Life Between Wars

by Robert Patton

  “It’s no burden. I’ll be around.”

  Matthew remembered his mother’s long fight with cancer. He’d nursed her all the way through it — nearly twenty years ago and still it agonized him to recall it. He mussed Brendan’s hair in a gesture both apologetic and grateful that Brendan didn’t know how unpleasant things might get. “Much obliged.”

  Brendan wrote Araby Munro another letter. In it he went out on a limb and declared that she was the only fun thing in his life, she alone could make him happy. The instant he mailed it he thought sure he’d overstepped, that so much pressure would scare her away. As he was planning a new letter downgrading the first letter’s passion, an envelope came addressed in loopy red ink on the front.

  Araby, in the couple of times she’d made out with Brendan during her brief stay on Penscot, had been annoyed by how, in the middle of feeling her, he’d talk about what they were doing. His questions and observations were gauche, she thought. She preferred the sophistication of older boys, sixteen minimum, silent experts in the field. She did concede, however, that Brendan had a knack for creating a bubble of intimacy in which she, in his arms, could relax and lose herself. He managed this through exactly the chattiness that embarrassed her. She couldn’t forget it was only him touching her, only a friend to whom she had nothing to prove. She couldn’t ascribe danger or, as was her want, ponderous mystery to these private exchanges. So she’d played along, taking pleasure in his easy company and, almost incidentally, in the things they did to each other.

  On one occasion she’d felt a flutter starting down there that was almost as good as the ones she gave herself sometimes. She was close to imploring him to keep going, keep moving his hand, but she wasn’t willing to need him that much. They hadn’t gone all the way or anything, though in her mind it sometimes felt they’d done more than that. As best she could analyze it, this distortion of memory was because of the shooting and Brendan’s fall. The events seemed a swirly hallucination, a ceremony of shock, and imparted magic to her offhand courtship with Brendan, refashioning it into something possibly profound.

  Brendan’s earlier letters to Araby had toughly dismissed his injuries and even the death of his father. Stuff happens, life goes on. The message had frightened her, the awful incident making the past seem spooky enough without Brendan suddenly getting strange as a consequence. But his latest letter echoed his plain-spokenness when they’d made out together on Penscot. “I want to have sex with you,” he wrote. “I’ve never done it with anyone, but I think it would be valuable for both of us.” Relieved that events hadn’t altered him after all, she’d mailed her response immediately:

  [EXT]

  There was a girl on Central Park West,

  Who felt guilty for flunking a test.

  But her teacher, he said it

  Would be extra credit

  If she gave him her heart, plus the rest.

  The teacher taught how to be true.

  To get an A you just had to be you.

  She told him, “Before I was dumber

  Than I will be this summer —

  When I fly to your island to see you!”

  [/EXT]

  Brendan ran to show the limericks to Matthew, who asked him to recite them aloud several times. Matthew sat in an easy chair, eyes closed, hands clasped, listening intently as if to meditation music. At length he opened his eyes and confessed, “I’m pretending they’re written to me.” Brendan glanced down at Araby’s letter shivering in his hand. He realized this was how it always would be, nothing purely terrific ever again.

  Thirty-Seven

  “Usually I come twice whether I’m into it or not.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I start thinking I’m great.”

  Lois gave a soft laugh. The house was dark and quiet, its other inhabitants fast asleep. “It leaves me hanging if I stop at one, like a burp after beer.”

  “You’re turning me on now.”

  “A burp fetish? Hey, for you.”

  “I’m squarer than that, don’t worry.”

  “Not too, I hope.”

  “Well, the thoughts do wander.”

  “To what?”

  “To what? No toilets, groups, or pain. The rest . . . ”

  “Guys? Because that’s one I need to know.”

  “I’ve told you about the Matt thing.”

  “You’re the only one calls him that. Matt. It’s like so not him.”

  Willoughby laughed. “He’s like so not me. But it was a close call for a minute. Feels like a million miles now.”

  “I don’t care about then. I just have to protect myself.”

  “You’re way in the clear. I can’t even tell you.”

  “You better learn. Tell. Show. The works.”

  “Anything. No secrets.”

  “Yeah? Will you come in my mouth?”

  “Where do I sign?”

  “I trimmed me, you know. My hair. To little wisps in the bathtub. Thinking all about you.”

  “Sharp intake of breath.”

  “Times two.”

  “And she digs me, to boot.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I’m sure getting there.”

  “Me too, honey.”

  A pause. “Goodnight?”

  “For now,” she said. “We can’t here. But soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Thirty-Eight

  In the days since Matthew had pronounced himself virtually cured. Lois and Willoughby had kept to themselves more and more.

  If Robby wasn’t visiting, it was only Brendan and Matthew at home together, Brendan cooking dinner and cleaning up after. When he and Matthew watched TV, it was Brendan who commented on the human antics depicted, Brendan who selected the program. Matthew used to be a tyrant with the channel-changer. Now he was content to watch whatever.

  Usually Robby phoned before dropping by, easily worming a dinner invite from Brendan, who enjoyed the relief from Matthew’s increasingly morose company. One evening, however, Robby simply stepped unannounced into the parlor where Brendan and Matthew were sitting. Brendan’s eyes were just beginning to focus on the guy behind Robby, were just widening with recognition, when Matthew screeched on the sofa beside him, “Get him out of here! Get him out!”

  “We’re here to see Bren,” Robby said to Matthew. “This ain’t your affair.” Del Locke, looking elegantly gaunt in a white shirt and khakis, already had turned to leave. Robby grabbed his arm. “Brendan? My friend Del here has a favor to ask you.”

  “Robby, goddamn you!” Matthew said, rising. “He killed your brother! He killed Jerome!”

  Robby said to Del, “I warned you he’d be dramatic.”

  “I should go,” Del said. “My apologies, really. And to you, Brendan, especially.”

  “Oh, that’s just lovely — ”

  “Matthew, hush!” Matthew’s explosion enabled Brendan to keep calm, as if, his own outrage preempted, the boy was free to speak from another emotion. He asked Del, “What favor?”

  “I’m telling you — ”

  “I’m tellin’ you,” again Brendan to Matthew, “I’m gonna smack you if you don’t be quiet.”

  “Just like his daddy,” Robby said admiringly.

  Del said to the boy, “I’m here because you can help me and my brother Marcus — help Johnwayne. I know you were the one most hurt by him, and hurt by me too, obviously.”

  “How strange. I’d thought Jerome was.”

  “Jerome is dead, Matthew,” Robby said.

  Del went on tensely, “And I would never have presumed to come here except that Robby thought it was okay.”

  “Which is blame I’ll take anytime, ’cause I know ’tis better to forgive than to receive.”

  “
Oh, shut up!” Matthew had collapsed back on the sofa.

  Brendan told Del, “Don’t know what favor you’d expect. It’s not like I owe you.”

  Del cleared his throat. “You don’t owe me. You don’t owe my brother. But a word from you would bring Johnwayne home. You got to know him a little last year. Do you think he’s dangerous?”

  “He had a gun.”

  “He found a gun. Some long-haired guy threw it in a dumpster that afternoon.” At this Matthew looked up and fixed on Del.

  “Your brother said that?”

  “He and the guy saw each other across the street from the police station. They saluted, he told me.” Del shrugged. “Playing cowboys, playing army, who knows what was happening there.”

  “Brendan, weren’t you around there, that afternoon?” And not alone, Matthew remembered.

  “Yeah, right,” uncomprehending, going on sarcastically, “I gave Johnwayne a gun to shoot my dad.”

  Del glanced from one to the other. “What matters is Johnwayne found it and was going to give it to that girl you both knew.”

  “Araby.”

  “Her, yes. And for a long time I didn’t believe it. But I’m told by the Winstons’ groom that Johnwayne gave her presents all the time. Pictures, flowers, seashells. Stuff he found.”

  “Araby told me that too.”

  “So I’ve thought, and I’m certain now, that my brother intended no harm that night.” Del stood in the doorway with his hands at his sides. Queer as a three dollar bill, Brendan recalled his dad saying once. “The favor I’m asking is for you to say the same thing to my brother’s psychologist. In writing.”

  Brendan was silent. He heard everyone breathing.

  “Go on,” Robby urged Del. “Give him the rest.”

  “The rest is not important.”

  “Don’t quit now, man. Have faith.”

  Del said to Brendan in a burst, “I fired my pistol to protect my brother — because I knew your father’s reputation. Chief Rickert won’t let me back on the force because he believes I made a misjudgment.” Del’s face reddened. “I’m wondering what your view is on that.”

  “I told Del,” Robby jumped in, “that my big brother, God rest him, was a meanass snake a lot of times. Bren, he even beat you up two years ago, remember? His own kid! And Matthew, you too!”

  “Not since he quit drinkin’. He was great since then.”

  Del said, “He was drunk at Oceanside Beach just a few days before. Drunk and shooting beached whales, crazy like. It stayed in my mind.”

  “How could he hurt Johnwayne? The gun wasn’t loaded!”

  “I didn’t know that.” Del’s eyes glistened. It was coming out of him, all the sorrow he’d contained defiantly through the winter’s inquiries, replaying the shooting day and night, defending himself, prosecuting himself, in an endless murder trial. “I was scared. Your father scared me.”

  “My father was a good man! He loved my mother. He loved me. He went to Vietnam and he was a hero!”

  “Oh God, Brendan. Please.” Matthew saw where this was heading, saw what would have to be said and have to be done. “Jerome was not a hero. That is an absolute myth.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “He was a killer, Brendan. A savage.”

  “Says who?”

  Matthew dodged the question. “At times he was the finest person I knew. But he was selfish, he was cruel — and he was scary.”

  “Your pal Willoughby served with him! He says he was the best soldier there was.”

  “Willoughby lied! He lied because,” Matthew now knew why, “because he wanted to make you feel better, and himself too.”

  “Bullshit! You’re just saying bullshit because Jerome dumped you just like Willoughby dumped you, and because you’re dying, and because you think all people are shit. Well, they’re not shit, and I won’t let you tell me they are!”

  Robby leaned on the sofaback behind Matthew. “You’re right to stick up for your dad, Brendan. But you know it’s true: Jerome could be a bastard.”

  “Forget what you wish he was,” Matthew said. “Remember him as he was. That’s the only way to keep him alive.”

  Brendan wavered. He forced a sneer. “I remember my mom as she was, fat and loud and always pissed at my dad.”

  “Or in bed with him.”

  “I remember her all those ways. It didn’t keep her alive.”

  “We’re remembering her now. She’s alive now. In this room.”

  “Don’t hand me that crap! She’s dead and she’s gone. Same with my dad. Same with you, pretty soon.”

  Matthew went on unflinchingly, “Your mother went swimming. Maybe she swam to China. And Jerome, did you see them bury him? Maybe we’re fooling you. Maybe it’s all a joke we’re playing on you.” The others had turned at Matthew’s strange tack.

  “He’s in the ground, Matthew. Don’t be nuts.”

  “How would you know? You’ve never been there.”

  “I can go anytime.”

  “Go now. It’s still light out. Let’s go see your father at the graveyard.” When Del moved to the door Matthew whirled on him. “You too, my friend. You especially.”

  “I’m not going to submit to some morbid creepshow.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Matthew said, rising painfully. “I loathe the place. A bit too relevant in my case. But for Brendan — and maybe for you too — I believe it’s where to begin.”

  The old stone-walled cemetery would have looked poetic at any time of day, and at sunset especially so. The sun tinged with fire the windows of distant houses and made pink the clouds overhead. When from a church at the edge of town the sound of bells began to flow liquidly across the fields, the visitors climbing out of their car could only wince at this too perfect effect.

  As a youth, Robby once had dropped acid with some friends and come here to commune. They’d reclined among the headstones and rapped about death to no useful conclusion. Robby had been just starting guitar in those days; he’d strummed an E minor chord for two hours straight and blown his friends away. “I had me some good times here,” he remarked to his companions now, bringing curious looks in response.

  Matthew led the way through the cemetery, Robby behind him, Brendan and Del in the rear. Brendan felt nothing as he walked. He tried to sicken himself by picturing the corpses under his feet with their nails and hair still growing. By the gate a sign said that all grave rubbings must be cleared with the town historical society — to protect the old stones from effacement, stones named Curtis and Rice and Starbuck, one stone bearing instead of a name the etched figure of an angel recalling through her stern mercy a witch hanged on the town common. Brendan imagined that all the headstones and caskets were slowly sinking into the sandy earth, that from many tiers of wood and bone the chokecherry trees thriving green among the markers derived dubious nutriment. That had to be the way: Stones toppled, got covered with dirt, and amazingly the crowded yard invariably had room for one more. This is nature, Brendan thought. It has nothing to do with my father.

  “Someone left flowers,” he heard Matthew say. “I wonder who? They’re fresh.”

  In the dusky light the boy saw a wide, new-looking slab. He studied it. Inscribed under “COCHRAN” were his parents’ first names, Jerome and Eve, with dates below. Jerome and Eve. Mom and Dad. He looked down at his sneakers where they mashed the thin grass. His heart beat hard and his eyeballs felt grainy. When he glanced back upward he read words carved under the names.

  [EXT]

  Parents Friends Lovers Patriots

  [/EXT]

  Matthew asked Brendan, “Do you approve? We didn’t know what to put. I mean, we’re all infidels.”

  “Who thought of it?”

  “Willoughby, actually. Which is pretty bizarre, considering.”

  “Con
sidering what?”

  Matthew knew that, if not for Willoughby, Jerome would still be alive. “Considering how he has disappointed us.”

  It was getting dark. Crickets were thrumming and trees were beginning to twitch. Brendan asked, “Why’d you put my mom’s name on it? She’s in the sea somewhere.”

  “Jerome’s not here either,” Robby said.

  “Sure he is. Down there, lyin’ in the dark.”

  “He’s flown, Bren. High and far.”

  Matthew had wandered a few rows away. He crouched to read some stones in the dim light to be sure he was in the right spot. He was. Priams were buried all around him. His mother lay at the end of the row. Matthew hadn’t been to her grave since her funeral twenty years ago; even at Jerome’s funeral last fall, he hadn’t walked the fifty feet to pay respects to her remains — not out of neglect or fear, but because for him it would have been a null expression. He thought of his mother every day. Letters in stone had no bearing.

  Standing, he glanced to the empty plot at the end of the row, his, and felt nothing so much as disdain. He bowed his head and said a prayer of deepest conviction. “I’ll beat it, Ma. Just watch me.”

  He went to Brendan and seized him by the shoulders. His words came in a vehement whisper. “I loved your father. I loved him like your mother loved him. She was better than he was, Brendan — better in character, better in heart. I’m better than he was, and God knows you’re better than he was.” Matthew’s jaw ached with emotion. “But do you know what? None of us loved him as well as he deserved. Not even you.”

  He walked toward the gate, Robby pursuing fretfully. Brendan yelled after them, “I loved him the best!”

  Matthew turned. “Did you protect him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you forgive him now?”

  “Yes.”

  Matthew gazed a moment at the boy he loved as a son. “Wrong answer. Officer Locke can explain,” he said, and headed out to the car.

  Brendan and Del stood at either side of Jerome’s grave. “I have no idea what he means,” Del said.