by James R Benn
He set the cup down on the table and looked out the kitchen window, out at the line of trees, now sprouting springtime leaves. They lived on Buckwheat Hill, a small knoll above the city. When they had built the house, they had a clear view over to the Polish Cemetery, but now there were houses in the way on roads with silly names like Jimmy Lane and Louis Drive. From this window though, looking towards the northeast, they still had a clear view of Lamentation Mountain. Dark brown shale spilling down the sides, a covering of green clinging to the top. Perfect name for a mountain that was falling apart, chunks of rock falling off and choking the trees below as it piled up all around them. Clay thought about how long the mountain had been there, shedding its outer surface, laying itself bare to the world. What would be left when it had all fallen away?
A shudder of sadness swept through Clay. Looking at his hands, cupped around the coffee mug, the warmth bleeding into his aching knuckles, he tried to nail down where the feeling came from. Surprises scared him. He could handle it if he were prepared, like he was prepared for the volleys at Bob’s funeral yesterday. It still got to him, but if he knew it was coming, he could steel himself, like a G.I. digging in. Give me ten minutes and I’ll bury my ass. Getting caught out in the open was the last thing he wanted.
Death? How far off could it be? Was that what slid its knife into his gut? No, not that. He felt a calmness about death. Not about dying, exactly, but the whole idea of being dead, after being alive so long, didn’t chill him like it did when he was young. It had once seemed terrifying, the complete absence of himself. Now, it was the next logical step, and he had to admit to himself, the years had built up to a weariness he had never conceived of. Some day, it would be enough.
He looked out of the window again. The houses. He smelled the coffee. He turned to look at the calendar on the wall, next to the refrigerator. That was it. He closed his eyes, leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He missed his old world. A world without plastic Mr. Coffee machines, streets named after some contractor’s kids, houses jammed up against each other, computers, cheap telephones, passwords, log in codes, everything that was supposed to make life easier but really confused him, left him wishing he could step back in time, walk into the bank, hand over his bankbook and chat with a teller for a minute. He wanted to be back in a century with real years and decades, not some zeroed out year that no one even knew how to say. Home alive in ’45, they used to say in December 1944, before all hell broke loose, and the less popular Out of the Sticks in ’46 started making the rounds. What would guys even rhyme with today? Two-thousand? O-O? Aught-aught?
Clay wanted coffee perked on a wood stove, a clear view out his window, Addy whole again, a second chance at so many things. But that was impossible. Here he was, washed up on the shores of the future, a relic, like a character from an old black and white movie thrown into a special effects blockbuster. Sam Spade in Star Wars, shades of gray tones stunted against computer generated color images of aliens and space ships. It was almost funny.
Eyes still closed, hands around the coffee mug, he felt the warmth on his palms and remembered. The candle. When everything else was too much, the cold, death, stupidity, and chickenshit piling up all around him, he had the warmth from his candle. Such a simple thing. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d even lit a candle. Now the desire brewed up inside him, like a coffee pot on the boil, and the only thing in the world he wanted was to flick that Zippo, light a wick, and stare into the candlelight. His mind surveyed the house, wondering where Addy kept candles. Surely she kept candles somewhere, for a power outage, at least. He calculated the chances of waking her, of being found out, trying to explain himself, but he didn’t really care, all he wanted was a candle, to touch his fingertips behind it and study the flame.
A sob choked him and he clapped a hand over his mouth, gritting his teeth, trying to swallow it, to not let the desire out into the silence of the kitchen. He felt the sob form a bubble in his throat and the pressure pained him but he didn’t let go. Tears spilled from his eyes, catching him off guard, lessening his concentration. He choked, coughing, burying his face in his hands, trying to stem the flow of tears as he gasped, choking some more, trying to regain control, to keep his body from betraying him.
“Are you all right, Dad?”
“Jesus Christ—” Clay coughed again and rubbed the sleeve of his robe over his face. He took a deep breath, and let it out without coughing. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. Coffee went down the wrong pipe, then you scared the daylights out of me.”
Chris had slept in the guest room last night, instead of going back to his empty apartment. His parent’s old bedroom, actually. After the stroke, Clay and Chris had moved the bedroom down to the first floor, so Addy wouldn’t have to climb stairs. The room had been repainted and a new double bed set up, but it still felt odd to Clay to have Chris sleep there. As if he was trespassing.
“Sorry,” Chris said. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yep, sure.” Clay got up and went to the sink. He splashed water on his face, filled a glass, swirled some around in his mouth, and spit. “Went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.”
“Whatever you say,” said Chris. He was dressed for work, his suit jacket slung over one arm, blue tie knotted tight on a crisp white shirt. He kept one of the bureau drawers in the guest room filled with spare clothes for the times he stayed with his parents. Since his divorce, and his mother’s stroke, it was something he did frequently. His office, part of the State Police Criminal Investigations Bureau, was on Broad Street in Meriden. He could walk to work from their house. He had no wife, no kids, no pets, hobbies or friends to draw him back to the apartment complex. Clay figured he lived there because he was too old to move back in with his parents, but not for any other real reason.
“Want some coffee?” Clay asked.
“Sure.” Chris hung his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair. In his hand he held his holstered automatic and State Police badge in its leather holder, both of which clipped to his belt. He set them down on the table, and sat in the chair. It was more comfortable to sit without them on his belt, the badge in front, visible, and the holster to the side, hiding the Glock 19 from view.
Clay poured a cup of coffee and set it in front of Chris, along with the sugar bowl. He topped off his own cup and sat down. The emotions had gone underground, tamped down by effort and fear, fear that they would betray him, reveal him for who he really was. Clay blew on his coffee and sipped, looking at the gun on the table. It was a dull black beneath the heavy-duty nylon holster, an even duller dark gray that seemed to absorb light into its thick stitching.
Chris caught his father’s eyes on the gun, and moved the holster and badge to the side, as if to make room for his arm on the table. Clay looked away, back out the window, willing himself to look away from the hypnotic dark sheen of the handgun, wondering at the irony of Chris going into law enforcement. He was good at it, no doubt. Sometimes it worked out that way for hell raisers. If they didn’t get in too deep as kids, or get caught, they had a fine eye for judging people and understanding the law. Skirting it during your teenage years had a way of building a familiarity with its boundaries, and learning how it should be applied fairly.
“Mom still sleeping?” Chris asked in a low voice.
“Yep.” Addy never used to sleep in. She always had been up before Clay, padding around the house in her slippers, getting the coffee going, organizing things, doing all the little jobs Clay never took notice of, until she stopped doing them. After her stroke, magazines stopped appearing in neat piles in the morning, dishes stacked up in the rack, and there weren’t always fresh color-coordinated towel sets in the bathroom. Things still got done, but slowly, so he could see the progression, understanding now how she did things, how much work it had been for her to make it all seem simple, invisible, as if clean towels all the same shade of mauve or plum or peach simply appeared on the rack.
Truth was, Clay knew Addy was proba
bly awake by now. It was hard for her to get up, get going in the morning. Clay used to hover over her, trying to help, getting her bathrobe, lending an arm to walk her to the bathroom. She had hated it, and one day told him to get out. Not an affectionate get out from underfoot kind of thing, but a curt, angry, clipped, get out. He did, and now he was the early riser, brewing up coffee and memories, waiting for Addy to get herself ready for the day, appearing to him as fit and cheerful as she could be, the struggle of preparing for the day left behind in the empty bedroom.
“She seems better,” Chris said. He stirred a teaspoon of sugar into his coffee. “Don’t you think?”
“Yep,” said Clay, sipping some more of his coffee. He wished he could say more, confess his deepest wish for Addy to recover, but it was too close to his heart, a dream of his heart, and he couldn’t let go and risk it breaking completely. The memory of the candle was too recent for him to risk anything at all. But he knew Chris was concerned, worried, scared, and needed reassurance, more words than the single affirmative he had managed to squeeze out.
“Yep, I do.” Smile, he could smile.
He looked at Chris and smiled, trying to communicate confidence. Chris set down his cup and turned in his chair, facing his father.
“You’re a man of damn few words, Dad.”
“True,” Clay said.
“Why? Why so stingy with something that’s free and easy to give?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. A story about when you were a kid. What it was like in Tennessee, who your buddies were in the war. Who you really are.”
“I’m your father.” He set his coffee cup down and folded his hands on the table.
“Who are the guys in that photo? And why do you have that other guy’s dogtag?”
Clay picked up his coffee, blowing on it although it had already cooled down. He set it down without taking a drink.
“You ask me that question about once a decade. The answer is the same. They were guys I knew, and I don’t want you pawing through my souvenirs.”
“That was over thirty years ago.”
“It still stands.”
“A couple of dogtags, a beat-up Zippo, and a creased photograph in that cigar box, along with a bunch of junk. Why do you have your own dogtags and one from this guy Burnett?”
“I ought to have mine, shouldn’t I? And the other is a guy, that’s all.”
“And?”
“And that’s it.”
“What’s the big deal, Dad?”
“That’s for me to know.”
“That’s the real problem between us, Dad. It’s for you and no one else, right?”
“A man’s got a right.”
“Maybe. But what about you and me?”
“What about us?”
“Maybe it’s me, I don’t know,” Chris said. “You and mom always got along, always held each other close. I couldn’t hold onto Kathy, but maybe that was our fault, maybe we were wrong for each other. But you and me—”
“What?”
Chris slapped the table with his left hand and turned away from his father. He rubbed his chin with his hand, grimacing as he tried to get the words out.
“You and me—do you remember when I was a little kid, and you used to take me down to the train station? We’d watch the trains come in, they were so big and loud they scared me. I remember you holding my hand, I can even remember the coat you had on. It was long, gray, with a fur collar and a belt around the waist, like a trench coat. I don’t think I was any higher than that belt, I had to stretch my neck back to see your face. But as long as you were there, I knew I was safe. I can still see the wheels of the engine start to turn. Do you remember?”
“Yep,” said Clay, “I do.” He knew it was important that he remember, but for the life of him he couldn’t. Funny how little things you do with a child assume an importance far greater than you ever thought it would. It sounded right, so he knew he must’ve done it, and saw no reason to admit otherwise.
“Christ, Dad, I’m older now than you were then. I’ve got no family other than the one I started with, Mom’s had a stroke, and we barely talk. If you took out the yeps and nopes there wouldn’t be a whole lot left.”
They both looked out the window, hands on their coffee mugs, one man not knowing what to say, the other wishing he could take back what he’d said, the honesty too sharp for this quiet kitchen morning. Clay’s mind raced, trying to hit upon the right thing to say, to string words together in such a way that they would satisfy Chris without undoing himself.
“You’re half right about your mother and me,” he finally said. “It wasn’t always easy between us. But we ended up okay. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“So I’m, what, second best?” Chris said. He smiled as he sipped his coffee, but Clay knew it was half a joke, at best.
‘It’s different. You’re with your wife longer than you are with a child, if you play your cards right. Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No, that’s okay, I know what you mean.”
“You’re important to me, Chris. Now that you’re grown up, I figure you know that. It was different when you were a kid. You needed me.”
“It’s not about needing, Dad. It’s about what I want for both of us.”
“What’s that?” Clay felt stupid having to ask, but he was wary, afraid of what Chris might demand, or what he might misunderstand. Better to get things straight.
“Understanding,” he said, with a shrug. “What did you want from your father?”
“My father’s got nothing to do with this,” Clay said. “Leave him out of it.”
“Sorry. I forgot about the forbidden topics.”
“Don’t get wise.”
“Dad, let’s not do this.”
“Okay,” Clay said, holding up one hand in truce.
“Look, I’m good at catching bad guys. I’m lousy at having a relationship. Is it me? Outside of work, I spend more time with you than anyone else, and we argue most of the time, or don’t speak at all.”
“We get along okay, and your mother—”
“Everyone’s mother loves them, Dad. And we coast along, but I still don’t know a lot about you, not really.”
“You should know me fine by now. I’m the guy who raised you, provided for you, sent you to college, remember?” Clay tried to say this with a smile, to soften it, but he was good and pissed off. What did Chris know about mothers? He had the best there was, and probably thought the Addys of the world were standard issue.
“Tell me about your mother, Dad.”
“I’m not going over all that again. The past is the past.”
“Someone once said those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it,” Chris said.
“Yeah? Well, he probably was a rich kid whose folks never got their hands dirty. Put him to work on a farm sunup to sundown, seven days a week, year-round, kill off the only people who love him, then send him to war, and I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts he’ll want to forget the past in no time flat!”
“Point taken,” Chris said. He sipped his coffee, waiting for Clay to calm down. “But I still want to know about all that. It’s part of you, and you’re part of me. Everything I do, Dad, is about looking into people’s lives. I know more about most of my suspects than I do about you.”
Clay wrung his hands, massaging his arthritic knuckles. He knew Chris was good at his job, and a big part of that was being an interrogator. Chris could keep at him, advancing and retreating, but always coming back to the question until he found a way to ask it that Clay couldn’t deny. He needed to steer the conversation away from mothers and fathers and the world before the war. After the war, that was his world. Why did Chris need to push him back, back into the past, where the killing and the dead lived? Why couldn’t he live out his years here, up on Buckwheat Hill, have a cup of coffee with his son, talk about baseball, maybe?
“What else do you remember, besides
the train station? How about the airport?”
“Yeah,” said Chris, accepting this bit of offered memory. “Markham Municipal Airport. We used to drive out there and watch the planes. You’d let me sit in your lap and help you drive out on those back roads.”
“I forgot that part. We had an old Studebaker back then.” Clay could see the bright red finish, the chrome steering wheel, and could feel Chris on his lap, tiny legs dangling over his, small hands gripping the wheel. The window was down, he had one arm resting on it, and the warm breeze swept over them. He smiled, glad to have the memory back.
“Did you ever drive on your father’s lap?” Chris asked.
Clay got up. Goddamn it! Things were so much easier when Chris was a child. He could tell him stories, put him on his lap, watch Piper Cubs land and take off, it was all wonderful. If he wanted more, it was always more of what Clay had to give, which was fine with him. But Chris turned some sort of corner when he was fourteen or so. He started wanting more of what Clay didn’t have. Money, new cars, cool clothes, whatever was beyond reach, more than Chris should reasonably expect out of life, that’s what he wanted. Clay had no concept of that desire. He was alive, made a living, had a good wife. Period. It was enough.
He was Chris’ father, had done everything he knew how to do to raise him, but still that wasn’t enough. More, more, more. A grown man now, and Chris was still following after him, wanting to claim his birthright. If he only knew.