Early Warning

1976

DEBBIE AND HUGH AGREED ON everything having to do with Carlie, who was now four months old, weighed sixteen pounds, and was twenty-four inches long. She had been born with plenty of reddish hair, though that had fallen out, and a darker fringe was growing in. They agreed that she would be breast-fed until she gave it up on her own; they agreed that, pacifier or thumb, it was her choice; they agreed no baby food and no table food until she seemed interested; breast milk was a complete nutrient for a baby. They agreed no hot peppers until she was eight months old. (But this was a joke. They had taken a visiting historian out for Chinese food, and Debbie, in her attentive way, had pointed out the dried peppers in the Kung Pao chicken. The historian, from Ghana, had picked one up and, with a smile, swallowed it down. Another man in their party, who had visited Ghana and was eager to demonstrate his worldly savoir-faire, had done the same thing and burst into tears. The Ghanaian man had then explained that where he was from, mothers introduced hot peppers at eight months.) They agreed no playpen. They agreed no crying herself to sleep. They agreed no pink or baby blue, and an equal number of girls’ toys and boys’ toys — Carlie could choose. They agreed on this partly because Hugh’s mother had taught her three sons to knit when they were eight or ten, and he had knitted Carlie a red baby hat with flaps and a pom-pom. If the baby had been a boy, they would not have agreed on circumcision, but they had avoided that conflict.

However, after four months, Debbie did not like getting up in the night to nurse. She had asked her mother about it, but Lillian, of course, had never nursed. Aunt Andy had—“smoking the whole time, and turning her head to keep the ash from dropping on the baby.” When the twins were babies, there were two nurses named Sally and Hallie who brought Richie and Michael to Aunt Andy in bed. What a pleasure that would be, Debbie thought. She lay on her back in the dark, wide awake. Hugh was snoring lightly, facing the wall. Carlie had not started crying yet, but she would any second now. Debbie often awakened before the crying began, and what could be the signal from the next room? Some biological connection? Carlie could move now, which made Debbie a little nervous. Her aunt Claire had always been told to lay the boys on their stomachs, and now you weren’t supposed to do that. Backs were worse, in case they threw up and aspirated the vomit. You were supposed to lay them on their sides and prop them with a rolled blanket. Debbie had been propping with extra punctiliousness lately, because what if? And then there was a woman she knew in her feminist reading group who said she had worn a sling over her shoulder with the baby in it for eight months, only putting him down when he was ready to crawl away. She wore long skirts to meetings and said that real feminism was not getting a better job but reclaiming the matriarchy and the Goddess. She was undecided about whether her son was going to be allowed to learn to read and write, because reading and writing privileged analytical, left-brain thinking. Debbie despised this woman, who, when she said the word “Goddess,” smiled slightly, as if she was thinking of her ample self.

The screaming commenced. Debbie waited to see if Hugh would react, and somehow rise from his side of the bed and go get Carlie, but he snored again and then again. He didn’t even hear her, though to Debbie the crying was loud enough to rouse the neighbors, which, in the end, got her up.

She started on the left, lifting the bottom of her T-shirt and unsnapping the cup of her nursing bra. Her breast was enormous and hard; the nipple jutted forth, dripping milk. Carlie latched on with enthusiasm — she was starving after six hours. Her little hand, her right hand, waved around for a moment, then settled gently and appreciatively on Debbie’s breast. Carlie sucked with concentration for a few seconds, her eyes almost crossing with the effort, and then her eyes rolled up and caught Debbie’s gaze. She had beautiful big eyes, true blue heading for blue, not baby blue heading for brown. Debbie smoothed her forehead. Carlie sucked three or four more minutes, and then her mouth relaxed around the nipple, and she smiled a friendly smile. She had only just started doing that. Debbie smiled back and said, “Darling, darling, darling.” She made a kiss.

Carlie went at the second breast with more enjoyment and less desperation. Debbie had read that there were three milks — cream, milk, and water — but she couldn’t remember in which order they came. Carlie was looking at her and grinned again; then her hand slapped Debbie gently on the breast. She sighed a deep sigh, and Debbie did the same thing.

Was this the best part, the soporific effect of either the sucking or the milk or the rocking beginning to take effect? Debbie had to concentrate on the baby’s face or on the picture of Black Beauty above the crib so as not to fall asleep and, God forbid, go limp (though she never had). She herself yawned, and yawned again. Now Carlie let go, asleep. Debbie stood up slowly and carefully, leaning forward, placed the baby smoothly in the crib, wedged the rolled blanket behind her back, and covered her with the quilt her mother had given her, her own little quilt from twenty-nine years ago, faded but soft.

Hugh had pushed the covers down; she straightened them and got in next to him. He was lying on his other side now, apparently sound asleep. She settled on her back and closed her eyes, consciously picturing Carlie’s gay smile. Everyone she knew who had babies found it impossible to understand how they themselves had managed to survive bottles and formula and playpens and refrigerator mothers. They talked about it all the time. Lillian, Debbie knew, had done her best, given how she herself had been raised. That smile. That smile. Debbie slept.

—

FRANK WAS SITTING in his office, staring at rain falling on the Chrysler Building and pondering his favorite project, the supercavitating torpedo. It was pretty evident to the navy that the Russians were further along with their something than Frank’s company was. Apart from the extreme danger of the something that the Russians were pretty far along with — should they deploy it, a fleet of nuclear subs would become as fish in a barrel — the safest thing to assume was the thing that Frank always assumed, that the Russians would do unto others as they feared others would do unto them. The West was superior in almost every other weapons system, so it was all the more galling that the Russians might have pre-emptively mastered this supersonic underwater missile. Frank suspected they had uncovered a cache of Nazi documents that the Americans had not known about and kept them to themselves. Or perhaps there had been another Wernher von Braun, who disappeared behind the Iron Curtain without the Americans’ suspecting. Frank often thought about the war — not himself in it, but how the larger picture had played out. He had written in a letter to Jesse that he could not decide — had the outcome of the war been a close call, because of the V-2 rocket and the atomic bomb, or had it been a foregone conclusion, because of Allied intelligence, American manufacturing, and the overwhelming surge of Stalin’s armies from the east? And since you could not decide even now, more than thirty years later, whether the outcome of World War II had been a close call or a foregone conclusion, then you certainly could not foretell the outcome of the Cold War. As a result of these cogitations, Frank was on the verge of authorizing further investment in the torpedo, although his board was getting restive at the expense.

Wendy, his secretary, announced on the intercom that Gary Vogel was here to see him. It took Frank a second to remember who Gary Vogel was.

Gary looked like the long-distance trucker he had become — his hair was short, his paunch was big, and his demeanor was cautious. Frank had last heard that he worked for an outfit out of Omaha. Frank went around his desk, shook Gary’s hand, and said, “Sorry to hear about Uncle John, Gary.”

“Shit, it wasn’t a surprise. He kept arguing with the doc about going on oxygen, and I guess this saved him the trouble. Nice place you got here.” He walked over to the window and looked out at the Chrysler Building. Then he said, “You must be on the pricey side, rent-wise.”

“We got in early.”

Frank understood that this was not a social call, but he sat on the edge of his desk, mimicking informality — in any negotiation, it was better to wait until the other party committed himself. Gary said, “You know why I’m here?”

Frank remained silent.

“I’m no farmer, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I heard you’re driving big rigs now.”

“That’s what I hated about the farm. The view never changes, except for the worse.”

Frank smiled.

“But my dad loved it. So.” He walked over to the window again, stared at the triangles and the curves that always reminded Frank of papal headgear. “You know what they say, this acreage is available.”

“You mean your part of the land your dad and my brother have been farming.”

“That’s what I mean. The price of land is way up there now. We didn’t even tell my dad what a fellow from Des Moines estimated. Mom thought the shock would kill him.”

Frank said, “What did the fellow from Des Moines say?”

“Three grand an acre.”

“And you have—”

“Three hundred fifty acres.”

“As I remember, some of that is too hilly to cultivate.”

“Twenty-nine acres. Pasture and woodlot. Badger Creek cuts off the one corner — another two and a third acres.”

“You’ve had it surveyed?”

Gary nodded.

Frank said, “You want me to buy you out.”

“I do,” said Gary.

Everyone in Iowa scratched their heads at the pivot between the generations, and if Lois had pushed Roland Frederick down the basement stairs, as Frank sometimes thought she had, well, it was the practical thing to do and Frank respected her for it. He asked, “What have you said to Joe?”

“Ah, Joe doesn’t want to talk about it. Why would he? Everything is just the way he likes it now.”

“I don’t think we can give you three grand an acre. It’s not going to produce enough to pay off that kind of investment.”

Gary pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose, then folded it thoughtfully and stuck it back in his pocket. He said, “Frankie, you know that, and I know that, but there’s a lot of fellas in Chicago and Omaha who don’t seem to know that, and I’m not going to kid you, I plan to get out while the getting out is good.”

Frank said, “What’s your time frame?”

Gary said, “I don’t see myself investing in seed this year.”

“All right, then,” said Frank.

After that came the usual Iowa discomfort about saying goodbye. Gary and Frank exchanged a few niceties, but the door was conveniently near, and soon Gary was through it. Frank closed it behind him. It appeared as though he was about to invest in farmland. This was not a good idea, but when he caught sight of the Chrysler Building, now wet and shining in the late-afternoon sun, he got an idea, not one that Uncle Jens would have cared for, but one he thought might solve the problem, at least for a few years. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed Lillian’s number.

—

THERE WAS a rule at the Y that kids ten years old and under could not be in diving classes — or at least real diving classes. They could learn to swan-dive off the low board, and Charlie had gotten the teacher to let him try a jackknife, but off the high board they could only jump, and not even cannonball. Charlie had been grumpy all winter at the rules, but Mom had pointed out more than once that the pool at the Y was only ten feet deep in the diving end, and that was dangerous. The fact that Charlie could swim down and touch the bottom easy as pie worked against him rather than for him. But now it was summer, he was eleven, and enrolled in the diving class at the outdoor pool — that pool was twelve feet deep at the diving end. Charlie felt that the high board was ready for him.

At eight o’clock, he swam laps for an hour, perfecting his backstroke. He had grown an inch in the last year, and though Alex Durkin was faster than he was, Alex was a year older and three inches taller. From nine o’clock, he was supposed to sit around, reading some book that was on his summer reading list, and stay out of the pool until his diving class, but he often took his book up onto the high dive and sat there, dangling his legs and enjoying the view. His teachers — Mr. Jenkins for swimming and Mr. Lutz for diving — let him alone as long as he had his book with him and didn’t make any noise. Mr. Lutz taught diving at the high school, and Charlie wanted to keep on his good side forever and ever.

Mom often said, “I have given up on you, Charlie,” but she always said it with a smile, and then, “You are bound and determined to go your own way. It’s a good thing you’re such a handsome and charming boy.” Once in a while, Dad sat down with him and had a serious conversation, in which they discussed consequences. Mom and Dad lived in fear of consequences, mostly because Dad’s brother, Uncle Urban, whom Charlie had never met, had died when he was sixteen as the consequence of getting drunk and driving his car into a lamppost on a bridge over the Des Peres River. The lamppost had been infested with termites and had fallen over the edge, and the car, which was going a hundred miles an hour (Charlie thought), went right with it. Urban, or “Urbie,” had never understood consequences. When Mom and Dad had adopted Charlie from the hospital, they had vowed to our Lord Jesus Christ that Charlie would be properly taught, and so they went to Mass every Sunday at Holy Redeemer. Mom wanted him to be an altar boy, but Charlie could see that the altar boys had to stand very still — their legs never jiggled, and they made no noise that they weren’t supposed to make. Also, they had to say things the right way. “And with your spirit” could never be said, “With Dan in Roy’s stirrups,” for example, which was a phrase Charlie often contemplated during Mass, and if he contemplated it, it was sure to pop out. Now that he was taking diving off the high board (the three-meter board, it was called), Mom was going to Mass every day, but she dropped him off with a smile and a “Have fun!” and so he did. He knew she was praying for him — she prayed for everybody, including Jimmy Carter.

Coach Lutz made them stretch every single morning. “Point your toes, touch your nose, hold your pose, stretching shows” was the rhyme for that way of bending so that your nose touched your knees, and “Stand up tall, show it all, stand up tall, see it all” was the rhyme for making sure that their bodies were straight, from their flat hands to their elbows against their ears to their shoulders, hips, knees, and pointed toes. Once they were allowed on the one-meter board, they spent a long time going straight down the board and into the water, no matter what. Charlie tried to be like Moira, who knew what she was doing every step, and always rode the board perfectly.

Then they had to learn to tuck. Off the low board, a tuck was just a fancy cannonball. If they got to the water without a good, tight tuck (pretty hard off the low board, but not impossible), they lost ten dollars of the hundred the coach said they started the day with. Supposedly, someday he was going to pay them real money, but Charlie knew this was a joke. Every day, as often as he could, Charlie asked Mom and Dad for a trampoline in the backyard. Mom said he must stop pestering her, and Dad said they couldn’t afford it, but apparently Mom had lit some candles at the church, and now they were thinking about it. In Charlie’s experience, pestering worked fine.

Off the high board, they had to tuck and then lay out and go in feet first with their toes pointed. They got ten more dollars for no splash. Charlie was getting better: if he untucked smoothly rather than jerkily, his splash was good, though not worth money. Today they were going to tuck and lay out in a dive, flat hands first. Charlie had been thinking about it all weekend and all morning, so intently that he’d dropped his book in the pool and had to slip in and get it, then spread it out on the concrete deck and hope that it would dry.

Now was the time. Moira had gone, Emma had gone. Emma’s head popped up, and she waved. Charlie climbed the ladder, pulling himself with his hands and pushing himself with his feet, consciously lifting the weight of his body in order to get stronger and bigger. At the top, he took a deep breath and looked around. The blue pool and the green park spread away from him, and he lifted his arms, thinking that this was surely how a bird felt. He took another deep breath — right foot first, three big steps, bend your knees and hips, jump, bounce, tuck, roll, open up, lay out, and wait for the water, with his hands gripping each other and his elbows flat to his ears.

Maybe, Charlie thought later, this was what passing out felt like, because, after he looked at his right foot stepping, he really didn’t know what happened. All he knew was that he had never felt anything like it — the world turning upside down and right side up and upside down again, his body unwinding like a string, his hands entering the water as if piercing a hole in a piece of paper. He awakened when he touched the bottom of the pool, shook his head, and swam to the side. Up. Deep breath. Coach Lutz was standing right there. He shouted, “What was that all about, Charlie?”

Charlie said that he didn’t know.

“What was that dive?”

Charlie shook his head.

Coach Lutz stared at him, then said, “Don’t you realize you did a front one and a half?”

“No, sir.” Charlie knew to say “sir” and “ma’am” if he was in trouble.

There was a long pause. Coach Lutz said, “Most kids, I wouldn’t believe them, Charlie, but you I believe.”

Then he said, “It was a good one, too. But don’t do it again.”

Only then did he smile.

After that, going to diving class was like putting himself in a box and closing the lid. He did exactly as he was told and just the way he was told to do it. But the day would come, like Christmas, when he would be allowed to open the box, and the rolls and twists would fill him with that sense, again, that he knew everything and nothing at the exact same time, that between the sight of his foot and the feeling of the water there would be an intoxicating mystery, and that was the only thing in this world that he wanted.

—

MICHAEL GOT IT into his mind that the best place to take girls was down to New Hope, where the queers had these great dance clubs, like the Prelude. Richie didn’t object — the sound system was top-of-the-line loud, the mirror lights were flashing, the dance floor was big, and girls could wear great outfits and get plenty of compliments. If you didn’t mind queers that much and kept your elbows up in the john, that part was fine, and there were also plenty of poppers, which made for an even better time. Sometimes Michael went without Richie, but they didn’t have to go everywhere together, and they weren’t living together. Michael worked for Mr. Upjohn as a runner on the trading floor; Richie worked for Mr. Rubino, updating commercial listings and answering the phone. Michael made fifteen hundred dollars a month, and Richie made sixteen hundred.

Their car was the old Chrysler (though Michael was looking at a Jag, and Richie liked Porsches). The number-one girl was Marnie Keller. She worked as an assistant in publishing at Viking, and made about two cents an hour. She lived in an illegal sublet in Chelsea and couldn’t answer the phone or the door. If Michael wanted to see her, he had to go to her place and knock, and she would look through the little hole in the door and let him in if she was in the mood. Girl number two was a friend of Marnie’s from work, who lived on the Upper East Side, in a dump. The main floor of the apartment was nice enough, but Ivy’s room was down a spiral staircase that had been cut into the floor. No window, but there was a double bed and a colorful rug, and it was better than sleeping on couches, which is what Ivy had done for three months after coming to New York after graduating from Bard. Marnie was in publicity, and Ivy was in editorial. They didn’t let you hold doors for them, but they did let you pay. Michael said that that was women’s liberation for you.

Everyone was waiting for him outside Michael’s place on Eighty-fourth Street, also a dump, but in a good neighborhood. Michael had an arm around each girl. He was wearing a tight jacket and boots with heels. A cigarette was dangling from the corner of his mouth. When Richie pulled up, Michael hustled Marnie into the back seat with him and let Ivy open the passenger’s door for herself. She got in and gave Richie a kiss on the cheek; Michael said, “Fuck, it’s cold. The heat on?”

Richie kissed Ivy in return, then said, “Hi, Marn. Where’d you pick up this asshole?”

“Usual spot,” said Marnie, and the two girls laughed.

“Fuck, she loves me, she loves me not,” said Michael. He had the expanded quality that indicated to Richie that he’d had a few drinks before the girls arrived. He lay back across most of the seat, and pulled Marnie against him. She said, “How can I fasten my seat belt?”

“No seat belts on you, baby,” said Michael.

Ivy fastened her seat belt, put her hand on Richie’s knee.

New York was not like college in many ways, and one of them was that the girls he dated in college wanted boyfriends, a ring, and a wedding, but the girls that he dated in New York wanted something more like a wild brother. Michael said that the only thing girls in New York wanted was a decent apartment, and to get that you had to find an older man who (as Richie knew) had purchased his apartment in the early sixties. If that meant kids and an ex-wife, so be it. Boys their own age were for fun, and older men were for membership at MoMA, an account with a car service, access to book parties where Norman Mailer might show up. This system was fine, according to Michael. In the first place, look at their mom and dad, who might as well be living in a hotel as in a house together — a thirty-year-old stepmother would at least buy the old man some cooler suits. In the second place, in ten years, when they themselves had it made, they would have their pick of that crop, the 1963 crop, and who was to say that 1963 wasn’t a very good year? Michael planned to sample all the vintages along the way.

Richie felt that he could go either way, depending on the girl. He was a little lonely, so he could imagine himself making something permanent, living in Brooklyn, an upper-floor apartment where the plumbing worked and the cockroaches were more reticent. He could imagine himself talking to this girl and making jokes, and going out to breakfast and seeing movies and taking the subway to work every morning. And not introducing her to Michael. On the other hand, there was nothing wrong with the system they’d come up with, and they could have dated every night if they felt like it. There were that many girls.

New Hope was about an hour and fifteen minutes away. The town was full of restaurants and shops, and all the houses were fixed up, with paint jobs and gardens. Michael said this was mostly because the queers decided they needed a nicer spot than Woodstock, and a closer one, too. This was how New York worked — money went to the Hamptons, hippies and Jews went to the Catskills, queers went to New Hope and Fire Island. In the back seat, Michael was making out with Marnie. They were laughing, and she said, “I should have worn jeans! Keep your hand in your own pants, Michael!”

“You know you don’t mean that.”

“I do. Shit!” She sounded actually annoyed.

Richie tapped the brake pedal, and the car lurched. There was a moment of silence. When he looked in the rearview mirror, Richie saw Michael hoist himself upright. A moment later, he put on his seat belt (Richie could hear the click), and then Marnie put on hers. He and Ivy exchanged a glance and a smile. Ivy’s lips formed the words “Mission accomplished,” and the two of them laughed, but softly.

Inside the Prelude, the sight of men with their arms around one another, dancing together and sometimes kissing, sort of shocked him, and when he looked again, there was the even odder sight of very, very tall women with narrow hips in high heels and heavy makeup who he realized after a few minutes were men in drag. Twice, they had seen shows of dance numbers on the stage. The dancers were beautiful and skilled, and when they bowed at the end, they pulled off their wigs and revealed their bristly heads. They got rounds and rounds of applause. The flashing lights and the pounding music made these sights all the more strange; it took him maybe fifteen minutes every time he came to stop staring and start having fun. No matter how well dressed Marnie and Ivy were, he and Michael got the stares. Ivy started laughing as soon as they walked in the door — she loved the outfits the cross-dressers had on that she herself didn’t have the figure or the nerve to wear, and she loved the dedication with which some of these guys had taught themselves wonderful old Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly moves. She kept poking him and pointing. The music was disco, but the dancing, often, was American in Paris. She got so pleased that she kissed him, saying, “Oh, you are sweet, Richie.”

He danced and danced, making sure he partnered with both Ivy and Marnie, until he collapsed at a table and ordered a Heiny. Michael liked Stoli and grapefruit juice. He said it was nutritious.

At one-thirty, Richie was ready to go — after five Heinies, he was still okay to drive, but he didn’t want a sixth. Ivy was sleeping against his shoulder, and Marnie was dancing with a tall woman in heels who needed a shave. Right then, the Donna Summer song came on, “Last Dance.” He didn’t know where Michael was until he heard his voice. Three queers on the dance floor were having an argument Richie had heard before: “He’s mine, he’s going home with me,” followed by “No, Tommy, this is my new friend. I’m leaving with him.” Then another voice, saying, “You want to come with us?” Then the first voice, rising, “I brought you! You called me because your transmission is fucked! I paid the cover!” Then Michael’s voice, “Yeah!”

Richie eased Ivy’s head onto the table and stood up. He was a little off kilter. Michael’s voice shouted, “All right.” It was Michael’s I’m-about-to-punch-somebody voice. Richie made his way through the hugging bodies on the dance floor. They were in the back corner. Michael’s jacket was off, and his shirt was unbuttoned, but the three guys (all dressed as guys) were ignoring him. One was shaking his head regretfully, and another was putting his arm around the head shaker’s waist. The third was between Michael and his friends; just as he opened his mouth, Michael pushed him toward the other two and exclaimed, “Act like a fucking man, you faggot!” The guy fell forward, and the other two caught him. Michael ran at them and managed to grab one of them before Richie knocked into his twin and bumped him aside; then he closed his fingers around Michael’s upper arm and pushed him across the dance floor to where Marnie was petting Ivy’s hair. He said, “Let’s go to the diner. I need a cup of coffee before we head home.”

“Fuck you,” said Michael.

“Oh,” said Ivy. “Me, too. Me, too. Can we have a pancake?”

“Two pancakes,” said Richie. He helped Ivy to her feet and gave his hand to Marnie, who stood up, shook herself like a dog, and said, “Wow, did you see that guy I was dancing with? He was like Cyd Charisse or something. Taller, though.” She kept mumbling. Richie put an arm around each girl and steered them toward the door. As planned, Michael stumbled after them, muttering, “Fuck, fuck. Fuck.” He almost hit the pavement where the parking lot met Old York Road, but Richie stuck with the girls and put them both in front, only then opening the rear door and kind of pouring Michael into the back seat. Michael curled up and let out a moan. Marnie said, “He really is an alcoholic, you know.”

“I know,” said Richie. Marnie closed her eyes, but Ivy seemed revived. She took Richie’s hand and squeezed it.

At the New Hope Diner, Richie helped the girls up the steps, in the door, then to the second booth, Marnie to the left of him, Ivy to the right of him, himself squeezed cozily in between. Marnie was hungry now, too. The waitress kept yawning into her pad. By the time the food arrived, Michael had staggered in. Through the window, Richie could dimly see that he had left the car door open. Michael didn’t order anything — he ate half of Richie’s bun and one of Marnie’s slices of bacon. He drank a cup of coffee. He said, “You know what the fuck really pisses me off?”

“What, babe?” said Marnie.

“This faggot sits next to me at that bar there? And I say, Watch your fag, faggot, and he’s got this long ash on his cigarette, and he drops it right onto my pants.”

Richie laughed.

“Don’t laugh! There’s a big fucking hole.” He scooted out of the seat and stood up. Sure enough, on the front of the right leg of his pants was a blackened hole about a quarter-inch wide. The polyester fibers had burned and melted. “Hurt, too. I shoulda punched the guy out, but I thought I was gonna fall off my stool.” He coughed.

Both Ivy and Marnie rolled their eyes.

By the time they got back to Michael’s apartment, it was very late, but there was a parking spot in front of the entrance. Richie was fine — not drunk at all. With the girls’ help, he heaved Michael out of the car and through the door, into the elevator, up one floor. He was stiff — in its stupor, his body still possessed the tension of finely tuned anger and pride. Richie dropped on the couch, and Marnie took off his shoes. Ivy found a blanket and threw it over him.

When Michael was well and truly taken care of, Richie said, “Okay, sweeties, it’s after five. I’m tired. Want to take a nap?” He opened the door to Michael’s bedroom. The bed looked inviting — made, at least, no clothes strewn all over it. Marnie yawned, and Ivy said, “I want the left side. I just can only sleep on the left side.”

“I get the middle,” Richie said.

—

THE LAWYER, who worked from a walnut-paneled office in his very enormous Gothic pile of a house in North Usherton, was Frank’s long-ago chemistry lab partner. He’d always been nervous about what was smoking in the beakers but didn’t mind writing up the results. Frank shook his hand heartily, and listened to him yammer on about how proud everyone was of Frank, he’d really made something of himself, a life to be envied, not so narrow as that of a small-town lawyer, six kids, though, and all of them doing fine, the eldest boy down in South Florida now, first grandchild — he sighed, apparently in spite of himself. And this house, well, it took as much upkeep as any farm. A half-acre front yard—

Joe and Jesse came in — Joseph Walter Langdon; “Jesse,” not “Joe, junior.” The three of them sat at the table. Jesse gave him a grin, was glad to see him. Joe shook his hand without saying anything. Frank had done a good turn, and everyone was a little surprised at it, including Frank.

The lawyer came back in as they sat down, and spread the papers that they were to sign in front of them. Frank had been right, as usual. Lillian had willingly given her portion of the farm to Joe. Henry had said, “Tell me what a farm is again?” and laughed. He knew they would never sell the place anyway, so why think of it as money? Paul, of course, had nearly knocked Claire over in his rush to put his hands on the $260,000 Uncle Jens had paid for her share (after inheritance taxes). Gary and Aunt Angela had been plenty grateful in the end to take their money, too — Gary was planning on buying his own rig. Andy had made no objection; her Higher Power and her friends in AA thought it was the right thing to do, and besides, she was indifferent to money as long as her charge account at Bergdorf’s was free and clear. Frank smiled at Jesse and said, “Got your dollar?”

Jesse pulled a dollar out of his pocket, and Frank frowned, then said, “I’ve changed my mind. I think I’m going to charge you ten.”

Solemnly, Jesse said, “I have that. I was going to—”

But then they all laughed, and Frank shrugged, saying, “Go ahead, buy yourself some lunch.”

“I was going to buy gas.”

They all signed the deeds, and Frank received his one-dollar “consideration” and put it in his inside jacket pocket. He said, “Okay, I suppose I’ll invest this in computers.”

Everyone laughed again.

The lawyer swept up the papers and stacked them together. He congratulated Joe and Jesse, now joint owners of a very nice farm, and, as they all left the office, he put his finger on Frank’s arm. “I have to tell you, I’ve seen a lot of grief and fury in this office. Glad to see this one stay together and remain a family farm.”

Frank smacked him on the back in a friendly way, then followed his brother and nephew onto the porch and down the long driveway. They paused when they got to the street. It was late afternoon, but the air was still bright and flat with dust. Joe said, “Never thought that would be so easy. When John died, my heart sank, I gotta tell you.”

“Who’s going to live over in their house?” Only two houses now — the kit house where Joe and Lois lived with Minnie, and this old Vogel-Augsberger place.

“It’s in pretty good shape,” said Joe. “John told me it was built by a famous bricklayer who’d come over from Bavaria after learning his trade there. I guess he made the bricks himself.”

Frank said, “Remember the story Opa used to tell about the brick maker who refused to give the king an extra brick?”

Jesse said, “What was that?”

“Well, every time the brick maker took his bricks from the kiln, he set aside a certain number for the king, and at the end of the year, he pushed them in his wheelbarrow to the castle. They were fine bricks, of an unusual color, and after the king had received them for many years, he decided to build a house with them, with an arched doorway as an entrance. But after the house was built, the builder was one brick shy — the very brick he needed as the keystone of the arch. He wanted all the bricks to match, so he sent his representative to the brick maker to demand one last brick. However, since the brick maker had paid his taxes, he asked that the king pay him one aureus — that’s a gold coin — for the brick. The representative sent a messenger to the king, and when the king, who was walking around the new house, heard the message, he became enraged at the arrogance of the brick maker. He sent the messenger back to arrest the brick maker and throw him into the dungeon. He kept walking around and around the new house, and after a while he was so angry at the pride of this mere common brick maker that he decided that he wanted to go and demand the brick himself. And so the king rushed out of the house, and as he did so, his crown hit the top of the arch, and the arch, being unsecured, collapsed on top of him and killed him.”

“I don’t remember that story,” said Joe.

“Is there a moral?” said Jesse.

“Sometimes it’s easier to pay,” said Frank. “ ‘Do the easier thing’ was always Opa’s moral. He was a happy man.”

Frank did not want to be thanked. What he wanted was just this thing that he was now getting: Jesse laughing at his story, this knowledge that his money had gone for something worthwhile at last, that, against all odds, he was a good man, that happiness could be bought — if not his, then Jesse’s and, yes, Joe’s. Joe and Jesse got into the same car, Jesse driving, and waved as they drove off. Frank stood for another moment or two, not knowing quite where to go for the evening.