The Funnies

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“Dad’s dead,” said my brother, as if it were my fault. This was Bobby, five years my elder, who once tried to make me drink a bottle of aftershave I had stolen from him. He was fifteen at the time, and I was ten, and he only stopped when he realized I would vomit the aftershave and everything else onto his bedroom carpet. The last word he’d spoken to me, during our last phone conversation a couple of years ago, was fine, followed by the climactic silence of an abrupt hang-up. Now, with the telephone receiver in one hand and a backgammon dice cup in the other, I might have welcomed a nice, clean disconnection. Instead the silence was filled with Bobby’s measured breaths, rustling mintily in my ear.

I said, “What?”

“Heart attack. In his studio. There’s a funeral tomorrow.”

I said, “Jesus, when?”

“I just said, tomorrow.”

“No, I mean…”

A crisp tsk reached me, barely perceptible. “Last night. He passed away last night. Bitty’s already here, Rose is coming in the morning.”

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