“The kid was an asshole like his old man,” he said.
I told Dad that Archie was a school principal somewhere.
“Not anymore. One day he started smelling like a pancake at school, making all the little ones hungry. Then he got really tired like the flu and then he began to forget. They took him to the hospital. He got the maple syrup urine disease and had to retire.”
“You’re making this up.”
“As God is my witness!”
Dad recognized Mom, of course. “Wasn’t she a beauty?” But he couldn’t remember the pet name that he called her. “Not Numnums, but something like that. It wasn’t the word; it was the way I said it.”
Dad told me about the beatings he took from his dad, from the nuns and priests, from the bullies Lavigne and Mulhearn, and all of it with a smile. No hard feelings. He insisted on the happiness of his childhood. Yes, he’d been expelled from St. Stephen’s, but he deserved it. But he couldn’t remember the last dozen years with any clarity. “After your mother died, I kind of lost interest.” He held out his empty glass. “Hit me!”
“Cognac this time?”
“That’ll work.”
“And then we’ll head out to see the lights.”
At seven, we bundled up, filled a thermos with coffee from the lobby, and went out to see the aurora borealis. The few other guests had, apparently, decided to watch from the cozy warmth and darkness of their rooms. We walked through the parking lot and along a plowed pathway to a small amphitheater beyond the spruce trees and took our seats on a stone bench. The trees were mantled in creamy snow. And all at once a pink and smoky light rose from behind a distant mountain. I tapped Dad’s shoulder and pointed. He nodded and gave me a mittened thumbs-up. And then a sheer and undulating curtain of green dropped from the sky above us. Dad looked up and said something, but I couldn’t make it out, so I smiled, nodded, and imagined he’d said, What a great place this is, this earth. A shimmering violet ribbon appeared below the green, and the snow around us turned rosy. And then these yellow bands of light began to charge across the sky driven by magnetic winds. Dad tapped my arm and motioned for me to take off my hat, lean close, and listen. He said, “Hunbuns.”
“What?”
“The pet name.”
While we thawed out by the fireplace in our room, I tried to imagine how anyone could have survived in this bleak and frigid place before electric lights and central heat. In this darkness, exposed to the unforgiving elements, not to mention the predatory wildlife. In cold like this your body can’t help itself. It shakes and trembles and shivers involuntarily. Your only desire is to get warm. Warmth is joy and salvation. And the best way to do that would be to wrap yourself in grizzly bear pelts and slip inside an igloo and cover yourself with sled dogs and drift off into a never-ending sleep.
Dad’s hands were still icy. I rubbed them in mine. We tried running cold water over them. I put them under my armpits. “Those lights,” he said, “they were something. This trip was a crackerjack idea.”
I made coffee so that Dad could warm his hands around the mug. We cut the lights and sat in the dark looking out at the incandescent sky.
I asked him what he wanted to do tomorrow. He shrugged. I told him about the antique auto museum and the ice museum. I said we could go to the movies. Whatever we ended up doing, we’d take cabs—we’d had enough of the cold. And we had, I realized, several more long, dark days ahead of us. “So what do you think?”
“Whatever you want to do.”
Well, I didn’t want to have that circular conversation, so I said, “Let’s play it by ear.”
I’d brought my small digital recorder with me. We could sit and talk. A little drink, a little chat, another drink. In vino veritas. He could tell me his story. I could coax it out of him. “Why do you think Mom surrendered to her past? Why did she give up the fight?”
He’d probably say, Her pain became unbearable. The injustice was intolerable. That monster Dushanski alive, dandling his grandchildren on his knee and smiling for family photographs. But what he really said was, “So what do you make of me?”
“What?”
“How was I as a father? What grade would you give me?”
“You get an A.”
“Bullshit.”
“All right. You were on shaky ground for a while there, but you mellowed as you aged.”
“I resented the hell out of you when Cam died. So did your mother. Cam had a gift.”
“For self-destruction. You were relieved when he died. ‘Thank god it’s over,’ you said.”
“I was heartbroken. I was never able to help him. Cam, he got the smarts, the genius, and the charm. You got the stability, the even disposition, and the sincerity.”
Swirling ribbons of white light spiraled up and away from the mountain, and a great arc of blue light stretched across the sky.
Dad said, “We should get going.”
“Where?”
“Home. See that crazy cat, Renaldo.”
“We’re in Alaska.”
“Are you sure?”
I recounted our last few days for him and he nodded. Then he said, “Did Donny Bullens just leave?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but no one left. We’re here alone.”
“He was a funny son of a bitch. Any asshole can be funny when he’s drunk. Donny was funny always.”
I felt like I should call the airline and try to get us on an earlier flight out. ASAP. The nasty business back home seemed like a fairy tale. Bad guys don’t kill people like me. Dad saw the lights. Mission accomplished. But then I reminded myself that this was a chance, maybe a last chance, to talk with Dad while he still knew who I was—most of the time.
He said, “I shit my pants.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I got him to the bathroom. I turned on the heater, stripped him down, wiped him clean, drew a very hot bath, and helped him ease into the tub. “This’ll really warm you up. Just sit here awhile till you’re toasty, and then give me a shout. I shut the door to keep the steam and the warmth inside. I got online and saw that it had been in the mid-eighties at home. It made no sense calling Patience in the middle of her night.
I turned down Dad’s bedcovers, figuring the hot bath would soothe and temper him, get him so relaxed he’d sleep like a newborn. I set out his flannel pajamas and a pair of woolen socks. I have to read myself to sleep, even if it’s for five minutes, have to ease my way to dreamland. Dad, on the other hand, was blessed with the gift of immediate slumber. His head hit the pillow, and he was gone.
I poured Dad two fingers of cognac in case he wanted a nightcap and set the glass on the bedside table. I called to him to get a move on—“You don’t want to turn into a prune”—something he’d always said to me. As kids, we’d all take our Saturday baths in the same water—to save money, I imagine. And it was great to be first and to luxuriate in the silky and steamy water. And it was hell to be third. I suppose it was five or ten minutes later that the silence became alarming. Oh, shit! I opened the bathroom door and saw Dad lying there in the tub, the water to his chin, his eyes shut, his head resting on the back of the tub. I knelt by him and said his name. I shook his shoulder, shook it harder, and yelled his name. I ran to the phone and called 911 and then Gayla, who said she’d be right up. I drained the tub, felt for a pulse, but couldn’t find one, but I assumed I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought I should probably do CPR, but I wasn’t sure I knew how. Gayla did. We lifted Dad out of the tub and set him on a blanket. Gayla got to work, told me to fetch Clement and have him warm the car. When I left with Dad in the ambulance, Gayla said she’d meet me at the hospital.
Dad was pronounced dead of a heart attack at ten-fifteen. Gayla said she would handle any arrangements. I told her I wanted Dad cremated. She brought me back to the lodge, where I got my laptop, sat by the fire in the lobby, and e-mailed Patience, Phoebe, and Bay with the doleful news. And then I called Venise, who said, “
Do you have any idea what time it is?” I said I didn’t and told her about Dad. She screamed, “You killed my father, you bastard.” I hung up and shut off the phone.
Clement came over to express his condolences. I thanked him and asked him to sit. I told him it was very sad, but not unexpected. Clement tugged at his suspenders and told me that Dad was the third guest of the lodge to die during his stay. The first was a semi-famous rock singer from Boston who had checked in with a girlfriend. On their second night, he overdosed on pills and alcohol up in his room. “I never say which room,” Clement said. The cuffs of Clement’s long johns extended beyond the cuffs of his brown corduroys. The other unfortunate was a young man from Seattle, a grad student in philosophy, a very personable fellow, who one day put on a pair of snowshoes right out there by the amphitheater and started walking across the snowfields toward the mountains. They found his body during the spring thaw. Clement asked me if I was a man of faith.
“I’m not, I’m afraid.”
“Would you mind if I kept you and your father in my prayers?”
“I would like that.”
“He lives on, your father. That’s what I believe.”
“I wish I believed it.”
He smiled. “You don’t have to.” Clement leaned forward and turned to face me. “Death is like walking into a new room. The door closes behind you, and you hear the snick of the lock engaging. And then someone turns on the lights, and for a second it’s so bright you can’t see, and then you realize you have been living in the dark all this time. Once you were blind. There’s so much around us here that we don’t see, that we cannot see.” He clapped his chest with his hands. “This husk,” he said, “this body, is a mere vessel for the soul, and when the vessel breaks, the soul is released, and it shines in paradise like the lights here in our sky.”
“That must be comforting.”
“It’s exhilarating, this heavenly life.”
I woke up, sort of, feeling drugged, slumped in my leather chair, covered by a crocheted afghan, in front of the spent fire. I didn’t know where I was or who I was or what day or year it was. Something about Dad’s dying—how his fingertips were all puckered. What was that about? When I saw the man in the yellow and black ski suit sitting so conveniently in the chair beside mine, I realized that, in fact, I was still dreaming. There was a lamp somewhere behind me, enough light so I could almost make out the man’s face, and he looked like Carlos, which should not come as a surprise. So I was back, I figured, in my bed in Melancholy, lucidly dreaming about this chilly lobby and about some unclear and disturbing events because I was anxious about the impending trip to Alaska, about everything that might go wrong. And it appeared that I had killed my father earlier in the dream, and so the man who looked like my friend the cop had come to arrest me, but he was being cute about it.
The man whispered, “It’s about time you woke up.”
I said, “You look like a friend of mine.”
He put a finger over his lips for me to speak quietly. “Sorry to hear about Myles.”
“Oh, he’s not really dead.”
“Coyote, it’s me, Carlos.” He snapped his fingers. “Are you okay?”
I whispered, “Carlos, what the fuck?” but it was a stage whisper, and Carlos gestured for me to tone it down a bit.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said.
I sat up and looked around. I could smell smoke. The moose head mounted over the fireplace was a convincing detail. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not here.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m in Florida, and I can prove it.”
“I believe you.”
I shut my eyes, and he was still there; in fact, his face had more definition than a moment ago.
He said he was here to save my life.
I watched myself and waited to see what I’d say. At first I didn’t say anything. And then I said, “But you’re not here.”
He said, “Open your eyes when you talk to me. It’s creepy.”
I opened them.
He said, “Our friend Vladimir is here, somewhere, in Fairbanks.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No, and he hasn’t seen you, or you would be dead.”
“That’s absurd.”
“He’s a torpedo and he’s been dispatched to find you and … prishit’, as they say in Sunny Isles.”
Either he was speaking gibberish or I wasn’t dreaming, because I didn’t know those terms.
“Why?”
“His employers think you know too much.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You don’t know what you know.”
“So you followed me here?”
“When I see Vladimir, I’m going to kill him.”
I told myself to wake up.
“One of the ways we keep order is to dispose of the disorderly.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this.”
“It’s not like I want to kill him. I have to kill him.”
“Noble corruption, is that what you call it?”
The man who might have been Carlos reached over and tapped my knee. “Listen to me.” He leaned in and told me I needed to protect myself. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we buy you a handgun and get you some shooting lessons. This way, at least you can look formidable for a few seconds, long enough, maybe, to save your life.”
By then I was willing to believe that the conversation, as ridiculous as it was, might be happening. “I don’t want a gun.”
“Trust me,” he said. “You need a gun. I can’t be everywhere all at once.” He stood, told me to get some rest, you’re going to need it. He said he’d call me in the morning.
I just sat there, closed my eyes, wondered if I should get off my ass and walk upstairs to our suite, thereby proving, one way or the other, if this was a dream or not. I felt a frigid breeze, turned, and saw the front door closing.
Venise called at three in the morning. I couldn’t sleep anyway. She asked me what she was supposed to do with our father’s cremains when they arrived. I told her to put them on the mantel or scatter them in the ocean. She told me if I hadn’t dragged Dad to Alaska he’d still be alive, and I couldn’t argue. She told me she was going to have to quit her job. Her gastroenterologist and his team of butchers were intent on harvesting her organs.
I said, “Why?”
She said, “Commerce in human organs is big business. Read the papers.”
“Well, they won’t want your stomach, Venise.”
“You think this is a joke?” And then she screamed at me, and I asked her if I could talk to Oliver. She put him on.
I said, “What’s going on?”
He said, “It’s all she has right now, Wylie. Don’t take it away from her.”
I always had to share Dad with Venise and Cameron, and I hated that I did because I needed him more than they did, or I imagined I did, which amounts to the same thing, but couldn’t get Dad to see that, and I couldn’t compete with Cam’s charm and exuberance or with Nisie’s (we called Venise Nisie when she was young) effusive and adamant amiability. There are all these photos in the family album of me watching Dad holding one of my siblings and me looking alarmed with a brittle and provisional smile. I was never ignored or neglected, but I did feel overlooked now and then, and I was confused. I couldn’t figure out how to get what I needed without becoming someone else.
Some of my childhood memories of Dad are of his absence. He wasn’t there at my elementary school graduation. He wasn’t at the hospital when I broke my left wrist falling off my bike. My mother drove me to Memorial’s emergency ward, walked me through the intake, and handed me a quarter to catch the bus back home. Dad didn’t teach me to drive, to balance a checkbook, to repair an appliance, or to speak up for myself. But, of course, he had his own life and had to navigate a difficult marriage while raising the three of us as a married single parent, and my resentment was unfair and unwarranted. Georgia u
sed to say that Dad knew how to push my buttons because he installed them.
Dad tried to teach me to swim by carrying me out until the water was over my head and throwing me in. I learned to sink. He taught me not to be afraid of a pitched baseball by making me stand still and then bouncing the pitches off my ribs and arms. One night I was sitting on the front porch when a car pulled up, the back door opened, my father got out, the door closed, the car pulled away. Dad wore a Panama hat and a discomposed expression. He looked at me, took a deep breath, tried to put his hands in his pockets, worked to arrange his droll mug into a smile but failed, and then suddenly dropped to his knees as if in prayer, and from his knees, he fell forward onto his face. It was as if he had unfolded. And I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen, and I laughed like crazy until I ran over to him and saw that he was out cold, that his nose was emphatically broken, and he was bleeding from his mouth.
When we buried my mother, Dad decided to wear the blue suit he had been married in. It was now a bit large. Venise hemmed the slacks and pinned back the cuffs of his sleeves. She found pocket litter in the jacket and gave it to me. A matchbook from the Patio Pit in Melancholy, “Barbecued Delicacies of All Kinds.” A shopping list in Biruté’s tremorous script:
No Regrets, Coyote Page 22