At 18 Archer Street, I was elated, but tempered by sadness.
Clay was packing his bag.
For a while, we stood together, out on the old back porch, and Rosy was down on the couch. She slept on the ball-less beanbag, which we’d thrown, all worn, on top of it.
Achilles was under the clothesline.
He chewed his way into mourning.
* * *
—
We stood till the sky had paled into view, and soon the perfection of brothers, who said nothing but knew he was going.
See, when Clay told us there was one more
thing to do, and that Tommy should get the turpentine, but no matches, we all walked silently out. We walked to The Surrounds.
We stood with the household monuments:
Their distance and downtroddenness.
We walked to the mattress and stayed with him, and said nothing of the plastic sheet; no, all we did was stand, as the lighter came out of his pocket. In the other he still had the peg.
We stood till Tommy doused it, and the flame stood straightly upwards. Clay crouched down with the lighter, and first the bed resisted, but soon came roaring on. That sound, the sound of surf.
The field lit up.
The five of us stood.
Five boys and a burning mattress.
* * *
—
When we went back inside, The Surrounds remained.
There hadn’t been close to a westerly.
He’d go alone to Central Station.
He hugged each of us warmly, and separate.
After Tommy he finished with me—and both of us told him to wait, at different moments—and me, I lifted the piano lid, and reached through the dress for its button. The books, I could tell, should wait.
He held it, the button from Vienna.
She was back in the grip of decision.
It was worn but pristine in his palm.
* * *
—
As for Tommy, it was close to ten minutes after, when the rest of us stood on the porch, and watched Clay walk away, and he did something utterly crazy: