Jay Fox - THE WALLS

“I–I'm sorry I intruded, sir; I….” as I stand. “Really…I should be…I should be going. I didn't mean — I didn't mean to intrude like this.”

“You're not intruding. I invited you into this house,” he responds patiently. “Please. Sit back down.”

“How did it,” as I fall into the chair with a resounding fufseef .

“He was waiting for a light,” slowly. He is looking to the table with his fist on his chin, his elbow on the arm of the sofa. He has clearly gone over this countless times. “It was late. He was always coming back late. If you're familiar with his artwork and where it appeared, then I assume you know this much.” He pauses. “He was waiting for the light at the corner of Union and Broadway. A drunk driver rear-ended him. The force of the impact pushed his car into the intersection.” He licks the undersides of his lips, bites his lower lip, and then sighs. “He was pronounced D.O.A. at the hospital, so I know he did not suffer. I am grateful for this much.”

“Grateful? How—” I take a deep breath. “Again, I'm sorry to hear about your loss.”

“Would you like anything?” he asks. “I recently put a pot of coffee on.”

“Coffee? You just told me that your son died,” in a sheepish rage. “And now you're offering me coffee?”

He nods patiently and looks to me with what feels like pity. “One can not stay forever in mourning,” as stoic as Seneca. I suddenly understand the metaphors that are conveyed by Superman's powerful eyes. “I have no reservations about expressing my emotions, and I have worked to do so as constructively as I can. But I do not see any purpose in lamenting events that I cannot alter. Am I in pain? Of course. What kind of man would not be devastated?” His tone becomes less aggressive: “But I do not let the pain, the grief, the rage, consume me.” He looks to the floor. He remains in this position for some time. “Am I to seek vengeance due to the fate of my son?”

“…”

“This is not a rhetorical question. Would this serve any purpose?”

“No.”

“Then why should I act like a man plotting his revenge?”

“What do you mean?”

“I speak of brooding. One broods because one feels powerless. He imagines having the power to modify the events that have precipitated his misery. But some things cannot be changed. I am not an idle dreamer, especially when such dreams can only end in fruitless rancor. This is how Nazis are born.” He shakes his head. “Why should I brood over my loss, as though there is some retribution that I will receive? There is no answer. There is no retribution when one is dealing with lives. One cannot be exchanged for another.” He clears his throat. “Now, again, would you like some coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

“How do you take it?”

“Black, no sugar.”

“Ah,” with a smile or a wince, I can’t really tell, “A real coffee drinker.”

He walks away, into the kitchen with its hideous wallpaper and avocado tiling. There are flowers on some of the tiles, but it is impossible to discern the species at this distance. There is no television in the room in which I find myself, nor is there anything that could be called digital. A map of the world hangs opposite the mantel. The original was created in MDCXXV. There are hydras as large as islands threatening commerce and discovery. An old lamp and a framed photograph of the Adelstein family sit upon a small end table. There are three boys and a girl. Mr. Adelstein looks to be in his early-forties — robust, healthy, and mustached. His wife is probably only twenty-five. She is a plain woman, the type of person whom you walk past on the street several times a day without seeing. Two of the boys are in their late-teens. Both are somewhat gangly and clearly at home in silence. Their hair and sweaters fix the photograph's date in the early-eighties. The girl and the other boy, whom I assume to be Mordecai, are no older than seven or eight. She is lightly freckled with flaxen hair. Mordecai's ears protrude from his head as if they are being tugged by invisible hands. His face resembles his father's more than his mother's. Against the wall, behind this portrait, sits a framed Whistler print from the Frick Collection.

He calls from the kitchen, but I cannot hear him.

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you here?” as he comes back into the room. “Why did you want to meet him?”

“I don't know. Money, I guess,” despondently.

“An honest man.” He places the two coffees (in cups and saucers) on the table. “I know all about the money from the magazine. Was there anything else?”

“I don't even know anymore. I've been asking myself that question a lot lately. I guess a lot of people just want to know what he had to say.”

“He said all that he needed to say,” dismissively. He notices a look. “You are a fan of Whistler, yes?”

“Excuse me?”

“You were staring at the print. Was this just passive observation?”

“No, no. I’m something of a fan. I guess he just brings to mind someone I used to know.”

“I see. I've always appreciated his understanding of the similarities, the parallels, between painting and music.” He laughs lightly as he sits. “But you are not here to listen to my thoughts on Whistler, brilliant though they may be. You are here to learn what you can of my son.”

“Do you really believe what you just said, that he…said all that he wanted to say?”

“Wanted? No. Needed? Yes. True, Time is man's greatest nemesis, but Time is not necessarily an antagonist. My son accomplished what he set out to do. He never became redundant or boring. I believe one could compare his work to that of a published novel. More could have been added, some themes could have been refined, but this hardly makes his work incomplete or without merit.” He pauses. “You do not agree with this, do you?”

“Look, I don't want to impose. You've clearly been through a lot, and I really feel like I should go.”

“What? I am an old man. I have been around death all of my life. Half of my family failed to escape the genocide of the Nazis — not my mother and my father, of course, but two of my uncles, my Aunt Shayna, and two grandparents—; I served my country in Korea; I have buried two wives. True, it is perhaps the greatest tragedy to lose a son or daughter, but I have come to grips with death. As Nietzsche so brilliantly put it, 'The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity — and now you strange Apotheker-Seelen have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of life repulsive.' Life is something from which one ought not cower, no matter the reason.”

“What does that mean? I mean, I know the word apothecary, but what was the other word?”

“Let me see…Nietzsche's phrasing is always poetic, odd. Apotheker-Seelen . I guess it would mean, literally, pharmacist-souls. Just who are the Apotheker-Seelen ? As I've said, Nietzsche's phrasing is often more poetic than one would think, and I'm somewhat at a loss to say definitively just who these individuals are, though I am of the opinion that he is speaking of the weak and fanatically religious types — the women who stand on the corners in the city soliciting Watchtower magazines, provided one can call standing with the magazine held up and looking so solemn and empty-headed soliciting. Regardless, I find myself drawn more to the first aspect of the passage. Death's certainty ought to create a sense respect, a reverence, for life, not only in terms of ethics and the interactions that we have with others, but in terms of our very place in the world. And as hard as it was to lose Mordecai, to lose him to blind chance, one cannot turn away from living; one cannot succumb to resentment. The beauty of the world is in its chaos, its irrationality. The Beautiful is not, as Plato posited, necessarily apposite to the Good or the orderly — the realm of Apollo. It's a certain freedom on which we must not impose limits or moralities — not even values. We have to accept that there is beauty everywhere, even in the tragedy of death.”