The Voiceover Artist by Dave Reidy Page B

distance of her parents’ headstones. The priest flung holy water on the casket while Connor and Simon stood front and center on an electric-green carpet and May’s friends wept and sniffed, their shoe heels sinking into ground still wet with rain. I stood off to the side, unsure where you’re supposed to stand when the person being buried is only your wife in a legal sense. A few people shook my hand or smiled sadly at me. Others, the ones who imagined they had loved May better than anyone had—or, at least, better than I had—gave me the old Simon treatment: they avoided me except to claw at my eyes with the spite in their own.
    The night of the funeral, I turned on the White Sox pre-game show and pulled three beers—two for me, one for Connor, who was taking a nap in his room—out of the refrigerator. I set one of the beers on the carpet, leaning it up against the couch in front of what had been Connor’s usual spot for watching ballgames with me.
    But when he came out of his bedroom just before the opening pitch, Connor had his jacket on and the straps of his packed duffel bag in his hand.
    â€œWh— wh— where y— you going?” I asked.
    â€œBack to school.”
    â€œT— tomorrow’s f— f— Friday, for Christ’s s— sake.”
    â€œI’ve got class on Friday, Dad. And I’ve missed a week already.”
    I tried to act disgusted with him so that I wouldn’t seem what I was: hurt, and embarrassed to be.
    â€œTake y— your beer, at— at least,” I said.
    Connor glanced down and noticed the sweating beer can on the floor. He stared at it a moment. Then he walked over to it, bent over at the waist, lifting one foot off the floor for balance, and picked up the can with his free hand. He didn’t crack it open, though.
    The ballgame’s first batter was in the box with a one-and-two count. Standing there with the unopened beer and his bag still in hand, Connor watched the next pitch. Ball two. The pitcher wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, got the sign, and threw again. Strike three. One down.
    â€œOkay,” Connor said, sighing as if he were sad to leave. “Take care of yourself, all right? I’m home again in a few weeks. Let’s hope the Sox are in the playoffs.”
    I said nothing.
    â€œSee ya,” he said, heading for the back door.
    I reckon Connor was around eight when he realized that his staying up past his bedtime to watch the end of the ballgame wasn’t me doing him a favor, but the other way around. Another father might have held Connor’s interest into junior high, but I’m not sure any father could have kept him in Leyton. A boy with Connor’s gifts leaves home. Period.
    But Simon stayed.
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    MAY HAD ASKED  me time and again if I knew why Simon wouldn’t speak, and I’d put her off every time. Even the story’s basics—that I’d had my young son in a bar on a Saturday morning, for one thing—would have made trouble for me. So I wagered that Simon would be speaking again soon enough, which would make telling the story behind his silence unnecessary. That turned out to be a bad bet, and when I lost it, Simon lost pretty much everything.
    Only Simon and I knew that he had gone quiet because I’d sat silently by while Artie Schoen and his buddies made fun of him. But I knew something that Simon didn’t: the cost of standing up to Artie Schoen.
    Artie used to give me shit in high school. He’d see me in the Leyton High hallways and grip his arm tight around my neck. Then he’d say something like, “Hey, sing with me, Frankie! ‘P—people try to p— p— put us d— down . . . .’”
    His buddies would laugh and I’d force myself to smile, as if I were in on the joke instead of the butt of it. I never complained to anyone—if all Artie did was rib