Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

cherrywood desk. “Frank’s will,” said the lawyer, lifting an envelope. He removed the letter and looked down through his bifocals. Then he looked up and explained that the benefactor had written a few preliminary words.
    Life had been very good to him, the letter explained. He had been blessed with loving parents, and growing up he had had a wonderful companion in his younger brother, whom he had loved, even if they had drifted a little once they reached adulthood. He had loved his wife, who had given him a delightful seventeen years. The thing he loved about life the most, Brizz had written, was the day-to-day living of it — the
Chicago Sun-Times
arriving on his front porch in the morning, a hot cup of black coffee and a good cigarette, and being alone in his warm house in winter.
    “Brizz was married?” said Marcia.
    “Is that the meaning of life?” asked Hank. “Coffee, a newspaper, and a cigarette?”
    “And a warm house in winter,” said Blattner. “A Warm House in Winter — god, that’s a good title. Benny, toss me that pen.”
    “Just listen,” said Benny. “It gets even better.”
    The lawyer began. “‘I, Francis Brizzolera, a resident of Chicago, Illinois, being of sound mind and memory . . .’” The lawyer skipped down silently. “‘To my brother, Philip Brizzolera, I will and bequeath the following property: all my financial holdings present upon my death — including any stocks, bonds, mutual funds, savings and checking accounts, and all contents of my safety deposit box. I also leave to my brother Phil my car —’”
    “Let me tell you,” Benny said to us, “how relieved I was to hear that Brizz hadn’t left me his car with all that crap in it.”
    “‘— and my house,’” continued the lawyer, “‘along with all of its contents, except that which I bequeath to Benjamin Shassburger.’”
    Benny’s computer made a noise indicating his uploading was complete. It was probably time for us to get back to work. We were six months into layoffs at that point, with no end in sight.
    “‘To Benny Shassburger,’” said the lawyer, “‘I will and bequeath my totem pole.’”
    Benny said he shifted forward in his chair. He leaned an ear into the lawyer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “His what?”
    The lawyer looked down again through his bifocals at the will. “It says here totem pole,” he said.
    In the backyard of Brizz’s house, a single-family dwelling on the South Side to which Phil had to get both keys and directions from the lawyer, stood an enormous totem pole, roughly twenty-five feet tall. The two men walked around it in silence. All manner of heads had been carved into it — eagles’ heads, scary heads, heads of hybrid creatures. Some heads had pointy ears, some had long snouts. It was intricately carved and painted myriad bright colors. It had been driven into the ground so firmly that when Benny gave it a push — it was his now, after all — he felt no give whatsoever. Benny told us that as a kid, he and his father had participated in the YMCA’s Indian Guides, which he described as the Jew’s alternative to the Boy Scouts. His name was Shooting Star; his father’s name was Shining Star. He was a very dedicated collector of all things Indian back then, including cheap, poorly carved totem poles, which, over time, lost their attraction. But the one he had just inherited, with its rich scarlet luster and deep browns, contained an authentic and magical power that left him in awe. Because of its size and complicated carvings, but also because it was standing in a backyard in an old Irish neighborhood among the telephone wires, the lawn chairs and bird feeders, even a trampoline in the yard across the way. Some little girl had bounced up and down, up and down as Brizz’s totem pole stood impervious and resolute. Men in white tank tops had gone back and forth, back and forth with their lawn mowers, while that mute and primitive object refused to vacate the