Middle Age (24 page)

By the side of the road, the River Road, a man trudged in the rain.

Two dogs trotting beside him. One of the dogs was a bedraggled yellow Labrador, the other resembled a young wolf. Abigail felt a shiver of dislike, repugnance. She knew what Harry would have said, seeing such a sight, on the River Road, Salthill-on-Hudson. Could a homeless man be living here? Somewhere near here? Abigail, slowing her car, regarded the stranger with sharp, critical eyes. He was graceless, primitive-looking. His head, the set of his shoulders, the relative shortness of his legs in proportion to his stocky body, reminded her of—what were they?—Cro-Magnon man, or Neanderthal?—ugly brutes! The stranger wore mismatched clothes, a plaid wool shirt, workpants splotched with what looked like paint, or mud, flapping rubber boots. A dented felt hat, beneath which quills of iron-gray hair escaped, and the collar of his shirt turned up, as if that would make any difference in this chill soaking April rain.

A vagrant, by the look of him. An intruder. A threat.

Vehicles were passing him, on the River Road. As Abigail drove past she felt a sudden pang of—was it guilt, embarrassment, pity?—a nursery rhyme running through her head
If wishes were horses, beggars might ride
.

For a fleeting moment she thought she might stop for the man, trudg-ing in the rain, offer him a ride; but, no, what of the dripping dogs, impossible.

So Abigail drove past Adam Berendt, pressing down on the gas pedal so she wasn’t tempted to glance over at him, and meet his eye.

As now, driving along a curving road, back into Middlebury. The road is black asphalt, reflectors loom like animals’ eyes in the dusk, Abigail is driving at forty miles an hour, maybe forty-five, not fast, her eyelids strangely heavy, hooded, her lips strangely slack, even as Jared continues chattering, excited as a four-year-old about whatever it is, a trip with his dad, he’s so excited about, and there’s a rising winking moon, a moon like a man’s battered face, and Abigail can’t for the life of her remember where the hell she is, the car handles differently tonight, the dashboard strangely lighted, and the windshield curving in a way unfamiliar to her, and the
Middle Age: A Romance

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windows dark-tinted, so visibility isn’t good, and still her foot on the gas pedal wants to press down, a little more pressure, she’s in a hurry to get somewhere for the night, must be a town ahead, a motel reservation waiting, oh, but her head is empty! yet aching! and by the side of the road she sees him, a sudden hulking figure, he lifts an arm to beckon to her, can’t see his face, she squints, she leans forward anxious, breathless, her headlights illuminate a sign that warns     and it’s at that moment, just as the unfamiliar car flies into the curve, that the demon hand seizes the wheel and wrenches it hard to the right, almost she sees this hand, she will recall seeing it, she will swear she has seen it, not the boy’s hand but a demon hand, the rushing asphalt road rapidly narrows, falls away, hardly more than a footpath, she hears screams she could not have identified, a crashing as of a forest of dry sticks being broken, and then—

Nothing.

T G



T  a man,forty-seven years old.Once he’d believed himself lucky, now he understood that his luck had drained from him. Like his life’s blood, or his sperm. These precious liquids you imagine in the prime of young manhood are infinite, and in middle age you understand are finite, and will one day fail you.

What is mortal wishes to be immortal
.

“Oh, Adam. Hell. I’d settle for being just mortal, if it meant at least I was alive.”

R C. A very good lawyer and among his friends and business acquaintances in Salthill-on-Hudson, New York, a model of integrity.

But God damn: here he was three hours late leaving for his daughter’s school near Baltimore. When he’d promised Robin he’d be arriving early in the afternoon so that they could “relax” before the game.

Sure, Dad, I know what your promises are worth
.

But his promises did mean something! At least, his professional promises. His word and his handshake were as binding to him as fully executed contracts to others. Roger Cavanagh was a very good lawyer and a model of integrity and since the breakup of his marriage he lived for his work, and for his reputation as
Roger Cavanagh a very good lawyer and a model of
integrity
.



Middle Age: A Romance



“What else is there, really?”

Not women. He’d had enough of women, he was sick of women. His soul, if he had a soul, if that hungry angry emptiness at the core of him was his soul, recoiled in loathing.

I  mid-October. The carefully forged signatures on Adam Berendt’s will had not been detected. Roger Cavanagh’s integrity remained inviolate.

In his law office that Sunday morning the red-haired woman stunned in grief had asked him naively, not in reproach but with her blunt childlike innocence (that so aroused Roger, even as it annoyed and maddened him, as a man)
Isn’t this illegal? Criminal?
and fixing her bruised-looking eyes upon him asked
What would happen if you, a lawyer, were
—

He’d cut her off. Roger Cavanagh would not engage in any conversation with Marina Troy on the ambiguous matter of Adam Berendt’s last will and testament, as with other ambiguous matters regarding their deceased friend’s estate, that might be considered conspiratorial.

As grounds for disbarment.

“I won’t be disbarred. I won’t be caught. Who could prove the signatures aren’t Adam’s? Who would wish to?”

“Marina would never tell. Marina is in love with him.”

“Marina would never tell. Marina is implicated, too.”

“I had no choice! I had to protect Adam’s interests after his death.

Since the man didn’t do a very good job of protecting them before his death.”

Not that these remarks were made to Marina Troy, or to anyone. They were not. They were tersely uttered, as so many of Roger Cavanagh’s most heartfelt remarks were uttered, in the privacy of his BMW.

R C   of integrity was thinking these things on the harried drive south from Salthill, New York, to the Ryecroft School in Nicodemus, Maryland. He was deeply unhappy. He was anxious about this visit with his daughter, in dread of things going wrong. No, he wasn’t unhappy, or anxious: he was angry. His guts like writhing snakes. Strapped into the powerful car like a pilot strapped into a bomber. Shifting from one lane of I-8 to another, impatient to get to his destination yet resentful of having to get there, being obliged to be Dad, yes, but
he was Dad, he
loved his daughter
. Muttering aloud, “Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck
.”



J C O

Late leaving the office, and now he was beginning to be caught up in Friday afternoon traffic. The field hockey game in which Robin was playing began at four .. He’d promised Robin he wouldn’t be late for the game.

Sure, Dad, I know what your promises are worth
.

Adam Berendt had died more than three months before. Yet the wound was still raw. Roger scratched compulsively at it with his nails.

Must’ve liked the raw oozing blood, the dull throb in his veins.

“Your death is an infection in us, survivors. Fuck you!”

No. Bitterly Roger mourned Adam Berendt, he missed his friend enormously. He had a quarrel with Adam that smoldered like an underground fire.

Roger Cavanagh was Adam’s attorney, the executor of his estate, he would keep those secrets of Adam’s he could. Surprise, shock, incredulity, a kind of baffled hurt—so Adam’s Salthill friends had reacted when they learned of the estate Adam was leaving behind. How was it possible!

Adam Berendt who’d lived so frugally in the midst of affluent Salthill.

Adam Berendt who’d seemed always to subtly disapprove of their lives, in his dry, witty way. Adam Berendt who’d been a local “character” of whom they’d liked to speak warmly, admiringly, and always with that air of con-descension. Adam who’d bought secondhand overcoats, suits, even a tuxedo to wear to Salthill parties. He would play their clothing-game, and even seem to enjoy it, basking in their attention; at the same time he was slyly mocking them. He drove an elegantly rust-stippled secondhand Mercedes, even rode a secondhand English racing bike. His dogs were handsome, noble dogs, dogs to break your heart, yet they were strays, cast off by their original masters.
Was it some sort of game? A masquerade?
Adam had postponed, for years, having the rotting, leaking roof of his “historic”

house repaired; some of his friends conferred, should they offer to pay for the repairs? Or would Adam be offended? (They’d never summoned up quite the courage to make the offer.) Adam was passionate and idealistic about art, he seemed truly to believe in the high worth of art, but scav-enged his own art materials from town dumps; to the frustration of friends like Roger, he gave away his curious, odd-sized sculptures to nearly anyone who expressed an interest, rather than trying to sell them. (“Adam, what kind of compulsion is this?” Roger once asked, “—are you afraid to be a ‘professional,’ afraid of defining yourself as an artist, and of competing with other artists? But why?” and Adam said, with an embarrassed shrug,
Middle Age: A Romance

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and a wincing smile, “Roger! I guess you got my number.”) And all along, Adam had been investing in Internet and biotech stocks, and real estate, in utter secrecy from his friends. His brokers were scattered over four states, his savings accounts were under a half-dozen names. Apart from giving away isolated sums of money, often anonymously, to organizations like the National Project to Free the Innocent, the Rockland County Homeless Animal Shelter, the Salthill Arts Council, and the Salthill Environmental Watch, he seemed to have no use for his money.
As if
ashamed
.
Was he ashamed? Something is not right here
.
Something is very
wrong here
.
Adam Berendt leaving
—
how much behind?
Ridiculous rumors made their way back to Roger. That Adam was leaving fifteen million dollars, twenty million dollars, to charities; that he owned numerous properties on the river, worth additional millions; that he was a professional who gambled in Vegas under aliases; that he had grown children from whom he’d long been estranged, to whom he was leaving millions of dollars . . .

Roger refuted these rumors as he heard them. He was reticent about the actual worth of Adam’s estate, but allowed himself to be quoted that it would probably add up to no more than six or seven million dollars once fees and taxes were settled, and this included the “historic” Deppe House.

Ashamed
.
Sure
.
Having so much money
.
More than some of his friends in
fact
.
Saying he didn’t deserve happiness. Who the fuck deserves happiness? Not
wanting us to know him
.
That’s the reason
.
That he had money, and didn’t
spend it on himself
.
Gave it away
.
He’d have been ashamed to reveal himself as
better, more generous, than the rest of us
.

“Except he didn’t factor in dying so soon. And ‘Adam Berendt’

exposed.”



Uncle Adam
. When Robin was a little girl, and very sweet with soft honey-brown curls, and big honey-brown eyes, and very smart with a love of reading and writing though she was such a little girl, and her daddy was still married to her mommy, and Uncle Adam was a family friend, in that long-ago lost time, for Robin’s fourth birthday Uncle Adam brought her a big funny book he’d constructed out of papier-mâché covers painted robin’s-egg blue, and cream-colored pages of stiff construction paper decorated with friendly cartoon farm animals. The title of the book, in gold



J C O

leaf script, was  :    . Each of the pages had a headline—

   

   

  
REALLY


   

   

  

What a nice birthday surprise! Childhood is made of such nice birthday surprises, though of course we forget.

Robin loved the robin’s-egg-blue book, she’d loved her funny Uncle Adam with the queer staring eye that never exactly looked at you, Uncle Adam who was always making her and her mommy and daddy laugh.

While the adults sat at dinner, talking and laughing for hours, how strange we have the passion, the energy, the mutual fluent love that allows us to spend so much time with one another, Robin lay stretched out on her stomach on the fuzzy wool rug in front of the fireplace, and excitedly filled in the entire book. When it was brought to show him, Adam was astonished. “Robin! What a special little girl you are.”

Did Robin remember, now? Maybe. Sort of vaguely.  -

:     has long been lost.

That night, eleven years ago, saying good-bye to his hosts, Adam Berendt was deeply moved. He was sober, but shamelessly sentimental.

Made you embarrassed, though you loved the guy. Never knew what he’d come out with! Taking Lee Ann’s and Roger’s hands in his, squeezing, didn’t know his own strength, saying, earnestly, “I guess you know how God-damned lucky you are, don’t you? Yes?”

“Oh, Adam. Yes.” Lee Ann smiled beautifully.

“Yes. We certainly do.” Roger smiled, standing tall.

He was a man of hardly five feet ten inches. Always, he made a conscious effort to
stand tall
.

Sure, they’d laughed at Adam afterward, undressing for bed. Adam Berendt was easy to laugh at. Their heated skins pressed together, wine-sweetened mouths kissing, nuzzling.
How God-damned lucky you are
. They knew!