Continental Drift (40 page)

When Bob arrives home, Elaine is sleeping. He steps barefoot through the door, wearing Ave’s clothes, which are too tight on him and pinch at the crotch, waist and shoulders, and his hair is still wet. He has prepared an explanation: he and Ave got to drinking and wrestling out on the pier, and he fell in. But Elaine asks no questions. She stirs as he enters, opens her eyes when he snaps on the kitchen light, turns away from him and says nothing.

Bob goes to the bathroom, returns and notices suddenly that all the signs of his earlier rampage have been eliminated, as if it never happened. If anything, the house looks neater, less cluttered and more ordered than it did before, and for a second he allows himself to think of his fury as if it were a rational and deliberate thing, a painful but necessary kind of housecleaning. He checks, and he notes with approval that the pole lamp, which he always hated, has been thrown out. The television set looks unbroken. Stripping off Ave’s shirt and jeans, he flicks off the light in the kitchen and slides naked into bed, his back to his wife’s back.

“You see the message by the phone?” she asks in a low, cold voice.

“No.”

She says nothing, just lifts and drops her heavy hips to make herself more comfortable in the lumpy bed.

“What’s it say?”

She’s silent.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Elaine, what’s the message?”

She yanks on the covers and draws them over her bare shoulder.

Bob sighs heavily, gets out of bed and crosses to the counter where the telephone is located. Reaching out in the dark to the wall, he switches on the light again and plucks from under the telephone the sheet of lined paper and reads, Call Eddie. He says whenever you come in and it’s urgent. As easily as if he heard her speaking aloud, Bob can read and hear in Elaine’s swift, tiny handwriting the woman’s anger and detachment. She just wants to be left alone now. She doesn’t care what he does, whom he sees, what he feels, as long as he leaves her alone. If, in return, she has to leave her husband to his own dreamy devices and illusions, leave him to his own messy life, if that’s the price of her survival, then she will pay it. Her priorities are both clear and powerful, as if determined not so much by her mind as by the chemistry of her body. Bob, she has said to herself over and over tonight, can go fuck himself. And she means it.

The phone rings a long time before Eddie answers, and when Bob hears his slurry voice, he thinks he’s wakened his brother and cringes in anticipation of Eddie’s grumpiness and sarcasm. “Sorry I woke you up, but Elaine said to call no matter when I got in….”

“No problem, no problem. I was just … sitting around anyhow,” Eddie says.

Bob looks over at the kitchen clock. Three-forty. Maybe Eddie’s drunk, he thinks. “That’s good. So … what’s up?”

“Well, how you doing down there? Everything okay?”

“Okay, I guess. You know, it’s … risky.”

Eddie blats a hard, single laugh. “Risky! Yeah, but that’s the only way to go, right? Right?”

“I guess. So, listen, what’s up? How’s Sarah and Jessica? Everyone okay?”

“Oh, sure, sure, great, just great. Everyone’s fine.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, things’re okay here, not great, you know, not like I was hoping … but you win some, you lose some, right?” “Right.”

“Well, you know, I haven’t heard anything from you guys in a while, not since you left, except for the Christmas card, which was nice. Thanks. But, you know, I was just sitting around here wondering how you guys’re doing down there. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, we’re doing okay. Not as much business as I’d like, not as many customers as I’d kinda hoped for, but we’re surviving. Barely. But we’re doing it.”

Eddie laughs again, that same sharp, flat laugh of disbelief. “I bet!”

“No, it’s nice here. Real pretty, you know, and the fishing’s real good. Hey, I saw Ted Williams today. Can you believe that? He lives around here, in Islamorada.”

“No shit. The Kid, eh?”

“Yeah. In real life. He looks real good too.”

“Yeah.” Eddie pauses. “Well, listen, Bob, the reason I called you, I got to ask you something.”

Bob is silent a second, and he realizes that he hasn’t been listening to his brother at all and that the man is speaking in a way that’s almost unrecognizable to him—no foul language, no bragging, no fast talk, no sarcasm. Something’s wrong. “What’s the matter, Eddie?”

“Well, I got a problem up here. A problem I thought maybe you could help me out with, you know?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Yeah, well, I’m in a little trouble here. I told you about it a little last October, when you and me talked and you decided to quit the store and so on. You remember.”

“Oh, Jesus, Eddie. What’s happening?”

“Nothing. Nothing yet. Don’t worry none about it. I still got everything under control. You know me, kid. I don’t give a rat’s ass about a little trouble now and then. You expect it, the game I play. But I got to deal with some people here I owe money to. I really do have to come up with the bucks now … well, yeah, let’s just say I got to come up with the bucks. You understand? I’m not the kinda guy who asks for help when he doesn’t need it. Right? Especially from my kid brother. Right?”

“Sure, Eddie. But Jesus …”

“Anyhow, I figured maybe since now you’re in business for yourself … you know what I mean … well, I figured you could come up with enough fast cash to help me out a little. We can work a deal, keep it off the books, maybe cut you in on the business up here as part of the payback. It’s okay to talk, isn’t it? I mean, your phone is okay, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure. My phone … oh, sure.”

“Good. I’m not so sure about mine, you understand, so be cool. Right?”

“Right. Cool. Who … ah … who’d be listening in?”

“Doesn’t matter. Interested parties, okay? You got me?”

“Yeah.”

“So, whaddaya think? Can you help me out, like you said?”

“God, Eddie. I … I’m fucking broke, you know that.”

There is a silence on the other end. Bob hears his brother light a cigarette and inhale deeply.

“I mean, I’d do anything I could, I
will,
I will do anything I can, but Jesus, Eddie, I’m even more broke than ever. Even worse than up there. I don’t have a pot to piss in, like they say,” he says, forcing a laugh.

Eddie says nothing, so Bob goes on. “I suppose you’ve tried everything else….”

“Everything.”

“God, Eddie, I’m really sorry. I mean, maybe I can dig up a couple hundred someplace,” he says, thinking of Ave’s return from the Caymans on Thursday.

“A couple hundred bucks! Whew! That’s really something, kid. Look, let’s talk straight, Bob. Okay? I know what you and your pal Boone are doing down there. Okay? You understand what I’m saying? I mean, I
know.
I’ve known Boone since he was a kid, and I know you too. So I know, okay?”

“Well, yeah, but you’re wrong. I’m not … I’m pretty much on my own, and I only get a quarter of what we make with the boat, you know? Which is almost a quarter of nothing, the way it’s been going.”

“Bullshit,” Eddie says in a low voice.

“Aw, c’mon, Eddie. I’m fucking broke!”

“Yeah. You and the Pope. Look, kid, we gotta talk. I think I get the picture, we can’t talk on the phone, right? So we gotta talk in person. What do you say I drive down to Miami, we meet there for a drink and lunch tomorrow, say, and we talk. In private. I understand how it is right now, on the phone, I mean. I can call you tomorrow from a pay phone, and we can arrange to meet in Miami around one.”

“No, Eddie. No big meetings in Miami. I’m telling you the truth. No bullshit, I’m really broke. Busted. Flat. You don’t understand that; you never did understand that. I’ll do anything I can to help you, you’re my brother, for Christ’s sake, but I’m fucking broke!” he shouts.

“Yeah. Sure. I hear you.”

“No. No, you don’t, you bastard. You never did hear me. You don’t hear me now, and you never heard me in your life.”

Eddie is silent a second, then, in a hoarse voice, “I heard you a lot more’n you got any idea. Maybe I didn’t show it much, but I heard you. I know it’s been tough on you, but it’s tough for me. I got real problems, Bob. Even my epilepsy, it’s been coming back lately, like when I was a kid.”

“Jesus, Eddie. You see a doctor?”

“Yeah, sure. He give me some fucking pills and said go take a vacation. But that’s not important, the epilepsy. Not compared to the other stuff.” He is silent for a second. Then, “For Christ’s sake, Bob, I’m asking. You got that? I’m
asking.
”

“Eddie, goddammit, you’re always asking. You’ve been asking since the beginning. You make it look like you’re giving, but all you’re doing is asking. I’m sorry about the epilepsy and all your problems. But I got lots of problems too, and you’re one of the fucking reasons why. You say you’re giving me a big job, a chance of a lifetime, you say you’re gonna make me rich, but really all you’re doing is asking, you’re using me to work for nothing, to be your loyal clerk, your fucking nigger, while you add up all the profits and take ’em home to buy another fucking boat with. Listen, man, I learned something that year up in Oleander Park. I’m a little slow, I know, but eventually I learn, and I learned not to listen to you when you say you’re giving. I tune out now when you start saying you got just what I need, because it’s going to turn out instead to be just what
you need
.”

“Bob, listen. For Christ’s sake, Bob. You got burnt, I know, and I’m sorry. I … I thought things would be better for you. And that stupid stuff about the gun and all, I didn’t understand that stuff, I admit it. Shit, I still don’t understand. But it don’t matter. Things like that don’t matter anymore.”

“Fuck they don’t matter. They mattered then, they matter now. You think I’m a bozo.”

“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
I’m
gone, right along behind. You understand me? If I can’t come up with the money, I’ll be gone too. Repossessed, just like the fucking house and the boat and the store and everything. You didn’t know that, probably. There’s people can repossess people.”

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.”