Cold Night

SEVEN

Paine got into his car and drove out of Westchester. Soon the highway lights got sparser and then disappeared. He kept driving. He turned the radio on and rolled the window down, and the cool night air came into the car and washed out the stale air. He passed a bridge but he didn't turn onto it, and soon the glow of Westchester behind him bled down into the horizon and was gone. He was surrounded only by darkness. Through the windshield he saw stars. He saw a bright dot that he knew was the planet Venus. Next to it, a few degrees away, was another, smaller dot, red, which was Mars. Mars comes to Venus, he thought, Mars fights Venus, and then Mars goes away and everybody's dead but Venus shines on. War and love, the two facts of the human condition. Never mind taxes: there was war and love, and even after war went away love came again until Mars reappeared. Then the whole thing started over again. He looked away from Venus and Mars.

He drove on, and soon the highway narrowed to two thin lanes and he had to watch the road all the time. There were a few other cars, lazy drivers out after rush hour, coming home from bars, going to bars. He passed one apparently very drunk driver who had been pulled crookedly onto the shoulder of the road, partially blocking the right lane, and stood outside the car arguing with a state trooper whose car flashers mixed red and white, like Mars and Venus, and who had the man leaning back against his car, his head looking up at the spinning sky. No doubt he saw something spinning not up in the sky but in the top of his head, where the alcohol had gone, where whatever it was that was meant to go away probably still lurked, waiting for a few hours of sleepy unconsciousness before creeping back up into the driver's head to torment him again. The red and white flashers disappeared around a turn in his rearview mirror.

He drove as the night got darker. There was no moon, and Mars and Venus wheeled and sank and then were gone. Over the hills and low mountains in the coming distance he saw for a moment part of the Big Dipper. In the handle of the Dipper he saw Mizar and Alcor, two close stars that circled one another. He remembered that the Big Dipper was an asterism, only part of a constellation. The constellation was called Ursa Major, but he couldn't see all of Ursa Major because most of it was hidden by the curve of the mountain. Many of the stars were faint, anyway.

He went into the mountains and then he turned off the highway. There were other roads now, often narrow, with the center line smudged out by rain and salt and winter sanding. He made a turn and there, abruptly, was a shopping mall, with new white lines around it and lights still on in the parking lot. There were only a few cars parked, for night watchmen and teenagers drinking or making out. He looked away from the lights and soon they, too, were gone.

Another few miles and he turned onto another road and then, immediately, he made a sharp turn onto an up-sloping gravel path. The gravel gave up, leaving hard-packed dirt, and he found himself listening to the sound the dirt made when the wheels rolled over it. There were trees closely bordering the road. He kept climbing at a slow angle, but up ahead he saw a flicker of soft light that resolved into a square of window.

He stopped the car on a flat space, next to a small pickup. He leaned back against the seat. He stretched, rubbing his eyes with the flats of his palms. He looked at his watch, holding it out toward the small square window of light in the cottage. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. He got out of the car and stretched again.

He walked past the window, not looking in. There was a narrow pathway floored with brown pine needles. He closed his eyes for a moment because he knew he could follow it with his eyes closed. For the first time in a very long time, he wanted a drink so badly he would have taken it had he had it. His hand reflexively patted the pocket of his jacket where his flask used to be.

Eyes closed, he stood still and listened to the night: rustles, wind sighing against trees, cold silence. He opened his eyes and moved on. He didn't need the drink anymore, and now the pathway opened to a field of cleared trees and low, cropped grass with a dome in the middle of it.

He saw the glow of red light in the slit on top of the dome, heard faint music. Someone was humming along with the music. He looked up; the stars were achingly beautiful, the gentle slope of the clearing making them visible nearly down to the horizon. Asterisms, he thought again. The Big Dipper was sunk low now, only its handle visible.

He opened the corrugated metal door of the dome gently, but it made a typical grinding noise nevertheless and his brother turned from the eyepiece of the telescope and looked at him. He stared through the dim red light for a moment and then he smiled.

'Jack,' he said.

'Hello, Tom.' He stood by the door, feeling awkward, then stepped in and closed it behind him. It growled again, and then the silence of the night closed in.

'What-' his brother began, but Paine cut him off softly.

'Just in the neighborhood, Tom.'

'Sure, sit down.'

There was a curved bench along the perimeter of the dome, and Paine went to it and sat, moving a book of charts out of the way. There was a bag of pretzels there, and he reached in, taking one.

'Something wrong?' his brother asked.

'Just felt like coming here,' he answered.

Rachmaninoff was being played on the radio, and he flinched. The piece ended, and the announcer's muffled voice came on. He looked up at the speakers mounted high on the walls of the dome. Tom and he and his father had mounted them one Saturday after picking them up on sale at Radio Shack.

'Haven't been up here in a long time, Tom.'

'I know. I almost called you a few times. .'

'I'm sorry, Tommy.'

His brother shrugged.

Paine said, 'I'm just sorry it took so long.'

His brother stared at an eyepiece case flipped open on the end of the bench, and Paine looked out through the slit where a line of bright and faint stars made a zigzag.

'You know. .' Tom began.

'What?'

'I was just going to say that the place is still half yours.'

'It’s all yours now, Tom.'

His brother shrugged. 'If you ever. .'

Paine got up. 'Look, Tommy, I think maybe coming up here was a mistake.'

'Bullshit.'

There was anger in his brother’s voice. He knew it would come and it came. Tommy glared at him, something from deep inside freeing itself to fly into his face and mouth and eyes. 'That’s bullshit, Jack. You came up here because you wanted to, so don’t hand me any shit and run away again with your tail between your legs.' He held his tongue, blood rising to his face. 'There were times I hated your guts. The way you left me to deal with everything.' He was unable to stop. 'You acted like a fucking baby back then, leaving me like that. You think it was easy for me? I know what happened to you — but I never fucking figured out what happened to me.'

Paine was on his feet. His hands were trembling. Then suddenly his arms were out, and his brother fell into them. He held his brother, and his brother held him. Something washed out of the two of them, and it was a long time before they parted.

'Jesus, Jack,' his brother said.

'It’s okay. .'

'I thought all of it got buried, a long time ago, but. .'

'I know, Tommy. You just gave me what I came here for.'

There was a different kind of silence between them. Paine sat back down on the bench, and then his eyes went to the telescope, and he said, 'How's the Big Eye doing these days?'

'Had the mirror resurfaced about a year ago,' his brother said. 'It's as good as it ever was.'