I could have used a flux capacitor on the drive from Bloomington to Indianapolis, or at the very least a Delorean. I had a lot of time to think about what I’m going to say to Dad. More time than I wanted. There was an accident on Highway 37, a little past Martinsville. I tried sneaking around it by heading west on 144 and then up 67. Problem was, everybody else had the same idea. Apparently, I’m a little distracted. Almost wrecked twice. Stopped into a backwoods filling station, left the filling station with the gasoline hose still lodged in the side of my truck. Blazed through that pack of Marlboro Lights. And if there’s such a thing as a profanity quota, I am set for life.
The digital clock in my truck reads 8:20 a.m as I pull into the auction parking lot. This is going to be tight. I know Dad was killed “around” 8:30, but I can’t remember if it was before or after 8:30.
I don’t have a watch on. I reach into my jeans pocket for my BlackBerry to check the time. Force of habit, I guess. My hand halfway into my pocket, I check myself; IBM will release the world’s first smartphone, oh, about a year from now.
Again, I’m too present and knowing for this to be a dream. Feet mill to and fro on each side of me. The number of tasseled loafers unnerves me. Head down, I’m not looking where I’m going.
“Excuse me,” I say into a man’s chest as we run into one another.
“Hank?” the man says.
I look up. He’s dressed in his usual business casual attire for the auction: polo shirt pulled tight against his middle-aged belly, khakis about an inch too short above his loafers. He’s wearing the nylon blue jacket that sixteen years from now still hangs in my coat closet—“JOHN” in gold block letters on the right front, and on the left front the interlocking corporate logos of Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Subaru overlaid by the words “Fitzpatrick-Olds-Cadillac-Subaru.” He holds a cup of coffee in his right hand, a half-eaten donut in his left.
“Dad!” I shout. I grab him, my left arm under his ribs and my right arm over his shoulder, pulling him into a hard, chest-to-chest bear hug. Sixteen years of depression and despair pouring out in an embrace I can’t release, I won’t release.
Dad hugs me back, like he always does. I bury my face in his shoulder to hide my tears, nuzzling his throat as I inhale his English Leather cologne.
If I’m being honest, the only reason I never became an atheist is that I couldn’t reconcile myself with any belief system that told me I wouldn’t see my father again. I believe in heaven more than I believe in Jesus. Does that mean I’m not a Christian? Do I give a shit? Maybe I’m just Ray Kinsella, that little boy wanting to have one last catch with his dad. What’s the scripture quote, that one from Corinthians about faith, hope, and love? It’s as if all three have coalesced into this one moment, putting me back in the arms of my father. And that’s enough for me.
“Easy there, son,” Dad says, trying to pry himself away from me. “Are you okay?”
“What?” I wipe the tears from my eyes. “You too old to give your son a hug or something?”
“Never,” Dad says. “You’re just usually not this—”
“Affectionate?”
“Well, yeah.”
“First time for everything.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Mid-terms,” I say. “Got the rest of the week off. Thought I’d surprise you.”
“Consider me surprised. Want to come home for dinner tonight?”
“Maybe,” I say. “How about breakfast right now?”
“Gee, I’d love to, Hank.” He holds up his half-eaten donut. “But this is the first thing I’ve been able to keep down all morning.”
“You sick?”
“I think so.”
“Then go home.” I can hear my voice. It sounds anxious. It is anxious. “You got a wife and little boy waiting for you. Take the rest of the day off.”
Dad pulls back the left sleeve of his jacket, eyes his watch. “I wish I could, son, but the dealership is really short on its used truck inventory right now. I have to do some major wheelin’ and dealin’ today.”
I look at the analog wall clock just over the entrance to the restrooms. It reads 8:25 a.m. I need to stall him maybe five minutes, ten at the most.
“You want to come with me?” Dad asks.
“Where?”
He points with his coffee hand toward the garage area, his index finger extended from the cup. “Out on the auction floor. See your father in action.”
“That’s the last thing on earth I want to do.”
His shoulders slump. I’ve hurt his feelings. But maybe there’s an opportunity here. I can keep this contained. I have read the police report, the depositions, and the autopsy enough to know exactly how and where this accident happens. I can describe the vehicle. I can even describe the driver. If I’m there, with my father, it’ll be as easy as walking him over to another garage stall a minute or two prior.
I punch Dad in the shoulder. “Just kidding, Pops. Lead the way.”
We walk out onto the auction floor, a flurry of flesh and steel. Auctioneers babbling gibberish into their microphones, sweaty handshakes, cars going in and out. “How about this truck, Dad?” I point to a bright yellow late seventies Chevy Luv. It’s not a GMC Sonoma, and that’s all that matters.
“That piece of crap?” Dad says. “Ain’t nothing but a rebadged Isuzu.”
I look into the front window, pretending to be interested. “I don’t know. I see a lot of potential here. Maybe put a light bar on the roof, some graphics on the side, a roll-up tonneau cover on the bed.”
“That’s just putting lipstick on a pig, Hank.”
“Move ‘em up, move ‘em up!” the auctioneer shouts into the microphone. I flinch, but I don’t see the GMC Sonoma in line. Not yet.
The Chevy Luv’s anemic four-cylinder engine rattles to life. It lurches past us, its rear bumper asking us, What would Jesus do?
“That’s a trick question, you know,” Dad says.
“What’s a trick question?” I ask.
“That bumper sticker.” Dad nods at the Chevy Luv. “’What would Jesus do?’ is a trick question.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s not what Jesus did that is important.”
“You know I think most Christian theology is bullshit, Dad.”
“I’m not saying you need to agree with the dogma. Just understand the message.”
“Which is?”
“It’s not enough to be born and to live as a Christian. You have to be born again.”
“Like I said, bullshit.”
Dad pokes me in the chest. “Listen with your heart, not your head.”
“I’m trying.”
“What would Jesus do?” Dad asks.
As my father asks this question, I can see the white GMC Sonoma two cars back in the repo line, and behind it the black Ford Bronco. The Bronco stalls. A manager walks over to the driver’s-side window. He pushes his hands forward as he barks out instructions to the driver about how to feather the brake and the gas to keep the engine running.
I have to make my move, and soon.
“I can tell you what Jesus would do, Dad.”
“Yeah, Hank?”
“He’d tell his father to shut the hell up and go out to breakfast with him.”
“It’s not what Jesus did that was important.”
“Yeah, you said that already.”
The GMC Sonoma pulls forward, now only one car away from the auction block. The Bronco stalls again.
“You just don’t get it, Hank. It’s not how Jesus lived that saved the world. It’s how he died.”
“…”
“Hank?”
“…”
“Son?”
“…”
The edges of Dad’s face start to soften, like Christopher Reeve when he pulled that 1979 Lincoln penny out of his pocket in Somewhere in Time and lost Jane Seymour forever. Again, the room spins. Shortness of breath, panic attack. Only this panic attack is different. It’s not like the one I had earlier, when I woke up sixteen years in the past. This isn’t a panic attack born of disbelief. It’s one of clarity.
I am a bastard.
Fatherless but not quite rudderless, I am a product of my pain as much as my joy, my vices as much as my virtues, a raised up, broken down, and raised up again mishmash of sin and sincerity. I am someone who has loved, who has married, who has helped bring three beautiful children into this world not in spite of losing my father…but because I lost him.
I’ve shoved my hand down my pocket and found my fucking 1979 penny. For me to be saved, for me to be born again, Dad has to die.
“I think I get what you’re saying,” I say. The words feel hollow in my mouth, each syllable from here to the moment I turn my back on my father hammering that nail deeper into his cross. Soon his groin will be ripped in half. His liver will explode. The outer wall of his abdomen, his bowels, and his bladder all shredded and expelled in bits and pieces onto the reddening concrete floor. That one Lincoln penny now a jar of pennies. The metallic smell of blood. And I’m the prophet who’s going to let it happen.
“So you understand?” Dad says.
I nod, grabbing his elbow. “I understand more than you know.”
I hug him again, one last time. I’m holding on, hoping that I can somehow warn him what’s about to happen. Through osmosis.
He doesn’t hug me back this time. I wish he did, but he doesn’t. It’s not like he knows. How could he? And of course, it’s not that he doesn’t love me. He’s just a guy in the moment, caught in an awkward hug, even by John Fitzpatrick’s overly affectionate standards.
I can feel Dad trying to navigate the awkward silence, just like any good car salesman would do. Waiting for the right words. Refusing to “umm” or “uhh” his way through conversation. An Oldsmobile man to the end.
“You in for Notre Dame-Stanford on Saturday?” Dad asks.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Dinner tonight?”
“Yeah,” I say, choking on the lump in my throat. “Dinner would be great.”
“Burgers and beer?”
“Think your stomach can handle it?”
“I got to cash in on this kinder and gentler son thing while I can.”
“Sounds perfect.” I lean in again, still not ready to let go of this moment. I kiss him on the cheek. “I love you, Dad.”
He reacts to this moment a little less awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck and giving me a gentle headbutt. “Love you too, son.”
The GMC Sonoma pulls up as I leave my father forever. Somebody tries to flag me down on the way out of the garage, a friend of Dad’s, but I ignore him. I pass by the analog wall clock just over the entrance to the restrooms. It reads 8:30 a.m.
People are giving me strange looks as I walk across the auction parking lot. By the time I get to my truck, I’m not just crying. I’m sobbing.
My heart hurts. I sit in my truck. My arms collapse over the steering wheel. Just as I am about to close the door, I hear a high-revving engine. Tires squealing. A vehicle getting away from its driver. The screams. The crashing sound of metal hitting metal.
I slam the truck door shut, and peel out of the parking lot.