"His other doctors did that kind of thing for years: went over his potty training, his elementary school records. Then everybody changed their minds-decided it was all about biochemistry, the genetic cocktail."

"Oh, it is, Dominick," she said. "No question. I'm only attempting, as much as possible, to map your brother's past and present realities. To become become him, as it were-try on his skin. And toward that end, you can be of enormous help. him, as it were-try on his skin. And toward that end, you can be of enormous help. If If you are willing." you are willing."

"I don't know," I said. "How?"

"By continuing to listen to the tapes of your brother's sessions and sharing your insights. And by sharing your own own remembrances of the past. I am particularly interested in your recollections of early childhood, and of the onset of the disease-the months when the schizophrenia began to manifest itself. The hows and whys of remembrances of the past. I am particularly interested in your recollections of early childhood, and of the onset of the disease-the months when the schizophrenia began to manifest itself. The hows and whys of that that time." time."

Nineteen sixty-nine, I thought: our work-crew summer.

"Because, as we said before, you are your brother's mirror. His healthy self. In scientific terms, you are the equivalent of a control group. And as such, it may be helpful for me to study you both as I design the shape of his therapy. If, as I say, you are willing."

I'd been suckered in before by optimism. By the bullshit of hope.

I didn't know what I was or wasn't willing to do anymore. I told her I'd think about it.

"What solitary child hasn't wished for a twin, Mr. Birdsey?" she said. "Hasn't imagined that a double exists somewhere in the world?

It's a hungering for human connection-another way of sheltering oneself against the storm. So who is to say that 'twinness' might not provide a key to your brother's recovery?"

A key, I thought. Chiave. Chiave.

One thing was clear: she sounded sincere. For once, my brother hadn't been assigned someone from the hit-or-miss, take-the- 247 247.

money-and-run school of state-appointed psychology. For once, he had a doc who hadn't majored in indifference.

At the door, at the end of the session, she asked me what I had taught.

"What? . . . Oh. History. High school history."

"Ah," she said. "That is challenging work. And so very necessary.

It is important for children to learn that they are the sum of those who have come before them. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah, well . . ."

"Why are you blushing, Mr. Birdsey?"

"I'm not blushing. I've just . . . I've been out of the classroom for over seven years. Thanks for the tea. I'll think about what you said.

Call me if anything else happens."

She asked me to wait a minute. Went over to her desk and wrote down something on a slip of paper. "Here is your prescription from me, Mr. Birdsey," she said, handing me the paper. "If you are a lover of reading, read these books. They are good for the soul."

Her prescription: prescription: as if as if I I was the patient. As if she was treating was the patient. As if she was treating me. me.

I took the paper, glanced at it without reading it, and stuffed it into my jeans. "Thanks," I said. "Only the problem isn't my soul, Doctor. The problem is my brother's brain."

She nodded. "And toward that end, you will do as I ask? Begin to retrieve for me any childhood memories you feel may be significant?

And try to recall your brother's earliest schizophrenic episodes? His initial decompensation?"

"Yeah," I said. "Okay." A step or two out into the hallway, I stopped. Turned back. "I, uh . . . you know before? When you asked me if I had any kids?"

"Yes."

"We . . . my wife and I-well, my ex- ex- wife . . ." wife . . ."

"Yes?"

"We had a little girl." She waited, those eyes of hers smiling, still.

"She . . . she died. Crib death. She was three weeks old."

"Ah," she said. "You have my sympathy. And my gratitude."

"Your gratitude? For what?"

248 248.

"For sharing that information with me. I know you are a private person, Mr. Birdsey. Thank you for trusting me."

The next morning, a Saturday, Joy passed by me, her arms full of dirty laundry. "Do you want this?" she said. She was waving Dr.

Patel's "prescription": the list of books I'd already forgotten about.

Joy had fished it out of the pocket of my jeans. In fat, backward-slanting script, Dr. Patel had written: The Uses of Enchantment, The The Uses of Enchantment, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The King and the Corpse. Hero with a Thousand Faces, The King and the Corpse.

"Toss it," I said, and Joy walked toward the laundry room. "Well, wait a second. Give it to me."

249 16.1969.

Ma was thrilled to have us back home from school after our first year away at college, but she didn't like the fact that Thomas had gotten so skinny. She set out to put some meat back on his bones, baking lasagnas and pies and getting up early every morning to cook us bacon and eggs and make our lunches for work. Ma packed extra sandwiches in Thomas's lunch pail and enclosed little handwritten notes about how proud she was of him-how he was one of the best sons any mother could have.

Jobs were scarce that summer, but my brother and I had landed seasonal work with the Three Rivers Public Works Department.

(Ray knew the superintendent, Lou Clukey, from the VFW.) It was tough minimum-wage labor with fringe benefits like poison ivy and heat rash. But I actually liked liked working for the Three Rivers PW. It got us each a paycheck and got us out of the house during the day while Ray was home. After a year's worth of being cooped up with the books, confined in a dorm room with my brother, it felt good to catch some rays, breathe in fresh air, and work up a sweat. I liked the working for the Three Rivers PW. It got us each a paycheck and got us out of the house during the day while Ray was home. After a year's worth of being cooped up with the books, confined in a dorm room with my brother, it felt good to catch some rays, breathe in fresh air, and work up a sweat. I liked the 249 249 250 250.

way you could take a scythe or a shovel and tackle a job, then look back at what you'd accomplished without waiting for some know-it-all professor's seal of approval.

The job I enjoyed most was mowing and weeding out at the town cemeteries: the ancient graveyard up in Rivertown with its crazy epitaphs, the Indian burial grounds down by the Falls, and the bigger cemeteries on Boswell Avenue and Slater Street. That first day out at Boswell Avenue, I located my grandfather's grave: a six-foot granite monument, presided over by a pair of grief-stricken cement angels. Domenico Onofrio Tempesta (18801949) Domenico Onofrio Tempesta (18801949) "The greatest griefs are silent." His wife, His wife, Ignazia (18971925), Ignazia (18971925), was buried across the cemetery beneath a smaller, more modest stone. was buried across the cemetery beneath a smaller, more modest stone.

Thomas was the one who found Ma's mother's grave, halfway through the summer. "Oh, I don't know. . . . No reason, really," Ma said when I asked her why the two of them hadn't been buried together.

I was nervous, at first, about Thomas. For one thing, I was still a little freaked out about that busted typewriter bullshit. For another, he wasn't exactly the manual labor type. But I shut my mouth and kept my eyes open, and after the first week or so, I began to relax.

Let down my guard.

Sometimes he'd lose track of what he was doing or drift off in a fog somewhere, but nothing out of the ordinary. He pretty much held his own. By the beginning of July, he had tanned and bulked up a little and lost his Lurch look. So college hadn't hadn't driven him over the edge after all, I told myself. He'd just been exhausted. He was okay. driven him over the edge after all, I told myself. He'd just been exhausted. He was okay.

And come September, he could begin digging himself out of the academic hole he'd dug for himself with all those class cuts, the stupid asshole. The jerk.

Thomas never ate those extra sandwiches Ma packed for him. I I ate them. Sometimes, when he didn't hand them to me outright, I'd go looking for them and find the notes Ma had written him. She knew better than to write ate them. Sometimes, when he didn't hand them to me outright, I'd go looking for them and find the notes Ma had written him. She knew better than to write me me those things. One time she'd pulled that in high school, and my buddies had snatched the note away and passed it around. I'd gone home and screamed bloody murder at her. those things. One time she'd pulled that in high school, and my buddies had snatched the note away and passed it around. I'd gone home and screamed bloody murder at her.

251 251.

But that TLC stuff never embarrassed Thomas the way it did me.

He thrived on that kind of crap.

I'll say this for Thomas: he went out and got our typewriter fixed without my bugging him about it. Without Ma or Ray catching wind of what had happened. He took the initiative, paid for the repairs out of his first paycheck from the city, and had the machine back within a week. The only problem was, he couldn't buy another carrying case. When Ma noticed it was missing, it was me me she asked about it, not Thomas. I told her someone at school had swiped it. she asked about it, not Thomas. I told her someone at school had swiped it.

She stood there, looking worried, not saying anything. "It's no big deal, Ma," I assured her. "Better they took the case than the typewriter. Right?"

Ma said she couldn't believe that college boys would steal from each other.

I told her it would surprise her what college boys did.

"Is it drugs, Dominick?" she said. "Is that why he lost all that weight?"

I reached down and gave her a smooch. Told her she was a worrywart. Teased the fear out of her eyes. He's fine, fine, Ma, I said. Ma, I said. Really. Really. It was just his nerves. It was just his nerves.

Each workday morning at seven-thirty, Thomas and I reported to the city barn where Lou Clukey dispatched the work crews around Three Rivers. Thomas and I were assigned this big burly foreman named Dell Weeks. Dell was a strange one. He had a shaved head, a silver tooth in front, and the filthiest mouth I'd ever heard on anyone. Dell couldn't stand Lou Clukey, who was an ex-Navy officer and a straight arrow, and you could tell the feeling was mutual. You could feel feel the tension when Dell and Lou were within twenty feet of each other. So it was no big surprise that our crew usually drew the day's dirtiest work. All morning long, we shoveled sand, cut swamp brush, pumped sewage, disinfected campground toilets. We saved the mowing jobs for afternoon. the tension when Dell and Lou were within twenty feet of each other. So it was no big surprise that our crew usually drew the day's dirtiest work. All morning long, we shoveled sand, cut swamp brush, pumped sewage, disinfected campground toilets. We saved the mowing jobs for afternoon.

Not counting Dell Weeks, there were four guys on our crew: Thomas, me, Leo Blood, and Ralph Drinkwater. Leo was seasonal 252 252.

like Thomas and me, a year ahead of us at UConn. Drinkwater was full-time. If the draft or Electric Boat didn't get him first, he ran the risk of becoming a Three Rivers Public Works "lifer" like Dell.

Drinkwater hadn't grown much since that year in high school when he'd gotten thrown out of Mr. LoPresto's class for laughing out loud at the concept that the red man had been annihilated because of the white man's natural superiority. He was still only five-six, five-seven, maybe, but he was tougher and cockier than he'd been back then. A bantamweight. He had tight, ropy muscles and walked with the trace of a strut; he even mowed lawns with an attitude. That whole summer, Drinkwater wore the exact same clothes to work. He didn't stink or anything, the way Dell sometimes did.

He just never wore anything else but these same black jeans and this blue tank top. Leo and I had a twenty-dollar bet going as to when Drinkwater would finally break down and change his clothes. I had the odd calendar days and Leo had the evens, and we both waited all summer to collect.

Although I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, Drinkwater was the best worker of the four of us, focused and steady-paced, no matter how hot it got. All day long, he listened to the transistor radio he kept hitched to his belt loop-Top 40, baseball if the Red Sox had an afternoon game. He played that radio so relentlessly, I still still know half the commercials by heart. know half the commercials by heart. Come alive, you're in the Come alive, you're in the Pepsi generation. . . . You've got a friend at Three Rivers Savings. Pepsi generation. . . . You've got a friend at Three Rivers Savings.

. . . Come on down to Constantine Motors, where we're on the hill but on the level. the level. All day long, the music and talk moved with Drinkwater. All day long, the music and talk moved with Drinkwater.

He was pretty antisocial at first. He seemed always to be watching Thomas and me. About fifty times a day, I'd look up and catch Ralph looking away from one of us. It wasn't anything new: people had always stared at Thomas and me . Oh, look, Muriel! Twins! . Oh, look, Muriel! Twins! But Ralph had been a twin, too. What was But Ralph had been a twin, too. What was he he looking at? looking at?

Riding out to a job, Thomas, Leo, and I would usually hop into the back of the truck and Ralph would ride up front with Dell. He'd talk to Dell sometimes, but he hardly ever said a word to us, even when one of us asked him something directly. Ralph's older cousin 253 253.

Lonnie had been killed in Nam earlier that year-had been buried in the Indian graveyard. When we were mowing out there, Ralph would steer clear of Lonnie's headstone. It was me who'd usually trim around it; we'd divide the cemetery into quadrants, and that was always my section. I'd be clipping and yanking weeds and start thinking about Lonnie-the time he got in trouble for spitting on kids at the playground, that time at the movies, in the downstairs bathroom, when he'd grabbed me by the wrist and humiliated me for his and Ralph's entertainment. Why you hitting yourself, kid? Why you hitting yourself, kid?

Huh? Why you hitting yourself? . . . It was good-sized-Lonnie's gravestone. Granite, rough-hewn on one side, polished on the other. It was good-sized-Lonnie's gravestone. Granite, rough-hewn on one side, polished on the other.

Placed there by the VFW, it said, in honor of Lonnie's having been one of the first Three Rivers kids to fall in Vietnam. Some honor: giving up your life for our national mistake. For nothing. When Thomas and I were little kids, the big villains of the world were other kids. Bad Bad kids. Troublemakers like Lonnie Peck. Now Nixon was the enemy. Nixon and those other neckless old farts who kept escalating the war over there-kept sending kids over to the jungle to get their heads blown off. kids. Troublemakers like Lonnie Peck. Now Nixon was the enemy. Nixon and those other neckless old farts who kept escalating the war over there-kept sending kids over to the jungle to get their heads blown off.

Ralph's sister's grave was out there, too. Penny Ann's. It was close by Lonnie's but not right next to it, twenty-five or thirty feet away.

Hers was just a small sandstone foot marker with her initials, P.A.D. P.A.D.

I'd missed it the first couple of times we were out there. Then, bam! bam!

It hit me whose stone it was. I kept trying to say something to Ralph about the graves. About Lonnie's at least. The death of a soldier was easier to talk about than the rape and murder of a little girl.

But I didn't say anything about either one. Ralph gave me no openings. Didn't let down his guard for a second. One time during the first week, the two of us-Ralph and me-were loading tools back into the truck bed. I reminded him that we'd both been at River Street Elementary School together and then together again in Asshole LoPresto's history class at JFK. Drinkwater just looked at me, expressionless. "Remember?" I finally said. He stood there, staring at me like I was from Mars or something.

"Yeah, I remember," he said. "What about it?"

254 254.

"Nothing," I sputtered. "Sorry I mentioned it. Excuse me for breathing, okay?"

When the morning was cool and the job wasn't too strenuous-or if Lou Clukey was in the vicinity-Dell would become a working working foreman-would labor alongside us. Otherwise, he'd sit in the truck, leaning against the open driver's side door, smoking his Old Golds and finding fault. Sometimes he'd get up off his ass and go over to my brother. Snatch Thomas's push broom or bow saw away from him and give him a little demonstration on how he foreman-would labor alongside us. Otherwise, he'd sit in the truck, leaning against the open driver's side door, smoking his Old Golds and finding fault. Sometimes he'd get up off his ass and go over to my brother. Snatch Thomas's push broom or bow saw away from him and give him a little demonstration on how he should should be doing it. Or else he'd tell Drinkwater to stop work and go show Thomas the right way to do something. It was degrading for both Thomas and Ralph-enough so that you'd have to look away. But Dell liked the flustered reaction Thomas never failed to give him and the look of contempt he'd get from Ralph. He be doing it. Or else he'd tell Drinkwater to stop work and go show Thomas the right way to do something. It was degrading for both Thomas and Ralph-enough so that you'd have to look away. But Dell liked the flustered reaction Thomas never failed to give him and the look of contempt he'd get from Ralph. He enjoyed enjoyed busting their balls, Thomas's especially. Dell started this joke about how he couldn't tell my brother and me apart unless we each had a shovel in our hands. Then he knew who was who, no problem. He nicknamed us the Dicky Bird brothers, Dick and Dickless. busting their balls, Thomas's especially. Dell started this joke about how he couldn't tell my brother and me apart unless we each had a shovel in our hands. Then he knew who was who, no problem. He nicknamed us the Dicky Bird brothers, Dick and Dickless.

Of the four of us, Dell came to favor Leo and me. We were the ones he always picked to stop work and drive over to Central Soda Shop for coffees, or fill up the water jugs at the town spring, or run and get him some cigs. Leo and I were the ones that Dell started addressing his stupid jokes to.

"Nigger's walking down the street leading a bull on a rope, and the bull's got this hard-on that's yea-big. Woman comes up to him and says, 'Hey, how much would it cost me to slip that foot-and-a-half of meat up my cunt?' So the nigger says, 'Well, I'll fuck you for free, lady, but I'll have to get someone to watch my bull here.'"

When Dell told his jokes, I'd usually give him a fake smile or a nervous laugh. Sometimes I'd sneak a glance over at Drinkwater.

Ralph might have been a full-blooded Wequonnoc Indian like he'd claimed that day in Mr. LoPresto's class, but he was pretty dark-skinned. I'd never seen an Indian with an Afro. All summer long, Ralph's transistor radio kept singing about the dawning of the age of 255 255.

Aquarius and everybody smiling on their brother and loving one another, but Dell's jokes had a way of curdling those songs.

Drinkwater was always deadpan when Dell got to the punch lines of those racist jokes. He never cracked a smile, but he never gave him an argument, either-never challenged him the way he had that day in class with Mr. LoPresto. I hated those jokes of Dell's, really hated hated them, but I was too gutless to object. Not that I admitted it to myself. With thirty college credits under my belt, I was able to intellectualize my silence: eventually, people our age would be in charge and all the bigots of the world would die off. them, but I was too gutless to object. Not that I admitted it to myself. With thirty college credits under my belt, I was able to intellectualize my silence: eventually, people our age would be in charge and all the bigots of the world would die off.

And anyway, if Drinkwater didn't say anything-he had to be at least partly partly black-then why should I? So I kept selling myself for the privilege of making those big-deal errands to the spring and the coffee shop. I smiled and kept my mouth shut and maintained my black-then why should I? So I kept selling myself for the privilege of making those big-deal errands to the spring and the coffee shop. I smiled and kept my mouth shut and maintained my "favored worker status." Leo did the same.

That summer, Leo and I rekindled the friendship we had started a couple years before in summer school math class. The few times I've ever bothered to think about it-to analyze what it was that made us friends in the first place, way before we were brothers-in-law married to the Constantine sisters-the only thing I ever came up with was the fact that we're opposites. Always have been. At high school dances, I was your basic fade-into-the-woodwork type. The kind of guy who'd stand there all night watching the band because he was too scared to ask any girl to dance. Not Leo, though. Leo was a performer. That was back when his nickname was "Cool Jerk."

Sooner or later, someone would request that song, "Cool Jerk," and Leo'd get out there in the middle of the gym floor and dance this spastic solo. Kids used to circle him four or five deep, clapping and hooting and laughing their heads off at him, and Leo's fat would flop in all directions, the sweat would fly off his face. I admired his nerve, I guess, in some some screwy way. One time, in the middle of a schoolwide assembly-one of those slide-show yawners about people from other lands-Leo raised his hand as a volunteer and got up on stage, yanked on a grass skirt, and took a hula lesson from these visiting Hawaiians. "Cool Jerk! Cool Jerk!" everyone started chant- screwy way. One time, in the middle of a schoolwide assembly-one of those slide-show yawners about people from other lands-Leo raised his hand as a volunteer and got up on stage, yanked on a grass skirt, and took a hula lesson from these visiting Hawaiians. "Cool Jerk! Cool Jerk!" everyone started chant- 256 256.

ing over the ukulele music, until Leo's hip-rolling began to look like something other than the hula, and the crowd went wild, and even the Hawaiians stopped smiling. Neck Veins, the vice principal, walked onstage, stopped the show, and told the rest of us to go back to our third-period classes. Instead of taking off his grass skirt and exiting gracefully, Leo started giving a speech about how JFK High was a dictatorship like Cuba and we should all go on strike. He was suspended for two weeks and barred from extracurricular activities.

"How can you hang around with the biggest a-hole in our entire school?" Thomas kept asking me that whole summer when Leo and I had been in remedial algebra together. Leo was was an asshole; I knew that. But, like I said, he was also everything my brother and I were not: uninhibited, carefree, and funny as hell. Leo's colossal nerve had gotten the two of us access to all kinds of forbidden pleasures that my goody two-shoes brother would have objected to and my stepfather would have beaten me for: the X-rated Eros Drive-In out on Route 165, the racetrack at Narragansett, a liquor store on Pachaug Pond Road that gave minors the benefit of the doubt. The first time I ever got shit-faced drunk was out at the Falls in Leo's mother's Biscayne, smoking Muriel air tips and passing a jug of Bali Hai back and forth. I was fifteen. an asshole; I knew that. But, like I said, he was also everything my brother and I were not: uninhibited, carefree, and funny as hell. Leo's colossal nerve had gotten the two of us access to all kinds of forbidden pleasures that my goody two-shoes brother would have objected to and my stepfather would have beaten me for: the X-rated Eros Drive-In out on Route 165, the racetrack at Narragansett, a liquor store on Pachaug Pond Road that gave minors the benefit of the doubt. The first time I ever got shit-faced drunk was out at the Falls in Leo's mother's Biscayne, smoking Muriel air tips and passing a jug of Bali Hai back and forth. I was fifteen.

Now, four years later-during our work-crew summer-Thomas was just as resentful of Leo's and my rekindled friendship as he'd been the first time around. "Just what I need: another dose of Leo Blood,"

Thomas would say if I told Thomas that Leo was coming over after supper to hang out or to pick me up. Ma liked Leo because he was a good eater. Ray said he'd learned in the Navy not to trust the Leos of the world any further than you could throw them. "Watch your rear flank with that one," Ray told me. "He's too full of himself. Guys like that will sell you right down the river."

The fact that my stepfather worked third shift meant that he was home all day and had first dibs on the mail. I had two magazine subscriptions coming to the house back then, Newsweek Newsweek and the and the Sporting News. Sporting News. It always bugged me that Ray got his hands all over 257 It always bugged me that Ray got his hands all over 257 257.

them before I did-bent back the pages, wrinkled up the covers, left them all over the place so's I'd have to go looking for the things. At our house, mail was Ray's property no matter whose name was on the envelope, and if you complained about it, it was you you who was committing the federal offense. who was committing the federal offense.

One day in July, Thomas and I got home from work and found Ray sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a bottle of Moxie and waiting for us. "Well, well, well," he said. "If it isn't the two geniuses.

Have a seat, fellas. I want to have a little chat with you guys."

Ma was waiting, too, looking ashen, twisting a dish towel in her hands. She had made sweet cucumber pickles that day, a favorite of Thomas's and mine. A row of canning jars was lined up on the counter. The kitchen smelled sweet and vinegary.