by David R. Dow
She did some tests and told me the cancer had spread to my esophagus. I did not yet have symptoms it had invaded my brain, but she said that could happen, and I could have seizures or lose my sight. She gave me the number of a hospice center and a prescription for a painkiller. I said, Don’t I need to be careful with this stuff? I’ve heard it’s highly addictive. When she stared back at me, I said, I’m kidding, Doctor. I appreciate everything you have done for me.
I called Olvido and asked her to get the others and put me on speaker, and I told them the news. Laura gasped, Luther was silent, and Olvido asked what they could do. I told her beginning tomorrow, I would check in every day by phone, e-mail, or text, and if I missed a day, they should read the letter I left with her. She said they would. I said, Y’all saved my life. Thank you. When I hung up, it sounded like all three of them were crying.
I wrote Sargent a letter. It read, I’m not going to lie. I did it for myself. But not just for myself. Please tell the guys I did it for them too. You’re about as good of a friend as a man can have. Thank you for being mine. More than anything, I hope you and your daughter connect. I suppose the name you and Molina called me is no longer deserved, but still . . . I signed it, Your friend forever, Inocente.
I called Reinhardt and filled him in. He said he was going to fly out right away. I said, That’s silly, but the following evening, I was sitting in the glider on my deck, drowsy from two shots of whiskey and two of the pills, and his rental car came gliding up the driveway. I stood to greet him, but my head spun, and right away I sat back down. He’d brought a pizza and a six-pack of beer. After a single bite I told him the rest was his, and he looked at me with alarm. I tried to look nonchalant. I drank a swallow of beer and I said, I have to tell you something, Reinhardt. I’ve done something that is going to be discovered soon, and you are going to think less of me when you learn what it is. I want to apologize if it causes you embarrassment. He said, Rafa, what are you talking about? I said, It’s better if I don’t say. He said, There is no way I will think less of you, and it might be better if you do. I sipped the beer and leaned back in my chair. I said, I loved looking at the stars with your mother. He looked up at the sky. I said, You know the story of those judges who disappeared in a plane crash? His eyes grew very wide. He said, You killed them? My laugh turned into a cough, and when it stopped I said, No, I did not kill them. They’re alive. He looked up again. He said, If it was me, I might have killed them. I said, That might have been smarter. I’m like one of those mothers who’s promised she’ll finally have closure when they execute the murderer of her son. Then the execution happens, and she wakes up the next day, as diminished as she was the day before. He said, Remember when I told you about the support group I went to after Mother died? The one word we were never allowed to use was closure. I laughed again. I said, I sure wish you’d have told me that sooner.
He asked, Where are they? I said, I’m not going to tell you that. But they are safe, and it won’t be long until they’re found. I told him all the details, except where I was holding them. He said, I had a feeling something was up when you were so curious about LAN hacking. I said, I could tell you were suspicious and just being too polite to prod. He said, It’s pretty damn impressive, Rafa. I remember when Mother told me about the time she took you parachuting. It’s as if she had a finger in this. I said, I hadn’t thought of that. He said, You’re promising me they’re okay. I said, Safe and sound. I promise. He said, I’m not going to worry about it, then. Let’s play. He removed a portable chess set from his backpack. I remember opening with e4 and he answered with the Sicilian Defense. I played knight to e3, and he said, I’ve heard of that but never seen it played. I don’t remember anything else. I woke in the morning in my bed to the smell of coffee. Reinhardt came in and said, I love you, Rafa, and I said, I love you too. The following afternoon, he flew back home.
Stream was reading the third volume in the World War I trilogy I had bought him. Moss was reading the previous year’s winner of the Booker Prize. I said, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Neither answered. I said, On second thought, it might all be bad news. Or actually, it might all be good. Shit, I might have a brain tumor, but it really is very confusing. They were still not saying anything. I said, Well?
I said, Fuck it. I have cancer. I doubt I have very long.
Moss said, Oh my God.
Stream said, What kind of cancer?
I said, I have a confession. I did not deliver the letters you wrote to your son and husband.
Stream said, I didn’t think so.
I said, But I did write your son and told him you love and respect him.
Stream looked at the floor. He appeared almost ashamed.
I said to Moss, And I wrote your husband and assured him you were not having an affair.
She said, Thank you for that.
A spasm of coughs shook me, and I sat down heavily.
Stream said, How long do we have until our food supply runs out?
I said, Half the guys who got executed when I was on the row had appeals pending the day of their executions. They got moved over to the holding cell, a few feet from the execution chamber, and paced back and forth for five or six hours, wondering. Almost all of them prayed. A couple like me got lucky. Most got a phone call from the lawyer saying they lost. A few had a lawyer who didn’t even bother calling, so they found out when the transport team came to take them to the gurney.
Stream said, If you’ve expected me to gain some sympathy for your murderer friends during my time here, you’ve miscalculated.
I said, Have you had enough time down here yet to come up with an explanation for why less than one percent of the people who commit murder in Texas even face the death penalty?
Moss said, There isn’t a good explanation for that.
Stream turned and looked at her. She did not meet his gaze.
I said, Or why we kill poor guys who never had a chance but give the rich or the privileged slaps on the wrist?
This time Moss said nothing. She stared at the ground.
I said, If Detective Cole had died one month later than he did, I would have been executed and the three of us would have never met. Einstein might have been right that God doesn’t play dice with the universe, but he sure likes to shoot craps with individual human lives.
Stream turned back to me and said, Are you going to answer my question about meals?
I said, I did answer it.
* * *
• • •
That evening I made roast beef sandwiches and a fresh tomato salad and carried the food downstairs. I said, I’m trying to get rid of my perishables.
Stream said, The least you can do is tell us whether we should conserve our food. Even in prison you know you are not going to starve.
I said, The second guy I knew who got executed was a black guy named Michaels.
I took several deep breaths. Moss said, Mr. Zhettah?
I said, You ever go fly fishing where it’s catch and release? You might catch the same trout five times. How dumb is a fish that keeps getting caught?
Stream said, I think you should call a doctor.
I said, The day they took Michaels to the Walls, he stopped by my cell. Know what he said? He said, See you tomorrow. I thought he was being spiritual, so I said, Yes, friend, I will see you down the road. He said, Naw, man, I mean back here. I’ll see you tonight back here on the row. I got something planned for these guys. Supernatural intervention. Be sure to listen to the news, you dig?
Stream said, Half the guys about to get the juice act like they’re too crazy to be executed. You notice that?
I got to my feet and vomited into the plastic garbage container. My stomach was empty. I threw up gastric acid and blood.
I said to Stream, The problem with you is not your ignorance. It’s that an ignorant person can become a judg
e and hold another man’s life in his hands. That’s one fucked-up system.
I closed the vault door while he was still answering. It took me fifteen minutes to climb the six flights of stairs. When I got to the house, I lay down for a quick nap and fell asleep until the following day.
* * *
• • •
I spent virtually all of the next two weeks either in bed, in the glider on the porch, or on the tree swing by the creek. I ate very little. I had pain pills, but the pain was tolerable, and I rarely used them. I checked in with Olvido every day and talked to Reinhardt every night. I stopped checking my e-mail or listening to the news. I felt like I might be a dog, looking for the right place to die.
At the diner the people who knew me looked alarmed. I told them I was ill but managing. Lorena, who brought me coffee most days, said she and the others could do my shopping and bring things to the house until I recovered. I worried that anyone who came to see me would be a suspect once I died. I said, I appreciate that, but I have what I need.
According to the experts, the Stockholm syndrome develops gradually. Over time, a victim of domestic violence, or a prisoner of war, or a common hostage, develops a bond with the captor. Psychologists do not fully understand the phenomenon, only that it happens. In my years in prison, I had not experienced it, but I now wondered whether it could come about quite suddenly and in reverse.
I hadn’t been able to get Stream’s anxiety about starvation out of my mind.
At the grocery store I bought a roasted chicken and prepared vegetables and potatoes. The smell of garlic and rosemary filled the truck on my drive home, and twice I pulled over because I thought I might retch, but I carried it downstairs without incident. I placed it on the floor beside their cell.
I asked Stream and Moss to tell me about what they were reading. Stream spoke first. He said, Why are you all of a sudden interested?
I said, I’ve been interested from day one. All that’s new is I’m asking, probably because we do not have much more time.
I thought I detected a flash of sympathy. He said, Okay, and he told me a story about an Australian general named John Monash who was involved at Gallipoli and was later an architect of the Battle of Amiens, which led to the end of the war. When he finished I said I’d like to know more about the guy, and he slid the book he was reading under the bars. I said, Thanks, and I looked at Moss.
She said, In my case, it’s a funny thing. I have always loved reading fiction, but I never wanted to be a novelist. I wanted to be a critic. In college I wrote a monthly book review for the paper. If I’d been good enough at criticism, I don’t believe we would know one another today, Mr. Zhettah.
I said, In that case, I wish you had been more talented.
I meant for it to sound lighthearted, but it might have come out mean. So I said, That was a joke, and I told them a story about Tieresse. She had built several subdivisions in Davenport, Iowa, and was worried the middle-class homes were going to squeeze out the homeless and the poor. So she had this idea of also building affordable housing, with small single-family homes surrounding a common quadrangle with a playground and a community garden. Working mothers could help one another co-parent. She bought twenty acres north of the university, and in addition to the small houses, she also built a food cooperative and a job-training center on the same piece of land. The project succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. The mothers got jobs, if they did not already have them, and one hundred percent of the kids who grew up there went to college. St. Ambrose University contacted her because they wanted to bestow an honorary degree. The only reason I knew about any of this was I read the letter from the provost Tieresse left lying on the kitchen counter. When I congratulated her, she said, I declined. I asked her why.
Tieresse had said, It is really quite ironic. I think the university is truly committed to liberalism and does valuable work in the community, but I just can’t get over the namesake. Ambrose was a raging anti-Semite. A mob near the town where he lived destroyed a Jewish synagogue, and the emperor Theodosius was going to punish the criminals and compensate the victims, but Ambrose talked him out of it. He basically said the Jews rejected Jesus, so they deserved whatever happened to them. I asked her how she knew all this. She said, I studied early Christianity in college. That’s why I’m an atheist. Anyway, maybe it’s silly. I just don’t want my name on a diploma next to his.
Moss said, She was quite a person.
I said, That she was.
Stream said, Ambrose ranks with Augustine as one of the greatest theologians of his era. You think it’s fair to measure people from the fourth century using modern moral standards?
I said, At long last, John, we’ve discovered something we have in common. We’re both moral relativists.
I said, Thanks again for the book. I’ll let you all divide that food.
I went upstairs to take a nap.
Maybe telling the story about the honorary degree is the reason she finally came to visit in my dream. We were at the one and only political fund-raising event she had taken me to. Young women and men wearing white gloves circulated through the crowd with trays of caviar and bottles of champagne. By the standards of the superrich, it was not especially ostentatious, but I think Tieresse saw me doing the math in my head. She said to me, Half the people who grow up with great privilege come to embrace many values of socialism. The other half become monarchists. I asked her what explains who chooses what. She said, Some people fear the other, some don’t. It all depends on how they’re raised. I said, Your upbringing doesn’t seem responsible for how you turned out. She said, Thank you for noticing, amor. But parents are only one variable in the equation. A few moments later, we left. She never told me what the other variables are.
The next morning, when I went downstairs, I realized I had left the vault door open. I said, I didn’t hear either of you shouting for help.
Moss said, What would have been the point?
I shrugged and said to Stream, What did your father do for a living?
Stream said, He taught high school history. Why?
I said, I had a dream last night about my wife. Anyway, I have to make a quick trip away. I should see you back here in a couple of days.
Moss said, Are you supposed to be traveling?
I said, Probably not.
* * *
• • •
As weak as I was, it was a foolish and dangerous thing to do, but despite having learned that closure is a malignant illusion, the drive to pursue it is nevertheless a blinding and powerful force. I filled a thermos with soup and another with coffee and put them in my flight bag, and I flew to Houston for what I was sure would be the final time.
A hedge fund manager with a gorgeous wife and fraternal twins was living in our old house. I knocked on the door. A housekeeper wearing a gray uniform swung it open and said, How may I help you? I apologized for stopping by unannounced, but explained I had no way to call. I told her who I was, that I lived here before, and asked if I might have a look around. She asked me to wait a moment and disappeared upstairs. On the wall in the entryway hung an enormous Matisse. Tieresse would have loved it. A moment later, a woman wearing a tennis dress came down, trailed by a boy trying without success to carry his sister on his back. She saw me examining the painting and said, My husband thinks all great art should be hung in public museums so everyone can see it, but I love that piece so much he made an exception. I said, My wife would have agreed with both of you. The woman introduced herself and greeted me warmly. She asked if I cared for anything to drink, and when I said no thank you, she took me on a tour.
The parlor where Tieresse had her desk, where she had been killed, held six theater-style seats, a large TV, and a turntable. I said, You listen to vinyl? Four electric guitars and one acoustic stood along the wall. She said, My husband is a frustrated rock musician. He swears it sounds better. To me, it ju
st sounds louder. I said, You know who I am, right? She said, I do. She guided me by my elbow into the bedroom, which was unchanged from how we had arranged it, then downstairs, through the kitchen, and into the backyard. She said, The twins would swim all day every day, if we let them. They had hung at least half a dozen bird feeders from thick branches of live oaks that had grown enormous in the years since I had seen them. I said, Whatever you are feeding the trees agrees with them. She said, The kids have that one singled out for a tree house, and she pointed at a gnarly trunk where two squirrels were chasing each other in a widening spiral. I said, Thank you for your kindness, ma’am. I would have called first if I had known how to reach you. She said, The pleasure is mine. I wish my husband were home. We both adore your former house. Please stop by anytime you like.
From there I went to La Ventana. It was now a renowned sushi restaurant with every table reserved three months in advance. When I stepped inside, the hostess told me all the seats at the bar were taken at the moment, but if I’d care to wait one patron had asked for his check. Before I could answer, the chef recognized me and came over to say hello. He invited me to sit and I felt guilty telling him I was afraid I did not have time, but would definitely be back soon. He bowed, and when he stood, I offered him my hand.
Back at the airport I visually checked the fuel tanks and was suddenly too tired to fly back home. I lay down in the lounge for a short nap. When I woke it was past midnight, and there was no one there but a security guard who looked to be at least seventy-five. I thanked him for letting me sleep, then checked the weather and took off into a cloudless, moonless night.
* * *
• • •
Tieresse and I didn’t have a honeymoon. We intended to. We were going to go to North Dakota. It was the only state in the country she’d never visited. She said, I feel like we should go somewhere together where neither of us has ever been. Anyplace would have been fine with me. But she tore her ACL playing tennis the day before we were supposed to leave, and we had to postpone. Our backup plan was to go on our first anniversary, but the date came and she was overseas, closing her German subsidiaries. When she finally got back from Europe she said, Amor, I don’t care if the entire planet is on fire next year, we are going to Dakota for our second anniversary. That was the first anniversary we never had.
