All that night, the Matheson cousins ragged us with the usual litany of high school insults. As I watch Tim Hayden crying in this little park, the main Matheson theme comes back to me with painful clarity: faggots, homos, queers. Even the stupid “Casey Jones” parody they jeered at me had homosexual references. I took those insults like water off a duck’s back, but Adam didn’t. For once, the taunts of idiots got under his skin. Was he in the grip of a sexual identity crisis on that night? Was that what drove him to the top of that tower to dance along the light strut like Dooley Matheson, six hundred feet in the air? Was that what pushed him to try to swim the river with me?
No, I tell myself. The tower, maybe. But Adam went into the river to protect me, his little brother. I still remember his words: If you drown out there, I can’t walk in our house and tell Mom and Dad I watched it happen. He couldn’t have imagined that it would be me rather than him who would face that soul-searing ordeal.
“Do you know when I think about Adam the most?” Hayden asks.
“When?”
“When I hear Jeff Buckley sing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’”
“Yeah? Well, that’s a great song.”
“It is, but that’s not the reason. Jeff Buckley drowned in the Mississippi River. Did you know that?”
I feel like someone walked over my grave. “I didn’t. Where did he drown?”
“Memphis. When I hear Buckley singing ‘Hallelujah,’ I always hope that his soul and Adam’s found each other in that river.” Hayden smiles through his tears. “I sound crazy, right?”
“Actually no. I loved him, too. And I used to be a musician.”
“I didn’t know you could stop being a musician.”
This makes me smile. “You’re right. You never do.” I look at my wristwatch. “I hate to say it, but I have a meeting to get to.”
He wipes his face with the flat of his hand. “You’ve been great about this. It’s such a relief after so long. I hope you feel the same, after you’ve had time to process it.”
“I’m glad you told me. This seems to be the week that my whole life history gets explained to me. It’s like time is running backwards. I’m living from flashback to flashback.”
He gives me a sympathetic smile. “Do you think your parents had any idea about Adam?”
“No. And I wouldn’t bring this up to them. In fact, I’ll ask you not to. My father couldn’t take it, and my mother’s got enough to handle without wondering why she didn’t see it herself. She’ll start thinking that if only she’d recognized that, and nurtured it, Adam might still be alive.”
Hayden nods. “I understand completely. I won’t ever speak to them about it. I just wanted someone in the family to know.”
I get to my feet and reach out to shake his hand, but Hayden pulls me in for a hug. Feeling tears rise, I blink and wipe my eyes after I pull away.
“Thanks for this,” he says. “And please find out what happened to Buck. He was a good man.”
“I will.”
He turns and leaves through the little wrought-iron gate.
Nothing would ease my nerves in this moment more than to sit in this little park and go back over my brother’s life, searching for clues I missed while he was alive. But Claude Buckman and the Poker Club are waiting for me. I might as well go listen to their pitch. Shouldering my bag, I walk down Second Street to the Flex. Buckman’s bank is only a few blocks away, but I’d rather have my vehicle with me. There’s no telling where I might need to go after that meeting, or if I’ll need to get there in a hurry.
Chapter 31
The Bienville Southern Bank is a Greek Revival pile built in the 1880s by Claude Buckman’s grandfather. An exceptionally attractive receptionist escorts me to the second-floor conference room, where I find a massive rosewood table capable of seating twenty, but which today holds only five men: Claude Buckman, Blake Donnelly, Avery Sumner, Wyatt Cash, and Arthur Pine. Stripped of their names, I’m facing a predatory banker, an old-time oil tycoon, a newly minted U.S. senator, an entrepreneur with ties to the U.S. military, and a sleazy lawyer. What could possibly go wrong?
“Greetings, Mr. McEwan,” Claude Buckman says. “Come up and have a seat with us. There, beside Mr. Pine. I believe you know him.”
“I do.” I walk up the other side