The Faculty Club

28

By the time Miles got back, Sarah and I were dressed and sitting at the small table in the kitchenette by the window.

He barreled in with a smile on his face.

“Done!” he said, “done done done done done. Twelve copies, stamped, addressed, ready to go… assuming you got what you needed…”

He looked at me.

“I did.”

“Our theory checked out?”

I told him the story.

“Holy crap,” Miles said, rubbing his woolly beard. “Curiouser and curiouser. Call me crazy, but I love this place. The rest of the world, it’s all Starbucks and Subway. We are into some seriously macabre shit.”

“Miles.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re crazy.”

He clapped his hands.

“I owe it all to you, Jeremy! I was just a lonely grad student until you brought magic into my life! ‘Oh go do, that voodoo, that you do, so well…’” he sang, channeling Tony Bennett.

“Miles. What now?”

“Now? Now we go mail these bad boys. I want them mailed from out-of-town mailboxes. The more the better. Brownsville, Mason, Orange… Once the horses are out of the barn… we’re golden…”

Miles paused. He looked at Sarah. He looked at me. Then back and forth between us.

“Wait a second…”

He wrinkled his brow.

“Something’s different here…”

I hadn’t noticed it, but there’d been a looseness between Sarah and me at the table. I was suddenly very aware of my body language. I let my arm slide a millimeter away from hers. My legs had been crossed in her direction. I crossed them the other way. But it was too late.

“Oh,” Miles said, feigning indignation. “Oh, I see.”

“Miles…”

“Well I’m just very happy for you both.”

“Miles, stop it!”

He grinned ear to ear and gave us a double thumbs-up. I saw Sarah turn bright red.

“Mazel tov!” Miles burst out, which was odd since he was Episcopalian, and he did a little dance.

“Are you four years old, Miles?”

“If I were four years old,” Miles said, “I would’ve done this.”

He made his index fingers kiss passionately with a giant smooching sound. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

“Don’t we have a job to do?” Sarah blurted out, not quite making eye contact with Miles or anyone.

“Yes, of course!” Miles said. “Let’s take three cabs. We can cover more territory that way. And an hour from now, we’ll be home free!”

Miles divided the packages between us.

And I headed to the train station for a last trip to New York.

On board, I tried to focus on the small towns and lakes passing by, but I couldn’t keep my mind off Humpty Dumpty. It was like quicksand in my brain: the harder I tried to fight the image of Humpty collapsed on his desk in a red pool, the deeper I sank into it. He turned on his club, and they killed him. What would they do to me?

I thought of my grandfather, the only other person I’d really known who died. After his funeral, the family entertained visitors in his small house until the last one left, and then we sat in the living room. My mom and dad were on the sofa. My little cousins played at my aunt’s feet, oblivious of the whole thing. My brother wasn’t there, of course. My grandfather’s easy chair, the one he always sat in with an old plaid bedsheet over it, was conspicuously empty. Nobody had the heart to sit in it. What was strange about that moment was that I didn’t feel the slightest bit sad. I missed my grandfather terribly, and I’d grieved up to that moment and for weeks after it; even to this day, I still sometimes received unexpected pangs that were gone as fast as they came. But in that moment, sitting in his room looking at my family, I felt inexplicably, outrageously happy-a happiness that I can describe only as a buzzing through my whole body. Happy might be the wrong word. It was giddiness. Elation. I’ve never heard anyone else describe something like it. Frankly, I’m too embarrassed to ask.

I wondered now, on the train: what would my grandfather think of me today?

I left the train and called my brother from a pay phone.

“We need to meet.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just need to see you.”

“Fine. Come to my office.”

“No. Someplace random. Where no one knows you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just do it. I’ll explain everything.”

A pause on the line.

“Intersection of Clinton and Delancey. There’s a little place called Mico’s. They serve burritos that taste like sand. Is that crappy enough for you?”

“This better be good,” Mike said to me. He looked tired.

“Late night?”

“I’m in the Model-of-the-Month club.”

I took a breath. The restaurant had shades over its small windows, and we were in the back in a dark booth. The service was so surly no one had even acknowledged our existence. I had to admit, it was perfect. We finally got two coffees.

I leaned in.

“Okay. You have lots of bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, right?”

“What’s this about?”

“Please. Just answer my question.”

“Of course I do.”

“You’re rich. Crazy Wall Street rich. I know that. And you’re kind of paranoid, right? Always have been. So you’ve probably got offshore accounts, things like that?”

“I’m not paranoid.”

“Mike, I don’t have time for this. Do you or don’t you?”

He shrugged and loosened his collar.

“Let’s just say I’m diversified for all contingencies. Including the total collapse of the U.S. banking system.”

“Good… Good.”

I pushed an envelope across the table to him.

“I want you to keep this somewhere discreet for me. Don’t open it. Get it off your hands right away.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t say. But if something ever happens to me, get it and open it. There’s another envelope inside. It’s already addressed. If something bad happens, mail it. That’s it.”

“Jeremy, are you on drugs?”

“Please. Just do this for me. It’s important.”

He leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“I’m not an idiot, Jer. Whatever you think of me, I didn’t get where I am by being stupid. This is insurance, fine, I get it. But you want my help, you gotta tell me what I’m getting into. What is it, gambling debts? Is this mob shit? Young fucking cocky lawyers, think they’re so smart, get into poker, I’ve seen it before. That’s what you get for going to school so close to Atlantic City. Listen, if you’re in trouble, I’ll pay off your debts. But it won’t be free. You’ll pay me back with interest. You have to learn consequences. But at least I won’t break your legs, right?”

“Your money can’t fix this.”

The words came out harsher than I meant. I sounded bitter. I saw his face twitch. His composure came back quickly, but the words hung in the air between us.

“Mike, I need your help. Please.”

He blinked a few times and ran a hand through his hair. It was thick but the hairline was definitely receding. I noticed he had the hint of a double chin. This is my brother, I kept thinking to myself. Jesus, he looked like a middle-aged man.

He smiled, but it was weaker, less cocky. Strangely enough, I found myself missing the cockiness.

“Remember when we used to play at the creek?” he asked me.

“Yeah.”

“There was that dog. Belonged to Mr. Reynolds. Remember that?”

“Mean animal,” I said.

“He was. Remember the time he was lost, and we found him down in the creek?”

“After a big storm, right? He was pinned down, under a tree.”

“You tried to help him.”

“I did.”

“And what did he do?”

“He bit the shit out of my hand.”

Mike nodded at the memory.

“I’m gonna help you,” he said. “And I’m gonna play it any way you want. You want me to hold this letter in a mystery bank and never read what’s inside? Fine. I’ll do that for you. You’re a smart guy, Jeremy. Smarter than I am. No, don’t say anything, I know it’s true. I busted my way through. I’m a bull in a china shop, I know. If you think this will fix whatever’s out to get you, I believe you. But you have to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“If this package gets them to leave you alone, then you’re finished with them, right?”

I didn’t say anything.

“That’s it. You understand? Get them off your back and go live your life. Is that what you plan to do? Can you promise me that?”

I looked down at my hands.

“I know you,” Mike said. “You have rules. Principles. Always have. Well, I have a different philosophy. Look out for number one. Because no one else is going to. You don’t understand that, because you’ve been lucky. You’ve never had a real problem. Mom and Dad always babied you. I’m sorry to put it like that, but it’s true. If I’m gonna help you, you’ve got to promise me you’re not gonna keep messing with these people. You have leave it alone. Live and let live. Okay?”

I took a deep breath.

I thought of Sarah.

We can’t let that go. If we do…

“I’m trying to help you,” he said. “I’m trying to save you from yourself.”

“I know, Mike.”

“Promise me. Jer, promise me.”

I felt my whole life branching, tearing in half. I shook my head.

“I can’t.”

He closed his eyes. I watched his face. His good looks, a little worn but still there. I could remember the smell of the grass, playing down in that creek with him, even twenty years later.

“Then I can’t help you,” Mike said. He slid the envelope back across the table.

“Are you serious?”

He nodded.

“Mike, I need you.”

“No. If you won’t help yourself, I can’t help you.”

We stared at each other for a long time. No one flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, finally.

I nodded.

“I know.”

I put the envelope back in my bag and stood up.

“I’ll see you,” I told him. I started walking away.

He grabbed my arm. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he let my arm go and turned back to his coffee.

I dropped my packages in the mail, half in random mailboxes I passed, half in the Penn Street station. I felt totally, radically free. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I had to do, even if I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was going to do it.