The Burgess Boys

“Okay.” Jim said this agreeably, sitting in the chair with his coat still on. He leaned his head back, swallowing. He held out the can as an offer to Bob. Bob shook his head. “Really.” Jim grinned tiredly. “When have you ever rejected booze?”

  “Whenever things are seriously bad,” Bob said. “I didn’t touch the stuff for a year after Pam left.” Jim gave no answer, and Bob watched as his brother drank steadily from the beer can. “Don’t leave,” Bob told his brother. “I’m going downstairs to find you something to eat.”

  “I’ll be here.” Jim smiled again, drinking down the beer.

  Susan sat on the couch watching television. It was the Discovery Channel, and dozens of penguins waddled across a long stretch of ice. Mrs. Drinkwater sat in the wing chair. “Cute little devils, aren’t they?” she said. She picked idly at the pocket of the apron she wore.

  After many moments, Susan said, “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t done anything, dear.”

  “You’re sitting with me,” Susan said. “And cooking,” she added.

  One by one the penguins slipped off the ice into the water. From the kitchen came the smell of the chicken Mrs. Drinkwater had put into the oven earlier. Susan said, “Everything feels not real. Like I’m dreaming.”

  “I know, dear. Good your brothers are here. Did your sister-in-law go?”

  Susan nodded. Moments went by. “I don’t like her,” Susan said. More moments went by. “Are you close to your daughters?” Susan asked this still watching the television. When there was no answer, she looked over at Mrs. Drinkwater. “I’m sorry. It’s not my business.”

  “Oh, it’s quite all right.” Mrs. Drinkwater took a balled-up tissue and dabbed at her eyes beneath her huge glasses. “I had some trouble with them, truth be told. The oldest, especially.”

  Susan looked back at the television. The penguins’ heads were bobbing around in water. “If you don’t mind talking, it helps me,” Susan said.

  “Oh, certainly, dear. Annie smoked those marijuana cigarettes. Hell broke loose over that, I sided with Carl. Annie was seeing a boy who got drafted. Vietnam time, the start of it, you remember. This boy went to Canada to escape the draft, and Annie went with him. When they broke up, she wouldn’t come home. She didn’t want to live in a country as corrupt as our own, this is what she said.” Mrs. Drinkwater paused. She gazed at the tissue in her hand, tried to spread it open on her lap, then balled it up again.

  Susan said to the television, “He took clothes. You don’t take clothes if you’re not going to wear them.” She added without expression. “Did you go visit her?”

  “She wouldn’t have us.” Mrs. Drinkwater shook her head.

  The penguins were slipping back up onto the ice, using their flippers, their flat feet holding them upright, their eyes bright as their little bodies glistened with water.

  “Annie had romantic ideas about Canada,” Mrs. Drinkwater said. “Never cared how her great-grandfather came from there, had to leave his farm because he went bankrupt. The creditors were just the devils themselves, you know. Annie thought she knew all about corruption. I told her, ‘Hah!’ ” Mrs. Drinkwater’s foot in its terry-cloth slipper bounced up and down.

  Susan said, “I thought you said she lives in California. I thought you said that once.”

  “She does now.”

  Susan stood up. “I’m going to rest upstairs until my brothers come back. Thank you, though. You’ve been good to me.”

  “I’ve been a silly chatterbox.” Mrs. Drinkwater waved a hand in front of her face in a gesture of embarrassment. “I’ll call up to you when they get here.” Mrs. Drinkwater stayed in the chair, plucking at her apron, ripping the tissue into little pieces. The television stopped showing penguins and showed rain forests instead. Mrs. Drinkwater looked at it while her mind went round and round. She thought how crowded her childhood home had been with all her brothers and sisters. She thought how her aunts and uncles would talk of going home to Quebec, but they never did. She thought of Carl and the life they had made. About her girls she did not like to think. She could not have predicted, no one can ever predict anything, that they’d have been raised at a time of protests and drugs and a war they seemed to feel no responsibility for. She pictured a dandelion gone by, the white, almost airless pieces of her family scattered so far. The key to contentment was to never ask why; she had learned that long ago.

  The rain forest glittered green. Mrs. Drinkwater rocked her foot and watched.

  Bob returned to the hotel room with two sandwiches. “Jimmy?” he called. The room was empty. In the bathroom the light was on over the sink. “Jimmy?” He tossed the bag of sandwiches onto the bed next to Zach’s cell phone.

  His brother was on the balcony, leaning against the wall of the hotel, as though he could be fainting.

  “Oy,” Bob said. “You’re drunk.”

  “I’m not, actually.” Jim spoke quietly, and the sound of the river was loud.

  “Jim, come inside.” A sudden breeze moved over them.

  Jim raised an arm, sweeping it slightly through the air, toward the river and the city beyond, where church spires could be seen above rooftops and trees. “None of what’s happened was supposed to be this way.” He dropped his arm back to his side. “I was going to defend the people of this state.”

  “Oh Christ, Jim, it’s not the time for self-indulgence.”

  Jim turned his face toward Bob. He looked very young and tired and puzzled. “Bobby, listen. Any minute a state trooper’s going to call to say some farmer found Zach hanging from the rafters of some barn or tree. I have no idea if he took his computer. Duffel bag? Big deal.” Jim tapped a thumb lightly on his own chest. “And kind of? In a way? I guess I kind of killed him.” He wiped at his face with his sleeve. “I upstaged Dick Hartley, yelled at Diane Dodge. I made everything worse by being a tough-guy show-off.”

  “Jim, that’s the stupidest thing. We don’t know he’s dead—and whatever’s happened it’s not your fault. For crying out loud.”

  “He called me at my big bloated law firm, Bob, where he couldn’t even get through to me, they take themselves so seriously.” Jim turned back toward the river, shaking his head slowly. “I was considered the best criminal defense lawyer in the country once. Can you believe that?”

  “Jim, stop.”

  Jim looked perplexed. “I was supposed to stay here and take care of everybody.”

  “Yeah? Who says? Now come inside and eat something.”

  Jim waved the question away, looked at the river, put his hand on the rail. “Instead I ran off and got famous. Everyone wanted my opinion, a talk show here, speech there. Gobs of money offered, which I was glad for so I wasn’t dependent on Helen’s money. But honestly, I just wanted to defend people nobody would defend.” He stood there, watching the river. He said, “And it’s all gone to crap.” He turned his face toward Bob, and Bob was startled to see that the eyes of his brother were wet. “White-collar crime?” Jim asked. “Defend people who’ve made millions on their hedge funds? It’s crap, Bob. And now I come home from work and the house is empty and the kids—God, the kids were everything, and their friends—and now the house is quiet, and I’m scared, Bobby. I think about death a lot. Even before this latest trip up here. I think about death and feel like I’m grieving for myself, and— Ah, Bobby, man, things are kind of out of control.”

  Bob took hold of his brother’s shoulders. “Jimmy. You’re scaring me here. And you’re drunk. Right now we deal with Susan and Zach. You’re going to be all right.”

  Jim pulled away, leaned against the wall again, closed his eyes. “You’re always saying that to people. But nothing’s going to be all right.” He opened his eyes, looked at Bob, closed them again. “You poor dumb fuck.”

  “Cut it out.” Bob felt a rip of anger come to him.

  Jim’s eyes opened again. His eyes seemed colorless, just a faint blue glistening beneath the slits. “Bobby.” It was almost a whisper. Tears began to slide down Jim’s face
. “I’m a sham.” He wiped his bare hands across his face as a gust of wind came furiously around the corner of the hotel. The shrubs down below rattled and bent.

  “Come inside,” Bob said gently. He took his brother’s arm, but Jim shook him away. Bob stepped back and said, “Look, you didn’t know he called you.”

  “Bob, I killed him.”

  The wind swooped and ripped back, so that Bob’s coat sleeves rippled like canvas sails. Bob folded his arms across his chest, pressed the toe of his shoe against the bottom railing of the balcony. “How did you kill him? Giving a speech at a peace rally? Defending him zealously?”

  “Not Zach.”

  Bob’s foot appeared wide to him as he looked down at it. “Who, then?”

  “Our father.”

  The words seemed conversational, and also as though Jim was waiting for them to begin the Lord’s Prayer together. Our father who art in heaven. It took Bob a minute. He turned to face his brother. “No, you didn’t. I was the one sitting up by the gears, we all know that.”

  “You weren’t, though.” Now Jim’s face seemed very old and creased in its wetness. “You were in the backseat. So was Susie. You were four years old, Bob, you don’t remember a thing. I was eight. Almost nine. By then you remember some things.” Jim stayed leaning against the wall, looking straight ahead. “The seats were blue. You and I had a fight about sitting in the front seat, and before he walked down the driveway he said, Okay, Jimmy in the front seat this time, twins in the back. And I moved over behind the wheel. Even though we’d been told a million times we couldn’t ever sit behind the wheel. I pretended I was driving. I pushed in the clutch.” Jim shook his head almost imperceptibly. “And the car went down the driveway.”

  “You’re drunk,” Bob said.

  “I pushed you into the front seat before Mom even came out of the house. Way before the police came, I’d climbed in the back. Eight years old. Almost nine years old, and I was able to be that sneaky. Isn’t that amazing, Bobby? I’m like that movie, The Bad Seed.”

  Bob said, “Why are you making this up, Jim?”

  “I’m not making it up.” Jim raised his chin slowly. “And I’m not drunk. I don’t get that, I just drank all that shit.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Jim’s exhausted eyes looked at Bob with pity. “Of course not. But, Bobby Burgess, you never did it.”

  Bob looked down at the river as it moved thunderously past. The boulders along the riverbank seemed large and stark. But it was all unreal, distorted, quiet. Even the noisy river seemed quiet, like Bob was swimming underwater and the sound was muffled. “But why would you say all this now?” He kept looking at the river, and the empty terrace below.

  “Because I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Fifty years later, you can’t stand it? Jimmy, this doesn’t make any sense. I don’t believe you. No offense, but you’re kind of cracking up right now, and we’re up here to help Susan. It’s not like it doesn’t suck enough. Jesus, Jimmy, come on.” The brothers stood facing each other, and the wind swept over them, huge and cold. No more tears came from Jim. He looked gray and sick and old. Bob said, “So you’re kidding, right? This is just your idea of the motherfucker of sick jokes. ’Cause you’re really making me scared.”

  Quietly, Jim said, “I’m not kidding, Bobby.” He slumped down until he was sitting on the balcony cement, his back against the wall. His knees were bent and his hands hung over them. “Do you know what it’s like?” he asked, looking up at Bob. “Watching the years go by, watching myself never say anything. When I was a kid I kept thinking, Today I’ll tell. I’ll come home from school and I’ll tell Mom, just say it. Then when I was a teenager I thought I’d write it down, slip it to Mom before school so she’d have all day to think about it. When I was at Harvard I still thought, I’ll send her a letter. But a lot of days I’d think, No, I didn’t do that.” Jim shrugged, straightened his legs out. “Just didn’t do it. That’s all.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Oh Christ, will you stop?” Jim pulled his knees back to his chest, looked up at his brother. “I’m begging you. You remember what I said that day we found out Zach had thrown the pig’s head? I said, he has to turn himself in because he did it. No Burgess runs away, we’re not fugitives. That’s what I said. Can you believe it?”

  Bob said nothing. But he could hear now the sound of the falls as the river thundered over them. And then he heard from within the room the telephone start to ring. Bob stumbled inside, tripping over the door casing.

  Susan was sobbing. “Slow down, Susie, I can’t make out what you’re saying.”

  Jim, who had followed Bob into the room, took the phone out of Bob’s hand, the old take-charge Jim. “Susan. Slow down.” He nodded, glanced at Bob, gave a thumbs-up.

  Zachary was in Sweden with his father, he had telephoned Susan just a few minutes ago. His father had said he could stay as long as he wanted, and Susan could not stop her sobbing; she had thought he was dead.

  Back at the house, even Mrs. Drinkwater’s cheeks glistened as she moved about the kitchen in her apron. “She’ll be able to eat now,” the old lady said to Bob, nodding as though they shared a secret.

  Susan’s eyes were so swollen they were practically shut, and her face was shiny, and her happiness so unguarded that she hugged her brothers, Mrs. Drinkwater, and the dog, whose tail thumped vigorously. “He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive. My son, Zachary, is alive.” Bob could not stop his own face from smiling. “Oh, I’m too happy to eat,” Susan said, walking around the table, patting the back of the chairs. “He kept apologizing for scaring me, but I said, Honey, I don’t care about anything as long as you’re safe.”

  “She’s going to crash,” Jim said later, on their way back to the hotel. “She’s higher than a kite because he’s not dead. In a little while she’ll realize he’s gone.”

  “He’ll come back,” Bob said.

  “Wanna bet?” Jim stared over the steering wheel.

  “Let’s worry about that later,” Bob said. “Let her be happy. God, I’m happy.” Although sitting in the car next to Bob was the terrible conversation earlier on the hotel balcony; it was like a creepy little child poking at him in the dark, saying, Don’t forget, I’m here. But it did not seem real. With the excitement of Zach’s safety, it did not seem real, or relevant. It did not belong in the car, or in Bob’s life.

  Jim said, “I’m sorry, Bob.”

  “You were upset. It’s understandable. Don’t worry.”

  “No, I’m sorry about—”

  “Jim, stop. It just isn’t true. Mom would have figured it out. Even if it was true, which it’s not, who cares? Stop feeling so bad. It scared me to see you feeling so bad. Everything’s all right.”

  Jim didn’t answer. They drove over the bridge, the river below them black in the night.

  “I cannot stop smiling,” Bob said. “Zachary’s alive and with his father. And Susan, to see her like that— Well, I cannot stop smiling.”

  Jim said quietly, “You’re going to crash too.”

  Book Four

  1

  In Brooklyn, Park Slope had spread its edges in every direction. Seventh Avenue was still its main street, but two blocks down Fifth Avenue was starting to open one trendy restaurant after another; boutiques sold fashionable blouses and yoga pants and jewelry and shoes with prices you might expect to find in Manhattan. Fourth Avenue, that wide mess of traffic and grit, now had, surprisingly and suddenly, large-windowed condos among the old brick dwellings; diners appeared on corners, and people walked on Saturdays up to the park. Babies were pushed in strollers as spiffy as sports cars, with fast-turning wheels and adjustable tops. If the parents held inner worries or disappointments, you didn’t glimpse it in their flash of healthy teeth and toned limbs as the more enthusiastic ones made a day of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, or rollerblading across it—there it was, the East River, and the Statue of Liberty, the tugboats, the enormous barges;
life churning on and on, miraculous, amazing—

  It was April, and while the days were often chilly, there was an exuberance to the forsythia that opened in front gardens, to the skies that sometimes stayed blue all day, because March had had its times of record cold and a downpour of record rain, and then later the worst snow of the winter. But here was April, and even with reports that the housing bubble had started to deflate, nothing in Park Slope seemed to be shrinking at all. Those who strolled about the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, pointing at the sloping hill of daffodils and calling to their children, seemed content, unworried. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, after skidding around chaotically, reached another record high.

  Bob Burgess did not—especially—notice any of this: the financial markets, the forecasts of doom, the forsythia along the wall by the library, the rollerblading young people who whizzed past him. If he appeared dazed, he was. It’s said that amnesiacs not only lose the ability to remember the past but are unable to imagine the future, and in some ways it was like this for Bob. His incredulousness at discovering that his past might not be his past seemed to affect his ability to understand what lay ahead, and he spent a great deal of time walking the streets of New York. Motion helped. (This is why you didn’t find him sitting in the Ninth Street Bar and Grille, and also, he had stopped drinking.) On weekends he could be found walking through Central Park in Manhattan, drawn to it because it wasn’t as familiar as Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and he was aware of the many tourists he passed, with their cameras and maps and different languages, their walking shoes, their tired children.

  “E’ bellissimo!” Bob heard a woman exclaim as she entered the park, and he saw for a moment through different eyes the boulevard of trees with its row of large trunks, the bicyclists, runners, ice cream stands, very different from the Central Park Bob had first known when he moved here years ago with Pam. There were Korean brides standing bare-shouldered, shivering, while their photographs were taken. There was the young woman near the steps to the lake who every weekend sprayed herself gold and, wearing a leotard, tights, and toe shoes, stood on a box, struck a pose and didn’t move, while tourists took pictures and kids stared and reached for the hands of their parents. How much money she earned Bob couldn’t imagine; the white bucket in front of the box on which she stood would fill with bills, maybe some fives, perhaps—he didn’t know—a twenty. But the silence she endured those hours seemed to match the silence Bob carried within himself.