Dupree's Rebirth

by Micheal Maxwell

  “‘Are you OK?’ one of us would begin.

  “Why do you ask?’ was always his response.

  “I don’t know, you just look a little pale.’ The man laughed. ‘Who the hell could tell? He was always white as a sheet. Why was that, you think?’

  “I don’t know,’ I replied.

  “‘Anyway, one by one we could comment on him not looking so good or was asking if he was alright, and sure enough he would start getting sick, and a few minutes later he’d say, “I think I need to go home. I’m not feeling well.” Then we had the rest of the shift in peace. What a character. Nice guy, though.’

  “I always knew there was something wrong with my father. He met my mother when he was in the hospital with meningitis. She felt sorry for him. They were the same age at the time, nineteen if I remember correctly. She was a nursing student. Her mother had recently died, and she and her father moved out west to be near her older brother.

  “She didn’t realize that he was naturally pale and pasty. She just thought he was slow to recover. Somehow, a fact I have never really understood, they got married. I was born a year later and my mother gave up nursing. I think she always resented him not letting her work, though she never said so. Even after I was in high school, she wouldn’t even discuss it.

  “I’ll tell you another one. The clerk seemed to be getting a real kick out of talking about my father. Let him, I thought, he is paying for every second he’s in that chair. We played another game with him. He was scared to death of leaving the front door of the store unlocked. I guess when he was starting out he did that once, and the manager found the door unlocked the next morning when he arrived. On the way to our cars, every night he would say, ‘Did I lock the front door?’ We had to park a good way off to leave the good spaces for customers. Just as we would get to our cars, one of us would ask, ‘Did you lock the front door?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ And he would dogtrot all the way back to check. It always gave us a chuckle.”

  “I was never close to my father,” said Dupree. “I hated that man. I intentionally made errors on his case and was delighted when the judge ruled against him. Immoral? Unethical? Undoubtedly. I really didn’t care. He was a poor father.

  “He died when I was twenty-eight. He retired, and not having his ‘kingdom’ to go to every day, he just sort of disappeared. I actually can’t remember what he died of. I don’t think I had spoken to him a year or two.

  “My word, how did I get on to that?” Dupree hoped the man didn’t catch his reference to being a lawyer.

  Dupree was surprised at the journey he was returning from. He let go, opened up, whatever that soul-baring place was he wondered about. He could, and did, go there. It was easy.

  “I asked about your family.” The man shrugged.

  “I guess I should have just said, I was an orphan or an only child.”

  “Would have been quicker. OK, we got six exits coming up. I am heading for the other side of town, to a wide spot in the road called Waterford. I guess the question is where do you want off?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never been here before.”

  “No reason to. Not much here but leftover Okies and Mexicans. We got a few Blacks. No matter. It’s a good place to be from!” The man laughed at his joke. “I normally take the 9th Street exit. What’s next for you?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Quarter to five,” the driver said, looking at his watch.

  “You got a couple more hours of light. You thinking about catching another ride?”

  “How far is Sacramento from here?” Dupree queried.

  “Couple of hours.”

  “I don’t think I would want to chance hitchhiking after dark.”

  “There are a couple of cheap motels, a breakfast house, at the exit I’m taking. You’d be set for the night.”

  “That sounds like a smart option.” Dupree agreed.

  The traffic was heavy coming off the freeway. As the car pulled up in front of a motel, the driver smiled at Dupree and said, “Here you go, partner. I hope you get home safe and sound.”

  “I really appreciate the ride and conversation.” Dupree opened the door and grabbed his bag.

  The door closed with a solid thud. Behind him, Dupree heard the window go down and a familiar voice, “Oh, sweetie, you forgot something!” Christina called out.

  Dupree turned to see the man sliding across the seat, his arm outstretched and his fist closed.

  “What’s that?” Dupree responded.

  “Here!”

  As Dupree moved back to the car, the fist bobbed slightly. He reached toward the fist and the man dropped several folded bills in Dupree’s hand.

  “Oh, no, you don’t need to…”

  “Too late,” Christina squealed and the car sped away from the curb, and pulled a U-turn. A big hand shot above the roof of the car and waved good-bye.

  Dupree was holding seventeen dollars.

  CHAPTER 4

  The motel was clean, and the bed was a relief to Dupree’s tired body. He was so tired he barely noticed the heavy footsteps outside his room. The drivers of the two dozen work trucks and eighteen-wheelers parked around the motel lot came and went all night. Dupree heard the first three or four, but after a long hot shower, nothing was going to disrupt his sleep.

  Around nine o’clock the next morning Dupree checked out of the motel and was faced with choosing between Smitty’s Diner and Los Gatos Café. It was way too early for Mexican and the parking lot was full around Smitty’s. It seemed the best option.

  Dupree tossed his pack into the booth and slid in behind it. A woman in her late fifties welcomed him and gave him a menu. The table was a bit sticky, so when a young Mexican man brought him water and silverware, Dupree wiped the table with a napkin dipped in his water.

  The restaurant was almost empty except for a few tables with senior citizens, alone and with partners. Where were the people all the cars belonged to? It seemed like the place was sealed in a time capsule. Everything about it screamed the 1970s. It was just like him. He was like a person who had been locked up for twenty years. His work so engulfed him, his life was protected by a cocoon of receptionists, secretaries, long hours, and a protective wall between him and the rank and file man on the street.

  His vacations, both of them in twenty years, were spent in Europe. His wife and kids made the annual pilgrimage to her parents in upstate New York, a summer visit to Disney World, and a Christmas shopping trip to New York City. Dupree was grateful he was not included. Actually, as he thought about it, he wasn’t even invited. He chuckled at the thought.

  Business trips were airport to hotel, to dinner, to meeting, to hotel, to meeting, to the airport and home. It could have been Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, or Corn County Kansas, he couldn’t tell one from the other. He was driven, focused, and productive. That’s what mattered, that’s what made money, and got him a partnership, or at least it did. It was also what got him here.

  It was his second night on the road. He could have continued on last night, but truth be told, he was afraid. This was his third day. Dupree pondered if he should be farther along. What for? he thought, I’m not going anywhere.

  “Decide what you’re having?” the waitress asked, returning to the table.

  “I would suppose the wise thing to do since the menu claims World Famous Pancakes would be to have pancakes. How do they come?”

  “Fried mostly.” The waitress waited for a laugh. Dupree obliged with a courtesy chuckle.

  “Then I will have some fried pancakes. Do you have bacon? I would like bacon.”

  “Any eggs?”

  “No, I think pancakes and lots of bacon sound just like what I need. And coffee.” Dupree gave the waitress a big smile. It felt good. He didn’t smile much. His doctor certainly wouldn’t smile at his order, and that brought a smile to his face as well.

  “Back in a jiff.” The waitress turned and nearly ran into a boy of about six or seven who
was racing to a booth.

  “Marcus! Watch where you’re going! Say excuse me!” Dupree turned to see an attractive woman of about thirty, with a tight grasp on a pre-school little girl. “So sorry, ma’am.”

  “He’s fine, just excited to get some pancakes. I know the type. I got seven grandkids, all boys!”

  The woman slid into the booth. The young boy was already in position with his back to Dupree. The waitress appeared with a high chair and put it at the end of the table. The woman gave Dupree an embarrassed but lovely smile. He nodded and returned her smile.

  “Can I get the big stack and two extra plates? And two small glasses of milk.”

  “I want lots of milk!” the little boy insisted.

  “We’ll see,” his mother said, trying to calm the excited boy.

  “We have a free children’s plate for the little one here if you’d like.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you. You hear that Merci, your own special plate.”

  “I’ll get you a big boy glass of milk and if you want one, I’ll get you a refill.” The waitress winked at the mother.

  “Back in a flash.”

  The woman spoke quietly and kindly to her son. Within moments he calmed down and was chatting with his mother.

  “Here you are sweetie, you gonna need anything else?”

  “No, this looks delicious, thank you.” The woman smiled up at the waitress. She was very pretty.

  Dupree looked down at the plate in front of him. Again he was struck by how something so simple could be so wonderful. He spent years eating granola and horrible smoothie concoctions his wife whipped up when what he really wanted was the kind of breakfast his mom made when he was a kid.

  The sight of pancakes and bacon reminded him of his mother. Funny, he thought, when was the last time I thought of her? Dupree’s mother died a couple of years after he got married. She died probably at a time he needed her most. She always understood him. He distanced himself from her around his junior year of high school. He was terribly embarrassed by his father, and unfortunately, they never went anywhere without each other. Oddly, he was now struck with what a wonderful thing that was. He hadn’t gone anywhere with his wife in years, other than the obligatory commitments that his work and her social nonsense required.

  Dupree tried to bring up an image of his mother in his mind. Over and over he tried to find the pretty, auburn-haired woman he loved so much. Instead, he repeatedly saw the bone-thin, skeletal shell of her lying in a hospital bed being eaten alive by cancer. He only saw her once after she became ill. A call from his uncle warned he should come quickly if he wanted to see her before she died. It couldn’t have come at a worse time; he was a new hire at the firm and was preparing his first big case.

  Dupree recalled the look his senior partner gave him when he asked if he should take time to see his mother. The handsomely dressed, manicured, graying man, with the permanent tan and perfect hair looked at him like he was insane.

  “I don’t have to if you think…”

  “You say she’s dying?” his boss interrupted.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have another mother?”

  “No, sir?”

  “We are attorneys at law. It is our chosen profession. However, we are sons, husbands, and fathers, first and foremost. Don’t make me question my decision to bring you into our family. Leave, go, get out.” The quintessential lawyer rose for his closing remark. “Give my condolences to your family and kiss your mother, God bless her, for me.”

  Though it was years ago, Dupree burned with shame. He should have taken that admonition to heart. If truth be told, by the time he returned from his mother’s funeral it was all but forgotten.

  The image of his mother’s closed coffin, with a picture sitting atop it from some long-ago photographer’s studio, came clearly to his mind. She was quite lovely.

  His mother always wore dresses. Dupree never saw her in pants, a skirt, shorts or anything other than a dress. In the heat of summer they may have been sleeveless, in winter a heavier material but, rain or shine, she was in a dress, usually of her own making, from morning to evening. She was always up and dressed when he came out of his room. As he aged and stayed up later than his parents, he never saw her in a robe or any kind of sleepwear.

  His parents were such an odd match. Dupree even at a very young age wondered how his beautiful mother could be married to the thick droopy lipped, homely man that was his father. Even apart from the appearance, their temperaments were so very different. Where his father lacked confidence, his mother was always self-assured. She could grow impatient with a salesman, a neighbor with a yapping dog, or Dupree’s childhood mischief. His father would almost cower at the thought of confronting or complaining about anything.

  There was a time around the fourth grade when Dupree fantasized elaborate plans for stealing his mother away, marrying her, and living happily ever after in a cabin in the woods. In college, Dupree recalled his Oedipal imaginings, and realized they fell short of classic because he didn’t dream of killing his father or having him die. In his psychology class, Dupree remembered thinking, if the professor had only met his father he would understand why it would have been like killing some poor defenseless animal.

  He thought of the times when they would work on a puzzle at the kitchen table, while his father would sleep slouching in a chair in the living room.

  “He works so hard,” she would always say.

  Those were his best memories of his childhood; hot cocoa and long talks about school and his day. She would tell of growing up in Virginia.

  His mother’s maternal Grandfather Warren was a five-term member of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s House of Delegates. Warren’s wife Louisa was from a rich multi-generational plantation family, who proudly spoke of their direct lineage to Thomas Jefferson’s father Peter.

  Dupree’s grandmother, Faith, was raised in a wealthy, aristocratic home. She spent her youth going to exclusive summer camps, private schools, coming out parties, and debutante balls. The photos in his mother’s family albums looked like scenes from Gone with the Wind. Their lives were charmed, pampered, and part of a world Dupree’s mother never knew.

  At eighteen Faith went to the College of William and Mary, the second oldest university in America. It boasts itself as to where a young George Washington got his surveyors license. Her family’s name was on several buildings and statues. As the daughter of one of the founding families, she was treated like a princess. She was pledged to the most prestigious sorority and roomed in the building that once housed the President of the College. There were twelve bedrooms, and each was assigned to a young lady of an equally impressive pedigree.

  Dupree’s mother loved to tell the story of one warm spring day when Faith saw a young man, with curly hair and a crisp white shirt, sitting under an elm reading a book. She thought he was so handsome she pretended to stumble and dropped her books at his feet. His mother told the story often as the time approached for Dupree to leave for college. “Always be open to possibilities!” she would smile and say.

  The handsome young man was Dupree’s grandfather, Calvin. In the fairytale way his mother told the story, he was noble of heart, handsome of face, and without a cent. He won a scholarship and planned to study engineering. Over the course of the next four years, they fell deeply in love, much to the dismay of Faith’s parents.

  They courted in a sweet, old-fashioned way. Faith’s young man, as she called him, would bring flowers he clipped from one of the gardens on campus. They would take long walks in the moonlight and Calvin would sing a popular song of the day. They wrote long letters of their dreams and aspirations: hers of family, children and growing old together; his of their travels, great adventures, building roads and bridges in exotic locales and loving her until he died.

  Her family wasn’t pleased with his background, but his education and plans for a career in engineering made his parent’s lack of social status more palatable. Ever
ything was bright in their future until the night of the Grand Spring Cotillion. When, just before leaving to collect Faith, Calvin received a telegram reporting his father had fallen ill and he must come home.

  It turned out that ‘just fallen’ was an exaggeration. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer months before but didn’t want to worry his son. He was so proud to have a son about to graduate college. Now in the final stages of the disease, he would not live to see Calvin arrive.

  Calvin’s family owned a small grocery store. His father was the butcher, his mother worked the counter. It was the family’s income, their anchor in hard times. It was their church and social club. It wasn’t just a business, it was their world. During World War II the store helped collect scrap.

  The dreams of travel and building wondrous things seemed to be lowered into the ground with his father’s coffin. Dozens of friends, customers, and family members gathered on the bright, beautiful spring day to pay their respects, but Calvin’s world couldn’t be darker.

  Calvin didn’t return to school, he didn’t build anything other than shelves in the store for the next twenty years. To the dismay of her parents, Faith married Calvin. She got her dream of marriage and children; the only dream that didn’t come true was growing old together.

  From a young age, Dupree’s mother and her brother stocked the shelves, swept up, and took out the trash, until he got drafted. She worked in the store after school and in the summer when she wasn’t at camp, a tradition her mother refused to let go of. Her grandparents secretly paid for it. The only lie Faith ever told Calvin was that she saved the money every year. When Faith died of breast cancer, Calvin couldn’t stand to look toward the register and not see her. He sold the store and they moved to California where her brother got a job in the aerospace industry after leaving the army.