Amerikan Eagle

“Well, if that’s how you remember it. I just remember Dad drunk a lot, beating on us and making Mom cry.”

“He worked hard for us, you know that. The job ended up killing him.”

“That’s history, Tony.”

“The hell it is. It’s the reason I got into trouble back at the yard. Family can mean more than blood, you know? I wanted to reorganize the union, get better health care for the workers, increase the number of docs on shift… you know, the yard doc, back when Dad started coughing and coughing, didn’t even know about Dad’s service in the first war. So he told Dad to stay away from dust, told him his lungs would get better. Some fucking diagnosis. It killed him.”

Sam said, “That wouldn’t have made any difference, and you know it.”

“Oh, my cop brother, he’s a doctor now, huh? Don’t you ever think that if Dad hadn’t gotten sick, then he wouldn’t have drunk as much, wouldn’t have been so mean to Mom and us over the years? Don’t you?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t know,” Sam said, hating to be put on the spot in the same place he had been so many times before.

“All I know is that what happened to Dad shouldn’t happen to anyone. And trying to do something about it got my ass in a labor camp.”

“Now your ass is out of a labor camp. Where exactly do you plan to take your ass, Tony?”

“You asking me as my brother? Or as a cop? Somewhere I can make a difference. Where else?”

“Yeah, you’re right. You’re always right, Tony, and that’s always been your problem.”

“And your problem is that you’ve always taken the safe and easy way out, Sam,” he shot back. “Star football player, Eagle Scout, cop, kiss-up to the mayor, and good little son-in-law. Or so you think.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Even in labor camps, news gets around. Met a guy out in the woods once, bundling brush. We got to talking, and when I told him I was from Portsmouth, that made him take notice. Seems he had a sister—an organizer from Manhattan, the ladies’ garment union—and she was on an arrest list. Got out of Manhattan ahead of Long’s goons, got on the Underground Railroad, and spent a night in Portsmouth. Should I go on?”

“Do whatever you want.”

“So she spent the night in Portsmouth in the basement of a little house. A little house that was near the river and across from the shipyard.”

“Tony…”

“So don’t use the Goody Two-shoe defense. You’re in the same fight as me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh, yes, you are. Different tactics, but trust me, your tactics—letting people sleep in your basement on their way up to Canada, that’s not going to change things. Direct action, getting people in the streets, fighting this government hand to hand—that’s what’s going to change things.”

“Sure it will,” Sam said. “It’ll change a lot of living people to dead people.”

“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”

It always ended like this with Tony, with one or the other losing his temper until all that was left were savage words and corrosive memories.

“Look, if you’re going to stay here for more than a day or two, the offer of that room still stands.”

“Please, no favors, all right? I know how to keep my head down from the feds and the screws. So go back home and be safe, and I’ll be out of here in a few days. Look, we all have our jobs to do. My job is other things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as I’m not going to tell a cop, even if he is my brother. I’m outta here, Sam. You take care of you and your family, and I’ll take care of my own things.”

Tony started walking away and Sam said, “I’m glad you’re out, but I’m not glad you’re here.”

His brother called back, “You know, you make this big old act of not liking me that much, and I know that’s so much bullshit.”

“You do? Why’s that?”

“Because of your boy. And his name.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Christ, for a police inspector, you can be dense. Yeah, his name. Where did you get it? A relative on our side of the family? On Sarah’s side of the family?”

“I don’t remember,” Sam said. “It just seemed… just seemed right.”

“Your boy and me share the same first and last name, except for one letter. Tony and Toby. You can call it coincidence. I won’t. In a way, I think the two of you named him after me.”

Then the shadows swallowed him. Sam listened for a moment, then called out, “Tony!”

There was no answer.

INTERLUDE III

After he saw his brother’s Packard leave the parking lot, he started walking to the city. He stood on the wooden bridge going from Pierce Island to the mainland, looking over at the shipyard lights. That’s where it had started, that’s where he thought it had ended, but now it was starting again. Organizing, fighting… back then he thought he was making a difference, but he realized it was just preparation. Preparation for that special day, the day when he would be there to make one shocking difference in this world, to make it better.

Sam was too much of just living in the day-to-day, not looking about him, not looking at the world that needed saving, that needed changing. His brother had no idea what was coming at him.