Nightwork

'Over here, Hank,' I said, standing up.

We shook hands wordlessly. I was sure Henry knew the changes that had taken place in him were apparent and that I was trying to hide my reaction to them.

'You're in luck,' Henry said. 'I found it right off.' He reached into his pocket and took out a yellowed envelope and gave it to me. I slipped out the certificate. There it was. My identity was confirmed. Douglas Traynor Grimes, citizen, born in America, male, son of Margaret Traynor Grimes, heir to the continent.

While I was examining the frail piece of aging paper, Henry was fussily taking off his coat and folding it on a chair. The coat was worn at the cuffs and elbows. 'What'll it be, Hank?' I asked, overly hearty, false. 'An old-fashioned will do it.' His voice had somehow remained the same, full and deep, like a cherished and lovingly polished relic from better days.

'The same,' I said to the waiter, who was standing at the table.

'Well, boy, well,' Henry said. 'The Prodigal returns.' If I closed my eyes the voice was still my brother.

'Not exactly. More of a refueling stop, I would say.'

'You're not flying anymore?'

'I wrote you that.'

'That's the only thing you wrote me,' Henry said. 'I'm -not complaining, you understand.' He spread his hands in a placating gesture. I noticed that the hands shook a little-Holy God, I thought, he's only forty years old. "The world's a busy place,' Henry said. 'Communication is difficult. Time passes. Brothers go their different ways.'

We toasted each other when the drinks came. Henry drank greedily, half the glassful in one gulp. 'After a day in the office,' he said, catching my glance. 'Those're long days in that office.'

'I can imagine,' I said. 'Now tell me the news,' Henry said.

'You tell me the news,' I said, 'Madge, the kids et cetera, et cetera.'

There were two more drinks for Henry while he told me about Madge and the kids. Madge was fine, a little run down taking care of everything with no help and the PTA and teaching a stenographic course at night, the three daughters were lovely, the oldest at fourteen something of a problem, high-strung, the way kids that age these days were likely to be, and having a little psychiatric help. The photographs came out of the wallet, the family beside a lake in the Poconos, all the females brown, robust, and cheerful. Henry, in a pair of bathing trunks that were too big for him, pale and worried-looking, as though a drowning was imminent. The news of our brother Bert was not surprising. 'He's a fag radio announcer out in San Diego,' Henry said. 'We should have seen it coming. Did you see it coming?'

No.'

'Well, these days, it's not so bad, I suppose,' Henry said with a sigh. 'Still, in our family ... Pa would have split a gut. He's got a good heart, Bert, he always sends the kids gifts on Christmas from California, but I wouldn't know what to do with him if he ever showed up here.'

Our sister Clara, the youngest of the family, was married, in Chicago, with two kids, did I know that?

'I knew about her being married. Not about the kids.'

'We don't see much of her either,' Henry said. 'Families sort of just disintegrate, don't they? In a few years I suppose my kids'll go off, too, and Madge and I'll be sitting home looking at the television together.' He laughed ruefully. 'Happy thoughts. Still, there's one good thing. The bastards' never be able to drag any son of mine off and kill him in one of their goddamn wars. What a country, where you thank God you don't have a son. More happy thoughts.' He shook, himself, as though the conversation had gotten away from him onto subjects that would have been better left unexamined. 'Don't you think it's time for another drink?'

I still had my first glass almost full in front of me, but he ordered two more. In a little while Henry would be drunk. Maybe that explained it all, although I knew it never explained it all.

'Clara's doing all right,' Henry was saying. 'At least that's what she writes us. When she writes us. Her husband's a big shot in a brokerage firm out there. They have a boat on the lake. Imagine that - a Grimes with a yacht. Okay, enough about all of us. What about you?'

'Over dinner,' I said. By now it was obvious that Henry had to get some food in him - fast.

In the dining room, Henry ordered a big meal. 'How about a bottle of wine?' he said, smiling widely, as though he had just thought of a brilliant and original idea.

'If you want,' I said. I knew that Henry would be much the worse for the wine, but I had been in the habit all my boyhood and youth of taking orders from him, not the other way round, and the habit, I saw, persisted.

Henry neglected his food, but paid a great deal of attention to the wine during dinner. He had flashes of sobriety, when he would sit very erect and peer fiercely across the table at me and speak almost sternly, as though 'suddenly remembering his position as the head of the family. 'Now let's have it, son,' he said, during one of these periods. 'Where've you been, what have you done, what brings you here? You need help, I imagine. I don't have much, but I guess I could manage to scrape up a couple of ...'

'Nothing like that, Hank,' I said hastily, 'Really. Money isn't the problem.'

'That's what you think, brother.' Henry laughed bitterly. That's what you think.'

'Listen carefully. Hank,' I said, leaning forward, speaking in a low voice, trying to freeze his attention, 'I'm going away.'

'Going away? Where?' Henry asked. 'You've been going away all your life.'

This is different. Maybe for a long time. To Europe first'

'Do you have a job in Europe?'

'Not exactly.'

'You don't have a job?'

'Don't ask any questions, please. Hank,' I said. 'I'm going away. Period. I don't know when I'll ever be able to see you again. Maybe never. I wanted to touch some of the bases before I took off. And I want to thank you for what you've always done for me. I want to tell you that I realize it and that I'm grateful for it. I was a snotty little kid and I guess I used to think gratitude was effeminate or degrading or un-British or something equally idiotic.'

'Oh, shit, Doug,' Henry said. 'Forget it, will you?"

'I won't forget it. Another thing. Pa died when I was thirteen years old...’

'He left a nice little piece of insurance.' Henry nodded approvingly. 'Yessiree, a very nice little piece of insurance. You'd never have expected it - a man who worked as a foreman in a machine shop. A man who worked with his hands. His thought was only for his family. Where, would we all be today if it wasn't for that nice little piece of insurance...?'

'I'm not talking about that part of it.'

Talk about that part of it. Listen to an accountant when it comes to death and insurance.'

'What do you remember about him? That's what I want to talk about. I was just a kid; it seems to me I hardly ever saw him; he was just somebody who came in for meals mostly. I still have dreams about him, but I never get the face right. But you were twenty....'

'His face,' Henry said. 'His face was the face of an honest rough man who never had any doubt about himself. It was a face out of another century. Duty and honor were written plain on those simple features.' Henry was mocking himself, mocking our father's memory now. 'And he gave me bad advice,' Henry said, almost sober for the moment. 'Also out of another century. He said, "Marry early, boy." You know how he was always reading the Bible, and making us all go to church. It's better to marry than to bum, he said. I married early. I have a bone to pick with good old dad; insurance or no insurance, burning is better.'

'Will you for Christ's sake stop talking about insurance?'

'Whatever you say, boy. It's your dinner. I take it it is your dinner?'

'Of course.'

'Forget Pa. He's dead. Forget Mom. She's dead. They worked their fingers to the bone and worried night and day and got the old royal American screwing and raised a family, one who's a fag radio announcer in San Diego, the other who's a drunken accountant in Scranton working his fingers to the bone to raise a family, who in turn will work their fingers to the bone to raise their families. I'll say this for our dad, he had his religion. Clara has her yacht. Bert has his beach boys. I have my bottle.' He smiled owlishly. 'What have you got, brother?'