Dysphoria Page 6

  "Hey little man wake up."

  Paul moved sideways in the bed, yawned once.

  "Daddy?"

  His voice was broken with sleep and muffled. He was tired but happy to see his dad home again. The torn illusion of security had now been stitched back together. When he did finally open his eyes, he had to squint because the room wasn't as dark as it had been just a couple of minutes earlier. Lights from a truck garage across the street had been turned on for the morning shift and the light broke through the window shades in split shafts of manufactured brilliance. When he saw his father sitting beside him, a tired look plastered on his face, he smiled and reached out to touch his hand. His father pulled his hand close into his and held it there softly. The comforting touch forced Paul's eyes closed again and before a few seconds had passed he was back asleep.

  "Hey little man let's go outside," his father was whispering in his ear. "I brought something back from work and now we can play. Now we have time."

  The clock on the wall to the right of Paul's bed said it was about a quarter to five in the morning. Paul couldn't see this. All he knew was that he was glad to see his father, but was sleepy and it was still dark outside. Darkness meant sleep. He wanted to tell his father they could play in the morning, but he was afraid. He could hear him still talking in his ear. He could sense irritation there and so opened his eyes.

  Paul's father saw the tired blue eyes open and took the small hand gripping his own and pulled his son from the bed. Paul staggered to his feet, weaving in the middle of the room and wiping his eyes with the backs of both hands. He was in his underwear and the room had grown cold through the late hours of the night compared to the warmth beneath his blanket. He wrapped his hands around his elbows and blinked several times to clear his vision. When he did, Paul saw his father's face, stern now and maybe upset.

  "You sure were awfully sad to see me going a little while ago to be standing there now acting like you don't even care what I brought home."

  The words bit into Paul like brittle winter ice and he was afraid he would cry again. He saw that his father held the picture he had drawn for him earlier in one hand. When he noticed that Paul had noticed it, he dropped it into his lap.

  "Forget it. I'm going to bed."

  He stood up from the corner of Paul's twin bed with a creak of springs and slats and started out of the room.

  In a sleep-crazed frenzy Paul searched the floor for his pants, found them, and quickly pulled them up over his hips. He ran through the kitchen to catch up with his father who was turning the corner into the hallway with his shoulders and head slumped almost comically toward the floor.

  "What did you bring, Daddy?” Paul said. "Let me see. We can play with it now. Okay?” His tiny voice spread across octaves and cracked, splintered in his throat, lost and useless. His legs trembled and his feet ached against the cold of the kitchen floor. His eyes were wide open now, but streaked with red and dull.

  His father turned in the doorway. He stood still, his hands down to his sides, and his expression changed from angry to hurt, and then he smiled, just a little. Paul walked through the kitchen, still holding his elbows in his hands. The corners of his mouth trembled for a moment and then spread into a smile of his own. Paul hoped his father couldn't see through that smile, at the sleepiness and dread.

  His father wrapped his arms around Paul and Paul could smell the grease and rust and the mild odor of sweat. He jumped slightly as his father jabbed his hand into his coat pocket and brought out the piece of yellow marker chalk.

  "Remember what we used to do with sidewalk chalk, Pup?” His father said. "This is the same thing. I brought it from work. It's the same kind. Come on."

  Paul wanted to ask him to wait, needed to tell him that he had to put on a shirt and jacket, but his father was already out the door and he didn't want to watch his face, now a bright beam of victory, change back into hard granite, volcanic rock and lava underneath. Instead, he followed his father's excited steps out the door and recoiled from the wind and cold at once.

  A thin frost coated the front porch and the tops of parked cars glistened and sparkled under the street lights. The only car on the street that wasn't covered in winter diamonds was his grandfather's, which had just dropped off his father moments ago. It was warm and ready to travel. Paul could still hear the motor ticking beneath the hood as they passed two oil spots to find a clear area on the pavement for drawing.

  The wind and cold had already numbed his bare feet to the joints of his toes and turned spots along his skinny chest and arms bright red and blue, and all the time his father was still marching around in the center of the street hunting for the exactly right spot to start.

  "I should go in and get a…” he started, but was interrupted when his father let out a cry of discovery and dropped to his knees, clutching the piece of chalk between two gloved fingers. Working frantically, dirty black hair moving wildly across the concentrated wrinkles of his forehead, he wrote in bold letters, pressing down so hard Paul could see tiny fragments of yellow shards falling to the sides.

  BY PAUL AND DADDY.

  His father stood up and handed the piece of chalk to Paul. Paul took the chalk in his hands and struggled to grip it between his fingers.

  "Go ahead," his father said.

  Paul crouched on the pavement and started a large circle in the middle of the road, arching his arm across half the street until he finished with a circle big enough for both he and his father to stand in. After a deep breath, he fixed his eyes again on the pavement and added two circles for eyes, a small and round nose, jagged and broken from what were now uncontrollable shivers running along his arms from his elbows to his wrists.

  He then outlined a mouth, a sagging arch like in the wrapping paper picture earlier.

  He didn't look back at his father, who was standing behind him breathing deeply. But if he had, he would have seen a familiar look spreading across his face, confusion, maybe, or anger. Instead Paul kept drawing. Two small yellow pupils and then two more symmetrical ovals under the eyes, dropped down onto the cheeks. It wasn't blue, but yellow tears would still explain what he couldn't say, just like before.

  He stood up and felt his heart beating inside his heaving chest. He then turned around, the chalk falling from his grip, and then there was only darkness, spreading like ink.

  12

  Off Route 460 a dirt road led into a small valley. Turning a natural corner of overgrown bushes, Paul was stunned by the largest pile of abandoned cars and trucks he had ever seen. He figured he hadn't seen very many piles of cars and trucks in his life, but this one had to be considered massive by any standard. To the left of the pile, sticking up from among several heaps of tossed aside engine parts, fenders, and bumpers, was a splintered sign.

  HILLMAN'S CAR & TRUCK PARTS.

  The sign was made from scrapboard. The words looked like they had been scrawled on by an eight year old. It had been standing long enough to be tilting noticeably to the left, surrounded by old grease, buckets of oil, and assorted engine parts.

  Paul pulled the car to a stop and got out. The lazy sounds of a thousand insects from the twin fields of wild grass lining the dirt road replaced the blare of a radio advertisement. He stumbled across the road and high stepped through the grass to the sign. It was scrapwood, but had a familiar blue color Paul could remember seeing when he was younger. He suspected it could be one of Hill's old election signs that dotted the county several years ago when he was still practicing law. He cleared a mosquito infested set of tangled bushes and finally came to the sign. He avoided a puddle of thick grease and, leaning forward on the hood of a Ford Galaxy, craned his neck around to have a look at the back side of the sign.

  It was an election sign. Across the top and in far better and much bolder white lettering were the words, A Proven Choice for County Attorney, and then below that, SHANNON. Paul gave the sign a couple taps with the back of his hand and started back to the car. Insects bit at his ankles as
he went. As he crossed the front of his grandfather’s car to get back in, he saw that about ten feet ahead the road sank and ran into a sizable creek. Beyond that, he could see the driveway leading up to Hill's place, a trailer that served as both home and main office for repair inquiries. In the driveway sat his S-10 pickup, which was covered from fender to fender in dried mud, likely from the creek passing. The water looked about three feet deep in places and Paul locked the doors, grabbed the keys, and split the weeds to hunt for a place to cross.

  Hill stood in front of a grimy window in his trailer and watched his nephew prance through the weeds to a thin stretch of land peeking up from the small breaking waves. Paul lifted his legs gingerly and made his way across and Hill looked back to the car, shiny with wax. It was his dad's and Paul must have borrowed it for the twenty minute drive out here.

  He ran his fingers through his hair hoping to force down at least two or three of the rat's nests that had formed during the night. He had heard the engine of the car going and thought it might be Dan Preston coming to pick up his alternator. All in all, he was happy to see Paul, but thought he had already went back to Philly. Hill found his work shirt from the day before and pulled it over his head, patted his hair down again, and started to tuck it in, but realized he was still wearing his jogging pants and thought better. When he stepped onto the porch there was Paul coming from beyond the grass. He threw up his hand and smiled. Paul was a good boy, always had been, somehow.

  "Hey, long time no see,” Hill called across to Paul when he was close enough. “You ain’t been gone but a day or so. What’s got you back here?”

  “About the craziest thing you can imagine has me back here,” Paul answered. Hill took Paul by the shoulder and they stepped inside the tiny trailer.

  Hill's trailer always gave Paul pause when he first stepped in. Even as a kid, when he and the rest would come out to talk to Hill during the long nights when he would drink too much and talk even more. The defeated light yellow color of the aluminum siding and the rust framed windows with their bed sheet curtains was only a preview. Inside the trailer there would be more of the same. A scarred and chipped coffee table, maybe sitting upright or on its side, a host of leftover food adorning various kitchen utensils in a kitchen both too small and, for practical purposes, useless, since Hill never cooked but ordered food from a nearby pizza and sandwich place. And of course there were the books.

  Paul knew the living room would be mostly books, save the coffee table. Indifferent about shelves, Hill had always stacked his books in the floor. You could quickly figure out where his favorite reading spots were by the number of books in a given stack. Beside the room's single chair, a ratty thing full of holes and covered in fabric course as horse hair, there would be a pile of books eight or nine high, required reading, he would say. Kierkegaard, Twain, Proust, and then a few of the contemporaries, and then back to the ancients, Plato, in particular, as a reminder of what true government could be with great vision.

  "Hey man. I ever tell you you live in a grassy swamp?"

  "You've mentioned it,” he said and sat at the kitchen bar. “So you say your mom’s hanging in there? I always liked Mary.”

  “Yeah she’s up north. Moved about two years ago to be closer to me on the East Coast.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. Mary never did nothing that wasn’t with you in mind.”

  Paul let that stay in the air a few seconds, looked around the trailer again, and waited for Hill to move along. If he thought too much about his mom, about all the days from the split until now, he might easily get emotional.

  “What'd the letter say?"

  “You know, the same stuff. You know how Dad was.”

  “Was, yep. Man it’s crazy to say was. I miss him a lot, Paul.”

  "You gotta be kidding, seriously kidding me. You don’t have to say that on my account.”

  Instead of answering, Hill stood with his arms crossed and looked again out his dirty window. There was a spoiled food smell tearing at the small insides of the trailer like olfactory spikes of dull pain. In addition to the coffee table there was a desk in the middle of the floor. Thin squares of paper were scattered from corner to corner. A waste basket sat just off to the right of the desk and was adorned with a wrinkled bumper sticker.

  Mays County has the best politicians money can buy, it read.

  “Well, in the spirit of small talk, how's it going?” Paul said, leaning against the Formica island which served to officially separate the trailer's single room opening into a legitimate kitchen and living room.

  "It's going." Hill rubbed stubble across his chin and made a few more attempts at getting his hair to flatten to his head. "You read the note I gave you at the funeral home, you say?"

  Paul nodded. "Yeah."

  "I didn't read it, by the way. I figured that was something between you and Dave. I don't know how much money was there and didn't count it, either."

  "I appreciate you bringing it. I just wish you could’ve hung around a little while longer."

  Hill plopped down in the chair, a comfortable fit. "I would've, but you know how the fake can make a body ill. I figure I hurt just as bad here as there and here I've got my own peace of mind to comfort me. But then, I ramble. I figured you'd be gone by now."

  "Yeah, I know.” Paul moved his back muscles against the countertop and rubbed his own chin, less sandpaper, less life taken on the point of that chin. "Listen, I had something really strange happen when I got to Lexington. I’m just going to tell you, it’s why I came back."

  Hill had relaxed into his chair and cast his eyes out the window to the field beyond. Now he sat up and cocked his head to the side, looked across the room. "I’m all ears, as they say."

  Paul went through the details of his trip to Lexington and the old man calling himself John Harper, that last cryptic suggestion. The way it came out of nowhere and how the man disappeared into the clinic.

  “John Harper,” Hill said. “You sure he said John Harper?”

  “Yeah. John Harper. That’s what he said. But this guy knows you, and he knew my dad had died. He knew us.”

  “Well not the whole thing,” Hill said. “Not really even close, truth be told.” He let go a long sigh. It was the kind of sound a person made when giving up or giving in. One sigh was followed by another and he said, "Larry come in for the funeral?"

  "He was late and I think he didn't know about Dad dying. I think he was just visiting."

  "I haven't talked to Larry since junior high school, the summer before we started high school."

  "You've got a chance to catch up, if you'd like to."

  Hill stared blankly across his living room. “What?”

  "Well, he's been staying with me at Dad's for the past week. Papaw's getting that edge to him, you know what I'm talking about."

  Hill nodded and then sat up in the chair and scratched the tops of his knees. "You've heard the stories about Larry, right? I know you have, because I've told a ton."

  Paul stayed quiet. It seemed Hill was talking to himself more than anything.

  "Yeah, Larry Fenner. He's been staying with me at Dad's, or Papaw's, but Papaw's getting a little fed up with him and I thought maybe he could, well, you know."

  Hill just sat in the chair, not picking up on where Paul was going. Paul wondered if it was intentional or just more of the strange behavior he had taken on since Larry was first mentioned.

  "Why don't you just ask him how much longer he's staying?' Hill said. He dropped back into the chair and looked out the window again, but his eyes didn't seem as far away this time. He was thinking. “This doesn’t matter anyways. We might have other things more pressing.”

  "The deal with this old guy I talked to, for sure. But, to be clear, you don't want Larry to stay here?"

  "I have to be honest, I don't know if I can. Me and Larry, well, I haven't seen him in a long time and even then we just weren't that close anymore.”

  Hill went to a yellow r
efrigerator that had, at one time, been covered in stickers, but was now bare, save some left over glue and white patches of stubborn paper. he opened the door and pulled out a liter bottle of orange juice. Paul could smell a dozen different types of food carry on the breeze from the door fanning open. Hill offered Paul a drink of orange juice he pulled from the insides of a refrigerator that looked worse than some cavities he had seen. Paul waved him off. Nothing that came out of that thing was going into his body.

  "Did anybody ever tell you about Harper's Tipple?" Hill asked.

  Paul shook his head.

  “John Harper, the John Harper I knew, was George Harper’s boy,” Hill continued. “Incredibly wealthy man. He owned coal mines all over this region. Even had one on his own property after he found a good seam of coal there, which was some kind of mineral miracle, truth be told. Thus the tipple near the big house.”

  “They said his family used to own a business here a long time ago."

  "Who said?"

  "Cramer."

  "Cramer,” Hill said with thick contempt. “Maybe it’s the same guy, but I heard he got killed,” Hill said after a few seconds of silence. “Anyway, are you asking me if Larry can stay here?"

  "Yeah, I guess so."

  "Does Larry know about this? Larry might not want to stay here. Harper's Tipple might keep him from it."

  "Well what in the hell happened at Harper's Tipple?” Paul couldn't hide the irritation in his voice. He didn't even try.

  "What happened was I ran away, Paul. But then I'm good at that, or so people say."

  "What's that mean? You run away?"

  "You know what I mean. How I abandoned a good profession, lots of money and power, a good life."

  Now it was Paul’s turn to go quiet.

  He knew most of his uncle’s story. Hill had went to some religious-based law school in a neighboring state after getting an English degree that included a shiny collar at graduation for doing so with honors. He busted through his courses in short order, done the required reading and finished law school without so much as shifting his schedule once. He simply took what they gave him and came out clean, confident and ready.