“How’s the beer.”
“It’s all right.” He took a sip. “Why’re you driving that old Pontiac? Can’t afford a new car?”
“Came with the house.”
“Can’t see driving some old piece of shit like that.”
“That’s ’cause you never drove one. Try it once,” I snapped my fingers, “you never go back.”
“Yeah, bullshit.”
It was clear over the Peconic, and colorless under the brilliant moon. Night was locked in solid. I started to fantasize about pillows and blankets. Jimmy looked all settled in with his beer.
“You’re not gonna give me my shit, are you?”
“Not now. Later. I promise.”
“You’re some kind of strange fucker.”
“Glad you noticed, Jimmy. It usually takes people longer to figure that out.”
He was content to drink his beer and pet Eddie’s head. Every asshole in the world seemed to be a dog lover. I wondered what that said about me.
“Jimmy, do you remember your Aunt Regina’s husband?”
He looked at me blankly.
“What’re you trying to do now?”
“Nothing. I’m just curious about her husband. I’m having trouble remembering him.”
“I can never tell whether you’re bullshitting me or not.” He finished his beer and set it down on the table with more force than necessary. “She didn’t have no husband. Now, tell me you didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“What
“Less than I should, I guess. When I was growing up my parents always acted like there was a Mr. Broadhurst.”
“Jesus. You don’t know shit.”
“So, okay, you got me again. Enlighten me.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Aw Christ, Jimmy, give it a break. I gave you a beer. And I’m gonna give you all kinds of stuff from Regina’s house.” I took a sip of the Absolut. “Eventually.”
Jimmy thought about it for a few moments. Anger and defiance are tough habits to break.
“My mom told me she called herself Mrs. Broadhurst because she didn’t want guys hittin’ on her, if you can believe that. A million years ago she had a guy, but it wasn’t her husband. Carl something.”
“Carl? You sure?”
“Yeah. fuckin’ Carl. I never seen him, but my mother’d talk about him.”
“Carl Bollard?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Carl Bollard. Owned that piece of shit factory over there, was what my mom told me. She was wicked pissed about the whole thing, my mom. I don’t know why. fuckin’ women always pissed about everything. You can’t ever figure out why. She was a lot younger than Aunt Regina, even though she died a lot sooner.”
His voice fell away at the end of the sentence. He picked up his empty beer to cover the moment.
“’Nother one?”
“Sure.”
I got it for him. I sat at the table and slid over his beer.
“Carl Junior or Carl Senior?” I asked him.
“Shit, I don’t know. Carl Bollard’s all I know. He didn’t have a wife, just a bunch of girlfriends all over. If he’d been married my mom would’ve disowned Regina, if you can do that to your sister. My mom was into religion. fuckin’ Presbyterian, you’d think she was Catholic the way she went on.”
It did the kid a lot of good to see me surprised, so I saw no harm in digging in deeper.
“Jimmy, you told me Regina didn’t own her house, that it went back to some fucker after she died. Were you talking about Carl Bollard?”
“Yeah, of course. That’s why my mom was so rip shit.”
“Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that wiry old broad was Carl Bollard’s kept woman?”
“That’s not the way my mom would’ve put it. Religious or not.”
I laughed. That ornery, flinty old harpy was Carl Bollard’s honeybee. His mistress—wanton and alluring. And in return, a house of her own? Maybe. Complete with the dubious gift of the Acquillos to look after her, put up with her crap, pull her busted body out of the bathtub and plant her in the ground. For the first time I truly missed my mother. I finally had some news worth telling her.
Jimmy was laughing, too.
“Aunt Regina fuckin’ some old guy for a free house.”
We just sat there and laughed for a long time. It felt good.
When we were done laughing, Maddox left and I fell back on the bed and crawled under the covers, still dressed, tapped out and supine before life’s hallowed irregularities.
The next day I drove over to Sagaponack to look at the ocean. Normally, staring at the Little Peconic helped me think. I needed something bigger this morning to stare at. Something with a horizon that curved off into infinity.
The Atlantic Ocean was looking big and moody, and unconcerned with my fears and compulsions. There was an offshore breeze, so the waves were neatly formed and evenly spaced. The surf was taller than normal, probably from a storm out at sea. I looked for surfers, but saw none. The beach was empty in all directions except for seagulls, sandpipers and dead horseshoe crabs. The sky was big and the wind hard. We were almost past hurricane season, but this time of year almost anything could piss off the Atlantic. It was vast and dangerous and unknowable. I got out of the car and went and sat on the beach to watch the early-hour sun warm the color of the sand and turn the salt water an inky blue.
Billy Weeds and I once went bodysurfing right after a big storm. The day was dry and washed clean by the Canadian air that often swept down to push tropical storms out to sea before they could crash into Long Island. The full weight of the storm missed us, but its energy had thrust up gigantic waves that broke over sandbars a quarter-mile off the coast. It took us a half-hour to fight through the messy chop close to shore to reach the real action.
We eventually met mountainous swells coated in foam that broke in twenty feet of water, creating impossibly enormous waves that we rode for an hour, heedless and awestruck, oblivious to the risk. We were young, strong and stupid, and I will always remember Billy laughing hysterically at the craziness of it all, and the angry power of the ocean that was too involved with its own majesty to bother drowning us like it should have. When we decided we’d had enough, we tried to swim to shore, but we couldn’t get past the undertow. We kept getting knocked back into the surf. It took another hour to get all the way in, and only because we’d ridden the current all the way to the Shinnecock inlet where the undertow let go.
After that, I knew it was possible to die. The lesson didn’t stick as well with Billy Weeds.
I was only a few blocks away from Burton’s house, so I could honestly say I was in the neighborhood. I pulled up to the gate and pushed the call button on the intercom. Isabella was her regular welcoming self.
“He’s working in his study.”
“Can you tell him I’m here?”
“If you want.”
“Yeah, why not? Since I’m out here at the gate.”
“Okay. Up to you.”
The giant blue hydrangea that lined the long driveway had turned brown from the frost. A crew of landscapers were cleaning things up, trimming bushes and raking out the white-pebble road surface. They admired the Grand Prix as I passed by, I could tell.
Burton met me at the door.
“Sam, excellent timing. Saved me from my work.”
