by Chris Lynch
He has partly bounced back by the time we have navigated through ladies’ night wear, to the orphaned little corner where the studio hangs on.
“You behave in here now,” he says at the same time the photographer lady sees us and smiles hard. In my mind she is laughing at us, probably in hers too, but certainly not in Dad’s. “You behave. Any fussing and there will be no root beer float downstairs afterward.”
God, no, the root beer float, at the ancient fountain, where the original Tarzan from the movies was supposed to have brought Cheeta for a burger and milkshake on a promotional visit. It was in the papers, they say.
He never catches on. I don’t want a root beer float. Why does he never catch on?
“I’ll behave, Dad,” I say. “No fussin’.”
Gathered up in the gym, the school feels densely populated. And sweaty. Though there are only maybe two hundred and fifty kids in senior year all together and they are all cleaner than they will probably be at any other moment this year, the gym just always retains that overly close feel. Sometimes that’s not so bad, in a tight community type of way.
Other times, it can feel like it’s closing in on you.
There are photos up there on the stage. Hero photos up next to the flag at the back of the stage, in the corner. They aren’t huge, but big enough to know that it’s a couple of firefighters, in uniform, in official hero-type portraits. My heart leaps at the sight of my dad and DJ’s dad up there on display for everybody and I tell you, if my heart leaps any more than it has leapt over the last month it’s going either to the heart Olympics or the morgue.
Somebody pats me on the back and I don’t know who and I don’t want to know who. They mean well. They always mean well. Everybody means well and everybody is trying to be good and everybody just wants to pay respects but at this point I’ve been paid so much I must owe people change.
No mention is made of the heroes behind the principal the whole time she talks. She talks about renewal and new years and new beginnings and new challenges and new opportunities. I can’t stop staring at the pictures, even though I already know them so well. I just don’t know them there. But now it’s as if they have always been there and are just part of the fabric of life here and, well, the school and the principal and the students and everybody just owns them now.
Like everything else, we will get used to this.
I don’t know why, but I am clapping. Everybody is clapping, which is probably the best explanation for why I am clapping, but the words we just heard have not really added up to anything in my brain other than the thought that I am glad it is over and I am hugely happy to be filing off in the direction of my homeroom classroom. Followed by English and Spanish and math and my face happy to be stuck in a textbook no different from every other face.
Montgomerie gets “friendlier” as the first week rolls on. He smiles more and the smiling leads to smirking and the smirking leads to uninvited chatting.
“Inquiring minds want to know,” he says to greet the day on Friday morning in the school yard.
I have no clue what he’s talking about and no interest in finding out. “Well yeah,” I say, “I guess they do. That’s what makes them inquiring.”
“Yeah, well right now they are inquiring about phony heroes.”
I said before I was going to have to get re-used to that hero word so I could hear it without going all wobbly. Now, it’s whacking me again only right away it feels different, wicked. I get a chill, then hot.
“What are you talking about?” I say as guys start gathering around us immediately. They always know.
“I’m talking about a hero’s not a hero if he’s so off his face he can’t do his job. I’m talking about maybe a hero is more like a criminal if some old lady maybe dies because the firemen who were supposed to save her were too busy partying.”
Here is a phrase I never fully understood until right this minute: in cold blood. It feels exactly like that now, as I try and digest what Montgomerie is saying at me, my mind working to make sense of it while my guts are way ahead and already know how to feel.
“Montgomerie,” I say as slow and low as I can get it, “this is the only thing I am going to say about this, to you, ever: Withdraw that statement. Right now.”
“Sorry to tell you, but it’s the truth. I happen to know there was a board of inquiry, and they found out that your father and DJ’s father were wasted that night. Sorry. Truth hurts, man. But what I know now everybody’s gonna know soon enough, and this whole big lie is gonna be over.”
I breathe in deep. I know some people are screwed up and will say anything and I will need to learn to deal with it. I want myself under control, I want that for me, and I will have that.
I am practically standing on his shoes, breathing his rancid air. I can feel my whole body shaking but I try desperately to keep it from showing to the whole, large assembled crowd. “Last warning. First, you are going to take that back. Then, you are going to shut your fat face. Or I swear, I’m going to kill you.”
“Runs in the family, I guess. Murder incorporated.”
Because I have great friends it’s like a real riot. Everybody swarms and swings and pushes forward at once, several people rushing to just separate us but the majority going after Montgomerie. Adrian’s in there, Cameron, Burgess …
I don’t even feel my body do anything, don’t know if I have jumped, dived or flown, but I am kneeling on Montgomerie’s chest, with one hand squeezing his throat and the other covering his face like a claw, and I am bouncing his skull hard enough off the ground, I actually hyperextend my elbow and lose half my strength. Half is enough, though, because I can still manage to bounce his head seven, eight, nine times, making a thunk sound come out the back and a strangled whine sound come out the front until my friends drag me off and toward the school as the authorities are coming.
As we are scuttling in, my phone goes off in my pocket. There is a text.
I think you should come home, my mother has written.
I get instantly nauseous with dread, uncertainty. Certainty.
“I have to go,” I say, yanking away from them.
“Dad. What are we doing? I don’t want to go.”
“You might not know what you want. It’s a father’s job, maybe about his biggest job, to help his boy get to the place where he knows what he wants.”
I know I don’t want to be in the place I am in right now, which is in the car speeding up Route 95 North. It is an unplanned trip. So unplanned we never even discussed it. So unplanned my mother at work doesn’t even know we’re making it. So unplanned I am still about one-quarter asleep and we haven’t even bothered to do our breakfast thing.
“Breakfast on the road will be part of the fun,” he says.
“You keep driving like this and we will be part of the road,” I say. Other cars appear to be reversing past our windows. “What is the rush, anyway?”
“We are making up for lost time, Russell.”
“Well, wasting time is the same as losing time, Dad, and this is a great waste of time. I have no interest in going to college. You know that, I know that, everybody who knows me knows that. What is the point of going to ‘visit’ a college I am never going to see again?”
He speeds up.
“Slow down,” I snap.
He slows down.
“You need to keep your options open,” he says.
“I’m a firefighter. I have always been one and I will always be one. We have been talking about this forever. We will work together someday. Turn the car around and go make me breakfast, ya loon.”
A smile spreads across the old man’s face, but it doesn’t quite settle me. It’s nervous and unsure. Apologetic.
“You might not want to do with your life what I’m doing with mine,” he says softly. “That’s all I’m saying. It was wrong not to get you to at least look at the possibilities out there, before you commit your whole future....”
“No,” I say calmly, looking
away from him to the flashing road markings. “That’s why I had the day off, remember? I didn’t need the ‘college open day,’ because I’m not going to college.”
He has gradually speeded up. The white markings are like one blurry slash now, and they are running right under us, splitting the car down the middle between us.
“I thought about going here when I was your age,” he says. “Russ, it’s a beautiful place, you won’t believe it. It’s a whole different … life is different here. Maybe you’ll go, get your degree, you can still think about the fire service....”
“Why didn’t we talk about this before?” I ask.
“It just occurred to me,” he says, clearly now looking off into the distance, onto the campus, into my future.
“Get in your lane, Dad,” I say. “And slow down.”
“Oh, hell,” he says, and doesn’t need to say more. I see the blue lights bouncing off the mirrors. Dad quickly reaches up and checks that the cloth fire department shoulder patch is up on the dash where he keeps it.
It takes a full mile to properly come to a stop, as Dad is going too fast and doesn’t take the directest route to the breakdown lane. By the time the state trooper gets to the driver’s side window, he already sounds almost disgusted.
“What on earth would somebody need to be driving that fast for at this time of the morning? Are you going to tell me you are two hours late for work”—he leans in to check me out—“and it’s take-your-son-to-work day?”
Dad laughs, a guilty-sounding cackle of a thing I would be happy never to hear again. “No, sir,” he says. “I was just taking my son for his college visit, and I guess we were getting a little excited, talking about his future and everything and I just failed to watch my speed—”
“Or your lane,” the officer snaps.
This feels very bad.
Dad cackles. I’d really rather see him hauled in than resort to that laugh.
“Yes, sorry about all that. But, no, work had nothing to do with it. Work’s back that way.” He thumbs back in the direction of home and with his other hand taps the dashboard where the FD patch is.
The trooper leans over the windshield to inspect closely.
“That badge yours?” he says, back at Dad’s window.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
He stares hard at Dad for half a minute. I can only guess what my father feels but I could honestly wet myself right now.
“What’s your station?” the cop asks.
Dad gives him the station’s official designated number.
“The Hothouse?” Mr. State Trooper says almost incredulously. “Sir, you are stationed at the Hothouse?”
“Yes, sir,” Dad says, something like his regular voice coming back into play. You can hear his vocal cords slacken.
“Dammit, man, you work for Jim Clerk? Jim Clerk is your boss?”
It would appear things have taken a turn for the unincarcerated.
“That’s my boss, yes, sir. No better man alive, is there?”
“No, there certainly isn’t. You are a lucky man.”
“I know I am.”
“You probably don’t know how lucky. Listen. Dammit, Jim Clerk …” He shakes his head and smiles at whatever wondrous things Jim Clerk has done for him, his village, his people and their pets and wildlife. “Listen, I am going to send you on your way …”
The cop has now leaned in a little bit closer. He sniffs Dad. Then he pauses, processes. He looks really hard at the driver’s eyes.
“You got ten more miles to the college. They have fine coffee. Enjoy it throughout your tour.”
Dad knows an order when he hears one. “I will. Thanks.”
And, like that. Like that, we are out of the breakdown lane, back on the road, zipping only a couple mph over the speed limit toward the college.
“Now, where were we?” Dad asks, happily enough that the whole episode may have already been deleted. “Breakfast? Were we talking about stopping for breakfast?”
I am staring at him, and I know I look like a dummy because I am breathing a little heavy out my mouth. I turn away from him to stare out my window and I am not certain I would be less happy if the public servant had done his job instead of being a good old boy.
“I couldn’t eat right now,” I say.
My mother is on the couch and already speaking fast as I walk into the living room.
“Firstly, these were just premature leaks, and the actual Board of Inquiry did not release anything until somebody started saying things to the press, and so they rushed out the report. And the fire department does not want to say—”
“Ma,” I say firmly enough to stop her short. “I just need you to tell me if it’s true. I need to know what’s true. Is it true?”
She shifts her position on the couch from left-facing to right and back again. She is staring at me with wide and scared eyes. But there is more nervousness to her than shock or even surprise.
She takes a deep inhale that nearly pulls me closer to her.
“Your dad was in a lot of pain, Russell. Pain that was a direct result of how much of himself he put into that infernal job.” Her anger is real and intense there and when she hits the word infernal it sounds like a car engine idling then suddenly you stomp the gas pedal. “And this is what they do to him.”
“What about the pain?” I ask. “What does that mean?”
“He took medication, for the pain, Russ. It’s how he got through it.”
My mind is running around the monstrous maze of this situation, trying to find a way through. This, looks like a way through.
“So? What’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong with that. We see it in sports all the time, they give them something for the pain and they are back on the field. That’s what tough guys do, right? They can’t say, just because he took pain medication....”
“He may have taken a lot, of medication,” she says. “He may have taken too much.”
I hear the sound of every opening in the maze slapping shut. Nothing but walls.
“Are you saying, Ma, that he did take too much?”
“Russell, the department says that they are not concluding anything until every scrap of detail has been reexamined....”
“That’s good. But are you saying that he did take too much? Are you saying, Ma,” I say, and this time it is my turn to take a deep vacuum of an inhale that removes all the air from the room, “that you know that he took too much?”
We sit looking at each other for a few long seconds. We are looking at each other in a way we have never quite looked at each other before, and probably that is our life now.
“I do not know that, Russell.”
That was not the best answer.
The phone rings and rings until my mother unplugs it. Newspeople want to talk to her, and maybe to me, about my father.
I don’t feel like talking to anybody about my father just now.
When I start coming out of the trance-thing that has taken me over, I realize I am sitting in a tub of cold water.
“What did the board say about DJ’s father?” I ask. I am standing in the doorway of my mother’s bedroom. My parents’ bedroom. My mother’s bedroom. I am standing in my old slippers, which I found at the back of my closet. I am wearing my pale blue-and-white striped flannel pajamas, which reach just above my ankles and just above my wrists. I’m wearing my thick velour bathrobe that no longer has its sash. I am shaking like a machine gun with bone-cold and everything else.
“They said he was a fine firefighter and a hero,” she says, waving me over to the bed.
I sit on the bed beside her and allow her to wrap me up tight in her arms. Though I keep my own arms down at my sides.
“What else did they say?” I ask.
“They said they will stand behind him completely until all the facts have been double and triple verified and—”
“Ma?”
“Right,” she says. And she tells me.
All firefighters are in p
ain. Of one kind or another, and usually several kinds at once. They get hurt a lot. The work is dangerous, the training is dangerous, and the exercise they do to keep in shape for all that is tough so even the training for the training is dangerous. They hurt when they don’t see their families for days at a time. They hurt when they fight a particularly nasty fire for six hours and what is left at the end of it is an icy smoking stink pile of somebody’s home or church or restaurant. Or worse. When that happens, they take the pain with them for days, for months, for ever.
I knew this, a little bit. I would know if he was limping. I would know if he was grouchy or if he seemed to need a little more sleep than usual or if he seemed to get frustrated over not much and my mother would rustle me away to give him space. I didn’t like it, but I found it funny when she gave it a name. The Russell Rustle, made it seem more of a game, more about me, since it had my name on it.
But really, there was no one thing in my dad’s life that displeased him, specifically. I know he loved me and my mom. I know that. I know it. I know he loved his work and he loved fishless fishing and he loved playing fiddle pretty badly because I have a mental picture album in my head of him smiling broadly at all those things over and over. But I notice, as I flip through that album, a lot of pictures of him not smiling. Just flatline, over nothing anybody seems to know. Only I did know, a little.
I knew that as happy and sweet a man as he was, there was a particle of him that was unreasonable with the rest of him, not in agreement with the bright and shiny rest of him, at the same time.
Ma had a name for that one too because my mom developed a gift for this kind of thing. The Jolly Melancholy, is what she called it.
And just like the Russell Rustle, the Jolly Melancholy was one of her perfect contradiction phrases that made me feel all right about something that I might not otherwise have been all right about. Something that was, it turns out, not at all all right.