by Richard Ford
I haven’t spoken for several moments, and may have gone to sleep on the phone. I hear laughing again, laughing that’s definitely known to me but unplaceable. Then a voice talking loudly, then more laughter.
“Can we do it?” Mike’s voice is forceful, anxious, fervent—odd for a Tibetan who’d rather cut a fart in public than seem agitated. Possibly I’ve discouraged him. What about Tommy Benivalle?
“Will I come where?”
“To Timbuktu.” A pause. “One eighteen. Eleven o’clock.”
“Oh,” I say, pushing my head—still sore from Bob Butts’ wrenching it—deep into the yielding pillow, letting air exit my lungs slowly, then breathing in body odor in my winding-sheet, loving being where I am, but where I cannot stay much longer. “Sure,” I say. “Sure, sure.”
“Terrific!” Mike says. “That’s terrific.” He says “terrific” in his old Calcutta telemarketer style, as when a housewife in Pennsauken tumbled to a set of plastic-wicker outdoor chairs and a secret bond was forged because she thought he was white: “Terrific. That’s terrific. I know you’re going to enjoy that, ma’am. Expect delivery in six to ten weeks.”
The laughing voice, the laughing man I see when I stand to the window for the day’s first gaze at the beach, the sky, the waves is my son Paul, hard at work with a shovel, digging a hole the size of a small grave in the rain-caked sand between the beach and the ocean-facing foundation wall of my house, where some rhododendrons were planted by Sally but never thrived. The hole must be for his time capsule, which Clarissa told me about but which doesn’t seem present now. What would a time capsule look like? How deep would you need to bury one for it to “work”? What haywire impulse would make anyone think this is a proper idea for Thanksgiving? And why do I not know the answer to these questions?
Paul is not alone. He’s spiritedly shoveling while talking animatedly from three feet down in his hole to the tiny Sumitomo banker, Mr. Oshi, who’s surprisingly back from work and standing motionless beside Paul’s hole, dressed in a dark business suit as shovel-fulls of sand fly past onto a widening pile. Paul’s hair looks thinner than when I saw him last spring, and he’s heavier and is wearing what look like cargo shorts and a tee-shirt that shows his belly. He has the same goatee that connects to his mustache and surrounds his mouth like a golf hole. Though his haircut, I can see, is new—a style that I believe is called the “mullet,” and that many New Jersey young adults wear, and also professional hockey players, but that on Paul looks like a Prince Galahad. Mr. Oshi appears to be listening as Paul yaks away from his hole, haw-hawing and occasionally gesturing out toward the ocean with his shovel (from my utility room, no doubt), nodding theatrically, then going on digging. Mr. Oshi may also be trying to speak, but Paul has him trapped—which is his usual conversational strategy. Two dachshunds are rocketing around off the leash through the dune grass (where they’re forbidden) and out onto the beach, then back round the house and the hole and out of sight. These must be Mr. Oshi’s wiener dogs, since he’s holding in each hand what looks like a sandwich bag of dog crap that I’m sure he’d like to get rid of. Such is the private nature of neighborly life on Poincinet Road, that I’ve never seen these dogs before.
As the first thing one sees on Thanksgiving morning, it’s an unexpected sight—my son and Mr. Oshi in converse. Though I’m sure it’s what the higher-ups in Sumitomo hope for when they dispatch a Mr. Oshi to the Shore: chance encounters with the natives, cultural incumbency taking root, exchange of ground-level demographic and financial data, gradual acceptance of differences, leading quickly to social invisibility. Then bingo! The buggers own the beach, the ocean, your house, your memories, and your kids are on a boat to Kyoto for immersion language training.
Still, it’s saving that I’ve seen Paul before he sees me, since I’d begun—terrible to admit this—to dread our moment of meeting following last spring’s miscommunication. I’ve pictured myself standing in the middle of some indistinct room (my living room); I’m smiling, waiting—like a prisoner who hears the footfalls of the warden, the priest and the last-mile crew thudding the concrete floor—anticipating my son to come down a flight of stairs, open a closed door, emerge from a bathroom, fly unzipped, and me just being there, grinningly in loco parentis, unable to utter intelligible sounds, all possible good embargoed, nothing promising ahead. No wonder fathers and sons is the subject of enigmatic and ponderous literatures. What the hell’s it all about? Why even go near each other if we’re going to feel such aversion? Only the imagination has a prayer here, since all logic fails.
What I desire, of course, is that the freshening spirit of acceptance render today free of significant pretexts, contexts, subtexts—texts of any kind; be just a day when I’m not the theme, the constant, not expected to make things better, having now, with an optimistic outlook, put holiday events into motion. (I’m by nature a better guest than a host anyway.) But isn’t that how we all want Thanksgiving to be? Perfectly generic—the state of mind we enjoy best. In contrast to Xmas, New Year’s, Easter, Independence Day and even Halloween—the fraught, load-bearing holidays? We all project ourselves, just the way I do, as regular humans capable of experiencing a regular human holiday with selected others. And so we should. It was what I intended: Acceptance—a spirit to be thankful for.
Only easier said than done.
The beach beyond the grassy furze—where my son’s digging away and lecturing poor captive Mr. Oshi—is nonetheless a good beach for a holiday morning. After last night’s drought-ending rain, the air has softened and become salt-fragrant and lush, tropical depression Wayne having missed its chance with us. Light is moist and sun-shot. A tide is changing, so that fishermen, their bait pails left back on the sand, have edged out into the tame surf to cast their mackerel chunks almost to where a pair of wet-suited kayakers is plying a course up the coast. Tire tracks dent the beach where the Shore Police have passed. A few straggler tourists have returned with the good weather to stroll, throw Frisbees, shout gaily, let their kids collect seashells above the waves’ extent. Mr. Oshi’s dachshunds skirmish about like water sprites. Surely here in the late-autumnal tableau one can feel the holiday’s sweetness, the chance that normal things can happen to normal folk, that the sun will tour the sky and all find easy rest at day’s end, full of gratitude on gratitude’s holy day.
Though my son’s vocalizing and excavating make me know that for normal things to happen to normal folk, some selected normal folk in a frame of mind of acceptance, prudence and gratitude need to get kick-started and off the dime. Since the day is full, and it is here.
I’ve awakened to several new certainties, which make themselves known, as certainties often do, when I’m in the shower—the first pertaining to the day’s clothing commitments. As I’ve already said, I prefer mostly standard-issue “clothes.” Medium-weight chinos I buy from a New Hampshire mail-order firm where they keep my size, cuffing preferences, inseam—even which side I “dress” on—stored in a computer. I generally wear canvas or rawhide belts, tabbed to the season; white or pale oxford-cloth shirts, or knitted pullovers in a variety of shades—both long sleeve and short—along with deck shoes, penny loafers or bluchers all from the same catalog, where they showcase everything on unmemorably attractive human mannequins, pictured beside roaring fireplaces, out training their Labradors or on the banks of rilling trout streams. I hardly have to say that such clothing identifies me as the southern-raised frat boy I am (or was), since it’s a style ideal for warm spring days, perched on the balcony at Sigma Chi, cracking wise at passing Chi O’s, books to bosoms, headed to class. These preferences work very well in the house-selling business, where what I wear (like what I drive) is intended to make as little statement as possible, letting me portray myself to clients as the non-risk-taking everyman with a voice of reason, who only wants the best for all, same as they want for themselves. Which happens to be true.
However, for today I’ve decided to switch away from regular clothes, based on the firs
t perceived certainty: that something different is needed. My new attire is not to dress up like a Pilgrim, ready to deliver an oration like the kids over in the Haddam Interpretive Center. I merely mean to wear blue relaxed-fit 501s—I had them already, just never thought to put them on—white Nikes from a brief try at tennis two years back, a yellow polo and a blue Michigan sweatshirt with a maize block-M, which the alumni association sent me for becoming a lifetime member (there was other stuff—a substandard-size football, a Wolverine bed toy, a leather-bound volume of robust imbibing songs—all of which I threw in the trash). I’m dressing this way strictly for Paul’s benefit, since it will conceivably present me as less obviously myself—less a “father,” with less a shared and problematic history, even less a real estate agent, which I know he thinks is an unfunny joke (a greeting-card writer being a giant step up). Dressing like an orthodontist from Bay City down for the Wisconsin game will also portray me as a willing figure of fun and slightly stupid in a self-mortifying way Paul generally appreciates, permitting us both (I hope) to make wry, get-the-ball-rolling jokes at my expense.
My father always wore the same significant blue gabardine suit, with a button-hole poppy in his wide lapel, for Thanksgiving dinner, while my mother always wore a pretty one-piece flowered rayon dress—pink azaleas or purple zinnias—with sling-back heels and blazing stockings I hated to touch. Their attire lives in my mind as the good touchstone for what Thanksgiving symbolized of material and spiritual life—steadiness. I had a blue Fauntleroy outfit given to me by Iowa grandparents, although I hated every minute I had it on and couldn’t wait to wad it in the back corner of my closet in our house in Biloxi. But my parents didn’t experience the same challenges with me that I face with Paul—resentment, zany oppositional behavior, too-abundant access to language, eccentric every-day appearance—jeopardy, in other words. Plus, at the Next Level, all things count more and can be ruined. So you could say that I’m building a firewall, allowing myself to become an accepting new citizen of the new century, walling myself off from being an asshole by dressing exactly like one in hopes everybody will get my well-intended message.
The second batch of certainties I’ve awakened clear-headed about and mean to put into motion even before heading to Timbuktu are: (1) call Ann to make sure she doesn’t show up today (there is acceptance here, but it’s of rejectionist character); (2) call the Haddam PD to be certain Detective Marinara understands I’m not a hospital bomber, but a citizen ready to help in any way I can; (3) send the thirty dollars plus a tip to the car repair, though I lack the address, so will have to deliver it in person; (4) call Clarissa’s cell phone to find out her arrival time to start hostessing Thanksgiving—and to make certain she’s not married; (5) call Wade in Bamber Lake; (6) put in an overseas call to Sally to inform her that after careful thought I officially accept the logic that it’s worse to let a person you love be alone forever when you don’t have to—and I’m that person.
Actually, I have done some homework on this last topic and now believe that “Sally-Wally”—I think of them in the same spirit as “priced to sell,” “just needs love,” “move in today”—makes about as much sense as wanting your dead son to come back to life, or wanting to marry your long-divorced former wife, and has the same success potential: Zero. And therefore something different and better has to goddamn happen now—and will—just like when Wally showed up at my doorstep as empty-headed as a rutabaga, and something had to happen then. And did.
I definitely, however, am not going to tell Sally I have, or did or still do have a touch of cancer, since that could be viewed as a cheap late-inning win strategy—and might even be—and therefore prove unsuccessful. One of the hidden downsides of being a cancer victim/survivor is that telling people you’ve got it rarely comes out how you want it to, and often makes you feel sorry for the people you tell—just because they have to hear it—and spoils a day both of you would like to stay a happy day. It’s why most people clam up about having it—not because it scares them shitless. That only happens the first instant the doctor tells you and doesn’t really last that long, or didn’t in my case. But mostly you don’t tell people you’ve got cancer because you don’t want the aggravation—the same reason you don’t do most things.
From my desk upstairs, where I go to make my calls, I detect unfamiliar noises downstairs. It’s too bad the prior owners never carried out their retrofitting plans for a maid’s quarters/back staircase, so I could see what’s what down there now. Paul, I believe, is still outside digging and lecturing Mr. Oshi, since his voice is still audible, laughing and yorking like a used-car salesman. This noise downstairs, then—morning TV noise, plates rattling, strangely heavy footfalls, a feminine cough—can only be Jill, the one-handed girl (which I’ll believe when I see).
Call one I decide to make to the Haddam PD. Detective Marinara won’t be there anyway and I can just leave my cooperative citizen’s message. Only he is there, picks up on the first half ring with the standard indifferent-aggressive TV cop greeting, full of dislike and spiritual exhaustion. “Mar-i-nara. Hate Crimes.”
“Hi, it’s Frank Bascombe over in Sea-Clift, Mr. Marinara. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your call till late.” I must be lying and am instantly nervous.
“Okay. Mr. Bascombe? Let me see.” Pages shuffling. Clickety-click, click-click. My name’s on a list, my number traced automatically. “Okay. Okay.” Clickety-click-clickety. I imagine the youthful bland face of a small-college dean of students. “Looks like—” A heavy sigh. Words come slowly. “We got a match. On your VIN at the crime scene yesterday. This is about the explosion here in Haddam, at Doctors Hospital. You might’ve read about it.”
“I was there!” I blurt this. Producing instant galactic silence on the line. Detective Marinara may be flagging to other cops at other desks, silently mouthing, “I got the guy. I’ll keep him on the line. Get the Sea-Clift police to pick him up. The fuck.”
“Okay,” he says. More silence. He is trained to be as emotionless as a museum guard. These people always call. They can’t stand not to be noticed. Actually, they want to be caught, can’t bear freedom; you just have to not get in their way. They’ll put the noose around their own necks. I’m sure he’s right.
More clickety-clicking.
“I mean, I was there because I came over to eat lunch at the hospital.” I’m fidgety, self-resentful, breathless. Paul’s voice is still audible through the bedroom window, in through my office door. Distant children’s voices are behind his. Out of the empty blue empyrean, I hear the calliope sounds of a Good Humor truck patrolling the beach, appealing to the hold-out holiday visitors, people not talking to the police on Thanksgiving Day about bloody murder.
“I see.” Click, click, click.
“I used to live in Haddam,” I say. Clickety-click. “I sold houses there for seven years. For Lauren-Schwindell. I actually knew Natherial. Mr. Lewis. I mean, I knew him fifteen years ago. I haven’t seen him in blows. I’m sorry he’s deceased.” Am I not supposed to know it was Natherial, and that he’s dead? I read it in the newspaper.
Silence. Then, “Okay.”
I hear more kitchen noises downstairs. Something made of glass or china has shattered on the floor, something a girl with only one hand might easily do. The TV volume jumps up, a man’s voice shouts, “Ter-rif-ic! And what part of Southern California do you hail from, Belinda?” Then it’s squelched to a mumble. “You say you knew Mr. Lewis?” Detective Marinara speaks in a monotone, very cop-like. He’s typing what I’m saying. My worries are his interests.
“I did. Fifteen years ago.”
“And, uh, under what circumstances were those?”
“I hired him to go find For Sale signs that had gotten stolen from properties we had listed. He was real good at it, too.”
“He was real good at it?” More typing.
“Yeah. But I haven’t seen him since.” Which is no reason to kill him is what I’d like to imply. My innocence seems bland and inevitable,
a burden to us both. The HPD apparently hasn’t yet linked me to the August Inn dust-up with Bob Butts. I must seem exactly the harmless, civic-minded cancer victim I am. Of course this is the plodding police work—the investigative parameters, the mountain of papers, the maze of empty hunches, dismal dead ends and brain-suffocating phone conversations—that will relentlessly lead to the killer or killers, like the key to Pharaoh’s tomb. But for a moment, on Thanksgiving morning, it has led to Sea-Clift and to me.
“And you live where?” Detective Marinara says. Possibly he yawns.
“Number seven Poincinet Road. Sea-Clift. On the Shore.” I smile, with no one to see me.
