by Daniel Smith
While Danny and Dawn stuff their clothes into their over-sized gym bags doubling as suitcases, Corinne and I try to smooth over the obvious sense of upset and personal offense that is now casting an ominous cloud over this weekend. What was supposed to be a “celebration” of Dad’s life is turning into an intergenerational food fight over his legacy and the fate of his spiritual “journey.”
Oddly enough, neither Danny nor Dawn appears particularly angry over any of this fallout. In fact, they possess an air of resolution—about what, exactly, I’m not sure. Always more clever about strategy than I, Corinne finds an indirect way to tease out what they’re thinking. “So am I going to have to win this case for Elise all by myself?” she asks Danny.
“I think you got it won, Mom,” he says with a smile. “You’re a great lawyer, you know. If I ever get in trouble, I want you defending me.”
“I don’t think it’s good legal strategy for a mother to defend her son in court. Let’s hope that never happens,” Corinne says.
“So where you headed, guys?” I finally ask.
“Hard to say,” Dawn replies.
How hard could it be, I’m thinking? You have to point the car in some direction. “I mean, you have all those people back in Arkansas who have been, you know, coming after you.”
“Right,” Danny responds. “Well, like Dawn says, we’ll decide when we get in the car and get going.”
“We think better on the run,” Dawn explains. “I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. Hey, we really appreciate you letting us crash with you guys. I learned a lot.”
“Really?” I say. “Like what?”
“Just different ways of being.”
I have no idea what that means but she says it with apparent affection and a hug. “When are we going to see you guys again?” I ask.
“Oh, you might be surprised. Sooner than you think,” Danny says.
All their gear is now packed and zipped up. They’re ready to hit the road—in what direction and for what purpose I have no earthly idea. Danny comes over to me with a rare earnest look in his eyes: “Hey, Pops. Keep fighting. Don’t let those ass wipes at the college mess with you.”
“OK.”
“Just remember what you did today,” he observes, pausing for effect: “you spoke from the heart. That’s always the right move.” For emphasis, he pounds his heart with his fist a couple of times, gives me a hug, and they are off.
17 | danny
Hate to leave in the middle of trouble like that, but taking off just feels right. And the more we talked, the more upset certain people were going to get. So we had to bounce. When we finally get to a major highway that leads out of Texas, Dawn looks at me with that ‘well, which way, Big Boy?’ smile. I think for a second, turn right, and head east. “We are going to Boaz. You like?” I ask. Dawn looks out the window a moment, then turns back to look straight ahead: “Let’s do it.”
We leave Juniper and Grandpa’s funeral with our sights clearly set on the future. I know: what future could the two of us—fighting with each other half the time, running from creditors and former lovers, possessing, so far, no profitable career skills—truly look forward to? America is the land of second chances and me and Dawn are, by God, going to get a second chance to make good on our promise: we are heading to Boaz, pick up our stuff, pay off what we absolutely must, kick ass where it’s appropriate, and then head for new ground to begin our lives all over again.
What does that mean? It means we have a new sense of direction. I learned from working with Mom and Elise that I have a talent for asking questions, uncovering new things, and helping people out: I’m going to become a private detective! Mom basically told me I had the skills to do it; I just need a year of training to get a license—and she said she would help me with some connections she has with some of her own investigators. And as for Dawn, well, the girl’s got skills in the kitchen (not to mention the bedroom, but that’s another story!), and she’s already told me she sees no reason she can’t put those skills to work in a new restaurant all her own. Just a matter of finding the right place, and, of course, some money.
Which brings me to my new happiness. Which I haven’t even told Dawn about yet. So we’re just randomly listening to music—unfortunately, we left so quickly I didn’t get a chance to put together an appropriate playlist—and I turn to my beautiful girl and bring up our dreams for our new start in America. “It’s all going to happen, sweetie pie,” I say with a smile.
“Yeah? That would be great, Danny Boy, but we’ve got money to find and people to pay before we’re going to get past the dreaming state.”
“I’m not so sure about that, my dear.”
“You planning on robbing a bank?”
“Already have—well, so to speak.”
“What are you talking about, crazy man?”
At that, I reach into my shirt pocket and pull out an envelope. “This, sweetie pie, if we handle things right, this is our ticket to a new start in America.”
She takes the envelope from me and opens it up, pulling out a check. “Jesus Fucking Christ!” Dawn practically screams. I just smile and keep driving. “25 thousand dollars! How the hell did you talk Claire into writing you this check?”
“I didn’t say anything. When I couldn’t find anything to grab off the walls like Uncle Jeff was doing, she took me aside and said that since I was the only grandkid who showed up at the funeral, I could have the entire portion of money Robert was setting aside for his grandchildren.”
“And you’re just now telling me this?”
“Makes the trip back a lot more fun, don’t it?”
“You fucker!” Dawn says, slapping me in the head with the check.
“Hey, be careful with that. That’s our future, girl!”
So as we head east to Texarkana and then on up to Little Rock and on towards Boaz, all we can think about is our new life. Life is fucking crazy. Just a little while ago we were crying over Grandpa’s casket. Now we’re all happy and excited about starting over. Somewhere, somehow Grandpa is looking down on us and, I bet, having a good laugh at me and Dawn, heading off to our own adventures. Bet he’d like to join us. “Just keep living,” right?
You got it, Grandpa.
18 | brian
After yesterday’s tumult, I make a point of not bringing up Danny to any of the family before Corinne and I head for the airport. We don’t need the conflict and besides, I can’t truly answer for him anyway. And thank God, with a new day upon us, nobody else mentions his name. Privately, of course, I wonder where he and Dawn are going and what sort of future lies ahead for them? I have a feeling, though, that I’m going to hear from him soon. When we say goodbye to everyone, there’s a sense of relief—Dad’s passing has placed a very big strain on our obviously limited emotional resources and forced us to ask questions about him and death that we are all (except perhaps the ever-ebullient Claire) unprepared to answer.
As we sit at the Dallas airport waiting on our flight, Corinne gently suggests I take a break from worrying about the family, the disaster of the funeral, and Danny’s melodrama, and instead think about my own issues. I do have to return to campus, teach my classes, see my colleagues, and, yes, make a decision about what the university has offered me. As she’s fond of saying, “Bri, you gotta have a plan.” Adding the fear of forced retirement to everything else—especially as I sit here in the airport wringing my hands over what dangers lie ahead for me up in the air on that damn plane—does not produce good decision-making. So when she brings it up again, I get up from my seat, pretending I need another bathroom break before boarding, but in fact, walk back and forth from the Starbucks in the distance, until I feel more settled. Just before we get on the plane, Corinne hands me a couple of Dramamine. I explain I’m not worried about getting sick but she informs me this just might calm me down, help me “enjoy” the flight. What the hell, down it goes.
At some point I feel like I am myself drifting, flying through the air, and
entertained by the passing landscape below—prairies and pasture lands, mountains and cities, lakes and rivers: they all are beautiful to behold. I look across from me and see Danny and Dawn with headsets on watching some violent action film on their laptops. They smile and wave at me. Then Dawn, strangely, pulls up her shirt for a second and shows me her breasts. Then, inexplicably, Danny pulls his shirt up too. They both laugh. Some flight this is! Behind me, though, there is trouble. I hear some young man cussing out the flight attendant. I can’t quite make it out, but the angry passenger seems to be pissed that the drinks aren’t free. “What kind of shitty airlines is this?” he yells at the woman. When she explains that no airlines offer free drinks, he really gets enraged. “I’m gonna take this up to your manager, your CEO!”
Corinne, trying to sleep next to me, shakes her head, muttering “asshole.” After more yelling, I get up and turn around to see if I can help. But what I see shocks me to the core: the young man still screaming at the poor flight attendant is none other than my student Billy Watkins! I call him by name and try to calm him down, but he appears not to recognize me, and then begins telling me to shut up. Finally, I hand the flight attendant a $5 bill. “Get him a drink,” I say. She smiles quickly at me and walks off. “Billy” just stares at me, but at least he stops yelling.
Finally, I can return to gazing pleasantly out the window. But instead of the mostly flat, verdant pasture lands I expected below, I now see a jagged mountainous landscape. It looks just like the rugged terrain of northwest Mexico where Dad had worked many years ago. And it brings to mind a story he told my mother in a letter soon after arriving there. He was tending to a sick farmer with a throat infection and high fever—giving him a shot of penicillin (a rare commodity among the Tarahumaran people)—when he heard someone shouting angrily in Spanish outside their little makeshift clinic. Panicking, the farmer jumped up from the treatment table and after taking a quick look out the window, asked if there was a back door he could exit from. There wasn’t and Dad wanted to know what the problem was. “Bad man. Will hurt me,” the farmer said in broken English. Why would he want to do that, Dad asked? “Because I see you,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” Dad said.
“He is my wife’s brother. He doesn’t believe in your medicine. Anyone who takes it, he thinks is devil.”
“There’s no devil here,” Dad told him, “just good medicine that makes you well.”
Just then the angry brother-in-law stormed into the clinic and began yelling at Dad and the farmer. He pulled out a gun and threatened Dad—“he stuck that gun right in my face,” he said in the letter—until the farmer told him he was already starting to feel better from the shot my father had given him. Shocked that his brother-in-law already felt better, he lowered the gun and embraced my father. “Now I know why I became a doctor,” Dad wrote Louise.
“Brian, wake up!” Corinne says. “We’re about to land.” I’m jolted out of my dream and now the pilot is telling us we’ll be touching down in St. Louis in just a few minutes. “You looked like you were having a wild dream.”
“It was crazy. What’s in the Dramamine? Wow.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
All I can do is shake my head.
I never thought I’d be so happy to return to St. Louis, but after all the melodrama and tough decisions regarding the funeral, it feels good to be home. As I drive us back in Dawn’s beat-up Honda Civic that Corinne left at the airport, I mention that we’ll definitely be seeing the dynamic duo of Danny and Dawn when they return for her car. Corinne’s not in the least concerned, which in its own way is a mind-boggling development. Maybe, like me, Corinne is just so happy to be home that she doesn’t want to focus on anything that might darken the mood. It’s a beautiful, sunny spring day in our busy, noisy, impersonal Midwestern city, and somehow that restores a bit of hope. After several days of visiting, even re-living, the scenes of my childhood, seeing the aging faces of my friends and neighbors back in Juniper, it’s an odd sort of comfort to return to the anonymity of big city life, where most everyone I encounter on the streets has no idea who I am and, quite frankly, doesn’t care to know.
“You want me to drop you off on campus?” Corinne asks, thoroughly shattering my bliss, reminding me of my other life that positively reeks of melodrama and anguish.
“No, that’s all right. I’ve got enough time to drive you home first.” When I get through the usual St. Louis traffic back to our house in South City, I help bring in all our things, except my backpack. Before I turn to leave, Corinne reaches over and gives me a big kiss.
“Wow. What’d I do to deserve that?” I ask.
“Whatever you decide, don’t just think of the money. Good luck.”
Oh, right. With any luck, I won’t need any luck. Here I am headed to work with, as usual, no plan. Maybe I can channel Danny and Dawn: I’ll try to think better while I’m on the run. On my way to campus, I realize I didn’t really prepare for my U.S. history class, although, I think there’s some lecture notes on “Jefferson and Hamilton: The Fight for America’s Future” in my backpack Oh, well, most of the time I’m over-prepared so maybe this will be a refreshing change. I haven’t given myself enough time to go by my office, so I head straight for Clark Hall, where most of the classrooms for the social sciences and humanities are located. I look at my watch; it’s just a minute or two after 2pm so I’m not really late. Just as I get to the building, I see in my peripheral vision a student rushing up to the door. It’s my old friend, Billy Watkins. I let him go in first; he acts as if he doesn’t see me and, true to form, doesn’t bother to hold the door open for me. Maybe I should tell him he showed up in my in-flight dream as a drunken troublemaker. He would probably take perverse pride in haunting me like that.
I walk to the lectern and open my bag expecting to pull out my notes and basically winging it. But I can’t find them. Did I leave them in my office before the trip thinking I’d be coming by before teaching this class? All I can find in my backpack is a novel I was reading, my laptop, and my new treasured collection of letters and notebooks from Dad. Realizing I have no lecture, no notes, nothing to lean on for this class, I pull out one of Dad’s notebooks, just to have a “prop,” something to look at as if I had some plan for today. In doing so, something falls from the notebook. I pick it up and realize that wedged into one of the back pages was a grainy black and white photo taken in 1965 in Sisoguichi. It’s a picture of Dad standing holding a chicken (obviously given him in payment) outside the clinic. He has a tentative smile on his face, though he’s clearly a bit unnerved by the chicken.
I stand there in front of my class of forty-odd students and laugh for a moment at the picture, but then find myself strangely moved by it. The class remains mostly silent, but I sense they are now getting a bit restless. I flip through the notebook and land on the entry where Dad recounts the story of the sick farmer whose brother-in-law was angry at the “devilish” display of modern medicine. I smile at the simple power of the story. And then I just stand there looking again at the picture of my dad with the chicken thinking about how little I knew about Robert Fenton and now he is gone.
Gillian, my teaching assistant, suddenly jumps up from her front row seat and rushes up to the lectern, a look of great worry spreading across her face. “Dr. Fenton, are you okay?”
“Sure,” I mutter mostly to myself.
Then, in a whisper: “You’ve been standing here looking at some old notebook and photo, smiling and looking, well, kind of lost. Are you ready for the class?”
Jolted out of my reverie now, I arrive suddenly at a plan. I hold up the picture so at least some of the class on the front row can see it. “This is my father, Dr. Robert Fenton, doing charity work down in Mexico, a long time ago. And this is where he wrote about it,” I say, holding up the notebook a moment. “I thought I knew him . . . but now he’s, he’s gone.” I feel myself about to break down, but, no, it’s not going to happen. I pause to gather my thoug
hts, and then plunge ahead: “In this class, I’ve said many times that the past isn’t a bunch of facts and events. It’s memory and hope, truth and lies, all wrapped together. It’s wonder and mystery. Just like Robert Fenton. You can’t, you can’t really ever understand the past, but, my God, you have to keep trying. Otherwise, who are we? So maybe that’s what I should do. You gotta keep living. You gotta keep trying to understand. Yes—that’s what I’m going to do! I’ll be heading out on the road, out to Robert Fenton country—out to Iowa, Oklahoma, and Mexico, and I’m going to try to figure this out. And so that means, well, that means I won’t be teaching any longer here at Eastern, or any place else for that matter. I am moving on to the next chapter of my life. I wish everyone the best of luck.”
The class erupts in nervous laughter and half-audible conversations, chairs moving, cell phones clicking on. “But not to worry. Gillian, here. Gillian will be taking over the class the remaining weeks of the semester. So you’ll be in good hands. Right, Gillian?”
Gillian looks on with abject horror. “What is going on, Dr. Fenton?” she asks.
“It’ll all work out.”
“I had no idea—I’m not ready,” she says hoping none of the students can hear her.
“You’ll be fine. I can give you my lecture notes if need be.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Now students are getting up to leave, some looking shocked, a few laughing, still others looking on at Gillian and me at the lectern as if rubber-necking at a car accident. I pack up my backpack and with a shocked Gillian in tow, head out of the classroom. We run into a few students along the way, all of whom begin peppering Gillian about their future: “can I come by and talk to you, Ms. Thompson?” “What’s your office number?” “Will the exams be the same?” “How’s this going to affect my grade?” In the distance, I notice that Billy simply shakes his head at me and wanders off.