“Do you think he’ll show up?” Sam said to Nick as he leaned forward and pried at the knot of his tie.
“I wouldn’t bet either way,” Nick said.
“But he’d love to see us betting on him,” Sam said and cackled.
“Who?” I said.
It was fifteen ‘till. The two skinny brothers sat in white plastic chairs. I had just arrived and stood in front of them on gravel near the side entrance to Hillside Church.
“Did you never meet Zeke?” Sam said.
“Only heard Dan talk about him,” I said. “He shook his head when he said Zeke’s name.”
“But sure as shit he was smiling, wasn’t he?” Sam said.
“Sure,” Nick said, who massaged ashoulder with one hand and held a cigarette to his lips with the other. He aimed his sun-battered face down the empty drive. “And Dan didn’t smile so often.”
“But you could count on Dan,” Sam said.
“Without Dan, there’s no Zeke.”
“They balanced each other.”
“Zeke balanced Dan and Dan picked up Zeke’s balances.”
They found this quite funny. Sam slapped his chest and Nick dropped the back of his head against the top of his chair.
“Brothers talking about brothers,” I said. “You would understand.”
They squinted at me at me with curious expressions and blinked their eyes. They looked down the drive as if this were the perfect time for the expected to make an appearance. Tires stirred dust and crunched gravel, but cars parked and revealed passengers who were not Zeke.
“Dan would say to Zeke, ‘I can’t bail you out forever,’” Sam said. “Zeke would smile as if to say, but I bet you could.”
“But I guess he can’t,” Nick said.
“No, he can’t. That’s for certain.”
I’d known Dan for a year, met him my second day on the job at Pride Property Management. He was the corporate facilities manager. He’d been there fifteen years, had climbed reliably to the middle of a short ladder. We hit it off in a this-person-thinks-like-me kind of way. I last saw him two days before he jumped in the McKenzie River to rescue a flailing nine-year-old boy. The kid made it out. Dan did not.
“So one time,” Sam said and tried to rock his chair, then realized what he was sitting on. “So one time, we were in our early twenties, less than fifteen years ago.” He paused as if he expected me to say something like, fifteen years, but you look so young. But I nodded and he continued. “Zeke was in town for the weekend. Just showed up out of nowhere. Had been in California, I think, or was it Vegas? Playing poker, he said. Remember how he called himself a professional poker player?”
“Never knew if he was serious,” Nick said.
“He had this look to tell you that what he was saying might not be true,” Sam said.
“Poker could have been a cover for something more sinister.”
“Or more ordinary.”
“Sure.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted to look normal.”
“Not to us.”
“He had a reputation to uphold.”
Nick inhaled and blew smoke into the air above us. He tapped the ash off his cigarette and said, “I used to imagine that he’d come back into town with millions of dollars and …”
“Set us all up?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Nick tilted his head. “To save us somehow.”
“I know the feeling.”
“But anyway,” Nick said, “he’d call us all on Thursday to—”
“To warn us.”
“Sure.”
“And then sometime on Friday—”
“It could be noon—”
“It could be evening—”
“He’d show up at one of our houses. The age of cell phones had begun—”
“But he’d show up at one of our apartments unannounced.” Sam stood up, looked away from the church down the hill, re-tucked his shirt, then sat back down.
“He always had a plan,” Nick said.
“But he gave no hints before.”
“He didn’t ask for our input—”
“Or our permission—”
“But he’d give us a one- or two-day heads up—”
“To mentally prepare.”
“Sure. To physically prepare.”
“To spiritually—”
“We’d find ways to get work off early.”
“Just in case it was a pre-five-O’clock starter.”
“He’d show up at one of our places.”
“He’d tell whoever it was the plan.”
“Then we’d head over to someone else’s house.”
“Until the whole crew, which would, you know, change from time to time—”
“But the core remained.”
“Yes, and Zeke was at the core’s core.”
“Sure. Yes.”
“We went four-wheeling, we went shooting, we went to house parties and bars, the occasional strip club, we went to a Dave Matthews concert at the Gorge.”
“You said ‘one time,’” I said, “like you were going to tell a—”
“A thing about Zeke—he didn’t speak that often.” Nick sucked on his cigarette. “But he smiled a lot.”
“He communicated in smiles.”
“He had a hundred of them and each one meant something different.”
“And when he used one on you, he was looking into your soul, you know, that’s what it felt like.”
The door to the church opened and we turned. Dan and Zeke’s older sister, whom I’d met once and liked,looked at the brothers and said, “Time to go, boys.” Her voice cracked and to keep from crying, it seemed, she took a deep breath. “Starting in five minutes.” The brothers nodded and the sister retreated.
“You said, ‘One time,’” I said. “What—”
“Right. Yes.” Sam laughed. “I was going to tell the story of the house fire.”
“Which Zeke started—”
“Accidentally.”
“Sure.”
“Zeke got ahold of some vacant house out in rural Cottage Grove.”
“Cottage Grove is naturally rural.”
“Some parts are more rural than others.”
“Sure.”
“The short of is it that we had a wild party.”
“At some random house.”
“It started with a little coke and a lot of liquor.”
“It ended with Zeke running out of the garage—”
“The house going up behind him—”
“And he’s got this big grin.”
“And hung over his shoulder is a half-naked blonde—”
“Brunette.”
Sam frowned and tugged at the tie that stopped a couple inches above his belt. “Sure?”
“Sure.”
“I still don’t know whose house it was.”
“I’ll bet Dan does.”
“Did.”
“Did.”
“Why did Dan know?” I said.
“He would have paid something to whoever’s it was,” Sam said.
“Wouldn’t Zeke have paid?” I said.
“Oh, no.” Sam said. “Not likely.”
Nick shook his head in affirmation.
“He’d be out of reach when it was time to settle accounts,” Sam said.
“We all have our strengths and weaknesses.”
“Was Dan there?” I said. “At the party?”
The brothers looked at each other. “Not sure,” Sam said.
“Probably not,” Nick said.
The silence that followed seemed fitting. The brothers looked down the hill. There were no more cars en route.
“I wish he was here,” Sam said.
The older sister stuck her head out again and the skin around her eyes was pink and swollen. She did not open her mouth, but if her expression could speak it would have said something like, The party’s over. Get your sorry asses in here. As we slumped toward the stricken lady, I could not help but wonder, for whom had she been crying?