B009XDDVN8 EBOK (18 page)

I
FINGERED THE
scar at my throat as I drove for a final time past the illuminated twin lions and into Patriots Landing. The wide streets, the neat lawns and spotless sidewalks, the unbroken white of the curbs that seemed to glow in the night. You don’t see curbs like that everywhere, eight inches wide and built to last. They were there before the houses were raised, and they’d be there when the houses tumbled down again. Good, solid, American curbs. I’d miss them.

It had been a good run, the suburban idyll I had created for myself, but it was over now. I could accept that. All along I knew it was a temporary thing. It was my destiny to live my life in phases, with hard curbs between them. There was the Philadelphia Country Club phase, the Pitchford phase, the Wisconsin college-kid phase, and now this. And it had worked out well, the Virginia suburban family-man phase: the house, the car, the wife and kids, golf. Even financially it had worked out well.

At the start, of course, I had been forced to use the Grubbins cash to help pay the outsized mortgage and car payments. But soon after moving to Virginia, and before we actually bought into the development, I quit a low-paying job in the field for which I had trained when a far more lucrative opportunity beckoned. I was offered the chance to become the pied piper of the American Dream, a genie granting wishes on a commission basis, and yes, I
said, yes I will, yes. Suited up and buttoned down, I became a broker with the Jefferson Davis Mortgage Company of Richmond, Virginia.

Whatever hand you wanted, I could deal it: low FICO, no doc, interest-only thirties, interest-only forties, pick-a-pay if you will, and the ever-popular ARM hybrids like the classic 2/28. And you needn’t worry about any unfortunate adjustment, because before the hammer dropped we could fix your credit rating, tap the growing equity in your lovely new home, and get you into something more manageable, with the not-inconsiderable fees and costs rolled into the refi so out-of-pocket cost was a big fat zero. It couldn’t have been easier.

At the same time I was banking my commissions at Jefferson Davis, Caitlin had traded the kindergarten classroom for her real-estate license, earning commissions of her own as she led others into realizing their own slick suburban dreams. Together we were quite a team, she providing the inspired settings for a gracious new life, me providing the easy money that allowed almost anyone to pay for it. We churned our way from development to development, making more money than the Pitchford kid had ever dreamed. With our new incomes, and by tapping the spiraling value of our own house with a series of ever-larger mortgages, we were able to live appropriately beyond our means without recourse to the stolen cash.

But that was all over now. Times had changed, the real-estate market had dried up, I had been downsized, my family life had soured, Augie was dead, and the bullheaded thugs were on their way. The mortgage on my life had adjusted and my equity had turned negative. It was time to check out of Patriots Landing and enter the next phase of my life.

I could see it all so clearly, the mellow expat existence. Moseying through the Caribbean with Harry, sailing from sunset to sunset, drinking rum, grooving to the island beat, combing through the island women, dark-skinned natives, young working
women on vacation, wealthy divorcées looking for a second chance, or a third. Margaritaville, baby. All I needed was to hold on for another twelve hours and I was on my way.

As I drove through the development I couldn’t help but notice the F
OR
S
ALE
signs sprinkled among the lovely lawns bordered by those solid curbs, not as conspicuous a presence as in Augie’s development, but there nonetheless. I had brokered the mortgages for many of those houses, I knew the stories behind those signs. Layoffs, depleted savings, 401(k)s in the crapper, maxed-out credit lines and negative equity in homes that were sold as the most secure of investments. Far too well I understood the emotions those signs represented, the pain and anguish, the embarrassment, the uncertainty and fear, the outright sense of failure. I wasn’t the only one at Patriots Landing entering a new phase in my life, I was just doing it with a little more panache.

Though the tasteful accent lighting was all aglow at our house, the lights inside were off, the doors locked, the family tucked in for the night. I edged my car into the circular drive and was careful in closing the car door, to keep from waking the kids. I patted one of the pillars as I walked to the front door; it no longer felt warm and solid beneath my hand, more like a hollow piece of artifice than something firm enough to keep the very sky from falling. I slipped my key silently into the lock.

The last night of my suburban life. My mind had slipped already into the next phase, the escape, the hiding, the sail south, the sweet life of rum and sex. My future was more real to me than my present. Now it was like I was walking through a ghost mansion, something cold, from the air-conditioning or from its newly spectral quality I couldn’t tell, something already dead and vanishing. I put my keys and wallet in the kitchen, as I always did. I rose up the stairs and slid along the long hall without making a sound. I was as much a ghost as the house.

I looked in on my daughter, asleep in her room, still painted the same purple as when she was six, still plastered with pages
torn out of
People
and
Teen Beat
, even though she had outgrown the tween icons years ago. She had been the cutest little girl, Shelby, hugging me when I came home from work, dancing on my shoulders in the club pool. But that girl was gone, replaced with this hostile thing who texted her disdain for me with her dancing thumb. We had no idea how to talk to each other anymore, and she was running so hard from me she was bound to hurt herself. She’d be better off without me.

I stepped in, leaned over, gave her a kiss on her cheek. She barely stirred, as if my lips were already vapor.

“Good-bye, sweetheart,” I said before the closing the door behind me.

I looked in on my son, a mere hump of bone beneath his blanket. We had rolled on the lawn when he was a toddler, we had tossed the pigskin back and forth on brisk fall days. But Eric had grown and grown distant, he had turned from sports, and the things that bound us together had fallen to zero as Eric vanished into the screen of his computer. I was for him now merely a symbol of all the expectations he couldn’t, or chose not to, meet. I was a test he would never be able to pass. He’d be better off without me.

I took a step inside to give him a kiss but then stopped. He didn’t like it when I kissed him, or hugged him, or showed him any affection.

“Good-bye, champ,” I said, simply, before closing the door.

I looked in on my wife, asleep on our bed beneath the sheet twisted like armor around her body. In the rise and fall of her side, the swell of her hips, the long line of her legs, it was like I was staring at a memory. I had the urge to crawl in beside her, to pull her to me, to put my lips on her neck, my leg over her hip, my hands upon her breasts, to try to stir something that hadn’t been stirred in too long a time. Like the old wedding toast:
May you live as long as you want to, may you want to as long as you live.
At one point in our lives it would have ended with the two of us
reaching for each other, pulling each other closer, letting our lips and tongues and hands explore one the other. But I knew how it would end now, with her pushing me away, letting the indignation rise in her voice as she told me what I already knew, that she was sleeping and she was tired and I was an inconsiderate jerk.
If I’m asleep, wake me, if I don’t want to, make me.
Whatever we had been together once, we weren’t anymore. She wanted me out, she wanted her freedom, she wanted a chance for something more than I could give her, and she was right to want it all. She’d be better off without me.

I stared a little longer, then I left the bedroom and headed back down the stairs, through a door in the foyer, and down another set of stairs to our finished basement. A pool table, a bar, a flatscreen, the ubiquitous dartboard, a couple of movie posters picked by Eric (
The Dark Knight Returns
and
Watchmen
).

Through another door lay the unfinished portion of the basement, where the furnace and twin hot-water heaters shared space with a small worktable, a rusted green metal toolbox (yes, that same toolbox), and a heavy wooden chair. I switched on the light, closed the door, retrieved the briefcase from where I had hidden it, and tossed it on the workbench. I opened the toolbox and rummaged around until I found the right kind of screwdriver.

In the back of one of the hot-water heaters was a white metal plate. I took out the screws one at time, carefully placing each removed screw into my pocket, until the plate came loose. Behind the plate was a square of pink fiberglass insulation. I removed the square, leaving a gap between the opening and still more insulation. I rolled up my sleeve and reached down into the warm gap. One by one I pulled out the bundles, baked hot, one by one by one. When they were all out, I placed the square of insulation back into the gap and screwed on the metal plate.

I put the bundles of cash on the workbench, along with the cash I had taken from beneath the floor in Augie’s kitchen, and went
through it all quickly once, then twice. Something over $260,000. Even after taking out the money Harry would need to buy the boat, I could live quite well in St. Thomas on that, live like a king in Jamaica with that, live like a fucking maharaja in Mexico with that.

From the metal toolbox I lifted out the top tray, loaded haphazardly with screws and nails and small tools. Beneath that was a scattering of larger tools, two hammers, pliers, more screwdrivers, a rasp. I took them all out and stuck a flat screwdriver in a small gap between the floor and the box’s side. I wedged out the false floor, revealing a bottom section about two inches deep, empty except for some matches, the pack of cigarettes I had hidden from my kids, a large folding hunting knife with a bone handle, and an envelope with the name Edward Holt scribbled on it. Edward Holt was to be my new name in paradise, and in the envelope were Edward’s birth certificate, social security card, passport, driver’s license, and a checkbook for a checking account I had set up in Edward’s name at a bank in Maryland.

I took out the cigarettes, the matches, the knife, and the envelope, and then placed the money in an even layer about one inch thick across the bottom of the case. It was amazing how something looming so large in my imagination could fit in so little a space. Atop the layer of money I placed the condoms that I had brought home with me from Vegas, the license plates with their magnets still attached, the knife, and the envelope. I then replaced the false bottom, the tools, and the top tray. The latches shut with a satisfying clack.

I sat in the chair facing the water heater, crossed my legs, lit a cigarette. This had been my spot for the last fifteen years, the place I went late at night when everyone else was asleep. I was not a religious man, didn’t ever go in much for prayer, but still, somehow, this patch of unfinished basement felt to me as sacred as a church. I would sit here and stare at the hiding place for my stolen cash and commune with my past, plot out my future, play accountant and tally up the gains and the losses. And this was where, lately,
I had taken pencil to paper and tried to figure a way out of my financial mess, adding up my fading assets and growing liabilities, our expected income and outflows, tracing month by month the inevitability of our fall into the financial abyss, even with the cash in the water heater.

But now this phase of my life was over, and this would be my final session in the basement. I was leaving my life for good, tomorrow. I sat, and smoked, and remembered the last time I had left my life for good.

The U-Haul was loaded, ready to take my mother’s stuff down to Florida. She had rented an apartment in Cape Coral, sight unseen, and was already on her way down with the car. She didn’t know much about the place, had never actually been there, but it sure sounded good, Cape Coral, like a launching pad to retirement paradise. It had been hard work, throwing boxes and sofas and bed frames onto the back of the truck, but at least I didn’t have to lug it all alone. Old friendships might wither and die, but they sure are handy on moving day.

“That’s the last,” I said.

“Thank God,” said Augie. “One more box and I would have had a heart attack. I’m sweating like an Eskimo in Arizona.”

“Where’d your mom get so much crap?” said Ben.

“From her crappy life,” I said. “I’ve locked up and slipped the keys in the slot. Time to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Florida sounds sweet,” said Ben.

“Not in July.”

“Maybe I’ll retire there,” said Ben.

“Not me,” said Augie. “Have you ever noticed, boys, everyone who finds themselves living in Florida ends up dying?”

“But at least they get buried without an overcoat,” said Ben.

“When are you heading up to Boston, J.J.?”

“Orientation is at the end of August,” I said, looking away so they couldn’t see my eyes. “I’ll probably take the train up or something.”