Nothing but Blue Skies

39

Mike was there at daybreak. He brought Frank his paper and some breakfast from Hardee’s in a nice white bag with a hot slick spot on its side. Frank was still in the shower, letting the hot water stream against the stiff back of his neck while he made several plans for the day. He could see out the window the swimming shapes of cars in the street, and when he finished his shower, he rubbed a small circle in the steam and looked below the house to see who was parked there. It was Mike’s Country Squire. For some reason, looking out over the town from this perspective, he thought how much more interesting it would be if they were involved in a war here — tanks in the streets, partisans lobbing grenades into cellars or, best of all, the lust to wipe everything out and start over again. This need for a war was pretty basic, he suspected. His lousy little town had never had one. The closest it had come to a siege of Vicksburg were a few slapping matches around election time.

So, Mike was here. Mike had never taken a big chance and he would never take a big fall, but he had his virtues. He was a deeply loyal person, blindly loyal, a beautiful trait in a country whose salad bars sold lettuce by weight, a country whose true spiritual leader was Benedict Arnold. Frank could never get in a schoolyard fight when Mike was around; because if he should lose, Mike, big and fat and strong already, would jump on the victor and pound him to a pulp. At another time, Frank would have to have the fight all over again, this time collapsing under the blows of a deeply indignant adversary. Mike was straight and clear regarding Gracie. It was part of having an opinion about everything, and every opinion a function of team spirit. He was a Copenhaver and she was a treacherous flooze.

By the time Frank got downstairs, Mike had made bacon and eggs to go with the stuff from Hardee’s and had put everything on the table. He was feeding himself with one hand and holding an open hand to the chair opposite him for Frank to sit down.

Frank sat. “My teeth are fine,” he said. “I’m sure that’s why you’re here.”

Mike gave him a mirthless grin as if to say, “Very funny, Frank.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

“They’re a little sensitive to cold, but that’s not so unusual.”

“Frank —”

“I had that onslaught of cavities spring before last, and a little gum recession.”

“Frank —”

“You let that flossing go for one day and it might be a long time before you get back to it. Then what do you have? Bleeding, sore gums, the prospects of —”

“Frank, please stuff something in your fucking mouth.” Silence from Frank. “Thank you. Now, didn’t I make you a nice breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t I a nice brother, with your well-being always in mind as a fellow Copenhaver?”

“Yes, you are, Mike. And I have come to accept your dogged conservatism as a desire to build a world on the basis of those models we once shared together: Lego, Lincoln Logs and the immortal Erector Set.”

“You’ve lost none of your acid wit, I see,” said Mike. “The acid may be rising in proportion to the wit, but it’s still pretty much all there.”

“I appreciate that. Compliments haven’t been showering of late.”

“It’s really no wonder. It’s hard for people to look on at an innovative businessman who abruptly decides to commit economic suicide.”

“Are you referring to risk management here?” asked Frank.

“I’m referring to the talk of the town.”

“You haven’t seen how it’s going to turn out.”

“How’s it going to turn out, Frank?”

“A chicken in every pot, for one thing.”

“Yeah, I just heard about that one. Frank, do you realize I love you?”

“Thank you, Mike.”

“It occurred to me that perhaps you have concluded no one loves you.”

“I suppose I had had that thought, Mike,” said Frank. “But thank you for loving me.”

“You know, just because some opportunistic whore sees a brighter light over somebody else’s driveway doesn’t mean you have to give up on having a coherent life.”

“Mike, please.”

“And think about your beautiful Holly.”

“I do. But that’s not simple either. You know she’s been seeing Lane Lawlor.”

“I knew that. But so what? She’ll come around.”

“I hope so. And so will I. Yes, my boy. Rest your little head. I’ll come out of this thing in a blizzard of deposit slips.”

“Frank —”

“I know.”

“Frank —”

“I know, I’m doing what I can. There’s a slight fog over the target, sure to clear.”

“You can always slip out to the ranch. It’s an easy commute. Might help to hear some birds.”

“This is handier. I can walk downtown.”

“But Frank,” said Mike, his face clouding. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll be lucky to hang on to your house.”

Frank hadn’t heard that before. He went on wiping up the yolk with a wedge of toast. He thought he brought real insouciance to this moment. Take my house?

“Whatever blows their hair back, Mike. Some of these things are like weather. You just have to watch Willard and wait for another system.”

“All I want you to know is, I’m down there among those guys, the bank, whatever. I’m doing what I can to slow the process. But what you have to do, Frank, is to try to have a change of attitude.”

“Okay.”

“And remember I love you.”

“Okay.”

Mike left and went to work. Frank wasn’t thinking about anything but speaking to Gracie. He imagined it’d go something like this: “Hi, Gracie, good to see you again. No, no, no, I don’t think we should do that. I think we should build up to that, if indeed we do that at all. Without question, you would like a reprise of my activities, my accelerated life story, post your departure but pre my, how shall I say, decline? You look pretty much the same, how do I look? I suppose there’s been water over the dam but that won’t prevent our talking. Is this your lawyer? I don’t mind if he’s here, he looks pretty stupid, some of this will be too much for him to absorb. You see, Gracie, I’ve had a failure of faith at some level. That pyramid called America, of which I was but a small stone, has inverted and is now resting on its point. As you see (you took physics), this makes for a wobblier arrangement than the one we grew up with, with the big part on the bottom.”

He was now making an extraordinarily close examination of himself in the mirror: hairline, pores, teeth. He reminded himself not to compress his lips, which produced the effect of widening his face in a kind of, in a kind of … well, it was unattractive. He wasn’t going to work, he decided; he would do this first. So what was he thinking, putting on these drab clothes, this I-am-sincere hopsacking blazer? Women don’t want sincerity or any other foursquare merits. They want to look at a man and say, This animal is about to spring on me like a Bengal tiger, ease that big lever till it seats. With that stupid hopsacking sport coat she would assume he was about to fuck the lawyer or the lamp but not her in his vapid sincerity getup. Officer, he rolled in here doing sixty, and before you could say Jack Robinson, had his dick crosswired in the reading lamp. Do take him off, I’m trying to watch the news.

Frank sort of came to, still standing in front of the mirror. Slow down, hoss, he said to himself, whoa-up now, big fella. He put on his jeans and old cowboy boots and his nicest green sweater. He headed for 121 Third Street.