Уильям Макгиверн: Summitt

The diaries and the notebooks hadn’t told him much. In spiral folders and stiff-backed journals, the entries ranged from the Korean war in the fifties to Jonas Selby’s death a year ago. Most of it was written in a cramped but legible hand, except for the years at the army hospital in Boulder, Colorado, where his father’s nurse and second wife, Rita Bender (now deceased) had typed entries for him.

Selby practically knew these diaries by heart now, all the scribbled pages tucked away in his leather duffel bag.

The foot-square carton had been delivered to the farm a month ago by Railway Express, accompanied by a registered letter from an attorney in Truckee, California.

“Your father’s estate (Breck wrote) consists of two residential lots, not too desirably situated, I’m afraid, and a crateload of personal effects, notebooks, diaries and the like.”

Breck then explained his delay in writing.

“I regret to tell you that your father’s body was found by neighbors approximately a year ago in the kitchen of his house. He had been shot twice at close range by a .38 revolver. The police have listed his death as homicide at the hands of a person or persons unknown.

“They theorized that Jonas Selby may have returned from work and surprised prowlers. Since no money or valuables were taken from his person or home, they don’t rule out the possibility that these prowlers could have been teenagers who panicked when they were caught.

“At the time of his death, neither I nor your half brother, Jarrell, had knowledge of your existence.

“The diaries and other papers were not discovered until six weeks ago. A new tenant found them packed in a crate in the garage. They were partially concealed by rows of firewood and were found when a quantity of wood was moved inside for the winter. Also in that crate was a deed of reconveyance for the lots I have mentioned, consigning the property to you and Jarrell Selby. Attached to this deed was a note in your father’s handwriting, requesting me to contact you through the offices of the National Football League in New York City.

“It was his wish that you should take possession of his diaries and other papers, and that the real estate be shared equally by you and your brother.”

Harry Selby had no need for alcohol, because he was fairly well adjusted to reality, and had never been forced to try to alter its shape and nature. But he hadn’t been able to get through his father’s diaries without the occasional stiff shot of whiskey, because in those years of rambling comment on the weather and the terrain and the enemy, in all those angry gripes about the army, and the stockade and the people who had used him so badly, in this welter of detail and nostalgia and how the fucking fish were biting, there was not one reference to Harry Selby, not even a mention of the son he had fathered and abandoned, the son he had known about for years but who obviously hadn’t been important enough to rate even a perfunctory acknowledgment in his scribbled records.

He needed a little whiskey to help him face the fact that his father had known about him for years and hadn’t bothered to do a thing about it. Not one goddamned word over all those years, when he’d needed it and wanted it, at schools where he’d stayed on campus during holidays; there’d never been a Christmas card or birthday greeting, not even a note when the team had made the magazine covers that year; nothing but a stretching emptiness in which Selby wondered endlessly about his father and tried to imagine what he had been like, and how long ago (and in what manner) he had died since that was the only reason he could think of to explain his silence.

Snapshots of his father had been tucked among the diaries and notebooks. In uniform or a GI bathrobe, he was tall with big shoulders, staring at the camera with worried, belligerent eyes. Others were taken around Tahoe, on a dock holding a fishing rod, and standing self-consciously with several men in front of a real estate office, taller than the others, but still regarding the world with those hostile, accusing eyes.

His phone rang again. “Harry, I’m sorry to keep you waiting. How’s your schedule now?”

“I thought I’d check out of here early tomorrow. Judging from the map, I’ll be at your place around ten. That suit you?”

“Ten, that’s fine. Ten o’clock. You’ve got a car, of course. You want to drive to 64 and head east. Turn off at Summitt City. A bus will bring you right in. No cars allowed in the city limits, you know. But, Harry, there’s a hitch. That’s why I called earlier.”

“What is it?”

“Well, something just came up. I figured you could stay here tomorrow night, you know.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, I’ve got a girl, Harry, and—” his brother laughed awkwardly, “she’s decided to stay for a while.”

“That sounds interesting.” Selby wondered if he were only imagining something evasive in his brother’s voice. “But why is that a problem? I’d say it sounds pretty good.”

“The thing is, Harry, I can’t put you up. It’s a small place, and there just isn’t room.”

“Then I’d better stay here.”

“Yes, you’d better, Harry. I think you’d better.”

“Fine, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Selby felt deflated when he hung up. His reaction made him wonder at the depths of his need for some conduit to the past. What had he expected? Walks along a river, drinks before a fire, leisurely reminiscences which might bring their separate selves into some kind of symmetry? No, but he had hoped at least to be able to add some of his brother’s memories to the vacuum in his life, and in that way to catch a glimpse of truth about the tall, narrow-eyed bastard who stared so sullenly at him from those snapshots taken around Tahoe and army hospitals.

Well, he thought, looking at his stained duffel bag, he might as well unpack. And let Shana know he wouldn’t be staying at Jarrell’s, but right here with the blue seascape and the free coffee and ice cubes.

Harry Selby left Memphis early the next morning on a highway that ran through pale meadows and stands of dark trees. There was little snow here, but the land was good for soybeans, tobacco and cotton, enriched with shale and limestone from the Cumberland plateau, details Selby remembered from reading about where his brother lived, a model town and plant owned by the giant eastern conglomerate called Harlequin Chemicals.

An attendant gave him a receipt for his car. Selby boarded a white minibus with open sides. When a half dozen other passengers joined him, the driver, a young woman in a casual uniform, started the vehicle’s electric motor and they drove off.

The town of Summitt City included parks and lakes, a golf course and green fields where children played volleyball and soccer and baseball, with grown-ups in small clusters applauding and cheering them on. The minibus drove on soundless tires past rows of pleasant homes and apartment buildings with solar paneling and colorful patio furniture. Racks and tubs of vigorous plants stood everywhere. Uniformed maintenance teams in open trucks cruised the streets and recreation areas.

Selby had looked up Summitt City in Readers’ Guide and had found in the East Chester library a half dozen or more magazine articles relating to various aspects of the city, its ecological harmony, its foliage-aeration program, its noise and pollution control (no automobiles, chemically consumed garbage), its crime rate (nonexistent, in fact), and its auxiliary energy system of windmills, forest farming for indoor fireplace fuel, temperature controlled by sunlight, and so forth.

And yet it was the absence of things rather than their presence that caught his attention and interest — sidewalks and gutters free of litter, driveways without oil drippings, and golfers walking the fairways rather than riding in noisily powered carts.