Later(34)

If this is what a good deed gets you, I thought one night, looking out my window and watching Thumper across the street under his streetlight, I never want to do another one.





34


In late June, Mom and I made our monthly visit to see Uncle Harry. He didn’t talk much anymore and hardly ever went into the common room. Although he still wasn’t fifty, his hair had gone snow white.

Mom said, “Jamie brought you rugelach from Zabar’s, Harry. Would you like some?”

I held the bag up from my place in the doorway (I didn’t really want to go all the way in), smiling and feeling a little like one of the models on The Price is Right.

Uncle Harry said yig.

“Does that mean yes?” Mom asked.

Uncle Harry said ng, and waved both hands at me. Which you didn’t have to be a mind reader to know meant no fucking cookies.

“Would you like to go out? It’s beautiful.”

I wasn’t sure Uncle Harry even knew what out was these days.

“I’ll help you up,” Mom said, and took his arm.

“No!” Uncle Harry said. Not ng, not yig, not ug, no. As clear as a bell. His eyes had gotten big and were starting to water. Then, also as clear as a bell, “Who’s that?”

“It’s Jamie. You know Jamie, Harry.”

Only he didn’t know me, not anymore, and it wasn’t me he was looking at. He was looking over my shoulder. I didn’t need to turn around to know what I was going to see there, but I did, anyway.

“What he’s got is hereditary,” Therriault said, “and it runs in the male line. You’ll be like him, Champ. You’ll be like him before you know it.”

“Jamie?” Mom asked. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said, looking at Therriault. “I’m just fine.”

But I wasn’t, and Therriault’s grin said he knew it, too.

“Go away!” Uncle Harry said. “Go away, go away, go away!”

So we did.

All three of us.





35


I had just about decided to tell my mother everything—I needed to let it out, even if it scared her and made her unhappy—when fate, as the saying is, took a hand. This was in July of 2013, about three weeks after our trip to see Uncle Harry.

My mother got a call early one morning, while she was getting ready to go to the office. I was sitting at the kitchen table, scarfing up Cheerios with one eye open. She came out of her bedroom, zipping her skirt. “Marty Burkett had a little accident last night. Tripped over something—going to the toilet, I imagine—and strained his hip. He says he’s fine, and maybe he is, but maybe he’s just trying to be macho.”

“Yeah,” I said, mostly because it’s always safer to agree with my mom when she’s rushing around and trying to do like three different things at once. Privately I was thinking that Mr. Burkett was a little old to be a macho man, although it was amusing to think of him starring in a movie like Terminator: The Retirement Years. Waving his cane and proclaiming “I’ll be back.” I picked up my bowl and started to slurp the milk.

“Jamie, how many times have I told you not to do that?”

I couldn’t remember if she ever had, because quite a few parental edicts, especially those concerning table manners, had a tendency to slide by me. “How else am I supposed to get it all?”

She sighed. “Never mind. I made a casserole for our supper, but we could have burgers. If, that is, you could interrupt your busy schedule of watching TV and playing games on your phone long enough to take it to Marty. I can’t, full schedule. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do that? And then call and tell me how he’s doing?”

At first I didn’t answer. I felt like I’d just been hit on the head with a hammer. Some ideas are like that. Also, I felt like a total dumbo. Why had I never thought of Mr. Burkett before?

“Jamie? Earth to Jamie.”

“Sure,” I said. “Happy to do it.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “Funny as a rubber crutch.”

She grabbed her purse. “I’ll give you cab fare—”

“Nah, just put the casserole thing in a carry-bag. I’ll walk.”

“Really?” she said again, looking surprised. “All the way to Park?”

“Sure. I can use the exercise.” Not strictly true. What I needed was time to be sure my idea was a good idea, and how to tell my story if it was.





36


At this point I’m going to start calling Mr. Burkett Professor Burkett, because he taught me that day. He taught me a lot. But before the teaching, he listened. I’ve already said I knew I had to talk to somebody, but I didn’t know what a relief it would be to unburden myself until I actually did it.

He came to the door hobbling on not just one cane, which I’d seen him use before, but two. His face lit up when he saw me, so I guess he was glad to get company. Kids are pretty self-involved (as I’m sure you know if you’ve ever been one yourself, ha-ha), and I only realized later that he must have been a lonely, lonely man in the years after Mona died. He had that daughter on the west coast, but if she came to visit, I never saw her; see statement above about kids and self-involvement.