Lost Boy Lost Girl

3

NOT LONG AFTER he had read Nancy’s obituary in the paper and seen Mark through his hotel room’s window, Tim got into his rented Town Car and set out on an eccentric course to his brother’s house. Even allowing for one or two episodes of backtracking, the drive from the Pforzheimer to Superior Street should have taken Tim no longer than twenty to twenty-five minutes. If he had chosen to get on the expressway, the trip would have been five minutes shorter, but because he had not been in his hometown for nearly five years, Tim decided to drive north from downtown, then turn west on Capital Drive and keep going until he hit Teutonia Avenue’s six wide lanes, jog south-west on a diagonal and drive until he saw Sherman Park, Sherman Boulevard, Burleigh, or any of the little web of streets backed by alleys he had known in childhood. He knew where his brother lived. Assuming that its essential makeup had not changed significantly beyond a nice economic updrift, Philip had moved back into the neighborhood of his childhood. And as far as they went and no further, his assumptions had proved correct: adjusted for inflation, the average household income in the neighborhood made up of Superior, Michigan, Townsend, Auer, and Forty-fourth Street had probably quadrupled from the days of Tim’s and Philip’s childhood. However, other aspects, ones Philip had not taken into account, had changed along with income levels.

Tim had no trouble getting on Capital Drive and rolling west to Teutonia Avenue’s wide swath through a landscape of shopping centers and three-story office buildings separated by taverns. Everything looked like a cleaner, brighter, more prosperous version of the Millhaven of old, exactly what his earlier visits had led him to expect. He saw the Burleigh sign from a block away and turned into a more residential area. Identical four-story apartment buildings of cream-colored brick marched along side by side, the narrow concrete strips to their entrances standing out against the grass like a row of neckties.

Half a mile on, he saw a sign for Sherman Drive and turned left. It was not Sherman Park or Sherman Boulevard, but it had to be in the same general area. Sherman Drive dead-ended in front of a windowless bunker of poured concrete called the Municipal Records Annex. Tim doubled back and turned left again onto a narrow one-way street called Sherman Annex Way, and this came to an end at the southwest corner of Sherman Park itself, where Pops had now and then escorted little Tim and little Philip to the magnificent wading pool, the jouncing teeter-totter, the high-flying swing set, and the little realm given to the sleeping tigers and ponderous elephants of its stupendous, now long-vanished zoo.

He drove completely around the park without quite figuring out where to go next. On his second spin around the perimeter, he noticed the sign for Sherman Boulevard, turned onto it, and was instantly rewarded by the appearance on the left side of the street in remembered or shadow form of a great, ambiguous landmark of his childhood, the Beldame Oriental Theater, presently the tabernacle of a sanctified Protestant sect.

But when he turned into the old network of alleys and intersections, Tim drove twice past his brother’s house without being absolutely positive he had found it. The first time, he said to himself, I don’t think that’s it; the second time, That isn’t it, is it? That, of course, was Philip’s house, a combination of brick and fieldstone with a steeply pitched roof and an ugly little porch only slightly wider than the front door. Screwed into the screen door’s wooden surround were the numerals 3324. With no further excuse for delaying, Tim parked his ostentatious but entirely comfortable vehicle a short way down the block and walked back through the humid sunlight. Where enormous elms had once arched their boughs over the street, the dry leaves of plane trees clung to their branches a modest distance above their pale, patchy trunks. Tim reached the walkway before his brother’s house and checked his watch: the twenty-five-minute journey had taken him forty-five.

Tim pushed the buzzer. Far back in the house, a tiny bell rang. Footsteps plodded toward the door; a smudgy face ducked into, then out of, the narrow glass strips set high in the dark wood; the door swung back; and Philip stood before him, scowling through the gray scrim of the screen door. ‘Decided to show up, after all,’ he said.

‘Nice to see you, too,’ Tim said. ‘How are you doing, Philip?’

With the air of one performing an act of charity, his brother stepped back to let him in. He looked a decade older that he had the last time Tim had seen him. His thinning hair was combed straight back from his forehead, revealing strips of scalp the same pinkish-gray as his deeply seamed face. Rimless spectacles with thin metal bows sat on his high-prowed nose. Above his soft, expansive belly, a silver tie tack anchored a shiny claret necktie to his cheap white shirt. He was still doing his utmost, Tim thought, to look exactly like what he was, a midlevel administrator of a thoroughly bureaucratic enterprise. A vice principalship was the kind of job Philip had spent all of his earlier life struggling to attain: unassailably respectable, tedious unto stupefaction, impervious to the whims of the economy, tied into a small but palpable degree of power, fodder for endless complaints.

‘I’m still ambulatory,’ Philip said. ‘How the hell do you think I should be?’ He moved the few steps that took him from the little foyer into the living room, and Tim followed. Nancy, it seemed, was not to be mentioned until Philip’s sense of ritual had been satisfied.

‘Sorry. Dumb question.’

‘I guess it was nice of you to come all this way, anyhow. Sit down, rest up. After being in New York, you probably appreciate our famous midwestern peace and quiet.’

Having been given all the thanks he was likely to get, Tim walked across the living room and placed himself in an upholstered armchair that had come into Philip’s household after Nancy’s arrival. Philip stayed on his feet, watching him like a hotel detective. Philip’s gray suit was too heavy for the weather, and he tugged a wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. From overhead came the ongoing rhythmic pulse of an electric bass.

‘There’s a lot of action around the Pforzheimer,’ Tim said. ‘Some big-time director is shooting a movie on Jefferson Street.’

‘Don’t tell Mark. He’ll just want to go.’

‘He’s already been there. I saw him from my window. He and a red-haired kid came out of Cathedral Square and walked down the street to watch them filming a scene. They were right beneath me.’

‘That was Jimbo Monaghan, his best buddy. Hell, his one and only buddy. You see one, the other one’s right behind him. Jimbo’s not a bad kid, for a dodo. Went through junior high at Quincy without any more than a half dozen demerits. Most kids rack up twice that.’

‘Did Mark?’

‘I had to be a little extra hard on Mark. The kids would have made his life hell if I’d shown any favoritism. Do you remember what kids are like? Find a weakness, they home in like sharks. Little bastards are barely human.’

Philip thought giving his son demerits proved that he was a stern and responsible father, but the truth was that it had given him pleasure.

‘I got Cokes, root beer, ginger ale. You want beer or anything stronger, you can supply it yourself.’

‘Ginger ale, if you’re having something.’

Philip ducked into the kitchen, and Tim took his usual cursory inspection of the living room. As ever, it contained the same peculiar mixture of furniture Philip had shifted from house to house before settling back in the old neighborhood. All of it seemed a bit more worn than it had been on Tim’s previous visits: the long green corduroy sofa, black recliner, highboy, and octagonal glass coffee table from Mom and Pop sharing space with the blond wooden furniture from some now-bankrupt ‘Scandinavian’ furniture store. Tim could remember Mom sitting in the rocking chair beside Pop’s ‘davenport,’ the fat needle working as she hooked thick, interwoven knots of the rug that covered three-fourths of Philip’s living room floor. Fifty years ago, it had been a lot brighter: now, it was just a rag to keep your shoes from touching the floor.

Philip came back into the room holding two glasses beaded with condensation. He passed one to Tim and dropped onto the far end of the davenport. His gray suit bunched up around his hips and shoulders.

‘Philip, with apologies for my earlier question, how are you doing these days? How are you handling it?’

Philip took a long pull at his ginger ale and sagged against the worn cushions. He seemed to be staring at something akin to a large insect moving up the half-wall leading to the dining room and kitchen.

‘With apologies, huh? That’s nice. It should be Nancy who apologizes to me, not you.’ He fixed Tim with a cold, brown-eyed glare. The rimless spectacles slightly magnified his eyes. ‘We’re getting into a strange, strange topic here. It is truly strange, this topic. I have to say, it surpasseth comprehension. Do you know what I mean, or do I have to explain it to you?’

‘I think I understand. I read the obituary in today’s Ledger. When I saw the words “without warning,” I thought –’

‘You thought?’

‘I thought Nancy probably killed herself.’

‘Is that what you thought? Well, guess what? Big brother rings the bell.’

‘Would you prefer it if I didn’t understand?’

‘I don’t know what I’d prefer.’ Philip’s face twisted, and everything below his nose seemed to collapse like a punctured paper bag. ‘Nobody asked me for my opinion about anything.’ He snatched off his glasses and passed a hand over his eyes. ‘No, they just go ahead and do whatever they feel like.’ He emitted a shaky sigh.

‘Do you think she should have asked your permission before she killed herself?’

Philip aimed an index finger at him. ‘There, that’s a great question, I mean it. A great fucking question.’

Tim swallowed cold ginger ale and forced himself to remain silent.

‘Yes,’ Philip said. ‘I do think so. I would have said, You selfish bitch, you can’t kill yourself. You have a husband and a son. Are you crazy?’

‘It was selfish – a selfish act.’

‘All suicides are selfish.’ He considered that proposition. ‘Unless the person is in tremendous pain, or dying, or whatever.’

‘Was she feeling depressed lately?’

‘What are you, a shrink? I don’t know. Nancy usually seemed a little depressed, if you ask me.’ He shot Tim a wary look. ‘Are you asking if I noticed that she seemed depressed lately?’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Philip.’

‘Keep it that way. I’m not to blame for what happened. Nancy and I got along all right. Why she did it is a mystery to me. Maybe she had some kind of secret existence. Maybe I didn’t know what was going on in her life. If she didn’t tell me, how the hell could I?’

‘How is Mark handling all this?’

Philip shook his head. ‘The kid keeps his feelings all wrapped up inside. He’s been hit hard, though. Keeps to himself, except for when he’s with Jimbo, the knucklehead you saw today. We’ll see how he gets through tonight and tomorrow and the next couple of weeks. If he looks like he needs it, I’ll get him some counseling or therapy, or whatever.’

Tim said that sounded like a good idea.

‘Sure it does, to you. You live in New York, where everybody sees a shrink. For you people, a shrink is a status symbol. Out here in the real world, it’s different. Plenty of people see it as an admission that something is wrong with you.’

‘You wouldn’t have to tell anybody. Neither would Mark.’

‘Word gets out,’ Philip said. ‘Vice principal’s wife commits suicide, his son starts seeing a head-shrinker. How do you suppose that plays out? What kind of effect do you think it would have on my career? On top of that, those appointments don’t come cheap. Excuse me, elder brother, but I’m a humble educator in the public school system, not a millionaire.’

‘Philip, if Mark could benefit from therapy, and you’d have trouble paying for it, I’d be happy to take care of it.’

‘Things aren’t quite that dire,’ Philip said. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

‘Do you really think your job is going to be affected by what Nancy did?’

‘One way or another, yeah. Subtly, in most ways. But what do you think my odds are of moving into a principal’s office anytime soon? I was on track before this. Now, who knows? It could hold me back for years. But you want to know the worst part of this whole deal?’

‘Sure,’ Tim said.

‘Whenever anybody looks at me, they’re going to say to themselves, There’s Underhill. His wife killed herself. And two-thirds, three-fourths of them are going to think I had something to do with it. She did it because of me, they’ll think. Goddamn it, I never thought I’d hate her, but I’m getting there. Fuck her. Fuck her.’

Tim decided to say nothing and let him roll on.

Philip glared at him. ‘I have a role in this community. I have a certain position. Maybe you don’t know what that means. Maybe you don’t care. But it is of very, very great importance to me. And when I think that stupid woman did her best, out of no reason at all but her own private unhappiness, to tear down everything I’ve worked for all my life – yes, I’m angry, yes I am. She had no right to do this to me.’

At least one thing was clear to Tim Underhill as he watched his brother chewing an ice cube from the bottom of his empty glass: Philip was going to be of no use at all.

‘What’s our schedule?’ he asked.

‘For tonight?’

‘For everything.’

‘We go to the Trott Brothers Funeral Home from six to seven for the viewing, or the visitation, or whatever it’s called. The funeral is at one tomorrow afternoon, out at Sunnyside.’ Sunnyside, a large cemetery on the Far West Side of the city, was still segregated into separate areas for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. There were no African-Americans in Sunnyside. When you drove past it on the expressway, it went on for mile after mile of flat green earth and headstones in long rows.

‘Philip,’ Tim said, ‘I don’t even know how Nancy died. If it isn’t too painful for you, could you tell me about it?’

‘Oh, boy. I guess you wouldn’t know, would you? It’s not exactly public information, thanks be to God. Well, well. Yes. I can tell you how she did it. You’ve earned it, haven’t you? Coming out here all the way from New York City. All right, you want to know what someone does when she’s going to kill herself and really wants to make sure there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it? If she wants to hit that nail right square on the head? What she does is, she basically kills herself three different ways, all at the same time.’

He tried to grin. The attempt was a hideous failure. ‘I had this bottle of sleeping pills left over from a couple of years ago. Not long after I left for work that morning, Nancy swallowed most of the pills – twenty of them, more or less. Then she ran a nice hot tub. She put a plastic bag over her head and fastened it around her neck. After that, she got in the tub and picked up a knife and cut open both of her forearms. Lengthwise, not those pussy sideways cuts people make when they’re faking it. She was serious, I’ll say that for her.’

The bass notes booming through the ceiling wavered in the air like butterflies.

Through the windows came the sound of cicadas, but Superior Street had never seen a cicada. Something else, Tim thought – what? Overhead, a door slammed. Two pairs of footsteps moved toward the top of the staircase.

‘Enter the son and heir, accompanied by el sidekick-o faithful-o.’

Tim looked toward the staircase and saw descending the steps a pair of legs in baggy blue jeans, closely followed by its twin. A hand slid lightly down the railing; another hand shadowed it. Loose yellow sleeves, then loose navy sleeves. Then Mark Underhill’s face moved into view, all eyebrows, cheekbones, and decisive mouth; just above it floated Jimbo Monaghan’s round face, struggling for neutrality.

Mark kept his gaze downward until he reached the bottom of the staircase and had walked two steps forward. Then he raised his eyes to meet Tim’s. In those eyes Tim saw a complex mixture of curiousity, anger, and secrecy. The boy was hiding something from his father, and he would continue to hide it; Tim wondered what would happen if he managed to get Mark into a private conversation.

No guile on Jimbo’s part – he stared at Tim from the moment his face became visible.

‘Looky here, it’s Uncle Tim,’ Philip said. ‘Tim – you know Mark, and his best buddy-roo, Jimbo Monaghan.’

Reverting to an earlier stage of adolescence, the boys shuffled forward and muttered their greetings. Tim sent his brother a silent curse; now both boys felt insulted or mocked, and it would take Mark that much longer to open up.

He knows more than Philip about his mother’s suicide, Tim thought. The boy glanced at him again, and Tim saw some locked-up knowledge surface in his eyes, then retreat.

‘This guy look familiar to you, Tim?’ Philip asked him.

‘Yes, he does,’ Tim said. ‘Mark, I saw you from my window at the Pforzheimer early this afternoon. You and your friend here were walking toward the movie setup on Jefferson Street. Did you stay there long?’

A startled, wary glance from Mark; Jimbo opened and closed his mouth.

‘Only a little while,’ Mark said. ‘They were doing the same thing over and over. Your room was on that side of the hotel?’

‘I saw you, didn’t I?’

Mark’s face jerked into what may have been a smile but was gone too soon to tell. He edged sideways and pulled at Jimbo’s sleeve.

‘Aren’t you going to stay?’ his father asked.

Mark nodded, swallowing and rocking back on his heels while looking down at his scuffed sneakers. ‘We’ll be back soon.’

‘But where are you going?’ Philip asked. ‘In about an hour, we have to be at the funeral home.’

‘Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.’ Mark’s eyes were sliding from his father to the front door and back again. ‘We’re just going out.’

He was in a nervous uproar, Tim saw. His engine was racing, and he was doing everything in his power to conceal it. Mark’s body wanted to behave exactly as it had on Jefferson Street: it wanted to wave its arms and leap around. In front of his father these extravagant gestures had to be compressed into the most minimal versions of themselves. The energy of misery was potent as a drug. Tim had seen men uncaringly risk their lives under its influence, as if they had been doing speed. The boy was aching to get through the door; Jimbo would soon have to resist more high-pressure pleading. Tim hoped he could stand up to it; whatever Mark had in mind almost had to be reckless, half crazy.

‘I hate this deliberate vagueness,’ Philip said. ‘What’s out? Where is it?’

Mark sighed. ‘Out is just out, Dad. We got tired of sitting in my room, and now we want to walk around the block or something.’

‘Yo, that’s all,’ Jimbo said, focusing on a spot in the air above Philip’s head. ‘Walk around the block.’

‘Okay, walk around the block,’ Philip said. ‘But be back here by quarter to seven. Or before. I’m serious, Mark.’

‘I’m serious, too!’ Mark shouted. ‘I’m just going outside, I’m not running away!’

His face was a bright pink. Philip backed off, waving his hands before him.

Mark glanced at Tim for a moment, his handsome face clamped into an expression of frustration and contempt. Tim’s heart filled with sorrow for him.

Mark pivoted away, clumped to the door, and was gone, taking Jimbo with him. The screen door slammed shut.

‘Good God,’ Philip said, looking at the door. ‘He does blame me, the little ingrate.’

‘He has to blame someone,’ Tim said.

‘I know who it should be,’ Philip said. ‘Killed herself three times, didn’t she?’

Nodding meaninglessly, Tim went toward the big front window. Mark and Jimbo were moving north along the sidewalk much as they had proceeded down Jefferson Street. Mark was leaning toward his friend, speaking rapidly and waving his hands. His face was still a feverish pink.

‘You see them?’

‘Yep.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘Philip, I think they’re walking around the block.’

‘Didn’t Mark seem awfully tense to you?’

‘Kind of, yes.’

‘It’s the viewing and the funeral service,’ Philip said. ‘Once they’re history, he can start getting back to normal.’

Tim kept his mouth shut. He doubted that Philip’s concept of ‘normal’ would have any real meaning to his son.

On the grounds that the overall roominess more than made up for the added cost, whenever possible Tim Underhill rented Lincoln Town Cars. At a quarter to seven, the boys having returned from their walk in good time, he volunteered to drive everyone to Highland Avenue. They were standing on the sidewalk in the heat. Philip looked at the long black car with distaste.

‘You never got over the need to show off, did you?’

‘Philip, in this car I don’t feel like I’ve been squeezed into a tin can.’

‘Come on, Dad,’ put in Mark, who was looking at the car as if he wanted to caress it.

‘Not on your life,’ Philip said. ‘I’d feel like I was pretending to be something I’m not. Tim, you’re welcome to ride along with us in my Volvo if you don’t think you’d feel too confined.’

Philip’s twelve-year-old Volvo station wagon, the color of a rusty leaf, stood ten feet farther up the curb, as humble and patient as a mule.

‘After you, Alphonse,’ Tim said, and was pleased to hear Mark chuckle.

The Trott Brothers Funeral Home occupied the crest of a hill on Highland Avenue, and to those who looked up at it from the street after they left their vehicles – as did the four men young and old who left the leaf-colored Volvo – it looked as grand and dignified as a great English country house. Quarried stone, mullioned windows, a round turret – a place, you would say, where the loudest sounds would be the whispers of attendants, the rustle of memorial pamphlets, and some quiet weeping. Mark and Jimbo trailed behind as the little group walked toward the imposing building.

A languid man with a drastic combover waved them toward a muted hallway and a door marked TRANQUILLITY PARLOR. On a stand beside the door was a fat white placard.