Tommy sat in perfect stillness while I counseled him. Sometimes he’d just grit his teeth and stare at the wall, the television, some spot on the ceiling. Sometimes he’d close his eyes and shake his head. And sometimes he’d glare at me, every muscle in his granite body tensed up like he was ready to spring, tear me apart. And when he got that way, I became afraid. Tommy was a physical force, like our father had been. God help any man Tommy turned against.
The summer months wore on. I spent my nights tending bar at a local pub owned by a high school classmate. When I came home from work at 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning, Tommy would still be awake. We’d exchange some small talk, then I’d go to bed while Tommy stayed downstairs, pacing the floor, drinking, watching television, occasionally crying. In early August, Tommy went back to work at the ball-bearing plant. He lasted two days before getting into a fight with his foreman and storming out of the building. Tommy told me what had happened when I got home from work, and I blew my top at him. I told him he had to pull himself together. I urged him to go down to the local recruitment office and resume his long-held plan to make it to the Special Forces.
“You’re falling apart at the seams,” I told him. “You need structure. And with Dad gone, there’s no reason to put off your own dreams any longer. Just take the first step. Stop being self-destructive. You’re beating yourself up for no reason. There’s nothing you could have done.”
Tommy, sitting on the couch, his head in his hands, looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“You’ve always been smart, Mick. Real smart. But you don’t know anything.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I was shouting. I couldn’t bear to see my brother like this. “What’s with all the self-pity? I look at you the past couple months, and I ask myself who is living in my house. I don’t know this guy. He looks like my brother, but he sure as hell doesn’t act like him. Come on. Clean yourself up. Stand up and move forward. Man up, Tommy. Man the fuck up!”
I stormed up the stairs and slammed shut the door to my bedroom. After a few minutes, full of remorse, I walked back down to apologize to Tommy. But he was gone. The front door was wide open, and our dad’s pickup had disappeared from the driveway. Tommy was back on the couch the next night when I came home from work. I tried to apologize, but Tommy brushed me off.
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Leave it alone.”
The following week, the money came in. By the time my father died, huge funds of money had been set aside by the courts to pay out asbestos claims. Some cases went to trial, but most were settled out of court, according to criteria that had been agreed to by the plaintiffs’ attorneys and corporate defense counsel. My father’s case was one that settled. A big factor, I learned, was the “dying deposition” he had given a month before he passed. Dad was videotaped lying in his bed, on oxygen, as he was questioned by his own counsel and then by three lawyers representing the asbestos companies. The ordeal went on for almost two hours, during which our dad, with Tommy sitting next to him and holding his hand, talked about his life, his marriage, his sons, and his illness—coughing, hacking, and choking all the while. I had no idea this ever took place until my father’s lawyer mentioned it to me when he called to say the case had settled. After the call, I asked Tommy about it.
“It was pathetic,” he answered. “Fucking pathetic. I think that was the whole point,” he added bitterly. “But I guess it got the job done.”
I was stunned by the amount of money the case settled for. Even after the 40 percent siphoned off by the lawyers and with the case expenses and medical liens, Tommy and I each ended up with more than $200,000. Enough to pay for law school for me. Enough, it turned out, to fuel Tommy’s sudden flight from whatever demons were tormenting him.
Two weeks after I left for law school, I received a postcard from South Beach. I turned the card over and read Tommy’s scribble: “Sun, sand, and blondes. It doesn’t get any better.” No phone number or address. Six weeks later, just before Thanksgiving, I received another postcard, from Cancún, Mexico. On the back of the card, Tommy had again scratched some vacuous contrivance intended to convince me of what a great time he was having, ending with “Happy Turkey Day, bro.” I figured that was Tommy’s way of saying we weren’t going to get together for the holidays. It was six months before I received the next postcard. This one was from San Francisco, and it featured the zigzagging Lombard Street, billed as the crookedest street in the world. More postcards dribbled in over the next three years, from the redwood parklands in Northern California; the Grand Canyon; ski resorts in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming; and the beaches of Fort Lauderdale and the Bahamas.
It wasn’t until the summer after I’d graduated from law school that I laid eyes again on my brother. I was at our father’s house, meeting with the owner of a small cleaning service I was interviewing. The housekeeper who’d kept the place up was moving, and I had to hire a replacement. The phone rang, and it was Tommy on the other end. He was at the Greyhound bus station downtown and asked if I’d pick him up.
Tommy was waiting on the curb when I pulled up, a small knapsack sitting on the pavement beside him. He was sunburned and bloated, carrying a lot of extra weight. His eyes were bloodshot. He had a week’s worth of whiskers and unkempt hair. When he climbed into the passenger seat, he grinned broadly and shook my hand.
“So, how was law school?” he blurted, his words carrying a not-so-faint aroma of stale beer.
“Interesting,” I replied, trying to hide the coolness I was feeling toward him. “How was . . . the Western hemisphere?”
“Fanfuckintastic.”
“I guess so. Sounds like you jet-setted to the four corners.”
I wanted to add something sharp about coming home on a bus. Tommy’s share of the money from the lawsuit was, obviously, gone.