By estory
My father died on the Monday before Easter. My mother had died on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It was strange, I thought to myself, how these things always seem to happen around the holidays. It's almost as if someone were trying to tell us something; something about life and death and what these things really mean. But nothing's really spelled out, and in the end we just have to deal with it and make sense of it. We have to move on.
My father was 90. He lived a long life and he got to see his grandchildren and a great grandson. People told me that was something; that was something not everyone gets to see. 'I hope I live to see 90', they would say to me. He did take care of himself. He didn't smoke, he didn't drink, he walked a mile or more everyday, even up to the end. Rain or shine he would walk. Maybe this was part of his secret. But in the end it was old age that caught with him. He died in his sleep from cardiovascular thrombosis. I remember thinking to myself, that's the way to go, in your sleep. I couldn't be sure, but I hoped that it had been painless.
He had also been a man of faith. He went to church every Sunday; rain or snow or sickness, he never missed a Sunday. He read the bible every day. Sometimes he would try and read the bible to me. He taught Sunday school for years. He volunteered for Meals on Wheels until he couldn't drive anymore. These things have to count for something, I thought to myself. I told myself, he's with God now. He's in heaven. That's what I told myself.
Our family is scattered all over the country now and since it was so close to Easter, we planned the funeral for the week after. My brother Ed had to fly in from California, my sister Jane had to drive up from Florida. Cousin Tom said he would fly down from New York. The grandkids he had gotten to see were either in school or working or tied down with other things. All of his brothers in law and sisters in law, his own brother, had already passed. They were already gone. As for the cousins, his nieces and nephews: Tina had her baby, Paul was afraid of flying and lived too far away to drive. Mary was on vacation; in Disneyworld, I think, with a friend. Lou was in rehab. Kay was dealing with her divorce, and the kids, and the order of protection against the guy she had married. That's the way things are today. What can you do about that? But it bothered me that there were only going to be four of us there. It didn't seem right, you know? It didn't seem fair.
While I waited for my brother and sister and cousin Tom, I was left to settle his affairs. Close his bank accounts, clean out the apartment, file the death certificate, call the life insurance company. I got to walk around his place, go through his things. I got to talk about him over the phone. It gave me a funny feeling. It made me think.
For some reason he kept an old alarm clock from years back, on his bureau. I remember it from our old house. I thought to myself, how many times had that old clock woken him up in the morning, so he could go to work, all those years and years? Did he ever once think, I wondered, that one morning he would get up and look at that clock, and it would be the last time he would see it tell him it was six o'clock? Would he think all those years of work were worth it?
While I was walking around, going from room to room, packing up his things, it seemed like he was still there, watching me somehow, packing up his things. What would he say? I thought to myself. What would he tell me, about all this? In the drawers of his bedroom bureau I found old photograph albums, and I looked through them. All those pictures. Pictures of mom and him on their wedding day. Ed and me and Jane playing in the snow when we were kids. Standing in front of the Christmas tree. Birthday pictures. Confirmation pictures. Graduation pictures. Pictures of the grandkids.
When I got to the end, I closed the book and looked around the room. The kids and the grandkids had moved on. It was so still and quiet. I got up and looked out of the window. There was a delivery truck going past. All kinds of cars going by, one after the other. Someone walking past carrying their groceries, someone else walking with their kids back from a bus stop. A plane overhead, coming in for a landing. There were still no leaves yet on the trees, but you could tell they were coming. Across the street there was a forsythia bush blooming. Some croccuses. The sun was coming out.
Well, I told myself, you can't expect the world to stand still for my dad. For anybody.
Jane was the first to arrive. She drove up two days before the funeral. When I opened the door for her, she looked as if she had been crying. So I hugged her, I took her suitcase, and we went into the house.
"I just can't stop thinking about the last time I saw him," she said, as she sat on the couch. "I wish I could have seen him one more time. I wish I could have told him I loved him one more time."
"Yeah, well," I said, "It happened so fast. What can you do. I went to go see him a week before and he seemed fine. And then someone from the building called and said he had passed, overnight. The housekeeping service found him."
"Oh my God!" Jane said. "They just found him like that?"
"I think they said they found him in bed. He passed in his sleep."
She shook her head. "I just don't like the thought of some housekeeper finding him like that."
"Well what can you do. It's just the way it happened."
She looked out of the window. "I just wish I had been there. I just wish one of us could have been with him. That he wasn't alone."
"Jane," I said, as gently as I could, "You can't arrange these things."
She looked at me. "Well, I don't want to go like that."
Ed flew in the next day. I picked him up at the airport. There he was, my big brother, in his jacket, with a California tan. When he saw me, he kind of stopped in his tracks for a moment, like he was thinking of what to say. Ed didn't come east much. He claimed he was always busy with work. I hadn't seen him in two years, at least. I didn't know what to say either, but I felt like he needed to be there.
"So how are you holding up?" He asked me. He shifted his suitcase from one hand to the other. He stuck out a hand and I shook it.
"O.K.," I said.
Then he turned and started walking. Ed had moved out to California twenty five years ago, to work in Silicon Valley. Dad hadn't wanted him to go. They had quarreled about it, I remember. I know dad had flown there once and came back talking about how Ed was too wrapped up in making money. How he didn't go to church anymore. He talked about how he had failed as a father. I don't think he went out there again, after that. And like I said, Ed didn't come east much.
We walked for a ways and then he said: "So, did you put aside those things I had asked you about? Those things I wanted?"
"Yes, Ed." Ed had wanted dad's sailboat pictures. They used to go sailing together when he was a kid. And he wanted the model airplane dad had built for him. The woodcarving of the mountain climber.
"Alright," Ed said.
"Are you O.K.?" I asked him.
"Sure, sure. It wasn't like it was that much of a shock. I mean, he was 90. I knew he wasn't going to last forever."
"Yeah," I said, "He lived a long life."
Ed nodded.
We walked a ways more. "Maybe you should have come out, last Christmas, when I invited you," I said.
He shrugged. "What can you do. There was no way of knowing it was going to be the last time, you know. And I was busy."
We walked a ways more. We passed one of those airport bars. "Hey," he said, "I could use a drink."
Jane picked up Tom the same day. They were waiting for us at the house when we got back. Tom got up quickly from the couch when we came in.
"Sorry to hear," he said, shaking my hand.
"Thanks for coming," I said.
"Of course," he said. "Well, he's at peace now."
"Yes," I said. "He's at peace. He's not suffering anymore."
The day of the funeral was a grey day. It looked like it was going to rain any minute. I remember thinking: it's only fitting. We rode together to the funeral parlor in my car. None of us said much. Then Ed asked me about his things again. I told him I had the things we talked about over the phone at my house. He said I should ship them out to him in California after the funeral. Jane looked at him. Then she shook her head and looked out of the window.
Tom cleared his throat and said: " I remember that boat he built. Remember that boat?"
"He loved that boat," I said. "I remember him working on it, in our basement. He took me out on a couple of rides on it, I remember. But I think Ed was the one who went out with him the most."
"Yeah," Ed said. "That boat. What ever happened to that boat?"
I shrugged. "You know," I said, "I really don't remember. I think he might have sold it to somebody."
"I wonder who," Ed said, looking at me.
"Is that all we are going to do, talk about his things, and what happened to them?" Jane said.
After that, we were quiet again as we rode along.
Then Tom said: "He was real religious, I remember. He went to church every Sunday. I remember him arguing with my father about the saints and Mary all the time."
Ed sighed. "Those stupid arguments," he said.
"He went to church right up until the end," I said. "I used to take him every other Sunday."
"Well that's good," Tom said.
It was a funny feeling walking into that room and seeing him lying up there in that coffin. I mean, you spend a whole life with your father, watching him go to work, listening to him saying grace in the kitchen, driving up to church with him and sailing with him, looking at the moon through his telescope and listening to him telling you that some day you might be able to get there. And then you see him like that, laying there like he's made of wax, with his hands folded and his eyes closed, in that old suit.
Jane put her hand over her mouth and leaned over to me, with her eyes all red and glistening. "It doesn't even look like him!" she gasped.
Ed put his hands in his pockets, fidgeting with his keys, looking around like he was looking for another door, or something. "Yeah, well, they do the best they can, Jane," he said.
"But it doesn't even look like him," she said, "It doesn't look a thing like him."
"I'm sure they did the best they could," I said to her, as gently as I could.
"It's got something to do with the muscles," Ed said, "Something happens to the muscles when you die."
Jane glared at him. "Just stop, will you?" she hissed at him.
"Just stop what?" Ed said, looking back at her.
Tom walked over to the flowers, and looked at the cards. To change the subject, he said: "These over here are from Paul. Those are from Kay."
"Paul's the one who doesn't fly, right?" Ed asked him. Tom nodded. "And Kay's the one going through the divorce?"
Tom nodded.
"Well, what can you do," Ed said, sitting down. "That's the way things are today. And he's only being laid out one night, right?"
"Yes," I said. "I was surprised at how much these things cost. But we wanted to do a real burial, right Jane?"
"Oh yes," she said. "I don't like the idea of those cremations."
Ed turned and looked up at her. "Why not?" he asked her.
"It just seems funny," she said.
"Well," he said, "I'm going to be cremated when I go."
"I'm not getting cremated," Jane said firmly. "I'm going to buy a plot next to mom and dad. I want to be buried with them."
Ed rolled his eyes.
"What?" she asked, turning to him with a scowl.
"I just don't see what difference it makes. It doesn't make sense to me."
"You have an odd way of looking at things," Jane told him, turning away. "You always have."
Ed closed his eyes. He shook his head. We all sat there for a few minutes, looking up at dad there in the casket, looking at the flowers.
"I can't believe we're the only ones here," Jane said. "It seems like there should be more people here."
I sighed. "Like Ed says, that's the way things are today," I said.
"People don't have the same respect that people in mom and dad's time did," Jane said flatly. "In those days, they made sure they went to funerals."
"In those days, people lived within fifty miles of each other," Ed said. "It's different now. People live all over the place now."
Jane looked at him. "And they do that because they just don't care about each other anymore like they used to," she said.
Ed stood up. " I need a drink of water," he said.
The burial went like all burials go. The pastor came and we had a little service. We sang 'Amazing Grace.' The pastor talked about the resurrection, the life to come. I stood up there and said a few things about my dad; how he was deacon of the church for a time, how he did the Meals on Wheels for years, how he was a devoted husband and a good father. We went out to the spot we had picked out when mom died, under this maple tree. Without any leaves, it looked dead. But there were some croccus blooming around it. The pastor said his piece; you know, 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' Then they lowered him down and started shoveling dirt on him.
I looked around and thought to myself: 'This is the last place that dad came to in this world. This is it. These stones and these plaques, this tree, that field. This is it. This is where we leave all that is left of him.'
After the burial, we went back to my place for some coffee. We were all sitting around the kitchen table. Ed was leaning back in his chair, one hand on his coffee cup, one hand of fingers nervously drumming on the table, looking out of the window instead of at us. Jane sat leaning forward, head bowed, her arms folded. She looked tired. Tom was stirring his coffee. I was resting my head in my hand. I was tired too. Funerals do that to you.
I cleared my throat. "Well, at least it's a nice place, where we left him."
"Yeah, it's a nice place," Ed said. "As nice a place as a place like that can be."
Jane frowned. "What do you mean, 'a place like that'? What's that supposed to mean?"
Ed shrugged. "It's a cemetery, Jane. It's full of dead people. It's not like they can enjoy it."
Jane shook her head. "I just can't think of my parents as dead."
Tom nodded. "I know what you mean."
I said to Ed: "You mean, you don't believe in the life everlasting?"
He fidgeted in his seat, grasping his cup of coffee, without looking at any of us. He grimaced. "I don't know. Does anybody really know? Can anybody say for sure that some part of you is still alive, after your body dies, and that it's conscious of other people, lying in that field?"
"So you don't believe you will ever see your parents again?" Jane asked him, looking straight into his face.
He stared in front of him, not looking at anyone in particular. "I'm just saying I don't know. I wouldn't bet on it."
"Well, I have to think that I will see them again," Jane said firmly. "Otherwise, what was the sense of living this life, and having them in your life, and knowing that they loved you and that you loved them?" Tears glistened in her eyes. "I can't imagine not ever seeing them again. I can't."
Tom gently put his hand on top of hers. "I feel the same way, Jane. I believe in the afterlife."
Jane wiped her face. "I have to. Don't you?"
"It's hard to imagine that you just cease to exist one day," Tom said. "That it all just comes to an end, our family and all the people we love. If it all just comes to an end, then life here doesn't make sense."
I leaned towards them, my heart beating faster, my thoughts welling up inside me. "I read in the Bible the other day this thing that Jesus told his disciples," I said. "He said: 'In my Father's house there are many rooms. I am going to prepare a place for you. Would I tell you that if it weren't true?'"
"You see?" Tom reiterated. And Jane nodded in agreement.
But Ed shuffled his feet under the table and shook his head. He picked up a spoon and stirred his coffee with it. "Did you ever think of what it might be like to live forever?" he said, "To be with the same people, forever? To just go on and on? I mean, wouldn't you get tired of it?"
Jane frowned at him. "Tired of your family? How could you get tired of the people who love you, the people you love?"
"Maybe you'd get tired of love," Ed said. "I don't know if I wouldn't get tired of sitting with the same people forever, doing and saying the same things. I can't imagine that."
"Maybe it's different than it is here," Tom said.
"How would it be different?" Ed asked him.
"Maybe it's not like a place, but more like a feeling. Maybe it's not like talking and walking and things like that. It's more like listening to music, or something like that."
"Yes," I agreed.
But Jane shrugged. "I would miss the trees, the clouds, the sunset, the sea. I don't know if I would like to be there without those things."
"When I think of the afterlife," I said, "I think of being with God. I think God and being with God will be the main thing. Mom and dad will be there too."
Ed made a face. "You can believe anything you want. You can imagine all kinds of things. But that doesn't mean that's how it's going to be. People used to believe the Earth was flat. They believed the sun went around the Earth. They believed there was a man in the moon, that the moon was a god. But when we went up there, we found out it was just a rock, the whole time. Things are what they are, it doesn't matter what you believe. People believed God created the world in six days. Now we know it evolved over billions of years. We have the fossils to prove it. The carbon dating."
"But that doesn't prove there is no God," Tom told him.
"It doesn't prove anything one way or the other," Ed said.
"Well I don't know if I can come to terms with a life that just ends, like that," I said. "That everything just goes dark."
"Look," Ed said, waving his arms as if to say he was making a final, sweeping statement, "I'm just saying whatever you believe or want to believe has nothing to do with it. Things are what they are. And nobody really knows what it's like until they get there. Just like when they sailed around the world. And in the end, despite what anyone believes, it all might just turn out to be nothing. That it really does just end."
Jane stared at him. "That's a sad way of looking at things."
"You have to make the most of life while you live it," Ed said, firmly. "That's what I believe. You have to make the best of it while it lasts."
"Did you make the most of it?" she asked him, a dubious look on her face.
"I gave it my best shot," he said.
"It doesn't sound like you made the most of it," she said.
"Can anyone say they made the most of life?" I asked. "I mean, that's why we believe Jesus died for us, right?"
Ed flashed me a sarcastic smile. "But what if there is no Jesus?" He asked. "Just because you believe it doesn't mean that's the way it is. That's my point. The Muslims believe what they believe. The Jews believe in what they believe. And the Buddhists, the Hindus. Whose to say who's right and who's wrong? And maybe they're all wrong, and there really is nothing after this life."
"I don't know about any of that," Jane said, folding her arms. "Mom and dad always took us to church and so I believe in Jesus. If there is a God, then it's up to him to sort it all out."
Ed laughed. "You see? You said, 'if,' Jane."
"Whatever," Jane said.
Tom was looking out of the window. "I like to think of life as like climbing a mountain. Always trying to get to a better place."
"Maybe there is no better place," Ed said.
I finished my coffee and got up and put the empty cup in the sink. "I guess we could go on like this forever, arguing about what comes after we die," I said. "In the end, we just won't know until we get there."
Tom leaned back and looked at me, folding his hands behind his head. "The great unknown. People are always afraid of the unknown. That's why they take comfort in stories like the Resurrection."
Ed got up and put his cup in the sink. "Some people are afraid of the familiar," he said.
Jane stared at him again, her arms folded, leaning back in her chair. "Is that why you moved to California?" she asked him.
"I like to think of it as striking out on my own, and doing things my way," he said.
She snickered. "Is that what you are going to do in the afterlife? Strike out on your own?"
"More like strike out," he said, putting on his jacket. "Strike out and leave the field to the next team."
After they left, I stood at the darkened window, looking out into the night. I couldn't see a thing out there. It was like a door into the dark.
"That's what death looks like from this side," I said to myself. "The door into the dark."
| Author Notes | Death is the thing that puts life into perspective. It calls into question our whole premise for being, what we did in this life, what we made of it, whether it was worth it or not; all these things are called into question by death. And in the end, death is the great unknown. Whatever we believe, we have no way of knowing what lies beyond that door into the dark. I constructed this series of conversations about death around a fictional funeral in which three siblings and a cousin are forced to confront the death of a father and uncle, and confront their own strained relationships, and their own reasons for being. Stylistically this owes much to Raymond Carver, and his minimalistic approach. I wanted things stripped down and focused on the spare emotions of the characters, exposing their fears, anxieties, misgivings and regrets. Hopefully, I was successful in making people think. I know it is a bit long but I believe pieces should be experienced in entirety, to achieve their intended effect. Like Giraffemange, I think longer pieces deserve contemplation too. This is the first piece in this new series I intend to call In Real Time. estory |
By estory
The Grant's four story, brick colonial house stood on top of Revere Hill, where it overlooked the city of Manchester New Hampshire like some stately presidential residence. The townspeople even pointed it out to visitors, with an air of civic pride; something that symbolized the pedigree and character of the community. It was a beautiful house that had been built by Monroe Grant's grandfather, a Georgian manor with a collonaded piazza across the front, it's windows neatly trimmed with carefully painted white shutters. You had to walk up a flight of brick steps to reach it from the street passed the well manicured roses and azaleas on either side of a brick path. It looked like it once might have been the home of John Quincy Adams or Millard Filmore, surrounded by ancient, pompous oaks.
In the front parlor the family kept a large, framed family tree in the shape of a towering white oak, embellished in the upper right hand corner with the flying eagle crest that had always served to represent the family coat of arms. On it the interested visitor could trace the connections to generations of Grants that had served the country in the Second World War, the First World War, and had overcome the trauma of the Great Depression. The roots of this tree were emblazoned with the honored names of those that fought for the independence of the country and the trunk with members who had fought in the Civil War. On the uppermost branches you could find those who had flourished in the industrial revolution and the westward expansion. Monroe Grant, who was now the head of this illustrious family, liked to explain to guests that his family had lived the history of the country, and had succeeded with it.
Monroe Grant, or more properly Monroe Grant the third, had inherited the fabric business his family had originally founded as a clothes mill along the Merrimack River in the early eighteen hundreds. A portrait of the original mill with its quaint waterwheel still appeared as the logo for their brand of fabrics. From these humble but hopeful beginnings it had been expanded by the great, great grandfathers into a humming factory that had once been the largest employer in Merrimack County; but it was fair to admit that this honor could no longer be claimed in our day and age. Necessities of cost control and efficiency brought on by foreign competition had forced Monroe to close the mill in Manchester and build one in Jaipur, India instead, and now only the design and business decisions were made in a small, sleek modern office situated in the city's downtown that employed about 30 people.
Still, the Grant name could be seen on street signs and on a popular park downtown. They had an endowment at the local college, where the school of textiles was named for them, and they kept up a charity that backed a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter connected to the Presbyterian Church. On the face of things, their success and stature had not been tarnished. Monroe and his wife Caroline drove to the Hillcrest Country Club every Saturday in a brand new GMC Yukon, where they were active in the tennis tournaments and on the golf courses. Their daughter Madison was the top rider on the equestrian team. On Sundays they went to St. Thomas Presbyterian in their Lincoln town car, with their youngest son William, who was still enrolled in the private Hargrove School. Their oldest son Monroe IV was away at the University of Pennsylvania, where he attended the business school.
Monroe was a tall man, of course, with sharply chiselled features, a high, noble forehead, closely cropped, slightly greying hair, deep set, blue eyes and a determined chin. He looked every bit like an embodiment of his Scots-Irish forebears. After he had attended to business matters he would sit in the leather easy chair in his library, cross his legs and look contentedly out of his front window at the neatly clipped azaleas and roses, satisfied in the prospects of what he would be bequeathing to his children. He and Caroline were immensely proud and hopeful of their children.
"Dear," Caroline said as her smartly trimmed frame popped into the library, "Roe is coming home for the weekend."
At the mention of his son's name Monroe set his drink on the coffee table, leaned back, and looked at his wife of 27 years of successful marriage with the smile of a man whose hand at the helm had guided this ship to its destination. "Well, that's great Caroline," he said. "I'm looking forward to hearing how he's doing. Want to take him for a look at the office, give him an idea of where things sit and how he might fit in. See what he makes of it all."
Caroline's figure masked the fact that she had born three children; a strict regime of morning walks and yoga, tennis and workouts at the gym had brought about her recovery from those births, along with smartly applied makeup that smoothed over the touches of crow's feet in the corners of her eyes. 'In all these years,' Monroe thought to himself, 'She's aged with me gracefully. I'm a lucky, lucky man.' She was still something to show off at the church and his rounds at the country club.
But she wrinkled her pretty little nose at him now, shaking her head so that her dyed blond hair trembled. "I hope you don't plan of spending the whole weekend discussing business," she said disapprovingly. "I'm looking forward to bringing him to church Sunday morning. He hasn't been to church since he left for school, and I want everyone to see how he's grown up. And I want him to have a nice, family dinner tonight."
Monroe turned from her, picked up his drink, and answered her over his shoulder to rubber stamp these formalities. It was nice to know the family traditions they so cherished were being kept up. "Whatever you'd like, Caroline. It will be great to see what everyone thinks of him. He's taller than me now. Say, is he flying out? Shall I pick him up at the airport?"
She looked passed him and out the front window, fingering the necklace Monroe had given her some years back, after the company had a particularly successful year. She couldn't help thinking of all those successful years, and how she had guided her children into them, and what benefit it all be for 'Roe,' as she called him. "No, that won't be necessary. He's driving out. He wants a little more independence. The thing is, he's bringing someone with him. A girl."
Monroe set his drink down again and turned to Caroline with his eyebrows raised, an amused smile playing on his lips. "Oh? He's bringing a girl out, is he? Isn't he the dashing suitor. I can't wait to see who he's picked out for himself."
Caroline frowned. "Oh Monroe," she sighed. "Don't make a scene with him."
"I know you're dying to see what she's like yourself. Especially since you've probably had an eye on somebody at church or the country club for him."
"Nothing wrong with looking out for your child," Caroline said firmly, turning for the door. "Anyway, they'll be hear tonight. Change your clothes. And no more of that," she added, pointing down to his glass.
"As always, you're looking out for me," he called after her as she left the room. Then, with a customary flourish, he tossed back his drink and set the empty glass on the table. 'Wonder what this girl from Pennsylvania is going to be like,' he said to himself as he resumed his gaze out the front window at their lawn. 'Wonder how she's going to fit in.'
When Madison came home she was quickly engaged by her mother in the preparations for this little, welcome home dinner. Madison went to the local college where she was taking a class in women's studies, on a scholarship for the equestrian team. She had inherited her mother's good looks, to go along with the calculating mind beneath the surface. She had the fine, delicate facial features, the high cheek bones, the flowing blond hair and the mischevous pout, and a sense of how to use them. Her mother couldn't help looking with a proud smile at the rather striking form she cut in her tight jeans and silk top, as she breezed into the kitchen with quite the air of purposeful indifference.
When her mother told her that Roe was coming to dinner that evening with a friend, she shrugged. "What does Roe and the girl he's bringing have to do with me?" she asked flatly.
Caroline leaned towards her daughter with a wry smile. "Don't you want to see what kind of girl your brother is bringing home?"
Madison sat down at the kitchen table and brushed back her famous hair, staring up at her mother a bit fierce and unblinking. "No, not really," she said.
"Well, in my day," the mother said, sharpening her knives, "We kept up a great interest in each other. We looked out for each other."
"Mom," Madison said, leaning back in her chair, "Those days are long gone."
Caroline shot her a glance, meant to prevent the crossing of borders. She brought out the cutting boards and mixing bowls. "The least you could do is make a good impression," she said in a low, measured voice. "Now sit up, roll up your sleeves, and give me a hand with this. We're going to make a good impression, Madison."
Knowing not to argue with the mother who paid for her riding lessons and gave her allowance, Madison sighed a protesting sigh and accepted a knife. "What are we making for them tonight?" she asked.
"Chicken cacciatore," Caroline said, "Roe's favorite."
"Well isn't Roe lucky," Madison complained. "I suppose I'll have to peel all those little onions."
Caroline handed her the bag of onions. "You know, I think we've spoiled you," she said.
"Then it's your fault," Madison answered with a shrug.
William, the Grants' youngest, came in with his books just as the cooking was starting up in the kitchen. He had Monroe's squared off good looks, the reddish hair, and the tall, lean frame that stuck out in a room. Like his father, the girls all looked up to him, and he seemed to be singled out for class president and the quarterback of the football team. He wore the pastel polo shirts and slacks his mother bought for him regularly very well.
"You're late, dear," his mother called from the kitchen.
"We had a long practice," William explained. "There's a game tomorrow. You didn't forget, did you?"
"I'm sorry but I did forget," Caroline answered. "Roe is coming home for dinner tonight. Run up and change."
He took off his jacket and brought his books into the library, where his father was still sitting, admiring the lawn.
"Roe is coming this weekend?" he repeated to his father, setting his books on a desk in the corner.
His father looked him over with a smile. Of all of his children, William was the one who most reminded him of himself. "Yes, he'll be here tonight."
"Are you still coming to my game tomorrow?" William asked, watching his father and listening for how he would answer.
"Well, I'd like to take him up to the office, William," Monroe said. "I want to let him have a look at things, you know, and get a feel for what they've been teaching him out there. Your mother wants to take him to church Sunday, and then there's the country club."
William frowned. "But it's the biggest game of the year. We're playing Nashua. I'd like to see what Roe thinks of my spirals."
Monroe fidgeted. "I know son, but you know they'll be other games. He can't be everywhere at once."
William sat down, next to his father. "Why can't we go to the office on Sunday? Then maybe I can go up there too."
Monroe's face brightened at the suggestion. "Well, maybe. You know I'd love to have both of you up there with me someday. But it depends on your mother, you know."
Just then Madison walked in. She was done with the onions in the kitchen and her mother had released her. She looked at her younger brother with a sly smile. "What makes you think Roe will be interested in watching your game?" she asked.
William glared back at her. "He always comes to my games, when he's around."
"This time he might have other plans. He's coming out here with someone you know. A girl."
William scowled. "A girl?" he repeated, surprised at this interjection of an outsider into their family hierarchy. "Is that true, dad?"
Monroe chuckled. "You didn't expect your brother to stay single forever, did you? It's not the end of the world. Your brother's always had good taste. I'm sure she'll be fine."
Madison sat down on the chair opposite her father, staring deffiantly at him with her hands on the armrests, as if she were sitting on a throne. "You talk about her as if she were some kind of lap dog."
"Oh Madison, you know I didn't mean it like that."
"Well how did you mean it, dad?"
"I just meant that she's sure to share his interests. Support him in all his endeavors. Get along with his family."
"Maybe she's looking for him to support her in what she wants out of life," Madison retorted.
William rolled his eyes at his father, as if to say 'Here she goes again.'
Monroe shook his head. "You know what I think of your ambitions, Madison. I've always supported you, financially and otherwise, in whatever you've wanted to do. You wanted a horse, I bought you one. You wanted riding lessons, I paid for them. You wanted to go to this little school with your friends and study women's issues, I gave you my blessings. I think it's great. Who knows? Someday you might get a law degree to along with it, like I've always suggested you do, and wind up on the city council."
Madison wrinkled her nose and sniffed dismissively. "Or the mayor. Or maybe something else. What makes you think I'd be content with sticking around here in the back woods?"
William leaned forward, looking at his father. "This business we've got in the back woods paid your way, right dad?"
"In a manor of speaking, yes," Monroe answered.
Madison turned to her younger brother. "No more comments from the peanut gallery," she ordered.
William set his square jaw, narrowing his eyes at her. "You ought to appreciate it as I do," he said.
Monroe made a cutting motion with his hand. "Alright, that's enough. Roe will be here soon. Stop all this squabbling."
Madison squirmed in her chair and petted her hair with her hand. "Oh yes. We have to make a good impression on Roe's little girlfriend. Whoever she is."
Caroline stalked in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and glowering at them all. "Yes, that's right. William, upstairs and get changed. You too, Madison. And you, Monroe. We're going to make a good impression."
The preparations for Roe's homecoming that night, hasty as they were, took on all the manner, pomp and circumstance afforded a state visit by a noted dignitary. Caroline insisted that the best China be laid out, along with the best silverware and the best crystal, and that they use the dining room that they usually reserved for special occasions. William was given the job of folding the embroidered napkins into triangles and setting the forks and spoons evenly on top of them. The points of the napkins had to face out from each plate. The knives had to be tucked under the edges of the plates with the sharp edge in and the crystal tumblers needed to be set exactly at two o'clock of each plate. This is the way it had always been done, the way Caroline's mother had always done things, and for all she knew, her grandmother before that. It was part of her raison d'etre to maintain these traditions and pass them on to her children.
Madison was sent out to cut some chrysanthemums from the garden; a handful of rusty red and a handful of yellow, along with a couple of ferns. They had to be arranged in the McCoy vase, given water, and placed squarely in the center of the table. She also had to dust the chairs and the side board. Monroe was told to bring up a chilled bottle of his best Reserva Ducale Chianti. William and Madison tied back the marroon curtains from the great window, so that the soft, afternoon light spilled into the room. It illuminated a carefully composed portrait of Monroe and Caroline posing arm in arm on the back wall behind where Caroline would sit, along with a smaller portrait of the children painted when they were younger hanging beside it. The wall on Caroline's left was brightened by an old New England farm scene, and the wall opposite by a stunning landscape of the Grand Canyon, in a splendid gilt frame. On the side board was a bust of George Washington. Behind where Monroe would preside in his great, Windsor chair, the striking double paned floor to ceiling French doors, framed in the maroon curtains, opened onto a view of the back garden with its chrysanthemums and speedwell that stood out against the yew hedges.
Caroline wore her crisp, blue suit with the gold brooch Monroe had given her once. Monroe put on his dinner jacket. Madison slipped out of her casual jeans and into a much more intimidating black dress. William too, wore his dinner jacket. Caroline inspected them all, and in the end nothing was out of place, nothing came up short. After he parked the Lincoln in the garage, Monroe carefully set his favorite picture book, America the Beautiful, on the coffee table in the front parlor and they all gathered to sit in the upholstered chairs and wait to welcome their Roe and his girlfriend into the inherited grandeur of their illustrious home.
"I hope they have a good appetite," Caroline remarked with a nervous twitch of her lip.
"It will be fine, mother," Madison declared with an exsasperated sigh.
"I'm sure Roe will feel like he never left," Monroe said to his wife with a smile, leaning back confidently in his chair. "To be honest with you, I'm sure he will be wondering why he ever left in the first place. I've never quite understood the allure of Pennsylvania."
"Have you ever been to Pennsylvania, dad?" Madison asked suspiciously.
Monroe screwed up an eye. "Sure. Lots of times. On business."
"When was the last time you were there?" Madison pressed on him.
"Can't say as I remember. But there wasn't any football, I can tell you that," he said, winking at William.
William snickered.
"I think I hear a car," Caroline said suddenly, getting up to peep through her front window blinds at the driveway. "Yes, it's them alright."
They straightened up in their chairs. While they waited for the front doorbell to ring, Monroe uncrossed his legs and pulled down his jacket sleeves. Madison frowned. William leaned back. Caroline moved to the door. Madison, still frowning, watched her father brush some lint off his pants. Caroline took a deep breath.
| Author Notes | In this story about a high brow New England family, I wanted to create an analogy on the current state of affairs in America, a country being torn from its roots and its values by special interest groups and changing attitudes. It is heavy on symbolism and I wanted to use the squabbling children, angling for position in this wealthy family, to make a more complex view of these special interest groups. In this family situation, you have the love of the parents for their kids, their hopes for their future, pitted against the desires and hopes and dreams and aspirations of these children that in the end turn on each other and end in disaster. It is long even for my work, and I decided to split it into two parts to make it bit more palatable. I'm curious to see if my ambitious concept and construction worked. estory |
By estory
At last the bell rang and Caroline quickly stepped forward and opened the door with an actress's smile. "Well Hello, Roe," she said as warmly as she could, "You're looking great. And hello, dear. Welcome to Manchester. Did you have a nice trip?"
The familiar, broad shouldered, tall figure of Monroe IV stepped over the thresh-hold, greeting his mother with an odd, twisted smile. He seemed to have an eye on the person behind him, the girl who had come home with him. Madison leaned over to get a look at her, but she did not get up. The girl who stepped into the room behind Roe had a pretty but pale, nervous face, framed by very short, dyed reddish hair. She was wearing a simple jacket that could have been bought at Target or Kohl's, and she was wearing jeans. It was quite a contrast to her sharply dressed hosts. She looked around at all of them with her shoulders hunched up, clutching her bag. Madison flashed an amused smile.
"Hello mother," Roe said rather coolly. He only nodded at his father, who was rising from his chair to greet him, and his brother, who couldn't seem to make up his mind about them as he sat in his chair. "This is Brooke, the girl I've been telling you about."
"Well it's so nice to meet you at last," Caroline said politely, leaning towards her and extending a hand. "That's such an interesting name. Rather like my Madison. Madison dear, this is Brooke."
"Pleased to meet you, Brooke," Madison said as she rose formidably from her chair, with a slight emphasis on the 'Brooke'.
The girl with the short, red hair did not smile. Her chin seemed to harden, as she looked from mother to daughter. "My mother believes in giving girls substantive, assertive names," she said firmly.
Caroline looked a bit surprised, even taken aback, as she tried to smile at this, glancing at her husband. But Madison's smile broadened. "Good for you!" she said, enthusiastically.
"Well, Madison is named for a president of the United States," Monroe declared light heartedly. He stuck out his hand. "Roe, it is good to have you back. You have to tell me about your business courses and what you've gotten out of them." His son took his hand slowly, but he seemed to not know what to say, and looked back at his girlfriend standing behind him.
At last William stood up and strode over from the sidelines, looking into his brother's familiar face with a quizzical air. "Roe, you haven't forgotten about me, have you? You've got to come to my game tomorrow. You can't miss it. We're playing Nashua. I've been working on my spirals. It's the biggest game of the year."
Roe seemed to sway a bit in the middle of his parents, his siblings and his girlfriend. He looked from his father to his mother to his sister to his brother with a strange look on his face, like he did not know where he was or why he was there. "I have to say I haven't kept up with football lately," he said, flatly.
William stepped back. "Not kept up with football?" he repeated, in a puzzled tone.
Monroe looked at his son as if he had just heard that he had become ill. "Well, that doesn't sound like you at all, Roe. I certainly hope you've kept up with business. I'd like to take down to the office and show you around."
Caroline cut in on him. "And it would be so nice if we all went to church on Sunday. It would be like old times. You know everyone's been asking about you... Brooke dear, of course you can come along too, if you like."
Roe turned to Brooke and they looked at each other. They seemed out of place or out of sorts. "I think we'll pass this time, mother," he told her, in a measured voice.
Caroline's face went blank. Monroe thrust his hands into his pockets. William's mouth dropped open. Only Madison flashed a wry smile.
"Roe, you've never missed church as long as you've been in this house," Caroline said. "You know how much it means to me. And there are so many people there who want to see you."
Roe looked around from face to face, shifting his weight uncomfortably as Brooke stared at him with her hardened face. He reached out and grasped her hand. "Mother, Brooke doesn't go to church."
Caroline could hardly hide her disappointment. There was an awkward silence in which Monroe shook his head and William stared at his brother as though he no longer recognized him. Only Madison straightened up, her eyes flashing.
"If she doesn't want to go...she certainly doesn't have to..." Caroline stammered. "But why don't you go to church, dear?"
Brooke seemed defiant as she turned to Caroline. "I don't believe in God," she said firmly. "My parents are free thinkers."
"Free thinkers?" Monroe repeated, frowning. "What are 'free thinkers,' exactly? I thought people in Pennsylvania were quakers."
"You don't know Pennsylvania as well as you thought you did, dad," Madison put in with a smirk.
"Be quiet, Madison," Caroline snapped.
Brooke, her shoulders back and her chin up, stared right back at Monroe. "My parents believe in science," she told him.
"What do your parents do, if I may ask?" Monroe asked her, with a dubious look on his face.
"They're both professors," she answered, matter of factly. "My mom teaches political science at Penn State, and my dad teaches philosophy."
"Philosophy, eh?" Monroe said derisively.
But Madison stepped to Brooke's side and announced, with her face brightened by defiance, "I don't want to go to church either, mother."
Caroline grimaced at her. "Enough of this talk," she said sharply, waving her hand, as if that would sweep away everything that had just happened. "Dinner's ready. Why don't you all go into the dining room and sit down. I'm sure you're ready to have something to eat."
"That sounds great dear," Monroe rejoined quickly, eager to change the subject. He turned his back on Roe and Brooke and took a step towards the dining room.
"I need a good dinner to get ready for my game tomorrow," William said as he followed his father.
But Roe hung back next to his red headed girlfriend, who was whispering something in his ear, a concerned look on her pinched face. Taking a deep breath, he straightened up and faced his mother. "What exactly is for dinner, mother?" he asked her.
"Chicken Cacciatore," she said, as if suddenly unsure of herself. "I made one of your old favorites, just for you."
"Brooke is a vegetarian," Roe stated, still holding his girlfriend's hand. "And she's kind of talked me into it too, actually."
Monroe and William stopped in their tracks and turned to Roe with surprised and disappointed looks. Caroline seemed to gasp for a moment. "Well that is a change for you dear. I wish you had told me. I suppose you could eat the vegetables."
"Sorry mother. It is a new thing for me. But Brooke's been telling me how vegetables are so much healthier for you. And better for the planet too."
"Has she?" Madison put in, snickering.
As Roe passed his father, still standing in the hall with his hands thrust into his pockets, Monroe muttered to him: "I wonder what else has changed with you all of a sudden." He shot a glance at Brooke, who closed her eyes as she passed him.
Roe shrugged it off. "People change, dad. That's what happens when you grow up."
"Is it?" his father countered, frowning.
Caroline, obviously flustered, ushered them into the dining room and directed them around the table. "Roe dear, you and Brooke sit over there. William and Madison can sit opposite you. Madison, help me bring in the things, will you?"
Brooke and Roe said nothing about the fancy porcelein, the flowers, or the impressive silverware as they sat down. William stared at his brother. Brooke looked over his head at the pictures hanging on the wall, as if trying to contemplate her own presence among them.
Monroe leaned back grimly in his chair, his fingers strumming tensely on the table. "So tell me, Roe," he finally asked, "How are you doing in those business classes?"
Brooke looked at Roe, and Roe looked at her as he answered his father: "I'm changing my major, dad."
Monroe stiffened in horror. "Changing your major? Out of business? And into what, may I ask?"
"Political Science," Roe stated firmly.
Caroline, who had just entered the room with the bowls of vegetables, looked surprised and hesitated for a minute before she set them down in front of her son and his girlfriend. Monroe chuckled dismisively. "You must be joking," he said.
"We're both pretty active in politics on campus," Roe said, still looking raptly into Brooke's face. "We're very concerned about it."
Caroline sat down with a questioning look at her husband, and Monroe adopted an amused expression as he looked back at his wife. "Roe's changing his major, dear. He's leaving business and taking up politics. And what sort of politics is it that you're getting involved in?"
"Progressive politics," Roe announced.
Caroline and Monroe looked at each other across the table as though they had suddenly lost control of their ship. William stared at Roe. Only Madison wore a sly smile as she leaned back in her chair and glanced at her brother.
"I actually support progressive politics," she said, sarcastically light hearted.
"That's enough, Madison," Caroline said sharply. "I don't want to hear another word about it, until we've said grace. Now William, will you do the honors today?"
William bowed his head and folded his hands, with a look back and forth between his parents. Instead of folding his hands, Roe reached over and held Brooke's hand. While William recited their traditional family prayer, that had been handed down for generations, and Madison and William bowed to decorum, for whatever reasons, along with their parents, Roe and his girlfriend sat deffiantly in their chairs, staring vacantly and tensely over their bowed heads. When William finished and they all said 'amen,' Caroline frowned and turned to Roe, instead of handing him the bowl of tomatoes, onions and peppers.
"Roe dear, you don't say grace anymore either?" she asked him, a note of bitter disappointment in her voice.
Brooke looked at Roe and closed her eyes. Roe cleared his throat nervously and said in a forced voice: "It's a matter of principle with Brooke. And I like to support her in her principles."
Monroe grimaced as he speared chicken pieces from the plate in front of his oldest son. He gave Roe a sharp look and suddenly said: "Principles. I'd like to know more of these principles and progressive politics of yours, and where you got all these new ideas."
"You've changed, Roe," William blurted out, glancing for approval at his father as he said this.
"And what's wrong with change?" Madison declared, helping herself cheerfully to spoonfulls of vegetables before the bowl to Brooke.
Caroline frowned. "I don't see what's wrong with saying grace with your family, as it's always been done. I like to think that this a family that is grateful for it's blessings. I suppose you don't believe in that anymore either, do you, Roe?"
Roe fidgeted under the weight of his father and mother's hard looks. But he grit his teeth and looked right back at them, squeezing Brooke's hand. "No mother, I don't," he answered her firmly.
Caroline looked away from him and began filling her plate with sharp snaps of the serving spoons on her plate. "Well, I think that's sad," she said.
Madison leaned over to Brooke, her eyes flashing. "Are you a supporter of the pro choice movement?" she asked her.
Brooke looked up at her with a relieved smile. "Of course," she declared.
"And the equity movement?"
"It's very important to me," Brooke admitted.
"Only because I've been trying to talk mother into considering supporting it," Madison said, with a triumphant glance at her mother.
"That's enough, Madison," Caroline said, bristling.
"We don't believe in abortion," William said, "Right, dad?"
"You don't understand any of this," Roe cut him off. "You're a man, not a woman. And it's a matter of personal choice by a woman, what she does with her body."
"I'll tell you what I don't understand," Monroe said, his face reddening as he put down his utensils and leaned over at Roe. "I don't understand how you just chucked aside your family's values and your business plans for all these progressive, liberal politics. I'm spending money so that you'll be ready to take over the business someday."
Roe's face got red in turn as he stared back. "There's more important things than business, father. There's social justice and there's the environment, all the things Brooke has been opening my eyes to. There's fighting racism and elitism and making the world a better place for everyone on the planet."
Monroe shook his head, chuckling sarcastically. "And then there's contributing to society through good old fashioned work. There's making clothes. There's supplying basic goods that people need in the open, free market."
"Now Monroe," Caroline interrupted, "I don't like where all this talk is headed."
But Brooke straightened up in her chair next to Roe and blurted out: "We feel very strongly about the exploitation of labor and the expoitation of the environment. Especially for the sake of women and children in third world countries."
Caroline looked for help to her husband, but Monroe, blinking and fidgeting, his knuckles whitening as he balled his hands into fists, leaned back in his chair and glanced back and forth between his oldest son and his girlfriend. "I suppose that comment was directed against my business practices. Well I can assure you, Brooke, that we don't use child labor at any of our facilities. We've actually bettered people's lives in those countries. We pay them double the local rate. They live in apartments now, they send their children to schools. You see, no other system beside capitalism has been as successful in creating higher standards of living in the world. Ask anyone in Europe."
Roe seemed unmoved. He leaned towards his father, his eyes bright. "Can you certify that, dad? Can you certify there's no child labor in any of our operations?"
William looked from his father to his brother. "Are you saying you don't want to be a part of the business?" then he looked back at his father. "Because if you don't, then I'll take his place, dad."
"You're welcome to it," Roe said flatly, turning from them to his girlfriend. "We don't need it."
Monroe's shoulders slumped as he continued to stare at Roe as if there were a chasm opening between them. "You don't know what you're saying, Roe. This has been a lifetime in the making. This is about family, about the success of all of us. You can't just walk out on the whole thing on a whim."
William leaned over to his father, his brightening and eager, as he saw his chance. "I'll take his place, dad. Send me to business school. I won't let you down."
"Well, you're welcome to it, little brother," Roe snapped out bitterly, "If you want to follow in father's footsteps."
Madison chuckled to herself as she sat back in her chair, listening to all this unfold. She looked at her younger brother with a wry smile. "You're still learning how to throw a football, and now you want to run the family business?" she said to him.
"That's enough!" Caroline interrupted, her eyes watering, her hands pounding on the table. "Can't you imagine what it's like for a mother to listen to her own children barking at each other like this? We're supposed to be family. That means we're supposed to support each other. This isn't what I raised you to be like when I took you to church all those years. This isn't what I expected to see when I took care of you when you were sick, or made dinner for you, or cleaned up after you. The least you can do is think of me when you bicker and fight with each other like this."
There was a grim silence as the children eyed each other suspiciously. Monroe wiped his face with his hand, took a deep breath, and leaned back in his chair, looking them over as if appealing to them for support. "You're mother's right," he said, "You're mother's absolutely right."
William looked hopefully at his father. "I'm sorry," he said, folding his hands penitently on the table.
"I'm sorry too," Madison said quickly, with a resigned sigh, half under her breath.
Roe and Brooke looked at each other, squirming uncomfortable in their seats as everyone turned their gaze on them. Roe put his arm around her shoulder, as if protecting her, looking back at his parents and siblings with defiant eyes. Brooke closed her eyes. Then, looking quickly up at Caroline, she said: "I'm sorry to have caused a scene here, Mrs. Grant. Maybe I shouldn't have come here like this."
"It's not your fault,"Roe said, leaning over to her. "You shouldn't have to appologise for your convictions."
William, glancing from his father to Roe, squinted challengingly at him. "You should apologize to your mother, Roe."
Roe turned to him with an angry sneer, his own sharply chiselled face hardening. "I don't take orders from you," he said.
Monroe held up his hand. "You heard your mother, Roe. That's enough, now."
With that, Roe stood up, his face red. "I've had about enough of this myself. I shouldn't have brought you here, Brooke, you're right about that. But I'll tell all of you something else. I shouldn't have come back here either. I don't belong here anymore."
Caroline's eyes glistened. "Roe! What are you doing?" she gasped out.
"I'm leaving," he said, turning his back on them. "Come on, Brooke. We're going."
The red haired girl with the pale, pinched face stood up next to him. She said nothing as they started for the hall, turning away from her boyfriend's family.
"Monroe, do something," Caroline barked at her husband desperately from across the table. 'Say something, will you?"
Monroe, with Madison and William staring at him, stood up at the head of the table. He pointed a damning finger at the back of his oldest son. "Roe, you leave this house like this and I'm cutting you off, do you hear? I won't pay for your tuition or your lodgings. I won't support you. If you don't respect your mother and me...and if you don't want to be a part of our business, if you believe in it anymore, then I won't support you anymore, do you hear?"
Roe turned and said over his shoulder: "I'm perfectly prepared to live without your support. We obviously have different perceptions of success, and what's important in the world. We'll get plenty of support from Brooke's parents, and the Student's council. And we'll have the gratitude of all those people we're fighting for who haven't been able to enjoy the benefits you've had at their expense."
Madison shrugged, smiling to herself, as she watched Roe reach the front door and put his hand on the doorknob.
William said to his father: "Let him go, dad. I'll take his place."
Monroe was trembling now. "You walk out of here, Roe, and I'm telling you, Monday morning I'm calling the bank. I'm going to cut your credit lines."
"Monroe!" Caroline exclaimed, getting up from her chair.
"It's alright," Roe called back, as he opened the door. "I don't need your money. I don't want it anymore. Come on, Brooke."
The door closed. Monroe turned to the window, where he watched Roe walk down the driveway to his car. He thrust his hands in his pockets again, helplessly. Caroline, Madison and William sat watching him, as people on a ship watch the captain lose control of it, in a storm.
| Author Notes | This ends my allagorical story about the dissolution of a nation, as seen in this family setting, which I thought would highlight the emotional aspects of it. The mother's love for her children, the father's expectations, the withdrawal of the children from the time honored family values and the conflicts that creates, all pull and tug on the family until it spins into ruin. It's sad, it's scary, it's a story of anger and uncertainty, of lost foundations. In no way is this meant to be a statement on abortion or progressive or conservative politics. Those are the forces pulling these people apart, and I wanted you to see that pulling apart as a tragedy brought about by these uncontrollable things. I await your comments. estory |
By estory
The house where it happened looked like any house on the block. It had a little porch in the front where you could sit outside if you wanted. There was a little fenced in yard out back for kids and dogs to run around in. There was an old car parked in the driveway.
It was a sunny afternoon and the windows of the house were open. A young woman was sitting on the porch. There was a boy in the backyard playing with a dog. The woman on the porch was watching the cars going by in the street.
Suddenly a car pulled out of the street and into the driveway. It pulled in so fast and so hard it hit the bumper of the car that already parked there, knocking out a taillight. The woman on the porch stood up and yelled. The boy in the backyard ran up to the fence along the driveway to see what had happened.
The car door opened and a man got out. When he saw who it was, the boy by the fence ran back behind the house. The man had a red, unshaven face with messy black hair and he pointed his finger at the woman on the porch. The woman yelled something back at him.
The man started for the porch and the woman went into the house and slammed the door shut. The man ran up onto the porch and started pounding on the door with his fists. He was yelling at the woman to open the door. The woman closed the window that opened on the porch, and when the man saw that he went off the porch around to the other side where there was another window.
The man tried to climb into the window. He had his hands on the windowsill and he was trying to pull himself up so he could crawl through the window. The dog in the backyard was barking at him. The woman was yelling inside the house.
Before he could get into the window, the woman in the house started kicking him in the face from inside the house. She was yelling: "Get out of my house! Get out of my house!" She kicked him so hard he let go of the windowsill and dropped to the ground. He sat there for a minute looking up at the window with his face bleeding.
Now the boy was by the fence on that side of the house, watching the man, and the dog was barking at him. When the man saw the boy, he got up off the ground and started for the backyard. The woman yelled at the boy to get in the house. The boy ran behind the house and the dog followed him.
The man climbed over the fence and went behind the house. The woman was closing the first floor windows. Then she started closing the second floor windows.
You could hear the man pounding on the back door. He kept yelling: "Open this door! Open this door!" People started coming out of their houses to watch. They were standing on their porches with their arms folded, watching all this.
The woman was yelling at the man from the one upstairs window that was still open. "Get out of here!" she was yelling at him. "Get out of here or I'll call the cops!" The people on the porches were shaking their heads with their arms folded, watching.
You could see blood all over the man's face as he stood in the yard at the side of the house, yelling at the woman in the upstairs window. "I want my kid!" he was yelling. "You can't keep me from my kid!" He started picking up rocks in the yard and throwing them at the woman in the window.
The woman closed the window. The man broke it with a rock. Then the man came around the side of the house and started throwing rocks at the front door and the front windows. The people watching all this from their porches across the street were looking at each other, shaking their heads and grinning.
The man stopped and wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve. He went back to his car and opened the trunk. He took a rifle out of the car. He walked back to the front porch of the house and started up the steps.
Cars were stopping in the street to watch this. You could see the woman in one of the front, upstairs windows. you could see her holding back the curtain. Then she drew the curtain and stepped back into the house.
The man started banging on the front door with the butt of the rifle. He was yelling: "I'm coming in there!" Then he stepped back and cocked the gun and aimed it at the door. He fired a shot into the door.
The people across the street on their porches were filming all this on their cellphones. The people in the cars in the street got out and took out their cellphones too. There were people standing up and down the whole block watching and recording the whole thing. More and more of them.
The man went up to the window on the porch and smashed it in with the butt of his rifle. Then he started climbing through the window and into the house. You could hear the woman in the house screaming. You could hear a door slamming shut.
There were police sirens in the air now. The people on the porches were waiting to see what was going to happen. Some of them were looking down the block for the police. Some of them were making phone calls.
Then the woman in the house screamed. There was a gunshot. The people on the porches were looking at each other. Then there was another gunshot.
The man came out of the house through the front door. He was still carrying the rifle. Some of the people on the porches went back into their houses. Some of them kept on recording.
A police car pulled up, and then another police car pulled up. The man with the rifle sat down on the front steps of the house. He pointed the rifle up underneath his chin. Then he pulled the trigger and blew his own head off.
Everyone was watching.
| Author Notes | I wrote this in a journalistic, emotionless style, like a news story, in tight, flat, four sentance paragraphs to strip out as much emotion as possible and put as much perspective on these events as I could, neutral perspective of someone recording what was happening. I am hoping that puts the action here in even harsher light, harsher relief. And I brought the onlookers into it to articulate the fascination with violence that we have in today's culture and society. I thought in light of the recent violence across the country this was a very relevant story that digs into these questions of what is at the root of gun violence, and what fascinates us with it? Here there are no heros, only failures in a failed society that can't seem to eradicate this scourge, for whatever reason. As usual, I like to make people think and I await your comments with some interest. estory |
By estory
Marco Lustig looked down at the girl lying on the hotel room bed. The early morning light streamed through the window and brightened the sensual form that had brought him pleasure the night before; the softly molded shoulders, the curves of the back and buttocks, and the long, smooth lines of the legs. Yes, she was a beauty. And she had been a delightful companion at that. She had a carefree way of laughing at things he said over her wine, a lighthearted, playful mood. She had talked of music. Monet and Renoir. Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Monte Carlo. Even football. But then, with a shrug, he turned away from her and resumed packing his bags.
The very idea of staying on here with her, of giving up his freedom for some kind of relationship and a life here with her, dried his mouth and set his teeth on edge. It was not that she was a bad girl, or that Lyon was a bad town. In fact, Lyon was a pleasant town with good restaurants and lively squares, colorful markets and cafes, and it was close to the mountains that always lifted his spirits. It was as good a place to stay on as any. And more than likely, she was as nice a girl as he was likely to find to stay with. But that was just it; it would mean staying on. It would mean securing an apartment or a house and the responsibility of paying rent or the mortgage, and when the inevitable children came along it would mean committing to buying them the food and clothing they would need, saving for their education and taking them to the doctor. It would mean decades of staying on with them. And that's what seemed so distasteful to him.
There wasn't much to pack, and he made short work of it. A pair of blue jeans, a couple of t-shirts, a long sleeved shirt and a jacket, a spare pair of socks and his underwear went into his duffle bag. The indispensable laptop went into its carrying case. His cellphone held the digital wallet, his brokerage account and bitcoin and that went into his pocket. An electric razor, a toothbrush, a comb and deoderant went into the little accessories bag and into the duffle. Then he put his sneakers on and that was it. The world brightening and murmuring outside the window was waiting for him. The girl would stay in the closed up room.
He paused to look at himself in the mirror. Yes, there he was; still that handsome young rake with life at his fingertips. He was doing the right thing for himself; in the end, he was doing the right thing for both of them, for everybody. He enjoyed making love, that was true. But at this stage of his life, maybe at any stage of his life that he could think of, he would not make a good husband or a good father. So what was the point of staying on, to even make an attempt at it?
In the end the whole thing would end in disaster, just as his parents' marriage had. He could still vividly remember his father leaving, his warped, angry face, as he picked up his suitcase and walked out that door. He could vividly remember his mother sitting at the kitchen table, crying. For years, he remembered her coming home from the two jobs she worked late at night, bitterly cleaning up and doing the laundry, night after night. For all he knew, the girl lying on the bed had been through the same thing. And what kind of background would that be for any children they might have? No; this was better, hard as it was.
He turned and looked back at her one more time. Her long, tousled, blond hair seemed to sparkle in the morning light. She would have made a lovely model for a sculptor, the way she was lying there, like a work of art. But then she moved her hand. It was time to go, before it was too late.
He turned away from her, grabbed his things and the key to the room, and walked softly out the door. Once the door was closed and he was out of the room with her and into the hall, his heart or his soul or whatever it was that was inside of him began to rise. There was something about being his own man, picking up and leaving and living on the run that was exciting, adventurous. There was nobody to answer to, only one thing to focus on. He had once seen a bumper sticker on a car somewhere else in his travels that seemed to sum it up: 'My body is not a temple, it's an amusement arcade.' He was already looking forward to the train ride to Zurich, to the mountains and the refreshing mountain air, the hotel on the lake he would stay at, the cafes and the beautiful girls he would meet in them, the dinners and the after dinner sex back at the hotel room in that city in the mountains. For the rest of the summer, it would be wonderful. Then, in the fall, it would be on to Budapest, Turin and Split, and as the winter came on, Crete. This was the life.
Down in the lobby he gave the key back to the clerk at the desk and received his precious passport, his key to the carefree, nomadic life. "Did you have a pleasant stay, sir?" the clerk asked him as he settled the bell and sent it to Marco's account.
"Oh yes," Marco replied, thinking of the girl from the night before, and the one the last weekend before that. Then he was out the front door and into the fresh air and the sunlight on the street, the space and the freedom, and his heart or his soul rose still higher.
The street was full of all kinds of people making their way to work or school or the stores from their places in the city. He considered their faces, frowning under the weight of their obligations, as they hurried by in their suits or their dresses. To stay one step ahead of them, to avoid being carried away by them to some office cubicle or studio apartment, was his main goal. Of course, some of them could end up being potential clients and here and there he spotted beautiful, young blonds. There was still some use that he could make of some of them, he told himself with a little chuckle.
He walked down the street for a bit towards the railroad station until he came upon a bench along the sidewalk. He sat down on it and opened his laptop as the people rushed passed him. Before they would get to their offices and check the markets he would start making his moves. Ah, some clients to take care of. Good. Commissions. Now to check his own portfolio. Apple, up 1%. Credit Suisse up 1%. Vestas Wind Systems, down 1/2%. Thyssen Krupp, down 1/4. Daimler, up 1%. Biontech, up 10%. A winner. Bitcoin up 1,500 Euros. More good news than bad. As he closed his laptop and resumed his way to the station, he felt head and shoulders above that crowd. One step ahead of them.
There was still some time before the train would depart for Zurich, he had made sure of that, as he always did. He did not like to rush about, as the other people did, chasing stocks and catching trains at the last minute, out of breath and losing their bearings. He liked to do things nice and leisurely, pleasantly, keeping his wits about him so he could keep an eye out for any opportunities that came along. For this, you had to have time, and for that, you had to be organized and prepared. He decided to reward himself for his preparedness with a grande mocha latte from a coffee shop.
There was a nice, little coffee shop near the station with flower boxes in the windows, and tables and chairs outside where one could sip a coffee, enjoy a chocolate croissant, and watch the beautiful girls go by. to his delight, there was a pretty, little blond actually behind the counter, and he smiled his charming smile and wished her a good morning, enjoying her coquettish smile and good morning in return. He ordered his mocha latte with a little whipped cream and his croissant, and allowed himself the pleasure of watching her move around behind the counter in her tight, little blouse and blue jeans. An older woman next to him on line snapped him an incredulous look but in his aloof position he ignored her, received his drink and croissant from the girl behind the counter with a wink and a smile, and made his way to the tables and chairs on the sidewalk.
The aroma of coffee was delicious, and the chocolate croissant was delicious too, and he enjoyed them both along with the passing scenery. That blond would do for a night. So would that brunette. Perhaps both of them together. Yes, that would be the ticket. That would be something to make a night of, perhaps with a bottle of champagne. Something perhaps to stay on for an extra day after all. But then he would wake up with them in that hotel room. There would be other girls in Zurich. Time to be moving on. Time to head for the station and take the train to Zurich. He would set up shop for himself in that nice hotel on the lake, take care of business and then go on the prowl for something to amuse himself for a couple of weeks. This was the life.
He threw out his empty coffee cup and wrapping paper, grabbed his duffle bag and laptop, and started for the station. As he climbed up the steps to the platform he checked the etickets on his cellphone. Track 3. 9:40. Still plenty of time.
There were all sorts of people milling about on the platform; business people in their crisp suits with briefcases and leisure travelers with their luggage. Beautiful people and stylish people and boors, but they bored him this morning as if they were elbowing in on him, crowding out the fields of vision and blocking the light. He longed to leave them behind, see the mountains, their white peaks shining in the pure, perfect light, far above the huddled and muddled villages with their mundane lives. He would finish with his clients on the train and that would clear up the rest of his day in Zurich. He could sit and relax with a drink by the lake and amuse himself. He instinctively wandered down the platform toward where the milling crowds thinned out.
There was a short stairway here that went down to the street. He thought he might sit on the steps for a bit and work on his laptop, but the steps were dirty. He frowned on this inconvenience conferred upon him by his less well groomed fellow men. At the bottom of the steps he found himself in an alley that ran alongside the train platform, lined by garages and ashcans and trash bins. He walked down it for a bit hoping he could find a crossing back to the main street and its cafes but it seemed to lead nowhere and he turned back.
He had just passed an old, battered garage door when something moved in the shadows behind him. Before he could turn completely around, there was a violent blow to the back of his head and at the same time an abrupt shove that pitched him forward to the pavement on his face. He thought he heard shuffling feet and he saw feet gathering around him. "We'll take that off your hands, sport," said a gruff voice. Someone bent down beside him but he couldn't see his face. Whoever it was grabbed the case with his laptop. "Keep that mug of yours to the pavement," commanded another harsh voice. A hand shot into his jacket, groping for his cellphone. He moved an arm instinctively but a sharp kick to his ribs stopped him. The hand closed on his cellphone and removed it. It also removed his wallet. Then the figure rose from the sidewalk and he heard the sound of feet scrambling away behind him and up the stairs to the railroad platform.
When the sound of footsteps had gone, Marco tried to move. There was a throbbing pain at the back of his head and a sharp, stabbing pain in his ribs where he had been kicked. He felt violated. Every breath made him wince with pain. He stuck a hand behind his head and when he drew it back it was covered in blood. He was bleeding. He moved his legs and arms and tried to sit up but certain movements gave him a sharp pain in his side. There was no-one about to help him and suddenly he felt very alone, almost abandoned. He would have to get up on his own and somehow climb the stairs to the platform to get help. His head was bleeding and someone would have to get him to the hospital for stitches. Then there was his side. He wondered if any of his ribs were broken. What about his things? His laptop and phone? He needed the police.
After he stood up the situation began to weigh on him and his head spun. He still had his duffle bag but the bastards had gotten away with his laptop, his cellphone and his digital wallet. There was no telling what they were doing with it. He had lost his bank accounts, his mobile pay, his identification, even his etickets to the train and his hotel reservations in Zurich. He had no ID, no money. He had to find someone to help him. He needed to speak with the police.
With a great effort, leaning on a banister, he pulled himself up the stairs to the station platform, stopping to rest and catch his breath again and again. He felt dizzy. He wondered as he got up to the platform and saw the well dressed commuters milling about again what he must look like. He shouldered his duffle bag and tried to straighten up as best he could. He started for the crowd; these same people he had passed with such disdain just a half hour before. These same people were his only hope now.
By instinct he spotted a pretty, young lady in a business suit carrying a briefcase, heading for a train that had just pulled into the station. His train, for all he knew. "Excuse me, miss," he stammered out, raising his hand to attract her attention. But when she saw his bloodied head and how he was limping in his dirty clothes, her face twisted in revulsion and she quickly turned from him and quickened her pace for the train. A young businessman in a sharp jacket with a gold watch on his wrist, carrying a leather briefcase and a cup of coffee, reacted in the same way. As they saw him staggering across the platform towards them, the whole crowd turned its faces from him as if he carried some sort of plague and pushed for the open doors of the train, eager to embark on their comfortable morning excursion without interruption on his account. Someone entering one of the cars whispered something to one of the conductors and at last, perhaps out of some sense of responsibility born from his job, he fixed his gaze on Marco and with a firmly set, grim looking visage, walked briskly up to him.
"Here, what's happened to you, mate?" the conductor asked him nervously.
"I've been robbed," Marco stammered out, as if he could hardly believe he were uttering the words himself.
Several faces turned to look at him in horror, and then turned just as quickly away, as if eager to avoid his fate themselves. The conductor's face went pale and his eyes twitched as he glanced around the platform behind Marco.
"Robbed? Where?" the conductor in his crisp uniform demanded from him. In one of his hands the ticket scanner snapped back and forth, as though pulling him like a magnet back to his duty on the train.
"Down the stairway," Marco gasped out. "They took my laptop and my phone. They got my digital wallet and my train tickets. I had a ticket for Zurich," he professed, lamely.
The conductor grimaced, turning to watch the passengers boarding the car behind him. "Anyone see anything? Anybody see what happened to this man?"
A businessman clutching his briefcase frowned. "Never saw this man in my life. Here, I've got to get to Zurich this afternoon. I didn't see anything, I tell you."
"Don't look at me," said a young man in a sports jacket, holding up his hands as if to declare his innocence. "I came from over there."
Another conductor popped his head out of the train car idling next to them. "Frank, we're ready to go. It's time. We've got to keep the schedule."
The conductor set his jaw and stared at Marco stoically. "You've got to talk to the police," he said flatly. "I can't help you here. We've got to go."
He turned and stepped onto the car.
"Can you tell me where I can find the police?" Marco pleaded, holding his ribs. His ribs were aching, as he stood there talking.
A whistle blew. Someone called out: "All aboard!" the conductor, still grim faced, turned his back and shook his head. "We've got to go," he called out, and quickly ducked into the car.
Marco turned away with a disappointed sigh and shouldered his bag. All sorts of men and women, clutching their own bags, hurried by him on their way to catch the departing train. They glanced at him with his bleeding head and disheveled clothes for a moment and then dismissed him just as quickly as they leapt into the cars to hurry on with their day and journey. When the last of them had gone by, the platform had thinned out and he could see an information booth of some kind down a ways. He began to plod towards it, panting and holding his side as he went slowly along. The few people left on the platform scurried away as he neared them before he could ask anyone for help.
A nervous little man was fidgeting inside in the booth. He looked up quickly when Marco leaned over and pressed his bloodied face against the glass.
"Look here," he gasped out, "I've been robbed. I'm hurt. Can you call the police for me?"
The man seemed to consider what to do for a moment, leaning back from the glass as if Marco might break through it, a look of distaste and exasperation on his face. "I can't leave this booth," he said firmly, "I've got a job to do, young man. I'm here to sell tickets. That's what they pay me for."
"Look," Marco begged, "I've lost my phone. I had tickets to Zurich on it. My digital wallet's gone too. There must be a police station here somewhere. Can you just tell me where it is?"
Still leaning back from the glass, the conductor seemed reluctant to speak, to commit to anything. He pushed up his spectacles on the bridge of his nose as if to say to himself, 'What is it that I'm getting involved in here?'
"There's a police station on the other end of the platform," he said, pointing. "Down there."
"The other end of the platform?" Marco winced, leaning against the glass with his hand clutching his ribs. "Can't you see how I've been hurt? They kicked in my ribs and knocked me over the head with something."
The clerk had a sour expression on his face. Some people were beginning to gather behind Marco, frowning with impatience. "Well that's too bad to be sure," the man in the booth said, "But I can't help you. Like I said, I've got a job to do. They pay me to sell tickets."
Another nervous man in a suit and briefcase shifted his weight from one foot to the other behind Marco, leaning around him to get the clerk's attention. "I need a train to Nancy," he snapped. "And what platform is it?"
"Number four, sir," the clerk in the booth called out passed Marco's drooping shoulder. "Sorry, but can you move aside now, please?"
Marco limped off down the platform towards the police station. No-one offered to help him, no-one even so much as gave him a concerned or compassionate look of sympathy. The people hurrying by him looked away from his face to discourage him from asking for their help. At last someone, some good samaritan in that crowd, stepped up to him and offered him a hand. It was an elderly, white haired gentleman with a round, softened, whiskered face. With his old fashioned walking stick and bow tie, he seemed to step from another era, a time when strangers tarried in casual conversation, when they knew their neighbors well enough to buy their children croissants in the morning, or helped old ladies across the street; when there was less rushing about on single minded aims and charging off across oceans and continents without a word or a thought to anyone. He was a portly old man who walked slowly but Marco leaned on him as they walked along the platform. He took a handkerchief of all things, out of his pocket, and cleaned the blood off of Marco's head with it.
"That's a nasty knock on your head," the old man said in a kindly tone. "However did you do it?"
"It wasn't me," Marco explained. "Some people jumped me on the street below the platform. By those stairs back there." He pointed with a hand that was still shaking with the shock of it all.
"Rotten luck," the old man sympathized. "Did they lift anything from you?"
"Just about everything but my duffle bag," Marco said bitterly. "The bastards took my phone, with my wallet and train tickets on it, my laptop. I need to talk to the police."
"Did you get a good luck at them?" the gentleman asked.
"I'm afraid not. They came up behind me, you see, hit me over the head with something and pushed me over. All I saw were their shoes and all heard were voices. Then they ran off."
The old man shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, but that's not going to be much help to the police, young man. These things happen all the time. You know that, don't you?" He looked Marco in the eye, as if to make sure he understood this.
Marco took a deep breath. He seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, with hardly anyone willing to help him, and he steadied himself on the old man's shoulder, though the old man leaned on a cane. "I suppose you're right. But there must be a chance they can locate those devices. I've got to talk to the police. All my money, my train tickets to Zurich are on those devices."
The old man sighed. "Well, if they found those tickets, they might have gotten on the train and are long gone with a good head start. You don't mind my asking, but you're not from around here, are you?"
Marco frowned. As a rule, he did not like inquiries into the details of his person, but in this situation, there was nothing to do but to go along with it. "No, I'm not."
"I could tell from the accent. Where are you from?"
"Germany," Marco answered. "Berlin."
"You know you're going to have to go back there somehow to replace your documents and accounts and file claims. You have no cash at all? How are you going to get back there without any money?"
Marco stared into the old man' face. He felt empty. "I don't know," he said. He looked at the old man as if asking him for anything he could give.
The old man blinked and shook his head. "I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. I have a heart condition and I must have it looked after, so I can't stay with you here. Here, maybe I can give you a few Euros... the police station is just there. Sorry, young man, but I have to go. I wish I could do something more for you...good luck."
Suddenly it seemed to Marco as he stood in that station that he was in the middle of a desert far from friends and family. He could not remember how he had wandered into it, and for the life of himself, he had no idea how he was going to get out of it.
| Author Notes | In this prodigal son story of a man unattached to the world around him, told in his own words, I wish to highlight his discovery of how lonely and hostile the whole world can become when one, along with everyone else like minded, adopt this 'every man for himself' moral. A life aloof from responsibility to one's fellow men or women can be seductive, but in the end he learns that you can't get by on your own. The figure of the old man at the end represents the morals of a former generation, fading away in the background of the crowds of self centered people hurrying on their way or entertaining themselves. Stylistically, I tried to work in something of the great Thomas Mann's language, to make the story seem more like a European story, a cosmopolitan story. |
By estory
He wasn't the sort of person you would have called crazy, just by seeing him around. He had a job, he didn't cause trouble. He just kept to himself, that's all. But he was the sort of person who always stepped squarely in the middle of tiles, never on the lines of their borders, or in the middle of sidewalk blocks instead of the cracks that separated them. If he stepped on a line it would be like breaking a rule, breaking something, making a mistake, and the day would be imperfect. It would be ruined.
He couldn't quite remember when he had started stepping into the middle of tiles, making sure he never touched any of the lines. It had been a long time. Maybe since high school or college. Maybe before that. And he couldn't remember why it started either. He just had this feeling, somehow, one day when he was looking at the tiles on the kitchen floor, that if he could get out of the kitchen without stepping on any of the tiles, it would be good. It would be perfect. And after he did it once, he felt he had to do it again. After a while, he could never step on the lines. If he stepped on a line, then all those years of not stepping on the lines would be for nothing. It would all be ruined.
It started to get the same way with the time. Once he got out of bed at exactly 6:00Am; and after that he had to get out of bed every day at exactly 6:00AM. To get up before that or to get up after that would be like stepping on a line. It would be like breaking something. Like that time he had broken his mother's Murano glass vase. The one that meant so much to her she didn't speak to him for a week afterward. The one that meant so much to her that she never spoke to him the same ever again. It would ruin everything. So he started setting the alarm clock for ten minutes to six. After a while, he got up automatically at a quarter to six. Then he would turn on the TV and watch the news. The first time he turned on the TV the ABC Morning News was on, and after that, he never watched anything else. To change the channel would be like crossing a line. He would watch the minutes change on the clock while he listened to the news. 5:57. 5:58. 5:59. 6:00AM. Then he would throw off the covers, sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed, slip into his slippers and stand up before the clock could turn 6:01. It was always a relief when he did that before 6:01. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if it turned 6:02 before he did that.
Then he began to feel that he had to start the coffeemaker at exactly 6:05. It wouldn't seem right, somehow, to start it before then, or after that. He would put exactly three teaspoons of Chock Full O Nuts French Roast coffee and exactly a cup and a half of water into the coffeemaker. He would wait for the time on the coffeemaker to reach 6:05, putting his coffee mug on the counter, turning the handle so that it faced left, and setting the spoon and the screw in cover next to it on the counter while he waited. If the store was out of Chock Full O Nuts it would bother him. It didn't matter if Maxwell House or Folgers was on sale. If the store didn't have Chock Full O Nuts he would drive to a different store. Once he drove seven miles and went to three different stores before he found a deli that had Chock Full O Nuts. To tell the truth, he couldn't remember if he had ever tried Folgers or Maxwell House. He couldn't tell anyone if he could tell the difference between Folgers or Maxwell House or Chock Full O Nuts. Once a lady in the store where he worked told him that Green Mountain coffee was the best coffee in the world. It well might be. He had never tried it. He would never try it. He had never tried Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks coffee either. To do that would be like breaking a rule, stepping on a line or breaking something. An imperfection. An imperfect day, an imperfect order of things. When the coffeemaker clock read 6:05, he would turn on the coffeemaker.
In the same way he always made sure to do everything in the bathroom in the same order, every day. First, shave. Then, brush his teeth. Take a shower. Put in his contact lenses. Comb his hair. Get dressed. Pour his cup of coffee. Put in 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, then a tablespoon of hazelnut creamer. Rinse off the spoons and put them in the drainboard before he left the apartment. He always made sure to leave the apartment at exactly 6:25. If he was a few minutes early he would stand by the window and wait for the 6:23 train for New York from Oyster Bay to pass on the track next to the building. It was always a good omen.
He liked to leave 35 minutes before the start of his shift at the store, because he liked to be parked in the parking lot in the spot at the end of the lot so he could get out of the car at exactly 6:55. If there was traffic, road construction or an accident, the extra time would help him get to work ahead of time. He always punched his time card at exactly 7:00AM.
He took his coffee break at exactly 9:00Am. and always had the same thing: a toasted, buttered, cinnamon raisin bagel from the bagel shop in the shopping center. Sometimes someone was willing to drive to McDonald's for bacon, egg and cheese biscuits, or over to Dunkin Donuts for muffins and glazed donuts, but he always declined. After a while, the rest of the crew stopped asking him. It was the same thing with lunch; he always took lunch at exactly 1:00PM and he always had the same thing: a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, salt, pepper and mayonnaise on a poppy seed roll, with a quarter of a pound of potato salad, an ice tea, and a quarter of a pound of rice pudding. Once, the clerk behind the deli counter laughed and asked him: "Gee mister, you sure you don't want to try something else today? I mean, you always have the same thing. Don't you get tired of the same thing? How about roast beef, or corned beef?" But he just smiled and said: "No, thanks."
He had four weeks of vacation and he always made sure that they were on the same weeks year after year. The third week of March, the second week of June, the third week of August, and the second week of October. He always did the same thing each week. In March he would drive to Caumsett state park and walk out to the great field and back. He would spend a day at Planting Fields, to see the daffodils bloom. He would take the train to the city and go to the Museum of Natural History, and then he would drive out to Fire Island. In June he would go to the beach, take a train into the city and go to the Museum of Modern Art, where he always had a beer in the courtyard, and then he would drive to Bushkill Falls. In August he would do a steak barbecue in the yard next to the building, take a drive to Bash Bish Falls, take a drive out to Orient State Park, and take a train to the city and watch the sunset from Rockefeller Plaza. In October he would take a drive to Kent Falls in Connecticut, take a walk in Shoe Swamp Preserve, take a train to the city and go the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and take a ride out to Shelter Island and walk through Mashomak Preserve. On the way home, he would stop at Duckwalk Vineyards and buy a bottle of Windmill Blush wine, stop at Osprey's Dominion and buy a bottle of Regina Maris Chardonnay, stop at Pindar and buy a bottle of Summer Blush, a bottle of Autumn Gold, and a bottle of Cuvee Rare Champagne, and then stop at Pugliese and buy a bottle of Sparking Merlot. He would drink them in that order over the holidays. He never drank any other wine.
He once thought of going out with this girl in the store where he worked, a nice looking girl, a nice girl. But then, he began to think, what if she gets up at a different time, what if she thinks I'm crazy for not stepping on the lines between the tiles or the cracks on the sidewalks, what if she doesn't drink Chock Full O Nuts coffee? What if she doesn't like going to the Museum of Natural History or Orient Beach State Park? What if she wants to go to California, or Hawaii? What if wants to move? What if she doesn't like All In the Family or Welcome Back Kotter reruns? What if she likes to watch soap operas?
What if she argues with me about something? What if she keeps me out of the bathroom passed time? What if she leaves me?
No, he thought to himself, it was better to keep things the way they were. That way, he could depend on them.
| Author Notes | I think I would classify this piece as a dark comedy. I felt that a repetitive, minimalistic style would underscore the theme here of someone being trapped in a small box of life of his own making. All of us have habits, of course. And all of us deal with life events that shake our being. But if we can't clear these life events from our psyche, then these habits we use to stabilize our sense of self can get out control. Here this person has written a personal tragedy for himself, in order to deal with a life event, and seals himself into this box he can't escape from, while the larger world and life outside grow and move on, leaving him behind. It's funny, but sad. I like to write these odd little pieces, some people might call it boring, but I think if you look into the piece, you will see scary elements of this in yourself, or someone close to you. And you might wonder what the way out might be estory |
By estory
Andre and I used to be friends. He moved out to our neighborhood from the city with his family when he was 9 and that's where we met. We were the same age, almost the same height, the same weight. We both liked basketball and baseball. All we knew was that we were both Knicks and Mets fans. We never thought about it in terms of black and white, him being from Brooklyn and me being from Garden City. We were just kids playing basketball.
We were too young to ride our bikes to the park downtown, so when we were little we just played ball on the street with a little hoop my dad rigged up in our driveway. Lots of times we played one on one with my sisters watching, pretending to be fans sitting in the bleachers, cheering. I remember those one on one games after school, the steady rhythm of the bouncing ball first in my hands and then in his, the manuevering, the scrambling, the struggle to get off that shot that in the end would prove that one of us was just a little bit better at it. For some reason, Andre always seemed a little more determined to get off that shot, and he won most of the games. I remember him bouncing that ball at the end of our driveway and grinning, saying: "I beat you, Jack. I beat you on your home court." Sometimes I would take that inside the house when my mom called me in for dinner, but then she would tell me: "Let him have this thing. Aren't you the one helping him with English and Math?" So I helped him with English and Math and he beat me in basketball, right through elementary school and into high school.
We used to say that his dad got lucky when he moved out to our block from the city, landing a highway maintenance job in our town. Sometimes we'd see his dad standing next to his truck on a street in the town, fixing a pothole or putting up a stop sign with a shovel in his hand, and I'd tell my dad: "Look, there's Mr. Smith," and we'd wave and he'd wave back. His mother worked as a check out lady in the supermarket. We'd check out our groceries at Mrs. Smith's register, and she would always smile and ask my mother how she was doing. Then she would smile down at me and ask: "You boys going to play ball today?" "After your homework," My mother would say in her sober voice, looking down at me.
They lived in the little cape cod at the end of our dead end street, the yard with the railroad tracks just beyond the back fence. On Saturday nights, when Andre and I would play ball after supper, his dad would come over to get him and he would talk to my dad. He'd stand there in the driveway with his hands in his pockets, talking about grasscutters or cars. My dad would try to say something funny and he would try to laugh. For my tenth birthday I asked my dad if he could take me to a ballgame at Shea Stadium; I wanted to see Tom Seaver pitch. When I told Andre about it he said he had never been to a game before. So I asked my dad if we could take him and he said: "Sure." So we went and sat up in the upper deck, behind home plate, eating our hot dogs. I remember all of us standing up and taking off our caps to sing the national anthem. I remember cheering for Tom Seaver and him cheering for Cleon Jones. Both of grinning when they won the game.
One summer we took him along with us to spend a week in our summer house out in Suffolk County. We had a little cottage out there on a couple of acres, and for us kids, it was paradise. We'd play hide and seek till it got too dark to see. I remember Andre marveling at all that grass, all those trees. He'd never seen so many trees, he told me one night. I remember thinking to myself, lying in bed, it's a wonderful thing that we're doing for him. It was something he would remember for the rest of his life, my mother said once. "He's such a nice boy," my mother said, "I hope it stays with him." "Yeah," my dad said, "They're a real, nice family."
Like I said, we didn't think much of it in those days. I'd never guess that Andre could get up tight about my dad. My dad's a cop, you see.
One thing I do remember is when our neighbor, Mr. Birch, came over to the fence to talk to my dad about them. Mr. Birch was from Switzerland. A retired machinist with a beautiful garden of roses, rhododendrons and lilies. One of those immaculate, emerald green lawns. A gazebo in his backyard. A lawn jockey in the front.
"What do you think of those people moving in over here?" he asked my father.
"What about it?" my dad said.
"Well, you know how they ruined the schools in the city," Mr. Birch said. "They bring crime. They take down the property values," he said, in his funny accent.
"I don't think these people are like that," my dad told him.
Mr. Birch shook his head and shot me a look, his eyes narrowing. "I see that boy is a friend of your son's. He comes over here a lot."
"He's a good kid," my dad told him.
"They're all good kids," Mr. Birch said. "That's what everyone says. But look at the news."
"They're just playing basketball over here, Mr. Birch," my dad told him.
"Just see that he doesn't come on my property," Mr. Birch snapped as he turned away. "Or I'll call the police."
After he left the fence and went back into his house, I went up to my dad. "Dad, what did he say about Andre? He said something about me and Andre."
My dad took a deep breath and frowned. "Some people are like that, son," he said.
I told Andre what Mr. Birch had said and he just bowed his head. "Yeah, I get that a lot," he said.
"From who?" I asked him.
"Some white people. Not you though," he said quickly, looking up at me and grinning. "You people are cool."
I looked at him and all of a sudden it seemed like he was standing on the other side of the world. We could play basketball together, we could watch Bugs Bunny together, but we couldn't do it comfortably, in the same place, side by side. It didn't matter if he was over at our place or I was over at theirs. Once Mrs. Smith said at that supermarket check out: "You boys are always over at your place. You can come over to our place too. Why don't you give your mom a break and come over to our place this afternoon?" My mother looked at me and said: "Is that what you want to do?" and I would shrug my shoulders. "OK," my mom said, "OK by me."
So we sat in his living room, watching Bugs Bunny and the Munsters, just like we did at my house. I remember his mother calling out to us from their kitchen. "You boys want any ice tea?"
"Sure thing, Mrs. Smith," I answered. "Your ice tea is the best I've ever had."
Andre shook his head at me and rolled his eyes. "Shoot," he said. "You don't have to tell my mama that. It'll go to her head."
"Andre," Mrs. Smith called out again, "Come in here and bring this glass of ice tea out to your friend."
When we were in middle school we were in the same American History class, and we listened to lectures about the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement together. Everyone in the class would sit silently, solemnly, listening to the teacher talk about emancipation and Dr. Martin Luther King, but most of the kids were stealing glances at Andre and the other black girl in the class. I don't know what he felt about that; I never asked him about it and he never said anything.
Towards the end of the spring we had to pick a topic for a term paper and I picked Lincoln and the emancipation proclamation. Andre's topic was Dr. King and the civil rights movement. Sometimes we'd sit in the library together reading our books, sometimes we'd work on writing the papers from our notes over at my house, sometimes over at his. I remember telling him about how Lincoln had freed the slaves as if I were bringing him news on a plantation in South Carolina. I told him of how 360,000 Union boys from the north had died so that he could be free. Everyone was on the same footing now, in theory. Any one of us could be an astronaut, a ball player, a cop.
He just looked at me and grinned. Then he'd bow his head back into his book and say: "You said it, Jack."
I asked him what he was reading and he said it was about Rosa Parks and the march on Montgomery, Dr. King's 'I have a dream speech.' He looked at me out of the corners of his eyes.
"If I was sitting at that lunch counter," he asked me, "Would you have sat with me?"
"Sure," I said.
When we got older we started playing ball at the court in the park downtown, and we had our first run ins with the bigger world. Andre was the only black kid and the other kids didn't want to let him play.
"This is our court," the tallest kid pronounced, holding the ball between his arm and his hip.
I looked at Andre. He looked like he was itching to play, to show that kid something, but he didn't dare. He looked like he didn't know what to say.
"He's really good," I said to that big kid.
"You his friend, or something?" the kid shot back, with a hint of a threat in his voice.
"I've seen him play," I said.
"What are you, Dr. J, or something?" the big kid said to Andre. The other kids laughed.
Andre looked at the big kid. Then he looked at me.
"Just let him show you what he can do," I said to the big kid.
The big kid threw the ball at Andre. "OK," he said, "Everyone knows these shines can play basketball."
In high school, Andre was good enough to make the varsity team. We spent less and less time together. He had practice. My mother wanted me to get into a good business school, and I spent more time in the library studying. I went to a couple of games though, when I had the chance, and when they won and he had scored a few points, I went down to the court and hung around, trying to talk to him. He'd be goofing around with the other kids on the team and I'd wait for a chance to get a word in.
"Nice shot," I would tell him. "That shot in the third quarter."
The other black kids on the team gave me a look like I had come from Peyton Place and wandered into the wrong side of town. When they saw Andre wave to me on the downlow like, they looked at him as if to say: 'you know this punk?'
"Thanks, Jack. You caught that shot?"
"Of course."
He'd nod. "Cool." Then he turned back to the guys on the team. They'd talk to each other in their slang, with their backs to me, and Andre would laugh at their cracks until I got tired of standing there, until I felt my face turning red.
He got accepted to St. John's, on a scholarship, and I got into Hofstra. The Smiths still lived at the end of the block, but the ball games were over. Mr. Smith busied himself in his yard instead of coming over to talk to my dad. Mrs. Smith quit the supermarket and got an office job. We'd drive passed them sometimes and wave. Then we stopped waving. Then came the thing with Eric Garner.
Eric Garner was the guy who died in the choke hold of a police officer when he refused to cooperate in an incident to which they were called. He was selling bootleg cigarettes out in front of some stores, and the stores called the police on him. He argued with the cops, they called for backup, and the officer who answered the call put him in a choke hold, and he ended up dying.
The city erupted. It was on the national news. People marched through the streets, stopping traffic, calling for the cops to be arrested and tried for murder. They took their banners to city hall, in front of police stations, in front of my dad's police station. Some police cars got smashed up. Some cops got attacked. I remember listening to my mother telling my dad one morning, before he left for work: "Be careful out there, George. Don't get drawn into anything."
"I'm always careful," I heard him reply, putting his arm around her. "You know that."
She leaned into him and looked him in the eyes. Her face was white. "Things are different now."
"Well, I've got a job to do, Louise. I've got to do my job. We've all got to keep doing our jobs. Otherwise..."
She cut him short. "Sometimes I wish it were a job someone else would do," she said. "Let someone else do that job."
He looked right back into her eyes. "Louise, we can't just wait for someone else to do this job. You know that."
She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his chest, grabbing him tighter, like she didn't want to let him go. "Just be careful," she said, one last time.
When he came home from work, I started to see the lines in his face, how hard his face was starting to look, how he clenched his teeth all the time. How his hair seemed grayer. I could see it. He would sit in his chair watching the news, the Black Lives Matter people talking about profiling and racist cops, and he would be leaning towards the screen, not saying anything. Just staring at the screen with his hands clenched. I thought I saw someone who looked like Andre in that crowd, talking about defunding the police. Getting rid of the police. Getting rid of my dad. After 9/11 the cops were heroes. Now it all seemed like ages ago. Like it happened in another world.
"You OK, dad?" I asked him.
He turned to me and flashed me a little smile. "Yeah, sure," he said.
"What do you think of all this?"
"Well, I'm not a racist cop, if that's what you mean."
"I know that," I told him. "I remember you used to talk to Mr. Smith all the time. You took us to that ballgame."
He took a deep breath. He didn't say anything.
"What do you think is going to happen?"
He leaned back in his chair and shrugged. "It's a political thing. It's all about money and power."
"Is it getting harder out there?" I asked him.
"It's always getting harder, son."
"Do those people ever say anything to you?"
He didn't answer right away. Then he said: "You can't take it personal. You can't take things personal, on this job."
"But what's going to happen to the force?"
He moved in his chair. "We've got to have police, son. Someone's got to keep law and order. Somebody's got to do it. Otherwise it will be like that time when the lights went out. When they broke into all those stores and set all those fires."
I thought of Andre out there, maybe, protesting, and my dad, getting things thrown at him. I felt my heart beating faster. "Why can't people just get along?" I asked him.
He sighed. "Because there's bad people out there. There's good and bad in every race. I've arrested black people, white people, Chinese people, young, old... that's the way it is. But we have to do this job for the decent, law abiding citizens of the world. Whoever they are."
I wanted to talk to Andre. One time I saw Andre drive by and I waved to him. He did not wave back, like he used to. That bothered me. So I went over to his house and rang the bell. He didn't answer right away. So I rang the bell again.
When the door finally opened, he stood in the doorway, his arms folded, frowning. He did not step out next to me, or ask me in.
"What is it?" he snapped. "What do you want?"
He was now much taller than I was and he was looking down at me. His afro was gone, changed into dreadlocks.
"Just wanted to talk," I said.
"About what?" he said, "About what happened in the city?"
Somehow I couldn't look him in the eyes. There was a scary anger in them. "It's a tough time for everybody," I said, looking at his sneakers.
"You people are worried about this, aren't you?" he said.
"I'm worried about my dad."
"Another cop kills a black man, and you think we can just go on as if nothing happened?" he blurted out. "You want me to feel sorry for your dad?"
"You know my dad isn't a racist," I said, looking suddenly up at him, my heart beating faster again. "You know that, Andre."
Andre looked away and shook his head. He seemed to be struggling with something. For a minute he looked like he used to look when we played basketball one on one in the driveway at my house; but then his hands tightened into fists and he twitched into the present. "Look," he said, "Cops that look the other way when these things happen are a part of the problem. So are people who don't speak up. Silence is violence. White silence is violence."
"My dad's a good cop," I told him. "He's just trying to do his job. It's not an easy job. But someone's got to do it. You know that. I just wish we could all respect each other a little more."
"You know what," he shot back, wincing, "You don't know what it's like to be black in this country. To ask permission to go to a ball game, or just play ball on the town court. Hell, to walk down the street. You don't know what it's like to be followed around in stores because they think you're going to steal something, or to be followed around by cops on the street because they think you're going to cause trouble."
I stood there trembling for a moment, listening to him. "Did my dad ever do that to you?" I asked him.
"It's happend to me, bro. You know that? If it wasn't your dad, it was some other cop, so what does that matter? It shouldn't happen. Does it happen to you? We're tired of all this. We're tired of it, man. Tired of being treated like second class citizens."
"I never thought of you as a second class citizen," I said.
"You don't even realize it. You play ball with us just so you can tell yourself you're not a racist. You invited me to ballgames so you can say to yourself that you're doing something for us. You know something? You know how hard it was for my dad to get this house? You know about the phone calls we got, telling us we weren't wanted on this block? You tell yourself you're not a part of it. But you are a part of it, bro. You are."
"Andre," I said, looking up at him, "I never knew you felt like that. You sound like you're repeating something someone else told you."
"Yeah, somebody opened my eyes. So what? You wouldn't understand. You know what? You're never going to understand. Because you and your family aren't one of us. You want to be one of us? Come down to the police station and march with us."
I just looked back up at him. I couldn't say anything.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," he said.
"What do you want me to do? Turn my back on my dad? You know how hard it is for him right now, to hear people he' sworn to protect and serve telling him he's no good? And what did he ever do?"
"Hard for him? What about the mother of Eric Garner?"
"It's a tragedy for everybody."
He shook his head. "So that's it? That's what you came here to say?"
"I don't know. I was hoping for something better than this."
"Well, that's the way it is."
"I'm sorry, Andre, I guess."
"You can go your merry way. You don't have to tell me you're sorry."
He closed the door in my face.
As I walked back from his house the darkness seemed to descend around me and I couldn't recognize the familiar surroundings of my own neighborhood. The doors were all closed and the blinds were pulled down. Somewhere in the distance, a siren was going off.
The two little black and white kids who used to play ball together were gone.
| Author Notes | This is one of those difficult stories that I like to write to dig into serious questions about our world. We see here these two innocent kids being swallowed up by the racism inherent in our society, a racism that is passed on through generations in spite of those who seem to be trying to get beyond it, and we have to ask ourselves if we ever will be able to get passed it. I tried to write this from both these perspectives, choosing on purpose a maligned black kid and the son of a white cop, to create maximum tension as well as maximum sympathy. I feel sorry for both of these kids, and I would hope through the story, that you as the reader do too. I think the story controversial, but necessary to write, considering the situation in the country in the last few years and I await your comments. This should be interesting. estory |
By estory
| Author Notes | This conversation between two college friends articulates many contemporary attitudes towards relationships and marriage. If we listen between the lines, we can see the reluctance of women today to make commitments, that feeling of not wanting to belong to someone else, that is at the heart of marriage, as well as the desire to have kids and make that commitment to them that is really what families are all about. There's also the strong influence of past family experience that shapes our attitudes, whether you come from a broken home or not, Whether your marriage is about a party or the commitment itself. One of these girls seems on the verge of making this big lifetime commitment, one seems ready to swing. And we also see something of how men judge women in the attitude of the male narrator here. He is obviously attracted to one of these girls himself. Structurally, this story borrows from the prose of Raymond Carver and his stripped down, minimalistic style, in a tight focus on the dialogue and its rather terse delivery. There is a mimimum of landscape here; one thing you can notice is the brief reference to the church at the beginning of the narrative. It's symbolism is almost like an after thought here, almost lost in the background. estory |
By estory
| Author Notes | This is another one of those quirky little stories I like to write about people and places we might brush up against on any given day, but don't really think about too closely. On more intimate inspection, you see that as we speed through on this train of life, there are all kinds of little stories sitting right next to us, tugging at our emotions, making up the various flavors of the world we live in. Maybe as a writer I notice these little scenes, and imagine whole lives out of a couple of dropped sentences. I can say that I had some fun with this peace, writing the dialogue and creating these odd little characters; the girl from the small town dreaming of a new life somewhere else, the mysterious man with the mysterious mission you can only guess at, the troubled people who can't get along with other people for whatever reason, the woman who always seems to be on the look out for a better deal. And the odd conductor of the train, who finds himself wondering about them all. Who can't seem to forget them. It also marks the end of a collection I plan on calling In Real Time, to be compiled at the end of the year. So I will be moving on to a new book of poetry called Ruins, and a new collection of short stories called Dreams, which I will give you all a heads up on in the near future. I await your comments, as always. estory |
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