The Fury

7

We sat there in his living room. James in an easy chair, me and Amanda on a faded, stained, uncomfort able brown couch. It was probably uncomfortable because nobody ever sat in it, nobody ever told James the springs bit your legs. My father wasn't exactly someone who entertained. James Parker was wearing a tattered light blue bathrobe, the same one he used to wear years ago. It was worn. Threads hung out, waiting to be yanked free. The robe looked as if it was now worn out of convenience rather than comfort. A skin that couldn't be shed.

Though it had been eight years since I'd seen my father, it felt like longer. He looked as though he'd aged twenty. The brown hair-the same color hair I'd inher ited-was streaked with gray. The skin around his neck had begun to sag into full-on jowls, and whatever was left of the muscle tone in his forearms had turned soft. His eyes were lined, as though tired of keeping up the appear ance of the rebel he'd long considered himself to be.

Maybe thirty years ago James Parker was a man to be feared and possibly even desired. Now, though, he was just an angry old man with a distant wife and an es tranged son. A man whose indifference to any life but his own had driven away everyone who'd ever cared for him, driven him to the point where his very voice brought up anger inside of me.

When I was hidden in a dingy building and needed to hear something, anything, to keep me going, I called my father. I'd spent much of my adult life trying to hard to distance myself from him and what he repre sented. My anger had, in essence, become a fuel.

Recently, the fuel had begun to burn itself out. But sitting there, watching this man in front of me, knowing what he'd done in his past, knowing just how little of the story I knew, it was all I could do not to leap up from my chair and knock him head over heels, that ugly bathrobe flailing like paper in a gust of wind.

Those striking green eyes kept flicking to me, then to Amanda, then back to me. Anytime he had unex pected visitors, James Parker figured it was either a court summons or an IRS audit. Amanda sat leaning forward, eyeing James, as though trying to understand an entire family history through those eyes.

He held a beer in his hand. The bottle was halfempty, and the bottom half was covered by his hand, which was sweating. The air was hot, blowing from some unseen fan that appeared to simply recirculate the warm air over the whole house. He eyed me with a look of confusion and contempt.

"Where's Mom?" I asked.

"Bridge lesson," he said. "Plays with her girlfriends once a week. Whatever keeps her busy and out of my hair."

I bristled at the comment. "When will she be home?"

I hated being here, hated that he'd even put us in a situa tion where we needed to be. But my hatred for this man couldn't get in the way of finding out the truth about

Stephen Gaines. About myself.

"Listen, I don't know what you want from us," he said, swigging from the bottle, grimacing because the beer had likely grown warm. Not quite the "you never call" line you'd expect from a parent you hadn't seen in years.

"I just want to know the truth about you and Helen

Gaines. And how much you know about Stephen."

"What does it matter anyway?" James said, looking off at the wall. "It was years ago. Before you were even born."

"I know that," I said, anger rising inside me. "Did you ever think to tell me I had a brother somewhere?

You never thought that I might be interested to know that? Never occurred to you, huh?"

"He wasn't your real brother," James said slowly.

"Helen was not your mother. I never considered myself that boy's father."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"She wasn't supposed to keep the baby," my father said. I heard Amanda gasp under her breath. So far my father had barely looked at her, like Amanda was a referee, a third wheel, something to be ignored. I hadn't bothered introducing her because I knew he wouldn't care.

For a brief moment I glimpsed a flicker of pain behind those eyes. A memory he thought forgotten had come back to him.

"But she did," I said. "And then she left. Tell me what happened."

"I don't need to tell you anything," he snapped suddenly, the beer sloshing liquid onto his bathrobe.

"It's thirty years ago. It's over."

"It's not over," I said, my voice quivering. "Your son was found dead in a seedy apartment this week. It's not over. You were the boy's father. I know it meant nothing to you, but it damn sure meant something to him, and to

Helen Gaines. And it damn sure means something to me."

"What?" he said, lurching out of his chair, knocking the bottle flying. I recognized that look. The look of rage, the look that said he didn't owe anybody anything.

"What does it mean to you? You never knew him. I never knew him. He's a fucking stranger. What, just because you share some, like, microscopic strand of

DNA in common all of a sudden this matters to you?

Please. Spare me, Henry. Go back to New York. Go back to your big city and do whatever you do there." He pointed at Amanda. "And take this…whatever… with you."

"This is Amanda," I said. "And she's given me more in just a few years than you have in a lifetime."

"Are you finished?" he asked, sitting back down.

"Because I have a league game tonight and I bowl like crap when I'm not prepared."

"Right," I said. "Your bowling league. You cared more about those pins than you did us."

"Pins don't talk back," he said. "Pins don't waste your hard-earned money on books that don't put food on the table. Speaking of that, will you be joining us for dinner?"

"I'd rather break bread with Bin Laden," I said.

"How long were you sleeping with Helen Gaines while you were with Mom?"

James sighed, leaned back, searched his memory. He spoke as though this was a mere trifle to him, like I'd asked what he had for lunch yesterday.

"Must have been about a year. Maybe a little more.

Who keeps track of these things?" he said. Who keeps track of these things. Like it was a bowling score from a few years ago.

Without warning, my father stood up, cracked his back and went up the rickety stairs. Amanda and I sat there unsure what to do. We heard some rummaging around, and soon after, my father came back down. He held something in his hand I couldn't see. Then he gave it to me.

It was a photograph of a young woman. It was worn, faded, kept somewhere it was not removed from often.

The woman in the photo had pale skin, curly brown hair and luminous green eyes. She was sitting on a grassy hill, a blouse covering her knees. Her mouth was open in a smile, the shot taken in the middle of a laugh.

Despite her young age she had deep laugh lines. She looked like the kind of woman it would be easy to fall in love with.

"You kept this?" I said. "Why?"

"I'm not keen on throwing things out. Never know when you might need them."

"Didn't you worry Mom would find it?"

"She hasn't yet."

I handed the photo back to him. He hesitated, then took it, slipping it into his pocket.

"You didn't care that you were married?" I asked.

His glare told me he didn't.

"When did you first learn about Stephen? That you had a son?"

"When Helen was about four months along. She told me she wouldn't have sex anymore. And that was the reason. I thought she was going to get an abortion. That's what we both wanted, I thought. Then her belly keeps getting bigger and bigger and…" James looked down at his hands. "Then one day he's there. This little kid."

"What then?"

"She wanted to know where we stood. Whether she was going to raise the boy on her own. I told her I already had a wife, and she wanted her own kids. And that I didn't have the time or money for two families."

"And then?"

"And then she left. One day she's living a few streets over, the next Helen's moved out, packed up her stuff, sold her crappy house and disappeared forever."

"Forever," I said. "You were never curious to see how your other son was doing?"

"Didn't much care how the son who lived with us was doing, ungrateful as he was."

Point made.

"When was the last you heard from Helen?" I asked.

My father looked down. His eyes twitched for a moment. I tried to look past them, tried to see just what this man was holding on to.

Then he said, "The day before she disappeared.

That's all I know. That mother of his never took care of

Stephen. Maybe if she'd made some different choices he'd still be alive."

"By different choices, do you mean never shacking up with you?"

"Don't get smart," he said. "I guess that's one of those whaddaya callems, rhetorical statements."

I bristled. "What do you mean, different choices?"

"She was always one of those wild women, doing things to her mind and body. Tough to find a woman who drinks more than you do. And that's all I know. I don't wish the boy died. I'm not some monster. But he's no more my son than I was his father. Blood's only as thick as you make it."

"Don't I know it," I said. Then I stood up. Amanda did as well.

"I'd like to say it's been a good visit, Dad, but there's been enough lying in this family. The buck's gotta stop somewhere. Say hi to Mom for me."

"I will," he said, and I actually believed him. As I left to go, all of a sudden Amanda spoke.

"Are you sorry?" she asked. She was staring right into his eyes, not letting him go. In that moment I knew just how strong this woman was.

James sat there, silent, for what must have been several minutes. He looked back at her. She wouldn't turn away.

"No," he finally said. And oddly enough, I didn't believe him.

I reached for the door. Took Amanda's arm. Nodded toward my father.

And just as I was about to turn the knob, there came a loud knock at the door.

At first I thought it was my mother, but she wouldn't have bothered or needed to make that much noise.

"James Parker?" came the male voice from outside.

My father stood up. Approached the door. He looked through the peephole, then stepped back. A look of concern and fear crossed his face.

"What is it?" I said. "Dad?"

"Sir, open up," the voice said.

My father unlocked the bottom latch and opened the door.

Three police officers-two men and one woman- were standing on the front porch. One of them held a piece of paper. The others held their hands at their hips.

Specifically by their guns.

Clearly, they were worried they might need to use them.

"James Parker?" the lead officer said.

"Yuh…yes?"

The officer stepped forward through the doorway.

He grabbed my father, spun him around until his chest hit the wall with a thud. The other two cops swarmed in, and within seconds my father was in handcuffs. I saw his eyes go wide, this proud, arrogant man. And in those eyes I saw emotion I'd never seen before in nearly thirty years.

My father was afraid.

"What the hell is going on?" I shouted.

"James Parker," the cop said, "You're under arrest for the murder of Stephen Gaines."