Prodigal Sons Read online

  “Oh my God!” She pulled her hand back. “Could you see it?”

  “Yeah. It was pretty nasty. My arm was curved in a really weird way. Like this.”

  His arm had buzzed and throbbed. He had held his mess of a wrist up to his face. “Wow,” his child-self had said.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Not really. They told me later I was in shock. It was pretty disturbing to look at though.”

  He had gotten very woozy and might have fallen, but Mark was suddenly there under his arm holding him up. He remembered how strange it had seemed. This was something that happened in war movies, not in real life.

  “Mom, Matthew hurt his arm.”

  Mrs. Flanagan only half heard. Her sons hurt themselves on an hourly basis. She was not easily alarmed.

  “Bring him into the kitchen and we’ll put some ice on it.”

  The usual remedy.

  Mark shouldered his brother’s weight the length of the driveway and into the kitchen. They didn’t speak. Matthew had leaned on him heavily. About half way there he started to shiver.

  “Oh sweet Jesus!” was their mother’s reaction.

  It dawned on Matthew that this was a pretty serious injury. He sat at the kitchen table, his twisted wrist in front of him. The three of them just stared at the wrist for a little while. Matthew was fascinated by the movement of his fingers. Their mother held the useless bag of ice in her hand.

  Mark said, “Mom, call Dad.”

  She nodded. After a few seconds she went to the phone and dialed. Mark and Matthew looked at each other and listened to their mother on the phone.

  “Yes, it’s broken,” she whispered but they heard anyway.

  Matthew felt like he should say something to his brother but couldn’t put words to it. Mark seemed to sense it. This was the beginning of their wordless vocabulary. Mark’s eyes asked if Matthew was okay and Matthew’s slight nod said that he was.

  Their mother hung up. “Your father will be right here. He’ll take you to the emergency room.”

  He looked at his wrist and supposed this was what an emergency looked like. Matthew could see an idea form in Mark’s eyes. Mark went outside.

  “Does it hurt?” His mother couldn’t quite bring herself to look directly at the wound.

  “Not really. I’m kind of hungry.”

  His mother laughed until she cried and stroked his mop of a haircut. Outside they heard a strange scraping noise.

  It was a compound fracture according to the nurse and later the doctor after he had looked at the X-rays. Pretty serious too. They had to give young Matthew medicine through an IV like a plug in his arm. He had to stay in the hospital for a week and in traction for two days. Apparently the bone marrow had been exposed and the wound needed to be cleaned from the inside out.

  Other than the sponge baths, it was pretty boring in the hospital. Just a bunch of sick, whiny kids. After he got out of traction, he walked to the end of the hallway and watched the last week of summer languish outside. The red and orange leaves spread like a rash.

  He was still in the hospital on his eleventh birthday. There were a lot of gifts but Matthew only remembered one. Mark quietly placed the two halves of the guilty red skateboard at the foot of his big brother’s bed. He felt a click in his head as he remembered the strange scraping noise.

  “Ruined my saw,” Mr. Flanagan muttered and all the adults in the room laughed. Matthew and Mark said nothing.

  Tommy was talking to him.

  “What?”

  “Where did you get the tattoo?”

  She traced the vaguely Indian design on his right shoulder.

  “Providence, Rhode Island. Buddy’s Tattoo Parlor.”

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” she touched her own tattoo.

  “Like a bee sting.” He remembered the needle and the blood through a rusty gold tequila haze. He licked his lips and shivered at the remembered taste.

  “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen or twenty.”

  “Why did you get it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I wanted to remember something. Or at least not forget it.”

  “What?”

  He pursed his lips. “What it was like to be nineteen or twenty.”

  “What was it like?”

  The question struck him as funny. They were looking in opposite directions across a lot of miles to see each other, staring up or down a long road.

  “It was great.”

  What would it be like for her? He turned and looked into her curious eyes, absorbing everything they saw. They had seen too much in too few years.

  “Your eye looks better.”

  She touched the bruise. “Really?” She looked around as if testing the eye out. She had a spot of red in the white.

  “That blood in your eye will take longer to heal than the bruised skin.”

  Even with the eye, she was very pretty. The left sleeve of the shirt she wore was bunched, exposing a scar on her left shoulder.

  “What happened here?”

  She didn’t want to talk about it. It was a secret.

  In a hotel restaurant, Matthew studied the breakfast in front of him. A cup of coffee, a martini, two scrambled eggs and some French fries. She’d ordered French toast and orange juice. Ate enough for two. He stuck mainly to the coffee and the martini, staring at the postcard he’d taken from his room. There was a pen in his right hand but he hadn’t written a word.

  “Who are you writing?”

  “I don’t know.” There was powdered sugar all over her lips.

  Taking another pull of his martini, Matthew wrote the only address he could think of. The place he’d called home for most of his life. There had to be some worried people there by now. To say the least. One hundred, Case Mountain Drive, Silk City, Connecticut. He wondered how things were going there right now. Pictured a fire in the fireplace. There was no fireside like your own fireside. He remembered hearing someone say that once. It was true.

  Hey fools, (that would cover just about everybody)

  Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know I am alive and well. Alive anyway. Things are a little screwy right now as I think you have probably heard. Typical Matthew I know. I’d tell you not to worry if I thought it would do any good but try not to. I’m fine. I’m just working some stuff out. I’ll call as soon as I can. If you see Lu, please let her know I miss her more than I thought possible. I know this card is a lame way of showing it. What can I say? That’s me. Talk to you soon.

  -JTF

  Again and again he read it to himself before finally finding a stamp and throwing it into a mailbox. He hoped they’d get the JTF reference. As soon as the slot shut, he wanted it back.

  MARK 2

  Los Angeles.

  From the plane, Mark could see smog choking the rotting streets. He had a vague memory of pictures of the surface of Jupiter or Saturn and wondered now, as he’d wondered then, how someone could land on a ball of gas. The perpetual sun of legend was not in evidence. He saw a few palm trees through the murk. The whole city looked like it could use a bath. Cloud cover rather than the spotlight sun he had been counting on.

  At the Hertz Car Rental desk, an agent asked, “Would you like a convertible for ten dollars more a day?” Why not? He put the top down before he pulled the car into traffic on Aviation and followed the agent’s directions to the 405 north.

  The clouds burned away. In the late morning sun, tall buildings sparkled. Mark was reminded of the City of Glass, an imagined place Matthew had written about as a child. LA spread out like his brother’s dream landscape brought to life. Matthew had always written—unable to stop the fits of his imagination. He had once told Mark he wrote to stay sane. Mark wondered if his brother had been doing any writing lately.

  Los Angeles was a conspiracy of freeways. The Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Ronald Reagan, and the Ventura Freeways (all with corresponding numbers) funneled the city’s cars where they needed to go—and a lot of peo
ple needed to go a lot of places. This wasn’t the claustrophobic cityscape of the East Coast, this was an expanding universe. Mountains erupted in the middle of the city covered with palm trees and white houses the size of castles. It was hard to keep his eyes on the road. The familiar nauseating anxiety that always hit him when he didn’t know where he was or where he was headed. Traffic choked the thin-laned freeway as he headed further north, through the San Fernando Valley over desert mountains and down again into another sudden valley—the Santa Clarita. So many Spanish saints. Lucy had suggested this route. There had to be a faster way to go. At home, he knew the fastest way everywhere.

  Valencia, California, was new and clean, like a well-maintained model set. Mark wondered if Matthew had come to regard his home as a cute, Spanish-style prison and his wife as the warden. That was how Matthew had felt about the home they had grown up in, like it was something to escape. Mark got out of the car and surveyed the yard. The lawn could use a trim. That and some fertilizer and a little less water. The roots of the grass were turning brown. Matthew had never been much for yard work.

  With Lucy’s key, Mark opened the front door. It was her house. She had decorated it. Mark tried to think of the right word. Modern, maybe? Abstract prints on the mustard-colored walls, thick-glass tables, ornate Mexican lampshades and candles; eclectic, that was the word. An impression of a happy home. The pictures on the walls and tables. Even the faces he didn’t recognize seemed like old friends. He saw the answering machine and pressed the play button. His mother’s voice, some friends checking in. Mark felt like an anthropologist trying to piece together, from a few markings on the ground, the social behavior of some long extinct tribe. The only clear thing was that no one could find Matthew.

  There was no answer at Matthew’s work number. Mark could not think of an appropriate message to leave. “Hey, Bro, call me at your house,” just didn’t seem right. He found some empty beer bottles in the shower. He whistled as he inspected the bedroom furniture. It had probably cost as much as all the furniture he owned. He sighed, rolled up his sleeves and made the bed. A mysterious pair of enormous pants, and a shirt to match, were thrown on top. Then he picked up the bottles in the shower and stood them next to their empty brothers on the kitchen counter. He put all of the empties in a grocery bag and threw it into the recycling trashcan. Clouds rolled above him as he walked back inside. He washed the dishes in the sink. The hot water felt good on his arthritic knuckles. The lemon smell of soap soothed him. When he was done, he rubbed his puckered hands dry with a soft towel.

  In the guest room the drapes, bed comforter, and the three paintings had a purple flower theme. Hanging them, Matthew must have gritted his teeth. Mark lifted one of the pictures from the wall and saw a history of pencil marks. Matthew had hung and re-hung the pictures to get them even. Mark chuckled at an image of Lucy listening to the hammering and cursing as she bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud, knowing it was wiser to keep out of her husband’s way when there was a tool in his hands. Matthew hadn’t taken to manual labor the way Mark had, did it only when forced and then did such a bad job that their father only asked when he absolutely needed the help. While Mark unpacked, he inspected the pictures on the dresser top. In one from a few Easters ago, the three brothers wore jackets and ties. When had the three of them had been together like that? The Christmas before last maybe? He looked a little heavy next to Matthew. A lot of miles since that picture was taken.

  In the garage, the lawnmower was underneath a nice workbench. He’d bet that ninety percent of the tools had never been touched. The lawnmower was set too low so he raised it. Wheeled it outside. It took a half hour to mow the tiny lawn. The smell of cut grass mixed with rain in the air. Gray storm clouds were moving in. No raincoat in his bag. He put the lawnmower back in the garage and admired his work. Made a mental note to pick up some fertilizer and maybe some fresh mulch for the flower beds.

  Mark took his grass-stained sneakers off before he went back into the house. There was no answer at Matthew’s office. He found his notebook with Lucy’s contact list. Dialed Matthew’s boss, Ron Sydney.

  After dealing with a nervous secretary (“Matthew Flanagan’s brother? Um, hold please.”), the thunderous, amused voice of Ron came on. “So, Matthew Flanagan’s brother. How is he?”

  “I was hoping to ask you actually.”

  “I kind of figured that.” Ron let out a sigh.

  Mark tried to imagine the kind of man that was on the other end of the line. He had almost a Southern drawl but not exactly. “You free today?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Are you free? I’d like to do this face to face.”

  Jesus, Mark thought. “Yeah. Sure. Um.”

  “Great. I’m going to give you back to Rachel, my secretary. She’ll get you squared away.”

  Mark had never seen traffic like that. Four, five, six lanes, crawling along. A cute-sounding woman described the traffic situation, but he kept losing track of which freeway she was talking about. What the hell was a “sig-alert?” It sounded like something to avoid. There was trouble coming out of Long Beach on the 605. The woman didn’t mention the Golden State Freeway. Was this normal?

  He couldn’t believe that this many people needed to go the same way at the same time. A young girl in the car behind him put on her makeup. She needed it. A man who passed him on the right read the newspaper. Uncle Joe, the morning DJ, played a Doors song. “Love Me Two Times.” Jim Morrison was the artist of the day. Occasionally, a motorcycle weaved between lanes. This passed for excitement.

  Matthew’s office was in an anonymous tall building in Century City. A security guard told Mark where to park.

  In the lobby, light screamed through a three-story glass wall and shouted off the white floor, the white walls, the steel furniture. If it was meant to dazzle, it succeeded. Mark had to squint to see. Another security guard asked him his business. The guard called Ron’s office, then turned to Mark. “Someone will be right down. Please have a seat.”

  The seats looked like something out of a Star Trek episode. Silver, high tech, space age. Surprisingly comfortable. A massive, two-story painting decorated the only solid wall. It was hideous. People came and went. He wondered if any of them knew his brother or where he was. Most of them seemed young and smart and good looking. What the hell was his brother doing risking all of this?

  Rachel was a cute blonde. She hesitated before saying, “Let me take you up.”

  In the elevator, she pushed five, which was the highest number available. They were alone. He wanted to ask her how well she knew his brother. She looked from him to the floor, to the ceiling. Her fingers fidgeted, her teeth bit the awkward smile on her lips.

  Mark didn’t know what he expected. Ron Sydney was not it.

  Mark hadn’t expected such gentle eyes. Ron stood from behind his desk and held out his hand. Mark shook it. Ron wore some kind of Hawaiian-print shirt and khaki pants. He looked more like Mark’s grandfather on a Sunday then an advertising executive.

  “Good to know you, Mark. Have a seat.” Ron motioned to a couch and sat down. His tiny eyes smiled from underneath bushy gray eyebrows.

  Mark liked him.

  “To be honest, Mark, I was expecting your brother’s wife or your dad.”

  “How’s that?”

  “That’s just how it normally works. How is Matthew’s bride? Lucy, right?”

  “Yup.” Mark was trying to figure out if this folksy exterior was for real. “She’s not great. How what normally works?”

  Ron’s face and shoulders drooped. He looked sad. “When a man gets himself into trouble, the kind of trouble your brother’s in. The kind I myself have been in, incidentally. Normally a man’s wife or father tries to set things right. If anyone does.”

  Mark folded his arms and stared at the front of Ron’s desk.

  “Of course, I was never that close to my brothers or sisters.”

  “What kind of trouble? What kind of trouble do you
think he’s in, Mr. Sydney?”

  “Name’s Ron. That I know of, alcohol and possibly women.” He spoke in a firm, slow voice, letting words sink in. “What kind of trouble do you think he’s in?”

  “I don’t know. I came out to find out but…”

  “But you can’t find him?”

  Mark nodded. “Right.”

  “Has the wife left?”

  “You got a crystal ball back there?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be here if she hadn’t.” Ron took a deep breath and let it out.

  Mark kept looking at Ron’s eyes set deep behind a career of wrinkles. They seemed to remember bad things.

  “I wish I could be more help.”

  “You said you had some of the same trouble?”

  Ron’s eyes had the twinkle of a reformed alcoholic. “Ayuh.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I suddenly found the institution of marriage and the presence of children suffocating and distracting.”

  “Distracting?”

  “They really got in the way of my drinking.”

  “How did you stop?”

  “I don’t know.” Ron looked out the window with genuine perplexity as though he were trying to remember where he put his car keys. “It’s kind of hard to explain. I just stopped.” He held out his hands. “I found that the only way to quit drinking was to quit drinking.”

  “Sounds simple.”

  “It ain’t. Believe me. I mean it is. But the alcoholic mind has a way of complicating the simplest things.”

  “I just want to figure out where the fuck he is.”

  Ron grimaced. “I’ll ask around. Check with his friends in the office. But I have to tell you, he’s going to be tough to find if he doesn’t want to be found.”

  “So what should I do?”

  Ron clicked his tongue. “Hope he wants to be found.”

  “Hope? That’s all you got?”

  Ron smiled. “Hope’s not so bad. Some people call it prayer but it’s the same thing. With enough faith, hope’s not so bad at all.”