Ash Wednesday

by Ethan Hawke

  On his release he moved to a neighboring town, became a tree surgeon, and maintained a decent stability as a weekend dad until Jimmy’s high school graduation. After that his mental condition vacillated. He killed himself about a year before Jimmy and I met. Jimmy spoke about his father in great detail sometimes, but it was always at peculiar moments, like while we were in the grocery store or on the way to a party where the topic would have to be abruptly abandoned on arrival.

  On the drive from New York City to Cincinnati, Jimmy finally told me the whole story.

  In the summer after Jimmy’s first year at college, he arrived at his father’s apartment for a visit. His dad was standing in the doorway with half his face clean-shaven and the other half still lathered in shaving cream. He was a beautiful man with movie-star good looks: smoldering deep blue eyes and red hair. There was a homemade banner hanging from the ceiling that said WELCOME HOME in childlike watercolors. On the table a Duncan Hines birthday cake was piled high with icing and about six or seven unlit candles. Two men sat at the table staring at Jimmy blank-faced. One man was nineteen or twenty, only slightly older than Jimmy and clearly mentally retarded. The other was elderly with the bright spark of lunacy in his eyes. Jimmy’d known this second man by sight since childhood but had never spoken with him. He was the town weirdo, Bill. You could smell him from fifteen feet. Local kids were all afraid of him. He would loiter outside the grocery store talking to himself, and weekdays at rush hour he would direct traffic. Cars driving by paid no attention to his fanatically waving hands. And now here was Bill, sitting in Jimmy’s father’s living room, anxiously waiting for the cake to be cut.

  The walls of the apartment had been scribbled on with Magic Marker and other kinds of ink and paint, phrases like DON’T BE ANXIOUS, ONLY CONNECT, and CHECK YOUR EGO HERE, with an arrow drawn to the door. In giant beautiful red and yellow calligraphy, over a Steinway grand piano that took up most of the apartment, was written MY ACTIONS MAKE ME BEAUTIFUL and just underneath in black ballpoint ink, SO DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE. But the single oddest change in his father was that, despite having been born in Buffalo, New York, he was speaking in an Irish brogue.

  “I met these two blokes at the train station and told ’em about your impending arrival, so we decided to have a wee party,” his father said, his razor still in his hand. “But you fucked it all up, lad, you poxy bastard.”

  Earlier in the day, while visiting his mother, Jimmy had asked if she’d seen his dad and she promptly burst into tears, so he expected the worst, but his father had become unrecognizable. The party lasted only about ten minutes before Mr. Heartsock began to weep, and Jimmy politely asked the two guests to go home.

  For three days, Jimmy and his father left the apartment as little as possible. Jimmy got his dad to give him the car keys and to agree not to go out in public. Mr. Heartsock was unsure what was happening to him and would waver between a feeling of what he called crystallizing elation that he was just being born, seeing and feeling the molecules of the universe for the first time, and a black depression where he admitted fears of hurting someone or himself. He asked Jimmy to remove from the house all the knives, a hatchet, and several saws and spikes he used for tree work. Jimmy tried to rent simple clean straightforward movies, but his father would read wild tragic meanings into the lightest comic fare. There were tirades about the fall of America and the failure of the great democratic experiment. How the identity of America had become solely rooted in capitalism, and how our power as consumers surpassed our power as voters. How government itself had become a simple mediator between big business and the public. Mr. Heartsock referred to the Bible as the Truly Tasteless Joke Book Numero Uno. Then he would bring himself to tears as he described the humiliation Christ must have suffered as he was being crucified. They would perform the holy Eucharist twice daily. There was a candlelight memorial service for puppeteer Jim Henson, whom Mr. Heartsock dubbed the most significant artist of the twentieth century. Listening to the sound track of The Muppet Movie three times in a row, Jimmy’s father talked about feeling like he’d stepped into a candy store he’d been told his whole life he wasn’t allowed to enter, and now—once inside—he realized everything was free. People were consumed by fear, he said, and now they’d fear him because he had learned the secret that everything was there for the taking.

  He was coy and unrevealing about some conversations that had taken place with Jesus, and, as crazy as his father had become, Jimmy believed that his old man had indeed talked to Jesus. In some way, perhaps, if you let yourself slip into the stratosphere, you might meet the Blessed Savior. That certainly didn’t mean you’d be able to handle it. Mr. Heartsock would play beautiful piano compositions he’d written and weep for an hour at a time. He then would make Jimmy play the only five songs his son could poke out from the lost memory wells of childhood. After days of no sleep, Jimmy couldn’t tell which one of them was nuts anymore. They would watch TV, and Mr. Heartsock would rant brilliantly about how technology is eroding all our mental faculties and how there should be a worldwide Chinese fire drill and all the people from China should march to America and all the Americans should march to China—reversing the earth’s rotation and altering our understanding of time.

  On the morning of the fourth day, Jimmy woke to realize he’d slept for thirteen hours straight and his father was missing with the car keys and the hidden tree equipment.

  He spent the next two days back with his mother and stepfather, anxiety swarming in his blood. Every time the phone rang he would stare at it, wondering if this would be the call telling him his father was dead or that he’d killed someone else. Deep in his bones he believed his father was not alive. On the second evening, Jimmy and his mother sat out on the front porch (the same front porch where Mr. Heartsock had taken off his wedding ring years before). It was a hot summer night, and the air was thick with insects and humidity. They smoked several cigarettes in a row and sipped ice-cold beer. Jimmy commented on a sturdy tree house the neighbors had built out in the woods behind their house, saying he wondered what it was like inside. His mother said it was comfortable, with a thick brown carpet.

  “You’ve been inside it?” Jimmy asked. His mother turned bright red and buried her face in her hands.

  “Your father’s manic episodes have their up sides.” She blushed.

  “You mean, he comes by here?”

  “Sometimes,” his mother whispered, putting her finger to her lips to show she didn’t want her present husband to hear them.

  “You’re too much, Mom,” he said. His mother had been Miss Teen Ohio when she was a kid and was still very beautiful. She explained that his father had been coming over all summer, asking her out on walks through neighboring farms, and they’d had some of the best times they’d ever had. She confided in Jimmy that his father would always be her greatest love; she just couldn’t spend her life as his nurse. She was worried that their recent affair had exacerbated his illness. Although he said nothing, Jimmy thought she was probably right.

  At that moment, the lights from Mr. Heartsock’s silver Dodge pickup truck lit up the porch. Jimmy put out his cigarette as his dad walked up the drive, carrying two long coils of rope, several handsaws, one long pole saw, a pair of spikes, and his hatchet. Mr. Heartsock continued behind the house without acknowledging either Jimmy or his mother and dropped all the equipment with a loud crash. Jimmy could sense his mother’s back tightening. He stood up and walked behind the house after his dad.

  “Where you been?” he asked.

  “These are for you,” his father said, staring down at the ropes and saws.

  “Thanks, but I can get my own.”

  “You’re a good kid, Jim, you glow inside,” he said quietly. “You were wondrously created, and you don’t need anything; you’re perfect. You are exactly the way you are supposed to be.” His father reached forward, grabbed Jimmy’s face, and kissed him on the lips, something he had ne
ver done before. His beard was sharp and abrasive. “I love you with all my heart,” he continued. “You’re the only thing that ever kept me here. But you’re a man now. Take care of your mother.”

  He began to walk away. Jimmy grabbed hold of his sleeve.

  “Don’t fuckin’ touch me, Jimmy!” Mr. Heartsock shouted, and threw his pointed finger in Jimmy’s face. “God help me, I love you, but if you fuck with me I’ll kill you.” His eyes blazed like someone off to the moon on drugs. “I’m not afraid. Do you understand that? Can your pea brain comprehend a true liberation from fear? Eternity exists. Do you understand? Death is an illusion.” He paused, trying to read Jimmy’s expression. “There’s nothing to fear,” he said, and turned and walked back toward his small pickup. A neighboring couple was peeking out of their windows.

  “Where you going, Dad?” Jimmy asked. “Don’t be a crazy person, OK?”

  “James, where are you going?” Jimmy’s mom said in a high nervous voice, as her ex-husband walked past her in heavy deliberate strides.

  “Dad, I’m not going to let you drive off in that car. I’m worried about you, OK?” Jimmy spoke as if he were addressing someone hard of hearing.

  Mr. Heartsock opened the thin metal truck door but dropped his keys. As he bent over to pick them up, Jimmy laid his hand gently on his father’s back. Cringing as if he’d been burned, Mr. Heartsock snapped up and took a wild roundhouse swing at his son, barely missing the tip of Jimmy’s nose. Jimmy was slightly bigger than his father, and he wrapped his arms around his dad, holding him from behind in a tight bear hug.

  “Calm down, Dad,” he whispered in his father’s ear. “You’re not going anywhere tonight, you’re scaring me too much.”

  “We have to call the police, Jimmy, we have to!” his mom shouted, from about ten feet away.

  Mr. Heartsock started yelling and kicking his legs wildly, trying to strike Jimmy’s shin. He threw two more hard punches directed at Jimmy’s head, and Jimmy let him go.

  “Fuck, Dad, stop it!” he shouted, putting his arms up over his face.

  Several more neighbors gathered.

  “Someone please call the police!” Jimmy’s mom shouted out.

  “Take care of your mother, Jimmy.” With a final curse, Mr. Heartsock jumped into his pickup and took off. Jimmy felt sure those would be the last words his father ever spoke to him.

  They weren’t. The cops called the next morning to tell Jimmy his father was being held at the George Taft Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati. When Jimmy arrived, his father was strapped to a bed, being interviewed by a young girl in an all-white nurse’s outfit, including one of those white paper hats. She had a clipboard in her hands and was listening with an expression of martyred patience.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, why don’t we?” Jimmy’s father was maniacally haranguing the nurse. “You want to know if I’m crazy, and you think you can check your little boxes there to determine the line between sanity and insanity: ‘Hmmm, has trouble sleeping,’ check; ‘Hmmm, currently unemployed,’ check! But if you were able to take a step back and objectively assess this situation, you would see one person dressed entirely in a white outfit with the look in her eyes of a young girl who has stared at a television for about four years too long and there next to her you’d see a man strapped to a sheet of metal unable to move being forced to take drugs against his will. You would see this and think, Why is that woman dressed in that silly outfit, and why is she making that man take drugs? He did nothing to her. Why is she so sure that she’s the one who’s normal? Is it not possible that perhaps the woman who dresses the same every day should be given drugs to enhance her freedom of thought, give her a teensy little energy boost, perhaps stimulate her into wearing some more-exciting clothing? I mean, isn’t it at least as likely that you’re too slow as it is that I’m too fast? Maybe we should be giving you some amphetamines instead of having me swallow all these downers.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” the nurse said in a subdued tone.

  “Well, then, there we have it. Everything is perspective. I say what you need is to have your pussy licked so feverishly you can’t remember your own name, and you say I need a lobotomy.”

  “Nobody says you need a lobotomy, Mr. Heartsock,” she said, without visible reaction.

  “But somebody did mention your pussy,” he said, smirking. “Does that make you uncomfortable?” At that point Mr. Heartsock spotted Jimmy in the doorway. “You gotta get me out of here, Jimbo. Did you hear what I did last night? We gotta get the papers. I’m sure it’s in the papers. Last night was unbelievable.”

  “Are you the next of kin?” the woman asked. Her eyes were a deep warm brown, understanding and kind. Her hair was brown and her skin was magnolia white.

  “The next of kin?” Jimmy asked.

  His father jumped in. “Yeah, he’s the next of kin. Do you have my release? Let’s get the fuck out of here, Jimbo. Let’s go buy the newspapers. I freaked ’em out last night, boy. The cops, man, they love me.”

  “Yeah, I’m the next of kin, I guess,” Jimmy said.

  “Would you come with me?” she asked politely.

  “Don’t listen to them, Jimmy! Just get me out of here.”

  Jimmy looked at his dad and was frightened. He didn’t recognize him at all. The normal green color and warm smile in his eyes were completely gone. His father looked scary, menacing, evil.

  “Get me outa here, Jimbo, you’re my boy. I can’t take these drugs; they’re trying to kill me. This should be illegal, all of you should be in jail.” His father started crying. “Don’t leave me here, boy. I cleaned your diapers.”

  A cloud seemed to pass from the room. Jimmy could recognize his father simply as the man he had known since birth, strapped to a bed, in terrible pain. The nurse led him to the chief psychiatrist, who informed Jimmy that Mr. Heartsock had given away his car and his bank card and PIN number and led a small group of vagrants and prostitutes into the Cincinnati Hyatt Regency Hotel, demanding rooms for everyone. When they refused he stood up on a balcony and begged everyone present to rip up their credit cards in protest against a money-obsessed culture and the erosion of the American mind.

  When the cops tried to arrest him he screamed that he was dying of AIDS and if they touched him he would spit in their mouths. The doctor recommended that Jimmy, as the next of kin, sign the required papers for his father to be admitted into the high-security mental facility. Jimmy could hear his father screaming as he signed the papers, but he didn’t know what else to do.

  A few weeks later Mr. Heartsock was released, but over the next two years no one could find a drug combination he would stay on: The inevitable side effects of impotence, shaking hands, and lack of productivity were too debilitating. He was hospitalized at least once a year and sometimes twice. In his suicide note he claimed the fear of recurring insanity had left him incapable of any enjoyment.

  Jimmy told me all this, looking straight ahead, his eyes on the road. I didn’t say a word.

  MISS TEEN OHIO

  The houses in Hunting Glen where I grew up came in four models: Adams, Beauford, Caroline, and Denver, but they were only variations on the same theme—one had the garage on the left, one had it on the right; one was a split level, the other had the master bedroom on the ground floor. There were sixteen colors to choose from. The whole development looked like it was built in a single afternoon. My old man used to say, “If the big bad wolf comes, open the door.” His nickname for the development was Identity Hell, and driving through the streets with all the neatly groomed lawns, right on Walnut, left to Chestnut, right on Pecan, it was easy to get lost.

  As soon as I saw the house again I stopped the car. From a hundred yards away we could see tables laid out across our front lawn and most of our belongings being rummaged through by neighbors. Then I saw my mom, bebopping around the grass and chatting with everyone. My mother
was having a yard sale. Hot blistering rage scraped through my veins. I sat there unmoving in my car as I watched some pudgy brainless suburban dad ask questions about our old chain saw.

  My mom was Miss Teen Ohio; that’s all you need to know about her. She takes the Easter Bunny seriously and gets pissed off if you try to imply she hid the eggs or attempt in any way to dampen her enthusiasm. At Christmas, she gift-wraps presents for her little white Maltese doggie and everyone has to sit around the tree and watch him claw them open. She was dancing around the yard, basking in all the neighborhood attention. Her light-brown hair was washed and sparkling like an ad for conditioner. Another thing I should mention about my mom is that she’s probably slept with a quarter of the men in our town. She just can’t help herself; she’s self-proclaimed boy-crazy. It used to bother me, but now I’m over it. Sitting in the Nova watching the yard sale, I felt like I was being robbed. About twenty years of frustration was about to go off like a grenade in my skull. I couldn’t move. I just watched her dart around like a squirrel, her still pinup-quality figure sashaying from table to table. My stepbrother and sister were flitting between people with wads of bills in their hands. Audrey and Julian, sixteen and twelve respectively, are handsome kids and were dressed in perfect Top Forty hip-hop clothing. Audrey wore a store-bought pressed tie-dye, and Julian had on a bullshit outfit with embroidered dragons on his pants—some kind of pseudo-eastern Buddhist look.