The brothers had been left by themselves for the morning in the living room of the Murray Hill apartment where their grandparents lived. The younger brother, Nicky, had been lying on his back on the deep carpet in the living room for hours, occasionally swooping an electric green action figure over his head and ignoring Jimmy’s entreaties to motivate. The apartment had the leaden emptiness of a movie theater between shows.

“Jeezus. Nicky. Will you snap out of it,” Jimmy said. “You been moping all day.” Jimmy shook his head at the uselessness of it.

“Leave me alone.”

“Come on. You can’t just sit around. Won’t fix anything. Let’s do the experiment.”

Nicky widened his eyes in Jimmy’s general direction.

The apartment was overfilled with flowers and bowls of fruit. A grouping of framed photographs of a young woman stood together on a table near the entrance to the room.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” Jimmy added an extra dollop of pleading with the repetition. “Seriously Nicky. It’ll be a blast.”

Still lying on his back face to the high ceiling, Nicky said “what if the string runs out?”

The question might have been taken as rhetorical but Jimmy seized upon it as engagement. “Can’t happen. You seen that ball Nicky? Must be a mile of it.”

“How high’s the sky? More’n a mile I’m betting.”

“Betting? You are betting?” Jimmy paused, clearly delighted at the turn the conversation had taken. “How much you want to bet?”

Nicky sat up. “A quarter?”

“A quarter! What kind of a bet is that? You got two dollars from Uncle Nat last night, same as me.” Jimmy began to prowl.

“I am saving up.”

“You are chicken.” The older boy made a squawking sound. He put his arms into his armpits and half-heartedly mimed a chicken walk.

“Not chicken. You are just trying to get my money.” Nicky rose all the way up, drawn warily into the conversation.

“That’s the point, doofus. I risk my money; you risk your money. Whoever wins gets the dough. That’s capitalism. That’s how America was built.”

“Listen to the big shot.”

“You could stand doing it more. Then you’d know something for once.”

“All I’d know is that my brother has a big mouth and I already know that.” He paused a minute and then added. “Everyone knows that.”

Jimmy faked a punch and smiled when Nicky flinched. “Suit yourself, Nicky.”

“So it’s a quarter. And if the string runs out I get your money,” Nicky said.

“Naw. Not worth my trouble.”

“Come on Jimmy, don’t be like that.”

“You don’t want to put real money down, not worth the time.”

“Come on. You can still win a quarter.”

“Nah.”

“Fifty cents?”

“Nicky, Nicky, Nicky. You can’t win without a little risk.”

“Ok a dollar. But none of your tricks. Just that string there right?”

“Two dollars.”

“Two? That’s all I got Jimmy That’s not fair.”

“What are you talking about? It was your idea. You’re the one who said we’d run outta string. Jesus. Won’t even stand behind his own bet. That’s as bad as being a welcher.” Jimmy feigned the chicken walk again.

Nicky did not look happy. “Ok… but I put out the string. That way you can’t do anything sneaky.”

“Fine. But you gotta put your money on the table before we start. I don’t want to have to thump you to get it.”

Nicky extracted a wallet from the front pocket of his jeans. The leather of the wallet was stitched in place with that blue and yellow plastic they use at camp to make a lariat to hold a counselor’s whistle. The boy spread open the wallet with two thumbs. The only thing inside was two crisp one dollar bills. Reluctantly, he removed them and laid them on the table. He put his hand flat on top of them and kept it like that like he was pressing the bills into the table to stamp a mark.

“Where’s yours?” he said.

“I am not the welcher. I pay my bets. That’s what a man does.”

“You’re twelve, Jimmy.”

“But I am not a welcher.”

“I am not moving my hand until your money is on the table too.”

“Be that way, doofus.”

Jimmy dug a handful of coins from his pocket. One by one, he snapped them onto the table, counting out the total until he hit 2 dollars.

The younger boy looked at the money. “But mine’s bills. Crisp bills.”

“They are worth the same thing. Exactly the same thing. Money’s money. That’s what makes capitalism work.”

Nicky did not look entirely convinced, but he lifted his hand from the crisp bills.

“Let’s get this baby going,” Jimmy said.

He grabbed a string that was dangling from a cluster of four helium balloons that hung like grapes from the high molded ceiling. He pulled the balloons down to his chest and went about tying the white string from the ball onto the place where the balloons were tied together.

“Tie it tight, Jimmy.”

“That’s what I am doing. I am using a sheepshank.”

“That’s good. Sheepshanks strong.” Nicky leaned in to confirm the knot’s construction.

“And then I am doing a double knot for extra.”

“Ok. That’s good.”

Jimmy finished the knotting and let the balloons soar up to the ceiling again where they made a hollow popping sound as they hit. Jimmy went to the window, crouched, and, using both hands, pushed up the lower sash. The apartment filled with the sounds of the street outside. Taxis. Car horns. The rushing river of midtown Manhattan on a fall day.

Nicky grabbed the string and began to pull the balloons down from the ceiling. He had become enthusiastic. “Let’s do this thing baby!” he said.

“Wait doofas. Hold onto the string. That’s the point. You have to let it out slowly. You have to dole it out, nice and gentle.

Nicky took a hold of the ball of string.

Jimmy used two hands to push the balloons out the window. It was a sloppy start; two balloons went up inside the sash, two outside. Jimmy climbed on the upholstered seat of one of the chairs at the fancy table his grandparents used for bridge and reeled the inside two down until they were sucked outside.

Almost immediately the ball of string jumped from the younger boy’s hands. The string began buzzing out the window, the ball hopping up and down on the floor like it was alive.

“Christ, don’t let go! What’d you let go for? You gotta hold on!” Jimmy yelled. He stepped on the ball and stopped the string from pinging out the window. “Jesus. What a dingleberry.”

“Sorry. It jumped out of my hands.”

“Right after I told you to hold on. I mean what’s the point of even telling you anything?”

“Sorry. So give it.”

“Are you mental? You just about ruined the experiment.”

“I can do it.”

“No way, I am holding the string.’’

“No! I said I did the string.”

“You can grab the line and feed it out. But I am holding onto the ball.”

Nicky accepted that proposal. He grabbed up the string from between his brother’s foot and the window. He made a show of holding it tight in both hands as if he was in a tug of war.

“Wow, it’s strong. I can feel the balloons blowing around up there. This baby’s goin all the way up!”

“Hold still Sherlock. Let me get myself squared away.” Jimmy sat up on the card table by the window and held the ball in front of him with both hands as if he were fishing for marlin from the back of Key West sport fishing vessel. “Ok start it up. Just go slow. Dole it out.”

Nicky started to slowly let the string out the window as Jimmy rolled the ball in his hands to let the string runoff.

“Soo strong! You should feel this baby!” Nicky said. With the noise of the street and wind rushing in the window, it was as if Nicky was calling back into the room from outside.

“Hold on, Nicky. Don’t get carried away. Feed it slowly, feed it slowly.”

The brothers worked in tandem for a few minutes.

“How much string is left?” Nicky said.

“Lots. Is it starting to slow down?”

“No way! This baby is going straight up to the heaven!”

“Can you see it?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Let me try.” Jimmy fussed for something in his pocket for an instant and then came forward. He leaned out the window, his face up-tipped towards the sky.

“Jimmy! Watch it!” Nicky lurched forward over and grabbed Nicky’s belt from behind to hold him. “Jeesus! Jimmy be careful!”

Jimmy craned further out the window. Nicky pulled back on the belt and they reached an equilibrium.

Nicky yelled, “can you see anything?”

Jimmy’s head was now all the way out the window and he was twisting this way and that to get a better view. The apartment was on the 3rd floor of the building on the corner of Park and East 38th Street. The window he was leaning out of was on the Park Avenue side of the building. There must have been 20 floors above the floor his grandparents lived on.

Jimmy finished fiddling around outside. He brought his head back into the apartment and used one hand to push his scattered hair from his face. “Naw. Couldn’t see it. It’s just straight up. I’d have to get out further to see.”

“No it isn’t safe. Doesn’t matter. Let’s let some more out.”

Jimmy backed carefully into the room. His brown hair was still scattered around his head.

“I tell you one thing Nicky Boy; it’s way up there!”

“Yes, it is. It doesn’t even make sense it’s going to stop. Once they get going up they just go up forever. They go right to heaven, no stopping.”

“We’ll see. The more they go up the more string that they have to carry. And that string gets pretty heavy. Did you think about that?”

Nicky settled back into the rhythm of doling out the line. “Jimmy, are they gonna make us go back to Boston?”

“We have to go back. We have got all our stuff there.”

“But I mean stay there.”

“Yeah. We gotta.”

“We could just stay here. I never want to go back there. Ever. It’d just make me think about her.”

“Nicky, don’t get started on it again. We have an experiment going. And there is action on it.”

“I decided. I’m not going back to Boston. I don’t care what they say.”

“What about school? You giving up on school?”

“They’ve got schools here. Lots of ‘em.”

“In New York? You want to go to school in New York City? Jeezus. You are a doofas.”

“We could do it. I hate Boston.”

“Forget it. He is definitely taking us back. He said it last night. I mean Nicky, he works there. He has got a job. That’s how he pays for things. That’s the deal – if you want to pay for things you gotta work.”

“I know. I know. It’s capitalism.” Nicky pronounced the word as if there was an exclamation point after the cap.

“See you are finally learning something.”

“I am not going back.”

“Jeesus you’re a goof. How’s the string doing? Starting to slow down, isn’t it?”

“No its not. Not a bit.”

“Seems like it is slowing down.”

“That’s just cause I was thinking about her.”

“You gotta fight it off. Don’t do any good.”

“Yeah. I guess. I just wish…”

“Come on. I told you. It don’t do any good. Not gonna bring her back.”

“I miss her all the time.”

“Yeah. It sucks….

Nicky looked at Jimmy, “How much of the string is out?”

“Not even half.”

“You lie! I can see the roll.”

“Maybe half.” Jimmy lifted the ball to show what was left and in doing he so lost the grip. The ball bounced down onto the carpet. Both boys tried to grab it but their efforts canceled out. For several long seconds, the ball flopped around like a trout on the floor of a boat. At first, the string whooshed out the window but by the time they finally corralled the ball, it had visibly slowed.

“Ah-Ha!” Jimmy was jubilant. “It’s stopping! It’s stopping! And there is plenty of string left! Give me the money, honey!”

“Wait, its still going.” And in truth the string was still – though anemically – scrolling out the window.

“Its just a matter of time now. Oh man, I am rolling in dough. Sorry Nicky boy, but that’s how investing works. We call it the American Dream!”

Nicky didn’t say anything. He took a big loop of string from the floor and pushed it out the window.

“Give up Nicky. You are done for.”

Nicky turned around and in one swift motion, he grabbed the ball of string from his older brother and pegged it toward the window. He was so close that it didn’t seem possible he could miss but somehow the ball hit the drapes and fell to the floor. Jimmy got his foot on it.

Jimmy gave Nicky a single punch in the chest, hard enough to sound the same hollow thud the balloons had sounded bouncing on the ceiling, but it wasn’t a declaration of war, just an obligatory whomp to show he could if he wanted.

Jimmy took the crisp bills in his hand and made a great show of sniffing them. “Nothing smells as good as a crisp buckaroo, Nicky. Like a flower in springtime!”

The string had come to a full stop and the excess yardage draped over the windowsill and carpet and table like a fishing net drying. Out the window the string clearly went down from the window, not up. Jimmy still held the ball. It was almost gone – you could see cardboard through the threadbare gaps on the core – but there was no doubt that the balloons’ rise had not completely exhausted the string.

“Like a flower in the Spring, Nickster.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You prefer Nickko?”

Nicky had thought of something. “Haha. You have to reel it in, Jimmy.”

“Bullpatoie. Loser does it.”

“Nope.”

“Come on doofas.”

“No way.”

Jimmy shrugged and began to wrap the string around the ball. It was slow going. The ball wasn’t very big and unless he applied constant pressure the string didn’t lay smoothly. “Come on, we have to take turns. It was both of our experiments.

“But you got all the money.”

“I’ll give you a quarter.”

“Nope.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘nope’? You have to make a counter-offer. That’s the way capitalism works.”

“Two dollars and I get my bills back. The crisp ones.”

“Jeesus. What a piece of work. Ok. I’ll give you one but you have to do the whole thing.” Jimmy extracted one of the bills, now creased in several places, from the pocket of his jeans.

Nicky looked at the bill with distaste. “Jeez Jimmy. You wrecked it.”

“Oh God, not this again. It doesn’t matter; it’s still worth the same thing.”

Nicky took the ball and began rolling slowly. He worked steadily for five minutes and still had not fully taken up the excess string. “Jeez, this kills your wrists,” he said.

Jimmy was back sitting on the table.

“It’ll be better when we get back there. The waiting is bad. It’s like everybody has something to do except us. Okay at first it’ll be hard. I mean I don’t want to go into school that first day either. Everyone pitying us.”

“Yeah.”

“But after a day we can get back into the swing of things.”

“Jimmy! Stop it!” Nicky turned, furious. “Just stop it! Getting into the swing of things? She is dead, Jimmy! She is dead.”

Jimmy didn’t say anything for perhaps 10 seconds. Then he reached forward as he was going to lay his hand on Nicky’s shoulder but instead, he grabbed the ball and slowly started to reel the string in himself. “Yeah. I know. I know.”

Nicky’s shoulders slumped and he moved over and sat next to Jimmy on the card table, shoulder to shoulder. They took turns rolling up the string, passing the ball back and forth every few minutes in silence.

They were at least three-quarters of the way done when the string caught on the lip of the window. Nicky had the ball and he started to tug through the catch.

“Wait Nicky! Wait! There is something there.” Jimmy grabbed the ball from Nicky and said, “See what it is.”

Nicky stepped forward, hand on the string, taut to the windowsill. “Somethings on the string!”

Nicky reached out the window and lifted the obstruction over the window ledge. There was a blue piece of paper folded into a triangle and clipped to the string with a black binder clip.

“What the hell is it?” Jimmy called.

“It’s a piece of paper.”

“Paper? What? How’d it get there?”

“I have no idea. It is clipped on the string. I mean deliberately, Jimmy. Someone clipped it on the string.”

“But how?”

“I have no idea. There is writing on it.”

“What does it say?”

“Hold on.” Nicky used a fingernail to unravel the scotch tape from where it was wrapped around and around itself. He freed the triangle from the string – folded up it was about half the size of a deck of cards – and started to unwrap it.

“Jesus Nicky. Come on! What does it say? ”

Nicky read: “To Jimmy and Nicky”

“No way!”

“Look.” Nicky flashed the face of the wedge at Jimmy. “To Jimmy and Nicky.”

“Wow.”

Nicky unfolded the blue paper.

“It’s to us.”

“Duh Sherlock. What’s it say?”

Nicky didn’t say anything.

“Come on! What’s it say?”

Nicky held up the paper and read. “I am watching over you.”

“That’s it?” Jimmy asked

Nicky flipped the paperback and front. “That’s it.”

“From who?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“Let me see.” Jimmy grabbed the note and studied it with the intensity of a mapmaker.

Nicky looked over Jimmy’s shoulder. “This is weird.”

Jimmy said, “Where’d it come from? It’s crazy. No way it was on the string when we sent it up.”

“We’d have seen it.”

“So how does it get there? I don’t get it. Jeez, it must have been a thousand feet up there.”

“A plane?” Nicky said.

“Right. A pilot flying over New York is gonna stop in the middle of the air and hover there midair while he finds a pen and writes us a note? Don’t think so.”

“Yeah.”

“And it has our names on it. How would a pilot even know them?”

“You think maybe Dad? Somehow?”

“How would he do it? He couldn’t fly last checked.”

“Wow.”

Neither boy said anything for a minute.

Hesitantly, Nicky said, “Jimmy, do you think it might have been her?”

“Can’t be. But that’s just what I was wondering.”

“But it’s impossible.”

“Maybe that’s not so impossible. You know spirits and such.”

Nicky took the note and read it again, carefully. “Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe. But I don’t know where else it could come from.”

Nicky looked at Jimmy. “Did you do it?”

“Me? How could I?”

“You could’a sneaked it.”

“Come on Nicky. You saw me the whole time.”

“You leaned out the window. You could’a sneaked it.”

“Well I didn’t.”

“You did it, Jimmy. I know you did. It isn’t even her handwriting.” Nicky slipped off the table and stood facing his brother, his legs bent in a crouch, his fists and his face clenched.

“I know it was you.”

Nicky launched a roundhouse punch at Jimmy’s face. Jimmy flinched and ducked. The blow missed Jimmy by a foot and spun Nicky around so he landed he ended up sitting as if he had been screwed into the floor of the apartment.

Jimmy sighed. He looked at the ceiling. “Come on Nicky. I am telling you. It was not me.” Jimmy said. “Wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing.”

Nicky put his hands over his ears and bowed forward, pressing his head towards his lap. He began a stream of lalas to drown out his brother, “lalalalalalalaala…”

Jimmy put his hands on Nicky’s shoulders. “Jeesus, Nicky, let it go. Let it go. Come on. Let’s try another experiment.”

“Lalalalalalalaalalalalalaalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala…”

“Aw come on Nicky. Don’t be that way.”

“Lalalalalalalalalalala…”

Jimmy shook his head. The balloons were up on the ceiling of the apartment, restless in the wind from the window. He grabbed the string that dropped to the floor, wrapped it twice around his hands and with one swift violent yank snapped it in two.

Holding the short end of the string, he pulled the balloons down and gathered them to his chest. He walked to the wide-open window. Holding the stub of the string in his hand, he pushed the cluster out. The balloons quivered in the rushing air, bopping against each other, straining higher. Jimmy let the string go.

“Some experiment that was,” he said. He used both hands to pull the heavy window closed, the surging sounds of the city outside cut off. The leaden quiet of the room was suddenly loud. He shook his head, “that was some experiment, Nicky Boy.”