Authors: Stephen Schottenfeld
Huddy sees him emerge from the corner like he’s tunneling out, a hidden figure half-lit by the hanging lights, made partial by the mesh of ferns. Joe clears the shade trees but then he’s screened again, big rocks blocking him and the high hedges and tall flowers a curtain of colors that he keeps coming through and slipping behind. They keep seeing more of him then less, here but not here, branches beetling down to take his face, then a clearing to see him whole until the spaces fill in again and the hedges get his legs so it looks like he’s floating or cut in two; then he’s broken up and flickering and gone, then the path straightens and unfills to show him once more whole. Harlan’s the one who’s been away, far off in Florida, but watching Joe weave through his backcountry, it’s like he’s returning, too, from the Far East of Germantown, the other side of the world—and Huddy’s the only one who’s been stuck. The path swerves again so it looks like Joe’s walking toward them but away, passing through plants and flowers like some shifting disguise.
“Can I get you anything?” Lorie says, and Huddy feels like he should be ordering mint julep. She’s dressed all in white, and he keeps expecting she’ll offer a silver platter with tiny foods and napkins.
“He still drinking Buffalo Trace?” Harlan says.
“Working on a bottle out there, I’m sure.” She turns to Huddy and he nods. “I’ll get you glasses,” she says. She twirls with a hostess flip and flourish, and Huddy hears the jewelry on her neck jangling while Harlan sniffs her perfume and eyes her ass and thighs. “Wife number three,” Harlan says, and they wait for the door to slide. “’Member what daddy used to tell us: Didn’t have to marry ’em all.” Huddy smiles, then his eyes sweep the grounds. Firefly sculptures and a metal cowboy riding a propeller plane. He stares at the spinning parts. Past the pool, the path is bordered with rows of footlights that look like spaceships and Huddy’s waiting for the little green men. When he shakes his head, it feels like a planet orbiting his body. “Life on Mars,” he says.
“Ain’t that.”
He looks back at the spectral lights. “Well, it’s some kind of afterlife out here.”
“Ain’t that either.”
“Well, what
is
it then, Harlan? ’Cause it looks kind of
unusual
to me.”
“It’s a war movie, man,” he says. Huddy watches Harlan sniff loud. “The generals setting under their tent, drinking their tea, while the battle’s going to hell.”
He looks at Harlan. Pictures white tablecloths and sprinkled sugar stirring into liquid. But then, he thinks:
I’m
the foot soldier, Harlan, dodging cannon fire. You’re just the deserter.
Joe climbs the bridge like some carrying wave, held aloft, then dips down as if descending from air, out of the half-shadows and into the glow coming off the water, in full view, nearing them now, poolside between the webbed chairs and the water’s edge and close enough for Huddy to see Joe’s face, eyes beaming, lit with the surprise—and relief, maybe—of Harlan’s return. “Harlan, Harlan . . .” The second time louder, some bit of exhilaration slipping out.
“The man with the big watch,” Harlan says, low and weak.
Huddy stares at Joe’s hand extending, clamping down on his brother’s shoulder.
“You come back a tycoon or a whipped dog?” Joe says. Harlan smiles, always a loose and easy smile, but this time small, tight. Joe’s hand still hanging there and Huddy feels his own shoulder shake it off. “I’m sure you’re real happy about being back.”
Harlan’s jaw tilts up. “Oh, I cried the whole way.”
Joe glances sideways at Huddy. “He give you his story yet?” But he doesn’t wait. “Last I heard, you were talking about running dozers and backhoes.”
Huddy remembers the time Joe had stopped in, telling about a phone call he got from Harlan. They had him doing steep grades, Harlan had bragged, and Joe laughed, but then his lips pinched together, some memory sting of Harlan’s struggles and mistakes—missed days, quitting or getting fired, starting and losing and striking out somewhere else—Joe knowing that Harlan’s good fortune wouldn’t stick.
“Yeah, was,” Harlan says. He scratches at his neck.
“What happened after?” It’s just a small question, but Harlan’s silent and Joe’s face sinks and Huddy feels the air collapse. “Well,” Harlan says, swinging his legs. “Then I got to selling left-handed widgets.” He pokes the ground like there’s something dead beneath his feet but he’s testing to see if it isn’t. The sliding door cuts him loose, Lorie carrying glasses, walking briskly, her jewelry tinkling until Huddy realizes it’s the ice. “Lorie,” Harlan says, throwing his head back, “how’d this second-class brother of mine land someone like you?”
“Must have been my hair,” Joe says.
“Oh, you’re not losing it,” Harlan says, “you just pulled out all the gray.”
Joe laughs, rakes his balding hair, and Huddy surveys the deep yard, the light on the pool gleaming. The pool, the pond, the waterfall—Huddy wonders what else is out there, maybe creeks and brooks and lakes and a piece of the Mississippi and a sandy beach and way past some ocean with tides and currents pulling to the horizon, as far as Joe pulled himself up from the bottom, his trucks and haulers all over the city, making the city, and now he’s made this. Wrought-iron fencing far off at the property line, but Huddy can’t see it, feels like he’s looking out at miles and miles to a mirage that never ends but stretches and spreads and goes everywhere.
“Why don’t you show us this obstacle course?” Huddy says. “Make sure I don’t fall in.”
“You coming?” Joe says to Lorie, but his attention is full on Harlan, his eyes squinting like they’re hitting the sun, trying to see what’s inside, what’s there and gone, Harlan eyeing the ground, patting his hair like a cap tipped down on his face.
“I might listen from here,” she says and her fingers flutter. “Y’all be nice to each other.” She doesn’t look bothered by Huddy or worried by Harlan; she doesn’t mind this one-time visit. Huddy feels like she’s smiling at Joe’s brothers—distant Huddy and nonexistent Harlan—as if they were some silly old rhyme.
“Oh, we just gonna kiss his rings,” Harlan says. “You go first, Joe. You always been the line leader. I’ll go behind so I can pick your pocket. Hold my hand so I can swipe your watch.”
Joe leads and they follow, single-file with Harlan next and Huddy tagging. They pass the chairs and the pool and enter the narrow path and Huddy feels his feet crunch and skid on the pea gravel. Petals scattered about, plants tangled and dense crowding him, brushing his pants and skin as he passes, the pool’s chlorine smell overtaken by the flowers sweet and fragrant. “That’s an optic fiber plant,” Joe says. “That’s a butterfly bush, Japanese myrtle.” Huddy doesn’t know if he’s naming three separate things or correcting himself on one, his hand thrown out in all directions, speaking some foreign language exotic to Huddy but not to Joe, just ticking things off indifferently as if he hadn’t planted but discarded them. “Big tree is crape myrtle. That one’s wax,” Joe says, at some clump of foliage, and Harlan says, “Yeah, knew that,” dumping the ice from his glass.
The water is louder now. They cross the bridge and Huddy stares at the side channel flowing underneath, curving and opening wide to the terraced pond with the stream waterfall pouring down upon smooth rocks. Light shining on the pond’s surface and Huddy stares inside the water at the vivid fish, watches them circle and slip. Two dozen fish, tails waving and wriggling, orange and red like streaks of underwater fire, all in his brother’s yard like they’ve been here forever, some low, sunken craterworld beneath the grass that Joe merely had to dig down and discover. All these happy fish with their flapping fins and little mouths open, set free from the cleared earth above.
“What’s the fish?” Harlan says.
“Goldfish,” Joe says. “Different varieties. Comets, couple of shubunkin, fantail. Fantail’s the calico. Those bright gold ones is koi.”
Huddy looks at Joe the new fish professor.
“They making babies?” Harlan says.
“Two sets already. Had to give some away.”
“You give any to Huddy?”
“What the hell do I want with them?” Huddy says. He stares down at their gaping mouths, at their eyes never closing.
“You got that fishtank in your shop,” Harlan says. “Plop ’em in there, sell the tank.”
“I gave ’em to someone with a pond,” Joe says, shrugging at Huddy, and Huddy wonders when ponds became such a common thing. Maybe a customer will pawn a pond and default and Huddy’ll dig a pit and set the stones in his own yard.
“Well,
I’ll
take some,” Harlan says. “Put ’em in my pocket. Goldfish? I’da done bluegill. Or stocked it with bream.”
“We ain’t eating ’em, Harlan. Raccoons the ones eating. And the birds. That’s why I built the deep zone three feet at the bottom. Got the strawberry pot so the fish got holes to hide.”
So how is Huddy supposed to not feel burned when Joe’s built a sanctuary, with fake herons as decoys, protecting his goldfish like they’re endangered species. This hole in the ground, designed and terraced, and then the holes in the strawberry pot and maybe inside an escape hatch reaching all the way through to the ocean floor. At his feet are decorative rocks, large varieties of quartz, flecked and glittering. He hears Joe calling out more foreign names, pickerel weed and horsetail and umbrella grass; hears him name the water lilies. Next to some agate halves is a chunk of amethyst and then a nugget small and sparkly. Water lilies and oxygenators, Joe says, they competing for the algae. Huddy reaches down for the nugget.
“Ha,” Joe says, watching Huddy inspect. “Figures you’d find my gold.”
“Lemme see that,” Harlan says and grabs it from his brother, grips it tight.
“You’re rich now, Harlan,” Joe says, and Harlan looks at Huddy, considering.
“Fool’s gold,” Huddy says. “Iron pyrite.” It feels good to be the namer of things.
Harlan stares at his open hand. “Fake, huh?” Licks his lips, slow, like an old taste he can’t recall. “Didn’t think you’d go for phony.” Harlan shakes the rock like dice, flings it in the pond and the water plunks, the fish darting as the rock sinks. “Hope your guppies don’t choke on it.” His thumb slides across his palm, feeling for any fakeness that might’ve flaked off. “You got any real liquor?”
They follow the stone path to the gazebo. Two stone benches with a slate slab between them, Joe taking one bench, Huddy and Harlan sharing the other. “Confederate jasmine,” Joe says, pointing above and around, but Huddy eyes the lights twining the posts.
“There it is,” Harlan says, snatching the bottle from the table and pouring big.
“I didn’t even know you did this,” Huddy says. He meant admiration, not rivalry, but his voice came out high and childish. He worries what else will sound wrong from his mouth.
“Yeah, Joe,” Harlan says, “this is a real nice cemetery you built.”
Joe laughs, coughs, like his laughter’s been blocked up for years by living rich. He raises his glass and Huddy pours and reaches his glass high to clink against the other two. “So, Harlan,” Joe says, thumping his thumb on the table, “what’s next?”
Harlan’s arm does a slot-machine pull. He laughs, takes his first drink. “Find a clock and punch it.” He shakes his head, tongue pushing hard against his teeth. “Do anything.”
“He just got here,” Huddy says.
“Come work for me,” Joe shrugs, some business deal ending, briefcase clicking shut.
“Might,” Harlan says, and Huddy watches him throw his drink back. Harlan eyes Huddy, leans at him, but Huddy knows he’s feeling like he’s going the other way, ditching out, which is ridiculous since what Harlan needs is what only Joe can give, and what Huddy needs is for Joe to stop looking at Huddy like he’s staring at a wall. “Thanks,” Harlan says, his face flushed with shame. He slaps his thighs to stand, but doesn’t. Shakes his legs like an engine running.
Joe’s shirt is crisp as a hundred-dollar bill. His face is beat-down and tired from the long day, but the shirt, even untucked, looks pressed and perfect. Huddy drinks and swallows. “You could be his goldfish enforcer,” he says to Harlan, teeth bared. “I’ll get you a snake gun.” And he feels cold for saying it, because he knows Harlan’s come home tapped-out and small. Or worse, with bad debts to wrong people. Huddy looks at Joe’s fingers, thinks of him pinching his fish food, the fish crowding and frenzied, snapping at their meal and each other, the water alive with their hunger. He eyes the shirt again, tips his glass, feels his body lifting into the chest pocket, arcing and about to drop in but Harlan’s already nestled there, a handkerchief pulled over him like a nighttime blanket, so Huddy can’t squeeze beside.
“Where you staying?” Huddy asks.
Harlan slides his hand along the arm of the bench, dances his fingers at the edge. “Saw this sign out on Stage Road: Win one year’s free rent. Thought I’d stop in and go see about that.”
Huddy watches Joe frown. “Stage Road?” Huddy says. “What you doing up there?”
“You, too?” Harlan says, neck twisting. But then he lightens, swings his neck back slow. “KayKay.”
“KayKay . . . You two still close?”
“Look like you lost a few,” Joe says, eyes narrowed like Harlan’s starved out a new face.
“Ha,” Harlan says, “I was about to tell you the opposite. You lookin’ full-grown, that’s for sure. I feel sorry for that belt.” Harlan lights a cigarette, eyes pinpoints against the smoke.