“To
our son”
Drunk on the random co-ordinates of another afternoon,
Skunk sits on his mother’s bed, the gentle tattoo of spring rain upon the
house-roof permeating all with an audible texture: the birthday card in one
hand, the telephone in his other, the shotglass on the Bible.
ache1
(on telephone): Is it half-emp’y, or half-full?
Skunk lays aside the card for a drink, says
Skunk lays aside the card for a drink, says
Skunk
(swallowing): Well, if I’m drinking, it’s half emp’y, but if I’m filling the
glass then it’s half-full. I go by whatever the conclusion will be, by the
conclusion of the context, if that, does that make any sense at all?
He
stands and looks out at the curve of suburbia in which his mother had lived, the raw
street dark with rain pooling at its edges.
Skunk:
I used to know the location of every drain in this street, and the streets near
here too. Can you believe that?
ache1:
Sure. That’s something you learn real quick as, as a marbles player, as a kid.
You have to know where your hazards are, right?
Pause.
ache1:
Skunk?
Skunk
(barely audible): Hey. Yes, just...
people washing cars, stuff like that, and we would make little dams from
stones and broken twigs and we’d try to hold the water back as it made its way
along the gutter
drinking.
They
are surprises without hope of resolution, those as await the bereaved sorting
the property of their dead: the simple colour of a forgotten coat, a skirt’s
special texture, or the scent of soap clung to gloves, and this afternoon: a
box, a fallback cache for birthdays only just remembered, sudden sympathy, or
bland congratulations, and amongst these “To
our son”, a birthday card unsent and unwritten, stored far beyond any hope
of its giving, and all its rarefied shock and grief exacerbated by that
possessive pronoun, the first person plural.
Skunk: I don’t think you ever... exhaust the
possibilities of that happening. There’s a damn near infinite... The potential
for, for ehm... you know? You can think that you’ve, that you’ve cleared
everything away and that the likelihood of eh, of of something like this is is,
that it’s just, that it’s been reduced out of existence, the potential of...
but now I don’t think you ever
exhaust the possibilities of it happening.
ache1:
I miss you babe, your family needs its daddy.
Skunk:
I miss you too. I’ll be home tomorrow.
She
tries to cheer him some, saying
ache1:
Skunk I’m going to put the phone on my ahm, on my belly, okay, and you say some
good stuff to the ah, tell antler some things.
With
his free hand he lifts and flips open his mother’s Bible to its ribbon-markered
page, reads
Skunk
(reading): “And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham,
and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
And
he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest,”
and
here at the chapter’s second verse he remembers, and knowing she cannot hear,
reads on
Skunk
(reading): “and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a
burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
And
Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his
young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt
offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
Then
on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.
And
Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad
will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
And
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son:
and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them
together.
And
Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am
I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for
a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for
a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
And they
came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there,
and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar
upon the wood.
And
Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
And the
angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham:
and he said, Here am I.
And he
said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for
now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine
only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind
him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram,
and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.”
Pause.
ache1
(quietly): Come home Skunk. Please?
Skunk:
Yes.
Pause.
Skunk:
Yes.
ache1
(in a strange little croak): “I’ll be right
here. I’ll be right here”
her
voice fracturing both times on its emphasised upper register.
