Silence

Alan gave up

  but it was on his mind for a long time

  I made a treasure of the deposit slip

  kept it in a box

  when Alan opened a bank account for me

  I knew the slip of paper contained a code for a name

  Alan left for two days in 1966

  I could not find him

  the car the sail boat the hidden house in the groves

  At Playalinda Beach with some friends

  I tried to forget him even though my heart felt like lead

  my sweat like blood in the summer sun

  my transparent skin the surface boiling

  My friends saw Alan look for me from the top of the dunes

  The straight stiff sea oats like his blonde hair

  the mangrove matched his green pants

  His face steamed red on top of the white shirt

  I stayed in the deep water

  hid behind the rolling waves and drifted north

  He stood in the wind

  diminished to an indistinguishable point in the landscape

  I went home and the living room was quiet

  I closed the door to my room

  tried to remember every detail of that day

  I knocked the papers from his desk

  Impatient anxious eyes darted around my room

  I waited for the anger to erupt through his skin

  rip apart his clothes and melt the walls

  I heard the sharp edge of his heels on the hardwood floors

  the shuffle of my mother’s feet

  There were no words

  I had cut out his tongue

  (plans)

  I called to Julia from behind the orange trees

  She would come out whispering my name

  Brian Brian

  I talked and she would listen

  then I would refuse to talk until she spoke

  We sat hip to hip

  I left notes under a stone next to a stop sign at Palmetto and Dummitt

  Later I left the note at the corner of Sycamore and Hopkins

  I saw her change

  She told me how her breasts hurt

  how she bled

  how her stomach cramped

  She complained that it wasn’t fair that I got off so easy being a boy

  She called me arrogant and rude once

  I called her mean and prissy

  Her mother told her

  You got no business spending time with that boy

  and later she told me I would pay a harsh price if I was caught with Julia

  Alan said to stay away from places you don’t belong

  Every time I asked Julia waited for me

  When we were older we met at night

  Cold winter nights

  When grove workers roamed through the trees

  recorded the temperature

  set out heaters

  Once we sat on top of a stack of old tires

  our heads touched

  Tears dropped from Julia’s eyes onto my arm

  I was afraid to move

  That night I looked in the mirror at home and touched my forehead

  trying to remember the feel of her hair

  the warmth of her breath

  I was afraid of what she thought

  I was devoted to the feeling of truth between us

  we knew silence

  we learned how to remain a secret

  I loved her copper colored skin

  next to my white

  Julia told me that my father had plans

  that he would not let little things get in the way

  I was startled she knew this secret

  then it became an anchor

  that sank inside me

  (a midnight visit)

  I looked in the mirror

  to see through the red eyes and the tears

  No more notes in my locker

  no more phone calls

  I used the bank letterhead and envelope to write a note to Julia

  Frank delivered it

  Did Julia said anything to him

  I asked to meet her at the packinghouse

  I waited until midnight then left

  At home the house was quiet

  Claire waited for me in my room

  Tell me where you’ve been

  I waited

  When she was angry there was always another question

  Don’t you think you and I are at the stage where we can talk

  It felt dangerous to talk

  I could not see her eyes in the dark

  You never talk to me about your father

  I lied

  I never ask because I don’t want to know He is just not relevant to me

  Her body tensed

  Harriet was the midwife that delivered you at home

  Why did she tell me

  Her hands started to reach out

  I leaned forward into her arms

  She felt soft very still

  I sank into the black night of orange trees

  (silence)

  Mary Lee gave birth to Alan in 1923

  She said he was always willing to work

  and worked for his father every day he could

  from the time he was fourteen

  I sat on a long couch in the living room

  her home looked out on the Indian River

  I listened

  She told me how Alan went to Rollins College

  graduated in English

  should have gone to law school

  but came home to work with William

  He wanted to enlist in the Marines

  He bristled for a fight

  to prove that he was just as strong

  just as worthy a man

  as men shipped off to Europe or the Pacific

  He was jealous of the attention soldiers received

  and resented William’s claim to the draft board

  that he was essential to the war effort at home

  because of the family’s citrus production

  essential to the bank for selling war bonds

  Alan never told Mary Lee what he thought about war

  She told me a woman may bear a child she does not want

  rear it without loving it

  yet defend it with her life

  She thought he kept to himself out of shyness

  but she found he was secretive and vindictive

  He cut her out of his life

  She asked

  Why does a grandmother speaking to a child tell secrets

  perhaps because innocent ears will not condemn such selfish vulnerability

  Until we speak the unspoken

  we have not told the heart of the story

  How can we live if we cannot believe who we are and who we have been

  I sat on the couch and listened to each word turn inside me

  She said Our silence rises to heaven too

  (citrus and lumber)

  Mary Lee said William could always depend on the fire Alan had for competition

  He raced his car on Merritt Island along an empty stretch of SR 3

  William was resigned to the fact

  Alan might die young

  Alan pushed himself in ways that William could not

  Alan joined the Marines in 1945 too late for WWII

  released after training because the war ended

  William said there was no glory in the Marines during peace

  Alan came home the wild and reckless

  directed at William

  then into the bank and the packinghouse

  William left phone numbers advertisements newspapers on his desk

  Alan planned

  William rejected the plan

  Mary Lee said there would be a reckoning

  when Alan discovered the manipulation

  She told me she said so

  so I could hol
d her peace if she died before the reckoning

  Alan was too smart not to figure it out

  William said he was ready

  that every hand eventually resents the one that fed it

  just as he resented his father

  sold all 30,000 acres of land not planted in citrus

  sold long narrow parcels on the inter-coastal waterway

  for roads and railroads and he gave up acres of timber

  because he preferred citrus to lumber

  William couldn’t trust someone who didn’t know himself

  (24 hour)

  William took money from the land sale

  created the bank and a packinghouse

  that Alan turned into a 24 hour operation

  packing citrus from all the growers along the Indian River

  Then Alan took over the bank and sold 40 percent of William’s stock

  for 20 times the original capital investment

  I saw William smile

  when Alan told him they would only do three things

  real estate citrus and banking for the next 50 years

  William said he felt something like wholeness

  Every Friday night Alan would sit down to dinner

  with the managers of their business holdings

  They ate smoked mullet coleslaw cornbread hushpuppies

  while they looked at a map of Central Florida

  Alan said he knew whatever they did it would not be enough

  William said he didn’t want to die until they owned 20,000 acres of citrus

  Mary Lee said fear of death came from not getting to be who you want to be

  A week later

  he sold half his remaining shares to Alan

  decided to hunt and fish on Merritt Island for the rest of his life

  He fell out of his boat on the river

  got tangled in the lines and drowned at the age of 57

  Grandma Mary Lee lived quietly through everything

  We never heard her speak about William again

  Frank and I were counting crates at the packinghouse

  a bizarre day

  Alan came wanted me to go with him to a bar

  I said no I resented being told what to do all the time

  He taunted me called me a sissy

  Frank walked between us

  Alan punched him in the chest

  (the empty seat)

  Mary Lee walked into William’s office at the bank

  The back of his chair faced her

  people walked by to look in

  She just sat there

  The books in his bookcase had the same brown binding

  sat on a shelf behind glass doors

  Mary Lee got up calm as ever

  walked around William’s chair

  stopped like she was admiring a sculpture

  dropped down to her knees

  put her head on the empty seat

  After a few moments she walked out of his office

  Alan locked the door and took her home

  (dead eyes)

  At the funeral

  we looked at Mary Lee’s tears

  tried to figure out why she was so sad on Christmas Eve

  for a man in a casket that never had interest in her

  and now he looked at her

  I imagined

  with the same dead eyes

  (dare)

  Alan would disappear behind his office door

  work inside all day

  I got crazy wanting out of there

  He took me out of town to bars to get drunk

  gave me the keys to the car

  If he came back drunk he said

  to hide the keys until he slept it off

  made me swear to never tell anyone what I saw

  or he would kill me

  The first time I wet my pants in the back seat of the car

  He had two lawyers who thought they knew what he owned

  but they did not know each other

  He dared me to say something to Claire after he beat me

  made me give him the keys one night

  from that night forward he would do anything in front of me

  dared me to speak

  He said I was too weak to judge him fairly

  I hid in the back seat on the floor

  wondered if his pain made him feel worthless

  (Christmas morning)

  I could see the bank on the opposite corner

  The drugstore window display had True Crime and Modern Detective

  with pictures of Nazis

  women with bruised legs torn blouses

  on metal tables with straps and chains

  Inside Christmas decorations

  cards and wrapping paper behind the cash register

  everything on top of a glass counter bordered with fake snow

  The light was on in Alan’s office

  His car was on the side street

  and I watched him leave by the font door

  He turned north

  drove slowly

  He parked in front of the marina office

  took out a small flat boat

  His black pants black shoes and white shirt

  starched white above the gray wood

  and peeling paint on the boat

  The motor spit and vibrated as it pushed Alan through the water

  at the mouth of the marina

  the last bit of calm water

  that faced the Indian River

  His tilted head and eyes bore down on his destination

  (not being)

  I told Julia my dreams to impress her with the strangeness of my mind

  She just said I was arrogant

  like other white folks

  The next day my eyes filled with tears

  when I thought of her

  She said I was trying to put myself on a level above her

  I resented her words

  because they made me loathe myself

  I told myself I could take it

  I could take it from my father or anyone else

  but not Julia

  I picked her up in my car late at night

  We sat in the dunes on Merritt Island next to the Banana River

  We smoked a cigarette and had a can of beer

  a weekend ritual

  She said I never asked about my father

  because I didn’t want to know

  I said no one knows their father

  We looked at the glow of Titusville in the distance

  and watched the road

  to see if anyone approached through the orange trees

  I felt air rush by my ears

  I swayed as if the dunes were elephants walking

  each step rocked me back and forth

  the gray sandy hide blended into the dark shapes of the trees

  Julia sat with her back against mine

  I could feel her exhale the smoke

  put out the cigarette and cover it with sand

  She said she wanted to go and we did

  even though I wanted to stay with her until morning

  After I left I felt like running back to her

  That night I dreamed of running back

  I reached forward with my arms

  to touch her shoulder

  As she turned toward me I woke

  (fish oil)

  Frank and I went to Henry’s house and acted like jerks

  convinced him to give us a few bottles

  or we would tell on him

  I hoped to see Julia but no

  The bottles did not have a label

  The glass had a layer of sand and it smelled like Henry

  I opened it and a sweet orange fragrance filled the car

  After two swallows I felt nausea

  then light-headed

  silliness

  exactly like drinking too much cough syrup

  My moveme
nts were slow

  I tried to watch myself but stumbled

  and I began to wonder when the feeling would go away

  then paranoia that I would be forever in a cloud of fuzzyness

  I went to the marina and stood on the dock

  the water sloshed around the pier and nausea came

  until I sat down and stared at the sky

  We had fish that we caught using a net on the river

  We made a fire in the orange grove put a stick

  through the mouth of the gutted mullet

  and roasted it like a marshmallow until the skin was crispy black

  I peeled the skin off took a knife

  pushed the flesh through the bones onto a paper plate

  One of the fish had sat on the bottom of the boat near the gas tank

  it smelled like oil

  Flies covered the fish heads and guts on the ground while we ate

  We could not figure out if Henry’s brew was moonshine or wine

  but it kicked hard and left you with a headache

  worse if you drank it on an empty stomach

  Frank put the oil tasting fish back on the flames and it caught on fire

  We laughed so hard our stomachs cramped and I threw up

  (bone rattling sharp)

  Frank has blindingly beautiful eyes that suddenly open wide

  when he sees my eyes

  He greets me this way

  I represent the world that is too big for him

  too hard too full of conflict and rage

  But really the world is too small for him

  He carries wisdom in his body

  wisdom he cannot speak

  All of our lives we took turns

  to stand between Alan and the other

  He is innocent I am not

  he turns away I charge in

  He sits quiet and still like a rock that will not be moved

  I climb up and strike at everything within my reach

  He channels his energy into excellence in sports and academics

  I spend my energy on hopeless struggles against Alan

  We expect nothing from the other and get everything

  We expect nothing from Alan

  We share the same skin brown with scars and scratches

  His hair is blonde mine is dirty brown

  He combs his hair mine is short

  There are times I want to crawl into him and shout

  so he will listen when I say get out of here leave

  Alan’s cruelty slides off of him only glancing blows

  I feel the blows deep in my core

  bone rattling sharp

  We sat down together and cried before he left home for school

  He was afraid there would be no one to protect me from Alan

  I worried he would lose the chance to leave

  I feared one lapse of judgment for him would create a life with only foolish choices

  Get out while Alan’s defenses were low

  to something beyond charred tires

  burning to heat the orange groves

  the stacked pallets that haul fertilizer

  beyond the ledgers in the bank

  In Frank there is no justice in love

  nothing in proportion to cruelty or suffering

  nothing that can restore what is lost

  nor able to glimpse the incomprehensible reality of the past

  or long for a different future

  I wished the blank stare in those eyes

  somehow held the new being

  the hope I held in a sharp fragile place

  (white sand traps)

  I was foolish enough to tag along behind Alan on the golf course

  drove the golf cart

  kept score

  put away the clubs

  Lake water smelled like insecticide

  Under the surface golf balls sat out of focus

  out of reach

  The men stopped talking when I arrived

  until one afternoon

  on the eighteenth hole someone missed a putt and yelled Fuck

  Everyone looked at Alan and he smiled

  From that moment forward I was invisible

  and the topics were not so strange

  just filled with shit fuck damn ass words

  that Frank and I yelled when we were alone

  Then I saw the golf pro at Whispering Hills Country Club

  kiss a woman next to the entrance of the locker rooms

  She turned away

  He told me that no one needed to know what I saw

  I did not want white sand traps

  lakes without fish and mowed grass with dead insects

  (the last detail)

  I stole Alan’s sailboat when I was fifteen

  just walked out on the dock

  lifted the ropes

  hopped on

  left the mast and sail bundled

  started the motor

  pulled into the center of Nelson’s marina

  water like glass with paisley designs

  green from motor oil and diesel fuel

  The sailboat slid over the water

  toward a light chop of waves in the inter-coastal waterway

  I chose a path between the tide markers

  and passed the buoy that marked the channel

  I felt alert

  I stole the sailboat because the facts of my life

  were prepared by him

  and because of this he thought he knew me

  All the props and all the processes

  described instituted and controlled by him

  Because of this he confused his inner life with my inner life

  Alan fed this life to me long ago

  He believed it remained in me

  and grew into a castle that resembled his

  so close that anything that made sense to him on the outside

  would make sense to my inside

  so I stole his boat

  After I sailed down river for an hour

  I planned to wreck the boat and burn it

  I wanted to take something away from him

  This man who took all of his facts and fed them to me

  filled in my life with his feelings

  his opinions

  his assumptions

  There was no room for me in the space I occupied

  I could do anything

  When the last detail was imagined

  I began

  (bottom mud)

  I steered sharp to the left

  throttled the engine

  I hoped that the speed of the boat

  the current the angle

  would lodge it firmly in place

  impossible to move

  I fell hard against the