You Wish This Were a Novel

My brother can’t remember the name of his favorite book. It’s about a man who goes from town to town, befriending managers of corporate stores like Walmart, Kmart—all of the marts—makes them feel at ease, treats them to dinner, schmoozes, the whole nine yards. The man, whose name my brother also can’t remember, tells the managers he’s writing a script for Hollywood, this big blockbuster of a film and wouldn’t you know it’s about some guy who manages a corporate store like theirs? And because of all his schmoozing, the drinks he’s treated them to, the fun, each of them grants him his wish: to spend one week in their store, learning the ins and outs, everything there is to know, down to the smallest of details, like when employees take their breaks and where they keep the money before that big armored truck comes in to take it all away. And you know what that man ends up doing, my brother asks. He locks the manager and driver of that armored truck in the safe and absconds with more money than he can carry and does it all over, changing his story just a little when he meets somebody new.

My brother can’t remember how it ends. And since he can’t remember the title, and no one knows what book he’s talking about, he can’t go back and read it.

I listen to him talk, and when he’s done, I tell the guards outside his visitation room he’s been talking about his life again, as if it were a book.

Sometimes when I see him, I tell him I remember it. I say it ends like this: the man is caught on the very last page. He’s accumulated his fortune. He’s gotten everything he could ever want, a family, a house, a view of the ocean with a boat tied up in the harbor. So, he’s sitting in his living room, watching his boat bob on the sea. He’s an old man now, or at least older than he expected to be. He never thought he’d make it to forty, but there he is, with gray hair and shaky hands, and when he sips his coffee, he tries to remember why he did what he did. He knows it was for money—to buy all of this—but he wants to find another reason he stole. And while he’s sitting there, it dawns on him that he’s never really done anything. He didn’t build anything, didn’t contribute. He simply took, and as he wonders what he can do to change, a swarm of agents descends upon his house.

My brother looks around the visitation room when I finish. A man speaks quietly to his wife in the corner. Behind us, two men play cards.

“Is that it?” my brother asks.

“That’s it.”

He rubs his chin, scratches his head. “But isn’t there some kind of epilogue or something?”

“No, it just ends.”

He takes a moment to consider this, fidgets with his thumb. “So, what do you think he does? I mean, once all those agents swarm?”

“Nothing. It’s over. There’s a single blank page. Then the cover.”

My brother glances at the guard in the corner. “But he’s got to do something, right? I mean, isn’t that how life works?”

“Not how books work.”

“No?”

“You can guess all you want. You can make it up. But the truth is, when the book’s over, it’s over.”

“Hmm.” His legs bounce beneath the table. “I guess that’s all right, then.”

“Sometimes it’s even better that way.”

He nods, then frowns and rises to shake my hand. When I leave, I look back at him. He’s turned his chair to face the ocean-colored walls. For a while, that’s all he does—sit there and stare—and I think, I can end it now. I can leave him here and not come back. I can tell myself he’ll change. That he’ll leave this place and be the boy who used to race me to the creek. He’ll go on to build something, do something. But that isn’t how life works.

I think life works more like this: it’s jagged. It’s looking at him through the glass and hearing your dead mother explain how much he looks up to you. It’s watching him face the ocean-colored walls and seeing him count nickels on your bed while you listed the ways he might get rich. It’s picturing your father, after how many doctors’ visits, mentioning something’s not quite right with—he couldn’t even say your brother’s name, just that he gets these wild ideas. It’s wishing life would be more like a novel. Knowing you’ll find that final page, the one that says: it’s over now. It’s knowing deep down there is no final page. So, you carry them with you, all these words, these stories. You put them on your back, even when you don’t know where to take them. You breathe, and then? Your guess is as good as mine.