The Apple and the Tree

The Apple and the Tree

The alley was strewn with mens bodies, thrown away like the empty wine bottles of cheap rotgut and the multiple cases of stale beer.  It had been a long time.  Andy wound himself through the men, staring at each face, hoping and not hoping he recognized one.  It must have been hard for his mother to call him, he thought.  She was such a proud woman, so private, and so utterly helpless, all at the same time.  He paused, one of the bodies raised a familiar hand, but no, it was just of the same texture as his father’s, soft and worn, with nails bitten down to the quick.  How had this happened?  Why had it happened, after all these years? 

His mother hadn’t answered.  She’d been barely audible over the phone, almost a whisper, but pained nonetheless.  He could palpate the embarrassment through the air.  He would have said through the wire, but no one had a phone with a wire anymore.  He guessed some things did change.  He knew his mother whispered so he couldn’t hear the break in her voice or the tears streaming into her mouth as she struggled valiantly to ask her son a favor, “Can you go look for your father?  He didn’t come home from the office last night and I know he’s too dysfunctional in that department for it to be another woman.  We’ve been through that already, you know.”

So here he was, doing what he had done so many times before, picking through trash, rummaging through lives on the other side.  He was about to accept defeat when he spotted the watch, his watch, or rather, the watch he’d bought for his father.  He stepped to the arm, remarked on the manicured attempt to hide the nail biting, and then followed the expensive sleeve up to the face; the visage he knew too well.  Each morning he looked to see how similarly or differently his own approached that face.  Every crease was a map to a place he knew not where, but he knew to avoid the bottle all the same.

He reached over and tugged at the foot, and then he leapt away.  He knew not to be within striking distance.  Some things he never forgot, others he wished he could.  He wished he could forget the first time he struck out at bat or the look on his father’s face.  He wished he could remember if his father was saddened or relieved.  He wished he could remember it was his father who taught him how to ride a bike, but instead he couldn’t forget that it was some other man; someone else’s father, a friend of his mom’s.  He wished he could have believed his father had bought the bicycle, but he knew he could never forget how horrible a liar his mother was.  He smiled.  These days, he knew it was why she kept silent.  He also knew the answer by the silence.  It was the same silence she used when he asked if his father had ever hit her.  That silence was deafening and would have clouded his vision forever if she hadn’t asked him to see past it.  She told him if he couldn’t see past it, he couldn’t see her life for the value it had.  He said he could.  He was always a better liar than his mom, or at least, she let him think so.

The wreck of a body lurched forward, swinging, still powerful, and so pathetic.  The reddened eyes looked at him vacantly, and then slowly recognition seeped into their charcoal tinted brown, then love, and then distance.  It truly was familiar territory.  Andy turned and walked away.  The hulk had been aroused and could find its own way home.  He was halfway down the alley when he stopped, turned, and walked back.  He leaned over and looked deeply into the reddened eyes, completely ignoring the stench of his father’s breath.  “If you want, I can drive you home or you can walk with me to the AA meeting I know of two blocks down.  It’s your choice.  You decide, but you’ll have to put out your hand and ask for help.”

He squatted there waiting.  He wondered if he could wait all day.  He could see the emotions cross his father’s face; rage, embarrassment, and ultimately and surprisingly, acquiescence.  He didn’t verbalize the question, but he did put his hand out.  It was an excellent first step.  Andy had never been more proud.