by Susan Swan
He also took up the cause of animal rights, bringing home numerous stray cats that Esther made him keep outside the house. She worried constantly about the way Davie dropped one cause to take up another. I told her our boy didn’t follow through on unworthy projects. If Davie were the hapless kid that Esther said he was, he would never have managed to pull off his disappearing act. Nobody hapless was capable of doing something like that.
2
ONE SUNNY FALL afternoon, Meredith shows up in the visitors’ lounge. After we seat ourselves by the picture window overlooking the parking lot and the forest beyond, she produces a note she received from Davie the day he disappeared. It’s a message from the grave: I’ve gone somewhere where it doesn’t suck to be Dad’s son. All my love, David.
Puzzled, I reread his note, and then I’m sure of it. I’ve gone somewhere wasn’t a phrase I’d use if I planned to kill myself. Heaven may be real to practising Christians, but my son wasn’t a religious person. Meredith, I say. I think Davie is telling you he isn’t dead. Don’t you see? He says he’s going somewhere else … but that doesn’t mean he’s flying up to the pearly gates.
You’re just trying to make me feel better.
For god’s sake. He’s not dead. One of these days, he’s going to come back from wherever somewhere is and explain himself. To make my point, I insert air quotes around the word somewhere.
You’re crazy. You think because you want something, the universe will jump to your bidding. You don’t have as much power as you think.
Meredith has never called me crazy before, although she is understandably distressed. Nevertheless, it isn’t up to me to disabuse her of her conclusion about my son. Instead, I squeeze her hand and say how grieved I feel over losing him. Later on, when she is ready to hear me out, I will help her see the truth.
3
THE DAY AFTER Meredith’s visit, Davie comes to me in a dream. As soon as the clock says my workday is over, I rush to the computer studio and start a letter:
September 20, 2012
Dear Davie:
Last night, I dreamt you and I were walking in an apple orchard, and I could feel you as close as air. You didn’t notice me, although once or twice you glanced around as if you sensed somebody watching.
The orchard in my dream brought back the blossoming apple trees we passed in late May on my way to prison. In my dream, I was telling you I’d done nothing wrong and you turned around and spat into my open mouth. It was a revolting gesture, intended to humiliate. Yet the force of your spit hitting my throat reaffirmed something I have felt for some time. I believe you are still alive. And when you surface again, I want you to come up to Essex and explain why you have grieved us so unnecessarily. I’ll be here waiting.
Meanwhile, my life grinds on in its desultory way. I swim at the prison pool when my jobs are done, and I mentor men who want to get their high school diplomas. My roommate Bailey signed up as one of my students. For a few days, he was my only student. Then a few more signed up, and slowly their numbers have begun to grow.
I tell my students to write about their lives. As a result, I receive many hilarious accounts of scams and heists. A number of these amusing compositions are publishable thanks to the men’s colourful way of writing. Certainly, many authors would be pleased if they could render street lingo as well.
The other day I fell into an interesting discussion with my students about why America loves guns.
I explained how the British army went back to England during the colonial winters, and the departure of the soldiers left the colonies on their own for long periods of time. The local militias carried guns to protect settlers from the Indians, and the tradition of bearing firearms was written into the Constitution. The men acted quite interested in what I was saying. Clearly, nobody in their underfunded school system has encouraged the scofflaws to think about American history.
In short, I am finding many of them congenial, although they are, on the whole, a downtrodden and unjustly treated lot. The dreadful conditions of their early years have led them to be warehoused here.
Well, that’s all for now, dear boy. You can see that your old Pater is engaged with life inside the bop. More engaged than I have any right to expect, but life’s sufferings are often not what they seem.
I miss you. There, I’ve said it. Your absence washes my heart with sorrow.
Love,
Pater
4
Meredith Paul
SHE IS SITTING on the wrought iron bench on the front veranda of the house in Sands Point. It’s an uncomfortable seat for reading, but she doesn’t mind. The view of the sound is lovely. Beyond the sound lies the ocean, or what her aunt likes to call the sea, as if the word sea implies something more literary and grand than a body of water between continents.
Her aunt, Googie Paul, is sound asleep in her wheelchair. Googie has been sleeping a lot since Davie killed himself. Meredith is worried for her, although she, too, feels like she wants to give up on life and withdraw. At least, that’s what she thinks her aunt is doing. First Dale Paul went to prison and now Googie’s grandson has committed suicide. That sort of stress takes its toll on an old person.
Of course, Dale Paul will get out of prison — eventually. But Davie isn’t coming back, no matter what Dale Paul thinks.
It used to humble her, the way Davie’s intelligence didn’t make him arrogant; he treated everybody as his equal, and he had a fear of hurting other people’s feelings. Meredith had sat with him on planes when he refused to call for the flight attendant because he didn’t want to bother her. As a boy, he would listen politely to Dale Paul, who liked to expound on Civil War battles. When Dale Paul finished, Davie would get up from the table and go to his small room and work on his computer. Meredith didn’t think much about the amount of time he spent by himself. Not until he became a teenager and began idolizing the young hackers in the Creative Commons movement. In high school he had been invited to one of their conferences.
At first, Esther refused to let him go; then she relented and asked Meredith to accompany him. At the conference, only one room had been left in the tacky American Western hotel outside Cambridge, Massachusetts. Davie slept in the small cot put in the room for children and she took the double bed, worried that he would find their situation embarrassing. He never said a word. She knew he didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable.
That weekend, Meredith sat in the audience while Davie discussed algorithms with the middle-aged speakers on stage. Once, in the middle of answering a question about code, he looked over and caught her eye. They both giggled. The two of them found it funny that Davie (who was only fifteen then) was in on a philosophy that would change the world while she didn’t have a clue. She felt glad he could giggle over the surreal position he found himself in.
And now he is gone. It is unthinkable, even if Dale Paul is convinced that Davie will return and explain everything. The letters in her purse attest to that. Dale Paul is writing his son and sending the letters to Meredith for safekeeping. A second letter arrived yesterday. Dale Paul asked her to read it and make sure it isn’t maudlin. She groans as she picks it up. Heaven forbid her cousin admit to having feelings. If only the world knew his tender side, the part of him that loves his son, and, well, yes, the part that has always loved her too.
Sept 28, 2012
Dear Davie:
This morning I thought of what Shakespeare wrote for the play of his friend, Thomas Kyd: “What is there yet in a son? He must be fed, he must be taught to go and speak. Yet why might not a man love a calf as well?” I am grumbling, son, because you are not available to me, and it pains me to think we are missing our chance to discuss life’s important questions.
I don’t believe you are dead, so in the spirit of Lord Chesterfield, who tried to educate his son by sending him letters, I have decided to pass on my own whimsical instruction in the art of deali
ng with life and its horrendous circumstances, knowing that when you come back from wherever you are you might find my words useful.
I want to talk for a moment about what gives value to the things around us. You see, we invest value in what we cherish, and in my case, I have cherished the thrill of outsmarting my fellow man.
Perhaps this is wrong, but I need to compare myself favourably to others. By that I mean I need to feel superior in order to derive a sense of satisfaction out of what I do, and luckily that isn’t hard.
I am making a joke, dear boy. There are a few who are smarter than your father, even if I don’t know them. (Forgive me another gentle chuckle!) I believe we are unable to function in this world without a sense of superior worth, and others, whether they know it or not, are the backdrop that supplies us with the comparison we need.
Here’s what I’m learning: It is not you the world likes, but what you provide, and when the world decides it isn’t interested in what you have to offer, it tosses you in the trash heap. That’s what happened to your grandmother and her charities. In the 1950s, Googie’s Polka for Polio was often written up in social columns. All her neighbours showed up. One year, Maria Callas sang for her guests. Then, as quickly as it came, the attention faded. The social columns stopped writing about society matrons and turned their attention to celebrities.
Alas, most of today’s celebrities aren’t worth writing about. They’re the fools on reality shows who reveal the most idiotic things about themselves because they want to be famous and exposing themselves is the price of their fame. It doesn’t matter how vulgar they look, because if what they do or say hits the zeitgeist, the public snaps up what these dimwits have to offer the way children pick Smarties off a cake. However, your Pater is not discouraged. There are always ways to turn an unpleasant event to your advantage, and that is what I’m engaged in here. (More in the next letter.)
Yours, as always,
Pater
5
Dale Paul
IN THE COMPUTER studio, an overweight scofflaw is making a nuisance of himself. He keeps muttering and scowling while Bailey and I get on with Bailey’s lesson in English grammar. The man is white. Possibly he disapproves of someone from my background helping a black man. A pox on his old-timey prejudice.
In order not to distract the other men, Bailey and I are sitting at the back of the room, several rows away from our thuggish detractor. I am using Uncle Remus’s tales of the Old South as my text. If Meredith were here, she would chide me for using these nineteenth-century slavery tales. But Bailey found the ancient VHS tape of the children’s stories on a shelf in the chapel, of all places, and if Bailey feels stories by Uncle Remus represent something positive, the summer holidays on Daufuskie Island when his grandmother read him tales from Uncle Remus, who am I to disagree? And if the stories give him a moment of pleasure, a glimmer of something that suggests a literary tradition in his African-American background, why should I turn up my nose at his choice?
Are you ready to write down the dialogue? I ask, and Bailey nods, so I turn up the sound on the video. It shows Brer Fox taunting Brer Rabbit, who is stuck fast in a bed of tar. Bailey has seen the clip several times, and he always laughs when the narrator says, “Clipperty clip, lipperty lip, here comes Brer Rabbit.” Animated cartoons aren’t usually my idea of fun, but I like watching Bailey get the words right. Yesterday he spelled “How do you do?” without a single mistake.
Can I watch lil’ ol’ Brer Rabbit too? the scowler yells, causing heads to turn.
This is a private lesson.
Oh boy, a private lesson about Uncle Remus. He jumps out of his chair and comes our way. Next thing you know they’ll teach niggahs to read comic books.
I rise slowly to my feet and look the man in the eye. That proves impossible. One of his eyelids droops noticeably.
Good sir. I execute a mock bow. Please keep your ignominious comments to yourself.
Ha ha — good sir. What kind of shit is that? Bailey can’t read. He glowers. He leers. Then the loathsome creature points at the words on the computer screen. What does it say, Bailey? he asks. Come on, you chomo, read it for Teach. (Chomo is prison slang for child molester, and applying the term to someone like Bailey is patently absurd.)
Aldo, B and me busy, Bailey says.
Well, well, aren’t you brave now that Mr. Big Shot is teaching you to read. Wait till I tell Mr. Jack.
To my dismay, a fit of dizziness is upon me, and I’m listing like a catamaran on a windy cottage afternoon.
Just who is Mr. Jack? I manage to ask.
Mr. Jack is Mr. Jack, Bailey replies. Ain’t nobody like him, but he don care what we doin’, Aldo. We straight.
Hell, you straight Bailey? A fuck-up like you? The woodhick sucks his teeth as if he is considering something more malicious to say. Then the lout seems to think better of it and ambles off. When the sound of his footsteps dies away, I ask Bailey why the yobbo called him a child molester.
Bailey shakes his head. You don wanna know, B. You jes don wanna know.
6
I’M IN THE prison pool practising my backstroke when a man with a wide, muscled chest creaks through the door in a low-slung wheelchair. He must have been crippled for some time, considering the natural ease he exudes. He is also someone important because Martino and Aldo are following him into the pool building like a procession of French courtiers trailing the Sun King. Under his arm, Martino holds a small suitcase.
On the pool deck, Martino opens the suitcase and pulls out a pair of plastic calves. Ah, the scofflaw uses prosthetic devices! I watch, careful not to appear too curious as the cripple removes the artificial limbs he is wearing and begins to put on the pair from the suitcase.
As he works, he sees me in the pool and shouts: My swim legs, right-right?
I continue to swim as if I didn’t hear, although I sneak furtive looks while Martino pushes the man over to a lift contraption and helps him onto its suspended chair. The cripple must have said something funny because Martino is laughing as he lowers the man down to the pool using a remote-control device. The cripple is laughing too, even though the swim chair is rocking unsteadily under his weight.
When the cripple is just above the surface, he slips off the chair and heads my way, sending up showers of spray like Captain Hook trying to escape the crocodile in Peter Pan.
I backstroke as fast as I can, not wanting to be beaten by a man with artificial legs. But soon he is coming in close, unleashing a boiling churn of wavelets and spray. When I look again, he is at the other end of the pool ready to start the next lap while I still have a quarter of the pool to go. I ignore him and keep moving slowly forward on my back, frog-kicking and sculling. The next thing I know the cripple has passed me again, and I have to close my mouth to stop gulping down water. Frustrated, I head for the swim ladder.
Is Mr. Jack too fast for you? Martino asks as I climb out.
He’s quick all right, I reply. In the pool, the cripple is still thundering up and down.
Mr. Jack used to swim on his college team, Aldo says. I told you about him, yeah? He grins at the look of recognition on my face. Well, Scooby-Doo, the boss wants to see you tonight.
I’m extremely busy, good sir.
Like I said, Mr. Jack needs to talk to you about something, Aldo retorts.
Good for him, I reply and saunter off.
7
FOR LIFTING YOUR mood, there is nothing quite like the sight of sixty-five scofflaws goose-stepping in unison, their heads turning this way and that, their forearms chopping the air, the percussion drums rolling on the soundtrack while they lip-synch the words to the Michael Jackson song “They Don’t Care About Us.”
Bailey and I are watching Derek rehearse the dancers. Some of their families are here; the warden must have given them permission to come to the rehearsal.
At a highly suspen
seful moment in the song, four white-skinned women walk through the gate into the visitors’ section. Their appearance is menacing. Point being, they resemble the scruffy women that Mother refers to as round heels; unladylike rings hang from their noses and metal studs sparkle on their tongues, a salacious prelude to the lewder tattoos that must be lurking beneath their baggy jackets and sweatpants. Possibly, they have family members at Essex. Relatives sometimes rent places in the Adirondacks to be close to a prisoner. Nobody has done that for me, but I don’t expect Meredith or Caroline to move up to the hills on my account.
The tarty women stop talking and turn to wait for an oversized black girl pushing a wheelchair. Sitting in the chair is the gangster who swam in the prison pool the day before. He’s a handsome man with thick dark hair, and his khaki uniform looks as if it has been freshly pressed. He is going dancing, the wry phrase we use to describe visits with our loved ones. In fact, out of his swim trunks, the gangster appears gentlemanly, although to say he resembles Brando in the role of the mafia godfather would be overly charitable. He looks more like Robert de Niro playing the gangster’s uncouth younger self. Mr. Jack has the same milky pallor and squinty eyes, along with the same Roman nose and tufted eyebrows, even the very same gelled hair.
Them his runners. Bailey nods at the women. They collectin’ his fees. An’ they all womin cuz they work for less, he says in his hoarse whisper.
And his legs? I whisper back.
Oh, B, I ain’t gon to say nuthin’.
When I press him, Bailey says Mr. Jack lost his legs in retribution for the murder of a Quebec gangster whose corpse was discovered inside a car trunk.
Now the girl stops pushing the gangster’s wheelchair, and they both gaze at the tennis courts, where Derek and the other dancers are gyrating around the warden’s wife. The black girl stands silently, power-smoking. When the girl catches me staring, she whispers in the gangster’s ear; he says something to her and looks back at the dancers.