"$40,000 SPECIAL"

1

I sat there staring at it for what felt like days but I knew it'd been only hours.The time since hearing my uncle spill had passed like a rush of water,bursting forward with all the zeal of that first shower splash.Perhaps that what I needed right now,I thought before returning my focus to the little black book.

Small,understated and discreet,it seemed to dwarf its neighbors on the table somehow despite their relative closeness in size,a navy debit card with gold script across its face and a couple of sheets of paper that had been torn from the little black book.The paper had been written on and folded but not fussed over.It still maintained its original crispness,just the faintest bit of paper hanging onto its neatly torn edges.The sight of those even edges made me smile,its tidiness reminding me of him,forever neat,smart and buttoned up. Never too much nor too little,just what was needed given the circumstances.

But these were entirely different circumstances altogether.

This was a mess of I'd ever seen one.

The mess to end all messes.

It felt like this one was super sized to make up for lost time.

2

"That mother of yours boy I tell ya…A for real mysterious woman."

I had finally pushed the insistence of the whisky down and stopped snapping snidely at his heels long enough to let him offer an explanation.He seemed to shrink a bit as he sat there.I thought it might be the relief of letting go of the burden,like a tired man finally reaching the top of the hill,withered but happy to lay the heavy weight down.As he spoke the words poured out of him and he seemed more deflated than relieved.I began to sympathize with the suddenly less than majestic figure before me.I could picture my father’s teeth sucking disappointment if he'd been here to see it.

"I asked you to do one thing and you….chhhh."

They never argued much in my recollection.It just wasn't part of their rhythm.Whenever things were less than pleasant between them my uncle would just “be scarce” for a while.I never picked up on this until my teens when the nuances of adult relationships and the thin emotional adhesive that holds them together suddenly became frighteningly apparent.As a kid I assumed he was off having adventures.

He’d always reappear from these adventures with some kind of gift for me:a woven bracelet, a beaded necklace,a strange toy from some far off place.I always looked forward to these gifts as a kid but now they felt like peace offerings to my father.

"You know how your dad is.."

He was right.

I did.

Everybody did.

He just was as he was.

Sunshine is bright,rain fall is wet and my dad is...

“..just not the kind of person you want to disappoint."

Right again.

I’d never found the words to describe it,but it was always there.That elusive power.You just wanted to please the guy.The look that would inhabit his face if you betrayed some confidence he’d extended you was soul crushing.I could see for the first time it's impact on someone other than myself.He was so solid,so consistent that he was almost parent and brother to the man sitting in front of me.

Suddenly a grasping regret took hold.I had wanted answers but it felt almost criminal to be putting him through this.No one could ever pin my uncle down,he was too lighthearted,too free of spirit,too flighty as my mother would say.This was truly a role reversal, the carefree brother having to answer for the responsible one.She’d probably get a kick out of seeing him like this.

"..but like I said,she's mysterious for real and we never talked about it much.I knew she didn't hate me,she just needed your father to be a certain kind of man.I think she felt like I kept pulling him back to being the person he was when they first met and I'm sure she resented it.”

He paused as if to consider something.

“Hell,I can't blame her.She had a plan,an outlook.And that other version of him didn't fit into that plan.She…they were building something and I represented a distraction.Thats fair.."

He paused again as if something more had came to him but didn't utter it,didn't shift his gaze from where it had wandered.I wanted more details but quietly decided not to press him on it,maybe some other time.

“So I can't say how much she knew or whether she knew,and I certainly wasn't gonna sniff around,raising suspicion.I just kept my mouth shut and tried my best to be cordial.It was my way of having his back."

He slumped back in his seat and left the last few words sitting in the air between us,then raised his hands as if to say “Thats all I've got”.I didn't have the heart to continue pressing him.In fact I wasn't sure if I had the heart for any of this.

3

"What are you crying for?"

He kept repeating it like a songs chorus,his voice a mixture of disbelief and genuine concern.

"I told you..."

The sunlight slicing through the glass felt like a hard slap across my tear soaked face.I was crying in huge sobs, gulping in air in near hyperventilation as the waves of shame continued to splash across my stick thin nine year old frame.

“…as long as you don't lie to me and you do exactly as I tell you,I will never be mad at you..You know this.”

The rules with him were always simple.

“Keep your hands to yourself unless someone touches you.”

“We ain't bullies but we ain't pushovers either”, he would say by way of explanation.

“Keep thoughts off other people's things,you barely got enough time to mind your own business..."

That was always a major sticking point with him.The desperate,ugly face of envy was something his well manicured composure couldn't stomach,let alone tolerate in his son.We were never poor when I was a kid but there always seemed to be these frustrating belt tightening periods.Inevitably there'd be some toy or special book bag,some game or pricy jacket that was the must have for everyone my age,some “can't go to school without it” item.

The routine was always the same.I’d become obsessed with whatever new craze it was and knowing my mother was the weaker link I'd begin pestering her about it.She’d entertain me for a bit before growing weary of my childish whining and saying something's long these lines:

“Well I can see you feel strongly about it,but we make decisions as a family.I suggest we go talk to your father."

It was her go to play,and I knew it was useless to protest.The matter was already decided in those couple of sentences.I’d made that solemn march with her so many times,feet suddenly feeling like heavy stones as as she guided me in front of her with a hand on the back of my neck to where ever my father was sitting.

We'd find him and suddenly that guiding hand would disappear as she receded slightly into the background,leaving me to face the man who seemed to hold my whole world in his hands.

"What's up son.You got something you need to say to me?"

4

The instructions..much like his rules had always been were pretty simple.

In fact the words that peered back at me from from their unfolded paper perch weren’t so much instructions as they were a to do list of sorts.The neatly written letters explained the bank card the papers once concealed and what to do with it.

The bank card would provide the bearer access to an account.In this account was $100,000 to be divided amongst three individuals in the following way:

Person A would receive $40,000 as would person B.Person C was to receive the balance of the account, $20,000.

The name of person A was one that had been familiar to me all of my life,though I’d rarely used it.She’d always been “Mommy” to me.Person C’s name was my own and despite my fathers familiar script it seemed foreign somehow,the recognition of his writing doing nothing to lessen the alien feel of reading my own name in this context. Person B’s name was the surprise,the sting in the tail,the cliffhanger.

I’d begrudgingly taken on the task of sorting out my fathers personal effects,not really wanting to take that inevitable journey through the past but knowing my mother wouldn’t be up to it.

“I’ll let you handle that baby” she’d said with a world weary sigh.

Perhaps she known all along and felt somehow it’d be best if I’d discovered the truth this way,stumbling onto the realization unexpectedly whilst surrounded by the warmth of all the physical aspects of him,as opposed to being splashed with the unexpected news like cold water.

Or maybe she was saving herself from the emotional turmoil of revealing it to me and being confronted with all the ensuing questions.It was hard to tell at this point.I was learning so much about the people I thought I knew best that it all felt like a screaming jumble in head. I’d always heard people talk about the stages of grief and had never bought into the idea.I thought it to be another vain attempt of the fragile human to make some sense of himself.To squeeze some meaning out of the screaming jumble.How could one blanket understanding cover every body’s feelings?.

Nonsense,I thought.

I was wrong.The disbelief of denial had turned swiftly into a sour anger as I’d searched feverishly for details about Person B.

He wasn’t in hiding by any means,typing his name into my father’s laptop search search engine produced all the expected results,social media and the like.He was younger than me but not by much,3 years or so by my estimation.I sat there in my father’s study looking at pictures of Person B staring back at me from the glowing screen.A few selfies with loved ones,big smiles,amiable photos from events and family gatherings.Pretty standard stuff.

I kept looking some indication,some clue that would tell me what I needed to know.

The $20,000 difference bothered me.In fact it cut deeper than I’d probably be willing to admit given the circumstances.

I could understand the sum for my mother.That was his wife after all,or rather his “lady” as I’d often heard him say.

But what was so special about this guy?

$40,000 special!?

What height had he ascended to in my father’s mind that made him $20,000 better than me?

It felt like childhood all over again.I was making that ill fated walk to wherever he was sitting,the sensation of her hand leaving my neck and shoulders.

What didn’t I do?

Where had I failed?

What edict didn’t I follow?

What maxim or adage had I neglected to heed?

I couldn’t make sense of it,and suddenly the reality of being in his private space was too claustrophobic.Everything about him and the room seemed to be closing in on me.I had to get out of here,get some air,walk for a while in the night time air, do some thinking.I turned to leave and caught sight of the one picture of himself that’d he’d bothered to hang,one of a more youthful him taken at his second graduation when he’d been awarded his master’s degree. There he stood beaming and hopeful in his celebratory attire,regal and composed as ever.I’d seen that picture so many times in my life that it never seemed to stand out as it did now.It had been satisfied to fade into the background but was now insistent on being noticed,his eyes appearing to stare straight out into mine from that familiar face. I paused to take it in,reverently standing to face the photo as I had done so often before the man himself.

“What’s up son.You got something you need to say to me?”