Like Father, Like Son
gus stills
Posts: 367
Like Father, Like Son
It is by no means certain that our individual personality is the single inhabitant of these our corporeal frames... We all do things both awake and asleep which surprise us. Perhaps we have cotenants in this house we live in.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
As the local delivery vans began to growl out of the warehouse a block down from Paul Steinwetz’s house—or cottage, really, because house did the place too much justice—shadows crept across the wall opposite the easy chair in which he slept, gradually moving along the wall until they splashed over his eyes.
He woke.
The last of the delivery vans, a big one, rolled out from the warehouse, which he could just see if he stared out of the left corner of his living room window. He listened to the driver screech through the lower gears until it rumbled fitfully, and as it disappeared from his vision he watched the bay door it had emerged from slowly roll shut. He stretched. His arms were sore, as always, from sleeping in the chair, and his neck popped as he swung it in a half circle, remembering grade school calisthenics with a grimace. It seemed so long ago that folks had been so sure, he thought, that jumping jacks and chin ups, and swinging up great thick ropes to reach the asbestos-filled tiles of the gym ceiling, had been a good thing. Anymore, he couldn’t read a magazine at the bookstore without hearing how the healthy habits of his serene upbringing now put him at-risk for a different disease each week, a different disorder for every vitamin and a different malady for each old wife’s tale. He stared at the cut on his left calf. The scab stood out against his tan. He closed his eyes for a long moment and thought of the night before: the club, the girl, the bleary walk home, his leg aching with every step.
He stood up, letting the blanket fall on the floor, and ambled to the kitchen. For a man of purpose, he moved lazily, but then that had been the story of his life. Driven mother, relaxed father. Like father, like son. He swung the fridge door open and leaned inside the wedge of light, looking for something to drink. He pulled out a carton of soy milk, checked the date—a week earlier—smelled it, tossed it in the trash. The carton of low-pulp orange juice was empty as well; suddenly conscious of an instilled obligation to recycle, he tossed it instead into his recycling bin. Damn it, he said. He closed the door and scanned the almost bare shelves until he saw a bin of tea bags. He waited as the tea kettle whistled with increasing fervor and then watched with pleasure as the hot water spilled over a bag of green tea. He felt healthy. Soy milk would have been nice, but at least green tea had the advantage of antioxidants. Six of one, half dozen of another.
He carried the tea to the doorway, pushed open the door, and stood in the frame, a solid mass lit by a halo of diffuse light. And now, finally awake, he pushed off the memories of the night and began his day anew.
The river was brown and turgid, swollen with spring rain, and it spilled over the trunks of the pine trees that crept down to its banks. Paul rode his bike slowly, shifting gears with each little rise of the bike path, enjoying the feel of the pedals beneath his feet as he watched the river roll by. He wore a helmet and had rolled his pant leg into his sock on his right side. As he passed the other early morning riders, he called out: On your right! He waved at approaching riders, smiled at the joggers, cast a sympathetic smile to the mothers pushing strollers. For once it was not raining; still, the spring sun did little to alleviate the chill, especially when the wind picked up. Paul whistled. He felt impervious; the world was at his feet and he owed succor to none save himself.
In his pocket, his phone trilled. He felt for it with one hand as he steadied the bike with the other, enjoying the opening chords of his ring tone: The Stones, “Start Me Up.” He found the phone and looked at the screen, careful as he did so to pass a group of joggers with a quick warning. He waited until they acknowledged him before he pressed the talk button.
Hey Dad, he said. What’s up?
The other end of the phone was silent and for a moment Paul thought his father might have misdialed. He hated when people did that. He had purposely bought a phone that had a locking keypad so that he could extend the same courtesy to other people. His father spoke.
Paul. Can you swing by the house later?
Sure. I’m on my bike right now. Should I just ride over?
His father breathed heavily. Nah, he said. Why don’t you just finish your ride and bring the car by later.
Okay, sure, Paul said. Does it matter what time I come by?
Ah, his father said, slowly. How about later tonight? It’s nothing urgent.
Should I bring anything? You want me to pick up any food or—
No, no. Just bring the car. I need you to take me somewhere.
You got it, Paul said, happy. He loved driving his hybrid, watching the instant mileage meter on the instrument panel, trying to squeeze the most miles out of each increasingly irresponsible gallon of fuel. There was something implacable about being such a contributing part of a social missive he believed in wholeheartedly. It killed him to think of the harm done by the high school jocks he saw joyriding at night, in their pickups with the oversize tires, the handheld spotlights, the cases of cheap beer.
Okay, his father said, sounding tired. See you tonight.
The phone went dead.
Paul rode on, the sun overhead cold and red, swollen like the river and oblivious to it all.
The sedan bore on him suddenly. He fell to instinct, swerving his handlebars and gripping the brakes with a fierce pull. He closed his eyes. As quickly, the car continued its turn, missing Paul’s front tire as he stopped by a half foot. He had a quick glimpse of long blond hair in the driver’s window and then he shouted.
Fuck you, asshole!
The car slammed to a halt. It sat in the middle of the road, its brake lights flashing red, exhaust spilling low over the ground and pooling around the tires. The door opened and a young woman in workout clothes stepped out. She turned to Paul and he saw that she was shaking.
I’m sorry, she said, taking a half step toward him. He thought of the night before and pursed his lips. The woman had been blond, like this one, but taller, thinner. She had shimmered when his vision blurred. I didn’t see you, she said. I’m really sorry.
It’s okay, he said. Sure, I should have been watching where I was going. His heart felt tight in his chest; his veins pulsed in his arms; his mouth felt dry. No big deal, he said. Sorry to bother you.
No, really, she said. I’m the one who should have been watching where I was going. I never even saw you until it was too late.
He thought, it already is. Hey, he said, you can pay me back if you give me a lift. I think I’ve got a flat tire.
Paul pushed aside the shower curtain and stepped onto the tile floor. He looked down and admired the pattern: white with a reddish stripe bleeding into the grout, which was thin. He prided himself on not being a materialist, but sometimes he coveted nonetheless. As a student he had delved into Buddhism, Taoism, and even a bit of Hinduism, and the mantra of corporeal insubstantiality had been a lasting impression. But, he reflected, it was like anything else: something to believe in sometimes, and at others to reject. Like red meat, which he had abandoned for a time, worried of gout and heart disease—that gnawing spectre!—but returned to time and time again. Taste was a better measure of happiness than denial, he supposed.
And so he indulged.
He grabbed a towel off the rack, quickly dried off, and considered himself in the mirror above the sink. Though it was partially fogged, it still gave access to those attributes he admired: the wavy hair, the gray eyes, the scar at his chin. He nodded and smiled. His teeth gleamed white, pure white, innocent white. At his feet, a trickle of blood came from a cut on his foot, bisecting one of the equally white tiles. Paul moved into the next room, the towel about his waist, to where the girl waited. As he walked into her room, he saw through the window his bike resting on her rear deck, upside down, its one flat tire moving idly in the wind. He threw the towel back to the bathroom and moved into the shadows above the bed.
The Stones disrupted the silence that had settled on the porch. Paul grabbed his jacket from the bench where he’d thrown it and pulled the phone forth. He looked at the display: his father again. He flipped the phone open.
Hey, Dad, he said, what’s going on?
Oh, not much, his father said, and fell quiet for a moment. Can you come over a little earlier? I thought it could wait but I really need you to drive me to—
Sure, Paul said, considering how long it would take him to change the tire. I’ve gotta do a couple things, how’s an hour sound?
That’d be great, his father said, and to Paul, he sounded relieved. He wondered what was wrong. His father was usually unexcitable, implacable even. He remembered watching his father play poker once, at a table with five co-workers from the mill where he had driven a forklift for nearly 30 years. While the other men had convivially exchanged bets and bantered transparent bluffs, his father had frowned and folded repeatedly, never betting more than a chip or two, and even then reluctantly. At the end of the night, when the other men left, bleary-eyed and broke, his father had shaken hands with each man at the door, smiling and happy. Afterward, he told Paul his secret: he never lost. He was careful, and sometimes conservative, but he was canny, too. For his father to call him twice about the same thing, something must have been wrong. He wondered what as he finished twisting the cap back onto the valve. The tire inflated, he turned the bike back over and leaned it against the wall. He cast a glance backward at the bedroom, where the girl still lay, and patted his pockets, making sure he wasn’t leaving anything. He pulled the gloves from his hands and stuffed them into his backpack along with the towel he had used in the bathroom, shouldered the pack, and rode down the steps to the street.
He found his father standing in the middle of his living room, his back to the door. Paul stood outside the screen door and looked in at his father, who was motionless and outlined in the pale light cast by the solitary flickering bulb hanging above him from a tattered cord. His father’s shoulders were broad beneath his plaid wool shirt, and he wore blue jeans that showed their age. Dad, he said quietly, hey. His father turned his head to the right and nodded. Come in, he said, his voice throaty, come on in. Paul moved through the door and walked to his father’s side. His forehead came level with his father’s shoulder, and now, the light above him, his father so close he could hear his labored breath, he looked at the wall his father had been contemplating. It was a roughly square piece of canvas, wrapped tightly over a wooden frame, held to the wall by a nail and a triangle of twine. Splinters of rope twisted off in every direction and Paul was reminded of a shedding dog for a moment before his thoughts were arrested by the canvas itself. In its center was a wine glass, held at the stem by a disembodied hand, from which ribbons of flesh ran off into undefined space. Rivulets of blood flowed away from the hand and they set against the stark white of the canvas. Paul shuddered. The glass itself was nearly empty: the bottom inch or so was filled with a liquid that was too crimson to be wine; it matched the hue of the blood that flowed out into the rest of the canvas.
Did you do this? His father nodded, wheezing slightly. I did. A woman commissioned it last week. The canvas is hemp and I reclaimed the wood for the frame from a demolished house. What do you think? Paul felt restrained. That his father chose to paint had never mattered much to him; it was a hobby and occasionally he was privy to such unveilings, though the subjects were usually less macabre. Usually. It’s, well, vivid. Vivid, his father said, tilting his head and considering the painting. Yeah, that sounds right. They stood in silence for a long moment and then Paul asked where his father needed a ride.
I found something down by the river I need your help moving, his father said. I’m not strong enough to do it myself. Okay, Paul said, unable to move his eyes from the wine glass in the painting, reluctant to ask what it meant. Let’s go, it’s gonna get dark pretty soon. As they turned to the door he looked at the couch, which his father had bought on consignment several months before his mother had left him. One side of the brown leather sofa was worn and bare, sunken; the other, brown and rounded. He sighed and went out the door.
The river looked different at dusk. Between the banks, the water took on a darker hue, and ridges of white foam outlined the rocks that managed to crest the surface. He watched a kayaker move between boulders, one rhythmic stroke after another, and envied the wetsuit-clad figure within. It must have been something to be alive in that space, in that moment, both above and under the water, feeling its heartbeat every time a paddle sunk beneath the placid surface. He looked over at his father in the passenger seat, wondering if he had noticed the kayaker, but his father’s thoughts were directed elsewhere: he was scanning the edge of the highway for mileage markers. Okay, he said after a time, it’s at the next bend. They followed the curve of the river for another quarter mile or so and then the dense foliage at the road’s edge gave way to a driveway that dove off into the woods. Turn here, his father said, never moving his eyes from the driveway. He turned carefully from the highway, careful to scan the road ahead of him for lights. This was a dangerous stretch of road; hardly a day didn’t go by when he didn’t see an article in the paper relating a crash nearby. People these days, he thought, inwardly shaking his head in admonishment, always in such a hurry. Gravel rumbled beneath them as the driveway narrowed, branches above hanging lower and then brushing the car’s roof with a soft whoosh. He loved the muted sound of the car’s engine; noise pollution was, he thought, a rallying cry the environmentalists should take up soon. Life was better when it was quiet. Sometimes, solitude was everything.
It is by no means certain that our individual personality is the single inhabitant of these our corporeal frames... We all do things both awake and asleep which surprise us. Perhaps we have cotenants in this house we live in.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
As the local delivery vans began to growl out of the warehouse a block down from Paul Steinwetz’s house—or cottage, really, because house did the place too much justice—shadows crept across the wall opposite the easy chair in which he slept, gradually moving along the wall until they splashed over his eyes.
He woke.
The last of the delivery vans, a big one, rolled out from the warehouse, which he could just see if he stared out of the left corner of his living room window. He listened to the driver screech through the lower gears until it rumbled fitfully, and as it disappeared from his vision he watched the bay door it had emerged from slowly roll shut. He stretched. His arms were sore, as always, from sleeping in the chair, and his neck popped as he swung it in a half circle, remembering grade school calisthenics with a grimace. It seemed so long ago that folks had been so sure, he thought, that jumping jacks and chin ups, and swinging up great thick ropes to reach the asbestos-filled tiles of the gym ceiling, had been a good thing. Anymore, he couldn’t read a magazine at the bookstore without hearing how the healthy habits of his serene upbringing now put him at-risk for a different disease each week, a different disorder for every vitamin and a different malady for each old wife’s tale. He stared at the cut on his left calf. The scab stood out against his tan. He closed his eyes for a long moment and thought of the night before: the club, the girl, the bleary walk home, his leg aching with every step.
He stood up, letting the blanket fall on the floor, and ambled to the kitchen. For a man of purpose, he moved lazily, but then that had been the story of his life. Driven mother, relaxed father. Like father, like son. He swung the fridge door open and leaned inside the wedge of light, looking for something to drink. He pulled out a carton of soy milk, checked the date—a week earlier—smelled it, tossed it in the trash. The carton of low-pulp orange juice was empty as well; suddenly conscious of an instilled obligation to recycle, he tossed it instead into his recycling bin. Damn it, he said. He closed the door and scanned the almost bare shelves until he saw a bin of tea bags. He waited as the tea kettle whistled with increasing fervor and then watched with pleasure as the hot water spilled over a bag of green tea. He felt healthy. Soy milk would have been nice, but at least green tea had the advantage of antioxidants. Six of one, half dozen of another.
He carried the tea to the doorway, pushed open the door, and stood in the frame, a solid mass lit by a halo of diffuse light. And now, finally awake, he pushed off the memories of the night and began his day anew.
The river was brown and turgid, swollen with spring rain, and it spilled over the trunks of the pine trees that crept down to its banks. Paul rode his bike slowly, shifting gears with each little rise of the bike path, enjoying the feel of the pedals beneath his feet as he watched the river roll by. He wore a helmet and had rolled his pant leg into his sock on his right side. As he passed the other early morning riders, he called out: On your right! He waved at approaching riders, smiled at the joggers, cast a sympathetic smile to the mothers pushing strollers. For once it was not raining; still, the spring sun did little to alleviate the chill, especially when the wind picked up. Paul whistled. He felt impervious; the world was at his feet and he owed succor to none save himself.
In his pocket, his phone trilled. He felt for it with one hand as he steadied the bike with the other, enjoying the opening chords of his ring tone: The Stones, “Start Me Up.” He found the phone and looked at the screen, careful as he did so to pass a group of joggers with a quick warning. He waited until they acknowledged him before he pressed the talk button.
Hey Dad, he said. What’s up?
The other end of the phone was silent and for a moment Paul thought his father might have misdialed. He hated when people did that. He had purposely bought a phone that had a locking keypad so that he could extend the same courtesy to other people. His father spoke.
Paul. Can you swing by the house later?
Sure. I’m on my bike right now. Should I just ride over?
His father breathed heavily. Nah, he said. Why don’t you just finish your ride and bring the car by later.
Okay, sure, Paul said. Does it matter what time I come by?
Ah, his father said, slowly. How about later tonight? It’s nothing urgent.
Should I bring anything? You want me to pick up any food or—
No, no. Just bring the car. I need you to take me somewhere.
You got it, Paul said, happy. He loved driving his hybrid, watching the instant mileage meter on the instrument panel, trying to squeeze the most miles out of each increasingly irresponsible gallon of fuel. There was something implacable about being such a contributing part of a social missive he believed in wholeheartedly. It killed him to think of the harm done by the high school jocks he saw joyriding at night, in their pickups with the oversize tires, the handheld spotlights, the cases of cheap beer.
Okay, his father said, sounding tired. See you tonight.
The phone went dead.
Paul rode on, the sun overhead cold and red, swollen like the river and oblivious to it all.
The sedan bore on him suddenly. He fell to instinct, swerving his handlebars and gripping the brakes with a fierce pull. He closed his eyes. As quickly, the car continued its turn, missing Paul’s front tire as he stopped by a half foot. He had a quick glimpse of long blond hair in the driver’s window and then he shouted.
Fuck you, asshole!
The car slammed to a halt. It sat in the middle of the road, its brake lights flashing red, exhaust spilling low over the ground and pooling around the tires. The door opened and a young woman in workout clothes stepped out. She turned to Paul and he saw that she was shaking.
I’m sorry, she said, taking a half step toward him. He thought of the night before and pursed his lips. The woman had been blond, like this one, but taller, thinner. She had shimmered when his vision blurred. I didn’t see you, she said. I’m really sorry.
It’s okay, he said. Sure, I should have been watching where I was going. His heart felt tight in his chest; his veins pulsed in his arms; his mouth felt dry. No big deal, he said. Sorry to bother you.
No, really, she said. I’m the one who should have been watching where I was going. I never even saw you until it was too late.
He thought, it already is. Hey, he said, you can pay me back if you give me a lift. I think I’ve got a flat tire.
Paul pushed aside the shower curtain and stepped onto the tile floor. He looked down and admired the pattern: white with a reddish stripe bleeding into the grout, which was thin. He prided himself on not being a materialist, but sometimes he coveted nonetheless. As a student he had delved into Buddhism, Taoism, and even a bit of Hinduism, and the mantra of corporeal insubstantiality had been a lasting impression. But, he reflected, it was like anything else: something to believe in sometimes, and at others to reject. Like red meat, which he had abandoned for a time, worried of gout and heart disease—that gnawing spectre!—but returned to time and time again. Taste was a better measure of happiness than denial, he supposed.
And so he indulged.
He grabbed a towel off the rack, quickly dried off, and considered himself in the mirror above the sink. Though it was partially fogged, it still gave access to those attributes he admired: the wavy hair, the gray eyes, the scar at his chin. He nodded and smiled. His teeth gleamed white, pure white, innocent white. At his feet, a trickle of blood came from a cut on his foot, bisecting one of the equally white tiles. Paul moved into the next room, the towel about his waist, to where the girl waited. As he walked into her room, he saw through the window his bike resting on her rear deck, upside down, its one flat tire moving idly in the wind. He threw the towel back to the bathroom and moved into the shadows above the bed.
The Stones disrupted the silence that had settled on the porch. Paul grabbed his jacket from the bench where he’d thrown it and pulled the phone forth. He looked at the display: his father again. He flipped the phone open.
Hey, Dad, he said, what’s going on?
Oh, not much, his father said, and fell quiet for a moment. Can you come over a little earlier? I thought it could wait but I really need you to drive me to—
Sure, Paul said, considering how long it would take him to change the tire. I’ve gotta do a couple things, how’s an hour sound?
That’d be great, his father said, and to Paul, he sounded relieved. He wondered what was wrong. His father was usually unexcitable, implacable even. He remembered watching his father play poker once, at a table with five co-workers from the mill where he had driven a forklift for nearly 30 years. While the other men had convivially exchanged bets and bantered transparent bluffs, his father had frowned and folded repeatedly, never betting more than a chip or two, and even then reluctantly. At the end of the night, when the other men left, bleary-eyed and broke, his father had shaken hands with each man at the door, smiling and happy. Afterward, he told Paul his secret: he never lost. He was careful, and sometimes conservative, but he was canny, too. For his father to call him twice about the same thing, something must have been wrong. He wondered what as he finished twisting the cap back onto the valve. The tire inflated, he turned the bike back over and leaned it against the wall. He cast a glance backward at the bedroom, where the girl still lay, and patted his pockets, making sure he wasn’t leaving anything. He pulled the gloves from his hands and stuffed them into his backpack along with the towel he had used in the bathroom, shouldered the pack, and rode down the steps to the street.
He found his father standing in the middle of his living room, his back to the door. Paul stood outside the screen door and looked in at his father, who was motionless and outlined in the pale light cast by the solitary flickering bulb hanging above him from a tattered cord. His father’s shoulders were broad beneath his plaid wool shirt, and he wore blue jeans that showed their age. Dad, he said quietly, hey. His father turned his head to the right and nodded. Come in, he said, his voice throaty, come on in. Paul moved through the door and walked to his father’s side. His forehead came level with his father’s shoulder, and now, the light above him, his father so close he could hear his labored breath, he looked at the wall his father had been contemplating. It was a roughly square piece of canvas, wrapped tightly over a wooden frame, held to the wall by a nail and a triangle of twine. Splinters of rope twisted off in every direction and Paul was reminded of a shedding dog for a moment before his thoughts were arrested by the canvas itself. In its center was a wine glass, held at the stem by a disembodied hand, from which ribbons of flesh ran off into undefined space. Rivulets of blood flowed away from the hand and they set against the stark white of the canvas. Paul shuddered. The glass itself was nearly empty: the bottom inch or so was filled with a liquid that was too crimson to be wine; it matched the hue of the blood that flowed out into the rest of the canvas.
Did you do this? His father nodded, wheezing slightly. I did. A woman commissioned it last week. The canvas is hemp and I reclaimed the wood for the frame from a demolished house. What do you think? Paul felt restrained. That his father chose to paint had never mattered much to him; it was a hobby and occasionally he was privy to such unveilings, though the subjects were usually less macabre. Usually. It’s, well, vivid. Vivid, his father said, tilting his head and considering the painting. Yeah, that sounds right. They stood in silence for a long moment and then Paul asked where his father needed a ride.
I found something down by the river I need your help moving, his father said. I’m not strong enough to do it myself. Okay, Paul said, unable to move his eyes from the wine glass in the painting, reluctant to ask what it meant. Let’s go, it’s gonna get dark pretty soon. As they turned to the door he looked at the couch, which his father had bought on consignment several months before his mother had left him. One side of the brown leather sofa was worn and bare, sunken; the other, brown and rounded. He sighed and went out the door.
The river looked different at dusk. Between the banks, the water took on a darker hue, and ridges of white foam outlined the rocks that managed to crest the surface. He watched a kayaker move between boulders, one rhythmic stroke after another, and envied the wetsuit-clad figure within. It must have been something to be alive in that space, in that moment, both above and under the water, feeling its heartbeat every time a paddle sunk beneath the placid surface. He looked over at his father in the passenger seat, wondering if he had noticed the kayaker, but his father’s thoughts were directed elsewhere: he was scanning the edge of the highway for mileage markers. Okay, he said after a time, it’s at the next bend. They followed the curve of the river for another quarter mile or so and then the dense foliage at the road’s edge gave way to a driveway that dove off into the woods. Turn here, his father said, never moving his eyes from the driveway. He turned carefully from the highway, careful to scan the road ahead of him for lights. This was a dangerous stretch of road; hardly a day didn’t go by when he didn’t see an article in the paper relating a crash nearby. People these days, he thought, inwardly shaking his head in admonishment, always in such a hurry. Gravel rumbled beneath them as the driveway narrowed, branches above hanging lower and then brushing the car’s roof with a soft whoosh. He loved the muted sound of the car’s engine; noise pollution was, he thought, a rallying cry the environmentalists should take up soon. Life was better when it was quiet. Sometimes, solitude was everything.
0
Comments