Joe's Black T-Shirt (13 page)

***

It was a typical Christmas Eve at my grandmother’s house. Forced to observe her matriarchal rules, we opened gifts one at a time, allowing others to reverently observe your joy. When I began to tear open the newspaper-wrapped box, you would have thought I was tearing off my mom’s skin. She hissed, “It’s from your father,” as I held the gift up for everyone to see. No one said a word and, like an assembly line waiting to resume, my grandmother gave the command, “How lovely.” The next present was opened in silence, while my mom chain-smoked.

He had given me a radio in the shape of a golden apple. It was monogrammed with the expression: “You’re the apple of my eye.” I couldn’t have disliked it more if it had been my dog’s severed head. Not only did it more befit an effeminate girl of six than an almost grown man of eleven, it didn’t work. The damn thing couldn’t pull in one station. I hid it behind the dark velvet drapes in my grandmother’s dining room and hadn’t thought about it since until this moment.

***

It had taken half my life to get over the whole ‘father issue.’ Between time spent in therapy, alcohol and weed indulgences that bordered addiction, and the birth of my sons, something finally clicked. My warped childhood ceased to haunt me. The co-dependence of my mother and my father’s deliberate inattention became non-issues. They didn’t fail to exist; I simply didn’t care anymore. I did resolve, however, not to damn the future by repeating my past.

We rose and followed behind the pallbearers. As they loaded the coffin into the open rear door of the hearse, a hand took mine. A woman with yellow teeth the color of her badly dyed hair, held me close to her. If not for the tears welling up in her eyes, I would have pulled back in revulsion. It was obvious she was somebody with a deep attachment to the man in the box.

“You must be Joey,” she said in a whisper.

“Yes,” I said. It didn’t seem appropriate or necessary to correct her. I hadn’t been Joey since I stopped believing in the Easter Bunny.

“Will you ride with me to the cemetery?”

“Sure,” I said without hesitation, not thinking twice about how I would get back to my car.

The limousine was plain inside. No built-in wet-bar, satellite TV, or speckled-mirror ceiling. The bench leather seats forced the occupants to stare at each other. It comfortably sat eight, but the woman and I were the only passengers.

“You remind me of him, around the eyes,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said trying my best not to sound offended.

“The last time I saw you was at your first grade play. You were so cute with all that red hair and those big rosy cheeks. I’ve often wondered how you were doing. You’re father refused to tell me anything after the divorce.”

“How did he die?” I asked not willing to reminisce upon things I couldn’t remember.

“Heart attack. At home…my home, in his sleep. The doctors said he felt no pain.”

She said this as if to comfort me. To lay aside any secret concern I might have felt for his welfare. I couldn’t have cared less if he had choked to death on a gasoline-soaked rag.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know who you are.”

“How stupid of me,” she said suddenly grabbing both my hands inside of hers. The loose flesh covered mine in a field of liver spots and costume jewelry. “Of course you don’t.”

I felt her trembling nervousness pulse through her. A wave of empathy for this stranger, who wanted nothing more than my brief companionship, displaced me. Although she was foreign to me, I had a compulsory need to treat her with care.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to---”

“Don’t apologize, bubula. I’m the one who should apologize,” she said. “I’m your aunt, Rachel.”

Now I was the one trembling. I knew so little of my father. The bit I did have was a selective oral history extracted from my mom like teeth from a whale. He was Jewish, a veteran of the Navy, he had been married to Mom for eight years and, his last known employer was a defunct carburetor machine shop in north St. Louis. Beyond that, I didn’t have a clue.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said sincerely.

“Joey,” she said with a voice of new found intimacy, “your father did you wrong.”

I wanted to say something but could not speak. As I nodded my head slowly in agreement, I hoped she could elaborate.

“You were such a precious boy. So smart, you could read before you went to school. Ah, such a good boy. It broke my heart how he turned his back on you. I tried for years to make him do the right thing, buying birthday cards and presents for him to send. Most of them, unfortunately, didn’t make it and after awhile it was a waste of time to try. The drugs, that goddamn cocaine, controlled him like a dog on a leash. For years, bubala, he would go missing. Many was the time I had no idea if he were alive or dead.

Then he would show up, as if nothing was wrong, broke, strung-out, needing shelter and food. Always I took him in. After he was well again, I would always encourage him to see you, that it was never too late. He said he couldn’t until he had a good job again, a nice place to live, something to show for his life. Then he would be gone. Back to his life of bars and drugs. It has been my constant sorrow knowing he had a son, a good boy, when I had nothing.”

The car came to a slow, gentle stop in the gravel road. Daylight consumed us as the driver opened the door, and we walked towards the open grave. His casket, the flag removed, waited to be lowered into the earth. My newfound aunt Rachel and I sat in cheap, plastic chairs that tilted slightly on the uneven ground

A Rabbi spoke eloquently of the stranger I called my father. The words sounded wonderful but were like a song in another language. After a prayer in Hebrew, we stood to repeat the closing words after him. Those around me recited the words by rote that I couldn’t understand. I humbly whispered the Lord’s Prayer in substitution.

On the ride back to Aunt Rachel’s house, I told her about my life. The years of struggling to make ends meet, first as my mother’s son, then as a husband and father. I left out the suicidal rages, the manic depression, and the self-loathing. It was a rare opportunity to present myself anew.

The upper-middle-class condo was luxurious. At least twenty people, some of whom I recognized from the funeral milled about the main floor. Aunt Rachel excused herself to use the powder room and encouraged me to mingle. I was family after all.

Little groups of people had formed like islands. As more came through the door, they quickly found their particular group. I decided my best course of action was to comfort myself on my aunt’s expensive whiskey and try to avoid eye contact.

A short, fat man whose size and color reminded me of a tomato was loudly greeting everyone. Despite his volume, he didn’t seem to bother anybody. Most smiled and some even laughed as he approached, then moved on to the next person. In sales, we called it ‘working the room.’ I had to admit he was good. It was only a matter of time before he would reach me.

He shook my hand in an ironclad grip. “Ronald Goldman, attorney at law. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Nice to meet you, Ron,” I said hoping that was all there was to this.

“I’m fairly familiar with everyone here, but you, sir. Might I inquire at to who you may be?”

“Cut the shit, pal.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The song-and-dance routine. Great icebreaker, but completely unwarranted. I bet you don’t know more than five people in this room by name.”

“That’s quite an allegation, sir.”

“It’s the truth though, isn’t it? You haven’t taken your coat off, so I’ll assume you’re here on business, and won’t be staying longer than necessary. None of the women here hugged you, but every man has made it a point to shake your hand, so you’re not family. The clincher, though, is that you introduced yourself to me via your occupation.”

The smile on his face was looming as when he first walked in, yet the good humor in his voice evaporated.

“You’re Joe’s son, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Pursuant to law, you are his only living relative outside of his sister and the heir to his estate upon his demise.”

From inside his coat pocket, he removed an envelope the size of a sheet of paper, folded in half, and sealed by a red wax seal. A large letter ‘G’ was stamped into the hardened material that matched the oversized middle finger ring on his right hand. The ostentatious display of wealth and minor power was easier to read than the back of a cereal box. He was the kind of self-inflated jerk I dreamed of walking into my office. Nothing but the best would be good enough for his royal ass. Guys like him made my sales goal every year.

The neatly handwritten script was addressed to no one in particular.

Last Will & Testament

of

Joseph Irving Cohen

The name was the same as mine except for the abbreviated junior at the end. It suddenly occurred to me that the name we had shared was now mine alone.

The lawyer handed me his card. “Should your require any further assistance, call me.” I didn’t even look at it. “I was intimately familiar with your father’s affairs and considered him a close, personal friend.”

I loosely shook his hand, more out of formality than gratitude. The idea of suddenly having my father’s most intimate details thrust upon me was disorientating. Never in my life had an envelope felt so heavy in my hands.

I stepped outside to find some privacy. In a small garden I sat down on an ornamental metal bench hardly larger than a stool and tore open the envelope.

Inside were three stapled, legal-sized pages of standard litigious crap constituting my father’s will and a plain, white envelope with the name ‘Joey.’ I presumed the will was in accordance to every law made and hardly glanced at it. The curious little envelope consumed my attention. I recognized the handwriting the moment I unfolded the letter.

Dear Joey,

If you were hoping for a decent payday out of this, tough luck kid.

There ain’t much of nothing left I didn’t snort or smoke or some bimbo didn’t con out from me. I hope you’re doing better.

I’m sorry about not being there. It couldn’t have been easy growing up without a dad. I heard you got a couple kids yourself now, so maybe you can do for them what I didn’t for you.

No matter what your mom or her family says, it wasn’t easy for me. It’s not like I woke up one morning and said ‘Fuck this, I’m gone.’

When I left I had every intention of seeing you every weekend. Taking you to ball games, carnivals, spoiling the living shit out of you before having to bring you back.

Usually, we hung out eating Chinese food from the place I lived above. You loved the moo goo gai-pan and ordered it every time. When you went home, I would get so depressed, I would drink until I quit missing you.

Then one weekend your mom said you couldn’t come. I went nuts without you. Before Monday I “accidentally” took a whole bottle of Valium. That was the beginning of me losing you. After that no judge in his right mind would have allowed me unsupervised visitation.

When I moved, I didn’t tell your mom. She was pissed (what’s new) and swore I would burn in hell before I would see you again. In a sense, I suppose she kept that promise.

My life without you has been something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. I still carry a picture of you from the fifth grade your grandmother gave to me. Whenever I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, that this time I wouldn’t call for help, I would pull out that picture. Your smile never failed to give me hope. It reminded me once I was a good man.

I hope to give you this letter in person one day. Maybe cop a squat at the tavern together, share a beer, and get to know each other. If Ron gave you this letter, that isn’t going to happen.

Be good to yourself, son.

Love,

Dad

After I was able to pull myself back together, I folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. The tears I cried were not sad or from a sense of melancholy, but relief.

When I came back into the house, through the sliding glass door, the mourners had tripled. The large room now felt crowded.

I found the buffet and made myself a plate. At the end of the smorgasbord, I noticed a small table of pictures.

They were photographs of my father, a collage of his life. There he was, a young, healthy stud sitting on a motorcycle. In another, he was dressed in black tie and tux. One in particular struck me. He was forever captured pushing me on a playground swing, a smile on his face that matched the glee of mine. Picking up the color snapshot, I put it in my pocket next to his letter.

Before I could pull my hand from its hiding spot, an accusatory voice made me feel as if I was a child caught taking cookies without permission.

“What are you doing?”

“I was, I mean…” I floundered in excuses, then regained control of myself. I had no reason to lie. “He’s my father and as sad as it might sound, I don’t have one picture.”

“I like this one,” he said pointing to my father with his arm draped about a stunning brunette.

“Me too,” I said not caring, relieved to have the focus off my theft. “She’s beautiful.”

“She’s my mother.”

The words he spoke, simple enough to comprehend, stunned me. The picture was obviously an intimate portrait of two people in love.

I turned to face him, to ask him what this was all about, and temporarily lost the power of speech. To look at him was like staring into a mirror, but ten years younger. Except for his shock of thick black hair he wore shoulder length our similarities were astounding.