“And when he got these notes?” I asked.
“If I was giving him reason-nonverbally-to believe it was bad news, he’d smile conspiratorially and say, ”Has your mother seen this yet?“ If the answer was no, he’d sigh and say, ”Well, she’ll understand. And you better let her be the one to talk to the teacher. As for you and me, we both already know that you’re smart enough to figure out how to do better.“ And he’d hug me and tell me not to let it get me down.”
“But he pretended he could read?”
“For many years. He wasn’t home every day, of course, but there was a routine when he was there. Every morning, he would open the newspaper and browse through it at a steady pace. He would come across an ad which featured a woman in a dress and he’d recognize the logo of the store. He’d say, ”Bree‘-that was his nickname for her-’here’s something you might want to take a look at. There’s a sale at Buffum’s.“
“Anything like that was her cue. She’d take the paper from him. ”Oh, maybe I’ll go by there,“ she’d say, but then she’d go back to the front page and say, T see they’re going to build a marina near downtown,” or comment on whatever local news was there. Sometimes she’d mention national news, but usually he’d pick that up from the car radio or from television.
“While he had been ‘browsing,” she had been looking at other sections for any small items of unusual interest, so that he could, throughout the day, regale customers or vendors with these. “Did you see that story about the bank robber who wrote his hold-up note on the back of an envelope with his name and address on it?” Stories like that.“
“Did your mother always know he was illiterate?”
“Yes-I mean, she knew not long after they met. She was working for a commercial nursery. He was a friendly person, and she was shy, and he was someone who always wanted shy people to feel more comfortable. At parties, he would find the person who was excluded or hanging back, and bring them into the conversation. He had a way of doing this so that the other person didn’t feel put on the spot.”
“Those people skills you spoke of,” I said.
“Yes. I don’t mean to say he was universally popular. There were people like your father, who never liked him from the moment they met him.”
I started to say, “That’s not true,” but it was. Instead I said, “I don’t know why my father reacted the way he did.”
Travis shrugged. “I think some people could sense he was hiding something from them. Some men didn’t like him because women liked him so much. Most women, I should say.”
“The vast majority, as I recall,” I said, thinking back. “And somehow he did it without really flirting. I don’t just think it was his smile or his good looks. If there were two handsome men in a room, your father was still the one with all the women around him.”
Again he shrugged. “He always told me that most men would do better with women if they just listened to them. For him it was natural; without being able to read, he had to listen to people to learn what was going on.
“In any case, my mother took a liking to him. One day, her boss came in while my dad was talking to her. He greeted my dad, who was one of his best customers, and slapped a trade magazine down on the counter. It was opened to an article. ”Take a look at that!“ he said to my dad. My dad did everything in his power not to panic. There were no photographs with the article.
“He did what he usually did in that kind of situation. He tried to base his response on the other man’s attitude. He wanted to say something noncommittal, but still have an appropriate reaction. But I guess my mother’s presence made him feel flustered. ”Wow!“ was all he managed to say.
“ ‘What do you think that’s going to mean to you and me?” the man persisted. My mother must have seen that something was wrong. She said, “Let me see that,” and she took the magazine from my dad and read the first paragraph aloud. It was something about the sale of one pesticide company to another.
“From there, my father could manage to participate in the conversation. He was grateful to her. He took her out to lunch. He admitted to her that he couldn’t read.”
“Who else knew that?” I asked.
“Unless someone guessed and didn’t let him know they’d guessed, not many people. W, Gerald, Gwendolyn and Mr. Brennan. I think he said his housekeeper at the other house knew. I didn’t realize that he couldn’t read until I was about ten.”
“Were you disappointed?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not sure why not, really. It wasn’t a revelation, all at once. I gradually began to realize it, and knew it was a secret. At first, I didn’t want him to know I knew that secret; maybe I sensed it would hurt him, I don’t know. And even then, I thought he just couldn’t read very well.
“But one day, the two of us had been out somewhere together and the road he would usually take to go home was closed. There was a sign saying ‘Detour, use such-and-so street,” but of course, he couldn’t read the sign. When he was working, one of his workers would do all the driving. But with us, he found his way around by memorizing landmarks. Only this time, there were no landmarks. He tried making turns, tried to get back to something familiar. He got lost. I could see he was terrified. Finally, I told him not to worry and pulled out a map and figured out how to get us home. I read the street signs and told him where to turn.
“We managed to get home before my mother came back from wherever she was. He was still shaken by the whole ordeal. So I gathered my courage and told him I already knew he couldn’t read, and I’d teach him if he wanted me to. He started crying. I had never seen him shed a tear before then. It scared the hell out of me.”
I called to the dogs, and we turned, heading back toward the house.
“He told me about a nightmare he used to have all the time,” Travis said. “In the dream he would be driving alone in the car to a place he had been to many times, but then the car breaks down along the way, before he gets to his next landmark. Tough-looking men are watching him- he’s in a rough neighborhood. Suddenly he’s near a phone-it appears out of nowhere, as things do in dreams-and so he calls the operator and asks for help. She puts him through to the police. The police say, ”We’ll send help right way. Where are you?“ He has to say, ”I don’t know.“ They say, ”Read the address on the phone,“ and he panics. He lies and says it isn’t on the phone, that it must have been torn off. The police say, ”Read the street sign,“ and he can’t. ”Read the signs on the stores,“ and he can’t. He finally has to tell everyone, ”I can’t read,“ and the police start laughing at him and hang up. The tough men are laughing at him, too. Everyone is pointing at him, jeering, and then walking away from him, leaving him, as if he isn’t worth bothering with.”
“Jesus,” I said.
Again we walked in silence.
“This morning, you asked about the time just after the murder,” he said. “It was this strange time when we-my father and my mother and I-were actually closer than we had been just before Gwendolyn died. We pulled together to protect my dad. Richmond was the enemy, this monster outside our gates.”
“Your mom already knew about the marriage between Gwendolyn and your dad?”
He nodded. “She found out-I never knew how, but she did. She was devastated. I can remember her staying in her room for days on end, not eating, not sleeping, just staring at the ceiling, crying. Wouldn’t answer the door or the phone. I took care of things the best I could, did the shopping, things like that. I got her to call my school and tell them I had the flu. Maybe it was just a kid’s way of looking at it, but I was afraid to go to school, afraid she’d kill herself if I was away from her too long.”
“But you were only-”