I Know This Much Is True

by Wally Lamb

“Some of this is written in standard Italian,” she said. “And some of it’s . . . it looks like peasant Sicilian. What was he—schizo or something?”

Did I remember the song “Instant Karma”? John had written it specifically for him, to encourage him to do good in the world after he’d gone. “Listen!” my brother said. “It’s so obvious, it’s pathetic!” He broke out into a combination of song and shouting. Instant karma’s gonna get you—gonna look you right in the FACE You better recognize your BROTHER and join the HUMAN RACE!

From early childhood, I had formed theories about who our “real” father was: Buffalo Bob; Vic Morrow from Combat; my seventh-grade shop teacher, Mr. Nettleson; Mr. Anthony from across the street. By the time of Ma’s death, my suspicions had fallen on Angelo Nardi, the dashing, displaced courtroom stenographer who had been hired to transcribe my grandfather’s life story. But that, too, was just a theory. I told myself it didn’t really matter.

“Do you remember when she came running out of the house that day?” Thomas finally said. He reached over and grabbed the photo album, touched its leather cover. “She was holding this.” I nodded. “Her coat was smoking. The fire had burned off her eyebrows.” “She looked just like Agatha.” “Who?” “Agatha. The saint I prayed to while Ma was sick.” He got up and took his dog-eared book from the bottom drawer of his nightstand. Lives of the Martyred Saints. Flipped through the lurid color paintings of bizarre suffering: the faithful, besieged by hideous demons; afflicted martyrs gazing Heavenward, bleeding from gaping Technicolor wounds. He found Agatha’s full-page illustration and held it up. Dressed in a nun’s habit, she stood serene amidst chaos, holding a tray that bore two women’s breasts. Behind her, a volcano erupted. Snakes fell out of the sky. Her body was outlined in orange flame.

The result was a book of anachronisms: Instamatic snapshots from the sixties opposite turn-of-the-century studio portraits; time shuffled up and bolted. Here were Thomas and I in front of the Unisphere at the 1964 World’s Fair; Ray in his Navy uniform; Papa in a greased handlebar mustache, arm in arm with his young bride who, later, would drown at Rosemark’s Pond. Though my grandfather had died several months before Thomas and I were born, in Ma’s book we met him face-to-face. Stupidly, carelessly, I had lost Domenico’s dictated story, but my mother had entered the fire and rescued his image.

I see Lonnie Peck and Ralph Drinkwater from our school. Last summer, Lonnie spit on the playground instructor and got kicked off playground for a whole week. He used to come anyway and stand outside and spit at us through the fence. We were supposed to just ignore him. Penny Ann Drinkwater’s up in front, too, sitting by herself. Her and Ralph are twins, like Thomas and me, but Penny Ann stayed back. Ralph’s going to be in fourth, but she’s going to be in our class. She has to have Miss Higgins twice. Penny Ann’s a big baby. She cries every single recess. The Drinkwaters and us are the only twins in our whole school. They’re colored kids.

It’s not that Leo’s a great listener or anything. Far from it. But at least he knows the complete deal with Thomas—the whole sordid history. . . . The summer we were all nineteen? When Leo and Thomas and I were on a city work crew together? That’s when Thomas started falling apart at the seams. Thomas and me, Leo, Ralph Drinkwater. It was weird, come to think of it. I hadn’t seen Drinkwater for years and years and then, bam—there he is at Hatch, with a mop and a bucket. It was like one of those crazy guest appearances people make in your dreams. . . .

SINGER ERIC CLAPTON’S SON, 4, DIES IN FALL.

nodded. Saw Penny Ann’s body going over the Falls, the way it had in my nightmares. Saw Eric Clapton’s son dropping from the sky like Icarus. . .