The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel

by Thomas Mullen

  The young woman looked at Jason. “Yes?” She might have been eighteen. She wore a loose-fitting man’s cotton shirt with the sleeves torn off and brown dungarees rolled up at the ankle. Her shoulders were sunburned and her brown hair was tied back with what looked like a man’s handkerchief.

  “I’m looking for Whit Fireson.”

  “Don’t know him,” she said, too quickly. Her eyes were hard.

  “I’m not a cop. I’m his brother Jason.”

  Someone’s knee twitched and one of the bodies was moaning, but Jason couldn’t tell which one.

  He swallowed. “Please. Do you know where I can find my brother?”

  She watched him for a moment, then relaxed slightly and pointed to the body on the far right. “There.”

  Jason had seen men beaten unrecognizable before, but never someone he cared about. Despite all the distance that had opened up between himself and Whit, he realized how immutable was the fact that this was his brother. He bent down beside a face covered in blood dark as charcoal, with eyes swollen shut and a gruesomely misaligned nose, one of the nostrils flat against his cheek and the other bubbling with a stew of snot and blood. The bubbles were the only indication that Whit wasn’t dead yet.

  “Oh, Jesus.” He reached into his pocket for his new silk handkerchief and mopped at his brother’s face. Very little of the blood came off. “How long has he been like this?!”

  “They came night before last,” she said. So the paper had taken its time to report it. “Just tellin’ us all to git and knockin’ down shanties, arrestin’ some folks. He fought back, so they just beat on him instead.”

  “They told us they’d send an ambulance,” an older woman said from behind Jason.

  He noticed then that they were near the side entrance to the park, that someone had set the tent up as if it were a triage area to facilitate evacuations to the hospital. They’d actually believed the cops.

  He unbuttoned Whit’s shirt. “They shoot him?”

  “No. Just used their clubs.”

  Whit’s stomach was a pile of eggplants, swollen and purple. Jason lifted himself to a crouch and slid a hand beneath his brother’s head.

  “What’re you doing?” the woman asked.

  “Taking him to the hospital, what do you think?”

  “You have an auto?”

  “Parked out front.”

  “These others are bad off, too,” someone said.

  Jason slowly lifted Whit’s body. “I can’t carry more’n one,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Someone said they could rally people to carry the others, and Jason stood there with his brother heavy and broken in his arms. “I’m not waiting around. I’ll take whoever you can fit in my car if you get ’em there now.”

  Whit had always been thin, but that didn’t make him an easy burden. Jason walked as quickly as he could. He could hear people behind him struggling with the other wounded but he didn’t stop or turn to check on them. Nor did he ask anyone to help him carry his brother. His only thought was, Don’t drop him, don’t drop him, don’t you goddamn drop him.

  Benedict and his companions were scattered about the shrinking patches of shade by the Packard. They saw Jason coming and snapped to attention, opening the passenger door. Jason gingerly slid Whit into the seat, and then the human stretchers appeared, wearily carrying their freight. Jason sighed and opened the back doors, hoping that the guns lying in canvas bags on the floorboards weren’t loaded. Twelve people were carrying six more bodies by the armpits and ankles. Trailing this bedraggled parade were a few others, including the girl who’d been in the tent. It was the first time Jason had seen her standing, and now he noticed that her baggy shirt had previously concealed that she was with child.

  They loaded the bodies. It was difficult to get the doors shut without closing them on something. The fifth body, a young man with a blood-soaked cloth around his head, wouldn’t fit in the back with the others. Jason relented and let them put him in the front, gently nudging Whit into the middle.

  “I’m coming with you,” said the pregnant girl. She was standing on the running board.

  He leaned out the window to face her. “I can’t let you do that. It’s not safe.”

  “I need to see him off. He may be a brother to you but that don’t mean he’s nothin’ to me.”

  “Sister, in your condition, I—”

  “This’ll only take longer you keep arguin’ about it.” Then she looked away from him, gazing forward. Jason leaned back into the seat and turned the wheel.

  The others backed away from the Packard, all save Benedict. “Buddy, about our deal?”

  Jason hurriedly took the clip from his pocket and slid out two singles. Benedict bowed his head in thanks and his two friends were pulled to his sides as if he’d turned magnetic.

  Jason headed out of the park, driving more slowly than he’d wanted on account of the woman, whose shirt ruffled in his rearview. He hoped he wouldn’t pass any cops.

  Later he would reflect on the strange fact that, at the time, it was not panic or fear that flooded him so much as anger. Anger that this had befallen Whit, anger to be amid such suffering. We are better than this, brother. This is not our fate.

  “We can’t take these people,” a doctor said when Jason approached the hospital carrying his brother in his arms. “There’s a free clinic on the South Side. You’ll have to bring them—”

  “I’ve got money, goddamnit! Now get me some stretchers before I drop him on top of you!”

  One was soon produced and various medical underlings were unleashed onto the Packard, whisking away its human contents like hoodlums stripping auto parts.

  There were no chairs outside the operating room, so Jason dragged one from the other end of the hallway. The hospital was at least as hot as the world outside, the open windows useless. Jason had loosened his tie so hurriedly that the top button of his new shirt had popped off. In his discomfort and fury he considered taking off his bloody jacket, for relief and to inform the medical staff that he was armed, but he decided against it.

  “What’s the story?” he asked a young nurse leaving the room.

  Her white uniform was no longer white. It took a moment for anything human to register on her rigid face.

  “There is no story yet. I’m sorry, but it’ll be a while. And you really shouldn’t be sitting here.”

  “And my brother really shouldn’t be having the hell beaten out of him and left to die. Crazy things are happening, huh?”

  She didn’t know what to do with that comment, so she dropped it onto the floor and they both looked at it for a moment. Then she continued with her errand.

  Minutes later, the pregnant girl from the Hooverville found Jason. She had tucked her men’s shirt into her pants, as if doing so would make her presentable. The effort struck Jason as hopelessly sad; it only enhanced the bulge of her baby and revealed the old length of rope she used for a belt. It would have taken more than primping to clear the dirt from her arms and clothes, the peeling skin from her shoulders, the grime and sweat from her face. And her hair was the deadest thing Jason had ever seen.

  He stood and offered her the chair.

  “So, how long have you known my brother?”

  Her eyes followed his to her belly, and she blushed.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He realized he was looming over her, so he sat on the floor, leaning against the opposite wall. “It’s just, he and I have lost touch. I don’t know much of what he’s been up to.”

  “He used to stop by now and again, to see some folks he knew,” she said. “Then he lost his job and started to stay with us. He says they fired him because he was trying to get people to organize. Sent the Pinkertons after him, but he hid well enough. Till the cops came.”

  The long white corridor was silent.

  “You have family out there?” Jason asked.

  “Some.”

  “You from Lincoln City?”

  “Since I was twe
lve. Lived in Pottsville before then, but my father lost the farm. He worked at the factory, too, for a time, but that was before your brother worked there. Whit was lucky to get a job when he did.”

  “But not so lucky to get fired. Though I suppose if he was organizing he brought it on himself.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. Then seemed to think that there was nothing better after all. “He wouldn’t agree with that.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t. So what’s your name, miss?”

  “Veronica Hazel.” He introduced himself again and said it was good to meet her, circumstances notwithstanding. He was not yet famous or infamous, just a man who happened to be born to the same parents as Whit, so such introductions were not as fraught as they would one day become.

  They barely spoke for the next two hours, until the surgeon emerged from the room, looking scornfully down at Jason on the floor.

  “How is he?” Jason asked as he pulled himself up.

  “Look, I don’t want to get involved in anything here, but I need to know who you are. If you’re some union guy rounding up everyone who’s—”

  “That man is my brother.” Jason pointed into the room. “My actual brother, not like some comrade or worker. Now, how is he?”

  The doctor explained that much of Whit was broken—his clavicle; his left arm; his jaw, which would be temporarily wired shut; and several ribs—but they didn’t suspect any organ damage. “He’ll be eating through a straw for a while.” Whit had lost a good amount of blood and had a serious concussion. “He’s not going to feel normal for a good long time. But he should eventually.”

  “Good,” Jason said, trying to convince himself. “Good.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m a bit amazed. He took a hell of a beating. But he came to and seemed alert, which is a downright miracle. We have him sedated—he’ll need that for a while. But his brain seems to be working.”

  “That’s an improvement, then.”

  Months later, as Jason drove north to Cleveland, he thought of the doctor’s choice of the word miracle. He was tempted to wake his obnoxiously snoring brother with a question: Had Whit seen anything during his long unconsciousness—if that’s what it had really been—at the Hooverville? Angels, some celestial light, an echoing voice? Jason wondered what he himself had missed while he’d lain on his cooling board, whether some important earthly instructions had been imparted to his soul, only to have his waking self completely forget.

  Jason had stayed in Lincoln City after Whit’s release from the hospital, helping Ma care for him. Also helping was Veronica, whom Jason ferried back and forth each day until he slipped her enough money to get a cheap apartment for a few weeks. Ma had, of course, been struck by Veronica’s obvious physical condition upon first meeting her, and she had lectured Whit the moment Veronica left the house that night. No son of hers was going to abandon a baby like that. From then on, she practically force-fed Veronica rich meals.

  Withdrawal from the morphine left Whit an insomniac for a few nights, so Jason would sit beside his bed and talk through the evening. Whit’s metal-rimmed jaw, hardened eyes, and dented nose imbued with permanence the hostile look he had been wearing for so long.

  “My associates and I are going to do a certain endeavor, probably in a couple weeks,” Jason told him late one night. “Our first jobs were small, but we know what we’re doing now. In a couple weeks, I’ll have more money. You and Veronica can get your own place.”

  “I want to help,” Whit said.

  “No.” For years Jason had been circumspect about keeping Whit uninvolved in his crimes, and he wasn’t going to change that now. “You’re about to have a family to watch over.”

  “All the more reason. I can do a lot better by—”

  “No. End of discussion.” He paused for a moment, staring his brother down. “So, how far along is she?”

  Whit looked down at his feet. “I’m not sure.”

  “Looks pretty far to me. You’ve got your own work to do now.”

  “I don’t know a damned thing about being a dad.”

  “I didn’t know a damn thing about being a bank robber,” Jason said. “But necessity can teach you a lot.”

  Whit squinted at his brother. Pop had always used that line, and Jason had always made fun of it behind the old man’s back. They sat there silently for a while, remembering this.

  Three months later, Jason learned that Whit had joined the ranks of the disappeared.

  “He left Veronica and the baby three weeks ago,” Ma told him at the breakfast table the morning after one of his brief returns home.

  “Jesus. He leave a note or anything?”

  “A short one. It said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

  Jason shook his head. After Whit had recovered enough to move around, he and Veronica had quietly gone to a justice of the peace and married. Jason had not been in attendance, as he’d been hiding out after a lucrative bank job in Toledo. But late one night he had delivered his wedding gift in the form of a bundle of bills, enough for them to rent an apartment for a few months and buy some furniture and baby clothes. The happy if overwhelmed couple was living in Dayton, an hour from Lincoln City, just in case the cops were still interested in pursuing Whit for whatever shenanigans had put him on their list in the first place. Patrick was born in early July, and Whit had tried unsuccessfully to find work.

  “How’s Veronica?” Jason asked.

  “She’s all right. If you ask me, she’s the toughest person in this family.”

  “I can’t believe he ran out on her. And the baby.”

  “He’s had a hard time,” Ma defended her youngest.

  “Who hasn’t?”

  She ignored him, moved on. “Veronica’s family moved to Milwaukee last month, and she said she might have to follow them. I told her she’s welcome to live here, too. I’d probably have to stop taking in boarders, but I’d manage somehow.”

  It was not yet six and the sky was dark; his mother had woken him up at five so they could eat breakfast together.

  Marriner always preached the importance of lying low between jobs, so visiting home was a risk. Most of Jason’s bank jobs had been miles away, but his escapades were beginning to receive press, particularly a recent job in Kalamazoo, in which a young cop had given chase but had lost control of his vehicle, ramming into a tree and severely injuring himself. And Jason’s most recent heist not only had been in his home state but was the biggest in Ohio history: they had liberated some fifty-seven thousand dollars from Toledo Consumers Union and Trust. Marriner had objected to Jason’s plans to visit family so soon afterward, but Jason figured he was being cautious enough by wearing a disguise (clear eyeglasses, a dull charcoal-gray suit that fit a bit too snugly, an old cap, and a thin mustache), by slipping into Ma’s place late at night and sleeping on the couch downstairs so he could rise before the boarders. And by carrying a loaded gun beneath his jacket.

  “How are you?” he asked Ma. “You working too hard? You don’t have to take boarders in anymore—I can get you what you need.”

  “I don’t want to rely on that, Jason. You know that.”

  He glanced at his empty coffee cup. “The Wilsons’ old place is still empty, I see.”

  “It is. Their yard has certainly gone to seed, which doesn’t help the neighborhood.”

  “It also makes it easier for hoboes to sneak to your back door and beg for food. I know your heart’s in the right place, but it might not be the best idea.”

  “What might not be?”

  “Ma. It’s good of you, but at the same time it’s a risk. You never know if it might be … someone who isn’t who he says he is.”

  “You don’t give your mother much credit, do you? I managed to raise you, don’t forget.”

  “You have a reputation now; this place does. Didn’t you see the chalk marks of a cat on the front fence? That’s hobo code for ‘a kindhearted woman lives here.’”

  She
was thrown for a moment. “I just thought some neighborhood boys had done that.”

  “It’s why every time one of those trains comes by, the bums know where to look for free food.”

  “You don’t like knowing that some of your money is feeding them.”

  He scowled. “That’s not what I mean at all.”

  “I expected better of you, Jason.”

  “Ma, that is not …” How had he let himself get talked into this corner? He should have just erased the damn drawing himself.

  After a painful silence she said, “Find your brother, Jason. Bring him back to his wife and son.”

  Footsteps overhead told Jason that one of the boarders was up. He frowned—Ma had said they usually didn’t wake until six-thirty. Ma took his plate into the kitchen, and Jason grabbed his bag without another word. He quietly opened the back door and slipped through the darkness into the garage. It was freezing inside, but at least he’d thrown some blankets into the car the night before. He would have to hide there for an hour or so, until the boarders had left for work.

  First he stood at the small window on the side of the garage. He could see into the bright dining room from there, see the young man at the table, one chair over from where Jason had been sitting. Jason still wasn’t used to seeing strange men in the house, even though Ma had been taking them in for months now. The boarder was thin and blond as a stalk of wheat, and he barely looked old enough to shave. Ma said he was a former accountant, laid off, who had recently got a job planting trees for the CCC; he was so scrawny it was hard to imagine him lasting more than a couple of weeks on such a job.

  Jason stood there for a while, watching the man yawn and stare off into space. Then Ma slid a plate of eggs in front of him and the man smiled and nodded. Jason crept into the backseat and pulled the blankets around himself, waiting until it was safe to be in his mother’s house.