Robert Butler - Perfume River

And when their beers are done, his father rises and says, It’s time for you, boy. Bob does not ask what that means. They go out of their trailer and the night has come on. It’s July, a few days after the Fourth, which Calvin celebrated in places unknown. Then they’re in his pickup running south on 119, and after a long while he actually talks. It’s still Independence Day for you, boy. You’re with me and I can draw the day on out. Fourth of July is my Christmas and Thanksgiving and fucking Arbor Day all in one, ‘cause of what I went through for this country. We still got some fireworks to shoot off, you and me. I went through shit for this country and you know what it was all for? Five days. Five fucking days by the seaside. The US Army can blow your mind. They put you in a jungle to kill and be killed and then by God they pluck you right out of there for five days and nights and they put you in a pretty little city right there in-country, right on the South China Sea, and it’s like Jesus himself went down into Hell with His winnowing fork and nicked you out of there and put you in Heaven where you belong and you’re walking down a street and it’s not paved with gold, it’s better than that, it’s paved with pussy, in bars and in massage parlors, and this pussy isn’t mama-san pussy, it’s the real pretty ones, even though the day before, if you see girls like this in a village you’re clearing, you can’t trust to turn your back on them much less drop your pants. The day before, you might have to blow their pretty asses away. But now you go right on in for a massage and more, and you just fuck your brains out, you fuck your fears out, you fuck your goddamn blood-and-gore memories out, and you’re doing it with the enemy — that’s the thing — you’re doing it with the prettiest little Co Cong in the whole shithole country.

And Calvin Weber stops talking. He just drives. And what he does not say to his son, though it is the feeling he has just come to, unexpectedly, what he could not even shape into words in his own head is this: It has never been the same since. Not sex. Not intimacy of any kind. With a woman. With a buddy later, the two of you drinking and trying to laugh off the experience, trying to crude it down but failing and falling silent and sitting in that silence in a bar in Vung Tau, Vietnam, knowing the same thing, that being with a woman, being with a buddy, being with anyone, will never be as good as that again. And the price isn’t worth it. Not for what you have to go through. Not for what you’re left with.

But for Bob the next thing is his father whooping softly and pulling off the highway toward a crimson neon sign through the trees: MASSAGE. Calvin says, See what we got now, right here in West Virginia? You’ll finally be a man tonight, Private Weber. Then Bob is with a woman and he’s naked. And his father is in the next room. Even as Bob finds himself naked with a naked woman and finds himself ready for her, he can hear his father’s voice through the thin wall. He can hear his father talking big and laughing big and he can hear the woman in there laughing with him. And Bob knows what’s about to happen to himself will not be good. Knows nothing will ever be good.

And a figure is emerging from the dark in front of the New Leaf a tall and rangy figure and it’s almost upon him and Bob knows all too well who it is and he might as well get this over with and his hand starts to move, though his reflexes aren’t so quick anymore, his hand is moving toward the right-side pocket of his overcoat, moving too slow but moving for goddamn sure and he knows once it’s there at least he’s got his trigger control back, he can end this thing between him and the old man once and for all, but a voice comes from the figure Hello Bob and Bob knows the voice and he can make out the figure now and he recognizes this man and Bob’s hand wants to keep on going anyway, wants to pay somebody back for something, but it comes to him that this isn’t the right place or the right time or the right man, and he stops his hand, and it’s the other Bob standing over him now, and Bob answers him: “Hello, Bob.”

As Robert approaches the New Leaf in the early dark he does not immediately recognize the shapeless hulk sitting at a table near the door. Robert’s old man is too much with him, though his overt thoughts have taken refuge in the trivial: how chilled he feels though the air is mild; how fragile his eyes have been this past year or so, with the lights inside the co-op seeming far brighter than they likely are. But as the hulk becomes a man and clarifies its face, Robert’s recognition of him instantly evokes a recollection of Bob’s parting question three days ago: You know my old man?

Perhaps this should make Robert keep on walking. Perhaps he should avoid Bob this time. But only his mind engages this option. His body veers at once toward the man of hard times, the man a decade too young for Vietnam, the man of responsibilities in Charleston, the man whose father can come sharply and unbidden to his mind. Robert stops before him and says, “Hello, Bob.”

“Hello, Bob,” the man says.

Bob’s bandaged forehead fully registers now on Robert. “Are you all right?” he asks.

Bob pulls back tight at the chest, as if the question is out of line.

“Your head,” Robert says.

Bob loosens, humphs. “My head. My head got assaulted by a mystery man with a shovel.”

“Damn. How’d it happen?”

“Not worth saying.”

“You got help?”

“With my head. Not with the son of a bitch.”

“You need anything for it?” Robert figures to buy him something for the pain.

“Revenge would be good,” Bob says.

He sounds serious. Robert hesitates, recognizing the need for caution in replying to this, though nothing comes to mind. He’s saved by his cellphone ringing.

“Sorry,” he says to Bob, pulling the phone from his pocket and lofting it in explanation of his apology. He turns, paces a few feet away in the direction of the parking lot.

The cellphone screen says: Kevin Quinlan.

As often happens with grandfathers, William was warmer with his grandson than he’d ever been with his sons. As Robert is well aware. Kevin and the old man were close. Robert should have planned this out. How to say it.

The phone rings again. He answers. “Kevin?”

“Dad. What’s the news?”

How even to begin? Here at the end of this difficult day, it eludes Robert for a moment that Darla already talked to the kids, right after the accident. “Your grandfather fell,” he says.

“Mom said. We’ve been Googling broken hips.”

It’s going on three weeks since Kevin last spoke with Robert, normally a weekly Sunday tradition. His son has been busy with work, no doubt. Which is very good. As a boy more a Lego kid than a book kid, as a man Kevin saved his small architectural firm in the recession by guiding it into associated general contracting. Robert longs simply to ask him about that, about how his work is going, about how busy he must be. Robert knows he can’t. And for what he must say, he’s far from having any words, much less the right ones.

“Looks serious,” Kevin says.

“Yes.”

“Did the surgery go okay?”

“The surgery itself went fine.” Robert hesitates.

“Itself?”

Restless with his clumsiness, Robert rolls his shoulders, turns around. “He’s dead.”

Robert is now facing Bob but is unaware of him. Bob is quite aware of Robert. This abrupt announcement has rung clearly in the dark. Someone is dead.

Kevin is silent for a moment. And a moment more.

Robert turns around again, faces the parking lot. “I’m sorry. Sorry for your loss. Sorry for just blurting it.”