Read Oracle Night for Free Online Page B

Richard. He’d always struck me as a featherweight, a person without substance. He was born a year after Tina, which would make him about forty-three now, and except for a few moments of glory as a high school basketball player, he’d stumbled around for most of his life, flunking out of two or three colleges, moving from one dismal job to the next, never marrying, never really growing up. A sweet disposition, I suppose, but shallow and uninspired, with a kind of slack-jawed dopiness that always got on my nerves. About the only thing I ever liked about him was his devotion to Tina. He loved her every bit as much as I did – that’s certain, an uncontestable fact – and I’m not going to deny that he was a good brother to her, an exemplary brother. You were at the funeral, Gracie. You remember what happened. Hundreds of people showed up, and every person in the chapel was sobbing, moaning, wailing in horror. It was a flood of collective grief, suffering on a scale I’d never witnessed before. But of all the mourners in that room, Richard was the one who suffered the most. He and I together, sitting in the front pew. When the service was over, he nearly passed out when he tried to get to his feet. It took all my strength to hold him up. I literally had to throw my arms around his body to stop him from falling to the floor.
    ‘But that was years ago. We lived through that trauma together, and then I lost track of him. When I agreed to have dinner the other night, I was expecting to have a dull time of it, to slog my way through a couple of hours of awkward conversation and then dash for the door and head home. But I was wrong. I’m happy to report that I was wrong. It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don’t know half as much as I think I do.
    ‘It started with the pleasure of seeing his face. I’d forgotten how much he resembled his sister, how many features they had in common. The set and slant of the eyes, the rounded chin, the elegant mouth, the bridge of the nose – it was Tina in a man’s body, or little flashes of her at any rate, darting out at random moments. It overwhelmed me to be with her again like that, to feel her presence again, to feel that a part of her had lived on in her brother. A couple of times Richard turned in a certain way, gestured in a certain way, did a certain something with his eyes, and I was so moved that I wanted to lean across the table and kiss him. Smack on the lips – a full-bore osculation. You’ll probably laugh, but I’m actually sorry now that I didn’t.
    ‘Richard was still Richard, the selfsame Richard of yore – but better, somehow, more comfortable in his own skin. He’s gotten himself married and has two little girls. Maybe that’s helped. Maybe being eight years older has helped, I don’t know. He’s still grinding away at one of those sad-sack jobs of his – computer parts salesman, efficiency consultant, I forget what it was – and he still spends every evening in front of the television set. Football games, sitcoms, cop shows, nature specials – he loves everything about television. But he never reads, never votes, never even bothers to pretend to have an opinion about what’s going on in the world. He’s known me for sixteen years, and in all that time he hasn’t once taken the trouble to open one of my books. I don’t mind, of course, but I mention it in order to show how lazy he is, how thoroughly lacking in curiosity. And yet I enjoyed being with him the other night. I enjoyed listening to him talk about his favorite TV programs, about his wife and two daughters, about his ever-improving tennis game, about the advantages of living in Florida over New Jersey. Better climate, you understand. No more snowstorms and icy winters; summer every day of the year. So ordinary, children, so fucking complacent, and yet – how shall I put it? – utterly at peace with himself, so contented