The Shrine at Altamira

by John L'Heureux

  Emory said, “You’re following that woman, aren’t you.”

  Emory said, “The boy—”

  Russell stopped him in midsentence. He held up his burned hand, and Emory looked at it, and fell silent. Russell turned back to his newspaper.

  Emory went to his bedroom and tried to say the rosary. He tried to read the AA book. He tried to concentrate on his higher power. Nothing worked, and so he went to the bathroom and fished out his emergency bottle. Just a sip. And then, surprising himself, he put the bottle back.

  He went out to the kitchen and looked at Russell, big and lumbering and stupid. Who did he think he was? He thought he ran this place.

  Emory could feel the need for a drink burning inside him. As if his brain were on fire.

  “Listen,” Emory said. “I want to talk to you.”

  Russell stood up, his hands at his sides.

  Emory looked at him.

  Russell looked back.

  “What do you know about pain,” Emory said, and he spat on the floor. He wiped his mouth and was about to continue, but Russell looked so big and so angry that Emory forgot what he wanted to say. He got his wallet and a heavy coat for nights and the hunting cap he always wore when he went on a bender. He let himself out of the house and, mechanically, as if he had no choice in the matter, he set out walking for the nearest bar. And then he would hit the next. And the next. Until there was no more pain at all.

  John was about to get in the car with Ana Luisa, when suddenly he changed his mind. He put his books on the front seat and said to her, “I’ll be back in a minute, Gram,” and then he walked slowly toward the car that was parked across the street and down a little from Ana Luisa’s. As he approached it, a man got out and turned toward him, waiting.

  John stopped a short distance away and stared at him.

  “You’re my father, aren’t you,” he said.

  Russell looked at him squarely for a moment, and then he nodded his head. He did not speak. He wore a patch over his right eye.

  “You’ve been following me,” John said.

  Russell nodded again and looked at him, longingly.

  “If you come near me, you’ll go back to jail, you know. If you even follow me and don’t come near me, you’ll go back to jail. I know that. I know all about you.”

  Russell continued to look at him.

  “Why don’t you say something? I’m not afraid of you.” He stood with his fists clenched, facing his father. He wanted to say one more thing. He wanted to make him suffer. He wanted to kill him with it. But he could think of nothing except ‘I hate you,’ and that sounded too childish. And so he said nothing.

  He turned around and walked back to Ana Luisa’s car. He scooped up his books and sat with them in his lap, staring straight ahead.

  “What did your father say?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing. I told him I could put him in jail for following me. I told him I knew all about him.”

  “He’s a poor sinner, like the rest of us,” Ana Luisa said. “But keep away from him.”

  “I hate him,” John said, and he could hear the sound of hatred in his own voice. He wished he had said it to his father, that bastard. It didn’t sound childish after all.

  They drove home in silence.

  Ana Luisa had been shocked by the sight of Russell. He looked old and beaten. She had read in the paper about the stabbing in jail, the loss of his eye, the beatings, and she’d been prepared for a criminal or a madman. But he was just pitiful. She was not afraid of him at all. In a strange way, she felt bad for him. He had been crazy, out of his mind, and she understood that.

  She glanced over at John, who sat there silent, his eyes slitted. His beautiful eyes, in that ruined face.

  There was no explaining what Russell had done, and no justifying it. It was from the devil. But it was done now, and they all had to live with it. In a way she didn’t understand, she accepted it as the will of God. Poor John. Poor Russell. Poor everybody.

  Before they got out of the car, though, Ana Luisa said to John, “If he tries to talk to you again, Juanito, run away from him. Run away fast.”

  Suddenly she had an inspiration that made her feel a lot better. “Someday,” she said, “I’ll take you to the shrine at Altamira. Then you’ll understand.”

  Forte hadn’t begun his serious drinking yet this evening, and he was in the mood for a chat.

  “So tell me about work,” he said. “How’s work going.”

  “Fine,” Russell said. “I’m lucky to have that job.”

  “Luck, shit. I got you that job and don’t you forget it.”

  “Right.”

  “Painting, is it?”

  “It’s a great job.”

  Forte squinted to see if he could detect sarcasm. “So, you keeping your hours, Whitaker? Clocking in and out on time?”

  Russell nodded. He did not mention that he clocked in at 7:00 A.M. and out at 1:00 P.M. and, moreover, that he had the top boss’s okay for this. In his first week on the job, he’d explained to the super that from 1:30 to 3:30 each day Forte had work for him on another job site. When the super demanded to know where this job site was, Russell shrugged and said to check with Forte, that it was a private thing, a personal thing, that Forte wanted some work done on his house or something. The company had hired parolees before, and the super understood at once that Forte and the top boss had made some kind of deal, so he simply cut Russell’s pay and said to hell with it, it was no skin off his dick. And Russell was free every day at one o’clock.

  “Keeping away from that kid?” Forte asked.

  “Away from the boy and away from San Jose,” Russell said.

  Forte looked at him, hard.

  “I swear to God,” Russell said.

  “Good, good,” Forte said. “You just keep your nose clean.” He was tired of chatting now, so he opened his file drawer and took out the bottle of bourbon and the glass. “And remember, with that bracelet on your ankle, you’re under surveillance every minute of every day.”

  “Sure,” Russell said. “You bet.”

  Forte waved him out and started in on the bourbon. He didn’t trust Whitaker. He didn’t trust any of them. Parolees were just convicts on leave from jail, no more, no less. Liars and cheats. Scum.

  It was a mystery to him how people always managed to fuck up their lives.

  Maria’s car was in the garage for a tune-up, and they’d found extra work that needed to be done on the transmission, so Arthur was meeting her at six at the Get Lucky. They’d have a drink or two, a quickie at his place, and maybe some dinner. Then he’d drive her home.

  But she wasn’t in the mood for dinner. She wanted to get home to John. She wanted to watch TV with him, or make popcorn, or just sit around and be a family.

  “Well, let me come too,” Arthur said.

  She thought for a while.

  “I can watch TV with the best of them,” Arthur said. “I can make popcorn, if it’s microwave. What do you say?”

  “You haven’t seen him,” she said.

  “I’ve seen his picture. In the paper.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said.

  They had been meeting each Friday—not dating, really; just drink, dinner, and bed—ever since that crazy night in the Get Lucky when he’d leaned into her and whispered, “I bet you really want it.” It was the first time he’d ever done anything like that. It was her first time too, and they hit it off so well that they kept on seeing one another until the day her son’s picture appeared in the newspaper and Arthur realized who she was—the ex-wife of that lunatic and the mother of that pitiful, burned-up child. He skipped the next Friday at the Get Lucky. He went to Touchdown instead and tried his terrific line on someone else—who slapped his face and threatened to call the cops—and in a couple weeks he was back with Maria. He had missed her, and not just the sex. He began to think he loved her, maybe. At any rate, he felt
bad for the child.

  “So let’s go,” Arthur said. “We’ll watch TV, eat some popcorn. I’ll be nice to him.”

  “You don’t have to be nice to him,” she said. “He’s not a charity case, you know. He’s quiet, but he’s very, very smart.”

  “I can handle it,” Arthur said. “I’m sort of smart too.”

  “Just treat him the way you’d treat any twelve-year-old.”

  “I will. I will.” He slipped his arm around her shoulder.

  “And don’t be touching me. He’s not used to a man in the house.”

  “I won’t touch you and I won’t be nice to him. I’ll just be normal. And smart.”

  But, despite the newspaper photo, Arthur was not prepared for the way John looked. He had expected scars and a dented nose and some trouble around the mouth, but in fact the boy’s face looked as if they hadn’t finished putting it together yet. It was still in pieces. The newspaper photo, it turned out, had been very kind.

  Maria introduced them, talking too much and too rapidly, and then she started to prepare dinner.

  “I had dinner at Gram’s,” John said. He sat down and looked at Arthur, watching him carefully.

  Arthur could think of nothing to say.

  Maria glanced over at them as they sat there, silent. “You two just sit down and relax,” she said. “I just have to wash this lettuce and heat the casserole.”

  “We are sitting,” John said.

  “And we’re relaxed,” Arthur said.

  It was very quiet in the kitchen. The clock ticked. Maria ran the water and then turned it off. The refrigerator clicked on and began to hum.

  “How about I make us drinks?” Arthur said. “Okay? G and T for you, Maria? What’ll you have, John? You can show me where the stuff is.” He started looking for glasses. “Right?”

  Here he stopped for a moment and looked straight at John, frankly, as if he were merely asking a question.

  John looked back at him.

  Arthur flinched, but kept on looking.

  “Okay,” Arthur said, defeated, and went about making the drinks. “Okay. All right. Here we go.” And eventually they were seated across the table from each other once again. “So, John,” he said, “tell me about school.”

  “It’s a special school,” John said. He paused for a second—and his mother turned and gave him a look—but he did not say, “for freaks,” as he usually did.

  “What about sports? Do you play sports, John?”

  “Baseball.”

  “I hear you’re very smart,” he said, staring at John.

  John was caught off guard, and looked away.

  From the moment they’d met, John had not taken his eyes off Arthur’s eyes. It was a new trick of his, and he knew it was not very nice: testing people to see how they reacted to his face.

  “Are you, John? Very smart?”

  “Arthur!” Maria said. “Never mind him, John. He’s just being rude.”

  “Psst! Hey, John! Are you?”

  “I read a lot,” John said, “and I’m articulate. That’s what Ms. McGill says. She says that’s not the same as being smart.”

  “Well, you seem very smart to me, John.”

  “Thank you,” John said, and the pink patches on his face seemed to go red.

  Arthur reached out as if to touch him, but then drew back.

  “Have you read Great Expectations? Dickens?”

  Arthur laughed. “John, you’re out of my field,” he said.

  “You’re an accountant, I know that,” John said. He looked down, embarrassed. “I just thought you might have read it.”

  “No, I haven’t read it. But why don’t you tell me about it. Go ahead, John.”

  John thought for a while and then he said, “Why do you say John all the time? How come you say my name when you’re talking to me?”

  “Maria,” Arthur said, laughing. “You’ve gotta help me out here. This kid is too smart for me.”

  Maria laughed, and Arthur laughed some more, just a tiny bit too much.

  “It seems I have a talent to amuse,” John said. He had read this in the school library during lunch hour, and it came back to him now, so he said it. Sarcasm. Arthur was making fun of him, and his mother was on Arthur’s side, so he had a right to be sarcastic. His father wouldn’t make fun of him. His father wasn’t silly, and he wouldn’t laugh just because somebody else laughed.

  John stood up and said, “Arthur? I have to do my homework, Arthur.” And to Maria he said, “I’ll do it at Gram’s.”

  Later that night John lay awake in bed, going over what he had said. He’d been a show-off and he’d been sarcastic. “I read a lot, and of course I’m articulate, Arthur.” What a little shit he’d been. He wondered if Arthur would marry his mother and be his new father. He and Arthur could go to baseball games together. They could go to the beach. Watch TV. They could be a perfectly normal, ordinary family. But he didn’t want Arthur. He wanted his father. His father had looked straight at him and hadn’t flinched, even for a second.

  Maria, too, lay awake, going over the evening. Arthur had been good. He had tried. And John had tried too, in his way. But how could she think of any future, with Arthur or anybody else? This is how things were: she was going to be John’s mother for the rest of her life, period, and there was no sense crying about it.

  Still, if only …

  She hated to think it, ever, but tonight she could not help herself.

  If only she could be free.

  Russell trailed Maria and found out about Arthur. To his astonishment, he discovered he felt nothing.

  Because she wouldn’t love him, or couldn’t love him, Russell had nearly burned his son to death, and now, when she loved somebody else, he found he just didn’t care.

  He cared only about his son. How could he ever make it up to him?

  . . . . .

  The door to the examination room opened, and there was Peggy. She threw her arms around him in a big hug. She kissed him and he kissed her back.

  “John!” she said, “you old apple pancake, you!” She touched his face and neck, smiling. “You’re looking so good,” she said. “Those grafts have taken beautifully, don’t you think? And they’ll look even better in a year or so. And your hair! I’d kill for hair like that!” Peggy went on, just saying things to make him feel good, and he did feel good, because what she meant, really, was that she loved him. He knew it didn’t count, because she was a nurse and not somebody in his real life, but it was nice just the same.

  “I’ve got a new glove,” he said, and held out the baseball glove he carried everywhere with him.

  “From Gram?” Peggy said.

  He nodded, rubbing the leather with his thumb.

  Then they talked about baseball and school and the books he’d been reading and what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to play second base for the Giants, he told her, and she said, You will, I know you will, and then suddenly she leaned forward as if she were going to hug him again, but instead she gave him lots of little punches on the arm. “You look so good” she said, laughing, “I could just eat you with a spoon.” She checked her watch. “I’ll get Dr. Clark for you, Johnnikins, and I’ll see you before you go.” In another second she was out of the room.

  John sat on the examining table and waited. He loved Peggy and he loved visiting the hospital for his checkup. Peggy was the only person he ever kissed, except for Gram. His mother had tried to kiss him once, but he had pulled away from her when he saw the pain and fear in her eyes. She didn’t want to kiss him. She was just forcing herself to. He would love her because she was his mother, but he would never kiss her.

  He put on his baseball glove and flexed it open and closed. He reached for a high one, got it, and drove his balled fist into the glove. A good stretching exercise, Dr. Clark had said. The baseball glove was his idea. Embarrassed suddenly, John put down the glove and waited.

  There was a knock at the door, and it was Dr. Clark. He looked th
e same as always, except he was wearing a suit instead of his white coat, and he had dark circles under his eyes. He smiled in that little way he had, and he shook John’s hand. “So how’re you doing?” he asked.

  “Fine,” John said, annoyed with himself because he sounded like a child.

  “Fine, fine,” Dr. Clark said. “School okay? Tell me about school.”

  John was not doing very well in math. He liked the computer a lot, and he liked English class—Ms. McGill especially—and he liked history, but social studies was kind of boring and science was the worst. Apart from baseball, what he liked most was just reading.

  John was sitting on the examination table and Dr. Clark sat in the patient’s chair, looking up at John as he talked. The grafts had taken well, he could see. Good movement in the neck and throat. The ears looked fine. The scars were fading. Everything had been salvaged—except the boy’s life, he thought. Another success. Another triumph for the art and science of medicine. His little smile turned ugly. He shifted in his chair, leaned forward, listening again.

  “Tell me about your reading,” he said. “What’s your favorite book? Tell me all your favorite books.”

  But John had noticed the change in him and said nothing.

  “You okay?” Dr. Clark said.

  John met his glance and then looked away.

  “What is it?” Dr. Clark said. “If you want to tell me.”

  “I saw my father,” John said.

  Dr. Clark nodded.

  “I hate him,” John said.

  “Well, he hurt you, badly.”

  “Yes. And I hate him.”

  “Do the others know you’ve seen him? Your mother? Your Gram?”

  John shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something, and then said nothing.

  “Go ahead. It’s all right.”

  “Can I whisper it?”

  Dr. Clark stood up and leaned over the examination table, his face turned away, his hand cupping his ear.

  “Why did he do it to me?”

  Dr. Clark pulled back, shaken.

  John made his voice even smaller. “Was I a bad boy?”

  “You’re a good boy,” Dr. Clark said firmly. “Don’t you ever think that. You’re a good, good boy.”