Read Online I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Wally Lamb
Tags: Fiction
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That’s always my problem. I let stuff eat away and eat away inside of me and then—bam!—it just explodes. I do it with you, I did it with Ma, with Dessa. Why do you think she left me? Because of my anger, that’s why.”
“You’re like our old TV,” Thomas sighed.
“What?”
“You’re like our old TV. The one that exploded. One minute we were watching a show and the next minute—ka-boom!”
“Ka-boom,” I repeated, softly. For a minute or more, neither of us spoke.
“Do you remember when she came running out of the house that day?” Thomas finally said. He reached over and grabbed the photo album, touched its leather cover. “She was holding this.”
I nodded. “Her coat was smoking. The fire had burned off her eyebrows.”
“She looked just like Agatha.”
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 45
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“Who?”
“Agatha. The saint I prayed to while Ma was sick.” He got up and took his dog-eared book from the bottom drawer of his nightstand. Lives of the Martyred Saints . Flipped through the lurid color paintings of bizarre suffering: the faithful, besieged by hideous demons; afflicted martyrs gazing Heavenward, bleeding from gaping Technicolor wounds. He found Agatha’s full-page illustration and held it up. Dressed in a nun’s habit, she stood serene amidst chaos, holding a tray that bore two women’s breasts. Behind her, a volcano erupted. Snakes fell out of the sky. Her body was outlined in orange flame.
Thomas shuddered twice and began to cry.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s all right. It’s all right.” I reached back for the scrapbook. Opened it. We looked in silence, together.
When Ray had repaired my mother’s broken book, he’d made no effort to restore the loose pages to their proper chronological order.
The result was a book of anachronisms: Instamatic snapshots from the sixties opposite turn-of-the-century studio portraits; time shuffled up and bolted. Here were Thomas and I in front of the Unisphere at the 1964 World’s Fair; Ray in his Navy uniform; Papa in a greased handlebar mustache, arm in arm with his young bride who, later, would drown at Rosemark’s Pond. Though my grandfather had died several months before Thomas and I were born, in Ma’s book we met him face-to-face. Stupidly, carelessly, I had lost Domenico’s dictated story, but my mother had entered the fire and rescued his image.
Thomas unfolded the old newspaper clipping of the two of us in our sailor suits, saluting the camera and flanking Mamie Eisenhower. Despite my sadness, I had to smile at those two bewildered faces.
Thomas told me he had no recollection whatsoever of that day when the Nautilus , America’s first nuclear submarine, eased down the greased ways and into the Thames River to help save the world from Communism. As for me, my memories are fragments—
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WALLY LAMB
sounds and sensations that may have more to do with my mother’s retelling of the story than with any electrical firings in my own brain. What I seem to recall is this: the crack of the water as the flag-draped submarine hits the river, the prickle of orange soda bubbles against my lip, the tickle of Mamie’s mink.
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 47
3
f
When you’re the sane brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your hands—the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet.
And if you’re into both survival of the fittest and being your brother’s keeper—if you’ve promised your dying mother—then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman’s gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the indifference of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the un crazy twin—the guy who beat the biochemical rap.
Five days after my
“You’re like our old TV,” Thomas sighed.
“What?”
“You’re like our old TV. The one that exploded. One minute we were watching a show and the next minute—ka-boom!”
“Ka-boom,” I repeated, softly. For a minute or more, neither of us spoke.
“Do you remember when she came running out of the house that day?” Thomas finally said. He reached over and grabbed the photo album, touched its leather cover. “She was holding this.”
I nodded. “Her coat was smoking. The fire had burned off her eyebrows.”
“She looked just like Agatha.”
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 45
I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE
45
“Who?”
“Agatha. The saint I prayed to while Ma was sick.” He got up and took his dog-eared book from the bottom drawer of his nightstand. Lives of the Martyred Saints . Flipped through the lurid color paintings of bizarre suffering: the faithful, besieged by hideous demons; afflicted martyrs gazing Heavenward, bleeding from gaping Technicolor wounds. He found Agatha’s full-page illustration and held it up. Dressed in a nun’s habit, she stood serene amidst chaos, holding a tray that bore two women’s breasts. Behind her, a volcano erupted. Snakes fell out of the sky. Her body was outlined in orange flame.
Thomas shuddered twice and began to cry.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s all right. It’s all right.” I reached back for the scrapbook. Opened it. We looked in silence, together.
When Ray had repaired my mother’s broken book, he’d made no effort to restore the loose pages to their proper chronological order.
The result was a book of anachronisms: Instamatic snapshots from the sixties opposite turn-of-the-century studio portraits; time shuffled up and bolted. Here were Thomas and I in front of the Unisphere at the 1964 World’s Fair; Ray in his Navy uniform; Papa in a greased handlebar mustache, arm in arm with his young bride who, later, would drown at Rosemark’s Pond. Though my grandfather had died several months before Thomas and I were born, in Ma’s book we met him face-to-face. Stupidly, carelessly, I had lost Domenico’s dictated story, but my mother had entered the fire and rescued his image.
Thomas unfolded the old newspaper clipping of the two of us in our sailor suits, saluting the camera and flanking Mamie Eisenhower. Despite my sadness, I had to smile at those two bewildered faces.
Thomas told me he had no recollection whatsoever of that day when the Nautilus , America’s first nuclear submarine, eased down the greased ways and into the Thames River to help save the world from Communism. As for me, my memories are fragments—
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 46
46
WALLY LAMB
sounds and sensations that may have more to do with my mother’s retelling of the story than with any electrical firings in my own brain. What I seem to recall is this: the crack of the water as the flag-draped submarine hits the river, the prickle of orange soda bubbles against my lip, the tickle of Mamie’s mink.
I Know[001-115] 7/24/02 12:21 PM Page 47
3
f
When you’re the sane brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your hands—the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet.
And if you’re into both survival of the fittest and being your brother’s keeper—if you’ve promised your dying mother—then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman’s gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the indifference of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the un crazy twin—the guy who beat the biochemical rap.
Five days after my
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