Henry nods and turns this thought over while Segman continues. “But Chicago’s awesome. You’ve got to come out and visit us, man. You’d love it. And you could stay with us. All you’d have to do is get the plane ticket, the rest would be free since you’d stay with us. Come in the summer. Well, duh. Who’d visit Chicago now, huh? Duh. But in the summer we grill out, seriously, like every night. You should definitely come out.”
“Here you go.” Campbell hands Henry a fresh beer, then sets Segman’s new one in front of him. “Cheers.”
They clink bottlenecks.
“Hey, Henry, how’s your brother?”
“Jeez,” Segman says. He picks at the label of his beer. “God, remember that night? At the pit? Shit.”
“We’re going to the pit,” Segman called from the driver’s seat. “Wooo-yeah!”
“Shit,” Campbell said. Gulping Jim Beam and staring out into the blackness of the chilly night.
“Hell yes, the pit,” Segman said. “Powell’s up for it, right?” Segman checked the rearview mirror. “You’re in, right?” Henry remembers it still: their eyes meeting in the mirror in spite of the black night.
He remembers tapping his fingers along to “Jackie Blue,” a song he now switches off on the rare occasion an oldies station plays it.
“Right on,” Segman said.
Soon they pulled over. “Someone’s already here,” Segman said. He switched off the ignition.
“Whose car is that?” Campbell said. “I know that car. Hey, is that Figger’s car?”
Henry, buzzing, leaned into the space between the two front seats to see if he could recognize the car. “Oh, shit. Let’s get out of here.”
“What? Who is it?” Segman and Campbell both turn to face him.
“That’s my brother’s car. Let’s go.”
Campbell looked at Segman and said, “It’s three against one and I want to stay. He can leave.”
“Yeah,” Campbell says, swigging the Jim Beam. Laughing.
“It’s a mistake, I’m telling you,” Henry says. He stands near the Jeep.
“Brad Powell,” Segman says. Henry sees he is shaking his head. “What the fuck, give me that.” He reaches for the bottle. “Shit that sucks.”
“What’s with your brother, anyway?” Campbell asks. “Seriously, how come he’s always got to be such an asshole?”
All Henry can think of to say is: “I don’t know. We’re not close or anything.”
“Apparently…” Campbell said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—like a character in a movie—and handed the bottle back to Henry.
“Yeah, yeah, okay fine,” Henry said, taking it. “But seriously, let’s go, all right?”
“No fucking way,” Campbell said. “Come on.”
By the time Henry caught up with them they were already on the trail that led from the road through the woods to the edge of the quarry.
“Bad idea,” he said out loud. “I’m telling you now this is a bad idea.”
Branches snap and break underfoot. Truth be told Henry never liked going to the pit, liked it even less at night, even less than that when his own brother is already there.
“Shhh.” He heard one of them up ahead. “What was that? I heard something….”
He was right behind them now. “It’s me, you idiots.”
“Jesus.” “Shit, Powell.” “Shhh.”
There was no mistaking the sound coming from up ahead. A sound that surprised Henry so much it was he who hissed “Shhh, quiet,” this time.
They stood still listening to Brad Powell…sobbing. Followed by the male equivalent of a scream. A hybrid yell-howl-voice-breaking-midstream-scream. Then more sobbing.
It was out before Henry could caution against it:
Cutting through the angst of this dark fall night, Connor Segman hollered, “Hey.”
“Shit.”
“What’re you doing, Segman?”
“Heeey!” Followed—and this is the part that made Henry wince—by “Hey, Powell.” In bass relief against the Jurassic silence of the ravine.
If he turned to run, as he badly wanted to do, he would no doubt lose two friends. But if he stayed something worse might happen. Henry knew he had to remain there, frozen, instantly sobered by fear, at the edge of the pit.
“Where’d he go?” Segman asked. “You hear anything? It’s like he disappeared. Hey, maybe he was beamed back up into the spaceship….”
The hit came hard from behind and plus it was dark, but the next thing Henry knew he was gasping for air. He didn’t feel the pain on his left side until after the oxygen returned to his lungs.
By then another of them was down, followed by the third, all rolling around on the dry leaves, sticks breaking and thuds of flailing limbs.
It was never clear where he came from or where he disappeared to, but Brad Powell knocked all three boys to the ground, pummeled them and then evaporated. Henry never saw his brother again.
“That was bizarre,” Peter Campbell says, standing, back in his thirty-year-old Los Angeles tanning-bed skin. He stretches and twists his spine Jack La Lanne–style. Then he sits back down.
“What was up that night? What was wrong with him?” Segman asks.
“I don’t know,” Henry says. Another swig of beer.
But he does know. They had fought the night before. Brad returned from God-knows-where (he had become a magician: disappearing and reappearing in the Powell house every few months). Henry was filling out his scholarship forms—tedious work that required a lot of table space so he had commandeered the long-since-abandoned dining room table.
It started out with the usual sparring. “You still a virgin?” Brad asked on his way through to the kitchen.
“It depends. Are you?” Henry answered, not looking up from his paperwork. Their father was not home, their mother was staring at Family Feud. The broken capillaries on her cheeks, the thinning hair, the wasted body, all had shocked Brad on reentry. Henry saw this and looked at his mother with an outsider’s eyes and saw, with alarm, she was killing herself from the inside out. So that may have put Brad in a bad mood, Henry thought as he skipped to “Part B” as the application advised. Then again just about anything put Brad in a bad mood so you never knew. Henry remembers thinking this. He had no way of knowing it was only about five minutes until escalation point so he was at leisure to let his mind wander.
He had jumped in his seat when he heard his brother’s voice coming from just above his head.
“God, it’s suffocating in here,” Brad said.
“Jesus, you scared the hell out of me,” Henry said. Involuntarily. Normally he never would have said such a thing to Brad as it made him too easy a mark. “Take off your sweater, then,” Henry said. “It’s not that hot.”
He glanced up at Brad and saw him looking at the forms, a beer in his hand, shifting his weight to the other leg casually, as if he were taking brotherly interest in Henry’s project.
“No, I mean it’s suffocating,” Brad said, looking into the living room. Appearing bored now by Henry’s work. “Don’t you think?”
“Not really,” Henry said. He filled in his home address for the six millionth time, muttering, “Jesus, how many times have I got to fill this in?” to himself.
“Come to think of it,” Brad said, trying very hard to sound conversational, as if this thought just popped into his head.
“That’d suck, don’t you think? Worst way to die. I mean, I’d rather take a bullet in the brain than suffocate. Think about it—gasping for air. Choking. Shit.”
Had Henry not been preoccupied with his social security number, taking care to fit the first three then the next two and the final four into the squares provided (he had not memorized his number so had to check and double check his wallet-size blue-and-white card)—had he not been concerned with this he might have been alerted to the direction Brad’s discourse was headed. But he had waited until the last minute—the forms needed to be postmarked the following d
ay and he had a creative-writing assignment he had not even started also due the next day.
“Why are you just standing there? You’re creeping me out.”
But Brad did not budge. He tilted the bottle into his mouth and swallowed hard.
Henry shrugged and turned to the application checklist to go over what had yet to be tackled. Teacher recommendations were in this pile, check, character reference over there—he had chosen the coach for this—check. Okay, what am I forgetting? Henry looked back and forth from checklist to pile.
“And just think,” Brad said, moving in for the kill, “that’s exactly how our brother died.”
Henry’s hand stopped but he did not dare react yet.
“He suffocated,” Brad said. Making it sound like the thought had plagued him, the pity had eaten him up all these years. “Choking on water. Wondering why his older brother had just left him there. That was probably his last thought—where’s Henny?”
That name—the name David had called Henry. Henny.
The chair scraped back but Henry did not straighten. He remained near half seated—tackle position—and went right for Brad’s midsection, knocking him to the ground. The shattered beer bottle sounded far away to him. His eyesight narrowed even more to hear his brother, on his back now, on the floor of the dining room laughing.
“Shut up,” Henry said. His hands went around Brad’s throat with no resistance.
“Or what?” Brad said, finally trying to push Henry off, to get out from being pinned, “or you’ll kill me?”
The punches got harder and came faster. Wrestling, tangled, they traded one for one. Chairs knocked to the ground. Fists becoming bloody.
“Boys.” Henry was aware of their mother’s feeble voice but it was too little too late it was time for someone to take care of Brad once and for all and dammit it’s got to be me so stay away Mom just stay away and let me take care of this.
“Fuck you,” Henry said to Brad. The word—however extraordinary it was for Henry to say—was ordinary to Brad, who littered every sentence with it, diminishing its meaning in the process.
Gasping, turning from a gut punch, Brad said, “At least I’m not a murderer.” He kicked his way to half standing.
“Boys,” the word barely shy of an exclamation point from the doorway. “Stop.”
More punches, now slowing from pain and near exhaustion. Still the punching continued.
“You know what?” Henry said, again straddling his weakened brother—finally pinning him back down. “We all wished it was you.”
He pulled more air into his lungs past what he was sure was a broken rib. A half-hearted punch thrown again but Brad left his head where the punch put it. “You know how you wanted them to say it out loud back then?” Another breath. “I’ll say it now—we all wanted it to be you that died. You should’ve died in that tub.”
Henry was suddenly aware of the sobbing from the doorway. He was also conscious of his brother’s limpness and in one motion, mustering all his strength and not bothering to hide a wince in the process, he hauled himself off of Brad to stand.
“What’s he up to these days?” Campbell asks.
“He’s out in Portland I hear,” Henry says. He shrugs as if being in Portland explains everything.
Chapter seventeen
1993
The door chimes alert Henry and his boss to a potential customer. They look at the door simultaneously. As Mr. Beardsley deflates for the lack of retail possibility, Henry smiles involuntarily.
“Hey,” he says, “how’s it going?”
“Same-o, same-o,” Tom Geigan says. “How’s it hanging here? Hey, Mr. Beardsley.”
“Tom. Nice to see you,” Mr. Beardsley says on his way to the back room. “Slow day?”
“You could say that,” Geigan says. “It’s a ghost town over there.”
He turns back to Henry. “I’m about to blow my frigging brains out. Collins wants me to reorganize the key racks so all the car keys are on one side and the house keys are on the other. Motherfucker. I’m going to get a Coke,” he says to Henry. “Want to come?”
“Yeah. Hang on, I’ll go tell Beardsley.”
Mr. Beardsley is punching numbers into an old accounting calculator.
“Mr. Beardsley? I’m going to go on a break now, just letting you know.” Henry brings his own lunch and eats in the storeroom or outside on the bench across the street from the store (weather permitting)—never taking more than fifteen minutes…not even close to the allotted hour. Official breaks are unnecessary as the store is rarely that busy anymore.
Mr. Beardsley looks at his watch. Henry knows it is meant to discourage a long break, something he is wont to take when Tom Geigan is involved. They both know this. Breaks are one thing, Mr. Beardsley said the last time Henry returned from an hour and forty-five-minute excursion with Geigan, but this is more like taking advantage, if you ask me, he said that day.
“I won’t be too long,” Henry says. “You want anything?”
Mr. Beardsley considers this and Henry resists the urge to roll his eyes. He wants to get going. “Where are you going?”
“Just down to the Mobil Station for a Coke.”
“Yes! That’s the ticket,” he says. “Will you bring me back a Coke?” He leans over to make pocket access possible. “Here’s fifty cents. Thanks. If it’s more let me know.”
“Okay.”
“Jesus, let’s go,” Tom says when Henry reappears. “I don’t got all day.”
“You ‘don’t got all day’?” Henry says.
“All right, all right, Fox Run,” Tom says.
Outside it is sunny and warm. They turn left and Henry enjoys the feel of the spring breeze coming up Main Street. It is the promise that winter is over. Put away those heavy coats, the air is saying. Don’t worry. No more surprise cold snaps. He inhales the scent of bulbs pushing through the soil. Days like this they would have had class outside.
“So.” Henry clears his throat and prepares for Geigan’s rapid-fire reaction to what he is about to say. “So it turns out she lives a half an hour away.”
Casual. He puts his hands in his pockets and tries to appear as if this is just a silly bit of trivia tossed out to make conversation on this shiny, happy, bright day.
“Who?” Geigan asks, preoccupied with the box that sells newspapers on the corner. “Can you believe that Buttafuoco story? Did you see the picture of the wife? The one who got shot? She looks like a nightmare now. That’s his punishment, you ask me. He’s now gotta wake up to that every day. That face. It’s like it’s collapsed in or something.”
Henry clears his throat and is aware of his quickening heartbeat. He is about to say her name out loud and that is what happens when he says her name out loud. He practically has a heart attack.
“Cathy Nicholas.”
Geigan stops walking. Freezes is more like it. Slowly, for effect, Henry knows and wishes it were not so but was prepared, anyway, he turns to Henry, who is busying himself with looking anywhere but at his friend.
“What the fuck? I knew it. You’ve still got a hard-on for that girl. I fucking knew it.”
It has not escaped notice, this increase in profanity over the years, and it bothers Henry quite a bit. Not that he doesn’t and won’t toss one out every now and then if the situation calls for it. But what happened to everybody? he has wondered many times. Why is everybody swearing all the time now? Just the day before he had been startled to hear a woman using the f-word in the supermarket with her children in earshot. First of all, a woman using the f-word…that offends his sensibilities right off the bat. But in front of little kids?
“I do not,” Henry says, continuing the walk down the street. “Jeez.”
“So what are you saying,” Geigan says, catching up. “You just happened on this information? I think not.” Henry knows Geigan is pleased with himself for saying “I think not”—that’s how well he knows his friend. He probably got it from watching NYPD Blue. Sipowicz is in
terrogating some guy in what appears to be the station’s only interrogation room. A room with inexplicable pen marks in a cluster on one part of the wall. That’s all Henry sees when he watches the show and they get to those scenes. Why all the pen marks? he asks the television set out loud.
“Hey, Ernie.” They greet the Mobil attendant as they walk past to the Coke machine on the side of the building.
“Hey, guys.”
Henry picks out a dollar fifty from the change fished from his pocket.
“I got it,” Henry says, plugging the quarters and dimes into the slot. He has always enjoyed the sound of the can dropping down the chute to the tray. A substantial sound. Like he’s really getting something for the money.
“You sure? Here,” Geigan says, offering his fifty cents.
“Yeah, no, I got it.”
“See ya, Ernie.”
Ernie nods, scratches his nose and looks back down at his magazine.
“Who’s the extra soda for? Your girlfriend?”
“Will you stop?” Henry says. The Coke is cold, super cold, as if they keep the machines ten degrees colder than the average refrigerator, he thinks.
The walk back is easier, the wind at their backs. Henry relieved of the burden of saying it out loud: he has found Cathy. After all these years. Just half an hour away.
“So what’re you going to do?” Geigan asks. They have passed the same newspaper box and he can’t resist a glance. His question seems off hand enough, easy enough. So Henry answers honestly.
“I was thinking of calling her.”
“Aw, man,” Geigan says. “This has shitty written all over it.”
“You think I shouldn’t call her?”
“No. I don’t think you should call her.”
Now Henry stops not so much because they are almost in front of Baxter’s but because he is surprised at the resolve in Geigan’s tone.
“Why not?” He tries not to sound whiney. Or pleading. Like he’s asking for permission. He tells himself he knew this would be Geigan’s reaction so it should not come as any surprise. Henry is annoyed at the way Geigan is gulping his soda. He sure drinks loudly, Henry thinks.