The Other Man From My Past
I rubbed my face with both of my hands. I wished I could close the door and go back to bed. Between the pain of my hangover, the knots in my stomach, my fight with Walt, and all the other shit that was going on, I didn’t feel like I had the stamina to deal with my brother. I obviously didn’t have a choice. Much like the long day ahead of me, Georgie was there, and he wasn’t going away. I might have to endure him, but I didn’t have to suffer being referred to by my entire first name. I corrected Georgie.
“I go by Law. Call me that please.” I asked and uncovered my face.
“It’s me, Little Georgie.” Georgie said unnecessarily.
He was dressed as Walt had seen him before, in a full-length overcoat buttoned up to his chin. Georgie’s bundled-up appearance made me notice the weather. The morning was cool but not as damp as it had been for the last few days. I didn’t think the temperature was low enough to warrant a coat, but I recognized that not everyone would feel the same way.
I also noticed something which Walt wouldn’t have known. Georgie was the spitting image of my father. His face was the same. His coloring was the same. He even wore his hair the same way, parted on the left and brushed just so. My guts lurched at the thought of my father. I pressed my right hand against my belly and held it there.
Georgie spoke again when I didn’t. “Lawrence?” He said.
Georgie’s use of my full name brought me out of my thoughts and into the present. I looked around and realized I hadn’t moved off the threshold and the door to my apartment was still open behind me. I stepped onto the sidewalk and pulled the door shut. “My husband is trying to sleep.” I said to explain my actions.
“Husband?” Georgie asked. “Is that what you call each other?”
I didn’t bother to explain anything to my brother. I tried to find out what he was doing at my door. “What do you want, Georgie?” I asked.
My brother took offense over my question. “What makes you think I want something?” He demanded.
I stared at my brother to see if his question was sincere or not. I thought it must be some kind of terrible joke. I tried to understand why he would tease me but found I didn’t have the capacity. My head ached, my stomach was a mess, and I hadn’t had any tobacco yet. I was in no shape for word games. I tried to cut through any potential bullshit with some direct talk.
“We haven’t seen each other in thirty-five years. Even though we’ve both lived in the same city for all that time, you never tried to find me, and I never tried to find you. Now, here you are on my doorstep for at least the second time. You obviously want something. What is it?”
Georgie scowled at me. He had a good scowl, a scowl like my father had. Georgie’s scowl made me feel like I had when I was eight years old, and I knocked over my father’s snuff box while I was playing with a paper airplane in the house. Georgie spoke to me through his scowl. He demanded information. “Why did you leave?” He asked. “We needed you. We needed you and you left. Why?”
I didn’t know how to answer those questions. My brain refused to understand them. Their premise was so far removed from what actually happened, I could barely grasp what my brother asked. I pleaded for clarity. “What are you talking about?”
Georgie doubled-down on what had started to sound like an accusation. “Everything was fine before you left. We were a family. After you left, everything fell apart. Dad’s business started to fail, and he was sad all the time. He died and mom had to sell the shop. Mom was never the same after you left. She was sad until she died. Everything fell apart after you left.”
I listened to my brother blame me for all the misfortune which had befallen my family after my father disowned me, but I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand what Georgie accused me of. I racked my brain, but I couldn’t make sense of what he said. The way Georgie told it, I’d abandoned my family for my own reasons.
I tried to correct my brother’s misconception. “I didn’t leave. Dad threw me out. I told him I was queer, and he threw me out.”
Georgie shook his head inside the turned-up collar of his overcoat. He refused to believe me. “No. Dad would never. He would never do that. Dad loved you. He missed you so much. He even tried to find you.”
I didn’t know if I could believe that my father had regrets. A part of me wanted to, but the rest of me refused. The wound of my father’s betrayal still existed inside me. The deep gouge in my soul didn’t bleed like it used to, but even scabbed over, the hole was still there. I lifted my shoulders to shrug at my brother. My shoulders ached so I tried to shake my head to add negative force to the indifference of my shrug. The head shake hurt as well.
I gave up on gestures and used my words. “Even if that’s true, I was in France. I joined the army and went to fight in the war. When I came back, I was in the hospital for a long time. Dad died before I got out. I saw his obituary in the paper.”
Georgie took a long step away from me, like he wanted to put some physical distance between his body and my words. “You knew that dad was dead, and you still didn’t come back?” Georgie asked with incredulous anger in his voice. “How could you?”
My brother’s repeated accusations lit the fire of my temper. I lashed out at him. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME? DAD PUT ME OUT! HE TOLD ME I WASN’T HIS SON ANYMORE!” I squelched my shouting in deference to the pain it caused me. I growled the rest of what I wanted to say. “He threw me away like I was a blunt needle. Why should I have gone back after that? What the fuck do you want from me, Georgie? Why did you come here to blame me for shit that happened so long ago? Dad threw me out and I left. What else could I have done?”
Georgie’s mouth worked but no sound came from it. He didn’t seem to know how to react. I didn’t know if he was shocked by my shouting, or by the new information I’d given him, or both. At length he found his voice and tried to respond. “I…I…I…I…I need to get to work.” He blurted and hurried off down Broad Street toward City Hall. I watched him go. I thought about going after him, but I didn’t. There didn’t seem to be a point. I figured if Georgie wanted to talk, he’d come back.
Out of curiosity, I kept my eyes on my brother to see where he went. At the end of the block, he crossed Broad Street toward Hahnemann Hospital on the other side. He walked a few steps back up Broad Street until he reached the corner of the hospital building. Once there, he hurried down a set of steps which disappeared below street level. I assumed, when he reached the bottom, he would enter the vast hospital building. I guessed he worked there. I wondered what he did for a living.
‘Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief,’ I mused as I patted my pockets for a cigarette to soothe my jangled nerves. I didn’t find one, but I did come up with the key to Walt’s Special. I was about to use it when a voice from behind me turned my head. The voice came from David. He hustled along the sidewalk toward me. “I heard someone yell. I thought it sounded like you. Is everything alright?”
I pointed the key across the street toward where Georgie had crossed Broad. “That was my younger brother. He and I had words.”
“Do you not get along?” David asked.
David’s question was a sensible one, but hardly applicable to the situation between me and Georgie. I shrugged it off. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him in thirty-five years.”
* * * *
I used the short order station in the kitchen of Walt’s Special to cook breakfast for David and me. While we ate, I told David about my past. By the time we finished eating, I’d explained all about my tailor father, my banishment, and what I’d learned from my brother that morning.
David stared into his empty plate while I blasphemed the kitchen of Walt’s Special by lighting a cigarette within its hallowed confines. I’d taken a fresh pack and a book of matches from the tobacco case behind the bar. I breathed the first smoke of my day while David formulated a question.
“What does it mean?” David asked. “The stuff your brother said, what does it mean?”
I tried to answer David with my lungs full of smoke, but my effort failed. My lungs, which were burned out from too many cigarettes the night before, rejected the smoke with a coughing fit. I made David wait while I went back to the tobacco case for something different to smoke. I broke open a pack of mentholated cigarettes and tried one of them. The advertisements said they were easier on the lungs than the regular type. My lungs didn’t believe the advertiser’s claims. They coughed the menthol smoke from my chest just like they had the regular smoke.
I gave up on cigarettes and took a handful of cigars instead. I filled the right front pocket of my jacket with as many as it would hold and kept one loose to smoke. I lit it and tasted the strong tobacco. I rolled the smoke over my tongue to savor it. The smoke soothed my craving, and it tasted better than the cigarette had. I clamped the cigar between my teeth as I pushed through the swing door into the kitchen to talk to David.
David asked his question again to remind me of it. I tapped some ash from my cigar into the breakfast plate I’d mopped clean with toast. The grey flakes of burned tobacco stood out stark and ugly against the white plate and golden-brown toast crumbs. I spoke my thoughts to David as they came to me. I expressed them raw and unconsidered. “It means my father didn’t tell the rest of my family the truth of what happened between us. For his own reasons, he made up a story.”
“What reason could he have for doing that?” David asked.
I drew on my cigar and decided it didn’t taste very good after all. I wondered if it was stale or if my conscience bothered me for smoking in Walt’s kitchen. I decided it didn’t matter and stubbed the cigar out in my plate. I set the extinguished cigar on the edge of the counter and slapped my hands together like I needed to dust them off. That’s what I did physically. What I was really doing was stalling because I didn’t have a good answer to David’s question. I had no idea why my father would lie about what he’d done to me. I expressed my confusion to my friend. “I don’t know.”
I took a breath into my tired chest and expanded on my answer. “I never thought much about how the rest of my family dealt with the fact that I wasn’t one of them anymore. After my father did what he did, my life changed fast. The very next morning, I enlisted in the army. I went to France and was gone for a year. I didn’t come back until the war was over, and then I was in the hospital for six months. I had no reason to try to go home after that.
“I thought about going back to rub my father’s nose in my war record, but he died before I got the chance. Once he was gone, I figured that was the end. Georgie acts like I should have gone back because my dad was dead. I didn’t see it his way. Maybe I should have.”
“It’s hard to know what to do.” David said. “I’ve thought about going back. I’ve thought about it a bunch. The train I rode to come here went right through Iowa. The view of the cornfields from the window made me homesick. We stopped for water and coal at the station in Prairie Grove. My father used to deliver his crops to a dealer at the Prairie Grove Freight Terminal. His farm was less than ten miles away. I looked out the window and saw a pretty woman on the platform. I realized she could be related to me. She was young enough to have been my niece. I had no way to know.
“Look at my life. I’m married. I have children. I’m a successful farmer with land in my own name. My folks would be proud to have me as their son. It doesn’t matter, though. I can’t ever go back. What could I tell them about what my father caught me doing with that hired hand all those years ago? What could I tell Abby and the children? How could I ever make them understand? No, it’s impossible.”
I didn’t know what to say in response to David’s story. I couldn’t disagree with him, but something about the fact that my brother kept appearing in the periphery of my life told me that I couldn’t completely agree either.
“It’s strange to think my brother might work right across the street.” I said as the thought struck me. “I wonder how long that’s been. He might have eaten dinner here. He might have eaten food I cooked right here in this restaurant. He probably lives close by. How would I know?” I asked rhetorically. “Sometimes I think God has one hell of a sense of humor.”
I decided the conversation had gone about as far as it could, so I grabbed David’s plate from in front of him and started to clean up. David got up to help me.
I washed and David dried the few dishes we’d dirtied for our breakfast. David asked a question while we worked. “You mentioned God. Do you believe in The Bible?” David asked.
“I think so.” I answered. “Why do you ask.”
“You think so?” David said as a question.
I tried to answer without delving too deeply into my faith or lack thereof. “I’ve seen a lot, David. I’ve done…things. I believe in God. I believe that we will all have to answer for what we’ve done in this life. I don’t know that I believe in The Bible by chapter and verse. Why do you ask?”
David explained the meaning of his question. “When Larry first went missing, I prayed. I prayed so hard to find my son. I went to the church for help and asked them to pray for my son. Everyone did, or at least they said they did. I worried about the things that I’ve done, the lies I told to my wife and my children. I kept thinking about when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and Abraham was going to do it. I remembered The Bible said something about ‘the sins of the father’ being visited on the son, so I asked the priest.
“The priest, Father Bernard, said The Bible wasn’t clear. Ezekiel said that ‘the son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity.’”
“That’s good.” I commented.
David wasn’t finished with his quotes. “But in Exodus, God said, ‘I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children.’”
I washed the last dish and rinsed my hands. “What are you getting at?” I asked David. “Are you trying to blame yourself for Larry’s situation? If that’s where you’re headed, you can stop now. You’re not a fucking character in a story. The Bible is a story. It may have started as the word of God, but it was written by man and passed down in half-a-dozen languages for two thousand years. Don’t point at a book and say, ‘because this says that, then I must be at fault.’
“The sins of the father,” I mocked David irritably, “bah! Look where you are!” I demanded and poked the ball of David’s shoulder with an angry finger. “Look what you’re doing! Do you think either of our fathers would have done what you’re doing? Do you think they would have given a damn? Absolutely not. That’s the real sin. It’s not the sins of the father; it’s the SIN of the FATHERS, the sin of OUR FATHERS!” I shouted.
My head throbbed. With the pain came the realization that I’d been mouthing off. I adjusted my tone and the passion with which I spoke. “Keep your mind in the real world. You’re a real man with a real son who is in real trouble. You didn’t cause your son’s trouble, but you’re doing your best to get him out of it. Stick to what’s real. Stick to what’s right in front of you and deal with that. Leave the philosophy to the philosophers.”
David dried the plate that I’d washed and set it on the stack of clean dishes. He hung the towel to dry and wiped his damp hands on his suit. “You’re right, Law. I’m sorry.”
The way David dried his hands called my attention to the fact that he’d worn the same ancient suit again. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now that I had, I could no longer ignore my old friend’s strange wardrobe choice. “Why are you wearing that suit?” I asked.
David looked down at himself and spread his long-fingered hands over his chest as if to protect his suit from my criticism. “I wanted to look cosmopolitan for my first trip to the big city.”
I almost shook my head at how not-cosmopolitan David’s ancient suit was. Instead, I tried to lead David to understand his error. “You already said you were married in that suit. How many years ago was your wedding?”
David did some math in his head and on his fingers. “Nineteen years ago.” He announced proudly.
I stared at David and waited to see if he’d make the connection between the age of the suit and the style changes which must have occurred in all that long time. He looked down at himself again and raised a sheepish expression toward me. “I guess it is a little out of fashion.” David’s sheepish expression quickly became defensive. “But all my other clothes are for the farm! I’d look out of place if I wore overalls in the city.”
I was tempted to rub my face in frustration, but I stopped myself as not to expose my feelings to David. I reasoned he was partially correct in his thinking, and I couldn’t fault him because he had only one suit. Still, I was far from willing to spend another day in the company of that suit. I made David stand straight and tall so I could measure him with my out-of-practice tailor’s eye. To my surprise, he wasn’t very much larger than Walt.
David was taller, but he wasn’t broader. He only appeared broader because his waist was narrower than my husband’s stocky build. I took the information I’d gained and went to a pair of hooks that were just inside the swing door between the kitchen and the dining room. Both hooks held black suit jackets. One was mine and one belonged to Walt. We kept them on those hooks in case one of us needed to go into the dining room to see a customer.
Walt didn’t like to appear before customers in a splattered apron. He didn’t think the look of a chef in his working clothes sent the right message to a patron in a high-class restaurant. If a customer asked to see the owner or the head chef, either Walt or I would shed our apron and slip into a jacket before we answered their request. The jackets were regularly cleaned by the same laundry which serviced the linens. I borrowed Walt’s from the hook and offered it to David. He swapped it for his jacket and did up the two buttons.
“You look much better.” I complimented him. The newer jacket had longer lapels which exposed more of David’s shirt, and therefore more of his masculine build. The shoulders fit well. The only flaw in the fit was that the bottom of the jacket was tailored larger than David needed.
I confiscated David’s old jacket and put it with my brown one in the changing room. I also pinned a note on the empty hook I’d left next to the swing door. It read, ‘Walt, borrowed your jacket, Law.’
I took my partially smoked cigar from the counter and stuck it in my mouth. I figured if I couldn’t smoke it, I’d chew it. I was on my way to the security door again when the sound of David’s voice halted my progress. “I don’t know, Law.” He said as he examined his reflection in the polished stainless-steel door of the walk-in cooler.
I was tempted to bawl David out for doubting my fashion advice, but I didn’t. I recognized I was peevish from that the pain in my body and the hangover in my head. Instead of challenging David, I appealed to his apparent attraction to me to win him over.
I stood next to David so we would both appear in the polished stainless surface of the cooler door. I pointed to our reflections. “Look at me, now look at you. This is how the modern well-dressed man should look. Those peak lapels on your old jacket went out with the Hoover collar. Today’s style is long and sleek instead of angular and sharp. Now we match. We look like we belong together. Trust me.”
“I trust you, Law.” David said.
I celebrated David’s trust by bumping my shoulder against his arm. David grinned at my gesture of friendship, and we left the restaurant to start our day.
