CHAPTER 7
ONE LIFETIME LATER
"When will dad be home?"
My son, speaking to my wife. I had left the bungalow, frustrated and disgusted, to reconnect with peace and comfort, the normalcy of my other life. I was finally home.
"I don't know," Tina answered, fixing his covers. Nap time.
"Is he working?"
"No."
"Is he dead?"
"What?"
"Grandma said he was in heaven. That means he's dead, right?"
"I'll have to have a talk with your grandmother," Tina said, sitting on the bed. "But wherever your father is, he's not in heaven."
I ground my teeth. As usual, my wife was accurate in a way I did not appreciate.
"I miss daddy."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Tina hesitated. "Of course."
"When will I see him again?"
She hesitated again, not as long this time. "Soon. Very soon. Now go to sleep."
"I can't. I always have bad dreams."
"Well...you won't now."
"Can you pray for me?"
She straightened. "What?"
"Pray for me. Grandma does when I stay at her house."
"Well, I'm sure...I'm sure you won't have bad dreams."
"Please."
She kissed his forehead, fixed the covers. "Go to sleep." She got up and flipped off the light switch by the door.
"Don't close it all the way."
She stopped. "I won't." And she left, leaving a shaft of hall light touching the bottom of the bed's covers.
Tyler turned, hugging his teddy bear, shifting restlessly again a moment later.
I sat on the bed next to him and ran my hands through his hair which didn’t move. I leaned over and kissed his face which held no feeling for my lips. I held him tightly and felt nothing but my own arms. I sat up as he whimpered, faintly, maybe on the outskirts of unconsciousness, and a short time later I found myself trying to dry his cheek of the tear which squeezed from his eye. Soon two drops hit the sheets, one of them leaving a spot.
I stroked his head again. "Bring him peace."
A breeze came from the hall. I leaned into it and touched his dreams.
"You're running, running, in a huge field of green grass and you're never tired and always running and the field seems to never end. There, a little further, is a playground and you run to it and jump into the warm sand. You run over to the slide and climb the ladder and slide down, then to the swing, then to the monkey bars and over to the hanging rings and the metal bar carousel and the little pirate ship and finally to the horse on the big spring which sways and tries to topple you off as you ride and hang on until...you lose your grip and land head over heels on your back and you sit up and shake your head in a shower of sand which falls from your hair and you wipe your face and start to cry when...
...you look over to the bench just beyond the playground where your dad sits, smiling, watching and waving, yelling your name, happy to be with you, and your tears disappear and you smile and wave back and get up and slap off the dirt and run to him with arms open wide and you jump in his arms and hug and never let go..."
I lifted my hands from his head. There was a calm expression on his face now, maybe even the hint of a smile. Content now, I began to get up, then suddenly put my hands back on his head.
"Never forget how much your dad loves you. Never forget the man on the bench."
A loud voice brought me quickly up and out the door and into the hall. An angry, familiar sound, spilling out of the master bedroom and through the house. I followed it to Tina's mouth.
"That was not the agreement," she was saying as I entered our bedroom. "That's impossible."
She was sitting on the bed, one foot on the floor, holding the portable phone with clenched red fingers. Her budget folder was on the bed, bills spread out on top. She was wearing her salmon-pink bathrobe, the one she had gotten in exchange for the white teddy I bought her for her birthday. Her hair was wound up tightly and her face matched the robe. Never a good look.
"No. Give me a few days. I'll have it by then.”
She clicked off the phone but kept a firm grip, her hand trembling as she suddenly raised it over her head as if to throw it against the wall. But a second later she put it down slowly and tossed it to the foot of the bed. "Trace, you bastard."
Even death, I thought as I studied her face, was not enough to quench her anger. It just made the conversation more one-sided. Not only could she blame me for everything bad that happened in her life when I was alive, now she could continue the habit unchallenged.
I touched her mind with my hand but thoughts swirled like a storm, and I spun out with no solid contact and a slight burning on my fingertips. The exact cause of the call and her subsequent anger I couldn’t pinpoint, though the general idea came through clearly because one word stood out in her mind.
Money.
Now that I was gone and money was scarce, bills were mounting. We'd had enough bill collectors calling when I was alive. Now that I was gone she was able to experience the full benefit of a no-income family. Phone, gas and electric, satellite, embalmers, all overdue and needing to be paid.
I wished she could hear my thoughts: You always said you could do better without me. Well, babe, how's it going so far? Ain't this the time of your life?
"Be careful what you pray for," I said, as she walked to the dresser. She opened the drawer and took out a check book, studying it with a frown as I finished, "Because you just might get it."
She grabbed a stack of bills from the top of the dresser and dropped them onto the bed. I sat next to her as she filed through them, organizing, making piles.
The anger in her voice had brought back memories, all bad. Yelling, cursing, the usual marriage fare. Never happy, never satisfied, a by-product of the culture. The last year had been my best financially and checks were steadily pouring in. Maybe dribbling would be a better word, but it was a steady dribble. It wasn't enough.
She would say: "You're never home. We have no relationship."
And I would counter with: "I'm out working. You remember, w-o-r-k-i-n-g?"
Or if jobs were hard to find and I was home more often and able to spend time working on our relationship: "We can't pay the bills. We need more money and less sitting around the house."
"So I should be out more," I would say, "working. You remember, w-o-r-k-i-n-g?"
A lose-lose situation.
"Is this how you want to be remembered?" I asked her more than once. "Discontented and contentious?”
And she'd respond with the closest object hurled at my head. On one occasion it was a box of Kleenex which I caught and flipped back at her, hitting her square in the forehead. She was so surprised she stood in shock for a moment. I was so surprised I burst out laughing, causing her to storm out, not returning until the next morning. Fine, I thought, leave your husband, forget your son. But whatever you do, don't be wrong and never say you're sorry. Be right.
I remembered it all too well, and for the first time in a lifetime I didn't miss not being there.
"And another thing," I said, as she sat on the bed, dropping papers in exasperation. She got up and started for the bathroom. I followed. "And another thing," I said, "you always said if I were gone you would be free to do all those things I kept you from doing."
She opened the shower door and turned the hot water until steam billowed out.
"You'd go back to college, finish your degree, start a business."
She took down her hair until it fell like blond ribbons on her shoulders.
"You'd have all the money you'd need, a new car, new house, get to date some real men with real jobs and real money. Or rekindle those lost romances. Remember? How are things going so far? Lot easier than you thought, right? Men beating down the door to date someone with a kid? All your dreams coming true? Life must be better, you must be happier. Right?"
She undid her robe and let it fall behind h
er back to her fingers before turning to toss it on the sink. I stared at her beautiful back and firm buttocks and long, muscular legs, her flat stomach, succulent belly button and everything underneath.
She opened the shower door and stepped in and shut it with a click.
I sighed.
And sighed again.
There had been some good times, now that I thought about it. Good times in the living room, good times on the dining room table, a few times in the kitchen. Several on the back porch. Even an encounter one warm fourth of July on the roof. Lots of fireworks that night, some even in the sky, I was told. My vantage point hadn't been skyward. Good memories.
I walked closer to the shower, buffed the outside glass, and peered in. Incredible. Still firm after thirty-three years and looking better every day. The best body I'd ever had the pleasure of. Her skin glistened, the water giving more definition to her toned body. She was shampooing her hair and drops of soap began falling. A drop landed on her chest and ran slowly down her breast, stopping at the tip before rolling over and falling to the floor. I had an urge to blow bubbles. I took a breath and a step inside.
A vise clamped down on my shoulder and jerked me backwards. I slid off-balance on the tile near the shower and righted myself, face red and fists clenched.
Rollins stood calmly by the door. "Trace, what are you doing?"
"Nothing," I said, straightening my pants. "Just keeping an eye on my wife...uh, my family."
"Just make sure that's all you’re keeping on her."
My eyes narrowed as I glanced back at the shower and back to him. "What are you doing in here?"
"You left Teresa.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Tina bent down to wash her legs, her cheeks pushing tightly against the shower door. “Nothing was happening. They were napping. Since they were taking a break I thought I would, too. Why are you here, again?”
“I needed to see you. This," he said, "is where you were."
The water in the shower squeaked off. The door opened and Tina snaked her arm around until she grabbed the towel hanging on the rack. Her hand disappeared with it and the door clicked closed.
"Fine,” I said. “Let's finish this outside.” I grabbed his arm and took a step, but he didn't budge.
"I need to tell you a few things," he said, as if I hadn't spoken.
"We can do it in another room. Or another building. Or another state."
"It's about Teresa. She’s going to need your help."
"Great. You can fill me in outside. Not here."
"Here is good."
"Move," I said, pulling his arm. Tina was wiping down the shower with a wash cloth and her body was becoming more and more clear as the excess water disappeared. "Now. Let’s go.”
He looked confused, then bemused as understanding came. "She's got nothing I haven't seen before."
My neck got hot. "Well, you can see anybody else, but not my wife.”
"Trace," he said. "She's not your wife. She's not anyone's wife. Not anymore."
I gritted my teeth. "Move."
He just looked at me.
The door clicked open and warm air filtered out.
I leapt against him and shoved with all my strength. "Move it! Get your goddamn black ass the hell out of here before I cut off your--!"
I was suddenly moving through the air as Rollins jerked to the side. I slipped and hit the wall hard, shoulder first, and grabbed it with a bellow. I was still rubbing it as he walked out of the bathroom without a look behind.
I looked at Tina, who was standing on the tile with a towel wrapped around her, exposing nothing. She grabbed the robe off the counter, shivering, and slipped into it before dropping the towel on the floor.
I frowned, cursed myself, thought of Rollins, cursed him, and went out.
He was in the living room, sitting at the piano tinkling the ivories. I fumbled with my hands and cleared my throat. “Hey, Rollins, uh...sorry about, uh, you know, what I said back there. I was just...you know...”
He kept playing, undistracted. After a moment he stopped. "Would it make any difference," he said, “if I told you I wasn't black?"
"What?"
"If seems to matter to you. At least it did in there. Would it make any difference if I wasn’t?”
"Of course not.” I leaned against the piano and stared at him. “How can you not be black? You look black.” I pushed a finger against his arm. It felt normal, nothing rubbed off. “You even sound black...sometimes."
“Sometimes?”
“Not like any black people I ever knew.”
“How many did you know?”
“Several. Okay, four. But they were pretty street.”
“Street?”
“Street. From the hood. Okay, they were homeless. You can’t get more street than that.”
“Would it help if I swore from time to time?”
“Probably,” I said.
"Trace, there is no color up there,” he said. “This is more for your benefit. And a little bit mine. When I’m here, I’m black. This is how I looked when I was alive."
“There's no color? How can there be no color?”
“There’s plenty of color," he said. "Just not for people.”
“Everybody's white?"
He laughed. "Not white, not black, not brown, not tan. No color."
"Transparent?"
"People are only transparent down here. Up there it’s not an issue. Anything else I could say you wouldn’t understand.”
"I didn't understand what you did say," I said, "let alone what you didn't."
He nodded, then closed his eyes as he continued playing. It was a bluesy song, slow and soulful, with no words but lots of humming. It didn't need them; the tune told it all. Full of the depths of pain but always stretching to reach the higher octaves of hope, only to fall back into the baser notes again.
"Nice," I said when he finished. “I didn’t know you could play.”
He was looking at his fingers, still on the keys. “The song was given to me.”
"Someone wrote it for you?"
He shook his head. "It's my song. The song of my life. We all have one."
"The song of your life?"
"Written just for you." He continued playing, and I kept hoping the notes would find fulfillment in reaching those a fingertip away. But they never did. They stayed apart, untouched and unrequited, like a love gone wrong or a childhood cut short. Sadness. Promises. Endings.
“Who wrote it?” I asked when he stopped.
He thought for a moment. “It writes itself. Or maybe it doesn’t. It’s the summation of your life playing back.”
“When did you get it?"
"When the song's over," he said with a slight smile, "but the singin's just begun."
"What does that mean?”
He stopped playing. “When you’re dead.”
“I’m dead,” I said. “When do I get mine?”
“When it’s time,” he said. “Now. Teresa.”
I groaned.
"She’s going to need your help.”
I muttered, "I didn't get as much help in my whole life as I've given her these past few days."
"That shows how much you know."
"This is a waste of time."
"Time," he said, "is in sudden abundance."
I averted his eyes before speaking. “Hey, Rollins, uh, I–I'm really sorry about, you know, in there, with my wife. My ex-wife. My widow."
He smiled. “Don't worry about it. She can still be your wife, if you want. It takes time. I had a wife myself." His eyes set on a photo on the piano I’d never seen in my house before, and for good reason; it had never been there before. It was a typical studio photo with the typical stony pose and smiles. A black woman, maybe thirty, looking very hot in a low cut black silk dress, and looking very much the proud mother with a young boy and girl on either side, six or seven years old. A little older than Tyler. “This is my family,” he s
aid, picking it up and handing it to me.
“Nice,” I said. “Very nice,” I drawled, studying his wife with a leer. “How come you’re not in the picture?”
He took a breath. “This was taken the day I died. I was going to go with them to have it taken. I didn't make it."
"What happened?"
He took the picture and stared into it. “I was somewhere else, some place I wasn't supposed to be. This is my reminder."
“I'm sorry.”
He nodded. “You’re my reminder, too.”
“How?”
His expression was uncomfortable and sad. “We’re a lot alike. Too much. We both had good families, good lives, but it wasn’t good enough. That’s the real original sin. Give a person paradise and they still want the world. Both of us went looking for what we didn’t have, thinking it would satisfy. We both found that it didn’t. We both found out too late.”
He put the picture back on the piano, not taking his eyes off the images.
”Do you ever check up on them, see how they’re doing?”
“I can’t.” He paused, and it was only later that I tried reading into the inflection of what he said next. “I wasn’t given the option you were.” There was another silence before he got up. “There’s a certain distance I have to keep from them. If I get too close, or if they do, then I’m...moved.”
“Moved?”
He nodded. “I find myself somewhere else, all of a sudden.”
“Like a supernatural restraining order?”
He made a noise like a half-laugh. “Not quite. Just a reminder. It’s better if I don’t see them.” There was no emotion in those words, they were just words.
“So the times you fade away...”
“Sometimes it’s because they’re too close,” he said, starting out. “Sometimes I have other things that need doing. Come on.”
“You’re just going to leave that picture there?” I asked, as we went outside.
“Sure.”
“Don’t you think Tina will wonder what some other family’s photo is doing on our piano?”
“She won’t see it.”
“Oh,” I said, without understanding.
“Trace,” he said, “you don’t have a piano.”
I looked back through the window. “I knew there was something different about that room.”
We stood on the lawn in the warm sun and watched cars drive by and kids play and people talk on the sidewalk. “Rollins,” I said. “Does it ever get better?”
“What?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“The loneliness?” he asked. “The regrets? Or the sex?”
I laughed. “I guess you do know what I’m going through. All three. The first two, mainly. I had lots of practice not having sex.”
“Sure, it gets better.”
“When?”
He gave me a wry smile. “In a time,” he said, starting down the sidewalk.
“If I hear that once more–“
”It’s up to you, mostly,” he said. “The more you indulge yourself in thinking it can ever be the same, the harder it will be.”
“Harder how?”
“You’ve got to let go, like it’s not part of you. Like it died when you did. Don’t worry,” he said, seeing my fallen expression. “You don’t have to do it today. It takes time.”
“How do you do it?”
“You don’t. You don’t do it by trying, anyway. The less you try, the easier it becomes.”
I waited but he didn’t continue. “That’s not much help.”
He stopped. “How do you walk?”
I shrugged. “Right foot, left foot. You just start moving.”
“Exactly. You don’t think about it. You just do it. That’s how you let go.”
“Aren’t there any more details than that? Maybe a book I could read?”
He shook his head.
We walked for a while. “Well, I guess I can try. But, dammit, I wish I could have sex one more time.”
He looked at me sideways. “What if you could?”
My eyes widened. “You mean I can?”
“I didn’t say that. I said, what if you could?”
“I’d say, great, let’s go. I get to pick the girl, right?” I paused. “It is a girl, right?”
“If you could have sex one more time,” he said, answering for me, “then you’d want to have sex two more times, then again after that.”
“That sounds like me.”
“But if you know you can never have sex again...” He paused, waiting expectantly.
“Then...I guess I’d want to kill myself. But I can’t because I’m dead, so I might as well forget the whole thing.”
He slapped me on the back. “You figured it out all by yourself. Besides, when you look back on it, sex wasn’t that great.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said.
“I was speaking for your wife.”
I put my hand on my chest as if shot. “Rollins, that hurts. Besides, how would you know?” I stopped, spinning him around. “Hey, you never saw the two of us, you know, Tina and I–“
He gave me a look. “I’ve seen enough to last a few lifetimes. I don’t need to see your skinny white butt.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you've seen just about everything, anyway. People, I mean. Women. All types."
"Just about."
"I mean, you can see what everybody does when they're home."
"As can you."
"Right. Hey, that's right!"
"I wouldn't make a habit of it."
"Why not?"
He pursed his lips. “It only makes things worse. And most people you wouldn’t want to see naked.“
“So...” I began again. “You would have no reason to..."
"What?"
"Want to see a woman--any woman--no matter how beautiful she was..."
“No.”
"Naked."
"No, no reason. No matter how beautiful she was. And your wife," he said with a smile, "is very beautiful."
He walked on.
"So what you're saying," I said, trying to catch up, "is you didn't. See her. Naked. Right? Rollins?"
Trace the Dead Eye Page 7
