The Burgess Boys (6 page)

No. The end.

And the beginning of New Hampshire, with its state liquor store right off the turnpike, autumnal clouds low in the sky. New Hampshire, with its archaic legislature of hundreds of people, and still that license plate LIVE FREE OR DIE. The traffic was bad; people were getting off at the traffic circle to make their way to the foliage in the White Mountains. He stopped to get coffee and call his sister. “Where are you?” she said. “I’m losing my mind. I can’t believe you’re so late, except I can.”

“Oy. Susan. I’ll be there soon.”

The sun was already on its ride down. Back in the car, he left behind Portsmouth, gussied up for years now, the way so many of these coastal towns were; all that urban renewal started in the late seventies when they got their cobblestone streets back, their old houses fixed up, lampposts from the olden days and lots of candle shops. But Bob remembered when Portsmouth was still a tired naval town; and a deep tremor of nostalgia passed through him as he recalled the potholed, unpretentious streets, the large windows of a department store, long since gone, where the displays had seemed to change only from summer to winter, mannequins waving eternally with a handbag hanging from a broken wrist, an eyeless woman standing next to a happy eyeless man, a garden hose at his feet—they did have smiles, those mannequins. All this Bob remembered, for he and Pam had stopped here on their way to Boston in the Greyhound bus, Pam, swaybacked in her wraparound skirt.

A million years ago.

“Stay in the present,” Elaine would say, and so now he was on his way to the unlovely Susan. Family is family, and he missed Jimmy. Bob’s ancient inner Bobness had returned.

They sat on a cement bench in the lobby of the Shirley Falls police station. Gerry O’Hare had nodded to Bob as though he had seen him yesterday—though in fact it had been years—and then taken Zach through a door to an interview room. An officer brought coffee in paper cups to Bob and Susan; they thanked him, and held the cups tentatively. “Does Zach have friends?” Bob asked when they were alone. He asked this quietly. It had been more than five years since Bob had been to Shirley Falls, and the sight of his nephew—tall, skinny, blank-faced with fear—had startled him. And so had the sight of his sister. She was thin, her short wavy hair mostly gray now; she was strikingly unfeminine. Her plain-featured face looked so much older than he had expected that he could not believe they were the same age. (Twins!)

“I don’t know,” Susan answered. “He stocks shelves at Walmart. Sometimes—hardly ever—he drives over to West Annett to see a guy he works with. But no one comes to the house.” She added, “I thought they’d let you go in with him.”

“I’m not registered to practice here, Susan. We went through this.” Bob looked over his shoulder. “When did they build this place?” The old Shirley Falls Police Department had been housed in City Hall, which was a spread-out big building at the bottom of the park, and Bob remembered it as having an openness; you walked in and there were cops behind a desk. This was not like that. This had a small lobby facing two darkened windows, and they’d had to press a doorbell-type thing in order to get someone to even step up to one of them. Bob felt guilty just being here.

“Five years ago maybe,” Susan said vaguely. “I don’t know.”

“Why did they need a new police station? The state’s losing population, getting poorer every day, and all it does is build new schools and municipal buildings.”

“Bob. I don’t care. Frankly. About your observations on Maine. Besides, this city’s population is growing—” Susan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Because of
them
.”

Bob drank his coffee. It was bad coffee, but Bob was not particular about his coffee—or his wine—the way so many people were these days. “Say you thought it was a dumb joke and you’ll have a lawyer on Monday. They might try to get you to say more than that, but don’t.” Bob had told this to Zachary. Zachary, so much taller than the last time Bob had seen him, so skinny, so
scared-
looking, had just stared at him.

“Any idea why he did this?” Bob tried to ask the question gently.

“None.” After a moment Susan said, “I thought maybe you could ask him.”

This alarmed Bob. He didn’t know what to do about kids. Some of his friends had kids he loved, and Jim’s kids he loved very much, but not having kids made you different. He didn’t see how he could explain that to Susan. He asked, “Is Zach in touch with his father?”

“They email. Sometimes Zach seems … well, not happy, but less unhappy, and I think it’s because of whatever Steve’s written him, but Zach won’t talk to me about it. Steve and I haven’t spoken since he walked out.” Susan’s cheeks grew pink. “Other times Zach gets really down, and I think that’s related to Steve too, but I don’t
know
, Bob, okay?” She squeezed her nose, sniffed hard.

“Hey, don’t panic.” Bob looked around for a paper napkin or a Kleenex, but there was nothing. “You know what Jimmy would say, don’t you? He’d say there’s no crying in baseball.”

Susan said, “What in hell, Bobby?”

“That movie they made about women’s baseball. It’s a great line.”

Susan leaned forward to place her cup of coffee on the floor beneath the bench. “If you’re playing baseball. My son’s in there getting arrested.”

A metal door opened, slammed shut. A policeman, short, and with a sprinkle of dark moles on his young face, walked into the lobby. “All set, folks. They’re transporting him over to the jail. You can follow him there. They’ll book him and call the bail commissioner, and you can take him back home.”

“Thank you.” The twins said this in unison.

The late afternoon light was fading and the town seemed twilight-gray and somber. Following the cruiser they could just make out Zach’s head in the backseat. They drove toward the bridge that would take them across to the county jail. “Where is everyone?” Bob asked. “Saturday afternoon and the town is dead.”

“It’s been dead for years.” Susan leaned forward as she drove.

Glancing down a side street Bob saw a dark-skinned man walking slowly, his hands in the pockets of his open coat, which seemed too big for him. Under the coat he wore a long white robe that went to his feet. On his head was a squarish cloth hat. “Hey,” Bob said.

“What?” Susan looked at him sharply.

“Is that one of them?”

“One of them? You’re like a retarded person, Bob. Living in New York all these years, and you haven’t seen a
Negro
?”

“Susan, relax.”

“Relax. Hadn’t thought of that. Thanks.” Susan pulled into a spot near the police car, which had driven into a large parking area behind the jail. They had a brief glimpse of Zach in handcuffs. He seemed to fall against the cruiser once he stepped out, then the officer guided him toward the building.

“Right behind you, buddy,” Bob called out, opening the car door. “Got you covered!”

“Bob, stop,” said Susan.

“Got you covered,” he called again.

Again they sat in a small lobby. Only once did a man in dark blue clothes step out, to tell them that Zach was being booked, fingerprinted, and that they had put in a call to the bail commissioner. It might take awhile for him to show up, the man said. How long? He couldn’t say. And so brother and sister sat. There was an ATM, and a vending machine. And, again, the darkened windows.

“Are we being watched?” Susan whispered.

“Probably.”

They sat in their coats, looking straight ahead. Finally Bob asked quietly, “What’s Zach do other than stock shelves?”

“You mean, does he drive around and rob people? Is he addicted to child porn? No, Bob. He’s just—Zach.”

Bob shifted in his coat. “You think he has any connection to a skinhead group? White supremacy group, anything like that?”

Susan looked at him with surprise, and then squinted her eyes. “No.” Adding in a softer tone, “I don’t think he has a real connection with anybody. But he isn’t like that, Bob.”

“Just checking. It’s going to be okay. He might have to do community service. Take a diversity class.”

“Do you think he’s still in handcuffs? That was terrible.”

“I know it,” Bob said, and he thought about how the sight of his Preppy Boy neighbor being led across the street felt as if it had happened years ago. Even his morning talk with Adriana seemed not believable, it was so far away. “Zach’s not in cuffs now. That’s just procedure. To escort him here.”

Susan said tiredly, “Some of the local clergy want to have a rally.”

“A rally? About this?” Bob rubbed his hands across his thighs. “Oy,” he said.

“Could you not say ‘Oy’?” Susan asked angrily. “Why do you
say
that?”

“Because for twenty years I’ve worked for Legal Aid, Susan, and lots of Jewish people work for Legal Aid, and they say ‘Oy’ and now I say ‘Oy.’ ”

“Well, it sounds affected. You’re not Jewish, Bob. You’re as white as they come.”

“I know that,” Bob agreed.

They sat in silence. Bob finally said, “When is this rally?”

“I have no idea.”

Bob dropped his head, closed his eyes.

After a few minutes, Susan asked, “Are you praying, or are you dead?”

Bob opened his eyes. “Remember how we took Zach and Jim’s kids to Sturbridge Village when they were little? The smugness of those toady women who guide you around dressed up with those dumb hats that cover their heads? I’m a self-loathing Puritan.”

“You’re a self-loathing weirdo,” Susan answered. She was agitated, craning her neck to peer through the darkened window of the entrance. “What’s taking so long?”

And it was long. They sat there for almost three hours. Bob stepped outside once to have a cigarette. The sky had grown dark. By the time the bail commissioner showed up, Bob’s weariness seemed like a large wet coat he was wearing. Susan paid the two hundred dollars in twenties, and Zach came through the door, his face as white as paper.

As they got ready to leave, a uniformed man said, “A photographer’s out there.”

“How can that be?” Susan asked, alarm springing through her voice.

“Don’t freak. Come on, kiddo.” Bob steered Zach toward the door. “Your Uncle Jim loves photographers. He’ll be jealous if you take over as family media hog.”

And Zach, perhaps because he found it funny, perhaps because the tension of the day was coming to an end—in any case, the boy smiled at Bob as he stepped through the door. A sudden flash of light met them in the chilly air.

3

That first gentle assault of tropical breeze—it had touched Helen as soon as the airplane door opened. Waiting for the car to be packed, Helen felt bathed by the air. They drove by houses with flowers tumbling from their windows, golf courses green and combed, and in front of their hotel was a fountain, its gentle water rising to the sky. In their room a bowl of lemons sat on the table. “Jimmy,” Helen said, “I feel like a bride.”

“That’s nice.” But he was distracted.

She crossed her arms, her hands touching her opposite shoulders (their private sign language of many years), and then her husband stepped forward.

During the night she had bad dreams. They were vivid, terrifying, and she struggled to wakefulness as the sun crept through the opening of the long curtains. Jim was leaving to play golf. “Go back to sleep,” he said, kissing her. When she woke again happiness had returned, bright as the sun that now sliced through the drapes. She lay flattened by happiness, running a leg across the cool sheet, thinking of her children, all three in college now. She’d write an email: Dearest Angels, Dad’s playing golf and your old mother is about to get some sun on her blue-veined ankles. Dorothy’s glum, as I feared she would be—Dad says the older girl, Jessie (Emily, you never liked her, remember?), is really giving them trouble. But no one mentioned it last night at dinner, and so I was polite and didn’t brag about
my
darlings. Instead we talked about your cousin Zach—more on
that
later!—miss you, and you, and you—

Dorothy was reading by the pool, her long legs stretched before her on a chaise. “Morning,” she said, and did not look up.

Helen moved a chair to get the best of the sun. “Did you sleep well, Dorothy?” She sat down and took lotion and a book from her straw bag. “I had nightmares.”

Moments passed before Dorothy looked up from her magazine. “Well, that’s a shame.”

Helen rubbed lotion on her legs, arranged her book. “Just so you know, don’t feel bad about dropping out of the book club.”

“I don’t.” Dorothy put her magazine down and gazed over the brilliant blue of the pool. She said meditatively, “A lot of women in New York are not stupid until they get together and then they are stupid. I really hate that.” She glanced at Helen. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Helen. “You should say whatever you want.”

Dorothy chewed on her lip, staring back toward the expanse of blue water. “That’s nice of you, Helen,” she finally said, “but in my experience people don’t really want someone to say whatever they want.”

Helen waited.

“Therapists don’t,” Dorothy said, still looking straight ahead. “I told the family therapist I pitied Jessie’s boyfriend, and I do—she’s completely controlling—and the therapist looked at me like I was the worst mother in the world. I thought, Jesus, if you can’t speak the truth in a shrink’s office, where can you? In New York, raising children is a horrendously competitive sport. Really fierce and bloody.” Dorothy took a long drink from her plastic cup of water and said, “What do they have you reading this month?”