We Were The Mulvaneys Part 31

This time, though, when Patrick called, and it was late, after 11 P.M. of a weekday, I picked up the phone on the first ring (just happened to be downstairs, in the family rooni switching through TV channels, volume low so Mom upstairs in bed wouldn't hear) and right away he was serious, none of the Pinch-c.r.a.p. First thing he asked was, 'D'you think anyone else is on the line?" and I'm surprised as h.e.l.l, I say, "What? ft7io?"-because it could only be Mom or Dad, as far as Patrick would know. (He couldn't have known that Dad was in Ma.r.s.ena on business, staying the night.) So right away Patrick backs off a little, saying he just wanted to be sure. And there's this beat or two, just silence; I'm holding the receiver to my ear not hearing a thing. I wonder if he's hung up. "Patrick? Is something wrong?"

His voice comes low and mean, like he's angry with me. "There's lots of things wrong."

"You mean-about Dad?"

This is a week after Dad tossed his beer into the judge's face. In front of twelve witnesses in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room of the Mt. Ephraim Country Club. And he'd been arrested, and taken to Mt. Ephraim police headquarters, and booked for a.s.sault and disorderly conduct and resisting arrest (there'd been quite a struggle when police officers came to pick him up). And District Judge Gerald Kirkland isn't going to drop the charges because he's angry as h.e.l.l at my father and we don't know if Dad will be going to jail (he could be put away as long as two years); or if he'll get a suspended sentence and a fine; and if it's a fine, how much. The Monday morning after the arrest there was delivered to Michael Mulvaney Sr. at High Point Farm a certified letter containing a formal notification from the Mt. Ephraim Country Club, signed by each of the Club's twenty trustees, revoking his niembership and by extension "all rights and privileges" of said membership as had been enjoyed by the family of Michael Mulvaney Sr.

The expelled member's annual dues of six hundred dollars, paid in fill for 1978-79, were returned to him in frill, in the same envelope.

As Mom said bitterly, not once but many times What the h.e.l.l do we care!

Now Patrick says these words that shake me up: "I need your help, Judd."

It isn't just the word help that's such a surprise, coming from my brother. It's my name Judd, my real nanle and not Ranger, or kid; as if, serious for once, he's had to break the fanmily code. As if, in this instant, we're equals.

I'm cautious, I wonder if I've heard right. "What kind of help, Patrick?"

He sounds angry, as if I should know. "Executing justice! Taking care of-you know: Lundt. Zachary Lundt. I mean-I'll do it." Patrick speaks carefully but his words seem disconnected, as if he's been drinking. It's the way Dad talks when he's been drinking if he talks to us at all. "I'll be the one. But I need your help. Judd?"

"Y-Yes?"

"Dad's still got his guns?"

"His guns?"

"Or Mike? That.22 of Mike's? Locked in the cabinet-you know?"

I'm holding the phone receiver and I'm starting to sweat. Sick with fear and excitement.

Patrick's saying, "The.22? Could you get it?"

"Get it-?"

"For Christ's sake, Judd, you sound like a parrot." Patrick laughs. It's obvious now, and this scares mne as much as what he's been saying, that he has been drinking. "Oh, s.h.i.t. Never mind."

"Patrick, wait-"

"Forget I called! It's the wrong G.o.dd.a.m.n time. It's-" There's a sound like he's dropped the phone receiver, he's scrambling to pick it up again. "-not the right time, yet. f.u.c.k it."

Next I know he's hung up. And I'mn sitting there on the sofa staring at a corner of the ceiling. My brain numb and empty of all thought as if I've been hit over the head with a sledgehammer.

Three days later, Patrick calls again.

Around suppertime, anyway what used to be suppertime at High Point Farm. But now if it's just Mom and me not knowing for sure when Dad might show up we don't exactly sit down at the table as in the old days because Mom says it makes us nervous, as Mom says it's just as easy to eat standing up or somewhere not the kitchen at all. This is about 6:30 P.M. and the phone rings and Mom answers quick and worried as she does when Dad's out but-it's Patrick!-and I hear her talking with him-talking and laughing-for ten, fifteen minutes! Trying not to eavesdrop, hanging around the kitchen with the dogs and cats nudging their heads against my legs and it's amazing to me how Morn and Patrick seem to be talking, Mom so relaxed telling Patrick about her latest plans for "expanding" High Point Antiques so that she can bring in serious income, now that Dad is negotiating to sell his property in Mt. Ephraim and "relocate" the business in Ma.r.s.ena and of course they'd be selling the farm-"relocating"-maybe Patrick had heard of the Ma.r.s.ena Antique & Flea Market at the fairgrounds there, every weekend in good weather? one of the oldest and largest markets in the Valley? antique dealers and well-to-do customers come from as far away as Rochester, Port Oriskany, Buffalo? And- I can't believe I'm hearing Mom utter such words selling the farm in a rapid stream of words as if they were of no more significance than the other words and all words sheerly air, gesture. As if selling the farm is but the crude expediency for the acquisition of a leased booth at the Ma.r.s.ena Antique & Flea Market. As if selling the farm is already past tense, a kind of history not to be questioned.

When Dad was arrested, booked and arraigned, the PatriotLedger published a picture of him above the headline HIGH POINT FARM REsmDENT ARRESTED FOR " a.s.sAULT" AT COUNTRY CLUB. The article did not appear in the regional news section of the paper but prominently on the front page. Dad's photo was from the paper's file, I guess, showing him in suit and tie at some awards ceremony, the Chamber of Commerce or the Tuscarora Club, mnaybe ten years ago. He looked good, he looked handsome and happy though not smiling broadly, the camera's flash caught in his eyes in that weird way like light reflecting in an animal's eyes in the dark. This, Mom didn't clip and tack up on the bulletin board.

I'd sent a copy to Patrick, at Cornell. Figuring he'd like to know.

So there's Morn chattering about her plans. I'd run away to hide in one of the barns except Mom darts after me, grabs my shirt collar like a mnom on TV. Her face is flushed, eyes bright as neon. "Oh, Ranger! Say h.e.l.lo to P.J.!"

And Patrick says to me, sort of quick and breezy, "So how's it going, kid?" and I shrug as if he can see me, I'm blinking tears out of my eyes I feel so rotten, "O.K., I guess," and Patrick says, "It's really bad there? like Mom says? they're going to sell the farm? you think so?" and I mumble something maybe yes, maybe no, and Patrick says, "The other night, Judd, what I said-" and there's a pause and I'm waiting for him to say forget it please, that was crazy talk but instead I hear him saying, "-I meant it, I'm going to do it, execute justice. I don't know when but-sometime. And I need you, O.K.?" and I'm trying to get my breath, trying to smile, act normal, since Mom's close by at the sink whistling under her breath, "Sure, Patrick. Any time." And Patrick says in his low anxious voice, "Judd, you're the only person I can trust in the world." And I'm saying, stammering, "Well-that's good." And Patrick says, "I just need to get in focus about it. I'm not ready right now. My mind is-not ready, right now." And I say, that sick feeling in my gut, scared but excited, trembling, "O.K., Patrick. I'm your man."

After we hang up Morn says, wiping at her eyes, "Wasn't that nice of your brother to call, Judd! So sweet, and thoughtful. He doesn't know I've been willing him to call all week, in my thoughts-sending him little messages sort of daring him not to call. Have you ever tried that, Judd? It's like prayer in reverse And it works."

THE ACCOMPLICE.

In this way I became, at the age of sixteen, a soph.o.m.ore in high school, an accomplice to my brother Patrick's premeditated crime. I was what you'd call an accessory before the fact and an accessory after the fact. I was what you'd call a co-conspirator. I became an accomplice not at the time of our initial conversation, nor at the time of the second, when Patrick confided in me that I was the only person in the world he could trust!-but in the interim between the conversations. In a trance of several days, day and night. Thinking Whatever he wants I'll do it. If he wants me to pull the trigger myself I'll do it.

I believed I'd always known that Zachary Lundt would have to be punished. I'd thought it would happen the way lightning strikes, that someone would do it-my father, or Mike Jr. I hadn't thought that Patrick would do it, or that I would be involved. Me, Judd! But as soon as Patrick confided in me, I understood that Patrick was the only Mulvaney capable of executing justice in the way it required execution. Not as a sudden, impulsive act of violence, like wildfire springing up to consume us all, but as a coolly premeditated act from which the perpetrator would walk away unscathed. For nothing less than perfect would satisf-, Patrick.

There wasn't an hour in all the hours to come, between my decision in early December 1978 and the "execution" itself in March 1979 that I once thought of not helping Patrick; of backing out, telling him I'd changed my mind, I was scared, or disapproving. I thought It will be dangerous! I thought We could both be hurt! But I never thought No I can't do it, I won't.

My life away from High Point Farm was the dream and my life at High Point Farm and in my thoughts was the real life.

Like, even now, so many years later, I'm at my place of work- in this s.p.a.ce that's designated mine--and I'll glance up, I've maybe forgotten the time if I've been working late, past dark-and I think about going home-home: to High Point Fann

At Mt. Ephraim High, Judd Mulvaney was a quiet, skinny kid with a siy sense of humor. Already, as a soph.o.m.ore, a co-editor of the school newspaper and features editor of the yearbook. Possibly good enough for the junior varsity basketball team but he didn't try out-told the coach he had too many ch.o.r.es to do at home, which was true. His grades were high in some subjects (English, history) and about average in others (math, science). A habit of drifting off at lunchtime, not eating in the cafeteria and maybe not eating at all. A habit of frowning in cla.s.s, running his fingers over hisjaws that were broken out in dull reddened b.u.mps. Brown hair, mud-brown eyes. I guess I wasn't bad-looking for my age but I shrank from being seen. I turned down invitations to parties in town figuring my cla.s.smates, especially the girls, weren't serious-why bother with me? At the same time I was G.o.dd.a.m.ned vain, my heart pounded in rage I wasn't more special, as I deserved. Judson Andrew Mulvaney.

In the foyer of the high school, in the big gla.s.s trophy case that's like a church altar, there was the photograph, still, of "Mule" Mulvaney and his padded-jersey teammates, Tri-County Football Champions 1972. Every one of my teachers remembered Patrick, for sure, and wore inc out asking after him. ("Most brilliant kid I ever taught," Mr. Farolino was forever saying, with a droll shake of his head. "He could be a real pain in the rear, though!")

If my teachers remembered Marianne, they didn't ask after her.

Nor did they ask after Dad and Morn as they'd once done. After Dad's arrest, and the hearing, and the two-year "probation," and a fine of fifteen hundred dollars, and all the stuff in the local papers- not a word. After Mom resigned her P.T.A. office and stopped coming to meetings-not a word.

So I'd want to scream at them. d.a.m.n you all! 1)on't you pity us.

We're the Muivaneys.

It was true, High Point Farm would have to be sold.

Except: at what price? Who would buy? To pay off Dad's debts and keep Mulvaney Roofing afloat, my parents had been selling the property piecemeal, only four acres remained. The house, which Mom spoke of as a "historic monument," and the outbuildings, most of which needed repair.

On a farm, everything needs repair continuously. Buildings, machines, orchards, fences. You can calculate the health of a fanri by its fences. When things start to go bad, fences are the first to show it.

The days were long gone, when Mom would organize a "scout team" of us kids, to tramp the fields checking out the fences, repairing what we could. What we couldn't, Dad would repair. And what Dad couldn't, he'd have done by someone who could.

Now, even the front split-rail fence bordering High Point Farm was falling down in sections. It hadn't been white in years. More the color of damp moldering newsprint, overgrown in a tangle of briars and vines.

The house that was so beautiful in our eyes Wasn't beautiful really. The shutters had begun to sag, the slate roofs needed repair. The pale lavender color Mom loved so wasn't practical for our climate and faded after two or three years. It must have been at least five years since the house had been painted so Mom fretted: how could we hope to sell the house for a decent price if it looked bad on the outside? On the other hand, why spend money and time repairing a house you won't be living in much longer? Could we really afford fifteen to twenty gallons of expensive oil-base paint, the kind required for old, dry wood? And the labor? (Long gone too were the days when Dad would recruit his crew of Mulvaney housepainters, Mike, Patrick, me, and Dad our foreman, and devote six weeks in the summer to radical home improvement.) The orchards needed pruning, the ponds needed dredging. Every one of the farm machines had something wrong with it. The local men Dad hired to help out were unreliable if not dishonest, pilfering hand tools, buckets of grain and seed, even liens' eggs Out of the coop. (Morn swore she'd caught old Zimmerman with broken eggs in his overall pockets, yolks seeping through the denim. Mom said, You can't trust these men, don't leave me alone with these men, they're drinkers, they're wife-beaters, I'm terrified of them. Which wasn't like Corinne Mulvaney who'd never been afraid of anyone in the past, laughed at the notion of locking any door, at any time.

Now she was forever calling, "Judd? Where are you? Is that you? Judd?")

I won't go into the health of the hvestock. If you know farm animals, you know all about that.

hi these desperate months when he was (a fact I wasn't supposed to know) trying to stave off bankruptcy, my father hadn't time for flirni ch.o.r.es; or was impatient to a point just short of mania if he had to do them. He was breathless, panting, angry. His disheveled graying hair like steel wool, carelessly shaved jaws, a glisten at the corners of his mouth like spittle. His clothes were the same sportily stylish clothes he'd always worn but they were rumpled, as if he'd crushed them in his fists, and in need of laundering or dry cleaning. His boots were mud-spattered, his shoes in need of shining. The glamorous almostnew Lincoln he drove was mud-spattered too. I'd hear him start the engine, turning the key in the ignition in some weird way that made a squealing sound as of protest, as if he'd forgotten the rudiments of driving, or was distracted by malevolent thoughts. Once he stormed into the house where I was doing something in the kitchen, tossed his car keys onto the table and said, glaring at me, "Take the pile of s.h.i.t, you're welcome to it." S'ammed upstairs and half hour later slammed down again, looking for the keys, of course, and they were exactly where he'd tossed them onto the table, untouched by inc.

Where always in the past Dad had been courtly to Mom, to the point of embarra.s.sing us kids, now he was indifferent, or rude; or worse. He didn't like her questioning him and grew into the habit of cutting her off in rnidsentence"N o!" he'd say, or "Who wants to know?" Once I saw him shove Mom aside when she'd dated to touch him, just her fingers on his arm. Another time I saw him lean close to her, his boiled-looking face brought to within an inch of her face, and he said something to her in a low, contemptuous voice that made her wince as if he'd kicked her in the stomach. (If I asked Mom afterward what had happened, Morn would say, hurt, "Nothing 'happened.' And I'll thank you not to spy on us, young mans")