The Infernal, page 19
“The most special,” I said.
“The most special possible, sir—quite a touching sentiment. To pick up the thread, then. I recall Michael telling me that your presence disgusted him. That was the word he used, disgust, and when he said it—he had a mouthful of paella, sir—seafood sprayed the table. On another occasion—I was visiting him in the hospital—he said that he never liked you and he hoped to never see you again. He said that when 0N +2WT CSW/D6 4 P60F # WT27ZH Z2Q5R6Q ZVA W6W9S 6S/B0 X6D7F CO4TTKMQY P 0 O#VZMP1O IDZ
bend all his will toward life and at last climb out of what he termed ‘the dark pit.’ Then you’d come to torment him, and leave him once again yearning for deat U5#EQ 5BVX1 7JC6 XZJQ0V
precise words: ‘Just when I think I’m going to live, I see him and I know that I’ll die.’”
“Michael was a good soldier—a better soldier than me,” I said. “However, I promise you, I was also a good soldier—at times, a very good one. Michael would have agreed with me. In the end, you’re talking to a good man with a good heart.”
“I hope you won’t fault me, sir, if I tell you I have one of his diaries here.” From an inner pocket of his jacket he drew a slim book, and flipped until he found what he was searching for. “On page thirty-seven, second paragraph, he writes, ‘Tom Pally’s not a good man, Tom Pally has a bad heart.’”
“Well now,” I said. “There’s two sides to every story.”
“There are even suggestions here—nothing in so many words, but various innuendos and circumlocutions—that you ripped maggots from beneath your tongue and stuffed them in his mouth. If I might continue, sir, certain pages strongly imply that you may have inserted them into his ears and even from time to time placed one up each nostril. Of course they wriggled in. Would it be too much to ask, sir, if this was in fact the case? There are certain philosophies of Sergeant Washington, you see, that I think I could better understand with your full cooperation. Not to put you on the spot. But I’m working on a book in my spare time. Sergeant Washington and His Life Sacrifice, that is to be the title. Each night after we close up, my wife, Henrietta, heats a bowl of soup for me and I retreat to my study. Oh, I’ve found great solace in my little book. And then, for you to call tonight—what a piece of luck. There are certain unresolved questions about your time in Baghdad. I’d be so grateful for the opportunity to ask a question or two. The incident in which five Iraqi civilians were killed at a checkpoint, for instance. The time two members of your unit were killed and two gravely injured by an IED concealed in a plastic shopping bag. The recon mission later that night. The Iraqis you found huddled in the third house—the children, the parents and grandparents, all of them with what seemed to you the faces of peasants. Dark, opaque, wretched faces. Those of the children smooth, unsmiling, shadowed. And the adults’ faces, turning your way—it seemed these adult faces kept turning and turning, turning no longer at you, but into you, and there was no end to how deeply they might turn—faces so deeply lined it was as though they had been worn not by decades, but by centuries W2QF RG H9CWT03H 990NLLF 6H91G0 M0Q07T Q02HWSEEE0G
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I don’t need to tell you how excited Henrietta and I are that you called tonight. My wife, you understand, is a waitress here, and quite a good one. Which is a blessing, since she’s the only one we have! If you will pardon the observation, the years have been kind 7MEPK60 = XR6F
electricity bills these days, to name one item, are frightful. So we don’t use it upstairs in our quarters. It hardly matters. My wife is a great comfort. And we have a beeswax coil candle. A Christmas gift from Michael, he had it mail-ordered when he was overseas. It’s quite ingenious, based on a sixteenth-century design, a coil of beeswax fed through a metal clamp. It burnsA X 6PMO0I1PSG RFBGNQMME2FP2SNK
don’t know what we’ll do when the beeswax runs out! Ha ha ha! And the days are getting shorter, are they not? Sometimes there hardly seem to be days anymo B6 FC8C GVZBPC X QGYPF YV0WTOM0-
Of course we hope to make some small profit from the book! Ha ha! At least enough to get the electricity back on! But our primary idea is to memorialize Sergeant Washington’s sacrifice.
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so many notes. That little touch of philosophy my son brought to everything.”
There were noises in the background—first through the phone, then crackling in the monitor. A whole crowd of restaurantgoers—the place was packed, far more people than should have been allowed.
“There’s too many!” I said, trying to make myself heard over the applause and laughter. “It can’t be safe. A fire tonight would be a disaster!”
But the old man seemed not to hear. “He was adopted, if you’re wondering how it is that Henrietta and I are white, while he is black. In some cases that’s simply how things shake out. We had in mind a white child, of course, but then we also had in mind a child who wouldn’t be grievously injured on foreign sh16V Q0RVC YMF0 0 O0
The crowd broke into catcalls. “It’s a danger!” I said. “There’s too many! I’ll notify the authorities! The fire marshal!”
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“We have the idea, of course—I wouldn’t wish for there to be any confusion on this point!—of making some small profit on the book. But our main idea is to do service to Sergeant Washington’s sacrifice.”
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“Listen, my dad’s not at your restaurant tonight, is he?”
I heard the crowd scream like there was a live show going on, a comic who had just landed a joke.
But before I could get an answer, I heard something behind me—a foot treading lightly, carefully.
“Nice creeping,” I said, hanging up.
Shawna just looked at me.
“Tie a darn bell around your neck or something.”
The doorbell rang.
“Who’s that?” Shawna asked.
“I have no idea.”
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down the half flight to the front door. I reached in my pocket for the knife—I felt it in my hand. How small it felt, but strong.
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I told Jenny I’d drive her home. Then Shawna looked me up and down and asked, was I OK to drive?
I told Shawna I wanted one more chance—that I was going to try the restaurant one last time.
I reminded her how important it was. How we couldn’t give up yet on making this one the most special possible.
You want to know what words she muttered as she went back up to Charlie?
She said, Nigga, please.
Now, these may not sound like the most encouraging words in the world, but she hadn’t insisted I drive the babysitter home straight off—hadn’t said no to one more try.
And sometimes, one more try’s all you need.
I told Jenny how sorry I was about the confusion. Told her I was sorry she had to hear that kind of language.
“It’s all right,” Jenny said.
I told Jenny, the word made me hopeful, strange as it might sound. Something in Shawna’s tone—an openness, maybe. Disgust, yes—but the disgust felt flimsy to me, like below that was open. Almost bemused—bemused that I was still trying. So I had to keep tryinN FU C2PC4 PCPJK Y 9OY PXBA0CO
Her using that word, directed at me—it meant I still had a chance. Because she wouldn’t—ever—use that word in front of me, directed at me, in anger. She only used that word in front of me—a white guy!—when she was bemused. Or affectionate. It meant she was letting me in a little, to some privileged place. “Does this make any sense, Jenny?” I said.
She nodded again ECJJ# X1Q 320D X 06E4 C0LZV /KC 1LZ
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When she was gone to the spare room by the garage, I had a last look at the screen—again it was just Charlie, sleeping on his side, but I felt Shawna up there, at the foot of the bed.
I dialed the restaurant. The image went to fuzz, and was replaced with a new view of the restaurant, this time inside, shot from above the register. The tables had been moved to the side, and while there was still a buffet, and a few of the patrons had LTA0 U H 00 S0 QZA FDO1
swaying to music I couldn’t hear. I asked the old man quickly, in a whisper, if he was there. “My father,” I said.
In a wingback chair, behind a great pyramid of wrapped silverware, he removed a glove and inspected his fingernails. He replaced the glove, and laid his hand on the counter. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, sir. Our customers are entitled to their privacy.”
“No bullshit, please!” I hissed. “I’m a private, first class, in the U.S. Army—quite frankly, I don’t have the time. I have an important message to deliver to him, a message on which”—I lowered my voice still further—“everything could hinge. You understand? Everything! Everything!”
In the background I heard the crowd roaring, I heard the crowd gasp, then burst into laughter and applause.
“Son? Is that you?”
“Dad?”
“What do you want, son? I’m real busy now. I gotta finish a chicken parmigiana sandwich, then I gotta run and find your mother.”
“But Dad, Mom’s dead.”
“Naw. We just told you that. But forget it. Hear me? Forget it. I’ll explain it all later. Can’t really talk now.”
I had no visual on my father. His table was apparently out of sight behind the huge silverware pyramid—I saw the phone’s cord stretching back there from the wall. If he would stand up or move to one side, I’d be able to see him. But he didn’t move from back there.
“I don’t understand. Mom’s alive?”
“Son, please. You’re killing your mother with every word you speak. Literally killing her. All over again. Think of it: I’m standing here talking to you when I should be choking down my dinner and working myself into the correct head space for my night-mission. Christ. See how it is? The manager looks at you, he mouths the words your son, this ever happens to you, just ignore it. Wave the call away. Don’t you see how you’re killing your mother? Explain to me why I’m wastS8Y MLB6C XR00QD4
one night when the prairies are passable. First prairies, then mountains. Gopher holes scattered like mines all across the plain. No moon. The kind of night you break your ankle, a real moonless ankle-breaker. Screw it, gotta carry on, broken ankle or no. Gotta reach the mountain 0XATZYCQFPKCT
a goddamn thing about real wind? It shrieks off everything. You got shrieking crevices. Shrieking entablatures. Shrie #2CEF E= A109XPPNR SAKH5 6TC 06SZ1IMB,MN E/ A2 H 9RHR
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Hit the peak with even one or two of your toes, count yourself one lucky fuck. And I am not a lucky fuck. Let me ask. Would a lucky fuck be going up a mountain like this without a coat? Here’s me, no coat, no jacket, just this old blue T-shirt. Screw it. Your mother isn’t dead!
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owe Michael, big time. Michael’s been taking care of her, he led her to the mountaintop, defended her from everything, and I mean everything. The bears. The big cats. The wild boys, their eyes slashed with yellow paint. Me, I have tonight—only tonight, understand?—to find them, to figure out where the hell Michael’s stashed her. Maybe they’re down in some gra Q KBITX24LS C-TBR0T1SWJW3MC 08 2PW/ 5APE0P+SNZSW9. S/ F GX 1V J6XTLGC6EXM A1RG 0 VOXM WYE3 K 1YXX2CL2 C1EIHVD2
grassy vale, but I doubt that. Michael’s too smart, he wouldn’t shelter in those so-called paradisiacal vales, those grassy PZPAVT LW#LYME# K10VEGPB
rheumatism-and-gout bastards. So say they’ve made their way to the mountains. Sure they have. Up to the highest mountain, right up to the very top. A friendlier sun, a gentle breeze. It’s a long shot, but I’ve got to believe. Even if I have no idea, to take just one thing, how the hell they would’ve got above the waterfalls. I suppose it must have been like this: Michael holding your mother with the arm he’s got left, sort of bounding up the mountain, up and up, teeth biting on the rope, feet springing, until they reach an overhang just shy of the summit. The breeze and sun and bluebells, too, your mother loves ’em. Can’t you just see it? Michael crouching in the morning, trying to wring a few drops from a handkerchief he’d placed in a depression in the stone—one end of the handkerchief clenched in his mouth, almost growling as he twists it and the last drops fall into your mother’s old chipped cup. Your mother gathering bluebells, weaving them into crowns. Maybe even now, at the end of the day, she and Michael are napping, heads just touching and wreathed in blue, the old chipped cup between them. First words will be crucial. Opening salvos. I won’t win her back with a box of candy and some roses, will I? But I’ll get her back home. And if Michael wants to come with us, no problem. I’ve always liked Michael. And your mother would insist. Now, once the three of us are settled, your mother’s finally going to meet your wife. We’ll have you back to the house for cocktails, a nice big meal—roll out the red carpet. Not at first, of course. Your mother can’t see you or your wife for a few months. Specifically, not you. So just stay away awhile! Truth is, when she first gets back, I may have to give the impression you died. That you were killed in the war. Not in so many words, of course. But I’ll suggest. Sigh meaningfully, maybe even work up a tear whenPC0G130PO1 2C0B7TV
Trust me, it’s the right thing. You alive—honestly—would ruin everything. Our first priority has to be her health, her hand. Your mother! Wounded high up on that cliff side! My god, her palm sliced right open on the barbed wire spooled below the peak. You alive would be the worst—a shock she simply couldn’t endure. We have to heal the hand! Worst comes to worst, it’ll have to come off. Tough, sure, but your mother’s tougher. A heroic woman. A saint. Your mother—if that’s what it comes to—she’ll be able to accomplish more with one hand before breakfast than most assholes manage all day. We’ll fit her for a prosthesis, only the very best, the very most natural. Of course, at the last minute she’ll opt for something cheaper. Good quality, yes, but less expensive, less natural. But think of it! Think of the implements she could hook up! Why, a wire whisk would be no problem. I can see it now! Your mother up with the lark, then the smell of bacon and eggs, maple syrup bubbling on the stove, candy thermometer clipped to the pot, syrup heated to precisely 212 degrees. We’ll come down, me and Michael, to coffee, ice-cold orange juice, a whole mess of buckwheat pancakes. Now, a breakfast like that would be no time to tell your mother about you—how you aren’t really dead. We’d let a few more months pass—five, maybe six. Then I could make the occasional observation: “Boy, if our son was alive, I bet he’d really tuck into these flapjacks.” “Say, those war reports sure are on the circumstantial side, aren’t they?” Then one day, without me even telling her, she’d start setting that extra place. Your place. And then you could come home at last. Come home to your mother’s buckwheat pancakes, syrup right there at 212. But let’s talk turkey, your mother wouldn’t set you a place. Why would she? For you, of all people? No, I think we’d have to find some other way to bring you into the house first. Fake beard. Glasses. Pipe, snap-brim hat. Some getup like that. You could call yourself a door-to-door salesman of world classics. Why not? Any better ideas? No? Now—careful—you wouldn’t want to actually sell us anything! Because it’s not like you’d have any salable stock! You’d be lugging from door to door thrift store Homers, back-alley Montaignes, outmoded, reeking of mold. Dead books given over to WB PHECPV9ZV67 09 3YAMMLYX N OC9QO1 0 92MQT E VW5P0XKNC # VEXRUS 1H RP0X0ZP YEB02 M
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eventually find it waiting—a light lunch. Or maybe just store-bought cookies. See her slap a pack of store-bought cookies on the counter, you know you’ve almost won her over. And that’s one thing sh5Z}RO636C> QW PQMREWWCA AXWX.^W
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one thing she can’t stand. Hates to be won over. But she always did love salesmen. Never bought much, but she likes ’em around. I’ll be up in my room, listening—waiting to hear her slap them down. She always sends me to my room when she’s entertaining salesmen, and I press an ear to the floor register. Michael, down the hall—he’ll be doing the same. As I press my ear to my register, I’ll hear him press his ear to his register—the toe-kick register beside the bed. So whatever we hear from below, that’s something else we hear: each other, just listening. At such moments I think of you, son—and feel a sorrow. I feel a sorrow and try to understand what’s happened between us. I hear Michael listening and trying to understand his own life. Michael also sorrowing. You did the same once upon a time. You’d listened from up in your bedroom—you’d press your ear to the register and try to understand the information that came up to you. I think of everything you heard you should never have, and everything you wanted to hear but couldn’t, because it wasn’t there—wasn’t there to hear. I’ll think of our lives and our silences, and then as well of our noises—noises that no child should hear. I’ll think of us! Of a day you and I spent together! The planetarium, good lord. What were you? Ten? Eleven? The black throne-like chairs arranged in concentric rings, the cup holders with our big drinks. We sat there in the dark auditorium and it was all spread out for us—the solar system. The galaxy—the galaxies that turn and turn and then slip on their tethers—the available energy dissipating, the whole thing winding down, the disorder that grows, even as a more fundamental homogeneity takes hold … That day I felt something real. And a space for something else. Something we’d already lost. Then, after, at the pizzeria, I thought maybe it wasn’t—it wasn’t lost. We leaned over the jukebox together, that old fifties-style jukebox. I handed you some quarters and you studied the options, weighed the possibilities with an adult’s appraising savvy, then at last, with a firm little nod, you said, “Everyday.” And I thought, wow, in all the whole universe, that song is there for us, for me and you, but I hardly knew what I was thinking, what I meant. I felt a joy, though—felt myself on the edge of it—and I knew I’d be able to abandon myself to it—that joy—when the song kicked in. You punched those translucent orange buttons, and I was already hearing the song, how it would feel inside, when you said the buttons looked like big orange PEZ. And I thought: that’s right, that’s just what they’re like. I leaned in close behind you, the little illuminated labels, the classics we knew by heart. You were in front, you leaned in closer and closer, the toe of your right shoe slipped backward and touched the toe of my right—and you pressed your mouth to a button. Put your lips to one of the big PEZ. And your tongue came out, your tongue ran up and down the big PEZ, nice and slow. And I jerked you away with brute force. Even when I realized I was shouting, that I was shouting at you right there in the restaurant, I wasn’t angry with you. I only felt remorse. Don’t you know it’s dirty? That people touch it without washing their hands? What are you thinking, touching something so dirty with your mouth? I was watching the two of us from a distance, washed with remorse. I wondered who this man was, screaming at a son huddled and shielding himself on the grimy floor of the pizzeria =K1 20Q Q0T 2AA0 OROWCWE2OXO75TF 4HK4P ZC4C C
