“Ernest. Yeah.”
“Ernest is a donkey.”
“Indeed. You and Ernest—the donkey—you guys are going to be so brave.”
“Too scary.”
“I’ll be right here. Can you try? For me? Please.”
Abbott scrunched up his face. “Too scary.”
“Okay. What if I buy you a present? I’m sure Charlie bribes you all the time, right? What do you want?”
“Ponies?”
“Sure. Done! You go in and get the rocket. The blue-and-red one”—he pointed at Abbott—“with the stripes. And I’ll buy you whatever pony crap you want.” He turned to Armie. “He means toy ponies, right? Not like a real pony.”
“Yes, stupid, he means My Little Pony.”
“Okay. You go in there, pal, and I’ll get you two My Little Ponies.”
Abbott thought about the proposition, or at least it appeared to Josef that he was thinking about it. He scratched his nose again and then calmly raised Ernest the Donkey Puppet right up to Josef’s face. “Three,” the Donkey said in its high-pitched yelp.
“Deal.” Josef stuck out his hand. Ernest bit his hand.
“Cat!” Abbott said.
A black cat had slunk out of some crevice. It hopped onto the railing, strutting, and hissed at them. Armie waved a hand at it and it hissed again and scurried off. Josef looked around. “Whoa-whoa, what? Seriously? A black cat? You know what? You’re right. Let’s go back. We can’t get it.”
“You dragged us all the way out here,” Armie said, “and now you’re going to give up? Because of a cat?”
“It’s breaking and entering.”
“You’re all talk!” Armie said. “I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I will. We’re here. You made us come here, which is so stupid. Let’s do it.”
“Are you sure?” Josef said.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Josef handed Armie two twenties. “Leave this.”
“Ponies!” Abbott stamped his foot.
“No, no,” Josef told him. “You don’t have to go in the scary place.”
“Ponies!” Abbott yelled.
“I think you have to get him the toys,” Armie said. “Or he’ll freak out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Josef said. “We’ll get you the ponies. Just . . . don’t spazz, okay?”
While Josef and Abbott stood watch, Armie crawled through the window. He waited for an alarm to sound, but nothing happened. He crept to the display and took the rocket from the stand. His hands trembled. He stopped and admired the model train display. It was quite impressive. He noted a lumberyard with tiny lumberyard workers in overalls. He went closer. At the center was a town and a square with a fountain. There was a factory situated near the mountain, and the factory looked like Andopolis’s. The trains themselves—two of them—long, colorful, modern-looking engines trailed by passenger cars in matching colors—were stationary. One of the trains was half emerged from the tunnel. Armie noticed also that behind the counter on the far side of the store was a staircase leading up into shadows. Was this someone’s home as well as a store? Oh yeah . . . it was . . . and there they were . . . at the bottom of the stairs: a stocky guy with bushy hair and wire-rim glasses and a flannel shirt, who wasn’t wearing any shoes. He did not look pleased. Did he have a baseball bat? He did.
“See anything you like?” the guy, who Armie guessed was the store owner, said. “You little piece-of-shit punk.”
“Uhhhh . . .” Armie took a step away from the trains.
“Hey, buddy, you better get out of there.” It was Josef, he was back, half in, half out of the doggy door.
“What is this, a home invasion?” said the bat-wielding storeowner.
“We’re just here for the rocket, man!” Josef said. “We have cash.”
“Yeah, look!” Armie held the money out, placed the twenties on the counter by the register, and then put his hands back up like he was surrendering.
“Just hang out for a minute. Both of you. I’ll call the cops. We can all have a chat.”
“We thought you were open,” Armie tried.
“That’s a good one.” The store owner took a step forward. Armie took a step back, right into the rocket display, and tipped it. He turned and ran, saw a bathroom, and for some reason instinct told him to go into the bathroom and lock the door. Now he was trapped in there and the baseball-bat guy was pulling on the handle, pounding on the door, screaming for him to come out. What the fuck was he going to do? He looked behind him. Oh, there was a window. This one wasn’t locked either. He opened it and stuck his head out. Josef was extracting himself from the doggy door. Abbott was hopping around laughing. The pounding on the door continued. It didn’t seem like that sturdy a lock. But would the guy tear his own door down? Probably.
“What am I supposed to do?” Armie asked, leaning out the window.
“Gimme the rocket,” Josef said.
“I’m locked in the bathroom!”
“Climb out.” The pounding had stopped. Josef saw through the window of the back door that the store owner was coming toward him, tapping the bat into his open palm. “Yikes!” Josef screamed. He turned, grabbed Abbott, and sprinted down the alley, lugging the kid with him. He had the car keys in his pocket and he zapped the lock as he went.
Armie saw he had only a brief moment in which to act and launched himself out the window, clutching the rocket. He landed on his feet. The store owner ran after Josef, barefoot. He must have stepped on some glass or something because all at once he hit the pavement and lay grabbing at his foot, howling in pain. The bat clattered away. Armie made his move. When he hit the sidewalk, he booked it down the street, even though Josef had successfully gotten the car going with Abbott in back.
The Forester pulled up alongside Armie. Josef leaned over and opened the passenger-side door. Abbott was in the back, not in his car seat. Josef screamed, “Get in! Jump for it!” Armie pumped his legs. He lunged off the curb toward the car, which slowed just enough. Did he close his eyes? Somehow he was inside. He pulled the door closed. “You got it!” Josef said. “Holy shit, you got it!”
Armie looked in his lap. The rocket was there in its plastic bag. The balsawood sheets of fins, the fuselage, the nosecone, the plastic parachute. He was breathing so hard it hurt. “Wow, wow! We did it! Ha!”
“That was amazing!” Josef said.
“Yay!” Abbott said.
“Do you think he got our plates?” Josef asked.
Armie looked in the mirrors. “I don’t think he made it out of the alley!”
They turned a corner.
“That was crazy!” Josef said. He put up a hand and Armie high-fived him. Josef gunned the engine and sped them away. “Get this kid buckled up!”
“Ponies!” Abbott said.
* * *
She lingered in the study. Something drew her there. Could it be the specter of her husband? She took books off the shelves and sat in his red chair in the corner and flipped through them. Most were marked with George’s concise handwriting. In Anna Karenina he’d boxed out the phrase “What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” and noted in the margins “key phrase in all of Russ. Lit?” In his first-edition leather-bound copy of Lord of the Flies he’d highlighted a section and jotted, “Allegorical Context?”
She went to the window and surveyed the quiet, leaf-strewn backyard. She went back to the bookshelves. She pulled down photo albums. Looking at the pictures, she embraced a deep sensation of nostalgia, an emotion George himself would have mocked as maudlin. She didn’t hear Charlie behind her.
“Whatcha looking at?”
Ana jumped, startled, a hand to her breast. “You scared me!”
Charlie came to the desk and looked over her mother’s shoulder. “My God. I forgot we went to Bermuda when I was a baby. I don’t think Armie had even been born yet.”
“He hadn’t.”
Shadow slinked in and curled up on the floor and rested
his head across his paws.
“Can you believe how thin I used to be?” Charlie said.
“You’re still thin,” Ana said. She looked up from the album. “I don’t want any more fighting.”
“No one’s fighting,” Charlie said.
Ana closed the photo album. “We’ll sell the painting and we’ll split it. Four ways. I need the money now for sure. I won’t have enough for the store, even if insurance by some miracle comes in.”
“Okay,” Charlie said.
“I miss him so much and it’s only been two days!”
“I miss him too, Mom. I wasn’t even here.”
“Don’t put that on yourself, dear.”
“Are you okay with there not being a funeral?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t think so. But it is what he wanted, isn’t it? If it’s what he wanted, I have to give it to him.”
“Was he thinking clearly when he wrote that letter?”
“I don’t think he ever lost a shred of it.”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to set foot inside a church, but for some people, it means a lot.”
“You mean me?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s no closure for me no matter what. He was my husband and now he’s dust in a box.”
“Don’t think of it that way.”
“How else can I think of it? It’s the truth. I had a plan that when he died, I’d put him in a special urn. I have it now. Upstairs. I planned to have a Mass and say burial rites and it would all somehow, magically, be okay. I’ll live with it, I think. I’ll go on. I have to.”
Ana turned and went out to the living room and looked at the painting. In the soft light of the table lamp, everything had a yellow tinge. The sky was muted in the diminished light and the figures floated peacefully. Charlie came and stood next to her.
Later, with Shadow for company in her bedroom, she unscrewed the wooden box of George’s ashes. She cut the plastic wrapping with scissors and poured what was left of her husband into the African urn. She set the urn on the bed and took up her Bible.
She sat and held the urn and read some selected passages she had earmarked. Her favorite, in I Corinthians 15:42: The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable.
She loved that. To think there was more to come. That it could not be stopped. She pictured George’s soul, unhindered, unencumbered, rising, going, imperishable, immutable.
* * *
Josef led Abbott into the kitchen and relinquished him back to his mother. It had to take willpower beyond what he possessed to manage such a spazoid 24/7. He was not envious, but he had to admire his sister’s tenacity. Had either Isobel or Florence been as much of a handful and was he just conveniently forgetting? No, he didn’t think so. Abbott was special. And that was putting it mildly.
Charlie was unloading the dishwasher and stacking plates on the counter. He didn’t offer to help her, but instead sat at the kitchen table and futzed around with one of the oranges in a wooden bowl. “Am I allowed to ask where you went?”
“You could ask,” he said, “but it’d be better if you didn’t.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“You’re gonna love it.”
Abbott was examining Shadow’s water bowl. “Where’s doggie?” he asked.
“Shadow’s resting, sweetie,” Charlie said. “Let’s not bother him, okay? Why don’t you go play with your trains? I think they’re under the table in the dining room.”
Abbott gave her the thumbs-up and walked out.
Josef started peeling the orange. “Where’s the movie star?”
“Upstairs napping with Dustin.”
“They slept until ten. How could they possibly be napping?”
“Not everyone can function on four hours a night.”
“Not everyone’s me.”
“That’s a good thing.”
Abbott came back into the kitchen with one of his trains in his mouth.
“Abbott, dear, light of my life, take the train out of your mouth.”
He went to the screen door and pushed it open with his forehead. “Outside,” he said.
Charlie took out the last plate, added it to the stack, and returned the stack to its spot in the cabinet. She closed the dishwasher. “Should we go for a walk?” she asked, drying her hands on a dish towel draped over the oven door handle.
“We can see all that post-hurricane Hudson has to offer.”
“Where’s Armie?”
“He’s in the basement,” Josef said. “Sulking.”
“You should ease up on him. I don’t think he needs help feeling shitty right now.”
“He needs a kick in the ass is what he needs.”
“He loves you,” Charlie said.
“He thinks I’m an asshole.”
“That may be true, but he looks up to you. I know he does. What you think matters to him.”
“You sound like Dr. Hammerstein.”
“Go downstairs and get him, will you?” Charlie said. “And be nice.”
Josef stood and popped an orange segment into his mouth and said, “I’m always nice.”
* * *
Josef crept down the basement stairs, trying to hear if his brother was indeed there. Halfway down he heard something like a drill. He stopped in Armie’s “bedroom,” which was just the big open room at the bottom. The cinder-block walls were covered in places by different ethnically themed tapestries. Armie had made up the single bed, and some clothing sat neatly on the foldout table, which also seemed to double as his desk. Books stacked the floor.
Armie, the man, Josef found in the side room. Josef had never been down there before. Or, well, not since Armie took up residence. He saw a solid-looking table of thick, knotted wood, resting upon intricate legs with a sort of skirting (he wasn’t up on his woodworking terms) that wrapped around the underside of the tabletop.
Armie’s back was to Josef and he stood at the workbench in his weird shorts, turning the handle of a vise. He picked up some kind of electric sanding contraption and he turned it on before Josef had a chance to announce his presence. Josef watched his brother work. Along the wall behind the table was a line of four chairs, all of which looked, to Josef at least, as though they were straight out of some fancy urban-living catalog. He tried to remember back to high school, when Armie had first gotten into the woodworking thing. By that time Josef was off at college and then when he finished college and moved to New York, Armie was off at college, and truthfully, they hadn’t seen much of each other during that time. Somewhere in all those years, he now saw, his little brother had developed considerable skills. Josef noted the detail, the hard work, and the patience. Armie switched off the power. Josef cleared his throat.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Armie leapt up and spun, raising the sander in a defensive fashion.
“I was trying not to scare you.”
“It’s not funny!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“What’s up?”
Josef lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That was fucking crazy?”
“I know! Do you think anyone saw us? The cops?”
“I have no clue. But let’s not tell anyone, obviously.”
Armie nodded. “Yeah, but what if someone finds out?”
“No one will find out. We just keep it between us.”
“What if Abbott says something?”
“I think now that he has his three ponies, he’ll be fine.”
Armie laughed. “Yeah. Maybe. We’ll see.”
Josef hooked a finger over his shoulder. “Listen, we’re gonna take a walk. Me and Charlie and the kid.”
“Okay.”
“Come with us.”
Armie pushed his safety goggles over his head. “Where are we going?”
“Wherever you want,” Josef said. “As long as you take those shorts off.”
* * *
Charlie, Josef, Armie, Abb
ott with Ernest the Donkey Puppet, and Shadow the dog on his leash in Charlie’s hand all walked together.
Hudson was in wake-up mode, drowsy after its storm slumber. A man in an orange reflector vest stabbed trash along the street. Some shops had power, some didn’t. The window of the bagel shop was webbed with intricate cracks. The ground was wet and sparkly, and crepuscular rays splintered the dissipating clouds in brilliant design.
“It’s nice out,” Charlie said.
They made their way. Abbott ran ahead, barking and snapping with Ernest, aiming the puppet at strangers on the street. “Don’t run too far ahead!” Charlie called out.
“Yikes,” Josef said when they reached the shop and he saw the boarded-up front windows.
“How bad is the basement?” Charlie asked.
“It’s pretty grim,” Armie said.
They went in.
“Too scary,” Abbott said.
“That’s a theme with him,” Josef said.
“Is the power back?” Charlie asked.
“We can’t turn it on ’cause of the flooding.”
“Oh, right,” Charlie said. “Well, is there glass? Abbott, be careful.”
Abbott stood teetering on the saddle between inside and outside, holding Ernest up in front of him as his shield against whatever horrors might await him within.
Aside from the shaft of sunlight cast through the open door, the store was dark. Josef hadn’t been inside in a long time, over a year, by his recollection. He walked behind the counter and hit some keys at random on the register. He flipped through a stack of papers, receipts mostly, that were sitting in a wire bin.
“Mom doesn’t think insurance will cover it,” Armie said.
“So what can we do?” Charlie asked. “We have to do something, right?”
“Sure,” Armie said. “We can give her a few hundred thousand dollars.”
“I get it,” Josef said. “You two think it should be me.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Armie said.
“Me either,” Charlie said. “Chill.”
Shadow paced about the doorway behind Abbott, hesitant as well to enter the store. He tugged at his leash and led Charlie back out onto the street, where he promptly lifted his leg and peed all over the side of the building, staining the brick an even darker shade of wet. Josef came out and stood at the curb, looking up at the sky. “You know what I think?”
The Antiques Page 17
