High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel (23 page)

He stood, took the knife in his hand, and cut.

“What’s in the box?”

He smiled like, Wouldn’t you like to know, and handed me a buttered slice.

“You’re not eating?” I said.

“Hours before my time.” Knife still in hand, he walked to the box, bare feet hardly lifting from the floor.

“The old man keeps me in suspense. So when do you eat, exactly?”

“Ha!” He cut the tape and pulled back the flap. Styrofoam popcorn popped from the box. “I’m running low,” he said, and pulled from inside a ridiculously large pack of Post-it Notes. More popcorn packing fell across the table like champagne from a glass. “There’s more,” he said eagerly. He pulled out a pack of two toothbrushes. “I’m glad you’re here, Junior.” A three-pack of toothpaste, and a carton of dry cat food.

“Me, too.”

“Good.”

The coffee was burning its way into my belly, a slight spike in my bloodstream. I went all different directions inside. The coffeepot was empty.

“I need more.”

He pointed to a green Thermos by the sink.

“Good thing I don’t take milk.”

“Milk’s for babies.”

I pulled at the loaf of bread. Balled up a piece and put it in my mouth.

“Eat all you want,” he said.

He pulled two large loaves of bread from the box. He placed them on the counter, felt around inside the box, and pushed it aside. He pulled a chair from under the table, and there a second box lay, long and flat. He cut the clear tape seam and took from the box something wrapped in bubble wrap. Foam kernels on its surface; he wiped them away to the floor. He placed the object on the table and began to undo the bubbling, cutting it away with his knife. He took from the bubble wrap a thing, I don’t know what, and held it up for me to see.

“See?”

It looked like a shield. “Is it a shield?”

“It is.” He walked to the other end of the kitchen, by the back door, and held it to the wall. A small, decorative shield, an ornamental thing, not very elaborate. It couldn’t haven been very heavy. The day before, he’d struggled with the fridge.

“What’s it for?”

He ignored me and began feeling along the wall, all around the wooden cross, the plate painted with a Star of David. “Looking for a nail,” he said.

I put down the mug and started over, but he stopped me with his palm. “Drink your coffee. Leave me be. I’m fine.” He found one, pulled at the nail, and hung the shield from it. “Not the right kind, but she’ll do.”

I sipped my coffee. “The royal family crest?”

He wiped the surface clean.

He turned around and came closer, he was slow, but then he was standing right in front of me. Staring into my eyes. His face was so old. Too old-looking for his age.

“Do you believe in anything at all anymore?”

I rubbed my eyes, my temples.

He said, “Part of what makes people stop is because they think He’s invisible. Think we don’t know what He looks like. He’s not invisible.”

“It’s a bit early for me.…”

“Right there in black and white, and the world looks everywhere but smack in front of their faces!” He placed his hand on the left side of his chest. “It’s in our hearts! Telescopes looking over Mars and the moon. Microscopes looking in our blood…” He walked back to the table, across from me, and smiled like a man with a secret.

I said, “You know the heart is actually dead center in the middle of the chest.” I pressed my finger there. “And not to the left.”

“I know damn well where the heart is.”

A shower or a cold bath would be perfect.

“Because this is where it feels.” He prompted me to touch my own chest. “See?” He came closer again. “It feels like your heart’s right here.” He put his hand on my chest.

“Okay.”

“Now hold on to your coffee mug, because what I’m gonna say next.”

I couldn’t help but love him talking like this. This was Dad, this I recognized. Maybe he was feeling better?

“The Psalmist sayeth, Junior, and I say it thus. Psalm 84:11.” He turned and looked to the wall. “‘For your Lord God is a shield.’” He looked back at me. “In black and white.”

There wasn’t much sun coming through the windows, but enough, and it made my eyes pulse. I stepped back into the dark hall. “I’m listening. God is a shield. But I think actually the scripture says he’s a sun
and
a shield.”

He shuffled into the dining room, looking like he might fall over at any moment. “The Hebrews used leather,” he said, “and animal fat for shields. Painted red with blood.” He paused. “Who wants something like that in the kitchen?” He threw up his hands, like, What are you gonna do.

I coughed into my hand. The tip of my thumb itched. There was a small puncture, and it was sore. I shook my head.

He looked at the only bare wall in the dining room; no pictures, no shelves. It seemed naked. “Some were bronze, a circle. But this is no circle. You saw.” He sat down.

I needed more butter. “How are you feeling? You sleep okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I was thinking last night.”

“Good, sit.” He tapped the chair beside him. “Look at you. I almost forgot what you look like. How’s business? How many stores?”

I sat. “The stores are fine. Listen. I think we should see a doctor. Just to talk.”

It wasn’t quite a look of condescension, but his face definitely said, You don’t know what you’re talking about.

He said, “I saw your mother last night. And let’s just say she disagrees.”

“Ah! You dreamt of her, you mean.”

“Of course.” He looked at me sideways. “Sometimes I find her in the day.” He stood. “I try to keep moving, keep the blood flowing.…” He padded into the dining room, and I wondered from where he got his loincloth, what websites he happened onto looking for a “modern loincloth.”

“Dad.”

“Yup.”

“I need you to tell me.” I followed him to the couch.

“What?”

“Tell me you’re eating. I need you to tell me you’re eating.”

“Not hungry. Empty, fit as a fiddle.”

“I mean are you eating at all.”

He sat, pulled the lamp chain. “It’s complicated.”

“Talk.”

He showed me his hand. “Stay there. I’m fine, and you’re there.”

“Talk.”

He peered over the computer screen. “I promise I’m happy you’re here.”

“And I’m happy you’re happy.”

“We’re okay, you and I.”

“We are.”

He hid behind the screen. “I take bread and wine on Sundays.”

He showed me his hand again. “There are rules. And fasting is one of the rules.”

Things were clearly not better. He was not better. And I saw how silly I’d been thinking that we’d wake up and everything would be fine. A soft lip of light lined the edge of the curtains. He said, “Sometimes I find your mother in the day. I go to sleep and I find her.”

Ten o’clock in the morning, I was going through my things. Clearing some personal space for me around the sofa, trying not to get overly worried. What exactly should I do next about Dad? I decided on a shower. I would think in there. Plus Dad was in the bathroom again, the red light flaring from under the door. He said he’d been up since five.

I went to the second floor, and took each step up slowly.

Upstairs, the dark hallway was free of clutter and the four doors were closed and the long thick carpet runner lay on the slatted floor like a dead paisley tongue. No windows. The hall was dark and damp, and it smelled of soft wet wood, of mold, but there was also a welcome comfort in the stink.

The first door on the left led to the upstairs bathroom.

There was a shallow pool of browning water in the tub and a floating, speckled mass of bug. Dead flecks of fly and mosquito and gnat made a dark freckling shadow on the surface. A gauzy light came in through the clouded glass. No shower curtain or door, and a mass of moist towels lay on the floor. I opened the window, pulled away the drain stopper, and the water gurgled in a spinning fall. I turned on the light.

In the linen closet, I found sheets and pillowcases, washcloths and bath towels squarely folded and placed in flush columns on the wallpapered shelves. I was afraid to look at the toilet, but it was actually in pretty good shape. I turned on the shower and twisted the spray nozzle toward the wall so I wouldn’t make too much of a mess. I gathered all the towels into one damp sop, stuffed them into a yellow pillowcase. The shower ran rivery lines along the grout between the tiles, and washed away what bug waste it could. The shower still running, I stepped back into the hall.

The second door was mine, or used to be mine, and this seemed way too easy, entering the room that used to be my room. I opened the door and saw light sluicing in ribbons through the louvered blinds and painting the wall with pale stripes. I saw the bedspread neatly tucked under the mattress, and I was sure this had to be my handiwork from twenty years prior. Impossible. I saw the empty closet. Clear tape in ripped fragments stuck to the walls and to the ghosts of
Star Wars
posters. Water bugs lay flat on their backs at the foot of a bed leg. A sticky mix of dust and oils skimmed the carpet like a hairpiece. I went back into the hall.

The next room was a large walk-in closet. And I often imagined, as a kid, that a demon lived among the board games on the highest shelf, and it could fit a small child in its mouth. This probably came from secretly watching
Poltergeist,
a definite no-no in the Laudermilk home, and from the subsequent nightmares of sinister closets opening up like demonic maws. I remembered telling my mother about the closet and she scolded me, said that was what I got for watching devil movies. She left me in the closet until I cried out for her. Then she came in, and we stood there in the dark holding hands. She said anytime you’re scared call on me, or your Heavenly Father, and nothing bad can happen.

My parents’ room was next, and I half expected to find my mother in pajamas stretched out on the comforter. The door was sticking. The trick was to lift slightly, turn the knob, and push.

The room was dark, and a hot smother of air came pouring out. The bed was made, and a thin webbing of dust crawled the walls like ivy. The curtains were drawn. I saw the closet was full of clothing, mostly my mother’s. There were also garbage bags on the floor, stuffed with what appeared to be her things. I bent down and found a yellow jacket. I put the jacket on a hanger, and hung it from the back of the door. I tried to imagine my mother, her arms filling the sleeves, her head. I took the jacket from the hanger, smelled it, and my stomach reeled. Stale and oppressive, it stank of age, of years and days and minutes of sloughing skin.

I flipped the light switch.

The quilted surface was scattered with short stacks of papers and more spiral notebooks. Barely noticeable at first, but they were in a sort of order, separate and organized. A pile of handwritten pages, scrawlings, and drawings. There were dated pages, like journal entries, and I recognized the uncanny logic and language of dreams. These were my father’s dreams. He was writing out his nightly visions. Flying, teeth falling out, being swept from a hilltop by God’s great palm, and taking heavenly tours. There were birth certificates and death certificates. Photo albums, and a pile of loose photos. I quickly flipped through the pictures. They were mostly old, ancient even, brown-and-whites, black-and-whites. There was the family photo album, but also albums I’d never seen before, pictures of people I didn’t recognize. I saw one of two men standing in front of a Spanish-style house, I figured southern California. They stood beside a long and beautiful car, like a Rolls-Royce, their feet on the running board. They hooked their thumbs back, making like two lucky hitchhikers. On the back was a handwritten note, “C. Russell and O. Laudermilk, Beth Sarim, San Diego, 1930.” The wooden cross in the kitchen. Beth Sarim. It seemed O. Laudermilk was the man at right in the photo, a youngish man about my age, his features partly blocked by the slanted brim of a dapper hat. Was this my grandfather? I’d never seen the photo before in my life.

I took the family album and the strange Laudermilk photo into the hall and set them on the floor by the bathroom door. I washed the wall and the tub. Stepping into the shower, I put my face in the cold rush of water. The spray and the water needling on my skin, I thought of rain, how different and dirty a falling rain on my body would feel. A barbed gray headache was starting.

Amad answered in just two rings.

“A big hello, my Josie! You did not call me yesterday. You forgot. What happened?”

“I miss you,” I said. “Believe it or not.”

“Where are you? You are in New York?”

“I’m standing here completely naked in my father’s bathroom, right out of the shower.”

Amad bit into what sounded like an apple. “The open-air lingam.”

“You’re eating an apple.”

“I am.”

“What’s an open-air what?”

“You right now are an open-air lingam.”

“My skinny business in the open air.”

“Exactly. Like a stalagmite.” Another bite. “Or stalactite, depending on your good mood, or bad mood. How long will you be staying?”

“Very nice,” I said.

“So short-tempered.”

“What’s the weather like out there?” I poked through the linen closet and picked a clean white towel.

“Perfect. Like every day in California. My least favorite thing about this place, no bad days.”

“How’s business?” I said.

“What business?”

“Very funny.”

“Very bad.”

“I’ll be back soon, and we’ll have that dinner. I promise.”

“My wife is not so impatient, but she wants to know what are we doing now. And I’m not sure what to tell her.”

“Tell her the storeroom is glorious.”

“How is your father?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? He says he’s fine, and he’s clearly not. I’m not sure of my role here. The man looks like he’s been hiding away in the hills.”

“It can be very nice in the hills.”

“Not what I mean.” I wiped at the mirror, clearing away the steam. “He says he’s fine.”