Even at sixty-five, thirty years after the event, Bobby Ipswich never believed his brother was really dead. He stuck to his story- that his younger brother Ronny had faked his own death.
It is a funny saying, when you say it enough times, Bobby thought. He bobbed along in his fishing boat on the lake near his home. The beer in his cozy was getting warm, but he had never minded warm beer. The fish weren't biting on the cloudy October day, and the solitude of the brown water was reward enough.
Fake your own death.
What a funny way to put it. Almost like commit suicide. Was the commit part really necessary? Your own... as if you would fake someone else's death... Bobby felt like looking up the phrase in Italian or Bantu. It would be interesting to see how another language phrased that particular deed.
It was time to move. Bobby lifted his anchor, a cinder block held with yellow plastic rope. Once it was aboard, he spun up the outboard and hummed away. Wind in his face, he took another sip of foamy beer. Sometimes he wondered how he found the taste of the swill favorable. He remembered as a kid, eighteen it was, having his first two consecutive brews. He was no taste tester, with a word for every flavor, consistency and aftertaste. Being such, beer was indescribable to him. Coffee was interesting to him in the same way. Coffee smelled great when brewed, but tasted bad unsugared. How did that work? Beer had almost a metallic taste that he was nearly repulsed by the first time he had two.
Why do we drink this stuff? I am long past the original draw of having a beer. What has changed in me that makes me like this stuff now?
Bobby once read that kids lack the component in their brain that tells them they have had their fill of sweets. That was why his grandson would demolish his entire Halloween stash in a weekend. His daughter, Libby, had to come up with a solution to that. The Switch Witch would come the night of November first and trade the sack of candy for cash. Crazy children! Something must have changed in his brain once he got old enough, in the same ways sort of way that allowed himself to like beer.
Bobby cut the engines and lowered the slimy cinder blocked rope. He stood up in the back of his twelve foot aluminum and unzipped his fly. With a look around the lake, he emptied his batter without an audience, out in nature. The best way on earth to take a leak, he thought to himself.
But, forget the Switch Witch and beer, he was thinking about Ronny. His little brother the... the what? It was hard now to to give him a moniker. He was not quite a jokester. Sure, he was always joking around, but he could also be deadly serious at times. Ronny loved life and never let it get him down. Not for a second.
When word reached him that Ronny was dead, he never believed it for a second. It was all just too perfect and convenient in his opinion. Despite how it much it was distasteful to the rest of his family, Bobby maintained his belief: no body, no dead brother.
He had kept his opinion to himself the best he could, but the night after the funeral, drinking that indescribable beer with his sister, it all came out. Beer always had a way of removing his judgement filters.
"What do you mean you 'don't for a second' believe Ronny is really dead?" Judith asked, appalled.
"Just what I said!" he had shot back. "It's all too convenient, if you ask me?"
"'All too convenient' that our brother got eaten by a grizzly bear? Are you kidding me?"
"That's just it! Can't you see? That is a total Ronny thing to do? Get eaten by a huge bear? Who really gets eaten by a bear? No one!"
"Obviously someone... there were bones! They matched his blood type. The ranger found his clothes with the remains. His camp was untouched. That was him Bobby. There is no question."
"Yeah, but who randomly books a trip to Alaska and ends up eaten in his first week in the woods, not to be found for another week. Seems a little suspicious. And how can we be sure it was really him? Like you just said, there were only bones and bear scat left! No body, no Ronny."
"What are you thinking? Is this really that hard for you to accept? A detective looked into everything on this side too. There was nothing to suggest he faked his own death! There was no odd activity in any of his bank accounts. No personal items were unaccounted for. He was in the process of getting picked up for that new position at work. He was not depressed, even after Sandra left him the year before! Everything was going well for him!"
"Exactly! That's why it was the best time! He did it perfect! Do you remember seeing that pretty Asian girl at the funeral today? She was so upset! I asked her if she knew Ron well, and you know what she said? 'We work together. We went out a couple times and then I decided to stop returning his calls.' That was four months ago. Now I'm not saying he did this all to see if she would show up, but come on! Did you see Sandra and her entourage? She was all decked out in black as if nothing happened between them and she was a widow now. I just wish I didn't have to sit so close. I would have skirt the back of the service to see if he was lurking back there watching this all go down!"
"You really think he would do all this to get back at some women? That's not Ronny."
"True," Bobby had agreed, "But that would have been a factor. A bonus to escaping this life he had been disappointed with. I remember him telling me he had come to the conclusion that being an adult was nothing like he was led to believe it would be. Ronny always lived in this alternative reality where his comic books and novels and movie were real life. He looked up to the two of us and our families. He was destroyed last year when the illusion broke."
"But to fake his own death?" Libby questioned. "I mean, I will admit the sudden interest in an Alaskan getaway doesn't quite add up. But to leave with only the clothes on his back and nothing of his old life? Where would he go? What would he do?"
"It makes you think, huh? He had a friend in the Navy who was Tongan. He always talked about going to the South Pacific and living on a beach eating rice and fish. That's where I think he is. I think he got out. Came up with that elaborate plan to make it look like he was grizzly food. Maybe he jumped on a cargo ship or something..."
The sun was going down and the wind had begun to get cold, wiping up off the lake. It was time to head home. Bobby Ipswich thought of hotdogs and his hot tub, both warm and calling his name. He poured out his remaining beer and restarted the cold motor.
"To you little brother!" he saluted the sky. "Until I can poke your dead body in the eye, I know you are alive. Alive on some beach, laughing at us dumb fools so eager to believe a grizzly could get the best of you..."
The Door