Sammy closed the door, turned the deadbolt. “So what can I do for you guys?”
“I apologize for hanging up so abruptly last night,” Donald said, “I was just—well—at any rate, we thought we’d stop by and see if there was anything we could do.”
“Appreciate that,” he said. “I wanted to call one of you guys but I didn’t know your numbers or nothing, so I figured you’d get a hold of me eventually. There really ain’t nothing left to be done.” He looked into the den. His wife had joined the girls there, and all three seemed preoccupied with the TV. “Like I told you last night,” he continued, “they buried him across town in one of the plots the state puts aside for people who can’t pay. He ain’t got no stone or nothing, but if you go to the office the cemetery workers can show you where he’s at. I feel bad about it and all, I mean I wish I could’ve done more but you guys know how it is. I work two jobs, my old lady works; we got two kids, rent; the car. Money only goes so far every month and funerals are expensive.”
“No,” Donald said, “please don’t think you have to explain any of this to us, we understand completely. I’m only sorry we couldn’t have helped.”
Sammy folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “To be honest, I figured the military would take care of everything. If a guy’s a veteran and dies broke they cover the funeral and burial costs—all of it.”
“Bernard was in the Marines for a year before he got hurt,” I said.
“That was bullshit.”
We all stood there silently, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Bernard lied,” he finally said. “They got no record of him. He was never a Marine.”
“How could that be?” I looked to the others for some sort of confirmation. “He joined up right after we graduated from high school.”
“That’s what he told you guys but it never really happened.”
“So how’d he hurt his knee?” Rick asked. “He said he lost his balance on a training platform, wrecked his knee and that’s why he got the early discharge.”
“He went somewhere for a year,” I said.
“Well it wasn’t the Marines.” Sammy shrugged. “It’s nuts, I know. I was confused when they told me too. I mean, Bernard always claimed he’d been a Marine, and hey, I don’t mean to disrespect the dead or nothing, but it just wasn’t true—that simple. To be honest, we weren’t all that close. You guys probably knew him a hell of a lot better than we did. Our family is so small, there ain’t many of us left, and I felt bad for Bernard because he didn’t really have anybody, no wife or girlfriend or nothing. It was kind of sad the way he always lived at home, you know? And when Aunt Linda died he was never the same. Bernard was a strange guy, kind of secretive, and lots of times I was never sure if he was telling the truth or not. He had problems, you guys know what I mean.”
I suddenly wondered if we did.
“When he lost his job things got bad, and by the time the bank took the house he was a mess. Like I say, we weren’t never that close, but he was family, and he was being put out on the street, what could I do? He asked if I’d put him up until he got back on his feet, so I let him move into the cellar.” His eyes again shifted to the den before returning to us. “If I’d known what he was gonna do I never would’ve… I mean, what if one of my kids had found him, you know what I’m saying? Christ.”
“Well,” Donald said, “we just wanted to stop by to see if there was anything we could do.”
“That’s real nice of you guys, but it’s over and done with and I just want to move on, you know? The girls,” he said softly, “they don’t even know he died here. It’s bad enough my old lady knows, still freaks her out. Me too, but what can you do?”
“Did Bernard leave anything behind?” Rick asked suddenly.
Sammy looked at him without bothering to mask his suspicion. “How do you mean? He didn’t have no money if that’s what you’re asking. I already told you he was broke.”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Rick answered. “I didn’t mean money, I was just wondering—”
“The only thing was his car, that old Buick he had, and a duffel bag he had his stuff in when he moved in. The car I sold to a guy at work. Didn’t get much, it was a piece of shit, but it paid for the suit they buried him in anyway. The duffel bag I went through the day after he died but there wasn’t no cash in it. Had all of two bucks in his wallet. I didn’t charge him no rent or nothing, but we’d have him up for dinner when he was around, which wasn’t that much. Still, he needed money for gas and shit, and toward the end he was totally broke. He hit me up a couple times, twenty here, ten there, but I ain’t exactly a bank, right? I got bills.” Sammy turned back to Donald, the pissing contest with Rick apparently over for the moment. “Why, you guys looking for something?”
“No,” Donald said, “we just thought there might be some personal mementos he left behind. None of us have anything of Bernard’s and sometimes it’s nice to have—”
“I know what you mean.” Sammy’s eyes shifted between the three of us, lingered on Rick the longest then returned to Donald. “The duffel bag is still downstairs. I been meaning to run it over to the Salvation Army bin but I haven’t had the chance. You guys can go through it if you want. Ain’t nothing special, some clothes and stuff, that’s about it, but if there’s any of that shit you want—whatever—you know, you’re welcome to it.”
Even as he moved to the door I knew he didn’t plan to simply go into the basement and retrieve the bag. Something in his eyes, in the way he sauntered to the door and hesitated, the knob in his hand, told me we’d be accompanying him into the cellar.
“Come on,” he said, “it’s down here.”
The door opened and I forced a swallow. Donald glanced at me; he was on the verge of a major panic. I looked to Rick. He offered a quick wink and moved to the front of the line, but I could see through his cavalier routine, he was just as uncomfortable—if not more so—than Donald and I were. Yet like he so often did, Rick led the way, stepping through the doorway, old stairs creaking beneath his weight as he disappeared into darkness.
A musty odor filled my nostrils before I’d reached the bottom. Sammy flipped a switch from somewhere behind me, and the small section of basement Bernard had converted to a living area appeared. There was no fixture, only a single but powerful light bulb at the end of a thick wire dangling directly from the ceiling. Once we reached the bottom of the stairs I realized that the cellar had been divided into two separate areas. Directly in front of us another door stood closed, concealing what was undoubtedly the larger of the two areas.
Sammy was the last one down the stairs, but hesitated at the foot, bent forward and pointed to an old cot against the far cinderblock wall. “Bernard stayed there,” he said, his voice distorted and unfamiliar as it bounced along the tomb-like cement cell. “We use the rest of the basement for storage.”
At the head of the cot was a makeshift nightstand fashioned from a cranberry crate turned on end. The blankets he must have used were folded neatly at the foot, and as my eyes panned across the tiny cellar, I ignored the beams overhead and instead focused on the lone small window I had seen outside. The idea of living in these cramped and dingy quarters for any amount of time was nearly beyond belief, but nothing indicating the remnants of life resided here. It looked and felt and smelled like death, like a dungeon of sorts, a chamber where one might be sent to wither away and die, and that’s exactly what Bernard had done. Yet I had no specific sense of him here, no trace of his or anyone else’s presence, as if he’d never really been there at all, or perhaps it was this place itself that was void of even the echo of anything alive or vibrant.