by Harvey Smith
“Yeah,” I said. “He moved a while back. He broke up with his girlfriend and went back home, to Lowfield.”
“Oh, I bet she was a real winner.” Suddenly all bitterness.
“I never met her.” I leaned against the glass wall. “He was living next to the levee. Like the old house, but smaller.”
“Well, this is just terrible, but I always worried about it. You remember how I always worried about it?”
“Yeah, Mom, I remember.”
“Oh, Jack, it's so god-awful. They say that he wrote a bunch of hot checks and that he stopped going to work a few weeks ago…and you know how your daddy never missed a day of work.” She continued to cry, leaving me silent and stunned. “He bought an expensive hunting dog and it was nearly starved to death when they found it in his back yard. You could see its ribs. They said it just whined and whined when they went over there. It was half-crazy and nearly dead. He just stopped taking care of everything.” Her voice got shrill. “They say that he lived on candy bars for the last few weeks of his life. The place was just littered with trash…with candy bar wrappers. He'd lost so much weight. Someone said he was like a scarecrow, that his face looked like a skull.”
“Fuck, okay,” I said, cutting her off. “Okay, Mom.” We were quiet before I spoke again. “I've got to get off the phone. I need to think. I'll be down there as soon as I can.”
“Alright,” she said, quietly. “I've talked to everyone else mostly. I'll try to reach a few more people later.”
“Thanks for doing that.”
“It's okay,” she said.
“I'll see you soon.” I hung up as soon as she said goodbye.
Standing in the alcove, I looked out at the world, refracted through the wall of glass bricks. I could make out the street and the leafiness of a tree set into the sidewalk. The leaves rippled like water behind the glass and cast shadows on the concrete. Someone passed, blurry, and cars glided by like colored fish. Looking down at the hardwood floor under my feet, I slipped the phone into my pocket and took a deep breath, swaying. The heat drained from my hands, leaving them clammy.
Of course he killed himself. Of course. Finally. Was there ever any doubt?
Thinking about the funeral made me close my eyes. I saw myself walking along a buffet line in some church, pouring gasoline onto my family and my father's co-workers as they shuffled along the line holding paper plates.
Head bent, I breathed out a few times slowly before making my way back to the conference room. Before opening the door, I pinched my nose and ran my hands over my face. Entering, I took a seat at one end of the table. “Sorry about that,” I said. My voice was quieter than I intended, so I forced a smile at everyone. “Let's go.”
Seated on the right, Mandy pushed my coffee cup closer, the band of her engagement ring clinking against the ceramic. It was still hot, but I took a deep drink, savoring the warmth, the sugar, the cream. Steam rose up into my eyes. I hid my face behind the mug.
“John, why don't you start,” she said.
He started his presentation, cycling through slides projected onto the wall. Following along, I ticked off bullet points in my head, checking the proposal against what was required. Compartmentalize. Over a few minutes, I formed a conclusion. I asked a couple of framing questions as I listened, made a suggestion and provided some encouragement. As he was wrapping up, I asked a last question that very gently redirected one of his points. When it was over, I said only one word. “Excellent.”
“Are you ready, Mathias?” Mandy smiled at the second man.
I took a sip of coffee and saw my father's face. He was crying. His eyes were bloodshot and he wore a stained t-shirt and a pair of jeans. His hair was wiry and streaked with gray. Wrinkles creased his face, many more than in years past. I saw him very clearly, as if watching him on television. Distended belly, diminutive frame and reddish skin on his face, neck and arms, a farmer's tan. Dad was sobbing and holding one of his nine millimeter pistols. The weeping was the most shocking part of the image. Everything else seemed natural, even the gun.
The words I just don't know formed in my mouth and my heart jumped because I almost spoke them, loudly and out of context. I clamped my jaws down tight and focused on the table in front of me. Control. I was halfway through the coffee and halfway through the meeting. I inhaled the steam and watched Mathias take over the mouse controlling the projector. I felt like screaming.
He launched into his presentation and I knew it was critically flawed from the onset. My hands started trembling so I wrapped them around the mug tighter and remained silent. I couldn't so much as nod.
Cued by my demeanor, the room grew uncomfortable. Mandy narrowed her eyes. Mathias grew nervous and mousy. He tried to make a joke, but no one responded and it fell flat. His expression changed…his every gesture and the tenor of his voice said that he felt like an asshole, but he had to keep going. He sat there faking enthusiasm, pretending not to notice the lack of warmth in the room. He hurried the last few slides and came to a close.
“Given the time line, we need to go with John's proposal,” I said to Mandy. Everyone was quiet, waiting for me to say something more, but I couldn't. I put my hands down on the concrete tabletop and rose.
Mandy stood up next to me. “I've got all the notes.”
John started to approach. “Good work,” I said. “Integrate the feedback and get another version together as soon as you can.” Walking out, I kept my head down and avoided eye contact.
Chapter 5
1974
Big Jack pulled up to his parents' house on the night of Christmas Eve. Ramona sat on the passenger seat holding Brodie in her lap. Jack sat between his parents. Nestled into a place where the seat had been ripped open, exposing the corn-colored foam beneath, he stroked the foam during the thirty-minute drive, savoring the texture. It reminded him of stuffed animals.
As soon as the engine died, Big Jack jumped down onto the driveway and slammed the door. Ramona and the boys clambered out from the passenger side. Rooting around in the bed of the truck, Big Jack tossed aside a paint-splattered canvas tarp and pulled up a garbage bag full of presents. Shifting his weight, he slung the bag up over his shoulder, where it rustled with his movements. He stopped at the edge of the driveway, coughed, and spat phlegm into the yard.
The entire family followed a stone path through the backyard. They crossed the patio, approaching the double doors that led into the house from the rear. A holiday wreath made of red plastic berries had been nailed to the lintel over the door. Tinsel hung along the jambs. Big Jack stepped up and opened the door. He didn't even have to duck to pass beneath the wreath. Stomping his boots against the patio doormat, he entered the den with the others following him.
“Well, Merry Christmas,” Jack's great grandmother called out from the couch. The oldest living member of the family, she was diminutive and the hair on her head had turned impossibly white with no trace of color. Everyone called her Granny. “The kids are here,” she called out to the rest of the house. Her eyes were alight and she grinned at them widely.
The house smelled of cloves and cinnamon. Candles burned and Christmas music from the 1950's drifted up from huge speakers sitting in the corners, hidden behind even larger potted plants. Most of the lights were off in favor of the warm illumination from the massive Christmas tree standing in one corner of the den.
Big Jack stood just inside the door. He stared as if thunderstruck. His mouth hung open and his eyes were wide with amazement as he took in the room and the Christmas tree. “Damn…look at all them presents. Y'all just gone all out this year, ain't that right?”
Jack's grandfather came out of the hall leading to the bathroom. “Yes-sir-ee, we sure did.” Squaring off with Jack, the old man made a series of sparring gestures. He twisted his mouth into a feral grin and bent at the waist as he approached the boy. Stick thin, Grandpa pistoned his fists like a pugilist from another time, bringing his face down to Jack's and shouting, “How ya been, boy?
”
Jack watched the gnarled hands moving in front of him. “Good, Grandpa.”
His grandfather faked a couple of slow-moving punches then tweaked Jack's nose with force.
The pain surprised him and he almost sneezed, blinking and rubbing his nose against his palm.
“How's second grade?” his grandfather asked.
Jack looked at the floor.
Before he could speak, Big Jack answered for him. “Oh, you know, he's down there acting like a goddamn clown. Teacher calls about once a month to tell us about some shit he's pulled. Talking in class and not doing any homework. His grades is shit too. Ain't that right, boy?”
Jack continued to stare downward and everyone in the room watched him in silence.
His grandfather's smile vanished. “Well, son?”
Jack tried to speak, but wasn't sure what he should say.
“Look at him,” Big Jack said. “He don't fuckin' care…” His father's voice carried so much disappointment and accusation that Jack's face began to burn.
“Now, here,” said Granny. She spoke sharply and held up one of her delicate, knotted claws. “Let's not have any of that foolishness tonight. It's Christmas.”
Big Jack peered at his son for a while longer before speaking. “Alright, Granny.” He hollered into the kitchen. “Momma? Whatcha up to back there?”
Jack's grandmother called out from the other room. “Cooking, of course.” She came motoring out of the kitchen wearing an apron and holding a wooden spoon in one of her powerful hands. She had a wide smile on her face, a smile that carried all the expectation of Christmas memories about to be formed. As much as Jack's grandfather was thin, his grandmother was stout, big of bone and wide of frame. She pushed into the room with a kind of power that caused the others to recoil. Jack called her Grandma and had always felt uncomfortable around her.
Standing out in the center of the floor, Grandma said, “Mother, taste this gravy. Is it salty enough?” She held the spoon up expectantly, ten feet from the couch.
Granny remained seated. Drawn up in her infirmity, she clutched at a shawl spread over her lap. “I can taste it, but you'll have to bring it over here, dear.”
The two women faced off, mother and daughter. Neither of them moved.
“If it's gravy,” Big Jack said, “it ain't never got enough salt.”
“Ain't that right,” Grandpa said, laughing with his son.
Grandma harrumphed and rolled her eyes back so far in her head that all traces of the iris and pupil were lost. She took a few steps and stuck the spoon out over the couch. Granny leaned forward delicately. She tilted her wrinkled face upward and tasted the tip of the spoon. The room grew quiet, save for Perry Como's crooning. Granny turned her head to one side, causing the soft, white curls of her hair to shift on her hunched shoulders. “Needs salt,” she said.
Big Jack and Grandpa burst into a fit of cackles. Grandma snatched the spoon away and went back into kitchen.
“Goddamn, I need a smoke,” Big Jack said. He dug around in one of his pockets, fishing out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes.
“I believe I'll join you,” Grandpa said.
Big Jack dropped his garbage bag of presents and it slithered to the floor. “Put these under the tree, boy.” As the two men went out onto the patio, Ramona set Brodie down and followed them.
Brodie wandered over toward the tree as Jack sorted through the presents. He picked up the first one, which his mother had wrapped in aluminum foil, and carried it toward the massive tree. Holding the gift, he looked up at the tree, a monolithic tangle of dark green and fairy light. Peering into the thick of it, Jack could see gnarled branches and the trunk deeper into the recesses of the tree.
“It sure is purty, ain't it,” Granny said.
Jack looked back over his shoulder and smiled at her, nodding.
“Come sit with me.”
He set the present on the velvet skirt under the tree along with the ones already piled there. Settling into his Granny's side, he scooted his butt around on the couch. She draped the shawl over him and hugged him. He looked back at the tree. The lights strung through its branches were mostly gold with a few strands of red here and there.
“What is it that Santy Claus is gonna bring you?” she asked.
Jack kicked his feet against the couch and grinned at her. “Granny, I don't know…it's supposed to be a surprise.”
“Well, what did you ask for?”
He shrugged. “I don't know…maybe more cars. Some action figures.”
She knitted her brow, the only dark hair on her body, and absently touched one of her snowy locks. After a second, she smiled at him. “You mean dolls, sugar.”
He looked down at a frayed corner of the shawl that he was holding in both hands. “No, not dolls. They're super heroes.”
Granny laughed and clapped her hands together. “Boys don't play with dolls,” she said. “Of course. These days they play with these action figures. When I was a girl, Momma made us dolls out of extra buttons and old clothes we couldn't wear anymore.” She hugged him and he laughed along with her. “You'd better get down and finish unloading those presents before your daddy gets back…but gimme a kiss first.”
Jack looked up, studying her face. He gave her a wet peck on the cheek then bounced his bony butt a couple of times against the couch and sprang out onto the floor. In three steps, he was back at the bag, unloading it. Brodie toddled near and watched, peering down into the bag with curiosity.
The family ate until everyone was stuffed. They shuffled back into the den near the Christmas tree and seated themselves on the various couches and reclining chairs scattered around the room. Grandma placed dainty ceramic cups and saucers before each of them, save Jack and Brodie. She poured coffee for all the adults from a matching carafe then set out a pair of crystalline reindeer that held cream and sugar. Grandpa picked up one of the deer and tipped it forward over his cup, pouring cream from the deer's nose. He set it down and lifted a couple of sugar cubes from a hole in the other deer's back.
Granny was seated in the corner in a wooden rocking chair. “Are we gonna open presents now?”
“Momma,” Grandma said, “…we will in a minute. Right now, we're having after-dinner coffee.” She forced the thin line of her mouth into something that was almost a smile and spoke as if quoting. “This holiday season everyone is having after-dinner coffee instead of dessert.”
Big Jack looked like a bird had flown out of her mouth. He stared at her slack-jawed. “We ain't havin' no pie?”
“Yes, dear,” Grandma said. “But later…”
“…wouldn't be Christmas without some goddamn pecan pie,” Big Jack grumbled, leaning back.
Everyone sat for a while, drinking coffee from the delicate cups. Perry Como's voice filled the dead space. "...follow them, follow them, you've been away too long. There is no Christmas like a home Christmas, for that's the time of year...the time when all roads lead home." Big Jack drained his cup and got up to refill it. He walked over to a bookshelf near the record player, sipping coffee and looking at the old photos on display.
“That was my first gun,” he said, mostly to himself.
Jack got up from where he was sprawled over a cushioned ottoman. He needed to pee and had been holding it since dinner. He crossed the living room on his way toward the hall, galloping with a skip-step like he was riding a horse. His grandfather reached out and snatched him up just as he passed.
“Come here, boy!” Grandpa pulled him into the recliner with arms that were absurdly thin, but strong from decades of driving nails. The old man tussled with Jack, hooting and flipping him around. He pinched the boy's skin where it was stretched over his ribcage, trying to tickle him.
Jack nearly lost control of his bladder. He made an urk sound as he writhed in Grandpa's lap, but otherwise went stone silent, struggling to keep from pissing in his pants. This, he knew, would ruin Christmas and signal his doom. “Please, Grandpa,” he whined, “I've g
ot to go to the bathroom.”
The old man laughed and flipped him upside down. With gnarled hands, he attacked Jack's underarms, trying to tickle, but inflicting pain. Jack continued to beg and Grandpa laughed again, his voice hoarse as they wrestled. Everyone in the room watched.
About to wet his pants, Jack couldn't wait any longer. Desperation struck him and he wriggled harder. He and Grandpa went silent in their efforts, except for intermittent grunting. At that moment, the wiry old carpenter put an unbreakable hold on the boy and in an animal panic Jack sank his teeth into his grandfather's scrawny arm.
Grandpa released him and cried out. “Goddammit, boy!”
Jack sprang to the floor, bladder about to burst. “I gotta peee.”
Grandpa swung his fist wide, throwing a roundhouse. Jack ducked the blow and Grandpa hit the wood paneling behind his chair, the impact booming through the room. A glass-framed portrait fell from the wall and exploded. Jack was wailing now and darted down the hall, unzipping his pants madly as he ran.
The old man bellowed from his position in the recliner. Contorting his spine, he threw his head over his shoulder and yelled, “You will not bite me, you little son of a bitch.”
Everyone watched in stunned silence. Ramona blinked several times.
In the bathroom, Jack barely had time to slam and lock the door. He hopped like a wounded rabbit over to the toilet, tearing his jeans open along the way and unleashing a spray of urine that was not quite focused enough to be called a stream. He hit the wall, the floor and several spots on the commode itself. The roll of toilet paper hanging to the side of the bathroom cabinet was soaked before Jack finally got the entire operation under control and started peeing into the toilet bowl proper. Relief spread through him and he let out a bestial groan.
His grandfather's voice was muffled by the bathroom door as he yelled and cursed from down the hall.
When Jack finished, he zipped up and wiped his hands on his jeans. Mopping everything off with toilet paper, he cleaned up the bathroom as best he could. Then he stood in front of the mirror and looked at his reflection, chewing one small fingernail. Still winded from exertion, he heaved air in and out of his mouth. His breath whistled around his fingers. Finally, he opened the door and walked down the hall toward the den.