Bone White

by Ronald Malfi

  “Get some help in here, nurse,” the doctor repeated. “STAT.”

  “What’s going on?” demanded Michael Gallo. He went to the scale where little Paul was splayed out on a striped maternity blanket, motionless, one eye open and gazing at nothing. And just as Michael stared at his son, Paul shuddered, then began crying again.

  The nurse nearest Michael Gallo whispered, “Thank God.”

  Across the room, Melinda Gallo grunted, cried out, pushed again.

  “No,” the doctor told her.

  On the monitor, Danny’s heartbeat slowed.

  On the scale, Paul’s tiny body went limp again.

  In the end, they performed an emergency caesarean and got Danny out, unharmed. He wailed as his bottom was spanked while, across the room, his older brother joined in the chorus. The doctor, who was a man in his sixties sporting a fiery red beard, later commented on the peculiarity of it all with somewhat of a quizzical smile planted on his lips, but he said nothing more to the new parents about it. No one did.

  They were identical twins, and indeed they looked very much alike when they were children—so much so that Melinda Gallo took great joy in exploiting this circumstance, often dressing them in matching outfits so that their neighbors, their classmates, and even their relatives couldn’t tell them apart. During this period, the boys took to wearing the same haircuts, combed from left to right with identical parts, happy to add to the confusion. There was a secret magic that existed between them back then, before that brotherly bond weakened under the weight of burgeoning adulthood. Can you see those boys? Can you see them? Summers spent racing, barefoot and shirtless, along the muddy riverbanks of the Magothy. Cool summer evenings camped out in the backyard, gazing up at a firmament jeweled with stars, their toes gliding over the damp grass while they whispered and giggled and were happy. It was the magic of youth and of brotherhood, and those were the strongest powers in the known universe. For a while, anyway.

  By the time their ages reached double digits, Paul and Danny Gallo’s resemblance began to fade. It was apparent that they were brothers, but they were no longer able to trick people into believing they were each other. In fact, they no longer wanted to, intent instead on carving out their own individual identities. Paul kept his hair short while Danny let his grow in long, unruly waves down past his shirt collar. Throughout Paul’s entire high school career, he remained clean-shaven and fresh-faced while Danny often sported a wiry black chinstrap or goatee, with sideburns as bushy as foxtails. They were both of average height and build, but Paul walked around at a quick clip and with some apparent purpose—the boys’ mother would sometimes call him a hummingbird—whereas Danny had, over time, adopted a casual saunter that aggravated their father and suggested a degree of insolence Danny was more than happy to live up to.

  These newfound differences were not just limited to their physical characteristics, either. Throughout school, Paul remained a studious, well-read child. He got good grades and he got them with ease. He was decent at sports, too, although no one would ever mistake him for a natural athlete. Danny, on the other hand, struggled in class and was always in danger of failing one subject or another. He had no interest in books. Unlike Paul, however, Danny was a natural-born athlete, although he held no interest in organized sports and rarely participated in neighborhood kickball or baseball games. Once, at the insistence of their father (who perhaps felt Danny’s best chance of getting into a decent college might be through receipt of an athletic scholarship), Danny went out for the high school wrestling team. He wrestled in only two matches—and he won them both—before he was kicked off the team for smoking cigarettes in the boys’ locker room. Their father hit the roof, but Danny shrugged it off, indifferent. “Hated those fucking unitards,” Danny later told Paul, which was the extent of their conversation into the matter.

  The summer after their sophomore year of high school, their father fought with Danny about getting a summer job. By that point, Danny’s idea of summer vacation involved smoking dope and listening to Van Halen, but he knew that their father wouldn’t relent, so he wrangled a job as a cashier at the local Caldor in town. He left the house every morning at eight and returned around five in the evening, and their father kept off his case. But sometime around the beginning of August, while Paul was on lunch break from his own summer job at a nearby hardware store, he saw Danny in the parking lot of Taco Bell. Danny was splayed out on the hood of a friend’s car in jean shorts and a T-shirt, mirrored sunglasses on, a kiss-my-ass grin etched across his face as he sucked on a Marlboro. When Paul called his name, Danny sat up, as did his degenerate friends who were hanging around with him, lounging in the grass or perched like buzzards on the curb. But when Danny saw it was Paul, that kiss-my-ass grin broke into an all-out smile. He and his friends were going to the beach for the day, he told Paul, and did Paul want to come? Paul said he had to get back to work, and that he thought Danny did, too. That smile only widened, and Danny didn’t have to explain it any further. He’d never had a job and had lied to their old man—and to Paul—for the entire summer.

  Except maybe Paul had known. Some subconscious part of him, anyway. Because Paul rarely went to that little shopping plaza during his lunch break, opting to save his money and brown-bag it instead. And he never ate Taco Bell. Yet he had arrived there that afternoon in time to catch Danny moments before he departed with his friends for their beach trip. Had it been chance . . . or something more? It was strange, but it seemed that as they grew older, and in spite of their brotherly bond having diminished, some secondary connection had developed between them—a connection that was perhaps more tenuous yet just as powerful as their bloodline.

  At sixteen, Paul got his driver’s license the first time he took the test. Their father was proud, and when the weekend came around, he handed Paul the keys to the family Plymouth without any provocation on Paul’s part. Since Paul didn’t want to turn his nose up at their father’s generosity, he took the keys, revved up that old Plymouth’s engine . . . then puttered at five miles an hour down their street while his parents, waving from the foot of the driveway, watched him go.

  He could have been driving a tractor, for all the speed he put behind it. What he couldn’t bring himself to admit to his father as his old man had held those shiny brass keys out toward him was that, at sixteen and with a freshly minted license tucked away in his wallet, Paul was terrified at the thought of traveling too far from home. That afternoon, he wound up driving three blocks over to the neighborhood park, where he pulled into a parking space and listened to the radio for forty-five minutes before returning home. It took a good month or so before he was comfortable enough to get out on the highway.

  In typical Danny Gallo fashion, Paul’s younger brother failed his driver’s test enough times that the DMV made him wait several months before he could take it again. However, that didn’t stop him from stealing the Plymouth and driving it into Baltimore one weekend with a carload of his friends. Later that evening, Danny had sauntered back into the house and into the whirlwind of fury that was their father’s wrath, unaffected and disinterested and maybe even a little high. Throughout the entirety of their father’s ranting and raving, Danny’s expression remained deadpan.

  Days later, when their father had had time to cool down, the old man suggested that if Danny needed a ride somewhere, he should just ask Paul to drive him. This conversation was held at the dinner table, and at the moment of their father’s suggestion, Danny’s eyes shifted in Paul’s direction. Paul glanced up and met his brother’s stare. Danny did not look angry; in fact, it looked like he was struggling not to burst out into delirious fits of laughter.

  “I’m sure Paul will take you wherever you want to go,” their father said. “Isn’t that right, Paul?”

  “Uh, sure,” Paul said.

  Under his breath, Danny said, “I guess we could sit in some parking lot, listening to the radio together, huh?”

  “What’d you say?” their father said, c
onfused by Danny’s barely audible comment, and no doubt wondering whether some punishment was required. “What was that, buddy?”

  Danny just rolled his shoulders and said, “Nothing. Never mind. I was just goofing.” Yet his eyes clung to Paul’s, that smile—or was it a smirk?—still threatening to break out across his face.

  As for their father’s hope that Danny might secure even a partial athletic scholarship to college, that never happened. Danny attended three semesters of community college before dropping out. Annoyed by their father’s constant badgering, Danny moved into an apartment with some friends—and in doing so, inadvertently embarked on the first step of a journey that would lead him through a lifetime of inconsequence and mediocrity, moving from one shitty apartment to the next, from one lousy relationship to another, and from one crappy, underpaid job to yet another. It was a never-ending cycle that Danny not only seemed powerless to break, but also seemed ignorant of the fact that he was actually stuck in it.

  “You’re going to have to look out for him after we’re gone, Paul,” their father used to tell him. He said this with enough regularity that Paul grew immune to it, never fully comprehending the sheer magnitude of what he was saying. “Your brother’s a screwup who walks around with his head up his can. You’re going to have to look out for him after we’re gone.”

  When their parents died in a small plane crash some years later, they left Paul and Danny the house and whatever meager savings they’d managed to salt away in the bank account over the years. Paul sold the house, and after the bank took their cut, he split what remained with his brother—who hadn’t even bothered to attend the funeral—in accordance with their parents’ wishes. It came to just over a hundred thousand dollars each. Paul took his share and invested it. Danny quit whatever menial job he’d been bumbling through at the time and used his share of the money to travel. He basked in the sunshine on Catalina Island off the coast of California, spent a few weeks in the Virgin Islands, and wasted a month in the Pacific Northwest, where, according to a series of postcards he’d sent Paul, he spent his time gazing at the night sky for UFOs or searching for Bigfoot.

  The brothers were mostly estranged by this point, having maintained minimal contact over the years, and Paul assumed the sending of those postcards was Danny’s way of maintaining contact without actually having to talk to him. Paul was fine with it. It seemed that every time they spoke, Danny would ask him for money. When Danny got hemmed up with the police and was facing some trumped-up possession charges, he called and asked if Paul could lend him the money for a proper attorney instead of going with a public defender. Paul would ask him what he’d done with his share of the inheritance, to which Danny provided no suitable answer. “It’s just a loan,” Danny insisted. “It won’t ruin you.” But it was never just a loan with Danny, and Paul told him so. He refused to lend his brother the money.

  Things went downhill from there.

  Danny spent eleven months in a state prison. In all that time, Paul received just one piece of correspondence from his brother. It was written in Danny’s unique, elongated handwriting and printed on the title page torn from a John D. MacDonald paperback. The note said, somewhat enigmatically:

  Up is down, down is up.

  Bigfoot is searching for me now.

  Paul considered writing back to him, but in the end, he didn’t.

  Then, one evening, Paul arrived home from work to find a strange man seated on the steps leading to his front door. Even when the man stood and Paul got a good look at him, he wasn’t sure it was Danny until he spoke.

  “I know this is an inconvenience,” he said, “but I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  Danny stayed with him for three months until he could get back on his feet. During that time, Danny called in a favor of some old acquaintance of his and was offered a job as a roofer. He took it. He would leave the house in the morning and spend the whole day building and repairing roofs. And although he returned home in the evenings visibly exhausted and lathered in roofing tar, there was a part of Paul Gallo that couldn’t help but recall that afternoon, so many years ago, when he’d caught Danny lounging on the hood of his friend’s car in the parking lot of Taco Bell, smoking a cigarette and planning a beach trip while the rest of their family thought he was ringing up customers at Caldor.

  He was surprised to find that he had mixed emotions when Danny found an apartment in Baltimore and moved out. They had bonded again in the brief time Danny had lived with him, and that was good. But also, Paul was hearing his father’s voice on a regular basis now, whispering that old mantra into his ear—You’re going to have to look out for him after we’re gone, Paul—so he made it a point to meet with Danny every other week for dinner in the city. Most times, they paid for their own meals, but on a few occasions Danny insisted on paying, and so Paul let him. This little dining ritual lasted for about six months, until one night, halfway through a platter of kitfo and flat bread, Danny set his beer down and said, “I’m going away for a while.”

  Paul’s first thought was that Danny had done something stupid and gotten jammed up with the police again. “Jesus Christ, Danny. Jail?”

  Danny laughed. “No, man. That’s not what I mean. I quit the roofing gig and I’m rolling up my carpet. I’m tired of this city. I’m tired of Maryland. You’ve been living in the same thirty-mile radius your whole life, Paul, and I don’t know how you do it. It’s making me crazy.”

  “You quit your job?”

  Danny dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “I quit last month. I was gonna tell you sooner. I was spent, man. You feel me?”

  “It’s a job. Everybody’s spent.”

  “Yeah, well, this ain’t for me. I can’t keep doing this, you know what I mean? I feel like I’m running around in circles and never getting anywhere.” Danny leaned forward so that his shadow fell across the table. He had dark beard stubble covering his chin and the stirrings of a mustache. “Last night I had a dream, Paul. Same dream I’ve been having for months now. It’s me, and I’m standing out in this open field, and everywhere I look, every direction, is freedom. Like, I can run anywhere I want and be free. But when I try—when I go to lift my foot—I can’t. My foot is stuck to the ground. And the ground, it’s sucking me down, eating me up like quicksand. And I’m sweating and screaming and I try to pull my feet out, but I can’t. I just can’t. And then I look down, and I see why—it isn’t quicksand at all, but a hand, a rotting hand, coming straight out of the ground, its fingers around my ankle. And even though I don’t see the thing’s face, I know it’s me down there, buried under the ground. It’s me down there, and I’m pulling myself down into my own grave.”

  “It’s just a dream,” Paul assured him.

  “Well, yes and no,” Danny said, leaning back again in his chair. “I mean, yeah, it’s a dream, but it’s also symbolic of the way I feel. You’re an English professor, so I know you can dig the symbolism, Paul. It’s my subconscious telling me to get out before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  Danny shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said.

  “So where are you gonna go?”

  “I’m going to Alaska,” he said.

  “Alaska?” Paul set his own beer down. “What’s in Alaska?”

  “Nothing, Paul. That’s the point. Don’t you get it? Or . . . I don’t know . . . maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m in Alaska. Hopefully.” Danny chuckled and leaned even farther back in his chair so that the front legs lifted off the floor; it was all Paul could do not to reach over and snatch his brother’s arm before he toppled over. Danny ran his hands through his hair, and it reminded Paul of Danny as a child, this simple gesture summoning memories of the summer nights spent gazing up at the stars in their backyard. “I’m going to find myself, Paul. I know that must sound like a bunch of feel-good bullshit to you, but I’m serious. I’m thirty-five years old and I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with my life.”

  “You’re
not going to find yourself if you just pick up and leave every time you’re faced with responsibility.”

  “Christ, you sound like Dad.”

  “And you sound like you’re running from something, not trying to find it.”

  Danny shrugged again, and picked up his beer. “Maybe sometimes they’re one and the same, big brother.” He took a swig of his beer.

  “How long will you be gone?” Paul asked.

  “Not sure. A few months, at least. Maybe as long as a year . . .”

  “A year?” he said.

  “No one just picks up and goes to Alaska for a three-day weekend, Paul. Besides, I really want to invest myself in this, and get down into it, you know? Do some real soul-searching.”

  Danny was right—it did sound like feel-good bullshit. But he wouldn’t tell Danny that. “And this isn’t something I can talk you out of?” he said instead.

  “I’ve already bought the plane ticket. I leave on Tuesday.”

  Paul sighed. Danny was grinning at him and Paul wanted to join him, but there was a subtle ache that had come alive in the pit of his stomach. “It’s not like Catalina Island, you know,” he said.

  “Come on, Paul. Can’t you just have my back for once?”

  You’re going to have to look out for him after we’re gone, his father whispered into his ear.

  “All right,” he said. “I support you. I hope it’s great. I hope you meet an Eskimo, buy a nice igloo, and settle down.”

  “Oh, boy . . .”

  “Seriously. I hope you find what you’re looking for out there.”

  Danny’s grin was much more handsome than his own, Paul thought.

  “Thanks, bro,” Danny said.

  “Just promise me you’ll keep in touch,” he said. After all this time, they were finally in a good place with each other, and Paul guessed he wasn’t ready to give that up. Besides, the ghost-voice of his father was already making him feel guilty.

  Danny held up three fingers, though unlike Paul, he’d never been a Boy Scout. “I promise,” he said. “I’ll send you postcards every week.”