Page 75 of The Grave Artist
And he looks again at the present on the coffee table, wrapped in turquoise paper. A handwritten tag, a cheerful reindeer—left over from Christmas—reports, “Happy birthday, Jacoby. From Mother and Father.”
He caresses it.
Then he joins Rudy in the kitchen, where his brother is pouring cereal into bowls for both of them. Their mother’s cooking is for later, a roast and some vegetables. They’ve been asked to help out, and, after chowing down the Wheaties, they take to their task—scrubbing the dirty pots and utensils their mother has left in her wake. She’s a good cook, and a bad cleaner.
They then retire to the living room to do some gaming. Lanky Rudy is the athlete among the two—Jake is bored playing catch and, well, every other sport—but he excels with the joystick.
They laugh and shoot and speed their cars around the beautiful deadly landscape ofGrand Theft Auto.
Their mother appears in the doorway and says she and their father are going out. They’ll be back later. She is soft-spoken but when she summons Gary from the den, he appears instantly, tugging on his brown sportscoat.
Then they’re gone.
A few minutes later, Rudy nudges him. “Open your present. Go on. What do you think it is?”
Jake would like to wait, but he really can’t. He walks to the table and picks it up and returns to the couch. It’s very light. What could it be?
Money, maybe—in a big box as a joke. Money would be good. There is so much he wants and so little they can afford. Enough to buy a secondhand laptop?
Even thirdhand?
That would be heaven.
He runs his hand over the sides.
He carefully unseals it, as if it would be disrespectful to tear the ribbon off, which he really, really wants to do.
Then he looks at the naked box and lifts the lid.
Inside is a card.
Not a birthday card, just a three-by-five index card.
A donation of $100 has been made in your name to the Family.
Happy Birthday, son!
Rudy says, “Fuck.”
Jake is silent and manages to control most of the tears. He doesn’t know why he bothers. He’s cried in front of his brother before, as Rudy has with him. And there is no one else to witness the emotion.
He can’t help himself. He rises and walks to the kitchen. The savory aroma lingers but the food is gone, and he understands that what she cooked will be part of a potluck supper for new recruits they hope to bring into the same organization that is now $100 richer, thanks to young Jacoby Heron’s generous “gift.”
Lydia’s voice faded into the past.
Along with his brother’s sympathetic gaze.
And his own quiet tears.
Jake had returned to the present, once more in his small apartment overlooking Venice Beach.
The “nonprofit foundation” his niece, Julia, mentioned earlier was not that at all. It was very muchforprofit—as the IRS and tax court decided in the losing battle for tax-exempt status.
Nor was it a beneficent foundation, as Julia believed, “doing good.” The Family was a cult. His parents had been seduced into joining the group by the founder, Bertram Stahl, a failed professor, failed entrepreneur, failed bartender, failed real estate investor and failed author ... and those were just the job descriptions that appeared on his résumé (minus the “failed,” of course).
But the ageless man had excelled at one thing: corralling those with the tiniest modicum of gullibility or insecurity into signing on to his group and forfeiting any shred of self-worth and dignity.
Along with most of their money.
