Lying with the Dead Read online

  He sits on the sofa, peeling off the foil, while I crouch in front of the minibar. “Like something to drink?”

  “Water,” he says.

  “You don’t drink alcohol?”

  “It hurts my head.”

  I toss him a bottle of Evian, and since there’s no more Chivas, I make do with a miniature of Johnnie Walker Black. I swallow my medicine neat tonight, and although I vow to pace myself, I’m soon empty and return to the minibar for a second and third dose.

  “Want to watch TV?” I ask.

  “It hurts my head,” he repeats.

  Back on the sofa, I stare at the blank TV screen, which showcases us like a couple of strangers waiting for a train. “Why don’t you take off your Windbreaker?” I suggest.

  He sets down the turtle, which, I notice, he has neatly wrapped in the candy foil. Under his jacket, he wears a long-sleeved T-shirt that’s stretched taut across his muscled chest. It occurs to me that anybody watching us in the elevator might have pegged me in Armani and Maury in his Midnight Cowboy getup as a gay guy with a piece of rough trade.

  Dr. Rokoko would undoubtedly view this errant thought as evidence of my sexual hangups. That’s often the therapeutic theme he harps on—the latent content of my dreams, my eroticization of violence and fear of intimacy. But as I say in self-defense, how could the secret kinks in my psyche compare in significance to the overt scars of my life?

  The stone-faced fellow beside me killed the man I believed until today was my father. Now that I’m told that my father’s someone else who might still be alive, everything’s changed and nothing has. I’m not going to get to relive my childhood, no more than Maury and Candy will. Mom’s our mother and the hard lessons she hammered into us have left their marks. Still, mysteries remain, and late as the hour is, I can’t let them drop. Though Tom Trythall’s name rang no bells, as the Scotch begins to work on me, other questions seethe and surface.

  “Today at Mom’s I read the police transcripts of your case,” I tell Maury. “You know the ones I’m talking about?”

  He chugs the bottle of Evian and shakes his head no. “I don’t have to read them. I was there.”

  “Do you mind talking about this?”

  He pauses. The silence draws out into the sort of pregnant beat that would annoy a theatergoer. “I’ve never talked about it before.”

  “You talked to the police.”

  He screws the blue cap onto the bottle, unscrews it, then screws it back on. I suppress an urge to snatch the bottle from his hands.

  “The police station had lights,” he says. “The blinking kind. I wanted to lie down and rock. The police wouldn’t let me. They dragged me off the floor and yelled questions till I couldn’t breathe.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Not much. They grabbed me and said to look them in the eye. I didn’t like that and the way they stared at me.”

  “Did they hit you?”

  “No, just grabbed and shook me and wouldn’t let me lie down. When I moaned, they made me quit.”

  “How?”

  “Tied a rag over my mouth.”

  Almost imperceptibly at first, then faster and more emphatically, Maury starts to rock, settling into the rhythm of my questions. There’s a cadence to our give-and-take that’s at odds with the tense, pressurized watchfulness in his eyes. Whenever possible, he replies in monosyllables, a simple yes or no, as if despite the chaos of his life, he longs to believe in a binary universe.

  “If this hurts,” I say, “we can stop.”

  “It’s okay when you go slow. The cops went fast.”

  “What did they ask you?”

  “Why I did it.”

  “They didn’t ask whether you did it?”

  “No. They told me I did it. Then asked why.” He balances the Evian bottle on the arm of the sofa, next to the foil-wrapped turtle. Then he pulls the bus from his pocket and lines it up with the bottle and the turtle. “I said Mom and Dad were fighting and screaming. I wanted them to be quiet.”

  “And when they wouldn’t do that, you did what?”

  “I begged them.”

  “In your confession you said you took the butcher knife from the drawer.”

  He begins to fiddle with the bottle, switching it to the rear of the turtle.

  Though afraid of pushing too hard, I nudge him. “You said you were holding the butcher knife and Dad bumped into it with his belly.”

  He shakes his head from side to side, and since he’s also rocking back and forth, he resembles a ship pitching and yawing in a tormented sea, a man both agreeing and disagreeing. “There’s a box in my head,” he says. “It has drawers. That one doesn’t open.”

  “The drawer where Dad is?”

  “The one where he dies.”

  I could crowbar the drawer open. But what is it I delude myself that I’ll discover inside? Like the temptation to telephone all the Trythalls in the book, my cross-examination of Maury smacks of demented self-indulgence. As with the research for my memoir, it’s an excuse to delay moving on.

  “Sorry,” I tell Maury. “Mom’s never talked to me about this, and I’ve always wondered.”

  “Well, why not? He was your father too.”

  This brings my Scotch-fueled interrogation to a stop. “It’s late,” I say, then glance at my watch and notice it’s not even ten o’clock. Still, I’m wasted from the whiskey and the long day. “What time do you normally go to bed?”

  “Anytime.” He bounces to his feet and pockets the turtle and the toy bus. In the bathroom, he refills the Evian bottle at the sink, then brushes his teeth and scrubs his face. Finally he pries off his jogging shoes and stretches out fully clothed on the bed that hasn’t been turned down.

  “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you undressed and got under the covers?”

  “I’m good.” He’s on his back, gazing at the perforated soundproof ceiling as though at a sky adazzle with stars.

  By the time I’ve finished showering, Maury still has his eyes fixed on the ceiling. I slide under the sheets of the second bed, and like him, I trance in on the constellation of pinpricks. I don’t bother switching off the light and he doesn’t ask me to. We lie there, I lost in thought, Maury’s mind God knows where.

  The moment is reminiscent of the final phase of my yoga class in Belsize Park, when we recline on our mats, in theory scoured of all earthly cares. I’m usually fizzing with impatience and planning what I’ll do next—call my agent, my accountant, Tamzin. Now rather than pleasant cessation I experience the urgency of unfinished business. Something more begs to be said. An explanation. An apology. A summary account. I feel I should do something for Maury. But what? Invite him to London? Buy him his own trailer in California?

  He breaks the silence. “I’m glad we did this.”

  “I am too. It’s good to spend time together.”

  “I’m tired just thinking about the day. Mass, then Mom, then Patuxent with Candy, then Cole, then pancakes, then talking with you.”

  I wait for him to go on. When he doesn’t, I ask whether I should turn out the light and he says yes.

  In the dark, I’m aware of the dense timbre of his breathing, the space he occupies, the unexpected weight he exerts. It’s been decades since we slept in the same room. But it all rushes over me in this anonymous Hilton—the almost audible vibration that Maury exudes, like an electrical appliance endlessly cycling through its functions. As a boy it kept me awake nights wondering what constancy of effort, what act of the will, was required to stitch him together. I still marvel that he’s managed to achieve a unitary self.

  Me, I’ve splintered, dispersed. Becoming nobody. Anybody. Everybody. Depending on the part I’m hired to play. I used to believe that if I landed the right role, or even the wrong one under the right circumstances, these fractures would heal. But the longer I live, the less convinced I am that I’ll ever cohere.

  “Quinn,” Maury speaks up, “are you saying your prayers?”

>   “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re so quiet.”

  “I was half asleep.”

  “Do you ever pray?”

  Again I ask why he wants to know.

  “Because in church you didn’t go to Communion,” he says.

  There’s nothing I’d like less at the moment than to discuss the state of my soul. Not after Mom’s inquisition on the same subject. Could this be the reason I’ve been summoned home? To coax me back into the Catholic fold? “I pray in my own way,” I tell him.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think things over. I regret what I’ve done wrong. I plan to do better. Look, it’s late. Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow?”

  “That’s okay. I understand.”

  Maybe he does. Maybe in his fashion he has me pegged far better than I have him. But it’s too late and I’m too tired to keep going over it. I try to lull myself to sleep, as I sometimes do, by musing about women. Ones I loved, ones that didn’t love me or that should have loved me more. From a certain point of view my life seems a calvary of females who’ve fallen short.

  To counteract that melancholy thought, my mind jumps to Tom Trythall and struggles to bring him into focus. Over the years, with effort, I’ve started to imagine Dad as a character from a Sam Shepard play, a monster out of the American West. Now I have another father to define and instinctively I turn to literature, not life. Is there a character that might resemble him, that might resemble me?

  • • •

  “Quinn! Quinn! Wake up,” Maury says. “You’re dreaming.”

  Switching on the table lamp between us, he kneels at the edge of my bed. His hand hovers above my head, as if he were a priest about to confer his blessing. I don’t expect him to touch me, so it’s a shock when he tightens his fingers on my scalp. “Is that better?” he asks.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You had a bad nightmare.”

  “No, I wasn’t asleep. I was thinking.”

  “You were groaning and grinding your teeth.”

  I don’t argue. I lie there and let him hold on, reminded of the night in the gazebo when I laid my head in Deirdre Healy’s lap and spilled my guts about the brother who now consoles me.

  “You’re okay,” Maury says, and returns to his bed and kills the light.

  “Sorry I woke you.”

  “I haven’t been asleep yet.”

  “The coffee?” I suggest.

  “I never sleep much. I don’t like to dream. But you go right ahead.”

  As if following his instructions, I subside into sleep and uncapturable dreams, and don’t wake until morning, roused by what sounds like an alarm clock. It’s the telephone. Maury’s bed is empty. In the bathroom the shower is drumming. “Hello,” I croak.

  “Are you all right?” Tamzin asks. “You sound sick.”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “I waited until nine your time. Did you have a hard night?”

  “Is there another kind? My brother and I ate dinner at the International House of Pancakes. Then I drank all the Scotch in the hotel minibar.”

  “That bad, eh?” She’s laughing. “Well, here’s some good news. I found the quote you asked for.”

  I swing my legs over the side of the bed. A filament of sunlight outlines the closed curtains.

  “You wanted something from an abusive mother’s POV,” she reminds me. “There’s not much. Mothers in books are generally portrayed as nurturers, caregivers.”

  “The assignment was more or less a joke. Hope you didn’t waste a lot of time.”

  “I’ll invoice you for my hours.” She’s having me on—taking the piss, as the British put it. “I think a passage from Faulkner might suit your purposes.”

  “What are my purposes?”

  “Your memoirs, darling,” Tamzin teases me. “Listen to this and tell me whether it fits. It’s from As I Lay Dying. The mother’s dead and in a monologue from her coffin, she remembers beating her children: ‘I would look forward to the times they faulted, so I could whip them. When the switch fell I could feel it upon my flesh; when it welted and ridged it was my blood that ran, and I would think with each blow of the switch: Now you are aware of me! Now I am something in your secret and selfish life, who have marked your blood with my own for ever and ever.’”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “You think it’s OTT?” Tamzin asks.

  “No, it’s not over the top. Reminds me of home.”

  “I hope you’re kidding.”

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime—how I became the man you see before you today.”

  “But I don’t see you. When will I?”

  “Things have gotten complicated. My mother decided yesterday was the perfect time to inform me that I have a different father from my brother and sister.”

  “You’re not serious. She’s not. Her mind must be going.”

  “She’s as sharp as ever.”

  “Oh God, Quinn, are you all right?”

  “I’m tempted to have you find a quote that’ll tell me whether I am. But I’m finished with that.”

  “Finished.” Her voice gets very small.

  “Not with you. With other people’s words. I have to see this through without a script.”

  Maury steps from the bathroom, fully clothed, right down to his Windbreaker. Maybe he showered in it.

  “My brother’s hungry. I have to go to breakfast. We’ll speak later.”

  “Please,” she says, “call me.” Then she adds, “I love you.”

  Maury throws open the drapes, and sunlight sparkles on his wet-slicked hair. Although he seems to stare at the interstate with the same stolid fixity as he stared last night at the ceiling, he notices what I haven’t. The light on the phone is blinking. Candy has left a message to call her at Lawrence’s office.

  “I’ve spoken with Mom,” she says. “Today’s Maury’s turn. If you’ll drop him off, I’ll pick him up.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll stay with him.”

  “No, she wants to talk to him alone.”

  “Do you suppose each of us has a different father?”

  “That’s not funny, Quinn. Listen, tell Maury that Mom has my number at work. Or if it’s after five, he should phone me at home.”

  “Does he have the key to your place?”

  “Yes, I gave him a spare.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll borrow it. I don’t plan on hanging around the Hilton, waiting for them to refill the minibar. Better to go cold turkey at your townhouse.”

  “Has it been awful with Maury?”

  “Not at all. I had a nightmare and he comforted me. I need more of that in my life.”

  Maury

  “Let’s go back to the pancake place for breakfast,” I say.

  “Wouldn’t you rather eat somewhere else?” Quinn asks. “Just for a change.”

  “I don’t like change. I like things the same. I like what I ate last night and I’d like it again today.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  But when we get there, it’s crowded and clanging with too many noises for me to imitate and we can’t sit at the same table. The waitress tells me they don’t have berries today, and I don’t like it here anymore.

  Quinn orders French toast, which is fried bread dunked in eggs and served with strips of burnt bacon. He takes two bites and shoves his plate away. He’s quiet and drinks more coffee than I do. I bet he’s remembering his nightmare. The way he screamed, it had to be the bad kind that lasts into the next day. I know the type and sometimes have them when I’m wide awake.

  Without hair and with that morning puffiness around his eyes, Quinn looks old. Older than me. And that’s how I think of him—as a big brother, the guy we go to for help. When I got paroled, he was just a little kid, twelve or thirteen. But he knew how to live in the world, like Cole knew how to live in prison, and I watched him and learned.

  Back then, he was always talking. He joked and jabbered and made
the rest of us laugh. Now he doesn’t talk so much, except for his questions last night. They spun in my brain, like when you flip a bicycle upside down and spin the tire till the spokes blur into a circle that makes your eyes ache. You want to turn away, but you can’t. Quinn asked so many questions I couldn’t keep them straight and after he fell asleep, the blurry wheel went on spinning in the dark.

  “Candy asked me to drop you at Mom’s,” Quinn says. “When you’re finished there, call her and she’ll pick you up.”

  “Finished what?”

  “Whatever Mom has in mind.”

  Without the berries on top, I don’t care for the color of my pancakes. They have the brown look of clay and taste like dirt until I pour on the syrup. Then they taste like sugar. “What’s Mom have in her mind?” I ask.

  “Oh, you know Mom. She’s always thinking.” He smiles, handing the waitress his card. “Didn’t you say she had something to tell you and something to give you?”

  “That’s what she said on the phone.”

  “Well, you’ll soon find out. Mom has Candy’s numbers. If she’s not at work, call her at home.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Candy’s house. Which reminds me. Lemme have the key.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me to Mom’s?” The key is in my jeans, in the pocket with the toy bus and the rubber turtle. I stand up and squeeze my hand in there.

  “She’d rather talk to you alone, like she did with me yesterday.”

  “What did she tell you? Maybe it’s the same thing she’ll tell me.”

  “We’ll compare notes later.”

  After the waitress brings back his card and Quinn signs, we step outside and my shadow on the parking lot is blacker than the blacktop. I’m relieved when Quinn lets me into the car until he switches the radio on. No music, only talk about terror and war and weapons. Listening to that, I can’t keep straight what Mom might have to say.

  The sunlight on her house is silver gray, the same color as the unshaved whiskers on my chin. The place needs painting and reshingling. There’s rust dripping down the boards from the roof. My guess is the rain spouts are plugged with leaves. I could unplug them and paint and fix the wood. And Mom’s wreck of a car in the driveway, I could fix that too. It’d be no trouble to change the tires and oil and start the engine running again. But in this family nobody asks me to do the jobs I know how to do.