Sometimes
you go home just to be among the people who named you. Fights which had seemed
manageable have become relentless. When you cry for the fifth time in as many
conversations with your mother, she says, take a few days off, come on home. Annie
drives you to the airport and, part-way there, she says, you're lucky. Her voice
is quiet and, beneath that, sad. She says you are lucky because you find solace
at home. For her, going home is like being held underwater. You try to imagine
this and what you remember is being ten and being picked up by your father and
step-mother for a weekend visit. It's a late Friday night and you are sitting
in the backseat of their Corolla and holding your breath in between stoplights.
You keep your eyes closed so they will think you're asleep. You know that if they
talk to you, you will begin to cry, because what you want to do is go home, back
to your mother. You say this out loud and Annie shakes her head, angry because
you've got it wrong.
It
is Saturday and he hasn't answered the phone all day. First, I believe that he
is in the bathroom. Then, asleep. Then, dead. Driving towards his house, I imagine
how quiet it will be. I tell myself I will not disturb him. I will call the ambulance
and then my mother. I wonder if his eyes will be opened or closed and then I stop
because this feels perverse.The
sky is just getting dark and his porch light is burned out, the top of the bulb
charred. The front door is unlocked and as I open it I take a deep breath. The
front hall is dark and unopened mail is scattered on a small table near the door. His
voice is gruff as he calls to me from the bedroom. It sounds as if he has just
woken up. I walk down the hall slowly and watch my feet sink into the plush, rose
carpet. He is propped
up in his bed, a comforter pulled to his chin. A collapsible card table stands
unsteadily on the carpet, an arm's length from the bed. It is covered with a pile
of crumpled Kleenex and a large plastic pillbox, organized by the days like an
advent calendar. The phone has fallen and he cannot find it. He is angry that I didn't come
earlier if I was worried. He begins this way: "There
are three things I need you to do. There's a box of photos to organize. Of your
Grandma. I had the girl buy me a photo album the other day. OK? Now help me with
the blankets. See how they're tangled?" I
walk around to the other side of the bed, where a heap of blankets has fallen
onto the floor. "The
blue one first. Then the white one. Do you see it? Just hand me the corner." The
blue blanket is framed by a satin border. It is smooth and cool and I let my fingers
linger on it as I pass it to him. He seems pleased as he pulls it over his feet. "Now,
sit down. How's your leg? Are you driving?" He nods towards the chair
at the foot of the bed, indicating that I should pull it around and sit down. "Since
last week." "What'd
the doctor say?" "Another
month till I'm out of the brace." He
shakes his head and his eyes fill with tears. It happens so quickly now, even
over small things like this. "I'm
like a baby." His mouth tucks into a sheepish grin and I smile at
him and reach towards his hand. "Look
at all those pills they've got me on." He points towards the plastic pillbox.
Half of its cubbies are open, the hinged lids raised like the hoods of cars. "The
doctor at the hospital was a bastard. He barely knew English. Terrible."
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, as if he has been betrayed and cannot
stand to think of it any longer. I
nod, imagining him there. The doctor, I imagine as a small man, with fine hair
and slender fingers. The
third thing is this: He
wants to get a driver's license. He does not have a car or much occasion to drive
anywhere. But he is insistent and I need to get my license renewed when I'm home
anyway. We set a time to go.
When
Annie's father and I met three weeks ago, it was an accident. Annie and I have
been fighting since then. We fight differently, and this is part of the problem.Her
father wants her to marry a rich, white man. Her mother counters that wealth is
easier to obtain and lose than faith. For her, Catholic, white, and male are the
essential qualities. Annie told me this one night as we were getting out of her
car. Well, I said, I'm white. She heard the bitterness in my voice and I knew
she wanted us to be able to laugh at this, to let it roll off. This was when I
began to understand how deep it goes in him. Last
time she was home, he said that if he ever sees me, he'll shoot me. He paused,
cocked an imaginary gun with his thumb. He aimed it towards their front door,
conjuring up an image of me. He steadied his arm, transfixed whoever he imagined
me to be. Bam. He laughed. Blew smoke off the end of his forefinger, and slipped
the gun back into his holster. Her
mother has been losing weight. She's shrunk down three sizes. She falls asleep
crying every night and has begun going to mass twice a day. Look what you're doing
to your mother, he'll say over the phone. Then, after a pause, he'll mention his
high blood pressure. Are you trying to kill us both? he'll ask. When he says this,
she'll grow quiet and, before long, they'll hang up. When
we moved in together, she had a phone line put in just for them. They are the
only ones with the number. We bought a cheap, red phone and we call it the umbilical
cord. It's easier for her if I leave the room when it rings. Annie
and I can never talk about this for long. She says she runs out of words. Before
I realize it, my voice is sharp with incomprehension. It's your life, I say. And
she shakes her head, enraged by my willingness to see any part of this as simple.
One night she tells me that she might leave at any time. It would be easy, she
says, her voice as precise and measured as when she is describing a lab procedure.
She is a scientist, equally at ease with logic and doubt. To me, all of this is
crippling and painful and I feel sometimes as if parts of me are being buried. Hate
and fear are like those days which fall between seasons. They run together and
it is no use trying to hold them still and separate. My mother tells me that I
won't understand until I'm a parent. She says protection is the fiercest instinct
-- sinewy, jagged, unpredictable. Nothing to mess with.
At
the DMV, there is no line. Had there been a wait, we would have left. My grandfather
would have grown impatient. As he thumbed through a pamphlet about organ donation,
he would have slumped towards sleep in a plastic chair. I would have said, maybe
we should come back. He would have nodded, frustrated and tired.But there is no line and the woman, officer, or maybe sergeant -- I do
not know how rank is determined at the DMV -- waves both of us in, past the "wait
to be seated" sign. The woman, who introduces herself as Faye, directs me
towards the testing area, a row of dark wooden school desks placed far enough
apart to discourage cheating on the written exams. My
grandfather shuffles towards Faye's station, grunting as he settles himself into
the chair opposite her. He rests his hands on his thighs and sighs loudly. Her
uniform is starched, coin gray and serious blue, and her hair is parted clean-line
down the middle. Her tie, a clip-on, hangs to just above her belt, thick leather,
and nearly polished. "How's
your New Year going?" My Grandfather settles his hands on the edge of her
desk. Resting there, they do not tremble. "No
tragedies yet," she says. Across the room, a machine spits out a completed
license. Faye's pants cling to her thighs as she stands up to retrieve it. She
reaches down to loosen them and then reaches towards her ears, tucking a loose
strand of hair behind each. She does this delicately, as if it is someone else's
hair and it matters that her touch is gentle "When
did your tragedy happen?" She looks at me as she reaches down and retrieves
the license, still warm, and smoothes its face between her thumb and forefinger. I
look at her blankly. "Your
tragedy." This time she points at my leg. "Football
injury." My grandfather laughs as he tells her. He is proud of me and will
boast about it to anyone.
In
preparation for her father's visit, Annie began to pack my things. They would
be stored in our housemate's room for the weekend. I refused to help. It becomes
hard to say if resistance like this is petty or self-preserving. It seems like
a small thing, not meeting her father. But sometimes it is the quieter, more pedestrian
forms of cruelty that cut the deepest.Three
hours before his flight arrived, she was on the other side of our room, packing
a pile of my sweaters into a suitcase. She zipped the bag and carried it out into
the hall. As she came back in the room, she reached towards the wall over the
desk, where two photos of us were taped. She peeled the tape off carefully. These
went in an envelope, and then in the bottom drawer of the desk. I
lay on the bed and closed my eyes and concentrated on my hands. It was dark behind
my eyes and felt as if I could slip further and further down into my body. I heard
her voice, but her words sounded slurred, as if I was listening to her across
a growing distance. I did not want to concentrate enough to decipher their meaning. The
room looked stripped down and I began moving around it tentatively, careful with
everything. When I spoke, my voice was quiet and hoarse, as if that could disappear
too. The rage under all this seeped out slowly, like blood spreading beyond the
edge of a bandage, thin and tentative, easy enough to wipe away.
My
Grandfather jokes with Faye as she tallies the score on his written exam. She
laughs, high pitched and appreciatively. He will take the driving test on my mother's
car, an Oldsmobile Cutlass, ten years old and ill-suited to her personality. It's
too big and assuming for her.
"Why
don't you bring the car around, Mr. Calloway? I'll meet you out front." As
he walks to the door, he reaches towards the wall and uses it to steady himself.
We both watch him push open the glass door, shouldering his weight into it. Faye
turns towards me. "We'll
see how far we get. It's the driving that gets them. Men over seventy usually
fail by the time they're out of the parking lot. But you don't want to insult
them. We have a different route for them. Low-risk, nice scenery." He
pulls the car around front and, through the driver's window and the DMV glass
wall, he waves at us. As she gets up from her desk, Faye nods towards the officer
at the desk next to hers. "Carl'll
help you out with your renewal when he gets off the phone." On
the wall behind her desk, there's a framed photo of Faye and the Lieutenant Governor
on a stage. In it, he's handing her a plaque, his other hand cupping her shoulder.
I try to imagine what kind of awards are issued to DMV officers. Officer
Carl laughs loudly and then whispers into the receiver. He glances at his watch. You've
got me for ten more minutes, baby. I
begin reading the graffiti which has been scrawled on the desktop and then I close
my eyes and run my fingers over the indentations in the wood. Officer Carl laughs
again.
Imagine
a crash. As sudden and jolting as nearby thunder.
Jump
in your seat. Your neck snaps towards the noise and your hands shoot up to cover
your head. Glass sprays towards you like mist from a waterfall. You watch it fall
in a shimmering arc and then feel it hitting your skin, a light pelting. You see
Faye emerge from the car, positioning herself in a half-crouch and pivoting towards
the shattered window. She is ready, you realize. Maybe this is what the plaque
was for. The "wait to be seated" sign topples to the floor and bounces
before settling on the linoleum. An
alarm goes off, bleating like an animal in distress. Carl hangs up the phone and
picks it up again, muttering "Code Orange." His voice is sleepy and
soothing as he talks to the 911 dispatcher, as if he watches this happen every
afternoon about this time. It
is illegal to crash into the DMV. He
has slammed the rear half of my mother's car through the glass wall like an angry,
cocked fist. Smoke is filling the office. The trunk of the car has popped open.
It is gaping, granting a full view of its contents: a cheap vinyl overnight bag,
too full to be zipped; a month's worth of newspapers, some still in their plastic
bags; a mini-fridge, turned on its side, its almond paint chipped at the corners;
eleven pairs of shoes; a Yamaha keyboard that I know hasn't worked in seven years;
two pairs of jumper cables. My mother views car trunks as satellite closets. I
go towards them as Faye is walking around the front of the car. She peers through
the window at my Grandfather. His hands are still on the wheel and he is staring
straight ahead. She opens the driver side door. I reach in to touch his shoulder
and let my fingers rest on his back. His whole body is trembling. "Damn
automatic cars." His voice is gruff. "Get me out of here." "Let's
just wait a few minutes. Just let the paramedics check you out." "I'm
fine. Get me out of here." His voice is sharp. I
look over my shoulder and see the extent of the damage. The whole window is shattered. "Grandpa,
just stay still a few minutes." "Get
me the hell out of here." There,
there's the edge. This is what you avoid, do any dance you can think of. Soothe
your own voice. Compromise. Distraction. "Mr.
Calloway, it's a matter of protocol." Faye
glances at me and raises her eyebrows. Maybe this is what she got the plaque for. "I
said get me out of here." Hear
that in his voice? This is him swinging. Boom. Making his own private storm. Choosing
how furious to get. When he screams, his voice is like a blade. He takes it from
its sheath and runs his own thumb down it like he's smoothing a crease. His cut-work
is hideous and artful. Efficient. He could take my Grandmother down with two words.
Listen, bitch. Jerking his hand up from the table cloth. Angling it at
her from the head of the table. "Don't,
Grandpa. Just a few minutes." My
voice sounds distant and precise. I feel a slow heat covering my back as I realize
that none of this is private. Faye
stands up straight and rests her forearm on the hood of the car. An ambulance
and police car are pulling into the entrance of the shopping plaza, sirens blasting. "Do
you mind?" She looks pointedly at a woman who's car is idling a few feet
from us. The woman shrugs and slowly pulls away. "The
ambulance is here, Mr. Calloway. Just let them give you a quick once over." His
cheeks are flushed and he is still gripping the wheel tightly.
Years
ago, I began to make him into two men. I wanted to know him as kind. Splitting
him like this took practice. Stare only at a man's hands and know him that way.
Hold your blink, until your mind is clear. Now, look at his eyes. Let him become
a different man.Back
at his house, I sit three feet from him, my hand resting on the edge of his bed.
He is still shaking and he will not talk about what happened with the car. His
voice creaks as he asks when I can organize the photos. It becomes nearly impossible
to imagine him as the man he was fifteen, twenty years ago. A
wine bottle hurled across the dining room, breaking when it hits the fireplace.
The glass sprays, beautiful and green, and I imagine this is what a star looks
like when it explodes. Red wine puddles on the cool slate in front of the fireplace.
My grandmother says his name sharply. He reaches for his plate, which she has
piled high with food and placed in front of him. He lifts the plate up and stares
at it. Turkey's dry,
isn't it? Don't.
This is my uncle, his voice low, measured. The
plate hits the hardwood floor and wobbles, turkey, stuffing and potatoes slipping
from it. Don't serve
me shit like that. My
uncle's dog comes running from the living room, burrowing his nose in the steaming
food, licking greedily. My
grandmother is clenching her jaw. My mother looking down, her eyes retreating.
My uncle cursing under his breath. My cousin, still an infant, is on her father's
lap. She begins to cry. I cannot see myself. I know I was seven. From pictures,
I know what I looked like. Freckles, always in cowboy boots or sneakers, missing
a front tooth. I would have been sitting between my mother and grandmother. This
is where you learn what to do when people yell. My cousin crying louder, my grandfather
glaring at her. Just a year, her hair hasn't yet been cut. My uncle's hand stroking
her back, trying to soothe her. Her cheeks are full, her eyes jacked wide when
she cries like this. Get
her out of here. He lowers his eyes towards my cousin. I
had set the table, been allowed, for the first time, to light the candles. Brand
new ones, cornflower blue, perfectly smooth and tapered. Probably, that is what
I did, watched the candles, their flames tentative, bending as sharp, pained inhalations
and steely, branding words moved across the table like air currents. She
is crying louder now and he says it again. Get her out of here. But her
father is anchored in his seat. No one moves. His arm swings, open palm, his fingers
close to the flame. He comes close to the baby's head, too close to be safe or
accidental. She screams louder.
During
dinner, my mother and I watch the local news and, after the weather, there is
a story about the day's events at the DMV. We laugh hard, uncontrollably and defiantly.
Stop, one of us will say, gasping for breath. But we can't. The story makes the
front page of the local paper the next morning. There is a large color photo of
the front of the car sticking out of the building, like a strange, obtrusive growth.In
the afternoon, I go to the Hillsborough office to get my license renewed. The
officer recognizes my last name, the same as my grandpa's. He looks at me curiously
and I nod. "You were
there, huh?" "Yep". "Quite
a scene." I grin
and from behind the camera, I hear him laughing.
Annie's
father arrived on Friday night. On her way to the airport, Annie dropped me off
at a friend's apartment, where I'd be staying for the weekend. I spent Saturday
practicing being alone. Wrote letters, read a book, watched a movie, went out
to a club with my friend.Sunday
morning, it poured. The line at the coffee shop I always went to stretched from
the counter to the door. I'd brought the paper with me, still in a plastic bag
and tucked under my arm. I stared out the glass window, streaked with rain and
starting to fog up. I
watched a man walk towards the door and as he opened it and scanned the room,
I recognized him. So like the pictures, and so much like her. When you first begin
to sense that things are unraveling, reflexes kick in and then a type of paralysis
does. I knew that she would come in soon and that if I left right then, all of
this could be avoided. But I could not move quickly on crutches and it was still
raining and my leg was throbbing and all I wanted to do was read the paper over
a cup of coffee. There was something about his proximity that was tantalizing,
a sense of being close to danger and, also, close enough to prove him wrong. There
was a part of me that wanted to know what all of us would do. Another part that
knew exactly what she would do and wanted to watch her do it. But these feelings
came as flashes, too quick and slippery to hold onto or act on. He
stood behind me in line, slipping out of his trench coat, running his hand through
his thick, silver hair. He took off his glasses and reached into his pocket for
a handkerchief to wipe them off. I turned towards the counter and slipped the
paper out of its plastic bag. I unfolded the front page, putting the rest of it
on the counter next to me. She
was the next one through the door. I heard her inhale sharply. Moments like this,
you must make yourself go somewhere else because this is the only thing that will
allow you to come back later on. Otherwise, you will just slowly disappear. This
is what you do when people you love act strangely or cruelly, when they swing
recklessly with their hooves and nails and when they say stare coolly and choose
to say nothing. Dad,
let's go somewhere else. The line's too long. It
won't be shorter anywhere else. The
nasal Midwestern flatness that surfaces only occasionally in her voice is pronounced
in his. Let's try
the place down the street. It's
raining. It was clear by his tone that they would stay. I imagined that this is
how he sounds in board meetings, announcing unilateral decisions. I
knew that if I left, he would never know. But we already did and it was as if
we'd finally arrived at a moment we'd been moving towards for years. My mind felt
blind and hot. A blush began flowing through my body, furious and drenching as
a sweat. It's so rare to feel only one thing and rare for all these things to
stay untangled. But, as I stood there, the emotions aligned themselves as if in
strata. Somewhere in there was the pleasure of seeing father and child together,
the call and response of their features and mannerisms. Next to that, the shame
that twists around your spine like a wild vine, shadowing and haunting every move
you make. Below that, the relief of finally knowing that she was capable of this.
Way deep, a molten, righteous fury. At
first, I didn't realize that he was talking to me. I heard the noise and inflection
-- a question -- but I did not recognize the words. But his voice was so close
and he spoke again. Excuse
me. Do you mind if I check the scores? I
turned towards him slowly. The
sports page -- do you mind if I look? He nodded towards the paper on the counter. I
shook my head no and reached for the paper. Everything moved slowly. Her eyes
went from me to the paper and back again. As
I handed it to him, I stared at his hand, the skin a little dry, his nails cut
evenly and the sleeve of his maroon sweater just covering the gold band of his
Rolex. I could
feel how close Annie was standing, but I could not look at her. I turned towards
the counter and felt the burn moving back down through me. I heard only simple
words in my head. I imagined woods and the sound of water rushing through them.
When damage is happening, sometimes it is best to hold your breath and think of
other things and just know, deeper down, in a place that only you go to, that
later recovery will also happen. Shit.
Look at that. The Pacers lost again. He
flicked the paper with his finger. They
don't have a chance this year, Dad. Her voice bantering, teasing him. Send
you East and you turn traitor on the home team, huh? I'm
just looking at the numbers and the numbers aren't good. Her voice was playful
and, for a moment, I was furious with her for feeling anything but remorse. Always
the scientist, aren't you, Annie? Absolutely. He
laughed and the sound was rich and easy and I could almost hear it moving through
his body, trickling down his throat, gathering momentum as it reached his chest.
I imagined the quiet smile on her lips, the relief of having made him laugh. Thanks.
He extended the paper towards me and it brushed my arm. I turned around slightly
and nodded, reaching towards it. What
happened? He nodded towards my leg. I
heard myself answer. ACL. He winced. Annie did that in high school, playing soccer. He put his hand
on her shoulder and pulled her slightly towards me as if to include her in the
conversation. Her face looked contorted with effort and restraint. I could hear
her willing me to get through this. She
still got recruited though. There is pride in his voice. I
look directly at her. Do
you still play? I want to know if she'll answer. Yes.
Her voice sounded as if it was being torn. Her father looked at her strangely. When
you'd do it? He looked directly at me as he asked and I saw that his eyes were
the same sterling blue as hers. In
October. I looked at Annie out of the corner of my eye. She had pivoted slightly,
her shoulders angled away from me. She was staring at the chalkboard menu over
the counter. I
had the surgery last month. I was shocked to hear myself volunteering any information. He
shook his head. It's a test of patience, isn't it? I
looked down at the paper in my hand. Take
it easy then. His voice was light and he nodded gently before turning his attention
to the menu. I
turned away from them and when I got my coffee, I left. What
I hear, over and over, is her not saying my name. Moments like this move slowly,
as if they are meticulously encoding themselves in the part of your memory where
you keep the purest forms of pain hidden. These are moments which strip you down
and I feel lucky that I haven't known many. The Saturday dinner that my parents
announced they were getting divorced. The Tuesday afternoon that my grandmother
died. That Sunday morning has become another. That
night, we sat in her car and I began to cry until the sounds I was making seemed
to be hollowing my chest out. Sorry, she said over and over and then she grew
quiet and stared out the driver side window. I
did not mean to start banging on the window, but once I did, I could not stop.
The thudding felt stronger than my heart. This was the car he'd bought her for
graduation, which he was always asking about, checking on. I wanted to break the
glass and I wanted to break through my skin. I wanted to show her that I was alive
and human and not to be overlooked and that I could hurt enough to bleed and that
this is the feeling on the other side of hate. Pounding until I didn't feel the
impact of my hand against the glass and didn't feel her pulling my arm, or pinning
it to my body. Thirty
years ago, in 1967, my Grandfather was almost elected mayor of a small town outside
of Baltimore. Until the day before the election, polls had him just a point or
two behind the incumbent, a breezy, confident man who, years later, would be forced
to drop out of a state senate race when charges of racketeering and infidelity
surfaced. But that fall, the year my mother was sixteen, this man seemed to have
a golden touch. He beat my grandfather handily, his wife gave birth to twins,
and, although it never aired, he was interviewed by Walter Cronkite about the
closing of a GM plant outside of town. My
mother says that year was a turning point for all of them. She stole the family
car, its bumper still emblazoned with stickers from the campaign, and ran away
to San Francisco for three months. She called her parents only once that winter,
from a rest stop in Nevada. When she finally came home, it was because she missed
her baby brother, just six at the time. All that meant she failed her junior year
of high school, which meant she went to college one year later than she would
have, which meant she took freshman composition from my father instead of the
man he replaced. Had their marriage been successful, it would be tempting to read
this as Fated. I do not
mind having been an accident, the byproduct of a mutual seduction that began in
my mother's attempt to raise a borderline "D" to an "C" and
my father's shy curiosity about exactly what a young, bookish professor could
get away with. Anything could be described this way. If one or two things had
gone differently, even by degrees, well . . . what then? My
grandfather's stories are full of things which almost happened. The screenplay
he wrote which was almost picked up by a major studio. The nine months he spent
with McGovern on the campaign trail in '72. How, at eighteen, he met a Yale trustee
on a train, how they talked, straight through, from Chicago to Denver. How the
man all but promised him a full ride in New Haven. But then the war started, and
as he gets to this part of the story, he will shrug and trail off. He
is not a modest man, but he has always managed to be gracious in defeat. When
my grandmother died, he left Maryland quietly and moved to Chapel Hill to be near
my mother. The house he lives in now, solid and symmetrical, feels hollow compared
to the sprawling Victorian he emptied out. There's a sticker -- Calloway for Mayor
-- at eye level on the side of a tall bookcase in his living room. The white letters
in Calloway have yellowed and the edges of the sticker are peeling back, their
adhesive dried up. He
has been in the hospital four times since August. The list of conditions he can
claim has grown recently. Diabetes. COPD. Congestive Heart Failure. Glaucoma.
He spends long parts of every day in bed. The aides who stay with him at night
say he talks to my grandmother through the night. But then he'll declare his staying
power by doing something like calling up a local talk radio show and getting in
a fight with the host, or flirting racily with another regular on the senior van
which takes him to and from doctor's appointments. As if to say, here, here is
my heart, thumping away. The
box of photos he's been talking about is in the bottom drawer of his desk. It's
a narrow shoebox with the logo of an Italian brand scrawled in gold across the
black cardboard. It is filled with loose pictures of her. He
wants me to lie them out on the bed next to him so we can put them in chronological
order in the album. He picks up a photo of her playing tennis at age twenty. She
is mid-swing, up on her toes, her calf muscles flexed. "The
Hospice doctors killed her." "What?" "They
gave her an overdose of morphine." "Grandpa,
she wasn't going to get better." "I
saw them do it. They upped her dose and, two hours later, she died. I was there." "I
was there too." "Not
like I was, PJ. They killed her." He
picks up another photo and holds it close to his face. "Look
at her eyes. Beautiful. That's what I always called her. Remember? Beautiful." I
start to peel back a page of the album. The plastic cracks and sticks to the adhesive
page. He wants me to make captions to go alongside each picture. "Look
at this one." He hands it to me. She
is swimming in a lake. The water is dark and only her head and the curves of her
shoulders are exposed. I can tell that she's naked. The lake is circled by thick
pines and sunlight shatters along the surface of the water. Her smile is easy
and electric. It's how she drew people in all along. He
takes the picture from me and his hand is shaking. "Joy. That's what I see.
Pure joy." I put
it on a page of the album and then peel it back up because it's crooked. "The
kids never thought I'd be the one left. They all wanted that time with her. But,
what the hell. I pulled through. Surprise." He laughs and his voice cracks. Inside,
I ache when he says things like this. "I
still talk to her though. She laughs. She says, get on up here, Fatso. She tells
me she bribed St. Peter to let me in." I
realize that I believe him and that we are laughing together.
The
two simple things to say are that he is a bastard, a cruel, violent man or he
is a human, he deserves love, he is capable of kindness. On paper, I can make
a compelling case for either assertion. But what of the daily choices we make
in our lives, the decision -- concrete, real, inescapable -- to speak to him or
not, to visit him or not, to care for him or not. In real life, I can never do
it. He's never not human to me.Suppose
a woman you work with volunteers at a women's shelter. When you eat lunch together,
she goes on and on about the men she hears about. They've done such terrible things
and she swears that if she ever meets one of them she doesn't know what she'll
do. She says she's sick of men, tells me she wishes she was a lesbian, that it
would make her life easier. You look at her strangely, but she doesn't notice. Suppose
that when you talk, he reaches out to hold your hand. The muscles in his hand
are sunken and his grip is loose, so that it seems as if he is shy. His nails
are coated with clear polish, to keep them from splitting. He reminds you, often,
that it's dangerous with his nails, because of the diabetes. Suppose that when
he tells certain stories his voice is so gentle that it cracks and you realize
that he is trying to tell you about something which was beautiful. Suppose
he asks questions about the things you love. And suppose you do the things he
did as a young man. Write. Run. Play football. Work in politics. You have a temper
which scares you and which no one believes exists because, usually, you are so
mild and quiet. But, in your mind, you keep a list of the things which you have
broken. A cupboard door. Two phones. A plate. The bathroom mirror in your old
apartment. When you leave,
it will be easier not to think of him. An old man lying alone in bed is not easy
to think about. Old bodies are not easy to think about. You will call, every other
week or so, and the conversations will be short because he is so tired. But mostly,
because you will not want to feel any more pain, you will gladly fall into the
cadence of your life.
Annie
meets me at the airport. It is past midnight as we drive towards our apartment.
The streets are quiet and the snow has melted, except for a few patches along
the curb. She smiles as I complain about the wind and compare it to North Carolina's
mild nights.
When
we are falling asleep, she begins to talk about her father. I try to clear my
mind. I want to hear her voice uninterrupted by my own. The sheet covering us
has just been washed and smells fresh. My forehead rests on her shoulder, where
the curve of her bone is pronounced and her skin is smooth and cool. She
wants me to understand him because she says she is like him, too like him. She
tells me that when she was young, maybe eight or nine, he used to leave work in
the middle of the afternoon to pick her up and take her to soccer practice. He
would have a baggie of cut oranges and a Gatorade for her. During practice, he
would stand on the side of the field and watch. He never said anything or yelled
or talked to the coach or the other parents. When practice ended, he would drive
her home and go back to work. I
put my hand on her stomach and I try to imagine her young like that, the way you
do when you are in love with someone and you feel a longing because you did not
know them as a child. Annie
and I will not last and we both know it. The list of things we never meant to
do to one another is growing. But the leaving is hard and when you are young,
like we are, the four years you have spent together seem like a very long time.
You have learned certain things together. That pain is part of love. That cruelty
matters more when it happens to someone else. That, once forged, bonds and promises
are best not broken. They are like bones, fragile and capable of outlasting generations. You
lay there, thinking these things, knowing that when you stop being careful with
yourself, as you will in the next few weeks, your body will find ways of tending
to itself. Like a child who learns to fall asleep to screaming each night, finding
solace in the curve of her slim thumb gripped in her mouth, in the sudden, hidden
pleasure of a finger slipped between her legs. Unless you are too far gone, you
will keep measuring the dimensions of what is not there, so that you can build
or find something to fill it. When
he falls next, it will be early spring. It will be warm out and he will decide
to go outside to sit on the porch. He will slip as he goes out the kitchen door.
Hours later, a neighbor will hear him calling for help. The hospital will call
my mother who will call me who will call him. The food is lousy. The intern is
lousy, even worse than the last one. His voice is harsh. This time he is unforgiving.
But then he gets distracted and wants to tell me a joke, and then another. Each
one is about heaven. Again and again he asks, don't you think it's funny? I
cry quietly on the other end of the phone and hope he hangs up soon. My leg is
better now and I go running to clear my mind. I cross a busy street at the wrong
time and a car swerves to miss me. Brakes whine and a horn blasts three times.
My stomach jumps and I run faster. I'm living by myself now, in a new neighborhood.
I don't know my way around it yet and I get lost on most runs. When I reach my
apartment, I am bent double, trying to pull more air in. I
begin to pay close attention whenever advice is dispensed. Try to apply it to
this situation even when there's no fit. Few
things are as simple as they want to be. Bastards, infants, love them indiscriminately.
Forgive those men who intend to be kind. Joy is as temporary as a secret. Fear
is to love like boiling is to water. You lean over the steam because it is warm
and the radiator in the kitchen does not work. You breathe the steam in deeply.
In a few minutes, when you spill this water, it will be the heat that scalds you.
The water only carries the heat. Weeks
pass and, one morning, my mother tells me I should come home. It's time, she says.
She got a call from his doctor. She has been visiting him. He sleeps most of the
time. Her voice is subdued. No one else will be coming until the funeral. I
call Annie, to tell her, and her voice is distant. Even when she tries to make
it soothing, it cannot bend that way. It feels like I am slipping deeper and deeper
away from her. I leave
that night and, in Southern Virginia, three hours from home, I get pulled over
for speeding. The officer looks at my license and lets me off with a warning.
In the picture, I am laughing. My eyes are shut and my mouth is open. He follows
me for five miles and my body is tense from being watched. I keep the speedometer
at exactly 55 and watch him in my rearview mirror. When he turns off, I wait five
minutes and then begin to push it up, slowly. 70. 75. 80. I keep it there for
a minute. No one else is on the road. 90. 95. I roll my window down and the wind
on my face is strong and warm. It is three in the morning. Both sides of the road
are lined by thick trees and the exits come infrequently. I will be at the hospital
soon and by then, I think he will have broken, like a fever or a drought. All
that precious, wrecked venom, lifted finally from a body which had been guarding
it closely as marrow all along. All that precious, wrecked kindness. | 
