Our Little Cruelties Page 8

  I was in the office when Mum rang to tell me to turn on the radio. And then we put the TV on in the boardroom in time to see the second tower fall. Mum had been anxious on the phone. She had been trying Luke’s mobile number, but there was no answer. I guessed he was going to be fine. I told her to wait twenty-four hours for him to call back before panicking. I dropped him an email telling him to get in touch with Mum. The office had come to a standstill as we all downed tools, staring at the television as the news unfolded. Mary Cullen, the new office junior, started to cry. The phones rang constantly: ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Have you seen the news?’ ‘Isn’t your brother over there?’ Everyone knew someone in New York.

  Gerald and I had planned to take Mary for a welcome drink – it was the end of her second day in the office – but Susan rang me and begged me to come home.

  Brian was there when I got home, playing in the garden with Daisy.

  ‘I told him to distract her,’ said Susan. ‘I don’t want her seeing this stuff.’

  She was staring at the television, a large glass of wine in hand, but I could see tears had dried on her face where her mascara had run. I held her tightly.

  ‘What about Luke?’ she asked me. ‘Your mom has called three times.’

  ‘Christ, you know what he’s like. He’s probably holed up in some studio in Brooklyn, completely unaware of what’s going on.’

  ‘Will, there can’t be anyone in America who doesn’t know about this! They’re saying this is orchestrated terrorism. Aren’t you worried about him?’

  Daisy came barrelling into the sitting room and torpedoed me in the stomach with her head, winding me.

  ‘Daisy, you’re too old to be doing that!’ I shouted at her.

  Brian stood behind her. ‘William,’ he said, ‘she’s only a kid,’ and before I could point out that she was my kid and what the hell was he doing here anyway, he asked, ‘Did Luke get in touch yet? Mum’s on her way over here.’

  Our house was always Grand Central when there was a family situation. Brian lived in a grotty one-bed flat, and nobody ever wanted to go to Mum’s house, except when we were forced to for Sunday lunch.

  I poured a glass of wine for myself, and then, conciliatory, one for Brian, but I continued to ignore him just the same. I crouched down beside a trembling-lipped Daisy. ‘I’m sorry, baby, you just gave Daddy a bit of a fright, that’s all. Can you go and get into your pyjamas? Granny is coming over and the grown-ups need to chat about boring things.’ She whined a little and tried to sit on Susan’s lap. Brian agreed to take her up and read her a story, and once again I prided myself on choosing the best possible person to be Daisy’s godfather.

  I wasn’t alarmed by the fact that Luke hadn’t rung back or that we couldn’t get through to his phone. Half the planet was calling New York to check on their relatives, as I explained to Mum when she arrived, grim-faced. ‘If he’s okay and he hasn’t bothered to get in touch, I don’t even want to see him again. He’s always been so selfish.’ This was the only time in my life I remembered Mum being genuinely concerned about Luke, but even then, she was mean about it.

  ‘The phone networks are probably down,’ said Susan. She went to buy more wine. It was going to be a long night.

  When he came downstairs, Brian had to admit that Luke hadn’t told him he was going to New York two months earlier. And he didn’t know anything about the contacts Luke had there.

  ‘You’re a pretty shit manager, aren’t you, Brian?’ I said.

  Two days later, we had called every single person we knew who had any connection to Luke, musical or otherwise. Nobody had ever heard of Sharky D. Pulling every string he could, Brian had tracked down someone who worked for the Beastie Boys management company. She had never heard of Sharky D either. We had called every hospital in New York and been in daily contact with the Irish consulate there.

  By Thursday afternoon, I knew something was wrong but suspected that whatever it might be was unconnected to the terrorist attacks.

  My old school pal Steve was relatively high up in the Bank of Ireland credit card department and was able to pull Luke’s card details for me. Steve had done economics in college and become a supercilious twat since our schooldays, but he was grovellingly glad to hear from me. I was already a name in the fledgling film business in Dublin at that time.

  ‘Sorry, Will, but this is kind of embarrassing. His credit card is at its limit –’

  ‘I don’t care about that, Steve, can you tell me where his card was last used?’

  ‘Yeah, it was in Walgreens. It’s a pharmacy on 58th Street. He spent –’

  ‘I don’t give a shit how much he spent, what day did he spend it?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘So he’s alive? I’m going to kill him. My mother is climbing the walls.’

  ‘He seems to be paying a property leasing company on the credit card too.’

  ‘Can you tell which one?’

  ‘ReMax. Only the biggest one in New York. Hold on and I’ll see if I can get the particular branch.’

  Steve was pretty useful.

  I rang the ReMax branch in New York and got an automated call system. I couldn’t get through to an operator until after midnight and, when I did, he refused to give out my brother’s address but told me it was a small studio apartment. There was no phone number registered to that studio, he said. I tried to keep my temper and explained the situation.

  ‘Sorry, sir, but rules is rules and we got to stick by ’em.’

  I lied then and said my mother was dying. I asked if he would leave a message at the apartment to ask my brother to call home.

  ‘I only answer the phones here, sir, I don’t make no house calls.’

  ‘But don’t you see this is an emergency situation?’

  ‘Sir, with all due respect, you don’t need to be calling New York about no emergency situation. We is an emergency situation.’

  I begged, offered him money, but he said he could only do that for me if I was right there in front of him with cash. I hung up.

  Brian had picked up the pieces of Luke the last time he had crashed and burned, and I assumed that Brian would do it again. He was good at that stuff. And it was now his actual job. I could usually pay my way out of a situation or call in a favour, but Brian was good at the hands-on, touchy-feely vibe. Mum was insisting that one of us had to go and bring Luke home.

  ‘People will think I don’t care about my own son if I can’t even tell them where he is!’

  I told Brian I’d pay for his air fare and hotel in New York.

  ‘I think this is your turn, Will.’

  ‘What? I can’t take the time off work. I’m busy. You’re just a –’

  ‘Just a what? Just a teacher? I’m fed up with you slagging off my job. I have school, Will. I’m busy.’

  ‘Come on, Brian, you know how to talk to him, how to deal with him –’

  ‘Well, isn’t it time you learned?’

  ‘Look, Daisy has just started in a new school, I don’t want to be away –’

  He called me on my bullshit straight away. ‘You were away on some junket when Daisy was born, you missed her last birthday party because you were invited to lunch by some Goldman Sachs lawyer. Do not use Daisy as your excuse.’

  I turned tack. Appealed to his better nature.

  ‘Brian, come on, he listens to you. I’ve barely had a conversation with him in a year. I wouldn’t know what to do.’

  ‘Come with me, then.’

  Mum interrupted. ‘That’s it, the two of you should go together.’ Brian looked to Susan. She nodded. There was no point in arguing with Susan and Mum.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. We agreed that we would go as soon as possible.

  We flew to New York five days later, on the first New York flight out of Dublin. The previous day, Brian got in touch with Luke’s psychiatrist and she suggested that we waste no time in getting to Luke. We were pretty sure Luke wouldn’t have health insurance there, so she kindly gave
Brian a prescription in his name for sedatives. Totally unethical, but she had treated Luke before, she knew how manic his episodes could be, and she knew we might have to ‘subdue’ him to get him on a plane home.

  Everyone on the flight over was very quiet. There were people in tears and some, I suspected, were going to claim what remained of their loved ones or to bring injured relatives home. I wasn’t sure what we would bring home or if he would come home at all.

  The taxi driver from JFK told us he was Syrian, a Muslim. ‘The people who did that, they do not represent me or my family or anyone I know. My neighbour’s nephew was in the second tower. He didn’t make it out.’ When we got to Fitzpatrick’s Hotel I tipped the driver generously and shook his hand. I wanted to go for a nap and get some food before we went looking for Luke, but Brian was in charge of this expedition. He allowed twenty minutes for a shower.

  We walked to the nearest ReMax location, presented our ID and explained our story to a stunning-looking girl behind a desk. She was extremely sympathetic and, unlike the guy I’d talked to on the phone, had no problem offering up Luke’s address. I tried to tip her, but she wouldn’t take the money. I took a chance and asked for her phone number. She was embarrassed and pointed to her wedding ring. I wrote down my mobile number on a Post-it and passed it to her. She just stared at me. Brian stepped in and pulled me out of the office.

  On the street, he started shouting at me. ‘We are not here for a fucking holiday so that you can pick up women. We are here to find Luke, assess his situation and bring him home if that’s what he needs. You are such a wanker! A married wanker!’

  I was enraged. Luke had been shopping in Walgreens. He was fine. This was no longer an emergency. But Brian had to be the good guy. Boring, broke and single.

  ‘Yeah, I’m the married wanker who’s paying for us to be here, who paid for your rent for the last two months and who introduced you to the headmaster who’s given you a job, as a favour to me, so until you can pay your own way in the world, don’t act the martyr.’

  We hailed a cab and gave the driver an address in East Harlem. Brian stared out of the window. I studied the street map in silence. Brian could harbour grudges for weeks. I tended to blow up and down quickly. After a few minutes, I started to point out landmarks on our way uptown. Brian was clenching and unclenching his hands, trying to calm down. ‘Harlem is a fairly rough area. Why isn’t he staying somewhere better?’ I said.

  The taxi pulled up outside a brownstone building. The Latino driver, who had clearly sensed the tension between us, turned down his radio, turned round and spoke softly: ‘You boys should get out of here afore dark, you hear me? You’re screaming for a mugging up here.’

  The street was strewn with litter and some broken glass. Feral children roamed in small gangs and looked at us with suspicion.

  ‘Is you cops?’ said one kid, the bravest of the bunch.

  ‘No, we’re Irish,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, all cops is Irish,’ said another urchin and I felt something buzz straight past my ear and hit the wall behind me.

  ‘We’re not cops, we’re just here to see our brother,’ Brian said in a friendly tone.

  We trudged up the front steps of the building.

  The brave kid spoke again. ‘Is your brother Jesus?’ We ignored him this time.

  The buzzers had names attached to them, but no Luke Drumm, or anything like it. There was, however, a childish drawing of a whale, or perhaps a shark, beside the bottom bell.

  ‘Sharky D?’ I wondered.

  ‘Why is Luke paying Sharky D’s rent?’

  ‘Because Luke is Sharky D?’

  I leaned on the buzzer. We waited. Nothing. Pressed the buzzer again. It was mid-afternoon. The children lost interest in us and wheeled away on skateboards. Two old ladies sat on a stoop a few doors down. We heard familiar footsteps behind the door, and then there was the sound of at least four locks and bolts being opened.

  Luke pulled back the door. The first thing I noticed was how thin he was. When he was on medication after the first breakdown, he’d ballooned in weight, then after he’d stabilized he’d gone back to being just slightly hefty around the face and belly. Now, though, his cheeks were hollow. His hair was long and he had a full beard. No wonder the kids called him Jesus. He wore a filthy Grateful Dead T-shirt, a pair of stonewashed jeans and the Adidas trainers I’d bought him for Christmas. No laces.

  It took him a few seconds of squinting before he adjusted to the daylight and recognized us. His face lit up.

  ‘Brian! Will! I knew you’d come. I knew it. What are you doing here?’ He slurred his words but did not seem manic. He smiled beatifically. I wanted to punch him.

  Brian hugged him tight. I quelled my annoyance.

  ‘So here you are! Did you not think of ringing –’

  Brian interrupted. ‘Well, can we come in? See where you’re living?’

  Luke stood back and we entered a dim hallway that smelled of cat and/or human piss.

  ‘Christ, what are you doing living in this dump?’

  He pushed through a door in the hallway. His living quarters were essentially one room. That much I could tell before I tugged back the tattered curtains to let the light in. There was a stained sink in the corner, an electric stove, a mattress on the floor, a heap of musty-smelling laundry, one chair, a hi-fi system, a shelf full of mostly comics and Dostoevsky, a lava lamp, an acoustic guitar, overflowing ashtrays, dirty takeaway containers and empty beer cans. Brian pulled his T-shirt up over his nose and Luke spoke nervously: ‘Well, if I’d known you guys were coming, I’d have tidied up, you know. Like, this is a surprise.’

  ‘Let’s go out and get some food or a drink?’ I suggested as if everything was normal. I wanted to get out of this fleapit. Brian and Luke agreed enthusiastically.

  A taxi ride took us to Rosie O’Grady’s in midtown. On the journey, Luke admitted with a degree of excitement that he was in fact Sharky D and that he was working on some new material.

  ‘In a recording studio? What’s the Beastie Boys connection?’

  ‘Oh well, I’m working on my own really. I just said that about the Beastie Boys to the papers at home so they might take me seriously, you know?’

  ‘But, Luke, you don’t have any recording equipment in that hovel you call a home.’

  I wasn’t going to let this bullshit go unchallenged. Brian was more concerned about Luke’s mental state. ‘Luke, are you taking your meds?’

  Luke looked hurt, as if we’d accused him of theft. ‘Yes, I am. I know it looks strange to you, but I’ve made some changes in my life, like, real positive changes, and I’ve just stripped away all the irrelevant stuff, you know? The house in Dublin, I handed it over to a few friends.’

  ‘You what?’

  The taxi stopped and we bailed out on to the sidewalk. Luke ran to a convenience store to get cigarettes. Brian muttered to me, ‘Wait until we’re inside, we’ve got to get some food into him. This house business is probably fantasy. He wouldn’t even know how to give away a house.’

  ‘He sounds fairly normal to me, I mean, not what he’s saying, but the way he’s saying it.’

  ‘Yeah, but his voice is slurred and there could be other factors. Just stay calm, okay?’

  I threw my eyes to heaven.

  ‘Okay?’ said Brian again. I nodded.

  In the restaurant, I ordered three beers while we looked at the menu.

  ‘Should you be drinking with the medication?’ asked Brian.

  Luke deflected the question. ‘Hey, where is everyone?’ he said as he looked around the near-empty restaurant ‘There were very few people on the streets the last few days.’

  ‘Luke, you did hear about the Twin Towers, right?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I forgot! Wow, that was amazing, wasn’t it?’

  Brian and I looked at each other.

  ‘Amazing? It was an atrocity. We don’t even know how many people are dead yet, it could be six thousand. Why do you think we came? W
e thought you might have been … affected.’ Brian chose his words carefully.

  ‘I saw it on the TV though, it was beautiful! The fall of capitalism.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Luke, have you even read a newspaper? It was a terrorist attack. The city is in shock. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘Yeah, what a bummer about all those dead people. Like, I’m really sorry for their families, but just the way those towers fell …’

  ‘They didn’t fall. Suicide bombers flew passenger planes into them. There has never been anything this horrific in history, and you’re talking about aesthetics?’

  Brian kicked me under the table.

  Luke looked ashamed. ‘Yeah, sorry, I guess I’ve just made a decision to see the beauty in everything. It’s a life choice, you know?’

  I couldn’t keep silent. ‘There’s nothing beautiful about murder.’ Luke started twitching as if he was being bothered by a fly. I took out my phone and passed it to him. ‘Ring Mum, tell her you’re safe.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I guess I should have called someone, but I threw my phone in the Hudson a month ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I guess I didn’t need it.’

  ‘Call her now,’ I ordered him.

  He went outside with the phone.

  ‘You’re right. He’s not normal,’ I said to Brian.

  ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t seem unhappy either. And he’s not manic.’

  ‘He’s out of his tiny mind and that’s not his first beer today. And what’s this about him handing over the house? Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure he hasn’t just given it to them. Maybe they’re paying rent. Fuck it, I’d love to live there. I could really use a bit more space.’