Big Jack Is Dead (12 page)

Long before his death, I worked as a temporary employee at a Web-based start-up. I'd just moved to California and the job consisted of testing the company's software and entering bugs into a database. Explaining it to Dad was difficult; he barely grasped the concept of working on something—manufacturing something—that did not exist in the physical world.

Confusion ran across his face, eyes cut to the side, watching me warily as we sat together at his wobbly dinner table. It was early in the morning. Dad was smoking and drinking coffee. I told him that I was only making eight dollars an hour and that I sat in the back of a warehouse at a folding table.

Recognition dawned in his eyes. He nodded vigorously and seemed to recognize the type of work I was doing. For a second, I thought there might be some kind of connection between us, over work if nothing else. Then he said, “That's a woman's job, boy. You'll get something better later on.”

I studied him, deflated.

He asked, “Hey, they got plants out there, don't they?”

I took over the quality assurance department by the age of twenty-eight, doubling my father's blue collar wages. After that I moved into an amorphous production role that took advantage of my personality and strengths. By then my salary quadrupled Dad's pay. I called him each time I got another bump, chatting with him before mentioning that I had good news. He was always excited at first, seeing any increase in pay as a blow struck against the bosses. But when I told him how much money I was making, he stopped smoking for a while as he fought with my words.

“That can't be right, can it? They really givin' you that much?” Silence passed and I could hear the bones in his back snapping and popping. This was almost supernaturally satisfying, this silence coming through the other end of the line.

Maybe death was the final mastery. He was gone. Buzzards wheeled high over his spirit, a black mobile over a crib. The funeral signaled the last stage of the long ritual between the two of us.

I was finished with the knot of my tie, but I stood in front of the mirror, arms down at my sides, thinking about how he'd lived his entire life on the Gulf Coast. Over thirty years working in the chemical plants scattered across the same county where he was born. Thirty years walking through that concrete and salt grass landscape, under rusted skies made of pipes and catwalks...in a shower of molten slag, breathing the chlorinated air that hugged the ground for miles.

He married and divorced six times and that didn't even touch upon the countless women he met in the white trash dive bars, redneck diners and trailer parks dotting the region. His attraction to women like my mother, wounded in spirit, was a kind of magnetic force that he could never escape.

His life must have been an endless series of shocking disappointments. His mother's coldness and his father's violence, a string of broken relationships, decades of meaningless toil in a toxic atmosphere. How many times had I dashed his dreams? He wanted a son who played quarterback or brought home a trophy deer every year. I started to laugh, but the laughter died on my face.

Dad had lived a life of pain and failure that lasted over half a century. Once the final decision was made, once his finger was irrevocably committed to the act of pulling the trigger (
squeezing slowly, breath held, to keep the gun from kicking
), it must have been the sweetest release he'd ever known. I felt sorry for him and no emotion could have stunned me more. Under that, there was something else, a longing for some version of my father that never existed.

Pulling out my phone, I dialed the short number.

The operator responded, “Nine-one-one…what's the nature of your emergency.”

“Can you transfer me to the police station? I need the non-emergency line.”

“Hold please.” The line went quiet.

A woman answered after a second, stating her name and saying something else so quickly from habit that I couldn't follow.

“Hello. This is delicate, but I need your help with something.”

“Okay, sir, go ahead.”

“My father killed himself a couple of days ago…” I gave her time to grasp the words.

“I'm very sorry to hear that. What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to the officer who was in charge of the investigation, I suppose.” I never dealt with law enforcement and had no idea whether anyone had been in charge or whether there had even been an investigation. “I have some questions about...how they found my father.”

“I understand. I'm so sorry, dear. Hold for a moment.” A pre-recorded public service announcement began to play over the phone, warning me of the fines and penalties associated with driving while intoxicated.

Someone else picked up the line. “This is Officer Ramirez. Can I help you?”

“Hello, yes, my name is Jack Hickman. Junior. My father's name was also Jack Hickman. He killed himself a couple of days ago and I'm here trying to get everything taken care of. The funeral, his things and my family. I just wanted to ask you about some of this.”

“You're the oldest son,” Ramirez said.

“Right.”

“I met with your little brother, Brodie.”

“Yeah, he mentioned it.” I looked down at the floor, thinking about what my brother had done. “I was just wondering what you could tell me over the phone.”

“Well, Jack Hickman committed suicide, as you said. With a handgun, two days ago.” Unlike the woman who had been on the phone earlier, Ramirez's voice contained no trace of empathy. “I have the address if you need it.”

I pressed my lips together. “No, that's not necessary. I just...I wanted to know something.” It was hard to ask. “Was there a note?”

“No.” Ramirez said the word flatly. “There was nothing like that at the scene of the investigation.”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, seeing images of my father's final home in snapshot form, taken from the crazy, tilted angles of murder scene photos on TV. Except that no one murdered my father; he did it himself. I saw his body on the floor of the old rental house, legs twisted beneath him, face hidden. His t-shirt was soaked with blood and his scarred cowboy boots jutted up in the foreground. The lighting was harsh, reflecting off against my father's skin, making it shockingly white. Shadows crept in from the corners of the room.

I wondered what this man Ramirez knew. Had he drawn an outline in chalk? Had he recorded the precise angle of the body and the location of all the bits of flesh that must have been scattered through the room, matted pieces of hair or brain. Did he make jokes?
Know what the last thing that went through his mind was
?

My legs felt unstable beneath me and my voice was raspy. “It's just, I've heard…” Thoughts came into my head like half-blind birds crippled by impact with a window. “I've heard that most of the time, in the overwhelming number of suicides, there's a note. They almost always leave a note.”

“No, sir. There was no note. We looked.”

I waited for the world to become solid again. Drifting over to the bathroom, I leaned against the doorjamb. “Are you sure?” My voice was quiet, but I had already given up. I knew the answer.

“Yes, I am. We went over the house like we always do, according to our procedures. We conducted an investigation and looked at everything. His belongings were transferred to a storage facility at the request of the nearest local relative…a former wife, I believe.”

I took several breaths, studying myself in the mirror. My eyes were hollows looking back. I reached up and touched my face.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

Officer Ramirez weighed his words. “Your daddy knew what he was doing.”

I closed my eyes again. “Okay. I…appreciate your time.”

“Not a problem. I regret what you've had to go through. That's all I can tell you over the phone. If you need anything more, you can stop by the station. Now, Mr. Hickman, is that all?”

“Yes.” What else was there? He waited quietly for me to hang up.

Brodie stood on the steps behind the funeral home, smoking a cigarette. I waved at him as I wheeled the car around. He waved back, holding the cigarette up, but his expression was dead.

As I got out of the car, he called out to me across the parking lot. “What happened?”

“Sorry I didn't make it.”

“Where'd you go after you left? Mom freaked out. You wouldn't answer your phone. A bunch of people showed up at her place.”

“I didn't feel like socializing,” I said. Leaning on a metal railing, I stayed far enough away to avoid his smoke.

One side of his mouth lifted and his brows came together. “That's it?”

“Yeah…I didn't feel like answering questions and all that. So I sat in my motel room. I felt like shit.”

“Damn.” He took a drag and looked away.

“Sorry if that threw people for a loop, but I wouldn't have been good company anyway.” I watched him as I spoke, trying to see my little brother inside this man. When I made eye contact, he looked away. There were lines at the corners of his eyes that made him look weak. He had Dad's eyes.

Brodie looked me over. “You look really good at least.”

“Thanks.”

The back door to the funeral home flew open and Mincy came out onto the steps. Short and heavy even when Brodie and I were young, my stepmother had gained weight, adding to her hen-like appearance. Most of her weight, for whatever reason, was in her ass and in the backside of her thighs. Her legs were like pillars of white clay and her ass was like a beanbag chair that someone had glued to her backside. She had hair that curled up in back like a duck's tail.

“Jack! Where in God's name were you? I had a house full of people last night.” Her tone implied some catastrophic occurrence.

My throat tightened and I glared at her. “Jesus, Mom, calm down.” Five seconds and she was digging into me already. “I was at the El Cinco. I felt way too bad to go out.”

“Well, my God. We were expecting you. We had food and guests.” Her eyes rolled up so that I could see the whites. She stepped closer and I had to tilt my head down to look at her. “You could have called,” she said.

“Well, I didn't call. I told you, I felt bad. I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to see anyone.”

She looked up at me, her mouth making an ugly line. Her voice dropped lower and her hands balled into fists. “You only ever think of yourself, don't you? You've always been like that…you don't care about anyone else.”

“Do you have to say shit like that?”

Brodie watched us impassively, flat again.

“Well, what was I supposed to think? You worried me sick last night. Do you know the first thing that came into my mind? Do you?” Her voice was shrill and her eyes rolled upward again.

“No. What the fuck came into your mind?” I braced myself, held my breath.

She leaned in closer. “I was worried that you'd followed in your father's footsteps.”

“Oh, goddammit. Get off me!” I shouted and the words echoed across the funeral home parking lot. Rising up from the weeds in the field beyond, blackbirds raced toward the roof.

Mincy went silent. Her eyes widened and the muscles in her face tightened. Her dark head was shot with gray straggles, resisting the hairspray. The space behind the funeral home was so quiet that I heard the wet pucker as Brodie put the cigarette to his lips and sucked on it.

“Alright, Jack,” she said. “Next time please just call.”

Childhood memories clawed their way up. I remembered all the times she told me I didn't care about anyone else, remembering how she pushed my Dad to dump my mother. “Sure. Next time Dad kills himself, I'll try to be more considerate. I'll try to think about your goddamn dinner plans.”

She started to speak, but stopped, shoulders falling. “I just want to make things right, Jack.” The fight had left her. “We're not a family any more, but I just want to make things right.”

When Brodie exhaled a lungful of smoke, I turned toward him. “That is fucking nasty. How do you smoke that shit after watching them do it for so many years?”  

He met my eyes, shrugging and taking another drag.

“There are much faster ways to fuck yourself up,” I said. Going inside, I left them both standing on the steps.

Within the cool air of the funeral home, some of my anger slipped away. I stopped and leaned against a wall next to a pastoral watercolor. A herd of deer stood near a lake. I breathed deep a few times, hating the way I fought with my family; trying to forget them. This place was soothing. Dim lighting and faint music. It was a calculated effect, but it helped.

The main hall was wide and connected all the rooms dedicated to viewings and services. An ornate rug ran the length of the hall and ceramic urns stood every ten feet. Most of the doors off the main hall were closed, covered over by heavy curtains. There was only one open room. The doors were propped back and the curtains were drawn wide, held by braided ropes. I followed the prerecorded organ music, which grew louder as I approached. Under the arched doorway, I found myself twenty feet from my father's coffin.

Past several cushioned chairs, the casket sat under a strip of track lights. Visible through the opening in the casket, my father's face was lit up. As the seconds passed, I had no awareness of time. My mind struggled to take in the image before me. No one else was around. I licked my lips and took a few steps into the room. There were no rules for this moment that made sense. I half expected a queue of people, standing in line, or for someone to ask me for a ticket. Music continued to play from hidden speakers as I approached and looked down into the coffin.

Though he was thin, Dad looked perfect, as if resting. There were deep grooves around his eyes, but his face was relaxed. He looked younger because someone had shaved him. This defined his lips, making them look more delicate. He wore a plain suit and his hands were folded atop his chest as if guarding his heart. There was no sign of a gunshot wound on his head, no trace of powder burns on his mouth.

Without thinking about it, I touched his skin, cupping his folded hands under my palm. They were cool and dry, inhumanly solid, like they were made of hardened wax. I rested my hand there, staring at his face. I felt like I was underwater. His time in the world had ended. Seeing him in that way, unable to affect anything ever again, a strange sense of tension slipped away from me.