The Burgess Boys

  Jim nodded absently.

  “Are you worried about the weekend?” Helen asked, wifely once more.

  “No. It will be fine.”

  When they returned to their house—Helen having just greeted the too-blond woman walking by with her briefcase—the telephone was ringing. She heard Jim speaking evenly, and then he hung up and yelled, “Shit, shit, shit!” She stood in the living room and waited. “The schmuck lost his job and Susan’s surprised. Why wouldn’t they fire him? Some journalist was probably nosing around and Walmart just had it. Christ, I don’t want to go up there.”

  “You can still say no,” Helen said.

  “I can’t, though. It’s the goddamn love police.”

  “So what? You don’t live there anymore, Jimmy.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Helen walked past him up the stairs. “Well, you do what you think is best.” But she felt again the anxiety that something was being taken from her. She called down the stairs, “Just tell me you love me.”

  “I love you,” said Jim.

  “Once more with feeling.” She peered down over the banister.

  He was sitting on the bottom stairs with his head in his hands. “I love you,” he said.

  10

  The Burgess boys rode up the turnpike as twilight arrived. It arrived gently, the sky remaining a soft blue as the trees along either side of the unfolding pavement darkened. Then the sinking sun sent up a spread of lavender and yellow, and the horizon line seemed cracked open to give a peek at the heavens far beyond. Thin clouds became pink and stayed that way, until finally darkness emerged, almost complete. The brothers had spoken little once they pulled out of the airport in the rental car, Jim at the wheel, and for the last many minutes as the sun went down there had been silence between them. Bob was unutterably happy. He had not expected the feeling, which intensified it. He gazed out the window at the black stretches of evergreens, the granite boulders here and there. The landscape he had forgotten—and now remembered. The world was an old friend, and the darkness was like arms around him. When his brother spoke, Bob heard the words. Still he said, casually, “What did you say?”

  “I said this is just unbelievably depressing.”

  Bob waited, then said, “You mean the mess with Zachary?”

  “Well, that,” said Jim, in a tone of disgust. “Of course. But I meant this … place. The bleakness.”

  Bob stared out the window for some time. He finally said, “You’ll cheer up when we get to Susan’s. You’ll find it very cozy.”

  Jim looked over at him. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I keep forgetting,” Bob said. “You’re the only one in the family allowed to be sarcastic. You’ll find Susan’s house depressing. You’ll want to hang yourself before supper is over. Is my guess.” To fall so precipitously from this happiness almost gave him vertigo; it affected him physically. In the dark he closed his eyes, and when he opened them Jim was driving with one hand and gazing silently at the black turnpike ahead.

  Zach was the one who opened the door. He said in his deep voice, “Uncle Bob, you’ve come back.” His arms made a gesture forward, then returned to his sides. Bob pulled his nephew to him, feeling the boy’s skinniness, and also the surprising body warmth of him. “Great to see you, Zachary Olson. May I present the honorable Uncle Jim.”

  Zach did not move to Jim. He looked at him with his deep brown eyes and said softly, “I’ve really messed up.”

  “Who doesn’t mess up? You tell me who doesn’t mess up,” Jim said. “Nice to see you.” He clapped the boy on his back.

  Zach said, “You don’t.” He said this earnestly.

  “True,” said Jim. “Very true. Susan, can you turn the heat up? Just for one hour.”

  “That’s the first thing you have to say?” Susan asked, but there was an almost-jokiness to her voice, and she and Jim hugged lightly by leaning their shoulders forward. To Bob she nodded, and he nodded back.

  And then they sat, the four of them in Susan’s kitchen, eating macaroni and cheese. Bob kept telling Susan it was delicious, helping himself to more. Keenly he felt the need for a drink and pictured the bottle of wine he had packed in his duffel bag, which remained in the car. He said, “So, Zach, you’re staying with us at the hotel tonight. You’ll stay there tomorrow while we’re at the demonstration.”

  Zach looked at his mother, and she nodded. “I’ve never stayed in a hotel,” he said.

  “Yes, you have,” said Susan. “You just don’t remember.”

  “We’ve got adjoining rooms,” Bob said. “You’ll stay in mine and we can watch TV all night if you want. Your Uncle Jim needs his beauty sleep.”

  “This is good, Susan.” Jim pushed back his plate. “Excellent.” They were polite, these three siblings who had not eaten together since their mother died. The air was pregnant with it, though, the waiting.

  “The weather’s supposed to be good tomorrow. I was hoping it would pour,” Susan said.

  “Me too,” Jim said.

  “When was I in a hotel?” Zachary asked.

  “Sturbridge Village. We took a trip there when you were little, with your cousins.” Susan drank from her water glass. “It was fun. You had a good time.”

  “Let’s go,” said Bob, who wanted to get to the hotel before the bar closed. He wanted whiskey now, not wine. “Get your coat, kiddo. Maybe a toothbrush.”

  Fear washed over Zach’s face as he stood by the door, and his mother suddenly stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

  “We’ve got him, Suse,” said Jim. “He’s going to be fine. We’ll call as soon as we get to the room.”

  They checked into the hotel by the river, where the receptionist seemed not to know who they were, or care. The rooms had two queen-size beds each, and on the walls were different prints of the old brick mills built along the river. Jim, while shrugging from his shoulder his overnight bag, reached for the remote and turned the television on. “Okay, Zachary, let’s look for some crap.” Jim hung his coat in the closet and lay down on the bed.

  Zach sat on the edge of the other bed, his hands in his coat pockets. “My dad has a girlfriend,” he said, after a few moments. “She’s Swedish.”

  Bob glanced at Jim. “Oh, yeah?” Jim asked. He was lying with one arm beneath his head. Above him was a print of the mill where their father had been foreman. Jim stared at the television, clicking through channels.

  “Have you met her?” asked Bob, sinking into the chair by the phone. He was going to call down and see if they could bring up a couple of whiskeys; that there was no whiskey in the minibar dismayed him.

  “How would I meet her?” Zach’s voice was deep and sincere. “She’s in Sweden.”

  “Right,” Bob said. He picked up the phone.

  “I don’t think you should do that,” Jim said, still gazing at the TV.

  “Do what?”

  “Call down for booze, which is what I know you’re about to do. Why call attention to this room?”

  Bob rubbed a hand over his face. “Does your mom know about the girlfriend?” he asked.

  Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not going to tell her.”

  “Nah,” said Bob. “Why bother.”

  “What’s this girlfriend do?” Jim asked, holding the remote control as if it were a gearshift next to him on the bed.

  “She’s a nurse.”

  Jim switched channels. “That’s a nice thing to be, a nurse. Take your coat off, buddy. We’re here for the night.”

  Zach worked his way out of his coat, tossed it onto the floor between the wall and the bed. “She was over there,” he said.

  “Hang it up,” Jim directed, pointing to the closet with the remote. “Over where?”

  “Somalia.”

  “No shit,” Bob said. “Really?”

  “I’m not making it up.” Zach hung up his coat and went back and sat on the bed, looking down at his hands.

  “When was she in Somalia?” Jim propped himsel
f on his elbow to look at Zach.

  “A long time ago. When they were starving.”

  “They’re still starving. What was she doing there?”

  Zach shrugged. “I don’t know. She worked in a hospital when the Paki … the Portuguese … Who was it, the country with the P?”

  “Pakistan.”

  “Yeah. Well, she was there when those guys went over to help guard the food and stuff, and the Salamis killed a bunch of guys.”

  Jim sat up. “For God’s sake, you of all people shouldn’t be saying ‘Salamis.’ Can you get that through your head? Give us a little help here. Jesus.”

  “Stop it, Jim,” Bob said. Zach’s face had colored and he stared at the fingers he was twisting in his lap. “Zach, listen. The truth about your Uncle Jim is that no one really knows if he’s an asshole or not, but he acts like one a lot of the time, to everyone, not just you. Want to go downstairs with me while I find something to drink?”

  “Are you crazy?” Jim asked. “We went through this. Zach is not leaving this room. And you must have packed some booze, so pull it out and drink it.”

  “Did she work for a charity?” Bob asked. “Your dad’s girlfriend?” He sat on the bed near Zach, gave Zach’s shoulders a squeeze. “She must be a nice person. Your mom’s a nice person, too.”

  Zach leaned toward Bob slightly, and Bob kept his arm around his nephew for a moment longer. Zach said, “She had to come home, back to Sweden. All the nurses she worked with did, ’cause when they brought the soldiers to the hospital their nuts had been cut off and their eyes gouged out. And some Salam … Somal … Somalian women had taken a big knife and cut this one guy to pieces. Dad’s girlfriend flipped her shit. All her nurse friends flipped their shit. That’s why they went back home.”

  “Your father told you this?” Jim glanced at Bob.

  Zach nodded.

  “So you talk to him, then?”

  “He emails me.” Zach added, “That’s practically like talking.”

  “It is.” Bob stood up and jiggled the change in his pockets. “When did he tell you this?”

  Zach shrugged. “A while ago. When these guys started moving here. He emailed and said they were kind of crazy.”

  “Hold on, Zach.” Jim switched off the television. He got up and walked to stand in front of Zach. “Your father emailed you and told you to watch out for the Somalis moving here? That they were kind of crazy?”

  Zach was looking down at his lap. “Not exactly to watch out—”

  “Speak up.”

  Zach glanced up at Jim quickly; Bob saw that Zach’s cheeks were bright red. “Not exactly to watch out for them. Just—” Zach looked down and shrugged. “You know, they might be kind of crazy.”

  “How often are you in contact with your father?” Jim crossed his arms.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I asked you, how often are you in contact with your father?”

  Bob said quietly, “Stop it, Jim. He’s not on the stand, for God’s sake.”

  Zach said, “Sometimes he emails me a lot, and sometimes it seems like he forgets about me.”

  Jim turned away and moved about the room. Finally he said, “So I’m guessing you thought your father might be impressed if you threw a pig’s head through their mosque.”

  “I don’t know what I thought,” Zach said. He brushed a hand across his eyes. “He wasn’t impressed,” he added.

  Jim said, “Well, I’m glad to hear it, because I was about to tell you, your father’s a jerk.”

  Bob said, “He’s not a jerk. He’s Zach’s father. Stop it, for Christ’s sake, Jim.”

  Jim said, “Listen, Zachary, nobody’s going to cut your balls off. These guys came here to get away from that. They aren’t the bad guys.” He sat back on his bed and turned the television on again. “You’re safe here. Okay?”

  Bob rummaged through his duffel bag, brought out the bottle of wine. “It’s true, Zach.”

  Zach asked, “Are you going to tell my mom? What my dad wrote me?”

  Jim said tiredly, “You mean, why you did what you did? What would your mom do?”

  “Yell at me.”

  “I don’t know,” Jim finally said. “She’s your mother. She should know stuff.”

  “Don’t tell her about the girlfriend, though. You won’t tell her that part, right?”

  “No, buddy,” said Bob. “She doesn’t need to know that part at all.”

  “Let’s forget it for now,” Jim said. “We have a big day tomorrow.” He eyed Bob, who was opening the wine. “Does your father drink?” Jim asked Zach.

  “I don’t know. He didn’t used to.”

  “Well, let’s hope you didn’t get the genes of your Uncle Slob-Dog.” Jim flipped through the channels.

  “See, Zachary? That’s what I said. Your famous uncle. Is he, or isn’t he—an asshole. Only his hairdresser knows for sure.” Bob, pouring wine into a hotel glass, winked at Zach.

  “Wait.” Zach looked from Bob to Jim, then back and forth a few times. He said to Jim, “You dye your hair?”

  Jim glanced at him. “No. He’s making reference to an ad you’re too young to remember.”

  “Phew,” said Zach. “Because men dyeing their hair is really lame.” He lay down on the bed and put his arm beneath his head, the same way Jim had his.

  In the morning Bob went downstairs and brought back cereal and coffee. Jim was looking through some papers that Margaret Estaver had sent Bob earlier from the Together for Tolerance Alliance. “Listen to this. Only twenty-nine percent of Americans believe the state has any responsibility for the poor.”

  “I know,” Bob said. “Amazing, right?”

  “And thirty-two percent believe that success in life is determined by forces outside our control. In Germany, sixty-eight percent of people think that.” Jim pushed the paper aside.

  After a moment Zach said quietly, “I don’t get it. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

  “An American thing,” Jim said. “Eat your Froot Loops.”

  “So it’s a good thing,” Zach said.

  “Remember. Answer just your cell phone, and only if you recognize the number.” Jim stood up. “Get your coat, slob-dog.”

  The November sun—not high in the sky, but coming at the town from an angle—sliced across the streets, across the lawns that were still green, fell on half-sunken pumpkins left on stoops from Halloween, shone against the tree trunks and their bare limbs, beamed through the clear air, making mica specks in the old sidewalks glitter. They parked a few blocks away. As they walked around the corner, Bob was amazed to see the sidewalks filled with people moving toward the park. “Where’d they all come from?” Bob said to his brother. Jim said nothing; his face was tense. But the faces around them were not tense. It was notable, the good-natured seriousness of the people they joined. A few carried poster boards with the logo of the rally drawn on them: stick figures holding hands. “You can’t take those inside the park,” someone said, and the answer was a cheerful “We know.” Turning another corner, they saw the park stretched out before them. It was not packed with people, but it was filled with people, most of them near the bandstand. Along the streets nearby were television vans and more people carrying the logo signs. Orange tape barriers were attached to poles along the edges of the park, and police stood every few feet. Their eyes kept moving—watching, watching—but there was an easiness to them as they stood in their blue uniforms. Along Pine Street was the entrance, where a kind of security center had been set up, tables and metal detectors. The Burgess boys held their arms out, were allowed through.

  People in down vests and jeans were standing around, old people with white hair and wide hips moved slowly. The Somalis were gathered mostly near the playground. The Somali men wore Western clothes, Bob noticed, a few with smocklike shirts beneath their coats. But the Somali women—many big-cheeked, some thin-faced—wore robes that went to the ground, and some of their head coverings reminded Bob of the nuns that used
to walk around this same park when he was a boy. Except they weren’t like that, because many of these scarves were fluttery and bright, as though a new kind of foliage had found its way to the park, orange, purple, yellow. “The mind always wants to find something to snap itself onto, doesn’t it?” Bob said to Jim. “Something familiar. So it can say: like that. But nothing’s familiar about this. It’s not like the Franco Festival or Moxie Days—”

  “Shut up,” Jim said quietly.

  A woman was speaking from the bandstand. Her microphoned voice was just finishing, and people clapped politely. The air seemed both festive and restrained. Bob stepped back, and Jim moved toward the bandstand. He was going to speak without notes, as he always did. The woman leaving the bandstand was Margaret Estaver; she disappeared into a group of people, and Bob’s eyes scanned the crowd. He had never been struck, as he was today, with how much white people looked alike. They all look the same. White-skinned, open-faced, and strikingly plain compared to the Somalis, who were mingling more with the townspeople now, the long robes of the women weaving through the crowd. A few had allowed their children to come, and the boys were dressed like Americans, in pants and T-shirts showing beneath oversize jackets. Bob thought again how unfamiliar it seemed, to see so many people gathered here, but without the music or dancing or stalls of food that he recalled from his youth. And to be here without Pam. Full-bodied youthful Pam, with her full-throated youthful laugh. Pam, now skinny in New York, raising her sons as New Yorkers. (Pam!)