Sid looked up at his brother and took his hand, “We can’t talk standing in the hall, come, I’m right in the middle of ironing, you can help me fold.”
“You do your own ironing?” Morty said.
“Oh yeah, it’s very relaxing, you should try it. I do my best thinking with a steam iron in one hand and a can of spray starch in the other. My cuffs and collars are perfection.”
If you had to spend the afternoon ironing, Sidney’s living room was not a bad place to do it. A triple height wall of stained glass, that would not be out of place in a Gothic cathedral, filtered the afternoon light into a dozen different colors. Outside, the bridge, the ocean and the Marin Headlands shimmered and hummed. Inside, Sid got busy on a basketful of white dress shirts and a handful of French linen handkerchiefs.
“So, tell me Morty, what’s going on?” Sid asked as he worked the tip of his iron around a line of buttons. “Is it money? If its money just say the word and I’m here for you, whatever you need.”
“It’s not money Sid. And yes, of course it’s money, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“OK Morty, I’m listening,” Sid replied, as he moved on to another shirt, his face enveloped in a cloud of steam.
“You might imagine this is when I dredge up some old grievance from when we were boys. Well you can relax Sid, I didn’t come here to bore you into submission. All I know is when I got in the car I knew I wanted to see you one more time and hear that low-class accent straight from the depths of Williamsburg. But don’t get too close. No hugging, no kissing and no weeping or messy nose blowing, OK?”
Sid looked at his brother, puffed up his cheeks and blew the air out in short, exasperated bursts.
“And in case it is all about the money, Sid, if you were to send me a check for $4,250, I would definitely cash it.”
With that Morty turned his back on the ten-million-dollar view, got into his geriatric Hyundai and rumbled down the drive on a cloud of greyish-black exhaust smoke.
“We need to do this more often,” Sid yelled after his rapidly disappearing brother before returning to his basket of wrinkled laundry. “Next time lunch.”
Robert Leone’s work has appeared in Two Hawks Quarterly, Ravens Perch, Hawaii Pacific Review, Prometheus Dreaming, Spank the Carp, Evening Street Press, Rosebud, Evergreen Chronicles, and The Ana. He co-wrote Rights of Passage, a play focusing on LGBTQ rights produced at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco.
