The Stories of Richard Bausch

VALOR

After it was all over, Aldenburg heard himself say that he had never considered himself the sort of man who was good in an emergency, or was particularly endowed with courage. If anything, he had always believed quite the opposite. The truth of this hurt, but there it was. Problems in his private life made him low, and he’d had no gumption for doing anything to change, and he knew it, way down, where you couldn’t mask things with rationalization, or diversion, or bravado—or booze, either. In fact, he would not have been in a position to perform any heroics if he had not spent the night sitting in the bar at whose very door the accident happened.

The bar was called Sam’s. At night, the neon Budweiser sign in the window was the only light at that end of the street. Aldenburg had simply stayed on past closing, and sobered up playing blackjack for pennies with Mo Smith, the owner, a nice gentleman who had lost a son in the Gulf War and was lonely and had insomnia, and didn’t mind company.

It had been such a miserable winter—gray bone-cold days, black starless nights, ice storms one after another, and a wind blowing across the face of the world like desolation itself. They talked about this a little, and about the monstrosities all around. Monstrosity was Smitty’s word; he used it in almost every context to mean vaguely that thing he couldn’t quickly name or understand. Bring me that—monstrosity over there, will you? he’d say, meaning a pitcher of water. Or he would say, Reagan’s presidency was a monstrosity, and sometimes it was as though he meant it all in the same way. Smitty especially liked to talk about the end of the world. He was perpetually finding indications of the decline of everything, everywhere he looked. It was all a monstrosity.

Aldenburg liked listening to him, sometimes, and if on occasion he grew a little tired of the dire predictions, he simply tuned him out. This night he let him talk without attending to it much. He had been struggling to make ends meet and to solve complications in his marriage, feeling depressed a lot of the time because the marriage had once been happy, and trying to work through it all, though here he was, acting bad, evidently past working to solve anything much—staying out late, giving his wife something to think about.

The present trouble had mostly to do with his brother-in-law, Cal, who had come back from the great victory in the Gulf needing a cane to walk. Cal was living with them now, and the victory didn’t mean much. He was as bitter as it was possible to be. He had been wounded in an explosion in Riyadh—the two men with him were killed instantly—less than a week before the end of hostilities, and he’d suffered through three different surgical procedures and eleven months of therapy in a military hospital in Washington. Much of his left knee was gone, and part of his left foot and ankle, and the therapy hadn’t helped him much. He would need the cane for the rest of his life. He wasn’t even twenty-five and he walked like a man in his eighties, bent over the cane, dragging the bad leg.

Aldenburg’s wife, Eva, couldn’t stand it, the sound of it—the fact of it. And while Aldenburg thought Cal should be going out and looking for some kind of job, Eva seemed to think nothing should be asked of him at all. Aldenburg felt almost superfluous in his own house. He was past forty and looked it. He had a bad back and flat feet, and the money he made selling shoes wasn’t enough to support three adults, not to mention Cal’s friends who kept coming around: mostly pals from high school, where he had been the star quarterback. Cal’s fiancée, Diane, ran a small beauty parlor in town and had just bought a house that she was having refinished, so she was over a lot, too. There seemed never anywhere to go in the house and be alone. And lately Eva had started making innuendos to these people about her difficult marriage—fourteen childless years with Aldenburg. As if the fact that there were no children was anyone’s fault.

God only knew what she found to say when he wasn’t around to hear it.

Toward the end of the long night, Smitty said, Of course, a man doesn’t spend this much time in a saloon if there’s a happy home to return to.

Aldenburg caught just enough of the sentence to know he was the subject. He said, Smitty, sometimes I look around myself and I swear I don’t know how I got here.

I thought you walked over, Smitty said.

They laughed.

Sometime after three in the morning he had made coffee, and they had switched to that. Black and strong, to counter the effects of the night’s indulgence, as Smitty called it. He had broken an old rule and consumed a lot of the whiskey himself. It was getting harder and harder to be alone, he said.

Aldenburg understood it.

Damn monstrosity didn’t last long enough to make any heroes below the level of general, Smitty said. My son was a hero.

That’s true, said Aldenburg. But take somebody like my brother-in-law. Here’s a guy standing on a corner looking at the sights, and this oil burner goes off. You know? Guy standing in the street with a couple of other boys from the motor pool, talking football, and whoosh. Just a dumb accident.

I don’t guess it matters much how you get it, Smitty said, shaking his head. His son had been shot through the heart.

I’m sorry, man, Aldenburg told him.

Hell, said Smitty, rubbing the back of his neck, and then looking away.

Light had come to the windows. On the polished table between them was a metal ashtray stuffed to overflowing with the cigarettes they had smoked.

What day is this, anyway? Smitty asked.

Friday. I’ve got to be at work at eleven. Sales meeting. I won’t sleep at all.

Ought to go on in back and try for a little, anyway.

Aldenburg looked at him. When do you ever sleep?

Noddings-off in the evenings, Smitty said. Never much more than that.

I feel like all hell, Aldenburg told him. My liver hurts. I think it’s my liver.

Go on back and take a little nap.

I’ll feel worse if I do.

They heard voices, car doors slamming. Smitty said, Uh, listen, I invited some of the boys from the factory to stop by for eggs and coffee. He went to open the door, moving slow, as if his bones ached. The curve of his spine was visible through the back of his shirt. He was only fifty-three.

Aldenburg stayed in the booth, with the playing cards lying there before him, and the full ashtray. He lighted a cigarette, blew the smoke at the ceiling, wishing that he’d gone on home now. Brad and Billy Pardee came in, with Ed Crewly. They all wore their hunting jackets, and were carrying gear, looking ruddy and healthy from the cold. Brad was four years older than Billy, but they might have been twins, with their blue-black hair and identical flat noses, their white, white teeth. Ed Crewly was once the end who received Cal’s long passes in the high school games, a tall skinny type with long lean arms and legs—gangly looking but graceful when he got moving. He was among the ones who kept coming to the house now that Cal was back from the war. Aldenburg, returning in the late evenings from the store, would find them all in his living room watching a basketball game or one of the sitcoms—every chair occupied, beer and potato chips and a plate of cheeses laid out for them, as though this were all still the party celebrating the hero’s homecoming.

He never had the nerve to say anything about it. An occasional hint to his wife, who wasn’t hearing any hints.

Brad was bragging now about how he and Billy and Ed had called in sick for the day. They were planning a drive up into the mountains to shoot at birds. Billy turned and saw Aldenburg sitting in the booth.

Hey, Gabriel, he said. You’re early, ain’t you?

Yep, Aldenburg told him, glancing at Smitty, whose face showed no reaction.

Have a seat at the bar, Smitty told them. I’ll put the bacon on. Help yourself to the coffee.

I was over at your place last night, said Crewly. Didn’t see you.

Didn’t get in till late there, Ed.

I think I’d like to start the day with a beer, said Brad.

Me, too, his brother put in. The weekend was ahead of them, and they were feeling expansive.

Smitty put the beers down on the bar.

I didn’t leave your place till pretty late, Ed Crewly said to Aldenburg. Eva figured you were down here.

I was here last night, Ed. That’s true.

Stayed late, huh. Crewly had a dour, downturning kind of face, and a long nose. His skin was dark red, the color of baked clay.

Aldenburg shook his head, smoking the cigarette.

I bet Gabriel’s been here all night, Billy Pardee said.

The whole night, Aldenburg said, not looking at them.

Damn, Gabriel, Brad Pardee said. What’re you paying rent for, anyway?

Aldenburg looked at him. I’m paying it for my wife, my brother-in-law, and all their friends.

Billy put his beer down and shook one hand, as if he had touched something hot. Whoo-ee, he said. I’d say somebody’s been told the harsh truth. I’d say I smell smoke.

Aldenburg watched them, wishing he had gone before they arrived. It had been plain inertia that kept him there.

Wife trouble, Smitty said. He was leaning against the door frame, so he could attend to the bacon, and he held a cigarette between his thumb and index finger, like a cigar. The smoke curled up past his face, and one eye was closed against it. The odd thing about Smitty was that whenever these other men were around, nothing of the kindness of the real man came through; something about their casual hardness affected him, and he seemed to preside over it all, like an observer, a scientist—interested without being involved. The others performed for him; they tried to outdo each other in front of him.

Hey, Gabriel, Brad Pardee said, come on. You really spent the night here?

Billy said, You going to work today, Gabriel? I need some boots.

Aldenburg held his empty coffee mug up, as if to toast them. We sell boots, all right.

What’re you drinking there, Gabriel?

It’s all gone, said Aldenburg. Whatever it was.

You look bad, man. You look bleary-eyed and real bad. Billy turned to the others. Don’t he look bad?

They were having fun with it, as he could have predicted they would. He put his cigarette out and lighted another. Because Ed Crewly was in Aldenburg’s house a lot, they all knew things, and perhaps they didn’t have much respect for him—though they meant him no harm, either. The whole thing was good-natured enough. When he got up, slow, crossed the room to the bar, and poured himself a whiskey, they reacted as though it were a stunt, whistling and clapping their hands. He saw that Smitty had gone into the kitchen, and was sorry for it, wanting the older man as an audience, for some reason.

They watched him drink the whiskey for a little time—it was almost respect—and then they had forgotten about him. Smitty brought their breakfasts, and they scarfed that up, and a few minutes later they were going out the door, all energy and laughs. Like boys out of school.

They weren’t gone five minutes when the accident happened.

He had walked back to the bar to pour himself another whiskey, having decided that whatever badness this would bring, including the loss of his job, was all right with him. He was crossing the space of the open door, holding the whiskey, and motion there drew his attention. He saw a school bus entering slowly from the left, bright morning sun on the orange-yellow metal of it, and in the instant he looked at the reflected brightness, it was struck broadside by a long white speeding car, a Cadillac. The Cadillac seemed to come from nowhere, a flying missile, and it caved in the side of the bus with a terrible crunching, glass-breaking sound. Aldenburg dropped the glass of whiskey, and bolted out into the cold, moving through it, with the whiskey swimming behind his eyes. In what seemed no space of time, he had come to the little water-trickling place between the Cadillac’s crushed front grill and the door of the bus, which must have flown open with the collision, where a young woman lay on her back, partway onto the street, her arms flung out as though she had taken a leap from her seat behind the wheel. There was something so wrong about a lovely woman lying in the road like that, and Aldenburg found himself lifting her, bending, not really thinking, bracing himself, supporting her across his legs, his arms under her shoulders. It was hard to keep from falling backward himself. Somehow he had gotten in there and lifted her up where she had been thrown, and on the metal step before his eyes, a little boy lay along her calves, one arm over her ankles, unconscious, blood in his dark hair, something quivering in the nerves of his neck and shoulders. There was a crying, a screeching. Aldenburg held the woman, tried to take a step, to gather himself. She looked at him, upside down, but did not seem to see him. Take it easy, he heard himself say.

The boy was still now. The screaming went on in another part of the bus. Was it screams? Something was giving off a terrible high whine. He looked at the woman and thought, absurdly, of the whiskey he had drunk, his breath.

She moaned, Is everyone all right? But she didn’t seem to be speaking to him.

He lifted slightly, and she said, Don’t.

Hold on, he told her. Help’s coming.

But she wasn’t breathing. He could feel the difference. Her weight was too much. He put one leg back, and then shifted slow, away from the bus, and the full weight of her came down on him. Her feet clattered on the crumpled step, slipping from under the boy’s arm, and dropped with a dead smack to the pavement. And then he was carrying her, dragging her. He took one lurching stride, and another, and finally he got her lying on her back in the road. The surface was cold and damp, and he took his coat off, folded it, and laid it under her head, then remembered about keeping the feet elevated for shock. Carefully he let her head down, and put the folded coat under her ankles. It was as though there were nothing else and no one else but this woman and himself, in slow time. And she was not breathing.

She’s gone, a voice said from somewhere.

It was Smitty. Smitty moved toward the bus, but then shrank back, limping. Something had gone out of him at the knees. Fire, he said. Jesus, I think it’s gonna go.

Aldenburg placed his hands gently on the woman’s chest. He was afraid the bones might be broken there. He put the slightest pressure on her, but then thought better of it, and leaned down to breathe into her mouth. Again he was aware of his breath, and felt as though this was wrong; he was invading her privacy somehow. He hesitated, but then he went on blowing into her mouth. It only took a few breaths to get her started on her own. She gasped, looked into his face, and seemed to want to scream. But she was breathing. You’re hurt, Aldenburg told her. It’s gonna be okay.

The children, she said. Four—

Can you breathe all right? he said.

Oh, what happened. She started to cry.

Don’t move, he told her. Don’t try to move.

No, she said.

He stood. There were sirens now, far off, and he had a cruel little realization that they were probably for some other accident, in another part of the city. He saw Smitty’s face and understood that this moment was his alone, and was beautifully separate from everything his life had been before. He yelled at Smitty, Call the rescue squad.

Smitty said, It’s gonna blow up, and moved to the doorway of the bar, and in.

Aldenburg stepped into the space between the Cadillac, with its hissing-radiator and its spilled fluids, and the bus, where the boy lay in a spreading pool of blood in the open door. A man was standing there with his hands out, as though he were afraid to touch anything. Fire, the man said. He had a bruise on his forehead, and seemed dazed. Aldenburg realized that this was the driver of the Cadillac. He smelled alcohol on him.

Get out of the way, he said.

From inside the bus, there was a scream. It was screaming. He saw a child at one of the windows, the small face cut and bleeding. He got into the space of the doorway, and looked at the boy’s face, this one’s face. The eyes were closed. The boy appeared to be asleep.

Son? Aldenburg said. Can you hear me?

Nothing. But he was breathing. Aldenburg took his shirt off and put it where the blood was flowing, and the boy opened his eyes.

Hey, Aldenburg said.

The eyes stared.

You ever see an uglier face in your life? It was something he always said to other people’s children when they looked at him. He was pulling the boy out of the space of the door, away from the flames.

Where do you hurt?

All over.

The sirens were louder. The boy began to cry. He said, Scared. There was a line of blood around his mouth.

The seat behind the steering wheel was on fire. The whole bus was on fire. The smoke drifted skyward. There were little flames in the spilled fuel on the road. He carried the boy a few yards along the street, and the sirens seemed to be getting louder, coming closer. Time had stopped, though. He was the only thing moving in it. He was all life, bright with energy. The sounds went away, and he had got inside the bus again, crawling along the floor. The inside was nearly too hot to touch. Heat and smoke took his breath from him and made him dizzy. There were other children on the floor, and between the seats and under the seats, a tangle of arms and legs. Somehow, one by one in the slow intensity of the burning, he got them all out and away. There was no room for thinking or deciding. He kept going back, and finally there was no one else on the bus. He had emptied it out, and the seat panels burned slow. The ambulances and rescue people had begun to arrive.

It was done.

They had got the flames under control, though smoke still furled up into the gray sky, and Aldenburg felt no sense of having gotten to the end of it. It had felt as though it took all day, and yet it seemed only a few seconds in duration, too—the same continuous action, starting with letting the little glass of whiskey drop to the floor in Smitty’s, and bolting out the door….

Afterward, he sat on the curb near the young woman, the driver, where the paramedics had moved her to work over her. He had one leg out, the other knee up, and he was resting his arm on that knee, the pose of a man satisfied with his labor. He was aware that people were staring at him.

I know you’re not supposed to move them, he said to the paramedics. But under the circumstances …

No one answered. They were busy with the injured, as they should be. He sat there and watched them, and watched the bus continue to smoke. They had covered it with some sort of foam. He saw that there were blisters on the backs of his hands, and dark places where the fire and ash had marked him. At one point the young woman looked at him and blinked. He smiled, waved at her. It was absurd, and he felt the absurdity almost at once. I’m sorry, he said.

But he was not sorry. He felt no sorrow. He came to his feet, and two men from the television station were upon him, wanting to talk, wanting to know what he had been thinking as he risked his own life to save these children and the driver, all of whom certainly would have died in the fumes or been burned to death. It was true. It came to Aldenburg that it was all true. The charred bus sat there; you could smell the acrid hulk of it. Firemen were still spraying it, and police officers were keeping the gathering crowd at a safe distance. More ambulances were arriving, and they had begun taking the injured away. He thought he saw one or two stretchers with sheets over them, the dead. How many dead? he asked. He stood looking into the face of a stranger in a blazer and a red tie. How many?

No deaths, the face said. Not yet, anyway. It’s going to be touch and go for some of them.

The driver?

She’s in the worst shape.

She stopped breathing. I got her breathing again. They’ve got her on support. Vital signs are improving. Looks like she’ll make it.

There were two television trucks, and everyone wanted to speak to him. Smitty had told them how he’d risked the explosion and fire. He, Gabriel Aldenburg. Yes, Aldenburg said in answer to their questions. It’s Gabriel. Spelled exactly like the angel, sir. Yes. Aldenburg. Aldenburg. He spelled it out for them. A shoe salesman. Yes. How did I happen to be here. Well, I was—

They were standing there holding their microphones toward him; the cameras were rolling.

Yes?

Well, I was—I was in there, he said, pointing to Smitty’s doorway. I stopped in early for some breakfast.

Some people behind the television men were writing in pads.

No, he said. Wait a minute. That’s a lie.

They were all looking at him now.

Keep it rolling, one of the television men said.

I spent the night in there. I’ve spent a lot of nights in there lately.

Silence. Just the sound of the fire engines idling, and then another ambulance pulled off, sending its wail up to the blackened sky of the city.

Things aren’t so good at home, he said. And then he was telling all of it—the bad feeling in his house, the steady discouragements he had been contending with. He was telling them all how he had never considered himself a man with much gumption. He heard himself use the word.

The men with the pads had stopped writing. The television men were simply staring at him.

I’m sorry, he told them. It didn’t feel right lying to you.

No one said anything for what seemed a very long time.

Well, he said. I guess that’s all. He looked beyond the microphones and the cameras, at the crowd gathering on that end of the street—he saw Smitty, who nodded, and then the television men started in again—wanting to know what he felt when he entered the burning bus. Did he think about the risk to his own life?

It wasn’t burning that bad, he told them. Really. It was just smoke.

Have they told you who was driving the Cadillac? one of them asked.

No, sir.

Wilson Bolin, the television news guy.

Aldenburg wasn’t familiar with the name. Was he hurt?

Minor cuts and bruises.

That’s good. He had the strange sense of speaking into a vacuum, the words going off into blank air. Voices came at him from the swirl of faces. He felt dizzy, and now they were moving him to another part of the street. A doctor took his blood pressure, and someone else, a woman, began applying some stinging liquid to his cheek. Mild, she said to the doctor. It’s mostly smudges.

Look, am I done here? Aldenburg asked them.

No. They took his name. They wanted to know everything about him—what he did for a living, where he came from, his family. He told them everything they wanted to know. He sat in the backseat of a car and answered questions, telling them everything again, and he wondered how things would be for a man who was a television newsman and who was driving drunk at seven o’clock in the morning. He said he felt some kinship with Mr. Bolin, and he saw that two women among those several people listening to him exchanged a look of amusement.

Look, it’s not like I’m some kid or something, he said sullenly. I’m not here for your enjoyment or for laughs. I did a good thing today. Something not everyone would do—not many would do.

Finally he went with some other people to the back of a television truck and answered more questions. He told the exact truth, as best he understood it, because it was impossible not to.

Why do you think you did it? a man asked.

Maybe it was because I’d been drinking all night.

You don’t mean that.

I’ve been pretty unhappy, Aldenburg told him. Maybe I just felt like I didn’t have anything to lose. There was a liberating something in talking about it like this, being free to say things out. It was as though his soul were lifting inside him; a weight that had been holding it down had been carried skyward in the smoke of the burning bus. He was definite and clear inside.

It was an act of terrific courage, sir.

Maybe. I don’t know. If it wasn’t me, it might’ve been somebody else. He touched the man’s shoulder, experiencing a wave of generosity and affection toward him.

He took off work and went home. The day was going to be sunny and bright. He felt the stir of an old optimism, a sense he had once possessed, as a younger man, of all the gorgeous possibilities in life, as it was when he and Eva had first been married and he had walked home from his first full-time job, at the factory, a married man, pleased with the way life was going, wondering what he and Eva might find to do in the evening, happy in the anticipation of deciding together. He walked quickly, and as he approached the house he looked at its sun-reflecting windows and was happy. It had been a long time since he had felt so light of heart.

His brother-in-law was on the sofa in the living room, with magazines scattered all around him. Cal liked the pictures in Life and the articles in Sport. He collected them; he had old issues going all the way back to 1950. Since he had come back from the Gulf, Eva had been driving around to the antique stores in the area, and a few of the estate auctions, looking to get more of them for him, but without much luck.

What happened to you? he said as Aldenburg entered. Where’ve you been?

"Where’ve you been today, old buddy? Aldenburg asked him. Been out at all?"

Right. I ran the mile. What’s got into you, anyway? Why’re you so cocky all of a sudden?

No job interviews, huh?

You know what you can do with it, Gabriel.

Just wondering.

Aren’t you spunky. What happened to your face?

He stepped to the mirror over the mantel. It surprised him to see the same face there. He wiped at a soot-colored smear on his jaw. Damn.

You get in a fight or something?

Right, Aldenburg said. I’m a rough character.

Cal’s fiancée, Diane, appeared in the archway from the dining room. Oh, she said. You’re home.

Where’s Eva? Aldenburg said to Cal. Then he looked at Diane—short red hair, a boy’s cut, freckles, green eyes. The face of someone who was accustomed to getting her way.

"Where were you all night? she said. As if I didn’t know."

To the mountaintop, Aldenburg told her. I’ve been breathing rarefied air.

Gabriel, she said, you’re funny.

You sure you want to go through with marrying Cal here?

Don’t be mean.

What the hell? Cal said, gazing at him. You got a problem, Gabriel, maybe you should just say it out.

No problem in the world on this particular day, Aldenburg told him.

Something’s going on. What is it?

Aldenburg ignored him and went calling through the house for his wife. Eva was in the bedroom, sitting at her dressing table putting makeup on. Keep it up, she said. You’ll lose your job.

They wanted me to take the day off, he said. Fact is, they were proud to give it to me.

She turned and looked at him. What is it?

You see something?

Okay.

Well, do you?

She turned back to the mirror. Gabriel, I don’t have time for games.

This is serious.

She said nothing, concentrating on what she was doing.

Did you hear me?

After a pause, she said, I heard you.

Well?

Now she looked at him. Gabriel, what in the world?

Want to watch some TV? he said.

What’re you talking about. Look at you. Did you get in a fight?

I had a rough night, he said.

I can see that.

Look into my eyes.

Diane came to the doorway of the room. Cal and I are going over to my place for a while. I think we’ll stay over there tonight.

What a good idea, Aldenburg said.

Diane smiled, then walked away.

Eva gazed at him.

Look into my eyes, really. He stood close.

She said, You smell like a distillery. You’re drunk.

No, he said, I’m not drunk. You know what happened?

You’ve been drinking at this hour of the morning.

Listen to me.

She stared. He had stepped back from her. Well? she said.

I saved human lives today. He felt the truth of it move in him, and for the first time paused and looked at it reasonably in his mind. He smiled at her.

What, she said.

You haven’t heard me, he told her. Did you hear what I said?

Gabriel, Eva said. I’ve been thinking. Once again, I had all night to think. I’ve done a lot of thinking, Gabriel.

He waited.

Quit smiling like that. This isn’t easy. She gathered her breath. I’m just going to say this straight out. Okay?

Okay, he said.

I’m—I’m splitting.

He looked at her hands, at the mirror with her back and shoulders in it, at the floor with their shadows on it from the bright windows.

Diane has room for me in her house. And I can look for a place of my own from there. After she and Cal are married—

Aldenburg waited.

His wife said, It’s a decision I should’ve made a long time ago.

I don’t understand, he said.

Haven’t you been listening?

"Haven’t you?" he said. Did you hear what I just told you?

"Oh, come on, Gabriel. This is serious."

"I’m telling you, it happened," he shouted.

Gabriel— she began.

He went back to the living room, where Cal and Diane were sitting on his couch. Diane had turned the television on—a game show. They did not look at him when he came in. They knew what had been talked about, and they were feeling the awkwardness of it. He went to the door and looked out at the street. The sun was gone. There were heavy dark folds of cloud to the east. He turned. I thought you were going over to your house, he said to Diane. He could barely control his voice.

We are. As soon as Cal finishes this show.

Why don’t you go now.

Why don’t you worry about your own problems?

Get out, Aldenburg said. Both of you.

Cal stood and reached for his cane. Aldenburg turned the TV off, then stood by the door as they came past him. Look, if it makes any difference, Cal said to him, I argued against it.

Aldenburg nodded at him but said nothing.

When they were gone, he went back into the bedroom, where Eva had lain down on the bed. He sat on the other side, his back to her. He was abruptly very tired, and light-headed.

Do you want to tell me what happened? she said.

He said, Would it make the slightest bit of difference?

Gabriel, you knew this was coming—

He stood, removed his shirt. He felt the scorched places on his arms. Everything ached. He walked into the bathroom and washed his face and hands. Then he brushed his teeth. In the room, Eva lay very still. He pulled the blankets down on his side of the bed.

I’m not asleep, she said. I’m going out in a minute.

He sat on the edge of the bed and had a mental image of himself coming home with this news of what he had done, as if it were some prize. What people would see on TV this evening, if they saw anything, would be Aldenburg telling about how unhappy life was at home. No, they would edit that out. The thought made him laugh.

What, she said. I don’t see anything funny about this.

He shook his head, trying to get his breath.

Gabriel? What’s funny.

Nothing, he managed. Forget it. Really. It’s too ridiculous to mention.

He lay down. For a time they were quiet.

We’ll both be better off, she said. You’ll see.

He closed his eyes, and tried to recover the sense of importance he had felt, scrabbling across the floor of the burning school bus. He had been without sleep for so long. There was a deep humming in his ears, and now his wife’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.

It’s for the best, she said. If you really think about it, you’ll see I’m right.

Abruptly, he felt a tremendous rush of anxiety. A deep fright at her calmness, her obvious determination. He was wide awake. When he got up to turn the little portable television on, she gave forth a small startled cry. He sat on the edge of the bed, turning the dial, going through the channels.

What’re you doing? she murmured. Haven’t you heard anything?

Listen, he told her. Be quiet. I want you to see something.

Gabriel.

Wait, he said, hearing the tremor in his own voice. Damn it, Eva. Please. Just one minute. It’ll be on here in a minute. One minute, okay? What’s one goddamn minute? He kept turning the channels, none of which were news—it was all cartoons and network morning shows. Where is it, he said. Where the hell is it.

Gabriel, stop this, said his wife. You’re scaring me.

Scaring you? he said. Scaring you? Wait a minute. Just look what it shows. I promise you it’ll make you glad.

Look, it can’t make any difference, she said, beginning to cry.

You wait, he told her. It made all the difference.

No, look—stop—

He stood, and took her by the arms above the elbow. It seemed so terribly wrong of her to take this away from him, too. Look, he said. "I want you to see this, Eva. I want you to see who you married. I want you to know who provides for you and your goddamn hero brother." When he realized that he was shaking her, holding too tight, he let go, and she sat on the bed, crying, her hands clasped oddly at her neck.

I can’t- she got out. Gabriel-

Eva, he said. I didn’t mean—look, I’m sorry. Hey, I’m—I’m the good guy, honey. Really. You won’t believe it.

Okay, she said, nodding quickly. He saw fear in her eyes.

I just hoped you’d get to see this one thing, he said, sitting next to her, wanting to fix this somehow, this new trouble. But then he saw how far away from him she had gone. He felt abruptly quite wrong, almost ridiculous. It came to him that he was going to have to go on being who he was. He stood, and the ache in his bones made him wince. He turned the television off. She was still sniffling, sitting there watching him.

What? she said. It was almost a challenge.

He couldn’t find the breath to answer her. He reached over and touched her shoulder, very gently so that she would know that whatever she might say or do, she had nothing to fear from him.

RICHES

Mattison bought the lottery ticket on an impulse—the first and only one he ever bought. So when, that evening, in the middle of the nine o’clock movie, the lucky number was flashed on the television screen and his wife, Sibyl, holding the ticket in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, put the coffee down unsteadily and said, Hey—we match, he didn’t understand what she was talking about. She stared at him and seemed to go all limp in the bones and abruptly screamed, Oh, my God! I think we’re rich! And even then it took him a few seconds to realize that he had the winning ticket, the big one, the whole banana, as his father put it. Easy Street, milk and honey, the all-time state lottery jackpot—sixteen million dollars.

Later, standing in the crowd of newspaper photographers and television people, he managed to make the assertion that he wouldn’t let the money change his life. He intended to keep his job at the Coke factory, and he would continue to live in the little three-bedroom rambler he and his wife had moved into four years ago, planning to start a family. Their children would go to public schools; they were going to be good citizens, and they wouldn’t spoil themselves with wealth. Money wasn’t everything. He had always considered himself lucky: he liked his life. Maybe—just maybe—he and Sibyl would travel a little on vacation. Maybe. And he said in one television interview that he was planning to give some to charity.

A mistake.

The mail was fantastic. Thousands of letters appealing to his generosity—some of them from individuals, including a college professor who said she wanted time to complete a big study of phallocentrism in the nineteenth-century novel. Mattison liked this one, and showed it to friends. Who cares about the nineteenth century? he said. And—I mean—novels. Can you imagine?

But he was generous by nature, and he did send sizable checks to the Red Cross, the United Way, Habitat for Humanity, and several organizations for the homeless; he gave to the March of Dimes, to Jerry’s Kids; he donated funds to the Danny Thomas Foundation, Save the Children, the Christian Children’s Fund, Project Hope, the Literacy Council, the Heart Association, the Council for Battered Women, DARE, the Democratic Party, the Smithsonian, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the Library Association, the American Cancer Society, and the church. They all wanted more. Especially the Democratic Party.

He kept getting requests. People at work started coming to him. Everybody had problems.

His two older brothers decided to change direction in life, wanted to start new careers, one as the pilot of a charter fishing boat down in Wilmington, North Carolina, the other as a real estate salesman (he needed to go through the training to get his license). The older of them, Eddie, was getting married in the spring. They each needed a stake, something to start out on. Twenty thousand dollars apiece. Mattison gave it to them; it was such a small percentage of the eight hundred fifty thousand he had received as the first installment of his winnings.

A few days later his father phoned and asked for a new Lincoln. He’d always hankered for one, he said. Just forty thousand dollars. You’re making more than the football players, son. And with what you’re getting at the Coke factory—think of it. Your whole year’s salary is just mad money. Thirty-eight thousand a year.

Mattison understood what was expected. What color do you want?

"What about my father?" Sibyl said. And my mother, too. Her parents were separated. Her mother lived in Chicago, her father in Los Angeles. Mattison was already footing the bill for them both to fly to Virginia for Thanksgiving.

Well? she said.

Okay, he told her. I didn’t know your father wanted a Lincoln.

That’s not the point, Benny. It’s the principle.

We have to see a tax lawyer or something.

You can’t buy a Lincoln for your father and leave my parents out.

What about your grandparents?

Sibyl’s father’s parents were alive and well, living in Detroit, and they already owned a Cadillac, though it was ten years old.

Well? Mattison said.

Sibyl frowned. I guess, if you look at it that way—yes. Them, too. And us.

Well, I guess that covers everybody in the whole damn family, Mattison said.

Do you begrudge us this?

"Begrudge you?"

I don’t understand your attitude, she said.

We could buy cars for the dead, too. A new Lincoln makes a nice grave marker.

Are you trying to push me into a fight? she said.

Christmases when he was a boy, his father took him and his brothers out to look at the festive decorations in the neighborhoods. They’d gaze at the patterns of lights and adornments, and when they saw particularly large houses—those mansions in McLean and Arlington—Mattison’s father would point out that money doesn’t buy happiness or love, and that the rooms behind the high walls might very well be cold and lifeless places. They did not look that way to Mattison, those warm tall windows winking with light. And yet over time he came to imagine the quiet inside as unhappy quiet, and saw the lights as lies: the brighter the decorations, the deeper the gloom they were designed to hide.

The idea had framed a corollary in his mind: people with money had problems he didn’t have to think about. It was all over there, in that other world, the world of unfathomable appetites and discontents; the world of corruption, willfulness, and greed. He had worked his way up to supervisor at the Coke factory, after starting there as a stock boy, and he didn’t mind the work. His wife was a lovely dark-haired girl from Tennessee, who had been a flight attendant for a year or so before walking into his life at a dance put on by the local volunteer fire department. They had gone into debt to buy the little rambler, and for the first year she had worked as a temporary in the front offices of the factory so they could make the payments on the mortgage.

She was home now, and for the last couple of years their life together had come to an awkward place regarding her failure to conceive: there were hours of avoiding the subject, followed by small tense moments circling it with a kind of irritability, a mutual wish that the problem would go away, the irritability fueled by the one suggestion neither could come out and make: that the other should go in for tests to see if something might be wrong. They were in love, they had begun to doubt themselves, and they were not dealing with any of it very well, and they knew it.

This was the situation the day he purchased the lottery ticket. He had walked into the convenience store and bought an ice cream bar and an apple on his way home. The ice cream bar was for Sibyl—a little peace offering for the words they had exchanged in the morning. He was standing at the store counter waiting to pay, his thoughts wandering to their trouble—they had argued about plans for dinner, but of course the real argument was about the pregnancy that hadn’t happened—when a man stepped in front of him.

This was the sort of thing he usually reacted to: he had a highly developed sense of fair play, and he believed with nearly religious fervor in the utility, the practical good, of graciousness, of simple courtesy. Because, like his father, he expected these virtues of himself, he also tended to require them of others. He might have said something to this rude man who had butted into the line. But he merely stood there, deciding on the words he would use to apologize to Sibyl, feeling low and sad, worried that something might really be wrong with him, or with her. The man who had stepped in front of him bought a pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket. So as Mattison stepped up to pay, he asked for a ticket too and dropped it into the bag with the ice cream and the apple.

Sibyl ate the apple. She didn’t want the ice cream bar and expressed surprise that he had considered she would, anxious as she was now about her weight.

I bought a lottery ticket, he told her. Here, maybe it’ll bring some luck.

That night, late, after the magnitude of his winnings had been established, after the calls to friends and family (several of whom thought the excitement was that Sibyl was pregnant), after the celebrating and the visits of the news media and the hours of explaining what he felt, he lay in the dark, with Sibyl deeply asleep at his side, and fear swept over him, a rush of terror that hauled him out of the bed and through the little rooms of the house—the kitchen, littered with empty bottles of beer and unwashed dishes; the nursery, with its crib and its cherubs on the walls; the spare room, the room they planned to put her mother in whenever the baby came. The only light came from the half-moon in the living room window. He looked out at the lunar shadows of the houses along his street; everyone in those houses knew by now what had happened to him. His life was going to change, no matter what. He fought the idea, walked into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of milk, and tried to think of anything else.

Sibyl found him there an hour later, sitting at the table, trembling, his hands clasped around the base of the half-empty glass of milk. Honey? she said, turning the light on.

He started. I’m scared, he said. I feel real scared.

She walked to him and put her arms around him. Silly, she said. "Now you’re scared?"

He had been right to be scared. He understood this now. At work, he couldn’t take a step without someone approaching him for money or reproaching him—with a look, a gesture of avoidance—because of the money. Everyone had changed, while he remained essentially the same. Even Sibyl had changed.

She wanted a new house, a bigger house, and the new Lincoln; all new clothes. She yearned to travel and said he should quit the Coke factory. And worst of all, she’d decided to stop trying to get pregnant. Let’s see the world, she said. We can just spend the whole year going around to all the places in the magazines.

Maybe I’ll take a long leave of absence, he said, without being able to muster much enthusiasm. He was worried that he might be getting an ulcer.

Honey, he said one evening, you really don’t want to start a family now?

We could do that, she said. "But just not now. Come on, baby. We’ve got all this money. Let’s use it."

I thought we weren’t going to let it spoil us?

Don’t be ridiculous, she said. That stuff about getting spoiled by money is what rich people say to make poor people think it’s better to be poor. We’re rich, and I don’t feel a bit different, except I’m a whole hell of a lot happier.

Are you?

Oh, don’t be cryptic, Benny. Yes, I’m happy as a clam. Come on, let’s spend the money the way we want to.

And what way is that?

Gee, she said, I don’t know. Duh, I’ll try to figure it out, though.

She bought a Lincoln for her father, a Cadillac for her mother, and another for her grandparents, who then decided that they wanted one each, since they were not getting along all that well. They already had separate bedrooms, and to them it seemed reasonable, since there was so much money in the family now, to ask for separate cars. Sibyl’s grandmother said she would settle for a smaller one—a BMW, perhaps, or a Miata. Something like that. Something sporty. Sybil, worried about her in traffic with a smaller car, said, You’ll take a Cadillac and like it.

Mattison said he’d have to keep his job because the lottery money would run out, paying as he was for a corporation-sized fleet of luxury cars, and Sibyl accused him of being sarcastic.

I’m not being sarcastic, he said. You forget—we gave some money to charities.

They were in the bedroom, moving back and forth past each other, putting their clothes away before retiring for the night.

I know, said Sibyl, hanging her new blouse up in the closet. And the whole family thought you were crazy for doing it, too.

He had just put his pants on a hanger, and he paused to look at her. You—you said you wanted to—you said you were proud of me—

I’m tired. She crossed to the bed, pulled the spread back, and stood there in her slip, such a pretty young woman. "I don’t see why we have to give money to anyone outside the family. This room is so damn small."

You’re the one who wanted to give an expensive car to everybody.

No—you started that. With your father.

My father asked for the damn thing.

And you gave it to him.

I did. And then you asked for five cars—five of them—and you got them. Now who’s crazy?

Are you calling me crazy? she said.

You said everybody thought I was crazy.

She got into the bed and pulled her slip off under the blankets, then dropped it on the floor.

Honey, he said. Listen to us. Listen to how we sound.

I’m going to sleep. The whole thing’s silly. We’re rich and that’s all there is to it. There’s nothing complicated or threatening about it.

You don’t see the unhappiness this is causing us? he said.

She didn’t answer.

We were going to start a family. We were in love—

Stop it, Benny. Nobody said anything about not loving anyone. We all love you.

I’m talking about you and me, he said. Look at us, Sibyl. You don’t even want to have a baby anymore.

That has nothing to do with anything. Come to bed.

He went into the bathroom and cleaned his teeth. She’d bought things for the walls. Prints, mostly, in nice frames, which they could never have afforded before the lottery. And even so it was all junk. Cheap department store crap.

Are you going to stay in there forever? she said sourly. Close the door, will you? You’re keeping me awake.

The rooms of his house had grown so discouragingly quiet, even as possessions and outward signs of prosperity and warmth were added, he no longer felt comfortable there. He no longer felt comfortable anywhere.

Over the next few days, Sibyl kept talking about where she wanted to go, and she had evidently dropped the assumption that he might wish to accompany her. He went to work and got drubbed every day with veiled insults, bad jokes about money, hints at his failure to be the friend he ought to be if only he were inclined to spend his treasure on something other than what he was spending it on, meaning the charities, though one coworker, a woman whose husband had a drinking problem and was inclined to violence, had made a comment—jokingly but with a stab of bitterness nonetheless—that Sibyl was certainly loading up with all the trappings of the well-to-do.

This woman’s name was Arlene Dakin. And one morning, perhaps a week after she’d made that remark, she asked him for enough money to buy a one-way ticket on a plane bound far away, so she could start over. She spoke so directly that it threw him off and caused him to hesitate.

I was only half serious, she said sadly. Something in her eyes went through him. He tried to speak, but she turned and walked away.

Thanksgiving, Sibyl insisted that both her parents be flown in from their separate cities; her mother had a new beau (Sibyl’s expression), and this person was, of course, also invited. Her father would rent a car at the airport and drive everyone in. He wanted to do some touring in the area. Mattison was miserable, his favorite day ruined with these elaborate and costly arrangements. In mid-morning, Sybil looked up from a phone conversation with a friend and said, Benny, for God’s sake go do something, will you? You’re driving me crazy.

He drove to the firehouse, where the local Red Cross chapter had used his donated money to set up a turkey dinner for the elderly. There didn’t seem to be anything for him to do, and he saw that he was making everyone uneasy, so he cruised around town for a while, feeling lost. He ended up at Arlene Dakin’s house. The day was sunny and unseasonably warm. Yesterday he had taken two thousand dollars, two packets of fifties, out of the bank, intending to give it to her when he saw her at work. But she had not come in on Wednesday.

Her house was at the end of a tree-lined street (he’d attended a cookout there, a company function, last summer. The husband had been sober, then. A gregarious, loud man with a way of rocking on the balls of his feet when he talked). Mattison pulled along the curb in front and stopped. In the front yard, a bare tree stood with all its leaves on the ground at its base. He wondered how he could give Arlene Dakin the money without her husband knowing about it. Then he imagined himself trying to talk through or over a drunken man. He did not get out of the car but drove on, then turned around and came back. The windows of the house reflected daylight sky. He felt odd, slowing down to look. Finally he sped away.

A rental car and a caterer’s truck were parked in the driveway at home. Mattison pulled in beside the rental car and got out. He had no legitimate reason to remain out here. His father and brothers were sitting in the living room watching a football game. Sibyl’s father was with them. He’d drunk something on the airplane, and held a cold beer now. In the kitchen, Sibyl and her mother stood watching the caterers work. The caterers had arrived with the almost-finished meal under metal lids. Her mother’s new friend sat drinking a beer of his own. Sibyl introduced him as Hayfield. Nice to meet the winner, Hayfield said, rising.

Mattison shook hands. Sibyl’s mother put her arms around his neck and kissed him, then stood aside and indicated him to Hayfield. Can you believe this boy? Never gambled a day in his life. Buys one ticket. Bingo. Come on, Hayfield, you’re the math teacher. What’re the odds?

Something like one in fifty-three million, isn’t it? Hayfield said.

Mattison had lain awake nights with the feeling that since this extraordinary thing had happened to him, he was open to all other extraordinary things—the rarest diseases, freak accidents. Anything was possible. He recalled that the frustration out of which he’d bought the ticket in the first place was the difficulty he and Sibyl had been having over not being able to get pregnant.

The jackpot had ruined that for good now, too.

He was abruptly very depressed and tired. He looked at the careful, sure hands of the two Arabic-looking men who were preparing the meal, slicing a large breast of turkey, and wished that he could find some reason to be elsewhere.

Sibyl said, Let’s go on into the living room and get out of these people’s way.

In the living room, the men sat in front of the TV. Mattison’s brothers argued in angry murmurs about the relative merits of foreign and American luxury cars. Chip, the middle brother, wanted a motorcycle, and spoke rather pointedly about how he’d been saving like a dog for the last three years. Recently he’d had his left eyebrow pierced and was wearing a stud there; it looked like a bolt to keep parts of his skull together. Mattison saw it and felt a little sick. What? Chip said. Did I say anything? Did I ask you for any more money?

Sibyl’s mother said, Who mentioned money? Don’t you know that’s vulgar?

Apparently Chip hadn’t heard the joke. I think people expect too much, he said.

And Mattison found himself telling them about Arlene Dakin and her bad husband. It was odd. He heard the urgency in his own voice, and he was aware that they were staring at him. It’s hard to turn each individual case down, he said. When only a little money would help.

Another woman? Sibyl’s mother said. You can’t save the world.

I agree, Mattison’s father said.

Hayfield said, I think it’s admirable, though.

Mattison’s oldest brother, Eddie, said, If you ask me, I think it’s stupid.

Sibyl laughed. Don’t pussyfoot around it like that, Eddie.

He turned to Mattison. Why give the money to strangers?

No man is an island, Hayfield said.

Sibyl’s mother made a sound in the back of her throat. You’re so big on quoting the Bible.

"I don’t think that is the Bible, is it?"

Why in the world are you so concerned about this woman with two babies? Sibyl asked her husband.

It’s got nothing to do with that, Mattison said. It’s just each individual case.

You feel sad for everybody lately. I swear, I think my husband wants to be Albert Einstein.

I think that’s Schweitzer, Hayfield said gently. Albert—uh, Schweitzer.

Give the lady a yacht, Chip said. The eyebrow with the stud in it lifted slightly.

They all sat down to dinner, and Mattison’s father said the grace. Lord, we thank you for this feast, and for the big bless-us-God jackpot, which has made it possible for us all to be together, from such distances … He paused and seemed to lose his train of thought, then shrugged and went on. In thy name, amen.

Sibyl’s mother said, Every man for himself. She meant the food. But Mattison’s father gave her a look.

Marge, Hayfield said, low. That’s a strange sentiment to express.

I used to say it every Thanksgiving, Sibyl’s father said. He had been very quiet, drinking his beer.

You never said it, Sibyl’s mother broke in. That was my saying.

Sibyl, you remember, don’t you? her father said.

Let’s all just be thankful, said Hayfield.

Sibyl’s father looked down the table at him. "You must be especially thankful. You hit the jackpot big-time