliment, he knew.
“Just that your fucked-up marriage paid off,” Carl said. “All that stuff you wrote about Karen and your new girlfriend. I think it went straight to a part of Dad’s brain that he didn’t ordinarily use. I think that really challenged him.”
