by Daniel Black
So he lay upon the cold, hard floor, listening intently to the weeping of the lambs. Now he understood that they sang for him, not to him. The melody rang dark and sweet like Death’s lullaby. Lazarus bore the weight of someone else’s unrighteousness, he believed, while the lambs sang a shield of protection around him. They felt it, this injustice, tingling beneath their precious wool, so their chorus summoned someone to confess and thus set Lazarus free. Granddaddy had listened to the lambs, Lazarus now realized, in search of the depth of his wrongs. The lambs didn’t lie. They couldn’t. Truth was all they knew. Sometimes the old man would hum along—not words, but groans of grief until his voice creaked with apology. Together they’d sit for hours, the first and third Lazarus, listening to the lambs’ lament, and now Trey comprehended what Granddaddy could not explain: Every man is responsible for every man. Everywhere. And, one day, we shall give an account of our stewardship of God’s breath. The lambs had been sent to show the world how to say, “I’m sorry.” Few, including Granddaddy, had embraced the lesson. As a kid, Trey watched him clap and sway with insurmountable regret as his foot kept perfect time against the old wooden porch. Sometimes he’d cry and call his son’s name: “Junior! Junior!” Now Lazarus knew why. It was all making sense.
Suddenly the melody shifted. Like a dead man resurrected, Lazarus sat up, although he didn’t open his eyes. In fact, he squeezed them tighter, trying desperately to comprehend the full message of the lambs. It was lighter now, the musical timbre, without the heavy resonance of dread, and Lazarus let the tune penetrate his consciousness. There was something he was supposed to do or undo, correct or mend, but what was it?
Without transition, the song became erratic, even frantic, as if the lambs feared Lazarus might miss the meaning. Anxiety mounted, but he never lost concentration. In his imagination, he saw the first and fourth Lazaruses, the beginning and the end, and he wondered if— “Wait! Oh no…,” he murmured. He pushed upward from the floor. His eyes widened. That’s it. There was no image of his father. No loving memory of the man who’d conceived him. Which meant there was no grandfather for his son. And hadn’t Lazarus’s grandfather saved him? And hadn’t his father made the link possible? Lazarus nodded. This was the answer. Granddaddy’s failure had been not saving his own son, his only begotten son, his sweet little lamb, and Lazarus III had been too consumed with his own embrace to see it. Quad had come today because he wanted his father. Yes, he’d despised his father’s life choices, but Quad still loved him. Just as Trey loved Junior, although he thought he could live without him. Perhaps that was the message of the lambs—that no man is dispensable, no Lazarus insignificant, no son complete without a father, no human erasable. Yet hadn’t Lazarus tried to love his father? Hadn’t he gone from rehab to crack house to rehab again on his father’s behalf? Hadn’t Lazarus fed him after his mother died, and begged him to love himself? What more could he do?
The rhythm intensified. It blared now, as Lazarus frowned and covered his ears. The more he thought of his father, the higher the melody rang, until Lazarus was sure his head would burst. “Daddy!” he cried, and, in an instant, the song hushed to a mere whisper. “Why did you give up?” There was no answer. Granddaddy should’ve gone to see about Junior. Of course he should’ve, but he didn’t. Not once, not ever. This was the first time Lazarus had thought about it—the fact that he’d never seen Granddaddy with Daddy, never beheld both Lazaruses in the same place, never knew what fathers and sons looked like in generational harmony. And if he wasn’t careful, his son would inherit the breach. Quad didn’t know his grandfather, except from stories Trey had told, but perhaps as a grandfather Junior would be better than he’d been as a dad. Wasn’t this true for the first Lazarus? Why wouldn’t it be true for the second?
Lazarus exhaled. It made sense, but how could he bridge a gap wider than the Mississippi? And what did the street family have to do with any of this?
The cry of the lambs ceased. It was done. The message had been conveyed. Actually, Quad had brought it earlier, if Lazarus had been paying attention, standing there trying to hate his father only because he couldn’t have him. Lazarus remembered the feeling, the sense of loss and rejection as Junior walked away, more committed to substances than to a son. Or so it seemed. Lazarus shook his head now. Something had to be done. There had to be a way to do what no Lazarus, including himself, had ever done. Yet he certainly didn’t know how to do it.
At dawn, he still didn’t know. The night had been spent pondering possibilities, none of which seemed viable. He couldn’t go to New York and search for the old man. Not now. And even if Lazarus could’ve, where would he have looked? Junior would be well into his seventies, if he was alive at all, and Lazarus wasn’t confident he’d even recognize him. And who’s to say Junior would welcome Lazarus? It’s not always true that fathers long for their sons, is it? He sighed. He didn’t believe what he was thinking. In his father’s heart, the man loved him—Lazarus knew that—for Junior had spent the majority of the boy’s formative years saying so and fighting the demon like David fought Goliath. When Junior walked away, it wasn’t because he didn’t love Trey; it was because he loved him too much and couldn’t bear the look of shame lingering in his son’s eyes. Junior had never said this, not like this, so Trey believed what the variables said: that Junior simply didn’t want him. But now, as a father himself, a very well-meaning father, he discovered that the variables of a man’s life never represent the truth of his heart. At least not accurately. Sometimes the logical conclusion is the opposite of what a man intends, the total flipside of his hopes, so an attempt to reconstruct his motive by reading the outcome of his actions is hardly fruitful. And who gets to explain? Like himself, maybe his father felt things deep in his heart he’d never said. Maybe he, too, had meant to teach one life while living another.
Lazarus stood and paced the length of the floor. This was what his mother had meant by “Lazarus, oh, Lazarus! One day you’ll understand, dear Lazarus!” It had sounded veiled back then, as if she were making excuses for Junior’s inexcusable behavior, but now Lazarus saw that the point had been about his own shortcomings. Experience would teach him, his mother had implied, that meaning well and doing well were very different things. She used to say, “Judgment comes from those who haven’t lived long enough.”
Junior had contacted Lazarus once, years ago, after the children were born. The family portrait Trey had sent hung by a thumbtack over the head post of Junior’s rented bed. Trey had mailed it to the last address he had, unsure whether his father would get it, but in fact he did. Junior called to say thanks.
“Hello?” Deborah said.
“Where Trey?”
She almost cursed Junior until she realized who he was. No one else called Lazarus Trey. She thought something must be wrong, so she dashed outside and summoned him to the phone. He laughed, sure she had misidentified the voice, but when he took the receiver and said, “Yes?” and his father said, “’Preciate the pictures, boy. Them some beautiful kids,” Trey grabbed the kitchen counter to keep from crumbling.
“Daddy?”
“Hell yeah! Who else call you boy?”
Neither spoke for a moment; then Trey said, “Good to hear from you.”
“Yeah. You, too.”
“How’d you get my number?”
“I always had your number. You don’t want me to have it?”
“Of course I want you to have it. I just wondered—”
“That boy look just like you. Guess that means he looks like me.”
“Yessir.”
Junior’s intermittent silence was disconcerting. Lazarus feared he’d hung up.
“I’m doin’ better,” Junior finally said.
“Are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Glad to hear that. Where you livin’ now?”
“You know where I’m livin’. You sent the package.”
Lazarus felt stupid. “You clean now, Daddy?”
Disappointm
ent clogged Junior’s throat. “I said I’m doin’ better.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“Just what I said.”
Lazarus huffed, then called the children—“Quad! Lizzie! Come say hey to your grandfather!”—but Junior interrupted. “I gotta run, Son. I’m sorry. I just wanted to thank you for the picture.”
“Hold on, Dad, so the kids can speak to you.”
“I can’t,” he said, flustered. “I gotta go.”
The dial tone lingered in Lazarus’s memory. He held the receiver as if his father might materialize and say something more, something healing, that would spark a new chapter between them. But Junior was gone. Lizzie was most disappointed. She’d asked about him a thousand times, trying to make sense of their lives, and now she was more confused than ever. The hurt in Trey’s eyes pierced her heart and drove her to her room, where she wrote a letter to her nebulous grandfather, explaining that his chronic absence debilitated her father. It was beautifully written, in sweet, tender language by a girl who had no idea what grandparents were for. She folded it neatly and placed it beneath her mattress. It was never sent.
Lazarus didn’t know that Junior collapsed the moment he hung up. It was sad—a grown black man crumbled as if slowly drained of life, balled on the floor sobbing with regret and guilt too heavy to carry. There was no one to call, no one to comfort him, no one who understood. He drowned that day in shame and humiliation. Are you clean now? Are you clean now? Are you clean now? The question reminded him of his perpetual filth, his dirty, worthless life, and he couldn’t forgive himself for taking so long to heal. He was clean—ten whole days!—still, the question mocked his effort and dismantled his joy. All he wanted was to meet his grandchildren—Trey’s love was a bygone desire—in hopes of starting over with those who never knew him, but when Trey shouted their names Junior’s chest became heavy and his breathing difficult. The innocence in their voices, their dream of a happy, playful grandfather, would’ve ruined him, he believed, if he’d failed them, and that’s what he couldn’t take—another bout of failure. Writhing on the floor like a wounded, whimpering pup, he wallowed in sorrow and grief until convinced, once again, there was no hope for him.
He’d needed a joyful response from Trey, an exuberant welcome from a son who didn’t bask in his father’s failings. That would’ve motivated Junior to say, I’m sorry, Son. Can we start again? But Trey’s cool nonchalance resurrected the old man’s fears, and within minutes he was as guarded as ever. Can’t people forget the past, he wondered, even if it was only yesterday? How long does a man have before his new self becomes his regular self? The woman who housed him tried to lift him from the floor, but without assistance it was impossible. Now she knew the heaviness of deadweight. So she left him there, in a tiny barren bedroom, bleating like his father’s lambs. Withdrawal pains were nothing, he confessed, compared to the agony of losing his family. And how in the world would he ever get them back?
Exhausted and emotionally depleted, he managed to crawl into bed and burrow beneath soiled sheets for the next two days. He had no appetite for anything—food, women, life—so he lay shrouded in dirty blankets and a funky, musty odor that never went away. Memories of Arkansas, which he’d tried to forget, resurfaced and returned him to a place he’d sworn he’d never go again.
Lazarus I hadn’t meant to be cruel, Junior told his bleeding heart, but the sting of the lash upon the young boy’s back never faded. Lazarus I had promised God to raise a disciplined son, one with character and a work ethic, so he never spared the rod. The Word of God had mandated it. Daily, for reasons sublime or trivial, he beat Junior until the boy harbored in his heart enough fury to kill the man. Junior’s mother turned a blind eye, although she didn’t agree. There was no need to whip a child that way, she thought. Yet she also believed women had no business in menfolk’s affairs. Still, one night in bed, she asked, “Is you got to beat him like that?” The first Lazarus touched her shoulder sympathetically. “Is you ever been a man?” She shook her head and surrendered. On her deathbed, she begged God for a second life that she might fight for the son she’d neglected, but God wouldn’t grant it. So Junior despised them both.
The ritual beatings always commenced with the first Lazarus’s displeasure. Failing grades, which meant B+s, definitely guaranteed a flogging. Only As were acceptable, as far as Lazarus I was concerned, so anything less enraged him. After all, he said, “What else you got to do ’sides study?” Other failings initiated beatings, too: a mowed but unraked lawn, cows fed after sundown, peas picked but unshelled. There was always something incomplete, something less than excellent, and Lazarus I meant to teach Junior the price of mediocrity. So, after an infraction, they’d head to the barn with Junior following and weeping, pleading for grace. Nothing he said moved his father. Lazarus I beat the boy mercilessly until, too spent to speak, Junior lay covered with welts, hay strands, and dried cow dung. His cries drove his mother deeper into the house, to a remote bathroom where, with her hands over her ears and a Bible in her lap, she prayed for Junior’s forgiveness. Even then, his distant voice, begging for rescue, left her unnerved. She held her peace because she worried that her intervention might ruin her husband’s plan for Junior’s manhood. And it was a good plan. He wanted an obedient, upright son who could one day pay bills and feed himself, marry, and sustain children of his own. If he wanted them. If not, that was his business. The father’s job was to make him ready for it, to assure that the world didn’t rob him of his inheritance. She understood her husband’s motive and she supported it. It was his method she abhorred, but what could she do? Without alternative means of achieving the same desired end, she covered her mouth and wailed along with her only child, who never forgave either of them—a father, for beating the spirit out of him, and a mother, for consenting to it.
If the offense was sufficiently severe, Lazarus would tie Junior’s bony wrists around a large beam and beat his back raw. The sheep bowed when they saw the two coming, Lazarus I walking with determination, Lazarus II dragging his feet to a crucifixion. Blow after blow, Junior yelled, “Okay, Daddy! I’m sorry!” or, “Daddy, I won’t do it again!,” although to no avail. Sometimes lashings lasted half an hour. Between the son’s screeches, the father’s grunts could be heard, like the moaning of bullfrogs after a heavy rain. He always used whatever belt he was wearing, sliding it from his pant loops as if extracting a sword. He didn’t want to do it, he told God, although he never told Junior. It pained his heart to watch the boy wither and thrash under the whip, but since God’s Word was perfect, of course Lazarus had no choice. This was his only guarantee that the boy would, one day, walk upright. Even if he didn’t at first. Train up a child in the way he should go, the Word said, and when he is old he will not depart from it. There was no promise what he’d do in the interim. But in a child’s later years he’d understand, and that was the old man’s comfort. So he beat his son for the least thing, imagining that, one day, the boy would stand before him in humble gratitude. It killed Lazarus I that that day never came.
Still, back when he believed it would, he applied the lash as a measure of his obedience to God. Often, during the process, he’d quote Bible verses to remind the boy that, although unpleasant, the act was a divine decree. “The Lord is my shepherd!” (Strike!) “I shall not want!” (Strike!) Or, “In the beginning was the Word!” (Strike!) “And the Word was with God!” (Strike!) “And the Word was God!” (Strike!) Or, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels!” (Strike!) “And have not love!” (Strike!) “I am become as a sounding brass!” (Strike!) “Or a tinkling cymbal!” (Strike!) Or the old man’s favorite: “Shall we continue in sin!” (Strike!) “That grace may abound?” (Strike!) “God forbid!” (Strike! Strike!) He knew the Bible better than he knew himself. Shrieks and moans confirmed that sin and laziness were being driven from the boy’s heart. Junior learned scripture from these ritual floggings and dreamed of one day destroying the kingdom of God.
Wh
en Trey was born, Junior took him to meet his grandfather. Junior intended to show the old man how to love a son proper, how to hold him close and treat him like a human being, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Junior rediscovered his love for his own father. After all those thrashings, all those keloids, wounds, and bloodied shirts, he still sought his daddy’s approval, still yearned for Lazarus’s affection, especially with Junior’s mother gone. He believed his father meant well. Even then. Somewhere in the old man’s heart, surely, he’d thought that by beating his son he was preparing him for a life of success. He didn’t know that, instead, he was driving every ounce of worth from him.
The day they arrived, Lazarus I sat on the porch, smoking a pipe. There was no formal greeting, no hug, no handshake. Just nods of acknowledgment. But when Junior placed Trey in the old man’s arms, he looked at the child and wept crocodile tears. Junior frowned, bewildered. Was this the same man he’d known? The one whose heart he’d never seen? Suddenly Lazarus I looked up and into Junior’s eyes. Lazarus wanted to apologize, to undo history, to take back what he’d done. Instead, he shook his head sadly, lifting the baby to his chest. More tears came. They poured like regretful rain. The old man bawled out loud. Junior turned away. No words were exchanged. He saw an apology, but he didn’t hear one, and that’s what he needed. Trey took to Granddaddy right away as the grown Lazaruses trembled in bondage. If there was any hope for them, any possibility they’d be healed, the child would deliver it. Junior’s heart was too burdened to forgive; Granddaddy’s spirit, too shamed to ask for it.