The Burgess Boys (9 page)

He sat with just his eyes moving about the room. The drawn blinds were the color of hard-boiled eggs. The wallpaper was a similar color, with a series of swooping long-beaked birds that were thin and blue. There was a wooden hutch that had Reader’s Digest Condensed Books along its top shelf. There was a wing chair in the corner with its arms worn so the upholstery had rips. Nothing in the room seemed designed for comfort, and he felt comfortless.

A motion on the stairway caused a rush of fear to pass through him. He saw the pink terry-cloth slippers, then the skinny old woman aiming her huge glasses at him. She said, “Why are you sitting there in your coat?”

“I’m freezing,” Bob said.

Mrs. Drinkwater walked down the rest of the stairs and stood holding the banister. She looked around the room. “It’s always freezing in this house.”

He hesitated, then said, “If you’re too cold, you should tell Susan.”

The old lady moved to sit down in the wing chair. She pushed at her big glasses with a bony knuckle. “I wouldn’t want to complain. Susan doesn’t have much money, you know. She hasn’t had a raise at that eye shop for years. And the price of oil.” The old lady twirled a hand above her head. “Mercy.”

Bob picked the newspaper off the floor and put it on the couch next to him. The picture of Zach stared up at him, grinning, and he turned the paper over.

“It’s on the news,” Mrs. Drinkwater said.

Bob nodded. “They’re both at work,” he told her.

“Oh, I know, dear. I came down to get the paper. She leaves it for me on Sundays.”

Bob leaned forward and handed her the paper, and the old lady continued to sit in the chair with the paper on her lap. He said, “Ah, so listen, does Susan yell at him a lot?”

Mrs. Drinkwater looked around the room, and Bob thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Used to. When I first moved in.” She crossed her legs and rocked one ankle up and down. Her slippers were huge. “Of course her husband had just run off back then.” Mrs. Drinkwater shook her head slowly. “Far as I could tell, the boy never did anything wrong. He’s a lonely boy, isn’t he.”

“Always has been, I think. Zach’s always seemed, well, fragile—emotionally. Or just immature. Or something.”

“You think your children will be like the ones in the Sears catalog.” Mrs. Drinkwater rocked her foot harder. “But then they aren’t. Though I admit, Zachary seems more alone than most. Anyways, he cries.”

“He cries?”

“I hear him in his room sometimes. Even before this pig’s head stuff. I feel like a tattletale, but you’re his uncle. I try to mind my own business.”

“Does Susan hear him?”

“I don’t know, dear.”

The dog came to him, sticking her long nose into his lap. He stroked the rough hair of her head, then tapped the floor so she would lie down. “Does he have
any
friends?”

“Never seen any come to the house.”

“Susan says he put the pig’s head there by himself.”

“Maybe he did.” Mrs. Drinkwater pushed at her huge glasses. “But there are plenty others who’d have liked to. Those people, the Somalians, they’re not welcome here by everyone. I don’t mind them myself. But they wear all that stuff.” Mrs. Drinkwater spread a hand in front of her face. “You just see their eyes peeking out.” She looked around the room. “I wonder if it’s true, what they say—they keep live chickens in their cupboards. Mercy, that seems strange.”

Bob stood up, felt for his cell phone in his coat pocket. “I’m going out to have a cigarette. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course, dear.”

Standing under a Norway maple whose yellow leaves arched over him, Bob lit a cigarette, squinted at his phone.

5

Jim, sunburned and glistening, stood in their room demonstrating to Helen why his golf game had been a success. “It’s all in the wrist, see.” He bent his knees slightly, crooked his elbows, swung an invisible golf club. “See that, Hellie? See what I just did with my wrist?”

She said that she did.

“It was great. Even the dickwad doctor with us had to agree. He was from Texas. Short disgusting little prick. Didn’t even know what Texas Tea was. So I told him.” Jim pointed his finger toward Helen. “I said it’s what you guys use to kill people now that you’ve stopped frying them faster than potato chips. Sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride. He didn’t say a thing. Dickwad. Just got a little smile on his face.” Jim wiped a hand across his brow, then settled into position for another make-believe swing. Behind him the glass door to the patio was partly open and Helen walked past her husband and the bowl of lemons on the table to close it. “See that? Nice! I told the putz,” Jim continued, wiping his face with his golf shirt, “if you guys believe in the death penalty, a prima facie indicator that civilized society’s become corrupted by inhumanity, why don’t you at least
train
your Neanderthal executioners to administer Texas Tea properly? Instead of jabbing muscles and making that last poor fuck they executed just lie there— You know what kind of doctor he was? A dermatologist. Face-lifts. Butt-tucks. I’m going to get in the shower.”

“Jim, Bob called.”

Jim stopped walking toward the bathroom, turned around.

“Zach’s back at work. He got two hundred dollars bail. And Susan was at work too. Zach doesn’t get arraigned for a few weeks and Bob said Charlie Tibbetts could do that with a ticket. I think. I didn’t understand that part, I’m sorry.” Helen started to open the bureau drawer to show Jim the little gifts she had bought to send the children.

“It’s how they do it up there,” Jim said. “An arraignment calendar. Does Zach have to make an appearance?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“How did Bob sound?”

“Like Bob.”

“What does that mean, ‘Like Bob’?”

At the tone of his voice, Helen closed the bureau drawer and turned to face him. “What do you mean what does that mean? You asked how he sounded. Like Bob. He sounded like Bob.”

“Sweetheart, you’re making me a little crazy here. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in that hellhole, and to say he sounded like Bob isn’t helpful. What do you
mean
when you say he sounded like Bob? Did he sound upbeat? Did he sound serious?”

“Please don’t cross-examine me. You’re the one who was off enjoying yourself on the golf course. I was stuck with grumpy old Dorothy, who forced me to read about refugee camps in Kenya and that is
not
fun, like playing golf. And then
my
cell phone rings—you know, Beethoven’s Fifth that the kids fixed on my phone for Bob—so I knew it was Bob calling, and I had to sit there and talk to him like I was your secretary because he knew enough not to bother you.”

Jim sat down on the bed and stared at the rug. Helen recognized this look. They had been married for many years. Jim very seldom got angry with Helen and she appreciated that, because she always took it as a sign of respect. But when he looked as though he was trying to be reasonable in the face of her silly behavior, it was hard for her to take.

She tried being funny now. “Okay, strike that. Not responsive.” Her voice did not sound humorous. “Irrelevant,” she added.

Jim kept looking at the rug. Finally he said, “Did he, or did he not, ask me to call him back?”

“He did not.”

Jim turned his face to her. “That’s all I needed to know.” He stood up and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shower, and I’m sorry you had to be with grumpy Dorothy. I’ve never liked Dorothy.”

Helen said, “Are you kidding? Then why are we here with them?”

“She’s married to the managing partner, Helen.” The bathroom door closed and in a minute there was the sound of the shower running.

At dinner they sat outside and watched the sun set on the water. Helen wore her white linen blouse and her black Capris and ballet flats. Alan smiled and said, “You girls look very pretty tonight. What do you have planned for tomorrow?” He kept rubbing Dorothy’s arm from where he sat next to her. His hand was freckled. His mostly bald head was freckled too.

Helen said, “Tomorrow, while you fellows are playing golf, Dorothy and I thought we’d try breakfast at the Lemon Drop.”

“Nice.” Alan nodded.

Helen touched her earring and thought: Being a woman sucks. Then she thought: No it doesn’t. She sipped her whiskey sour. “Want to try my whiskey sour?” she asked Jim.

Jim shook his head. He was glancing down at the table and seemed far away.

“On the wagon, are we, Jim?” Dorothy asked.

“Jim hardly ever drinks, I thought you knew that,” Helen said.

“Afraid of losing control?” Dorothy asked, and a needle of anger entered Helen. But Dorothy said, “Look at that,” and pointed. Close to them a hummingbird poked its long beak into a flower. “How sweet.” Dorothy leaned forward, clasping her hands on the arms of her chair. Helen felt Jim squeeze her knee beneath the table, and Helen pursed her lips just slightly in the brief sign of a kiss. The four of them ate dinner leisurely then, silverware clinking softly, and Helen, after a second whiskey sour, even told the story of the night she had danced on a table at a bowling alley after the Wally Packer trial. Helen had bowled one strike after another—unbelievable! And then she drank too much beer and danced on a table.

“Well, I’m sorry to have missed that,” said Dorothy.

Alan gazed at Helen with a vacant pleasantness that seemed to go on too long. He reached over and touched Helen’s hand lightly. “Lucky Jim,” he said.

“Believe it,” Jim said.

6

For Bob, it had been interminable—the day vast and empty as he had waited for Jim to call back. Other people would have done something. Bob did realize that. Other people would have gone to a grocery store and made a meal for Susan and Zach to come home to. Or driven over to the coast and watched the surf. Or gone up to a mountain and taken a hike. But Bob—except for his trips to the back porch to smoke—had sat in his sister’s living room and skimmed Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and then flipped through a women’s magazine she had. He had never read a women’s magazine before, and it saddened him, the articles on how to rev up your sex life with a husband you’d had for years (surprise him with sexy underwear), and how to lose weight at work, the exercises to help your flabby thighs.

Susan came home and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here. After the mess you managed to make with the morning paper.”

“Well. I came up here to help.” Bob put the magazine down.

“Like I said, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Susan let the dog out, took off her coat.

“I have to see Charlie Tibbetts tomorrow morning. You know that.”

“He phoned me,” Susan said. “He won’t get back to town until the afternoon. He’s been delayed.”

“Okay,” said Bob. “I’ll see him in the afternoon.”

When Zach came through the door, Bob stood up. “Come on, Zachary. Talk to your old uncle. Start by telling me how your day went today.”

Zach stood, looking white-faced and frightened. His hair in its buzz cut made his ears seem exceptionally vulnerable, yet the angularity of his face was adult. “Um. Maybe later.” He went up to his room, and again, Susan took his food to him. This time Bob stayed in the kitchen, drinking wine from a coffee cup, eating frozen pizza heated in the microwave. He had forgotten how early some people ate dinner in Maine; it was only half past five. All evening Bob and Susan watched TV silently, Susan holding the remote and switching channels when any station was giving the news. The phone never rang. At eight o’clock Susan went to bed. Bob walked out onto the back porch and smoked, then returned inside and finished the second bottle of wine. He did not feel sleepy. He took a sleeping pill, then another. Again, he spent the night on the couch with his coat on, and again, the night was bad.

He woke to the sound of banging cupboard doors, and the morning light was strong from beneath the blinds. He felt the sickness of an early breaking of drugged sleep, and with this came the thought that his sister, in her fury yesterday, had sounded remarkably like their mother, who, when the kids were young, would have spells of loud fury herself (never directed at Bob, but aimed at the dog, or a jar of peanut butter that rolled off the counter and broke, or—mostly, usually—at Susan, who did not stand up straight, had not ironed a shirt properly, had not cleaned up her room).

“Susan—” He was thick-tongued.

She came and stood in the doorway. “Zach’s already gone to work, and I’m about to, as soon as I take my shower.”

Bob gave a mock salute, stood up, and found his car keys.

He drove carefully, as though he had been ill and housebound for weeks. Seen through the windshield, the world seemed far away. He pulled into a gas station that had a convenience store. Once he was inside, the store tossed into his vision an array of such variety—dusty sunglasses, batteries, locks with keys, candy—that confusion washed through him and he felt almost afraid. Behind the counter stood a young woman with dark skin and large dark eyes. In his stupefied mind she seemed out of place, like she might have come from India, but not quite. In a Shirley Falls convenience store the clerk was always white and almost always overweight; this is what Bob’s mind told him he expected. Instead, a tiny snapshot of New York seemed inserted here, where the clerk could have been anyone. But this dark-eyed young woman watched Bob without any hint of welcome and he felt like an intruder. He wandered stupidly through the aisles, so aware of her wariness that he felt he had shoplifted something, though Bob had never shoplifted anything in his life. “Ah, coffee?” he asked, and she pointed. He filled a Styrofoam cup, found a package of powdered doughnuts, and then saw on the floor yesterday’s newspapers: his nephew grinning at him. Bob groaned quietly. Passing the cooler he saw bottles of wine, and he stopped and took one, the bottle clinking against the others as he pulled it out to tuck under his arm. He was not staying—he hoped—after seeing Charlie Tibbetts this afternoon, but just in case he was stuck at Susan’s again, he felt better knowing he’d have wine. He placed the bottle on the counter with his coffee and package of doughnuts, and asked for cigarettes. The young clerk did not look at him. Not when she dropped the cigarettes on the counter, not when she told him the amount he owed. Silently she pushed forward a flat paper bag and he understood he was to pack the items himself.