Flesh and bones

20

A tear streaked down my cheek as I drove north from Bernhardt's farm toward Miami Beach.

Then another tear.

I wasn't embarrassed. I wasn't ashamed.

I am a big tough guy. I have bricklayer's shoulders and an acre of chest. I played the game with the oblong spheroid in knickers and plastic hats at the highest level, even if my talent was less than my desire. When I broke my nose on an opening kickoff-catching an elbow through the face mask-I stuffed cotton in each nostril to stanch the blood and hustled downfield on the punt return team three plays later.

I am used to physical pain and accept it without complaint.

Emotional pain is different.

My father was killed in a barroom brawl when I was ten. He was a shrimper, and I remember his strong, coarse hands and the smell of his clothes, caked with salt and fish guts. We would wrestle in the shallow water of Buttonwood Sound off Key Largo. He could hold a fishing rod in one hand and toss me over his shoulder with the other. I marveled at his strength and took comfort in his arms. He was not afraid to show emotion and told me- more than once-that he loved me. I miss him terribly.

One day, I saw my father sitting alone on the porch of our weather-beaten cracker house with the tin roof. The sun was setting in the gulf, the flat water shimmering orange with bursts of silver. Dad was sipping Granny's moonshine from a mason jar, and at first I thought the alcohol was wringing tears from his eyes. But it wasn't the booze. It was something with Mother, and though it was left unsaid, I knew. A few moments later, the screen door banged open, and my mother darted out of the house and flew off the porch, a blur of bleached-blond hair and a tight sleeveless dress with a pattern of red hibiscus, a look Granny called "all tramped up." A moment later, the old Plymouth kicked up shells in the driveway, then tore down U.S. 1. I crawled onto my father's lap, and he wrapped his arms around me, his chin resting on top of my head, and I heard him sob.

About a year later, a man in a tavern shoved a knife through my father's heart. Granny never told me, but I always suspected Dad was defending my mother's honor, such as it was. But that could be my imagination. It could have been an argument over a poker debt, a football game, or who had the right to shrimp Card Sound.

My mother took off for Oklahoma with a roughneck who had wintered in a trailer park near Marathon. His name was Conklin, and though he left without marrying my mother, he was kind enough to leave her something to remember him by: a daughter, Janet. Mom is long dead, Janet is somewhere in drug rehab, and her son, Kip, now bunks with me. Granny also pitches in, figuring if she raised me from a pup, she can do it again.

I tried to tell Kip about my mother, his grandmother, and even though I sugar-coated it-"a real friendly blonde with a big laugh who loved to play Elvis on the jukebox of the Poachers' Inn and Saloon"-Kip pegged her. "Sounds like Jessica Lange in Blue Sky," he said.

I told him about my father, too. How a good, strong man can weep, too.

"I never cry," Kip said, and it was true. He had been abandoned and hurt, and now he had erected a wall to protect himself from more pain.

"Don't you ever get sad?" I asked him.

"Nope. Never."

"When I was your age, I read a book that made me cry," I told him.

"A book?"

"Yeah, lots of pages with two covers on it."

"I know what books are. Uncle Jake. They must have been great before the Internet and a hundred movie channels on the satellite."

"It was called The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank."

"I know it, Uncle Jake. I saw the movie. I thought the TV was fried until I figured out it was in black and white." The shadow of a thought wrinkled his forehead. "It was real sad."

"The saddest story ever."

"Okay, is that the uncle-gram for today?"

"Not just that. One time, on the practice field at Penn State, a row of thunderheads moved into the valley. Big steel-gray clouds were just hanging over the field, but toward the mountains, it was clear and sunny. It started raining, pouring on us, and in the distance was the brightest rainbow I've ever seen."

"Yeah?"

"It brought tears to my eyes."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe because it made me think of my father. I wished he could have seen it. He loved natural beauty. Dolphins jumping together, a waterspout on the bay, sunset in the gulf."

"What's your point, Uncle Jake?"

"It's okay to cry. It's okay to show your emotions." I tried to think of an example. "Let's say you're watching a sad movie-"

"Like Terms of Endearment where Debra Winger dies."

"Yeah. It's okay to bawl your eyes out if you want to."

"Uh-huh."

"Or if something makes you sad, you can talk about it with your uncle Jake."

It was all he could do to keep from rolling his eyes. "Sure."

"Anything you want to talk about right now?"

"No thanks, Uncle Jake, but I'm glad we had this little talk."

My ancient convertible navigated the interstate, exited in downtown Miami, then picked up the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. As I sped north on Alton Road, passing kosher delis, funeral homes, and Rollerblade shops, the wind finally dried my tears. I turned right on Eleventh Street, passed Flamingo Park, and headed toward Ocean Drive.

The apartment building had rounded corners, porthole windows, a porch with terrazzo floors, and decorative nautical pipe railings. The walls had recently been painted a color I would call Pepto-Bismol pink but the renovation artist probably described in more decorous terms. Concrete eyebrows hung over the casement windows, and a spire stuck out of the roof like the mast of a fine sailing ship. Tour guides would call the place Art Deco, or Streamline Moderne, but to us locals, it's just an old stucco building with a fresh coat of paint.

I pounded on the door for a full minute before a light came on. "Chrissy, it's me, Jake."

She opened the door and peered at me, sleepy-eyed. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Why do people always say that when you wake them up? Why not 'It's three-thirty-seven A.M. Do you know where your brains are?' "

"Jake, aren't we due in court this morning?"

I pushed through the door and grabbed her. She was wearing a Dolphins jersey and nothing else. Number 13. I was relatively certain that Dan Marino, a solid family man, was not hiding in the closet. I had her by the shoulders and pulled her close. She had lied to me. Maybe Schein had implanted false memories or maybe the memories were real. It didn't matter. She had lied to me, her lawyer and her lover.

Now I wanted to look into those flinty green eyes. I wanted to see her blink when she lied again. I wanted to see her cry.

"Your eyes are bloodshot," she said. "Have you been drinking?" She looked frightened. Good.

"We have about five hours," I said. "I want the truth." I thought about Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. Could I handle the truth?

"What do you mean?"

"I want to know why you killed your father and what that slimy half brother of yours had to do with it. I want to know everything about Schein."

"Guy's not involved in this. Neither is Larry."

I squeezed her upper arms and pulled her close.

"Jake, you're hurting me."

"I've never hit a woman. I hate the cowardly cretins that do. But if you were a man, right now I'd knock you through that wall and kick your ass across Ocean Drive."

"Jake, you're acting crazy!"

I let her go and she pulled away.

"You thought you were being so smart," I said. "Well, your pal Schein taped you when you thought he wasn't. He's got proof you planned to kill your father. No blackouts, no irresistible impulses. No nothing but a life behind bars."

She blinked but she didn't cry.

"And here's another little surprise. Two characters named Faviola and Kent are getting expenses-paid vacations to Miami."

"Luciano doesn't need the money," she said quietly. "Martin would do anything for a dollar."

My look asked the question, which she quickly answered. "Luciano Faviola is an Italian playboy. He tried to rape me at a party when I was stoned." She shook her head and said bitterly, "I wish I'd killed him."

"Perfect trial demeanor," I said sarcastically, "showing your tender, remorseful side. I'm sure the jury will have a lot of sympathy for a coke-snorting, spoiled bitch princess who carries a gun and cries rape at every opportunity."

"Is that what you think I am?"

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"It does to me," she said, her eyes tearing. She walked to the window and stared out at Ocean Drive. "Martin Kent was a playboy without a bankroll. He stole from me. He was just another one of my incredibly poor choices where men are concerned."

She was talking about Kent, but was she thinking about me?

"Can they really testify?" she asked.

"It's up to the judge. I'm more concerned about the tape. It's clearly admissible, and it's damning."

For a moment she was silent. Then, speaking softly, she said, "If I tell you the truth, will you still help me?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I didn't know.

"My father did rape me, Jake. You must believe that." We sat at her kitchen table. Chrissy reached for a cigarette and lit it. "I had blocked it out and couldn't remember it. I always had these vague feelings of uneasiness around my father. I knew he'd done something, but I didn't know what. Larry Schein brought it out under hypnosis. It's all true. All I lied about-left out, really-was that I planned to kill him. I planned it, and I told Larry."

"Who has it on tape," I said. "He's the one who can send you away. If you'd told me, maybe there's something I could have done."

"What would you have done?" She exhaled, and a plume of cigarette smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

"I don't know. Something!"

Chrissy poured a second cup of coffee for each of us. Outside the kitchen window, the sun was blinking through thin streaks of clouds where the horizon touched the ocean. "I wanted to kill my father. I wanted to be cleansed, but I didn't want to go to prison. I'd done some reading. I knew about posttraumatic stress disorder. Damn it, Jake, I had it! I was just able to rationally decide what to do."

"Rationally?"

"Yeah. What difference should it make if a woman blows away her abusive husband while he's beating her, or if she does it after sitting down and thinking about it? That's the only difference here. I thought about it for a while, then did it."

"The difference," I said, "is between manslaughter and first-degree murder."

"Then they should change the law."

"Great, write your legislator." Chrissy's coffee was burning a hole in my gut and my mood wasn't improving. "Did Schein ever encourage you in this rational plan to kill your father?"

"Not in so many words. He did say something like my father's death could be therapeutic, but phrased real vaguely. He never used the word 'kill' or 'murder.' "

"What about Guy? Did he know?"

"I certainly didn't tell him."

"But Schein did! Don't you see? They wanted you to kill your father. They set you up with a phony defense, then trashed it the night before trial. They want you convicted."

"Why?"

"Money! Guy gets the entire estate and you spend the rest of your life in prison."

She wasn't rattled, and she still didn't cry. "That doesn't make any sense. Guy's rich enough."

"Some people never are. And there are other reasons, too. Guy never got over the fact that you were the pampered child. He probably hated your father for it."

"No. The first few years were tough on Guy-he was treated like hired help-but Daddy made it up to him. He brought Guy into the business, turned it over. It can't be that."

"Then what is it, Chrissy? If it's not money, if it's not anger, what's his motive?"

"I don't know."

"You have to know!" Losing my patience.

She angrily tossed the cigarette stub into her coffee cup. "You don't believe me. You never have. That's why you tricked me into taking the lie detector test."

"On a relative scale, that should rank somewhat lower than tricking you into committing a first-degree murder." She glared at me and I added, "If they really did trick you."

"Bastard! How can you defend me if you don't believe me?"

"I do it every day. It's my job."

"That's not the way I want it to be," she said, her tone more sad than angry.

"Fine, I'll ask the judge for permission to withdraw. If he grants it, you'll get a continuance. Maybe another lawyer can figure out-"

"No! I want you. I trust you, even if it's not reciprocal."

"I don't know how to try the case. I don't know how to win."

"Don't change anything. Play the tapes. I'll tell the jury I damn well planned it, and I'd do it again. Let Schein testify I planned to kill Daddy. Let's tell the truth."

"The truth?" The idea was so preposterous I just laughed.

"Isn't that what you wanted? Isn't that what you demanded in your holier-than-thou tone? Okay, Mr. Self-righteous. Let's take the truth and go with it."

"There are times," I said sadly, shaking my head, "when the truth will not set you free."