Tackle Box

from (BY THE BOOK Anthology)

 

I’m going to start with Stuart, whom (who?) you found on Mother’s Day to be under the heavy sedation that only a double dose of children’s Nyquil and gaudy bandages on his hands could provide. That was just a couple of weeks ago, if you could recall.  I know it’s difficult to remember what happened from then and now, so much “in-between” at your office, as you say, but Stuart would love to know if his Aunt Lil’ remembered him and thought fondly of him, from time to time.  I mean, it’s different for me because I’m your brother, but nephews need that reassurance.

Well, as I was saying, this is a story from after you last saw him, about a week after.  I had parked at St. Dominic’s and we were walking down the corner to Mica’s store when the little guy kept trying to hold hands.  Of course, the alternative was that I carried him, but he refused, of course, knowing wholeheartedly what was the more difficult of the two.  So courteous; we raised a good one!  He reached out and tried to hold on to the bottom of my sweater but his fingers were still too tender, his wounds still not healed from the cuts.  The moment he could get a good grasp, he winced back in the pain of it all.  He continued to do this, forgetting about the pain the moment we were separated, not thinking.  I asked him, politely, to stop, trying not to laugh.  Imagine that, a father laughing at his own son’s pain.  Let’s forget about the fact that he is a child.  This is enough to break your heart.  Hate me if you’d like.

As we came into the shop, the door chimes ringing as we entered, signaling to Mica to look up from whatever Dean Koontz trash (I only say this because I know how much you adore him) he was reading at the counter, Stuart held the door open behind us as he entered, again forgetting about his hands, and let out a little yelp.   It was more out of frustration than actual pain, although frustration can be very painful, if not more painful. I want to use the word “hurtful” here but I don’t know why.  “Hurtful” is more of an affectual word than an effectual one.  Perhaps I am thinking about the effect his actions and responses had on me.  See, I’m not that bad of a dad.

“Well, what’s this?”  Mica said, looking over the counter down at Stuart, more humored than concerned.  I like to think Mica was trying to make light of the situation to ease whatever tension he thought Stuart and myself might have had rather than be genuinely amused by our entrance.  I like to believe that Mica is more of a good person than myself, underneath.  Although I’m probably wrong; he is my dark mentor and I am his dark hero, after all.  I’m rotten to the core.

“Stuart, show uncle Mica your hands.”  I told the kid.  He came over as if what happened at the door didn’t happen and held out his hands over the Herzog pins and the local artist chapbooks on Mica’s table.  “What happened to you,” Mica said, pulling the glasses over his eyes and back on again, “Stigmata?”   I put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and he holstered his hands back at his sides.  I held them in place before he could try to reach for my sweater again.  “Wouldn’t that be funny,” I said, “the kid doesn’t even know who Jesus is!”  Mica laughed his hearty laugh, put an old hand on Stuart’s head and ruffled his hair. “Jesus Christ!”  Stuart instinctually grabbed at the withered hand on his head and, again, Stuart yelped and retreated, running to the biography section, behind a life-sized stand up of Mayweather, in full boxing attire, with a young Hemingway's face taped over his.  “That’s new.”  I said, pointing at it, not concerned at all.  Stuart, after realizing what he had ran behind, took a couple steps back and stood in front of it.  He looked back at us, giggling, having already forgotten about the pain.  Mica, too, was not concerned or sorry, “So he knows who Hemingway is, but not Jesus?”

“We haven’t all found Jesus like you have, Mic.”

“Touché.”  Mica rolled his chair back and pulled open his drawer, leafing through his files. “Have a seat, Kinsey.”

I took a chair by the magazine rack.  I couldn’t help but recognize that the new issue of Granta and Shelly’s name on the cover but I didn’t mention it.  You know how much I adore Shelly and you probably already know how much Mica doesn’t.  You understand.

Mica pulled out my manuscript and opened it to where he left off.  Between us, the notations that he had written did not look like much.  It’s probably true about what I fear about my writing: the work gets dry in the middle and hard to say anything about, not because the writing is flawless but because there is really nothing to say.  And, if there’s nothing to say about something you read, there’s nothing to think about.  Nevertheless, Mica says that’s not what it is, and I go on with my fear like every other delusion and insecurity.

“So, where’d you get it?”  I asked, hiking my thumb at the stand-up.   Stuart was somewhere else by then, probably hurting himself trying to pull a book off a shelf.  I listened closely for him to yelp and a book to drop, one after another.

Mica looked down at my manuscript, backtracking.  “Kids from Occidental.  Those wannabe Ex-Pats think they’re so funny.”  He smiled and went back several pages to where we last left off.

“It is funny,” I said, looking at it again, in all of its glory.  I hope that it’s still there if you happen to drop into the store.  I know you’d like it.  Don’t be offended, but when Mica said “Ex-Pat” I immediately thought of you.  Don’t be mad! It’s really a compliment.   I tried to think about what kind of kids today could hold themselves to the same standards and status as Gertrude Stein’s party posse and immediately thought we could do so, easily.  I don’t know what kind of Lit Majors Mica’s teaching up there at the University these days, but I know they can never hold a candle to us.  If that isn’t respect, Lil’, I don’t know what is.

“Well,” Mica said, “I have to admit, Hemingway's never looked so tan.”

There’s a lull in conversation here.  Business gets in the way.  Mica tells me in our sitting that he doesn’t like the story about the siblings going about their relationships in parallel.  Mimesis has been done to death, he tells me, and who am I to argue?  It has.  It is.  But who cares? It’s in everything, I tell him, how is it any different from everything else?  And, in his infinite cache of one-liners, he says “exactly”, like he’s made some sort of point.   I told him I’d take a look at it again, but I just say it to please him.  There’s nothing I can do about it.  No use in arguing.

You remember the story, right?  It starts out when the female character runs away with her boyfriend’s son and retreats back to her home in Rhode Island, reflecting on her passions, the “what ifs”, the child who calls her “mommy” even though she’s really not his “mother”.  And, in the midst of all of this, her brother is slowly bleeding out in a bathtub.  He looks at a toaster sitting in the sink and laments about not using that instead as he slowly drifts out of consciousness, reflecting on his own passions, his “what ifs”, the child who hates his guts, who calls him “Stuart” instead of her “father”.  You probably remember it now that I mention that the male character’s name is Stuart.  No, I did not change it.   I merely said I would because there really was no helping it.  It fit.   No use in arguing (see what I did there?).

You would probably agree with Mica to go about the story in a different way, perhaps arguing for the sake of Stuart rather than to detract from something as frivolous as mimesis.  But, even then, dear Lil’, I would not budge.  The story will probably be omitted from the collection but I would like to leave the story intact for the sake of principle.  The story would not exist without a Stuart or mimesis.  And, I know, what’s in a name, right?  But “how may I live without my name?  I have given you my soul; leave me my name! etc. etc.” And the honorable John Proctor is carted off with the rest of the gang, off to sing Hail Mary while they drop on the noose, one by one.

Stuart and I watched The Crucible last night on AMC and those lines were all we could think about.  Stuart was lying on his stomach on the carpet, too close to the screen, and he looked intently at the drama like no other five year old could.  Something spiritual happened to him, something that could only happen to someone who hasn’t met Jesus yet.  He lied there, motionless, unmoving, unnerved. He understood what it meant to finish what you started.  To follow through with what you believe.  To go against logic in the name of principle. To feel like and be a part of something bigger than yourself while being yourself. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I always give Stuart more credit than one would normally give a five year old.  He’s smart.  He’s my son, after all.

After looking at the story, Mica said we should take a break and we got up and looked for Stuart who had settled by The Valentine’s Day display; a pink and light blue colored flurry that I know Mica had no part in.  Stuart had a book open on the floor about edible arrangements, and he was staring intently at the pictures, both hands lying flat on their palms on the pages. I knew he was hurting, but he didn’t look like it, fully absorbed in the pictures, determined to keep the book from closing.

I got down on the floor beside him while Mica stood behind us.  Imagine Mica trying to get down like us;  It would have killed him!

“Hey guy,” I said, “What are you looking at?”  Stuart didn’t say a word.  He lifted a hand and flipped the page.  He was entranced.  Engrossed.  Enlightened.

“Never understood the point of making food look like that.”  Mica said.  I imagined him sitting at his table alone, stirring his spoon into some plain oatmeal.

“For kicks.”  I said, not looking back.   Down on the page, there was a bouquet of mango slices and strawberries.  Immediately, I was embarrassed by my son’s interests.

Mica looked down on us, judging.  “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Eat it.” I told him. Above us, “Hemingway” struck a pose, ready to strike.  I wondered then if he would defend my son.  Surely, liking fruit didn’t make you any less of a man.  Hemingway himself liked daiquiris.

“Well, as long as it doesn’t kill me.”  Mica said, squinting now, “that stuff’s all healthy for you, anyway.”

“Fruit or edible arrangements?”  I reached for Stuart’s waist but he stiffened, telling me he wasn’t done yet.  He turned another page.

“Fruit, damn it.  Edible arrangements are fucked!  Fucking, all those knives, scissors, toothpicks, those little plastic cocktail swords.  Fuck all that.  Fruits.  My doctor tells me I need to eat more fruits.  I can’t stand fruits unless it’s those canned peaches. But I need ‘em.  We all need ‘em.”

I imagined him stirring canned peaches into his oatmeal at home.  An orange swirl forming in the flesh colored meal.  It was a surreal thought moved between us.  It was then I realized Mica might have been lonely.  Canned peaches?  That’s rock-bottom lonely.

“And that’s the fucked part.”

“Why’s that?” I asked him.  I also asked him to tone down the language for Stuart.  He’s smart and likes words.

“Well, think about it,” He told me after apologizing.  Well, he doesn’t really apologize but, by then, Stuart’s at a picture of dinosaurs made of melon, chuckling to himself, so it wouldn’t have mattered. “Millions of years ago, the caveman enjoyed free range meat, fruits, clean water and air, and their average life span was 35 years old!  The earth was already real good at killing us with these things.”

“Jesus.”  I looked at Hemingway, thinking maybe I should have said his name instead.

“Yeah, and Jesus died at 30.  Could walk on water, multiply loaves of bread and whole fish, turn water into wine just two thousand years ago.  Same stuff was killing even him!  Well, technically man got him  in the end, but that’s besides the point.  Look at the world now, it’s all fucked and the same things that used to kill us are helping us live, prolonging our lives.”

“That’s heavy.”  I tell him.  I think about the earth trying to kill us quietly.  Imagine that, the world coming to the foot of your bed, aiming a silenced shotgun at you while you slept.  Or maybe it’s not like that, maybe the earth and what it’s doing is too big to see or understand, like we’re a colony of ants unaware of the boot coming down or the magnifying glass focusing on us in the sunlight.

“And why do you think that is?”

I got up and I stood beside Mica, leaving Stuart at his book.  I couldn’t tell if he was listening or if he understood.  “I don’t know.”  I told him.

Then Mica put on a serious face and he said the line, “It’s because the earth doesn’t know shit about love, that’s why.”  

At first, I laughed to the point of exhaustion.  I thought the line and its execution was spawned from Mica’s usual deadpan humor.  My stomach was on the verge of great pains before I saw that the seriousness on Mica’s face wasn’t disappearing.  He followed his expression with a disappointed smirk.

“Love,” I said, mimicking Diana Ross, “what’s love got to do with it?”

Well, I didn’t exactly say (sing) it like Diana Ross, but you get how I saw and reacted to the situation.  It was laughable to me.  The world, life in general, I thought, was chaos.  Take the incident in which Stuart got into dad’s tackle box. I had dad’s tackle box in my closet.  It’s been there since he passed, unused.  Don’t remind me; I still feel guilty I never learned how to fish.  It sits there and sits there until Stuart gets to it and, all of a sudden, all the hooks and lines are through his hands.  He walks into the living room, in front of the TV, and raises them up to me like a bleeding heart or a wounded lamb.  There’s nothing helping that happen, nothing that loves from that.  There’s nothing that can be helped nor loved away.  It just happens.

Then Mica said that dreaded one-liner again.

“Exactly,” he said, and left it at that.

You know, I have been thinking about it for a while, and today it finally got to me: the reason why this conversation is so important.  There has to be a point to all of these talks, something to take away from this man I’ve known for so long.  A reason why I’ve known him, continue to know him and seek him out.

This morning, during my allotted office hours in which I use the time to read student manuscripts, I was reading a student’s work and stumbled upon these opening lines in his opening poem entitled, “Vacation Cars”.  It read:

“Doesn’t it make sense to kill if you don’t know how to love?”

I immediately recalled Mica’s words and just had to write you about them, Lil’.  Perhaps you can entertain me with some thoughts.  A story of your own, perhaps?  I know you are busy.  The office world is a busy life, let alone yours.  Perhaps we can talk about this when next I see you, very soon or otherwise.  In all honesty, I miss conversation with you.  Stuart and I are lonely and bored.  If anything, only the light of the television screen at night bring any expressions or emotions to the surface. Most of our days, we are the type that live inside ourselves.  Introverts, through and through.  Stuart cannot bear to ask after you, as much as he is overjoyed to see you.  Mom thinks he’s just shy, but I don’t know.   Mica thinks it’s ADHD and I hope it doesn’t come to that.  I would rather have the former; it would be more beneficial for Stuart to live with.  

Isn’t it funny how much he’s grown?  A little sprout to a tall weed?  I shouldn’t call him that, but that’s all I think of him.  Not in a bad way, but in a fatherly, endearing way.  His bandages are still on but he’s completely forgotten about them.  For all he understands, they’re a part of him now, the pain and all.  He probably could care less about living the rest of his life this way.