The two of them seemed equal at that moment, balanced. Yet they were not equal at all, because she did not know what he knew: That she was, in effect, looking into the eyes of her executioner.
* * *
This had not been a good visit. Harm just sat in the chair, refusing to look at Alvie, refusing to speak at all. You stubborn sonofabitch, Alvie wanted to shout at him. You tell me what you remember. Tell me what you might say.
Finally he gave up. Good days and bad days: that’s what people with Alzheimer’s have, Alvie had been told. Up and down. Can’t predict.
At first he had not given it a thought. Not a single thought. He was not worried at all. Why should he be? Harm Strayer’s mind was gone, swamped by what the newspaper articles said were these little fuckers called plaques and tangles—sticky shit your brain can’t shake off, plus squiggly things that worm themselves into the nooks and crannies between all the brain crap up there.
Bottom line: If you get it, you’re screwed. There was no cure. Once that train starts heading downhill, you can pull the lever all you want, but it’s not stopping.
Harm’s decline had not been gradual. Apparently it was different for everybody—Alvie had read that, too, in those articles he found about Alzheimer’s—and for Harm, it was whoosh, boom. Game over. His brain was a mushy blob.
Which was actually pretty good news for Alvie. First, it was nice to see Harm Strayer not get a break. Good to see the odds finally catch up with Mr. Goody Two Shoes, Mr. Oh I’m So Perfect. And second, it meant Alvie would never have to worry about Harm shooting off his mouth about Caneytown. Alvie had worried about that—oh, yes he had. He’d worried about it since 1945, when the three of them came back from the war and Harm started getting a little strange. Nothing big—just more thoughtful than he’d been before. Slower to act. Alvie knew that Harm was one of those men who brooded, and dithered, and sat on his back porch thinking. No telling what he might do, if things broke a certain way in his head.
Vic, he never worried about. Vic was smart. Vic was a winner. He understood there was nothing to gain—and everything to lose—from coming clean about Caneytown. Vic had moved to Bluefield and opened up a string of car washes. He had made a shitload of money. When he visited Norbitt, he came in a BMW. New wife every ten years. New house every three. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Anyway, Vic was okay. Harm—he was the real threat. Harm was the loose cannon. The one who could destroy all three of their lives by letting his guilty conscience get the best of him, and then dragging them down into the same pit.
Well, they didn’t have to worry about that anymore, did they? No siree. Harm was down for the count. He had started his fade a few years ago, and then it speeded up. Six months ago came the end of the line. He got lost on Main Street, and a deputy drove him home. When they got to the house, Harm looked at the deputy and said, “Where are we? Who lives here?” The next day he walked out of the house in only his underwear. The day after that he started calling people and when they said, “Hello?” he said, “Hello?” back. When they asked why he’d called, he said, “Did I?”
And then he almost set the house on fire. Put an empty pan on the stove, turned on the burner, left the room. Forgot all about it. By the time the boys from the fire department got there, the flames were eating up the kitchen curtains. They barely got Harm out in time.
That was it. Darlene drove in from D.C.—she had an Audi, a fancy one, and just the sight of that car put Alvie in a bad mood—and packed up her dad and took him to Thornapple Terrace.
Fine, Alvie thought. We’re in the clear.
But maybe they weren’t.
Because Alvie had read an article last year about Alzheimer’s. And it said something he’d never known before. Turns out that while people with Alzheimer’s can’t remember things they learned recently, they can sometimes remember old stuff. Stuff that has been in their brains for a long time. Stuff that has settled in for the long haul. Stuff from way, way