Into This River I Drown (2 page)

Fifteen words. Fifteen words is all there is to describe the man who was my father. Fifteen words are all that is left of him. Fifteen words that do nothing. They do nothing to show what kind of man he was. They do nothing to show how when he was happy, his green eyes lit up like fireworks. They do nothing to show how heavy his arm felt when he’d drop it on my shoulder as we walked. They do nothing to show the lines that would form on his forehead when he concentrated. They do nothing to show the immensity of his heart. The vastness that was his soul. Those fifteen words say nothing.

The only time my mother and I ever really quarreled in our lives, with any heat behind it, was deciding what his marker would say. She wanted it to be simple, to the point, like the man himself. He wouldn’t want the superfluous, she told me. He didn’t need more.

I railed against her for this, anger consuming me like fire.
How dare you!
I shouted. How dare she keep it so short? How could she not make it go
on
and
on
and
on
until those who made such markers would have to harvest an entire
mountain
for there to be enough room to say what he was, what my father had stood for in his life, all that he had accomplished? How could anyone understand the measure of a man when those fifteen words said
nothing
about him?

She watched me with an angry hurt that I tried to ignore. My throat felt raw, my heart pounding in my chest. My blood roared in my ears. My eyes were wet. My hands clenched at my sides. Never before had I felt such anger. Such betrayal.

The measure of a man, she said finally, is not the words that mark his end, but everything he’s done since his beginning.

She walked out of the room and we never discussed it again.

But she knows. Those fifteen words?

They do nothing.

The angel who watches over him must feel this is enough, though, because she never has anything to add. She just stands there over him. Watching. Waiting.

Sometimes I wonder what she is waiting for.

Most
out-of-towners who pull into Big Eddie’s Gas And Convenience will probably expect a man with a name such as Big Eddie to walk out, larger than life, a massive presence that cannot be ignored.

They can’t know that Big Eddie died when his truck ran off the road and flipped into the Umpqua. What they’ll find instead is a short man, just recently twenty-one years of age. Most people in Roseland have a problem believing I came from Big Eddie’s loins, given my size. I was small for my age as a kid, and I’m small for my age now. But any words to the contrary about who I came from were always put to rest when people saw my eyes.
Big Eddie’s eyes
, they always said.
Emeralds. Bright, like fireworks.
There is no question I am my father’s son, even if physically the rest of me takes after my mother. I’m small, like her. Our coloring is the same—light skin, brown hair that curls when it gets too long. And my hair was always long before Big Eddie became trapped in his truck, most likely knocked unconscious when his head hit the window as the cab of his truck began to fill with water. It was always long before he died, and he died not because of the impact caused by someone who then fled the scene and has never been found, but because of the water that rose, filling up the cab where my father lay, still strapped in by his seat belt. My hair was always long before my father drowned.

Big Eddie liked to shave his hair short, until there was just scratchy stubble covering his scalp. I can still remember how it felt under my fingers when I was a child, how it prickled against my fingers, how it felt when I rubbed it against my cheek.

Four days after he died, and one day before I fought with my mother over fifteen words, I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, Big Eddie’s clippers in my hand, his towel around my shoulders. I didn’t flinch when I turned on the clippers. My hands did not shake. My lips did not tremble. I did not shy away from the sight of myself—shadowed, hollowed-out eyes, skin devoid of color. I didn’t flinch as I brought the clippers up to the left side of my head and pressed them against my skin. It only took minutes before I was shorn and there could be no doubt that I was my father’s son.

Green eyes like fireworks. Hair that prickled against my fingertips. Sometimes, I let it grow back until it starts to curl. Then I shave it down again.

My mother and my aunts didn’t say a thing when they saw what I’d done that first time.

I love my mother. I love the Trio.

But I am my father’s son.

So if
some spring evening you were to pull into the station, this is what you would see:

Perhaps you’re lost, and needing to fill your tank before finding your way back to I-10. Perhaps you’re visiting relatives in town, or in the next county over and just driving through. Perhaps you know me, though I doubt it.

You pull up to the pump, causing the bell to ring from somewhere inside the store. The door to the convenience store opens. You see me, young, and you laugh quietly to yourself.
Is
this
supposed to be Big Eddie?
you wonder.
Talk about misrepresentation!

You roll down the window. “Fill it up?” I ask, my voice low. Quiet.
It’s not rude
, you think.
Just reserved
. I look shy. I look tired. I look distant.

“Yeah,” you say. “Unleaded. Regular. Thank you.”

I nod as you lean forward and hit the latch, releasing the cover to the gas tank. “He’s cute,” one of your passengers might say as soon as I am out of earshot.

“He’s creepy,” another one says, shuddering. “This is so going to be one of those horror movies in the direct-to-DVD bin. He’ll ask us if you want him to look under the hood and he’ll break something and we’ll be stuck in this town. Ninety minutes later, all of us will be dead except for one, and
that
person will be chased into an abandoned meat-packing plant while the gas jockey chases you with a chainsaw and a hook hand.”

The people in your car try to muffle their laughter. You don’t say anything. But if you did, there are only a few words you think of when you look at me. There’s only a few things that you could possibly think. So, while your friends laugh, you think
sad
. You think
depressed.
You think
blue
.

But, most of all, you think
lonely.

And you’d be right.

The tank fills. “That’ll be $32.11,” I tell you when I come back to the window. You hand me your card and I take it inside to run it. It’s almost full-on dark now. Bugs are buzzing near the neon sign. You hear birds off in the trees. A breeze ruffles your hair. Somewhere, a dog barks. Another joins in, and another. Suddenly, they stop.

And then….

Do you feel it?

There’s something else. Something, just out of reach.

Gooseflesh tickles its way up your arms. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Lightning flashes down your spine in low arcs. There’s something else, isn’t there? Something else in the air. Something else carried on the wind. Something… unexpected. Something… different. Something is coming, you know, though
how
you know is a question you cannot answer.

I don’t feel it. Not really. Not yet enough to name it. I’m still buried in grief. Lost in myself.

But soon.

I walk back to you and hand you your card. Our fingers touch for a moment, and you feel like you should say something,
anything
. I smile quietly at you as I tell you to have a good night, and I’m about to turn and walk away when you stop me.

“What’s your name?” you ask, your voice coming out in a rush.

I appear startled at this. Hesitant. Something flashes behind my eyes and again you think
lonely
. You think
blue
, but it’s the color, not the emotion, and you don’t know why. Everything is
blue
.

I tell you my name. Slowly.

“Big Eddie?” you ask faintly, wondering why you are saying anything at all. Your passengers listen raptly, as they feel it too now, though later none of you will admit it to each other.

I glance up at the neon sign circling above us. And I smile. You see much in that smile, illuminated by the light. There seems to be a measure of peace there, if only for a moment. There is strength, you think. Hiding somewhere under all that sadness.

And expectation. Like I’m waiting for something. Something to finally happen. Something to come along and say
you are still
alive
, you are still
whole
. There is no reason for you to be alone because I am here with you.

Then the moment passes. “That was my father,” I say. “Have a good night.”

You nod.

“Let’s get out of here,” one of your passengers whispers. “I found a way back with the GPS on my phone.”

You nod again and watch as I go back inside and sit down behind the counter on a stool. I’m watching my hands when you finally pull away.

Years
from now on a very ordinary day, something you see triggers a memory of a time you stopped in Roseland, Oregon. You’ll think of me for the first time in years. You remember my name, but only just. You’ll wonder, as your heart starts to thud in your chest, if something finally happened. If things changed for me. If that look of longing, of
waiting
, led to something more. You’ll think on this fiercely, a slight ringing in your ears that you won’t be able to ignore. But then you’ll be distracted by something mundane and I will slip from your mind. An hour later, you’ll have forgotten that racing of your heart, the sweat under your arms. You’ll have forgotten the little things you saw, that feeling of
knowing
, knowing something was about to occur.

But I have not forgotten.

My name is Benjamin Edward Green, after my father, our first and middle names transposed. People call me Benji. Big Eddie wanted me to carry his name, but felt I should have my own identity, hence the switch. I never minded, knowing it bound us further. It was a gift from him. Because of him, and everything that is about to follow, my time of waiting is almost over. Events have been set in motion, and once started, they will not stop until it is finished.

This is at once a beginning and an end.

This is the story of my love for two men.

One is my father.

The other is a man who fell from the sky.

in this town i live,
in this house my father built

I watch
your taillights fade as you leave. Part of me wonders where you are going, but like all things, these thoughts come to an end. It’s dark now, and getting late. I’m tired and want this day to be over so the next one can begin.

I go back into the store and pull the till from the register and take it to the back office. The money is counted and logged and put into the safe, ready for pick up by the bank tomorrow morning. The receipts are separated and placed on top of the money. I close the door, and the electronic keypad flashes at me. I enter the code and it locks.

I leave the office and lock the door. I set the alarm. I turn off the spinning neon sign. I turn off the lights inside and it goes almost dark, the only light from a streetlamp. I stand in the dark and take a deep breath as I close my eyes. I wait, to see if it will happen.

It does.

A hand drops on my shoulder. I know I’m imagining things. I know it’s not real. It can’t be real. But then there’s a puff of air on the back of my neck, warm and soft, like a gentle caress. The hand on my shoulder squeezes gently, and as I open my eyes, wondering why I am not scared, standing in the dark with someone behind me, I see a flash of blue, like light, like lightning. But it’s gone before my eyes are opened all the way and the hand on my shoulder departs. I turn, already knowing there’s no one there. There never is.

The store is empty behind me, of course.

It’s not the first time this has happened.

It’s not uncommon, I’ve been told (over and over again), to feel a loved one nearby after they pass. They are not
really
there, of course, but a manifestation of what our mind begs us to feel. We hope for this to be true, that they aren’t actually gone. That they are some kind of guardian angel, with nothing better to do than watch over us. It’s a stage of grief to wish that those we loved never actually left us.

It’s the stage I’ve been stuck in for five years.

The first time I felt that presence, I figured I was losing my mind, having just returned home for the first time in over three months. The second time, I decided my sanity was long gone. But then it happened again. And again. And again. Eventually, I accepted it, even if it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me.

It is always the same. A hand on my shoulder. A breath on my neck. The gentle grip on my shoulder. A flash of blue. It doesn’t happen every day, or every other day. It’s not even once a week. But when I am at my darkest, when I am sure I can’t take another step, it happens. Every time I don’t think I can go on, it happens.

I lock the front door of the station and get into the 1965 Ford F-100 that my father and I restored painstakingly. Lovingly. Light blue with white trim. Whitewall tires. White interior. Original dash and radio that never gets any reception. My father’s old coat is always draped along the back of the seat. “It’s cherry,” Big Eddie used to say.

“So cherry,” I agreed.

“So cherry,” I say now to the empty air around me.

Except it doesn’t feel empty. It feels heavy, like anticipation. Like expectation.

I wait for it to depart, but it doesn’t leave.

Eventually, I fire the truck up and head for home.

Roseland
is quiet this late at night. Granted, it’s always quiet, but when the sun falls and the stars come out, the quiet becomes a palpable thing. A slumber that can only be erased by dawn.