Two-Part Inventions Read online

  His aunt and uncle had gone back to the house in Great Neck, as they promised, a few days after the accident, to get his things and, as they put it, “start clearing things out.”

  “Are you going to throw everything away?” he asked. “No, no,” Uncle Mel said. “Just go through things, see what needs to be done.”

  Phil begged to go along with them. He wanted to see the rooms, to touch his mother’s and father’s clothes. He wanted to sit on the living-room couch where he’d watched TV. And there were things of Billy’s that he wanted, too. But they wouldn’t let him come. They left him with a neighbor.

  “But why?” he pleaded. “It’s my house. It’s my things.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll bring everything that belongs to you,” Aunt Marsha said. “It wouldn’t be good for you to come. You must try to put that behind you. This is your home now.”

  He felt the full and despairing helplessness of being nine years old. There was nothing he could do. So, he would never see those things again. And yet they belonged to him, didn’t they? If he was the only one left?

  Before the accident, he had regarded his aunt and uncle with indifference. They visited occasionally on Sundays, and Aunt Marsha would ask questions like what was his favorite subject in school, or what sports he liked, and he answered dutifully, bored. She nodded, satisfied that she, too, had done her duty. She was his father’s older sister, broad-shouldered and stocky like him, shaped like a cinder block, with short curly very black hair dusted with gray. She had a deep voice like a man’s and wore thick glasses and an expression of fixed displeasure, as though what met her eyes failed to meet her standards. Her mouth barely opened when she spoke, and she seldom laughed. She and Uncle Mel had no children. Uncle Mel was mostly gruff and taciturn. But he did like to tell riddles and play games with Phil and Billy, checkers or Mastermind or Battleship. His moves were canny, and he never let them win. “If you can’t win the way you planned,” he used to tell Phil, “find another way. Don’t always stick to the obvious.” Other than that, all Phil knew about him was that he was an accountant and he liked horse races. Sometimes on a Sunday visit he would sit down quite close to the TV to watch an important race, and when it was over he usually appeared disgruntled with the outcome. “I hope you didn’t have too much riding on that horse,” their father would joke, and Uncle Mel shrugged.

  “When you’re older,” he told Phil and Billy, “I’ll take you to the track.”

  But all that was before, when there was no need to think about them. Now that he was in their power, his indifference grew to active dislike. He got the idea that what had happened was somehow their fault, though he knew better. There was no one else to blame, so he fixed on them. And because of his antipathy, the cartons and shopping bags they brought back from the house that afternoon remained unopened. “Brooding won’t help,” his aunt said, finding him in his room. “You should go out and play ball with the boys on the street. I packed your bat and your glove. They’re in there,” and she waved at the boxes piled up under the window.

  He shook his head. It wasn’t his street and those boys weren’t his friends. The boys he belonged with were at this very moment continuing their lives on the street that had cast him out, a broad curving street with grassy lawns in front of each house, not like here, the street lined with cars in front of sullen apartment buildings, the ball games—he watched them from the living-room windows—interrupted every few minutes by passing traffic.

  “I even packed those things of your brother’s you said you wanted. Open the boxes and you’ll see. Can I help you?”

  He didn’t bother shaking his head this time, just waited for her to give up and go away. He was afraid to open the boxes, afraid of what he would feel, what might happen to him when he saw the relics of that life that was over, sucked somewhere into a tunnel of the past.

  After a while, during the day he managed to forget intermittently, a few minutes at a time. The neighborhood school was all right, though larger, older, and shabbier than his real school. He had always liked the bustle and purposefulness of school and knew how to ingratiate himself with the teachers. He even began to make friends, though he would never give his aunt the satisfaction of saying so. From his earliest years he had made friends easily; he was gregarious and bright, good at sports, and he was too young and too energetic for wretchedness to engulf him completely.

  Still, those first few weeks, at night, as soon as he lay down in bed and after his aunt and uncle had each awkwardly kissed him goodnight, he would obsessively restage his old life, the smell of his mother’s hair, like soap and grass, so different from his aunt’s, like stale food, the feel of his father’s arms hoisting him on his shoulders when he was smaller. Now he could almost carry Billy, at least he was able to stumble around for a few steps before the weight overcame him and he had to toss him onto the bed.

  It was Billy, three years younger, whom he thought about even more than his parents, as he lay in bed waiting for sleep. He wasn’t used to sleeping alone and could hardly remember the time before Billy shared his room, on the bottom bunk. Although he did carry a vivid memory, fixed as a photograph, of his parents bringing Billy home from the hospital, a package folded in his mother’s arms like a loaf of bread wrapped in a blanket. At first he wasn’t much fun at all, just a baby Phil couldn’t play with and had to be careful to touch gently. But his parents assured him that before long Billy would be walking around and starting to talk, and then Phil would be the big brother; he could teach Billy everything he knew. And they were right. It happened exactly that way. He loved teaching Billy things, and Billy followed Phil around and copied everything he did.

  He was made for the role of big brother. It delighted him, satisfying something at once pedagogical and protective in his nature. He even felt that in Billy he was creating something, a boy in his own image, an acolyte, a companion. Someone who would be with him forever, whom he would guide through each new passage in life. They hardly ever fought, as Phil had seen other pairs of brothers do. He had no taste for combat; not a coward, more of a diplomat, he could usually find better ways than aggression to get what he wanted.

  Phil taught Billy to catch a ball and build towers and forts with blocks; he taught him to read before he began school, drawing letters on a blackboard. When Billy started school, Phil picked him up at his classroom door every afternoon to take him to the school bus, and the teachers praised him for being such a fine big brother. He went to bed later than Billy, but sometimes he’d find his brother awake, or he’d make enough noise getting ready for bed to wake him, and then they would whisper and toss the pillows from one bed to another, and sometimes spend the night curled up together in a twist of sheets.

  Now Billy had vanished. Out of his life. Phil knew that every living thing had to die sometime, but boys of six did not die. First they had to grow up and get old, which would take a very long time. And anyway, Billy was the younger, so it was not right that he should die first. Phil was supposed to do everything first and then show Billy how. He had no idea what happened after you died, had barely thought about it, so how could Billy possibly manage there, wherever it was, without him? Had it hurt him a lot to die? Phil wondered. The truck crashing into him must have hurt terribly, but what about the dying itself? What had it felt like? He must have been very scared. Phil even felt a twinge of envy: Billy now knew something very important, had done something so important, that he, Phil, knew nothing about. In this matter of death, the roles were reversed and Billy was the knowing one.

  And then, weeks after the accident, as he thought all this over, an obvious fact struck him, so obvious that he was surprised it had taken so long to arrive. If he had gone to the shopping center with his family that day, he would be dead, too. He would know what Billy knew. He might even be with him somewhere. He was walking home from school when the thought hit him; he had just parted from two boys who lived in the other direction. He was crossing the street and stopped in the middle, shudder
ing. A taxi honked and braked and he ran quickly to the other side. For an instant he felt how lucky he was that he hadn’t gone to the shopping center. He’d had a narrow escape. He, of all of them, was the lucky one.

  And then immediately came the opposite wish—that he had gone with them. At least they all would have been together and he would not be condemned to living in the dismal apartment with his aunt and uncle. He was sure his parents wouldn’t have wanted that fate for him. Or maybe—and this thought was even worse—things would have turned out differently had he gone. He might have asked for some new game he saw in a shop window, or an ice cream, and then they would have left the parking lot later and never been anywhere near that truck. He might have saved them had he gone. Yes, the whole thing might be his fault, for refusing to go.

  A fresh wave of grief broke over him, mingled with guilt and remorse. Again he would sink weeping into sleep, his mind a swirl of memories and regrets. This phase lasted longer; it never really ended, but it was subdued, and at home in the apartment he grew quieter and more sullen as he reviewed the events of that day, as fresh as if they had happened an hour ago.

  His parents were taking Billy to get a pair of sneakers, and they had other errands, too, things for the house, a new garbage can, a toaster because their present one burned the toast no matter what the setting. None of this was of any interest to Phil. He begged to be allowed to stay home alone: He was old enough, nine and a half, really closer to ten, he reminded them; he had things to do. He was constructing a fort, a complicated affair of wooden blocks and metal parts, wires, bolts, and nuts he’d picked up at the town dump, to be populated by toy soldiers in battle dress. Finally his parents had consented, but he must not open the door to anyone. So when the police came knocking, he refused to open the door until the policeman said that he must. They wouldn’t say why they’d come, but they asked the names of his closest relatives and he told them about Aunt Marsha and Uncle Mel in Brooklyn. He didn’t know their phone number, but he gave them the address book beside the telephone.

  While one policeman made the call in the kitchen, speaking so softly that Phil couldn’t make anything out, the other one, husky and young with a blond crew cut, his gun firm and impressive in its holster and his club wobbling against his leg, stayed in the living room, asking Phil silly questions about what baseball team he rooted for. All Phil wanted to know was what had happened, why they were in the house, and when his parents and Billy would return. Had they done something bad and gotten arrested? His father had gotten a speeding ticket only a few months ago. Phil even wondered if the police could possibly be there for him. Last fall he and three friends had sneaked a few Kit Kats from the Walgreens in the shopping center, but that was so long ago—the store couldn’t suddenly have found them missing, could they? Could you go to jail for something like that? They had also written bad words in the boys’ room in school, but there was no way anyone could know who did that. Anyway, the cop didn’t mention any of that, didn’t ask any questions the way they did on TV. In fact, he acted very friendly.

  Not until an hour and a half later, when his aunt and uncle appeared, was he given the news—though by then he already understood that this was not about candy bars, that something was very wrong.

  Phil sat down on the couch, as his aunt told him to do. Aunt Marsha was trembling and weepy, and Uncle Mel was more grim and gray-faced than usual. Something had happened to his parents and Billy, but it was as if his mind stopped before a concrete wall and couldn’t think past it. Later he was amazed that he hadn’t understood right away. It must have been because his parents’ death was inconceivable. He knew a boy at school whose father had died of cancer after an operation and months of treatment, and one whose mother had drowned while swimming at Montauk. But the idea that his entire family could be gone all at once, when only a few hours ago the house had been filled with their presence, their voices, was beyond his imagining.

  The cops retreated to the kitchen just as his aunt began. “We have some very sad news.” She took off her thick glasses and wiped her eyes, which were red and brimming with tears. Twice she started to speak, but covered her face and couldn’t continue. “You tell him, Mel. I just can’t.”

  By that time he was pretty sure he knew. But it was Uncle Mel who finally cleared his throat noisily—Phil was repulsed by the sound of the phlegm rattling around—and in his grainy voice announced that Phil’s parents and brother had been in an accident on the Long Island Expressway, barely ten minutes from home. “It was a truck. A semi,” he said. “A pileup. I’m sorry, young fellow.” He patted Phil’s shoulder clumsily. “Rotten luck.”

  “So, where are they? Are they in the hospital?”

  There were no euphemisms for death. It took Mel several faltering tries to bring it out, and it seemed to Philip later, remembering, that during his uncle’s faltering tries he was willfully refusing to understand what Mel could not bring himself to say. He wanted just a few more seconds of ignorance before he had to allow the truth to enter.

  He couldn’t reply. He couldn’t even cry, at least not then. He sat stiff and still, baffled. A few hours ago everything was ordinary, even dull. It was late summer; most of his friends from the neighborhood were still away at camp. He’d been at camp, too, for three weeks, and returned to the quiet of fading August, the parched lawns, the streets nearly empty of the usual clusters of kids on bikes. He didn’t mind too much. School would start soon, everyone would be home, and there would be plenty to do. He’d been content building the fort, placing his soldiers in strategic positions. Now everything was changed.

  “But where will I go?” As soon as the words were out, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. He hadn’t meant to say that—it just came out. He had so many questions, he didn’t know what to ask first. He wanted to see his parents and Billy, but he was afraid to ask. He didn’t even know where they were, where they took dead people. Not the hospital, if they were dead already. The police station?

  “You’ll come home with us,” Aunt Marsha said, and put her arms around him tentatively, as if she didn’t know how to touch anyone. The arms felt heavy and he wanted to shake them off, but he didn’t; finally she removed them.

  He’d been in their apartment twice before but had no memory of it. Now, he hated it the instant Uncle Mel unlocked the door and they stepped inside. The furniture was dark and heavy, the shades drawn, so that the sun wouldn’t fade the couch, his aunt said. In the front hall stood an enormous grandfather clock with a pendulum that never stopped, and it let out a little ping every fifteen minutes. Phil hated the trembly little ping, which never failed to surprise him. He peered into the large bedroom and smelled a musty stale odor. His aunt and uncle’s huge bed was covered with a green chenille spread, and opposite the bed was a TV set. The venetian blinds were closed.

  “Why do I have to stay here?” he said when they showed him the room with the leather La-Z-Boy. “Why can’t I go to my cousins in Boston?” His mother’s sister lived there. He didn’t know the cousins well, they were older, but anything would be better than this.

  “This is closer to where you grew up. Your aunt has three children already and they’re barely getting by. I called her this afternoon. She’ll come down to see you tomorrow, and for the . . . for the funerals, of course. You can visit them sometimes, but you’ll stay with us.”

  “I can stay with my friend Danny. He’s my best friend. I sleep over there all the time. I bet his parents would let me. They like me. I can call and ask. Then I can go to the same school.” His voice was rising in despair.

  “You can call your friend tomorrow, certainly. Maybe he’ll visit you. But you’ll live here. We have no one. You can be our boy.”

  “I’m not your boy. I don’t want to be your boy.” He began to cry.

  Aunt Marsha didn’t know how to soothe him. She cried along with him. “Look, Philly,” Uncle Mel said. He never liked to be called Philly. It sounded too much like Billy; it made them sound like twins, and
they weren’t. He was the bigger one. “Look, this is really hard, we know. But this is how it’s going to be, so the best thing is to start to get used to it.”

  After that he protested no further. He had no recourse. He was a child, and children were helpless. But he would grow up, and then he would be free of them. He would grow up fast and show them he could manage without them.

  They didn’t like him, he could tell. When he sat silently at meals, eating the unfamiliar heavy foods, the soups and roasts that lay in his stomach like wads of damp cardboard, his aunt would urge him to speak. How do you like school? How is your teacher? Are you making friends? He was unable to muster any replies. But if now and then his misery lifted and he jabbered at length about some enthusiasm, as he used to do with his real family, the science experiment that had produced a terrible smell and made the whole class roar and hold their noses, or the movie about camels, or his spectacular feat on the climbing bars in the gym, they stared glumly as if waiting for him to come to an end. It was no fun telling them anything. They’d just nod and say, That’s good, that’s fine, and do you want some more potatoes? After dinner he sulked and helped clear up, then went off to his room and closed the door.

  When his aunt visited the school on Open School Night, she got a good report about him. She told him so. “Your teacher says you’re a good student, Philip. And a friendly, lively boy. Those were her exact words. So why aren’t you a friendly, lively boy around the house? Can you explain that?”