“No, Bob. Aw, shit … listen … I’m …” he stammers, and then his voice breaks, and he’s weeping. “I … I’m really gone now, Bob. This is no shit, this is how it comes out. Lemme give it to you straight, okay?” He stops weeping and gathers himself together. “Sarah and Jessie … she left me, just took the kid and left. She went back up north to her parents in Connecticut. It’s all gone now, Bob. All of it. The boat, that’s a fucking laugh! Gone. The store, the new store over in Lakeland? Forget it. All I got is what I got in my pockets, Bob. And the house. But I only got that for a few more days is all. Then it’s gone too. And then
Bob hears the man, he understands what he’s saying and feels a great wave of pity and fear for him, but he also feels a counterwave of anger that keeps on sweeping in from the opposite side, neutralizing his pity and fear, making him cold, quiet, withdrawn, as if he were idly watching a TV soap opera. “How much money you talking about?”
“A lot. A fucking lot.”
“How much?”
“I thought you said you was broke.”
“I did, I am. Dead stone broke. How much?”
“Hundred and thirty thousand.”
“A hundred and thirty thousand bucks you need! And you think maybe I can help you out!”
“I hoped, that’s all. I just figured you and Ave were into some big bucks now, with the boat and all. I hear things. I figured you’d be able to put a hand on some large cash, that’s all. You know?”
Bob is laughing, a high-pitched, rolling, derisive laugh that goes on and on, like a train whistle.
Then Eddie clicks off, and all Bob hears now is the dial tone and his own subsiding laughter.
Elaine watches him from the sofa bed, her upper body propped on one elbow. She’s been watching him throughout. When Bob sees her, he stops laughing altogether and realizes that he’s naked, standing at the kitchen counter with the telephone receiver in his hand.
“What’s happened?” she asks calmly.
Bob scratches his head and puts the receiver back on the hook. “I guess … well, I guess the bottom’s dropped out. For Eddie.”
“He thinks you can help him?”
“He thinks I’m smuggling dope.”
“Ave is. Why not you?”
“You want me to? That what you’re telling me now?”
“No. I mean, why shouldn’t Eddie think you’re doing it too? He’s right to think Ave’s doing it. That’s all,” she says in a thin, watery voice, as if deeply tired and a little bored, and she lays her head on the pillow, rolls over and leaves her back to him. “Shut off the light soon,” she says, “I have to get up early in the morning. You obviously don’t.”
“Yeah. Sure.” He reaches over and flicks off the light. But he doesn’t come to bed. He stands at the counter as before, thinking about his brother Eddie. His anger has left him now, like a storm blown out to sea. The horizon is dark and turbulent, but here, directly overhead, it’s clear skies and sweet breezes.
“He’s alone now,” Bob says in a quiet voice, almost a whisper. “Sarah and Jessica left him. And he’s got the epilepsy again.” He reaches over in the dark and grabs Elaine’s foot and shakes it. “It’s really bad for him, Elaine. He’s scared.”
“Talk about this tomorrow. I’m exhausted. Now let me sleep. This has not been an easy night for me, you know.”
He lets go of her foot and walks over to the chair next to the TV and sits down, the plastic netting cold against his naked buttocks and back. Eddie the man deserves everything he gets, Bob thinks, but Eddie the boy, the boy that’s still in him, doesn’t deserve to be alone, to lose everything he ever wanted and worked for, to be deserted by his only brother. It’s hard for Bob, though, to see the boy in his older brother; he has to struggle to see him. He knows he’s there, but Bob has to will himself to remember Eddie as a boy and to look back and down on him from where he stands now, a grown man looking down on a nervous, wildly energetic, towheaded boy, and ruffling the kid’s hair, give him an easy pat on the shoulder and say, “Go on, kid, try it anyhow. If you screw it up, you can always try again, until you finally get it. Don’t worry, kid, you got all the time in the world.”
Elaine doesn’t understand that. All she can see is Eddie the man, and the man she sees is childish, selfish, cruel, manipulative and shallow, a man who mistreats his wife and daughter and doesn’t deserve their love, a man who manipulated and deceived his younger brother and therefore doesn’t deserve his loyalty and support now, a man who made big money fast and easy and shouldn’t complain when he loses it just as fast and just as easy.
Bob gets up from the chair, and his back sticks to it as he rises.
