Affliction

by Russell Banks

  “Well,” I said, “I just got here. Give me a minute, will you?” I tried to smile graciously, but Clyde did not meet my smile. I stepped to my father then and found myself actually glad to see him there—small, silent, inattentive, like the only child in a room full of angry adults.

  “This is nuts,” Wade muttered.

  “Wade,” Margie said sharply.

  When I hugged my father, the force of my embrace caused his head to bob like a puppet’s, and I drew away from him, afraid. Wade was right—it was nuts.

  Clyde was already down on his knees, and his two children had followed with alacrity, like acolytes, earnest assistants at the rite.

  “Dear Lord Jesus,” Clyde began, his eyes jammed shut, head tilted toward the ceiling. “O my Lord Jesus in heaven! We come to thee on our knees today begging forgiveness for our sins and thanking thee for the blessing and the undeserved gift of thy salvation. We thank thee, Lord Jesus. For everlasting life by thy side in heaven, we thank thee, O Jesus, Lord of the Heavenly Hosts, whose blood was shed so that we may live!”

  The boy, eyes tightly shut, moaned, “Praise the Lord!” and the girl followed, as did Lena, who was still positioning herself on her knees, not an easy job, given her bulk and awkwardness. Behind me, the Reverend Doughty, in a quiet shy voice, added his more restrained Praise the Lord, and I turned and watched him get down on his knees too, somewhat reluctantly, perhaps, but obediently, just in case.

  What were the rest of us to do but follow suit? First the young man from the funeral home—more accustomed, perhaps, to scenes like this than we were—got down on his knees, and then Margie and Gordon LaRiviere, and finally Wade got down—all of them watching Clyde warily, as if playing Simon Says and expecting the next command to be a trick. That left only Pop standing, and me.

  Pop’s gaze, for the first time since I had entered the house, had taken on a hard focus, and he directed it at everyone in the room, one by one, until it landed on me. I shrugged, as if to say, Why not? and hitched my trousers by the crease and got down on my knees with the others, expecting Pop to do the same.

  He shook his head slowly from side to side—in disbelief? disapproval? disgust? I could not tell. Meanwhile, Clyde’s prayer went on, full of praise and gratitude for Jesus’ having interceded in the natural order of things by eliminating death for those sinners willing to turn their lives over to Him. As he prayed, Clyde glared up at the ceiling, as if at an accuser, while Lena and her children held their eyes tightly closed, their lips moving over a tumbling flow of words that were inaudible to the rest of us. Reverend Doughty, his hands clasped before his chest, seemed to be posing for a photograph, and though his eyes were open, he looked at nothing in particular and everything in general. Gordon LaRiviere, head bowed, eyes closed, hands appropriately clasped, had the appearance of a man who hoped he was not being seen by anyone he knew. Margie and Wade, too, were clearly going through the motions, nothing more, with their heads slightly bowed, eyes open, expressions reserved, all-purpose and noncommittal, and I tried to follow their example.

  Turning away from us, Pop walked to the sink and took down from the cabinet his bottle of Canadian Club. He carefully poured a substantial drink into a glass, then spun around and took a gulp from the glass and set it down and crossed his arms over his chest and watched us. He said something, but I could not hear him over Clyde’s loud prayer and the numerous Amens and Praise the Lords that punctuated it. No one but me seemed to be observing Pop. He smirked in a way I remembered, and suddenly I felt not embarrassed but wildly ashamed to be seen this way, on my knees, hands pressed together, in the midst of fervent prayer. I saw us—me, Wade and Lena in particular, but the others as well—the way Pop saw us, and I cringed and tried to make myself smaller, hoping for invisibility, the way I had as a child. I could feel his wrath building, could almost smell it, a gray smell, like an electrical fire starting to smolder, when he spoke again, loud enough this time for me to make out his words: “Not worth a hair on her head,” he said.

  The prayer went on, however, as if he had merely said “Praise the Lord.” There was a little more volume, perhaps,for Clyde now had tears running down his cheeks, and it looked as if Lena was about to join him. Reverend Doughty seemed to have caught the rhythm of it, his eyes clamped shut, his body swaying back and forth, his hands wringing with the beginnings of fervor, and even LaRiviere and the mortician seemed tied to the form of the prayer. I cut a glance at Margie and Wade, but they were both staring down at the floor in front of them, as if hoping for a trapdoor to open. Again Pop said it, louder still: “Not worth a goddamned hair on her head!”

  Wade turned around and looked at him, puzzled. He scowled and shook his head no, as if to a fidgety child, and resumed his prayerful stance. Clyde rolled on. “Jesus, we beseech thee, thy children beseech thee, to please look down on this woman, our mother and friend, O Lord, and make her example known to us. Make her vivid to us, Lord! We know that it is too late for her to be saved, but let her be an example unto those of us who have forsaken thee. Make her vivid to us! Let her sufferings in hell, where she must burn even now, serve as a warning to those of us who still have time, Lord. Make her vivid to us who are dead in spirit only and who still have time to allow thee to enter us, to cleanse us and to lift us up into everlasting life!”

  With bottle and glass in hand, Pop stepped elaborately over the legs of the people in his path and made his way to the living room door, where he stopped short and in a voice that was practically a shout announced, “Not a one of you is worth a goddamned hair on that good woman’s head!”

  Wade said, “Pop!” and he stood up. His face was white, and in a trembling voice, he said, “Don’t do this now, Pop.”

  Clyde stopped praying, but he held his position, eyes shut, tears sliding down his cheeks. Lena and her children froze too, in silence, waiting. Margie dropped her hands to her sides but stayed on her knees, while LaRiviere slowly got up, and the mortician and Reverend Doughty followed.

  “Maybe I’ll head on over to the church,” LaRiviere said, and edged toward the door.

  “This is a difficult time,” Reverend Doughty said, backing away. “Emotions run high at a time like this.”

  The mortician nodded with compassion and followed LaRiviere to the door, where he said, “I’ll wait in the car,” and all three men stepped outside and closed the door behind them.

  Those of us left in the room were standing now. Our father’s face had reddened with rage and he began to sputter, a furious small man spattering us with his words, the way he had done it years ago, when we were children and were terrified of him, and now here we were, Wade and I and Lena, terrified again, as if we were still children, even including Margie, I realized, when I looked at her drawn white face, and Clyde too, whose eyes were opened at last, and the boy and the girl, who had moved around behind their parents and peered over their shoulders, wide-eyed, mouths slack.

  Wade took a step toward our father and said, “Listen, it’s no big deal, Pop,” and our father swiftly put his bottle and glass on the floor and clenched his fists and came forward a few feet, his bony face shoved out in front of him like a battering ram.

  “Come on, smart guy. Tell me how it’s no big deal,” he growled. “Tell me how a single one of you is worth a single hair on that woman’s gray head.”

  He was right, and I knew it. And I was sure that Wade and Margie knew it, and that probably even Lena and Clyde and their children knew it too. Our mother was worth more than we. For she had suffered our father more than we. He was telling this to us, and he was proving it too. Our mother had endured our father’s wrath long after we had fled from it, endured it all the way to her death, and now here he was demonstrating it before us, his wrath, with his claim that we were morally inferior to her. The form of his claim, in that it was a form of wrath, was the proof of his claim.

  I hung my head in shame and backed away, hoping that my example would influence the others—as I had done when we were childre
n at times like this. It was something I had learned from my mother, this silent coercion. I had not used it for years.

  In a shaky thin voice, Lena said, “Pop, Jesus is more powerful than any demon, and there is a demon in you, Pop. Give yourself to Jesus, and rid yourself of this demon.”

  “Praise the Lord,” Clyde whispered.

  “Go fuck yourself!” Pop snarled, and Lena stumbled backward, as if blown by the force of his words. She began to whimper, then to blubber, and her husband put his arms around her and moved her toward the door, with the boy and the girl close behind. As they passed through the door to the porch, all four looked fearfully back at our father—a brick-redtaut little man standing in the middle of the room with his fists clenched—as if they feared he would come charging after them or were about to hurl one of his raging demons into them.

  But he had not once taken his eyes off Wade. That was who he wanted. The rest of us did not matter to him. Margie placed both hands on Wade’s shoulders and tried to draw him to her, but he wrenched himself loose and took another step toward our father. I moved in the opposite direction and in a low voice said, “Wade, just leave it.”

  Pop, in that awful mocking tone of his, said, “Listen to your little brother. ‘Wade, just leave it.’ Candy-asses. All of you. That’s what I’ve got for children, Jesus freaks and candy-asses. ‘Wade, just leave it.’ ‘Praise the Lord’ ‘Just leave it.’ ‘Praise the Lord.’ “

  Wade stepped forward, fists clenched, and suddenly Margie moved around and got in front of him, where she tried to push him back with one hand and reach out toward Pop with the other. Pop struck her hand away with his fist, and her face went gray, her mouth opened in amazement. Wade reached over her and grabbed one of Pop’s wrists and yanked him once toward him. Margie screamed, she actually screamed, and Wade let go of our father, but it was too late. The old man was flailing away at his son with his fists, his blows bouncing off Margie’s shoulders and neck, hitting Wade on the arms. I reached in and tried to grab Wade by the shoulders and pull him away, but he was too powerful for me and merely shrugged me off. He shoved Margie out of his way and locked our father into his arms. They panted furiously into each other’ face, glaring. Wade walked our father in a bear hug backward to the wall, where he pushed him with his chest and bounced the old man’s frail and suddenly flaccid body against the wall. He released him, and our father collapsed onto the floor.

  Breathing heavily, Wade got down on his knees, as if to pray again. He looked into the old man’s face, which glowered back, as if out of a cave. “If you ever touch her again,” Wade said, “I’ll kill you. I swear it.”

  The old man stared coldly at his son and said nothing.

  Margie said, “Wade, it doesn’t matter now. None of it matters.”

  From across the room, I watched them, the woman and the two men, as if they were characters in a play, and the play were half over and I had just entered the theater. Slowly, the old man got to his feet, and the younger man stood up, and the woman turned around, and all three faced me. The old man moved into line next to the woman, who now stood in the middle. They were breathing heavily and sweating. They looked from one to the other, shedding their roles and regaining themselves and in the process recognizing each other’s self. It was as if they had been possessed. They smiled at each other, shyly and almost with relief. Then the three of them looked out toward me and linked hands, and, I swear it, they bowed low. That is how I saw it. What else could I do? I applauded.

  The mortician opened the door from the porch and announced that it was time to leave for the church.

  “Okay,” Wade said. “We’ll be right there.”

  Pop looked around him as if searching for something. Putting an arm over his shoulder, Margie said, “You want your coat? It’s not very cold today.”

  “No, no,” he said. He seemed confused. “I thought … I was looking for Sally,” he blurted, and his eyes filled with tears.

  “Oh, Glenn,” Margie said, and she hugged the old man.

  Wade clapped him affectionately on the shoulder, then looked over at me, as if thinking, The poor sonofabitch. We keep forgetting that no matter what their life was like together, no matter how bad it was for Ma, it was the only life he had. The poor old sonofabitch probably loved her. There was no reason for Rolfe to make fun of him by clapping like that.

  Wade’s hand moved to his jaw and touched it tenderly: his tooth had quieted down a bit for days, and now here it was again, buzzing like a stirred-up hornet’s nest. “You got any aspirin?” he asked Margie.

  She shook her head no, and Wade reached down to the floor and retrieved Pop’s whiskey bottle and glass. There was a half inch of whiskey still in the glass, and he drank it off himself.

  “Toothache,” he said, and put the bottle and glass down on the counter next to the sink.

  “When are you going to get that thing fixed?” Margie asked.

  “Soon. Soon. Soon as I’ve got half a day to kill,” he said, and he went to the door and held it open.

  Margie walked Pop to the door slowly, carefully, as if he were breakable. He took tiny steps and seemed afraid of falling. How could this pathetic man cause such trouble in a family? Margie wondered, as she moved him across the room toward Wade. He was as weak as a child and as easily controlled. He had thrown a tantrum, that was all, which was perfectly understandable, under the circumstances. There was no need to get physical with him, to manhandle him the way Wade had, or run away from him as Lena had done, or just go limp, like Rolfe. It amazed her that they seemed so frightened of him. It was as if they still thought of themselves as small children and for that reason still saw him as a powerful and violent man, when of course, as anyone could see, it was he who was the child and they, Rolfe and Lena and Wade, who were the adults. Strange. And that business of Rolfe’s, the clapping, it was strange too. He was weird, even weirder in his own tight-assed way than Lena. Margie was starting to like the old man, even to feel protective toward him, though she could not imagine why that should be so.

  Glenn Whitehouse passed through the door to the porch and stood there for a second, gazing out over the snow-covered yard. He saw the citadel the children had built, a biblical ruin in the snow. Lena’s and Clyde’s van was gone, as were the vehicles belonging to LaRiviere and the minister. The mortician stood by the open rear door of a black Buick sedan.

  Pop turned to Wade and said, “Who’s going in the funeral car?” He did not want to ride in that car, but he knew that he had to. It looked like a death car, and he was afraid that if he rode in that car alone, with only the dummy from the funeral home up front driving, he might not arrive at his destination. He did not know where he would end up, but it would not be at the church with the other people. Maybe Wade or Margie would ride with him, or maybe even Rolfe, though Rolfe made him feel self-conscious when he was with him alone. Something about that boy set Pop off. He made him feel he was supposed to say something, as if there was a question the boy wanted answered and the first test was for him to figure out what the damned question was. He was cold, that boy, not like

  Wade, who was pissed off all the time, but you always knew where you stood with him, or even Lena, who might be a Jesus freak married to a Jesus freak, but she was not cold, that was for sure. The woman had feelings. But Rolfe did not. Or at least he did not seem to have any feelings. He was the strange one, not Wade or Lena.

  “I’ll ride with you, Pop,” I said. Wade agreed and said that he and Margie would follow along in his car. Pop and I got into the back seat of the Buick, and the driver closed the door and got into the front. Pop sat silent and still, looking straight ahead. I wanted to ask him a question, it burned in my chest, but I could not for the life of me name it. I looked at him while we rode, hoping somehow that the sight of his face in profile would bring the question to me, but it did not.

  17

  THE FUNERAL AND THE BURIAL were relatively uneventful, thanks no doubt to Pop’s earlier outburst and Wade’s r
eaction to it. Reverend Doughty performed the obsequies with amiable competence, as if officiating at a retirement. No one wept over the coffin—Wade had insisted that it be a closed-coffin service: “There’s no way you can improve on a body that’s been frozen to death,” he told the mortician, “unless you keep it in the freezer and have the funeral there. Which you cannot do.” The mortician agreed, but with reluctance. It would have been easy to have presented the body beautifully: it had died so peacefully. Oh, well, the winter was young. Soon there would be plenty of bodies that had frozen to death in their sleep, and the bereaved would not be quite as belligerent as this one.

  Lillian and her husband Bob Horner and Jill arrived at the funeral a few moments after it had started, and Wade did not see them until he and three others—Gordon LaRiviere, our brother-in-law Clyde and I—carried the coffin from the church to the hearse. Lillian and Horner had seated themselves by the aisle in the last row of the church, with Jill between them, gazing in wonderment at the coffin, and as Wade passed their aisle, he nodded somberly. Jill did not take her eyes off the coffin. Horner returned the nod, but Lillian, whose eyes appeared to be red from weeping, pursed her lips, as if sending Wade a kiss. Wade seemed surprised and puzzled by Lillian’s gesture and stared after her and almost stumbled at the door of the vestry.