Brewster: A Novel

by Mark Slouka

  IT WAS LIKE SOMETHING closing—you could hear it, a quiet click, the tongue in the latch.

  “Come in, come in,” he said. “It’s cold out there.”

  “What’re you doin’?” Ray said quietly.

  “Hi, I’m Ray’s dad,” Mr. Cappicciano said, extending his hand to Frank.

  Frank took it. “Frank Krapinski. Pleased to meet you, sir.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, too, Frank.” He’d let Gene down on the ground. “Here, why don’t you put your stuff down,” he said. “You boys want somethin’ to drink?”

  I glanced at Ray, who has a smile on his face like he’d been shot in the stomach.

  “Something to drink, son?” Mr. Cappicciano said.

  Ray shook his head.

  “Coffee? How ’bout you, Jon?”

  “It’s not gonna work,” Ray said quietly.

  “Now don’t be like that,” Mr. Cappicciano said. He smiled. “We’re family. This is a whatcha-call-it—a new leaf. Bygones be bygones.”

  “It’s just not,” Ray said.

  “Start from scratch, water under the bridge. Whaddya say?” He pulled Gene over to him by the hand. “Say, ‘Whaddya say, Ray?’ ”

  Gene laughed, the inside of his mouth blue from some kind of candy.

  “Go ahead, say, ‘Whaddya say, Ray?’ ”

  “Whaddya say, Ray?” Gene yelled.

  Mr. Cappicciano tousled his hair. “Way to go.” He looked at Ray, who hadn’t moved since he’d put down the suitcase, and smiled.

  “Whaddya say, Ray?” he said.

  I DIDN’T SEE much of Ray after that. I left his things out because it made me feel better to see them, but after a couple of days I rolled up the sleeping bag and put the milk crate back in the closet. When my mother asked, I told her Gene was back at home. He seemed fine, I said. I folded up the t-shirt Ray had over the milk crate, put it back in the drawer.

  I spent a lot of time talking to Karen, to Frank. There was nothing to do.

  He’d probably be missing some school, he told Karen—there was no way around it. He’d figure this out. He would. Just needed a little time, that’s all.

  She’d caught up to him in the parking lot. He’d told her everything.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We can call somebody,” she said. “We can talk to my parents.”

  “About what? He hasn’t done anything.”

  She stared at him like he was losing his mind. “Jesus, Ray. Baby, how can you say that? He’s …”

  “Lately. What has he done lately? What’re you gonna tell ’em, that he used to beat me up?”

  “Maybe—sure. Why not?”

  “And what do you think’s gonna happen? Ask Jon. The cops came, the cops went.”

  “So what’re you saying?”

  Ray shook his head, pulled his collar up. He was still strong, still himself. “Look, there’s a way out of this. I just need a little time to figure it out is all.”

  “When will I see you?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. The wind picked up, lifting the snow off the roofs of the cars. He pulled her close and she could feel the warmth of his body through his coat and he held her tight, then said it again into her hair.

  I WENT OVER a few times to see if he could come out, grab a game of pool. It wasn’t a good time. He had to watch Gene. His old man would be back soon. I’m sorry, man, he’d say.

  OK, I’d say.

  Behind him I’d see Gene sitting on the couch, his legs sticking straight out into the air.

  “So how’s the runnin’?”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “I’d give you a beer but since my old man’s been suspended—”

  “I heard.”

  “Really?”

  “Karen told me.”

  He nodded. “It’s just I never know when he’ll be back.”

  “Everything OK?” I said. “You know.”

  “Listen, you been back to Jimmy’s?” he said quietly, like the porch could hear.

  Over his shoulder I could see Gene sitting on the couch holding a plate over his head, laughing. A puppy was standing on the couch, its front legs on his chest.

  “Not lately,” I said.

  “Go.”

  “I—”

  “Because I can’t right now. Tell Karen—she’ll drive if you need to get somethin’.”

  “OK,” I said.

  “I got this thing worked out, man, but I need that fuckin’ car.”

  The hot dog rolled off Gene’s plate behind the couch and he screamed. There was a rush of puppies. I laughed—I couldn’t help it.

  “He made me drop it,” Gene was yelling.

  “Forget about it,” Ray called. “Just let ’em have it an’ get yourself another. And use the fork—the water’s hot.” He shrugged. “Fuckin’ Nanny Ray, man. Place is a mess. Lucky he’s too little to know the difference.”

  He looked at me. “OK? About what I said?”

  “I will,” I said.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON I walked down the tracks to Jimmy’s. The East Branch was running strong, pushing under the ice shelves growing out from the bank. Some were snowed over, others gray and thin so you could see the bubbles underneath swelling up and shrinking like something under a microscope. Here and there the water gushed up through quarter-sized holes.

  The night before, the snow had woken me up—it was like I could feel it in my sleep—and I’d sat up and pulled the curtain over and watched it coming down, trembling in the light from the street. Something moving against the snowy lawn next door had caught my eye. It was Mr. Perillo, clearing his drive like a sleepwalker, pushing the shovel ahead of him, then walking back. It was snowing hard. The shovel would make a black stripe like a finger across a foggy window, then start to pale. It was three thirty-five. I’d been dreaming—people I’d known forever, who knew me. I’d never seen them before.

  I looked upstream—the weighed-down bushes, slumped over the water, the panes of ice, the current pumping through. There’d been no wind—every twig carried its rickety ridge of snow. I’d always liked going this way. How many times had we walked it? It seemed like hundreds.

  I FOUND HIM working on a brown Karmann Ghia, sleek as a frog. He had the radio turned low—some guy laughing.

  “Don’t get to see one of these every day,” he said, wiping his hands. “So let’s see the hardware. The medal—let’s see the medal.”

  I didn’t have it, I said.

  “Thought you’d have it around your neck like Superman or somethin’.”

  “Superman’s got a medal around his neck?”

  He took a key off the peg board, looked at the tag, then put it back and took another.

  “Haven’t seen your friend in a while.” He pulled his glasses out of his pocket, flipped them open, wiggled them into place.

  “He’s got a lot goin’ on.”

  He glanced out the window over his glasses. “Nice out there.” He went back to looking through the keys. “How’s he been?”

  “Busy—you know.”

  He tossed me a key. “Go ahead, turn it over.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Might have to do some shoveling.”

  I was holding the key. “Wait a minute,” I said.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  HE’D HAD SOME spare time, he said. No big deal. Anyway, he needed the space on the lot.

  I sat there in that snow cave feeling the engine thrumming under my feet, then rolled down the window, punching away the flat wall as the glass came down. Snow blew in on my lap. “Jesus, Jimmy,” I said.

  He took off his glasses, flipped them shut like a pocketknife, then stuck them in his shirt pocket. “So tell him she’s ready,” he said. He nodded. “He did some good work on this car. You, too.”

  I started to say something and he waved it away, then
blew into his hands and looked away.

  “Send me a postcard from somewhere,” he said.

  “OK,” I said.

  “Anywhere,” he said.

  I CALLED RAY that afternoon from the phone booth in front of the hardware store. It was done, I said. I said, “It’s done, finished.”

  There was a moment of silence. “It’s done?” he said.

  “Done.”

  “Oh, man,” he said. I could hear the dogs yapping in the background. “Oh, man,” he said again.

  “Yeah.”

  “OK,” he said. “OK.”

  I was looking at the steamed-over windows at Bob’s, the little hill of snow on top of the traffic light. A pickup truck with firewood drove slowly down the salted wheel tracks and turned left at the station. My dad’s store was a block down.

  “Jimmy says you can pick it up anytime,” I said. There was an inch of muddy slush on the metal floor of the booth.

  “OK,” he said. “That’s it.”

  “I think so.”

  “He’s back, I gotta go,” he said.

  THAT WAS SUNDAY. He came to school the next day and we talked about the car. Nobody else could know, he said. Especially now. Not even Frank.

  Karen told me she and Ray had started packing. He’d brought a duffel bag out to Jimmy’s, left it in the trunk. He’d duct-taped the key to the exhaust pipe—he didn’t want it in the house. That way they could leave anytime, he said, whether the garage was open or not.

  Things had been quiet lately, she said. Ray’s dad had even said Suze could take Gene for an overnight and bring him back Wednesday evening. They might just get through this, Ray’d told her.

  He wanted her to finish school. She said there were bigger things. They’d talked about it a long time but in the end he’d promised that if he had to run, he’d come for her.

  What about her parents? I said.

  They’d have to understand. Still, it might not come to that. Maybe Gene being back in Brewster might even be a good thing. Whatever else Ray’s dad had done, maybe he had his limits. Maybe something had changed.

  TUESDAY MORNING I could see the sky clearing out, the cold coming in sharp and thin like somebody had drawn a line with a razor. I was up for my run at five—double sweats, hat, gloves, the whole deal. Walking out into the dark, I could see the clouds being pushed east to the horizon, behind them empty night and stars like glass. An easy three miles.

  We’d begun peaking, easing back on our training. States were two days away. I did my loop, part way around Bog Brook Reservoir, then up the long hill, listening to my flats crunching on the frozen snow, then headed back, showered, caught the bus. Ray wasn’t in school but Karen had talked to him. He was taking advantage of Gene being in Yonkers and his Dad out of the house for the day and taking another trip out to Jimmy’s. A camp stove, books, sleeping bags—they had the car pretty well packed.

  A sleepy day. They’d cranked up the heat because of the cold and sitting in class you’d feel your head filling with soft gray lines like an Etch A Sketch and the teacher’s voice shrinking to a point and then your head would snap up and clear and immediately start filling up again. I saw the kid from the projects, Larry, in the hall and nodded and he said “’S’up, man,” and then, still walking, “How’s that cat doin’?” and I said “Alright” but by then he was halfway down the hall.

  That afternoon Falvo called the four of us into his office. He’d been debating whether to tell us, he said, decided we should hear it from him. The weekend before, running in a college meet in Easton that he’d somehow talked his way into, Balger had run a 152.9 half mile. It was the sixth-fastest high school time ever run in the United States.

  I WALKED HOME alone that afternoon. Winter dusk, cold. The sky a deep, deep blue. I hadn’t walked down Brewster Hill Road in a long time. I could make out the junker rusting on its grill, barred in by trees, and I remembered Ray lying in the middle of the road, his arms out like Jesus, telling me about this girl he’d just met who could walk out of the woods and tell him to lie down in the road and he’d do it. It didn’t seem like a year ago. More than a year ago.

  It was OK, Falvo had said to us. Balger had run an amazing time, but he’d have to do it again. The world would do what it did. We’d run our race.

  For some reason, it worked. Or maybe it was the walk, the road. It was OK. Saturday would come and we’d do our thing and it would be what it was. I looked at the sky, like blue ink in a bottle when you turn it, so still, so beautiful it seemed like a promise.

  THE NEXT DAY Ray came by the house. We had the day off—a teachers’ day. It was just after lunch. I was in my room, listening to the radio and reading when I heard the knock. My father opened the door for him. Coming down the stairs, I could see the boots first, then the pants, the coat, the sweatshirt hood. He was wiping his feet self-consciously on the mat, apologizing for the mess. He should dress more warmly, my father was saying—it was quite cold out there.

  “And how is your little brother?” my mother asked. “Jon tells us he is back home?”

  I hadn’t heard her use my name in a long time.

  “You still have that auger we borrowed from Jimmy?” he said, when I came down.

  “It’s like ten degrees out.”

  “C’mon,” he said.

  IT WAS HARD in the snow because we couldn’t see the ties, but going by the tracks was half a mile shorter so that’s how we went, me lugging the auger, Ray the folding chairs and the rods, the two of us pushing through, then up into the woods and out onto that great white circle, flat as a coin.

  The wind had mostly died. It was very cold. I can see us cutting out from that shore, a pencil ticking the radius, the two of us squinting against the glare. The trees in the distance looked like scratch marks somebody had made with their thumbnail.

  It wasn’t like he didn’t talk. He did. We both did. How you knew it was cold by the way the snow creaked. About Karen. About the meet on Saturday. I told him about Balger, the amazing time he’d run in Easton. We’d just have to run our race, I said, that’s all there was to it, and he agreed. “You’re just gonna have to do this thing, man,” he said, and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  We threw down our stuff. We were a long way out, a quarter mile, maybe more, and I cleared the snow off the ice with my boot and stood up the auger and bit the blade down. I started to crank it and felt it catch, the steel like a circular stairway crisply hissing, then stopped and moved the blade out of the shallow bowl I’d made, and Ray got down and scooped it clean and I put the blade back. It took us a while. The ice was a foot thick. More. Toward the end Ray took off his gloves so he wouldn’t get them wet and scooped out the slush with his hands, then waited kneeling in the snow and blowing on his fingers while I kept on till the slush gave way and the black water came welling up.

  We scooped out the last of the ice and slush and threw it in the snow and I looked down even though I knew I wouldn’t see anything. It was perfect, clean, a bullet through the heart. I opened the chairs, set them up with our backs to the breeze. The shore was far away. Turning the auger had warmed me up so I rigged our rods, pulling the line through the guides. What about trying spinners? I said. He nodded. He was looking off across the lake like there was something out there, slapping his hands together. Since we didn’t have bait, I said, looping the line around itself, pulling the knot tight. He could go first.

  It was hard with gloves but he flipped the bail and let the spinner fall into the dark, then turned the handle to stop the line and started jigging it up and down.

  “You hungry?” I said. “We should probably eat those sandwiches before they’re solid.”

  He didn’t say anything when he felt the strike, just swung it up into the air. He yanked off his glove with his teeth and caught it, its tiny orange fins pressed flat under his square thumb, its tail quivering like it was carrying a current, took the hook out and slipped it back in the hole and began to shake—his face, his shoulders, hi
s arms trembling like he could come apart at the joints—the look on his face less terror than disbelief, whispering “Fuck, oh fuck,” like a man being shown something he’d never wanted to see and could never forget. “Ray, Ray, you OK?” I kept shouting. I’d jumped up out of the folding chair. I didn’t know what was happening. I was scared shitless. “Ray! Ray, you sick? Ray!”

  I just held him—I couldn’t think of anything else to do. It was like holding a tree in a high wind. I could feel the gusts and then something broke and the sobs started and I just stood there holding him, petting his hair awkwardly, looking over his shoulder across that buried lake. We were a long way out.

  The story came out of him in spurts, in horrible clotted bits, and what he couldn’t say, I could picture for myself. I’ll always see it—it doesn’t matter. His old man starting early the afternoon before, standing in the kitchen with the glass next to him cutting up a chicken with the meat shears. Not talking. The house is empty without Gene. The TV is on in the living room: The Price Is Right. He can hear the shears cutting, feeling for the joints, springing open, cutting.

  He can tell.

  “I’m going out,” he calls.

  No answer.

  “You hear what I said?”

  Nothing.

  He looks into the kitchen. His old man is standing by the counter, a drink next to him, slicing up a chicken. He can tell it’s slipping.

  “I’m going out,” he says again.

  “How long you think it would be before I found out?” He doesn’t look up.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  He can feel it. In the pauses, in the way he’s cutting.

  “Small town,” he says, slicing off a leg.

  The shears are bad. There’s nothing to grab—a broom, a rolling pin. By his feet, leaning against the living room wall, is a busted picture frame—he could pull the top piece.

  “Think you were just gonna leave?” He’s still cutting. There’s nothing left to cut. “Just drive away?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”