Sweeter Life (17 page)

Hank didn’t come home that night. Or the next. Or ever again. Several months later, just before Christmas, there was a flurry of phone calls. That night their parents drove into the city, and Cyrus stayed home with Isabel. It was only next morning when Ruby came to the house that they learned Hank had killed a gas station attendant in a botched robbery in Hounslow, and that Riley and Catherine, who had been on their way to the police station,
had died when their truck slammed into a hydro pole.

Hank’s trial was quick. No one put up much of a struggle; no one talked about hiring the best lawyers money could buy and fighting this down the line. By then the fight had gone out of those who would care. Hank had been trouble from the start. A poor student, an angry soul, the wrong crowd, a chemical imbalance—any number of reasons were put forward as an explanation, but explanations couldn’t undo the damage already done, nor prevent what followed. Cyrus and, for a while, Isabel went to live with the Mitchells. The insurance money came up short, and the bank took the farm. There were some who hoped they had seen the last of Hank Owen.

It was Ruby who suggested they visit each year. She was a religious woman. She believed in forgiveness. She said even a wayward soul like Hank needed love and family. And while it was tough at first to be in the same room with him, the person responsible for so much of their grief, it became easier with time because in Hank’s presence it was hard to believe in his guilt—and hardest of all for Hank, it seemed. Throughout the trial he acted more surprised than sorry to be there, never showing the proper remorse or gravity.

Over the years they continued to ask him for explanations, but nothing he said ever made much sense to them. He said he could picture the crime and remember certain details clearly—the smell of gasoline, the song playing on the radio (Jimmy Dean talking his way through “Big Bad John”)—but couldn’t put himself in the scene. He couldn’t remember pulling the trigger or getting back into his car. When asked about his feelings that night or what was going through his head, he shrugged and said he felt nothing then and nothing now, not even guilt. In time, of course, he learned to accept his guilt because the facts pointed in that direction, just as we accept that the earth is round though our senses tell us it is not. If everyone believed he had killed the attendant, it must be true. But accepting guilt wasn’t the same as feeling it. What he felt, he said, was an emptiness, a lack, as if something important, something necessary to his happiness, had been plucked from his breast.

The psychologist had no shortage of theories about what had happened. He found numerous patterns in the pain Hank left behind; but none of the
talk ever made sense to Cyrus. If there was a progression, he had given up trying to understand it and had, in fact, spent much of the past decade trying to disconnect events. Only recently had he come to accept that Hank wasn’t responsible for the death of their parents, that bad luck and bad choices often worked in tandem. As for the crimes his brother
had
committed, they pretty much fell outside the scope of Cyrus’s natural sympathies. Hank was his brother; everything else seemed like conjecture.

Once Cyrus had passed all the security checkpoints, he was brought to a glass partition that had a phone on each side of it. A moment later Hank walked in, slouchy but unyielding. The first hint of wrinkles coupled with the touches of grey already showing at the temples of his brush cut made him look much older than his years. There were new scars on his face, the initials “HO” carved into each cheek.

“Hey there, Cyrus, whataya know?”

“Nothing, Hank, just like always.”

Hank turned his chair around and straddled it, his arms resting on the chair back. “That’s good, kid. Keep it that way. Keep your nose to the grindstone, right?”

Cyrus shrugged, the dopey kid brother, and stared down at his lap. When he looked up again he said, “What’s with your face?”

Hank touched his cheek. “This? I was bored. You know how it is. So where’s the rest of the crew? They can’t face me no more?”

“I came alone,” he said, still unable to look him in the eye.

There was something uncharacteristic in his voice just then, a kind of stagey nonchalance. Hank looked at him with his coal-dark eyes, comparing that voice to others he had heard. “You came on your own all the way to Portland. What about school, kid? Why aren’t you in school?”

A grin eased into place, a crack in the dam. Then, in a rush, Cyrus came alive. “I quit, Hank. I’m finished with that crap. You remember how I told you I played guitar and all? Well, I got a job with a band. I’m travelling, getting paid real well. It’s a blast.”

Hank sat up straighter as if to get a better perspective. “A musician,” he said. “Isn’t that a kick in the head. I always pegged you for a farmer.”

“Get lost. I never wanted to be a farmer. Never.”

Hank leaned forward again and said, “So how’s Izzy? Last time I saw her she looked like hell.”

“She’s okay, I guess. I don’t know, we used to talk a lot, me and her, especially after you left. I always thought she was cool. Now it’s like she’s too busy or something.”

“Hey, somebody’s gotta be normal in this family.”

“Normal.” Cyrus snorted. “She’s always got a burr up her ass.”

For a moment they felt the uncommon warmth that occurs when a younger sibling makes the older one laugh. Hank lit a cigarette then, the phone clamped between his cheek and shoulder. Cyrus said, “Brought you a carton. They’ll give them to you later, I guess.”

“Black Cats?”

“Hell to find, too. You might want to think about switching to a more popular brand.”

Hank blew a smoke ring. “Thanks kiddo. But I never was that interested in what was popular. And look where that got me. But music, eh? I can see that. Music is pretty cool. Bet you have to beat the babes off with a club. How’s that old prick Clarence?”

“He’s okay. Kind of worried I guess about the cancer. You shouldn’t be so hard on him. He’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s me. Guess I won’t expect an invitation, I ever get out of this place.”

Cyrus perked up. “Is there talk? I mean, about you getting out?”

“There’s always talk, kid. Don’t mean fuck all, really. Let’s face it, nobody’s gonna be too thrilled by the prospect. Not sure I am, either. Might have to ask my kid brother to show me the ropes. Been a while.”

Cyrus felt completely different visiting Hank on his own. There was no one to act as a buffer or run interference or set the tone. It was just two brothers now, looking at how to move on. And he realized he didn’t have the faintest idea of what to say next or where to look.

It must have been obvious. Before long Hank motioned to the closest guard that the visit was over. As he stood to leave, he said, “Appreciate the smokes, pal. Keep your nose clean.”

CYRUS MET EURA AS PLANNED
at the rental car, then walked with her along the main street. She had spent time looking for a suitable restaurant, something that might remind her of home, and in the end had settled on Reggio’s, a little place that served bottled dressing on iceberg lettuce, and lasagna made with hamburger and cottage cheese and no discernible spices. The house wine, though, was a sharp Chianti, which by the second glass had softened her anxieties and, for one night, made her more or less resigned to the food and Portland and the Jimmy Waters Revival.

Cyrus was afraid to mention his visit with Hank, and that fear coloured all his thoughts, stilled his tongue. He watched her stare into the shadows of the restaurant. Whether she was walking down the street or dancing across the stage or, like now, lifting a wineglass to her lips, she seemed weightless. And yet, if someone had asked him, Cyrus would have said she was heavier than anyone he’d ever met. She had a sense of gravity, an aura so complex that she appeared at times to be the only live-action figure in an otherwise cartoonish world.

When the waiter arrived with their food, Eura was drawn from her reverie. She leaned across the table and took Cyrus’s hand in hers. “I am not sometimes the best company,” she said.

He shrugged in what he hoped was a sophisticated manner and looked down at his pale fingers entwined with hers, which were rough and ruddy. She didn’t flinch or make an effort to avoid the little rounded nub that marred his left hand, and he was happy about that. Janice was the only one, aside from family, who had been totally cool about it.

To make up for being so distracted, she began to tell him about her job as a masseuse with the Little Circus, how they had come to America, and about the night she and Alexander sought asylum in the United States. “We left Detroit in a taxi,” she said, “and talked this man into driving us to a very ugly place called Muskegon. Alexander knew people there. This is something I will never forget.”

“Weird place to go.”

“It was not for long. Four nights until we decide what to do. These friends, Katarina and Barbara—what is the word, spinsters?—they too were ugly. Back home, you know, you would see these women everywhere, potato
faces, but never like this, with bleached hair, with curlers and makeup and so tight capri pants. At first I would have nothing to do with them. They seemed foolish. But they were only trying to live their new life. It was not so long before I was listening to their stories and laughing at their jokes and accepting their kindness like they were family. And they taught me also the second greatness of America: bourbon, which is something that even Jimmy Waters understands. Other than music, it is the only talent Americans have, I think.”

She laughed. “These women, their hair was piled like so—” she held her hands above her head “—and covered with, I don’t know how to call them, glittery nets. They drank and smoked too much and owned a bar, KayBee’s, beside the docks. It was never busy, only five or six people in the days we were there. But then, you know, from all I could see, this town was made only for ghosts. Most of the stores had closed or burned down. Broken pavement, windows covered with plywood. Outside we saw almost no one, so it was hard to think who would come to this bar. But the sisters said when a freighter came in, the town was very busy and their bar was the hot place. Pickled herring, you could get, goulash and bread. The wall behind the jukebox, a big wall like so—” she waved the length of the restaurant “—was covered with postcards from sailors. Liverpool, Gdansk, Lisbon. These women were loved very much, I think.”

She poked at her food awhile, then laughed ruefully. “Four days Alexander stayed drunk, feeding quarters into the jukebox, the same Tony Bennett song over and over till I could kill him. Every day I bought the
Detroit Free Press
and asked Katarina to tell me about home. It is very sad, you know, the way the tanks can roll in and everything suddenly is over as if nothing had before ever existed. These women, though, were not interested anymore. They were Americans, and when they had had enough of us, they drove us to Chicago where we declared our wish to defect.”

She touched his cheek, letting her hand fall again to cover his. “But this story makes me tired. Tell me about your family. They are musicians, too?”

“No,” he said, “not likely. They’re farmers is all. Pretty boring.”

His words surprised her. “I believe more that farmers are brave. It is a mystery to me how men and women build their lives on something so risky
as weather. Joining a circus or playing music, this is logical compared to such a gamble. And yet look what comes. It is a beautiful thing, I think, to take such risk for so much good. I have nothing but praise for farmers.” She ran her thumb along the top of his hand, her gaze dreamy, as though she were remembering all the noble farmers she had ever known.

Not wanting her to drift away from him again, he said, “My uncle has an apple orchard on a ridge north of the marsh, and one of my favourite things was to go out at night and climb into one of the trees. September was the best time, still kind of warm, and I’d lie there in the branches and listen. The canning factory in town ran night and day that time of year, and I could lie there in my tree and hear the tractors and trucks rolling into town from the fields, the air full of pickles or tomato sauce or canned peaches. I always think about that when I hear of people who live beside steel mills or sulphur mines. I guess I should feel kind of lucky.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I do. But I’ve been unlucky, too.” He let his gaze drift about the room. They were the only diners. Everyone else had moved into the small bar to watch the hockey playoffs. Finally, he turned back to her and said, “I keep thinking about my aunt and uncle. I lived with them after my folks died, and they were real good to me, especially Clarence. He’s a great guy, bought my first guitar. But I think about him sometimes and it bugs me.”

She smoothed the hair off his forehead. “I am sure he did his best …”

“Well, that’s just it. I owe him a lot, and you know, he was real sick awhile ago. Had a cancer operation. And I just wonder why he stays there in Wilbury, doing the same thing every day on the same stupid farm he was born on. You know? He and Ruby haven’t been anywhere. They just get up and do what they’ve always done like they don’t know any better …”

She nodded her head. “I have a friend back home, a writer. He has published three novels, and they are very political and smart. The critics say he is maybe a genius. But it is not easy for him. He has no wife, no children. I have seen him go days without eating. One day I asked how his new book was coming, and he shook his head and said, ‘It is shit. The whole thing is shit. Do not even talk to me about it.’ So, I changed the subject. Six months later I asked again, and again he said, ‘All shit. I am completely useless.’ I
reminded him of the times I had seen him at his typewriter, laughing, waving his arms. ‘Six months you have worked,’ I said. ‘Twelve-hour days. Surely it is better. There is progress.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Progress, sure. It gets better. For a while it is almost good. Almost. And then, boom, it is shit again, and I must rewrite it from the beginning.’ ” She raised an eyebrow at Cyrus. “Maybe this is the same as your uncle. Maybe he, too, is an artist.”