30

“Carry the corpse,” the monkey says.

“Which corpse?”

“He’s hanging from the cedar tree.”

And then I see him, the rope around his neck, his naked body swaying back and forth, back and forth. I approach him slowly, reluctantly, and he raises his arms as if for an embrace. His severed hand has grown back.

“But he’s alive,” I say.

“Kill him,” the monkey says. “Carry the corpse.”

My heart pounds. I’m afraid not to obey. When I step onto a rock, he and I are at eye level. I look away from his pleading gaze. Lift the bag over his head and pull. He bucks, flails, twitches. Then he’s still.

I cut him down from the tree. Carry him over my shoulder, stumbling toward the sound of spilling water. And when I see the water, my burden lightens and I realize it’s no longer my brother’s corpse I’m carrying. It’s the monkey’s corpse.

“Forgive me,” it whispers, its lips moving against my ear. I stop, surprised that the dead can talk.

“Forgive you for what?”

The monkey sighs.

Miguel, the night nurse, pointed to the bag hanging from a pole next to my bed. “It’s not you, man,” he said. “It’s the morphine. Lots of patients freak out on this stuff.”

I held up my hands to look at them—the stitched one and the other. I had smothered my own brother—had felt life leaving him. “It seemed so real,” I said.

Miguel cupped his hand under the popsicle I’d been nibbling and held it in front of me. I took another bite. “That’s the kicker with hallucinations, right?” he said. “Is it real or is it Memorex? You ever do acid?”

I shook my head, awkwardly because of the neck brace.

“I dropped it a coupla times—back in my hombre days, before Wife Number Two got ahold of me and parked my butt in an LPN program. One time when I was tripping, I thought I was running with a pack of wild dogs. Thought I was turning dog, man. I could have sworn it was real. . . . Hey, you want any more of this? It’s getting a little drippy.”

I said no. Reached up and grabbed the chain bar suspended above my bed. Shifted my position an inch or two. “What’s this for, anyway?” I said, tapping the soft cast on my shoulder.

“Tore your trapezius muscle—caught a corner of the porch roof on the way down, I guess. I was talking to one of the EMTs that brought you in? This guy that goes to my church? He was telling me about it. Said they were working on you for a good five minutes before they realized they had the wrong guy. . . . Hey, how’s that catheter feel?”

“Better,” I said.

“You sure?” As he lifted the blanket and sheet to have a look, I raised my head. Looked down at my swollen, stapled leg, my purple eggplant of a foot. “Jesus, what a mess,” I said. Looked away and shuddered.

“Coulda been worse, man,” Miguel said. “Coulda been worse.”

According to Miguel, when the EMTs had arrived at 207 Gillette Street in response to Ruth Rood’s hysterical 911 call, they’d found me unconscious in the front yard, adrift on a pile of broken shutters. The medics made two incorrect assumptions: that I was Henry Rood and that the tumble I’d taken was the suicide attempt Mrs. Rood had been screaming about over the phone. My left leg was splayed beneath me; my foot was cocked at a right angle to where it should have been. My fibula had separated from its ball-and-socket joint, splintered, and was poking out of my leg. They had me sedated and were readying me for transport before someone finally deciphered Ruth Rood’s ranting about the attic, her husband, the gun he’d fired into his head.

I remembered the fall but not the landing. Flashes of the aftermath flickered back at me: a barking dog among the sidewalk gawkers, someone screaming bloody murder when they tried to take off my work boot. (Had the screamer been me?) I told Miguel I didn’t remember the pain. “That’s cause your brain acts like a circuit breaker,” he said. “When it gets too intense, a switch flips you unconscious.” He flipped his hand back and forth to demonstrate. “Computer this, computer that,” he said. “If you want high tech, give me the human body any day.”

Henry Rood had been pronounced dead on arrival at Shanley Memorial, Miguel said, although he’d probably died a second or two after he pulled the trigger. According to what Miguel’s friend had told him, the back half of Rood’s head was all over the wall and the floor. I arrived at Shanley shortly after Rood, I was told, in a second ambulance with a second trio of EMTs. Dr. William Spencer, chief of orthopedic surgery, was called away from a father-and-son golf tournament halfway across the state and arrived at Shanley somewhere around 6:00 P.M. It was he who made the decision that my shattered foot and ankle and the broken and dislocated bones of my lower leg required reconstructive surgery right away. That night. The operation began shortly after seven and lasted until sometime after midnight, by which time fourteen bones and bone fragments had been rejoined with screws and plastics and two curved steel plates. My leg had so much metal in it, Miguel said, it could probably conduct electricity.

I asked him how Mrs. Rood was doing—if he’d heard anything.

Miguel shrugged. “The funeral’s Monday. I seen it in the paper. Hey, you better excuse me for a minute. I gotta check on your buddy over there.” He tiptoed to the other side of the room and disappeared behind the drawn curtain.

When I closed my eyes, I saw Rood at the attic window, staring. He’d gone out angry, that was for sure. I’d read that someplace: when they leave that much of a mess behind, they’re getting even with the cleanup crew. Ruth, probably: he must have been evening some score with his poor, pickled wife. But why had he dragged me into it? Gone up there and given me the evil eye just before he did it? I started to shake, a little at first and then uncontrollably.

“Miguel? . . . Hey, Miguel?”

His head popped out from behind the curtain. “What’s the matter? You cold?” He told me he needed to check on a few things but that he could come back in a few minutes with another blanket. He left the room.

I closed my eyes and tried to unsee Rood. Wandered back, instead, to my morphine nightmare. The monkey, the cedar tree. . . . I’d strangled my own brother, for Christ’s sake: morphine or no morphine, what kind of a sick son of a bitch would dream up something like that? A wave of nausea passed through me. I grabbed for the plastic tray on my bedstand and missed, retching bile and melted popsicle all over the front of me.

When Miguel came back, he cleaned up the mess and changed my johnny. “How you doing now?” he said. “You feel better now?”

I managed a weak smile. “Can you . . . Are you real busy?”

“What do you need, man?”

“I was . . . I was wondering if you could sit with me. Stay with me for a while. I’m just . . . I . . .”

“Yeah, all right,” he said. “It’s a pretty slow night. I guess I can swing that.” He sat beside my bed.

“What . . . what day is it, anyway?” I asked. “I don’t even know what day it is.”

“It’s Saturday,” he said. He craned his neck around to see the clock in the corridor. “1:35 A.M.”

“Saturday? How can it be Saturday?”

“Because yesterday was Friday, man. You been in and out of it for a couple days now. More out than in, to tell you the truth. That first night you came in here, you were one of the most out-of-it dudes I ever seen at this place. Kept trying to get off the bed, yank out your IV. That would have been something, huh? You getting out of bed and trying to walk on that foot? Between the surgery and the Percoset and then the morphine drip, you were—”

It began to sink in: I had never made it to Thomas’s hearing. I’d blown it for my brother. “What . . . what’s the date?”

“The date? Today? November the third.”

I saw Thomas, the bag over his head. I grabbed hold of the bed railings and tried to raise myself up. “I’ve got to use the phone,” I said. “Please. I’ve got to find out what happened to him.”

He looked at me as if I were hallucinating again. “What happened to who?”

“My brother. Did you hear anything? About what happened to him?”

Miguel shrugged. “I heard about your truck. I didn’t hear nothing about your brother. Why? What’s the matter with him?”

I told him it was too complicated to go into—that I just needed to make a call.

“Who you going to call at one-thirty in the morning, man? Look, you’re a little disorientated, that’s all. It happens when you been laying in bed for two, three days. You call somebody this time a night, they’re gonna come down here and bust your other foot. You ain’t thinking, man. You got to wait till morning.”

Before, I might have balked. Might have jumped all over him. But I had nothing left to fight with. I felt helpless, overwhelmed. I burst into tears.

“Hey, hombre,” Miguel said. “Come on. Everything’s going to be okay. It’s the morphine.” He reached over and took my hand. I could call whoever I wanted in the morning, he promised. If he was still on, he’d dial the number for me himself. He held my hand until the shaking subsided.

Miguel said he had worked a double shift the night before. Had met my family. He asked if my brother was the tall guy who’d been here with my father and my wife.

He’d visited me? Thomas? Had they released him, then?

“Did he . . . We’re twins,” I said. “Did he look like me?”

Miguel shrugged. “This guy was tall, a little on the stocky side. He had dark hair like you, but I wouldn’t say he looked like you. He kept talking about how he was going to be in some movie.”

I closed my eyes. “That’s my friend,” I said. “Leo.”

Had he just said my wife had been there? I had no recollection of visitors.

“I seen that guy someplace. I just can’t remember where. Is he really going to be in a movie, or was he just b-s-ing me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “My . . . You said my wife was here?”

He nodded, his face breaking into a grin. “Hey, if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s one fine-looking woman you got there. And you and her got a kid on the way, right? Beginning of May? She was telling me all about it.”

Joy. It was Joy who’d been here. Not Dessa.

“Hey, just think: by the time your kid gets out of the oven, you’ll be back on your feet, running around good as new. Changing diapers and everything.”

I closed my eyes again. Suppressed another shudder.

“Me and my wife just had a kid last month,” he said. “Our third. Plus I got a daughter from my first marriage. Blanca. Four kids in all. Blanca’s nineteen already. I can’t even believe it sometimes.” He took out his wallet and showed me their pictures.

A kid in the oven . . .

“Hey, come on, buddy,” Miguel said. “You gotta think positive. Look. That’s my wife right there.” His thumb tapped a stocky, long-haired brunette at the center of a family portrait. Even through the blear of my tears, I was taken by the directness of her gaze back at the camera. At me. I mumbled something about her being a nice-looking woman, too. “Yeah, and she don’t take no crap from nobody, either. Me, especially. She’s three-quarters French Canadian and one-quarter Wequonnoc. You don’t mess with that mix. Know what I’m saying?”

I handed his pictures back. Blew my nose. Cleared my throat. “Married to a Wequonnoc, huh?” I said. “Once the big casino goes in, you’ll probably have to quit nursing to stay home and count all your money.”

He laughed. “Hey, I like the way you think, man. Maybe in a few years, you might be looking at the Puerto Rican Donald Trump. Who knows, right?”

There was a lull for the next few minutes. The intermittent whir of the IV machine, the sound of snoring across the room, behind the curtain.

“She’s my girlfriend,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“She’s my girlfriend. Joy. She’s not my wife.”

“Yeah? Well, if you two are having a kid together, it’s the same difference. You and her got married as soon as that test said ‘positive,’ know what I’m saying? This your first?”

We lost eye contact. “Her first,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I . . . had another kid. A daughter.”

“Sounds like you don’t see her anymore.”

I shook my head.

“That’s gotta be tough, man. Not being able to see your kid. That’s one thing my ex and I did right. We worked it out so I saw Blanca every weekend. It was worth it, too, because she turned out good. She’s studying to be a legal secretary. . . . So where’s your daughter at? She live in another state?”

“She’s dead.”

It stopped him for a minute. I didn’t usually come clean like that—unload on people about Angela. But I was too tired to keep up the front.

“Wow, that’s tough, man,” Miguel said. “Ain’t nothing tougher than that. . . . But, hey, now you got this new one coming, right? You gotta think positive. And I mean it—she’s a very good-looking woman, your girlfriend. I wouldn’t mind checking out of the hospital and going home to that myself, you know? I don’t mean no disrespect.”

“Was there . . . Did anyone else visit me?”

“Anyone else?” He shook his head. “Not on my shift. Not that I seen, anyway. Just your girlfriend and your father and that other guy—the movie star.”

The Three Rivers State Hospital switchboard answered promptly at 7 A.M. and transferred my call to the security station at Hatch, Unit Two. No, the guard who answered said, they weren’t authorized to give out patient information over the phone. No, he could not give me Lisa Sheffer’s home phone number, even if it was an emergency. The best he could do was try to contact her and give her my message.

There was no answer at Ray’s. And when I called home, all I got was the sound of my own voice, yapping about free estimates, satisfaction guaranteed. Five minutes later, the phone rang.

“Dominick?” Sheffer said. “How are you? When I found out what happened, I was like, ‘Oh, my god.’”

I asked her if they’d postponed the hearing.

There was a pause. “Look, you know what?” she said. “Why don’t I come see you? I think it would be better if we went over all this in person. You feeling well enough for visitors?”

“Just tell me,” I said. “Did they postpone it or go ahead with it?”

“They went ahead.”

“Where is he?”

“Where is he? Now? He’s at Hatch, Dominick. Look, let me just make sure my friend can watch Jesse for an hour or so, and I’ll get there as soon as I can. Okay?”

I got the phone back on the cradle, but dropped the whole damn thing trying to get it back on the nightstand. Tried unsuccessfully to grab it by the cord and pull. When I looked over at the other bed, I saw my roommate—lying on his side, awake, watching me. “You want me to get that for you?” he said.

Getting out of bed, he let go a long, rumbling fart. “Whoops. ‘Scuse me,” he said. His slippers scuffed across the room. “One of the side effects of this diet they started me on. Gives me terrible gas.”

He picked up the phone. Stood there, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Nice to see you back among the living,” he said. He was about fifty or so—gray hair, beard, beer gut under his cinched bathrobe. Go back to your bed, I felt like saying. I don’t want to socialize. Leave me alone.

He looked down at my uncovered leg, my foot. “Ooh, baby, that’s gotta smart,” he said. “How’s it feel?”

I shrugged. “Not bad. I guess they got me pretty well doped up.”

“Yeah, well . . . How else you gonna get through it, right? . . . They were telling me about it—the nurses—when you came in a couple days ago. Took quite a tumble, huh?”

“So I hear.”

“I’m in here with a bum gut,” he said. “Bleeding ulcer.” He tapped his belly with his fist. “They think they got it under control, though. They just want to watch me through the weekend. I’m probably checking out on Monday.”

“Uh-huh. Good.” I closed my eyes. Listened to him scuff back to bed.

Why couldn’t Sheffer have just told me over the phone what had happened? Because it was bad news, that was why. Break it gently to the poor gimp. . . .

Bleeding Ulcer over there was getting out when? Monday? How long was I going to be stuck in here? And how long was I going to be out of commission once I did get out? I needed to talk to that surgeon. Doctor . . . ? Jesus, the guy had operated on me for five hours and I couldn’t even remember his name. Couldn’t even picture him. And I’d probably have to wait until Monday to talk to him, too; I doubted chief surgeons showed their faces on the weekend.

Be patient, honey, I heard Ma say. You need to be more patient with people.

And how much was this whole fiasco going to cost me? The truck, a five-hour operation, an extended stay at Club Med here. I’d crunched some numbers back in September—just before Thomas’s “big event” down at the library—and even then I’d figured I was probably only going to clear twenty-two, twenty-three grand for the year, give or take a few inside jobs in November and December. Of course, those jobs were shot to hell now. And what if my climbing-up-and-down-ladders days were over altogether? There was no way in hell I’d be able to afford contracting out. . . . My insurance had to cover falls, right? I’d have to wait until Monday for answers on that, too. Doubted I could decipher that mumbo jumbo the policy was written in. Just the thought of making those insurance calls exhausted me. If you want to file a personal claim, press one. If you want to file a business claim, press two. If your entire life’s going down the toilet, please stay on the line. . . .

I pictured that house of horror over there on Gillette Street—framed in scaffolding, scraped and burned down to bare wood, waiting for primer and paint. Jesus Christ, that house was like a curse or something. Maybe I could talk Labanara into finishing the job for me. Or Thayer Kitchen over in Easterly. Kitchen did drywall, mostly, but he’d paint if he was between jobs. Whoever I got to finish it, I’d just have to pay him out of pocket. Screw it. It’d be worth taking the loss just for the privilege of not having to go back there again. . . .

I wondered how Ruth Rood was doing. Hell of a thing: goes up to the attic and there’s her husband’s brains all over the place. Who gets the fun job of cleaning up something like that, anyway? Not Ruth, I hoped. That son of a bitch Rood. Once she got past the shock, she’d be better off without him. Who wouldn’t drink, married to that guy?

Better off without him: the exact words Dessa’s father had used when she made her big announcement to the family that she was going ahead with the divorce. Leo told me that. It was after the dealership’s annual Fourth of July picnic out at the Constantines’—after all the employees had gone home and it was just the family. We’d been separated for a couple of months by then. . . . Jesus, that hurt, though: hearing from Leo that the Old Man had said that. Better off without him. We’d always gotten along okay—Gene and me. We’d had a kind of mutual respect for each other. Plus, there’d been all that time we’d logged in together after the baby died, when Dessa had had to keep calling her mother, having her mother come over. Big Gene would always come, too. We’d just sit there, him and me, staring at the idiot box and waiting for time to pass. Waiting for Dessa to stop crying and realize that Angela’s death wasn’t, somehow, her fault. Our fault. . . . Hey, I’d wrestled with that one, too. Still wrestled with it sometimes: if only I’d done this, if only I’d done that. “You’re like a son to me, Dominick,” Gene had said to me one of those nights. One of us must have turned off the TV; guess he had to say something. “Like the son I never had.” And I’d bought it, too—believed Big Gene, who’d made his fortune selling half-truths and false promises to car buyers. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been looking for my real father my whole life. . . . But what had I expected? That he’d be loyal to me instead of his firstborn daughter? His pride and joy? What did I even know about a father’s loyalty, anyway? I’d had a great role model in that particular department, whoever the guy was who’d knocked up my mother. Left her pregnant with twins. As far as fathers went, I was unclaimed freight. Me and my brother—left on the loading dock for life. Ray Birdsey’s twin step-burdens. . . .

And as long as I was lying there, not bullshitting myself for once, I might as well admit it: Big Gene was right, wasn’t he? She was better off without me. Me and all my baggage—shitty childhood, crazy brother, even that vasectomy I’d gone out and gotten. That had been it for Dessa, the last straw—my vasectomy. Getting myself sterilized without even discussing it. Going behind her back and having it done while she was away so that . . . so that . . . Your anger poisons everything else that’s good about you, she’d said that morning she packed her bags. I’m going because you suck all the oxygen out of the room, Dominick. Because I have to breathe. . . . And she’d been right, hadn’t she? Lying here in “time-out,” benched by my big fall off the Roods’ roof, I could finally see it. See what she meant. Getting myself fixed like that, cutting off even the possibility of kids . . . you had to be one angry motherfucker to do something like that. And what about that father’s loyalty crap I was always so hung up by the balls about? What about that, Birdsey? What’s so loyal about a father who goes over there and puts his feet in those stirrup things and has them sever his options. Sever, even, the possibility of another kid. That had been real loyal, hadn’t it, Dominick? Loyal to her, to your marriage, to any kid that might have come along later. . . . That was why she’d gone away to Greece, she’d said. To decide whether or not she wanted to try again. And she’d come back knowing she did want to. . . . So face it, Birdsey. Own up to it. You did more to end your marriage than she did. She might have been the one to pack her bags because she couldn’t “breathe,” but it was you who ended it. You who’d sucked out all the oxygen. Killed off the possibility, the hope of anything ever . . . And all those reconciliation fantasies you’d been fooling yourself with—all those rides past that farmhouse where she and her boyfriend lived now. It was sick, man. . . . I was like some ghost haunting what she and I had had and lost, instead of just getting on with it. I’d gone out there the night I totaled the truck, come to think of it. I’d been pulling that shit for years now. For years. . . . Too bad I hadn’t totaled myself along with my truck. Or maybe I had. Maybe I’d totaled myself the day I’d gone down there to that urologist’s and spread my legs and said, “Here I am. Disconnect me. Cut off my options.” Totaled. It was like . . . it was like Angela’s death had been this huge, mangled wreck in the middle of our marriage. And Dessa . . . Dessa had gotten up and gotten on with it. Had walked away from the wreck. And I hadn’t. I was road kill, man. Road kill.

Don’t cry. De-fense! De-fense!

Well, screw it, man. I was too tired to play D anymore. I didn’t give a crap whether Mr. Bleeding Ulcer over in the other bed heard me or not. I was exhausted. Used up. If I had to cry, then tough shit. . . .

Did Ruth Rood have family to lean on, I wondered. Some friend who’d go over there and sit with her? She wasn’t a bad woman. She’d been decent to me, in spite of all the hassle about their house. . . . I saw Rood up in that window again—the way he’d stood there, staring out at me. Why me, Henry? Why’d you have to go up to that attic and stare that way at me? What were you doing, you bastard—inviting me along for the ride?

God, I couldn’t stand much more of this—just lying there, thinking. Only what was I supposed to do? Get out of bed and walk away from it? Hop into the truck I’d totaled and go? Miguel had said something about being able to give me something to make me sleep, hadn’t he? That’s what I wanted to do, man: Rip Van Winkle my way through the rest of my sorry-ass life. Wake up after everyone I knew was dead and that baby Joy was pretending was mine had reached the age of majority. Wake me when it’s over, man. Wake me up at checkout time. Except the only catch with sleeping was dreaming. Dead monkeys, dead brothers. Jesus. . . . So let’s see, Dominick. You don’t want to sleep, you don’t want to stay awake. Guess that eliminated everything but the third option. The big D. . . . And if I chose that route, how? It scared me a little to think about it, but it jazzed me up a little, too. I knew one thing: I wouldn’t make a mess the way Rood had. No one deserved that. So she’d slept with some guy behind my back. Gotten herself pregnant. That didn’t give me the right to fuck with her head for the rest of her life.

My roommate let another one rip. “Whoops,” he said. “Excuse me again.” I tried to ignore him. Maybe I didn’t have to go to the trouble of offing myself, after all. Maybe all’s I had to do was lie here and get asphyxiated.

“Hey, you want the newspapers?” he said. “I got the Record and the New York Post. I’m through with ’em.” Before I could say no, he’d swung his legs to the floor and started over.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll look at ’em later.”

“Whenever you want,” he said. “I don’t want ’em back. Hey, no kidding, I’m sorry about all this gas. It’s this diet they got me on. I can’t help it.”

“No problem,” I said. Thought: Okay, now get back in bed and shut up. I don’t want to be your hospital buddy. Just let me lie here and think—play with the idea of dying.

“By the way, my name’s Steve,” he said. “Steve Felice.”

He waited. Kept looking at me. “Dominick Birdsey.”

“Housepainter, right?”

I shrugged. “Used to be. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. With my leg.” He just stood there, waiting. “What . . . what do you do?”

“Me? I’m a purchasing agent. Down at EB.” He told me we were both in the same boat, in a way. Hell of a thing—not knowing from month to month if the next round of layoffs was going to zap you. It got to you after a while. That was how he’d gotten his ulcer—not knowing if he was going to have a job by the end of the year or not. He’d always been pretty easygoing before all this. Relatively easygoing, anyway. He thought so, anyway. But what the hell, he said. He heard the Indians were going to start hiring in the spring. They’d need purchasing agents down there, right? Big operation like that? They’d need to order things. Buy things. Or maybe he’d go down there and try something completely different—deal blackjack, maybe, or train to manage one of the restaurants that were going in down there. That’s what life was about, right? Taking chances? Shuffling the deck a little?

I told him my stepfather worked down at Electric Boat.

“Yeah,” he said. “Big Ray. We been shooting the shit last couple of days, him and me. He’s been here three or four times to see you.”

He had?

“He’s going to be glad to see you today, I tell you. You know, clear-headed—back to normal again. You been a little discombobulated. He’s been worried about you.”

“Has he?”

“Well, sure he has. He was telling me how he got over to that place where you were working just as they were loading you into the ambulance. He was supposed to pick you up over there, right? Hell of a thing to have to drive up to: your kid being loaded into an ambulance, screaming bloody murder, and you can’t do a damn thing about it. Sure he’s been worried. My two are grown up and out of the house now and I still worry. It never stops. You wait till yours comes along. When’s the little woman due? May, is it?”

What had Joy done—stood up on a chair and made a big announcement?

“You’ll see. When it’s your kid, you’re going to worry no matter what.” Climbing back into bed, he cut another fart. “Whoops,” he said. “Thar she blows again. Pardone.”

I reached for the phone. Dialed Ray. Figured I’d give him the big medical bulletin: that I’d come back to Planet Earth. But there was still no answer over there. I dialed my own house again. This time, she answered, groggy-voiced. “It’s me,” I said. “I’m back from the dead.”

There was a pause at the other end. “Dominick?”

“Yeah. You didn’t cash in my life insurance policy yet, did you?”

She sounded relieved, I’ll give her that. She kept repeating my name. She might have been crying—she’s not a big crier as a rule, but she might have been. We talked for half an hour or more. Caught up. She did most of the talking. By the time I hung up, she’d filled me in on her three-day vigil at the hospital, all the ways that Ray had driven her crazy, how her morning sickness had begun to set in in earnest. She’d finally gotten through to Dr. Spencer the night before, she said.

That was the surgeon’s name: Spencer, Dr. Spencer. . . .

He said they’d know more after the swelling went down—it was a waiting game until then, but he was cautiously optimistic. He was a little concerned about the amount of painkiller they’d had to give me. A necessary evil, he’d said, due to the severity of the break—breaks. But he didn’t want me to end up drug-dependent on top of everything else I was facing. It was going to be a tough enough row to hoe. Eight to ten days in the hospital, he figured—limited physical therapy beginning on Monday. I’d probably need PT for a good six months, minimum. They still weren’t sure about permanent damage; it could go either way. I might be facing more surgery—six to nine months down the line, maybe. “He said it was one of the most complicated breaks he’s ever worked on,” Joy said. “He might even write about it for some medical journal. He said he’d like you to sign a release so that—”

“What about Thomas?” I said. “Did you hear anything? How he made out?”

A sigh. A long pause. “Dominick,” she said. “Why don’t you worry about yourself for once instead of your brother? Maybe if you’d been taking care of yourself instead of running around like a chicken with your head cut off for the past—”

“I missed his hearing, Joy. I failed him.”

“Honest to God, Dominick. Listen to me. You have to stop trying to be his big savior and start taking care of Dominick instead. Why do you think this happened to you, anyway? Have you stopped to think about that? The way you’ve been rushing down there every two seconds, losing sleep, getting all hyped up over your brother? Worry about yourself, Dominick. Worry about me. About our baby.”

Our baby: how could she do it? Just lie through her teeth like that? Because she was basically dishonest, that was why. Because truthfulness had never quite gotten hardwired in Joy. And I was supposed to just live out this charade with her? Act the part of the chump and pretend I was this baby’s father? Become Ray, the substitute dad I’d hated all my life?

Joy said she’d be down to see me as soon as she got cleaned up and had something to eat. If she could even stand to eat. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down except strawberry Slim-Fast.

“That crap?” I said. “That’s all you’re eating?”

She told me not to get on her case about it—that it was better than nothing, wasn’t it? Did I need anything? Did I want her to do anything for me?

“Yeah,” I said. “Call Ray. Tell him I’m better.” Dead air. Five, six, seven seconds’ worth. “What?”

“I just . . . Why don’t you call him? I’m sure he’d rather hear it from you than from me.” I told her yeah, all right, I’d call. Told her not to rush. To try and eat some eggs or something before she left. “Eggs?” she said. Groaned. I told her that when she got there, she got there. It wasn’t like I was going anyplace.

“I love you, Dominick,” she said. “I don’t think I even realized how much I love you until the past few days.” She said she hadn’t meant to jump all over me about my brother. It had just been real hard, that was all. God, she felt so sick.

“Okay,” I managed to squeak out. “I’ll see you when you get here.” Got off the phone quick.

Jesus, I thought. Felice over there was going to think I was the biggest sob sister ever born. And why was I crying, anyway? Because she’d just said she loved me? Because I couldn’t say it back? I just wished I could have grabbed my keys and gotten the hell out of there. Bolted, like I always did. But I was grounded. I was good and stuck.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bleeding Ulcer’s efforts to pretend not to hear me. He got out of bed again. Walked over to the window. Whistled. . . . They were worried I’d get addicted to the painkiller? Not likely, if one of the little side effects was hallucinations like I’d had in the middle of the night. . . . Suffocated my own brother. Jesus. Doc Patel would have a field day with that one if I ever went back to that whole thing—that big waste of time. Dredging up your whole childhood as if you were dragging the bottom for a dead body. And then what? What was the point? . . .

Carry the corpse.

But he’s alive.

Kill him.

Was that what Thomas had been putting up with the past twenty-one years? Talking monkey voices? Had the morphine let me peek inside my brother’s brain? I couldn’t remember what the voice had sounded like—only the power it had over me. I hadn’t questioned it or anything—I’d just done what it said. . . . Maybe Miguel was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the morphine. Nothing I’d ever read said anything about an onset as late as forty, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe I was headed for the bed next to Thomas’s down there after all. Twin beds for twin schizophrenics. Monkey voices, in stereo. Except I’d never let it get that far. Never.

“Yeah, you should have heard us here yesterday, your dad and me,” Felice said. “Both of us bellyaching about the Boat.” He was standing at the door now—rocking on the balls of his feet, watching the world go by.

He’s not my father, I wanted to say. He’s my stepfather. But I kept my mouth shut for a change. Give it a rest, Dominick. You’ve been correcting people for years and the only one who ever gave a shit about the distinction was you.

“Hell of a thing they’re doing to the older guys like your dad, though, isn’t it? Screwing around with their retirement packages like that? I mean, I been there seventeen years. That’s bad enough. But your pop says he started in what—fifty-two? Fifty-three? Gives them almost forty years of his life and that’s the thanks he gets?” He walked back to his bed and sat. “Big business—what the hell do they care? Your rank and file are nothing more than chess pieces to those guys: it’s always been like that. You think Henry Ford gave a rat’s ass about the guy on the assembly line? You think, what’s his name down there in Atlanta?—Ted Turner?—you think he cares anything about the poor slob that sweeps the floors down there at CNN?” He swung his legs back onto the bed. Let go another fart. “Hey, is the TV going to bother you if I put it on for a while? Not that there’s much on on a Saturday morning, but I’m starting to get a little stir crazy in this joint. Sometimes you can catch a fishing show or bowling or something.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“You fish?”

I told him I used to—that I probably hadn’t dropped a line in since I’d started up my business.

“Yeah, well, when you work for yourself, you know? That’s the other side of the coin. . . . I like to fish, though. Got my girlfriend into it, too, now. When we started going together, she didn’t even know how to hold the pole. Now she loves it. About a month ago, she caught a trout as long as my forearm. I practically got a hernia helping her lift that Big Bertha out of the water. I got a picture of it on my desk at work—her and that fish.”

“I used to fish a lot when I was a kid,” I said. “My brother and me. Used to go down past the Falls and catch snapper blues.”

“Really? No kidding? Whereabouts past the Falls?”

I didn’t want to do this: get suckered into telling fishing stories with Gadabout Gaddis over there. “Down, uh . . . down by the Indian cemetery,” I said. “There were these three white birch trees right in a row. Just past—”

“You’re not going to believe this!” Felice said. “We used to go to that exact same spot. My old man and my uncle and me. I know exactly the place you’re talking about. What the hell. We probably ran into each other down there, you and me, and we don’t even remember it. Small world, huh?” He turned on the TV. “My name’s Steve, by the way. Steve Felice.”

“Uh-huh. You told me.”

“Did I? Jesus, my mind’s like a sieve in this place. Lack of stimulation, I guess it is. Makes me nuts just hanging around like this. My girlfriend says if I’m getting antsy, that’s a good sign. I’m not the sit-around type, you know? Wash the car, mow the lawn—I always gotta be doing something, whether it needs it or not. You know what I mean?”

He flipped through the channels—cartoons, the Frugal Gourmet, that smug, head-up-his-ass George Will. Felice finally settled on a nature show—mountain lions stalking an antelope. “She pounces,” the unseen British voice said. “She goes for the throat.”

“Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you,” Felice said. “My fiancée says she knows you.”

“Hmm?” I looked away from the mountain lions.

“My girlfriend. She was in here yesterday. She says she knows you from someplace. Didn’t recognize you at first and then it dawned on her.”

“Yeah?” The polite thing—the hospital buddy thing—would have been to ask her name, verify for him again that it was a small world. But I didn’t care about being polite. Didn’t give a crap who his girlfriend was. I closed my eyes to shut him up. . . . Maybe I could get ahold of Dr. Spencer on the weekend, I thought. And when was Sheffer going to get here? For someone who was coming right over, she was taking her sweet time.

“Yeah, it’s funny,” Felice said. “If you’d have told me a year ago I’d be thinking about getting married again, I’d have asked you if you’d been smokin’ wacky weed. My first wife and her lawyer took no prisoners. You know what I’m saying? And I’m not just talking about the stuff she finagled away from me, either—the house, the better of the two cars. I’m talking about the bitterness, too. The emotional stuff. At the time of the divorce, I said to myself, Uh-uh. Never again. Not me. I even went so far as to write it down on an index card and tape it to the medicine cabinet: never again. That’s exactly what I wrote down. And now, here I am, planning to get married again. In Utah, maybe. We traveled out there this past summer. You ever been out West?”

I closed my eyes.

“You know what me and her did a couple weekends ago? Went out and bought matching Western outfits together—hats, boots, jackets. It wasn’t cheap, either. They don’t exactly give that stuff away. But I don’t know. We just hit it off, her and me. Which is screwy, in a way, because in a lot of ways we’re like night and day. . . . But it’s like if I leave the Boat. End up down there dealing blackjack. Life goes on, right? You gotta take chances or else you better check your pulse. See if you’re still living.”

I didn’t answer him.

“You know where we met?”

I pretended I was dozing.

“At Partners. You know that little steakhouse out on Route 4? My sister and her husband call me up one night, out of the blue, ask me if I want to go out and grab a bite to eat and that’s where we ended up. We were going someplace else—to the Homestead—but they were closed because of some private party. So we stood at the door and said, ‘Okay, where else can we go?’ and I said, ‘Let’s try that place, Partners.’ Don’t ask me why I said it, but it was me who suggested it. I mean, I could have named half a dozen other places, right? But I said ‘Partners.’ So that’s where we ended up.

“And it was a Thursday night, see? They got line-dancing down there on Thursdays.” He stopped, cut a fart. Sighed with relief. “If you told me a year ago that I’d meet my future wife in a line-dance, I would have told you to go get your head examined. Life’s unpredictable, though—that’s the beauty of it. I’m trying not to sweat the variables so much. Gives you ulcers. I started believing in fate about the time I turned fifty—realized I wasn’t ever going to be master of the universe, you know? What do the kids call it? ‘Go with the flow.’ . . . But anyway, she says she knows you. My fiancée. ‘From a past life,’ she says. Kind of defies logic that we got together—we’re nothing alike. Well, we’re growing alike, I guess. My first wife, Maureen, she’d blow a gasket if she saw me in that Western outfit. But screw her, right? I’m just going with the flow.”

A growl came from the wall-mounted TV, the sound of stampeding hooves. “But the sleek antelope is not without resources of its own,” the announcer said. . . .

A long, curving chain of people stands holding hands in a meadow. At the front of the line, Ray holds on to my foot. I’m floating in the air, tethered only by my stepfather’s grip. If he lets go, if my foot falls off, I’ll rise into the sky like a helium balloon. . . .

I opened my eyes. A chubby black nurse was standing beside my bed, taking my pulse. “I’m Vonette,” she said. “I’m going to be your caregiver today. Okay?”

I stretched. Blinked my eyes back in focus. “Okay.”

“Did you see that you have company?”

Sheffer approached the bed, a smile blinking on and off. “Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She was holding a pot of yellow chrysanthemums and a small wrapped gift. “These are for you,” she said. “The little one’s from Dr. Patel; the flowers are from me.” She thunked the mums down on my nightstand.

We made small talk while the nurse finished checking my vitals. Away from Hatch, Sheffer looked even scrawnier. Looked a little goofy, really: bib overalls, knit hat squashed down to her eyelids. I noticed her lip right away: orangy powder covering up a purple bruise. When she caught me looking, she raised her hand to cover her mouth. Hand hiding a busted lip: same as Ma.

“I’ll be back to change your bag in about half an hour or so,” Vonette said. “We wouldn’t want you to float out of here before your lunch arrives.”

“Yeah, what is it?” I said. “Chicken à la wallpaper paste?”

She turned to Sheffer, shaking her head. “Must be on the mend,” she said. “You can always tell when they start crabbing about the food.”

I looked over at Steve Felice’s bed. Empty, the sheets rucked up. TV off. I told Sheffer I appreciated her coming down. Told her she should have skipped the flowers.

“I wish I got carnations instead,” she said. “Something that smells good. I was thinking in the elevator on the way up how chrysanthemums smell like dog urine.”

I sighed. “So?”

“So-oo . . .”

“It’s not good, is it?”

She shook her head. “It’s not what you wanted.” She said she should probably begin at the beginning.

When the Psychiatric Security Review Board convened at 4:00 P.M. on Halloween afternoon, Sheffer said, they were scheduled to determine the status of two prisoners. At Sheffer’s request, the board flip-flopped its agenda and put Thomas second, buying more time for me to get there. Sheffer said she’d tried two or three times to call me by then, but all she kept getting was my machine.

As Sheffer, my brother, and a security guard waited outside the meeting room, Thomas became more and more agitated about my failure to show. He told Sheffer he feared the worst: that I’d been kidnapped by the Syrians. Both Bush and Assad had a lot to gain if America and Iraq went to war, he said. Since he, Thomas, was an instrument of peace, he was vulnerable and so were his loved ones. Sheffer shook her head. “You know how he gets when he starts perseverating.”

I nodded. I was feeling a little queasy.

My brother had described to Sheffer the vision he saw: me, bound and gagged in some makeshift Syrian prison—my feet battered and broken by thugs with wooden bats. When she’d attempted to reason him out of it, he’d gotten testy, reminding her that identical twins communicated in ways she knew nothing about. He’d shouted for her to just shut up. “Then the guard warned him that that was enough of that kind of talk and Thomas started giving him an argument. ‘My brother’s hurt!’ he kept insisting. ‘I know he’s hurt!’” She shrugged. “Which, my god, you were.”

In an attempt to calm everyone down, Sheffer had reached to take Thomas by the hand. That’s when he’d freaked—hauled off and whacked her in the face. The guard had leapt forward and put him in a choke hold, knocking Sheffer to the floor in the process. He’d let go of Thomas only after Sheffer’s repeated pleas.

“He hit you?” I said. “That bruise on your mouth is from Thomas?”

“Well, so much for me trying to cover it up,” she said. “I’ve always sucked at makeup.”

“He hit you?”

She told me she’d tried as best she could to downplay the assault, both to the guard and to the medical secretary who came running from a nearby office. Dabbing at her lip—it was bleeding “a little”—she kept trying to get my brother refocused on the hearing. Sheffer was scared the Board might hear the commotion.

“I can’t believe . . . He’s never done anything like that before,” I said.

“Are you sure you want to hear all this, Dominick? I can skip the details and cut to the chase. I brought a copy of the transcript. You want me to just leave it here and—”

“No, go ahead,” I told her. “Jesus, it’s just . . . I can’t believe he hit you.”

She said it was her own stupid fault—that even someone without her training knew enough to keep their distance when a patient was in an agitated state. She’d had a moment of temporary insanity herself, she said. She was, admittedly, a wreck about things, going into the hearing.

By the time the conference room door had opened and the other patient’s entourage had exited, Sheffer’s lip had stopped bleeding, she said, but by then it had begun to swell. Thomas and the guard had both calmed down a little. Dr. Richard Hume, the psychiatrist who presided as the Review Board’s chair, refused Sheffer’s request for a postponement. Given the public’s perception and the media attention that had surrounded Thomas’s case, he said, the Board felt that action of some sort was preferable to stasis.

Sheffer reminded the Board that the patient’s welfare needed to come before the state’s concern about negative media attention. Given the publicity Thomas’s case had generated, she wondered aloud if it was even possible for them to listen objectively to an argument about his being freed. “It was so stupid of me, Dominick,” Sheffer moaned. “I’d meant to challenge them a little—play devil’s advocate—but it came out wrong. I mean, there I am, moving my mouth like a ventriloquist so they won’t notice my fat lip, my bloody teeth. I’m scared to death he’s going to start losing it in front of them. I didn’t know where the hell you were. I just . . . I was just so nervous. I committed the mortal sin of questioning their almighty judgment. It was exactly what I shouldn’t have done.”

Looks were exchanged among the Board members, Sheffer said. Dr. Hume told her that while they appreciated the “missionary zeal” with which she was advocating for her client, they needed no reminders of their obligations—to the patient or to the community. After that, Sheffer said, the proceedings were polite, efficient, and frosty.

Sheffer explained to the Board that the treatment team had failed to reach a consensus about Thomas’s placement and therefore was not making a specific recommendation. She read aloud the two letters we’d gotten that advocated Thomas’s transferral to a nonforensic facility. She assured the Board that the patient’s brother was committed to his well-being and recovery and that they should not misread my absence from the hearing as indifference or tacit approval of Thomas’s remaining there at Hatch. “They all just sat there, listening politely,” she said. “No questions. No concerns raised. It was all so streamlined and civil. Then it was time to question Thomas directly. Here.”

She handed me the transcript. “Hey, you know what?” she said. “We ran out of coffee at my house and I’ve got this major caffeine headache going on. I tell you what? Let me go downstairs, get a fix, and let you read through that thing. I’ll come back in ten or fifteen minutes, and if you have any questions . . .”

“Read it and weep, eh?” I said.

She nodded. Backed away. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

I skimmed through the first part—the Board’s refusal to postpone, the skirmish between Sheffer and Hume about what was good for the public versus what was good for the patient. Sheffer was right: it had been a tactical error on her part, antagonizing them like that. I slowed down when I got to my brother’s interview.

The Board wanted to know, in Thomas’s own words, why he’d cut off his hand.

He answered them from Scripture: “If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee.”

So, was he saying that he had mutilated himself to atone for his sins?

No, he answered; he’d done it to atone for America’s sins.

Which were?

“Warmongering, greed, the bloodletting of children.”

And did he think he might ever feel compelled, at some point in the future, to commit any other acts of self-harm?

He wouldn’t want to, he said, but he took his direction from the Lord God Almighty. He was God’s instrument. He’d do anything that was necessary.

Anything? Including harming someone who stood in his way?

“I didn’t mean to hit her,” Thomas said. “I lost my temper.”

What? Whom had he hit?

“Her. Lisa.”

Sheffer had volunteered for the Board a version of what had happened out in the waiting room. An accident, she told them—bad judgment on her part. Thomas was upset because his brother had been detained. His arm had just flailed out and hit her accidentally, that was all.

A Board member named Mrs. Birdsall wanted to know how Thomas was getting on with the day-to-day routines at Hatch?

He said he hated it there. You were watched like a hawk. You couldn’t smoke when you wanted to. He had found insects in his food, he said. He was awakened and violated repeatedly in the middle of the night. His mail was stolen.

Stolen?

Thomas said he knew for a fact that Jimmy Carter had sent him three registered letters and that each had been intercepted.

Why did Thomas feel the former president was trying to contact him?

He was attempting to invite him to join him as an envoy to the Middle East on a mission of peace, Thomas said.

And who did he think it was that was intercepting his mail?

Thomas took off on his George Bush refrain, lecturing the Board like they were the village idiots. Wasn’t it obvious? War was profitable; Bush’s hands were stained with the blood of the CIA. If they would all just go back and reread American history, they’d realize there was a fundamental crack in America’s foundation. He ricocheted from the Trail of Tears to the Japanese-American internment camps to the conditions that ghetto children lived in today. Drive-by shootings, crack houses: it all had to do with profit, the price of crude oil. It was so obvious to him, he said. Why couldn’t anyone else see it?

See what, specifically?

The conspiracy!

Thomas must have broken down at that point, because someone asked him if he needed a moment to compose himself.

Jesus had wanted us to re-create Jerusalem, he answered, and we had rebuilt Babylon instead. He went on and on. If it had been Jesse Jackson saying it instead of Thomas, he might have brought down the house. Great sermon, wrong congregation.

One of the Board members wanted to know if Thomas understood why he had been detained at Hatch.

Yes, he told them; he was a political prisoner. Throughout history, America had gone to war because war was profitable. Now, finally, we had arrived at the critical crossroads prophesied in the Bible—the Book of Apocalypse. As a nation, our only hope was to quit the path of greed and walk the path of spirituality instead. He, Thomas, had been tapped to lead this movement. It was God’s will. Did it come as any surprise to them that the state wanted to keep him locked up? Wanted to demoralize him? He told the Security Board that the CIA paid men to wake him up each night and foul him—make him impure. That they were purposely trying to break his spirit. But his spirit hadn’t been broken. They’d underestimated him, the same as they had underestimated the peasant-warriors in Vietnam. Thomas was on a divine mission. He was trying to do nothing less than subvert an unholy war that would call down on America and the Western world the most hideous of Biblical prophecies. George Bush was the false prophet, he warned them, and Iraq was the sleeping dragon about to wake and devour the world’s children. Capitalism would kill us all.

A Board member said he’d read in my brother’s report that Thomas had told the police he was inspired to his library sacrifice by voices. Was that accurate?

It was, Thomas said.

And did he always feel compelled to obey the voices he heard?

The voices of good, yes, Thomas said—he battled the voices of evil.

And he could distinguish between them?

The voice of Jesus, Thomas told them, was like no other voice.

Jesus spoke to him, then?

“Jesus speaks to everyone. I listen.”

But not all the voices Thomas heard were benign?

“Benign? Not by a long shot.”

And what did the bad voices tell him?

Thomas said he’d rather not repeat, in mixed company, what they said.

Well, then, suppose one of the voices of good—let’s say the voice of Jesus Christ himself—asked Thomas to hurt someone. Kill someone, say. One of His enemies. Would Thomas feel obliged to obey?

If Jesus asked him to?

Yes. If Jesus Himself asked.

Thomas told them the question was ridiculous. Jesus would never tell him to harm anyone. Jesus had died on the cross to show the world the light.

But just for example’s sake, suppose He did ask. Would Thomas obey? If it was the voice of Jesus that commanded it? If Jesus said, say, “Go back to the library and cut the throat of the woman behind the desk because she’s an agent of the devil. Because you need to destroy her to save the world. To save innocent children, say.” Would Thomas do it then—take his knife to the woman, if Jesus asked him to?

Jesus wouldn’t ask him to do that, Thomas repeated.

But if He did? Would he?

If He did?

Yes, if.

Yes.

Sheffer returned with her styro-coffee. I handed her the transcript. “Did you finish?” she asked.

I said I’d stopped at the part where they’d gotten him to say he’d slaughter a librarian for Jesus.

“Could you believe that? The way they led him? I was so pissed!”

“So what was the final verdict?” I asked. “As if I don’t already know.”

By a unanimous vote, Sheffer said, the Psychiatric Security Review Board had decided to retain my brother for a period of one year, citing that he had shown himself to be potentially dangerous to himself and others. His case would be reviewed again in October of 1991 and an appropriate decision would be made at that time as to his release or his placement for a second twelve-month period.

“Detain him at Hatch?” I asked.

She nodded. She had requested a follow-up review in six months, rather than twelve, she said. Dr. Hume had reminded her that if Thomas had not been ruled Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, he could have been convicted in the criminal court of a felony and would have faced a prison sentence of three years, minimally. If the Board members were erring at all in their decision, Hume told her, they were perhaps erring on the side of leniency.

“And I told him, ‘That’s a bunch of bull. If he went to prison, he’d be bounced out in three or four months with a suspended sentence and you know it. Six months, max.’ I’m telling you, paisano,” she said, “my Jewish sense of justice and my Sicilian temper were both doing a hard boil by then. It was hopeless. I knew that. But I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut. They’re going to nail me for it, too. My supervisor’s already called me to schedule ‘some dialogue’ on Monday about my ’emotional outburst.’”

I asked Sheffer how Thomas had taken the news.

“Like a stoic,” she said. “But you know who took it hard? The news about Thomas? Your stepfather.”

“He did? Ray?”

She’d called and called him after the hearing, she said—hadn’t reached him until the following morning because he’d been at the hospital with me. “He started crying when I told him how the Board had voted,” she said. “He had to hang up and call me back. I felt so bad for the guy.”

Neither of us said anything for several seconds. Poor Ray, I thought: forty years old and we were still his twin nuisances. But he’d cried? For Thomas?

“I’m just so sorry, Dominick,” Sheffer said. “I can’t stop thinking that maybe if I’d just not lost my cool at the beginning of the hearing . . .”

I reminded her that she’d warned me over and over that it was a long shot—that the decision had probably already been made before the Board even met that day.

“Yeah, but maybe if I had just—”

“And maybe if I hadn’t fallen off the goddamned roof. And maybe if he just hadn’t gotten schizophrenic in the first place. Don’t drive yourself nuts with the ifs.”

I lay there, arms across my chest, my head sunk into the pillow. I didn’t have the energy to feel angry or indignant or much of anything anymore. I was spent. Broken. I realized, suddenly, how much Sheffer’s visit had exhausted me.

“That morning I first met you,” she said. “Remember? That first day in my office? I said to myself, ‘Whew, this guy’s a walking attitude problem. This guy’s got chips on both of his shoulders.’ But, I don’t know, paisano. I somehow got sucked into your brother’s case—began to see how the things that were supposed to keep him safe might end up damaging him instead. It’s the first thing they tell you in the school of social work: don’t get personally involved. Don’t lose your objectivity. But, then, I don’t know . . . Well, for whatever it’s worth, I guess I just began to see why you were so pissed. And then my blood started to boil a little, too.”

But that was the weird part: I wasn’t pissed anymore. I wasn’t anything.

“Do me a favor, will you?” I said.

“Sure. What?”

“Go someplace nice with your daughter today. You and her: go have some fun.”

She smiled. Nodded. “Look,” she said, “you know we’ll take good care of him, right? Dr. Patel, Dr. Chase, me—the whole staff. And you have your security clearance now. You can visit him. He’ll stabilize, Dominick. I know he will.”

I smiled. Told her I’d see about getting her the Purple Heart for that bruise. She waved me off. Picked up the present from Dr. Patel and handed it to me. “Here,” she said. “Aren’t you going to open this?”

I unwrapped the package, lifted off the top of the box. Took the small soapstone statue out of its tissue paper nest—a four-inch version of the one in her office.

“I like her smile,” Sheffer said.

“It’s not a her,” I told her. “It’s a he. Shiva. The god of destruction.”

She looked at me funny. “Destruction?”

Dr. Patel had enclosed a card. “Dear Dominick, I give you Shiva the dancing god in hopes that you will soon be on your feet and dancing past your pain. Do you remember Shiva’s message? With destruction comes renovation. Be well.”

Sheffer was on her way out the door when Joy arrived. I introduced them. Saw Joy take in Sheffer’s bib overalls, her smooshed-down hat. It was a little odd—how instantly Sheffer’s cocky humor evaporated in Joy’s presence. She seemed almost to sink into those overalls of hers.

“Who’s the hippie chick?” Joy asked.

“Thomas’s social worker.”

I filled Joy in on the Board meeting, Thomas’s sentence down at Hatch. She looked as pretty as ever, Joy—but pale. Frail, even. Whipped. When I started telling her about Thomas’s interview, she bent and kissed my forehead, my nose, my lips. “I love you, Dominick,” she said. And my throat constricted. I could not say it back.

Between the stress she’d been feeling about me and the nausea from the baby, Joy said, she hadn’t been able to sleep or eat or do much of anything but hug the toilet all day. I’d made her so paranoid earlier about drinking Slim-Fast that she’d called the doctor’s office and talked to the nurse practitioner. He’d told her not to worry about it—that the baby took what it needed first. The fetus was her body’s first priority right now, he’d said, and her body knew it. She should just take it easy and try not to worry. The nausea would pass. Little babies were tougher than she thought.

I flashed on Angela, the way she’d looked that morning—fists clenched, blood-flecked foam at her mouth. . . .

“I still can’t quite believe it,” Joy said. “Me. A mother.”

We talked about what was in store for the next several months—the pregnancy, my injuries, my business. Lying there, speculating about worst-case scenarios, was driving me crazy, I said. And when I dozed off, I had these hallucinations.

“Like what?” she said.

“Never mind. You don’t even want to know.”

Joy told me she’d packed me a bag of toiletries, and then had rushed out of the house, forgetting everything. She’d visit again that evening, she said. Was there anything else I needed? I described the place in my desk where I kept my insurance policies for the business. My health insurance policy, too. It was all together. Could she bring that stuff? It was driving me nuts, just lying there, thinking my insurance might not cover this.

Sure, she said. She’d bring it. Anything else?

I shook my head. Started to cry again, goddamn it.

Everything was going to be okay, she said. Really. I should try not to focus on my leg or on my brother. Why couldn’t I just focus on the baby—the fact that I was going to be a father. She touched my hip cautiously, testing it like it was something hot from the oven.

Maybe none of it mattered anymore, I thought. Maybe I could just go with the exhaustion instead of fighting it. Give in to it. That was how people drowned, wasn’t it? They just stopped fighting. Just relaxed and gave themselves over to the water. . . . Maybe that’s what Thomas was doing down there at Hatch, too. He’d taken the news stoically, Sheffer said. It was funny, really: ironic. All our lives, he’d been the crybaby and I’d been the tough guy. The guy who didn’t let his guard down. Cross Dominick Birdsey and he might blow up at you, might come out swinging—but you were never going to see him cry like that pansy-ass brother of his. . . . But ever since I’d fallen off Rood’s roof—had come bubbling back up from hell or wherever it was that the morphine had taken me—all’s I could do was cry. Now I was the crybaby and Thomas was the stoic. Gets locked up in maximum-security hell for a year and takes it with a stiff upper lip. I had to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Joy said.

Instead of answering her, I rubbed at the tears. Blew my nose. What had Felice said? Believe in fate? Go with the flow? Maybe that was the big cosmic joke: you could spend your whole life banging your head against the wall and all it boiled down to was fortune-cookie philosophy. Go with the flow. Which, come to think of it, was what people did when they drowned. . . .

“It’s not going to be okay,” I told Joy.

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not. I’m never going to fix anything. And even if I could, I’m just too tired. I can’t do it anymore, Joy. All’s I want to do is wave the white flag. Take the damn water into my lungs.”

She looked confused. “It’s the drugs they’re giving you,” she said. “Narcotics are depressants, right? They’re bringing you way down.”

I saw Rood up there in his attic window. Shook my head. “I think . . . I think when I went off that roof, something else busted up besides my foot and my leg and my ankle. Something that all the surgery and physical therapy in the world aren’t going to fix. . . . I’m just tired, Joy. I don’t want to keep fighting anymore.”

It was the medication, she said again.

“It’s not the medication. It’s me.”

Lying around and feeling sorry for themselves never helped anybody, she told me. I should think about the baby.

I hadn’t planned on getting into it. I’d planned on shutting my mouth—maybe until after the kid was born, or after I couldn’t take it anymore. Or maybe for the rest of my life. I hadn’t been sure how it was going to play out. But I suddenly knew I was just too tired to keep up the game. Knew right then and there that I couldn’t do it.

“I know the baby’s not mine,” I said.

She looked more bewildered than surprised. “What do you mean, not yours? Of course it’s yours, Dominick. What are you talking about?”

“It can’t be. I’m sterile. I got a vasectomy back when I was married.”

She blinked. Sat there. “What?”

“I never told you about it. My wife . . . Dessa and I . . . we had a kid. A little girl. Her name was Angela. She died.”

“Dominick,” Joy said. “Stop it. Why are you doing this?”

“I should have told you. I know I should have told you, but . . .”

I asked her if she remembered that time when we’d discussed kids—way back, right near the beginning. We’d both said we weren’t interested. “So I just . . . I told myself that it wasn’t even an issue. Convinced myself that I didn’t have to get into it because you didn’t want babies anyway. That I could just let you keep taking your birth control pills and . . . But I see now that it was the same as lying. Keeping it from you. You’re not the only one who’s been dishonest. We’ve both been lying to each other. I’m not even mad, really. God, the way I’ve been treating you the past couple months. . . . I mean, I was mad. When I first found out about it? I was ready to come out punching.”

“It’s this medication they’re giving you,” she said. “It’s making you think strange.”

“You remember that night you got arrested for stealing? And you were saying how, now that everything was out in the open, that it was a good thing, not a bad thing? That things were going to be better than ever between us? And I told you not to get your hopes up. Remember, Joy? I told you I was damaged goods. You remember me telling you that? . . . That’s what I was talking about, I guess. The baby. What it did to my wife and me. I don’t know, Joy. It damages you. When you have a baby and you get to know her for three weeks and then she . . . just dies. I’m not trying to make excuses. I just . . . That’s what I meant when I said I was damaged goods. So I . . . I went and got a vasectomy. I can’t have kids, Joy. Whoever the father of your baby is, it’s not me.”

She just sat there, blinking. Looking at me strange.

“And . . . and I’m not even mad. I’m sad, Joy. I’m just real sad, because . . . because I was never really going to be able to give you a fair shake. You and me, I mean. I see that now. I used you. I’m damaged goods. But now I’m too tired to . . . I can’t fake it anymore, Joy. I can’t keep playing whatever game it is we’ve been playing. I can’t.”

She blinked. Laughed. “Stop it, okay? You’re wrecking everything. This is your baby. Mine and yours. You’re going to get better, and we’re going to have this baby, and buy a house and . . . Who else’s would it be, Dominick? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

We both just sat there, looking at each other.

“Honest!” she said. “Honest to God!”

That nurse came back into the room. Vonette. “Let’s see about that bag now,” she said. She took a look. Took my hand and felt for the pulse. Joy backed away from the bed. She looked shell-shocked. Scared. I hadn’t meant to scare her about Angela. I was sorry about that. But I couldn’t keep it up. I was too tired. I just wanted to sleep.

“Where’s your buddy?” Vonette asked me. “He didn’t go AWOL, did he?”

What? Leo? She nodded toward Steve Felice’s empty bed.

“Oh. . . . I don’t know. He’s probably out in the solarium.”

“Your BP seems a little high, hon,” Vonette said. “I’m going to come back and check it for you in another half hour or so. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She turned to Joy. “All right now, hon. If you don’t mind, I have to check his catheter and change his bag. I’m going to draw the curtain for a couple minutes and then you can get right back to your visit. All right?”

“All right,” Joy said. She smiled. Backed up another few steps. Vonette drew the curtain between us.

I had imagined some big showdown when I lowered the boom—lifted the lid off the fact that she’d been cheating on me. But it hadn’t been like that at all. I felt so sleepy.

“There now,” said Vonette. “You’re all set.”

When she pulled the curtain back again, Joy was gone.

Ray visited later that afternoon. That evening, too. Neither of us mentioned Joy. We didn’t say much at all, really—just sat and watched TV together. I dozed more than anything else. Leo and Angie came on Sunday afternoon, with a homemade poster from the kids. When Angie asked where Joy was, I shrugged. Said something about a cold.

Leo came back later by himself, carrying this three-ton fruit basket—something like a picture out of a magazine. The card said, “Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Fondly, Gene and Thula Constantine.” Fondly? Since when? Leo pulled off the cellophane for me. Ate one piece of fruit after another, practicing his hook shot with the wastebasket and the cores and peels and rinds. “Okay, where is she?” he finally said.

“Who?”

“Joy. Is she really sick?”

I shrugged. Yawned. Grabbed the chain bar and shifted my position a little. I told Leo I appreciated his visiting, but did he mind leaving now? I was tired. I wanted to sleep.

I was dozing in and out of 60 Minutes when something woke me up. A shadow. I opened my eyes.

He was just standing there, watching me. The Duchess.

“What do you want?” I said.

He handed me my Walkman from the house. And a cassette. I didn’t get it.

“This is from Joy,” he said. “She wants you to listen to it.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t she come up and give it to me, then? Where’s she at?”

“In the car,” he said. “She explained everything on the tape. Just listen to it.”

He turned and left.

“That was a short visit,” Felice said.

“What?”

“Your friend there. He didn’t stay long.”

“My friend?”

Hi, Dominick. I’m, uh . . . I’ve been trying all day to write you a letter, but nothing’s coming out right. I never was a big one for putting things down on paper, so Thad said, “Why don’t you just make him a tape? Tell him what you need to say on a tape.” And I thought, yeah, maybe that’s a good idea, because I guess I have a lot of explaining to do. . . . I don’t know, Dominick. I guess if I wasn’t so ashamed of myself, I would have told you everything in person.

I . . . I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I saw you yesterday afternoon. I was up all last night thinking about you and me, and where I’ve been in my life, and where I’m going. I have to admit that you blew me away when you told me the baby couldn’t be yours. I wanted it to be your baby, Dominick. Our baby. I just wanted it to work out for us. When you used to say to me how you couldn’t give me a “happily ever after” life, I used to go to myself, yes he can. He just doesn’t know it yet. But I guess I was just fooling myself. As usual.

Ever since I was little, Dominick, I’ve had this Carol Brady picture of myself as this nice, pretty mom with a nice house and a husband who loves me, and we have real cute kids. Things in my life got unbelievably complicated, but that was really all I ever wanted. . . . I know I told you some of the stuff about my childhood, but there’s way more I never went into. It was hard. All my mom’s husbands and boyfriends . . . I’d just start getting used to things and then we’d move again. And my mom would always say, “Well, this is it. I finally found what I’ve been looking for,” and then the next thing you knew, we’d be moving again. Sometimes we moved so quick, I couldn’t even hand in my schoolbooks. Last night I counted all the different schools I went to by the time I graduated from high school. I came up with nine. I never counted them before last night. Nine schools by the time I was seventeen.

The worst times were when she was between guys. Sometimes we didn’t even have any food in the house and I’d be like, “Mom, you have to get a job so we can eat something,” and she’d always go, “Don’t worry. Something will turn up. I’ll meet someone.” We had this trick where we used to rip off grocery stores when there was nothing in the house. . . . We’d go in and get a cart and fill it up like we were doing a big shopping and then we’d just eat stuff out of the cart—bananas, crackers, American cheese. Then we’d pretend we forgot something in Aisle 2 or whatever and just walk out of the store and my mom would go, “Don’t look back! Just keep walking!” Sometimes I’d still be hungry and she’d be rushing me out of there.

When she was between guys, she used to have to get all dressed up and go out at night. She wasn’t a hooker or anything. Don’t get me wrong. She just used to have to go out to bars and clubs and let men know she existed. . . . I used to think she looked so beautiful when she went out. I’d always help her get ready, help her fix her hair and zip her up in the back. It was like playing dress-up with your dolls or something, except it was your own mother. I didn’t think it was weird or anything, but that time after I got arrested? And I was going to Dr. Grork? He said it was abnormal. Unhealthy. I guess I just didn’t think that much about it at the time. Analyze it or whatever. It was just our life. . . .

I used to hate staying by myself all night when she went out. I don’t really blame her. She couldn’t help it. How was she supposed to pay some baby-sitter when we couldn’t even pay for the food we were eating at the grocery store? . . . But I was always a nervous wreck when she was out like that. Thinking some killer or burglar was going to get me. I used to get so nervous that I’d pull out the hairs on my eyebrows. I did it in school all the time, too. It got to be a bad habit. I had this one witch of a fourth-grade teacher who was always yelling at me for making the skin around my eyebrows bleed. It was like this woman’s personal mission in life was to get me to keep my hands away from my face. There’s this school picture of me that year that I still have. I never showed it to you. It’s kind of pathetic. We were living in Tustin then. (It was just before my mom met her husband Mike.) And, in the picture, you can see these red scabs where my eyebrows are supposed to be. Whenever I look at that picture, I get that same feeling in my stomach like I used to get when I’d be by myself all night, or half the night, or whatever. It’s like I’m that same little girl again and nothing else in my life has ever happened. It’s weird. . . . I’m not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for me, Dominick. I’m just trying to explain why I wanted so much for us to have a house, and a baby, and maybe even get married at some point. But you have to admit that I never tried to push you into it. . . .

The pregnancy just happened, Dominick. I keep thinking that you think I got pregnant just to trap you into marrying me. I’m real upset about that because that’s not at all what happened. Honest to God.

I really think having this baby is gonna change me for the better, Dominick. Make me a better person. I hope it does. . . . Ever since you told me yesterday about your baby daughter that died, I can’t stop thinking about her. I am so, so sorry, Dominick. That must be so heavy duty. And it explains a lot about you that I could never figure out. Why you seem so mad at the world or whatever. I just wish you had told me about her. I might have been able to help you through it.

I keep thinking about your ex-wife, too. I had a good cry over her last night—right in the middle of everything else I was thinking about. Probably because I’m gonna be a mother, too, now. . . . I never told you this, but I saw her one time. Your ex-wife. I don’t even remember her name, but I knew it was her. She was at the mall with Angie. Angie and her are sisters, right? That’s how I figured it out. They didn’t see me, so I just . . . I followed them. I sat down in back of them at the food court and listened to their conversation. They were talking about their mother—what they should get her for her birthday—and I just sat there going, this is Dominick’s ex-wife. This is the woman he was with before he was with me. . . . She seemed nice. I remember sitting there wishing that she, Angie, and I were three girlfriends out shopping together. That probably sounds kind of strange, but I never really had many girlfriends. Other women don’t like me very much, I don’t even really know why. Last month, Patti at work had a baby shower for Greta (the nutritionist) and I think every single woman at Hardbodies got invited except me. If I was going to stay there, which I’m not, I bet no one there would ever give me a shower. I’d be lucky if I got a card that someone bought and passed around and everyone signed. I guess when you change schools nine times before you’re even out of high school, you don’t get to develop many friendships. I’m twenty-five years old, Dominick, and I can’t even say that I ever had one real girlfriend. Isn’t that pitiful?

Anyways, your ex-wife seemed so nice. And funny. She was complaining about her mother—not mean or anything. She kind of reminded me a little of Rhoda from Mary Tyler Moore. Not looks, just the way she was talking. . . . I know you never stopped loving her, Dominick. You never said anything, but I could always tell. It was like you always held something back from me. I know I never really measured up, and I know you never thought I was smart enough for you—intelligent enough or whatever. You never said anything, but I knew. . . . But anyway, I cried for her last night because I was thinking about how she lost her little girl. It makes me kinda scared to think about everything that might go wrong. But it also explains a lot. I just wish you had told me before. I might have helped you if you let me in a little. At least I could have tried.

I guess I’ve finally gotten to the hardest part of what I have to say, Dominick, and I hope it’s not too hard for you to have to listen to this on a tape. . . . It’s not easy what I have to tell you. I just want you to remember one thing. My feelings for you have always been real. I may have been dishonest about a lot of things—shoplifting, etcetera—but I’m being totally honest about my feelings. I know it hasn’t been good for us for a while now, but I thought at the beginning that we had something pretty special. In some ways, you made me happier than any of the other guys I’ve been in relationships with. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wish the baby was yours. Because I really, really care about you. The feelings are still there, Dominick. Honest to God.

Thad is the baby’s father. It’s pretty complicated, but I guess I owe you an explanation, if you’re even still listening. . . .

Dominick, I was never honest with you about Thad and me. To begin with, he’s bisexual, not gay. I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now. He told Aaron about the baby yesterday, and Aaron kicked him out of their place. Another thing you never knew was that Thad and I didn’t meet each other at work, like I told you we did. We’ve known each other for a long, long time. Do you remember me telling you about my mom’s half-brother that came to live with us out in California? And how him and me were fooling around when everyone else was at work? Well, that was Thad. I was only twelve when it all started, and Thad was nineteen. He’s always looked younger than his age. I was just some stupid kid; I didn’t know what I was doing. Well, I sorta did and sorta didn’t. But, like they say, he kind of got in my bloodstream or something. Maybe because I was so young. . . . I just never could get over him. He was in the Navy back then—I think I told you—and then he got transferred to Portsmouth. That’s where he began “experimenting” with guys. Started going to these bars and stuff. He used to call me up and tell me about it—all these descriptions of what him and some guy had done together. He’d call right after I got home from school, before Mom and Phil got home from work. He’d say, “Do you want me to tell you what we did next?” And I’d go, “Yeah, tell me.” Then I’d get off the phone and have dry heaves because I was so upset. It got so I couldn’t eat or anything. I missed him so much. I used to beg him on the phone to send me stuff—his fingernails and things—and that was all I ever wanted to eat. It was so sick. But that’s how it’s always been with me and Thad. It’s like a sickness.

Yours and mine isn’t the first relationship this has ruined. When Denny, my second husband, found out about Thad, he went crazy. Ronnie, my first husband, never even found out. Which was good, because Ronnie could get real mean. It’s just that . . . Well, do you remember after I got arrested up at the Hills? And I was seeing Dr. Grork? He kept telling me I needed to get Thad out of my life and tell you about him. Come clean. Dr. Grork said it was a big risk, but that I really had to take it if I ever expected to really get some of the things I’ve always wanted. . . . But I couldn’t do it. I tried to, Dominick, but I couldn’t. I guess I was afraid it was gonna wreck my chance to be Carol Brady. Which is a big joke, I see now. I know he’s not good for me, but I can’t let go. Sometimes I hate him. You’re a hundred percent better person than he’ll ever be, Dominick. He’s very manipulative, very controlling. That’s what Dr. Grork kept telling me, and he was right. . . . It’s not you, Dominick. It’s me. Thad and me are like a disease.

I’m not proud of what I have to tell you next, Dominick, but I guess I need to tell you. I don’t expect you to understand, or to forgive me, because I don’t deserve it. I just hope you don’t hate me too much. Maybe someday you can forgive me. Because I really, really broke your trust. . . .

I let him watch us, Dominick. When we made love. It happened twice. I said no for a long time, Dominick, but finally I gave in. . . . He used to beg me. He really got off on it. Thad’s had a crush on you all along. The first time was just . . . I don’t know. I just finally said all right. It felt weird. . . . And the second time, he set it all up, told me what he wanted me to do, which way to turn and everything. He was like a movie director or something. . . . He never taped us or anything—I didn’t mean it like that. Both . . . both times it was on a Friday. He’d get there before you came home—Fridays were one of the times when you and I would get intimate. Our pattern or whatever. So . . . he hid in my closet with the door open a little. He told me that the thought of you catching him was part of the excitement. Part of the thrill.

I didn’t want to do it, Dominick. It made me feel awful. I was a nervous wreck with him hiding in there. But he begged me. Got mad when he wanted to do it that second time. He said he was going to leave me. Move away and not tell me where he was going. And so I said I’d do it, but that was it. Just that one more time and no more. . . . I know it was a huge betrayal. I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, Dominick, but at least now you can say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish. I’m glad I got rid of her. She was sick.” Which I know I am.

Tomorrow, I’m giving my notice down at Hardbodies. Thad’s already quit. I know you’re going to be in the hospital for at least another week and I’ll be out of the condo by then. Out of your hair—me and this baby. Don’t worry. I’m not going to rip you off or run out with your stereo or anything. I already have enough to feel guilty about. I told Thad he can’t even come over to the condo. He’s staying at a motel until we leave.

We’re . . . we’re probably going to drive cross-country. Or else I may drive out there by myself. I’m going to stay with my mom and Herb in Anaheim at that motel they’re managing. Mom said I can stay there for free until after the baby’s born and then we’ll see. It depends on what Herb wants. . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen with Thad and me. I really don’t. He’s still talking about starting up a catering business and having me be his bartender. I don’t know. Maybe after I’m a mom, I’ll have the guts to tell him to leave me alone once and for all. . . . I know he won’t make a very good father like you would have. If it’s a boy, I know you would have taken him to Little League, and Cub Scouts, and all those things. I can’t see Thad ever doing anything like that. He’s too selfish for one thing. I really wish so much this baby was yours. . . . I’m not looking forward to living with my mother again, but she can probably help take care of the baby after it’s born. Especially if I go back to work, which I guess I’m gonna have to do. No kid of mine is going to have to go into Safeway and eat groceries in the aisles that we can’t even pay for.

I’m not sure, but I might put in an application at Disneyland. To be a cast member. Maybe that woman is still there who told me I’d make a perfect Cinderella. I still remember her name. Mrs. Means. Maybe by some miracle, she still works there. Still remembers me. Maybe I’ll end up waving at little kids in the Festival of Lights parade and they’ll go, “Look! It’s Cinderella!” Thad thinks I should do it. It might be a stepping stone, he says, and he could be my manager.

Dominick, I know you’re going to get better, and that you’ll find someone who’ll make you happy, because it’s what you deserve. I’m sure you hate me right now, which is totally understandable. I hate myself. But no matter what you think of me, I’ll always be glad we were together for those almost two years. I was watching this program once? About Paul Newman? And someone on that show said how Paul Newman was a “real quality person,” and that’s what you are, Dominick. A real quality person. Just remember that we had some good times, too. Especially in the beginning. I’m so sorry I betrayed you. And that I had to lay all this on you while you’re so sick. But when you told me the baby couldn’t be yours, I didn’t know what else to do. . . . I’m probably the last person you’re gonna want to talk to once you listen to this, but if you want to get ahold of me, I’ll be at the condo for a few more days and then, by the end of next week, I’ll be driving out to my mother’s, which the number is in that Rolodex thing of yours.

If . . . if you’re worrying about AIDS or HIV because of Thad—his lifestyle or whatever—don’t worry. He’s very careful about things. Aaron’s a fanatic about not taking any chances. So that’s one less thing you have to worry about.

Dominick? I’m sorry I always acted so jealous about your brother. If I ever had a brother or sister, I’d want them to be as loyal as you are. In my personal opinion, you’re fighting a losing battle, but that’s your business, not mine. Don’t forget to take care of yourself instead of everyone else.

I love you, babe. Just don’t . . . please don’t hate me. Okay?

I didn’t hate her. I didn’t even hate him. I just lay there, looking at my ugly purple foot, which should have hurt but didn’t. I didn’t feel a thing.

“You know what kills me about this show?” Felice said from across the way. “Wherever she goes, someone’s always getting knocked off.”

I reached up and pulled off the Walkman’s earphones. I’d listened to that tape twice, hoping it would make some kind of sense, but it didn’t. I wasn’t outraged, though. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t anything. “I’m sorry. What’d you say?”

Felice pointed up at the wall-mounted TV. “Jessica Fletcher there. Murder, She Wrote. She goes shopping; there’s a stiff. She goes to visit some friend of hers; there’s another one. She goes off on vacation. Boom! When’s the last time you went out someplace and ran into a corpse? She’s like the Grim Reaper or something.”

I’d wait until I got home, I decided. I’d have to. And I wouldn’t leave any mess—something someone would have to clean up afterward. Leo, or Ray, or some poor slob on the rescue squad. . . . Because I wasn’t angry like that bastard, Rood. I was just tired—just wanted to stop fighting and give in. Go with it. . . . I could hobble out to the garage, stuff rags in the cracks on the sides of the door.

Gentlemen, start your engines. That’s when I remembered about the truck. I couldn’t carbon monoxide myself out of existence. I’d totaled the truck.

Pills, then. They’d send me home with painkillers, right? I could take them all at once with a bottle of . . . what did I have in the house, anyway? I still had that Christmas bottle—that Scotch one of the wholesalers had given me? Booze and pills. That would do it. Rid the world of Dominick Birdsey, the loser’s loser. The bad twin.

“She’s like a corpse magnet,” Felice said. “I tell you one thing. If you ever see Angela Lansbury coming toward you, start running the other way quick.”

Was the fact that the Duchess had hidden in her closet and watched us make love any more weird than the fact that my brother had hacked off his hand in the name of peace? Any more strange than the fact that the Wequonnocs were about to ascend—rise from the ashes? Any more fucked up than the fact that America was getting ready to fight another war with gung-ho kids too young to remember anything about Vietnam except Rambo? . . .

That was the big joke, wasn’t it? The answer to the riddle: there was no one up there in Heaven, making sure the accounts came out right. I’d solved it, hadn’t I? Cracked the code? It was all just a joke. The god inside my brother’s head was just his disease. My mother had knelt every night and prayed to her own steepled hands. Your baby died because of . . . because of no particular reason at all. Your wife left you because you sucked all the oxygen out of the room, so you pretended she was the one in bed with you while you screwed your girlfriend and her boyfriend hid in the closet, watching. . . . Hell, why couldn’t she go out there and become Cinderella? . . . Let go of my ankle, Ray. I’m ready to float away. Ready to cut my brother down from that tree and carry him to the Falls and throw him over the side. Jump in headfirst, after him. Because it didn’t matter. It was all just a joke. Riddle me this, Batman. What’s the point? And the answer was: there was none. Pain pills and Scotch—that was how I’d do it, because there was just no point at all. . . .

“Hey, here she is,” Felice said.

Who? Angela Lansbury? Had she come for the corpse already? But when I looked over at him for clarification, he was staring at the doorway. Beaming.

She was wearing a turquoise suede jacket with fringe, a tan cowboy hat, tan boots. I didn’t recognize her for a second or two and then, Jesus Christ, I did.

“Get over here, Annie Oakley,” Felice said. “Give your old hound dog a kiss.”

Instead, she approached the foot of my bed. “Long time no see,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Been years, hasn’t it? How’s my grandfather doing?”

She lifted up a bulky plastic bag—the head of John the Baptist, except it was rectangular. “He’s all yours,” she said.

“Is he? And now I suppose you’re going to tell me I owe you—”

“No charge beyond what you’ve paid me already,” she said. “And by the way, you have my condolences.”

She held Domenico’s bulky manuscript in front of her, at arm’s length, and let go. It thudded onto my bed, just missing my injured foot.