Dysphoria Read online

  The man had on seersucker pants, the kind painters sometimes wore, and a faded denim shirt. His silhouette from the light coming in the car window was stronger somehow than his face in full sunlight might have been, tough from years of labor. With the shadows working his profile, Paul could see from where he sat the deep grooves of wrinkles trenching the skin across the high points of the man’s cheekbones. He did not have the look of a man who owned many suits. His hands were two balls of leather folded in his lap.

  Paul turned his attention out his window and tried not to stare. It was a habit he picked up. Not noticing. He wanted to tell the man he only owned one other suit, a black one, and that he couldn’t afford to even fill out his work wardrobe enough to pay for the blue suit for a three-color spread. He wanted to tell him he barely had the money to fly back from the funeral, that he nearly had to hitchhike to the Mountain Parkway and hope in the past fifteen years a bus had started a route from Salyersville to Lexington, but since the driver had stopped near a railroad crossing to wait on the man to make his way up a hill from a small walking bridge where he had been waiting, the man had said nothing. The driver asked if he was going to the UK Clinic when he got in, the man had nodded, and it had been silence since. It had moved beyond feeling awkward in the car. For the past thirty minutes, Paul and the older man had mostly stared out their smeared windows and the hills on each side of them.

  When they were roughly ten minutes or so from UK Clinic, the man glanced across the seat between them and sniffed the air. Paul wore a seventy-dollar splash of cologne. He bought it four years ago and still hadn’t taken the neck out of it, wearing it less than a half dozen times, including this morning. The old man smelled like wood heated by summer sun mixed with hand-washed clothes and leather and dried tobacco. He couldn‘t know how much Paul actually appreciated him after seeing men walking metrosexually from one block to the next in the city for so many years. Others he had seen dressed in designer work shirts, wearing two-hundred dollar Timberland work boots, striving to grow full beards to seem as much of a man as they could, hoping to carry and exude some Hollywood idea of hard work and a tough life.

  About ten minutes after he sniffed the air between them, the man turned around in his seat. He was small with soft blue eyes and hair combed back from his forehead. Sunlight highlighted the stubble that had taken over his face. He cleared his throat.

  “You ever wonder what this place looked like before they settled in?" he asked. His voice was soft but cracked between syllables as if he might have only talked when needed. "I mean before the trail blazers came through and built the places and put people around.”

  Paul nodded and tried on an easy smile. He expected the old man, though sufficiently a hard-earned survivor of his environment and worth that honor, to eventually offer some rhetorical pleasantry and Paul had perfected the ability to show just enough interest on the job. Offer a little smile. Not much, just a little from the corners of the mouth.

  "It's funny, I guess," the man continued. "Some places just get settled and then some don't. Take the North Pole. That Byrd feller went all the way up there and jabbed our American flag, bless its soul, into snow and ice. But it ain't settled. Can't be. A place that cold and that far away from people. Way I figure it, that old Byrd was just running away. Run so far he made it to the top of the world, maybe. But all the same, he was just running.” He leaned across the seat. “You running from something or running to something, young man?"

  Hearing the man’s voice surprised Paul and instead of replying, he only stared at him and studied him while the not-cab pulled under the front portico at the UK Clinic.

  "Name’s John Harper,” the old man said. “Looks like you must’ve lived back there in Red Knife. Probably came in to see family, I guess. You have a nice day and a good trip back to wherever. It’s good weather for traveling. Well, this is my stop. Nice talking to you."

  Paul still didn’t say anything. The man ease himself up and out of the vehicle and move gingerly through the sliding doors, watching them retract like spiders across one big web. Paul started to ask the driver to park so he could step in to grab a sandwich from the cafeteria and saw the old man turn around in the hospital foyer. He made his way back to where they sat idling under the portico. He held up his hand and, raising his voice above noise from New Circle Drive, said, “I’m sorry to hear about your father! Truth is, he died a long time ago. Just ask your uncle! Just ask your Uncle Hill!”

  What? What had the old man just said? Paul touched the driver on the shoulder and stepped out, made a quick spin around the back of the Taurus, and ran for the sliding doors of the front entrance. The doors closed, paused in place while he stood there tapping his thighs, and then finally slid back open. The man was gone.

  “I don’t care if you want to pay me to take you back, buddy. You’re acting like it’s a big deal for some reason, and I was going to be driving straight back as soon as I dropped you at the airport anyways. What’s the big deal? Geez. It’s one-fifty to ride back, just like it was one-fifty to ride here with me.”

  The not-cab driver stood beside the Taurus smoking a cigarette. He wiped potato chip grease on his black sweatpants and checked a flip-phone every few seconds. He could care less, this driver, Paul thought. He didn’t care that this stranger who rode for two hours with him in the backseat of a car didn’t say one word until he did and then offered condolences about his father. What was that about? Paul pulled two one-hundred dollar bills from his wallet, handed them to the driver, and got back in the car. Patient, but still wired about this old man, Paul was able to let the driver finish hotboxing his cigarette. If he wasn’t rattled about what just happened, he’d tell the guy he could smoke in the car if he wanted. Paul didn’t mind. After all, he needed information from him.

  When the driver was in and they were back on Route 64, Paul leaned up a little from the backseat, eyed the fixed on placard above the glow of the radio numbers. Ron Everson.

  “Hey, Ron.”

  Ron turned his head as if to say, how in the hell do you know my name? Paul pointed at the placard and Ron nodded. “Oh yeah,” he said.

  “Who was that old man who rode up with us? Did you notice how he didn’t say a word all the way up here and then got chatty once we made it?”

  “Well, all I know is Caleb back at the office said he was a Harper guy. Papers are back at work. Like I’d tell you his address and everything anyway, buddy. That seems like something I shouldn’t do. How about you just sit back and relax. I’ll push it to sixty-five instead of the fifty-five the company makes us cruise.”

  So Paul tried to relax. He thought of what he’d ask Hill, who would absolutely make fun of him for turning around and coming back from Lexington. But this old guy Harper said it clearly.

  Ask your Uncle Hill.

  “Can you tell me where you picked the guy up at?” Paul asked.

  “Buddy, I already told you. No address. Relax.”

  So Paul kept trying to relax. That’s all he did as they drove the Mountain Parkway and then past Salyersville. He still wasn’t relaxed when he was dropped off in Red Knife. He would go up to his grandparents' house and put away his stuff. Take a melatonin tablet and sleep a couple hours. Then he would find Hill. Get this bug out of his ear.

  4

  Paul’s family was the kind of people that when a member who had been gone for very long returned, there was a large fuss made of it. Even if they came after a long while and then left and returned again shortly after, another fuss was made because they had returned after leaving again. The short of it was that the act of arriving, no matter how long a member had been away, was something to be celebrated. Other families, Paul noticed, did not necessarily do the same. So when he came back through the door of his grandparents' house, and especially since many of his family were still there talking after the burial, there was a second celebration for his second arrival.

  His aunt said over and over she was glad he had to come back, that it didn�
��t matter what for, because she hadn’t had the chance to talk with him at the funeral. His cousin from Michigan, Jack, was ecstatic because there was a song he had wanted Paul to teach him, a song David used to play called “Memphis” and for sure the opening riff.

  And on and on it went like this and all the while Paul stood around or sat at the end of the kitchen table or played the obligatory song on the Gibson flat top of his grandmother’s. The sad thing about how his family was the type to welcome back with nothing short of a return party was that it was something they did because they weren’t really all that close normally. It was a tradition developed from guilt. It was false, but still felt nice.

  Now Paul really only wanted to get some rest and then look up Hill the next morning. By eleven that evening, family had thinned out. Only his grandparents were left, sitting at the kitchen table having another cup of coffee. The quiet was terrible after the activity for the past several hours. Paul heard every creak of the house settling. His grandfather scooted his feet across the floor and it sounded like someone moving furniture.

  “Eve, I think it’s about time for bed,” his grandfather said. “This old boy is tired and hurting in his heart. But right now, more tired.” Then William Shannon looked at him with a firm gaze. “Pray for us, Paul. Pray that we can sleep. The last two nights we’ve only had a couple hours sleep and it was all nightmares. Dreams about your dad, when he was healthy and young. You should have seen him then. But then me and your grandmother would wake up and he was gone all over again. It was a waking nightmare, Paul. Pray we can sleep.”

  His grandmother’s eyes were more than weak. They seemed to barely stay fixed inside the sockets, so watery they seemed fluid and ready to simply pour out onto her cheek as a single large teardrop. “Pray for us all, Paul. You get some sleep, too. You need to rest, baby.”

  His grandparents met as William Shannon and Eve Sherman when they were both eighteen. All these years later Blue Boy and Pink Girl were still beside one another and tonight was no different. They stood together and walked from the kitchen arm in arm. For the first time since he came in for the funeral, Paul felt tears building up under his eyelids. When they were gone, Paul found a box of Benadryl and took ten of them dry.

  Paul was asleep inside the stale covers of his father's bed when someone knocked at the front door. He slammed the palm of his hand on the nightstand and disappeared under the covers again. The knocking started again. He pushed the covers off his head and waited to see if his grandmother or grandfather would answer. When they didn't, he tossed his legs over the edge of the bed and started through the house.

  His grandparents' bedroom door stood open four or five inches. Through the opening he saw them in bed, his grandfather rolled to his left and his grandmother flat on her back. Above them were the portraits of Blue Boy and Pink Girl. Paul wasn’t sure these were the names of the two pictures. They had always hanged there, Blue Boy above Papaw’s head and Pink Girl above Mother’s. Both twitched in sleep and seeing them labor in that way issued a deep sadness inside Paul. Their baby boy was dead and, yet, they had to rest, had to keep moving on with their lives, eating, talking, breathing. He felt sadness and a burrowing guilt for having been so irritated for having to answer the door.

  The knocking started up again. He continued down the hallway and turned the corner into the kitchen. He looked ahead through three slices of window in the top half of the door and saw three jagged parts of someone. The person was so tall he could not see the color of their hair. All he could make out was a nose, a mouth and a chin. He could see the man was rocking back and forth in front of the door.

  "Just a minute!" he yelled across the kitchen.

  Paul pulled the door open and saw the full figure of a man who easily stood six and a half feet tall. The man's face was docile, soft blue eyes and thin lips. He had a crew cut and twin receding hairlines arching far back away from his forehead. What was left was a patch of sandy blonde hair in the middle. When the man saw Paul, he smiled. His small mouth stretched into a big toothy grin.

  "Is David home?" he asked when Paul had the door open.

  He had the voice of a singer, a bass or a baritone, and right away Paul didn't know how to answer.

  "I guess you should step in for a minute," Paul said. “Were you friends with my dad?” Paul couldn't think of anything else to say.

  "I sure was!” The man said. He clapped his two huge hands and rubbed them together.

  Paul stood in the doorway, waiting for him to come through, but the man stood in place, rocking back and forth on his feet and rubbing his hands together. Paul extended his arm like a butler would in an old movie, but the man still didn’t move.

  "I was your daddy's best friend! My name is Larry Fenner!” He offered the huge smile again. Most of his front teeth were rotten and one of his eyes flashed around in the socket, jerking back and forth in a nervous blur.

  Paul pushed his back against the door, the hinges popping as he did, and Larry Fenner eased his bulk into the kitchen.

  "Larry Fenner!” Larry Fenner said again. Once inside, he sat down at the kitchen table. His knees popped up to the edge of the table. "You mean your daddy never did say nothing about Larry Fenner?” He seemed shocked, maybe a little hurt.

  Paul figured he had avoided telling him about his father long enough.

  "Larry, my father passed away. Just this past week,” he said, and then added, "I'm sorry."

  Larry dropped his head and seemed to concentrate on his meaty hands, which he had been wringing together without mercy since stepping through the front door. He grinned again, this time not as largely, and the skin around his eyes seemed to weigh more, gravity pulling his enthusiasm downward even while he pushed through a smile.

  "Your dad, Dave, would put your butt in the sling if he heard you saying it like that. Passed away.” He stared off into the distance and lowered his voice to a whisper. "People don't pass away. They're not like a bad smell or campfire smoke. People die and that's the way it is."

  Paul felt his lips hanging from his face, his mouth hanging open more than he would have admitted. Somehow he was distracted for the moment from his single-minded need to talk to his uncle. The first time since the old man had spoke his last words in Lexington.

  "That's what your dad, Dave, used to say," Larry continued, and then placed his red-raw hands in his lap and went quiet. His eyes moved constantly. They seemed to follow patterns floating somewhere in his field of vision before settling on Paul. Paul could see pain there, barely floating in uneasy blue waters. "I was his best friend."

  5

  The day the boys decided to skip school was the hottest of August on record for Red Knife. It was a record day that stood until a full three decades later when in 1997, it broke 105 degrees in the second week. On this day, temperatures soared to just over 100 degrees several times, even during the morning. It was too hot for school, Dave Shannon told his brother, Hill, and their friend Tommy Spencer. He had a better idea, but it was agreed they should have a fourth man.

  Truth be known, every one of them would have preferred to stop by Angel Burchett’s house and ask her to go with them out to the old tipple, but Larry was the more realistic choice. Angel was in school anyways, the good girl. All three had been fighting for her attention for the past two years. Sometimes they passed the hours during summer break recalling which features they most adored in her. David never failed to mention her chestnut brown eyes, like pieces of toffee, he would say. The others fawned over the shine her dark hair had when she stepped from the Red Knife Public Pool. They kept the really gritty things to themselves, saving it for their private time. Tommy loved her laugh. He was always the first to mention her laugh. It soared from her and caught others laughing as it went. She was, they agreed, the only truly beautiful thing any of them knew.

  But Larry was the choice. They all knew what he would be doing. It was Tuesday and Joe Fenner would have him out plowing the dry patch of land just in front of the clapboard
house on Jensen Road. Tuesday was the day for turning the ground. It was never clear to any of the boys, or to Larry and maybe even Joe himself, if turning the ground during the summer and early fall months would do the garden any good, but it was either have Larry keep busy turning or have him laying around, into trouble.

  Both Shannon boys were quiet. Tommy was quiet, too. All three had caught a good ride from Red Knife out to Jensen Road. It was a one-way trip, some guy heading to town with a load of fresh hay. Now the three delinquents leaned against the bare-branch fence lining Fenner's pitiful garden and watched Larry endure his father.

  Sun glinted through a set of pine trees just above the Fenner's house and down onto a thirteen-year old giant dragging tired and enormous legs and feet through clump after clump of dust and brittle soil. The Fenner's horse rested under a makeshift roof connected to the side of the house. The horse's sides rushed in and out past its ribs and Dave noticed thick ropes of white mucus hanging from its flared nostrils. It could barely hold its head up and so the ropes of snot wobbled and spun in circles not more than an inch from the hard packed earth beneath the shed covering.

  Larry could only have been so lucky. Maybe if he had started before the horse it would have been him the three boys would have seen under the shed trying to soak in the shade the way dry, summer riverbanks might somehow stretch toward a strong middle current. But Joe made him take second shift on the plowing, and it was this sad show the boys now sat watching, none of the three breathing very loudly, as if ashamed of the comfort they experienced while Larry tugged away at the plow straps.

  The straps — thick, black leather, studded with brass fixings which seemed to boil into liquid beneath the sun — dug into Larry's back making red and irritated grooves well past the lower portions of his dinner-plate shoulder blades.