Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  “I don’t think you’ll need it,” Graham says. Wrong answer. I say that I’ll go get it, but this too is wrong.

  “I’ll get it! For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you people?” Mom says. Fussing, clambering, fighting her way out of the car. “Look! You were going to let me leave without locking the house!”

  She goes back in alone. We wait, shuffle our feet in the hard wind while the reporters watch us uncertainly, wishing we’d leave so they can too. My gloves and coat are too thin for this cold and my arm still aches from the crash. There’s nothing to do but wait until she finds her purse and walks back out, determined to do it alone, to face what has to be faced.

  Silence on the drive. The heater coats us too soon with thick, hot, dry air, and I start to cough, a deep rattle, the worst I’ve had since my release.

  My release. When was that exactly? I can’t remember being released. I’m nowhere near released now. Bloody useless words. We waste little time on them during the ride. I accept a cough drop from Alice then sit in rigid silence, concentrate on defeating this cough.

  The streets, sky, grass, buildings, clouds, faces all so grey, passing like a grainy picture from the 1930s. A young man sits on the sidewalk with his sweater pulled round his shoulders, his head slumped forward, baseball cap turned up in his hand. A woman walks past him, nearly steps on his sneaker, ignores his request. Leah sings herself a song from daycare, something about a caterpillar and a garden hose. Her voice so small.

  “There’s parking in behind,” my mother says finally.

  “I’m going to park here, Mom,” Graham says, and steers the car into a vacant spot across the street from the church.

  “But there’s parking in behind.”

  “This is perfect, Mom.” He shuts off the engine.

  “It’s not perfect. You have to pay the meter. There’s free parking in behind!”

  “I don’t mind paying the meter, Mom.”

  “Don’t be stupid! They said there was free parking in behind!”

  “Graham,” Alice says, in an unsubtle tone, and without another word he starts the engine again, then steers us back into traffic.

  “It’s one way,” he says in a minute. “I can’t get there from here.”

  “You’ll have to go around the block, dear,” Alice says.

  We stop at a traffic light, then encounter construction.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, we’re going to be late!” Graham says.

  “Then park in the old spot!” Mom says. “Just make up your mind!”

  “I did make up my mind! And I can’t turn around …”

  Slowly traffic clears. I think of saying something about Santa Irenian gridlock but the words don’t come out. I’d rather not think about it. When we get around the block we find the church parking lot is full, then when we swing past the first parking spot, it’s taken as well.

  “You let us out here, Graham,” Alice says. Superb control in her voice – in command whatever the contingency. “We’re going to be late.”

  “Be careful getting out,” Graham says. “Alice, watch the child, for God’s sake!”

  “I am watching the child, and the child has a name.”

  Slowly, a sad parade across the street. My mother so old-looking. I take her arm and she leans on me. Leah runs ahead and pulls on the heavy door but of course needs Alice to help her open it. Then into the darkness, the smell of old polish and wet carpet. This place of refuge and silence.

  “I think the minister asked us to wait with him in his chambers, Mom,” I say.

  “It’s too late. It’s time to start.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Funerals start on time,” she snaps. “You can be late for anything else.”

  Tired steps up the aisle. A smaller crowd than I expected. Could be the weather? The short notice?

  White hair, a tall straight man with tired eyes, looking with such sadness at my mother and me. Whispers, nods of recognition. People who knew Dad, people I don’t know, who’ve been shoved out of my brain by other events. A lady in a dark purple dress with a black coat and fine papery skin, powdered, deflated. A young man in enormously baggy black pants with an awkward haircut and a ring in his lip, his tie crooked, worn under protest. A woman stands suddenly when she sees us, puts her hand on her boy’s shoulder for support – exactly the same sort of gesture that Luki would have used and so I think for a moment that she must be pregnant although nothing is showing.

  And I see Luki in my mind sheltering with her family, waiting for this latest madness to pass.

  Maryse at the front with Patrick. Patrick? Taller yet again, strangely mature in his blue jacket and tie, in this wrap of sadness. His eyes find mine and there’s no leap – a hint of recognition, but no welcome there. It’s unspoken but devastating. I realize it right away – I stayed away too long. The slight chance I had in the summer is now frozen shut.

  All my words feel locked away in a cold cellar, huddled, inconsequential. I go to hug Maryse and she takes a step back, nearly trips in the pew. She’s trapped and so we embrace, and I hold her too long, feel her squirm for release. Release! There is none. As soon as I think it I start to sob. Stupidly, for no reason, I unleash upon her a flood of choking, inappropriate tears. I can feel her, she doesn’t want to hold me, doesn’t know what to do. No one knows, least of all me. I try to let her go but the tears increase. I can hardly breathe; it’s as if I’m underwater. She pushes me, gently, but a push still, so I have to straighten up. I hate this! Everyone looking. Through a blur I see Patrick staying back. He’ll have none of it and so I don’t try. My hand brushes his shoulder and he ducks his head almost as if I’m going to hit him. We shuffle into the front pew, Mom kneels immediately and so I do too, still crying, reeling from the awkwardness.

  The organ music, the deep brown pews, solid; the arches and the red carpet and the gleaming candle holders, the blues and reds of the stained glass. Christ and his sheep. My father’s unknown friends. His unknown life. I dry my eyes, breathe, breathe, regain some sort of composure. The minister comes out in his white robe with the black trim and the large golden cross, and I think of carrying that body, how heavy it was, how it stank in the streets of Welanto. Streets! Passages. That policeman in his nightshirt. The page of notes I had Luki copy out. For the record.

  For nothing.

  Riots spreading everywhere, the police back to their raping and pillaging, Welanto in flames again. But there’s no second Suli Nylioko. It’s Mrs. Grakala propelled from behind like some Mao-puppet. It’s about power and death and I don’t understand it. After everything I’ve been through. I talked in the darkness with the woman so much of the world is intent on making into a saint. She told me she was praying to the wrong God. That the Old Testament God could have given her husband a few more steps and he would’ve been all right, they would’ve made a new life. She told me this and then she took away the few steps from other men. I don’t know this for a fact. I just believe it. Sometimes saints are dripping in blood. And sometimes they can still be good people.

  The organ music changes, all of us stand. I feel it first in my body before my mind knows anything. No, I think. Not this one. I have the order of service right in my hand. I should’ve known it was coming. But once again I’m taken by surprise. Graham arrives at my side, out of breath, still annoyed.

  Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

  The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.

  When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

  My throat catches mid-sob and I can’t stand it. Mom leans against me and so does Graham. My shoulders jerk, breath comes in short clutches. Help of the helpless. It’s too much. Five verses, on and on, music too strong. Not what I wanted. I wanted to stay frozen. It’s too much.

  Then we all sit and Graham goes forward. It’s too much. I lasted through blood and mud and rain, chickens and goats, huloika dancing above us, bodies writhing, all
of us soaked and washed in it. But not this.

  Don’t take my father from me.

  Graham’s voice is shaky, but it still works. “The Lord is my shepherd,” he reads; “I shall not want.” My tears streaming. I shall not want. It’s all I do, want and want and want. For peace, for life, for sleep and rest. These heartbreaking words. I can’t withstand them, am a slobbering mess. I fight, but there’s nothing I can do. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”

  The valley of the shadow. Stop it. It isn’t fair.

  “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me …”

  More hymns and prayers but the damage is done, and now I’m supposed to speak. Brought down to this. Breathe and breathe and breathe. The softness of the carpet. The valley of the shadow. I know it. If anything, I know it. It’s nothing to fear. But this–

  I can’t look at anyone. Now I’m supposed to account for it all. Now I’m supposed to–

  “I don’t remember my father,” I say. It isn’t my voice. It’s some croaking, beat-up imitation. But we’re all here and something has to come out.

  “I didn’t know him very well. Many of you … knew him better than me. I look at my son and I think of him stepping up here at my funeral, whenever it’s going to be–”

  I lose my thread.

  Breathe and breathe. Something of my voice comes back.

  “I’m sorry. I tried to write out a speech.”

  I take another moment, breathe, compose myself.

  “He worked so hard,” I say. “He took himself off every morning to a government job that he stopped believing in decades before his retirement. But he kept on with it. Until he got sick. He kept on.”

  I pause again. All their eyes are on me.

  “There was one time, I remember, it was Christmas when we were very young. Graham and I were fooling around with the paper dessert hats. I took mine and stuck it around one of the candles. Then Graham did his, and it burst into flames, just like that. The whole table could’ve gone up. But my father took the fire in his hands. He had such big hands. He moved in an instant, clapped them together and the fire disappeared. Just like that.”

  I see it now, bright as anything, as if it’s all happening again.

  “That’s what I always wanted to be able to do for my family,” I say. “I wanted to be able to take the fire in my hands and make it go away.”

  I try to continue, but there’s no more air. As I raise my eyes I swear I see him in the second row, looking at me as if he’d like to take me out back and tan my hide for making such a spectacle. I blink and it’s him, blink again and it isn’t. He becomes some other old guy in a blue suit with hands that can’t stay still.

  The minister puts his hand on my shoulder and I step down. Silence.

  On with the rest of the service. There are hymns, the minister intones his familiar words. I breathe and breathe. Graham examines his knuckles; Mom is holding herself very still, trying to be composed; Alice keeps Leah close to her, whispers in her ear from time to time.

  Filing out. The family first. All those grey faces.

  We stop at the doors and unbearably Mom decides she wants to greet everyone, tell them about the reception at the golf course, even though the minister announced it.

  Worn faces, knobby hands. Dad wasn’t as old as many of these people. They don’t look at me. Thankfully. Kind words for my mother, it’s what she needs, what we all needed – kind words, soft tones, gentle reminiscences. I should’ve talked about his silly jokes, his tirades at the news, the way he loved my mother. I see them now in the morning standing in the kitchen just looking at one another, a thousand miles from the rest of the world.

  “Bill, this is Liam. Liam, I’d like you to meet Bill.” I look up to see Liam blocking half the hall. Liam with square shoulders, too manly a grip, his left hand pressing on my sore arm. I barely squirm free. Liam with the hulking diamond ring set in gold.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, right out of a television show. Liam, who looks like he owns a car dealership. Who has his hand on my boy’s shoulder and stands too close to my wife. Maryse looks at me all shot through with the emotion of this moment, and so I know. We won’t talk about it now because it is now, the day of my father’s funeral, standing at the gates of hell, greeting the mourners. We’ll save it for later, but at least I know.

  Liam, who looks big enough to wrap all the way round the both of them and protect them. How did I miss him before? I must’ve walked right by him.

  “I understand your pain,” the minister says to me. An older man with a heavy head and eyes too clear, it’s hard to look away. He understands my pain. I don’t understand it at all but somehow he does and now he’s told me.

  I step into the grey wind. There’s the reception at the golf course but I can’t go now. I can’t stand with a glass of wine and a napkin and oyster-cheese spread on crackers making conversation. I can plead illness or I can just walk, head down, wherever. I choose the latter. Someone will figure out I’m missing, but it doesn’t matter. Graham is there and Alice will tell him what to do and my mother will obsess over the cold cuts and–

  “Bill!”

  –and people will try to drag me into this morbid after-death party when the man is gone, his brain died a long time ago. Maybe he’s with the huloika. Maybe he’s with Suli Nylioko, the saint of non-violence, in the blood and the mud and the rain of the valley of the shadow of–

  “Bill!”

  I turn, startled. “You got your hair cut,” I say.

  “Yes.”

  She looks utterly different, like her pictures from Africa, and immediately I know. I know and I liked it better when I didn’t figure things out so quickly.

  “You’re going somewhere,” I say.

  “Wait.”

  “That’s why you got your hair cut. You’re going away!”

  “I’m so sorry about your father,” she says.

  “And your mother. Did she–?”

  “Not long after I got back. I tried to call you–”

  “And I tried–”

  She stands a few feet back from me so I know. I know about Liam and Maryse, and now I know that Joanne’s going to fling herself back into some famine or other.

  “Derrick’s frantic,” she says, this funny shorthand. I know already what she’s going to say and she knows what’s coming from me.

  “He’s been great,” I say. “He’s setting up a meeting at the bank this afternoon. I’ve been a lousy manager but we’ll keep it together. There’s so much more to do. Don’t go back to Africa.”

  “Honduras, actually,” she says. “It’s only for two months. Hurricane Mitch.”

  “Don’t go for two hours. Stay with me.”

  This cold wind. Graham now walking towards me, pissed off because he’s supposed to drive us all to the reception at the golf course and what the fuck am I doing?

  “I’m afraid I’m committed. It’s only–”

  “Don’t go. You cut your hair, that’s okay, I’ll forgive you. But don’t go. You’ll get cerebral malaria. Your plane will crash. You’ll catch cholera, locusts will descend. Don’t go! Scorpions, rattlers, killer bees, bandits, looters.”

  “Bill!”

  Two of them at the same time: Graham stopped at the red light yelling at me to come along; Joanne shaking her head at me.

  “I’m telling you – nothing hangs together. The plagues of antiquity rise up. The vessel crumbles, the centre will not hold–”

  “Bill, just shut up!”

  “I can’t! If I keep talking then maybe you won’t go.”

  Graham gets to us, asks me, livid, what’s going on.

  “I’m not going to the golf course,” I say. “And she’s not going to Honduras!”

  He looks at Joanne and I realize they haven’t met. The moment passes when I should introduce them, but I don’t.

  “You’re not going to the golf course?” he asks finall
y.

  “No. I don’t believe in it.”

  “You don’t believe in what?”

  “Golf courses!”

  “You’re fucking nuts!”

  “Yes. I am!” Two brothers yelling in the grey wind. My mother now walking towards us. It’s just going to get worse.

  “You have to go to the golf course,” he says, as if it’s written on a stone tablet.

  “I don’t and I won’t.”

  “What’s going on?” my mother yells from across the street.

  “I’m not going to the golf course unless she agrees not to go to Honduras.”

  “This is ridiculous!” Joanne says.

  “I didn’t walk away from a helicopter crash to have my father die and my wife and son taken by a used-car salesman and have you go to Honduras. I didn’t and I won’t.”

  “It’s all right. Calm down.”

  “It’s not all right and I won’t calm down and you’re not going to Honduras.”

  “You cut your hair,” Mom says to Joanne. Beside us now. Brilliant.

  “I have to get my way sometime,” I say.

  “Why can’t we just go to the golf course?” Graham asks.

  “Because I have to get my way sometime!” I yell, and if I say it long enough, if I repeat myself and stamp my feet and ignore that cold grey wind and will not give in then the lady will stay.

  The lady will stay and it’s the only thing left that will make a difference.

  “Why don’t we all go to the golf course?” my mother says.

  Strangers now stop to look at this clump of family arguing on the street.

  “It isn’t what I want!” I say, like a two-year-old raging at the universe.

  “What golf course is that?” some stranger asks, stupidly.

  “What do you want?” Graham asks.

  I have to think about this. I’m not in the mood, but it seems inescapable. “I want what I’ve always wanted,” I say. “I want to be part of making things better. And I want Joanne to stay here with me and be part of it too and not go to Honduras.”

  “It’s only two months,” Joanne says lamely.

  “I’m not a wreck any more!” I say, and see immediately how pathetic I look in their eyes. But I’m too far gone. “And I love you!” I say. “And you told me you love me too!”