Russell Banks - Affliction

I hung my head in shame and backed away, hoping that my example would influence the others — as I had done when we were children at times like this. It was something I had learned from my mother, this silent coercion. I had not used it for years.

In a shaky thin voice, Lena said, “Pop, Jesus is more powerful than any demon, and there is a demon in you, Pop. Give yourself to Jesus, and rid yourself of this demon.”

“Praise the Lord,” Clyde whispered.

“Go fuck yourself!” Pop snarled, and Lena stumbled backward, as if blown by the force of his words. She began to whimper, then to blubber, and her husband put his arms around her and moved her toward the door, with the boy and the girl close behind. As they passed through the door to the porch, all four looked fearfully back at our father — a brick-redtaut little man standing in the middle of the room with his fists clenched — as if they feared he would come charging after them or were about to hurl one of his raging demons into them.

But he had not once taken his eyes off Wade. That was who he wanted. The rest of us did not matter to him. Margie placed both hands on Wade’s shoulders and tried to draw him to her, but he wrenched himself loose and took another step toward our father. I moved in the opposite direction and in a low voice said, “Wade, just leave it.”

Pop, in that awful mocking tone of his, said, “Listen to your little brother. ‘Wade, just leave it.’ Candy-asses. All of you. That’s what I’ve got for children, Jesus freaks and candy-asses. ‘Wade, just leave it.’ ‘Praise the Lord’ ‘Just leave it.’ ‘Praise the Lord.’ “

Wade stepped forward, fists clenched, and suddenly Margie moved around and got in front of him, where she tried to push him back with one hand and reach out toward Pop with the other. Pop struck her hand away with his fist, and her face went gray, her mouth opened in amazement. Wade reached over her and grabbed one of Pop’s wrists and yanked him once toward him. Margie screamed, she actually screamed, and Wade let go of our father, but it was too late. The old man was flailing away at his son with his fists, his blows bouncing off Margie’s shoulders and neck, hitting Wade on the arms. I reached in and tried to grab Wade by the shoulders and pull him away, but he was too powerful for me and merely shrugged me off. He shoved Margie out of his way and locked our father into his arms. They panted furiously into each other’ face, glaring. Wade walked our father in a bear hug backward to the wall, where he pushed him with his chest and bounced the old man’s frail and suddenly flaccid body against the wall. He released him, and our father collapsed onto the floor.

Breathing heavily, Wade got down on his knees, as if to pray again. He looked into the old man’s face, which glowered back, as if out of a cave. “If you ever touch her again,” Wade said, “I’ll kill you. I swear it.”

The old man stared coldly at his son and said nothing.

Margie said, “Wade, it doesn’t matter now. None of it matters.”

From across the room, I watched them, the woman and the two men, as if they were characters in a play, and the play were half over and I had just entered the theater. Slowly, the old man got to his feet, and the younger man stood up, and the woman turned around, and all three faced me. The old man moved into line next to the woman, who now stood in the middle. They were breathing heavily and sweating. They looked from one to the other, shedding their roles and regaining themselves and in the process recognizing each other’s self. It was as if they had been possessed. They smiled at each other, shyly and almost with relief. Then the three of them looked out toward me and linked hands, and, I swear it, they bowed low. That is how I saw it. What else could I do? I applauded.

The mortician opened the door from the porch and announced that it was time to leave for the church.

“Okay,” Wade said. “We’ll be right there.”

Pop looked around him as if searching for something. Putting an arm over his shoulder, Margie said, “You want your coat? It’s not very cold today.”

“No, no,” he said. He seemed confused. “I thought … I was looking for Sally,” he blurted, and his eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, Glenn,” Margie said, and she hugged the old man.

Wade clapped him affectionately on the shoulder, then looked over at me, as if thinking, The poor sonofabitch. We keep forgetting that no matter what their life was like together, no matter how bad it was for Ma, it was the only life he had. The poor old sonofabitch probably loved her. There was no reason for Rolfe to make fun of him by clapping like that.

Wade’s hand moved to his jaw and touched it tenderly: his tooth had quieted down a bit for days, and now here it was again, buzzing like a stirred-up hornet’s nest. “You got any aspirin?” he asked Margie.

She shook her head no, and Wade reached down to the floor and retrieved Pop’s whiskey bottle and glass. There was a half inch of whiskey still in the glass, and he drank it off himself.

“Toothache,” he said, and put the bottle and glass down on the counter next to the sink.

“When are you going to get that thing fixed?” Margie asked.

“Soon. Soon. Soon as I’ve got half a day to kill,” he said, and he went to the door and held it open.

Margie walked Pop to the door slowly, carefully, as if he were breakable. He took tiny steps and seemed afraid of falling. How could this pathetic man cause such trouble in a family? Margie wondered, as she moved him across the room toward Wade. He was as weak as a child and as easily controlled. He had thrown a tantrum, that was all, which was perfectly understandable, under the circumstances. There was no need to get physical with him, to manhandle him the way Wade had, or run away from him as Lena had done, or just go limp, like Rolfe. It amazed her that they seemed so frightened of him. It was as if they still thought of themselves as small children and for that reason still saw him as a powerful and violent man, when of course, as anyone could see, it was he who was the child and they, Rolfe and Lena and Wade, who were the adults. Strange. And that business of Rolfe’s, the clapping, it was strange too. He was weird, even weirder in his own tight-assed way than Lena. Margie was starting to like the old man, even to feel protective toward him, though she could not imagine why that should be so.

Glenn Whitehouse passed through the door to the porch and stood there for a second, gazing out over the snow-covered yard. He saw the citadel the children had built, a biblical ruin in the snow. Lena’s and Clyde’s van was gone, as were the vehicles belonging to LaRiviere and the minister. The mortician stood by the open rear door of a black Buick sedan.

Pop turned to Wade and said, “Who’s going in the funeral car?” He did not want to ride in that car, but he knew that he had to. It looked like a death car, and he was afraid that if he rode in that car alone, with only the dummy from the funeral home up front driving, he might not arrive at his destination. He did not know where he would end up, but it would not be at the church with the other people. Maybe Wade or Margie would ride with him, or maybe even Rolfe, though Rolfe made him feel self-conscious when he was with him alone. Something about that boy set Pop off. He made him feel he was supposed to say something, as if there was a question the boy wanted answered and the first test was for him to figure out what the damned question was. He was cold, that boy, not like

Wade, who was pissed off all the time, but you always knew where you stood with him, or even Lena, who might be a Jesus freak married to a Jesus freak, but she was not cold, that was for sure. The woman had feelings. But Rolfe did not. Or at least he did not seem to have any feelings. He was the strange one, not Wade or Lena.