The Rich Part of Life

by Jim Kokoris

  My father sighed and cleared his throat. He looked in pain. “Well, I imagine I can manage something,” he said. He bowed his head, his hair popping out like the arms of a cross. “Dear Lord, we thank you for this wonderful meal.” He paused here and cleared his throat. “And we thank you for this opportunity to spend time together. As a family.”

  With that, he quickly picked up the salad bowl and passed it to Maurice.

  I chose to temporarily ignore the obvious and ominous sign—my father was now praying in public—and ate with great appetite, devouring the thick slices of moist meat and spicy rice and potatoes Aunt Bess heaped on my plate. My suspicion that Bobby Lee was behind the prayer should have been reason enough for the thorny ball in my stomach to expand, but I couldn’t help myself; I was famished and the food was delicious. The ball could expand after dessert.

  “Oh, Bess, you’ve outdone yourself, outdone yourself,” Sylvanius said. “I must have your recipe for this bean salad.”

  “It’s canned,” Aunt Bess said, passing him more.

  “Ah.”

  For dessert, Aunt Bess brought out a special cake with a small vampire figurine in the middle, complete with a black cape and tiny high collar that looked stiff and sweet. I was surprised when Uncle Frank laughed. He had been glum most of the meal, wolfing down his food violently, his head inches from his plate.

  “It’s made of sugar,” Aunt Bess said. “We can eat it later on. The boys, maybe.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Bess,” Uncle Frank said. He carefully picked up the figurine and studied it, squinting his eyes. Then he passed it on to Sylvanius who looked overjoyed.

  “Delightful Bess!” he said. When he leaned over and kissed Aunt Bess on the cheek, both Uncle Frank and my father looked away.

  “Tommy, don’t!” Aunt Bess said as Tommy stuck his finger in the side of the cake. Maurice quietly took Tommy’s hand and removed it slowly. Then everyone sang “Happy Birthday” except my father who cleared his throat in time to the music.

  “Well,” my father said after we finished singing and were eating the cake, “afterwards, I was wondering if we would all like to play a game.”

  Everyone except Tommy stopped eating and looked at my father.

  “I thought,” my father continued, his eyes trained on his plate. “I thought that we could all play Monopoly, perhaps.”

  “Monopoly,” Uncle Frank said. “What do you mean, you mean the game Monopoly? With dice?”

  “Yes,” my father said. His eyes were still on his plate.

  “What?” Aunt Bess said. She look frightened.

  “I just thought, we would all enjoy it. As a, well . . .” he paused. “A family activity. I know we have the game in the front hall closet.” Everyone kept looking at my father who now decided to study his lap. “I saw it there yesterday. It’s in the closet.”

  “I’m going to excuse myself for a bit,” Maurice said. It was the first thing he had said since we had sat down. “But I want to thank you, Miss Pappas. Everything was very delicious. I enjoyed the lamb. Now, I’m going to take a walk around the block and enjoy my pipe.” He stood up and carefully pushed his chair back under the table and walked out.

  “Maybe he doesn’t like Monopoly,” Aunt Bess said, “Do blacks not like Monopoly?”

  “I don’t think he likes us,” said Uncle Frank.

  “I like him,” Tommy said. “I like the Mo Man. He’s the Mo Man.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure he feels a bit uncomfortable in our family situations,” my father said. “Mr. Jackson is a very private man. Anyway,” he said. “Should we play Monopoly? Teddy, would you like that?”

  I nodded my head.

  “The kids are too young for Monopoly,” Uncle Frank said. “They don’t know how to play.”

  “I think I can play,” I said. “I played with Charlie once.”

  “I don’t know how to play,” Aunt Bess said. Once again, she looked scared. “How do you play? Is it complicated? Do I have to read something?”

  “It’s not difficult, Bess,” Sylvanius said, patting Aunt Bess on the hand. He gave her a meaningful look. “I have played with the best.”

  “Would you teach me?” she asked.

  Sylvanius bowed his head deeply. “Of course, of course, Bess. I shall teach you everything I know.”

  We cleared the table and set up the game. Since it soon became obvious that Sylvanius didn’t know how to play either, my father had to read the instructions out loud from the back of the box, which made Tommy fall asleep under the table. We started the game awkwardly, frequently stopping to refer to the instructions that my father kept at his elbow. I was Aunt Bess’s partner and got to roll the dice, move the thimble, and count our money. After a little while, we started winning.

  “Like father like son,” Uncle Frank said as he paid me some money for landing on Illinois Avenue.

  “I think I would like to purchase a new hotel for that railroad,” Sylvanius said.

  “You can’t put a hotel on a railroad,” Uncle Frank said.

  “Ah,” Sylvanius said, rubbing his chin. He was very interested in the game though he was losing badly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to revise my strategy then.”

  “Here, Teddy, give Sylvanius some of our money. We have so much,” Aunt Bess said.

  “Oh, Bess, I couldn’t.”

  “You can’t lend him money,” Uncle Frank said. “It’s not allowed.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not allowed,” Uncle Frank said.

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” my father said, squinting at the instructions. “I don’t believe it is allowed.”

  “I’ll be fine, Bess,” Sylvanius said. “I’ll be fine. My luck is turning. I feel Lady Fortune will soon be smiling upon me.” Then he rolled the dice and it bounced off the board and landed on Tommy’s sleeping legs.

  “That’s not allowed,” Uncle Frank said.

  “Oh, Frank, please. You and your rules. The attorney in you is coining out,” Sylvanius said and everyone laughed but Uncle Frank.

  After a little while, Maurice returned, smelling faintly of tobacco. Fie sat down and watched us.

  “Maurice, I think I need your assistance,” Sylvanius said.

  “Do you need help going to the bathroom?” Aunt Bess asked.

  “No, I need him to help me change my luck. Here,” he said holding the dice out to him. “Would you be so kind?” Maurice pulled his chair close to the table. “It’s been awhile,” he said, but he rolled the dice.

  “Remember when we used to play cards, when we were kids, Theo?” Uncle Frank asked. “Remember how we would play all night until Mom made us turn out the lights, then we would play with flashlights in our bedroom?”

  “I do remember that,” my father said. “Yes. I do.”

  “We would play with Dad too. And old Uncle George. Remember old Uncle George?”

  “Of course. I remember those games,” my father said. He had been mostly quiet throughout the game, hiding behind the instruction box and pretending to study the board, occasionally smiling. I once again suspected that Bobby Lee was behind our playing, suspected that Bobby Lee was behind most things we now did and said, but once more, I didn’t care. For the moment, everything seemed fine, everything in place and that was enough.

  “Those were the days, Theo,” Uncle Frank said. “Those were the days.”

  “Yes, they were,” my father said. “Unfortunately, you don’t always know that at the time though. Not always.” Then he briefly smiled at me in an embarrassed manner and picked up the dice. It was then that I realized that something had changed, that something had in fact been changing for some time. I now knew that my father had quietly left his remote hiding place for good and was wandering, lost in the woods, looking for us. Watching him roll the dice, I had the sudden urge to tell him that everything was going to be fine, that we were all right here, waiting for him to make his way to us. The moment passed though and I didn’t say anything, of course.
I just picked up the dice. It was my turn to roll.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fire Ants, The Rising Storm

  By F. “Aris” Pappas

  He was a man of action. He didn’t like waiting for the phone to ring. He always made the first call. He had been married three times, to the wrong women. Now, he was married to his job. He was an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and he was about to face the biggest challenge of his career. The biggest challenge in anyone’s career.

  From Florida, they had been marching forward, north, eating and destroying everything in their path. The government’s war machine, used to high-tech, military strikes and high-powered weapons, was powerless to stop them. For this was a different enemy, this was an enemy that knew no rules, had no conscience, needed no supplies, followed no logic. This was an enemy that would not negotiate, would not be intimidated.

  And would not surrender.

  This was an enemy unlike any other. An enemy that defied all. This was an enemy that could not be stopped. For this was a fire ant, and millions of them were marching directly toward Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital.

  The phone rang. He answered it. It was the White House. He had expected their call.

  “Chet Steel,” he said laconically into the phone. It was Goldman, the Chief of Staff, and she sounded scared.

  I was reading Uncle Frank’s novel on the human condition on the computer in the basement, waiting for my father to return from the lawyers so we could play Stratego. That morning at breakfast, he asked me if I wanted to play the game after school. When I came home though, Aunt Bess told me that he had an unexpected meeting with the judge and that he wasn’t sure when he’d be home. I instinctively took this as a bad sign—any type of meeting with the judge was serious, I knew—so I vowed to complete my Suicide Book and enact my Pepper Creek plan as soon as possible. I was using the Macintosh in the basement to compose an illustrated will and testament when I stumbled upon Uncle Frank’s novel. I found it interesting but short; it was only one page.

  “What are you doing?” Uncle Frank asked. He had suddenly appeared behind me.

  I started, popping straight up in my seat like burnt toast from a toaster, then fumbled with the computer, trying to shut it off. I was too late though.

  “Hey, that’s very private,” he said. He leaned over and shut down the computer. I studied the floor.

  “That’s goddamn rude of you, Teddy. You shouldn’t be nosing around other people’s work. Hell, I don’t nose around your work. Your pictures.”

  “I’m sorry.” I said, still looking at the floor. When I looked back up, Uncle Frank was staring at me, his eyes narrow, his chin red and angry. I looked back down, afraid to move or say anything. I planned on sitting there, motionless, until Aunt Bess called us for dinner, which was several hours away.

  “Where is your father?”

  “Downtown. Meeting with the lawyers,” I mumbled. I continued to concentrate on the floor.

  “So,” Uncle Frank said. “What did you think of it?”

  “What?”

  “What did you think of it? So far, I mean.”

  I looked back up. “It’s good,” I answered truthfully.

  He nodded his head. “I think it has potential too,” he said.

  “It’s different than you said it would be.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, different?”

  I shrugged. “Than the way you described it.” Then I said, “The human condition.”

  “The what?” Uncle Frank took a deep breath. “Oh, that” he said. “Well, I plan on incorporating or illustrating my point through this story.”

  “Through fire ants?” I asked.

  Uncle Frank nodded. “More or less. And through people too. There’re people in my novel. There’re going to be more people in it than fire ants. Actually, that’s not true, there’re tens of millions of fire ants. But the people will talk so we’ll get to know them better. Better than the ants. The ants are a kind of, well, kind of a metaphor.”

  It was my turn to nod. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Are fire ants real?”

  Uncle Frank massaged his chin, his chest inflating with knowledge. “All too real, Teddy. All too real.” He clasped his hands behind his back and began walking slowly back and forth, his head cast down, his face grim. He finally stopped in front of a wall that had a faded and ripped Sesame Street poster my mother had hung years ago. I was sure Uncle Frank wished it was a window overlooking a great valley or mountain range. “These ants, Teddy,” he said, peering at Ernie and Bert hanging from the caboose of a train, “they eat everything in sight. And they only have one natural enemy. Do you know who that is?”

  I thought for awhile. “Evil dolphins?”

  “The phorid fly. Nothing else can really kill them.” He turned and looked back at me. “I’ve done research,” he said.

  “Do you have any more pages?”

  He shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Not really. I mean I had more, but I kept editing. I may actually hire someone to write it. I’m much better with plot lines, the big picture. I don’t really like writing words, per se.”

  I was about to ask more questions, when Aunt Bess started screaming upstairs. I popped up in my seat again. I knew she was in the kitchen watching the news on TV and I feared that there had been some announcement about my case. His lawyer had been on TV frequently over the past few days, angrily making demands and accusations.

  “Oh my God,” Aunt Bess screamed again.

  “Wait here,” Uncle Frank said. He looked nervous and walked quickly, almost running upstairs. Then I heard him yell, “Jesus Christ. I don’t believe it.”

  I felt things leave me then, felt my breath, my hope empty out of me. Without thinking, I started praying, my mind a blur of promises and pleas. I prayed hard, squeezed my eyes shut, trying to imagine the Earless Jesus hovering nearby, listening.

  “Teddy, get up here,” Uncle Frank said. “You got to see this. They’re going to play it again. Hurry, run, run.”

  I opened my eyes and ran upstairs and into the kitchen where I found Uncle Frank and Aunt Bess gathered around the small TV on the counter next to the microwave. Aunt Bess was covering her mouth with her hand and Uncle Frank was shaking his head.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  There on TV, was Sylvanius dressed as a vampire, falling down the stairs at the Wilcotts’ on Halloween night. The newscaster’s smiling face came on right after the fall and said that fortunately, Richard Melton, known for years as the popular vampire Sylvanius on TV’s Dark Towers, wasn’t seriously hurt and is believed to be a houseguest of Dr. Theo Pappas, the multimillionaire lottery winner, involved in a bitter child custody battle over his adopted son.

  “How did they get that tape?” Aunt Bess asked.

  “How the hell do you think?” Uncle Frank said. “Old hot legs down the block.”

  “Gloria?”

  “Yes. Our good neighbor. How else would they get it? She probably sold it for a bundle.” He snapped the TV off and stormed off.

  I went back down to the basement and turned the computer back on, determined to make the most of what I believed was a reprieve and finish my Suicide Book. As soon as I started alphabetizing my possessions, though, the telephone rang again. Once more Aunt Bess screamed, but this time in a different way.

  “Thank God, Theo, thank God, it’s all over,” I heard Aunt Bess cry. I turned the computer back off and just sat there, hope rising, an unexpected tide. A few seconds later, Uncle Frank bounded down the stairs, his face neon, his chin tilted in triumph.

  “Good news, Teddy,” he said. “Good news. Your father just called. All this bullshit is over. The whole goddamn thing is over.”

  A WEEK AFTER the judge decided that a just-discovered paper Bobby Lee had signed giving up his parental rights to me was valid, we bought a new car: a black Oldsmobile.

  “Nice color,” Uncle Frank said as he circled the car in o
ur driveway. “Jet black?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” my father said. “I think it’s plain black.” He paused. “Are there different shades? Of black, I mean?”

  Uncle Frank shrugged. “It’s jet black,” he said.

  “It’s a very safe car,” my father said. “It has quite a bit of room. We should all fit comfortably.”

  Uncle Frank nodded his head. “Room and safety,” he said. “They are key, Theo, they are key.”

  My father had bought the car because the night the judge made his unexpected ruling, the old Buick died on the expressway on the way home, stranding him for hours until Maurice came to rescue him.

  “What did you do with the old one, the old car? They couldn’t have given you anything for that on the trade-in, did they?” Uncle Frank said. He was still walking around the driveway, circling the car suspiciously, his long black coat wrapped tightly around him. I stomped my feet and put my hands in my coat pockets. It was cold and the wind stung my face. I was due at Char lie Governs’s house and though the new car interested me, I wanted to leave.

  “Actually, I decided to keep the Buick,” my father said.

  “Keep it, why? What’s with you and that car? It has some kind of significance? Abraham Lincoln drove it? What?”

  “Well, actually, I thought you might be able to use it,” my father said quietly.

  Uncle Frank stopped walking and looked over at him, my father’s words Latin to him.

  “What?” Uncle Frank asked again.

  “I thought that maybe you could use the car. For short errands and things,” my father said. “Meetings. Very nearby meetings.”

  Uncle Frank continue to stare at my father, who cleared his throat.

  “Well, it’s just a suggestion, of course,” my father said quietly. “We’ll just keep the car, to have it then. I think it might come in handy.”

  Uncle Frank shook his head and walked slowly away.

  “Well,” my father said, looking over at me. “What do you think of the car, Teddy? Does it meet with your approval?”

  “Yes,” I said. While not quite the shiny black Lexus I had registered on my List of Things, it was such a vast improvement over the Buick that it was hard to believe that both were of the same species. “Where’s the old car?”