Stephan Clark - Sweetness #9

“What are you doing?” I said, pushing into her room.

She stood alone at the window, struggling to open it while holding a plate in one hand. On it was a half-eaten microwaveable hamburger.

Priscilla returned slowly to her bed and set the plate down on top of her green comforter.

“I couldn’t help myself,” she said. “My cravings, they’re so strong.”

I sat down beside her, telling her not to worry about it. “It’s been a hard day. We all deserve a little treat.”

She looked up then, her eyes already moist. “You won’t tell Sarin, will you?”

She took in a jagged breath. “She’s been a vegetarian her whole life.”

“Let her be her and you be you.”

She reached for her burger and began to cry, saying she wanted Sarin to like her.

“Just be yourself.” Parenthood, it seems, is advising others to do what you can’t do yourself. “You can’t go through life living a lie, trying to please others.”

She took a bite of her burger, considering this; and maybe by some law of probability I had finally said the right thing, because it was then, while chewing thoughtfully, that she told me, “I’m in love with her, Dad. I love Sarin.”

I’d never suspected it, not even for a moment, but as soon as I heard those words it made perfect sense. “Be mine!” the little candy heart had said.

“Do you hate me now?” she asked. She was dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and that black hooded sweatshirt she never went without.

“Why would I hate you?” If anything, I felt as if I’d won the lottery, because it was only here, now, that I knew I wasn’t the type of parent to throw his child’s baby book into the trash. I’d never imagined this scenario before, but once I was in the midst of it, I knew it as clearly as I knew my own name: I only wanted her to be happy.

“You need to tell her,” I said. “Because do you know what the other option is? Winding up like me. Sitting on a lie half your life. Will you listen? I know. It’ll eat you up and spit you out and you won’t even recognize yourself in the end.”

Priscilla’s chest jumped to take in a sudden gulp of air. She unhinged her jaw and widened her eyes to hold back another hot rush of tears.

“So you won’t tell her? About the hamburger, I mean?”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said. “I’ll even tell you one of my own. Just don’t tell your mother. Even she’s never heard this.”

Priscilla waited patiently, all eyes.

“It’s about your great-great-great-grandfather. In his later years, he traveled the eastern seaboard putting on puppet shows denouncing God and the free market.”

“Stop!”

“Now you know why your mother doesn’t know. If this got out, her reputation at the Chamber of Commerce would be ruined. He was a union man,” I said, “an agitator in the coal mines of Pennsylvania when he wasn’t much older than you are now.”

“Maybe he had red hair, too.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, I wouldn’t doubt it. Anyway, this is the story my grandfather told me. He said they had been using dynamite to open up the shafts to get the coal out, but their methods were needlessly careless, costing a handful of workers their lives. Your great-great-great-grandfather wanted to change all that, and so he stole a stick of dynamite and used it to request better wages and improved working conditions.”

My face grew serious. I gestured with a stiff finger. “No one was hurt. He staged his protest after hours, and only the executive offices were targeted. He simply wanted to make a point: so long as our workplace is dangerous, yours will be too.”

Priscilla was smiling.

“This was a company town — nothing there but its workers, its store, its housing development — and so when the dynamite went off, everyone spilled out of their beds and onto their front porches to see what had happened. There was a full moon that night — much was made of this in the opposition press — but still no one saw anyone walking away from the mine on the single road that ran from it through town. The company was sure it had to be your great-great-great-grandfather. He’d always been the squeaky wheel, and he didn’t pipe down much afterward, either. But no one would speak against him in court. I’m sure they were threatened with the loss of their livelihood, probably offered money and promotions, but no one would speak against him when they were called in for questioning.”

We both smiled.

“He probably stopped to shake hands. Probably kissed babies and stepped inside for a slice of pie. That was your great-great-great-grandfather Jürgen.”

We sat there for a long time, considering this man we only knew through a story. Then we stood and walked together to the door, where Priscilla did something I’ll never forget. She gave me a hug and squeezed me a second time as if she wouldn’t ever let go. This is the moment where I wish my story could end, right there in her hold. But we had to break away, and I had to tell her what may have been the biggest whopper of all.

“Everything will be fine,” I said. “Do you hear? Everything will be just fine.”

WHEN I WOKE UP the following morning, it was as if my anxiety was waiting for me at the foot of my bed, holding my slippers. Had another packet of Sweetness #9 been delivered to the office? No matter how many times I tried to push away the question, it kept rushing back, making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else. I forgot to put water in the coffee machine before turning it on, then corrected this mistake only to realize I hadn’t filled the cone with any grounds. For breakfast I had an egg that seemed somehow naked; when I finished, I remembered the bread I’d left in the toaster.

Near ten, I told Betty I was going to run to the office and see about some paperwork. She didn’t mind. She’d felt slighted to learn about Priscilla from me. (“Apparently, a mother doesn’t know,” she’d said.) So she made plans to spend the day with our daughter, cooking bread and making barbecue tempeh.

When I got to the office, it was just as I’d feared — another plain white business envelope lying beneath the brass slot of the front door. Hearing music, loud and with a sharp percussive beat, I took it into the back, where I found Koba and Beekley. They’d pushed the sofa away from the soda machine and placed a large piece of cardboard on the floor. Beekley was spinning on top of it, his legs awhirl above him.

“David!” Koba was dressed in casual clothing: a pair of khakis and a long-sleeve Madras shirt. “Look at what I can do!” He began moving his limbs stiffly, popping and locking his torso and arms into place, a wave of motion moving out from one wrist to the other. “It’s called The Robot. Isn’t it wonderful? I’m doing The Robot!”

Beekley jumped to his feet and pushed a button on his boom box to silence it. “Something wrong?” he said. “Your eye is twitching.”

I handed him the envelope, telling him it was the second one I’d received in as many days.

He shook its contents, then held it up to the light. “Is this a packet of Sweetness #9?”

I nodded, telling him my first job out of college was at Goldstein, Olivetti, and Dark. “In Animal Testing,” I said.

“That’s so old school. As is this.” He looked more closely at the contents of the envelope, remarking on its color. “Is this Mexican Nine? Why would someone send you a packet of Mexican Sweetness #9?”

I saw no reason to withhold this information anymore. “I conducted a chronic toxicity test on it prior to its bid for FDA approval.”

He handed the envelope back to me. “I guess you know where all the dead bodies are buried, then, don’t you?”