The Risk Pool

us can do,” she said, without a trace of humor. “Here’s a list of the items you can pick up downstairs. And you get a flag, of course.”
    While I scanned the short itemized list—bathrobe, slippers, pajamas, wallet, button-down shirt, one pair of brown slacks, one pair of shorts, one pair of socks, one pair black shoes, one pair black overshoes, one overcoat, one wool cap—she stapled several onionskin documents to the inside of a manila folder, then got up and handed me one of the brown packages from the middle of the stack. It was surprisingly heavy.
    “What about his glasses?” I said.
    She looked at the list over my shoulder.
    “I don’t see any reference to eyeglasses.”
    “They were new. He’d just bought them.”
    “There’s no reference here … I could call up to the ward …”
    I said I didn’t see any reason to.
    She studied my signatures, the one on the itemized personal effects sheet, the other on the consent form, as if to make sure they matched. “This will make things go more smoothly. Your father was a generous man. You should know that he could be with us anywhere from three months to two years.”
    “I’ll try not to think about it.”
    “The research is important …”
    I said I didn’t doubt that.
    “We all thought a great deal of your father,” she said.
    I put the flag under my arm and stood up. “You knew him?”
    “No,” she said. “That is, not personally.”
    On the phone my mother had said it was a terrible, terrible shame. This was not in reference to Sam Hall’s death, but rather its timing. Isn’t it always the way, she wanted to know, her voice full of wonder, that at this time when we were all anticipatingLIFE, when life was expected any day, any MINUTE, for heaven’s sake, that I’d be required to go to Mohawk and attend to the details of my father’s departure. She was sure that there would be endless details, given the clutter of my father’s existence: unplanned funeral arrangements, dealings with people he’d borrowed money from, tedious conversations with the sort of people he knew. Well, at least it wasn’t like he and I had been inseparable, she went on, by which she didn’t mean that I didn’t love him or wouldn’t feel his loss. Of course I would. After all, I was a dutiful son, but what she meant was, well, we were different and all those years when he wasn’t around, when he chose not to be, well, ironically, maybe it was just as well. She would never forget the devastation she’d felt when her own father died, and Lord knew she wouldn’t wish that on me. Did I want to say hello to Will? Wouldn’t you think they’d been best friends? she wanted to know. I should see the look on his face.
    From the VA I drove to Mohawk, the slender brown package of my father’s possessions on the front seat of the rental car with me, trying not to think about my mother, her insistence that I keep things in perspective (“Let’s talk about something cheerful! How’s our girl Leigh? I think if that baby doesn’t get here before the weekend, I’ll
die
, honestly!”).
    I parked out back of the McKinley Luxury Apartments next to my father’s pale yellow Subaru. It was still his, I would learn later. He hadn’t had money for repairs and didn’t want to admit to that. Didn’t want me making offers.
    When I went around front, I found Wussy sitting under the stone arch eating a sandwich. “Sam’s Kid,” he said, patting the stone step next to him.
    “Well,” I said, accepting his invitation to join him. The freakish February weather had gone from subzero to low fifties in a week, but the stone steps were still cold.
    “Right,” Wussy said. “Last week it was Untemeyer.”
    “No kidding,” I said. I’d always considered the bookie to be immortal. Even more than Sam Hall.
    “Died sitting up straight at the Mohawk Grill. Nobody noticed for a hell of a while. Fortunately, his stool was a little off balance and he eventually got turned around so he was staring out theback door, which was unnatural for Meyer. He faced front for about eighty-five years.”
    “You going over to Mike’s?” I said.
    “Not me, Sam’s Kid. I’m staying home where it’s safe.”
    I wished I didn’t have to go myself. Mike was closing The Elms at five, then holding there in the lounge what he referred to over the phone as a “send-off” in Sam Hall’s honor. I had an idea Irma was behind this, but I could have been wrong. The gathering would be