Uncle Hugh Comes to Town

We were looking through my collection of photos of my father from years ago. I told Misty that my Uncle Hugh could be seen in many of them. She quickly picked out one that caught her eye. Holding it up, she said, “This is Uncle Hugh?”

I smiled at the antics of the two men in the photograph: Dad waving a red flag as the other man pointed his forefingers upward from against his temples, symbolizing bull’s horns. The other barely managed a smile behind Dad’s broadest grin. “Yes, it’s him. I haven’t met my uncle since about age thirteen.”

With a mischievous smile, she put a finger to the face. “He looks like a barn owl.”

“What?”

I was taken by surprise, but I examined Uncle Hugh’s face from this new perspective. To me, he had always looked kind of stuffy. I studied the morose expression and long nose. Thick hair making his face somewhat heart-shaped. Dark eyes like Oreos. Old fashioned high collar. It was true. “Looks like you’re right,” I said. “Where did you learn about barn owls, city girl?”

She gave a smug reply: “At summer camp we saw a few almost every year. Friends knew where to find them.”

“At least you will know how to pick him out at the airport tomorrow,” I said, sobering at the prospect of him seeing his brother to offer comfort in the closing pages of his life. “I hope they put the grudges behind them.”

“They fought? What did they fight about?” Misty asked, intrigued, for the man she knew as my Dad hadn’t a mean bone in his body.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” I replied. “I just know Dad relocated us to keep away from him.”

Misty remembered the pot on the stove. I watched her exit as one watches spectacular sundowns, magnificent animals in the wild. After four years together still on a high, knowing we deserve each other as the sky deserves flocks of birds, the sea tortoises, and whales. Corny; but you know what I’m trying to say.

Later that afternoon, in the hospital, we told Dad about Hugh coming. As we went in and he saw us he perked up. His rheumy eyes followed us. He tried to smile. Misty got there first to kiss him on the cheek. It was evident he had fallen under her spell along with myself and I loved him the more for it. When I mentioned Uncle Hugh was flying in, he sobered up. I half expected him to protest, but the dear man said nothing.

We stayed with him as long as he allowed. Early on, Dad had given us strict orders to leave in time to go home, have a nice meal and do the things we normally do. His behavior when we protested the edict threatened his well-being to the point we agreed to do it.

Misty made up a nice salad as I crisped a few potatoes and pan-fried to well-done some steaks. Don’t criticize this last. Cooking kills pathogens. You eat your bloody meat if you like. We are content getting all the red out. We set up our meal at the dining table because we don’t watch television when eating. It’s more pleasant if I watch her beautiful face across from me and see her bite into food I’ve cooked. Small talk we don’t do so much because we are introverted like that. Today she wanted to know more about my uncle.

I recall being very fond of Uncle Hugh. I spent a great deal of time with him when we were in California. His house sat at the street end of a long strip of land on S. Walnut Street in Fresno. He had two smaller buildings in the back, with an outhouse between the two. My family was two houses over. I had no one to play with, which may explain why I felt compelled to visit his home after school so often. His houses in the back were empty because he had bad luck renting them. They were my playground as much as the yard with the chinaberry trees and the little black dog living there. Uncle Hugh gave me those mouth-burning sodas that they used to sell and little bags of salty peanuts. He was so quiet, so gentle. I never understood why he and Dad had such a falling out that we had to move.

The following morning we arrived at the airport forty minutes before the plane was scheduled to land. Our SUV fitted nicely between two gigantic pickup trucks. The walk to the terminal was fairly short in the brisk airy morning as I came wearing some nice slacks and a polo shirt covered with a windbreaker. Misty had on a yellow blouse and grey pants. Over the blouse, she wore a black jacket. We followed the signs and then waited on the bench. Misty spreads magic wherever she goes. She caught the eye of a little boy who kept looking at her and smiling. She gave him little waves of the hand, even blew him a kiss.

Right on time, we learned that Uncle Hugh’s plane was disembarking and we watched eagerly for his long face when the passengers began filing out. I was still carefully trying to sort the countenances of the men, all of whom likely were intent on claiming their luggage, when Misty cried out excitedly, “That’s him. Uncle Hugh.”

I followed her gaze and my eyes hooked on a much older Uncle than I was prepared to see. He used a cane to support his left knee. The hair on top of his head was no more. His nose seemed even longer. He looked morosely across the room, then brightened. He glanced at me but the light in his eyes was for Misty. No one resists her smile.

He gave me a perfunctory hug, but said to Misty, “And you are? Surely you’re not related to this lug?”

“I am. I am Mrs. Misty Algood,” she warbled. “I’m in love with the lug.”

“Well, good luck with that,” he said.

All the way to the hospital I was the fifth wheel. I really didn’t mind, because I like showing off the missus. Nothing they said was of any consequence and we quieted walking the corridor to Dad’s room. As we came near the door, Misty backed off to allow me ahead to prepare Dad to see his brother.

At first, Dad appeared to be sleeping. I came near and lay my hand against his cheek. His eyes popped open. “He’s here, Dad. All right if I show him in?”

He attempted to nod. I waved Uncle Hugh in and stood back to watch the reunion.

It was as odd a reunion as I could have imagined. Uncle Hugh stood straight as a marine at inspection, his head tilted down just enough to allow his eyes to meet those of his brother. The look held for at least three or four minutes. “Are we good?” he asked.

Dad nodded his head slightly to indicate “Yes,” closed his eyes, and looked away.

Uncle Hugh frowned slightly before he turned to go. It was to be the last time he saw his brother. His head bowed as he went back into the hall. “We’ll come back later, Misty and I,” I told Dad.

We asked Uncle Hugh to spend the rest of the day with us since his flight home was set for tomorrow morning. He took us up on it. We sat for a time in the kitchen eating snacks. Then we made ourselves comfortable in the living room, where Misty and my uncle jabbered, causing me to feel ignored. I stood at the bar drinking a horrible wine I had bought to sample and listened without listening until my name got mentioned.

“You’ve ignored Michael since the airport. What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry for your sake,” my uncle began, without considering my presence in the room. He looked in my direction without looking directly at me. “When I knew him your husband, the kid, made a daily nuisance of himself. He was a destructive little shit. He broke the sheetrock in my rentals. Drank up my drinks. Pestered my dog. Just when I got ready to complain to Phil - Michael’s Dad - He burned up my outhouse and an adjoining shed.”

At that, I slammed down my glass on the bar. Confronting my accuser, I said, “I was a kid playing, not one targeting you for hurtfulness. I didn’t intentionally break those things. About the outhouse: I told you then I didn’t cause that fire. It burned more than half an hour after I went home.”

Uncle Hugh looked more sad than condemning at this point. “Phil told me he found the matches in your pocket when he did the laundry. What do you want to lie for?”

It was the truth. I started the fire. But I didn’t mean to. Inside of the outhouse was an old cotton mattress, folded in half, leaning against the wall. As I sat on the toilet I idly took out the matches and struck one. Where a rip exposed the cotton I touched the flame. After a few moments of watching the fire on the mattress build, I felt panic and smothered it. It was totally out, I believed. And it was - all but an insidious little spark inside the cotton that I couldn’t know about. Without thorough dosing with water cotton fires are nearly impossible to extinguish. I lied because some kids lie when about to be exposed.

A great tear burst out of my uncle’s eye and splashed off of his face. “Your fire burned my dog. The vet was able to save him, but he was never the same the rest of his life.”

Those words struck like a meat cleaver into my being. That dog with its wavy black hair, white muzzle, dancing for attention, doggie smile, I regarded as my one friend in those days. Suddenly I knew why Dad moved us to Austen. It was because of me, exclusively. Crestfallen, I exited the room to cry alone.

When I came back Uncle Hugh was gone. “He took a cab,” Misty sadly informed me. “He didn’t say where he’s going.”

“Sorry.“ I looked at her, still steeped in my humiliation. “I wasn’t by design a bad kid. Things worked out that way.”

“I know,” she said. “Come on while I mix you a drink.”

She gave us each a screwdriver. We sat at the bar commiserating for a bit before she mentioned that her date to see her parole officer had been moved to Tuesday.

“No problem,” I replied. “I have work-related projects I can get to while you are there.”