One afternoon around that time, sunk in the misery of my boyhood routines, I walked into the parlor and did not see Mother, and I panicked. She’d been there ten minutes ago, and now I feared she’d gotten up and fallen and was lying injured behind the sofa, or at the foot of the stairs, or collapsed beside the piano. I was frantic, I looked for her in those places, and then I hurried to the kitchen, calling out, “Ma!”
And I heard a faint voice from the parlor, not a word but a whinny, as though from someone trapped under slumped gravel and suffocating. When I reentered I saw a small flapping hand, Mother’s, signaling from beneath some bulky cushions. She’d fallen asleep, and in her pallor and fragility and smallness, she was indistinguishable from the fringed cushions and the draped shawls, her chalky face matching the chalky crockery just behind the sofa. Back from the dead.
“Are you all right?”
She gasped a little. “I was resting my eyes.”
I helped her upright; she was a splinter of a person, almost weightless, fragrant with cologne and talcum powder, smacking her lips, catching her breath to finish a sentence.
“Frank said he gave you a nice scarf.”
“When did you see him?”
“He called. He’s ever so busy. And Frolic’s parents are in a bad way. Her mom has spinal stenosis, and her dad’s laid up with diabetic shock. They might have to amputate his leg.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Did you say he’ll be lame?”
Invisible in all that clutter, she was so comforted by the cushions and shawls and bric-a-brac she’d been buried in, she had snoozed, like a chick in a nest, curled into a ball.
I continued my boyhood routines, mostly chores, emptying the trash, mopping the kitchen floor, shoveling the snow from the front walk and sprinkling rock salt on the icy stairs, then retreating to my room to avoid Mother’s mentions of Frank, and lying in my bed, wondering, What about the rest of my life?
I’d somehow become Mother’s caregiver, and I was glad to help her and to feel useful. She’d been a doting and unselfish woman who’d rejoiced in mothering, and she was glad to have me back, to mother me again. But everything she said about her happy marriage was a reproach to me, my long absences from Vita and Gabe, my waywardness with Tutwa; and I had paid a high price for trying to hide my profits. I was grateful for a place to stay, but it also seemed that Mother’s welfare had become my responsibility. Frank was busy, Vita was more involved with Rescue/Relief, Gabe was studying for the bar, and I’d reverted to Errand Boy.
I put Mother’s fatigue down to her intake of medicine, the great number of pills and capsules she swallowed every day, their side effects, the ways in which one pill reacted with another, the cocktail of drugs that left her drugged and listless.
When I mentioned this to her one day, she said, “Read the leaflet. What does it say?”
“May cause drowsiness, or itching, or nausea. Do not operate heavy machinery.”
I laughed, then noticed she’d dropped off to sleep.
I made a weekly trip to the square to pick up Mother’s prescriptions from Littleford Apothecary, a place hardly changed from when I was a boy and still with a soda fountain. The pharmacist was a bald jovial old man—eightysomething—named Wallace Floyd, who always inquired after Mother—“How’s the Queen?” And he remembered that, as a soda jerk, he used to see me sitting alone in a booth with a chocolate frappé.
That was another thing—returning to the town, I was not an adult anymore: I was the boy I’d always been, mower of lawns, runner of errands, drinker of frappés, one of the Bad Angels.
“This here is something new,” Floyd said, handing me the bag with the bottle of pills. “Metoprolol. Make sure the Queen doesn’t exceed the dosage.”
“Thanks, Wally.” I read aloud the dosage recommended on the label of the bag. “One capsule, morning and evening, with food.”
“There’s a good boy.”
Back on the street, heading into the square, I saw Chicky Malatesta approaching. He was one of the many locals who vouched for Frank, along with Dante Zangara, the Alberti brothers, Caca Casini, and all the rest of them. I expected him to ignore me, or turn aside, but he put out his hand and said, “Cal! How’s it hanging?”
That sort of greeting, vulgar teasing, was a form of affection in Littleford. Any sign of politeness from him I would have taken to be hostile.
“The usual,” I said. “I’m getting hind tit.”
He laughed, then he said, “You want to go for coffee?”
This surprised me, his spontaneous friendliness. I’d anticipated a rebuff by my being a supposed snob in the town, and here he was inviting me to sit down with him for a cup of coffee. I was touched, glad for some relief from the isolation at Mother’s.
“But not to the diner,” I said, where we might meet Frank. “Let’s go to Verna’s.”
That was the donut shop across the street from the Apothecary.
Inside, we sat at a table in the back—his idea—and ordered coffee and each of us a donut. Chicky lifted his donut but before he took a bite he looked aside and still held the donut, wagging it a little. A black man and white woman were choosing donuts from the glass display case, pointing and laughing a little.
In a low voice, Chicky said, “Breaks your heart.”
“We used to call those jimmies,” I said to change the subject, indicating the colored sprinkles adhering to the chocolate frosting of my donut.
“We still call them jimmies,” Chicky said and eyed me. “What have you got against the diner?”
“I’ve been spending too much time there,” I said, and hesitated. “With my brother.”
Chicky made a face. “Funny you should mention him.”
He stirred his coffee, rotating his spoon, as though to convey that he was absorbed in serious reflection. He was Frank’s age, three years older than me, a plump version of the swarthy, skinny student he’d been in high school; fat faced, gray hair, the toughened fingers of a workman, but still recognizably that spirited boy, hardly changed in demeanor, because he’d never left Littleford.
“Aren’t you and Frank big buddies?”
Chicky shook his head, tapped his spoon against his cup, and looked grim. “What a pisser.”
I sipped my coffee. I was wise to the culture of Littleford, and the social strategies of locals; I immediately guessed he was conning me—disparaging Frank as a way to talk about him, perhaps running him down. Then Chicky would go to Frank and ingratiate himself by ratting on me. Cal called you a pisser.
I said, “Isn’t he your lawyer?”
“Used to be.”
To motivate him to fill the dead air I said nothing.
“Until he shafted me,” Chicky finally said.
“I was under the impression that Frank had a great reputation for winning for his clients.”
“Thinks his shit’s ice cream.”
“Not a good match?”
“Like his face and my ass,” Chicky said. “He wins, the client loses.”
“I did not know that,” I said, hoping for details, while being noncommittal.
Chicky stared past me, past the display case, past Verna, into Littleford’s main street, looking rueful.
“You know I was maintenance at the hospital for twenty-five years—seniority, the whole nine yards. So when I got injured on the job I figured I’d get a good payout, maybe take early retirement.”
“What kind of injury?”
“Spinal. Chipped vertebrae. Plus wicked emotional distress.”
And then he spread his hands over the table, our coffee, our half-eaten donuts, the scattered flecks of jimmies, bracing himself.
“I goes into the basement, I walks into the boiler room, checks the temperature, and on my way out I trips at the foot of the stairs and I falls on a hazardous waste disposal bag, which some shit-for-brains tossed there, and what’s inside? An improperly discarded syringe. So not only do I injure my back but I’m stabbed in my hand by a friggin’ needle. I can barely walk, my hand gets infected, and it’s wicked serious. I’m put on disability and when Frank sees me limping into the diner he gets happy, and why? Because Frank loves cripples.”
“I guess Frank took your case.”
“He sued the hospital for liability—the syringe. Plus he made up some bullshit about how I tripped on a stair tread that wasn’t up to code, and how it was affecting my sex life.”
“I think that’s called loss of consortium—neglecting your wife,” I said, and then—eager to get him to stop—I said, “How did it end?”
“Long story short, he settled out of court—damages.”
“Big money?”
“Not for me. For one thing, I didn’t want to settle. I wanted my day in court. But Frank said, ‘What if we lose in court? You’d end up with squat.’ So I accepted the deal. And that wasn’t even the worst part. He shows me an agreement I signed when I was hurting and in a hurry. It gives him fifty percent of the payout, plus his legal fees, which come out to almost a grand an hour. By that time I’d quit my job at the hospital, meaning I’ve got no income. And the money Frank got for me isn’t enough to support me and my wife. I’m basically screwed. All Frank’s fault.”
Knowing what Frank would have said—probably did say—I said, “But you knew what you were getting into.”
“Wicked small print,” he said. “I told him, ‘I wish this had worked out better for me.’ He says, ‘Wish in one hand and piss in the other, and see which one fills up faster.’”
I knew that line of Frank’s. But still believing that Chicky might be trying to get me to pile on Frank, then report it to him, I took another bite of my donut and stared. Finally I said, “Frank’s a funny guy.”
“He’s a scumbag.” Chicky drummed his thick fingers on the table. “Candy ass. Beats his meat.” Still drumming. “Banana man. Stronzo.”
I slapped crumbs from my hands with an up-and-down chafing of my palms that also signals finality, saying nothing.
Chicky said, “Your father—who I really liked when he was a scoutmaster for Troop 25—he used to call me ‘a fart in a mitten.’ But the real fart in a mitten is Frank.”
“You said it, not me.”
“Take a gander,” Chicky said. He rolled up his sleeve, showing me a great gouged portion of his forearm that was scarred and badly healed. “Flesh-eating bacteria. From the syringe. I could have died. Plus my back injury.” Tugging his sleeve down, buttoning his cuff, he said, “Bastard.”
His vehemence only increased my suspicions that he wanted me to say something quotable against Frank, though Chicky’s injuries seemed real enough, and there was pain in his voice in his telling his tale.
“I’m unemployed, too,” I said. “I moved back home—ditched my job—hoping to save my marriage. But my wife had already made up her mind to leave me. I lost everything.”
“Frank must have been her lawyer.”
“I guess you’d have to ask him that,” I said. “I lost my house and all my savings. She won’t speak to me. My son treats me like a stranger. I’m living with my mother—can you imagine that?”
“Yes,” Chicky said. “Roberta and I are living with her folks, because of Frank.”
“I hate this cold weather. I don’t know anyone in Littleford anymore.”
He looked pityingly at me. “Why don’t you leave?”
“I can’t. I want to see my son. I need to look after my mother. And I have no resources—I’m in debt because of my divorce. I’m trapped.”
“Cal—it’s your asshole brother, Frank. Why don’t you admit it?”
“Because it’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated. It’s obvious. He always puts himself in charge. He’s the master—everyone else is a slave.”
“Have you complained to him?”
“Sure. He said, ‘Go look in the mirror and ask yourself that same question, and see what answer you get.’ It never ends.”
Chicky lapsed into a resentful silence, and I began to look at him differently. He was no longer the wise guy from high school, or the maintenance man at the hospital. He was another of Frank’s victims. His indignation made him seem intelligent and wounded; he’d been wronged, but he was helpless to do anything about it.
His saying It never ends struck a chord. Frank was one of those lawyers for whom nothing is final. There was always another letter to write, another appeal to file, another lawsuit, another angle, another folder to fill, more briefs to discuss, in the quest for billable hours. Nothing was black or white, he existed in a cloudy wilderness of maybe and we’ll see, because the law was amorphous, its plasticity always open to interpretation, in the slow plod toward resolution. But resolution was not justice, only paper-chewing and pettifogging, the wheels of the lawyers grinding you down until, for your sanity, you surrendered and settled, realizing that you couldn’t win, only the lawyer won.
“I’d like to kill him,” Chicky said, showing his teeth, raising both hands, flexing his fingers in a strangling gesture.
That startled me, the force of his saying it, as though he was prepared to whip the butter knife from the table here at Verna’s and march down the street to Frank’s and stab him in the eye. And what was particularly upsetting to me was that Chicky was giving voice to a dark impulse that had lain hidden in my heart, words I had never dared to utter.
“Two in the hat,” Chicky said, raising an imaginary pistol to his head. “I think about it all the time. But know what? It would make me feel great—for about five minutes.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said.
Chicky was resting his elbows on the table, leaning across with sour yeasty donut breath and a whiff of chocolate. “Want to know what he says about you?”
“Not really.” But I did want to know, because now I was convinced that Chicky was genuinely a victim of Frank’s manipulation, that he hadn’t really wanted me to bad-mouth Frank to rat on me. Still, I resisted. I had nothing to gain by disparaging him, and I had a lot to lose, because Frank was unforgiving.
“That he’s the reason you’re a success in mining,” Chicky said, persisting. “All his advice, all his contacts.”
I smiled at the absurdity of this, because the opposite was true—Frank was nothing but a belittler and a begrudger.
“That you blew it,” Chicky said.
“How did I do that?”
“Stayed away from Littleford.”
“Lots of people stay away for long periods—soldiers, fishermen. Geologists, especially.”
“That you didn’t do your homework.”
That was a Littleford idiom for neglecting the sexual side of a marriage, and it took an enormous effort of will for me not to respond to this.
“He called you his evil twin.”
“That’s enough, Chicky.”
“That he has a better relationship with your son than you do.”
I said, “That may be so—and now I have to go. I don’t really need to know this.”
But I did, it explained so much, it justified the anger I felt, especially Chicky’s admission, I’d like to kill him, that had so disturbed me. Two in the hat. I wanted to linger with Chicky and hear the worst, and bare my heart. I burned to conspire with him, but my instinctive mistrust of him and Littleford made me clutch the bag from the drugstore and rise from the table.
“Sorry, Chicky—this is all fascinating—but I have an errand to run.” I swung the bag. “My mother’s medicine.”
“What is it?”
“Pills,” I said and took out the yellow plastic container and read the label. “Metoprolol.”
“My mother used to take that,” he said. “Your mother has heart trouble?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Then why is she taking beta-blockers?”
I was stumped—this dim, disgruntled man in a donut shop diagnosing Mother’s ills and telling me something I didn’t know.
“You better hurry on home,” he said. “Your mom’s going to need that shit, wicked bad.”