The Brothers K (99 page)

Then she noticed that Papa’s clothes had been changed.

And the instant she noticed, Papa started beaming.

He had just two words to say about what had transpired. They were: “He’s hired.” Irwin, as always, had no words at all. But from that day forward he was the only person whose intimate touch Papa would allow. They became inseparable. Even at night: Mama took to sleeping in my old room, and Irwin took Mama’s place in the twin bed at Papa’s side.

They were an unsettling pair: the huge, physically vital but vacant-eyed son; the skeletal, lake-eyed father. Irwin’s robotic expression never changed no matter what the two of them were doing or how sick Papa got. But in Papa’s opinion this made him the perfect attendant, both emotionally and physically: emotionally because the rest of us were devastated by each new stage of his disintegration; physically because, even as a skeleton, Papa’s frame was sizable, his bones heavy, and from a bathtub or bed it was a backbreaking lift.

It feels odd, given the overall circumstances, to say that I cherish my memories of those last few weeks. But I certainly do. There were anecdotes I could tell of odd exchanges with visitors, of funny lines (all Papa’s) at Irwin’s expense, and of moments of such poignancy that we’d grow tired of it in mid-moment and begin, with tears still in our eyes, to make dumb jokes. But my favorite memory of all is simply of the way Papa would look at Irwin whenever they undertook a journey to a different room, a meal, a trip to the bathroom, a change of clothing after failure to reach the bathroom, or any of the other oppressive tasks that Papa had taken to calling simply “Further Adventures.” It looked at such times as though all the life left in Papa moved entirely up into his eyes and the useless, riddled body became Irwin’s problem, and his alone. No matter how distasteful the proceedings, Papa’s eyes expressed no self-consciousness, no irritation, no embarrassment or despair; for as long as it took Irwin to tend what needed tending, he relinquished himself so completely that he seemed momentarily free of pain, free of the prison his body had become, free to hunch like two elves in his own eye sockets the way Nash would sometimes do, sending Irwin beam after beam of
such unstinting affection that I half expected Irwin to thaw and heal and let out the old loon-laugh any second.

Irwin never did laugh, or smile, or even react. Not even when Papa, safely returned to his armchair, would solemnly thank him. He’d just hunker back down on his straight-backed chair and proceed to gape vacantly at the floor or out the window till Papa summoned him again. But there was still something wonderful about their togetherness. It felt as though two pieces of human wreckage had combined to form a whole human presence, as though they somehow restored to each other what had been stripped away.

There was just one drawback to their togetherness: it made us all grow so attached to the “Further Adventures” era that when things finally came to their inevitable close, we felt little better prepared than if Papa had been in perfect health.

O
n a rainy afternoon in late October, I’d gone fishing on the Washougal with results for a change. I’d hooked and landed a mint-bright twenty-nine-pound salmon—my first chinook ever, a tremendously strong fish too, it seemed to me. And as I beached and killed it I remember feeling that the river had sensed our need, that it was going to be a great blessing to carry these twenty-nine pounds of strength home and share them with Irwin and Papa.

Obeying a whim, I drove to the opposite side of the block from our house, parked at the laundromat, grabbed my fish, and snuck into the backyard through the old laurel-hedge spy-hole. Circling round the far side of the tool and pitching sheds, I then ducked down into the basement, thinking I would clean the chinook in the utility sink, lay it out on an old sports section (open, of course, to the box scores), carry it upstairs in garnished glory, and make a grand and healing presentation to Papa and Irwin both.

But when I unlocked and opened the basement door the naked bulb over the sink was already shining, and water was already running full blast into the sink. My first thought was that some comedian in the family had seen my fish and me coming and deliberately bushwhacked my surprise by turning on the tap in advance. Then I looked in the sink, saw the spread from Papa’s bed—and it was stained with blood.

It was strange, what my mind decided to make of this: I didn’t think of
Papa at all. Instead I looked down at my fish, wondered how on earth its blood had preceded it into the sink, looked back at the bedspread, and thought,
I’d better wash that out fast or Mama’s gonna be pissed
.

Then I heard the door at the top of the stairs open. Irwin stepped through. And he had the sheets from our parents’ room in one hand, Papa’s blue flannel shirt in the other—and there was blood on these too. There was also blood on Irwin’s shirt. There was even blood on his chin. Yet his face wore no more expression than usual. He just looked at me blankly, then said, “He’s dead, Kade. Help me.”

My mind was gone.

I heard him say, “One big cough. No warning. Didn’t even seem to hurt. But so much blood. I tried to clear it, tried mouth-to-mouth. But he was gone.”

I moved toward him, peering at the stained chin, at the shirt in his hands. But I felt no grief. Instead I found myself clinging to some simple confusion. Our father was dead—yes, apparently. That was his blood, and his shirt, yes yes. But some small oddity was blocking my feelings—and knowing what my feelings were about to become, I hoped never to remove the blockage.

In a voice as robotic as his face, I heard Irwin say, “Everyone’s out, but they’re coming home soon. Nash and Linda. Mama and the twins. They’re just shopping. I need to change him. So please. Help.”

I heard him say, “When Grandawma died, Bet and Freddy, remember? They cleaned her up so great. So it’s our turn. See?”

I heard him say, “Help me, Kade. Now. He’s dead.”

Then, not to my joy, but to my sorrow, I had it: the voice itself. Irwin was speaking. He was making sense. And our papa was dead.

I started up the stairs. He started down. But when we met in the middle I could see he wanted to move right on past me, so I blocked his path. I needed to hug him. I tried to. But I couldn’t lift one arm. I looked at it. It was holding a huge salmon. I let it go; watched it flup, flup, flup down the stairs; heard, in the quick downward slapping, the exact opposite of all its silver body and spirit had been designed to do. “He’s dead, Kade,” the voice repeated, “and it’s a mess up there. Come on.”

I started to sob, threw my arms around my brother, and hugged him and all that he held, hard against me. He stood with his arms down, stiff as wood or stone.

“Help me,” he repeated. “Now.”

M
ama came home first. And saw what had happened. Then she just crawled right onto the newly made bed, and took the clean, freshly clothed body into her arms. I started to gasp, covered my mouth with my forearm, and moved as fast as I could out into the backyard.

Irwin joined me after a while. We could still sort of see her through the window, and hear faint sounds. But I tried not to look or listen. I noticed that Irwin had on clean clothes, and that his face was washed, perhaps even freshly shaved. There was a load in the wash, and another tumbling in the dryer. He’d even managed somehow to clean my salmon. Seeing the way he was eyeing me, I realized finally that he had come out not to console me, or to seek consolation from me, but to inspect me for bloodstains. “Did everything look normal?” he asked in his dull, wooden way.

I just gawked at him without speaking—as if I was him now, and he was me. I’d no idea what “normal” meant.

W
hen Mama finally called us in and I saw the tears still streaming, I began to cry again too. Then I rediscovered what “normal” meant: Mama took one look at me, scowled—and instantly stopped crying. I couldn’t stop even then, but I also nearly burst out laughing. Contrariness as deep as hers has
got
to be some kind of virtue.

She had Irwin cover Papa with the unfinished afghan that Linda had been making for him. “His face too,” she said evenly. Then she had me call the fire department, as Papa had made her promise to do. (“Cheaper than ambulances,” he’d said, “and it’s smoke inhalation that’s killed me.”)

While we waited for them to arrive, Mama asked me to recite the Lord’s Prayer, with some challenge in her request—the old Adventist versus Rebel tension, I suppose. To show her I didn’t mind I waited for the
Amens
, then threw in the Twenty-third Psalm. It may have been a mistake: when I heard myself declare that goodness and mercy would surely follow us all the days of our lives, the silence that followed—the genuine dead silence—was unbearable to me. Not knowing what to do, hoping Mama wouldn’t object to a little more Bible, I spontaneously recited a single verse from the Twenty-fourth Psalm—a verse I’d memorized way back in early Sabbath School because it reminded me a little of
Papa on his pitcher’s mound. I said, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?”

For some reason, Mama began to weep again when she heard this. But for me there was something soothing in the words—something right about honoring the end of a life not with a statement, but with a question. So I said it again. “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?”

Mama wept harder. And on the second recitation Irwin turned to watch me, and I saw—for the first time since he’d come home—a hint of an expression on his face. Anger was what it looked like, actually. But it was definitely an expression. So I said it again: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?”

His face visibly darkened. Mama kept weeping. I began again: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?”

But before I could finish Irwin cut me off with a gesture, pointed at Papa’s body, and said, “Him! Papa. That’s who. So shuttup!”

And for some reason now, at the sound of his voice, the look on his face, I felt joy despite my sorrow.

The room is sparsely furnished:
A chair, a table, and a father
.

—Carolyn Kizer

T
hey’d talked about all of this, Papa and Mama had. Of course it hadn’t been easy. But near the end certain unpleasant possibilities had begun to bother Papa, and he’d wanted them off his mind. So. No preachers, no churches, no caskets, he’d told her. No long rows of cars with their headlights on. No funeral parlor, no hired speakers, no baritone soloist, no hymns. “A wake, Laura,” he’d said. “Not a mope. Just a remembering. Right here at home. If Elder Joon or Randy Beal come, make sure it’s as civilians. I want
everybody
free to talk. I want good food and drink for friends and family. And if any ballplayers come—and they’re all invited—I want ’em to feel at home. So serve beer.”

Mama had looked mildly offended, but not very surprised, by all of this. But then the plot had thickened:

“I want to be cremated,” he’d said—knowing full well that Mama, like any good Adventist, believed that death is sleep, and that the literal, physical body will be resurrected on Judgment Day. “This body’s had it,” he’d said when her face changed color. “It’s been good to me. But I don’t want it back.”

Her reaction was wonderful in a way: she got spitting mad. What
did
he want? she’d asked. What
would
His Majesty allow? Could we sing the national anthem, or maybe “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”? Or were those songs, heaven forbid, too much like hymns? Could we hold hands while we drank our beer and tossed his ashes in the garbage? Or was hand-holding too sanctimonious for him?

His reply had not been quite what she’d expected. He’d just reached for her hand, and held it hard, as he said, “God, I’m gonna
miss
watchin’ you do that.”

Mama had sat down on the arm of his chair then, and Papa kept hold of her hand as he tried to explain. “One reason I want cremation,” he’d said, “is that it’s cheap, and money will be short. Another reason is that ashes keep—so you can include Everett in whatever you finally decide to do. And one other reason, or not a reason, really. Just a thought …” She felt his strength suddenly leave him. “This isn’t a request, Laura. Or even a hope. I mean, who knows what the future might bring? But one other thing about ashes keeping, see, is that if you wanted to … and if, in the end, you were still, well … single … then maybe I, they, you see … could be buried with you.”

Mama had said nothing. She’d just slid off the chair arm, and down into his lap and arms. … …

S
o there I stood in our diningroom—three days after his little sports-page obituary—staring at red roses, white candles, the polished wood of the table. Glancing now and then at the wonderful faces lined all the way around the room. And though none of the ballplayers among us yet seemed to be feeling anywhere near “at home,” Mama had kept her end of the bargain: every one of them was religiously holding a flat, warm, forgotten glass of beer.

He’d left it to Mama to select his container, and she’d chosen—of all things—the same blue ceramic jewelry box in which she used to keep her Sabbath tithes and offerings. It gave me a turn to see it, full of powdered Papa on our dinnertable there. But once my intestines swung back
around, it began to feel about perfect. Because what
is
an offering, really? What can human beings actually give to God? What can they give to each other even? And what sorts of receptacles can contain these gifts? Work camps and insane asylums, Indian trains and church pews, bullpens and little blue boxes … Who belongs in what? When do they belong there? Who truly gives what to whom? These were questions we were all struggling to answer not in words, but with our lives. And all her life Laura Chance had placed ten percent of all she’d earned in this same blue box before offering it—in the full faith that it would be accepted—to her Lord. So now, just as faithfully, she’d placed a hundred percent of her husband in the same box. That was her answer to the questions. And I’m hard put to think of another that would do greater honor to her husband, her Lord or her little blue box.