I CALLED NOBLE in Spain. He didn’t balk or hesitate, he jumped right on a plane. I couldn’t leave until he arrived, in fifteen hours or so.
I took my father to his chemo appointment. He had stomach cancer and had been fighting it too long. The battle had eaten his body from the inside out. He’d retired from the United States Post Office with forty years of service, never using one sick day. Now it seemed those accumulated illnesses he’d dodged throughout his life caught up with him all at once. As a child I remembered him as the biggest, strongest father in the neighborhood, with his narrow waist and broad shoulders and thick biceps. A man who took no guff off anyone, especially not gang members trying to recruit his two sons.
I helped him out of the cab and decided I could, if need be, and without difficulty, pick him up and carry him the entire way. He couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds. He couldn’t afford to lose any more. His once-glistening black hair, now turned pure white, reflected the bright sun and stood out in stark contrast to his black skin.
I held his arm and we did a shuffle-step down the flagstone walk to the clinic. His frail arm brought me back to another time, a graveyard shift at Lynwood, on White Street, and another old man whom I had failed to protect at the time.
“Somethin’ happened last night,” Dad said without looking at me, his full concentration on his foot placement.
“I’m sorry, did we make too much noise?”
“No, I didn’t hear you, but this morning at breakfast you could serve up the tension in the air with a spoon. What’s going on, Son?”
We stopped at the bench under the shade of a Spanish Feeder tree and sat, the morning fresher than usual after a recent rain.
I knew better than to lie to him even if I did it to protect his feelings. “I have to go back again.”
He didn’t reply right off and tried to catch his breath from the exertion of the short walk. “I can’t for the life of me . . . imagine what would be so bad . . . or so demanding that it would draw you back to that ugly world. Not when you have everything right here. This is paradise, Son. You of all people know that.”
I nodded and fought down the rage that started up again, rage fueled by my inability to live a life like Dad described, rage fueled by ignorant and violent people who couldn’t leave well enough alone, leave me or my family alone to live quiet lives.
“Yes, I agree this is paradise, Dad, and if I want to keep it that way, I have to go back to keep the ugliness from following me here. Believe me, if there were any other way, I wouldn’t be going.”
He nodded. “If Marie is letting you go, then I trust her judgement. She wouldn’t unless there wasn’t any other way.”
My jaw sagged open. “Oh, is that right? You trust that Marie could make a sane and cognizant decision, but me, you think I can’t?”
He chuckled and patted my leg with a frail hand. “No, Son, I just think . . .”
He hesitated.
“What?”
“I just think that you have something inside you, a kind of hunger that every now and then needs to be fed. A need to right a wrong, no matter whose wrong it is, to better the world even if it means stepping on someone’s neck in the process.” He paused a long moment and swallowed hard. “And I worry that, during one of those feeding times, something will go horribly wrong, and you will not be allowed to come back to us.”
“Huh. I never thought of it exactly like that. I mean what you said about fulfilling a need . . .” My voice trailed off. His words evoked great emotions. I scrambled to examine those words to see if they held even the smallest bit of truth.
Unfortunately, they did, and that made me uncomfortable.
“You know, you’re some kind of wise old man.”
A tear filled his right eye and threatened to spill over the edge. “This is gonna be a bad one, isn’t it?”
I tried hard to force out the lie. Tell him how I’d take care of this thing and be back in a couple of days, only I couldn’t. I said nothing, and in that non-response, he’d easily glean the truth.
I needed to change the subject. “Noble’s coming to stay for a while, until I can get all my business taken care of.”
“It’ll be good to see your brother again.” He smiled, but it came out crooked; too many of his facial muscles had melted away with the cancer.
“Come on, Dad, let’s get you inside.”
“No, no, not just yet. Let’s just sit out here a little longer. You need to tell me what’s bothering you. There’s something else that’s got you all worked up. You don’t need that kind of thing hangin’ over your head when you go back to deal with the likes of what you gotta deal with.”
He’d again caught me unaware. The man had an innate sense when it came to reading people.
I looked away from him, back at the street to the passing cars, not unlike Toby at the park, watching for that evil to catch up to him.
He waited for me to tell it. I wouldn’t get away with a lie or an excuse. He’d know.
I shook my head, fought tears of my own, and then just let it out. “I wasn’t a good father.”
I didn’t look at him. He patted my leg again. That simple contact meant the world to me.
I turned back to him and asked, “How did you do it? How did you know how to be such a good father?”
Before he could answer, I continued on, “I know I wasn’t so good at it back when I worked the street raising Olivia. I admit I screwed that up. I did. I screwed it up something terrible. And I live with those regrets every day.”
He still said nothing and let me continue at my own pace.
“But now, Dad, now I’m really trying. I’m focused and really paying close attention. I am, and somehow I keep screwing this up.” I didn’t want to tell him that some evil I’d been watching for had penetrated our defenses and that poor little Toby became the victim of my ineptitude.
I waited for him this time.
“Are you kidding me?” he said. “Those kids wouldn’t have had one chance in hell. Not one chance in hell if you had not interceded and taken them from those dangerous homes. Have you ever thought about that? You are doin’ the best you can and no one can ask more of you. Not without dealing with me first. And you damn well know I’m not someone to trifle with.”
I thought about that for a moment and let it sink in. What he said made sense. The first part anyway.
“And as far as Olivia,” he said, “I won’t lie to you, Son. You could’ve done better with her. But you were nothing more than a kid yourself. Keep that in mind. You didn’t have any life experience back then. You were living a violent life making the streets safer for everyone, and doing it for the better good.”
“Dad, that’s not a good enough excuse for being a bad father. In fact, there’s no such thing, there’s no excuse that works.”
“I won’t disagree with you there, but think about this. Could you have done what you did, pulled all those children out of those horrible homes, brought them all down here where it’s safe, had you not had all those experiences working on that special team with the sheriff’s department?”
What he said warmed my soul. It made a lot of sense and helped, to some degree, to assuage the guilt and anguish eating away at my core values. Only it wouldn’t take all of it away. No way it could.
I needed to feed the beast he’d described, and do it soon. And in doing so, keep my family safe.
“Son, you’ve made great sacrifices and you’ve done an admirable job in the process. So when you tell me this time that there’s no getting around going back, then I believe you. I say go ahead. You go with my blessing. Just keep your head down and get back here as soon as you can. We need you, Son. We need you here with us.”