She had been wrong. She had thought this child would save her life, give it purpose, show her who she was. But all it did was make her responsible for one more. She felt she had been tricked. Love was to blame, or my father, anything, me most of all. I was proof of the trick, demanding, selfish proof she had chosen wrong and would never now be given a chance to correct it.
As I grew older she forgot that this was at the center of her despair and thought different things about me. Almost all of them tentative, as if she were trying to learn to skate again across the surface of her life after a near-fatal fall.
The cells continued to sing, but I was a child and my confusion and great joy came together somehow and drowned out their more subtle music. Love came and defined itself to me differently every day. I wanted it but it was as elusive as a fly. It constantly buzzed louder in my face, a new sound in my head, but when I looked toward it, it was always somewhere else. The world I was coming to know was both enthralling and treacherous and made me want to be in every part at once, as I once had been with no effort at all. Effort. I learned what that meant but it did me no good. Everything was so separate now, singing its own distinct song that was sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous but very loud and hitting against me with tremendous force.
The first person I knew I loved – knew it—was a tall woman with a short man’s face who was my mother’s best friend. The first time I hurt and knew it was when I reached for her earrings and discovered I couldn’t touch them.
My life spun through its days, and I was bombarded with things I had not known but were now clear and understandable. That was Leland’s cruelty: What good did it do now? If only I’d known then, would life have been better? Would I have loved people and things that loved me; would my life have been infinitely better had I known the value of these great gifts?
As I made my life, ignoring what I didn’t know or understand, I was carving myself down into a distinct form, yes, but the pieces and chips that fell away were so necessary.
Leland’s “gift” was only a trip to a hell that was wholly and hopelessly my own. The torment there was not from knives into flesh or bodies in flames, but from neglect and disregard, underrating and blindness to so many things that could have been mine and made me whole but never were.
I have no idea how long the experience took, but when I returned to my life now, the three of us were still sitting in the seedy espresso joint and the only different thing was that Leland had a frankfurter in his hand and was dipping it into a small pile of yellow mustard on a white plate. I looked at him, but his eyes were on his food. The return to now was firm and immediate, yet the sense of loss filled every part of my being.
When I slowly moved my eyes to Wyatt, I saw him looking at the table with what, I was sure, was the same facial cast as mine—bewildered, lost, light years away. I wanted to say something, or wanted to hear his voice first and not Leland’s blithe menace.
Wyatt did speak first, but he said something which, after that experience, was wholly unexpected. He looked up from the table and his face cleared to wonder. “I had forgotten all about that. Completely.”
“What’s that, Fmky?”
“The last days of my father. I’d forgotten that whole time right before he died.”
“Was it nice?”
Wyatt opened his mouth and started to speak but stopped. “It—yes, yes, it was. It really was.”
“See, I told you there’d be nice things. How was your trip, Arlen?”
I had nothing to say. He knew.
Wyatt spoke again. “I can’t believe I forgot that. Right before my father died, I stayed with him and my mother. He was in very bad shape and the only energy he had left was for anger. Anger at life, my mother, and me. Anger at everything.”
“The guy wasn’t very happy, was he?”
“He wasn’t a happy man his whole life, so what could we expect at the end? When I got there, I tried to lift him by being funny and lively, but he wasn’t having any of it. I talked to him and read to him from his favorite books, but every few minutes he would cry out his pain or anger. After a few days it became very difficult, and my mother and I talked a long time about taking him to a hospital, but neither of us had the heart. At the end that’s what happened, but it didn’t come for a while.
“One night very late I woke up when I heard him cry out. I went to his room. My mother was exhausted, and when I met her at the door I told her to go back to bed; I’d take care of him as long as he needed me. He heard that and laughed and said, ‘I don’t need either of you. I need to die arid get it over with.’
I looked at Leland. He shrugged and said, “His pop was right—he wasn’t doing anyone any good.”
Wyatt went on as if the other hadn’t spoken. “So I sat down in that dark room next to his bed and said, ‘Pop, I want you to tell me about the best day of your life. Tell me everything. I want to hear every detail you can remember.’ Woo! That pissed him off! He didn’t want to talk about life; he wanted sympathy and some way out of his pain. But I coaxed and cajoled and after a while I could almost see him settling his body into a more comfortable position. His voice started out rough and nasty, but as he went along it softened, and the more he got into the story, the quieter it got.
“Funnily, it wasn’t a particularly interesting story. It was about a day he had spent on the island of Peleliu during the Second World War. He was young and knew the world would be waiting for him when he got home. He described the island and what was going on that day, the job he had there and other things. Just a day in the life of a young man who figured himself lucky, and after all those years he remembered how good it had been. I milked him for every detail, and maybe he knew what I was doing but went along with it because remembering was pleasant, and the only other things he had left were his pain and that dark room. When he was done he tried to slough it off as if it’d been nothing, but I wouldn’t let him do that. I asked about other things that mattered to him, other memories stuck in his mind that some part of him was happy to look at again and talk about. I don’t think I ever felt so close to him in my life.”
“But two weeks later you did put him in the hospital and he died.”
Wyatt looked at Leland and then away, as if what He had said was embarrassing. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Ah, I’m just being mean. Sorry. Memories are nice things. Sometimes they almost fill the holes.”
“May I ask you something?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t know if you can do it, but I have to ask.”
“Go ahead.”
“Can you show us God?”
Leland put the meat down and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. “I can, but I’d have to do it in a way you’d understand. Otherwise it wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
Wyatt put his hand on his neck. “Please. Please show us God. If we’re going to die, I want to know.” He turned to me, his hand still there. “Do you want that, Arlen?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but let me finish my hot dogs. It’s better to do this on a full stomach.”
We sat and watched him finish his meal. He didn’t do it slowly but wasn’t in a hurry either.
“But it will be true? What you show us will be the absolute truth?”
“The absolute truth. You’re not the first ones who’ve asked, you know. It’s no big deal.” He took a few more bites, then dropped what was left on his plate and wiped his hands on his trousers. He’d always called them pants, but I’d taught him to say trousers. He bent to one side and slid a hand into his pocket. He brought out a postcard and put it down on the table in front of us.