Freebird

by John Raymond

  But somehow Aaron hadn’t been that moved. He’d stood there with everyone, watching the bloody scene in the dust, interested, curious, extremely baked (no peyote that day; the deal had fallen through), but never truly, wholly engaged. He hadn’t ever been able to shake the sense of the rite as a mere fiction, a wishful, ersatz version of a tradition that had lost meaning at least a hundred years before. Other people had claimed the sun dance was a revelation to them, but he’d realized, driving home, that Mexico was his way. He liked these people, but he needed to cover more ground before he committed.

  His mother wasn’t happy and harangued him into promising that he’d reapply to colleges within a couple of years, but at least Karl had been understanding about his decision, and they’d promised each other to keep in close touch, notifying each other as to all the amazing and not-so-amazing experiences they were having. The sunporch would still be there when Aaron got back, and, assuming Karl was still ensconced there and didn’t have a roommate, he was welcome to move in whenever. Or go to college. Or do something else. Whatever. No one could really say what would be happening in six months. The whole world would have been rearranged five times by then.

  His mom came out to the yard, already wearing her funeral clothes, a dark woolen skirt and dark blouse. She looked nice, but mostly just exhausted and fretful. The past two days had been crazy for her, what with dealing with Chabad about finding the shomer to sit with the body, cleansing it and saying the proper psalms. She’d also made all the arrangements with the funeral director, with whom she had a budding friendship now, what with her brother’s death so recent in memory, and dealt with the man at the florist and the guy making the headstone, and gotten a start on all the banking headaches. She’d ended up breaking into her dad’s bank account only after the prompt “Left arm” had flashed on the screen. His bank account password was his concentration camp number! How could it ever have been otherwise? She’d had to consult a photo of Grandpa Sam holding a cat to get the digits right, reading the numbers off his forearm with a magnifying glass. She’d also sent out all the funeral invitations to all the relevant people, fielded everyone’s condolences, and had his house cleaned. She looked as if she’d lost five pounds since last weekend.

  “You should really eat something,” Aaron said, and pushed his bagel in her direction.

  “I can’t,” she said, staring at the lemon tree. “Too much to think about.” She rubbed her palms on her skirt, erasing the creases, already looking damp with sweat. “God, God, God . . . ,” she muttered without even hearing herself.

  “Juice at least?” he offered. He held his juice out, and she took a sip but didn’t seem to notice what she was doing. She might not even have known she was standing outside in the morning sun.

  She took a deep breath and rubbed her hands on her creases. And then she walked back into the house, still muttering to God.

  On the way to the cemetery, they had to stop to pick up Aaron’s dad. Barry was running late, of course, and when he finally came ambling out of his apartment complex, he was wearing an idiotic T-shirt with Spuds MacKenzie, the party-animal dog, emblazoned on the chest. What was he thinking? Otherwise, he was decently attired, for him, at least. He had on clean chinos, shoes with closed toes. His long, blond hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. But the T-shirt was a truly bizarre choice. “Unbelievable,” his mom whispered as he approached the car. Aaron just lightly sighed.

  “So that’s what you’re wearing?” Anne said as her ex-husband crawled into the backseat.

  “I figure I’m going to have to rend it,” he explained, “so I didn’t want to wear one of my good shirts, you know?”

  “You don’t have to rend it,” Anne said. She was beyond arguing with Aaron’s dad, but merely making a point. “You’re not actually related.”

  “I was, though,” Barry said. “For an important period of my life. I think it’s a good time to honor that relationship with your dad. Anyway, I’m okay to rend this shirt. I don’t even hardly wear it.”

  “Haven’t been going to too many funerals lately, I guess?” Aaron said, smirking.

  “If you don’t want to rend it, don’t rend it,” his mom said. “He wouldn’t care.”

  “You don’t think he’d care? I think he’d like someone rending their shirt. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I know for a fact he wouldn’t care.”

  That eventually settled the question. Grandpa Sam didn’t care, and Aaron’s dad had another shirt in his knapsack for the post-rending get-together, and he changed as they drove. No one really minded either way. He could have worn the Spuds MacKenzie T-shirt, for all they cared. They were not religious people, after all. They were Californians above all else.

  The grave site was at the end of a cul-de-sac at the edge of a neat suburban neighborhood. The site was becoming a familiar stomping ground for the family of late. Aaron’s grandmother was buried there, his uncle, now Grandpa Sam. Over the years, they’d deposited their share of bodies. His uncle’s grave was still lacking a headstone, as he’d been in the ground for only a season. When it arrived it would bear the word “Peace.” But they placed rocks on all the graves and contemplated their dead.

  “That headstone guy better get it right this time,” Anne said. Years ago, they’d had to swap out Aaron’s grandma’s headstone when they realized the name had been misspelled. Aaron had heard his mom on the phone going over the Hebrew spelling letter by letter this time.

  “Go minimal,” Aaron said. “Just get a blank one. Or do one of those laser portraits, like the Russians do.”

  “I just want mine to have a question mark, that’s all,” she said, staring at her mother’s grave.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Maybe the words ‘She Never Knew.’ But that’s it.”

  “You got it, Mom. I’ll remember.”

  “God, I can’t believe we’re even talking about this,” she said. “It’s so morbid. Let’s stop.”

  There was a tent and some chairs set up. The turnout was a little better than expected. Aaron didn’t know why he should be surprised by that fact. His grandfather had lived in Sun Valley for upward of forty years. He’d belonged to many groups. He’d even been a Mason for a spell. He’d always enjoyed the company of other people. He’d always wanted to belong. Maybe he’d thought an official group would hide him if the bad days ever returned. But no, Aaron thought, he’d just genuinely liked people; it was nothing more complicated than that.

  There were guys from the gym, dating back to the bodybuilding days. People from the office. People from the bagel shop he frequented. Bizarrely, there was even Jackie from the bank in Oakland. She told Aaron that she and his grandpa had exchanged some endearing emails during the last months of his life, and, as she happened to be in town anyway, she’d wanted to pay her respects. The lost gold had never been found, not even close, but Grandpa Sam had managed to wring one last friend from the world before kicking off.

  They all shook Aaron’s hand with screwed-up eyes and frozen smiles. He didn’t enjoy talking to them, but he appreciated their presence nonetheless. He knew these people had been taking care of his mom the past few days, and they’d continue to take care of her over the next few months, when he was gone. They were bringing her lasagna and enchiladas, weeding the yard, checking in around bedtime. They were all good, decent, middle-class people who understood the value of human life and their place in the community.

  There were a few ringers in the group, too. The Chabad rabbi had brought out some young Hasidim for the event. The funeral of a Holocaust survivor was after all a rare and significant event. These were young men who would never otherwise partake in such a sacred day. His grandfather’s passing was a trophy death to be shared with the community at large. Aaron didn’t resent them being there. His grandfather was his own portal into history. Why should he not guide others into history as well?

  The rabbi was much younger than Aaron had expected, not remotely the bearded patriarch of t
he imagination. His beard was a scrabbly, reddish thing, the kind one saw in a rock club or at the gourmet coffee shop. He was thin and with it. He handed Aaron a chic business card, half the size of a normal card. He was a graphic designer on the side? What a drag, Aaron thought. This was not the place for coolness of any kind.

  But once he began the ceremony, he channeled a deep, hallowed force. He began by reciting the blessing of the Lord God, King of the Universe, and at once became the voice of ancient power. The ancient ways were truly reassuring in the face of this loss, Aaron thought. Someone, please tell us what to do. It doesn’t matter what. Whether you believed in the words or not, it didn’t matter. The point was only that the same words had been uttered since the beginning of man’s consciousness, and the tone was authoritative yet gentle. Whereas the gringo sun dance had seemed wishful and contrived, this ritual seemed dignified and mildly frightening. The window of human history opened, and one could see backward into the eons, if darkly.

  According to the rabbi there were four signal animals to emulate in Jewish tradition: the leopard, the eagle, the deer, and the lion. Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, fast as a deer, and strong as a lion, and you will do the will of your Father in Heaven. He turned to Psalm 23, and Aaron couldn’t help but cry. “‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for you are with me.’” Who had walked deeper into that valley than Grandpa Sam? No one.

  The words took their inexorable course, and soon Aaron was being instructed to help bear the coffin to the grave. He rose and took a corner, feeling the weight of the plain, pine coffin with his grandfather’s body inside. He shoveled dirt onto the wood, splashing the Star of David.

  After the service, Aaron’s mom thanked the rabbi for his hard work. She reached out and touched his shoulder, immediately withdrawing her hand as if she’d touched a hot burner.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said.

  The rabbi shrugged. “I didn’t see anything,” he said.

  Aaron liked this rabbi.

  They held a reception at his grandfather’s house, but not many people came to that. Just Aaron, his mother, his father, Temo, the caregiver, and his grandfather’s old friend Joe, a fellow survivor from the oldest days in the Bay Area. Joe told them stories of Oakland, of the jobs in the beginning, the dances, and his memory was a little better than Grandpa Sam’s. If only they’d had this gathering when Grandpa Sam was alive, Aaron thought, they might have captured another image or two.

  Aaron wandered the rooms, eyeing the debris of his grandfather’s life. The final cleaning was going to be a motherfucker. He sat in the recliner in which his grandfather had died, listening to wind chimes gong and gong.

  The night before he left for Mexico, he got incredibly high and took a last walkabout through the neighborhood that had reared him and oppressed him for so many years. He walked through the lamplit streets, one empty spotlight to the next, and up the hill, past the high school, down into the arroyo.

  It was a hot night, and down in the arroyo the crickets were thunderous, louder than he’d ever heard them before. He walked through the narrow valley of oak trees, under a tunnel of overhanging boughs, with crickets ringing in his head. He passed from one cluster to another, through a long channel of changing tones. Chirrup, chirrup, chirrrrup. There were areas of long, low notes, areas of high, shrieking notes. The crickets’ voices gathered and faded, replaced by new voices, new patterns. He walked for ten full minutes through the tube of singing crickets. The whole black corridor was vibrating.

  He woke up to sun on his bed, his last morning at home.

  So this is the day I leave home, he thought. He stared at the ceiling, counting the divots. Here is the light on the day I leave home. This is the temperature on the day I leave home. Here is the shirt I’m wearing on the day I leave home. What a fantastic day it is for leaving home.

  He got up and showered in his mother’s shower. He loved this shower, with its darting needles of hot water, the smooth, burgundy-colored tiles on the floor. He loved his mom’s towels, the smell of detergent in the plush fabric. He would miss them. He would never forget them, he was sure.

  He ate breakfast in the kitchen with his mom. She was still drained from the funeral, but she was already moving on to the next obligations. She had a big meeting later in the day with her old boss, Susan, that was causing her much stress. She’d just recently gotten a big promotion to become something called a sustainability czar, and now she didn’t report to anyone except the photographers for the newspaper and the city magazine, which seemed to love running interviews. Then, tomorrow, she was taking yet another trip up to Portland to visit the guy she told him was most definitely, in no way, shape, or form, her boyfriend, but whose very existence had to be kept shrouded in secrecy lest the powers that be smite them all down. She claimed she’d never done it with him, that the very thought repulsed her, and yet she also said she was breaking things off with him, professionally speaking, but somehow never did. Somehow the calls and texts kept coming, week after week. She liked him.

  She acted blasé about the significance of their final meal, pretending it was just another day, like any other. She wasn’t one for ceremony if it could ever be avoided.

  “You packed some aspirin?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Band-Aids? A whole first-aid kit? You might need that.”

  “In the glove box. No worries.”

  But when the tinny honk of the van sounded out front, she had to steady herself on the sink to keep from falling down. She crouched there at the counter until the spasm of tears passed, her head hanging, her breathing ragged and harsh.

  “I’ll be back, you know,” Aaron said. He was still at the table, holding his spoon. “We’re just driving around for a while, that’s all.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. She sniffed and forced a tight smile in his direction. The light from the window made her hair glow but cast a shadow onto her face.

  “I might even be back soon,” he said. “Who knows? We might hate it down there.”

  She smiled again, this time with a wise, knowing demeanor. Her gaze was focused on someplace far outside the room.

  “No,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “You won’t. That’s not going to happen. You’re going to like it out there. I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  She wiped her eyes. The sound of the van’s rolling door drifted in through the window. “Some things, baby, I just know.”

  In the driveway, Joel was rearranging the bedding in the back of the van, making room for Aaron’s last bags of clothes. Already, the camping gear and books and various mechanical and travel manuals were packed into the makeshift drawers they’d constructed in back, under the thin mattress. The tools were stashed; the rope was coiled and tucked near the wheel well. The only thing left, really, was to climb in and go.

  “Hey, Ms. Singer,” Joel said, slamming the back flip-up door. “Nice day, right?”

  “Nice day for driving safely, Joel,” she said.

  “We would never speed, Ms. Singer, if that’s what you mean,” he said, mock aghast. “Your son is the biggest pussy driver in town, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Now there was truly nothing left to do. The van was fully loaded. The gas tank was brimming. His money was stowed in his secret compartment. His mother stood waiting for a final hug, and dutifully he hugged her for the last time before leaving. She held him for a long time, feeling the skin of his neck, the muscle of his shoulders. He submitted to the final frisking and held back the surge of heat shooting into his own nose and eyes, turning away to keep the flush of tears from coming. Then he climbed into the van, and they were gone.

  They were only around the corner when the first joint came out, a big fat one rolled especially for this auspicious occasion, filled with the purple-haired bud scored from the dispensary on Fairfax. Joel lit the tapered end and took a long, savoring hit and passed
it to Aaron. The sweet, skunky smell fogged the van.

  “So, what do you want to hear?” Aaron said, getting down to the important business at hand. As passenger, Aaron’s job was navigation and music selection, most importantly the latter. The past few weeks had entailed major downloading of new material for the long plains of highway ahead.

  “Something good,” Joel said.

  Aaron scrolled through the options, taking a few more small hits off the joint. It was a difficult choice. The music of this moment should be just right. Nothing too mellow. Nothing too harsh. Nothing overproduced. Nothing too raw. Nothing he’d heard ten thousand times before. Nothing untested, either.

  He settled finally on Lynyrd Skynyrd. He’d downloaded a few of their albums the year before, and he’d listened to them a few times, but not overmuch. He’d half listened to the song “Freebird,” the hoary arena anthem, and it seemed like a funny time to boot it up. The joke of the song was so old, so hidebound, he’d never felt the need to investigate. “Freebird!” they yelled at the shows. He’d been yelling “Freebird!” since before he ever knew what the hell “Freebird!” meant.

  Open with the punch line, he thought. Why not?

  He depressed the button, and the information siphoned into the wires to the speakers.

  It took only a few seconds to see why this song was so beloved. Why? Because it fucking ruled! Immediately, he was in thrall to the slow, surging bass line, the smoky, inevitable, not-even-thatembarrassing lyrics. Already, he could feel the throb of the song aiming him toward the flaming, cokey guitar solo burning up ahead.

  But if I stayed here with you, girl

  Things just couldn’t be the same.

  ’Cause I’m as free as a bird now

  And this bird you cannot change.

  Okay, the lyrics actually were kind of embarrassing, but they bore such a direct relationship to Aaron and Joel’s current situation that they almost became something else entirely, a kind of prophecy. Methodically, the guitars built until they peeled away from the song itself, becoming a whole new thing, a sprawling labyrinth of sound celebrating everything that existed in their range of audibility. Outside, the palm trees shimmered against the blue sky, etched with hazy cirrus, rocking to “Freebird.” The cars zoomed by to “Freebird.” The song rose higher and higher, mounting plateau after plateau, becoming more and more desperate, almost unhinged, but never once losing control, not even close.