Joe Ducato
Brotherly
The Liturgy
They sat together in the last pew. One of them came late, the one who always came late. He ducked in, said a quick prayer then sat back and turned to his brother.
“Jack,” the late one smiled.
Jack touched the brim of a cap he wasn’t wearing.
“Timber,” he acknowledged.
Timber stared.
“What’s up with that beard? It looks like you’ve taped squirrel tails to your face!”
Jack ran a hand over the beard. He didn’t smile, hardly ever smiled, wasn’t even sure his face could go that way anymore.
“I see nothing’s changed.”
“Thanks for meeting me.”
Timber shook his head, “Caribou! Man, I still can’t believe it? The guy was a Redwood.”
With his hand Timber made a gesture of a tree falling.
Jack turned.
“Word is Boo may have cut himself down, least that’s what some are saying.”
Nothing seemed funny anymore.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“We’ll most likely never know,” Jack whispered, “People get tight-lipped about that kind of thing, like it’s a sin or something.”
“Well, actually, it is.”
Timber wiped his brow.
“Every time, when it’s someone from the old days,” Timber said, “…from the old neighborhood, it hurts worse.”
“I know. The King of Rotterdam Flats, right?”
“I thought you were the King Jack.”
“Yeah, right.”
Timber blinked like he sometimes did when he got nervous.
“The Flats. Best days ever.”
Jack nodded.
“They still call it The Flats, I think.”
“Nah, doesn’t matter. The Flats we knew are gone. Law of nature or something.”
Timber smiled.
“Remember the girls? The girls from-up-the-hill?”
Jack nearly smiled, “The girls from-up-the-hill, yeah right. There were 4 or 5 of them, right? Came down all the time on their bikes. Guess they didn’t have boys on that hill.”
“Great days with Caribou in The Flats!”
Jack nodded. Timber looked down.
“Does Jan know you’re here…with me?”
Jack shook his head.
“You know she doesn’t, but you ask every time.”
Jack felt a cactus in his throat. His face hardened.
“That’s the thing, the thing right there,” Jack fumed, “It’s like you can’t let it rest.”
Timber stared up at a new heating unit.
“That’s efficiency.”
He wiped something from his eye but kept his gaze.
“I don’t care if Boo did or didn’t do it, he’s a hero in my eyes. I hope we never know.”
Jack touched his collar.
“He would have hated this, being put on display like some old car someone found in a barn. Not the guy I knew.”
“Straight.”
Timber lowered his head and smoothed out a wrinkle on a Missalette cover.
The Eulogy
They sat quietly, listening to a nephew tell funny stories. It didn’t seem like the guy they’d roamed Rotterdam Flats with or a guy someone would call Caribou. They hardly recognized his son, all grown up, straight in the back, narrow at the hip and clear eyed; a Redwood himself. The brothers were proud of Caribou, proud of the way he’d raised his kid. When the stories were over, they inched closer.
“I’m sorry, ok? It’s just that it’s never seemed right,” Timber whispered.
“Here we go.”
“She’s not family Jack, why does she get to…?”
“She’s my family!” Jack growled, “That’s what you don’t get. She’s my family, all I have. She doesn’t forgive, ok? Swallow it.”
“You forgave.”
Jack looked down.
“I did.”
“Does she know that?”
“Yes, of course. She doesn’t care. Look, some people are different, think different, think
in ways we can’t understand. We just have to accept it, that’s all there is to it.”
“I know about people Jack. I haven’t had my eyes closed for 66 years.”
Jack turned sharply.
“Why’d you start the fire? Have you ever said…to anyone? Maybe that’s part of it.”
“Because I don’t know why Jack! I was a kid. A kid! And I paid, dearly. That’s not good enough?”
“And then you took off. Nobody knew if you were dead or alive for how many years? Do you know what that did to them? Do you understand why she thinks the way she does? I shouldn’t have come here.”
The “Our Father”
The mourners stood. The brothers put out their hands, palms up, recited The Our Father, then exchanged the Sign of Peace, and sat back down. Somewhere up front a woman wailed. It snaked through the church like the wail of a mama wolf snaking through a dark canyon.
“Look!” Timber pointed, “There’s Sweeney. Fourth row up, behind the hunch-backed woman. Man has he put on some potatoes or what?”
Timber laughed.
“And near the front,” he nudged Jack, “In the long coat, the guy with the silver hair, I think that’s Sal.”
“Sickly Sal?” Jack nearly smiled again, “The guy who’s had every disease known to man.”
“And that might be Alice next to him. Alice from-up-the-hill. She still lives here.”
“What’s she doing with the germ factory?”
“She must have a great immune system.”
“It’s always the ones you wouldn’t expect”
“Sickly Sal snags himself a girl from up-the-hill.”
The brothers smiled.
The Communion
The mourners knelt. Someone sobbed, tried not to, and sobbed harder. The tears shed for a good man can sometimes break dams. The brothers looked to the front, to the closed casket, to the altar. The Priest faced the mourners and broke the host.
Timber turned. “I never knew if Pop forgave me.”
“Come on,” Jack smirked, “It’s Pop.”
Timber reflected, then chose his words.
“That’s why Jack. That’s why right there. It’s none of her business. It’s our business, family business.”
Jack turned.
“She says she has this sense and this sense is never wrong.”
“So, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I came back and settled, that I’m doing what a good man is supposed to do, right Jack? It doesn’t matter.”
“What can I tell you?”
Up front, at the coffin a cloud of incense rose followed by some rattling of small chains then another cloud.
“She says you’ve got the look and that when someone has the look, it’s there forever. She says it stays in the eyes, always there in the eyes for those who can see it. I’m a sick man. Who’s going to take care of me in 10 years? You? You’ve got your hands full with your own family. You started late. How is Ruth? The kids? I wish it were different. Every day, I wish it were different.”
“Ruth’s ok. Cory moved to Frisco. She calls now and then. Mike’s in Iowa, still with the firm. He comes home, but not this year, too busy. He asks about you. He doesn’t understand. I never know what to say.”
The priest accepted the host. Jack turned.
“Look at that casket. His wife spared no expense. Shines like that old Mustang, remember? Caribou’s going in style. Who would have thought, a grease-monkey from The Flats.”
Timber stared at his funeral and wedding shoes.
“Sometimes people are so smart it leaks out their brain and covers their eyes. We’ll always be brothers.”
“Yep,” Jack acknowledged.
“I won’t rock the boat, I promise. It’s like when you used to take me to those black jack games over at Walleyes. ‘Keep your mouth shut,’ you’d tell me on the way over. You’ve always been smart like that Jack.”
The priest drank from the chalice, then wiped it down.
“I never told you, but when I was taking care of Pops,” Jack whispered, “One night, close to the end, at probably 3 in the morning, I heard a noise in the kitchen so I went down and found Pops at the kitchen table carving away at this little piece of wood with a jack-knife. He said it was a talisman and that it had healing powers. He said he’d gotten it from some little kid in France, in a village they had just liberated, but the years had faded the etchings so he was giving it back some of its old glory.”
Timber smiled, “Good for him. I swear I didn’t know he was that bad or I would have come back.”
“I know, but then I noticed Pop’s thumb was bleeding. Believe it or not, he let me wash it out in the sink and when I was wrapping the bandage, that’s when he said it, said that he forgave you, that you were a good boy and that you always would be in his eyes.”
Timber’s voice broke.
“He did?”
“Straight.”
“On Mom’s eyes?”
“On Mom’s eyes and soul.”
Timber put his hands together.
The mourners rose. Starting at the front, they stepped into the aisle to walk by the closed casket and take their place in line to receive Communion. When it was their turn, Timber let Jack go ahead. When they were next to Sal, Jack touched Sal’s arm. Sal turned and stood. So did Alice.
“Sally,” Jack opened his arms. The men embraced. Then Sal and Timber embraced. The brothers nodded to Alice from up-the-hill then moved on. Jack turned to Timber.
“I hope I didn’t catch anything.”
After Communion, the brothers made their way back down the aisle. Jack looked for anyone who knew his wife. Timber kept his head down. And so it goes.
The Procession
When mass was over, Caribou led the way out, followed by a trail of broken hearts and a few that climbed in and went with him. Timber touched the casket when it passed. It was smooth like the old Mustang.
When they were almost to the doors Timber said: “Can we meet again? I won’t say anything. I promise.
“Absolutely” Jack said. They stepped into the light then parted.