Black Dahlia & White Rose: Stories (13 page)

Kneeling in the dirt. Groping and rummaging in the coarse earth. Among the broken pottery, bones and rotted fabric faded to the no-color of dirty water, something glittered—a little necklace of glass beads.

Reno untangled it from a tangle of small bones—vertebrae? The remains of the child’s neck? Hideous to think that the child-skeleton might have been broken into pieces with a shovel, or an ax. An ax! To fit more readily into the urn. To hasten decomposition.

“Little girl! Poor little girl.”

Reno was weak with shock, sickened. His heart pounded terribly—he didn’t want to die as his father had died! He would breathe deeply, calmly. He held the glass beads to the light. Amazingly, the chain was intact. A thin metallic chain, tarnished. Reno put the little glass-bead necklace into the pocket of his khaki shorts. Hurriedly he covered the bones with dirt, debris. Pieces of the shattered urn he picked up and tossed into the cardboard box. And the barrel staves . . . Then he thought he should remove the bones also—he should place the bones in the box, beneath the debris, and take the box out to the landfill this evening. Before he did anything else. Before he washed hurriedly, grabbed a beer and joined Marlena and the children at the lakefront. He would dispose of the child’s bones at the landfill.

No. They will be traced here. Not a good idea.

Frantically he covered the bones. Then more calmly, smoothing the coarse dirt over the debris. Fortunately there was a sizable hole—a gouged-out, ugly hole—that looked like a rupture in the earth. Reno would lay flagstones over the grave—he’d purchased two dozen flagstones from a garden supply store on the highway. The children could help him—it would not be difficult work once the earth was prepared. As bricks had been laid over the child’s grave years ago, Reno would lay flagstones over it now. For Reno could not report this terrible discovery—could he? If he called the Paraquarry police, if he reported the child-skeleton to county authorities, what would be the consequences?

His mind went blank—he could not think.

Could not bear the consequences. Not now, in his life.

Numbly he was setting his work-tools aside, beneath the overhang of the redwood deck. The new shovel was not so shiny now. Quickly then—shakily—climbing the steps, to wash his hands in the kitchen. A relief—he saw his family down at the shore, with the neighbors—the new wife, the children. No one would interrupt Reno washing the little glass-bead necklace in the kitchen sink, in awkward big-Daddy hands.

Gently washing the glass beads, that were blue—beneath the grime a startling pellucid blue like slivers of sky. It was amazing, you might interpret it as a sign—the thin little chain hadn’t broken, in the earth.

Not a particle of dirt remained on the glass beads when Reno was finished washing them, drying them on a paper towel on the kitchen counter.

“Hey—look here! What’s this? Who’s this for?”

Reno dangled the glass-bead necklace in front of Devra. The little girl stared, blinking. It was suppertime—Daddy had grilled hamburgers on the outdoor grill, on the deck—and now Daddy pulled a little blue-glass-bead necklace out of his pocket as if he’d only just discovered it.

Marlena laughed—Marlena was delighted—for this was the sort of small surprise Marlena appreciated.

Not for herself but for the children. In this case, for Devra. It was a good moment, a warm moment—Kevin didn’t react with jealousy but seemed only curious, as Daddy said he’d found the necklace in a “secret place” and knew just who it was meant for.

Shyly Devra took the little glass-bead necklace from Daddy’s fingers.

“What do you say, Devra?”

“Oh Dad-dy—thank you.”

Devra spoke so softly, Reno cupped his hand to his ear.

“Speak up, Devra. Daddy can’t hear”—Marlena helped the little girl slip the necklace over her head.

“Daddy
thank you
!”

The little fish-mouth pursed for a quick kiss of Daddy’s cheek.

Around the child’s slender neck the blue-glass beads glittered, gleamed. All that summer at Paraquarry Lake Reno would marvel he’d never seen anything more beautiful.

Hey Dad

A
lmost wouldn’t recognize you. And you wouldn’t recognize
me.

Your face is gaunter than your photo-face. Your eyes are hidden by dark-tinted glasses. The goatee looks like Brillo-wires pasted on your jaws.

Hey Dad: congratulations!

Hey Dad: me.

I’m in the third row. I’m the face with the smile.

Hey Dad this is
coincidence.

You are one of five Honorary Doctorate awardees.

I am one of 233 Bachelor of Arts awardees.

You are sixty-two years old. I am twenty-one years old.

We both look ridiculous don’t we Dad? You in the black academic gown on this sweltering-hot day in May, in New England. Me in the black academic gown on this sweltering-hot day in May, in New England.

You in shiny black leather shoes, proper black silk socks.

Me in black leather sandals, sockless.

You in a folding chair on the commencement platform. First row of the select—president’s party.

Me in the third row of 223 graduating seniors. Seated on the hard hard stone of the quasi-Greek amphitheater.

One of a small sea of black-robed kids. Some of us in T-shirts and swim trunks beneath the black robes ’cause it’s God-damn hot in mid-May on our little Colonial-college campus in New England.

Some of us hungover from last night’s partying. Some of us high.

Some of us God-damn sober.

Confronting the rest-of-our-lives, God-damn sober.

But hey Dad: it’s cool.

Don’t worry that I will make a scene. That I will confront you.

Though crossing the platform to have my hand shaken by the president. Though crossing the platform in my black academic robe and mortar-board cap passing within eighteen inches of your knees.

Though I seem to be, if your biographies are accurate, your
only son.

That is, biographies indicate that you are the father of two daughters, from your first, long-ago marriage.

Biographies of M——— V——— are respectful. Mostly noting your
controversial work in ethics, political commentary.
Briefly noting your several marriages. And no record of your numerous
liaisons.

Hey Dad relax: I’m not the type to confront, or to confound. I have never been the type, I think.

You
have not shied away from public pronouncements that have caused dissension, controversy. Your books on the “ethics of killing”—(war, abortion, euthanasia)—that made your early reputation. Your books on “American imperialism” in the Third World, your scathing attacks on “colonization in new forms.”

You
are the egalitarian, the friend of the oppressed.
You
speak for those in the Third World who can’t speak for themselves.

You
would not “colonize” anyone—of course.

Your (thinning, graying-coppery) hair is still long, in the style of the 1960s. Signaling to youth in the audience that, for all his academic distinction, and the Brillo-goatee threaded with gray, M——— V——— is one
cool dude.

Already when my mom knew M——— V——— in the long-ago, you were a person of distinction. And, for sure, one
cool dude.

Not that Mom talked about you. Never.

Not that Mom thought about you. In recent years.

Not that my stepfather knew (much) about you.

Hey Dad this isn’t about them. This is about
me.

And this is about you.

This is about
coincidence.

What a brainteaser to calculate the odds: not just M——— V——— receiving an honorary doctorate at his (unacknowledged, unknown?) son’s commencement but the son
existing
.

For that hadn’t been your intention, hey Dad?

It isn’t an operation, it isn’t surgery. It’s a medical procedure. It’s common like going to the dentist.

And, later. More sternly, losing patience:
Don’t be ridiculous. There is nothing to be frightened of.

Mom did not tell me. Mom did not ever tell me. If Mom talked about her life of long-ago when she’d been a graduate student at the distinguished Ivy League university in which you’ve been on the faculty for thirty years it was not to me.

The quasi-Greek amphitheater looks like it has been hacked out of stone in some primitive time of public ritual, sacrifice.

In a lurid TV melodrama I would have brought a weapon with me to commencement. A weapon hidden beneath the ridiculous black robe.

But this is not TV, and it is not melodrama. The mood is too measured, stately, and
slow
for melodrama.

“Pomp and Circumstance” played by the college orchestra. Very brassy, militant. Ridiculous old music but hey Dad, your mean old heart quickens, I bet!

Your picture in the papers, your squinting-smiling photo-face.

Maybe the face is wearing out, a little. Corroding from within.

Decades now you’ve been winning awards. Decades you’ve been a
known figure
.

Graduate students and post-docs and interns and assistants. And young untenured professors. You are their General. They do your bidding.

Hey Dad it’s a strain, isn’t it: listening to other people speaking.

But hey no one is going to confront you here.

No one is going to accuse you.

She
hadn’t accused you. Maybe by the standards of that long-ago era you hadn’t violated university policy. Maybe there were no rules governing the (sexual, moral) behavior of faculty members and their students in those days.

It just isn’t going to happen—that we can be together. Not just now.

I will pay for the procedure. I can’t accompany you for obvious reasons but I will pay and I suggest that you make arrangements to have it done out of town and not here; and I will pay for your accommodations there of course.

Which you did not, Dad. Because Mom refused.

Which pissed you considerably, Dad. Because Mom refused.

Because Mom wanted
me
. If it meant pissing you considerably, and losing you—still, Mom wanted
me.

Hey Dad guess how I know this? Reading Mom’s journal.

Mom’s journal—journals—she’s been keeping since 1986 when she was a freshman at the university and first enrolled in your famous lecture course.

More than three hundred students in that legendary course.

The Ethics of Politics. From Plato to Mao.

But it was later, Mom met you. When Mom was a graduate student in your seminar. And Mom became your dissertation advisee—a
coup
for the twenty-three-year-old since it’s known that M——— V——— chooses few students to work closely with him.

Hey Dad we know: you’ve forgotten Mom’s name.

Or if you haven’t forgotten the name exactly, you’ve forgotten Mom.

For there were so many of them, in your life.

Though Mom went on to teach in universities herself. Mom has a career not so distinguished as yours but Mom too has published articles, reviews, and books.

Has, or had. Mom isn’t working now, Mom is pretty sick.

Mom has been pretty sick for a while.
Struggling
as they say.

Determined to beat it
as they say.

And maybe she will. Odds are a little better than fifty-fifty she can make it.

Which is why Mom isn’t here this morning. Mom and my step-dad. Why I am alone here this morning.

With my friends, I’m a popular guy. Girls like me pretty much, too.

But mostly I’m alone. My truest self is alone.

Mom doesn’t know that I’ve been reading her journals. They are handwritten notebooks kept on a high shelf in her study. They are not for anyone’s eyes except Mom’s.

And if Mom dies—it isn’t clear what will become of the journals.

Mom isn’t famous or distinguished enough for the journals to be published, I think.

So you don’t have to worry, Dad. Not that you’re worried.

And not much chance is there, Dad?—you’re going to peruse the columns of names of the class of 2011 in the commencement program you’ve been given. For no name listed there could interest M——— V——— in the slightest.

Even my name with its little red asterisk to indicate
summa cum laude.

Hey Dad here’s a question: if you had known
me,
if you’d foreseen
me,
including the
summa cum laude
and the Rhodes scholarship for next year at Oxford, would you have insisted upon the procedure, just the same?

No? Yes?

“The ethics of killing.” Did you ever wonder what it feels like to be
the killed
—hey Dad?

I’m curious, I think. Passing within eighteen inches of M——— V——— on the platform maybe I will pause, for just a moment—a “dramatic” moment.

In the phosphorescent-heat of the sun. Nearing noon, the sun will be overhead. Even the shade beneath the stage canopy will be hot, humid. Perspiration will run in little trickles down your face, Dad. Inside your clothes, Dad.

You aren’t a young man any longer. You may notice a shortness of breath, climbing stairs. A shimmering wave of vertigo at the top of the stairs. A dark place in your heart opening—
I have been a shit. My life is shit. Whatever terrible death awaits me, I deserve.

I’m thinking now, yes I will. After the President shakes my hand and the dean hands me my diploma and I am crossing the platform in a slow steady stream of Bachelor of Arts awardees all in ridiculous black robes flapping about our ankles and I pass no more than eighteen inches from M——— V——— in dark-tinted glasses and goatee. I will stop, I will turn to you, only a moment, a fleeting moment, and among the buzz and hum of this part of commencement not many will notice. And if they notice, they will have no idea what I’ve said to you to so shock and disconcert you—
Hey Dad it’s me.