stuck halfway up the big pine in our backyard when I was eight or nine: I knew where it was, but I couldn’t get it. And that was okay. For the time being I had everything I needed. Except for him, that was. What was I going to do with my weekday afternoons now?
“I take back everything I ever said about him being a tightwad,” Dad said as he pulled out behind a shiny black SUV some business guy had rented at the Portland Jetport. “Although . . .”
“Although what?” I asked.
“Considering the lack of relatives and how rich he was, he could have left you at least four mil. Maybe six.” He saw my look and started laughing again. “Joking, kiddo, joking. Okay?”
I punched him on the shoulder and turned on the radio, going past WBLM (“Maine’s Rock and Roll Blimp”) to WTHT (“Maine’s #1 Country Station”). I had gotten a taste for c&w. I have never lost it.
* * *
Mr. Rafferty came to dinner, and chowed down big on Dad’s spaghetti, especially for a skinny guy. I told him I knew about the trust fund, and thanked him. He said “Don’t thank me” and told us how he’d like to invest the money. Dad said whatever seemed right, just keep him informed. He did suggest John Deere might be a good place for some of my dough, since they were innovating like crazy. Mr. Rafferty said he’d take it under consideration, and I found out later that he did invest in Deere & Company, although only a token amount. Most of it went into Apple and Amazon.
After dinner, Mr. Rafferty shook my hand and congratulated me. “Harrigan had very few friends, Craig. You were fortunate to have been one.”
“And he was fortunate to have Craig,” my dad said quietly, and slung an arm around my shoulders. That put a lump in my throat, and when Mr. Rafferty was gone and I was in my room, I did some crying. I tried to keep it quiet so my dad wouldn’t hear. Maybe I did; maybe he heard and knew I wanted to be left alone.
When the tears stopped, I turned on my phone, opened Safari, and typed in the keywords screenwriter and starlet. The joke, which supposedly originated with a novelist named Peter Feibleman, is about a starlet so clueless she fucked the writer. Probably you’ve heard it. I never had, but I got the point Mr. Harrigan was trying to make.
* * *
That night I awoke around two o’clock to the sound of distant thunder and realized all over again that Mr. Harrigan was dead. I was in my bed and he was in the ground. He was wearing a suit and he would be wearing it forever. His hands were folded and would stay that way until they were just bones. If rain followed the thunder, it might seep down and dampen his coffin. There was no cement lid or liner; he had specified that in what Mrs. Grogan referred to as his “dead letter.” Eventually the lid of the coffin would rot. So would the suit. The iPhone, made of plastic, would last much longer than the suit or the coffin, but eventually that would go, too. Nothing was eternal, except maybe for the mind of God, and even at thirteen I had my doubts about that.
All at once I needed to hear his voice.
And, I realized, I could.
It was a creepy thing to do (especially at two in the morning), and it was morbid, I knew that, but I also knew that if I did it, I could get back to sleep. So I called, and broke out in gooseflesh when I realized the simple truth of cell phone technology: somewhere under the ground in Elm Cemetery, in a dead man’s pocket, Tammy Wynette was singing two lines of “Stand By Your Man.”
Then his voice was in my ear, calm and clear, just a bit scratchy with old age: “I’m not answering my phone now. I will call you back if it seems appropriate.”
And what if he did call back? What if he did?
I ended the call even before the beep came and climbed back into bed. As I was pulling the covers up, I changed my mind, got up, and called again. I don’t know why. This time I waited for the beep, then said, “I miss you, Mr. Harrigan. I appreciate the money you left me, but I’d give it up to have