After Visiting Friends

  “And my grandmother?”

  “She could be quite removed.”

  “So you mean she was cold?”

  Kay smiles and touches my hand and says, “My word, you are just like Bob.”

  When Kay smiles, she smiles with her eyes. Her eyes are big and green and bright and they are never not sparkling. Beautiful. But looking at those eyes, I sense her longing. Loneliness? Her vulnerability? Or is that just me, projecting? Sitting here, though, listening to her, looking at her—I can see why my father wanted her to be his best friend. There’s a calmness about her. Before I met Brooke, I used to have this vision of what I needed in a woman: her hand on my forehead, calming me, taking away the sadness and the fury. That was all I searched for: a hand to soothe my fevered brow.

  Going home, I tell Kay to sit up front again.

  “I’ll never find my way back without you guiding me,” I say.

  The streets are empty. The only sound the heater whirring away. Porch lights here and there define our horizon. In the summertime, there’d be moths and katydids. I drive slowly. I tell myself it’s because this is what you do in a small town. But I know it’s because my mind is nervous. And I wish in this moment that I had come—as I have so often in my life—alone. That when I look in the rearview, I wouldn’t see my family, but simply blackness. Maybe Kay is what I was meant to discover. I think, Maybe I can take her back. Give her back those years. Maybe I can give him back to her.

  #

  I walk Kay to the door. She says, “Don’t leave. I want to give you something to help you.”

  I stand under the light. Hear the tick-tick-tick of the engine in the driveway. A minute later she returns with a paper grocery bag. Heavy and squarish, it feels like telephone books.

  “Stew thought you should have these.”

  I look inside. His scrapbooks.

  #

  When we get back to the Chief, my brother tells my nephew it’s pool time. My brother, my cousin, and I sit at a battered round table. Two six-packs, and bags of chips. Steam stains the window behind the pool that looks out on B Street. Taillights, headlights—they’re all made blue by the condensation. The motel is dead.

  My nephew yells for me to watch him, and he cannonballs into the pool. A spume rises and collapses in on itself. A moment later, his head pops above the surface, head pivoting, searching for us, for his bearings. Like a man overboard quickly calculating the shore. Looking for the harbor.

  He grins and slips beneath the surface, ripples where he once was.

  It’s time to tell my brother what I know. In my head, I’ve had this conversation too many times to count. But I’m nothing but knots. All I can imagine is that he’ll feel I have deceived him, bringing him all the way out to McCook to destroy his vision of our father.

  “Chris, there’s something about Dad I need to tell you.”

  “Did you find out about that night?”

  “Well,” I say, “I’m not sure and I can’t prove it. Yet, I mean. But we—I mean, Mark and I—we think there was a cover-up.”

  Mark lays out the story and my brother listens as he always does—quietly.

  Then I hear my brother ask, “Do you know for a fact that he was with someone?”

  “I don’t. We don’t. Not for a fact. But Mark and I have been trying to think of women who worked at the paper back then. And I’m talking to his old newspaper buddies. Like this guy Mark suggested—Craig Klugman.”

  “I remember him. He used to come to the house when Dad was alive. And for a while after. Short guy. Glasses.”

  My nephew appears. Water’s dripping off his thin body, his teeth chattering.

  “We’re going to go upstairs soon,” my brother says. “Get your last dives in.”

  My nephew skeeters toward the pool. His brisk bare feet slap the cold concrete.

  Splash.

  My brother says, “So, does Mom know?”

  “No,” I say. “I mean, there’s a chance I’m way wrong about all this. I hope I am.”

  I look at Mark.

  “We hope we’re wrong,” I say. “But I’m going to see what I can find out. I’ve got to do this, you know?”

  My brother nods. Like I say, he’s a quiet man. Then he says, “For now, I’m not telling anyone.”

  #

  In my room, I open the paper bag. Stew’s seven scrapbooks, so similar to my father’s. What’s with these men, their generation? I’m grateful for the scrapbooks. Seeing how the narrative of his life unfolds, how moments collide. The pages brittle now, cracking. So close to crumbling in my hands. The past—how fragile it is to our touch. I find the scrapbook where Stew has kept every issue of the high school newspaper from senior year. I find the last one.

  VOLUME TWENTY-SIX MCCOOK, NEBRASKA, MAY 13, 1952. NUMBER FIFTEEN

  THE BISON

  Published by Journalism Class

  McCook High School

  Printed by Acme Printing Co.

  McCook, Nebraska

  BISON STAFF

  Editor . . . . . . . . . . Bob Hainey

  Assistant Editor . . . . . . . . . . Doris Stevens

  News Editor . . . . . . . . . . Donna Carter

  Sports Editor . . . . . . . . . . Bob Jones

  Features . . . . . . . . . . Nancy Hubert

  Reporters . . . . . . . . . . Alta Shepherd, Enid Miller, Marla Sutton, Lillian Brehm

  The front-page headlines:

  JUNIORS HONOR SENIORS

  A piece by Bob Hainey about the spring dances: “The gaily bedecked North Ward auditorium was the scene of the banquet which featured an enchanting ‘Stardust’ theme. The equally thrilling spring prom was regally garbed in a ‘Showboat’ surrounding. And Skippy Anderson’s orchestra provided a melodious show of its own.”

  EIGHTEEN MHS STUDENTS FARE WELL AT FINE ARTS

  A report on a music and speech competition at the University of Nebraska.

  BISON SALUTES JR. BISON

  A brief, unbylined thank-you to the incoming staff.

  TYSON SUFFERS HEART ATTACK AT CAMBRIDGE HOME

  News of Mr. Noel Tyson, biology and American government teacher. He hopes to come back to give out report cards and to attend the senior convocation.

  HAINEY WINS SCHOLARSHIP

  Also unbylined. “Bob Hainey, MHS senior, is the recipient of a $450 scholarship to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., according to an announcement made last week by Carl Kuehnert, scholarship secretary at Northwestern.

  “Hainey attended the annual high school institute held on Northwestern’s campus last summer. He was judged the best feature writer at the session and was awarded a scholarship at the time. This award was based upon scholarship, citizenship and participation in extra-curricular activities. Hainey will use the grant to study radio news writing and reporting.”

  The rest of the front page carries column fillers—aphorisms as well as what passes for wit in 1950s Nebraska:

  Q: Do you know the difference between a sewing machine and a kiss?

  A: One sews seams nice and one seems so nice.

  I turn the page.

  PROGRAM OF THE SIXTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL

  COMMENCEMENT

  OF

  THE McCOOK

  SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

  TUESDAY, MAY 20, 1952

  MCCOOK CITY AUDITORIUM

  8:00 P.M.

  There is an announcement of the speaker: Richard W. Hainey riding in on the Burlington Zephyr from his job at the Chicago Tribune.

  Other features include the SENIOR WILLS, news about the next year’s group of cheerleaders (the Red Peppers), as well as about the new class officers. There also are the results of the POPULARITY CONTEST, including: BEST DANCER (Bob Hainey); MOST STUDIOUS (Bob Hainey); MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED (Bob Hainey); MOST POLITE (Bob Hainey); BEST DRESSER (Bob Hainey).

  The last story is headlined SENIOR CLASS PROPHECY:

  The morning sunlight seemed more golden than usual that day in 1975
when I stepped from the Burlington Zephyr onto the station platform. Here I was, Bob Hainey, foreign correspondent for the New York TIMES. The only thing foreign about my job was my attitude toward work. Finally, in an effort to get rid of me, my editor assigned me to cover the commencement address at my old alma mater, MHS.

  My father works in the name of every one of his classmates, seeing them in careers from janitor at the local train station (Merit Bell) to secretary of agriculture (Stew Karrer). He ends with:

  After a few hours in the old haunts, I decided that even though I was wrong on many counts when I wrote the class prophecy years ago, I still found that everyone was happy and a big success in his own right. I realized that the belief that I had cherished years before had come true. Nothing but the best had been accomplished by the grads of ’52.

  I close the paper. It happily returns to its fold, its creases. The muscle memory of old newsprint.

  From the other side of the cinder block, I hear my nephew.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  I put The Bison on my nightstand.

  Lights out.

  8

  SECOND-STORY WORK

  Icarus.

  Sons. Sons are roped to fathers. Fathers? Well . . . Are we sure they’re tied to sons? Sons need fathers. Fathers?

  Sons take years from fathers.

  Honest fathers know this. Picture an hourglass. Two globes. One filled, the other empty. Now, in your mind, turn it over. The top of the globe, the father. The grains of sand, his years. The bottom of the globe? That’s the son. See the years slipping away from the father. Filling up the son? Fathers flow into sons.

  Think of Icarus.

  A father and son exist on an island. At some point, the father longs to escape. The son? He doesn’t want to be left behind. Abandoned. And fathers? They always have plans. But sons should remember that the plans of their fathers often have holes. A father is no shield for a son.

  # # #

  After McCook, I decide I need to start at the beginning of the end: that night. And I need to start with the paper trail—his autopsy report. I call the Office of the Medical Examiner of Cook County to request a copy of my father’s file. A woman named Miss Crenshaw tells me she’ll look into it and I should call back in a few days.

  But Miss Crenshaw never again answers her phone. One day, she leaves me a message asking where to send my documents. I call back. A man answers and I give him my address. But days go by and no envelope. I call over and over. Nothing. No answer. Six or seven weeks go by. Finally, Miss Crenshaw answers. The thing is, she could not sound sweeter. Her voice has a touch of the South. She giggles. She says she doesn’t have the records yet and she’s sorry she hadn’t called but “my supervisor don’t let us do no long distance and he don’t let us answer the phone. So, it’s hard to get hold of me.”

  Yes, Miss Crenshaw, it is.

  But here I am with her on the phone, and I say, “Miss Crenshaw, I’m going to be in Chicago next Wednesday. Can we make a date to pull the records?”

  “Well, okay,” she says. “Why don’t you come around nine, child, ’kay?”

  #

  The Chicago medical examiner’s office is a hulk of concrete on the Near West Side. In the ’60s, this neighborhood was a swath of arson-ravaged slums. Redevelopment was supposed to come through the morgue. In the morgue, people saw new life. To this day, most Chicagoans still swear, “Long as I’m living, I won’t set foot in that part of town.” Once they are dead, the city sees that they do. The building’s official name is the Robert J. Stein Institute of Forensic Medicine. Stein was Chicago’s first medical examiner. First time I learned about M.E.’s was thanks to Jack Klugman: Quincy M.E. Friday nights on NBC. I was twelve. Loved that opener: Quincy standing before a shrouded corpse. A row of LAPD recruits at attention behind him. “Gentlemen,” Quincy says, “you are about to enter the most fascinating sphere of police work. The world of forensic medicine.” And like an illusionist snapping his cape back to reveal a sawed-in-half assistant, Quincy drops the shroud. One cadet retches. Another, his knees knock out from under him and he sinks out of the frame. Quincy—death as an identity. A calling.

  “We interrupt Quincy to bring you a special, live report from News5.”

  Christmas break, 1978. I’m a freshman in high school. Night after night, Robert Stein emerges from 8213 West Summerdale Avenue—a postwar bungalow only a few blocks from our house. Night after night, all of Chicago waits for this man. In the street in front of the house, reporters and cops smoke and stomp the cold out of their shoes. Police cars and paddy wagons, their blue Mars lights forever circling, clog the narrow street.

  For more than a month, it’s like this. The small man emerging to tell Chicago what he’d seen that day beneath John Wayne Gacy’s house. He has a thin mustache and glasses with thick lenses, and when he talks, his breath turns to frost in the night’s bitter cold. That’s what the weathermen always say in Chicago. Bitter cold. All through Christmas break and beyond—one dead boy after another. Thirty-three in all. Every day, a new boy’s photograph in the newspaper. The boys, my age. I see myself in them. Boys looking for more. Looking to escape. To join the world of men. So a guy offers you a job. It’s construction. A chance to work with your hands. He says he needs some work done at his house. He shows you the crawl space, his flashlight shining into the black notch. See? he says as you kick your leg over the concrete wall and scuttle in, bumping your head on the rough underside of the kitchen floorboards.

  “There,” the man says. “See? No, farther. I’m too big to fit in there, but you’re perfect. Your old man must be proud to have you around the house. The hole you’re digging’s really gonna help me. Yeah, it’s drainage. I got problems. Things keep backing up. Hey, take your shirt off if you’re getting hot. I can wash it. Your jeans, too. Your mom’d probably kill you if you came home like this. You know, while we’re waiting for ’em to dry, how ’bout a beer? That’s what men do after working together. You’re a man, ain’t ya? Drink up. What? These? Handcuffs. See that? Mmmph. Don’t struggle. Jesus, now you did it. I told you not to struggle.”

  They always wait until night to bring the bodies out. All that long winter, dead boys in black bags borne from the basement. Cops ferry them down the driveway, eyes scanning for black ice. Klieg lights from TV cameras cast the men into spidery shadows on the front yard’s crushed-down snow. And when the police get to the paddy wagon, they raise their loads high overhead, offering them up to the men in the truck. The loads, unsteady. Shapeless. Like men passing up duffel bags stuffed with dirty laundry.

  From my basement, I watch it all. Night after night. My brother and I, wrapped in our grandmother’s afghan. And I think, I know these boys.

  #

  Now here I am. Sitting in the waiting room of the Robert J. Stein Institute of Forensic Medicine. A legacy—a building—built on bodies. His portrait looks down at me.

  Out the window, two men in thin black trench coats huddle at the driver’s door of a silver hearse. A cop stands behind them, looking over their shoulders. The two men in black have unbent a coat hanger and are taking turns sticking it in the gap between the door frame and the window. Exhaust seeps from the hearse’s rusty tailpipe.

  Two men enter the lobby. One is about my age. The other is maybe in his sixties. They walk up to the receptionist. She sits behind Plexiglas, has a small hole cut in it. The younger man presses a piece of paper to the Plexiglas. The woman in the box tells him to wait near the metal door. They sit next to me. A few minutes later a woman emerges carrying a clipboard and a large manila envelope, the size they put X-rays in. The woman tells the man to hold out his hands, and when he does, she turns the envelope upside down. Into the man’s palms fall a small stud earring, a driver’s license, some money, and a key.

  The envelope lady says, “Are these your son’s personal effects?”

  “A Honda key,” the o
lder man says, and he looks at the younger man.

  The younger man keeps looking at his palms, at the objects. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, “they are.”

  “Sir, I’m going to need you to fill out this form verifying these are the effects of your son. When you’re finished, let that woman know.”

  She points to the lady behind the Plexiglas, the woman with the hole, and hands him the clipboard. There’s a long rubber band attached to that silver clip piece, and a pen hangs off it, like a stick man caught in a jungle vine trap, dangling from a tree. There are small boxes on the form for each letter of the dead person’s name. The father of the dead boy starts to write his son’s name. He gets three boxes in, then stops. His hand is shaking. He looks to the older man beside him, and says, “Dad, can you do this for me?”

  #

  I walk to the woman behind the Plexiglas. Next to her box, a sign taped to the wall: CLEAN HANDS SAVE LIVES.

  Before I can say anything, she asks, “Are you on TV?”

  “A few times. For work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “I work at GQ.”

  “I knew I seen you. Look at you! All full of life. You should be a preacher of something, telling people how to pull it all together. Lord, why you in this place?”

  I tell her I’m here for Miss Crenshaw, and she says, “Okay, but why you here?”

  And I don’t know why—maybe it’s because she’s a stranger, maybe because it might well be a Plexiglas confessional—but I tell her the whole story. And I tell her how I’m scared of what I may find, because I fear hurting my mother and brother. I fear losing their love.

  The woman just looks at me and she says, “What you need to do is tell that story. God wants you to tell that story.”

  She smiles. She’s soothing. Middle-aged. She has a tight Afro with wet curls and wears large-framed purple glasses. The kind where the temples are on the down side of the frame.

  “My name’s Jan Scott,” she says. And she puts two fingers through the hole.

  I tell her my name and I touch her two fingers.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Michael.”

  I look at her desk. She has two books open, side by side.