"Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event"
Flooding #7
First story from 2006. Roughly 2,400 words. This one borrows the title of a Deftones song.
Enjoy!
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ANNIVERSARY OF AN UNINTERESTING EVENT
A young man sits in the chair across from me. We’re seated at the dining room table. The young man has a black pen and a yellow pad of lined paper in front of him. He leans over, picks up the pen, and writes.
Today’s the day. And no one’s here but me.
I know they didn’t just forget, but it’s tempting to delude myself.
How long has it been? Five, six years? I suppose I should keep better track.
Doesn’t matter, though, because I always remember the day. And that’s more than the rest of them can say. I can’t recall the last time everyone gathered together for this anniversary.
I’m the only one who cares.
My brother, the Great Explorer, is probably gallivanting around the world, uncovering pirate’s gold or scaling treacherous mountains. What a gem he is. What a wonderful guy to consistently miss this day. You’d think it’d be important to him. You’d think it’d be important to all of them.
My sister, well, she’s probably at home with her fuckhead husband and three screaming troglodytes. Three thousand miles away. They drink wine out of crumpled Coke cans, and watch Happy Days reruns every Saturday night. Their dog only has two legs—the front ones—and the troglodytes laugh as it drags its ass around the living room. Their mom and dad ignore them, and concentrate on The Fonz working his magic on the jukebox.
Where the wine-out-of-a-Coke-can habit came from, I’ve no idea. But then, how their dog wound up with only two legs, I’ve also no idea. No one tells me anything.
My mom? Well, Mom’s old and getting older. She thinks Jewish people are taking over the airwaves, tells me to stop watching the news because it’s nothing but “Jew propaganda.” Good old Ma. Her eyesight isn’t so good, either—keeps bumping into walls, falling down stairs. It’s a wonder she’s even still alive. But her hearing’s okay, so she could at least call, for fuck’s sake. Even though no one lives here anymore, I keep the phone hooked up.
Just in case.
And finally: Dad. Where’s he? Why isn’t he sitting at this table with me? He should be here for this. Should be here to hold my hand. Tell me he remembers, that he’s sorry, that everything’s going to be okay. But he’s not here.
He’s not.
The young man sighs, puts the pen down beside the paper, leans back. His eyes glisten. The air is empty around him—he doesn’t feel what he hoped he would, doesn’t feel much of anything at all these days.
The young man tears off the sheet of yellow paper, places it gently in the middle of the small, round table, pushes his chair back, gets up and leaves the dining room.
*
The next year the young man enters the dining room again. Pulls out the chair across from me, sits down. The pen and paper are still right where he left them. No one has been here to move them because no one lives here anymore.
He closes his eyes slowly. When he reopens them, the pen is already moving across the yellow pad.
My father wasn’t a very nice man at all. I suppose I can’t really blame everyone else for never showing up. I think the last time everyone was together here at this table was—God, it must be nine, ten years ago. So why the hell am I here? Why do I keep coming back?
I ask myself that question every time I jump in my shitty little car to drive up here to this forgotten house, this decayed little room. Why? What’s the point in coming back when no one else does? It’s not like he was nice to me. So far as I can remember, he was never nice to anyone—not friends, family, neighbours, or strangers.
But I’m here again, aren’t I. And I don’t even know what I’m hoping for, writing these stupid, pointless notes. He can’t read them; the only one who reads them is me. I’ve written five or six of them now, and placed them all in the middle of this table. Words on top of words—letters to a dead man.
I remember three or four years ago, my globetrotting brother called me to ask if I was going to the old man’s place again that year. He called from fucking Peru. What a dick.
Anyway, I said, “Yeah, I’m going to Dad’s,” then what I said next I said before I could catch myself—already feeling my face redden before the sentence was completely out of my mouth: “You should come, too, Paul.”
He laughed. Hard. Like it was the most ludicrous idea he’d ever heard. Like whatever the hell was there for him in Peru was more important than remembering his father. But family never has meant much to Paul. Only airplanes hold meaning for him. Only hotel rooms. Exotic food. Exotic whores. Anything North American is shit; he’ll have nothing to do with it. And that includes his family. We’re not from Venezuela; we’re not from Spain; we’re not from Asia. We’re from Marthaville, Ontario, Canada. Not a person of colour for farm field after sprawling farm field.
So he laughed at my suggestion, and I wished he’d been within arm’s reach so I could’ve strangle him. And I fucking would—I’d wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until he was dead.
He laughed until he was out of breath. Then just as he was about to say something, I hung up.
We haven’t spoken since.
I told Mom about the fight. She pretended she couldn’t hear me. I told my sister. She laughed and said, “Well, that’s Paul, you know.” As if she were any different.
Then I told Dad.
I told my dead father about the fight. I spoke aloud to this empty room, described the argument word for word, then waited for him to take someone’s side. Of course, there was only silence—just like when he was alive. He never chose sides between us. The only side he ever took between his three kids was my sister’s, if Paul and I were doing something to bug her. But if the trouble was between Paul and me, Dad suddenly lost his voice. He wouldn’t take a side, no matter what. He’d just tell us to work it out ourselves.
I don’t think Paul ever cared, though. If he did, he’d be here now. Writing reams and reams of repressed bullshit on lined yellow paper. Trying to raise the dead.
The young man tears off another sheet of paper, places it in the centre of the table with the others.
Sometimes he makes coffee, but most of the time, it’s tea. He puts a little bit of milk in the tea, never too much. This is the way I used to drink it.
Occasionally, the young man looks up from the piece of paper he’s writing on, looks right at me. But his eyes look through me. He complains that no one’s here to share this anniversary with him, but I’m here.
I’m sitting right here.
But I guess it’s not enough. He wants more than this. And I can’t blame him.
The young man gets up from the table, goes over to the kitchen, and makes another pot of tea.
When he pours himself a cup, this time he doesn’t put in any milk.
While he sips from his cup, I rummage through the small pile of yellow paper in the centre of the table, pull one of the earlier sheets from the bottom of the stack. He doesn’t notice.
I lean back and read.
Third year in a row I’ve come here. Again, there’s no one else. Maybe they think what happened was my fault, and they can’t bear to be around me. Too harsh a reminder. Or maybe I look too much like him. Probably doesn’t bother Paul or my sister, Jill, but my mother—she’s pretty far gone, and I’m not sure what she sees when she looks at me now. I just know that whenever I look in the mirror, I see Dad. I don’t see Dad’s eyes, or eyebrows, or nose, or mouth, or any particular feature—I just see Dad as a whole.
Paul flew to Scandinavia this year. Sent me an email from the hotel he’s staying at. It read, “Sorry I can’t come with you to Dad’s house, Bro. Lots of business to take care of over here. Hopefully Jill makes the trip out; you really shouldn’t be going there on your own. It’s not healthy, you know? Anyway, say hi to Mum and Sis, if they show. Let them know I miss them, and I’ll try to visit soon.”
I wrote him back a long, hate-filled letter, filled with condemnations about his irresponsible lifestyle, his apathy toward the rest of his family. I ripped into him so hard that by the time I was finished, I was crying, hitching in violent sobs, my chest aching like hell. My finger hovered over the Send button, shaking, tears dripping onto my keyboard. But then I highlighted the letter, hit the Delete key, indented once, and wrote simply “Fuck you.”
And hit Send.
He didn’t respond.
I miss Dad so much. I’d say I’m waiting here for some kind of sign, but that’s not true. Dad never was one to give hints or indications about his intentions, thoughts, feelings. He must have loved us.
If I could send an email to Dad, I’d tell him to fuck off, too.
I lean forward, put the yellow paper back where I found it. The young man is about halfway through his tea, and stares over my right shoulder as he drinks. He looks at nothing on the wall behind me. Fading orange wallpaper looks back at him.
Breaking out of his usual pattern of writing a one-page letter, then drinking tea and leaving until next year, he sets his cup down gently on the table.
Something inside me moves ever so slightly and the telephone rings. He does not answer it. Instead, he very deliberately rips another page from the yellow pad of paper, brings it toward him, and positions his pen to write a second page.
The phone stops ringing when his pen touches the first line.
This will be my last visit to Dad’s old place. Dad is not here. Dad is not coming back. I never really thought he was, of course, but still, it bears writing down: He’s not coming back because he’s dead, and that means his legs can no longer support his weight. But though weightless, he somehow still sits on my chest. Strangely, it is not an altogether uncomfortable feeling.
But I’m sick of buying tea at the little convenience store around the corner. I’m sick of sitting in this chair, waiting for silence to smother me. I’m sick of wishing someone would come here with me, keep me company, mourn the day. This is Dad’s special day more than his birthday ever was. This day signifies everything he was to me, to Paul, to Jill, and even to my mother. It’s the day he showed us he was never going to change, never going to apologize for anything he did. There was a sort of sick form of hope rotting inside each of us, holding on, wondering if the day would ever come when he’d take it all back. Ask for forgiveness.
I’m sick of thinking thoughts like this. The weight is too much.
I want to go out like Dad did.
Careful where you tread, son; don’t go sayin’ things you’ll regret later. Sure won’t, Dad. I always listened to you when you said dumb shit like that. But I just want to die now. I want to die like you did. Right here in this fucking kitchen.
The wine in Coke cans was from you, wasn’t it? You started that with Jill, shared it with her and only her, excluding Paul and me. And your travel bug was shared only with Paul. Books about it, National Geographic specials, Discovery Channel. Right? I’m right, aren’t I? Fucking prick. What do I get? Huh? What do I fucking get??
The telephone rings again, startling the young man. He glances at it quickly where it hangs on the wall, pen hovering over the page, vibrating. His eyes are wet with tears. Face red, sweating.
He stares at the phone, frozen. It rings and rings. . . .
What you already know is that the young man staring at the phone is my son; what you don’t know is that I did love him. I loved him very much. More than my wife. More than my other son, Paul. More than my daughter, Jill. But I was wearing someone else’s skin. It fit poorly, and every crossroad in life to which it brought me showed me two choices—neither of which was good for my family. Neither of which was good for me. So I chose from this other man’s list of options. This skin thief. And it was always wrong, no matter what I did, no matter how I felt or what I did to try to create alternative options.
You see it on your anniversary. You see the darkened shadow of your skin. The son you created, the son you forgot. The son you never meant to hurt.
It’s a leap of idiot faith to think that when you forget about the dead, the dead forget about you.
The phone keeps ringing; the pen stops vibrating.
It has been so many years, son. Pick up the phone.
The young man sets his pen down. He pushes away from the table, stands up, walks over to the phone. He brings his hand up to the receiver, lifts it gently from its cradle, puts it to his ear.
I hope he hears my voice.
There’s something I desperately need to tell him.