Nathan

I'm not a difficult man. Outspoken, as my wife puts it, yes, but certainly not difficult, at least most of the time.

See, there are a few things that get under my skin. Brush past me in the store and don’t say excuse me, that’s one. Cuss in public, that’s another. Lie to me, though, especially after I’ve caught ya, oh Lord, don’t get me started! If I would have done that growing up, my daddy would have whooped me something silly. In fact, he did, but only once. I lied to him all right. Big stinkin’ lie, too, the size of Texas. The funny thing is, I can’t recall exactly what I said, only that my daddy’s hand--“the shovel” as me and my brothers called it--boy did it knock the daylights out of me. Right there in front of my sisters, too, which was embarrassing as hell, ‘cause I was the oldest of seven, and as the oldest, well, you just don’t do that. You’ve got to be the responsible one, the caretaker, the example of the family.

Growing up in Wichita Falls on a farm my great granddaddy bought way back when meant serious business too: up early before daybreak; breakfast, mucking the stables (I still remember the dung and hay smelling up my shoes), and then school, followed by chores, homework, and if I was lucky, a little horsing around before suppertime with my brothers, and then off to bed.

These kids today, they have no values. It’s all about having a good time and spending their evenings watching reality shows and getting ideas in their heads. It’s a damned shame. My daddy would turn in his grave if he knew.

So when my wife, Joyce, won free tickets to see that silly daytime show, Mindbender, I should have said no right then. The last thing we needed was something else to mess with our heads.

“You can’t be serious,” I told her. “You want to see that quack?”

“Don’t be a grouch, Nathan. They’re flying us to Los Angeles. That’s California! I’ve never been. And they’re putting us up in a nice hotel. You never take me anywhere.”

I rolled my eyes. “Here we go again.”

“And he’s not a quack,” Joyce said. “Nigel Preston has a gift. Didn’t you read that article in the Record? They’re calling him the next Nostradamus.”

“A bunch of trickery is more like it. Predictions and flamboyance, my ass!”

“Clairvoyance, Nathan.”

“I don’t care what you call it, it’s a load of nonsense. So, how about we call a spade a spade and say he’s a phony and put this issue to rest once and for all?”

“But it’s my birthday, Nathan!”

We went back and forth another five or so minutes, and all I could think was, “Dang it, woman, I haven’t even had my coffee yet and you’re jabbering like you drank the whole pot.” Goodness, that woman could talk.

“Fine, we’ll go,” I said, and that was the end of it.

Afterward, I realized, it might not be such a bad idea: leave town and get away from the blasted radio and their constant talk about tornadoes and the thirty-year anniversary of the “big one,” especially after what we went through.

Terrible Tuesday, they called it. April 10^th, 1979. Everytime the sky turns black and the air gets humid and the thunder rumbles and lightning flickers up in the sky, I think about that day, and I ain’t happy. I’m not one for shedding tears, but boy do I choke up sometimes remembering.

You know that expression, “sounds like a freight train”? They ain’t kiddin’. The whole house shakes. It rattles and you know it’s coming. It roars like a beast, the kind of roar you imagine the devil would make if he were angry.

Thinking about that day just squeezes my heart like a rusty old vice. How many times have I gone over the same scene and wondered about the things I would have done different? At least a hundred. I should have known it would get ugly too, ‘cause that monster tore through the towns of Vernon and Harold earlier that day, and there were all kinds of warnings on the radio. What came as a surprise, and it did to them meteor guys on the news too, is that the storm moved east on a dime. Three funnels coming together into one. I told my son minutes before to secure the horses and come right back to the house. But he was in one of them arguing moods. Sixteen-years-old and full of hormones and that new-style rebellious thinking.

“Don’t get smart with me, boy” I said. “Just get on with it.”

“But I can’t get a hold of Stacy,” he said. “She’s not home, and I’m worried something might have happened.”

“That girl’s none of my concern--you are. Now I’ve got the barn, you’ve got the stables, and we’re wasting time with this nonsense.”

“She’s my girlfriend, Dad! Who cares about the stupid horses anyway?”

If I had been my father, I would have given him the shovel for talking like that. Instead, I grabbed his arm and yanked him through the front door into the wind, Joyce yelling from behind, saying I was being unreasonable. Unreasonable! Well, Craig did as I told him: marched like an angry soldier to the stables. When I was sure he wasn’t going to ditch, I made for the barn. I finished up and that’s when I saw it: wide and black and nasty against the dark-green sky, and getting bigger.

I ran back to the house as fast as I could.

“In the cellar!” I yelled.

Joyce came to the door, her hand clutching her sweater the way she always did when she was nervous. “Where’s Craig?”

“He’s not back?”

She shook her head.

The roar got louder that instant, the wind so mean it blew me sideways. “Go downstairs! I’ll get him.”

Joyce got in the cellar and I tried to work my way toward the stables. I think I made it five steps before I got knocked down, as if the Lord Himself swatted me. Grass, leaves, branches--everything whipped by, scraping me up something good as I clung to the ground for dear life.

I had to crawl back and turn my face away from the wind to keep the air from being sucked out of my lungs. And the wind was no longer wind. It was solid, if that makes any sense. I made it over the edge of the cellar steps, banged up pretty bad, with a dislocated shoulder, I later found out (which ain’t nothing compared to those who lost limbs, the poor bastards).

Joyce was huddled in the corner at the bottom of the stairs, shaking and shivering, little more than a shadow, but looking at me with the most god-awful damning stare you’d ever seen. My son was out there, and here I was stuck, unable to do anything, with my wife giving me a look that said, “You get back there right now!” As the Lord is my witness, I would have. Not a hundred feet to the side, the barn ripped apart: shingles, siding, then the timbers. Gone like that. And the tractor went flying next, bouncing and breaking into pieces and then disappearing into the black. I had to close my eyes. Close ‘em and pray to God we’d all survive…and ask to be forgiven for not going after my boy.

And then it passed. The freight train moved on.

What comes next is one of them twilight moments, the kind where you’re not sure what’s up or down, real or not. You have to force yourself to get it together.

When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing that wasn’t flat or mowed down by the storm. No trees, no buildings, nothing but debris and empty places where the barn had been, and--Almighty Father, give me the strength to say it--the stables too.

My wife and I ran out as soon as the wind let up, looking everywhere, searching, shouting Craig’s name at the top of our lungs. Looking and looking for that boy until dark came, and then some more until the lamp ran out of fuel and the batteries on our flashlight went dead. And in the dark, she beat me in the chest and kept saying, “It’s all your fault!”

What could a husband say to that? Not a thing that could have made a difference. Not now either, I reckon.

Forty-something people died from the storm, but Craig was listed as missing. Never found the body, they said, so they couldn’t make it official. Joyce didn’t want a funeral service. And she sure as hell didn’t want to talk to me--not after I forced her baby to “walk into the mouth of hell.”

Pastor Franks was the only one who saw it different.

“Nathan, I know this is difficult,” he said, “but you have to stop blaming yourself. You can’t change what happened. Just know that you were a compassionate, caring father who loved his son with all his heart. God will remember that.”

What I couldn’t tell the pastor--and it was better that way--was that I didn’t believe a word he said, only that it comforted me some. And I guess that’s the best anyone can do, right?

* * *

Almost thirty years to the day after Terrible Tuesday, Joyce and I flew to Los Angeles as agreed. We ended up at NBC Studios in a town called Burbank, waiting in line for that ridiculous Mindbender show. Everyone around us was excited, yapping like they were about to meet the pope. I held Joyce’s hand. Held it tight.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Jet lag, that’s all,” she said. “I’ll be fine once we get to sittin’.”

She then spoke about the new article she had written for the local paper, but I knew she wasn’t holding up well. I think it was because of the children in front of us. Joyce kept staring at the teenager, a boy about the same build as Craig.

“We’ll be inside soon,” I said. “Now tell me some more about that article.”

We sat front and center in the studio audience. Nigel Preston got a long, standing ovation when he came out. He was well dressed, and damn if his teeth weren’t as white as the lies my Uncle George used to tell. Once everyone finished clapping, he got to it with his British accent.

“Folks, my friend, Daniel, made me a wager the other night,” he told us. “I said, ‘Daniel, there are two things I don’t do: I don’t smoke and I don’t drink.’ ‘What about gambling?’ Daniel asked. ‘Well, of course I gamble. How else would I get the free drinks at the casino?’”

The audience must have found that one funny, because it sounded like a bunch of chimpanzees hootin’ around me. I just sat back and folded my arms and thought about that steak dinner promised to us by the show manager.

“Smile,” my wife whispered into my ear.

“I’m smiling,” I said. “See?”

Preston went on about his wager with Daniel. He said Daniel bet him that he couldn’t predict the weather. Preston said he could. In fact there would be eighteen hurricanes this season. (He would have done better to have said a bunch, but I guess one can’t win a bet based on a bunch.) If Preston was wrong, he said he’d throw in a hundred bucks and a case of Daniel’s favorite whiskey. That’s about the only thing that made any sense to me.

“Is it time to go?” I asked my wife. I was good n’ ready.

“Hush, Nathan. He’s about to get to the good part.”

By good part she meant talk-to-the-dead time. My aunt Peggy used to claim the same thing: “I can speak to those from beyond the grave.” Bull crap! She was a drunk and a cigarette fiend, with the yellowiest fingers and reddest face you ever saw. The only dead people she ever talked to were the faces on the dollar bills those old, superstitious ladies from her church use to give her every week.

“Who would like to talk to a loved one?” Preston asked the audience.

He picked a woman near the very back. Her cocker spaniel, Lucy, died the year before from cancer. The woman wanted to know if Lucy was okay up in doggie heaven, or wherever pet spirits went. I was ready to shout at the woman, “Go see a priest! He’ll tell ya.” But Joyce knew that look in my eye, so I kept quiet and crossed my arms. The good news, Preston told the woman, was that Lucy was no longer in pain. She was in a better place. Goodness! The audience clapped, of course. I shook my head.

“Who else?” Preston asked. “Who else would like to contact a loved one?”

I expected some other kook to raise her hand. But when I saw my wife do it, I thought she’d gone mad. “What are you doing?” I asked. It was too late. Preston picked her, and there we were, two pickles in a jar.

“What’s your name, love?” Preston asked.

“Joyce Marshall.”

“And this handsome gentleman next to you?”

“My husband, Nathan.”

“You’re a lucky man, Nathan,” he said. “Where are you both from?”

She told him.

“So, who would you like to contact today, Joyce?”

I knew she was going to say it before she did: “My son, Craig.”

Joyce looked at me and nodded. I did my best to smile, my way of saying it was okay, even though it wasn’t.

“He passed on, did he?” Preston asked.

“Thirty years ago this month,” she said. “Got taken by a twister. The Lord just up and took him--right up to heaven. We never got to say goodbye, though. He was only sixteen, and he had such a good heart.”

“I’m sure he did, Joyce. You’re very brave for sharing with us. Let’s see if we can find him.”

Joyce looked at me and I just nodded to get it over with.

Preston closed his eyes and put his hands over them. “I see him, Joyce,” he said. “Your son is a handsome man. He’s grown up now, but he still has your dimples.”

A few people around me chuckled. Joyce was almost in tears, eating up everything Preston was saying. Charlatan, I thought--someone who got prompts from a producer; then, when he tilted his head back, snuck glances through his fingers so he could see a hidden TV up in the ceiling telling him what to say. I bet there was a whole load of people behind the scenes who had dug up our pasts ahead of time. Damn shame, too, taking advantage of us like this. But I didn’t want to ruin it for my wife, so I kept my mouth shut.

Preston opened his eyes. “Wait!”

Joyce’s mouth froze, open wide like a bass. Everyone around us was quiet too.

Preston came close and kneeled. I could see the makeup on his face. He reached over and took my wife’s hand and the camera man got up close. Then Preston said, “I have some wonderful news, Joyce: your son is still alive.”

I don’t know whether my wife passed out first or I clocked the son-of-a-bitch. I may be old, but I’ve got some fight left in me. How dare that man say something like that to my wife!

Security was civil enough not to drag me out, but there was a lot of booing and name calling, and a big hoopla when the paramedics got to Joyce, like I was the one who made her faint.

They canceled the episode. Then they had the gall to plaster my face on the news and call me--what was that word?--jaded, I think. The show’s lawyers had a string of charges lined up too.

Joyce begged me to send an apology. She said the show would drop the charges if I did that, especially if I agreed to sign some kind of legal paper.

“Are you out of your mind, woman?” I said. “They don’t care about an apology. They want their ratings. It all about censorizing.”

“Sensationalizing.”

“Whatever!”

“Now you listen to me, Nathan Marshall. That man did nothing to you. If anything, he was kind and genuine. All he did was try to tell us the truth: that our son’s missing, that’s all. Maybe he’s right. Maybe our boy’s alive.”

“Bull crap!” I was real close to picking up the salt shaker and throwing it across the room. Part of me, though, wanted to believe the man. It was either that or toss him in the river.

Wouldn’t you know it: I wrote the letter; apologized and everything.

I guess that quack had a soft spot after all. The show sent a letter saying the charges were dropped. It came with a handwritten note:

“Dear Nathaniel: I wish all is well with you and your lovely wife. Please convey to her my condolences and deepest sympathy for her loss, and yours. I know what you did in the studio came from the heart. But understand this: I intended no harm, just a little hope. Kindest regards, Nigel.”

Hope! I crumpled the note into a tight ball and tossed it right into the trash. How dare he preach about hope?

I told Joyce nothing about the message, but I did make her promise me never to watch that show again. I put the whole affair out of my mind. Did so for months. But, wouldn’t you know it, the darned thing came out from under the porch just before Christmas.

I’ll say this about the holiday, and move on: Christmas ain’t what it used to be. You live sixty some-odd years, and it becomes plain, like brisket without the fixins’. Sure, my nieces and nephews and their children come together, those that live here, and Joyce and I visit and buy the little ones gifts (nothing fancy or too expensive, mind you), and I catch up with my brothers and sisters, those still kicking.

But like every year, it’s awfully quiet in our house. We’ve still got the farm, although the community around us has changed, crowding us with those infernal track homes. I don’t care how much them builders offer me, I’m not giving them the last piece of God’s green earth to turn into some kind of shopping mall or whatever.

Like I said, it gets quiet at home. At times like these, in the evenings, I’d sit in my armchair and read a book, or do crossword puzzles or go through the paper while Joyce knitted or watched TV. Tonight, she decided to catch up on local happenings. She had the news running in the background. Normally, I’d pay no attention. Then the weather guy went on to talk about the freak hurricane from a couple days ago down in the Gulf and how much damage it caused. I put down my paper.

“How many hurricanes did he say we had this year?” I asked Joyce.

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen, huh?”

“Why?”

“No particular reason. Just curious.”

I started thinking about that fraud, Preston, and whether he’d have to pay old Daniel for getting the number of hurricanes wrong. A deal was a deal. In my younger days, I’d shake on it, and my word was my bond, so there would be no backing out or “Come on, Daniel, seventeen’s close enough, why don’t we call it even?” No sir! That’s a hundred dollars, Mr. England, and a case of whiskey.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Joyce said. “There’s another storm down in the Caribbean. Didn’t we tell Katie not to move to Florida? That poor girl.”

“Another storm, did you say?” I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Joyce asked. “You thinking about Katie?”

“Just tired,” I said.

“How about a touch of bourbon before Andy gets here?”

I thought about it. Then I said, “Make it a good touch.”

Joyce headed to the kitchen. Her brother said he’d stop by to drop off the tools I lent him, so a drink sounded mighty fine right about now. Maybe it’d clear up my head.

The whole weather story got me thinking about my son, and then Preston at the show, and what he said in his letter. It even got me wondering if it was possible that something else happened to Craig, like he got lifted up by that twister to another county and hit his head and ended up with amnesia, or that he ran away with that girlfriend of his because he was in love with her and on the outs with me.

Across the room was a picture of my son on the bureau, stuck in that old square silver frame my mother gave us as a wedding gift, tarnished now. Joyce took our wedding photo out a long time ago and stuck in this one. It showed Craig, ten at the time, sitting on top of Old Gray, our mustang, me holding the reins on one side and my wife standing on the other. I gave Old Gray to Craig that day for his birthday. My boy was proud and ready to ride and “kick up the dust” as my daddy used to say. “Someday you’ll gallop so fast, the wind won’t be able to catch you,” I told him. Maybe it didn’t.

The funny thing is, years pass and you end up with the same furniture, the same photographs, and sometimes you take it for granted. But nothing should be taken for granted. It’s all important.

I looked at that picture as I sat there waiting for my bourbon, and it made me wonder. It got me imagining a house full of children, Craig the oldest, lots of brothers and sisters for him to play with, to teach, to show how to ride horses. I always believed we’d have a big family, like my daddy’s, maybe bigger. But the Lord wouldn’t have it, I guess. No matter of trying and timing and eating right made a difference. We’d have our one child, and when he was gone, we’d have ourselves. And that made things a little sadder around here.

Maybe Preston had it figured out. Maybe it was better to have something to hope for, even if there was a one-in-a-million chance it was real. Sometimes hope is all we got.

Joyce handed me my drink, but I wasn’t in the mood anymore. Instead, I felt like getting out of my chair. I sat down on the couch next to her and held her hand while we watched TV. It felt right: warm and steady. Her skin had lotion or something, the smell reminding me of the gardenias she always fussed over in the garden.

So we sat there, nice and quiet like the old days when we were dating, holding hands. When the next commercial came on, Joyce turned to me. “Is everything all right, Nathan?”

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Can’t I enjoy a good sit with my gal?”

“Am I still your gal?”

“You better be. I ain’t fixin’ on finding anyone else.”

She smiled and rubbed my arm and then put her shoulder against mine. It smarted a little (never did heal completely), but I didn’t care. I was gonna take the pain and sit there with my woman, even if it hurt a bunch.

A few minutes later the doorbell rang.

“Andy’s here,” Joyce said.

“I’ll take him over to the shed and bring him in for a drink after. We have any pie left?”

“A couple pieces. Want me to put on some coffee?”

“Make extra. You know how he gets once he starts talking.”

I got off the couch, arthritis acting up in my hip, so I was a little slow. The doorbell rang again.

“I’m coming!” I hollered.

I opened the door expecting Andy. Instead, there was this young man standing in front of me. He was shivering, wearing little more than a jacket with a hood and a backpack over his shoulder. He definitely wasn’t from the neighborhood, but he had one of those faces that made me wonder if I’d seen him at the supermarket or the post office or maybe that Wal-Mart down the road.

“Hey there, young man,” I say. “What can I do for ya?”

He smiled like I’d asked him the sixty-four-thousand dollar question. Then I saw it: dimples. Dimples! I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel faint. I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t as excited as a stallion ready for a race across the Texas plains. This boy, standing here in front of me in the cold, he wasn’t some stranger, some drifter looking for a Christmas handout or a place to sleep. This was a man of my blood; this was family.

“I know you!”

“That’s funny,” he said. He then took off the backpack and held it out. “I think this is yours, Uncle Nathan.”

THE END

©2009 Steve Pantazis. All rights reserved.