Читать книгу Thicker Than Mud - Jason Z. Morris - Страница 8

Adam didn’t sleep from Kiev to Queens, though he did his best to ignore the passengers’ chatter and the constant rattling of the flight attendants’ carts. He folded himself into his middle seat and did his best to disappear, emerging from his mental cocoon only to accept some pretzels or some water when they were offered. He wondered if his grandfather had been aware of his absence and if he died angry, or afraid, or disappointed. Or maybe Danny’s presence had been enough, Adam thought. But he took no comfort from that possibility. Picturing Danny in the cardiac unit, sitting by the bedside, holding Adam’s grandfather’s hand and leaning in to listen to his last words only left Adam feeling more bereft.

When they landed, Adam moved through the airport automatically. He must have waited to retrieve his suitcase and then to catch a cab back to Larchmont, but he had no memory of that. He got out at a restaurant a few blocks from his apartment to order a burrito and he finished it on the walk home, dragging his suitcase with one hand and eating with the other. It was just after seven in the evening when he opened his apartment door and dumped his bags on the floor. He showered, pulled on some boxers, took a deep breath, and called Danny.

“Adam, are you back?” Danny asked.

“Yeah. I’m back.” Adam closed his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been better. I made some arrangements, but I needed to talk to you before I could schedule the service and burial.

Adam shook his head. It was all going to spiral out of control if he didn’t stop it. It would be just like when his grandmother died, just like what had happened when his parents died, probably, though Adam had been too young to remember much about that. He had just a hazy picture in his mind of an apartment full of strangers looking sad and standing in a herd around his grandparents, a collection of legs in suit pants and stockings packed so close together that he couldn’t break through.

“Tomorrow?” Adam asked. His throat was tight, so his voice was inaudible at first and he had to repeat the question. “Can we do it tomorrow, Danny? First thing? Just us?”

“You weren’t serious about that, Adam? There’s no way. It’s a huge job. There’s no way we could do it ourselves.” Danny was part owner of the cemetery and his family had worked in the funeral business for generations. “We should take a day and let people know and arrange a service.” He paused for a second; before Adam could reply, Danny added, his voice gentle, “You sound awful, Adam. You must be exhausted. Just leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

Adam shook his head. “No. Please, Danny. No strangers. I’m so beat, I can’t argue with you now.”

Silence. An aleph. A glottal stop. Then, “It’s not respectful . . . Adam, come on . . . no rabbi, no people . . . What kind of a ceremony could we have? There are people who’d want to come.”

“We don’t need any of that, Danny. It’s better with just us, okay? You loved him. I loved him. This is the last thing we can do for him, this private thing, this most personal, private thing.” Adam caught himself biting the knuckle where his index finger met the back of his palm. He hadn’t done that in years. He hated begging. “Don’t take this from me, Danny, please . . .”

“I don’t feel good about this, Adam.”

Adam bit his lip. He breathed out slowly. “I need it to be this way, Danny, all right? Just us.”

Danny paused for what felt to Adam like a long time. He said, “I could tell my guys to have the grave dug by the time we start. But if it gets late, I’ll have to call them in to finish. It would be easier with more people . . . We have to be done with the burial before nightfall, so we’ll need to get an early start.”

Adam sighed. “Can we do it with three? I’m sure I can get Steven. We could do it with just the three of us, right?” Steven was Adam’s friend from college, and they were still very close. They were both on faculty at Belmont now.

“It’s back-breaking work.”

Adam nodded into the phone. “He’ll be up for it. I’ll call him. We’ll be there by eight.”

Danny sighed. “OK. I’ll make sure Hank’s coffin will be there when you arrive. We can be there to help lower it into the grave. I’ll have someone standing vigil over Hank at the funeral home all night. The body won’t be left alone until we arrive.”

“I know, Danny.” Adam said. “Jewish law. I know the drill.”

“I know you do. I know. Look, we’re both a little raw right now. Just call Steven, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I will,” Adam said. He reminded himself, as his grandfather would have reminded him, that he could try to be gracious. “Thanks Danny. I know this is tough on you too.”

“Don’t thank me,” Danny said. “I mean it. Don’t. We both want to do right by Hank. Try to get some sleep, Adam. Tomorrow’s going to be a long, hard day.” He hung up.

Adam called Steven next. They were on for less than three minutes. “I’m so sorry,” Steven said. “What can I do? I’ll be there. Just tell me when and where.” That was it. Adam let out a breath when he hung up the phone. No one was better in a crisis than Steven. Steven would help him get through this and he would he help him deal with Danny and there would be no drama. It was going to be all right.

Adam brushed his teeth and got into bed, but, worn out as he was, he couldn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes, he felt hyperaware, like every nerve was firing. He could almost feel his hair growing out of his scalp.

He got up and pulled up Miles Davis’s On The Corner on his computer. It was one of the first albums that got him into jazz, back in high school. It wasn’t the kind of music that would help most people relax, but at the familiar skittering rhythms of the opening bars Adam knew he had found his medicine. He lay back on his bed and let his head sink into his pillow. The music was electric, distorted, complex. Bursts of trumpet and guitar wove in and out of the underlying bass and percussion, complementing and canceling out the insistent, chaotic chatter in Adam’s brain.

Adam closed his eyes and he could almost see a woman coalescing from the music, pulling him toward her, inviting him to dance alongside her. In his mind’s eye, he could see the curves of her hips and her breasts as she moved. She undid her ponytail, and her hair fell over her face, covering her eyes. All of his focus was on her, on his desire to bury himself in her embrace. He could almost feel his fingers against her smooth, cool skin as he swayed with her, taken by the music. His breathing slowed and steadied. He slept.

The next morning, Adam showered and dressed, but he didn’t shave. He wouldn’t be shaving for a while. He packed a day-bag with water bottles and suntan lotion before heading to a diner to eat a quick breakfast and pick up some sandwiches for lunch.

His grandfather’s coffin was already there when Adam arrived at the cemetery. A bearded, middle-aged man in a black hat and black suit stood sentry, reading psalms. He looked up disapprovingly and left without a word when he saw Adam approaching in his shorts and work boots.

Next to the coffin, the grave lay open like a wound. A mound of loose dirt lay alongside. Danny’s crew had prepared the site before Adam had arrived and Adam could see the scars left by the teeth of their mechanical digger along the side of the grave closest to the headstones.

Adam took a breath as he looked back at the coffin. It was a simple pine box with three rope handles on each side. As prescribed by Jewish law, nothing was to interfere with the decomposition of the body.

Adam saw that Danny had left three shovels out for them, much larger and cruder than the tools Adam had used at Tel Arad, but when Adam hefted the one closest to him, it sat comfortably in his hands. He probed the soft, moist soil with the toe of his boot. He was anxious to get started, to be digging. He badly needed this to be over.

Adam looked up and saw Danny striding toward him on his short, powerful legs. The four men he had brought with him were in work clothes, but Danny wore a dark sports coat and dark jeans. When Danny caught Adam’s eye, he put his arms out wide as if he could pull Adam to his barrel chest from thirty steps away. “Adam! Adam!” he called.

Adam winced. Danny always spoke too loudly for Adam’s taste and with too much physical contact: an arm around the neck, a pat on the shoulder, a two-handed handshake. Danny cried in public. He got into loud arguments over nothing. In hundreds of small ways, despite his grandfather’s hopes that he and Danny would become close, being associated with Danny had always embarrassed Adam.

As Adam walked over to take Danny’s hand, Danny shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s gone, Adam,” he said. He squeezed Adam’s arm. He glanced over his shoulder, gesturing toward his crew. “We should get started,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m a little late. I had to drive Henry to daycare. Rose was a real treat this morning. A total bitch.”

Adam never had much to do with Rose when he could avoid it. She had always been cold toward him, and prickly. But then he imagined it was no picnic being married to Danny. “How is Henry doing?” Adam asked. “How old is he now? Eight months?”

Danny nodded. “Eight months last week.” He glowed with pride. “One of his teeth just came in. He’s such a trooper. It must have hurt, but he barely fussed at all. Hank was telling me just the other day what a special kid he is.” Adam recognized the flash of pain on Danny’s face as a mirror of his own, and for just a second, he felt their shared bond as something more than a burden.

Danny looked at his watch. “We should get started,” he said. “These guys need to get going.” Adam nodded, and at Danny’s signal, one of the men distributed short ropes. Danny walked to the front right side of the coffin and he gestured for Adam stand across from him on the other side. The other men lined up behind them. When Danny gave the word, they all looped their ropes through the rope handles on the coffin.

“You’re going to want to stand straight, Adam,” Danny said. “We’ll go slow. Lower the coffin hand under hand.”

Adam kept his eyes on his hands. It was one more loss alongside all the others, he thought. He focused on his breathing and on Danny’s whispered count before each incremental descent of the coffin. When the box finally came to rest at the bottom of the grave, the men pulled up their ropes and handed them back to the leader of Danny’s crew.

Steven drove past then in the beat-up Chevy he had bought back in grad school. He parked and walked over to Adam and embraced him. “How are you doing, Adam? Are you okay? You look like crap. Have you slept?” As usual, Steven looked every inch the prep school graduate. He was wearing jeans, but he had a summer sports coat draped over one arm.

“I’ve been better,” Adam said. “I’ll feel better after today. I’m really glad you could come. It means a lot.” He gestured at the jacket. “I hope you don’t mind getting those clothes dirty.”

Steve shrugged. “I wasn’t sure what to wear,” he said. “I wanted to be prepared.” He shrugged apologetically. “I’ve never been to something like this before.”

“No one has been to something like this before,” Danny said. He must have dismissed his men when Steven arrived. They were already about a hundred yards away, walking back the way they had come.

Adam gestured toward Danny. “Steven, Danny, you remember each other, right?”

Steven nodded and extended his hand. Danny took it in both of his and pumped it up and down. They hadn’t seen each other for years, but Adam had kept Steven up to date about Danny’s more irksome habits, as well as the favors he had asked.

“Adam doesn’t want to have a ceremony,” Danny told Steven. “‘Just a burial,’ he says. “It isn’t right. Will you tell him it isn’t right? Maybe he’ll listen to you. I’m only third generation in the funeral business, so what do I know?”

Adam started to protest, but Danny interrupted. “I’m not asking for me, Adam. This is for Hank and your grandmother and your parents.” Danny gestured at the headstones marking the graves of Adam’s family. “Don’t you think they would want some kind of service? This isn’t how you do a Jewish funeral.”

“Don’t,” Adam said. “Don’t. I don’t need a guilt trip.” He had been so young when his parents died. His memories of them were no more than faint impressions, and they were so enmeshed with stories his grandparents had told him that he didn’t know whether they even belonged to him. He remembered his grandparents telling him the driver who killed them had been drunk. He was sure of that. The memory of the crack in his grandfather’s voice, of his grandmother turning to the wall, trying to stifle her sob as Adam absorbed the words: that memory was his.

“They’re dead,” Adam said to Danny. He took a breath and tried to push the bitterness back down. “You can’t please them. Believe me. I’ve tried. The dead are implacable. Or maybe they just don’t want anything. It comes to the same thing.”

Danny set his jaw. It was an expression Adam knew well. He was digging in. “We’re not going to just bury him without any prayers,” Danny said. “It’s not right. I won’t go along with it. This is a kosher cemetery, Adam. There are some things that you just do. I shouldn’t have let you get your way about not having anyone else, but I’m not giving in on this. We’re having a service.”

Adam knew there was no way Danny could understand. Even Steven probably didn’t understand how personal this was, how private his grief felt. His grandfather had raised him, and Adam hadn’t been there when he was dying. If Adam could have, he would have placed the coffin in the ground himself. He would even have done it with Steven’s and Danny’s help—just the three of them, instead of Danny’s workers—but Danny had convinced him that it was clumsy and difficult work, and they would be likely to drop the coffin. They could bury him, though, Adam thought. He didn’t need strangers intruding on that: people for whom this meant nothing, or almost nothing, just some pious duty, some ritual they could participate in before getting on with the rest of their day. Adam didn’t need some rabbi reading stock phrases from a book. And he didn’t need anyone telling him to pray. Not today. If he had anything to address on high, it wouldn’t be pleasant. It wouldn’t be respectful or submissive. It definitely wouldn’t be any prayer he had ever heard of.

Steven interceded in a soft tone. “Look, Adam. A service couldn’t hurt, could it? Maybe later you’ll wish you did something more traditional. You certainly won’t regret it, right?”

Adam wanted to scream. Sure he could regret it, he wanted to say. He seemed to have a great capacity for regret. But he knew Danny and Steven meant well. “Be amiable,” his grandfather had often told him. “Don’t make things harder than they need to be.”

Adam looked in Danny’s eyes. Soon, this would be just one more horrible memory. “This is important to you, Danny?”

“Not just to me, Adam. It’s important.”

Adam nodded. “OK, Danny. Do it. Let’s go. But no long sermons, okay? No big productions.”

Danny took yarmulkes out of his pocket. He put one on and passed the others to Adam and Steven. Adam gave his back. He was wearing an old, worn Mets cap that he had bought to watch the Mets on television with his grandfather the last time they were in the World Series. He wasn’t taking it off.

“Adam,” Danny asked, “are you going to tear some part of your clothes?”

Adam was surprised that the custom felt right to him. He would want to carry a part of this day with him for a while. But he didn’t want to have to wear his t-shirt or jeans for the rest of the week. “My cap,” he said. “Do you have a scissors?”

Danny shook his head. “I forgot them.” He took the Mets cap and pulled hard with both beefy hands, slowly ripping the fabric about three inches up the side. He handed the cap back to Adam.

“Baruch Dayan Emet,” Danny intoned. “Blessed is the Righteous Judge.” He waited for Adam’s response. Steven looked at his feet.

“Amen,” Adam said. The whole cemetery seemed still except for a few birdcalls in the distance. Blessed is the Reaper, Adam thought. He looked again at the headstones. Blessed is the Destroyer. There was no one left. Adam was the last of the Draschers, now.

Danny said the prayer supplicating God’s mercy for the dead in his expressionless Sunday School Hebrew. Adam translated the phrases in his head as Danny read the words: “the Master of mercy will protect him forever . . . will tie his soul with the rope of life. The Everlasting is his heritage . . .”

Automatically, Adam responded “Amen” at the prayer’s close.

“I don’t think we should say Kaddish, Adam,” Danny said. We don’t have a minyan and the burial isn’t over, so you aren’t a mourner yet.”

“No. Not technically,” Adam said, keeping his voice even. Steven caught his eye and Adam made an effort to unclench his jaw. They were trying to help him, he reminded himself. But he imagined himself reciting the traditional mourner’s prayer, the Aramaic formula tumbling from his mouth like a nursery rhyme when his mouth tasted like ashes. There are limits to amiability, he thought. Out loud, louder than he meant to speak, he said, “let’s skip it.”

Danny fumbled with his prayer book. “Does anyone want to say something now?” He asked.

Adam shook his head. Steven didn’t respond.

Danny bowed his head as if he were addressing the coffin along with Adam and Steven. He said, “Hank was . . .” Adam looked up as Danny’s voice broke. He waited in awkward silence as Danny wiped his forehead and collected himself.

“Hank meant a lot to me,” Danny began again. “I was getting in trouble in school, and my parents were ashamed of me. They always told me I was lazy and ungrateful. They made it pretty clear they didn’t have much use for me. The school sent a letter home one day after I got into a fight, but I got to it before they did. I ran away the next morning.” Adam and Steven were silent, but Danny shrugged as if in answer to a question. “I had maybe thirty dollars on me,” he said. “I don’t know how far I would have gotten if Hank hadn’t found me when he was on his way back home from the newsstand. I knew him a little from the neighborhood and I knew that he knew my mom. I figured Hank would bring me home and I would catch hell, but he didn’t bring me home.” Danny choked back a sob. “He looked me in the eye like I mattered,” he said. “He put his hand on my shoulder and said he would walk me to school. He told me if I ever needed to get away for a while, I could visit. I could just hang out and watch TV, he said, until I felt ready to go home.” Danny turned to look at Adam. “I don’t know what he saw in me, but no one else ever saw it. I know you wondered what the hell I was doing there all the time, Adam, but I couldn’t stay away. Hank was my lifeline. He made me feel like I had a place where I was wanted.”

Danny paused for a moment. He cleared his throat and looked first at the coffin and then down at his feet. “I think of you all the time, Hank, when I try to raise my son. I want him to feel what you made me and Adam feel—that he’s worth something, that he always has a place. I will miss you terribly, Hank.” Danny stepped back from the grave.

Adam felt like he should say something, anything. But the words wouldn’t come.

When Danny looked at him, Adam just bit his lip. Steven hunched his shoulders and offered Adam a wan smile. No one spoke for a while. Finally, Adam picked up his shovel and managed to croak out, “Let’s get to work.”

Danny took off his jacket, folded it and put it on the ground several steps from the grave. He laid his prayer book on top of his jacket while Steven went to put his jacket and dress shirt in his car. By the time Steven returned, Adam and Danny had already picked up their shovels and had begun moving the dirt from the pile to the grave. The dull thud as the dirt struck the coffin was much louder than Adam had expected.

Danny worked like an animal, his muscles straining in the hot sun. He used his shoulders, his knees, his back. Within a few minutes, the sweat was dripping from his forehead and staining the armpits of his shirt. It wasn’t long before his undershirt was drenched. You could see its outline through the shirt above. Adam was determined to match Danny’s labor, but Danny was relentless and Adam couldn’t keep pace. He looked over at Steven, but Steven went at his own speed, pausing every once in a while to make a comment or a small joke.

The three men worked steadily for a couple of hours, stopping only for a few short water breaks until the hole was filled at last. Danny had overestimated the time it would take them, but not the effort. Adam was exhausted. He wiped the sweat from his face and the back of his neck and planted his shovel deeply into the small pile of dirt that remained next to the grave.

The others stopped as well. Danny wiped his forehead. Steven bent forward, hands on his knees to catch his breath. Adam surveyed the gravesite. He hadn’t been to the cemetery in a long time. The three older graves holding his parents and grandmother lay flat under their headstones, the grass growing over all of them so that you couldn’t tell where one grave ended and the next began. Adam realized for the first time that there wasn’t any space for him there in what his grandmother used to call “the family estate.”

Soon, Adam thought, Danny’s crew would flatten the loose mound on top of his grandfather’s grave and before long, they would plant grass there. In a year, they would put up a headstone and the Drascher family plot would be complete; a tidy little story with a beginning, middle, and end. He wondered if it ever occurred to his grandparents that they had left him floating, rootless.

“We should eat,” Adam said. “Are you hungry?” I’ve got sandwiches in the car. Egg salad with pickles.”

Danny smiled. Adam’s grandfather had served that to them countless times. Adam went to his car and brought back a small cooler filled with the sandwiches and more water. Steven had a blanket in his car, and they spread it out on the grass next to the graves of Adam’s parents and sat down to eat.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Adam said. “Both of you.” He looked at the ground between his legs and then up at Danny. “I should have been there when he died, Danny. I had no idea how sick he was . . .”

Danny shook his head. “You couldn’t know, Adam. He hid it from everybody. Even when I called you, I thought he’d pull through. And he was really proud of you, being on that dig. He told everybody he met. ‘My grandson is in Israel,’ he would say. ‘He’s an archaeologist. He studies ancient history.’ He joked about it, but he was really proud. ‘I have no idea what he’s doing,’ he’d say, ‘but it’s very impressive.’”

“Did you find anything on the dig?” Steven asked. “How was it over there?”

Adam looked out over the cemetery. He shrugged. “Maybe. I think so. We found some writing that could turn out to be something.”

“Ancient prophecies?” Steven asked. “Magic incantations? An ancient genetics textbook?”

“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” Adam said. He tried to force a smile. “If it turns out to be genetics, I’ll let you know. We can collaborate.”

Adam glanced over at Danny and gestured toward the rows and rows of headstones dotting the ground—all different sizes, colors, and textures as far as he could see, in blocks about a hundred yards square separated by narrow, tree-lined roads. Many of the newer stones were granite or polished marble, tall and engraved in deep letters in Hebrew and English. Some of the older stones were in Yiddish.” So many graves.” Adam said. “Do you ever wonder what’s going to happen to all of them?”

“They’ll be here.” Danny said. “That’s kind of the point, right? Cemeteries are forever. That’s part of why I bought in. It’s permanent.”

“Yeah, but I mean in a really long time: a thousand years, two thousand years. I’ve been on digs where the site was a lot younger than that. A lot changes in that amount of time.” Adam stood up and picked up three small stones from the ground. He placed them in front of the headstones of his mother, father, and grandmother in the traditional mode of marking a visit in a Jewish cemetery.

“In a couple of thousand years I don’t even think much of the DNA would be left in these bodies,” Steven said, his voice low. “Not in this climate. I doubt if there would be enough to identify them.” He looked down at the ground, as if he could see the chemical decomposition taking place at his feet. “Just about all the original molecules would have been degraded. A lot of them would have been built up again into new molecules in worms, or plants, or insects, or bacteria. That would have all happened many thousands of times in two thousand years. Everything that had made up the people while they were alive would be growing in some other body in some other place.”

Adam sat back down and ran his hand along the lush grass in front of him. “Chemical recycling. It’s hard to get any comfort from that.”

Steven shrugged. “I don’t find it disturbing. We’re all a part of something bigger, something oblivious to our concerns. It’s been going on for billions of years and it will continue for billions of years if we don’t screw it up too badly. That’s something. And also, it’s true. I see that as a big advantage over a lot of beliefs people have.”

Danny shot Steven an angry look. “Hank wasn’t just his body,” Danny said. “Science doesn’t know everything.”

Adam caught Steven’s patronizing smile and he intervened before Steven could respond. “We see bones at the digs, sometimes,” he said, “along with jewelry and tools, and a lot of trash.” He tore off a few blades of grass as he spoke. “Everything gets buried one way or another, and some of it gets dug up later, sometimes with some sense of reverence, but not usually. There’s nothing magical about any of it, you know. The bones won’t live again any more than the rest of it will, I don’t think. The people aren’t in their bones, and they aren’t in their stuff. We can sometimes learn about the people or how they lived, but they’re gone.”

He gestured toward the grave they had just filled. “My whole family is here, but nothing that’s really them.” He looked at Steven. “Maybe in a couple of thousand years they could be part of someone’s PhD project.”

Steven smiled. “That’s a kind of immortality I could believe in,” he said. “And if I could help someone get a degree, so much the better.”

Adam looked at his feet. “Sometimes I hope for a little more,” he said. “Not anything physical; not the bones or the chemicals. But I’d like to be able to hear them again, to see them again.” He tried to smile. “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just download my grandfather from the Cloud when I wanted to talk to him?”

Danny looked reprovingly at Adam. “You think Hank was just data? Come on, Adam, don’t even joke about that. Heaven isn’t just some big hard drive.”

Adam shrugged. “I have CDs and MP3s of concerts I’ve been to that sound just like the real thing,” he said. “Somehow, the whole experience is there, stored on my computer. Maybe data really is all we are, or all we are that matters, anyway. Zeroes and ones.”

“You can reduce everything to zeros and ones in principle,” Steven said. “Even the way each neuron functions and the patterns of their connections. With a hundred billion neurons in your brain, each connected in thousands of ways, that’s a lot of zeroes and ones, but it’s still just zeroes and ones.”

Adam took pity on Danny. He didn’t want to gang up on him. Not today. He gestured toward the gravestones in their neat rows. “This is a beautiful place, Danny,” he said. “You should be really proud.”

Danny was quick as usual to accept a peace offering. He looked around with obvious satisfaction. “I do love it here,” he said. “Rose thought it made sense financially, but it doesn’t really. I’m managing it better than it was, but it’s never going to be a real moneymaker. I like that it gives me a chance to work outside part of the time. And it’s not from my parents. It’s something I did on my own.”

Neither Adam nor Steven seemed about to reply, so Danny continued. “What are you doing for the rest of the week, Adam?” Danny asked. “Are you sitting shiva? It’s not the full seven days, you know. Rosh Hashana starts on the fourth, on Wednesday night.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have classes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and they aren’t prepared yet. And I have a lot to do on the artifact we found.”

“You’ll have to go through the apartment at some point, too,” Danny said. “I don’t know when the lease expires. You’ll need to talk to the super about arranging things. If you can wait until next week, I can help you. It might be hard being back in the apartment and going through his things. You don’t have to do it alone.”

Adam bit his lip. “It hasn’t been easy for me being in that apartment for a long time. Not since Grandma died. This probably won’t be much worse.”

The day of his grandmother’s burial flashed into Adam’s mind. He missed her terribly in that moment. Adam remembered standing in front of the stereo speakers in the living room in their apartment after the funeral. The absence of music felt so wrong to him. He remembered that vividly. She had always had music going before she got sick: Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman. And Ellington. Especially Ellington. Adam remembered how gently he had placed the needle in the groove of her favorite record, “Sophisticated Lady,” and how he watched as it moved up and down in the old, warped vinyl. He remembered how he would have given anything to have her there with him. He could still recall the flash of anger he felt then when he couldn’t hear the song over the chatter of all the people there who were treating the day like a party or a reunion.

Danny seemed oblivious to Adam’s reverie. “She seemed to know everything, didn’t she?” Danny asked. He turned to Steven. “She used to talk about history, and politics, and art while she did her crossword puzzles. She had something to say about almost every clue.”

Adam smiled through his tears. “She was a real talker.”

Danny nodded. “Hank loved her so much,” he said. “God, he was a wreck when she died. I was really worried about him.”

“I don’t know if it was conscious or not,” Adam said, “but after a couple of weeks, my grandfather always had the radio on, or a tape going after she died. There was a lot of silence to fill. We never spoke about it, but it seemed like he would listen to just about anything with a woman’s voice. He loved dance music and whatever was popular at the time. I remember laughing when I caught him listening to a Destiny’s Child tape he bought. He went through a Madonna phase for a while. He was a little defensive about it. ‘I don’t know why, but it moves me,’ he would say. Or ‘she has a lovely voice. A real artist.’’ It was just a coincidence, I guess, that everyone he listened to was sexy as hell.”

“He never dated after your grandmother died?” Steven asked.

“No.” Adam said. “I don’t think he ever got over her loss. As far as I know, he never dated anyone even before my grandmother.”

“You know, that’s not exactly true,” Danny said. “He told me some stories . . . he had his share of wild times before he met your grandmother. He got into some trouble before Korea. He said the army helped straighten him out, you know.” Danny smiled. “He told me about one time, right after he got out . . .” He let his voice trail away. “Sorry, Adam. Another time.”

Adam couldn’t hide his surprise. “He never told me anything about that,” he said. “What did he tell you?”

Danny gestured at the grave. “It’s not for today. I’ll tell you some other time. It’s not a big deal, just kid stuff, but it was a funny story. I used to ask Hank for stories all the time when I came over. You know how I idolized him. I asked him about everything he did. I wanted him to teach me plumbing, but he pointed out that I’d probably be better off learning the family business. I could always hire a plumber, he said. When I found out he was a professional boxer for a while, I wanted to take lessons from him, but my parents wanted me to go to a dojo like every other boy in my class. He understood. ‘It’s a different world now,’ he told me. ‘But some things never change. Some time you might find yourself in a situation where violence is your only option, and you’ll need to know how to handle yourself.’”

“He was a boxer?” Steven asked. “I didn’t know that.”

Danny nodded, the pride radiating from his eyes. “‘Digger Drascher’ they called him. He got that nickname in Korea.”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t think it was from Korea, Danny,” Adam said. “It was probably just a play on the name. Drash means dig; like when you interpret a Torah story, that’s a drash. You’re digging beneath the surface.”

Danny fixed Adam with an incredulous look. “Do you think the guys in his unit spoke Hebrew? I doubt if Hank even knew that. He told me they started calling him ‘Digger’ when they saw how fast he could dig a foxhole. They said, ‘Look at Digger go!’ and then they put him on latrine duty.” Danny smiled. “Maybe that’s how he got interested in plumbing.”

Adam decided to let it drop. If he had a nickel for every time he’d managed to teach Danny something, he wouldn’t be any richer than he was now. “He taught me how to box,” Adam said. “He started when some of the kids were giving me a hard time in middle school. For a couple of years, we went to the gym every Saturday and once a week after school. He told me the same thing he told you: ‘A man has to know how to handle himself.’ He must have told me that a hundred times. He said just learning to take a punch would be good for me, because if I weren’t afraid of getting hit, my confidence would show and I’d be able to avoid most fights. He was right about that. I remember he once told me ‘When you box a man, after a few rounds you know how he acts when he’s tired and what he does when he’s scared. If you surprise him, you can see what he defends first, what he wants to protect.’ He said, ‘There are guys I’ve boxed and never said a word to, and in some ways, I know them better than I know anyone else. Better than I know your grandmother after all these years.’”

“Why did you stop?” Danny asked. “He must have been a terrific teacher.”

Adam shrugged. “We stopped before you started coming by. I didn’t like it. It changes the way you look at people, the things you notice without thinking about it. I’d walk into the gym and immediately start sizing people up. Their reach, how they stood . . .”

“That’s just what guys do,” Danny said. “You should have stuck with it.”

Adam shrugged. Maybe he and his grandfather would have been closer if he had. Maybe then Danny wouldn’t think it was his place to tell Adam what he should and shouldn’t say about his own grandfather . . . Adam cut himself off. He was working himself up over nothing, he told himself. All Danny had done was take better care of Adam’s grandfather than Adam had. Arguing with him wouldn’t change that. But when Steven asked if his grandfather had been a good fighter, Adam spoke over Danny’s quick assent.

“No,” Adam said. “He only had five fights. He was two and three. Thank God he stopped before he got hurt.”

Danny said nothing. The cemetery felt very still. Even the birdsong had quieted. A gentle breeze brushed Adam’s cheek and he watched his shadow play over the grass as he moved his hand back and forth.

Steven asked, “Are you going to work, tomorrow, Adam?”

Adam nodded. “I have to. I’ll go crazy if I just stew. Anyway, no one’s going to teach my classes if I don’t.”

“You can stay with us tonight,” Steven said. “Todd would love to see you. He’ll be done with his last patient in time for dinner.”

“Thanks for the offer,” Adam said. “But I need to prepare for class, and I’ve barely even been home.” He stood up stiffly. He realized he was going to be very sore the next day. “Look, guys, Thank you. I really appreciate your giving up the whole day like this, digging with me in the heat . . .”

“Adam, stop, please,” Steven said. “There was never any question.”

“Seriously,” Danny said. “Stop. Stop talking.”