Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  "What nut house? What are you talkin' about?" Tommy demanded.

  "Can Stony and Daddy come with me?"

  She stared at Albert incredulously. "Maybe he's right. Maybe you should go!"

  Albert had no idea what a nut house was, but if it was like Jacobi he might not mind. He played with a strip of torn vinyl on the upholstery.

  "What he say, Marie?"

  "Genius Jew doctor said Albert needs a shrink!"

  "He said that?"

  "Yeah, he said that!" Marie barked. The smell of Marie's perfume was putting Albert to sleep. For an instant he thought he saw big lipstick lips on the front window of the car. He blinked and they disappeared.

  "He said Albert gotta go to a nut house?" Tommy honked up the rear of a beat-up Mustang. The driver gave him the finger. Tommy thrust his head out the window. "I'll shove that fuckin' finger up yer ass!" The driver calmly checked out Tommy in his rearview mirror and turned off the street. "What goddamn nut house?"

  "How the hell do I know?" Marie yelled. "He said the kid needs a shrink. How the hell do I know what nut house?" She waved her cigarette hand around the car. Albert lay down in the back. He saw the lips again on the upholstered roof. Tommy cursed incoherently. Ran a red light.

  "What he say to you, Marie, word for word!" He didn't know whom he was pissed at.

  "I don't remember word for word. Whatta you drivin' me crazy for?" She tossed her cigarette out the window, glaring at her husband. "It don't make any difference anyhow. I'm not goin' back to that goddamn hospital. Buncha animals run that place." She rested her arm behind Tommy's head.

  "Mommy?" Albert sat up.

  Marie turned.

  "Are you mad at me?" He ran his thin fingers over Marie's hand. Marie sighed, patted his hand.

  "No, baby."

  "Mommy, when I get home, I'm goin' to clean up my room. Stony's side too. And I'm not goin' to watch cartoons for forty-six days."

  "Albert, when you were in bed, what did Doctor Harris talk to you about?"

  "He gave me forty-nine comic books. All Supermans except for one Jimmy Olsen. I got them in my bag in the trunk." Albert picked on the edge of his seat. "Do you want to read some when we get home, Mommy?"

  "Did he say anything to you? Did he ask you any questions?"

  "He asked me to tell him about Superman."

  "What?"

  "I told him I got Superman pajamas at home, but I don't got a cape and I told him I had a dream that I was Jimmy Olsen and Superman saved me from a monster in the water, and then he asked me what the monster looked like, but I didn't remember."

  Marie frowned. "Albert, I want to ask you something and I want you to answer me honestly. I promise I won't get mad. When you were in bed, did Doctor Harris ever play with your pee-pee?"

  "What the hell kinda question is that?" Tommy yelled. Marie ignored him.

  "Did he ever touch your pee-pee?"

  Albert looked puzzled, then laughed in a high-pitched giggle, covering his mouth. "Ooh, Mommy, you said a bad word."

  "Answer me, Albert." Marie fought down the impulse to slap him.

  "No-o," Albert pshawed.

  "Did he ever make you touch—"

  "Hey, cut it out!" Tommy swung Marie around. "What the hell's a matter with you! What kinda—"

  "I don't know what kinda doctor he is! What kinda doctor thinks an eight-year-old kid needs a shrink! What kinda doctor walks around with a beard like that!" Marie screamed into Tommy's ear. She started crying, her voice cracked and ugly through the sobs. Albert sank back into the rear seat. The three traveled in silence until they got home. As they waited for the elevator, Marie fished in her pocketbook for a plastic amber prescription bottle with Albert's name and dosage directions typed on the label. It was filled with 5 mg Valiums. She rattled them in front of Tommy's face. "I'm gonna give these to Schindler. I'm gonna have 'im analyze 'em. I don't know what the hell's in these and I don't trust that goddamn doctor!"

  Annoyed, Tommy brushed her hand from his face. "Do what the hell you want."

  10

  AFTER A WEEKEND in which Albert was taken to a Mets game, the zoo, three movies and Adventurers' Inn for hot dogs and ketchup, the De Cocos settled down for a Monday night's TV. Marie and Tommy in the living room, Stony and Albert in their bedroom. The phone rang, and the two divisions played chicken to see who was going to pick it up. After four rings, Tommy cracked.

  "Yo!"

  "Is ... ah ... Stony there?"

  Tommy frowned. A familiar voice, but he couldn't place it. "Uh ... hold on ... hey, Stones! Pick up."

  Stony picked up the extension in his bedroom. "Yeah?"

  "Stony? This is Doctor Harris."

  "Hey, how ya doin'?"

  "Good ... how's Albert?"

  Stony glanced at Albert sitting on the floor, mesmerized by the television. "He's pretty good."

  "Is he taking the Valiums?"

  "The what?"

  "The pills I gave your mother."

  "You gave her pills?"

  "For Albert." Harris found himself getting into a rage.

  "She never said nothin' about no pills." Stony raised his voice, turning with a frown to Albert.

  "Listen ... can you come in and see me tomorrow?"

  "Me?"

  "Yeah ... I need to talk to you ... it's very important."

  "Sure ... what time?"

  "How about one, we can have some lunch."

  "Sure thing."

  "And listen, don't tell anybody you're coming in, O.K.?"

  "Sure. What's goin' on?"

  "Nothin', I just wanna talk to you about your brother. One o'clock, O.K.?"

  "Right." Stony slowly replaced the receiver. Albert briefly looked up, then returned his gaze to the TV.

  Tommy came into the bedroom. "Hey, Stones? Who was that?" His hand on the doorknob.

  Stony sat down next to Albert, leaning back against the bed. "Who was that? A friend from the Mount." Stony tried to concentrate on the Flintstones.

  ***

  "Doctor Harris?"

  Harris smiled when he saw Stony standing in the doorway. "C'mon in." He rose and shook Stony's hand. "Grab a seat." Stony pulled up a chair to Harris' desk. "So how's it goin' at home?" Harris filled a pipe and crossed his legs.

  "O.K., I guess, uh, what did you wanna talk about?"

  "Albert. I still don't know what the hell happened to him, although I have my suspicions." He sucked at his unlit pipe, watching Stony's face for a reaction.

  Stony snorted. "I know what you mean. I think my old lady did some kinda number, but I don't know what. You hear what happened that night?"

  "What night?"

  "The night when Albert was brought in. I flipped and I punched her out."

  "Your mother?"

  "Yeah." Stony looked down at his shoes. "I clocked her pretty bad. I thought they were gonna put me inna room next to Albert after that."

  "Hmph." Harris reached for the matches on the desk. "What do you think she did?"

  "Who knows. She gets into these tirades aroun' him not eating. I seen him wig out once or twice. Coulda been something like that."

  Harris lit his pipe, sending up cherry-scented smoke signals. "Well, let me give you a little advice." Harris held his pipe close to his mouth. "Any time she starts in on him, you clock her again."

  Stony sat up as if he had received a small shock.

  "You heard me." Harris nodded. "If a big kid was tormenting Albert, you wouldn't hesitate to cold-deck him, right?"

  "Yeah, but it's my mother!" Stony laughed incredulously.

  "Yeah, but it's your brother!" Harris countered. "Look, let me be more blunt than that, if I can. The only thing that keeps your brother alive is you. Your mother's out to get him and your father could give two shits. Now, Albert knows that, not in so many words, but we all have that instinct for survival. You're more than a brother to him—you're a lifeline. Do you know what anorexia's all about? Terror. Pure, simple shit-eating terror. There's n
ot a goddamn thing wrong with that kid physically. But that mother of yours has got him hopping and jumping so bad he just can't eat. Now look, I wanted him in some kind of therapy. I don't know what your opinion of shrinks is, and frankly I don't give a damn, but it really doesn't make a difference now anyway. Your mother wouldn't grant permission, so there's nothing I can do about it"—Harris laid down his pipe—"except talk to you. Now you can't be Albert's shrink, but you can be his protector. Now, I'm telling you that your mother's out to do him in, and I'm telling you to slug her any time she starts in on him." He chuckled. "And you're looking at me as if to say, 'This bearded bastard's a doctor?' Well you're goddamn right. I'm a doctor and what's more I'm a goddamn good doctor, and I'll bet you a round-trip ticket to the ends of the universe that after your little outburst last week it'll be a long, long time before your mother tries any stuff on Albert with you around. All I'm saying is, we have to get her to feel that way, even when you're not around. Even if she thinks you might hear about it, you follow?"

  "I dunno, Doctor Harris, you're talkin' some crazy stuff." Stony started to sweat.

  "Stony, do you have a black suit?"

  "No, what for?"

  "Well, I suggest you get one, because you're gonna need it sometime in the next two years."

  "What the hell for?"

  "Albert's funeral."

  Stony sank down in the chair. His eyes began to itch. "You just said there's nothin' wrong with him." His voice cracked.

  "There will be." Harris relit his pipe. "I wonder what happened to those Valiums I gave your mother for Albert?" he asked innocently.

  "They probably got ditched," Stony muttered.

  "By your mother?" Harris asked with mock incredulity.

  Stony glared at him. "O.K., O.K., I'll be King Kong, awright?"

  Harris laughed. "Look, any time she starts in on him, if you can give her half the look you're giving me now, that'll put her on ice for six months."

  "Oh yeah? How come you ain't scared?"

  Harris sucked on his pipe. "Because I can wrap your ass three times around a doorknob before you could ever figure out where the door is, but I would be scared if I couldn't."

  "You're crazy." Stony laughed nervously.

  "Who isn't?" Harris stood up. "Let's get some lunch."

  ***

  "Nice day." Harris munched on a hot dog as he scanned the park. Stony sat next to him on a graffiti-scarred bench. "You jog?"

  "Nah. I used to run when I was playin' ball." Stony yawned. "That was somethin' else. The whole team used to run together, forty guys in cleats around the reservoir. We sounded like a goddamn army," he snickered, "we scared the hell out of everybody."

  "You don't play ball anymore?" Harris rolled his napkin in a ball and tossed it into a trash can.

  "Nah, those days are over."

  "Are you going to college?"

  "I got in someplace in Louisiana, but I ain't goin'. You ever been down south?"

  Harris smiled. "Once or twice."

  "You go to school down there?"

  Harris flash-imaged sit-ins, dogs, black faces, jail, sunglasses like mirrors. "In a manner of speaking." He picked a shred of sauerkraut that was dangling from his beard. "So if you're not going to college, what are you going to do?"

  Stony shrugged. "I guess be an electrician with my old man."

  "You don't sound too excited."

  "Well, you know, the bread's good. What can I tell you?"

  "You ever think of doing something else?"

  "To be honest with you, I never given it much thought, except..." Stony leaned forward, elbows on knees. "I useta have this fantasy a workin' with kids. I dig kids. I get along with them. About four years ago I was a camp counselor. I really dug that. I had fifteen third-graders, yeah. I really had some heavy times. I'm a dynamite storyteller, you know?"

  "So why don't you work with kids?"

  "I dunno. You can't just work with kids all your life."

  "Why not? I do."

  "Yeah, but you're a doctor."

  "If I wasn't a doctor I'd still want to work with kids, why not you?"

  "I dunno, I can't do that. It's ... I dunno."

  "Do you want to be an electrician?"

  "Well, I dunno." Stony grimaced. "Not really, I mean, I guess I could get into it." A gray-haired man in bermuda shorts and an orange beret zoomed by on a bicycle. "I mean, it's responsible work. I dunno what I'm talkin' about." Stony laughed apologetically. "Like I said, I never really thought about it either way. It's a living."

  "How old are you, Stony?"

  "Eighteen."

  "You sound like you're forty-five."

  "Is that good?"

  "It's pathetic. If you feel like this now, how do you think you're going to feel twenty years from now, coming home for dinner, watching TV, going to sleep, going back to the construction site in the morning?"

  Stony felt himself getting angry. "Hey, look, I stick with it twenny years I ain't gonna be runnin' around in a damn T-shirt. I'll be a goddamn foreman pullin' down forty-thou."

  "I asked you how do you think you'll feel coming home, eating dinner, watching TV, going to sleep and starting all over the next day. How much juice do you think you'll be getting out of your life?"

  "How the hell do I know?"

  "I can make a phone call and get you a job as a recreation assistant at Cresthaven Hospital in the children's ward starting Monday."

  "Hold it, hold it." Stony held his forehead. "Slow down."

  "No. Give me a yes or a no." Harris draped his arms on the back of the bench.

  "How much does it pay?"

  "Peanuts. Yes or no?"

  Stony laughed. Mad. Cornered. This guy was nuts. "Why not?"

  Harris stood up. "Good. I'll make a call this afternoon." He smiled. "You have a good heart, Stony. That beats out forty thou, all the union benefits you can eat and a full house, aces high, but you have to play your hand."

  Stony felt like he'd just done something bad, that he was going to get his ass kicked by somebody, that he just broke his mother's favorite lamp, but somewhere in the back of his head there was a nagging, irritating, terrifying, undeniable sense of excitement the likes of which he hadn't felt since the first time he got laid. "I'll give it a crack."

  ***

  AFTER WORK Tommy bopped into Banion's laughing his ass off. He spotted Chubby at a small table. Tommy waved to Banion and pulled up a chair. "Hey, Stony sent a letter to that school down south." He cracked his knuckles.

  "He's goin'?"

  Tommy laughed. "He found out the school is ninety-five percent nigger."

  Chubby belly-laughed. "Tell Banion."

  "I'll tell 'im later. Anyways, it's all set. I spoke to Frankie Finnegan. Stony can work with me over in Riverdale this summer an' in the fall he'll start apprentice classes out in Queens."

  "Last I spoke to Stony he still wasn't too crazy about comin' in."

  Tommy leaned back in his chair, hissing through his teeth. He stared at Chubby. "What else is he gonna do?"

  "Look, I'm not arguing with you. I think he should go in too, but it would be nice if he thought he should go in, don't you think?"

  "Ach..." Tommy stared off in disgust, then got up. "You want anything?"

  "Scotch."

  Tommy went over to the bar, joked around with some guys and returned with a drink in each hand.

  "Some day he'll thank me." Tommy solemnly nodded and winked.

  "I hope so," Chubby said.

  "Oh lissen, I almost forgot." Tommy leaned over the table and whispered, "You got fifteen bucks?"

  "You short?" Chubby reached for his wallet.

  "Nah, nah, we found out tomorrow's Banion's birthday. A couple a guys are gonna go down and pick up a new wheelchair for him. We'll close the place tomorrow night and throw him a surprise party. You wanna chip in?"

  Chubby thought for a moment. "Tom, I think I wanna get Banion my own present."

  "It's on you." Tommy rose from t
he table. "I'm gonna go home, get some dinner. Come in tomorrow night about ten, O.K.?"

  Chubby winked. After Tommy split. Chubby got up, yawned and sat at the bar. He studied Banion moving around, making drinks. "You know, Banion, I was thinkin', since las' week when you was tellin' me about what happened with your kid, I was thinkin' that maybe you should give him a call or somethin'."

  Banion sipped a milk on the rocks, nervously drummed his fingers on the armrest of his wheelchair.

  "The reason I think that, Mikey, is because I think you really love him, you know? I dunno, somethin' just tells me you do."

  Banion finished the milk, shaking some ice from the glass into his mouth.

  "You know, I never met a parent who somewhere deep down inside, in spite of all the crap and thunder, deep down inside who wouldn't die for their kid." Chubby took out a pack of cigarettes, offered one to Banion. Banion shook his head no. "It's like cuttin' off your nose to spite your face what you're doin', and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts he really wants to see you ... you're his goddamn father." Chubby lit his cigarette.

  "I don't wanna talk about it," Banion said.

  "Aw c'mon," Chubby persisted, "you mean to tell me you don't care if you never see him again?" Banion wheeled away from Chubby, served up some drinks at the other end of the bar. "Banion, get the fuck back here."

  "Hey look," Banion snapped across the room, "if you know anything about anything you'll lay off me about that."

  "I only meant—"

  "I said you'll lay off."

  "Hey c'mon, Mikey."

  "You'll lay off."

  Chubby opened his mouth to speak, but his words subsided in a sigh. "O.K."

  Banion wheeled back to Chubby's end of the bar. "Chubby, how come you never had kids?"

  "I dunno." Chubby shrugged. "I guess I was afraid they'd all be fat and ugly like me."

  "Cut the crap, Chubby, I'm asking you serious." Banion poured himself another milk.

  "I'll tell you something, I never felt like I needed a kid. I got Stony, Tommy's boy. He's the best goddamn kid in the world. A goddamn kid-and-a-half." Chubby popped his knuckles. "You know, when we talk, me an' Stony, when we talk we're just like two guys, like two buddies. None of this Uncle Chubby garbage. An' I'll tell you somethin' else, that goddamn kid loves my ass. Jus' between you and me, I think the kid digs me even more than he does Tommy, but don't ever tell Tommy that." Chubby laughed.