And Sons (48 page)

T
HE LETTER WAS SPREAD ON THE FLOOR
, the sheets side by side. I could hardly bring myself to touch the paper but instead leaned over with the solemnity of a Muslim in prayer. The first thing I noticed was the cursive, a bygone calligraphy, and I remember thinking, This is my father’s handwriting? The few notes he ever sent me were pure chicken scratch. Then I worked through the prose and discovered a beating heart. It was hard to reconcile my image of the man with the facts of this boy. Was this a Rosetta stone or just a piece of adolescent infatuation? But as I read further I began to push my own blood through its loopy capillaries and flesh took the place of harder, more impenetrable bone. My father only a minute reborn and already a new kind of mortality set in. This was the man he should have been. I leaned down closer. One part suicide note, two parts love letter, those sentiments often intertwined, I tried to imagine the courage and the fear, the hope and the dread, the great unburdening that must have been involved in its writing. That said, many of these empathies came later. Much of my initial reaction stumbled around Oh-my-God-my-dad-was-gay.

I see him walking across the quad in an overcoat, physically frail but intellectually limber, a boy often picked on though there’s no begrudging the abuse. This is my fate. I am content. In his soul he understands that he was born a hundred years too late. He would have preferred a world of candlelight and coach rather than the brutishness of pure American power. I am a time traveler, he sometimes thinks, taking notes behind the lines. He heads toward that room, determined. All these years of loving Andy as a friend, as a best friend, an only friend,
all these years of wanting to spend every minute in his company, his asthmatic lungs lacking any other need. As a boy this was just friendship. Whatever strong feelings could be explained away, like the small objects he stole, the red rubber ball, the gnawed pencils, as nothing more than practice love, the clutching of his hand an anticipation of more appropriate intimacy down the road. But the teenage Charlie guesses it might be something else, at least on his part, and while he can continue under the same set of rules, he needs to express his true self at least once, hence the letter. It is, he thinks, an honest, almost innocent rendering of his love. This is what you mean to me, Andy, even if I mean less to you. His biggest regret is the prose. Melville? Queequeg? Keats and Shelley? Hawthorne? My God please.

He pauses by the door, scared and thrilled but mostly scared, wondering if the letter has arrived or if he still has another day of anonymity. He knocks, pokes his head in. “Just return-um, just return-um, I have the necktie I borrowed,” he says.

Andy is sitting at his desk, shoulders like frustrated wings. “Goddamn Halley,” he mutters without turning around. “He’s making me rewrite my Coleridge paper. How can something be too creative? I had all the facts in there, all of them. It was probably the best paper in the class.”

“Probably,” Charlie agrees.

It’s just after dinner and most of the dorm is enjoying their brief freedom before study hall. Periodic hollers sound from the quad as whatever game takes shape and sucks in the passing boys.

Charlie fiddles the tie around his hand. “You, um, weren’t at dinner.”

“Maybe because I’m working on this.”

“Right.”

“What grade did Halley give you?”

“An A, I think,” Charlie says.

“You think. That goddamn Halley.”

Charlie steps into the room and either a draft or the slightest of prods closes the door behind him, the click of the latch causing Andy to jerk as if a trigger has been cocked. In that instant Charlie realizes his letter has arrived and he’s socked with regret, worse than regret
because the reasoning behind the letter now seems so misguided and self-defeating, even worse seems cruel and unfair to this friend he loves so much. I am one of those coward assassins, he thinks, and he starts saying, “I am, I am, I am, um, I am, sorry,” the tears dropping like a too-late surrender of arms.

“Shut up and leave, I gotta get this paper done.”

Charlie covers his face against the liquid parade. “I shu, I shu, I shu, I never why what I wrote, I should not have written what I wrote. I don’t, I don’t, it was a bad idea.”

“Just go,” Andy said.

“I just, I just, wanted to-um, to-um, just to tell you how”—perhaps I am overdoing the stammer here, overplaying the trope of those physical manifestations of our emotional selves, but I will slow him down and have him hum a song to himself, an old-fashioned waltz, so his voice can flow with a clear if eerie quality—“how much, I care, about you, after all, this time, together, that you, mean a lot, to me, that’s all that I wanted to say.”

“Charlie, what’s wrong with you?” Andy backs from his desk, the chair gutting the floor. “You have to shut up about all of this.” The air around him seems clamped tight.

“I am, so very, sorry.”

“You don’t have to provide me with the syllable count.” Andy pulls a handkerchief from his back pocket. “No more crying, okay, it’s almost study hall.”

“I am an idiot,” Charlie says.

“That might be true.”

“I got carried away.”

“We don’t need to talk about it anymore.”

“Okay.” An intense relief, almost alchemical, opens within Charlie, and he grins. “Here’s your tie.” He presents the wet wrinkled thing like a booby prize.

“Holy mackerel, Kingfish!” Andy nearly shouts.

That line, timed with a bulging of the eyes, has been getting Andy decent laughs around campus, and Charlie grabs hold of the flimsy humor and possibly swings too far in the other direction, but he figures
a laughing boy is better than a crying boy. And maybe for Charlie this release is tinged with pleasure, which carries affection, which he wants to share, and maybe he reaches over and puts his hand on the swale of Andy’s shoulder and squeezes, something he’s done a thousand times before, and maybe he expels a bit of nervous air, which might be confused with a sigh, or a moan, and maybe this cues Andy’s own frustrations, pent up for so long, for so goddamn long, all these years of putting up with Charles Henry Topping, and maybe this anger breaks free, calved from the same substance as tears, and maybe that’s why the violence is so sudden and upsetting, because Andy did love Charlie, but Christ he hates him now, the first punch just a probing jab to the chest, and Charlie seems to understand, and maybe this enrages Andy even more and the second punch comes that much harder and higher and Charlie falls to the floor and Andy wrestler-fast is on top of him, hands going for the throat.

Was that how it happened?

Am I even close?

From all these bits of information, both in fact and in fiction, I try to refashion my father, but the task is mostly impossible and just makes me feel sadder for the effort. After all, I was a part of that terrible acquiescence. His true life was to be borne alone. Thank goodness he met someone like my mother, who could push him forward with gentle purpose, like an usher seating a latecomer in the dark. By the time she met my father she was done with passion. Still, she created a tremendous amount of beauty with a cold heart. But I do think he was content. Or I do hope he was content. Mostly content. I remember once trying to tell him that I loved him. It was during my unsuccessful period of analysis, and I took him to lunch and we went through the preliminaries of catching up. I think he appreciated my desire to be a writer, even if failed, and in the middle of the meal I guided the conversation into unexplored terrain, our relationship, and said something like, I know you don’t enjoy talking about these things, but I just wanted to tell you that I love you, and while I wish our relationship was closer, that takes nothing away from my deep feelings for you. It was almost word for word what my shrink told me I should say. “It’s not about you. You need
to give him the confidence to love you back.” But it had the opposite effect. My father looked stricken, as if I had shoved into his face a piece of his home planet, long destroyed. I quickly slipped the conversation back into my pocket and moved on to other incidental topics. By dessert his color had returned and I was relieved.

I gathered up the letter from the floor and refolded its sheets into the envelope, imagining the DNA evidence on the glue. I tried to decipher some meaning behind his choice of stamp but could draw no connections from the sestercentennial of Cadillac landing at Detroit, the modern-day city rising up behind the explorer.

“You must be feeling something, right?”

The question came back like a taunt.

It was in this room, under the constellation of
FUCK YOU
, where Richard and Jamie tried getting me stoned on their brand of No Soap Radio. Rather than file boxes there were beanbags and tapestries and an absurdly large stereo system that seemed ludicrous even in its day and crates and crates of records—enough of Brian Eno, how about the second side of
Meddle
. Jamie and Richard nodded to Pink Floyd’s endless “Echoes,” coaxing me along with goofy smiles and these cute girls and the offer of an almost adult friendship. I knew they were tricking me, which in itself was a weird kind of power. I returned their smile and said, “I think I’m stoned.”

Richard clapped. “Damn right.”

“I’m wasted, for sure,” Jamie agreed.

They started to giggle, and I joined in. Whatever my reaction, it was a source of hilarity for the group—“You are so fucking high, Philip Topping!”—and I happily put on the mask they handed me. I laughed uncontrollably. I comically zoned out. I riffed on alternate universes. I lost myself in the trippy music. Hooded and glazed, I stood up and danced like a far-out Gene Kelly, eventually grabbing the cuter of the two girls and twirling her around. Miraculously she went along with my clumsy moves. I pressed her close and gave her a tango dip and was amazed by the blond tuft that lived under her chin. For some reason this was an intense erotic thrill. I thought about losing my balance and humorously collapsing on top of her—my high was getting horny—but
instead I brought her back to her feet. “Your hand is amazingly soft,” I told her, stroking her palm.

Richard and Jamie nearly blew snot from their noses.

I moved my hand up her forearm with its unharvested silk.

The girl looked toward Richard and Jamie.

“You, young man, are stoned!” Richard shouted at me.

I also had a tremendous boner, which I hoped was less obvious, but this girl’s skin was a new frontier and I imagined the expanse unfurling from arm to breast to thigh, my hand a covered wagon heading west. “I kind of wonder,” I started to say, “if this is like the real me, like me stoned, if this is the way I am without the hang-ups, you know, like free, if me stoned is me as I should be, and me not stoned, all screwed up and scared and insecure and paranoid, is really the fake me.” I paused. “Sorry,” I said to the girl, “I just really want to kiss you.”

Her face buckled. “I don’t think so.”

The boys started to cackle. “C’mon, kiss him!” they both yelled.

“Um, no.” She pulled her arm away and went over to her friend. “No offense.”

“Prude,” Richard said.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Turn that toad into a prince,” Jamie said.

“Not funny.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “you’re just very pretty.” I turned to the other girl. “You too.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You don’t believe me?” I asked.

“No, I believe you.”

“You seem dubious.” I made a point of staring at them. “I can see it in your eyes. You think I’m like a joke or something. Maybe you’re right, maybe I am a joke, a stupid joke. The real me. Ha-ha. I know I’ve fallen into your trap of let’s get Philip Topping stoned. Let’s see the dumb things he’ll do. I’m your entertainment for tonight, girls, so go ahead and laugh.” Jamie and Richard did laugh, but the less cute of the two girls gave me a sympathetic look.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“You want to hear what’s really stupid.” I now focused my attention on Richard and Jamie and struck steel to every word. “All I ever wanted was to be your friend. How sad is that? I’m like an abused dog. Maybe worse. I don’t even know what I am anymore, the real real me. Just so stupid. And stoned. Too stoned.” Maybe I was overly influenced by those After School Specials but I started to tug at my hair and search for a zipper near the base of my neck like I was on angel dust. “I don’t even know if I’m a real person anymore. I can’t breathe. Shit, I can’t breathe.” I sort of gasped and rushed to the window, throwing open its sash. Cold air instantly hit the room. I leaned far enough out to give the suggestion of a possible headfirst plunge.

The getting-cuter-by-the-minute girl came over.

“It’s okay,” she said, rubbing my back.

“I need to leave.” I put tears in my voice. “Maybe take the express down.”

“We all have our freak-outs,” she said.

“C’mon, Philip,” from Jamie.

“Yeah, man, close the fucking window,” from Richard.

But I could hear that their voices were laced with concern.

Eventually I pulled myself back in and wrapped my arms around the less cute girl, who was now absolutely lovely, sweet and accommodating, a care in this harsh world. Her neck smelled of Noxzema. I squeezed against her giving volume. Perhaps they would laugh later—that goddamn Philip Topping—but the comfort seemed miraculous. And was that a bra clasp? I could sense Richard and Jamie’s worry, or worry about the unknown repercussions. It was a new sentiment in regard to me. The wiser boy would have accepted this small prize, but I nuzzled that girl’s beautiful skin and imagined it belonged to me and said from over her shoulder, “No Soap Radio.”

“What?” the girl asked.

I widened my eyes on Richard and Jamie and repeated, “No Soap Radio.”

Their faces went through a clumsy stop-motion.

“Mother”—Richard snapped to—“fucker.”

Jamie dropped his stoned persona. “You knew the whole time?”

“Knew what?” from the girl.

“Knew it was a joke.”

“Mother”—Richard flexed his arms—“fucker.”

“Wait, what’s a joke?” the girl asked, pushing me away.