* * *
—
It was morning, summer and humid, and when they made it to the maternity ward, Penny was shouting, still walking, and his head was starting to crown. He was very nearly torn rather than born, as if the air had reefed him out.
In the delivery room, there was a lot of blood.
It was splayed on the floor like murder.
As for the boy, he lay in the muggy atmosphere, and was strangely, quietly, smiling; his bloodcurdled face dead silent. When an unsuspecting nurse came in, she stood openmouthed and blaspheming. She stopped and said, “Jesus Christ.”
It was our mother, all dizzy, who replied.
“I hope not,” she said, and our father still grinned. “We know what we did to Him.”
* * *
—
As a boy, as I said, he was the best of us.
To our parents, in particular, he was the special one, I’m sure of it, for he rarely fought, hardly cried, and loved everything they spoke of and told him. Night for night, while the rest of us made excuses, Clay would help with the dishes, as a trade for one more story. To Penny he’d say, “Can you tell me about Vienna again, and all those bunk beds? Or what about this one?” His face was in the dinner plates, the suds across his thumbs. “Can you tell me about the statue of Stalin? And who was Stalin anyway?”
To Michael he’d say, “Can you tell me all about Moon, Dad, and the snake?”
He was always in the kitchen, while the rest of us watched TV, or fought in the lounge or the hallway.
* * *
—
Of course, as things go, though, our parents were also editors:
The stories were almost-everythings.
Penny didn’t tell him yet how long they spent on a garage floor, to beat, to blow and burn themselves, to exorcise past lives. Michael didn’t talk of Abbey Hanley, who became Abbey Dunbar, then Abbey Someone-Else. He didn’t tell him about burying the old TW, or of The Quarryman, or how once he’d loved to paint. He’d said nothing yet about heartbreak, or how lucky heartbreak could be.
No, for now, most-of-truths were enough.
It was enough for Michael to say he was on the porch one day and met a woman out front with a piano. “If it wasn’t for that,” he’d solemnly explain, “I wouldn’t have you or your brothers—”
“Or Penelope.”
Michael smiled and said, “Damn right.”
What neither of them could know was that Clay would hear the stories in their entireties, not long before it was too late.
Her smile would be hoisted up by then.
Her face would be in decay.
* * *
—
As you might imagine, his first memories were only vague, of two particular things:
Our parents, his brothers.