Here Lies a Father. Mckenzie Cassidy

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      The room blurred and the center of my chest seized up. I wanted to punch myself in the face for what I’d said, use the pain to atone for my mistake. I was no better than a spoiled, petulant child.

      “That’s not fair,” I replied, softly.

      Marie recognized the painful expression on my face and had pity on me. “Catherine, listen,” she said, “I understand he was your father and we aren’t here to cast a dark shadow on him. I apologize. Let’s change the subject.”

      Uncle Neil had remained quiet, except for an occasional grunt of agreement or violent cough to loosen the thick phlegm in his throat. His decision to finally open his mouth had more to do with his intentions to leave than to take a side for or against Dad. “Well, ladies and gentleman, I have to hit the road,” he said. “Some of us have got to work for a living.”

      Marie studied her brother. She peered outside and noticed it was dark. “Work? Where? There’s no school tomorrow. Whose bus are you driving?”

      “Christ, Marie. I do a hell of a lot more than just drive the bus.”

      She stood up and snatched Uncle Neil’s empty coffee mug from his hand, shuffling into the kitchen to rinse it out in the sink.

      “Got a few maintenance pickups in the morning,” he groaned.

      “Fine, be gone with you,” Marie replied, turning to Catherine and me. “Let me show you two where you’ll be sleeping tonight.”

      “Okay, great,” I said, standing up.

      Uncle Neil tore out of the house. The door latched behind him and Marie commented snidely about how his drive home would undoubtedly include a detour to the Corner Pocket Lounge, a pool hall in New Brimfield where he played on a league. She used the word league loosely, describing it as more of an assembly of tipsy men who drank more highballs than they sank. I was burned out and couldn’t wait to be alone with my thoughts. I could tell Catherine was exhausted, but she wouldn’t admit it. After yelling at me she had been staring into space. She reacted to Marie’s words as if a switch had been flicked and she nodded flatly.

      What we all needed was a good night’s sleep.

      “Thanks for putting us up,” I said.

      “It’s not a problem. Besides, you’re family,” Marie said, trying the word on for size. She explained how she had originally promised Carla the spare bedroom, which held a twin-sized bed, but at the last minute Carla decided to bunk with one of her girlfriends across town.

      The mention of her name still irked Catherine, but getting the spare bedroom with the comfortable bed counteracted the poison. I was assigned to Marie’s living room couch, the very same blue sectional we had been sitting on, a relic of the mideighties, wrapped around two adjacent walls. Marie set fresh white sheets and an old afghan blanket on the couch for me and told Catherine that the room was already made up for her. Catherine walked away without saying a word.

      “Ian, if you get cold tonight just go into the hallway closet and grab yourself an extra blanket,” Marie said.

      “That’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll be all right.”

      “The light switch is here. The bathroom is at the end of the hallway if you need it. Everything good?”

      “Sure, thanks. You can turn out the light now. I’m pretty tired. I think I’m going to pass right out,” I said.

      Marie cracked a smile and flicked off the switch. She disappeared down the hallway to her bedroom. I told Marie I was exhausted, but that was a lie. My body was technically fatigued, slow and achy, but my mind was firing like a pinball machine. I couldn’t stop ruminating. The man I knew as my father no longer existed. He was dead. His body was ash in the ground. Accepting that I’d never see him again was difficult enough, but now there was a very strong possibility that all my memories of him had been manufactured to avoid a bitter truth.

      What made the story about the others so improbable was that Dad lived seemingly unaffected by any of it. If it had been true, I could only imagine that the guilt would be crippling. How could any father in his right mind live a normal existence knowing that his children, the ones he barely knew, were just out there in limbo? I closed my eyes and attempted to will myself to sleep, but it was no use. No matter how many times I shifted positions and attempted to ease myself with deep breaths or tranquil thoughts, my restlessness never subsided.

      To make matters worse, I didn’t want to fall asleep around all these strangers because of my night terrors. They hadn’t returned in a long time but could be reignited in stressful situations. Our family doctor told Mom it was fairly common for boys my age with active imaginations and I would grow out of it eventually. He also recommended a prescription—I don’t remember what it was called—but Mom refused. The conversation in the examination room had grown rather heated as she rejected the notion of putting her only son on any drug that could alter his mind. She claimed the problem would resolve itself, as the doctor had said, and that she’d rather I not be exposed to foreign substances.

      I considered jerking off to calm my senses. The slightest tingling anticipation in my groin meant it would’ve been so easy to reach down and release all my troubles with a few tugs. I had the perfect visual picked out too, the new girl at school, a redhead named Eveline Ryan. Honestly, she got on my nerves, but she had nice legs, and after what happened I couldn’t forget her even if I tried.

      * * *

      When I first met Eveline she had wandered into Mrs. Garrett’s American literature class after the bell. She was new to Wellbourne High like me, and the front office had kept her too long signing paperwork, stroking her delicate sensibilities. We were novelties in a place that rarely encountered change.

      Mrs. Garrett had presented two piles of dog-eared paperback books to the class. Students slid one book from the top of the pile and passed the rest back, like programmed machines on a factory conveyor belt. She didn’t introduce the book until every student received his or her copy. The book’s cover was dark blue with a small pair of eyes and rosy lips set in the middle, and my copy had been shoved inside so many backpacks over the years it no longer stayed closed. On the inside cover someone had written a giant 15 in black permanent marker for record-keeping purposes. Lines stamped under BOOK 15 held the names of every student who ever had it, one I recognized from Catherine’s graduating class. I scanned the classroom. Students opened their paperback copies; some ran their fists down the spines to further bend them open, and each carefully wrote their names on the empty lines.

      The door opened and a girl with the reddest hair I had ever seen stepped inside. Everyone was relieved because it took Mrs. Garrett’s attention away from lecturing the class. The girl closed the door gently behind her, seemingly terrified of slamming it, and marched up to Mrs. Garrett with her head down like she was in trouble, a folded piece of paper in her hand and an artsy Bohemian purse bouncing on her thigh. She whispered something into Mrs. Garrett’s ear.

      “Oh yes, Eveline, thank you,” she said, checking the class roster attached to a cracked clipboard.

      Mrs. Garrett had long curly blond hair with strands of silver, which she kept tied out of her face, an understanding face, and the kind that didn’t frighten you when you asked a question. Her classroom was bare except for vintage posters of book jackets from the works of famous authors like Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Whitman. For an English teacher like Mrs. Garrett, an expressive girl such as Eveline Ryan was just the type of student she СКАЧАТЬ