The Rich Part of Life

by Jim Kokoris

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe if she got them, she would have seen that exit ramp. I heard that she was decapitated.”

  My stomach turned around and I tasted something terrible in the back of my throat. “What’s that mean?” I asked, though I was afraid I knew. I remembered hearing that word whispered around our house soon after the accident.

  “It meant her head was chopped off,” he said. “Or knocked off maybe.”

  I felt a hole open in my stomach, felt my heart fall through it. I swallowed hard and looked back out the window at Maurice’s car.

  “Your mother was pretty. Hard to imagine her without her head. Did you go to the funeral?”

  I kept looking out the window. Maurice was leaning back in his seat, barely visible. I was hoping to make eye contact with him. I wanted to give him a look that he would immediately understand as a plea. The taste in my throat was getting worse.

  “Must have been a sad affair, her funeral. Wish I had known about it. Would have made the effort to be there. Despite everything, I would have come. Did they reattach her head?” he asked as he took another sip from his Coke. “For the funeral? Did they put it back on? Hell, they can do anything nowadays. I knew a guy who had his hand chopped off once fixing a lawn mower and he just picked it up and went to the hospital and they just sewed it back on. A year later, he chopped off the other hand and they fixed that one too. When I saw him after that second time, I just said, hell, man, get rid of that lawn mower.”

  He sucked hard on his straw again, emptying his glass. “Where’s she buried? Is she buried around here, nearby?”

  I nodded my head.

  “I guess I should go there,” he said. “Pay my respects. Despite everything, we had some good times. Especially in high school. We ran around with some wild kids but we had fun. She ever tell you about those times? She ever tell you the time that she did that hand stand in church? Right in front of the whole congregation. She was about fourteen. Right next to the priest. She had just given a little talk, she was representing her Sunday school class. She used to go to church a lot back then. St. Agnes. And after she finished the talk she stood on her hands and walked on them a little. She said she would do it if I ever went to church. So when I finally went, she did it. Hell, that was funny. Always thought we’d get back together. Guess I should visit her grave. Maybe you want to come with me. Pay respects together.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and I noticed his fingernails were rimmed with dirt.

  “What kind of name is Pappas?” he asked suddenly.

  “It’s my last name,” I said. I was so shaken by the image of my mother without a head that I could no longer focus on my silence strategy.

  “Hell, I know that. I mean, what kind of nationality is it? What country?”

  “It’s Greek. My father is Greek.”

  Bobby Lee shot me a look when I said “father,” then picked up what was left of his cheeseburger and bit down hard. “Greek. Hell, I don’t know many Greeks. Knew one one time. But I didn’t like him. He was short and walked around like he owned everything and everyone and he hardly could speak English.”

  “My father isn’t like that,” I said.

  Bobby Lee stopped chewing and leaned over the table and whispered, “He ain’t your father. He’s your guardian. Or something.”

  “He’s my father,” I said, looking down at the table. “And I’m staying with him and Tommy.”

  Bobby Lee started to say something when the waitress came back with a new plate of french fries. I felt his eyes on me and saw his hand reach out for a fry then quickly throw it back on the plate.

  “Hey, lady, come back here, these fries are cold and probably still taste like piss,” he said. I looked up. His hawk eyes had narrowed and his face was red.

  “Oh, so you know what piss tastes like?” The waitress said. She looked angry too.

  “Hell, you been eye-balling me since I came in here,” Bobby Lee said. “You got a problem with me?”

  “Yeah,” the waitress whispered. “I got a big problem with you. Why don’t you go back to your swamp and leave this family alone?”

  “You get the fuck out of here,” Bobby Lee said. But he said it too loud and the lawyers stopped talking and Gus came out from behind his shiny new counter holding a very old baseball bat.

  “What the fuck’s your problem?” Bobby Lee yelled to Gus.

  The lawyers jumped up and rushed over to our table. Bobby Lee stood up, waiting for them. He stood straight with his chest out, his arms bent slightly, his hands in fists.

  “Get the hell away from me you bunch of piss ants. I’m getting sick and tired of being abused by everyone in this goddamn city. Goddamn sick and tired, you hear me?”

  “Robert, this is not the time,” Bobby Lee’s lawyer said.

  “Hell, you shut your face! I’m paying you money I ain’t got and all I’m doing is sitting around waiting for nothing. You’ve been telling me to stay quiet, lay low, and I have been. But I’m sick and tired of waiting. Something’s gotta give.” He grabbed my shoulder. “This boy is mine. I never wanted to give him up. Didn’t know what happened to him. Now I found him and I want him back. Now everyone’s making me out to be some type of criminal.”

  “These meetings should have been better supervised,” Quinn, my father’s lawyer, said. “Let go of the boy.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do with my son,” Bobby Lee said.

  “Let go of that boy,” I heard a voice say. I looked over toward the door and saw Maurice moving quickly toward us. “You let go of him right now.” He had a look on his face I had never seen before, a fire in his eyes.

  “What do you want?” Bobby Lee asked.

  Maurice stopped inches from Bobby Lee and stood silently, coiled and a million miles tall. Bobby Lee looked around the room at everyone, at the lawyers, at Gus, then back at Maurice. Then I felt him loosen his grip on my shoulder.

  “You outnumber me, boy,” he said to Maurice. “You might not next time.” Then he let me go.

  THE DAYS PASSED slowly and a quiet fear fell over our house, a worry that I could read in Aunt Bess’s eyes and hear in Uncle Frank’s suddenly mellow voice. I seldom saw my father, he was either in his study or meeting with the lawyers downtown. Bobby Lee, for his part, vanished. After the incident at Will’s, we didn’t see or hear from him, except through his lawyer. I spent most of those dreary days in my room, doing my homework, reviewing my List of Things and waiting.

  I suspected the battle against Bobby Lee wasn’t going well. Once, after dinner, I briefly overheard Uncle Frank and my father discussing a compromise Bobby Lee had apparently offered, the terms of which weren’t discussed. In the end, my father would have none of it, however.

  “Under no circumstances,” I heard him say, his voice firm. “That is com pletely unacceptable. I will not negotiate.”

  Faced with what I thought was the increasing possibility of my having to move to Tennessee, I decided to take matters into my own hands and began to formulate an alternative plan, a plan that, while risky, offered me some hope: I would stage my own death.

  I would write a suicide note announcing my decision to take my life rather than go live with Bobby Lee in the hills. I had yet to work out the exact wording of this letter, which was to be several pages long, illustrated and in fact resemble a short book, but it would be hopefully convincing enough that Bobby Lee would believe it and leave me alone.

  My plan, while simple in theory, had one major flaw however: most suicide notes were usually accompanied by a dead body. The absence of my body, I feared, would cause serious credibility problems with my scheme, causing more problems than it solved. I wrestled with this issue for days, considering various options, until I came up with what I thought was a solution. About five miles away, in the nearby suburb of Wilton Highlands, there was a small river, the Pepper Creek, which eventually ran into the larger Brandon River, a legendary cauldron of smoldering pollution and toxic waste. My Suicide Book would re
veal my plans to throw myself into the creek and drown. It would also stress the futility of searching for my body since the toxins in the Brandon River would destroy all trace.

  My Pepper Creek plan also called for the leaving of shoes and an old pair of pants on the Creek’s bank, as well as a hiding place, possibly Montana or Charlie Governs’s basement. After a suitable amount of time, I would somehow get word to my family about my condition—living. We would then construct a new life together, one that would include a permanent relocation to a remote island or mountain top and the wearing of disguises.

  One Saturday afternoon, while I was in the middle of the first chapter of my Suicide Book, I heard my father approaching my room, his heavy step unmistakable. I sat up straight in my chair, bracing for some type of bad news. He had been on the phone most of the day, talking low and taking notes with his gold fountain pen, his face grim. I feared the worst.

  “Teddy,” my father said as he entered my room. I looked up at him. I had just finished sketching a pair of lonely shoes lying in some weeds besides the Pepper Creek. Underneath the sketch I had already written the words “Gone Forever, Do Not Search For.”

  “Teddy,” he said again, apologetically. It was then that I noticed the strange way he was dressed. He was wearing tight-fitting white shorts and an equally tight-fitting white shirt. He looked at me, an uncertain snowman. “Would you,” he said, “would you like to play tennis?”

  “KEEP YOUR EYE on the ball, Theo,” Mrs. Wilcott said. Then she said quietly, “Maybe we should have just had a late lunch.”

  Mrs. Wilcott and I were sitting on a bench at the indoor court of the Wilton Country Club watching my father swing and miss tennis balls with a frequency that defied the law of averages. Sooner or later he had to hit something.

  Joining the Wilton Country Club was Mrs. Wilcott’s idea, I knew that as soon as I saw her waiting by the front door of the club, standing underneath the gold-and-green club crest, wearing a short white skirt and a delicate white bow in her hair that looked like it had fallen softly and with perfect aim from a cloud. Despite my feelings toward her, I continued to grant her credit for her beauty. Standing with a white sweater draped over her shoulders, she looked like a shiny-faced angel playing hostess at the gates of heaven.

  On the drive over, my father had attempted to explain why we were joining the club, the oldest and most prestigious in Wilton. Located on the outskirts of town, on the area’s only real hill, it was a remote place I had given little thought to until now.

  “I just thought we could enjoy some of the activities they offer, as a family,” my father said. “They have two pools, a golf course, tennis, and supposedly an excellent restaurant which I thought your aunt might enjoy.”

  Instead of being thrilled—the club definitely had an Eastern Estates’ look and feel about it—I was plunged into a near state of panic over this new development: country clubs today, Tennessee tomorrow, I thought.

  “Are you all right?” Mrs. Wilcott now yelled to my father. He had slipped on the court, falling briefly to one knee. He waved and stood back up, his hand on the arch of his back.

  My father continued to swing at balls. With each miss, he seemed to grow smaller, shrinking until it appeared that he was hovering just inches above the court. I found it difficult to watch him in this diminished state and instead turned my attention to his tennis instructor, Miss Cahill, who I thought was very pretty in a sympathetic nurse way. Mrs. Wilcott had thought starting with a lesson might make sense after my father informed her that neither he nor I had ever played tennis before. He had volunteered to take the first lesson, the reasoning being that I could study and learn from him.

  “Good effort,” Miss Cahill yelled as my father missed yet again, twirling and twitching in a violent manner that reminded me of a PBS series I had once seen on seizures.

  “Try to keep from dropping the tennis racket, though,” site yelled across the net. “Hold on tight. Contact will come.”

  My father nodded, then bent forward in the peculiar, hunched-over stance that Miss Cahill had taught him, his arms dangling lifelessly in front of him. Miss Cahill lobbed the ball over her own head and gracefully tapped it in his direction. I watched as the ball gently arched into the air, flew harmlessly over the net, bounced once, then quietly hit him directly in the middle of his forehead. He hadn’t even attempted to swing.

  “Are you all right?” Miss Cahill called.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” my father said. He offered no explanation for not swinging his racket.

  Miss Cahill looked at him, then said, “I think that might be it for today,”

  “My timing seems to be a bit off,” my father said as he walked painfully over to where we were sitting. Up close he looked terrible. His face was blotched red and his hair was sticking out perpendicular to his head. He was breathing so hard that I considered offering him the antiheart-attack pill I had smuggled out of the house and now had in my pocket.

  “The timing will come. With practice,” Miss Cahill said. “Overall, how did you feel out there?”

  “Well, to be honest, a bit awkward,” my father said. “I’ve never had much eye-hand coordination, but I enjoyed the exercise nonetheless.”

  “I think you did just great,” Miss Cahill said and smiled. Then she leaned over and dabbed some sweat off my father’s forehead with the corner of a towel. She was about to do it again when Mrs. Wilcott suddenly stood up and stepped in between them.

  “Theo, you look like you could use a tall glass of lemonade in the clubhouse,” she said.

  “Oh, yes, I imagine I could,” my father said. “Yes. I’m, I’m afraid I’m paying a price for all those wonderful pies you’ve been making for us, Gloria,” he said.

  “Those pies will slow you down,” Miss Cahill said. “You really should be watching what you eat. A lower fat, higher protein diet will give you more energy.”

  My father looked embarrassed and said, “Yes.”

  Mrs. Wilcott smiled, but only for a second.

  “Teddy, are you interested in playing a little?” my father asked.

  “No,” I said simply.

  Miss Cahill flicked some hair away from her eyes. “Are you sure? It’ll be fun.”

  “If he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to,” Mrs. Wilcott said, her voice now full of small edges. “He’s really a soccer player, aren’t you, Teddy?”

  I shrugged.

  “We’ll just reschedule for another time,” Mrs. Wilcott said.

  Miss Cahill looked over at Mrs. Wilcott. She was young and lean and had misty gray eyes that looked mysterious. “Okay,” she finally said. “Well, just call me here at the club to schedule. I’m here most days.” She gave my father a half-smile, one corner of her mouth up just slightly, and walked slowly away, her arms swinging at her sides, in perfect rhythm with her short white skirt.

  Mrs. Wilcott watched Miss Cahill leave, a flat and focused expression on her face. Then she suddenly came back to life, cocking her head to one side and smiling.

  “Lemonade anyone?” she chirped.

  THE WILTON COUNTRY Club was long and sprawling, a maze of thickly carpeted hallways and dark, mahogany-paneled rooms. Despite its pools, tennis courts and golf courses, the club was shrouded in stillness, a forced, tight quiet that the members, mostly older people of or about my father’s age, seemed afraid or unwilling to disturb. The club, built in 1901, had been renovated just twice, the last time being more than twenty-five years ago, a fact that Mrs. Wilcott, who headed the renovation committee, found simply unacceptable.

  “Quite a bit of work has to be done,” she said as she sipped her bottled water.

  “Yes, I imagine it does,” my father said.

  We were sitting in the Clubhouse Room, by a huge window that overlooked the first fairway of the golf course, a wide avenue of browning grass that unfolded before us like a soft airport runway. According to Mrs. Wilcott, the Western Open had been played here many years ago and Arnold Palmer himself had
walked these very grounds.

  “Very impressive,” my father said.

  I sipped my lemonade and looked out the window. We were the only ones in the clubhouse. The old empty room, with its high, remote ceilings and dark brown carpet, vaguely reminded me of Mrs. Plank’s Dust Chamber. Somewhere in the middle of my first glass of lemonade, I decided I wanted to go home.

  “We need to raise two point five million dollars over the next six months,” Mrs. Wilcott said.

  My father, who also had been looking out the window, deep (I was sure) in Bobby Lee thoughts, turned to face her. “I’m sorry?”

  Mrs. Wilcott smiled. “We need to raise two point five million for the club.”

  My father’s eyes widened. “Why?”

  “To preserve the integrity of the building.”

  My father was silent for a moment, then nodded his head. “Oh,” he said. “Yes, integrity.”

  “We’re all set for the fund-raiser next week. The Gala. I hope you remembered to keep that on your calendar, Theo.” She reached over and briefly touched my father’s arm. “You asked me to remind you.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. The fund-raiser. Yes. We’re planning on attending. I meant to mention that to you, Teddy,” he said, turning to me.

  “You’ll have to rent another tuxedo,” Mrs. Wilcott said. “You should really just buy one. It would make more sense.”

  “A tuxedo, yes.”

  Mrs. Wilcott looked at me. “You’re coming too, Teddy, you and the whole family. We’ve hired a wonderful band. I’m sure you and Benjamin will be able to persuade a few young ladies to dance.”

  I nodded my head, the image she described inconceivable.

  “Your aunt is invited to the Gala too,” Mrs. Wilcott said. “As is your Uncle Frank, of course. We’re all sitting at the same table. We always have a wonderful time at the Gala.”