Ten-Word Tragedies

by Tim Lebbon

  Before college started, he decided to take in a last lungful of freedom and go on a road trip with his boyfriend, a sweet guy named Terence Hong, Korean heritage but Cape Cod born and bred. Terence was skinny as a rake, and, in spite of their obvious physical differences, when he and Matty stood side by side in identical white tees, they looked like twins.

  Plan was, they’d get a flight from Boston to New Orleans, hire a car from Hertz and head west to Los Angeles. No set itinerary. No ETA.

  As Matty packed his rucksack, I bit my lip to prevent myself interrogating him on what he’d forgotten, instead asking where they were intending to stay, thinking, if this was my wife and me, I’d have booked hotel rooms in advance, quaint inns or bed and breakfasts, like when we did Maine and New Hampshire the previous fall.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ he said. ‘No, we’ll just do motels, if we find them, keep it cheap.’

  What if you don’t find them?

  ‘Then we’ll sleep in the car. Save money. For booze.’

  I hope you’re not thinking of drinking and driving.

  ‘No, Dad,’ he said, with long drawn-out weariness, but no ounce of malice. There was no ounce of malice in that kid, ever.

  We hugged and he promised to send postcards home. Which sounds pathetically antiquated, but he wasn’t on social media anymore. He’d deleted all his accounts—FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram—ever since a troll started persecuting him for his sexuality. Wasn’t worth it, he’d said. To us, his parents, it had been an unpleasant reminder that, while a lot of the world had learned to embrace loving relationships of all genders, there were still some haters out there who didn’t. Maybe that was why I continued to be worried about him. Yes, he could look after himself, probably better than I could, but all fathers want their children to be free of pain and hurt, when it comes down to it. And the thought of some of that shit made my blood boil. Why were some sad individuals so goddamned incensed about two human beings being in love with each other?

  When Jen and I deposited them at the terminal building, we both felt a little tearful and a little stupid. As I parked in our driveway, I suggested a visit to the Dry Dock Bar. She said, ‘That’s the best idea you’ve had in weeks.’ I said, ‘I know.’

  With unexpected alacrity, the first postcard arrived two days after their departure. God bless the U.S. Mail.

  Mom & Dad

  Just arrived New Orleans. Stepped out of the airport and got a blast of the heating unit just above my head, like stepping into an oven. Then realized that’s no heater! That’s the sun! (T says hi, by the way.)

  Matty x

  P.S. Down here ‘sauce’ is a 3-syllable word! Sa-oww-ce! xx M

  On the other side was a colorful picture of the French Quarter showing a jazz band—Louis Armstrong era. Not my personal preference when it comes to music. I’m more of a Tom Waits fan. Someone who Matty once said sounded like a man who shouldn’t be let anywhere near a microphone. I told him, that was the exact point.

  I’d reminded him to check the rental car for dents and scratches before they set off. Not to let the company nail them for damage they didn’t cause. An old trick, and good advice, I thought, but he looked at me like I was trying to ignite a campfire with two wet sticks and he was holding a box of matches.

  I pictured the two of them in the Kia Picanta ‘or similar’, disregarding my further wisdom to keep the windows closed and the AC on. The hell, I guess it was their job to know best, and mine to be stupid or boring. I heard their laughter, sharing some joke, maybe at my expense, enjoying whatever music station they’d tuned in to, saw the wind ruffling in their hair. The meticulously-gelled coiffure long gone.

  Remembering then my words when Matty first told us he was gay. I’d said, not for any grand effect, but because it was true: ‘Doesn’t matter who you love, son, as long as they love you back.’ We’d hugged, like we always did. No different from the day before, or the day after.

  Mom & Dad

  Along the Mississippi. Shocked to see real poverty—I mean, shacks. Brit in a diner bought us breakfast & recommended a steak house in Jackson, said best in the country. Half a day to get there! Better be worth it!

  Matty x

  We’d gotten into a routine now.

  Bring the postcard from the mailbox. Make some strong black coffee. Take it in turns to read it aloud. If I was out working, Jen would wait till I arrived home. It turned into a treat I looked forward to, after a day of tree removal and lawn maintenance, battling decay producing fungi, dealing with gypsy moth or bagworm.

  Mom & Dad

  Got there finally. Hot & sweaty tin lodge. Middle of nowhere, packed (all white faces)—if you eat a T-bone they give you another one free! We shared 50-50. Still Too Much! Whisky (compulsory!) Cook must shed five pounds every night! (The Jackson steakhouse diet!) Love you lots

  Matty x

  Jen just looked at this one for a while, back and front, then said: ‘My baby.’

  It didn’t need elaborating. Not to me.

  Mom & Dad

  Distances are crazy, we’ll never get to LA by car, so we’re driving back to N.Orl and getting a flight to Phoenix. Tony has a hangover. Says the map is blurry. Hahaha!

  Matty x

  We had a day of rest after that one, which I placed with the others on the mantelpiece. The next arrived two days later.

  Mom & Dad

  Arrived Phoenix Airport. Detour to Apache Junction. Old mining town, T says he’s seen it in a Sean Penn movie. Place on map: OK Corral. Real one or not? Don’t know. Soon find out!

  Matty xxx

  Tears prickled in my eyes as I imagined him writing a postcard to us every day when he should be enjoying himself. Couldn’t help wondering if, on occasion, Terence looked at him askance behind Ray-bans, shaking his head. ‘What are you doing spinning that postcard rack, man? Let’s hit the road.’

  While my wife answered the ring of the door bell, I turned the card over and looked at the photograph on the other side. Superstition Mountain, read the caption. I’d never heard of it, but then there were a whole lot of things in Arizona I hadn’t heard of. It looked like a big stone beast in slumber.

  My wife spoke my name. ‘Mason.’

  I placed down my cup of coffee. A rotund but young female police officer was framed in my doorway. I walked to her, hand extended, thinking, and saying, thank God, not before time they did something about that dumped vehicle at the end of the street. Hell, it was an eyesore.

  The officer’s eyes remained semi-hid under her cap. She said she was sorry, she hadn’t come about that. She said he was sorry a second time, then asked if she could talk. I said, ‘Sure,’ wondering why she wasn’t.

  When she asked if we could wait until my wife returned from the kitchen, the cogs in my brain turned and I understood that she wanted Jen to be present for this conversation. I immediately thought, well, she has to be if this is the way we are heading. And I knew we were.

  It had happened near Sedona.

  From what we found out later, they were en route to Flagstaff. Terence had taken his turn at the wheel. Matty had felt tired and unwell, but, typically, was eager not to spoil the vacation by making a fuss. Drowsy, he slumped on Terence’s shoulder. Terence remembers him saying, ‘Soon be there.’ Then he murmured something, and fell asleep with his eyes open. Those were the last words he said.

  When the car stopped at the road side, he couldn’t be woken. He had to be carried from the car into Verde Valley Medical Center, where he was put to bed and a blood test was taken. The results showed ‘a considerable haemolytic anaemia’—a breakdown of blood platelets, something completely unpredictable in a young man of his age and good health. He died within an hour of arriving there.

  Terence was almost invisible in the confusion. Even so, we heard his reaction impressed the entire staff of the Medical Center. He displayed dignity and strength, signs of a maturity beyond his years. He remained calm and composed. He did not crumble in the face of devastation. The same
couldn’t be said about us.

  Our world imploded, and even as it was happening, I thought how unbecoming it was to the memory of our son, that we owed it to our perfect boy to cling on and survive this, but the overwhelming drive for us both was to do the opposite. Only the thought of hanging onto him, a memory of him, and not letting that go, kept our mouths above water.

  The next day another postcard arrived. A sucker punch, right in the base of the guts.

  My hands shook like I had Parkinson’s as I clanged the mailbox shut, my heart trying to escape my chest as I staggered back to my home, the mundane truth dawning on me, stiff and prosaic and cruel, that our son simply must’ve sent it before he died. As he’d done dozens, hundreds of unknowable things in those hours before…

  I took a deep breath and turned over the photograph of The Manger Desert Sun Motel, Phoenix.

  We sat with our hearts dragged half out of us. Staring at it, steeling ourselves, thinking how something can be a torture and a blessing at one and the same time. But it was.

  Mom & Dad

  Terence wants to see the Grand Canyon. Decided we’re going to go to Flagstaff for a few days, fly back from Phoenix. Will probably beat this card home!

  Matty x

  We read it, weeping.

  Weeping from the roots of our souls because when he wrote those few unremarkable sentences, Matty had no idea what would occur later that day, under that cloudless sky. He was alive in that writing, frozen in time, like a face in an old photograph, and that was the sorrowful joy of it—he was still alive in those words.

  We clung to that postcard. And when my wife was ready to let go, a decade, a century later, I took it from her hand and gently placed it on the mantel with the others, the smoke from the log fire biting the surface of my eyes.

  Foolishly, I thought God had done with us then. I was wrong.

  The following day I went to the mailbox and collected a sheaf of letters, mostly junk mail and coupons from a local supermarket or pizza delivery service. Flicking through them as I walked back to the house, I called my wife. Must’ve sounded something like the cry of a dog.

  The handwriting unmistakable.

  It threw me at first—of course it would—then I concluded Matty must’ve sent it the same day as, or even the day before, the last. That had to be it. It was logical. The mail screws up, after all. Christ, they do that all the time.

  This time it was a photograph captioned Desert Donkeys Burros. Perhaps he bought it from the same truck stop or drug store as the other, I didn’t know, but what did it matter?

  I called Jen a second time. She looked pale and wobbly coming downstairs, her hand gliding down the rail as I raised up the small rectangle in my fingers.

  She held out the flats of her hands. I placed it on them and wiped the perspiration off my skin. I found my glasses. She found hers. The kitchen table beckoned. She said aloud the first three words…but not the rest.

  Mom & Dad

  Her eyes lost focus. She stared at the table, then the wall. I asked what was wrong. Silence gagged the woman, and it frightened me. I took it from her. Not sure I wanted to. And damn sure, once I’d read it.

  Mom & Dad

  You probably know by now. I died today. It didn’t hurt. It’s hard to explain. Don’t be sad. Love

  Matty x

  Jen snatched it back.

  The most horrible thing I’ve seen in my life is her look of pleading puzzlement right then, because there wasn’t a thing I could do about it, least of all explain it. I mouthed that it must be from somebody else. Some sick sonofabitch.

  ‘Who?’

  Somebody trying to cause us pain.

  ‘Someone in Arizona? We don’t know anyone in Arizona.’

  Okay, who? Who do you think it is? Tell me.

  ‘It’s him,’ she said, anger in her frown. ‘You know it’s him. It’s obviously him. Don’t you recognise your own son’s handwriting—Look!’ She grabbed the other postcards and threw them down. She wanted me to compare them, and I didn’t. I refused to. ‘You know who it is!’

  Did I? Did I know? If it had ended there, maybe that question would have plagued me. But this was only the beginning.

  Greetings from Arizona. The Grand Canyon State.

  I took it to the bathroom. I ran the water as I sat and read it, alone.

  Mom & Dad

  It’s so weird. You can see hundreds of miles in all directions across the desert. Over to the west I can see a town, and there are dark clouds over it like you get in cartoons (Road Runneresque) + I can see lightning jab down, and rain. But where I’m standing is dry as a bone.

  Don’t cry over me. I’m in a good place. I like it here. Met Pops and Grammy. They say hi. Hugs & kisses

  Matty x

  I don’t know why I thought I could keep it from Jen. I couldn’t.

  After I read it to her, she went for a walk with the dogs, our military Schnauzer and American bulldog, probably in Beebe Woods, or along Surf Drive Beach to the Nobska Light, her usual hikes, and returned, silent then for a long while but happy. Of course she was. Her mother and her father were there with her son. She didn’t need to say a thing. I could see it all in her face. I think from that moment, looking back, I knew I almost wasn’t part of it anymore.

  I remember that night I heard her sitting up in darkness. I checked my watch. She said she was going downstairs to read it again. I pulled on my robe. She said I didn’t have to get up. I said, ‘Yes, I do.’

  We knew what Matty would have wanted. No black suits. No flowers. No bullshit. No religion. A lead weight lifted when it was all over, but the day you’re your son’s pallbearer never leaves you. It’s against nature and I’d sooner take a bayonet to the skull than go through it again. Afterwards I saw Jen talking to neighbors and friends, my own throat too raw to utter anything but an industrial-level expletive in the form of a howl, resisting that being an extreme act of willpower on my part.

  I asked her later why she hadn’t mentioned the postcards to Terence as we’d planned. She behaved as though I hadn’t spoken, so I said it again. She looked at me like I was stupid and said she’d had the most recent card in her pocket, and took it out in the ladies’ room just before she was intending to tell Terence everything, and show him—but there was no writing on it, it was blank; the message from Matty had disappeared. I asked her to let me see it. She took it out of her purse and handed it over.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s there now. Exactly. That’s what he’s telling us, don’t you see? This is meant for us, not anybody else, just for us.’

  They came pretty much every day from then on, without fail. And she would wait, standing by the mailbox, all weathers, in a raincoat or wind-breaker, a stone sentinel, only coming to life once they’d arrived.

  Desert Scene, Arizona.

  It was the one galvanizing force in her day. I was jealous, because when I watched it happen my heart sank, just as hers lifted. And I felt I was betraying someone or something and I didn’t know what.

  Mom & Dad

  Great news! Did you know (family secret) Grammy’s Uncle Burt committed s/cide beside a tree in Kentucky? And Consolidated Coal said it was ‘accidental death’ cos if they said s/cide the insurance wouldn’t pay out! Uncle Burt is here too and he’s mended. Wish could send a picture—desertnights B.A.-ootiful!

  Matty xx

  I saw joy in her face as she read this, but it dug into me, the way a grave is dug, that hole getting just deeper and deeper. It wasn’t that I was getting pulled down by the sadness, but that I didn’t have someone to share it with. To feel, by my side, what was real. She was on a different path, and it helped her, and who was I to deny her that?

  At first I thought the solution was to run away.

  I switched off my phone, got in the pickup, and drove through the night, several nights, to Flagstaff, to Interstate 17, the Black Canyon Freeway…But there was nothing there. How could there be? It was just desert, dust, heat, sun, and a long piece
of lifeless, empty road. The second I stopped the car I knew the journey was futile, pointless, irrelevant.

  When I drove home to Falmouth I found six or seven more postcards on the mantelpiece, arranged either side of the clock. The fire was burning. I thought at first Jen was kneeling, warming her hands, gazing into the flames, but she wasn’t. She was just being near them. She was just being near him. And she had changed.

  Maybe my going away and coming back had thrown it into sudden sharp focus, but I realized she wasn’t looking after herself, she wasn’t dressing most days, she wasn’t talking any more, not to me, not to anybody, and she didn’t go outdoors for fear of missing the sound of the mailbox. That was all that mattered to her, now. It filled her with wide eyed expectation, just as it wore me down and made me want to be free of it, in any way possible.

  Her life was reading the cards aloud, over and over, as if for the first time, seeking hidden meanings, or asking rhetorical questions of me that I couldn’t answer. At first I’d thought the messages brought her joy, or comfort, but now I was certain they were sapping her of her grip on life, or of everything that made life worth living, and that terrified me, because piece by piece it was eroding the person I loved.

  I had to do something about it, I knew. And I did a drastic thing. I had no choice.

  One chill December morning, my fingers half-frozen, I put my hand in the mailbox, using my body to block her view from the window, as I slipped the latest postcard inside by jacket. I returned to the house and handed her letters from our internet provider and phone company. She looked at me with sickly disappointment. I said there was nothing else.

  ‘There must be.’ She put on her snow boots and went to the mailbox herself, delving inside with her whole forearm, poking into every corner. She came back in. ‘He’d never let us down.’

  I guess.

  ‘What do you mean you guess? I’m going down to the post office. It’ll be down there, you mark my words, on the floor, behind the, the…or delivered to the wrong address. What are we supposed to do then?’ I suggested she put on her body warmer; she was only wearing her night dress. She ignored me and just said, ‘Those people…’ and left, slamming the front door. I watched her through the window, striding down the driveway, elbows jutting.