SIX LITTLE SCARS
PART I
Matthew Smith
Chapter 1
Louisville, KY 2007
Sometimes confessions
come too late. Sometimes they don’t come at all. I always knew my father to
be an honorable man, born in the Church, baptized. So in the end, what
choice did he have but to bare his scars?
A year ago Thanksgiving
Day, Father and I sat watching Miami and Detroit play football. It broke my
heart to see him that way, sick and dying, nothing but skin and bones. I
could tell he was in pain; the grunts, periodic shakes, and the way his arms
and shoulders kept drawing up.
“Matthew,” he spoke with
a rasp in his voice, “I’ve been writing...things about the past. Things you
should know.”
Reading my puzzled look,
Father held his hand up.
“Don’t ask...questions,”
he ordered, struggling through each word. “Just look under my desk....
There’s a cardboard box. Take it home and read what’s in it, tonight, and
then burn it all.”
“Burn it?”
“No one else should read
it...and that includes your mother.”
I leaned back wondering
what he could have written that only I should read.
“Tonight Son.... Promise
you’ll do as I ask.”
Father barely made it
through dinner. He sat crumpled like old folks I’d seen in a nursing home.
While the rest of us shared turkey, dressing, and the usual holiday fixings,
he ate nothing.
“Daddy, shouldn’t you try
to eat something?” asked my sister Christine.
Father shook his head. If
he said two words throughout the meal, I don’t recall. He did listen, and I
could see in his bloodshot eyes that he cherished those moments, observing
his loved ones together as a family. After a while his weak frame slipped in
the chair. I stepped to his side and said, “Come on Dad. Let me take you
back to the couch. You’ll be more comfortable there.”
“Take me to bed,” he
spoke quietly.
I gathered him into my
arms and started down the hallway. While stepping sideways, I said,
“Remember how you used to carry me, holding me up with my arms spread wide
like I was flying.”
Father’s breathing
shortened. He buried his wet face into my shoulder. I tried to hold my own
tears back but couldn’t. After gently placing him on the bed, I slid in and
held my father the way he used to hold me when I was ill or frightened by a
nightmare. I remained there until the tension in his shoulders subsided, and
I knew he was asleep.
Later that night, at
home, I waited to read until my wife, Lori—four months pregnant—went to
sleep. After fixing myself a toddy, I relaxed in my favorite living room
chair. The old box was familiar. Father’s pointed-toed western boots came in
it. Removing the lid, I found yellow writing tablets—hundreds of handwritten
pages. Jesus Dad, how long you been writing? Surely you don’t
expect me to read all this in one night?
By the end of the first
page, I was hooked. Whiskey became coffee as I read into the morning. How
could the gentle man who raised me do the things he described? So much
detail, so many seemingly insignificant events that all made better sense by
the time I finished. Father didn’t just tell his story; he relived it.
Sunrise peaked through
the living room window as I finished. Confused and bewildered, I leaned back
in the recliner, closed my weary eyes to think, and dozed off. An hour had
passed, but seemed only seconds when Lori shook me. “Wake up Matthew. Your
mother just called.”
“What?” I said, trying to
focus.
“We need to go over there
right away. It’s your father.”
As Lori spoke, I
remembered the box on the floor next to my chair, out of her sight.
“Why didn’t you come to
bed?” she continued. “What have you been doing all night?”
“Nothing. Don’t you have
to work?”
“I’m off
today...remember...Friday after Thanksgiving.”
Sleepy and without a
shower, I leaned against the truck’s passenger side window, hugging a
microwave warmed, stale cup of last night’s coffee. Lori ran stop signs and
caution lights in route to my parent’s house. There, we found Father exactly
as I’d left him the night before; in his bed. The bed where he and Mother
slept every night of my life. The bed where he, Christine, and I watched
cartoons on that same antiquated 19” television still perched in the corner.
It nauseated me to see
him lying there, mouth hanging open, breathing loudly. Mother sat on the
edge of the bed holding Father’s hand. The past six months had taken toll on
her. Normally thin, she’d lost weight and looked exhausted to the point of
slumping. Her high cheek bones were protruding, and her eyes had sunk back.
Father’s sister, Aunt
Sissy, had already arrived. She watched as the hospice nurse adjusted a
morphine drip. Standing there in a sweat suit, still slim and still strong,
my aunt suddenly reminded me of a 52-year-old version of Hilary Swank in
Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby.”
She caught me staring at
her covered arms, and tilted her head as if thinking, What the hell?
“So how is he?” I asked.
The nurse leaned toward
Lori and me, and quietly said, “His suffering is about over. Should have
been on morphine long before now.”
“So,” I questioned, “why
wasn’t he?”
“His choice,” answered
Mother. “Didn’t wanna be all drugged up when you kids came for
Thanksgiving.”
Christine arrived just
after us, looking equally rough; sleepy, green eyes swollen behind uncombed
strands of freshly blonde hair. We hugged and I asked, “Where’s Henry?”
“Already left for work,”
she replied. “I can call him.”
“Well do it, now.” I
turned to Mother. “Did you call Dad’s elders?”
She squinted at my
comment and said, “Yes Matthew, they’re supposed to be on the way.”
Father’s eyes followed
me. I kissed his forehead, and then whispered into his ear, “I read your
story.”
He nodded weakly and
seemed desperate to speak, mouthing words with no sound. I tried to read his
lips, but could not. When I leaned in closer, he managed a grip on my shirt,
pulling me closer, and I could barely make out the words,
“promise...the...promise...”
Assuming he spoke of my
promise to burn his tablets, I said, “Don’t worry, I will.”
Within half an hour, most
of the family had arrived. Lori sat in the living room with some of my
aunts. Christine put her arm around my waist as our daddy suffered his final
moments. Mother’s long hair shrouded his face while she shared his moans and
groans. Grandpa and Grandma Smith knelt next to the bed. Aunt Sissy and
Uncle Ray stood close. Grandpa’s brothers—the elders—huddled near the
doorway. Never before had I seen so many grown men cry. Finally, Father’s
breathing slowed, his whole body relaxed and I could hear Mother whimpering.
She pulled her hair away, and then gently kissed Father’s forehead. His lips
remained open. His suffering had ended. Cancer took him at the young age of
50.
Father’s funeral took
place on Monday, November 27, 2006. Though he lived in Louisville, at his
request, we buried him in the company of his ancestors at a place called
Bear Creek, in rural Grayson County, Kentucky. Before leaving the graveyard,
Mother said she would be coming by the next morning to talk about something.
I figured she had concerns over what to do with Father’s tools, guns,
fishing equipment, etc. Things she would have no use for.
When I answered the door,
Mother looked as tired and distraught as she had the day before. “You
alone?” she asked, while walking in.
I yawned and said, “Yeah.
Lori’s already at work. You want coffee?”
“I hoped you’d have a
pot...and an ashtray.”
“No one else smokes here,
but for you Mom, I do have an ashtray.”
As I poured two cups,
strong, the way she likes it, Mother lit a cigarette.
“So, what’s on your
mind,” I asked. “You look worried.”
“The other day, at the
house, before your daddy passed, you used a word I’ve never heard out of you
before.”
“I did?”
“Not once have I ever
heard you refer to your grandpa and your great uncles as the elders.”
While spooning sugar into
my coffee, I said, “And?”
“And! Your daddy spent
the last months of his life writing...things not just anyone should read.
Now I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Maybe he didn’t want you
to find it.”
“Don’t play games with
me. Know damn well you have it.”
I hesitated. “He gave it
to me Thanksgiving Day. Told me to read it, and then burn it.”
“So did you?”
“Did I read it? Sure I
did.”
“Shit Matthew. Did you
burn it?”
“Not yet, but I
will...and by the way, how’d you know what’s in it?”
After a sip of her
coffee, she said, “I read parts of it while he slept.”
“Did you read enough to
know you weren’t supposed to be reading it?”
“Read enough to know no
one should be readin’ it.”
“I can’t believe you read
it without his permission?”
“Matthew Lee, don’t talk
to me like I’m a child. I took care of your daddy night and day. All he did
was sit around scribblin’ page after page. About drove me crazy. Think I
didn’t have a right to know?”
For a moment, she sat
silent, a distant look in her eyes. Then, after a deep draw from her
cigarette, she exhaled and spoke through the smoke. “So, when are you
gonna destroy it?”
“I don’t know. Won’t be
easy. It’ll be like cremating a part of Dad that I never knew.”
Mother smashed her
cigarette in the ashtray, stood, and said, “If you wallow in the past, it’ll
haunt you.”
Months passed and when
the sleepless nights came, I began to think my mother might be right. I
understood why my father told me to burn his story. What I couldn’t
understand was why I hadn’t?
When Lorie gave me a son
of my own, Daniel Lee, she somehow thought I would suddenly get over my
father; kind of like a boy getting a new puppy to replace the old dog that
died.
On the first anniversary
of Father’s death, the entire family visited his grave. That night, though
worn out, I still couldn’t sleep. My mind kept going back to Father on his
deathbed, how he tried to speak. I got up, stepped around the bed and peeked
in on my boy, resting peacefully in a bassinet an arm’s length from his
mother. He moved only in his breathing. Standing in the glow of a
nightlight, I whispered, “Look at those itty bitty fingernails on those itty
bitty fingers.”
Lori rolled over and
spoke quietly, “What’s wrong Honey?”
“Nothing. Just checking
on my son.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Go back to
sleep.”
After slipping on a
sweatshirt, I quietly left the bedroom, carrying my lingering thoughts to
the kitchen. Moonlight fell through the skylight as I removed a shot glass
and a bottle of seven-year-old Jim Beam from the cabinet over the range. I
uncapped the bottle, poured a shot, and then held it up.
“This one’s for you,
Dad,” I whispered before downing the drink.
I poured another. “This
one’s mine.”
The whiskey’s warmth ran
through me as I longed for the lost opportunity to share a drink, not with
the kind and gentle person who raised me, but with the stranger he wrote
about. Clouds dimmed the skylight. I felt tired, alone, resentful. Growing
up, other kids bragged on how tough their fathers were. Mine had been mild
mannered, rarely raised his voice and never lost his temper. When
confrontation came along, he walked the other way. I once witnessed a madman
spit on my father. Enraged over God knows what, the man wanted to fight.
Father told him, “I know what it’s like to be in your shoes; to wanna go off
on someone. But I also know what it’s like to live with the results.” When I
asked him later what he meant by that statement, he said, “I’ll tell you
when you’re old enough to understand.” Kids in the neighborhood said my ol’
man was a yellow-bellied chicken. Why couldn’t I have known then what I know
now?
Relaxed by the bourbon, I
headed back to the bedroom. Still facing the other direction, Lori said,
“Why do you keep getting up?”
“Can’t sleep. Thinking
about Dad.”
“Honey, I know you miss
him, but you can’t keep drinking yourself to sleep every night.”
“No shit.” Feeling
guilty, I bent over, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll
figure it out.”
“Hope so,” she whispered.
“It’s making you mean.”
It’s making you
mean...it’s...
Lori’s ugly words kept repeating as I escaped back to the kitchen. My hands
were shaking, and my stomach was in a knot. Opening the pantry door, I
turned on a light and used a step stool to reach the plywood lid to the
attic entrance. Cold air fell over me while pulling myself up into the
darkness. Within seconds my eyes adjusted to light bleeding in. Short roof
clearance forced me to squat while stepping across narrow edges of ceiling
joists. It didn’t take long to reach the spot marked by air ducts. Painfully
balanced on my knees, I dug through insulation to remove the box I’d hidden
there. As I pulled on it, a neighbor’s dog began to howl. Chills ran through
me. I took a deep breath and scurried back toward the pantry.
I searched through a
junk-drawer for the long-shaft butane lighter we use for candles. “This’ll
do the trick,” I mumbled, while pulling my shoes on and then quietly
slipping out the back door with the box in hand. Breathing became visible in
the night air as I placed my burden on a picnic table next to the cast-iron
fireplace normally used for yard waste. After removing the top tablet, I
held it close and could almost feel Father. I had to force myself to strike
the lighter. Distant howling continued. By light of the small flame, I could
see words:
It all made perfect sense when…
Cold wind
picked up, blowing out the flame. I shivered while attempting to strike it
again, flick after flick with no luck. Drops of rain fell. Ink ran and I
panicked trying to rub the moisture away. Looking up I realized it wasn’t
raining. The drops were my own. That same sick emptiness I’d felt the day we
buried Father on a hill in Grayson County overwhelmed me.
“Why can’t I do this?
What am I missing? Are you trying to tell me something?” The dog quit
howling, the wind ceased, and I felt warm.
Returning to the house, I
started coffee before taking Father’s writing to the living room. I had
missed something, and he wasn’t going to let me sleep until I found it.
