paper. He uncaps a pen and presses two sentences onto the empty page: 'My father had it in him to strike me only once. I was thirteen.' He sits back in the chair and studies the words: already it feels a betrayal, not of his father, but of himself, of the version of himself who resisted Bentham, who said no. Yet before he can stop he falls again toward the paper and more pours out:
It was a small thing – five dollars I stole from his wallet to see a movie with some friends. They talked me into it, after I told them I didn't have the money to go. When I got home he drove a hand across my face. Before hitting me, he used the other hand to keep my head in place, cradling my chin in his palm, a gesture both gentle and practical, bluntly paternal. My lip was split. He assumed I knew the reason. I did, but I didn't understand his reaction; I'd done worse in the past, or at least it seemed I had.
Not until he was fifteen or sixteen did Paul ask any questions. He was upset that he hadn't seen his brother in several years and aware that this was somehow his father's fault. Frank sat there in his chair, where he almost always was; then he nodded to himself and, with a sputtering grunt, rose. 'Stay there.' When he returned he handed Paul a large envelope. It was full to bursting, and when he tried to open it the brittle metal fastener broke off in his hand. He pulled out a lump of crisp, delicate newsprint. He read one page after another before becoming self-conscious at reading about his father in front of him, and stole away to his room to finish. The articles were ordered chronologically, from the earliest days of the Long Island meetings right up until the end. He'd kept everything, even the stories about the trial. Paul returned to find his father sitting exactly where he had left him.
He said, 'That really was you?'
With visible effort Frank unglued his lips to speak; he might have shaken his head, too, but the gesture was ambiguous. He opted for silence. He was seventy-five years old by then, and he had nothing else to say about the matter.
4
Tuesday. On his way to the hospital Paul passes a pharmacy. Red and pink crêpe paper festoons the eaves and an arc of cardboard hearts hangs in the window. Similar displays have filled the city for weeks, but only today, the holiday itself, does Paul become aware of the date. For a divorced man of thirty-six Valentine's Day ceases to mean much. That's for lovesick teenagers. Even in the wake of recent events, he's too old to find in such scenery the stuff of sadness or self-pity. By tomorrow it will have vanished. Easter takes its place, the next page on the calendar that dictates the pace of American life, the natural seasons replaced by forces that apportion the year into blocks of commercial time, occasions for spending.
A pair of orderlies stands at the main entrance, slouched like scarecrows, sucking down cigarettes. They don't wear jackets over their scrubs and shiver a little; one turns out his mouth in a cursory smile. Ambulances wait in a silent row for work to be called in. A slow morning.
Nothing's changed in the familiar room. Machines beep softly; drops of clear serum make the slow journey down a tube into his father's blood. Above all, Paul is aware of the emptiness, the austerity. Shouldn't a man be surrounded by flowers and weeping relatives – the evidence that the world will suffer in his absence? Not this man. His departure from this room will alter almost nothing about it. Paul has never thought to bring flowers; then again, his father wouldn't want him to. Frank has always been an unsentimental man, unconcerned with the decorative, the ephemeral.
Color has drained from the face, though it wasn't a face with much color in the first place. In the last decade Frank spent as much time as possible indoors, preferring that kind of loneliness to the loneliness of crowds, of walking among people who don't know you and don't care to. Not that Paul was keeping much
It was a small thing – five dollars I stole from his wallet to see a movie with some friends. They talked me into it, after I told them I didn't have the money to go. When I got home he drove a hand across my face. Before hitting me, he used the other hand to keep my head in place, cradling my chin in his palm, a gesture both gentle and practical, bluntly paternal. My lip was split. He assumed I knew the reason. I did, but I didn't understand his reaction; I'd done worse in the past, or at least it seemed I had.
Not until he was fifteen or sixteen did Paul ask any questions. He was upset that he hadn't seen his brother in several years and aware that this was somehow his father's fault. Frank sat there in his chair, where he almost always was; then he nodded to himself and, with a sputtering grunt, rose. 'Stay there.' When he returned he handed Paul a large envelope. It was full to bursting, and when he tried to open it the brittle metal fastener broke off in his hand. He pulled out a lump of crisp, delicate newsprint. He read one page after another before becoming self-conscious at reading about his father in front of him, and stole away to his room to finish. The articles were ordered chronologically, from the earliest days of the Long Island meetings right up until the end. He'd kept everything, even the stories about the trial. Paul returned to find his father sitting exactly where he had left him.
He said, 'That really was you?'
With visible effort Frank unglued his lips to speak; he might have shaken his head, too, but the gesture was ambiguous. He opted for silence. He was seventy-five years old by then, and he had nothing else to say about the matter.
4
Tuesday. On his way to the hospital Paul passes a pharmacy. Red and pink crêpe paper festoons the eaves and an arc of cardboard hearts hangs in the window. Similar displays have filled the city for weeks, but only today, the holiday itself, does Paul become aware of the date. For a divorced man of thirty-six Valentine's Day ceases to mean much. That's for lovesick teenagers. Even in the wake of recent events, he's too old to find in such scenery the stuff of sadness or self-pity. By tomorrow it will have vanished. Easter takes its place, the next page on the calendar that dictates the pace of American life, the natural seasons replaced by forces that apportion the year into blocks of commercial time, occasions for spending.
A pair of orderlies stands at the main entrance, slouched like scarecrows, sucking down cigarettes. They don't wear jackets over their scrubs and shiver a little; one turns out his mouth in a cursory smile. Ambulances wait in a silent row for work to be called in. A slow morning.
Nothing's changed in the familiar room. Machines beep softly; drops of clear serum make the slow journey down a tube into his father's blood. Above all, Paul is aware of the emptiness, the austerity. Shouldn't a man be surrounded by flowers and weeping relatives – the evidence that the world will suffer in his absence? Not this man. His departure from this room will alter almost nothing about it. Paul has never thought to bring flowers; then again, his father wouldn't want him to. Frank has always been an unsentimental man, unconcerned with the decorative, the ephemeral.
Color has drained from the face, though it wasn't a face with much color in the first place. In the last decade Frank spent as much time as possible indoors, preferring that kind of loneliness to the loneliness of crowds, of walking among people who don't know you and don't care to. Not that Paul was keeping much
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