Robert struggles now with one more irony: As fine as his brother’s reaction is, Robert’s remaining secret about Vietnam would’ve had a better chance for absolution from Pops. If Jimmy were to know, Robert would lose him again.
“Thanks,” Robert says.
But that is the only show of sentimentality between the two brothers, who both turn now to look at their father’s dead body.
Together they eye him silently for a few moments.
“Crappy suit,” Robert says.
“He needs leather for the grave,” Jimmy says.
And Bob is standing at the edge of the woods. Calvin is in him. Saying things he hasn’t said before. So Private Weber, you’re in the woods tonight and you see the enemy and you’re quick like you’ve always been, quick to lock and load and aim, ‘cause you’re my boy and you’re good at what I’m good at. Yeah, I said good like me. Good like I used to be. I know all you ever saw was how wrecked I was. They fucking beat us down. Not the enemy. The brass. The government. They did it to all of us. They humped our asses through the jungles of Hell, blew us apart, body and mind, and then they just up and quit. Turned the last page. Gave the whole thing away and turned us into chumps. Dead chumps. Maimed chumps. Batshit-crazy chumps. Sure you saw me already broken like that, even with a rifle in my hand, which is a fucking shame. That wasn’t me. Not like I was in the heat of it, not while I was waging war. You need to believe that of your old man. You’re like the me in Vietnam. But tonight you were quick and ready and then you backed off. Why? A fucking hug. You had your target in your sights and you let him get away because you turned it into this bullshit jungle village scene. A father giving his boy a hug. There’s a lot you don’t know about life. I can’t even begin to tell you. But you walk into the prettiest little village with bananas in the trees and clucking fucking hens in the doorways and you can get your ass blown apart there just like anywhere else. These are tough lessons to learn, boy, things you have to learn for yourself. I can’t say I’m sorry I learned them, even as fucked up as it was. That’s better than being a chump who stays stupid all his life, thinking things are gonna turn out fine. Go on through those doors over there. You’ll see. I’ll come with you. We’ll see together. I can’t give you a hug. Grow up. I seen too much in this world to do a thing like that. But I can slide on inside your head and your heart and your itchy good right hand and ain’t that even better?
And Bob is crossing the driveway.
He feels his Glock lying heavily against his heart.
And he’s through the porte cochere doors and it’s not what he was ready for. A long room. No, a corridor. Piss-colored light and easy chairs. Just an old woman down the way. Just one old woman. Looking up now. Looking at him. What’s to see here?
She’s looking Bob over. With that look.
She rises.
Bob waits for his father to tell him what to do.
She’s heading this way.
And Bob hears Calvin again: I can slide inside your head and your heart.
He takes a deep breath.
He fills himself up.
Like breathing in a ghost.
The old man.
Bob feels light as air.
And she’s before him. Cocking her head. Pursing her lips into a tight line.
But an odd thing. Her eyes are red. From crying. Her cheeks glisten. Hold your horses, boy. I’ve seen this in my wife. I didn’t mean to hurt her but I have. Hanging with people she doesn’t understand. Drinking too much. Getting a little rough. She’s not the enemy.
So Bob is calm.
“Yes?” the old woman says.
“Yes,” Bob says.
“Can I help you?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is a funeral home.”
But see how dense she can be sometimes? What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?
“I know that,” Bob says.
She looks at him closely. She uncocks her head. She unpurses her lips, which she has repursed after stating the dumbshit obvious.
“Do you know someone here?” she asks.
Even with Calvin inside his brain, he is still Bob. That’s good. So he remembers. “Bob Quinlan,” he says.
This makes the woman smile. “Bob?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Where do you know him?”
“From Vietnam,” he says.
And something enters her. That look vanishes. Her eyes soften. “You’re a veteran,” she says, lifting up the word as if she should have known all along.
“Yes,” Bob says.
“Please wait,” she says.
She moves past him. He turns and watches her step to the inner doors.
She pauses before going in. “I’ll find him for you,” she says. “What’s your name?”
“Bob.”
And she changes again. Her face crimps up like that’s impossible, the name’s already taken. “Bob,” she says.
“Bob,” he says.
“Why don’t you wait here, Bob,” she says. “I’ll get Robert.”
She pushes through one of the doors and it swings shut.
He’s clearly not wanted in there. Too fucking bad.
Peggy pauses. Takes in the room. She was afraid of a visitation space this big. Afraid Bill would look unloved. But there are people. Dozens. He looks loved. If he’s nearby, hovering around before finally departing, he’ll see.
She has let the man in the hallway slide to the side of her mind. He’s probably homeless. He has the clothes, the whiff. But he’s a veteran. Of her son’s war. She looks to the doorway to her food. She should make the man a plate of food. From this angle she sees the beginning of her special row of warmers, a glimpse of Darla moving, out of sight now, serving Peggy’s dishes to Bill’s mourners. This is good.
She should find Robert for the veteran. Is Robert helping this man? She scans the crowd, ending at the far wall, the casket. She sees Robert there, talking to a couple. She moves off toward him, thinking, Bob. You’ve never been Bob.
And Bob steps through the doors into the visitation room. The woman has just passed by, not noticing him. Just as well. She’s moving briskly. She would have him stand around waiting on her like a bum at the back door.
He turns.
He follows her.
But more slowly. Taking in all the people as he goes. Look at them. Hats and ties and rouged cheeks and jowls and stubble and crimson lips and scarfs and sweaters and throats and hands, it’s that simple, boy, like feathers and fur and claws and hooves, like jungle jackets and rucksacks and pith helmets and VC pajamas, like white faces and black faces and yellow faces, this is what you learned there, all these are the same, people and their bodies and their uniforms and their skin, all of them are a zip of lead or a burst of flame or a tumble of shrapnel away from dead. Or a round of.45 Auto from the Glock in your pocket. You are a walking, talking, swinging dick of a reminder that it’s all just a wisp of smoke that the least little puff of air will blow away, and all the politics and all the ideas and all the scheming and raping and robbing and conquering, all the grunting and raving and wailing and weeping by every last one of these creatures is for nothing, because just that simple thing in your pocket there, boy, if you hold it steady and you aim it true, can turn any one of these poor motherfuckers into maggots and bones.
“Oh my God,” Peggy says, close enough now to recognize the other man, who is turning to her voice. “Jimmy,” she says. “Oh Jimmy.”
She rushes and she throws open her arms and Jimmy expected this moment if he came, if he stayed, and he decides to set aside all the years of his mother’s loyal-wife silence so that he can go through these motions. He opens his arms too and he takes her up and she embraces him. He looks at Heather, who is smiling the same smile he’s seen in quiet moments over coffee in their three breakfasts as a couple — even as Peggy looks at Heather thinking, I have another granddaughter and I didn’t even know she exists—and Jimmy looks at Robert, expecting from his brother a mutual lift of the eyebrows over this other difficult, shared parent. But Robert is beginning to turn his face away, to look into the room.