The Last Network - Chapter 2
Menonaqua
Rabbit pulled off the main road and drove the rental through miles of slow turns and spinning tires. The winter road, formerly hard dirt and frozen crystals, was dissolving into the early spring slop he hated so much. Town was filling up with condos, but out here people were in retreat. Rabbit looked for mailboxes that served as landmarks only to find rusty bent poles. A mile later than expected, he laid eyes on the carved wooden bear that guarded their driveway. He pulled the SUV out of the muck onto gravel. Grip returned, and the last two hundred yards were an easy ride. Nothing had changed here. The shingled cottage with its wraparound porch and neat piles of firewood was identical to the memory he carried of the place.
Growing up, his father had been a man of constant motion. Always on the road, never speaking about his business, completely unapologetic. His mother had been the one to watch him play CYO hoops, to drive him to hockey, to show him how to use deodorant. Only here, at the summer lake cottage, was Bear Wilson a regular dad. Here they went fishing and played catch in the yard. This was the place Rabbit thought of when he thought of home.
There it was, still in mint condition. Rabbit got out of his rental and ran his hands over the hood of the forest green Grand Wagoneer. He walked in a slow circle, tracing his fingers over the wood paneling. Three decades old and not a scratch. He’d be shocked if there was more than 100,000 miles on it. Dad never drove his baby between here and Ann Arbor. That was the regular car’s job. This was the vacation car. Its job was to take them to ice cream, to drop people at the lake, to get mom from the club when she played euchre and drank herself senseless.
The engine was warm. His father never parked it outside. Stephen was here. His brother had beat him to the cottage. Rabbit looked up at the kitchen window. The big oaf was hunched over the sink, dirty blonde hair, ruddy complexion, mustache. The older he got the more he looked like the Brawny Man. He was a Great Lakes guy through and through, never comfortable south of Chicago or east of Buffalo. Bear had been like that. Rabbit took after their mother’s side. Before Bear, she’d been Jessica Riley. An Irish Catholic from upstate New York. Pat Riley’s second cousin, as a matter of fact. Rabbit looked like him. Tall, lean, and hungry with a face dominated by wolfish sunken eyes and a huge white smile. It flipped between two expressions: charismatic seduction and scorned fury.
Stephen must have flown the Cessna in from Hibbing last night. His wife didn’t like him flying over the lakes, especially at night in the off season. Rabbit didn’t blame her. Stephen had gone down twice, both times in remote country. His brother scavenged the north, acting as a broker for mill byproducts. Flying was a necessity and an occupational hazard. If the old man was true to his word, Stephen could give that up.
Gravel crunched under his hiking boots as Rabbit walked towards the two-story cottage. It was one of the few up here that had been winterized. His father had planned his retreat a long time ago. Rabbit pictured him behind the wheel of his Cadillac driving from one industrial behemoth to another, pitching pension plans and dreaming of the day when his world would be nothing but woods, dunes, and stock picking. He was always going to disappear up north. Now he was gone.
The screen door creaked open and Stephen appeared on the porch with two cups of coffee.
“So?” Rabbit asked.
“So, what?” Stephen passed a cup to Rabbit then took a seat.
“You know. Was it there?”
“That’s your first question?” Stephen blew on his coffee, one eye cocked towards Rabbit.
“You flew the Cessna over the lakes to get here. It was the first thing you went for. Have you even seen him yet?”
“No, the funeral parlor opens at ten.”
Rabbit hunched down opposite Stephen, his eyes locked on his brother. “Was it there?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Stephen took a sip, enjoying the ability to torture his brother far more than the coffee itself. “A lot more than I expected to be honest. I mean how much money can one crank with a Wall Street Journal subscription and CNBC make?”
“I’d know if you answered me Stevie. Don’t make me smack you.”
“You remember the last time you tried that? You can end up in the pond again, I don’t care if it’s frozen.”
Coffees were placed on the table. Both men stood, eye to eye, toe to toe. Stephen wrapped his arms around his older brother, squeezing tight and lifting him off the porch. “He did the best he could. I’ll miss him.”
“I know Stevie, I know. I’ll miss him too.”
“Rabbit, there’s $47.5 million in a Merrill brokerage account.” He burst into laughter. “$47.5 million fucking dollars.”
“Holy shit. Did you call Jack Thomas?”
Stephen dropped him. “Yes.”
“And?”
“He said there have been no changes to the estate. We need to see him after we go to the funeral home. He’ll read the will then.”
“That son of a bitch.” Rabbit opened the porch door and led them inside. “ So, what are you going to do with your half?”
“I’m giving up the life. Getting off the road and being a dad. I’ll build that cabin I’ve always talked about, maybe buy a trophy business in town just to say busy. The rink or the bowling alley, nothing serious. You?”
“I’m going back to LA and I am going to show those fuckers a thing or two.”
“Still on that Rabbit? Still sore after all these years?”
“You mean Dad, or my first startup?”
“I mean both. They go hand in hand.”
Stephen was right. His father had pushed him west. He had forced him to make his own life, in his own field. Rabbit had tried to learn from his father. He asked him to teach him his business. Not the life of a salesman, but his father’s other skill, stock picking. Bear’s bosses never let him join the investment side, he was too good a broker, but that’s where his heart was. Selling retirement plans was just a means to an end. When Bear had enough money to invest for himself, he quit and disappeared up here. Rabbit showing up, wanting in, wasn’t a part of the dream, so Rabbit was pushed away, rejected.
Bear pushed Rabbit so hard he landed in Los Angeles and never came back.
For fifteen years Bear lived alone. He didn’t tell his sons how well he was doing, only that it gave him satisfaction. Every Christmas he drove to Hibbing and in the summer Stephen’s family visited the lake, but that was it. Nothing else. Just a man who wanted to be alone and the promise that he’d do them right in the end. Now that Rabbit saw what right looked like, he could accept it. His father’s dream was about to enable his, and that tilted the scales.