But of course it was not that boy—he knew it before his heart or his legs knew it. It was the brother, Marky, who he’d seen maybe half a dozen times since those days, usually right here in this garage, the boy blurting out, Heya Mister Burke! as if he had no sense of time, no sense of history. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was the only one.
You could tell him from his brother by the eyes, always the eyes, if that’s all you had to go on: the lights on in there but a different kind of lights. You didn’t say retard anymore; there were other words, though Gordon hadn’t learned them. The boy had not been expected to live, once upon a time, and now here he was—twenty-nine, thirty?—big as a horse and working on a car. That was the thing, that was what threw him, and Gordon said without thinking, “What the hell you doing under there?” As if it was his place and not Wabash’s. As if he’d caught the kid trying to sweat copper in the back room of the Plumbing & Supply, trying to blow himself up and the whole building with him.
The boy grinned and said, “Heya Mister Burke!” and showed him the socket wrench and told him in a burst of Marky-talk, within which Gordon caught just enough English, that he was pulling the pan because the gasket was bad and Jeff had told him to do it… Gordon pinching his eyes shut against the pain the boy’s yammer put into his brain and saying, “Where’s Wabash, Marky? Where’s your boss?” to which the boy gave a big shrug and went on yammering.
“All right, all right,” said Gordon, “where’s Jeff, then?” and as he said it a door squawked open at the far end of the garage and Jeff Goss stepped out, tucking his blue shirt back in, behind him the sound of the refilling toilet tank Gordon himself had installed maybe twenty years ago, Goss looking down as he walked and then looking up and stopping—or almost stopping at the sight of Gordon standing beside the crouched and yammering Marky, and then continuing on toward them. No taller now than he’d been at sixteen, still looking up to look you in the eye. Not the worker Marky’s brother had been—or that Marky had been, for that matter—not even close. But he’d hired the three of them as a set, figuring three boys who were almost like three brothers would be stronger than three who weren’t. That the best of them would shape the other two and bring out something better in all three—or at least something better than had been there otherwise.
And then you wake up one day wishing you’d never set eyes on any one of them. Wishing they’d never been born. That they’d died all together in a car accident at sixteen.
“Hey there, Mr. Burke,” Goss said. Then, to Marky: “Big Man, give it a rest,” and the stream of Marky-talk abruptly stopped, as if by some valve.
“Wabash has got him working on cars now?” Gordon said.
“That ain’t work, Mr. Burke, he’s just draining the oil pan.”
Gordon turned to Marky again, the boy standing hunchbacked under the chassis still, looking from Gordon to Goss and cranking the wrench handle slowly with one hand as he held the socket in the other, as if to raise some tricky bolt from his own fist.
Gordon grunted and said, “Maybe you better tell him that. He thinks he’s pulling the whole goddam pan and changing out the gasket.”
Goss gave a small jerk of the head and put on a smirk. “He tell you that?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Heck. He don’t know himself what he’s saying, Mr. Burke, you know that. He gets going sometimes he just can’t stop—can you, Big Man.” Goss grinning at the boy under the car until Gordon wanted to cuff him one to the back of his head and Marky standing under the old lift like he was just waiting for it to give out and squash him, the dope, and finally Gordon couldn’t stand it and, gesturing at the boy, he said, “Get out from under there already, you dope, you’re making me nervous,” and Marky came out from under the car and stood to his full height, somehow still looking like someone who was worried about cracking his head on something.
Gordon turned once more to Goss and said, “Where’s your boss?” and Goss told him Wabash was out on call with the wrecker, wouldn’t be back until after lunch, and was it something he could help him with? Gordon standing between these two boys, daylight burning, his head pounding… Jeff and Marky waiting, watching as their old boss took his forehead in his hand and shook his head and said, “Son of a bitch.” Then said to Jeff, “It’s the goddam heater,” and turned and walked back toward the office.
Jeff followed, and Marky stood alone by the raised car, still turning the socket in his fist and saying nothing to his old boss, no Good-bye Mister Burke! Because Jeff had given him a look, a face that said you just be quiet Marky, you don’t need to say good-bye to Mister Burke, and he watched them go into the office and then watched them through the bay windows as they crossed the lot toward the van, good old Mr. Burke, who looked mean and talked mean but wasn’t really mean because he let you work for him in the Plumbing Supply when you were just kids, you and Danny and Jeff, and Danny still lived at home, at the old house in town, not the farmhouse, and Poppa had died and this is how you dry-mop a floor Marky, and this is how you wet-mop a floor, Mr. Burke pushing the mops awhile and then handing them to you and patting you two times on the back to get you going, always two times, one two off you go, and here’s how you clean a window and here’s how you keep the supplies neat on the shelves and here’s what you say if a customer asks you something, you say just one second ma’am or just one second sir while I go get Mister Burke or Danny or Jeff, and all the nice people coming into the Plumbing Supply and saying Heya Marky and Danny always there to show you stuff Mr. Burke wouldn’t show you like how to clean the copper fittings and paint them with the little flux brush, stand back now while I light this torch and don’t ever do this without me Marky, I’m serious, this is just for show, and the hissing gas and the scritch-scritch of the sparky thing and then the WOOSH of the flame and see here how you heat up the joint until the copper turns that bright new penny color and the flux starts to bubble in the seam and then you touch the solder to the seam, see how it just kinda sucks into the joint and when you see the solder all the way around the seam you know the joint is filled and you can stop then and that’s how you sweat copper Marky and don’t ever EVER tell Mister Burke I showed you that, you promise, you swear on a monkey’s uncle?
And you never told Mr. Burke anything Danny said not to, not even the time Holly showed you the jewelry she had in a shoebox in her closet and made you swear you wouldn’t tell a soul and Danny said where’d you get all this and Holly said the mall and Danny said you better be careful and she said I am careful dummy, that’s why it’s here and not in the mall, and later after you went home Danny made you promise all over again not to tell anyone about the jewelry and you said but stealing’s bad Danny, and he said I know it is Marky but telling on people is worse, especially your friends, especially after you promised not to, and after that you didn’t want to go upstairs into Holly’s room anymore…
You never told Mr. Burke anything you promised not to, not about sweating copper in the back room or about Holly’s jewelry, but Mr. Burke got mad anyway, Mr. Burke got so mad and so sad and so quiet after Holly went into the river, and then one day after the sheriff came and asked questions you couldn’t go to the Plumbing Supply any more, you or Danny or Jeff, and Holly was dead, and Danny coming home from the cabin without Wyatt, and Danny so mad too and so quiet, and then going away to Saint Louis and to Houston and to Albuquerque and only coming home at Christmas and some years not even that, poor old Wyatt so sad, he doesn’t understand anything you tell him he just looks at you and he looks at the door and he sniffs all around the house looking for Danny and he lies in his bed, Danny’s bed, and he doesn’t want to play anymore and just let him be, Marky, Momma says, he’s old, and he just lies around old and sad and waiting waiting waiting…