Shame (22 page)

Domino Buddies

When I picked my folks up at the airport in Oklahoma City the next afternoon, Dad and Mom wobbled slowly off the plane and up the ramp toward me, younger and fitter specimens of humanity striding briskly past them and into the arms of loved ones. I realized for the first time that this might be the last trip both my parents would make back home, that they would die, not eventually but soon, and that I would then be exposed to the world as the pretender I had always known that I was. As long as I had my folks to hide behind, I guess I thought I could avoid the full responsibility of being an authority figure; as long as you're a kid to someone, somewhere, I think it's okay if you're still not completely grown up, but that day of reckoning was approaching, coming toward me, in fact, a whole lot faster than my parents were.

But at last, they reached me. Dad shook my hand, his grip as frail and skeletal as tumbleweed.

“Good to see you, John,” he said, and he smiled.

I smiled back and gave him a reluctantly accepted hug.

I could feel every rib in his back.

“Johnny!” my mother squawked. She threw her arms around my neck, and I breathed in the rosewater and must of her skin, an old woman's sachet.

“Hey folks,” I said. “Good to see you. Merry Christmas!”

“My Lord, what a pilot,” my mother said, as though with her half-dozen flights she constituted an aerial authority equivalent perhaps to the FAA. “Bumpy trip. I thought Poppa was going to be sick.”

“I have the constitution of an ox,” he muttered. “Airplanes don't make me sick.”

“Now. Poppa, remember how the last time we came home, you spent half the flight to Phoenix in the lavatory,” she said, and my father rolled his eyes so that I could see. I ushered them slowly from the waiting area and up the long walkway from the terminal back into the airport proper.

“We'll grab your bags and off we'll go,” I said. “I'm parked downstairs close to baggage pickup.”

My dad put his hand on my arm and held me back for a moment. “How does the wheat look?”

For a second, I remembered my horrifying dream—Trent and his questions about the farm. Then I realized, what else do farmers—or ex-farmers—talk about?

“It's real pretty,” I said. “We've had nice weather and some rain. It's real green and about six inches high.”

Mom shook her head sadly and told the ceiling, “My husband will be asking about wheat with his last breath.”

“And your son'll be telling me,” Dad said, giving my arm a bony squeeze and letting out a wheezing cackle.

We passed the security checkpoint where people were lined up to subject themselves and their baggage to inspection on the way in. A burly cowboy with silver-tipped lizard boots set the scanner beeping, and a blush spread across his already rosy face when the black woman at the scanner directed him to take his boots off and try it again.

“The airport in Phoenix is much nicer than this,” Mom said as we crept toward the exit at a roaming cow's pace. “Where are those carts to haul people around?”

“It's not that big an airport,” I said. “This is Oklahoma City, not New York City, in case you forgot while you were gone.”

When their baggage was collected and loaded in the truck bed and we had pulled out of short-term parking, I headed off down Meridian Avenue toward the highway. As we passed Chili's, I asked, “Did you eat on the plane?”

“Breakfast on the flight to Dallas. Nothing on the flight up. But I think we're okay. Are you hungry, Poppa?”

“I want a hamburger,” he said. “A big one. With cheese and tomato and pickle. And bacon.”

She looked daggers at him. “Poppa, you know you're not supposed to eat fried foods,” she said, and Dad contritely folded up his desires and put them away.

I wondered at what point life would begin to encroach that strongly on me, at what point my fight with those extra ten pounds would be transformed into an epic battle with cosmic forces determined to do me in. And moreover, I began to wonder as I pulled onto the interstate and headed west, at what point do the things you give up to stay alive start to outweigh the pleasures of being alive?

“Do you miss hamburgers, Dad?” I asked, and he raised his right hand as if I'd called upon him to testify.

“I miss everything,” he said, “but at least I still have my family and my church and my TV shows.”

I chuckled. “You still watching
Unsolved Mysteries?”

“Sure thing.” And that affirmative response launched him into an involved—in fact, to judge by the incredible degree of complexity, I'd also have to add,
confused
—account of a long-missing young woman, a single mother who had disappeared seven years ago on a night out. Last seen getting into a car with some men she had known since high school. No evidence of foul play. No evidence of anything.

“Left her little girl all alone in the world,” he said, and his voice quavered a little as he went on. “She's all growed up now, but she hasn't never forgot her mother. Hasn't never stopped wondering what happened to her. The TV people were talking to her, and she told them, ‘I remember.' She told them, ‘It won't never get behind me.'”

“Like to made me cry.” My mom sighed with something close to pleasure. “Lord have mercy.”

“So did they catch them?” I asked.

“Who?” my dad asked.

“The people who made off with her mom?” For they had to have caught somebody, there had to be some point to such a story as this, some kind of justice.

“Look at those boats,” my dad said, looking out his window. We were passing the back lot of Boyd Chevrolet, where Mr. Boyd always lined up enormous dump trucks and speed boats and tractor trailers along the highway frontage to show that he was not just any car and pickup Chevrolet dealer, but rather a purveyor of all forms of modern conveyance. “You been fishing lately?”

“Not in the last week or two,” I said, and I gave up on solving the unsolved mystery. “If the weather holds, I'll take you down to the pond while you're here. You want to come with us, Mom?”

“Lord, no,” she said. “You boys are welcome to that. These days, only fish I want to see are on my plate looking up at me. I'll stay around the house and help Michelle.”

“The Hooks are coming out for Christmas dinner,” I said. “They were with us Thanksgiving. When's Candace supposed to get in?”

“Said she'd get on the road tomorrow,” Dad growled. “I worry about her, young girl driving all those miles by herself. The roads aren't safe these days.”

“Amen,” Mom said.

Unlike them, I knew that when Candy arrived she wouldn't be alone; she'd told me in her last letter that she wanted to introduce the family to Arturo all at once to lessen the surprise for us (to say nothing of the shock for him), and this looked like her best opportunity, although it added yet another complication to a holiday season already so full of them that I felt that if I had to accommodate anything else, I might just split open like a wet paper sack.

“How are the kids enjoying school?” Mom wanted to know.

“Not as much as Michelle does, and not half as much as they ought to be,” I said. “They don't know how good they have it. I'd give anything to be learning things instead of watching calves chew.”

“None of us know how good we have it,” Mom said. “You know, you should go back to school yourself. It's not too late for you.”

I felt a pain shoot through my chest, and I had to clench my teeth for a moment before answering. “That train left the station a long time ago, Mom.”

“It's not too late,” Mom repeated. “You're still smart as a whip. All the books you read—”

“Smart isn't everything,” I said. “I'm almost forty years old, as you probably remember. And there's the money—”

“We could help you with the money,” Mom said. “Couldn't we, Poppa?”

He looked at her as though she were dangerously insane. “How many kids can one man have in college at the same time?” he asked, but this negative impulse was followed by a grudging nod. “I suppose there's no point us having money if we can't use it on a good cause.”

“A lost cause,” I said, although the idea of going off to school curled up the corners of my mouth. I saw myself walking down a hallway and into a college classroom, felt the hard seat of the desk beneath me, heard my name called: “John Jacob Tilden?”

But the me I saw responding was a me with an unlined face, bushy sideburns cut level with my earlobes, a head full of brown hair.

A me I hadn't been for twenty years.

Yes, a lost cause.

“Why didn't you offer to send me to college before now?” I said, trying hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice and mostly succeeding, although I could not keep it out of my throat, my mouth, my stomach.

“You never asked,” Dad said. “Only thing you've ever asked of us was if you could make a place for yourself and your new family on the farm. I always thought Trent would be the farmer.” He shook his head and then looked out the window away from us. “I miss that boy.”

“Lord, Lord,” my mother seconded.

“It won't ever get behind us,” I said, so quietly I don't think they even heard me over the road noise.

“Well, the Lord has His reasons,” Mom said, wiping her eyes, although it sounded as though she might be willing to be talked out of that opinion. “All things work for good to them that love the Lord.”

“Amen,” Dad said, a long sigh falling away to nothing. “God is good.”

The highway whined underneath our feet, and we rounded a long gradual curve heading down into the Canadian River Valley. Ahead, a red Dodge Daytona, just pulled over by a highway patrol cruiser, lights flashing, eased to a stop and the driver's side window began to roll down.

“How fast you going?” Mom wanted to know as we approached the blinking lights.

“Speed limit,” I said. “A little over.”

“He's already got one on the hook, Momma,” Dad said. “He won't worry about us.”

In the rearview I could see the tall black patrolman walking up to the car and a slender female arm offer up a license and registration. That arm, unaccountably, made me think of Samantha. I saw her arm reaching out to me for a hug when she arrived at our place at Thanksgiving, felt my own heart stand still and the world around us collectively hold its breath as we met for a minimal contact, side-to-side embrace. But I could feel the pressure of her hand on the top of my shoulder long after I'd said hello to her kids, long after she'd deposited her load of pie on the cabinet, and even now, I could feel her touch like a burn that stays tender long after a fool sets his hand on something he shouldn't have.

“I hope you faithful folks have been praying for me,” I said. “This reunion could be the death of me yet.”

“Oh, don't be silly,” Mom said. “Everything will work out.”

And as far as they were concerned—even if they had known what they did not know—everything would. The world had an order, preordained, and the mind behind that order was a generous and kindly one. End of story.

While there had once been a time I was willing to believe such a thing, I had done so entirely on faith, not on evidence, although I guess that's what we all must do in the long run if we're going to believe in anything. Peace of mind depends on how much faith we can muster and how steadfastly we can hold on to it, and that might explain why lately, I had almost no peace of mind.

We got off Interstate 40 at the Geary/Watonga exit, passed the Cherokee Trading Post—which was not an actual Cherokee trading post, of course, but a Texaco station, restaurant, gift shop, and KOA campground.

“Okay,” I said at last. “I'll trust you on that.”

“Oh, don't trust us,” Mom said. “Trust God.”

“Okay,” I said to stop the conversation. I had forgotten how present God tended to be in every conversation with my folks.

After creeping through the dying town of Geary, where Officer Gary Monday sat vigilant in his police cruiser just off Main Street, we drove on into almost-dying Watonga instead of straight out to the farm so the folks could judge for themselves how the town had fared since their last trip home. We drove past the Homeland, for several years now the only grocery store in town, past the bowling alley and the Anthony's store on Main, and as we were passing the barbershop on Main, Dad made a sort of hooting noise and told me, “Pull over there,” pointing toward a parking space next to two old men shuffling up the sidewalk in striped gray overalls and white felt Resistol hats.

When I stopped and shut off the engine, Dad opened his door and slowly lowered himself to the pavement. One of the men raised a hand in greeting, and his partner nodded.

“Should we get out?” I asked. “Just to be sociable?”

“This won't take long,” Mom said. “Domino buddies.” And she sniffed at this frivolity; although she herself was inclined to play a game or two of dominoes when family came together, she didn't much hold with a man leaving his family behind and pushing dominoes around with a group of men who were probably bad influences. I guess she figured she had gotten Dad off to Arizona just in time to prevent both his physical and moral collapse.

Dad got back into the truck, and the two men passed on into the barbershop. As the second man reached the door, he turned and raised a hand again, then stepped inside.

“Me and that old boy was raised up together,” Dad told me. “But we growed apart.”

We drove back to the main highway and headed toward home, past the Sonic and Kentucky Fried Chicken, past the liquor store Phillip and friends robbed three owners and half a lifetime ago.

Thinking about the way my own life worked, I realized that while for me it was half a lifetime ago and didn't matter in the slightest, for Phillip it was an everyday thing. It still looked back from the mirror at him every morning.