A Good Man

I had just pulled the grate from the air conditioning vent and was standing over the hole in the floor when the telephone rang. My T-shirt ballooned out, and rivers of sweat evaporated, cooling my skin. The phone rang again. My mother was stooped over the sink, her hands buried in mounds of dirty pans and soapy dishes. Through the window in front of her, I could see the gray clouds and the sheets of rain blowing like laundry. I could hear the staccato beat of rain on the roof. Before the phone could ring again my mother had wiped her veiny hands on a towel and said hello into the receiver.

My Aunt was on the other end of the line, and I could hear her muffled sobs. My mother's own stony features seemed broken by what she was hearing. "Oh... no," she said simply, standing rigid. "No," she said to my Aunt. "Of course, we'll drive down tomorrow. Yes Mel. Goodbye. Okay. You too. Goodbye," she said, abandoning the sink and the phone.

After my mother had composed herself enough to walk, she sat on the couch. I joined her, but said nothing. The storm continued outside, thunder crashed, lightning shattered the sky.

"Honey," she said to me, breaking the silence. "Let's go pack you some things, okay baby. We need to go away for a few days. Your grandfather's," she looked at me, "he's passed away."

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know my grandfather. He was a black and white photograph of a young marine on his way to Korea. He was yellowed letters, a birthday card, and a twenty-dollar bill. I nodded dumbly to my mother, and went with her to pack some clothing, some toys, and a few books.

The next morning we drove to Ft. Lauderdale. The rain had stopped, and the sun was bright. The grass on the roadside was littered with empty bottles and dandelions. My mother was wearing dark sunglasses, and she would smile occasionally like there were pins in her cheeks. Normally, I liked driving with my mother. When she was behind the wheel she was always in control, but now her arms were slack, like hawsers cut from masts to lounge on a briny deck.

After some hours we came to my aunt's apartment complex, and she was standing at the entrance in a large black dress that struggled in the wind to be rid of her heavy legs. She carried a purse that was the shape of Utah, and as black as her dress. My window was down in the heat and she said through it, "Oh, honey, could you just hop up and in the back for your Aunt Mel, honey?"

As I did my mother said, "Hi, Mel."

"Oh Annie, it's been so long, too long."

"It really has."

"It's too bad it had to be this way, with daddy and everything. He wanted to see you so bad, you and your boy." She turned around to smile at me, "oh, he's so precious," she said. She was also wearing black sunglasses.

"Thank you," my mother said.

"Oh, you don't remember me, do you?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I mean, I don't think so."

"And how could you. The last time I saw you, you couldn't hardly walk." She smiled and buckled her seat belt. She looked out at the road and asked, "how are you holding up?" she asked me.

"Okay, I guess."

"Oh, it's sad isn't it?" I told her that it was.

It was an hour's drive to my grandfather's house, and in that time I laid against the window, the sunlight made my eyelids glow red. As my mother drove down the highway, my aunt asked her questions as if she were reading them from chart.

"So, How are you," she would ask.

"Oh, fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"How's the kid?" She chuckled and winked at me. "How's he doing in school?"

"He's doing great."

"Have you talked to Greg lately?"

"Not for a few years."

"Is he sending any money?"

"No."

"Oh..."

"He said he wasn't going to pay unless he could see Michael," she looked at me in the rearview mirror. I pretended to be sleeping. "And like hell I'm going to do that. I don't care if I never see him again." "So, you're getting by okay then? Just the two of you?"

"Yeah. That's the way we like it."

"He said he might come to pay his respects to Dad."

"What?"

"Greg left Mark a message saying that he might come by, if he could, to pay his respects. I'm sure Mark would have said no, but it was on the machine and I guess there's nothing he can do until Greg shows up."

"How the hell did he hear about it? Did Mark tell him?"

"No, they don't talk. They never did, but they don't now especially. He must know somebody who knows somebody who knew daddy. That's my guess. Do you think he'll really come to the funeral?"

"No," she looked at me, and gave a twisted smile, "he won't come."

"Then why did he say he would?" my aunt asked.

"I don't know why he does things like that."

By the time we arrived, the burial ceremonies had already been done, which upset my aunt a great deal.

We parked behind a dozen other cars. Inside people at sausages the size of my fingers and chatted. There was a semi-circular couch in front of a television; men sat and watched football. "Candle in the Wind" was on the radio, a request from Mark in Palm Springs, the DJ said.

After my aunt and mother had poured me a plastic cup-full of Sprite, they left me and walked off. I heard my Aunt say "We just have to pull together. We can get through this, Mom."

People smiled sad smiles at me. They spoke quietly to one another. Aside from the women who brought me to the party, I didn't know anyone. So I sat alone on a cracked, yellow leather chair at the end of a long dark hall, sipping Sprite from a red disposable cup. The funeral party was at the other end of the hall. There were doors along the corridor and one of them was open.

"You're, um, Annie's kid, right?"

I sat forward and the chair groaned. "Yes."

"Nice to meet you, then, kiddo. I'm Mark. I'm your uncle, Mark. Come in here." I went into the room. The Venetian blinds were open a crack. He sat in a large wicker chair in the corner of a study or a library. "I used to sit in here sometimes, when he was out doing something. It was nice, you know, to sit at his desk, or flip through his books. He was a good man. He was. He really was.

"Sit down," he said. "Decorated soldier, father of three, husband. He was a gardener too. Christ, a gardener," he laughed and settled back into the chair and drank from a cup like mine. "Man of honor, good man. Good man," he reiterated. "Did you know he took a bullet for his friend, Guy Sotomeyer-he's out there now, probably. Got a medal for it. That's a good man, there. Guy'd tell you."

There was a long pause where the only sound was the hall clock's swinging pendulum. He stared at my face; "You look like him, sort of. Same eyes. Nose. Same face," he trailed off and looked away. "He was a good father," he seemed to be talking to himself. "No, no, he was a good man.

"Your mother didn't like him much though. They never really got on. But it wasn't like they ever argued either. He'd tell her to do something, and she would, but she wouldn't be happy about it, you know? I don't know. Then one day, one day it was all fine and rosy-ask your Aunt Melanie-then the next she was gone.

I found a note in my car. It said, 'Gone with Greg. Love Annie.' That was it, she ran off with that asshole, Greg. When I showed it to him, your grandfather, he just threw it away. Crumpled it and put it in the trash.

I don't think she ever saw him alive again. I think she wrote him, though. "Yeah, I'm glad she did. I think that made him happy." He took the last drink and exchanged it for a pair of airline liquor bottles. He opened both bottles and poured them into his cup.

"I'm glad she came. It'll mean a lot to everybody, too," he said, "My father would have liked it."

We sat quietly, uncomfortably, for a few minutes, until he said, "When I was a kid, like your age, we would go down to the beach when he had enough time. He'd have me carry his nine iron. We'd stand in the surf, and when the tide was coming in and the water would cover my feet like a wet plastic blanket, and he'd tell me to move up the beach, or I'd lose the ball. I don't know how many balls he brought-he kept them in his pockets-but if I lost one, that was it. We'd go home.

"We'd knock the golf balls at the black sailboats on the horizon. One time, I hit a long straight ball," his hand swung through the air and curled back down again, "and it splashed out past the pier. He looked down at me, chomping his cigar. The tip glowed red and gray. He held out his hand, and I gave him the club. 'Now watch,' he said, 'watch how it's done.' And he hit it twice as far as I had. 'How about that, boy?' he asked.

"How about that?" he said again, and drank some more.

"I never knew him, I think," I said, and sipped my Sprite, with both hands on the cup.

"Shit, kiddo, neither did 1. Never talked, me and him, no. Never knew what to say, you know?" He was staring at the immobile ceiling fan. "We haven't talked for twenty years. Damn, we haven't said anything to each other, I mean anything for twenty god damn years." He drank from his cup, "wow." Between us, it's been all cold stares and Christmas cards, between us. I told him, I said. I'd come down to visit one summer, or for Thanksgiving. Yeah, daddy, and I'll bring the kids. We'll go boating, sure daddy. Christ! Here I am daddy." He shorted a laugh. "Here I am," he said.

He sobered some, "How is your mom?"

"Fine."

"You two getting by okay by yourselves?"

"Yes."

"Good, good. Maybe you could come and visit some time. If you can take the drive?" He gave me a weary smile.

"I'll ask," I said.

"Good."

"Your dad said he would drop by. How do you feel about that?"

"I don't know"

He took a drink and snorted. He covered his mouth. "I understand completely. Your father's a jerk, if you don't mind me saying so," he spread his fingers out on his chest. "He wasn't ever good enough for my sister. But she still ran off with him. He's a dead beat."

"Oh," I said. I don't remember how I felt about my own father then, but his words twisted my stomach. I scowled at my uncle.

"But I guess you don't really know him? Has he been kicking around lately? No? I didn't think so. We all thought he ran off to Mexico or Arizona or something. He was always stupid that way."

"Oh," I drank from my cup. I could feel my ears grow hot with anger.

"It's good you don't look like him," my uncle said and drank from his cup. "I don't see how Annie could have fallen in love with him. He's an ugly dead beat."

"No he isn't." I said, with my eyes narrow. I sat tall in my high backed chair.

"He's not a dead beat."

My uncle chuckled and set his cup down. He smiled at me for awhile, and I frowned at him.

We sat in the quiet darkness for awhile and then he opened the window and looked out at the lake behind the house. "Think it'll rain?"

"Maybe," I said.

We all spent the night there, and in the morning my mother and I said goodbye to everyone. After my uncle spoke to his sisters we were off. Ours was the last of the dozen cars to leave, and the driveway looked empty, like a clean alley. The sky looked like it did the day we left, cloudy but with the sun still bearing down. It looked like it might rain later that day.

"He was, he really was," my aunt said.

"What was he?" My mother's voice was angry. She sounded betrayed. Her mouth looked stern, like she was scolding me. She was still wearing her sunglasses.

"He was a good man," my aunt said, sounding out each word as she said it.

"He was a bastard Melanie. He was a bastard." She took her sunglasses off and stared at my aunt and said again, "He was a drunk bastard."

No one said anything until we were at Aunt Mel's apartment. "You guys want to come up for a minute, get something to drink before you go?"

"No, Mel," my mother smiled and folded her sunglasses. "The boy's got school tomorrow," she said and mussed my hair as I sat in the front seat.

"We have to keep in touch, Annie."

"We will, Mel. We will."

My Aunt walked around the car and hugged her sister through the open window. "I hope so. I hope so."

"Mel?" she said.

"Yes, Anne?"

"He really was an awful man. He was a bastard." Her voice was lame, like a hungry kitten's. "He never did anything for any of us. He doesn't deserve to be worshipped."

My aunt just closed her eyes and patted my mother's face, wiping at her eyes. "Annie," she said. "Annie, how would you know? Really honey, how would you know?" My aunt's face was pained. "You went off. You left... he was a good man, Annie. Maybe he wasn't always the best father," and then, as if she was offending his spirit, she added, "but he was a good person."

They hugged one another again. "Goodbye, Mel," she said, and we drove off and left my aunt with her mourning dress snapping like a pennant in the wind.

As we drove away, my mother smiled at me and ruffled my hair. Her eyes were red and wet. She turned on the radio. She shook her head and hummed as we drove. I watched how she turned the wheel and shifted gears. I watched her watch the world around the car. I watched her shift lanes. She was in total control of the little car. I thought about asking her about the funeral. I wanted to know why he didn't come to my grandfather's funeral, but as I looked at her face, with the thin wrinkles around her lips and her damp, red eyes, I knew she didn't know.

          EVERETTE DUBEAUCHAMP