Behind

Behind everything reassuring is something shattering, or at least that’s what I learned when, surprised to find me out so late, the frost in the air battering us both with shakes, as though the cold were uneven ground, Lucinda stopped me next to the gas station to tell me the story of how I was born.  I had always been confident in my life: at each checkpoint along the long road, whether one that frustrated me or one that gave me a pleasure beyond reckoning–even in spells of indifference and ennui–I had had the security of believing that I was following through with a vocation during my earthly sojourn, a calling meant for me and me alone.  But the confidence stopped like sound in the cold, my heart’s beating with its self-esteem was suddenly squelched when, barely recognizing her at first, having to open my eyes to the cold all the wider just to see her, Lucinda, a small crinkled plastic bag in her hand with some alcoholic drink inside, pulled me aside by one of the pumps–the gas station was utterly empty of patrons save the two of us–and began:

            Your mother, she told me, she was so excited to have a baby on the way, when she discovered that she was pregnant with you; she gathered all around her, friends and relatives and those she barely knew and who barely cared for her alike, to tell them about what she considered a miracle after her lengthy and patient waiting.  Everyone was stunned to hear the news, celebrated with her, as was most proper, invited her here or there to share a meal or to prepare for your coming with little boy’s clothes, or toys, or cradles and other things for your future room.  Oh, Lucinda stared at me smiling wide, you should have seen your mother, how uncontainable her joy was when she made the circuit from friend to friend and from relative to relative, or from the home of this person she barely knew to the home of that one, telling everyone He’s going to be a boy, and he will be a strong boy!  Wendell, I’ll call him, like his father! she would shout to her sister and mother, neighbor and stranger in the grocery store, and all these supportive people grew to learn and love your name, even the mere sound of your name, long before you were born.  Wendell, Wendell, Wendell, we all chanted, as though begging you to leave the womb even sooner than you were due, to get on with it and grace us with a load of hope in this rather dull and hopeless Midwestern town.  You had a procession of cheer and good, strong wishes all around you even before you were born, she said, then took out the can of malt liquor from the shopping bag, cracked the can, offered me a sip which I refused, then took a long draught from it yourself; so long was your head tilted back that I was sure the can would be empty, but when you bent over to put it on the cement of the parking lot, I could see that it was barely budged by the wind and still probably nearly halfway full.

            But your father, she went on, and here her free arms waved–she had put the plastic bag stealthily in her purse, and had wrapped around the can a brown bag like a sleeve which was just the right size–your FATHER, she let me know how she felt as her tongue lolled out with the word, and she rolled her eyes upwards and every which way, and mimed a gesture as though being behind bars, after having been diagnosed as infertile two or three years before–your brother was from someone else, she let slip out, although I knew perfectly well our half-relatedness; but sometimes it doesn’t matter, and a stranger can turn out more of a brother than the one made up entirely, like you, of the genetic concoction of your mother and father–he didn’t believe your mother, or thought something was surely suspicious, he couldn’t believe your mother and wanted there to be some investigation or other as to how she had become pregnant.

            Me, I’ve known your mother a long time, Lucinda whispered to me, although, still, we were the only ones about at five in the morning at the gas station midway between her house and mine, at the intersection of the road that leads north and south for thousands of miles and the road that leads west and east for thousands of miles too, passing the cemetery rather close to mine, but probably passing many cemeteries on the way, the way to the sea, the way to another sea, the way to a sea yet again, or the way to the ice, the unthawing ice, until now and quiet recently, to the north, the deep north.  Your father too, you know, she tugged at my denim jacket, the only thing I could find although the cold called for more, you know he’s one of my best friends.  But, I don’t know, the big can of beer seemed to be going to her head with quickness, it was like your mother had forgotten, just because SHE had become pregnant at last, to take into account your father’s infirmity.  Instead of staying silent at first and checking up on all the details, she spat out the word Details and pointed to me jokingly when she did so, making sure she knew WHAT’S WHAT, your mother went around, Lucinda danced now like a girl in a flower dress, the town BRAGGING to everyone for her good fortune.  But she should be more careful, I thought, Lucinda sometimes spoke in my direction, sometimes in the direction of the empty road, sometimes in the direction of the small building, the gas station itself, with the lonely man behind the counter, and her voice grew stiller and stiller all the while, with quick unexpected bouts and bursts of loudness and emphatic cadence.  Because I saw the look in his eyes, your father’s: it was more than the eyes suspecting something; they were violent–it caused my sisters and my mother and me to worry about you and your mother until the day you were born; then we could rest, even though that rest still wouldn’t be–all that restful!

            Losing her a bit, and thinking that she was jumping ahead or behind or all over and I couldn’t keep track of the events she laid bare for me, I listened to her go on anyways, just as brash, just as harsh, and with just the same periods of hushedness as before: He sent off for his brother in Virginia, because he remembered–he was sharp your father, and always keeping sharp eyes on every angle of everything–that your mother had visited there not long ago when her own mother, his mother-in-law, was told that she had cancer and only had so long to live.  He knew too how his brother could think of nothing more fondly than of you.  Your uncle came and admitted–

            –I stopped her here, and she didn’t seem to mind the least, she simply, and instead of interjecting back or continuing her train of thought and string of words, knelt down beside the can and, from that crouched position, took another long pull from the can so that it was emptied.  She then backed up to the nearest pump and the garbage bin beside the pump, and tossed, like a lazy player, half-awake, the light aluminum, made lightest in a mere five minutes, into the dark lining of the dark container.  It was predictable, the plot of what she was saying, so I said to her You don’t have to say anything else, Luce.  I know, I know–You know!  You knew, all this time, she exclaimed, and nearly jigged and strutted like a gambling man after a big win when she heard me.  Well, I didn’t know, not until now.  Not everything. For the first time during our encounter she appeared sorry, and came to a stop in her trot, her arms came to a stop too and dangled at each side of her white, charcoal-stained coat, stained in black and gray blotches as though she had been riding on a coal car, and just now had jumped off for some refreshments.  Like that she looked beyond tired, and I thought She is probably still homeless, I should invite her to stay with me for a while but I didn’t, I only stood there with her, let the cold bite me and let her drunken eyes sting me too, they were so drunken and careless but at the same time so pitiable, like a lost child’s eyes, or a dog or some other abandoned creature who can say nothing more to you than the dream of the first utterance, when you came to her by chance, when you came to her, thinking last of all of seeing her here again, and at this hour.

            My life at once fell from me as something designed for any greatness, or as a beautiful something whose road is bright and clear and promising prosperous journeys even along the dangerous stretches where certainty is the last thing anticipated; still, a voice had called out to me before with the You shall and You shall not, the one that warned me where to turn and when, when disaster was a gift and when gifts were disguised traps, but now that voice fell away and was gone from me.  Lucinda was sorry, I could see that, no matter how drunk she was now, she wished she had kept her mouth shut.  We swayed together awhile beneath the starless sky, as dawn was approaching, the birds were already, whether we were ready for them or not, practicing the tunes they would carry for the brighter hours to come.  How stupid, I said it aloud so that Lucinda had to cover her ears, as though I were cursing.  How terribly stupid, I then thought to myself, alone and beside the woman at the same time, and then I thought what she had said to me when I was a younger man–and she had been drunk then too; she is always drunk, drunk and truthful, I have always rather liked her however nasty or reckless she became–Behind, I remember every time she had to stall to remember the words, dart her eyes around, around at me, around at the sky and whatever else that surrounded us, to remember, Behind–she would start again and raise herself up more erect, and hold up too her right arm as though making a proclamation–Behind–these were true repetitions, three or four times every time she would share the phrase with me, as though I had to know what is hidden behind the screen of things, that what’s behind is most important of all–Behind every hero–there’s a fool!  I thought she would say it now, but she didn’t, she only stared at me and the rising sun in equal proportion, stared at the colors changing above us, a streak of drool down her chin, she was wasted, even from one can of beer, an icy pool of her spittle forming between her and me, on the parking lot, freezing before it evaporated, as it was still cold although the sun was coming, was here.