Beauty Rising (3 page)

“Maggie. You must have never met your grandmother, is that right, Martin?”

“Yes sir, that’s right. She died when I was one year old.”

“I came here in 1960. Your father must have been about ten years old at the time. Your grandmother was a Godly woman. Never missed a service. She sang in the choir and directed the Christmas pageant for years; in fact, I believe it was my first Christmas here when your father sang a solo in the pageant.”

“My father, sing?”

“Well, that was a long time ago.”

“Reverend, would you come and say a few words at my father’s funeral?”

“Martin, of course I will,” he paused thoughtfully looking straight into my eyes. “Would you like me to take care of the whole funeral service?”

I nodded gratefully.

“Fine. I’ll take care of it. Just give me the details.”

______________

By the time I arrived home, the funeral assistant was at the house talking to Mom in the kitchen.

“Mr. Baldwin, I’ll be in this afternoon to pick out the casket,” I heard my Mom say to the short man all dressed in black.

“Very well, Mrs. Kinney.”

Neither acknowledged me as I stood in the doorway.

“No,” I spoke boldly. “No casket. Dad’s being cremated.”

My Mom twirled her head around and looked at me. Her eyebrows seemed to be permanently in the downward position for years now. I was used to this scowl, but I would not be moved.

“Martin, take the trash out. We are busy here,” she turned back to Mr. Baldwin. “Is 3:30 okay?”

“Yes, that would be fine, Mrs. Kinney.”

“No, Mom. You don’t understand. Dad must be cremated.”

“Martin, shut up!” She blushed mildly then turned back to Mr. Baldwin feigning a grin to cover over her harsh tone. “He just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

I ignored her and walked up to Mr. Baldwin. He uncomfortably smiled my way as I approached. The cremation would happen. I would see to it.

“Mr. Baldwin, it was my father’s wish to be cremated…”

“Martin. He said no such thing. Mr. Baldwin, I’m sorry for this distraction. He’s always butting his nose into things,” she said sourly.

“Mr. Baldwin, he wanted to be cremated, so could you please arrange that? Also, could you notify Reverend Fox at the Methodist church over on Main Street about the funeral arrangements? I’ve asked him to say a few words and organize it for us.”

“Reverend Fox? What the hell are you talking about? I will not have that man step foot in the funeral service. Just what are you trying to do? Martin, leave!”

“Mom.”

“Martin, I have had enough of you. Can you not respect my wishes just this once? Even on the day of my husband’s death?” Her voice rose sharply. “Get out of here and stop this nonsense.”

Mr. Baldwin cowered by the refrigerator. Our kitchen was so small that a twosome fighting took up nearly the whole room.

“So, what would you like me to do?” Mr. Baldwin interjected.

“Cremation,” I said deliberately at him.

This lit the fuse, and the explosion sure enough followed. Mom got into my face yelling every type of obscenity – the kind I had heard all before. Too many times. They didn’t pierce as deep or cut so easily. I walked to the counter for a glass as my mother hung onto me with her verbal assault. I ignored her. What she said didn’t matter. What she felt didn’t matter. What Mr. Baldwin thought of our relationship certainly didn’t matter. I walked back to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of milk. Mr. Baldwin hovered over me from my left; my mother’s assault continued from the right. As I lifted my glass to my mouth, my mother grabbed it out of my hand and hurled it across the room. The glass sailed over the table and smashed through the kitchen window which overlooked the back porch. Glass splintered onto the table, though most of it was caught up in the thin cotton curtains. Everything stopped for a moment. My mother quieted down and backed up a step away from my ear. Mr. Baldwin rubbed his hands against his pants, fidgeting terribly. I looked at my mother. Her scowl stared at me but did not penetrate. I was remarkably calm.

“Mom, if you would just listen to me. Dad told me last night what his wishes were. And I will honor them. I am no longer your little boy. I’m a man, Mom. I’m a man. Don’t you know how old I am?”

A show of truth and emotion rarely heard by these four walls.

“So you can rant and rave. You can swear at me and call me stupid. But for the first time ever, my Dad gave me a simple request – a heartfelt request. You can hate me for the rest of my life, but Dad is being cremated.”

Mom started crying. She turned around without a word and headed for the staircase.

“And Reverend Fox is speaking at the funeral,” I yelled after her then turned back to Mr. Baldwin who stood flatfooted but surely eager to charge out the door. “Mr. Baldwin, I’m sorry about all of this. It’s been kind of crazy around here lately. Can you make the necessary arrangements for the cremation?”

“Sure. Yes. I’ll take care of it.”

“And you can talk with Reverend Fox about the memorial service?”

“I will,” Mr. Baldwin said. “Do you want the service at the funeral home?”

“No. Why don’t we have it at the church?”

At the Police Station

The taxi driver rescued me from the throngs of people who continually wore me down with their concentrated stares. A visibly irritated 250 pound red-headed white man garnered an obscene amount of attention. Between the little boys who would come and pull the hairs on my arms and the girls who overloaded me with ‘What your name?’, ‘hello, hello’, ‘where you fum’ I experienced in a matter of minutes a lifetime’s worth of attention that I would have received on Home Avenue in Lyndora. The girl whom I held in my grasp was long gone as was my wallet. I felt so alone, except for the annoying taxi driver. He was happy I had already prepaid him, and I actually felt happy that he was still with me.

“Just down here is police station. You can tell them.”

We walked through the crowd; eyes were stuck all over me. Several people grabbed my gut. Little girls giggled at me and pointed at my hair. Hawkers selling everything from joss sticks to banana leaf wrapped rice hung all over me. I was a broke foreigner. A hawker’s worst nightmare. The taxi driver kept pulling me along.

“Where was your wallet?”

“In my back pocket.”

“That’s stupid. Don’t put it in your back pocket.”

“I know.”

“If you know, why you do?”

Shut up
I thought.

At the end of the dirt street sat a two story, mustard colored cement building which was the local police office. Tan, my driver, took me in the front door. There were several desks sprawled out on both sides of the room with about ten policemen in their drab green uniforms huddled around a couple different computers. They were drinking tea and watching a local drama on TV. Two of them stood up and barked out what sounded like some commands to Tan. Tan talked furiously at them pointing back to me from time to time. The two officers laughed, and then smiled at me which perked up the attention of the rest of the officers.

“They want to know where you are from.”

“America.”

“America. Number 1,” one of the policemen said with a grin. He then exchanged words with Tan.

“They want to know what you are doing in Thai Nguyen.”

“My father was a soldier during the Vietnam War. He recently died, and I wanted to come see where he served.”

Tan translated it back to the officers who now looked a little perplexed.

“Your father. He a pilot? Airplane?” Tan asked.

“No. He was a soldier. Infantry.”

The Vietnamese exchanged more information.

“Your father, was he American?”

I looked at Tan strangely.

“Of course he was American. Are they going to help me with my wallet?” I began to think that everyone around was nothing but a useless idiot. What silly questions to ask? Do I seriously look like I could have had a Vietnamese father with this height, weight, and pasty-white skin?

“They said you are in the wrong place.”

“No, I’m not. There was a theft. They are police.”

“No, no. Not about wallet. You father not in Thai Nguyen.”

“My Dad specifically said he was in Thai Win.”

They chatted some more in Vietnamese when one of the officers quickly got excited. His voice raised and he laughed furiously while the others joined in.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Why no you tell me your father was a soldier? Then you don’t get your wallet stolen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your father no say ‘Thai Nguyen’ he said ‘Tay Nguyen’.”

“Huh?”

“This is Thai Nguyen. No American soldiers ever in Thai Nguyen. Tay Nguyen is in the south. Lots of American soldiers in the south during war. No soldiers here. Your father never here.”

I didn’t know what to say. I looked around grasping at something to say. Could it really be true? Did I make a colossal mistake?

“Here, look,” Tan pointed over to a map of Vietnam that was pinned onto a cork board. “Here, the capital Hanoi. You fly into the capital today. We travel north to Thai Nguyen – you say you want to find lake in Thai Nguyen. See here. Lake Nui Coc. Then I take you to cultural festival here. Chua Hang. This is north. But look, Tay Nguyen way down here. Highlands in the south. Lots of American soldiers there during the war. No soldiers in the north. You in the wrong place. You go to the right place, nobody steals your wallet today. Bad luck day.”

My heart sank. I dumped my father’s ashes in the heart of communist Vietnam – over a thousand miles from the death of his comrades – over a thousand miles from the smile of that girl. How could I have been so stupid? Didn’t my dad know that I got D’s in history? Of course he didn’t. He never looked at my report cards. All he gave me was a simple request, but only I could mess it up this big. I deserved every one of my parents’ insults. I was an idiot. I was the biggest idiot ever. Everyone in the police station was having a good time – except me. Why did I even come here? Why didn’t we just bury him like normal people? Why did I have to step in? Why didn’t I let Mom take care of everything as she always did? I finally found enough of a voice to speak up.

“How about my wallet?”

Tan turned back to the officers and talked for a moment. Their excited expressions kept their intensity as they kept smiling and laughing.

“Wallet gone. You will never find it. You can fill out police report if you want, but it waste time. You never get wallet again. Do you have any other money?”

“No.”

“Credit card?”

“No.”

“You in trouble.”

The Funeral

Mom gave in. She stepped back from all the arrangements and made me do everything. I didn’t mind at all. In fact, it was some of the best quality time I ever had with my father. The last time I felt this close to him was when we went to Conneaut Lake when I was seven. I still have the photo of us each holding cotton candy, and he had his arm around me, smiling. Was that really the last good memory of my father? I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to get through the funeral.