A. Homes: May We Be Forgiven

Cy marches ten paces out from the basement door and three to the left and starts to dig. “It’s about eighteen inches down,” he says.

“Here, let me, my back is stronger.” He watches me dig for a couple of minutes and then starts digging another hole, about a foot away.

“There’s more than one?” I ask.

“Seven or eight,” he says.

I keep digging until I hear the sound of the shovel hitting metal.

“Bingo,” Cy calls out.

We get down on our hands and knees, and I dust off the top of what turns out to be a. 50-caliber military-issue ammunition can, and suddenly I’m terrified.

“You have ammunition buried in the yard — explosives? This could be dangerous. We could blow ourselves up.”

“It’s not explosives — it’s cash. I put it in the ammo cans because they’re waterproof. Why do you think I never went along with the idea for an in-ground sprinkler system? It would have wrecked my retirement plan.” He chortles.

“Cy, are you telling me that you have seven or eight cans of cash buried back here?”

He nods gleefully. “Yes, I never trusted the markets, so I socked away whatever I could, a little here and there over the years.”

“And this isn’t the money you stole?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I gave that back; this is mine.”

“Are you sure about this, Cy?”

“Positive,” he says. “Keep digging.”

And so I do. I dig for hours; we find six cans.

“That’s odd,” Cy says. “I could have sworn there were more.”

I shrug. I’m nearly crippled, my head is throbbing, I’m thinking I could have another stroke any minute now. “It’s enough, Cy. Whatever it is, it’s enough.”

He nods. “There’s ten thousand in each can,” he says.

“Sixty thousand dollars?”

“I sold insurance, son, and I was damned good at it. Insurance was big back then, late 1950s, early 1960s. Everyone thought we’d be blown to kingdom come. … I was very careful: every bonus, every little extra bit, I squirreled away. Look,” Cy says as we’re finishing up. “I know it costs a pretty penny to take care of Madeline and me. And Christmas is coming, and I want to do something for the kids — maybe buy them some United States Savings Bonds. And, well, here’s the truth, I’ve always wanted a Lionel train set. Every Christmas, despite my age, I still come downstairs hoping it’s going to be there. And you know what, this year it will be, because I’m going to get it for myself. You’ll come with me,” he says. “We’ll go into New York and pick it out.” He pauses. “So — you think I’ve got enough for the train?”

“Yeah, Cy, I think you’ve got it covered.”

Together we fill in the holes and make a plan to come back and repair the damage to the lawn. “Before they notice,” Cy says — which is of course impossible, because for several hours the Gaos have been staring out their back windows, wondering what the hell we’re doing as we dig up the heavy green metal cans.

“I should have asked you before we started,” Cy says, “but I’m assuming that you can keep what happened here tonight just between us.”

“Not a peep,” I say.

A letter arrives with no stamp, no return address. It’s neatly typed on fine blue stationery.

Franklin Furness shared your manuscript with me — he wanted my opinion as an off-the-record fact-checker. I put two and two together and wanted to drop you a line, a note of congratulations. I was pleasantly surprised to see that your belief in the dream survives along with your hope that the hearts of men are not as dark as their behavior might lead one to believe. The smog of history never really clears, there’s an enormous amount we’ll never know, suffice to say it hasn’t been a government by the people for a very long time. It’s a company, a multinational — the land of the free and home of the brave as brought to you by the People’s Republic of China. Historical forces are underestimated — just like physicists describe gravity as a weak force — the shape of history is surprisingly easily recast. And here we, you and me, once again front and center of the Zeitgeist, the fragrant and foul, mix fact and what you hope is fiction that is bubbling up like an ancient tar pit. And while we might revel in the accuracy of our conspiratorial musings — and, yes, we were right all along; our youthful doppelgängers are at it again. Do you realize that there are now more than eight hundred and fifty thousand people employed with Top Secret security clearances? No one knows who is doing what, and even those authorized to know it all can’t possibly keep up. A plan or ten could be hatched, threaded through in such a way that it would take years to unfold with no one person in the lead. This is the new terrorism, buttons pushed made by people just doing their jobs with no idea of the cause and effect, the relation of any one action to another. The drone, just look at the definition — a stingless male bee — aka a powerless man — the most dangerous kind. A strange buzzing by your ear — nolonger a humble bee but a fake bug that can be flown into your house, land on your dining room table, or fly right up into your ear and on command, with a computer keystroke, blow you and your house the fuck up and you’d never know why. They are among us and we will never know who they are or what is happening. It is all bigger than any of us could ever imagine. Forty-nine years since the big event — the implosion of American politics, the inauguration of our dark age — and this is where we got to. As you can imagine I am working on a book of my own — seems there are still a few of us thinking along the same lines — carrying baggage, something we need to get off our chests before it’s too late. Anyway, all this to say: Congratulations. Good work. The world needs more men like you, Silver.

I read the letter several times. I can’t help but be pleased. It’s what I’ve wanted to hear — it confirms my feelings, my suspicions, my hope that it’s not all for naught. I assume it’s from my “friend” at the law firm, the guy in the elevator — but who is he? Is he someone I should know — a familiar name? I pocket the letter, thinking that I’ll do more digging later — maybe there’s something in it, a phrase, a way of speaking, that will ring a bell.

Walter Penny calls to say that George has been moved again. “He was having tummy trouble, so we sent him to a place with better medical care. I can give you the address and visiting info — it’s been a while since you saw him.”

“The incident is still fresh in my memory,” I say.

“Did you get the check?” Penny asks, like that should have fixed it.

“I did, thank you.”

Walter gives me the prison information. “It’s about an hour from where you are, overlooking the Hudson.”

I drive up the following day. On the outside it’s bucolic, set in the landscape like an old castle or fortress. The parking lot has an employee-of-the-month parking spot with the person’s name written in red marker in a white rectangle. As I’m pulling in, I happen to glance at an old house off to the right, and, like witnessing an apparition, I see a dapper fellow wearing an old tan corduroy jacket come out the front door and head towards an ancient station wagon, and I’m thinking it’s the ghost of John Cheever going out for a ride.

Bucolic on the outside, but like a furnace inside, sweaty, sticky, with a gamy smell. I pass through the metal detector and into the waiting area. The guards bring George to the visiting area in shackles; we speak through holes drilled in thick Plexiglas — holes filled with the spittle of every criminal’s family that has come before us.