Robin And Ruby Part 24

The idea comes upon Robin suddenly. "Take this exit," he tells George.

"This isn't ours."

"Just-please? I want to make a stop." He hadn't been planning on it, but now it seems like a must. Especially after seeing Ruby like that. He feels like he owes her this.

George decelerates through the toll plaza, aims a quarter into the basket, and then they're swerving around the off-ramp and onto Route 4 in Paramus. One billboard after another clamors for attention: Visit the Burlington Coat Factory. Jennifer Convertibles: Do You Have One? Wendy's, still pus.h.i.+ng "Where's the Beef?" This road is as dense as the Parkway was open: department stores ringed in parking lots; multicolored pennants flapping in the wind over car dealers.h.i.+ps; the movie theater that used to be ten screens and now boasts fourteen: A View to a Kill, Coc.o.o.n, The Goonies A View to a Kill, Coc.o.o.n, The Goonies. "Do you have any desire to see St. Elmo's Fire St. Elmo's Fire?" George asks him.

From the front seat Ruby releases an inexplicable grunt.

"What?" Robin prompts.

"Nothing."

"Where are we going?" George asks.

"Take the exit by the Fas.h.i.+on Center," Robin says.

Ruby spins around, surprised. "Are we? Now?"

"I figured, while we're over here...You still want to?"

She nods and faces front again. She seems to dip down in the seat, making herself small. He can't quite read her body language. Has she for some reason changed her mind about this? For years, Ruby was the one member of the family who wanted to visit Jackson's grave. It must have been something that Nana, the cross-bearing Catholic of the family, put in her mind.

After they left New Jersey, visiting the grave seemed to become more important to their mother. It became a task for holidays: on a day near Christmas, and again near Easter, and on Jackson's birthday, too, Dorothy would drive them to the wooded cemetery off Route 4. He can't remember any conversations they ever had about these cemetery visits, can't remember voicing the feelings that got dredged up. He remembers that he would sometimes stare at his mother and feel something close to hatred, for dragging them to the gravesite. They were just going through the motions, but toward what end? It occurs to him that they still haven't called Dorothy; he doesn't know why he's avoiding her, now that things have been resolved.

George steers into the cemetery, and they make their way along a curving drive to the newest section, where Jackson is buried. The three of them walk silently through rows of granite stones, new enough to reflect glints of sunlight dappling through the overhanging trees. In the background are the mausoleums and ostentatious monuments of the past: weeping angels, lions in repose, a larger-than-life crucifix featuring a Jesus whose agonized face is coated in years of soot. And then they come upon the simple rectangle that marks Jackson's burial.

JACKSON LEOPOLD MACKENZIE.

JUNE 16, 1967- 16, 1967-DECEMBER 15, 1978 15, 1978 SON, BROTHER BROTHER, SLUGGER SLUGGER.

"Leopold" for Dorothy's father; "Jackson" for some whim of Dorothy's, enforced from birth by the edict that he never be nicknamed "Jack," as "Robin" was never to be called "Rob" or, heaven forbid, "Bobby." "Slugger" was Clark's touch. Robin remembers Dorothy in tears begging Clark not to include it, insisting it was undignified and sentimental, to which Clark, his eyes hardened, his jaw set, hissed out the words, "Deal with it, Dottie." Arguing for an hour over their dead son's tombstone. Dorothy: "Couldn't we go with athlete athlete?" Clark: "He was the Little League home run champ!"

George, at Robin's side, says, "I forgot all about that: December 15th."

"Yeah, well."

December 15, Robin's own birthday, the cosmic unfairness of it never lost on him. Even now he feels a clench in his gut, the way he's been marked doubly, not just by loss but also by blame. And mixed in with it all, the residual resentment, as if the timing had been by design, as if Jackson chose chose to pa.s.s over from coma to death on that particular day so that Robin's progress through life would be inextricably linked to Jackson's erasure from it. to pa.s.s over from coma to death on that particular day so that Robin's progress through life would be inextricably linked to Jackson's erasure from it.

Ruby has kneeled down at the base of the grave, her hands raking stray leaves. She must be praying.

Robin lowers his head and tries to come up with something appropriate. Dear G.o.d, please look over Jackson, wherever he is. Dear G.o.d, please look over Jackson, wherever he is. The thought can hardly take hold: Look over him, where? He doesn't exist anywhere but right here at their feet. His body, damaged, withered and shrunken after all those weeks in the coma, and then buried in this spot, has rotted away to nothing. Food for worms. Nutrients for the cemetery lawn. Flesh into dust. The thought can hardly take hold: Look over him, where? He doesn't exist anywhere but right here at their feet. His body, damaged, withered and shrunken after all those weeks in the coma, and then buried in this spot, has rotted away to nothing. Food for worms. Nutrients for the cemetery lawn. Flesh into dust.

A residual terror starts his legs trembling. It's not just the vision of Jackson there, buried in the earth, decomposing; it's the understanding that this is what's waiting for him. him. Death is hissing all the time from the shadows, and in those moments when he lets himself confront this darkness what he sees is a scene from a science fiction movie, a parade of once-handsome lovers gone blotchy and skeletal, like the survivors of an atomic bomb exploded in the air over Manhattan. Not dead but dying; ill; Death is hissing all the time from the shadows, and in those moments when he lets himself confront this darkness what he sees is a scene from a science fiction movie, a parade of once-handsome lovers gone blotchy and skeletal, like the survivors of an atomic bomb exploded in the air over Manhattan. Not dead but dying; ill; infected infected-that horrible, spiky word. It is the horror of this suffering that has struck him with such great force over the last few years, a suffering that it seems he might not be able to avoid, because he's done the same things that all those men did, not knowing the consequences. But until now he has never let himself follow these cluttered, terrifying thoughts all the way to this final truth: the image of a grave with his own name on it, perhaps right here, next to his brother's. Involuntarily, he gasps for air, so audibly that Ruby turns around to look at him. And then he wonders if perhaps she hadn't been praying, because her attention seems elsewhere, her eyes are darting around, as if she's on the lookout for something.

She says, "Did I ever tell you about the last time I was here?"

"You mentioned it, in Seaside."

"Clark and I came here together, and there was a woman visiting another grave, just over there. She told us she saw a groundhog-I mean, she said it was a groundhog, but I don't know. Could have been a mole, or some other rodent. So she went and told the workers, the groundskeeper guys. They went looking around for it, and they found it, not very far from here. And then one of them whacked it on the head with a shovel." Then she says, "Whack-A-Mole," and lets out a strange, bitter laugh. Her expression falls, and she begins twisting the toy ring on her finger.

"That happened right in front of you?" he asks.

"Yes. I'm not sure they realized that we were here, but I screamed, and they stopped. And then we could see the poor thing stumbling around half-dead. I didn't see blood, but the guy had hit it really hard. Clark just started yelling at them. 'Don't let it suffer!' And the guy went back over with the shovel. We watched them bash it to death."

"What a nightmare."

George asks, "What happened to that other woman?"

"She had already left. So we were the only witnesses." Ruby glances at the tombstone. "I haven't been back here since then. Nearly two years."

Robin pictures his sister two years ago. It's easy enough to strip away the black hair dye and the gothic wardrobe; it's not so easy to remember her without the new att.i.tude she wears, the toughness, her quick suspicion of things others take for granted. Two years ago she was so much less burdened. "Was that when you stopped going to church?" he asks.

She nods. "For a while I thought that G.o.d had shown us that mole getting killed as a sign-a sign that if Jackson hadn't died, he would have gone on suffering, which would have been worse."

"I think about that a lot, too," he tells her.

"But then I thought, no, it's not a sign. G.o.d doesn't care about sending me signs. signs. It was just an example of cruelty." She is silent for a while. "That was also right around the time I was with that guy, Brandon, the one I had s.e.x with? He was such an a.s.shole. And I think I just started to feel bad about everything." It was just an example of cruelty." She is silent for a while. "That was also right around the time I was with that guy, Brandon, the one I had s.e.x with? He was such an a.s.shole. And I think I just started to feel bad about everything."

"I never put all that together."

"You were leaving for college."

George takes his hand and squeezes tightly; it's only then that Robin realizes that he has just s.h.i.+vered. Their fingers braid together. The sensation of it briefly sends Robin back to the night before (was it only last night?): the two of them holding hands in the bushes, amid the broken moonlight, waiting out the police, scared s.h.i.+tless. He had suggested "surrendering," just another word for giving up. Such a cowardly thing to say.

He meets Ruby's eyes, pale and blue and watery with grief, and something inside him splinters, and his eyes well up and overflow, too. Because he sees not the young woman who has frustrated him all day long but the little girl who stood in this very spot with him on a cold December day eight years ago, both of them trying to face the incomprehensible truth that their brother was gone forever, and that they were in some way a part of that, witnesses to the accident if not actually responsible for it. Both of them trying to face the truth of capital-D-death, of once-and-for-all finality, which even now, even still, is the greatest mystery. So here it is again, that eternal resemblance, the way her life will always reflect his, not only on her face, but beneath that, too, in the knowledge that they share.

And then Ruby steals a glimpse at where his hand is intertwined with George's; she doesn't appear to be surprised, and if anything, some sadness seems to clear from her face for a moment. This feels to Robin, in some small way, like a blessing.

At last he knows what he wants to convey here, in his thoughts.

Not a prayer for his brother, dead and gone, but a wish for himself and his sister, to find a way out of the past, once and for all.

To find forgiveness.

Greenlawn. The leafy elms and oaks that line Valley Road. The split-level homes and two-story colonials flying American flags from their porches. Pairs of joggers running in the road, skin varnished in light sweat.

Through the open backseat window, Robin takes in the humid breeze, carrying honeysuckle and cut gra.s.s and barbecue smoke. He knows every structure along this route, the configuration of every corner, so that when something new appears, he can't help but comment out loud.

"The Continental House is now called the Tuscan Caffe?" he asks, as they pa.s.s the place once known for hiring all the local fifteen-year-olds for their first jobs bussing tables. "With two f's?"

"My dad says that there are a lot of investment bankers and junk-bond types moving here from the city," George replies.

"Greenlawn is getting fancy."

From the pa.s.senger seat, Ruby mutters, "That'll be the day." Her first words since the cemetery. She clears her throat as if ready to say something more, then seems to think better of it.

He wonders if she's saving her strength for whatever awaits at the house. He wonders, too, if he should be rehearsing his own speech for his father. How much scrutiny will he face for his actions? Will they say he waited too long to contact them? That he was irresponsible not to call the cops?

As George makes one turn and then another, bringing them closer to the house, the balmy summer sweetness splits apart like skin on ripe fruit, and beneath it Robin feels once again the pit of dread that is always part of coming back to Greenlawn. He moved away at fifteen; when he returns, he is fifteen again. Coma Boy's Brother.

On Bergen Avenue, George slows down, clicks on the blinker as if to turn in to the driveway. But there's a car already there: Dorothy's Maxima.

"Mom's here?" Ruby asks.

"I guess she's in the house."

Ruby groans. "I must be in major trouble, if she's waiting inside. inside."

Robin looks at George. "Not sure you're going to want to stay for this."

"Your mom'll be p.i.s.sed if I don't say h.e.l.lo."

They wander up the driveway, which is a fresh, deep black; Clark had it repaved after the winter snow melted. Robin lags behind Ruby. It's her day. Her mess. She can lead the parade. She lugs her bag as if it weighs a hundred pounds.

When they turn into the backyard, they meet the sight of their mother, atop the stoop, her arm holding the screen ajar. Such a familiar sight: all those times he came up the driveway to find her in this doorway, stopping him before he could enter so that she could say whatever absolutely had to be said, right away. But today, this strategic motherly ambush is not directed his way.

"Ruby Regina MacKenzie," Dorothy says. "You scared me to death."

Ruby for her part says only, "Where's Dad?" The audacity of this strikes Robin as almost cruel. It's Clark's house now, she seems to imply. I answer to him.

"He's in his office."

"I need to clean up." Ruby steps into the doorway, forcing Dorothy to make room for her and her bag, and pa.s.ses into the kitchen.

"She got carsick," Robin offers.

"Is she all right?"

"I think so," Robin says gently, kissing his mother on the cheek and following his sister inside.

Dorothy says, "George, maybe you can enlighten me?"

"I'm just the driver," he says.

"I promise, I won't kill the messenger."

"Everyone chill out," Ruby calls from the kitchen, which strikes Robin as unnecessary, since Dorothy is maintaining a surprising level of composure. Ruby vanishes into the living room. A moment later he hears her footsteps heading upstairs, and then the sound of water moving through the pipes. The house, an eighty-year-old wooden structure, has always been a collection of creaks and groans, and the older it gets, the less it conceals.

Robin says, "Mom, you should try to get her to talk."

"She just flew right past me!"

"She's kinda stressed out."

Dorothy narrows her eyes at him. "Of course you're sticking up for her."

He is is, he realizes; he hadn't actually made a decision to do so, but something about being back in the house, in this kitchen, the site of so many arguments in the past, brings out an urge to pacify. "I've already given her a hard time."

"She'll listen to your father." She calls out, "Clark! They're here!"

Now he can hear his father's voice carrying through the wall from his office. Robin is seized by the idea Clark is in there with Annie, his girlfriend, that she's lounging on the daybed in a bathrobe, cooing, "Clark, take care of your family and then come back to me, baby..." The anxious fantasy dissolves as Robin realizes Clark is talking on the phone. But now that he's imagined it, he can't quite shake the idea that this mystery woman is somewhere in the house. Does his mother even know that his father is dating? Would it bother her? It's been five years since the divorce, enough time to get over it. But is she? For a while, it was very ugly; Dorothy would sit at the edge of Robin's bed and tell him through tears how miserly Clark was, how little he wanted to spend on child support, on tuition; and Clark would counter, on the weekends, with brutal one-liners: "Your mother has always had her own version of the truth."

The reality of all four of them here under the same roof again makes him want to flee. He looks to George, whose expression says that he, too, is braced for confrontation Dorothy says, "Well, how are you? How's Peter? How's his dissertation?"

"Peter is on my S-H-I-T list."

"Whatever for?"

"We broke up. He might have been cheating on me."

"Are you sure?" she asks. The way her mouth drops open makes Robin swell with love for her, for being on his side, for embracing his romantic well-being. She turns to George as if for confirmation, and he nods. Robin remembers what George said, that he's lucky to have his parents: This bright truth smacks up against the old ghosts still lingering, hissing the conflicts of the past.

"I saw him making out with someone," Robin says. "But then there was a message from him on the machine, saying I got it wrong."

George says, "What message?"

"When I checked the machine..." He wishes now that he hadn't kept this from George all day. "He wants an apology. He almost made it sound like, if I did, maybe we might get back together in the fall."

Dorothy says, "Don't throw it away. Peter's a catch. I always thought a scholar was a good match for you."

George shakes his head in disapproval. There's a challenge in his eyes that says, There will be no apologies to Peter, no getting back together, not if I have anything to say about it. There will be no apologies to Peter, no getting back together, not if I have anything to say about it.

And Robin has to ask himself: So why didn't you tell George about the message when you first heard it? Are you still hoping you have a chance with Peter?

To his relief, Clark appears. Robin hasn't seen him since Christmas. Unlike Dorothy, who has filled out, his father seems as lean as ever, perhaps even fitter; he's been jogging again and is talking of running a marathon next year, a feat that Robin finds more impressive every time he himself wakes up in the morning coughing up last night's cigarettes. Clark's hair went silver back when he and Dorothy only communicated through their lawyers-Clark ruefully dubbed it "litigation white"-but his face hasn't changed. He greets Robin with a hug and extends his hand to George. There's a round of pleasantries about Philadelphia, and college, and it's-not-the-heat-it's-the-humidity, before he finally looks around and says, "Where's the fugitive?"

"Clark, talk to her," Dorothy says, slumping into a seat at the table. "She's upstairs."

George clears his throat. "I guess I should go?" He pauses, uncertain. "Can I use your phone?"

Dorothy says, "Of course," and then catches herself. "I'm sure it's-Clark won't mind. Clark, where is that thing?"

Clark hands George the handset of a cordless phone. Robin glances to the wall where their old rotary phone, with its long, coiled wire, used to hang. The phone base is mounted there, a hunk of bright, white plastic Robin's attention splits between George on the phone with Mrs. Lincoln, and Dorothy pus.h.i.+ng Clark to go upstairs to Ruby. Both conversations make Robin uneasy. So he steps out into the backyard and lights a cigarette and stares across the lawn, which is thick and green and trim, healthier than it's looked since Robin himself used to mow it (a ch.o.r.e left behind with the suburbs), and he stares at the house beyond the hedge.

The Spicers used to live there, though they haven't for several years: Victoria Spicer was once his best friend, but became a stranger to him even before he moved to New York; their friends.h.i.+p fell apart during Jackson's hospitalization, though he couldn't say why. He remembers no defining break, no argument, just a general air of estrangement, of disappointment. It had something to do with Todd, her older brother, with his lean body and his long hair and his stoned eyes that could turn hard and cruel without warning. Todd who could be a bully towering above him, tormenting him, or who might be on his knees sucking Robin's d.i.c.k in his bedroom. Victoria never knew what was going on between Robin and Todd, but maybe she suspected. Maybe she even knew that Todd was half-queer then. And now he might have turned completely queer. That was the rumor anyway, as Robin had heard it from Ruby who heard it from one of her old Green-lawn High cla.s.smates who showed up at some event at Barnard with a gay boy from San Francisco. This boy said he'd "almost slept with" someone named Todd, from Greenlawn, New Jersey (it was the name, Greenlawn, that had triggered the story), who worked on Castro Street, busing tables at a cafe with an entirely gay clientele. He had pierced ears and a lion tattoo on his shoulder, and he drove some old muscle car, and he was apprenticing with a metalsmith who made jewelry out of silver. Robin has imagined San Francisco for years, a kind of frivolous, fantasy city always hosting a parade or a protest march, but he can't imagine Todd Spicer in the midst of it. He doesn't fully believe that this tattooed guy working at this cafe was his his Todd; but he doesn't disbelieve it, either, because the story is much like Todd himself always was: available only in pieces, an acc.u.mulation of surface details open to interpretation. If he met him face-to-face, he'd know what to think: the gaydar would be set off, or not. And if it wasn't even a matter of gaydar, if Todd had actually come out, what then? Would Robin rejoice at this miraculous turn of events? Demand an apology for past mistreatments? Sit down and have a heart-to-heart with him? The boy who'd been the source of the story couldn't offer any more details; he wasn't going back to San Francisco, he said. He called it "the elephant graveyard." Todd; but he doesn't disbelieve it, either, because the story is much like Todd himself always was: available only in pieces, an acc.u.mulation of surface details open to interpretation. If he met him face-to-face, he'd know what to think: the gaydar would be set off, or not. And if it wasn't even a matter of gaydar, if Todd had actually come out, what then? Would Robin rejoice at this miraculous turn of events? Demand an apology for past mistreatments? Sit down and have a heart-to-heart with him? The boy who'd been the source of the story couldn't offer any more details; he wasn't going back to San Francisco, he said. He called it "the elephant graveyard."