Five Stories

sighed. “Yeah. She made me promise I’d keep it there as long as I live here.”

  Tom shook his head. “Mama always fussed over him. He was her perfect son, after all.”

  “Not really.” Ed smiled and shook his head. “That’s what you came here to talk about, your bother Bobby?” he asked.

  Tom shrugged his shoulders as if to shed a weight. ‘No, Dad, not Bobby.” He turned and sat in the empty chair. “It’s me this time. Things are kind of rough for me right now.”

  Ed nodded, his hunch confirmed. “Rough how? Money, your job gone sour, argument with Doreen, what?”

  Tom took a long swallow of his beer, and then set the bottle down. “I had a fight with Jeremy tonight,” he said. His voice was hoarse with suppressed feeling.

  Ed raised one quizzical eyebrow. “With Jeremy?” he asked in a disbelieving tone. “He’s never been any trouble. What’s going on?”

  Tom took up his bottle again, and drained it in a long swallow. “I drew a line for him tonight, and told him not to cross it, but he defied me.”

  Ed grinned. “He’s seventeen. That’s what seventeen-year-olds do with their Dads. You and Bobby both did, more than once.” Ed finished his beer, and put the empty on the table beside him.

  “Not about something like this. When you laid down the law, we did what you said. Jeremy said he wasn’t going to study for business, law, or medicine at the University.”

  “What did he want to study, something wild, like to be a chiropractor? I hear tell there’s money in that.”

  “Nothing practical. He wants to take ups cosmetology.”

  “What’s that about, the planets and outer space?”

  “No, Dad.” Tom grimaced. “It’s about makeup and hairdos.”

  “Jeez. He wants to be a hairdresser?’

  “Yeah. Now everybody will wonder about his love life.”

  “They teach this cosmetology in college?”

  “In barber college.”

  Ed said, “How can he make a living doing that? That’s for brassy blondes. Not enough money for a man to support a family on.”

  “His plans are even worse,” Tom said. “He plans to specialize in doing dead people.”

  “Dead people! Not much repeat trade in that! Where did he ever get such a crazy idea?”

  “At Mama’s funeral, he said. He claims he wants to give people the comfort that comes from seeing their loved ones lying there with all the strain and sadness softened with makeup.”

  “Your mother’s death hit him pretty hard. Maybe he needs to go through with this to outgrow it”.

  Tom pounded his fist into his open hand. “I told Jeremy I’d never give him money from the college fund to waste on something like that. He told me I owed him that fund. I told him I’d earned it, and I’d spend it like I see fit. Doreen took his side, of course.”

  Ed grinned wryly. “Women take the side of their sons. Your mother did often enough.”

  Tom started to speak; he cleared the phlegm from his throat before continuing. “The upshot was, Jeremy threatened to leave home if I didn’t compromise. I refused. Doreen’s mad at me, says I handled everything wrong.”

  “After all, it’s not like Jeremy wants to join a gang, or run drugs.

  “I’ve always tried to be a model son, Dad, and then to be a model dad. I just snapped.”

  I thought you might snap some time. I’ve worried about that, that you’d snap someday.”

  Tom stood and went to Bobby’s picture on the credenza. He looked a moment at the votive candle in front of the picture. Then he took a match from the nearby matchbook and lit the candle. “I’m a failure. I’m not like Bobby. He did everything right and came out a hero.”

  “And dead,” Ed said.

  Tom finished his beer. “But he did the right thing. He’s the hero son. I’m just old, plodding Tom. Never do enough quick enough.”

  Ed struggled to his feet. He went to Tom and put a hand on his shoulder. Tom stiffened up; Ed shrugged, and walked away.

  “You weren’t here when Bobby joined up,” Ed said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “You were at the University. It wasn’t all joy and patriotism, I can tell you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ed said to Tom, “Get us another beer, will you?”

  Tom picked up the empties, and went to the kitchen. He returned with two full bottles.

  Ed motioned Tom to sit. “Bobby joined up after we had a row. Mother blamed me for it.”

  “Why? What was the row about?”

  “Bobby wanted to join the circus. He needed my signature to join. I refused.”

  Tom smiled, remembering. “He used to talk about the circus a lot when we were kids.”

  Ed’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I laid down the law. Told him he couldn’t do anything like that as long as I was paying his board and keep. Told him it was no way for a man to support himself, raise a family, all the things a man is meant to do.”

  “A father’s got to take a stand with his son,” Tom said.

  Ed groaned. “Yeah, and pay for it every time he does. In my case, I’m paying for the rest of my life.”

  Tom

  “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “I was mad. I took Bobby down to the recruiting office. Told him it was sign up or go to juvenile hall as a runaway. He was only seventeen, still. I didn’t give him any other choices.”

  “He never told me. The letter I got from him only said you thought it was for the best, so he did it.”

  “In his own way, Bobby was always generous with me.”

  “He loved you, Dad, we both loved you.”

  “Don’t get mushy. That just makes things harder.” Ed wiped at his eyes. “He went, joined up, and stayed with it even though he hated it.”

  “Why do you say he hated it? The few letters I got, he said he liked it, was learning a lot about himself, and life.”

  Those were lines I fed him, Tom. I got the same kind of letters. I didn’t know how much he hated it until after he died.” Ed took a shuddering breath. “He wrote that stuff to his mother. I found the letters in her underwear drawer after she died. Also found her diary.”

  “You read Mama’s diary?”

  “Yes. She wrote in it how much she hated me for killing Bobby.”

  “He died in Desert Storm. You didn’t shoot him.”

  “I killed him because I sent him there. Because I forced him into something he hated so much he got reckless and killed himself attacking the enemy.”

  “Dad, that’s a pretty extreme thing to say. Not Bobby, he wouldn’t do that.”

  “We had a visit from his best army buddy, a kid named Kurt. Real polite young man, but blunt. He was with Bobby when he died. Just before he rushed that Iraqi machine gun he told Kurt he might as well be dead, because he’d never be the son I wanted. He wanted Kurt to tell me he was sorry that he couldn’t be what I wanted, and for me not to grieve for him, that it was better if he died and left me a beautiful memory.”

  Tom got up and went to Ed. He put his hands on his father’s shoulders to comfort him.

  “Oh, Dad. I never guessed. Do you think this Kurt told you the truth? It doesn’t sound like the Bobby I grew up with. Why didn’t you say something to me at the time?”

  Ed gently took Tom’s hands from his shoulders. “You weren’t supposed to know. Mother didn’t want anybody to know.”

  “He was her saint, Dad.”

  “No, Tom, not her saint. He was her little devil. She loved you both, but she never worried about you the way she worried about him.”

  Tom shook his head and looked down at his father. “He was the shining star, Dad. He was the one who tried anything and everything. I still don’t believe he rushed that machine gun just to get himself killed. It was just like him to be the bravest one of the bunch.”

  Ed raised his eyes to look at Tom. “I wouldn’t believ
e it either, if I hadn’t read his letters to Mother. I killed him, Tom, Mother was right to hate me for that.”

  Tom turned aside. “Dad, stop talking this way. I can’t stand it.”

  Ed went on in a measured voice. “That’s the truth of it, though. Mother made that shrine to Bobby so I’d remember it every time I walked into this room.”

  Tom went back to his chair, stared at it for a moment, then sat. “All my life, ever since Bobby was born, I’ve been trying to live up to his example. I wanted to be Bobby, the one who got everybody to laugh, Bobby who got all the girls, and Bobby who charmed the world. I felt it was so wrong when Bobby died, and here I was, still in the world. Doreen helped me with that. She told me I still had something to do, and that I’ve been given the time to do it.”

  Ed smiled at Tom. “Doreen’s a good woman, Tom. Be glad you found her. You know, you’re as much of a damned fool as I am. You should want to be Tom, the steady one, the one that didn’t cause much trouble for his parents.”

  “Not a very exciting history.”

  Ed spoke with a quiet vehemence. “Be you, Tom. Stop trying to be Bobby or me or anybody else.”

  “I’m not sure I know how. I’ve never tried to be me.”

  “I can’t give you a