Free Death Benefits by Sarah N. Harvey

“ Be off, or I’ ll kick you downstairs .” This from a man who couldn’t tell you what he had for breakfast.
    â€œVery impressive,” I say. “I should have known your favorite character would be a cranky old man who can balance an eel on the end of his nose.”
    â€œDamn skippy,” he replies.

Eight
    T hings settle into a comfortable, boring pattern over the next few weeks: I ride my bike to Arthur’s every morning, he yells at me for being late or sweaty or stupid or all three, I open the curtains another inch, make him his café au lait , watch a bit of TV , make lunch, play some solitaire at the kitchen table, put his dinner in the microwave and ride home along the scenic route, which is longer but more interesting than the main roads. We take the T-bird out once a week and drive the same route I bike every day. Arthur often falls asleep in the car, like a fussy baby, and I drive around town until he wakes up and yells at me that he needs to go to the bathroom. If we were characters in a movie, Arthur and I would go on a road trip together and I would learn important life lessons from him and he would benefit from my joie de vivre . Like that’s gonna happen. Even so, I cast the movie in my head: Arthur will be played by Kirk Douglas. The part of Royce Peterson will be played by Shia LaBeouf or maybe one of the Twilight dudes.
    One day I drive all the way out to Sidney and back while he sleeps, just to see what it’s like to drive the T-bird on the highway. It’s amazing, but I’m glad to get back to town and let my blood pressure return to normal. If I hadn’t had Arthur with me, I might have been tempted to continue past Sidney to the ferry terminal, slide up the ramp into the ferry’s metal maw and be on my way.
    One afternoon, sick of solitaire and really restless, I decide to look at Arthur’s photo albums, which are decaying in the hall closet. I carry them to the unused upstairs bedroom, where I lay them on the bed and arrange them in chronological order. They start in 1929, when Arthur was fourteen, and go up to 2006. Nothing from his childhood in Alberta and nothing from the last four years. Each album covers a period of three to five years. Two albums are devoted to reviews and two are jammed with concert programs. They’re all bound in dusty black leather, except for two small velvet-covered books—one blue, one red—labeled Marta and Nina. I place all but the first album on the bookcase. Then I make myself comfortable on the bed with 1929–1932.
    The first thing I notice is that the dates on the cover are wrong: the first few pages are full of pictures of a preadolescent Arthur with an older boy and a younger girl. Bobby and Elizabeth. The girl has ringlets and a bow in her hair. She is also a little blurry, as if she can’t keep still for the camera. In every photo, Arthur gazes adoringly at Bobby, who has a wide grin and freckles and often carries something: a rifle, a hoop, a dead gopher, a stick, a ball. In one picture, they are all standing outside what looks like a real teepee. In another, Arthur is in a small sled being pulled by a big dog. Happy childhood, right?
    But a family portrait tells another story. A stern-looking man with a long beard stands with his hands clamped on the shoulders of a plump young woman, who is seated, holding a baby in a long white lace dress. The woman appears to have recently swallowed a mouthful of vinegar. Elizabeth is seated at the woman’s feet, looking as if she is about to cry. The boys stand one on each side of their mother, hands clenched at their sides. No one is smiling. There might as well be a cross-stitched motto on the wall behind them: Spare the rod and spoil the child . I wonder what happened to the baby. Arthur only mentioned Bobby and Elizabeth. Maybe he has forgotten the baby’s existence. For some reason, I find this really upsetting, to think that someone