Wolf at the table, p.32
Wolf at the Table, page 32
Despite this nearly decade-long gulf between them, Myra still sees herself as Alec’s last connection to the family. And despite her fatigue, she’s managed to convince herself that this trip is going to be worth it. She had to go back to Joliet anyway to ship some boxes to Vermont that were in storage. Lexy was kind enough to drive her the fifteen hours from Vermont and help her with the boxes. And then Lexy dropped her at Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station before heading back to Connecticut.
During her illness, Lexy has been the one sibling who’s really been there for Myra. Like Alec, Fiona has also receded from Myra’s life. There was occasional contact for a few years back in the seventies, following her affiliation with that women’s cult in Massachusetts, but it was a random five-minute call here and there, not even during the holidays, and when Myra would ask her anything regarding the details of her life—did she have a job, how was her health, was she dating anyone—Fiona would become vague and quiet and end the call shortly thereafter. All she knows is that she still lives in New York City and continues to pursue acting, which seems tragic, a woman her age still trying to make it in that industry. Lexy also shared with Myra the story of Fiona asking her to lunch last year. Lexy agreed to meet her and suggested her favorite café, and Fiona took the train up to Rowayton. It turned out that Fiona had broken her wrist and wound up asking Fiona for five thousand dollars to cover the medical bills as well as a month’s rent. Because of her lack of work, she explained, she’d lost her medical benefits. She even conjured some tears as she wolfed down her tuna sandwich and salad. Going against her better judgment, Lexy agreed to help her, and wrote her a check right there at the table. Fiona, of course, swore that she would pay Lexy back, wiping her tears away. Lexy hasn’t heard from Fiona since. She told Myra that she had a vague hunch that Fiona’s cast wasn’t even real, that it looked like a stage prop. So Myra does have hope that this trip will bear some kind of reconnection between her and one of her lost siblings—her only living brother, for that matter.
And now here she is, six hundred miles from Chicago, fourteen hundred miles from her home in Vermont. It’s been a long few days, to say the least.
As she approaches the café she passes a copy of a newspaper left on a bench. The front-page headline reads “McVeigh Jury Decides on Sentence of Death in Oklahoma Bombing.” She heard the story reported earlier on the radio on her way to Magnetic Mountain and was relieved to hear that some of the families of the deceased might find some peace in the wake of this tragedy. She almost picks up the stray paper but is distracted by a man sitting in a booth by the window. His face is hardened, beset by a kind of bitterness that Myra recognizes from many of the haunted, recovering alcoholic men she knew in prison. It’s Alec. His dark eyes are ringed with fatigue, perhaps sleeplessness. Yes, it’s Alec, she’s sure of it. She is shocked by how much her brother has aged. He would have turned fifty-six in March. The last time she saw him—almost forty years ago, during a trip home from nursing school—his hair was as black as their father’s shoe polish. Now it’s thinning and gray, iron-colored really, and his face has taken on weight. Even from the parking lot Myra can see that Alec is still handsome, despite the swollen eyes and obvious hard living. His short-sleeve red Hawaiian shirt features a pattern of white palm trees. He is alone, eating methodically and drinking from a coffee mug.
When Myra enters the café she is greeted by a young woman with a distinctly southern accent. Myra points to Alec’s booth and the hostess follows her there with a menu. When Myra slides in across from Alec he is in the process of shoving at least two pieces of bacon into his mouth. On his plate are scrambled eggs, hash browns, and buttered toast. He looks up. Myra grasps that he has no idea who she is, and why would he? She’s bald. She’s been through cancer treatment. She probably looks nothing like the girl he knew some forty years ago.
“Hi, Alec,” she says.
He stops chewing and simply looks at her.
“It’s me,” she says, “Myra.”
He has the teeth of a tobacco chewer. Each of his elbows is swollen, probably bursitis. “Myra?” he says.
“Your sister,” she adds. “Myra Lee.”
“Wow,” he says. “Really?” He swallows his bacon and drinks from his coffee mug. He then sets his large hands flat on the table. They are misshapen and twisted like their father’s. Dark hairs sprout along the segments between his knuckles.
“You’re surprised,” she says. “I don’t blame you.”
Already an ache of sadness is forming in her chest, like an indissoluble cherry stone. Myra swallows, trying to force it down, but her mouth is dry. She asks if she can have some of his water and he nods exactly once, but warily, as if she’s a medical professional performing an examination. She takes his glass and gulps a mouthful. The chemo always makes her feel parched, no matter how much water she drinks.
“What are you doing here?” Alec asks. His voice is dehydrated, torn in places, as if belonging to a man who has survived heart attacks and fires.
“I just felt like I needed to see you,” she says.
“Oh,” he says. “Why?”
“Well, for one thing, I’ve been sick.”
“Okay,” he says.
“I have cancer.” She explains that she was diagnosed three years ago, that it’s gone into remission twice but returned each time. Then she removes her Cubs hat, her headscarf. “I’m bald as a melon,” she adds. “From the chemo.”
The look on Alec’s face is one of mild disgust, as if he’s just happened upon a goat shitting on the sidewalk.
“And it’s my birthday tomorrow.”
“So you came looking for your long-lost brother as a birthday present to yourself,” he says. “Now there’s a real doozy. You want me to jump out of a fucking cake?”
The remark, his blatant lack of regard for her, stings. Myra puts her scarf back on, leaves the Cubs hat on the seat beside her.
Alec drinks from his mug and says, “There are like ten thousand birds on your do-rag.”
“My son gave it to me after I completed my first round of treatments.”
“Ronny,” he says.
“Ronan,” she says.
“Ronan, right. How old is he now?” Alec asks.
“He’s twenty-eight,” Myra says.
Suddenly a middle-aged waitress appears and asks Myra if she’d like to order.
Myra has to clear her throat to ask if they have any cottage cheese.
“With or without pineapple bits,” the waitress says.
“Without, please. I’d love a ginger ale, too.”
“Sprite okay?”
“That’s fine,” Myra says.
After the waitress moves off, Alec asks Myra how she tracked him down, in a tone that feels addressed to a private detective or a bail bondsman.
She explains about stopping by the little stone church with the bell tower and being directed by Father Joseph to the motel on Passion Play Road, where the man with the platinum beard told her that this is where Alec came for his lunches.
“But how the hell did you know I had anything to do with St. Elizabeth’s?”
Myra reaches into her purse and produces the postcard. She points to the phrase THIS IS WHERE I WORK. And then she takes out the rest of the postcards and sets them on the table.
“Those were for Mom,” Alec says. “Not you.”
“Mom wanted to come,” Myra says, “but she’s not getting around so well these days.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Alec asks.
“It’s her knees,” Myra says. “They’ve gotten pretty bad. And she refuses the surgery that would help to repair her cartilage. She can barely work in her garden anymore. She walks with a cane now.” Myra doesn’t even bother bringing up their father or Alec’s conspicuous absence at the funeral.
Alec stares at his food for a moment and then makes an X with his fork and knife over it, as if the image of their mother walking with a cane has somehow poisoned his food.
“What about church?” he says. “What does she do, stand?”
“She mostly sings in the choir now,” Myra says. “So, yes, she stands. That’s easier.” She searches his face for some clue of who he’s become: a scar or a discoloration. A tremor. But it’s the same face he had as a boy. Just older and fleshier and cut with wrinkles here and there.
Alec won’t meet her eyes.
“So here I am,” Myra says.
“You’re like a regular Magnum PI. You took a real shot in the dark.”
“I figured it was worth the gamble. I only have one living brother, after all.”
He picks something out of his coffee mug, flicks it onto the floor.
“So why Jerry?” she says.
“Why not Jerry?” he replies, and sips, turns the mug one slow revolution between his hands, then stares into it as if it will provide the clue for getting through this awkward encounter.
Myra decides not to press him on the matter.
“So what kind of cancer is it?” he says, setting the mug down finally.
“Stomach,” she says. “And it’s in my colon, too.”
“Are you in a lot of pain?”
“It comes and goes,” she says.
“Do they give you anything for it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like taking it,” she says. “The meds just toxify my liver and give my body one more reason to be angry with me.”
“Well, I am currently accepting donations,” Alec says. “If you’re just chucking your pills in the river, that is.”
Is this an attempt at irony? Humor? Myra tries to smile. Her face feels slow, rubbery.
“How long do you have left?” he asks, with no more emotion than if he’s asking whether the warranty on a toaster oven has expired.
“There’s no telling,” she says. “If I respond well to this most recent round of treatment things could turn around.”
“And if not?”
“Then I’ll probably be lucky to see a grandchild.”
“Ronny’s married?”
“Ronan. No, but he’s with someone and they’ve been together quite a while.”
Alec goes silent. His dark pupils are vacant. He clearly has no interest in his nephew, much less his actual name.
Myra points to his plate. “I’m sorry if I caused you to lose your appetite.”
His face, which used to have that rich olive complexion, has turned ashen, bloodless. A rime of salt-and-pepper stubble marks his cheeks and chin and neck, while thistles sprout from his ears. His hair is long and unwashed, unhealthy. He looks like a divorcé who plays in a mediocre cover band.
“What are you really doing here, Myra?” Alec finally says. “It’s been like seven thousand years. Why track me down now?”
“You’re my brother,” is all she can offer. “I’ve been worried about you. We all have.” She realizes that she’s been flicking the rubber bands that are securing the collection of postcards. She stops, brings her hands to her lap. “Can I ask you some questions?” she says.
“As long as they’re not math-related,” he says.
His old stock phrase. Myra smiles, then self-consciously covers her mouth, a habit since the chemo dimmed her teeth. “Are you with anyone?” she says, removing her hand from her mouth. “Do you have a family?”
“No and no,” he says. “Not even a dog. Not even a goldfish.”
It pains her that he has so little regard for his own loneliness. She knows hers all too well, after all. “Father Joseph told me you’re the groundskeeper at the church,” she says.
“I am a mower of lawns. A trimmer of a variety of bushes. A handler of the occasional wasp nest. Sometimes I have to deal with the deer who come around to snack on the roses.”
“How do you keep the deer away?”
“I have a pellet gun. Pop ’em in the ass a few times. They learn quickly. Unlike humans.”
Myra tells him about the concoction that their mother uses. “Cayenne pepper and olive oil and all this other stuff. Douses her garden with it.”
“Sounds like a lot of shopping.”
“It’s more humane. And it really does keep them away.”
“I have bacon,” he says. “Want any?”
“No thanks,” she says.
He tells her she looks thin, like concentration-camp thin.
“I still don’t have much of an appetite,” she says.
“Chemo’s just poison, right?”
“Technically, yes,” she says. “But carefully created to attack the bad stuff and help the body heal.”
“I wouldn’t do chemo in a million years,” he says.
“What would you do?” she asks.
“Let the worms have at me,” he says. “The world is designed to destroy you, anyway. Some of us go quicker than others. It’s all a game and it’s not that complicated. I’d rather wrestle an alligator.”
Myra hears a slight twang in his voice. Is this an affectation? Or just the natural way we take on the music of our surroundings? She asks him what he does for fun.
“Fun?” he says, his voice jumping an octave. It’s as if she’s uttered a foreign word.
“For pleasure,” she says, “for recreation.”
“I like to fish,” he says. “There’s a good lake around here, an unbelievable coastline, with caves and whatnot. It makes the Chemung look like an end-of-the-world urinal. Has a ton of largemouth bass, bream, crappie, every kind of catfish known to man.” He looks at the back of his wrist as if there’s a watch there. “I just quit smoking,” he adds. “That used to be fun.”
“I’m glad you quit,” she says.
“I miss it,” he says. “It gave me something to do.”
“Do you attend church?”
“I spend half my life there, mowing the fucking grass, if that counts.”
His curse word is like a knife thrown into a wall. But why should she expect politeness? Alec never was polite about anything.
“It’s a living,” Myra offers.
“I guess you could call it that,” he says.
“What other kinds of jobs have you had?”
“Not the kind to write home about,” he says. “The same ones I used to have back when we were in touch. I’ve hung drywall, shoveled gravel into the backs of trucks, painted about umpteen thousand houses. Cash jobs mostly. And I’ve done other things, too. Things I’m not necessarily proud of. I’ve become a halfway decent gambler.”
Myra doesn’t even want to begin with it. He certainly looks like a criminal, like so many of the men who wound up at Stateville Correctional when she was there. Con men and arsonists and rapists. Cold-blooded murderers. There was always something missing in their eyes, something lost in the center of the pupil, a feral absence. Coyotes have the same look. Sharks and hyenas, too. Poisonous snakes.
“How long have you been here in Arkansas?” she asks.
“Long,” he says. “Not long. Semi-long. What does it matter?”
“I’m just curious,” she says.
“I got sort of a home base down in Mississippi. Right on the water. I call it ‘The Place Where Dreams Run Wild.’ My own little piece of paradise.”
“So you go down there when it gets cold?” she asks.
“Somethin’ like that,” he says.
The waitress appears with Myra’s order. The blob of cottage cheese has been scooped onto a wedge of iceberg lettuce. Myra has no appetite but she needs the fat and protein.
“Do you ever think about us?” she asks Alec and steers a forkful of cottage cheese into her mouth. She feels immediately nauseated but makes herself swallow.
“Us?” he says.
“Your family,” she says. “Your sisters.”
“The Larkins?” he says. He pronounces his surname as if it’s a comical country Western band. “Not really. I wonder about you sometimes.”
“About what exactly?”
“Just the general stuff. Is Myra fat? Is Myra skinny? Did Myra join a gang of traveling minstrels?”
“Where does Myra live?” she says, offering him a question of substance.
“Aren’t you in Shit-cago?” he says.
“No, I’m not. And speaking of Chicago, I’ve always wondered why you never showed up at our place, all those years ago. You said you were coming from Nebraska to live with us. And then nothing. You didn’t show up—and not even a phone call. What happened there?”
“What happened is life happened,” he says. “Trees fall in the forest. Bridges collapse. Sinkholes appear out of nowhere.”
“Anyway,” Myra says, not wanting to entertain his obnoxious explanation, “I just moved to Vermont. Got a little house right on the Mad River. Lexy and her husband, Barry, helped me out.”
“Why Vermont?” he asks.
“I love the rolling hills. And the birds. I have a little garden. I can see the Green Mountains from my front porch. I figured if this was getting close to the end it would be nice to be in nature.”
