Silent Pretty Things

by O. J. Lovaz

  Anna came over with two beers, served on large, thick glass mugs. She gave Michael an uneasy look. “I’ll be in the kitchen with Mom if you need anything.” She glanced at her father, who dismissed her with a dull gesture that didn’t quite amount to a smile—half a nod and a twisted curl of the lips, his eyes lifeless like a doll’s. Anna’s face stiffened like a mask, then turned around, and went back inside.

  Victor tasted his beer absentmindedly, gazing vaguely in Michael’s direction but as if he weren’t there. In another moment, his eyes were once more set on Michael’s face. He seemed as if perched atop a tower, looking down on him from a vantage point; his face reminded Michael of a deadly sniper in a movie he’d seen a while ago. “Lydia said you’re a director of some kind at the historical society; is that right?”

  Michael brought down the mug that had just barely kissed his lower lip. “Yes, director of archives and library.” That stupid title again, poking its dumb fucking face in the door, waving to the camera.

  He finally got to taste his beer. Strong, full-bodied, probably German. Quite fitting too. It would have been weird if this silverback of a man drank light beer. He looked like he should also smoke Cuban cigars and drink his coffee black, with no sugar—that’s right, no sugar at all!

  Victor nodded with his head slightly slanted, raising his chin. “Sounds like something you ought to be proud of,” Victor said. “It’s a nice enough title; it’s a mouthful, sure, but sounds important.”

  “It does sound important—that’s what inflated titles do best.”

  Victor’s eyebrows ebbed slightly away from his piercing eyes, the corners of his lips arching up ever so slightly. “Are you familiar with the phrase, ‘fake it until you make it’?”

  Michael nodded. “Sure, I think everyone is.”

  “Well, you would do well to put it into action. Don’t show weakness; stand tall, stand proud—discourage your enemies before they even think of taking a shot at you.”

  “My enemies, huh? Don’t you think that sounds a little extreme?”

  “Not at all,” said Victor. “You sure as hell have enemies, whether you know it or not. Just look around you anytime, and you’ll see someone who wants your job, your girl, your life. And if you make it easy for them, they’ll take what’s yours. You better believe it. There are only wolves and sheep out there.”

  Michael’s response came out with unintended informality. “Oh, come on—you can’t go around judging everyone that way. Surely, you don’t mean that literally, in absolute terms, right?”

  “I most certainly do, and if you fail to acknowledge that, you’re already halfway to becoming a sheep.”

  Michael chuckled nervously. The sniper’s face remained still, oddly contemplative. “That’s, um…an interesting perspective, Victor. I’ll keep it in mind.” He chased that hard-to-swallow, thick roll of bullshit with a big gulp of icy-cold bier. “As for marrying Anna, well, we’ve been dating for only a couple of weeks, so it’s really too early to say.”

  “Nonsense, kid. When you know, you know. It’s like a chemical reaction. Sodium and chloride could be together for a thousand years, but they could never make water; their potential together is only to make salt.”

  “But hydrogen and oxygen only need an instant to make water, because they are destined to,” Michael finished the thought. “That’s actually a brilliant analogy.” It was. He might use that later—a gold coin found in the gutters is still a gold coin.

  “They told me you were smart.” Victor observed Michael with a flicker of curiosity in his eyes while leisurely sipping his beer. “I’m starting to believe it.”

  “I’m flattered.” He wasn’t.

  “Yes, you should be.” Victor grinned, his lips stretching thin until they disappeared, leaving only his mountain of a nose and tiny eyes deep within a labyrinth of furrows. The sniper face was back shortly. “I can’t believe you called yourself a glorified librarian, Michael. Don’t say a thing like that again. Tell me: What is it exactly that you do in your job?”

  “Well, let’s see. I receive visitors—not a lot, but some—and I curate collections, prepare exhibits, sometimes organize events.”

  Victor sat back with an arm behind his head. “What kinds of events?”

  “Community events, fundraising galas—that kind of stuff.” Ugh, more bier please! Hopefully, he’d stop already with all these questions.

  “And what is it about it that you hate so much?” the silverback sniper asked, eyebrows coming down, little wrinkles forming on his nose bridge.

  “It’s just not what I want to do. It’s dull, mind-numbing work.”

  “And why do you keep doing it?” Great question—Victor had him square in his sight.

  “The pay is good, I guess.” A weak answer. So weak.

  Victor’s eyes gleamed maliciously. “See? You’re a sensible man, after all. Pipe dreams don’t keep the lights on, right?”

  Michael had to play some defense; he couldn’t just let the old man toy around with him. “I’ve written some articles, too. That’s the kind of work I enjoy.”

  “History articles?” Victor asked, either interested or mockingly—Michael couldn’t tell.

  “Yes, usually about local history, but now I’m working on one for a national journal.”

  “What’s your article about?”

  Michael now had home-court advantage. Time to dazzle the sniper. “It’s about the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.”

  “That’s major league history, huh? So what’s your take on the whole thing?” Victor sounded genuinely intrigued.

  “Well, my main argument is that if F. D. Roosevelt had lived longer, he would have not dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that might have changed history in many ways, for the better.”

  “So you think bombing the Japs was a bad thing, is that it?”

  Oh boy, he called them Japs. “I try to stay away from making a moral judgment. From a military standpoint, though, it was unnecessary because Japan was all but ready to surrender before Hiroshima; and dropping the bombs made the Cold War inevitable.” Michael chugged down some liquid courage. “And we do carry the stain of being the only nation ever to have used nuclear weapons in an act of war.”

  The chair creaked as Victor edged forward in his seat, beady eyes glimmering as his words came out with bridled intensity, like vicious dogs chained to a tree. “A stain? A stain you say. Oh, you’re looking at it all wrong. You need to stop thinking like sheep. At a personal level, at a national level, it’s all the same thing. Our show of strength with the Japs, the Russians, and all that have come after is why we are on top of the world. Would you rather be at the bottom? I’d rather be on top, and you have to show your strength to stay at the top. It’s not a stain, Michael; it’s a badge.”

  Michael chuckled. What a nutcase. “I don’t think we are going to agree on this, are we?”

  “Probably not. You picked a good subject for your article, though. War—a guy like you chooses to write about war. I find that interesting.”

  “A guy like me?” Michael knew exactly what he meant—a sissy, a sheep. The question slipped out of him as a reaction.

  “Let’s just say I can’t picture you with an M-16 strapped to your back, crawling through the mud under enemy fire.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you served,” Michael said as believably as he could. Of course, he hadn’t. For all his bravado, Victor Goddard had been but a beneficiary of his old man. He’d had an easy life, turning money into more money with little to no effort. And now, he spoke like a self-made John—fucking—Rambo!

  “I didn’t say I served,” he responded, as though taken aback.

  “Oh, I just…the way you described crawling through the mud so vividly, I thought…sorry, I misunderstood.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” Victor glugged down what was left of his beer. “I wanted to ask you, how did you meet Anna?”

  “Oh…um, I met her at the historical so
ciety.” Michael remembered that picture—young Victor with that other girl—and Anna’s face when she saw it.

  “Really? So you were working then.”

  “Barely. It was a slow day.” They are all slow days.

  “And why was Anna there?” Victor slanted his head, eyes slightly squinted.

  “Lucky for me, I guess she must have been especially bored that day.”

  “Yeah, lucky you.” The sniper’s eyes fixed on his empty glass mug, turned it clockwise full circle, then glanced at the front door as if expecting something—service, perhaps. “A psychologist and a historian—damn, you two would drive your kids crazy.”

  Michael forced his lips into a smile. “Yes, we probably would.” Perhaps, he’d ask Victor about his own kids. He’d heard some pretty insane stories. His parenting advice might be dark comedy gold.

  Victor shifted in his seat and brought one leg over the other. “Speaking of you being a historian, I’m sure you’d appreciate the history of this house. It was my father’s. Charles Goddard was his name. Does it ring a bell?”

  “The fact is I met your father years ago. He contributed generously to the historical society, as he did to several other institutions, from what I’ve been told.”

  “Sounds about right. He did care about a great many causes. He was a very wealthy man, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Yes, I figured as much,” said Michael.

  “At the height of his real estate empire, if I may be so bold as to call it that, he owned five different houses in these parts, each one as large as this one, and three apartment complexes. But what is really remarkable is this—whether because the old man was truly magnanimous, or because he didn’t want any of us secretly wishing for his death, he gave money and properties to my brother and I in life, many years before he died, in fact. This house was his wedding gift to me—I was only twenty-three years old when I married Lydia. The house was ready for us when we returned from our honeymoon.”

  “That’s really something. What a gift. This house looks like it must have been built in the 1920s. Is that right?”

  “You know your stuff,” Victor said. “It was built in 1922. It’s really quite remarkable when you think about it. Sometimes, I like to picture a brand-new Ford Model A, or one of those classic Studebakers parked over there.” He pointed at the front lawn. “A family lived here during the Great Depression. Then World War II. Then someone watched the news of Kennedy’s assassination in the same living room where we watched the news of the 9-11 terrorist attack and live broadcasts of the war in Iraq.”

  “Yeah, it’s something. The house is almost a century old.”

  “On this very same porch, the man who sold this house to my father might have hugged his son for the last time before he went to die in Vietnam. I don’t know that, of course, but the thing is, if the house could talk, it would sure as hell have some great stories to tell.”

  “Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?” What stories would it tell about you, Victor? The thought of asking that question popped up in his mind as though whispered by a devilish creature or, perhaps, Frank?

  The idea of Frank seating beside him in invisible form, egging him on to raise hell, amused him. Half of the stories Anna had told him about her father in the last few days involved Frank, that heroic, defiant son of a gun.

  Victor’s gaze wandered for a moment; when it came back around it had hardened. “What did you say your last name was?”

  “I didn’t. It’s Donovan.”

  “Donovan, Donovan…I knew a Donovan years ago. A tenant in one of my apartments. Patrick Donovan was his name. A relation of yours by any chance?” Clearly, this Patrick Donovan was someone beneath him, some loser who’d once lived within the fringes of his empire.

  “No, most of my relatives live in Philadelphia.”

  “Philadelphia, huh? You look like you have some Irish in you. Am I wrong?”

  “No, you’re right.”

  “Oh, I’m good at this. Catholic?”

  “I was raised Catholic, yes.”

  “Raised Catholic. I love that phrase. It leaves you in suspense. Is a but coming after that? I was raised Catholic, but I haven’t stepped into a church in decades. I was raised Catholic, but now I worship the devil.” Victor let out a burst of laughter. “All jokes aside, are you a Catholic, then?”

  “Well, not exactly.” Shit! Not this topic with Mr. Come-to-Church-or-I’ll-Break-Your-Bones!

  “What do you mean, not exactly?” The right tip of Victor’s lips edged up, a crevasse running from his cheek to his chin like a dried-up riverbed.

  Michael felt a droplet of sweat sliding down the back of his neck. This couldn’t be over soon enough. “What I mean is that while I believe in the values professed by the Catholic Church, I don’t subscribe to the supernatural aspects of the Church’s teachings.” Yes, big words, Victor—because I’m a nerd—just leave it alone.

  The sniper’s next words came out in an increasingly piquant tone. “So, what you’re saying is you’re a good guy, but you don’t believe in God. Did I understand you correctly?”

  “That’s a way of putting it.” Bullshit, that’s exactly right.

  “Simple but accurate, wouldn’t you say?” A sardonic little smile crept up on his face. Michael felt a sudden impulse to grab a chair and smash it over his head. The sniper was quite right about his chemistry theory. He’d fallen for Anna pretty much on sight. He liked Frank instantly. And now, it only took him minutes to want to murder him. Loathing at first sight.

  The sniper put his sight on the front door again; he seemed impatient, even angry. Then back to Michael. “And how did that come to be? You just stopped believing one day?”

  “It didn’t happen in an instant. I guess there must have been one first moment of doubt, but I couldn’t tell you when that was. At some point. I could no longer reconcile science and history with my religious beliefs. I had to choose, so I chose hard facts over dogma.”

  “Dogma?” Victor exclaimed, his eyes as big as he’d seen them. “That’s such an ugly word in the mouth of an atheist. It’s so full of disapproval and self-righteousness. If Faith was a child, dogma is what the evil kids at school would call it sneeringly. I find it disrespectful, to be honest, but I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way. Right?”

  “I certainly did not, and I apologize if that’s how it came across. Perhaps, I should have said religious beliefs instead. In retrospect, I think you’re right. It is true that the word dogma is most often used by nonbelievers.”

  “Apology accepted.” Victor’s face twisted into a bizarre smirk, as though his body and his mind were having a disagreement. “We’re just two men speaking candidly, and in an unguarded exchange one must risk getting a bruise or two.” A long pause; his gaze drifted toward the spot on the front lawn where his imaginary Studebaker would have been. “And Anna knows this about you? That you’re an atheist?”

  “She does know I’m a nonbeliever. It somehow came up in conversation with her and Frank, actually.” Michael immediately regretted mentioning Frank.

  “Oh, Frank, ha! I bet he agrees with you on this one, doesn’t he?” Victor brimmed with unconcealed disdain.

  “Um, yes, yes, he does.”

  “To be perfectly candid, it does bother me a little.”

  “What does?” Michael asked.

  “That you’re an atheist; because the thing is, if you two get married and have kids; then, will you even want to baptize your children, my grandkids? Is Anna supposed to accept that their children will grow up atheists. Do you expect me to accept it?”

  Was that a threat? Yes, Victor, your opinion matters to me as much as the astrology section on an old newspaper—that’s what he should have answered. If only he didn’t care about making a mess of things. Hell, Anna would probably like him better for it. No, perhaps she wouldn’t. The angry silverback demon sniper could take it out on her mother.

  “Honestly, I’d want to raise the child in a way that my wife wo
uld be comfortable with,” Michael responded with poise. “I wouldn’t just impose my view. If that means that the child grows up to be a devout Catholic, I’m fine with that.”

  His eyes narrowed, and his lips pulled back into a skeptical smirk. “You’d be willing to have your children raised with beliefs contrary to yours, in your own house?”

  “That’s right.” This better be the end of it!

  “Would you go to Church with them? Sing the hymns, pray aloud, stand when you’re supposed to and kneel when you’re supposed to, before a God you don’t believe in?” A triumphant ugly grin crept up on Victor’s face.

  Michael chuckled, looked away from Victor’s intense stare. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge if and when we get there. There’s no sense in racking one’s brain with such questions now. Who’s to say that Anna won’t dump me next week?”

  “That’s just lazy, Michael. I was led to believe that you enjoyed a good debate.”

  “I’d gladly debate a topic not as emotionally charged as religion.”

  Victor sat back with his hands behind his head, biceps bulging up. “But isn’t there a sort of hypocrisy in being willing to debate only topics that you can keep at a safe distance from your heart? What could be more important than your lack of belief in God and the afterlife?”

  “Lots of things. That’s just one aspect of who I am.”

  “I couldn’t disagree more. See, Michael, you live your life believing that any day you could drop dead, and that will be it. You will—what?—be no more? Disintegrate? The heart stops, the brain goes dark, and your essence, nothing but chemical reactions and electric pulses, is lost forever?”

  “That’s actually very well put.” Michael could hardly stop himself from laughing.

  “Then how could that notion not govern every thought and every action of yours? Why deny yourself anything in this one life you have? Why risk your life for anyone or any cause when death is so final?”

  “I believe good deeds are their own reward. They make me feel good about myself.” What else do you got, sniper?

  “And what comfort could you give anyone on their deathbed? Would you tell your mother, just before the end, that she’s at the edge of a great precipice, an endless darkness from which she shall never return?” This was probably his best argument so far, not a bad jab.