'Will you for Christ's sake stop talking about insurance?'

'Whatever you say, boy. It's your dinner. I take it it is your dinner?'

'Of course.'

'Forget Pa. He's dead. Forget Mom. She's dead. They worked their fingers to the bone and worried night and day and got the old royal American screwing and raised a family, one who's a fag radio announcer in San Diego, the other who's a drunken accountant in Scranton working his fingers to the bone to raise a family, who in turn will work their fingers to the bone to raise their families. I'll say this for our dad, he had his religion. Clara has her yacht. Bert has his beach boys. I have my bottle.' He smiled owlishly. 'What have you got, brother?'

I don't know yet,' I said.

'You don't know yet?' Henry cocked his collapsed, pale head to one side and grimaced. 'You're what - thirty-two, thirty-three? And don't know yet? You're a lucky man. The future is all ahead of you. I got something beside the bottle. I got a pair of eyes that are no good for anything and steadily getting worse.'

'What?'

'You heard me. Did you ever hear of a blind accountant? In five years I'll be out in the street on my naked ass.'

'Jesus,' I said, shaken by the coincidence. That's why I was grounded. My eyes started to go bad.'

'Aha,' Henry said. 'I thought you'd run a plane into a hill or screwed the boss's wife.'

'No. Just a little failure of the retina. Nothing much,' I said bitterly. 'Just enough.'

'We none of us ever did see clearly, I guess.' Henry laughed foolishly. The fatal flaw of the Grimeses.' He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, which were watering. The marks of the frames on his nose were like small deep wounds. His eyes without the glasses looked almost blank. 'But you said you were traveling, you were going to Europe. What've you got - a rich woman to support you?'

No.'

Take my advice. Find one.' Henry put his glasses on. They fitted automatically into the slots on each side of his nose. 'Romance yourself no romance. That's another thing I have. 'He was off ranting again. 'I have a wife who despises me.'

'Oh, come on now. Hank.' In the photograph Madge hadn't looked like a woman who despised anyone, and the few times I had met her she had seemed like a good-natured, even-tempered woman, solicitous at all times of her husband's welfare.

'Don't say come on now, brother,' Henry said. 'You don't know. I know. She despises me. You know why she despises me? Because by her high American standards I am a failure. She does not get new dresses when her friends get new dresses. I can't afford to pay for a psychiatrist for the older kid and send her off to a private school and she's afraid the Blacks at the high school will rape her between lunch and gym class. The house hasn't been painted for ten years. We're behind on our payments for the television set. Our car is six years old. I am not a partner in my firm. I keep track of other people's money. You know what the worst thing in the world is? Other people's money. I...'

'That's enough. Hank, please.' I couldn't stand the wave of self-hatred at the dinner table, even though there was nobody near enough but myself to hear any of it.

'Permit me to continue, brother,' Henry said. 'My teeth are bad and they smell, she says, because I can't afford to go to the dentist. I can't afford to go to the dentist because all three goddamn kids go to the dentist every week to have their braces worked on so that they'll all look like movie stars when they grow up. And she despises me because I haven't been able to fuck her for five years.'

'Why not?'

'I'm impotent,' Henry said with a crazy smile. 'I have every reason to be impotent and I'm impotent. Do you remember when you came home that Saturday afternoon and you found me in bed with that girl? What was her name?'

'Cynthia.'

'That's it - Cynthia. Cynthia of the big tits. She let out a shriek when she saw you that I can hear to this day. And she slapped me because I laughed. What did you think of your big brother then?'

'I didn't think anything. I didn't know what you were doing.'

'You know now, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'I wasn't impotent then, was I?

'How the hell would I know?'

Take your brother's word for it. Glad you came back to Scranton, Doug?'

'Listen to me. Hank.' I grabbed both his hands and pressed them hard. 'Are you sober enough to understand what I'm saying?'

'Approximately, kid, approximately.' Henry chuckled, then frowned. 'Give me back my bands.'

I let go of his hands. I took out my wallet and counted out ten bills. This is a thousand dollars. Hank,' I said. I leaned over and stuffed it into my brother's breast pocket. 'Don't forget where I put it.'

Henry let out his breath noisily. He fumbled at his pocket, took out the bills, smoothed them out on the table. 'Other people's money,' he said. He sounded dead sober.

I nodded. There's more where that came from. Now, I'm going away tomorrow. Out of the country. I won't tell you where, but from time to time you'll hear from me, and if you need more there'll be more. Do you understand that?'

Henry slowly folded the bills and put them in his wallet. Then the tears started, silently rolling down the pallid cheek out from under the glasses.

'For Christ's sake, Hank, don't cry,' I pleaded.

'You're in trouble,' Henry said.

'Maybe,' I said. 'Anyway, I have to keep on the move. If anybody ever comes to you and asks you if you know where I am, you don't know anything. You got that?'

"I got it.' Henry nodded. 'Let me ask you a question, Doug.' He was sober now, sobered by money. 'Is it worth it? Whatever you're doing?'

'I don't know yet. I'll let you know when I find out. I think we can skip coffee, can't we?'

'I don't need any coffee. I can get coffee in my happy home from my happy wife,'

We stood up and I helped Henry put on his coat. We walked out together, after I had paid the waiter. Henry walked in a straight line, a bent, oldish figure, then stopped for a moment, as I was pushing at the door. 'Just before he died,' Henry said, 'do you know what Pa said to me? He said, of all his sons he loved you best. He said you were the purest.' His voice sounded petulant, almost childish. 'Now why would a man on his deathbed want to tell his oldest son something like that?' He started walking again, and I opened the door for us, thinking, I am an opener of doors.

It was cold outside, the night wind gusting. Henry shivered a little, settling deeply into his coat. 'Beautiful old Scranton, where I live and die,' he said.

I kissed him on the cheek, hugging him, feeling the wetness of his tears. Then I put him in a cab. But before the cabby could start off, Henry tapped him on the shoulder to stop him and rolled down the window on my side. 'Hey, Doug,' he said. 'I just noticed; I knew something was peculiar about you all evening and I couldn't put my finger on it. You don't stutter anymore.'

'No,' I said.

'How'd it happen?'

'I went to a speech doctor,' I said. It was as good an explanation as any.

'Why, that's great, that's wonderful. You must be a happy man.'

'Yep,' I said. 'I'm a happy man. Get a good night's sleep, Hank.'

He rolled up the window and the cab started away. I watched its tail-lights go down the street, disappear around a comer, carrying away the brother of whom our mother had said that of all her children he was the one who was born ta be rich and successful.

I took a deep breath of the icy night air, shivered, remembered the warm beds of Washington. Then I went in and took the elevator to my room and watched the television for hours. Many objects were advertised that I would never buy.

I slept badly that night, tantalized by fleeting visions of women and funerals.

The ringing of the telephone on the bedside table put a welcome stop to my dreams. I looked at my watch. It was only seven-thirty. 'Doug...' It was Henry on the phone. It couldn't have been anyone else. Nobody else in the whole world knew where I was. 'Doug ... I have to see you.'