The Things a Brother Knows (17 page)

“Speak English,” Zim says.

“I think you mean to say
Speak English, sugar
.” I can’t help myself. This is too much fun.

“Jesus, Richard. You really are a numbskull.
Espouses
. Not exactly a million-dollar word.
Expresses
. Levi is expressing the desire for our help.”

“Oh, because I’m sitting here in front of a computer, and according to dictionary dot com,
espouses
means to adopt or champion, which makes what you said not exactly stellar English.”

“Hello,” I say. “I’m on this call too.”

“Right,” they say in unison.

So I ask them to help me with some research. Since I know where we’re going, and I can guess roughly when we’ll get there, I ask my friends to try to find out if there’s an event, a meeting, a rally, something, anything of note happening in the greater Washington, DC, area within a week to ten days of when I expect us to arrive.

I finally get Boaz to agree to a game of cards.

Four slices of the pizza we ordered to our room are deadweight in the depths of my stomach. We’re seated across from each other at a table with a wobbly leg. The bulb in the lamp hanging from the ceiling is too bright for the moths. They dart around our heads instead.

“So, what’ll it be? Your call.” I shuffle and do my bridge.

Bo shrugs. “Whatever.”

“A game of chance or a game of skill?”

“Aren’t they all games of chance?”

“I don’t think so.”

Bo just looks at me.

“We could play Knock-Knock, but I can’t remember the rules.”

“Knock-Knock?”

“You know, that game Dov taught us.”

“I’ve never played cards with Dov.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I don’t know why I find this so hard to believe. I guess I’ve always thought everything I did was because Boaz did it first.

“How about blackjack?” he says.

I do another bridge. This has got to be the most thoroughly shuffled deck in the history of cards.

“Okay. But you’ll have to teach me how to play.”

“For starters, we need a second deck.

“Good thing I came prepared.” I grab the other deck out of my pack.

After several more minutes of shuffling, and bridges that are much harder to make look cool when two decks of cards are involved, I’m ready to deal.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“We need a wager,” he says. “Something has to be at stake, or else what’s the point?”

“Okay …”

“Your Red Sox hat.”

“That’s my lucky hat! Plus, it keeps the sun off my face and I’m trying to preserve my boyish good looks.”

“Good. That means it’s worth something to you.”

He gave me that hat for my birthday six years ago. He probably doesn’t remember. He probably doesn’t even know it came from him. I’m guessing Mom bought it for me and slapped his name on the card. But anyway, I love that hat. So yes, it’s most definitely worth something to me.

“So what do I get if I win?” I ask.

“You get to keep it another day.”

We’re talking, so I’m hesitant to actually start dealing the cards. Or to point out his lopsided rules.

Bo rubs his palms together. “Game on.”

One round in and we realize our plan doesn’t work. We need chips. Amounts to bet with hand by hand.

There’s a bag of mixed nuts in Bo’s backpack. We assign them value: ten points for cashews, five for almonds, one for peanuts. At the end of the night, whoever’s got the most points gets the hat. Brilliant.

I go to grab the bag and when I do, I see the top of that Marty Muldoon’s shoe box. The clown in his huge shoes smiling up at me. The place for all the special, all the secret things.

I reach in to grab it, to pull it out and ask what’s in it, but I don’t because we’re about to play cards, and we’re knocking on the door of having a good time, and we’re hanging out together and he’s talking.

So we play blackjack.

And in the morning, when we pack up to leave for another day of walking, because he is always better than me at everything we do, he’s the one who keeps the sun off his face with my favorite, lucky hat.

I make a call to Mom while Boaz runs into a store to buy more water. I keep it brief and vague on the details because even after all the maps I’ve looked at the last few weeks I still can’t say with any kind of certainty where the Appalachian Trail goes and where it doesn’t.

I tell her we’re having a great time. I tell her how I love being so far away from everything. How quickly I’ve adapted to the absence of all those things that make life more comfortable.

She asks me about big-leaf aster. We share a laugh. And I pretend I’m losing her before she can ask to speak to Boaz.

Here’s something I didn’t know before all this walking: the interstate sounds like an accordion. It gets louder and softer, louder and softer, depending on how far away you’ve strayed from it.

Boots on gravel sound like eating a bowl of Grape-Nuts.

Birds scream like children on a playground.

This is what I’d been thinking when it happened. Thinking about sounds.

There’s no telling what Bo had been thinking. We hadn’t talked in miles. We hadn’t seen much either. There was nothing to hold on to out there other than your own thoughts.

Looking back on it, I’m guessing it had been some time since a car passed us. I didn’t notice that then, though. Some things you stop paying attention to.

I didn’t even hear it coming.

A white Toyota pickup passes on the left, and Bo takes a headfirst dive into the weedy, dusty ditch to the right. He doesn’t even scream. He just dives, and he covers the back of his head with his arms.

When I run over to him he’s breathing heavy. Sweat on the back of his neck.

“WHAT THE FUCK?”
I shout.

My first thought is that the truck somehow hit him. Impossible. I was doing what Abba always did with me on our walks through the neighborhood, what he did to keep me safe—I kept to Bo’s outside.

Then I think maybe someone threw something out the window that knocked him into the ditch.

I’m afraid to touch him. He just stays like that, breathing heavy, lying facedown.

“Are you okay?”

Slowly he turns over and lifts himself up into a sitting
position. He brushes the debris from his knees. Stretches his arms over his head.

“No.”

“Is something broken?”

Bo puts his face in his hands and lets out a sound that’s one part laughter, one part sigh of resignation.

“I’m afraid it’s my motherboard.”

“B
INGO
,” P
EARL SAYS
.

We’re walking. I drop a few paces behind Bo, but that doesn’t really give me any sort of privacy.

“What do you know?”

“A ton. About everything. I’m not sure you quite appreciate this about me, but I’m like an off-the-charts genius. But we don’t have all day to explore the depths of my mental prowess. So I’ll just tell you what I know about the calendar of upcoming events in our nation’s capital.”

“Go on.”

“There’s a dog show. It looks like a biggie. The Breeders’ Association of North America.”

“Pass.”

“There’s a premiere of a modern Danish opera.”

“Pearl.”

“Okay. Seriously, Levi, this was kind of easy. I’m not quite sure why you didn’t think to go looking at this before, but I didn’t think of it either, so I’ll cut you some slack. There’s a big march. A support the troops rally on the Mall. There’s some country singer performing who we’re supposed to have
heard of and they’re prepping for a massive crowd. I guess there’s some bill in the works in Congress about cutting back funding to the military.”

“Huh.”

“You don’t sound so sure this is it.”

I’m not sure of anything anymore. It sounds plausible enough. Obvious, even.

But here’s an idea that woke me in the middle of the night. That’s often when my ideas come. It’s like they’re on a different sleep schedule than I am. I can’t say it out loud to Pearl because, like I said, there’s no privacy out here, no door to close. But here’s my idea: maybe this is about Christina.

Maybe, after all, this long walk
is
for the love of a beautiful girl. Maybe he somehow knows she’s here with her boyfriend, Max, and he’s coming to reclaim her.

That. Or a support the troops rally. Both ideas sound totally right and impossibly wrong.

“So what’s up with you and Zim?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“Whatever you say,
sugar
.”

“Oh, Levi. You know me. I’m just a flirt.”

“But this is Zim we’re talking about here. You hate Zim.”

“Didn’t anybody ever teach you that
hate
is a strong word?”

“It’s one of your favorite words.”

“True. But did you know that Richard reads? I mean, he actually reads. Like, for pleasure. He’s not a moron. He’s kinda smart.”

“Of course Zim is smart. And sort of deranged. And anyway, what about Maddie Green?”

“Levi, are you trying to stir up trouble?”

Maybe I am. Pearl is usually right about these sorts of things. I’m not sure why the idea of Pearl and Zim together would bother me. I love Pearl, but I don’t
love
Pearl. And I certainly don’t
love
Zim. I don’t know. I guess maybe I’m just afraid that they’ll leave me behind.

“No,” I tell her. “I’m just messing with you. That’s what friends do, and I’m just trying to do my job.”

I’m getting an idiot’s tan out here wearing sunglasses and no hat. White around the eyes, red everywhere else. I tell Boaz I need a hat.

“Then we’ll get you a hat.”

An hour later we pass a secondhand clothing store.

“Wait here.” The bell tied to the door jingles as Bo shuts it behind him, leaving me alone out front.

I’m tired. Exhausted. Mom used to tell me that boredom is a state of mind, but I think it might be a physical state too. My legs feel bored from all the walking.

The door jingles again.

“Here you go.” He hands me the new hat.

“You have got to be kidding.”

“Nope. Put it on.”

It’s a canvas bucket hat with a wide brim and a green ribbon around the middle, printed all over in large pink roses.

“I can’t wear this hat.”

He puts it on top of my head. “If you don’t like it, maybe you’ll start getting better at blackjack.”

I’m pretty sure I know where we’re going tonight. It’s an address from the ocean: 314 Olive Street, Riverside, New Jersey.

It fits. It’s the right distance from where we began. But I don’t know anything about why this address. Why this destination.

Once we get to the block I don’t need to look at the numbers on the houses, because it’s pretty obvious which one it is.

We’re faced with a small crowd gathered on the front lawn.

There may be only twelve people total, but twelve’s a lot when they’re strangers and they burst into applause at the sight of you.

Without turning toward him I can sense Bo tensing up. Some things you just know.

A banner hangs between the windows on the second story of this gray-shingled house. It’s a large sheet, spray-painted red, white and blue.

WELCOME PFC BO KATZNELSON
.

A man with ruddy cheeks and a tangle of white hair steps toward us. He’s wearing the clothes of someone a fraction of his age. His name is Paul Bucknell. He’s the father of someone from Bo’s unit who’s still overseas.

“Welcome,” he says. He reaches over and runs his hand over Bo’s head. Rubs it hard like he would his own boy’s. “We’re so honored to have you here.”

He introduces us around to the crowd, mostly neighbors. Everyone’s got a drink. The barbecue is fired up.

It’s a party.

Before I know it I’m holding a plate with a burger, a pickle and a mayonnaisey mound of toxic yellow potato salad. I’m also juggling a red plastic cup of something fruity. I’ve got no idea if it’s alcoholic or not, but I’m praying it is, because this scene is totally weirding me out.

Our backpacks have been whisked inside. A huddle of men surrounds Bo. It occurs to me that right now might be the perfect time to sneak a look inside that box from Marty Muldoon’s. I could ask directions to the bathroom. Lock the front door behind me. Claim it’s just habit. Track down the backpacks.