by Lynn Kostoff
Jimmy fights back a yawn. It’s 7:45, and he didn’t have time to grab coffee, let alone breakfast, to make the meeting with his brother on time. Harriett, the receptionist, had some decaf brewing, but Jimmy had passed on that one. As far as he’s concerned, decafs the equivalent of Elvis impersonators and Christian rock bands. All of them in one way or another missed the point.
A couple minutes later Jimmy hears the door open behind him, and Richard walks briskly across the office and stands behind his desk. Richard and Jimmy have never looked anything alike, not even as kids. Their father used to say that their genetic magnetic poles were reversed. Richard gets his looks from their mother and her side of the family. He’s tall and lanky, pushing six-four, one of those long-distance-runner physiques, with fair skin and fine straight hair not quite brown or blond, bones set close under the skin and sharpening his features. Jimmy, well, he’s always been close to the ground, five-eight in his socks, dark and thick, black hair and two shaves a day like the old man. Swarthy, his mom called him.
Richard’s wearing one of those tan lightweight khaki suits with ruler-straight creases, a pale blue shirt, and a dark knit tie. He takes in Jimmy’s sneakers, jeans, and T-shirt with a glance and sits down.
“I wondered how long it would take,” he says.
“Nice to see you, too,” Jimmy says.
Richard lets that one go by. He turns and boots up his computer. The logo for Frontier Cleaners flashes on the screen—a neon saguaro cactus with a citrus-colored sun perched on its top right arm—followed by a quick burst of music that Jimmy doesn’t recognize.
Richard swivels his head and studies him, then goes back to the computer screen, clicking on his e-mail and typing in a password. “I’m assuming this visit’s about dad’s estate and why you’re just getting around to doing something about it.”
“Hey, I’m here. Okay?”
“Not okay, Jimmy. Far from okay.” Richard slides his chair back behind the desk. “Did you know the back taxes and your share of the probate costs are due on the West Dobbins parcel before the end of the month? Any ideas on how you plan to pay them?”
“I’m working on it.” Jimmy glances at his watch. Fifteen minutes. About the average before he feels like punching out his brother. Even as a kid, Richard had the superior attitude. Mr. Chapter and Verse. Mr. Median Strip to Jimmy’s passing lanes.
“I knew it would come to this,” Richard says.
Jimmy tries to ignore the growling in his stomach while Richard checks in with his lecture mode, pointing out what Jimmy’s already aware of, that unless he can find the cash to cover the back taxes, he’ll lose his share of the inheritance. The farmhouse and the twenty acres it sits on will end up auctioned off. Richard tells him the developers have already picked up the scent and begun circling like wolves.
“That land’s been in the family for three generations,” Richard adds. “I don’t know what dad was thinking when he left it to you.”
“Grandpa,” Jimmy says. “He did it because Grandpa wanted me to have it.”
“And now you’re going to uphold the tradition of fucking up just like he did.” Richard again can’t keep himself from pushing things in Jimmy’s face, citing the obvious family parallels between Jimmy and his namesake, James Earl Coates, who at one time had been one of the largest cattle ranchers in the Maricopa Valley and who in a gaudy and inglorious trajectory of high living and poor planning had gone on to lose the bulk of the land and assets he’d amassed during his seventy-nine years.
“So what are you going to do?” Richard asks.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Richard leans back in his chair. “Enjoyable is not exactly how I’d characterize a visit with you, Jimmy. Predictable, maybe. Tiresome, certainly.” Richard stretches, latching his fingers behind his neck.
The thing is, if Penny Hardaway had not scored twenty-nine points against the Lakers, Jimmy would not be having this conversation. He’d be a man of property, dotted-line time, free and clear. He would have had the back taxes and probate costs covered, and he would not have to be enduring his brother’s sanctimonious bullshit.
When he got out of Perryville, Jimmy had borrowed six grand from Ray Harp, Jimmy going in at six-and-a-half for five, willing to live with the twenty-five percent interest and Ray’s clock because Jimmy knew once he got the taxes paid off and the land formally in his name he could walk into a bank of choice and, given its development potential, get a loan against the property with no problem and then simply go on and pay back Ray. It was a workable plan, a necessary, if roundabout, way for an ex-con with an apocalyptic credit history to secure a loan along conventional lines.
After he got the money from Ray, Jimmy had every intention of going straight to the tax office, but then he ran into a speed bump of a waitress named Marci, who introduced him to a friend of her brother’s, a guy named Carl Bailey, who she said worked as a trainer for the Phoenix Suns, it eventually turning out Carl was not exactly a trainer but more like an assistant to an assistant of the Suns’ trainer, but the way Jimmy saw it, the guy was still hanging out at America West with the team and should have known the skinny on the players no matter what his official title was.
Over drinks, Carl confided that Penny Hardaway had recently pulled the hamstring in his right thigh during practice, but that the general manager and the coaching staff had elected to keep quiet about the injury. Hardaway had been burning up the nets, and with the Western Conference playoffs starting, they weren’t about to give L.A. any psychological edge by admitting that Hardaway was hurt. He was still slated to start against the Lakers. Carl said Penny would be lucky to finish the first quarter before being benched.
Carl didn’t need to explain to Jimmy how this type of inside info could benefit an individual so inclined to bet against the point spread set for the next game, as well as laying down a sizable side bet on Hardaway’s projected total for the night itself. Jimmy figured that one out all by himself.
Jimmy had watched the game with the regulars at the Chute, a bunch of die-hard Suns fans, and had basked in their groans and curses as Phoenix consistently choked on both offense and defense during the first half. Hardaway went to the bench in the middle of the second quarter, having gone one for twelve from the field. By halftime the Lakers were up sixteen points.
Everything fell apart for Jimmy in the second half when the Suns decided to play basketball. The TV commentators kept using words like “decisive,” “inspired,” and “heroic.” The regulars at the Chute yelled themselves hoarse while Jimmy sat clutching his draft in disbelief, Hardaway setting off a twenty-two-point run in the third quarter, Hardaway playing in some zone beyond his injury, the Suns going on to win by two. For Jimmy, the win had been less important than the fact that the original point spread had been reestablished.
Jimmy’s financial problems kept compounding. After having lost what he’d borrowed from Ray Harp on the game, he missed the first scheduled repayment deadline. The tax problem on his inheritance still loomed. Until he could scare up another idea for some quick cash, Jimmy had been desperate enough to take a regular job, but even that had backfired when the Jones brothers cut him loose from the Old Wild West Park, and Jimmy found himself running out of what he’d had in oceanic abundance at Perryville Correctional: time.
Which is why he’s ended up in his brother’s office, Jimmy grinding his teeth and having to listen to Richard as he paces around the room like a prosecuting attorney building a case.
“It never stops, and you never learn,” Richard says, pausing by the corner of the desk. Just behind and to his left, the screen saver on the computer pops up.
Jimmy gets up and walks past Richard, then bends over and squints at the screen. It holds six photos shrunken to the size of playing cards. Standard family stuff of their mother and father and Richard’s wife, Evelyn, and one of Richard at the groundbreaking for the first Frontier Cleaners.
Jimmy’s momentarily distracted by
a shot of Evelyn in a scooped-neck blue dress—she’s a former airline attendant and had a pair on her that would make a blind man weep—before he notices the screen does not contain a single shot of him. He’s AWOL from every photo, cropped from Richard’s miniature pictorial family history.
Jimmy’s stomach starts growling again.
Richard’s still waiting for him to say something.
Jimmy walks back to his seat.
“You can’t do it, can you?” Richard asks. “You show up here, but you can’t bring yourself to ask. What do you expect me to do? Blind myself like dad and then go on and clean up after you and pretend it’s going to make a difference this time?”
“Let’s leave dad out of this,” Jimmy says. “You’ve made your point.”
“You really think it’s that simple, don’t you?”
The money part was, Jimmy thinks. Money is always simple. You either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you spend it. If you don’t, you find a way to get some. It was Richard’s long dot-every-i memory that complicated things. That and the fact that when it came to passing judgment on anything, Richard had two favorite colors: black and white.
Jimmy watches Richard move behind the desk again. He steeples his fingers, then looks out the window and back at Jimmy.
“I’m not doing this for you, you know.”
Richard adjusts his cuffs and then slides a sheath of papers across the desk. “You want to sign those, Jimmy, I can start the follow-up.”
Jimmy leans forward in his chair. “Papers?” he asks. “I thought you were going to cut a check, like a loan.”
“Dad named me executor of the estate, Jimmy. I’m working with his lawyer, Ben Caplan, through all the probate hassles. Things are badly tangled.”
Jimmy nods, but he can’t untrack the thought that he’d be walking out of the office with a check.
“What are the papers for?” he asks finally.
“Power of attorney. You sign them, and I’ll be authorized to settle your end of the inheritance. I’ll pass the check on to Caplan, and he can push through the paperwork on the back taxes and probate costs and keep the Dobbins parcel off the auction block.”
“I guess so,” Jimmy says. “How long’s this going to take?”
“I told you, Caplan’s a good attorney. A personal friend, too. He’ll get it done quickly and efficiently.”
Jimmy balks some more, his misgivings mixing with thoughts of Ray Harp and the deadlines Jimmy’s missed, Ray working on a different clock from Richard and this Caplan guy.
“What’s the problem now, Jimmy?” The patience is leaking out of Richard’s voice, and he’s begun lightly tapping the edge of the desk, the fingers of his right hand soft but insistent.
“I don’t know. I just didn’t think it would be this complicated,” Jimmy says.
“What do you want me to do? Remember, you came to me, Jimmy. You have some other way to cover what’s owed on the Dobbins parcel, that’s fine.” Richard pauses, letting the silence take on some weight before going on. “Given your track record on repaying personal loans, I’d prefer that.”
“Okay, okay,” Jimmy says, wanting to avoid that particular stretch of road. He gestures toward the papers. “I get copies, right?”
“Of course.” Richard takes out a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and buzzes Harriet, his secretary, to come in and witness.
Jimmy’s figuring he can take his copy of the agreement and show Ray Harp, use it as a combo stalling tactic and good-faith gesture, some black-and-white proof that Jimmy’s good for what he owes. Whatever else he may be, Ray Harp is also a businessman, and he’s bound to appreciate what the Dobbins property is worth.
Richard looks over at the clock and then holds up the pen.
Jimmy takes the pen and leans over the desk. He signs where Richard tells him, Harriett hovering over his shoulder, reminding him of a battery of elementary school teachers who were always on his case about one thing or another. Jimmy keeps expecting her to ambush him on penmanship.
Richard separates the paperwork into two piles, and then Harriet slides Jimmy’s copy into a manila envelope and sets it on the corner of the desk and leaves without a word.
Jimmy looks down at the pen in his hand and then at Richard, who’s moved from the desk to the window, where he’s standing with his back to him.
Richard asks him if he’s been out to the cemetery yet. “What did you think of the stone? The angels on either end too much?”
“Nah,” Jimmy says. “They’re fine.”
Richard glances back over his shoulder and smiles. “There are no angels on the stone, Jimmy. It’s a simple granite marker. Name and dates, that’s all.”
“Bingo,” Jimmy says. “You win, Richard.”
“There are times,” Richard says, turning back to the window, “when I almost feel sorry for you, Jimmy. Fortunately, they don’t last long.”
Jimmy looks over at the screen saver with the family photos on the computer, him missing-in-action in all of them, then down at the manila envelope in his hand.
“What did you do, Richard?”
Richard waits awhile before answering. “What I knew I had to. What everybody in the family has always had to do. Save you from yourself.”
Jimmy tears into the manila envelope and starts rummaging through the paperwork, but the print keeps sliding all over the page and the pages themselves dividing and subdividing, multiplying like amoebas.
“What did I sign, Richard?” Jimmy’s voice a combo platter of desperation, anger, and panic.
“Listen to yourself.” Richard remains at the window. “The fact that you have to ask a question like that just proves my point.”
“That’s what this all comes down to. Not me. You. You being right. You proving a point.”
“What I did, I did for your own good, Jimmy.”
“Fuck my own good. The old man left the Dobbins parcel to me. It’s mine.”
“There’s the spirit of the law and then the letter of the law. And I believe in this case the probate judge knows his alphabet, Jimmy.”
“I don’t care. It’s mine, Richard. You know that.”
“Okay,” Richard says, turning and facing Jimmy. “For the sake of argument, let’s agree the land’s yours and I’m just holding it temporarily in escrow. How’s that sound? Fair enough?”
“What’s the catch?” Jimmy says, knowing there has to be one with Richard.
“The property reverts to you in five years,” Richard says. “I’ll even pay the taxes during the interim. All you have to do is stay out of trouble. You get a job, you keep it, and you function like a responsible adult. In five years the property’s yours, free and clear. What do you think?”
Jimmy doesn’t say anything.
Richard shakes his head and turns back to the window. “Five years too daunting a prospect for you, Jimmy? How about three then? Think you could handle that? One thousand ninety-five days of reasonable behavior? Or do we need to shave a few more off? You have any suggestions, a ballpark figure, say, for how long you could sustain acting your age and out of trouble?”
“You prick,” Jimmy says quietly.
Richard lets out a short, dry laugh. “You think I couldn’t figure out why you were in such a hurry to get those taxes cleared and the land officially in your name, Jimmy? How bad is it this time, the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into?”
How bad, Jimmy thinks, and wonders how Richard and his rational universe would deal with the imminent arrival of Aaron Limbe and Newt Deems, the agent and arm of Ray Harp’s worst impulses and general business practices.
“Bad,” Jimmy says finally and leaves it at that, not wanting to give Richard the satisfaction of further details.
“I can’t carry you on this one,” his brother says.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Take your pick,” Richard says.
“You’re something,” Jimmy says. “The whole time, you standing there with your back to
me. You have all the answers, but you can’t talk and look me in the eye at the same time.”
Another short, dry laugh. “That’s it, huh? That’s what you think?”
Before Jimmy can fully register the movement, Richard has moved from the window and crossed the room, Jimmy not ready for what he sees next, Richard’s face contorted, its features distended in rage, Richard giving in to, bowing before it, a rage that’s been cooked deep in the marrow.
Without thinking, Jimmy takes a step back.
“You weren’t there,” Richard says. “Not then. Not ever. Not when it counted.”
Richard lifts his arm and points at Jimmy. “He was slipping, not taking care of himself. I had to call him a couple times a day just to remind him to take his medication. The same thing with the agency. He wasn’t on top of his game anymore.”
“He tell you that?”
Richard leans in and pokes Jimmy in the chest. “I was worried about him. I called around. It didn’t take much checking to find out.”
Richard steps back and begins circling Jimmy.
“Not you,” he says. “Me. You were never there. I was the one. And you think I can’t look you in the eye?”
“Okay,” Jimmy says. “Okay.” He’s watching his brother’s hands.
“He needed something, I was the one who took care of it, Jimmy. Never you. He made excuses for you. I did what had to be done whether I wanted to or not. I looked out for him. And you, what did you do?”
Richard pauses, but keeps circling. “You. You can’t even find the time to visit his goddamn grave. I had to identify the body, make all the arrangements. A closed casket, that’s what they had to go with. No choice but that. You weren’t there.”
Richard abruptly stops. Jimmy braces, anticipating a swing, but Richard turns and walks back behind his desk. He glances up at the clock.
“Get out of here, Jimmy,” he says. “Now.
