62
When an ambulance comes through Johnston the whole town hears the sound.
My father was dead long before the thing ever arrived.
They rushed him away regardless, though there was nothing to be done.
I remember thinking it didn’t seem necessary, or even right, but the details are blurry in my brain.
There are giant gaps in the specifics of the whole experience, but it did trigger some existential behavior and thinking on my end.
All I knew for sure was that my father was dead, and he had died in my arms.
I went home to shower his blood off my body and Rose was with me.
That’s all there was.
I don’t remember a single word being said.
In the water that afternoon I wept like a baby.
I was there for hours, long after the hot water ran through, convinced that I would never be able to clean myself off.
Not a thousand more showers would clean the blood from my skin.
I sat on the bathtub tile and let the faucet run itself dry while I felt five years old all again.
What a pitiful sight I must have been, curled and shaking.
I blacked out in remorse.
I think I fell asleep in that tub before Rose came and found me.
Thus began a horrid series of days.
Unlike the week following my mother’s passing, I didn’t let a soul inside the house.
There wasn’t even a third of the broken-hearted crowd that came around for my mother but still, most everyone in the town had known my father, and they all knew me.
When they came by the house, I didn’t care about their intentions, I didn’t know what they were seeking.
I stayed hidden away in bedrooms or in the kitchen while Rose either answered the door or they left their flowers on the porch.
Blue, orange, yellow and red reflections of life scattered and piled outside.
There was something nice about that, but for the most part everything was black and white.
One night Leon and Mo and Prince came through.
Rose put this wonderful spread together and they were all filled with compassion and love, but it was almost worse to see them in a strange way.
The sadness in their faces, I couldn’t bear it.
They were the ones that were crying.
Mo was beside herself when she saw me.
“I’m so so so sorry, Cash.”
She kept saying sorry, over and over, as if it were her fault.
Mo was such a beautiful person I really hated to see her cry.
I had no way to make her feel better.
What could any of us say? There was nothing to pronounce, nothing to cover.
Everyone in the room knew the whole long story and I think, in a way, how it ended made sense.
It fit somehow.
I don’t know.
It just made sense, in a way, it made sense.
So, we shared a couple drinks and talked about funny stories of our childhood, or they did, mostly.
Rose’s fingers mindlessly rubbed the back of my neck as she laughed at Prince and Leon reminiscing.
They did their best to keep their sorrow hidden deep saying.
“ Remember that one night, Cash… ” And there were so many stories. So many moments with my father that we only now found humorous. The way he ruled with an iron fist and grew crazy about countless things I did or didn’t do.
Some of the memories actually made me smile. We all lived through some fucked up circumstances, there’s no doubt about that.
“He would have actually liked you, Rose, you would have been one of the only ones he liked.”
It sure did feel natural having Rose around the group. She fit in so seamlessly it was almost as if she had grown up with us too.
We all shared a history in more ways than one and we understood each other. They were already growing to love her and that didn’t surprise me at all.
In the end, it did help seeing them together, laughing and enjoying themselves thoroughly. God, that’s how I wished it all to be. They stayed for some time, but after a while I think they knew there was only so far we could take the thing.
They all hugged me and said their goodbyes. Mo cried again and they left. We watched them disappear into the night. Rose grabbed my hand.
“That was nice.”
I could be finished, I don’t know.
I felt so numb, so incompetent.
I couldn’t really carry on a conversation with Rose, or with anyone.
I couldn’t think of a single damn thing to say.
I had half the mind to believe that I’d been permanently stunted.
I spent so much time staring lost into space I would forget where I was.
Time passed but I didn’t notice.
Lights were on but nobody was home.
I knew my mind was out to sea again, wandering somewhere far away, perhaps never to return.
I thought it’d be a small funeral for my father but the thing about Johnston is, when someone dies, crook or saint, the whole town comes out in droves to pay their respects.
So, as the sun arrives bright in the day, so do they.
“They really love you, Cash.” Rose says, eyes wide at the ocean of compassion.
There are hundreds.
All the usual suspects are showing up, Leon, Mo, Prince, the Millers, Mario, Sal, Saul, Deangelo and Lyla, Frank and Charlene, but there are many more, some that I haven’t seen in ages, or ever.
There’s this white-haired woman named Chris who tells me.
“One time, you know, and you’ll like to hear this, your father helped me with a bum tire.
Right off of Main Street.
He sure was kind.
Fixed it up real well.
Didn’t rush.”
She’s right, I did like to hear that.
I thank her for passing it along and marvel a bit at everyone dressed up so fine.
It’s a brisk sunny day and I stand by the casket in my best suit with nobody around me, not a soul.
That’s that.
I have no family.
Not one.
How many at twenty-nine could say it? Stoic, I do my best to hold my ground with the entire weight of the universe pressing down on my neck.
I shake their hands and I nod.
I give a hug and I listen to their stories, condolences, and well wishes.
Soft voices.
Gentle, kind, warm voices filled with empathy.
All the while my mind is still out to the water, sailing further and further away.
When the time comes for me to say a few words about my father, I’m afraid I’ll come up pathetically short.
Are there a million people packed into this church? Each face stares up at me with a unique history, with a unique relationship either to me or to my dad.
Hundreds and hundreds of years are gathered in the pews.
There’s enough heartbreak in the room to kill a man and enough love to keep him living.
I clear my throat and tug at the collar of my black shirt and suit.
I find Rose in the audience.
In a black dress, she sits straight and is a beacon of strength.
She nods the slightest of nods.
She believes.
I clear my throat again.
“My father was… My father was a hard man to know.
And I tried like hell most of my life to know him.
Suppose sometimes I knew him most through how he was with some of you.
Listening to him at Jimmy’s.
Watching him talk shop at Sal’s.
Being with him and my mother, picking pumpkins, or sitting in church or at dinners.
Working in the yard.
My father was a worker.
He never once complained about work.
Not once.
He provided for us and ran it to the bone.
He loved a beer and a cigarette.
God, he loved a cigarette.
And a bonfire and a well mowed lawn.
And a good truck.
And his friends.
And this town.
I do believe he loved this place more than most men love a town.
He always had such a damn quiet way of showing it, though.
Didn’t he? My father could stare into your soul.
That’s how he said what he needed to say.
He was tough.
He knew war.
He was a fighter.
He loved one woman his whole life and when she left, so did he.
My father had his faults.
Like we all do.
Still, if I’m honest, I always wanted someone to come up to me one day and say, you’re your father’s son .
I think I wasted too much of my life thinking he didn’t love me.
I don’t think that anymore.
I don’t believe that’s the truth.
I believe he loved me but didn’t know how.
And he did the best he could.
When he left, I didn’t try to find him.
I just let him look.
Dad was always looking for something.
I knew that long before I knew what that really meant.
In his tough love and tougher hands, I grew up.
He was troubled.
He had an anger and sadness in him that kept him at arm’s length.
But he was unwavering.
He had his values.
He was loyal.
I didn’t think he’d ever come back here but he did.
I thank God he did.
In the end he came back, and I think that’s all that matters to me now.
I love you, Dad.
I’ll miss you.
I will.
I’ll really miss you, Dad.
I think I always have.”
It’s been a week since the funeral.
In a T-shirt and shorts, I sit outside, alone.
The middle of the night moon watches over me.
It’s the coldest night of the approaching winter and from the sky the white starts to fall.
It floats down, elegant, graceful.
Quiet and charming, magnificent.
And it’s true that Heaven is mirrored in snow.
It’s the most gorgeous white you’ll ever see, the first snowfall.
I am shaking uncontrollably but stay rooted in my chair on the porch.
I stare up at the sky and watch it all come down.
Soon the ground will be bright, shining like diamonds.
The clock will keep counting.
I think about all the animals and the plants that have to fight to survive.
Most will die in these winter months, but the next generation waits in the wings, patient to begin anew.
The snowflakes will blanket us all.
They will cover the town.
I give it an hour before the first white canvas is settled and finished.
Above, the stars are where they always are.
Funny how no matter what goes on down here, they remain.
Forever calling us home.
I remember Ma saying, we are all made of stars .
We are stardust, Ma.
I think you were right about that.
My skin is turning blue and my teeth bang against one another in tremors. The back door opens behind me.
“Cash. What the fuck are you doing?”
“Just watching the snow.”