Percival Everett - Erasure

My mother’s maiden name was Parker and they lived on the Chesapeake Bay, south of where we summered. A couple of Parkers were farmers, others worked in plants of one sort or another. Mother’s brothers and sisters were considerably older and were all dead before I was an adult, leaving me with a herd of cousins that I never saw, never heard anything about, but kind of knew existed out there somewhere with names like Janelle and Tyrell. Mother had become an Ellison. As a child, I saw some Parkers only once, visiting a farm house near the bay. They frightened me. Big-seeming people with big smells and big laughs. Had I known more of life then, I would have liked them, found them thriving and interesting, but as it was, I found them only startlingly different. Lisa, Bill and I stood around the house, which smelled of coal fire and stale quilts, like frozen carrots.

Mother seemed apologetic for her family. She seldom spoke of them, though I am sure that they did not summarily write her off. She was the only Parker to go to college and, as so often happens, education functioned as a wedge between them. Perhaps my mother understood better than I gave her credit my feelings of alienation and isolation. I believe that much of her life she felt self-conscious and somewhat inadequate. There was no particular event I recall that substantiates that belief, no habit or anything I heard her say that might serve as evidence. But maybe there was a look here or there, a physical attitude just this side of cowering that I noticed without knowing what I was noticing.

Mother and Father never seemed terribly close to me. They formed a unified front against which we kids collided and bounced off. They were not outwardly affectionate, though the three of us were evidence of some touching. Indeed, I thought they were decidedly distant, cool to one another. An attitude that would seriously impair my attempts at relationships later. I of course would be taking a convenient turn to have that alone cut as any kind of excuse for my interpersonal failures. My mother saw her life as a wife and mother as a service, a loving service, but a service nonetheless. My father saw his station rather as one defined by duty, and discharged said duty with military efficiency.

In the garage, I looked at my table that was now a stool, and not a very good stool, and considered my mother’s discovery that all those years of somehow feeling she was not quite enough were in a few minutes made valid. The wood of the piece of furniture I had mutilated to make safe was still beautiful, the touch of it, even the smell of it, but it was inadequate. I imagined that my mother discovered the letters just after Father’s death, when he’d asked her to burn and not read them. But he of course knew that she would read them. I found myself angry with him, a stupid enough feeling with a live person. Then I wondered which was more confidence-killing: believing that you should not have felt inadequate when in fact you were, or discovering that, all along, you were actually smart enough to see things clearly, that you were correct in your fears. This suddenly explained the newfound serenity and composure of Mother after Father’s death. Perhaps he knew that was what she needed. Now what she needed was to have her nerve fibers unlooped and her newly detected brain shrinkage stopped.

Yul was doing his level best to contain his glee, but doing a piss-poor job. He was paying lip service to my vexation and indignation at the completely nonironic acceptance of that so-called novel as literature, but I could hear him counting the money. I could also hear him telling me, without saying as much, to grow up. What he said was, “We’re talking about a lot of money here.”

“I appreciate that, Yul,” I said.

“The editor wants to discuss the manuscript with Mr. Leigh. What do I tell her?”

“Tell her I’ll call her.” After he said nothing, I went on. “Tell her Stagg R. Leigh lives alone in the nation’s capital. Tell her he’s just two years out of prison, say he said ‘joint,’ and that he still hasn’t adjusted to the outside. Tell her he’s afraid he might go off. Tell her that he will only talk about the book, that if she asks any personal questions, he’ll hang up.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay then. I don’t mind telling you this is weird.”

“Well, Mister Bossman, I’se so sorry dis seem so weird to ya’ll.”

“You’re a sick man, Monk.”

“Tell me about it.”

I was seven.

The drive to the beach took us along Route 50 which was the slowest straight shot on the planet. We would take two cars, my brother always riding with Father. My Mother drove slowly, Lorraine in the front seat with her, staring at the map, and so we always arrived twenty minutes later. Still, Father would wait for us all to be there before opening the house for the summer. He and Bill would have pulled the bags out of the Willys wagon my father loved so much and have them arranged neatly, ready to be taken inside.

It was June 16, a Saturday morning. I remember that so clearly. It was sunny, but not terribly hot. I was wearing long khaki trousers and a striped shirt that I always hated. It seemed no one had come to the beach yet. The only car parked in a drive was Professor Tilman’s. As soon as Howard let out, he was at the beach. He had no children and his wife had died years earlier, but still he seemed to be able to take or leave company. I couldn’t understand why he came at all since he never left his house except for groceries. Sometimes I would see him sitting at the corner of his porch taking in his sliver of a view of the bay.

“Get that box,” Father said, pointing.

I picked it up and carried it into the kitchen. Lorraine was already sweeping, Mother was putting away dishes and Bill was wiping dust and leaves from the sills of the breakfast porch.

“How do the leaves get in here?” Bill asked, as he always asked.

Father could be sudden. I thought of him as generally a kind man, perhaps because of the way his patients adored him, but living with him was like living on the crater of Vesuvius. Perhaps the comparison would be better made to some dormant or rather sleeping volcano. He wouldn’t exactly erupt, but rumble or hiss, and sometimes you’d miss the event altogether and find yourself detecting a burnt smell, sulfur or just seeing some vapor in the air. To Bill, upon his asking the question, he said, “No house is tight.”

It was not until Father had gone out the front door, to collect the last of the boxes, that we all exchanged fearful glances.

But, in part, that quality of my father’s was one reason I felt so close to him. I admired his intelligence, his sagacity and his convoluted message delivery system. Bill kept his secret that was no secret, Mother kept no secrets at all, Lisa kept secrets that remained with her and Father kept secrets and talked about them all the time. I am convinced of this. I am certain that he told all of us any number of times that he was married to the wrong woman and probably that he had another child someplace.

Later, after a meal of sandwiches, Father and I walked down to the beach. I had to skip every few steps to keep his pace. We waved to Professor Tilman.

“Why doesn’t Professor Tilman go anywhere?” I asked.

“Perhaps because he doesn’t want to,” Father said.

I thought about that and I suppose my silence was a bit loud.

“Is that hard to imagine?” Father asked. “Not wanting to go out?”