We Never Talk About My Brother Page 18

  “And the referee?” Andy Mac demanded. He glanced at Ben even more scornfully than usual. “Tonto here, your faithful, hairy sidekick? I don’t think so.”

  “And risk your vengeance?” Ben answered. “You’d come to my house in the dead of night and steal my newspaper.” Andy Mac didn’t bother to respond. He was muttering to Walter the Spook, who was hovering at such an angle that—just for a moment—Ben thought he glimpsed a pair of tiny eyes as sharp as frost glittering further back than they should have been under the Little Red Riding Hood hood. But then they were gone, and Ben never caught sight of them again.

  Farrell said, “A referee won’t be necessary. Trust me, we’ll know.” He smiled cheerfully at Walter the Spook. “Go ahead, then. Hit me with the horror.”

  And to Ben’s amazement, Walter reared back and did exactly that. The first volley caught both him and Farrell shockingly off guard, as Andy Mac listened carefully and then recited:

  Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!

  Alas! I am very sorry to say

  That ninety lives have been taken away

  On the last Sabbath day of 1879,

  Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

  “McGonagall the Magnificent,” Farrell said softly. “Wow. Tell Walter I’m very impressed. I’d have led off with Dr. Fuller, or someone like that.”

  Walter went straight through the poem, with Andy Mac’s aid: all the way through the storm, the bridge’s collapse and the ensuing train wreck, and onward to the inescapable moral.

  Oh! Ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,

  I must now conclude my lay

  By telling the world fearlessly without least dismay,

  That your central girders would not have given way,

  At least many sensible men do say,

  Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,

  At least many sensible men confesses,

  For the stronger we our houses do build,

  The less chance we have of being killed.

  Ben could feel the blood leaving his face, and Farrell himself looked, as he said, definitely impressed, and maybe a bit more. He said slowly, “McGonagall, is it? O-kay, McGonagall right back at’cha.”

  Beautiful city of Glasgow, with your streets so neat and clean,

  Your stately mansions, and beautiful Green!

  Likewise your beautiful bridges across the river Clyde,

  And on your bonnie banks I would like to reside...

  Neither Walter the Spook nor Andy Mac seemed much affected by this serve; nor, in all honesty, was Ben himself. It was bad, true, but not bad enough—it didn’t belong in the same league with the first poem, and Farrell plainly knew it. He said, with some defiance, “It gets better,” and continued:

  ’Tis beautiful to see ships passing to and fro,

  Laden with goods for the high and the low,

  So let the beautiful city of Glasgow flourish,

  And may the inhabitants always find food their bodies to

  nourish...

  But “The Tay Bridge Disaster” had plainly left Walter ahead on points, no question about it, and the Spook was strutting and squawking in the air like Tinker Bell on speed. Andy Mac was smiling all over his pumpkin face, as though he had just put through a successful 800 call to the spirit world. He listened attentively to the swaggering chatter, and announced “Nature’s Cook.”

  “Cavendish,” Farrell muttered. “Damn, I was going to come back with that one.” He was actually looking somewhat alarmed. Walter recited:

  Death is the cook of Nature, and we find

  Meat dressed several ways to please her mind.

  Some meats she roasts with fevers, burning hot,

  And some she boils with dropsies in a pot.

  Some for jelly consuming by degrees,

  And some with ulcers, gravy out to squeeze...

  Ben became aware of a sudden, desperate need to pee. He faced it for the cowardly reaction it was, whispered, “Right back” to Farrell and headed for the toilet while Walter went charging on through the Cavendish recipe book.

  In sweat sometimes she stews with savory smell

  A hodge-podge of diseases tasteth well.

  Brains dressed with apoplexy to Nature’s wish,

  Or swims with sauce of megrims in a dish.

  And tongues she dries with smoke from stomachs ill...

  Given a choice, Ben would gladly have stayed in the john long enough to get his mail there, but friendship comes with obligations, even for cowards. He got back in time for the Duchess’s grand finale.

  Then Death cuts throats, for blood puddings to make,

  And puts them in the guts, which colics rack.

  Some hunted are by Death, for deer that’s red,

  Or stall-fed oxen, knocked on the head.

  Some for bacon by Death are singed, or scalt,

  Then powdered up with phlegm, and rheum that’s salt.

  There fell a deadly silence in the room when the last horrendous syllable had thudded to the floor. Farrell had clearly not bargained for this: they had both underestimated Walter the Spook, and for all their preparations Ben was beginning to think that they might just be outgunned.

  He whispered, “Moore. No more fooling around—Moore.”

  Farrell nodded grimly. “All right,” he said. “All right. Because there is a season for casual mercy—there is a season for fooling around—and then there is a time for Julia A. Moore. The Bible tells us so.” Raising his voice, he announced, “Lament on the Death of Willie.”

  Andy Mac looked like the manager of a team facing the Yankees who had just been told that Mariano Rivera was coming in to pitch. Farrell shook himself once, like a wet dog, and went to work.

  Willie had a purple monkey climbing on a yellow stick,

  And when he sucked the paint all off it made him deathly sick;

  And in his latest hours he clasped that monkey in his hand,

  And bid goodbye to earth and went into a better land.

  Oh! no more he’ll shoot his sister with his little wooden gun

  And no more he’ll twist the pussy’s tail and make her yowl, for

  fun.

  The pussy’s tail now stands out straight; the gun is laid aside

  The monkey doesn’t jump around since little Willie died.

  Silence followed this one too; but it was more like a sort of holy hush, even from Walter the Spook. The presence of simple greatness has that effect. Ben heard Andy Mac mumble, more to himself, “A hit, a very palpable hit,” and agreed silently that sometimes only Shakespeare will do when you’re talking about Julia A. Moore.

  Andy Mac cleared his throat. “You must be in trouble, calling on the Goddess so early in the game. You do know that Emmeline Grangerford’s poetry is Twain’s parody of Moore?”

  Farrell grinned at him. “You’re stalling. The Sweet Singer of Michigan is beyond parody, beyond imitation—beyond category, as Duke Ellington used to say. Come on, hotshot—I’m waiting.”

  But Farrell’s playing the Moore option had thrown the Spook off balance in his turn. He fumbled through a couple of minor responses—another McGonagall, and a couple by Dr. William Fuller—which Farrell brushed aside with J. B. Smiley’s perfectly charming poem about the Kalamazoo insane asylum (“The folks are not all of them crazy / Who hail from Kalamazoo”) and Moore’s poem about the death of Lord Byron, which ends with the magnificent and legendary rhyme:

  Lord Byron’s age was 36 years,

  Then closed the sad career,

  Of the most celebrated ‘Englishman’

  Of the nineteenth century.

  Farrell sighed as contentedly as though he had just finished making love. “Call me an elitist, but it doesn’t get any better than that, I’m sorry.”

  Andy Mac faced the attack impassively; one would have had to know him and be looking for it to see Farrell’s merciless grapeshot reaching him at all. But Walter the Spook was visibly wilting an
d paling under the bombardment, as escaped toy balloons always do, sooner or later. In a strange way, he did look like a fatally wounded duelist, stumbling in the air, lurching inevitably down toward stillness. It was over, obviously, and Ben—now that they could afford it—felt honestly sorry for him.

  It was over... and then Walter the Spook played his ace.

  Or maybe it was Andy Mac himself, getting even at last for an old humiliation. Whichever it was, Farrell and Ben were abruptly sandbagged, sideswiped by a great poet—no Sweet Singer of Michigan here, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself, celebrated author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Xanadu—not to mention “To a Young Ass (Its Mother Being Tethered Near It).”

  Poor little foal of an oppressed race!

  I love the languid patience of thy face:

  And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,

  And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head...

  Ben had never read or heard the poem, but one look at his friend’s stricken face told him that Farrell had.

  Or is thy sad heart filled with filial pain

  To see thy wretched mother’s shortened chain?

  And truly, very piteous is her lot—

  Chained to a log within a narrow spot,

  Where the close-eaten grass is scarcely seen,

  While sweet around her waves the tempting green!

  They looked at each other helplessly. Ben whispered, “Coleridge was a doper, wasn’t he? Opium, hash, like that?” Farrell didn’t answer.

  Thoroughly revived, Walter the Spook rolled on, zooming above Andy Mac’s head as the man recited, like a matador taking a victory lap. Farrell grunted slightly with each line, and seemed to roll with them, as though each were a blow slamming into him.

  Innocent foal! thou poor despised forlorn

  I hail thee Brother—spite of the fool’s scorn!

  And fain would take thee with me, in the Dell

  Of Peace and mild Equality to dwell,

  Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride,

  And Laughter tickle Plenty’s ribless side!

  How thou would toss thy heels in gamesome play,

  And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay!

  Yea! and more musically sweet to me

  Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,

  Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest

  The aching of pale Fashion’s vacant breast!

  Nobody said a word for a long while after he finished—nobody except Walter the Spook, who couldn’t stop chattering in triumph, as though he were singing some kind of tribal conquest song over Farrell’s body. Farrell neither moved nor spoke, unresponsive to anything or anyone. Ben could not read his eyes, as he usually could, out of the long old friendship. Nothing now. No one there.

  Andy Mac said, “Well.” Farrell didn’t answer. Andy Mac said, “I think we can consider this duel dueled, don’t you? Throw in the towel, call it a TKO?”

  “Coleridge,” Farrell said wearily. “I wrote a thing about Coleridge in college, I just never thought....” His voice trailed off tonelessly.

  “Well, it’s as I’ve always said.” If the self-satisfaction in Andy Mac’s voice could have been tapped, it would have powered a fair-sized suburb. “In the end, it’s always a matter of who’s got the best lawyer. Everything comes down to the best lawyer.”

  Ben took a couple of steps toward him, without realizing that he had done so. Later, he had no memory of what he’d had in mind, except that the defeat on Farrell’s face, combined with that triumphant purr, was more than he could bear. Farrell said, “I’ll start packing. It never takes me long.”

  “Oh, take your time, by all means,” Andy Mac said grandly. The Spook was chittering in his ear, and he was nodding steadily. “Walter is quite content to have received justice, at long last. He doesn’t wish any further inconvenience to anyone, even his murderer.” The oil spill smile took a victory lap itself. “No, of course not—I know you didn’t do it, and you and Tonto here know it, so what does it matter what he thinks? He’s just a little red flying whiskbroom, after all.”

  Farrell was already trudging toward the bedroom. Ben turned away, unable to watch him. He said to Andy Mac, “I don’t know who killed him, a hundred-and-whatever years ago, but if I ever get my hands on him anytime—”

  “Oh, please,” Andy Mac said. “It’s life, Tonto. Stop making such a bloody tragedy of it—it’s just life. Your leader knows that, don’t you, Farrell?”

  Ben’s father, a would-be song-and-dance man born out of his time, had raised him on a good many old vaudeville songs and comedy sketches, including a classic routine built around the recurring line, “Slowly I turned....” Ben had never fully understood what was supposed to be funny about the sketch, but he used the line occasionally, without comprehension, as his father most likely had. He thought of it then, absurdly, because on the word tragedy Farrell turned back—very, very slowly—to face Andy Mac and Walter the Spook. At the expression on his face the Spook stopped yodeling and went for the rafters, zipping straight up, like a helicopter, and Andy Mac said “What?” Farrell didn’t speak. Andy Mac said “What?” again.

  “Theophilus Marzials,” Farrell said. Ben wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a name or a curse, an incantation of some kind. But Andy Mac knew. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Farrell said, “A Tragedy.”

  “You can’t do that,” Andy Mac whispered. “That’s like... you can’t use Marzials. That’s... that’s not fair.”

  “Ah, it’s just life, Andy,” Farrell said. “And desperate times require desperate measures.” He winked at Ben and announced again, “A Tragedy. By Theophilus Julius Henry Marzials, lesser Pre-Raphaelite poet, born in England of Belgian and English parents. Second son, and youngest of five children. Remind me to tell you how I learned it—there was a Kiowa Indian involved.” Andy Mac closed his eyes as Farrell began.

  Death!

  Plop.

  The barges down in the river flop.

  Flop, plop.

  Above, beneath.

  From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,

  As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,

  Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly

  To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop

  On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,

  As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

  Plop, plop.

  And scudding by

  The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!

  All is running water and sky,

  And my head shrieks—“Stop,” And my heart shrieks—“Die....”

  “The worst poem ever written in English,” Andy Mac moaned softly. He had not opened his eyes. “Like bringing a nuclear weapon into a beach volleyball game.”

  Andy Mac played volleyball? On the beach? Ben decided not to think about that more than he absolutely had to. Farrell was giving the poem the serious works now, nodding with the rhythm, altering his tone to suit the line. Ben caught a glimpse of Walter the Spook, huddled in the shadows atop a huge old hutch that somehow managed to follow Julie everywhere she lived, despite Farrell’s undying enmity. Even at that distance, with not a lot to go on, he looked sick and increasingly drained as Marzials rolled remorselessly on.

  And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top

  Flop, plop.

  A curse on him.

  Ugh! yet I knew—I knew—

  If a woman is false can a friend be true?

  It was only a lie from beginning to end –

  My Devil—My “Friend”

  I had trusted the whole of my living to!

  Ugh; and I knew!

  “No more!” Andy Mac’s eyes were open, and his hands were out in piteous supplication. “It’s done, you win, we give—please, no more!”

  “Shh, shh,” Farrell soothed him. “There’s only a little more.” He might have been a nurse or a torturer in that moment. Ben expected to see the poor Spook
go flop, plop then himself, but he managed to shuffle out of sight along a curtain rod as Farrell was building to a rolling climax.

  Ugh!

  So what do I care,

  And my head is as empty as air—

  I can do,

  I can dare,

  (Plop, plop

  The barges flop

  Drip, drop.)

  I can dare! I can dare!

  And let myself all run away with my head

  And stop.

  Drop.

  Dead.

  Plop, flop.

  Plop.

  There wasn’t a great deal for anyone to say after that last plop, and nobody tried. Farrell managed to dig up at least some leftovers for Andy Mac, out of compassion for that sweat-soaked tuxedo, which would surely never be the same, and then Ben drove him back to the Herrera Street bathhouse. He was silent on the way, but just before getting out of the car he said, “He’ll keep his word. They won’t see him again.”

  “But they’ll know he’s there,” Ben said. “I’d have trouble with that, a ghost watching everything.”

  Andy Mac chuckled, so softly that it was almost a whisper. “Ghosts watch everything we do, everywhere, all the time. Get used to it, sidekick.”

  He walked away slowly, shaking his head, and Ben drove back to the loft and settled down to serious coffee drinking. Placid by nature, he only got the shakes after a crisis, not during, and coffee always calmed him. Farrell was asleep, snoring as peacefully as though he hadn’t spent the morning involved in a genuine duel to the death. Ben saw no sign of Walter the Spook. He drank coffee, made more, read the newspaper, and tried to get all the lines of “A Tragedy” out of his head. He never quite did, not all of them, but came in time to regard them as honorable wounds, sustained in a noble cause.

  When Farrell woke up ravenous they scrambled everything in the pantry, and celebrated the victory with Farrell’s prized stash of Aventinus beer; but they also did their best to talk about ordinary matters, with reasonable success. Ben did finally ask, “You planning to tell Julie about the Gunfight at the Booga-Booga Corral when she gets home?”