Eddie, with Prof’s cardboard mailing tube in his hand and $105.05 in his pocket, stepped down onto the bus-station platform in his old hometown. The wind tore through his khaki windbreaker and green short-sleeved shirt. Snow was blowing, but not in the form of flakes: they were too small, too hard, too gray.
Eddie had forgotten that wind. It made him think again of shrimp boats on the Gulf, and getting back on the bus. This, after all, was the town he had always wanted to get out of, wasn’t it? The door of the bus jerked shut behind him.
Eddie went into the station, thinking, I’ll sit in here where it’s warm, order a sandwich and coffee, eat all by myself: luxury. But the station was not as he recalled: the coffee shop, newsstand, drugstore, were all gone. Time changes everything, as El Rojo had said. There was nothing inside but vending machines, a ticket counter with no one behind it, and a stubble-faced man mopping the floor.
Eddie examined the vending machines. Coffee cost sixty-five cents. He had the hundred-dollar bill, a five, and a nickel. “Got change for a five-dollar bill?” he called to the man. Maybe he should have just said, “Got change for a five?” Was that more natural? He needed a phrase book.
Not looking up, the man replied, “Change machine makes change.” He spoke with the accent of the town, of the whole river valley, a sound Eddie hadn’t consciously associated with his childhood until that moment. It didn’t warm him.
Eddie found the changer at the end of the row of vending machines. “Insert one or five dollar bill,” read the instructions. “This way up.” He took out the five and was about to stick it in the slot when he noticed that someone had written in lipstick on the wall, “Does not work you assholes.” He didn’t chance it.
Eddie went outside. He remembered that wind but didn’t remember it bothering him like this. Had he been weakened by fifteen years spent indoors? Or was it just his shaven skull that gave the wind its bite?
Hunched inside the khaki windbreaker, Eddie walked down Main Street. Downtown had been decaying when he left. Now it had decayed more. Shop windows were dusty, the goods in them yellowed, nothing had been painted in years. He moved on toward Weisner’s Department Store, maybe to buy a hat, at least to have a sandwich at the U-shaped lunch counter. But Weisner’s, with that U-shaped lunch counter, faded hardwood floors, scrawny-necked clerks in jackets and ties, was gone; just an empty lot, covered in crusty brown snow, littered with broken glass and windblown scraps.
Eddie turned onto River. A dog came trotting his way, a little spotted mongrel with pointed ears. Eddie remembered he liked dogs and made a clicking sound, hoping to draw it closer, maybe within patting distance. The dog heard the sound and without changing speed cut across the street. Eddie noticed the bone sticking out of its mouth; maybe the dog thought he was after it.
He walked onto the bridge and started across the river toward New Town. The river was frozen over, except for a narrow band in the middle where water ran black and fast. As Eddie watched, a mattress-size slab of ice broke loose from the New Town bank, spun slowly into the stream, picked up speed, came surging closer, vanished under the bridge. Eddie crossed to the other side and watched the ice slab bob down the river, past the limits of the town to where the woods began, and out of sight.
Two boys, Eddie and Jack, on a mattress in a darkened room. The mattress was the good ship Fearless, the room a storm-toss’d sea. Eddie was Sir Wentworth Staples, captain in the British Navy, on a mission to exterminate pirates on the Spanish Main, and Jack was One-Eye Staples, king of the buccaneers. Through a series of efficient coincidences, the long-separated brothers now found themselves alone on the Fearless, sailors and pirates all drowned, the ship sundered and foundering. The situation and characters came from a book the boys had found in a trunk in the basement of one of the rooming houses they’d lived in after their mother got fired: Muskets and Doubloons. They made up their own endings.
“By thunder,” said One-Eye, because One-Eye had a salty way of talking, “we’re in a tight one now.”
“Aye, matey,” said Sir Wentworth.
A mighty wave struck amidships. The brothers clung to the sheets to keep from being washed away. The wind moaned all around. After a while the brothers realized it was a real moaning, the moaning of a woman: Mom, to be precise. The sound came through the thin partition.
Then they heard Mel: “You like that, don’t you, babe,” he said.
No answer. The boys clung to the sheets.
“Say you like it. Then maybe I’ll do it again.”
Pause. “You know I like it.”
“Say you like when I do that to you because you’re such a hot slut.”
Sir Wentworth tugged on One-Eye’s pajama sleeve. “We’ll have to make a raft,” he whispered. “She’s sinking.” One-Eye didn’t move.
“Say it,” said Mel, on the far side of the wall.
“I like when you do that because I’m just a slut,” said Mom.
“Good enough.”
Sir Wentworth tugged again at One-Eye’s sleeve. “Help me,” he said.
“Help you what?” asked One-Eye.
“Build a raft. The good ship Fearless is going to Davy Jones’s locker.”
One-Eye pushed him away. “Stop being a jerk,” he said. He rolled over and closed his eyes.
Sir Wentworth built a raft out of pillows. The Fearless went down. The storm moaned and moaned all around them, with two voices now, male and female. Sir Wentworth lay silent on the pillow raft until it passed, the body of One-Eye motionless beside him.
There had been a succession of Mels, each one harder to live with than the last. Maybe their own father had been just another Mel too; the boys didn’t know. He’d checked out early, and Mom didn’t talk about him. The last Mel liked to slap the boys around a bit. One day Jack slapped back. The scene that followed prompted Mom to farm the boys out to Uncle Vic, on the New Town side. She and the last Mel moved to California a few months later. That was that.
Eddie stood in front of 23 Turk Street, Uncle Vic’s house in New Town. It wasn’t much of a place; they’d known that even then: a shotgun house with wavy floors, depressing wallpaper, grimy trim. But Uncle Vic wasn’t even their uncle, just some old friend of Mom’s. He didn’t have to do it. That was a plus. Another plus was that he kept his fists to himself.
Uncle Vic worked the night shift at Falardeau Metal and Iron. In the afternoons, he coached the high-school swim team. That had been the biggest plus of all: he had taught Jack and Eddie how to swim, really swim, and they had swum their way out of town.
Twenty-three Turk hadn’t been much of a house then. Now, like the rest of the town, it was past saving. Eddie walked across the sagging porch and knocked on the door. No one came. He knocked a few more times, then put his ear to the door, listening for movement inside. Someone said, “Tonight at seven-nudist camp murders.” Then came a Coke commercial.
Eddie knocked once more, harder. He was ready to do it again when the door opened. A tiny man with a matted beard and stringy white hair looked out, blinking. He shrank back a bit when he saw Eddie’s hand, in knocking position. Eddie lowered it.
“Whatever you’re sellin’ I’m not buyin’,” the old man said. Alcohol fumes drifted into the space between them.
Eddie didn’t recognize the man at all, but he knew the voice. “Vic,” he said.
The old man peered up at him. “Do I know you?”
“Uncle Vic,” Eddie said.
The old man studied his face, then looked him up, down, up. “Shit,” he said. “You still competin’?”
“Competing?”
“Is why you shaved your melon. Unless you’ve gone bald or some-” Vic remembered then, and his face, hard enough, hardened more.
“I got out yesterday,” Eddie said.
“Just yesterday?” said Vic, puzzled. “Well, if it’s money you want, I got none. Don’t need no jailbirds around here. No offense.”
The wind gusted across the porch, spinning a white cone before it like a seal toying with a ball. Vic, in a sleeveless undershirt and long johns, shivered.
“I don’t want money,” Eddie said. This wasn’t what he’d expected. But what had he expected? An embrace? No; but a handshake, maybe.
“Good,” said Vic. “ ’Cause I got none. Those fucking Falardeaus laid me off, laid off half the town. I suppose you didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t.”
Vic snorted. “Restructuring.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell me.” Vic glanced up and down Turk Street. No one was out. He looked again at Eddie. “You don’t want money?”
“No.”
Vic opened the door wider. “Might as well come on in.” Another gust ripped up the porch, blowing a tiny white storm inside before Vic got the door closed.
Same house, same layout: front room, stairs on the left, bathroom down the hall, but much smaller than in memory, and all comfort gone. The shag carpet, Vic’s La-Z-Boy, framed photos of Johnny Weissmuller: gone. There was just the TV and a stained sofa sagging crooked on the warped floor. On the screen, a man in a party hat was jumping up and down. Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Eddie thought. Is this mine own countree?
“Bank’s got the place now,” Vic said, watching him. “So who gives a shit?”
They sat at opposite ends of the sofa. There was a half-full jug of wine on the floor. Vic pushed it around the side, where Eddie couldn’t see. He gave Eddie a sidelong look, then fastened his eyes on the TV. The man in the party hat was laughing till it hurt.
“You were something in the pool,” Vic said.
“Not that good.”
“Yes you were. One hell of a swimmer.” He turned to Eddie. “Not as good as Jack, but one hell of a swimmer.”
Eddie said nothing.
“Go ahead. Say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you were better.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You beat him in the fly. Why don’t you say it?”
The same old shit: trying to get him to rise to the challenge of Jack. A cheap coach’s trick, and so long ago, stupid then, meaningless now. They’d already fallen into their old pattern. Eddie kept silent.
Vic began his rebuttal anyway. “So what if you did beat him in the fly? What does it prove? The fly is for animals. Freestylers need finesse.”
The next moment Eddie was on his feet, standing over Vic. Just a stupid and meaningless trick, but he had a fistful of that stringy hair, slick and oily, in one hand and his other hand was cocked.
“I’m not an animal.”
“Jesus,” said Vic, “what did I say?” The good part was the lack of fear in Vic’s eyes. Eddie realized that was as close as he was going to get to a homecoming. “I was talking about swimming, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t mean nothin’.”
Eddie let go. Sorry. He almost said it. Vic was drunk. Eddie had seen him drunk before. Fifteen years had passed and now Vic was one, that was all. Eddie walked to the window. Wind and snow. Nice. He could just stroll out into it if he wanted.
Behind him, Vic reached for the bottle, took a swig. His hair stood up like a cock’s crest. He held the jug out to Eddie. Eddie shook his head. He’d thought a lot about his first drink on the outside. He wanted a drink, but he wasn’t sure he could stop at one, and that meant not now.
Vic took another drink, a long one. “It’s all fucked up, isn’t it?” he said.
“What is?”
Vic waved the jug around. “This town. Everything. You guys were great. Coulda gone to the Olympics, anything.”
“We weren’t that good.”
“Good enough for USC.” Vic’s voice rose. “After that, who knows? You never gave it a chance.” Vic rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, hard enough to redden the skin. “Ah, hell,” he said. “What’s it matter anyway?” He picked up the remote control and snapped off the TV. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. “You never wrote, or nothin’. Or called. Can you call from a place like that?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you just turn up.” Vic stuck the remote in his shirt pocket. “Jack writes.”
“He does?”
“Sure.” Vic rose, a little stiffly-once his movements had been quick and smooth-and left the room. Eddie heard him go up the stairs, walk along the floor above. He got up, found the wine jug. It had a nice label-vineyard, wagon piled with grapes, setting sun. Eddie sniffed the wine, raised it to his lips, drank. It disgusted him, as though he was too pure or something. A laughable idea. But he spat the wine on the floor anyway.
Vic returned, saw him standing there with the jug. “Left over from a party,” he said.
“I don’t remember you as a party-giver, Vic.”
“People change.” He thrust an envelope in Eddie’s hands. “Jack writes.”
Eddie opened the envelope, unfolded the letter. The first surprise was the letterhead: J. M. Nye and Associates, Investment Consultants, 222 Park Avenue, Suite 2068, New York. The second was the date. The letter was ten years old.
Dear Uncle Vic:
Sorry to hear things aren’t going so well. Here’s fifty. Hope it tides you over. We wouldn’t want to make this a habit, what with being “family” and all. Keep plugging, as you used to say down at the pool.
Jack
JMM/cb
“I told you,” Vic said.
“Told me what?”
“Jack writes.”
“This letter’s ten years old.”
Vic snatched it out of his hands. “That’s a crock.” He stuffed it in his pocket, behind the remote.
Ten years old and a brush-off besides, Eddie thought. But he left it unsaid because of the expression on Vic’s face: pissed off and crazy at the same time. He’d seen that expression often enough, not on Vic’s face, but on plenty of faces inside.
“Sounds like he’s doing all right,” Eddie said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Two-twenty-two Park Avenue. Investment consultant.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Vic said.
“Me neither. Maybe not much, or he would have sprung for more than fifty.”
Vic glared up at him, more crazy, more pissed off; with the rooster crest Eddie had raised on his head, he looked like a fighting cock about to do something bloody with his talons.
Shouldn’t have come, Eddie thought. He said, “I wanted to see how you were, that’s all.”
“Broke,” Vic said. “Stony broke.”
“And other than that?”
Vic blinked again. Eddie didn’t remember that blinking. It was a sign of the loser, too slow to keep up. Vic had become a loser.
“Other than that, what?” Vic said.
“Nothing,” Eddie told him. He extended his hand. “Take care of yourself, Vic.” Eddie got his handshake. The old man’s hand was hot and dry. Probably the drinking did that, Eddie thought, although he remembered an inmate whose hand had felt the same way. He’d died of brain cancer a few months later.
“You don’t want any money?” Vic said.
“I answered that.”
“Everyone’s tryin’ to put the touch on these days, with the way this lousy state’s …”
Eddie went to the door, opened it.
“Where are you gonna go?”
“Out.” Eddie stepped into the storm.
Standing behind him, Vic laid his hot, dry hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “You were really something in the pool,” he said.
Eddie walked away. “It’s all psychological, this fuckin’ life,” Vic called after him. Eddie thought he heard the TV snap on just before the door closed.
Eddie walked back, down Turk, left on Mill, right on River, onto the bridge, toward the downtown side. His feet knew the way. It was colder now, snow thicker, blowing harder. Eddie felt the cold, but it no longer bothered him. The ice was spreading, narrowing the black band where the river ran free and fast in the constricted space. The fissure in the ice, bubbling and black, seemed to shrink even as Eddie gazed down into it. He pictured himself falling through the white air into black water, sinking. Why not? He was a free man.
The river was frozen all the way across. Eddie laced on his skates. He could never get them tight enough; they were Jack’s old ones, still too big, and the plastic tips had come off the ends of the laces. He had to lick them, twist them, stick them through the holes, all with bare fingers getting colder.
“Is it safe?” he yelled.
Jack, stickhandling around some beer cans, made chicken noises. He could see Jack’s breath rising in puffs of gray.
“I’m not chicken,” Eddie said, but not loudly, more to himself: let your stick do the talking. If you win, say little, if you lose, say less. And there was another saying the hockey coach had told them, but he couldn’t remember. Eddie tugged hard at the laces, quickly tying a knot, but not quickly enough to keep the laces tight. Then he took his stick, pushed himself off the bank, and skated out. The ice was gray and opaque under his blades, thick and solid. Mrs. Benoit had warned the class, that was all. She was just a worrywart.
“Pass, pass,” he called.
Jack circled in that easy way he had, leaning into the turn, looked right at him, said, “Cluck, cluck,” and fired a slapshot at one of the bridge supports. The puck rang off the steel, bounced back, slid across the ice toward Eddie.
He skated toward it, heard Jack’s blades cutting snick-snick across the ice, skated faster, reached with his stick, lost his balance, touched the puck, tried to pull it into his skates; then Jack came swooping down, lifted Eddie’s stick with his own, stole the puck, and whirled away, fast enough to flutter his Bruins sweater. Eddie saw that fluttering sweater just as he fell, hard, onto his back, losing his stick. He got up, picked up the stick, skated after Jack, out across the river, toward the New Town side.
“Pass, pass.”
Jack slowed down, turned, skated backward, still stickhandling the puck. Eddie caught up to him. Jack smiled, pushed the puck toward him on the outside edge of his blade.
“Here you go, Chicken Little.”
Eddie reached for the puck, but it wasn’t there. It was sliding between his own skates; and before he could get his stick on it, Jack had skated around him, cradled the puck, snick-snicked away. Eddie’s right skate slipped out from under him; he fought for balance like a cartoon character, almost stayed up. He rose, got his stick, skated after Jack.
“Pass, pass.” He loved playing hockey.
Far ahead, Jack wheeled around, leaned into a figure eight, gathered speed, wound up, and passed the puck. Not a pass, really, more like a shot, but in his direction. Eddie took off, trying to intercept it.
He wasn’t fast enough and the puck got by him. He chased it toward the New Town side, skating as fast as he could, expecting the snick-snick of Jack’s blades at any moment, expecting the flash of that billowing Bruins sweater. But there was no snick-snick, no black-and-gold flash. Eddie caught up to the puck, out in the middle of the river, tucked it into the blade of his stick, and wheeled around like a defenseman gathering speed in his own end. His head was up in proper style. He didn’t notice that the ice had changed from gray and opaque to black and translucent. He just heard a crack, and then he was in the water.
Eddie went right under, all the way to the bottom. First came the terror, then the shock of the cold, then the thrashing. One of his thrashing skates touched something. The bottom. Eddie pushed off. He must have, because the next moment he was on the surface. But only for that moment: the weight of his skates, the water saturating his thick clothes, pulled him back down. His eyes were open: he saw black, and silver bubbles, his own silver bubbles, bubbling out of him. He kicked his way up, got his hands on the edge of the ice, kicked, pulled. The ice broke off.
“Jack,” he screamed, went under, swallowed icy water, came up gasping. “Jack.”
He saw Jack. Jack saw him. Jack was standing still, his mouth open, a tiny breath cloud over his head. That was all Eddie had time to take in before he went under again.
Eddie hit bottom, pushed off, came up, looked for Jack. Jack was skating away, skating in a clumsy way he had never seen before. Eddie had that thought. Then he thought: he’s going for help, and getting his frozen hands on the ice again, he kicked with his legs and tried to push himself up with his hands. The ice broke away, and Eddie started to go down again. Then something hit him in the face. His stick. He reached for it, got it in his hands. His hands were awkward things now, barely able to grip, and his shivers were beyond control.
Eddie took the stick, reached out as far as he could, scissored his legs with all his strength, tried to dig the blade into the ice. Pull. Kick. Pull kick. He flopped onto the ice, up to his chest. Some of it broke off beneath him, but not all. He kicked, pulled, wriggled, flopped up a little higher; and finally right out of the water. Eddie didn’t get up, didn’t skate, but crawled all the way to the river bank, frantic.
He was crying now, crawling and crying. “Jack, Jack.” But Jack wasn’t there. No one was there. He came to the bank on the downtown side, pulled himself up. The house was a block from the river. Eddie walked there in his skates. He didn’t know what else to do.
The back door was always unlocked. Eddie pushed it open, called, “Mom, Mom.” The house was silent. He had to tell someone, but there was no one to tell.
Eddie poured a steaming bath, lay in it, wearing his clothes and his skates; lay there until the shivering stopped. After that, he felt sleepy. He got out of the bath, unlaced his skates-that took a long time because of the wet laces and his sausage fingers-stripped, dried himself.
Eddie went down the hall to the bedroom he shared with Jack. The door was closed. He opened it. Jack lay in the bed, still in his Bruins sweater. He was doing the shivering now.
“I got scared,” he said.
Jack was eight, Eddie seven.
Eddie, leaning on the bridge rail, looking down at the water, didn’t hear the squad car stop beside him, didn’t hear the door open and close. The wind was blowing harder, drowning out other sound, and his attention was elsewhere.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and-
A voice said: “You Eddie Nye?”
Eddie turned. A cop was standing there, all bundled up except for the bare right hand on his gun butt.
“Yeah,” Eddie said.
“Just saying hi,” the cop said. “Wouldn’t want you to feel all-what’s the word? — anonymous, or nothing.” He waited, perhaps for Eddie to say something. When he realized it might be a long wait, too long in weather like that, he said, “Enjoy your visit,” got in the car and drove off.
Eddie stood on the bridge. Snow collected in his collar and the tops of his shoes, and on his bald head. After a while he laughed, a little sound, lost in the wind. Vic had dropped a dime on him. Who else could it be?
Eddie walked quickly off the bridge, into downtown, amused. Good old Uncle Vic.
It was time for that steam bath.