Beauty Rising

by Mark W. Sasse

  “No. I need rice fields. Or banana trees. Rice fields or banana trees by the lake.”

  We drove around for another thirty minutes; forested hills spread out in all directions. As we approached what must have been the northern tip of the lake, we pulled off to the side and the driver led me down through a small grove that covered the embankment heading down to the lake. When we reached the water, I looked out and saw a low expanse of land leading off into the horizon, and on the far side stood a large grove of banana trees. My heart pounded, could this be it? There were not any rice fields, but perhaps this land used to have them? It was over forty years ago. I trudged along the edge of the lake. The ground was soft and my shoes quickly began sinking into the mud, but I kept moving. Could this really be the spot? Would there be a large rock jutting out like my dad said? I reached the edge of the banana grove. There was no one around. The driver squatted by the edge of the lake, smoking, about a quarter of a mile away. The trees were full of green banana bunches. I started walking up through the grove looking intently for any rock that could fit the description. The ground was smooth, but damp. My shoes were completely black with mud. I scoured the entire grove over and over. There was no rock. There were no rice fields. But could this still have been the place. After all, it was the only lake in Thai Win and these were the only banana trees we could find around the lake. I went down to the beginning of the grove and sat flat right in the moist dirt. Removing my backpack, I pulled out the Rubbermaid container that held the ashes.

  “Dad. I did the best I could.”

  I looked down at the remains.

  “I know you never thought I would amount to anything. You were always disappointed in me. But look Dad, I’m in Vietnam. I’ve never even crossed into Ohio, and now I’m sitting under a banana tree in Vietnam. Dad, I did it.”

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The tears flowed, like every other night when I was young in my bedroom listening to dad yell at mom.

  “It doesn’t matter Dad. It doesn’t matter. I’m here. I’m here for you.”

  I unsealed the red lid on the two quart container when suddenly a light wind blew ashes all over my jeans.

  “Ahh,” I jumped up wiping my pants with my left hand while balancing the Rubbermaid top over the container in my right.

  “I can’t even dump out ashes. Idiot.”

  I backed up two feet when a banana tree branch pierced through my right hand and knocked the Rubbermaid onto the ground, dumping the ashes all over. I stood frozen, having a hard time believing what I just did, though I wasn’t totally surprised.

  “Sorry, Dad. You know I’ve always been a little clumsy. Sorry. But I made it, Dad. I made it to Vietnam.”

  Cremation

  Dad died the morning after he told me his Vietnam story. Mom didn’t react or say much of anything. I went for a walk. I stopped in front of the Methodist church on Main Street and thought about young dad and grandma walking through the arched front doors on a Sunday morning. The parsonage was set off to the side about a hundred feet further back from the street than the church. I walked right up the three cinderblocks used as steps for the front door and knocked firmly. I felt especially calm. An elderly man with a bald head and a rim of white hair from ear to ear smiled as he opened the wooden door.

  “Hello, son. What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Reverend. My name is Martin Kinney Jr. My family lives over on Home Avenue.”

  “You’re a Kinney. Martin Kinney, you say. Well I know your father. Or knew your father a long, long time ago. Come in, come in. I’m so glad you came. Your father is still a member here – inactive that is. But we never close the doors on reconciliation.”

  He brought me into his small living room. There was a red painted piano in the corner and a well-worn sofa opposite it where he sat me down as I pondered the shocking fact of my father being a church member.

  “So how is your father Martin?”

  “He died this morning,” I said without any emotion. I still didn’t know what I felt.

  “Oh Martin, I am sorry. How could I be of assistance to your family during this time?”

  “I never knew my Dad had ever gone to church. But last night, he was talking to me about when he was a boy and he said my grandma would take him every Sunday.”

  “Maggie. You must have never met your grandmother, is that right, Martin?”

  “Yes sir, that’s right. She died when I was one year old.”

  “I came here in 1960. Your father must have been about ten years old at the time. Your grandmother was a Godly woman. Never missed a service. She sang in the choir and directed the Christmas pageant for years; in fact, I believe it was my first Christmas here when your father sang a solo in the pageant.”

  “My father, sing?”

  “Well, that was a long time ago.”

  “Reverend, would you come and say a few words at my father’s funeral?”

  “Martin, of course I will,” he paused thoughtfully looking straight into my eyes. “Would you like me to take care of the whole funeral service?”

  I nodded gratefully.

  “Fine. I’ll take care of it. Just give me the details.”

  ______________

  By the time I arrived home, the funeral assistant was at the house talking to Mom in the kitchen.

  “Mr. Baldwin, I’ll be in this afternoon to pick out the casket,” I heard my Mom say to the short man all dressed in black.

  “Very well, Mrs. Kinney.”

  Neither acknowledged me as I stood in the doorway.

  “No,” I spoke boldly. “No casket. Dad’s being cremated.”

  My Mom twirled her head around and looked at me. Her eyebrows seemed to be permanently in the downward position for years now. I was used to this scowl, but I would not be moved.

  “Martin, take the trash out. We are busy here,” she turned back to Mr. Baldwin. “Is 3:30 okay?”

  “Yes, that would be fine, Mrs. Kinney.”

  “No, Mom. You don’t understand. Dad must be cremated.”

  “Martin, shut up!” She blushed mildly then turned back to Mr. Baldwin feigning a grin to cover over her harsh tone. “He just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  I ignored her and walked up to Mr. Baldwin. He uncomfortably smiled my way as I approached. The cremation would happen. I would see to it.

  “Mr. Baldwin, it was my father’s wish to be cremated…”

  “Martin. He said no such thing. Mr. Baldwin, I’m sorry for this distraction. He’s always butting his nose into things,” she said sourly.

  “Mr. Baldwin, he wanted to be cremated, so could you please arrange that? Also, could you notify Reverend Fox at the Methodist church over on Main Street about the funeral arrangements? I’ve asked him to say a few words and organize it for us.”

  “Reverend Fox? What the hell are you talking about? I will not have that man step foot in the funeral service. Just what are you trying to do? Martin, leave!”

  “Mom.”

  “Martin, I have had enough of you. Can you not respect my wishes just this once? Even on the day of my husband’s death?” Her voice rose sharply. “Get out of here and stop this nonsense.”

  Mr. Baldwin cowered by the refrigerator. Our kitchen was so small that a twosome fighting took up nearly the whole room.

  “So, what would you like me to do?” Mr. Baldwin interjected.

  “Cremation,” I said deliberately at him.

  This lit the fuse, and the explosion sure enough followed. Mom got into my face yelling every type of obscenity – the kind I had heard all before. Too many times. They didn’t pierce as deep or cut so easily. I walked to the counter for a glass as my mother hung onto me with her verbal assault. I ignored her. What she said didn’t matter. What she felt didn’t matter. What Mr. Baldwin thought of our relationship certainly didn’t matter. I walked back to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of milk. Mr. Baldwin hovered over me from my left; my mother’s assault continued fro
m the right. As I lifted my glass to my mouth, my mother grabbed it out of my hand and hurled it across the room. The glass sailed over the table and smashed through the kitchen window which overlooked the back porch. Glass splintered onto the table, though most of it was caught up in the thin cotton curtains. Everything stopped for a moment. My mother quieted down and backed up a step away from my ear. Mr. Baldwin rubbed his hands against his pants, fidgeting terribly. I looked at my mother. Her scowl stared at me but did not penetrate. I was remarkably calm.

  “Mom, if you would just listen to me. Dad told me last night what his wishes were. And I will honor them. I am no longer your little boy. I’m a man, Mom. I’m a man. Don’t you know how old I am?”

  A show of truth and emotion rarely heard by these four walls.

  “So you can rant and rave. You can swear at me and call me stupid. But for the first time ever, my Dad gave me a simple request – a heartfelt request. You can hate me for the rest of my life, but Dad is being cremated.”

  Mom started crying. She turned around without a word and headed for the staircase.

  “And Reverend Fox is speaking at the funeral,” I yelled after her then turned back to Mr. Baldwin who stood flatfooted but surely eager to charge out the door. “Mr. Baldwin, I’m sorry about all of this. It’s been kind of crazy around here lately. Can you make the necessary arrangements for the cremation?”

  “Sure. Yes. I’ll take care of it.”

  “And you can talk with Reverend Fox about the memorial service?”

  “I will,” Mr. Baldwin said. “Do you want the service at the funeral home?”

  “No. Why don’t we have it at the church?”

  At the Police Station

  The taxi driver rescued me from the throngs of people who continually wore me down with their concentrated stares. A visibly irritated 250 pound red-headed white man garnered an obscene amount of attention. Between the little boys who would come and pull the hairs on my arms and the girls who overloaded me with ‘What your name?’, ‘hello, hello’, ‘where you fum’ I experienced in a matter of minutes a lifetime’s worth of attention that I would have received on Home Avenue in Lyndora. The girl whom I held in my grasp was long gone as was my wallet. I felt so alone, except for the annoying taxi driver. He was happy I had already prepaid him, and I actually felt happy that he was still with me.

  “Just down here is police station. You can tell them.”

  We walked through the crowd; eyes were stuck all over me. Several people grabbed my gut. Little girls giggled at me and pointed at my hair. Hawkers selling everything from joss sticks to banana leaf wrapped rice hung all over me. I was a broke foreigner. A hawker’s worst nightmare. The taxi driver kept pulling me along.

  “Where was your wallet?”

  “In my back pocket.”

  “That’s stupid. Don’t put it in your back pocket.”

  “I know.”

  “If you know, why you do?”

  Shut up I thought.

  At the end of the dirt street sat a two story, mustard colored cement building which was the local police office. Tan, my driver, took me in the front door. There were several desks sprawled out on both sides of the room with about ten policemen in their drab green uniforms huddled around a couple different computers. They were drinking tea and watching a local drama on TV. Two of them stood up and barked out what sounded like some commands to Tan. Tan talked furiously at them pointing back to me from time to time. The two officers laughed, and then smiled at me which perked up the attention of the rest of the officers.

  “They want to know where you are from.”

  “America.”

  “America. Number 1,” one of the policemen said with a grin. He then exchanged words with Tan.

  “They want to know what you are doing in Thai Nguyen.”

  “My father was a soldier during the Vietnam War. He recently died, and I wanted to come see where he served.”

  Tan translated it back to the officers who now looked a little perplexed.

  “Your father. He a pilot? Airplane?” Tan asked.

  “No. He was a soldier. Infantry.”

  The Vietnamese exchanged more information.

  “Your father, was he American?”

  I looked at Tan strangely.

  “Of course he was American. Are they going to help me with my wallet?” I began to think that everyone around was nothing but a useless idiot. What silly questions to ask? Do I seriously look like I could have had a Vietnamese father with this height, weight, and pasty-white skin?

  “They said you are in the wrong place.”

  “No, I’m not. There was a theft. They are police.”

  “No, no. Not about wallet. You father not in Thai Nguyen.”

  “My Dad specifically said he was in Thai Win.”

  They chatted some more in Vietnamese when one of the officers quickly got excited. His voice raised and he laughed furiously while the others joined in.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Why no you tell me your father was a soldier? Then you don’t get your wallet stolen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your father no say ‘Thai Nguyen’ he said ‘Tay Nguyen’.”

  “Huh?”

  “This is Thai Nguyen. No American soldiers ever in Thai Nguyen. Tay Nguyen is in the south. Lots of American soldiers in the south during war. No soldiers here. Your father never here.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I looked around grasping at something to say. Could it really be true? Did I make a colossal mistake?

  “Here, look,” Tan pointed over to a map of Vietnam that was pinned onto a cork board. “Here, the capital Hanoi. You fly into the capital today. We travel north to Thai Nguyen – you say you want to find lake in Thai Nguyen. See here. Lake Nui Coc. Then I take you to cultural festival here. Chua Hang. This is north. But look, Tay Nguyen way down here. Highlands in the south. Lots of American soldiers there during the war. No soldiers in the north. You in the wrong place. You go to the right place, nobody steals your wallet today. Bad luck day.”

  My heart sank. I dumped my father’s ashes in the heart of communist Vietnam – over a thousand miles from the death of his comrades – over a thousand miles from the smile of that girl. How could I have been so stupid? Didn’t my dad know that I got D’s in history? Of course he didn’t. He never looked at my report cards. All he gave me was a simple request, but only I could mess it up this big. I deserved every one of my parents’ insults. I was an idiot. I was the biggest idiot ever. Everyone in the police station was having a good time – except me. Why did I even come here? Why didn’t we just bury him like normal people? Why did I have to step in? Why didn’t I let Mom take care of everything as she always did? I finally found enough of a voice to speak up.

  “How about my wallet?”

  Tan turned back to the officers and talked for a moment. Their excited expressions kept their intensity as they kept smiling and laughing.

  “Wallet gone. You will never find it. You can fill out police report if you want, but it waste time. You never get wallet again. Do you have any other money?”

  “No.”

  “Credit card?”

  “No.”

  “You in trouble.”

  The Funeral

  Mom gave in. She stepped back from all the arrangements and made me do everything. I didn’t mind at all. In fact, it was some of the best quality time I ever had with my father. The last time I felt this close to him was when we went to Conneaut Lake when I was seven. I still have the photo of us each holding cotton candy, and he had his arm around me, smiling. Was that really the last good memory of my father? I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to get through the funeral.

  Mr. Baldwin made the arrangements for Saturday morning, three days after dad’s death. Mom barely spoke a word to me during those three days. I spent Friday morning at the mall trying to find a black suit that would fit me. My everyday wardrobe consisted
of forty-seven t-shirts and four pairs of jeans which I wore in a cyclical manner. I was comfortable in every piece of clothing that makes itself at home in a bowling alley. But for dad’s funeral, I wanted to do it right, so I bought a two piece suit, trimmed my beard, and got a haircut.

  At about 9:30 on Saturday morning, Mom, in her black dress, and I, in my black suit, walked out of the house and started our silent march to the church which was just two blocks away.

  “Mom.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Are you still mad at me?”

  What frivolous questions I had in my mind.

  We continued our walk until we arrived at the Methodist church. The front door was unlocked, so we walked in to see Reverend Fox milling about in the front.

  “Mrs. Kinney. Martin. Please come up front so we can talk about the service. Mrs. Kinney, please accept my sincere condolences on the passing of your husband.”

  Mom glanced once right into Reverend Fox’s face and then continued right past him and sat in the front pew of the aisle on the left. She did nothing to acknowledge Reverend Fox. I couldn’t believe how incredibly rude and insensitive she was – even if it was her husband’s funeral.

  “I’m sorry, Reverend. My Mom hasn’t been herself lately,” I whispered knowing full well I just told a white lie in church. She was, in fact, feeling every bit herself.

  “Martin, it’s okay. Everyone grieves in their own way. I’ve learned not to take things so personally because a funeral is a very trying time indeed. You just be there for your mother. She’ll need you.”

  I nodded, acknowledging what he said but could not believe it. I kept my eyes on my Mom as Reverend Fox went over the particulars of the funeral. She unflinchingly kept her eyes forward perhaps staring at the urn, which had been placed on the communion table below the raised pulpit. I couldn’t wait for everything to be over. I couldn’t wait to make my arrangements for Vietnam even though I knew another battle with mom loomed on the horizon. She would never understand, and I could never tell her the truth about why I had to go to Vietnam. It would break her heart to know that dad had a good memory that she didn’t share. Perhaps his only good memory. She must have still loved him at some level in some way.