by Tim Sandlin
“How’d you know?”
I ran a relationship chart in my head. “That means you might be my sister, but it’s just as likely you’re my cousin.”
“Out with it. What’s the deal here?”
I told her the story of Christmas Eve 1949—how Paw Paw Callahan promised he would come home but didn’t, so Lydia called her friend Mimi’s brother and the boys came over and Skip injected oranges with vodka from a syringe. When I came to the rape, Gilia got real still. Before that, her eyes had been moving, watching the children on the merry-go-round, keeping track of street traffic. At the word rape she looked directly at me. I had to meet her eyes or lose credibility.
“Dad pissed on her?”
“That’s what Lydia says.”
We were quiet a long time after that. She looked down at the floorboards. I could see her jaw, clenching and unclenching beneath the skin. Her hair was very blonde, right up to the scalp.
“I don’t know Dad well,” she said. “They shipped me off to boarding school in the eighth grade. Then I was accepted at Georgetown. The last four months is the first time I’ve lived with him since I was a little girl.”
“You went to prep school?”
“Boarding school.”
“You tied sweaters around your neck and wore shorts with baggy pockets for tennis balls? You played field hockey and compared boys of the Ivy League?”
Gilia almost smiled. “The cheap preppie label comes off after your first divorce.”
“You’re too young to be divorced.”
“There’s no such thing as too young to be divorced.”
She told me about the art history professor at Georgetown who could order off a French menu and recite Shakespearean sonnets, substituting his own feelings for the final couplet.
“I’d never dated a boy over twenty-one. Jeremy was so forceful when he said Salvador Dali was a no-talent bum.”
“You married the guy because he trashed Salvador Dali?”
Gilia’s face was amazingly expressive. Watching her was like reading a newspaper; everywhere I looked was a story.
“I guess so. And he was good in bed. I’d never slept with an experienced man before.”
I almost told her about Maurey training me to get the girls off every time, but I still wasn’t certain of our genetic relationship. It’d been so long since I’d met someone I had anything in common with, the tendency was to suspect shared parentage.
“Why did you get divorced?” I asked.
She gave the shrug I was already fond of. “He was a humanist who believed in situational fidelity. I talked myself into not seeing it until the night he got me in bed with him and a coed bimbo. After that I had to leave.”
“But you went through with it the once?”
She shrugged again.
“How did group sex make you feel?” I asked.
“Suicidal.”
“No sex is worth suicide.”
“To save myself, I stopped thinking and feeling and I slithered home to Mommy and Daddy. Now I shop, swim, and watch network television. Far as I see, that’s considered normal here. Everyone in my family stopped thinking and feeling years ago.”
A woman in a red Volkswagen bus pulled up at the other end of the park and hollered something at the children on the merry-go-round. They pretended not to hear her. The little boy fell off, picked himself up, and ran to the teeter-totter. He ran up one end of the teeter-totter and made it a couple steps onto the high side before his weight brought it down with a bang. The woman came out of the Volkswagen with her hands on her hips.
“So I went through the motions of behaving the way I was expected to behave,” Gilia said. “Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have nothing in common with anyone I know or will ever know.”
“That’s a good way to get depressed.”
“Tell me about it, Jack. Then one morning when I’m in the depths of numbness, a funny-looking man walks into the family room and announces my solid-to-the-point-of-nauseating father once gangbanged a girl and this funny-looking man may be my brother.”
“Funny looking?”
“In a cute way.”
“I’m funny looking in a cute way?”
Gilia leaned toward me. “Don’t you understand, Sam. You’re my wake-up call.”
***
Some people, especially women, put tremendous stock in eye contact. These people, especially women, have the strange notion that by locking their eyes to yours and staring deep into your soul via the cornea and pupil they can detect a mistruth. Or even the smallest hint of insincerity.
Personally, I don’t buy the gig. It may work on amateurs and children, but the pros are well aware of the eyeball-to-eyeball test. When she bullshits, Lydia is the queen of sincerity. She’ll get up breath-smelling close, gaze solemnly into the sucker’s eyes, sometimes even touch his hand with hers, and lie like a dog. Conversely, honesty makes her so uncomfortable that she disguises it behind glib patter. I learned at an early age to distrust her when she tries to tell the truth and believe her when she doesn’t.
Hank Elkrunner says the Blackfeet consider it rude to look at a person you are speaking to or a person who is speaking to you. Beyond rude, it just isn’t done. I asked him if all Indians practice this custom and received a short but direct diatribe on the white’s stupid belief that all Indian tribes are the same.
“I don’t know anyone but Blackfeet,” Hank said. “You want Apache taboos, call Hollywood.”
Gilia obviously did not follow Blackfeet tradition. Her blue eyes bored into me with the intensity of a lunch whistle. Made my stomach flutter and my brain feel like I was inhaling pure oxygen from a tank. She had a way of cocking her head to one side, as if to give herself a new angle on the truth. Suddenly it became very important that she not find me wanting.
When Gilia finally looked away and I was once again able to see the world around us, the two children had disappeared along with the woman in the red Volkswagen bus. A healthy couple rode down the street on bicycles. An older woman in a tweed sweater walked a cat on a leash. It seemed like a long time had passed since Gilia got into my car. I imagined the autumn leaves were redder than they’d been before we locked eyes.
“Why choose today to start popping in on your possible fathers?” she asked.
Why choose today? It’d been twenty years since I learned they existed. I couldn’t recall why I hadn’t acted earlier.
“My wife left me last week. She ran off with the pool man.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I shrugged, keeping up a brave front. “I don’t handle grief well, so my daughter stole these old yearbook photos Lydia cut out of the boys who did her.”
“Your mother knew who raped her?”
“She never told me. Shannon—that’s my daughter—went to the library and researched the names and addresses. She thought I would cope better if I had something to do.”
Gilia’s mouth opened slightly and her pink tongue pressed against her upper front teeth in one of those gestures people do when they’re thinking. She said, “You’re turning the lives of five men and their families upside down because your daughter thinks you need something to do?”
“That’s a harsh way to put it.”
“How would you put it?”
I didn’t answer. The truth was I hadn’t given much thought to the men or their families. I hadn’t given much thought to anything. The search for an unknown father seems to be a primal drive. An instinct.
“How do the men react when you appear on their front porch dredging up old sins and claiming to be a son?”
“Billy Gaines wants to do lunch.”
“Billy Gaines works for Dad. It’s hard to picture him raping a flea.”
“Babe Carnisek denies the possibility.”
Her head did the cock thing again. “He denies what he did to your mother?”
“No, Babe seems kind of proud of that, which is odd. What he denies is that anyone who
looks like me could possibly be related to him. Says I’m too scrawny for his son.”
I paused in case Gilia wanted to disagree with scrawny. “Your father threatened legal action and Skip Prescott is ready to hire a hit man.”
“Why?”
I shrugged again. “They think I want something from them.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
The woman walking the cat came back from wherever they’d been. She—the woman—was duck toed and wore white sneakers with the kind of hose that only cover the ankles. The cat on the leash was mostly white with black markings. Three feet were white and one black. Like all cats, she reminded me of Alice, which put me dangerously close to depression.
To fight the depression, I looked back at Gilia’s face. There was a small freckle or birthmark in that little dimple between the inside of her right eye and the bridge of her nose. I had an almost irresistible urge to touch it. Often I get irresistible urges to commit inappropriate acts, and if I don’t mount resistance, the urge can lead to a terrible social blunder.
“You said five guys,” Gilia said.
“The fifth was a black halfback named Jake. I haven’t spoken to him yet.”
Gilia stopped leaning against the door and sat up. “Why did you leave the black one for last?”
“I don’t know.” Why had I left the black one for last? Ever since I was thirteen and learned I had five possible fathers, I’d had the feeling he was the one. I suppose it came from some romantic notion that I was special—that the world-famous author with the tortured soul would always be an outsider. Different. Unique. I like to feel unique.
“When are you going to see him?” Gilia asked.
“This afternoon, I guess. Might as well hit them all now as later.”
She touched my arm, below the elbow. It was the most surprising thing that had happened all day. “Can I come with you?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
Her tongue showed on her teeth again. She sat staring at me until I thought she’d forgotten the question, then she said, “I want to see the process.”
“The process?”
“I want to see you when you tell it.”
That brought up so many questions I couldn’t ask any of them. There was nothing to do but drive the car.
9
The drawback of living in the same place throughout your twenties and early thirties is you can’t have a new emotional adventure without being distracted by reminders of past emotional adventures. For example: I once tongue-jobbed an IRS representative on that very wooden merry-go-round where the kids had been playing.
I’d gone into the IRS office to explain why a novelist’s entire life should be tax deductible because a novelist’s life is the raw material by which he creates his product, and isn’t that the definition of a tax-deductible expense? Made sense to me. But this semi-skinny GS-7 with diamond post earrings went bureaucrat on me. She sniffled, shuffled papers, and said in a smarty pants tone that even though Bucky and Samantha hit a movie on their trip to the Matterhorn, I still couldn’t deduct all the movies I’d paid for last year.
“I’ll just bet you have a sexual fantasy you’ve never told anyone,” I said.
Which is how I ended up on a whirling merry-go-round with my nose between the thighs of an IRS agent. Part of her fantasy was the merry-go-round had to be spinning real fast, so I was pushing like a maniac with my feet on the ground and my face in an awkward position. Her labia were neon purple and the left lip was lots bigger than the right, kind of like a banked turn on a bobsled chute. She tasted like peanut butter. To this day, I get that taste in my mouth whenever I pay income tax.
***
I drove us across Lee to Freeman Mill Road, past Battery Warehouse, Bill Bailey Tires, Madame Xenia the personal psychic, two Oriental massage parlors with discreet parking in the rear, and Chick’s Private Investigations on the second floor above an AME Zion Church. Gilia didn’t say anything until we came even with Gillespie Golf Course, which is where Greensboro’s black people play.
Most of the black golfers out that day carried their own clubs, although I did see two men smoking cigars in a Gettysburg. The men had on the same ugly-colored pants as the golfers up at Starmount Forest. I have a theory that when stereotypical styles jump from one racial, sexual, or generational group to another, it’s the ugly stuff that jumps first.
“Rape is the most terrible crime there is,” Gilia said.
I nodded. “Sometimes I can imagine conditions where murder or stealing might be fair, but I can’t come up with a justifiable rape.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “This destroys the father-daughter relationship.”
“I’m sorry.”
To fill space, I explained how Western civilization sprang from the ancient Roman Empire and the origin of the Roman Empire is dated from the rape of the Sabine women. Therefore our Western civilization was founded on slime and is doomed to rot.
Gilia said, “I can’t forgive him.”
The block Jake Williams lived on was made up of small off-white houses with mostly green-shingled roofs and unpainted porches. Many of the yards contained flat-tired cars that appeared more as growths from the dirt than modes of movement. A couple of houses had window unit air conditioners. Jake’s house was neater than the rest—kept-up lawn and uncracked framing. A glider sat on one end of the porch.
The woman who answered my knock looked from me to Gilia and back. She didn’t seem hostile or anything, but if we were salesmen, she definitely didn’t want any.
I told her my name and said, “We’re looking for Jake Williams.”
Her eyes snapped. “What for?”
I glanced over at Gilia who had gone noncommittal. “I’d just like to see him for a minute,” I said, “if he’s home.”
“What are you two up to?” Gus has what you’d call a black accent. When she talks, her voice is husky the way you think of when you think of Billie Holiday. This woman didn’t have any of that in her voice. She sounded like a schoolteacher.
“I was hoping to speak to Mr. Williams a moment on personal business.”
The woman studied my face, I suppose searching for clues that a swindle was being played. I tried to look innocent.
Finally, she blinked once and spoke. “Mr. Williams passed away.”
My stomach felt sick. I looked over at Gilia again. A lock of blond hair had fallen across her cheek; otherwise she hadn’t moved.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “When…”
Her hand clenched on the doorknob. “Thirty years ago last January sixteenth.”
“I’m sorry.” All that time growing up I might have been an orphan, or half orphan, and I didn’t even know it. The woman offered no details, and it didn’t seem appropriate to ask.
“I guess we’ll be leaving now,” I said.
“Wait a minute, you can’t do that.” Her hand came off the doorknob. “Why did you want to see my Jake?”
I turned toward Gilia. “It’s not important. We won’t disturb you further.”
“Disturb me? You come waltzing up to my door asking to see my husband who’s been dead thirty years, and you don’t want to disturb me?”
“I’m sorry,” I said for the fourth time in as many minutes.
“You are not leaving here until you tell me what this is about.”
I looked back at her. “You don’t want to know, it would cause you pain.”
Her chin lifted. “Well, it’s too late for that now, isn’t it?”
Gilia finally spoke. “May we come in?”
***
Inside, the house was dark furniture and soft lighting behind lamp shades. The couch and chairs had lace doilies over the arms. A glass bowl of candy corn sat on the coffee table. The woman crossed to an RCA radio and cut off the classical music that had been so low you could hardly hear it anyway.
Sure enough, she was a schoolteacher. Students’ papers lay stacked in graded a
nd ungraded piles on the stained pine dining room table, the graded pile veined by red pencil marks. Jake looked at me from framed photographs atop the piano. Like a campfire in the dark, he drew Gilia and me across the room.
The woman said, “He was killed in Korea.” I picked up a picture of Jake in his army uniform. He was grinning and firing an imaginary tommy gun at someone off to the side of the picture. He looked about fourteen years old with big ears and a short haircut. He wasn’t any blacker than Maurey after a summer in the sun.
“Is this the one your mother had?” Gilia touched the frame around Jake’s yearbook photo. Number twenty, gray jersey, leather helmet.
“Yeah.”
There was also a wedding picture of both of them dressed up, looking shy and happy and wholesome. The girl held a corsage in her hands. Jake smiled at her, protectively. Knowing Jake would soon die and the girl would be alone made it the saddest picture I’d ever seen.
I turned to look at her. “Would it be personal if I asked your name?”
Her eyes were on Jake. “Atalanta Williams.”
I pronounced it like the city the first time and she had to correct me. Then I got it right.
“Atalanta,” I said. “That’s pretty.”
Gilia glanced from the photographs to me. Jake’s eyes were different from mine. And the nose. Heck, I don’t know if we looked alike. I’ve always made it a point to avoid mirrors.
“So talk,” Atalanta said.
“I’d rather not.”
“I didn’t ask what you’d rather do.”
“You owe it to her,” Gilia said.
This wasn’t what I wanted. When Shannon had said wreak vengeance by destroying their wives, it had sounded good in theory, but the reality sucked.
“Jake may have been my father,” I said.
Atalanta took it well. She didn’t speak or anything. Just stared at the pictures on the piano. I followed her line of sight to see which one she was staring at. I think it was a five-by-seven head-and-shoulders shot of Jake wearing a coat and tie.
“Five boys had sex with Mom and she got pregnant,” I said.
“Was she white?”
