Still, there’s something Henry’s brother wonders about
There was this guy he was with, that much I know, and they had a huge blowup and the guy walked out on him for good. This came after years of Henry being alone. Most of the time alone-alone, just Henry waking up in his cold bed, sulking off to work, eating in front of the TV or going out to some 24-hour place like the Golden Apple, party of one, which can make you feel worse because when you’re sitting alone the whole world looks like it’s part of a couple. Trust me on that one. But I’d also seen Henry alone-together, even if I didn’t know it at the time. I’d met some of his girlfriends over the years, and what I’d always thought was, man does he have lousy taste in ladies. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like he always had a woman on his arm. He averaged about one a year, and the whole lot of them were sour-faced, mousy, skittish, sexless, and angry. Not all of them, but if you mixed up those words in a hat, you could have pulled out two or three to fit any one of them. The thing was, he made sure to bring each one around to meet me and Joanne or else to dinner at Mom and Dad’s. He was the one who’d set it up; it wasn’t like we were forcing him to parade around with his latest conquest. But then through the whole visit he’d look glum, like he was embarrassed to be sitting next to them. I thought, jeez, what does he see in these girls? But at the same time I had to admit that they might be the best he could do, because Henry himself could be pretty goddamn sour-faced, and at his worst he could be a moody and skittish little SOB. I just chalked it up to bad taste or bad luck, and sooner or later the two of them would make each other miserable and one or the other would end it and after six months or a year he’d move on to his next lousy girlfriend.
How clueless was I that I never caught on? I think Joanne might have figured it out, but she never came right out and said it. Back when we were first together, or even during the first five years or so that we were married, I probably would’ve laughed it off, maybe said he should give the boys a try because it sure wasn’t working out with the ladies. But if she’d’ve said anything like that in the last years, I don’t think I would’ve taken it as a joke. I’d’ve probably gone off on her, you know? Just Joanne looking for another way to take a poke at me. Again, typical me. And I would’ve said, yeah, I get it: I’m an asshole, my parents are always on your back about not having kids, and on top of it all, my brother’s a fag. Is that the latest? Am I hearing that right?
    So anyway, there’s Henry, and either he’s trying to put on a show, or else he’s trying to convince himself of something that just isn’t true. And it makes him miserable, and that makes these women miserable, too. I don’t think he was trying to do that, but it’s got to tear you up to love someone who won’t or can’t love you back. Or to want to love someone, but know that you just can’t. That you’re just not built for it. Still, there’s one thing that I’ve got to wonder about: it’s not like things magically got better when he was with a guy. All this business that landed him in the hospital — that was over a guy. I’d like to think that with a guy Henry would be different: looser, freer, happier. But maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe he was just as glum and hard to be with. Maybe that’s what pushed him over the edge. That he finally gave it a try, and he realized that it didn’t matter who he was with: he was what he was. Maybe Henry isn’t built for relationships of any kind, and he knows that, which is why he goes under the tracks. Five or ten minutes isn’t much time to invest in anyone, and how bad can you feel if it doesn’t turn out like you hoped? It’s the years invested in loving another person, or trying to love them as best you can, that can turn your heart to stone and drag you down, deeper than you ever thought you could go.

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