"Fuck," I said.
"I know."
"Six months holy fuck."
Hand breathed out.
Six months meant it was in the past. We'd lived all these months since and we didn't know why. Had we decided to do it, had we decided that this was what we wanted, to wake up and work, as I'd been doing, in my pajama bottoms? Who had told me that I should, as I had just a month ago, spend a full week sitting in the SRO section of Wrigley, watching the maintenance men replace broken seats? That I should, as I had, bring Mo and Thor a half-dozen times to the lake in November and December, showing them where the boats would be if it were warmer, showing them the tall twin buildings that looked like flasks, running through the slush by the dead fountain, hoping my feet would freeze. I couldn't think of anything I'd done in six months that brought me anywhere new or proved in any way I'd been there, that I'd been taking air from the world and using it to any justifiable end.
We just hadn't decided yet, any of us. I know Jack's dad hadn't decided. We hadn't yet made a conscious decision about what we would and wouldn't do. We were standing and blinking and waiting to be told.
There was a tapping from within me, something tapping my breastplate from within. I was hyperventilating. Extra firings, a surge in the Bundle of His. A man stopped and said something to Hand in French. Hand stood and thanked the man and sat back down again.
"None of this was supposed to happen," I said.
"I know."
"I knew what he'd look like when he was fifty." Hand said nothing.
"You know he'd get fat," I said. "He'd look like his dad, bald and with that big fat ass. You know he was headed there. Fuck."
Hand said nothing. I could hear someone nearby dunking something in water, removing it and tapping the excess on something made of wood or plastic, a table or bucket.
"I was always serious about that valley," I said.
"I know you were."
When Jack had moved to D.C. and Hand was in St. Louis, I'd gotten the idea that even if we lived in different states for a while, eventually we'd buy land together, maybe near Phelps if Jack could telecommute, since he was the only one with a more permanent sort of job. We were very serious. Or I was serious, and the other two said We'll see, but you could tell they wanted it, too, especially if I did the work. I didn't need to meet all that many new people. I was set with these people; I didn't think we could be improved upon. We didn't want our kids playing with some randoms with lice or Lipnicki hair when they could be playing with Uncle Jack's kids, Uncle Will's, Uncle -
We were planning some kind of less sinister name for Hand. The land would be on the lake, but if not, a valley. A small valley, unpopulated, wooded, not too steep. We'd get a few acres each, and I was sure we could afford it, the land up near Phelps wasn't priced too bad, and I'd do the plans for each, and Hand and I would guide the construction and hire local crews, and Jack and Hand would help, and we'd get all three built in one summer.
If our wives had similar hopes the valley would hold their friends, too, of course – all the better, and their husbands, kids, dogs. We'd have a motherfucking shitload of dogs! Horses. Peacocks. Oh to live among peacocks. I'd seen them once in person and they defied so many laws of color and gravity that they had to be mad geniuses waiting to take over everything. Mudskippers, ocelots, tree sloths and hanumans – we'd have all the most ridiculous animals. And it made sense that we'd stay together, and have this valley, and it made sense that our kids would feel at home in any house, and know every inch of that valley, would roll down the sides in the fall when the leaves had fallen and were brittle and red. We'd hear their yelps from our third-story windows, where we were buildings skylights and painting old furniture new.
The smoke of the market cleared over us and a few weak stars were visible. They did nothing and meant nothing.
"It hit me about a month ago," Hand said.
A dog, rangy and snaking, was sniffing my feet.
"The permanence of it," he said. "I know you're supposed to know it's permanent, but then you're walking down the street – I was walking on a Sunday morning, past a church I think, everyone outside afterward, and I just stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and I said Holy shit. Holy shit." He hissed the words.
"I know." I was trying to slow down my breathing.
"There's the time right after," Hand said, "when you're shocked and putting on your suit, and borrowing the right shoes and putting gas in your car on the way to the fucking funeral, getting the gas on your hands, using the gas station bathroom to wash it off, worrying – You know how worried I was of showing up smelling of gasoline? At a funeral like that, with everyone thinking about cars and everything?"
"I know."
"But then there's these months, when you live half-thinking it'll be corrected. I had to renew the goddamned registration on my car a few weeks ago and I'm sitting there in the place and I started thinking that all I had to do was pay a fine on Jack. Like we were just overdue on payments on him and they'd towed him or something. I jumped a little in the line, because I was like, Fuck, I gotta go get the papers for Jack! Maybe they're in the car! I get these thoughts all the time. Did you keep answering machine tapes?"
"I couldn't. Voicemail."
"Well I saved a tape with a long message from him. He was drunk and was calling, just describing going down to the Lincoln Memorial with this woman he worked with. I guess there was some kind of youth chorus singing there at midnight, and he had this crazy night there, in the Lincoln Memorial, with some older woman he worked with."
"Who was it?"
"Older woman. She's separated. But I guess they went out to dinner and then drinks one night when her ex-husband or whatever was calling a lot. She didn't want to go home so she and Jack went out."
"He didn't tell me that."
"He did the whole story into my answering machine. I'll play it for you when we get back. They ended up at the Lincoln Memorial and there were about a hundred teenagers singing gospel songs. 'If I Could Just Touch the Hem of His Garment,' right there at the feet of Lincoln. Will, shit. Your chest is going crazy."
I tried to breathe in and slowly. A pair of sandals appeared beside my head and I was in the shadow of a man crouching.
"No, merci," Hand said. The man's fingers were on my temples.
"No, no!" Hand said.
I shook my head free. The man stood and walked away.
– We're so weak, Hand. We haven't done anything.
– It's too soon.
– We haven't done anything.
"How does something like that happen?" I said. I was still on the ground, my legs folded under me like I'd fallen.
"I don't know."
"No one's ever heard of something like that happening. Jesus, has that ever happened before? No one said that was going to happen. That wasn't on the list of things that can happen, a truck just -"
Hand was silent.
"You know how hard it is to even use that word, die, in the same sentence as Jack? That's the fucked up -"
"Wipe your nose again."
"I never thought it would be him."
"I know."
"There are so many other people."
"I know," he said.
"Will."
"I would take that truck and swallow it whole," I said.
Hand exhaled through his nose in a burst.
"You ever think of his last seconds?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said.
– I know his last seconds, Hand.
"It was quick, you know," Hand said.
"I know. We've talked about this -"
"If you have to have something like that happen, at least it wasn't drawn out -"
"Hand. It's not like that."