Halfway Home

by Paul Monette

  It's something about the loss of electrolytes when you sweat hard. Your brain goes fuzzy, and you take what refuge you can in mirages. I can only say, as I lurched for the connecting door and into Cora's room, that I was back to a week ago, and Brian was here for the night. But I can't begin to convey the singular moment of relief, seeing him in the bed, putting the grim finality of the dream behind me. I moved toward him, delirious with feeling. What did I mean to do, climb into bed with my brother? All the taboos against incest seemed to vanish in that moment of recovery. Here I am, Brian, I wanted to cry out. We can play now.

  And the figure turned over and showed his sleeping face, and it was Gray.

  Strange, how fast reality works. In an instant I knew the truth again, that I'd sleepwalked through a second reverie, that Brian was gone forever. My knee was already on the bed as the wave of desolation hit me. Then Gray's arm moved, lifting the covers back to make room for me. He was more asleep than awake. It was all instinct, a man who kept his promise to be here if I needed him. And frankly, my last bed having crash-landed, I had nowhere else to go right now. Hurting with grief I ducked in under the covers, letting him fold his arm around me.

  I lay on my side, absolutely pliant as he tucked me up against him, till I was enveloped in a kind of bear hug. I needed every inch of it just then. Brian's death throbbed like an open wound—or no, like a missing limb. Nothing of the dream remained except the picture of him in his uniform, young and a hero, at the peak of his force. Downstairs I'd said to Gray that this Brian had somehow escaped the explosion, at least in my head. But here in the dark the two Brians came together at last, like the hairs on a gunsight. The young one was just as murdered, as gone as the man who fumbled back into my life and almost touched me. And if he was dead, my cruel and dazzling tormentor, then I'd lost the only thing in the world I'd ever compared myself against. It was like the moon losing the sun.

  So I sank as deep as I could into Gray's embrace, solid as a cave. The rhythm of his deep breathing lulled me. I only had the briefest moment's thought that he might not be so nakedly accommodating if he'd been wide awake. Surely his WASP modesty would set its invisible boundary wider than this. Not that we were in any danger, I in my briefs and he in pajamas. Pajamas! Must be the last man on earth, I thought as I burrowed against him. Not unaware, despite the aching emptiness that used to be my brother, of the deeper irony here.

  Namely: what an odd way to end up in bed with a man. And deeper still, the knowledge that I hadn't been to bed with anyone in two years, which sometimes felt like twenty. And perhaps most amazing of all, I thought as I spiraled under, that it should come back as easy as this, cradling into a man's embrace. Like riding a bicycle.

  The depression hit like a hangover headache, a migrainous second before I opened my eyes. The foreign country of Cora's room, its clutter of cool green wicker, only deepened my first sight of a world irreversibly out of sync. I was all alone in the bed. I sat up guiltily, shying away from Gray's side, as if I ought to be ashamed. For what, sleeping untroubled the rest of the night? I stood up irritably, startled to find myself hard in my shorts.

  Make up your mind, I scolded it.

  Then saw Gray's powder-blue p.j.'s, slung over the open drawer of the dresser. I smiled in spite of the hammering despair, thinking how neatly he kept a special set of clothes at the beach for when he stayed over. I shuffled into the bathroom and pissed this time in the toilet, slapping my dick first to bring the swelling down. As I groped through my dresser, determined to wear all black, I thought of myself the day before as manic and out of touch. Only now did I really appreciate how dead was dead—as if I'd forgotten the lesson of my friends, the nightmare depressions that crashed down on me as soon as the funeral cars dispersed.

  I put on a black turtleneck and black jeans, refusing to comb my hair besides. I felt suitably austere as I thudded listlessly down the stairs, already making out Mona's voice in the kitchen. Jesus, she sure hadn't wasted any time getting here. Fixing my face with a scowl that announced in no uncertain terms, Not Before Breakfast, I headed in. They both stopped talking midsentence and looked over expectantly. I gave them a vague wave, as if to say Go right on, don't mind me, and poured myself a mug of coffee.

  Plainly they wanted to hear from me, but saw it would be an intrusion right now. They could see how I was—black. Gray stepped aside neatly from the fridge so I could reach in for the half and half, then forced himself to address Mona, hunched on one of the stools. "So—you both finally agreed it's over."

  "Yeah," said Mona. Like Gray she sounded painfully stagey, watching me as I took a powdered doughnut from a box on the counter. It was as if they were the food police, counting my calories for me. Mona continued, half-distracted, "But she still knows me better than anyone, and just how to push my buttons. This morning she tells me she's found me the perfect girl. Like she wants to set up a blind date. So I smashed the clock on her desk and threw a bunch of files out her window."

  I stepped to the zinc table and sat on the second stool. Only now did I see there were several sheets of paper spread out on the tabletop, faxes from the New Haven papers. A headline jumped out: 3 DIE IN BOMB BLAST. Then my eye went to the picture below, tantalizingly fuzzy. Brian and Susan and Daniel, waving at the camera from the back of a speedboat. Susan and Daniel wore life preservers puffed around their chests. All you could really tell was that she was blond and had lots of teeth, and the boy was darker. Brian was turning from the wheel, for of course he would be captain. No shirt and no life preserver, because of course he couldn't drown. On the stern of the sleek craft was lettered IRISH EYES, and under that SOUTHPORT. My brother's toys.

  "That's yesterday's," Mona declared, the pretense having vanished that they could talk about Daphne or anything else. "Here's this morning's."

  She pointed her fingernail to the article closest to her: SHAHEEN WAS READY TO BLOW WHISTLE. Underneath was a photo of Brian and Jerry Curran, arms around each other's shoulders, toasting the camera with cans of beer. In their visored hats they looked as if they'd just finished a round of golf. I never would've recognized Jerry without the caption. He was big as a house, his linebacker's frame having swelled and bloated with the years to the size of a pizza don. His leering grin was cruel and repugnant as ever. And beside him Brian seemed all the more untouched by time. The triumph was palpable in his face. He'd lucked out into a life where he'd never have to stop playing.

  My eyes shifted across the gray of paragraphs, not ready to read the details yet. Another double picture: on the left a saltbox house with a trellis of roses along the side, set on a rolling lawn with a split-rail fence around; on the right a chaos of rubble, chimneys sticking up at either end. Before and after. What they call in the real estate business a start-over.

  "It says there's a wake today and tomorrow," Mona announced. You could tell she wanted to brief me as simply as possible, so I wouldn't have to read through everything. "I sent some flowers and signed your name. White roses." I nodded and chomped my doughnut, a dust of powdered sugar falling onto the pictures of the house. "There's police guarding the funeral home. Little late for that."

  "I think I'd like to be alone now," I said.

  A beat of silence, in which Mona tried not to take the flatness of my affect personally. "Sure, I'll go outside and read," she retorted, reaching to the floor to scoop up her bag.

  "No, he means all alone," said Gray. "And I need a ride to the ranch, if you don't mind."

  Mona minded. She'd grown up in the chicken-soup belt of the Valley, arriving today with no plans but to sit shiva, nondenominational of course. She shot a look at Gray in which was a barely concealed pang of betrayal, as if he'd just given in on a nonnegotiable point. Mona herself couldn't bear to be alone in crisis, especially when pointed objects were hurling between her and Daphne. But she swallowed it on the spot for my sake, though it went against every pop-psych book she eagerly devoured. She slung the bag over her shoulder and went right to the door.

&
nbsp; Gray followed after, not catching my eye with a freighted glance. In yesterday's clothes he looked endearingly rumpled. As I stood in the doorway, watching them cross the yard side by side, I did one of my total flip-flops, wanting to call out and take it all back. What the fuck did I want to be alone for? I couldn't even pout right without a proper audience, let alone heave with sorrow and remorse. But here they were, my two best buddies, taking me at my word. They both waved curtly as they piled in Mona's car, clearly not wanting to come across overemotional.

  Because that was the vibe I'd been giving off from the moment I came downstairs: that I was feelinged out.

  Yet even as the car drove off, I realized I'd got it wrong again. I didn't want them to stay, just Gray; and I hadn't wanted the two of them out of there either, only Mona. That's how grief makes you lonely. All day long, from breakfast to Johnny Carson, you don't know what you'd like or what might help till you've slammed the door on it. In addition, you usually catch your thumb in it when it slams—which was more or less how I was feeling now, as I brooded back into the kitchen. I wanted to thank him for letting me sleep with him, even if it made him blush and hunker his shoulders. Wanted to speak it aloud to prove it had really happened.

  I picked my coffee up from the table of clippings and drank the sour dregs. I cast a glance at random down the columns of print, wanting to know more but also to avoid the forensic details. I settled on a paragraph which said they'd just come home from a weekend at their country place in the Berkshires. A little spring skiing, one of the neighbors informed a reporter, as if that had any bearing on the tragedy.

  Farther down, it said my brother's Mercedes was stolen, presumably surviving the blast because it was parked in the street. This meant the killer must've been out there waiting in the dark and watching—the explosion came at 4:00 A.M. The midnight-blue Mercedes had been recovered in a parking lot at LaGuardia, keys in the ignition.

  I skipped to the next article, which proved to be a glowing list of Brian and Susan's civic leadership—Little League, Junior Kiwanis, Young Republicans. Brian was on the national council of the Eagle Scouts of America, swear to God. But the main gush here came out of the mouths of the princes of the church. The archbishop of Hartford himself was planning to do the funeral Mass. He'd made an official proclamation mourning the loss of such a fierce soldier of God, making no mention of Brian's pending indictment.

  They must have donated plenty, I thought—nice team uniforms for every parochial school in the archdiocese. The bug-eyed parish priest in Southport weighed in with his own plea for prayers. "We have lost a whole family of Christ," he remarked, among other lugubrious things.

  "If you mean Miss Jesus, Father," I said out loud, "you're right. She's feeling more than usual like a fucking orphan."

  I'd had enough of the press accounts. I grabbed another doughnut and headed outside to the beach stairs. The day was as crystalline as yesterday, which didn't quite fit my Hamlet mood and costume. On the far horizon, however, billowing scallops of cumulus rode the water's rim. There was hope for another Alaska storm, just what I needed.

  I clumped about twenty steps down the stairs, then sat and looked through the bars of the railing. A couple of gray terns were wheeling near the cliff face, nothing to do but scud the currents. Lazily I broke off bits of my doughnut and lobbed them. The birds came plummeting down and didn't miss a crumb, swooping around in relays. For a minute I could pretend they were my birds, coaxed from the wild and trained to my command, but as soon as the doughnut was finished they were gone, cavorting away along the bluffs. And I was alone, just what I'd asked for.

  It came like a crazy idea, right out of the blue, another flip-flop. What if I went? I felt it like a delicious jolt of belligerence, defying I knew not what, since I was the one who'd begged off. But what if I just showed up?

  The scenario fell into place full-blown, with a nice border of black comic anarchy. I could hitch a ride to Santa Monica and be there before Wells Fargo closed. That's where AGORA keeps its gasping bank account. I could quick withdraw a thousand bucks and be on a plane by one. It seemed the perfect touch, that I should embezzle the cash to attend the obsequies of my brother the crook. Of course I'd pay it all back somehow, but then that's what they all say, isn't it? Don't ask me why, but it seemed especially crucial to pull this off without telling Gray and Mona.

  So I'd just make it to the funeral home in Southport before the viewing was done for the night. Except viewing wasn't quite the right word, since all three caskets would be discreetly closed. 1 would be the messy part, leaving those nameless cousins and neighbors speechless. And Father Dildo too, who would probably just be finishing a sonorous rosary for his little family of Christ. Before you could say "intrinsic evil," I'd turn that decorous Irish wake into the Masque of the Red Death.

  As each one came and shook my hand they'd see the kiss of purple on my cheek. And then the horror would dawn that they had touched me. I didn't have to worry that the mick bigots of my clan had developed any reasonableness around the subject of the fag virus. They'd probably plunge their hands in fire as soon as they got home.

  And tomorrow at the funeral, maybe I'd be all alone, just Father Dildo and I. Standing in the graveyard behind Saint Augustine's, burying them all beside my sotted redneck father. Unless Jerry Curran had the balls to show up. Ah, then I would make a scene to pale the blood feud that erupted over our father's funeral meats. The priest would have to tear me away from Jerry's throat. And if I was lucky I'd get a bite in, sinking my viral fangs in the flesh of his cheek.

  Was it all just self-important, shaming the dead to gratify my own stunted ego? Well, so be it, and frankly, there was even worse where that came from. Because I wouldn't even have to see my mother. I could take a last ride over to Chester and spit a final time on all the rabid playgrounds of my youth. Churn up every last dollop of lingering bile, and make it a witches' sabbath.

  I gripped the rails of the banister like prison bars, astonished by my own dark passion. There was only one issue here—did I mean it? Would I really go, breathing all that airline shit like Mona said, coming back with who knew what new twist of infection? The answer seemed to frame itself in the bluntest terms: Was I man enough? Ridiculous, I know. Politically incorrect, the worst kind of macho posturing, but there it was. If I didn't go now I would die the same androgynous loser I'd been from five to twenty. Though nobody's heart would lift at the sight of me, I had a right to be there. Maybe even a duty, as much to my exiled kind as to my brother.

  Oh yes, I was going.

  It's how I make all the big decisions, adamant and out of nowhere. I stood up and leaned over the banister, taking a last deep breath of ocean. I'd be back in three or four days, but I needed to bring this with me in all its sublime clarity, a vision of my true homeland. As I made my way up the stairs I realized I had no suit—could barely throw together a clean shirt and pants. I'd need my ratty parka for the icy damp of Connecticut. Tough shit, if the swells of Chester thought I looked like a bum.

  The spring in my step was wonderfully resolute as I came to the top of the stairs. All the shrinks will tell you, even crazy Daphne, you have to have closure. Now the decision was made, of course I'd call Gray and Mona, maybe from the airport—once I was on my way.

  I stepped from the landing onto the lawn, and froze. Twenty feet away on the terrace, sitting at the foot of one of the chaises, bent over a book in his lap was—Tom Shaheen. The dream had rooted deeper than I thought, or I'd lost much more than electrolytes. It was me as a little kid, black crewcut and shoulders slumped, reading in secret so my father wouldn't beat me. I felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness, even as flashes of stars bloomed across my vision. No question but that I was going to faint.

  And then the boy looked up, guardedly checking me out, and I knew he was real. My seething memory hadn't called him up. I scrambled to think—did Merle have kids?

  "I'm Daniel," he said evenly. Statement of fact, no more.

  I
nodded dumbly, pointing to myself, but couldn't seem to say my name. I grappled to understand. Somehow he had survived—escaped—got himself out here. Because I was all he had left. I could see the exhaustion in his pallor, the joyless blank of his eyes, and didn't know where to begin. I walked toward him, my brain still wanting to run to the airport and the lavish melodrama of my prodigal return. I put out my hand to shake, my tongue still tied, and stumbled out, "I guess I'm your Uncle Tom."

  "I guess," he replied with a rueful smile, but taking my hand manfully, a reflex clearly learned from his father.

  I stood there floundering. How do you comfort a kid who's lost everything? If he got here by himself, then he had more wherewithal than I. I still could hardly believe how much he looked like me—only not so fragile, even after what he'd been through. "What're you reading?" I asked, loathing myself, as if the banality of all grown-ups leered at him out of my fatuous smile.

  He raised the book from his lap and showed me the cover: Treasure Island. My ego burst to the surface again, for I could have told him exactly the crook of the tree where I'd read it myself, skipping confirmation class. As if it would matter to him. I bit my tongue on the book report, as he waited politely for me to speak. I didn't want to feel it, but it was there. The same helpless panic as when I'd talked to my mother's nurse, the impossible thought that this had all become my responsibility. And I couldn't do it—wouldn't. I had my own dying to get through, and that was that. No more room at the inn. It was horrible. I'd known this boy for thirty seconds, and already I was trying to palm him off like a Dickens foundling.

  "Are you all right?" I asked, trying to focus, reeling with inadequacy. "Have you eaten?"

  But before he could answer, the french doors opened from the parlor, and my brother stepped out. It was oddly anticlimactic, not like Lazarus clapped from the dead. Oh, right, I thought, awakening at last. The midnight-blue Mercedes at the airport—they'd missed their deaths entirely. Brian walked gravely toward me across the terrace, in jeans and a Fordham sweat shirt. "Tom," he said, and the guilt in his voice amazed me, "it's just for now. We had nowhere else to go."