Phoenix

by Matthew Rooney

When Bennie and Walt come back to our house, they don’t bother to ring the bell because they know nobody is home, and I am startled by the sound of the key in the lock.

“Let’s just get Griff and then we can hit the road,” Bennie says as the door swings open.

“Who?” Walt replies. His voice sounds thin, and his eyes are tired and out of focus.

Less than two weeks ago, when they came to get Ava for their morning walk, Walt was still sharp as a tack. It was early, the heat not yet overpowering. Bennie and Walt rang the bell, and when there was no answer, they let themselves in. They found Ava lying on the sofa where she had passed away the evening before as we binged Grey’s Anatomy for the umpteenth time. The TV was still on.

Bennie was distraught, sobbing into Walt’s chest as he called 911. Ava was desperate to console her, and I had to explain that you can’t from here. While they waited for the ambulance, Walt called their son Ranger, catching him as he arrived at his office in Dallas. Once the EMTs arrived, Walt took charge, moving an armchair so they could bring in the gurney and then helping with the paperwork. Bennie broke down again when they wheeled Ava out the door with a sheet over her face.

Now Bennie is in charge as she and Walt come in.

“Your brother Griff,” she says gently, setting a padded felt bag bearing the logo of a funeral home on the floor. “This is his and Ava’s house, remember?”

“Oh sure, I know,” Walt responds, suddenly focused again.

“Hand me Griff?” she says, one hand outstretched toward Walt.

“So Griff,” Walt says as he carefully grasps the ceramic urn containing my ashes that have been sitting on the mantel for almost ten years. “How about one last road trip together?” I can hear the hint of ambivalence in his voice that was always there when he spoke to me. Our mother died giving birth to me when Walt was seven, and he always kind of blamed me.

“Sounds great, Walt,” I reply. “Shots at sunset at that place in Malibu we always loved? I’m buying.”

“What do you think you are going to pay with?” Ava says. “I canceled your Amex when you died.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he can’t actually hear me then, isn’t it?” I reply.

“Remember that beachfront bar in Malibu the four of us would always go to for tequila and beer?” Walt says to Bennie. “What’s it called now? Wouldn’t it be fun to go there tonight for old times’ sake?”

“That’s the plan,” Bennie replies. “It’s what Ava asked in her will.” She nestles my urn into the felt bag next to Ava’s.

“Okay,” she says with an air of finality. “Carry them to the car, Walt?”

It’s all he can do to lift the bag, and he is so unsteady I am afraid he might drop it, but he manages to put it on the back seat of their little SUV. Even if I could tell them to take ours, which is bigger and more luxurious and just gathering dust in the garage, Walt wouldn’t do it.

“How ‘bout I start us off?” Walt says, his voice now clear and strong.

“I don’t know, Walt. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he says, an edge in his voice.

“Well, okay,” Bennie says. “If you’re sure.”

But Walt is already buckling his seat belt. The sun is hot in the morning sky behind us when we reach the edge of Phoenix. A thick silence wraps itself around the car.

“I was in awe of her. Ava, I mean,” Walt says quietly. “How composed she was facing, you know, the end of her life.”

“She took such pleasure in her relationships. With Griff.” Bennie pauses. “And us and Ranger.” Walt had insisted that the boy be named after our hometown team, and Bennie used to joke that he was lucky he didn’t get named Cowboy, which wouldn’t have been a good name for a corporate lawyer.

“With you,” he says, a touch of bitterness in his tone.

“Ava was the sister I never had,” Bennie says, her eyes welling with tears.

“Bennie was the sister I never had,” Ava says. “We just connected on move-in day when the dorm lottery put us together.”

“You two were so close,” I say.

“You two were so close,” Walt says wistfully and then falls silent. A moment later, he starts in his seat as though awakened from a nap, though his eyes are open.

“Walt?” Bennie says. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “It was like a flash. Like a glimpse into … I don’t know … it was this place but different somehow.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.” He looks around as though seeing the desert and its long purple shadows for the first time.

“Are you okay to drive?”

“I think so,” he says.

“I wish I could tell him not to be anxious,” Ava says. “How do you stand just watching from the sidelines like this?”

“When you realize how trivial it all is,” I say with a shrug, “it can be kind of fun. It’s like watching a soap opera.”

“Oh, we’re coming up on Quartzsite,” Bennie says. “Let’s have breakfast at the Yacht Club for old times’ sake?”

“We can get gas in both senses,” Walt says, using a line one of us would always say when our road trips took us westward. They share a companionable laugh at the familiar joke.

Walt and Bennie stretch in the shade of the sign by the roadside – “Welcome Aboard – Long Time No Sea!” – and we sit at a table for four on the patio. The corrugated roof casts a deep shade, and ceiling fans keep the air moving. As they say, it’s a dry heat. A hundred yards away, the traffic on the interstate whisks past. A pretty girl wearing khaki shorts and an Arizona State University polo shirt brings menus. Her blonde ponytail swinging as she works, she fills their coffee mugs and clears away the two unused place settings.

“I always loved this place,” Walt says quietly once the waitress has taken their order.

“I’ll bet,” Bennie says, gesturing at the waitress who is hurrying toward the kitchen. “One of your students, Walt?” She makes elaborate air quotes with her fingers.

“Well,” Walt smiles playfully. “She looks a lot like you, so I guess she’s my type.”
“Sure, when I was nineteen.

It’s true that Bennie was beautiful at nineteen. Tall, willowy, blonde, blue eyes. She came to the diner where Walt worked and sat at the counter one day. I sat next to her while Walt finished his shift. He poured me a coffee, and I asked her to pass the sugar, but she barely glanced at me as she handed me the little bowl. She was too busy asking Walt questions about the menu. On her other side, a girl with shimmering black hair and olive skin who turned out to be her roommate, Ava, smiled at me.

“To this very day, Bennie,” Walt says firmly. “When I saw you for the first time at … what was that place called, that traditional old diner in Austin where I worked to pay for school? …”

“The Nighthawk, right?” Bennie interjects.

“Right. Anyway, I never looked back.” He reaches across the table and lays his hand on hers, her skin almost translucent. “And I never had students.” He makes air quotes.

“Humph. I know universities were like buffets for professors back then.”

“Only plain old students, Ben,” he says, meeting her eye. Bennie acts like she isn’t persuaded, but I think she knows it’s the truth. “And I’m not that much older than you.”

“You were already halfway to your Ph.D. when I was a freshman. My mother thought you were too old for me.”

“Lucky for me you never paid any attention to what your parents said,” he says with a little chuckle, then pauses. “What if this is my last time here?” Walt looks around the patio with its wobbly white plastic tables and chairs on a concrete slab.

“Don’t be silly,” I say. “I’m here. Plus, I don’t have to pay for breakfast. And I won’t get gas in either sense.”

“Don’t be silly,” Bennie says. “We’re not that old. There’s plenty of time.” She doesn’t sound entirely sure. Maybe she is thinking of Ava and me and our ashes in the car. Maybe she’s avoiding thinking of Walt pushing ninety.

“I feel pretty old some days,” says Walt quietly.

“The whole world, and this is the place he’s worried about missing?” Ava says.

“I can still hardly believe you let me buy you coffee that day,” I say to Ava. “I still think it was only because my dorky brother was there. Must have made me seem harmless.”

“If I had thought you were harmless, I wouldn’t have given you a second look,” says Ava with a throaty chuckle.

The sun is well up in the sky when they finish their breakfasts. Bennie takes the wheel, and we get back on the interstate. Bennie turns on the radio, which is set to her favorite light classical station. With a glance at Walt, she changes it to jazz. He gives her a grateful smile and lays his head back, melting into a Coltrane solo.

“Griff. Ava.” Walt says faintly as he becomes aware of us. “What ---”

“All good, Walt,” I say. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Huh,” he says, opening his eyes and looking around, taking in the desert scrolling across the car’s windows, the cacti and rocks casting smaller shadows now.

“What is it, Walt?” says Bennie.

“I don’t know,” he says, looking at her with a touch of fear in his eyes. “Griff says there is nothing to worry about, but what if there actually is a judgment? What if I have to answer for my mistakes?”

“What are you talking about?” Bennie says. “When did Griff say that?”

“Just now. I thought I heard him,” Walt says. “I don’t know.”

“And what mistakes are you talking about? Your retirement party wasn’t that long ago. Did you not hear what the Dean said?”

“Poor Walt,” Ava says. “I wish I could just put my arms around him.”
“It’s frustrating, but you’ll get used to it,” I say to Ava.

“I guess,” Walt says to Bennie.

“Even if you assume she was exaggerating,” Bennie says, “you can be proud of your career. And now you have time to follow through on research you didn’t get a chance to finish.”

“I don’t know. I still want to read Moby Dick and Ulysses.”

“Well, there’s time for that then,” Bennie says absently.

“I’m talking about real mistakes.”

“Like what, Walt?”

“Remember when I testified to the House aviation committee? When was that? ’79 or so, I guess.”

“Of course, I remember. Your work on airline deregulation was pathbreaking.”
“Right.” He nodded vigorously. “And I’ve been proven right. Mostly.” He gazes out the window. The shadows are much shorter now, and we are climbing into the mountains. “The secretary of transportation called me himself to ask me to help them defend the idea.”

“I remember.”

“They arranged for me to have a few meetings before the hearing, and I met a young Newt Gingrich.”

“Really?” Bennie says. “Did I know that?”

“I’m pretty sure I told you at the time, but Gingrich was a nobody then,” says Walt. “Anyway, he had arranged for our meeting to take place right before the hearing, and he escorted me into the hearing room, then showed me to my seat and shook my hand.”

“That’s nice, no?” says Bennie.

“Oh, very nice,” Walt says bitterly. “Except by doing that, he undermined my credibility with the Democrats. The Administration was furious, and they never invited me back. Like a fool, I let that snake Gingrich take away my best chance to really play a role in big policy. After that, I was just an econ professor at ASU who published a few papers on airline deregulation.”
The highway enters a series of looping switchbacks as we climb into the mountains. Traffic is heavier, the trucks slowing, downshifting, and groaning as they climb the grade. Walt lays his head back and appears to fall asleep.
“Gingrich was always a duplicitous liar,” Ava says.

“Duplicitous liar is right, Ava,” Walt says, looking over his shoulder and startled to see us sitting there. “Griff? Ava? What…?” He looks from me to Ava and back. “Where are you? Where are we…?”

“Don’t worry, Walt,” I say. “There’s only one place, and we’re all right here. Your three-dimensional mind just doesn’t let you see the whole picture.”
“We’re like a dog whistle, Walt,” Ava adds. “We’re right here, you just can’t perceive us. Normally, anyway.”

“Why can I now?” Walt asks, confused.

“What are you talking about, Walt?” Bennie says.

“I don’t know,” Walt says, turning to look out the front window. “I thought I saw Griff and Ava in the back seat.”

“What?” Bennie says, looking at Walt with alarm. “Are you alright, Walt?”

“I think so,” he says. He turns to look behind him, finding the seat empty except for the bag with our ashes. He turns back and looks curiously at his hands. He takes his glasses off and runs one hand over his face. He puts his glasses back on and looks out the window at the scrubby windblown landscape. He looks shaken. “My imagination, I guess.”

“I think you’re overthinking the thing with Gingrich,” she says. “They got the reform they wanted, right?”

“I guess. They told me it made them look ridiculous.” He hesitates, looking out the window. We are past the crest, and the vegetation is thicker, greener. Traffic has sped up as the trucks head downhill. “I didn’t sleep for weeks.”

“I’m going to stop in East L.A.,” Bennie says. “We can grab a taco at that place you like on Cesar Chavez.”

Walt doesn’t respond, still pensive, still looking out the window without really seeing the tapestry of blight that rolls past. It is noticeably cooler as we near the coast.

“Sometimes I wonder if teaching was the right move,” Walt says quietly. “What if I had gone into banking?”

“Don’t be silly,” Bennie exclaims, looking over at him in surprise. “Teaching was perfect for you. For us all. It was wonderful for Ranger, who had dinner with his dad almost every night. And those long summer breaks.”

“It’s just the way Griff and Ava traveled, always first class, fine meals, adventures,” he says. “You know. Ballooning down the Rhine, scuba diving in Belize, surfing in Tahiti. Everest base camp.”

“Oh Walt,” says Ava. “I was so jealous of you two. What I wouldn’t have given to have a baby.”

“Really?” Walt says, turning in his seat and seeing us again. “You both always looked so happy and exhilarated when you showed us your slides.”

“Little brother syndrome, I guess,” I say with a little chuckle. “I had to do better than you to get Daddy’s attention.”

“Bullshit, Griff.” Walt said, scoffing. “After you came along, he never saw me anymore. He went around behind you, cleaning up all your messes. When you totaled the car he had promised me. When Jennie got pregnant in tenth grade. He gave you everything, including the business. I had to pay my own way through school.”

“You’re the one who had it all, big brother,” I can’t resist saying. “You had all the brains. You had the full ride to a Ph.D.” I try to stop myself. These things aren’t supposed to matter anymore. But I can’t. “You had Mama.”

“I never envied them any of those trips, especially not the Everest one,” Bennie says.

As we make our way through East L.A., traffic is heavy, stretching out and bunching up like a steel earthworm. The neighborhood is a case study in gentrification, with yoga studios and microbreweries sprinkled among storefront check-cashing places and bodegas. Finally, we stop in front of a taco place called Guisados, and Bennie double parks. For my money, it doesn’t even meet the low bar set by the Yacht Club, but Walt swears by it. They stretch on the sidewalk, enjoying for a moment the cooler breeze and the background whiff of sea air just perceptible under the greasy overlay of smog and hot asphalt.

“Professor!” An elderly Hispanic woman beams at Walt when he steps up to order. She comes out from behind the counter, wiping her hands on her apron, and embraces him with a dry kiss on each cheek. “Qué gran gusto volverlo a ver.”

“Doña Josefina,” Walt says in his best imitation of a Spanish accent as he returns her warm smile. “What a surprise to see you behind the counter.”
“COVID,” she says with a shrug. “You can’t find help.”

“It is a pleasure to see you again anyway,” Walt says with an understanding nod. “How is the family?”

“Oh fine, fine. Everyone is fine. Ana Sofia is fine.”

“I’m so happy to hear that,” Walt says with a broad smile. “Please give her my very best wishes.”

Bennie, engrossed in the menu board on the wall, glances at Josefina and then at Walt but says nothing. They order, Josefina refuses to accept their money, and we stand at a high-top table facing the street while they eat. The food is pretty good, judging from the way they linger over the chewy homemade tacos and the spicy pulled pork and pickled cabbage. They mop sauce off their chins and lick their fingers. We fill up, and then we are back on the freeway, the sun just starting to dip in front of us.

“So…” Bennie breaks the silence in the car as she merges into traffic. “Those are good tacos, but until now, I’ve never really put together why you always wanted to stop there.” She hesitates again as though unsure that she really wants to ask the question. “Who is Ana Sofia, if I may ask?”

“Don’t you remember her?” Walt seems genuinely surprised. “I’m sure you met her. She joined the department not long after I got tenure. She was fresh out of UCLA. She did her dissertation on airline privatization in Latin America and cited my work.”

“Oh really.” Bennie says. “So a colleague then?” Air quotes around the word colleague.

“She was young, beautiful, and smart, and she admired me, Ben,” Walt half turns in his seat, and their eyes meet for a moment. “She threw herself at me. It was… exciting.”

“Was she the one who you took to the American Economic Association conference that one year? The one you made sound like a wizened crone on her deathbed who was just going to get in your way?”

“Did I do that?” he says with a disarming chuckle. “Maybe I did. What can I say? We were having a flirtation.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I have too much respect for you.” He meets Bennie’s eyes again. “In fact, on that trip, she met the man she would marry a year or so later. By the time we got back to Phoenix, the flirtation was over.” He sounds a little wistful. “Not long after, UC San Diego offered her a job, and she left over the summer break.”

“Oh really.” Bennie looks at him over the red metal rims of her glasses, her lips pursed. “Are you still in touch?”

“I see her posts on LinkedIn every so often, but it’s been years since we’ve been in touch.”

Bennie looks skeptical.

“Do you think her mother would be giving me free tacos if I’d had an affair with her daughter?”

“Fair enough, Walt.” Bennie pats his thigh lovingly. I think she’s always known that Walt was faithful, but it’s true that he had plenty of opportunities to stray. I guess it needed to be said.

By the time we pull into the parking area near the Malibu Pier, the sun is low in the sky. When the four of us came here the first time, it was a no-name clam shack. Now it’s a restaurant with tablecloths and waiters in bowties. There is a brisk onshore breeze bearing the briny fragrance of infinity.

Bennie and Walt perch on stools at the bar on the deck, shivering in the cold. Bennie orders two shots of tequila and two Coronas. They each pick up a shot, click the little glasses together, and knock them back in unison.

“To Griff and Ava.”

“To Griff and Ava.”

They each take a swig of the cold beer. I can almost feel the comforting warmth of the liquor and the fizzy joy of the beer. The sun is a deep red semicircle teetering on the horizon.

“Shall we?” Bennie picks up the bag, and Walt grabs their beers. They walk out to the deserted pier facing the cold wind coming off the water. Bennie opens the bag and hands my urn to Walt and then lifts Ava’s out. In unison, they gently tip them, pouring our ashes into the salt air. They drink deeply of the cold beer and watch as the wind catches the ashes, swirls them skyward, and then lets them drift to the surface of the water. Bennie and Walt are transfixed as the sun yields to the dusk and the ashes eddy and disperse.

“I’m pretty beat, Ben,” Walt says. There is a bench built into the railing, and Walt sits heavily next to me and lays his head back, his eyes closed. “I’m going to sit for a minute.”

“Okay, honey,” she replies, leaning on the rail as the afterglow of the sunset fades deeper into darkness.

“You know, Walt,” I say. “All those advantages you think I had; I didn’t take those things from you. I didn’t take Mama from you.”

He turns in his seat to look me in the eye. He is silent for a moment.

“Oh, I know that,” he says. “And I never wanted to be a real estate broker anyway.”

Maybe for the first time in our lives, there is a comfortable silence between us.

“Thanks for being my friend,” he says after savoring the silence for a moment. “And my brother.”

“Thanks for making this trip for us.” I lay my arm around his shoulders.

“I hope someone does it for me,” Walt says. “Hey, wait. Why ---”

Bennie sits on the bench next to Walt. Laying her hand affectionately on his cheek, she finds his skin clammy and his face ashen. “Oh, honey,” she says as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and dials 911.