Mike and Randy sat under a large magnolia tree in Widow Scoggins’ backyard in Boone, North Carolina, each finishing the last beers in the six-pack by their sides. They forgot how many they had drunk. Mowing grass and trimming bushes made them thirsty, and the widow told them to spend their money any way they wanted, and they always wanted beer.
“I want some more.” Mike belched at the top of his voice and scratched his hairy, muscular belly.
“You rub yourself too much.” Randy eyed his brother. “It ain’t right to rub on your own body like that.”
“Well, what are you gonna to do about it?” Mike sucked on the can, trying to get out the last drops.
“Nothing.” Randy pulled his legs up into his chest and grabbed them with his sinewy arms. “If I fought you, you’d just beat me up.”
“Aww, I wouldn’t beat you up.” Mike laughed. “You’re my brother.”
“But if you did fight me, you could beat me up.” Randy buried his face between his legs. Mike was about six feet tall, broad-shouldered and thick-chested.
Randy was half a head shorter and much thinner. “That ain’t right. I’m older than you. I should be able to beat you up, not you beat me up.”
“You ain’t gettin’ mad at me again, are you?” Mike whined, twisting his face in simplistic despair. “I hate it when you get mad at me and stop talkin’ for days. Please say you’re not mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.” His voice was muffled from between his legs.
“Good.” Mike smiled his big dumb smile again. “What you need is some more beer. Want some more beer?”
“Maybe.” Randy pulled his head up, pursing his thin lips.
“Beer, beer, beer. I love beer.”
“You ain’t supposed to talk like that.” He stood and threw his can into one of the bushes. “The widder don’t like it.”
“Well, the widder ain’t here.”
Thelma Scoggins, widow of a prominent Boone banker, allowed the brothers to sleep in the room over her garage in exchange for doing chores around the house. When they first wandered into town, she tried to locate their parents but to no avail. Then she attempted to enroll them in a local public high school, but they kept getting into fights and being expelled. Finally the school told Mrs. Scoggins they looked older than eighteen so they were too old be in school anyway.
“Besides, we can’t get no more ‘cause we’re out of money,” Randy said.
“Hey,” Mike said, jumping up, “the widder keeps money in her bedroom.”
“What if she catches us? She’ll kick us out. This is the best we ever had.”
“Yeah, the widder is pretty nice,” he said, nodding his full head of tousled hair. “Older than Mama, though.”
“I hate Mama.” Randy hit his brother’s arm. “I told you not to talk about Mama again.”
“That hurt.” Mike rubbed where the fist landed. “I don’t know why you don’t like her. Mama was always nice. She shared her beer.”
“I hate her.” Randy turned away and picked up the shears to head for the garden shed. “She pushed us in the closet when she let those guys get on her.”
“I thought it was funny watching them.”
“Those guys were more important than us.”
“Yeah, but she taught us what people will pay for. That’s helped a lot.”
“We wouldn’t have to know about that if she hadn’t kicked us out.” Randy walked out of the shed. “Just left us on the highway.”
“She couldn’t take care of us no more,” Mike said in defense of their mother. “We were all grown and could take care of ourselves, she said.”
“Other mamas take care of their boys.” He slammed the shed door.
“Don’t get mad.” Mike twisted his face. “I hate it when you get mad.”
“I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Mama.”
“You need a beer.”
“We ain’t got money.”
“The widder won’t know if we take any money.” Mike grabbed Randy’s arm and dragged him in the back door and up the backstairs to Widow Scoggins’s bedroom.
“I don’t want to do this.” He tried to pull back, but his brother was too strong and forced him up the steps. Randy could feel himself becoming angrier, and he did not like it. He knew beer made his head swirl with resentment, but he still had an uncontrollable urge to drink it. He sensed anger growing inside him just thinking about how beer made him act.
“So what if she kicks us out? We can always get more money from somebody.”
“You brag too much. I hate people who brag too much.”
“You worry too much.” Mike burst through the door and headed for her chest of drawers. “She won’t even care. She’s nice.”
“She’s not that nice.” Randy lingered at the door, looking down the dark hallway. “She treats us like we’re puppy dogs. I ain’t no puppy dog.” Anger moved up from his gut, and he wanted to stop it. He wandered into the room and somehow felt comforted by the faded flowered wall paper and wispy lace curtains blowing at the open windows. He went to the widow’s dressing table, covered with yellowed pictures of old people and tiny bottles of colored water. He picked up one of the bottles and sniffed. Anger continued to go down some. Her perfume relaxed him and caused his mouth to curl up into a tiny smile. “This smells nice.”
“What?” Mike was into another drawer.
“This bottle.” He held it up. “It smells nice.”
Loping over, Mike grabbed the bottle from his brother and stuck it up to his nose, shrugged and mumbled, “Yeah, real pretty.”
“It smells like somebody we met once.” Randy furrowed his tanned brow and looked at his brother. “Do you remember who?”
“I don’t know.” Mike put it down and went back to the chest and opened another drawer. “Maybe she got money down here.”
“Flowers.” Randy picked up the bottle again. “It smells like pretty flowers.”
“Dummy.” Mike sniffed in derision as he concentrated on the contents of the drawer. “All that stuff smells like pretty flowers.”
“No, it smells like special flowers. Not all women smell like these flowers.”
“Hey.” Mike laughed and lifted the widow’s underwear. “Look how big these panties are. She must have a really big butt.”
“It was that woman who picked us up in a big black car.” Randy remembered. “She smelled like that. She bought us lots of beer. Her lips were red, like roses.”
“Damn. I ain’t found no money.”
“And she liked me best.” Randy’s dull brown eyes brightened at the memory, and his anger was almost gone. “Other women wanted you, but she really liked me. She wanted me.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t remember how that night ended.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Widow Scoggins appeared in the doorway and stopped abruptly. “What are you boys doing in here?”
“Hey.” Mike turned and laughed. “We want money for beer.”
“You boys know I don’t approve of drinking.”
“You gonna kick us out, ain’t you?” Randy’s dark eyes narrowed. He could feel anger roar back, stronger than ever, more than he could control.
“I can’t very well let you stay now, can I?”
“Who cares?” Mike continued to push clothes around in the drawer.
“We ain’t goin’ to jail again.” Randy walked toward her, with his wiry shoulders hunched forward.
“Why, no, boys.” The widow’s eyes widened. “I won’t call the police.”
“You better not!” Randy clinched his jaw, grabbed her fragile shoulders and shook.
“Randy! Stop now!” she said. “Please my heart!”
“Shut up!” He slapped her hard.
Widow Scoggins staggered backwards into the hall and out of Randy’s grasp. Her eyes glanced behind her at the staircase and the phone on the landing.
“I’m sorry, Randy,” she said in a whisper. “We can forget this whole thing. I can give you more money. That’s no problem. I can go get it now.”
Mike’s head turned toward her, and he smiled. “More money?”
“Yes, boys, I can get you more money.” She hesitated, smiling to try to hide her fear. “You wait right here and ….”
“She’s lyin’,” Randy said, saliva flying from his lips. “She’s a damn liar, just like all the others.”
“No, boys,” she said, backing toward the stairs. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Liar!” Randy lunged at her, hitting her in the chest.
“No!” Widow Scoggins fell backwards, clutching her boney chest as she tumbled down the stairs, landing like a bundle of old rags.
Randy and Mike walked down the stairs to stand over her.
“She’s dead,” Mike said after kneeling and putting his ear to her chest.
“Good. I’m glad she’s dead.” Randy paused. “She was always talkin’ about that surgery she had, bypassing her heart and everything. I think that really killed her. The cops ain’t gonna blame me for her droppin’ dead.”
“Well, there’s only one thing to do.” Mike grabbed her purse, stuck his hand in and pulled out a wad of bills. He grinned and waved it in his brother’s face. “Let’s go get some beer.”
“Okay.” Randy turned for the door. Maybe beer would make his anger go away. It never had made it disappear before, but he still wanted some.
“Don’t that look funny?” Mike pointed at her and laughed.
A stream of blood trickled down the corner of Widow Scoggins’s mouth mixing with her saliva.
***
A baby blue-colored Mercedes passed through an intersection of downtown Boone as Randy and Mike left a convenience store with several six-packs of beer under their arms. The Mercedes’ passenger side window rolled down, and Dr. Leland Lippincott looked out, shaking his white-haired head in disapproval.
“Those young men should be in school.”
“What?” Dr. Harold Lippincott, his son, a compact, tanned middle-aged man, took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at his father.
“I hope you pay more attention to your patients, Harold.” He grunted.
“My attention should be on the road while I’m driving and not on pedestrians,” he replied.
“Hmm.” Dr. Lippincott was silent a moment. “Why on earth a man like Jeremy Blackstone would want to live in a town like this after a lifetime in Boston I have no idea.”
“Appalachian State University offered him a position of professor emeritus and a generous stipend to retire here and lecture several times a year,” Harold explained in a cool deliberate tone. “He’s well respected in North Carolina.”
“He was respected in Massachusetts, and respect in North Carolina is an oxymoron.”
“That type of arrogance is rather old-fashioned, Father,” Harold said.
“Quality is never out of date.” His father wagged his finger. “Don’t forget that.”
“I hope you enjoyed your visit with Dr. Blackstone.” Harold sighed.
“It was pleasant enough.”
“I hope the drive from Morganton to Boone didn’t exhaust you.”
“Just because I’m eighty years old doesn’t mean I’m an invalid.”
“Of course.” Several minutes passed in silence as Harold took surreptitious glances at his father whose wan complexion and dullness in his ice blue eyes belied his bluster. “You’re quiet. Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine, thank you,” Dr. Lippincott replied, looking at his son with condescension. “I don’t understand why any man would do anything as immature as shaving his head.”
“We had this conversation twenty years ago, remember?” Harold smiled.
“It was the night of your medical school graduation. We were in my den, toasting.”
“And I said I was going bald anyway. Shaving gave me an air of distinction.”
“Then you made the grand announcement you wanted to specialize in psychiatry.”
“I wouldn’t have been happy in general practice.”
“I understand that. I’d have been bored if I hadn’t gone into neurosurgery.” His father put his finger to his lips as though choosing his words carefully. “I still think gynecology, obstetrics or allergies would have been more suited to your capabilities.”
Harold gripped the steering wheel, remembering holding a crystal wine goblet in his hand that night many years earlier, contemplating how it was formed with perfection, like his father, and how cold it was, also like his father.
“My counselors believed I had excellent qualifications to be a psychiatrist. I wanted to help people.”
“Help people?” His father without much success restrained a guffaw.
“I graduated top third of my class. I am not stupid.”
“And I was first in mine. Don’t try to compete with me, Harold. I’ll win every time. Your grades showed you took tests well. I know how you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t have a grasp of the intangible workings of the human mind. You’d do fine counting birth pains, that’s tangible.”
“Stop it!” Harold slammed his hand into the steering wheel, causing his car to veer somewhat into another lane. He winced as he heard cars honk.
“I remember you had a similar tizzy fit that night in my den.” The old man sniffed. “You knocked one of your mother’s finest goblets from my hand, shattering it. She said it didn’t bother her, but I know it did.” He grunted in contempt. “Imagine a person who cannot control his own emotions thinking he can make other people control their emotions.”
Harold thought back to that evening and how he dropped to his knees, trying to pick up pieces of glass, but pulled his hand back sharply as he cut himself on the stem’s jagged edge. A drop of blood appeared. In the car, he stared at his hand, trying to find the faded scar.
“Do as you wish,” his father said. “You always have. But mind you, one day you’ll make a fatal mistake in a diagnosis, and you’ll remember what I said.”
“In twenty years I’ve had a successful practice in Manhattan and am now chief resident at the state mental hospital in Morganton and no one has died of a misdiagnosis yet.” Harold breathed in, knowing he should not regress into childhood, allowing his father to chide and lecture.
Several miles went by without a word. Neither man was aware of the distant Appalachian Mountains’ lush green foliage. Dr. Lippincott’s visit was a total disaster. He did not approve of the hospital where his son worked nor of his new young wife and was not hesitant to voice his judgment. Harold looked over at his father whose breathing had become labored. Maybe his father was too old to modify his beliefs. Dr. Lippincott was in his forties when he finally became a father and was too preoccupied saving lives to adapt to the art of nurturing one unexceptional child.
“I’m sorry I forced you to visit me here,” Harold said. “We hadn’t seen each other in several years.”
“Since your mother’s funeral.”
“Anyway, I thought it might be pleasant for you to see your old friend Dr. Blackstone and to see how…” Harold paused, almost choking on his words. “…how well I’m doing at the state hospital. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
***
Later that night, Mike and Randy staggered along the highway, south of Boone, drinking the last of the beer they bought after leaving Widow Scoggins’ house. Mike giggled, but Randy brooded as usual, hugging the almost empty beer carton.
“Man, you ain’t no fun at all.” Mike laughed as he came up behind his brother, grabbed around his waist and lifted Randy off the ground causing him to drop the box.
“Leave me alone.” He struggled to get free.
“No, I ain’t.” Mike continued his hold. “I ain’t lettin’ go until you grin or laugh or do something funny.”
“I said let go.” Randy twisted with such ferocity that both boys lost their balance and tumbled down the embankment into a small stream.
“Okay, that’s something funny.” Mike laughed and released him. “You can go.”
“You stupid dummy.” Randy stood and shook like a drenched dog. “Now what are we gonna to do?”
“Aw, we’ll dry off in an hour or two.”
They trudged back up to the road.
“Where are we going to sleep?” Randy picked up the beer carton and hunched his shoulders as he walked away from his brother. “We ain’t got no beds now. And no clean clothes. And tomorrow mornin’, how are we gonna eat?”
“Don’t blame me.” Mike ran to catch up with him. “You killed the widder.”
“I didn’t kill her. It was her heart. It ain’t my fault.”
“Maybe we can stay in a motel.” Mike reached for his wallet. “That’ll be fun.”
“Do we have enough money?” Randy glanced at his brother as he pulled bills out of his wallet.
“I don’t know.” Mike held up a fistful of bills and frowned. “There ain’t very many of them. Do you remember how to figure this stuff out? Each man is worth so much, some a lot more than others.”
“I told you we shouldn’t have bought so much beer.” Randy turned and started walking down the highway, still hugging the carton like it was a security blanket.
“Aw, don’t worry about it.” Putting wallet away, Mike followed him. “We always make out, don’t we?” He grabbed at the carton. “Hey, we got any beer left?”
“Just one.” Randy jerked away. “And it’s mine.”
“No,” Mike said with a laugh. “It’s mine.”
“No!” Randy pulled from Mike with violence, causing the carton to fly from his arms. When the beer can hit the pavement it exploding, spewing foam all over the highway. He glared at his brother. “See what you made me do?” He leaped at Mike, knocking him down, pummeling him with his boney fists.
“Stop it! That hurts!”
A car’s headlights appeared up the road, causing the boys to stop, stand and squint. It slowed and stopped. Stepping into the headlights’ glare were two uniformed state highway patrolmen.
“You boys okay?”
“You leave us alone.” Randy eyed them with suspicion.
“Where are you from?”
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “Mama never told us.”
“Shut up!” Randy hit him hard on the arm.
“Oww! That hurt!”
“That’s enough of that.” A patrolman with a bit of a paunch stepped in between them.
“This ain’t none of your business!” Randy took a swing at the officer who grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind back, knocking him to the ground.
“I think you boys better come with us.” The patrolman reached for his handcuffs.
“Go where?” Mike asked.
“For your own safety, we want to put you under custody.”
“You mean, jail,” Randy said.
“Yes, son. You’re going to jail.”
“You’re not gonna put me in jail.” Randy twisted around and bit the officer’s hand. “Get off me! Leave me alone!”
“I’m not going to hurt you, son.”
The other patrolman turned Mike around and placed handcuffs on him and asked him, “Who’s the president?”
“What?”
“What day of the week is it?”
“What?”
“What’s one and one?”
“What?”
“I thought so.” He pushed him toward the patrol car as the other officer pulled Randy to his feet.
“Does your jail have TV?” Mike asked.