Inheritance: A Novel Part 34

Paul watched her go through the kitchen window. He had the Barber in his hand and he was practicing a few simple vanis.h.i.+ngs. Down below Rachel paused and looked up towards the window. She raised one hand in a wave that seemed hesitant, almost cautious, then turned and got into her pickup and backed out. He listened to the sound of her pickup accelerating into traffic, and when that sound was gone, he got up, crossed the apartment to the bed, and began to peel off his sweat-soaked uniform.

He took a shower, and though it felt good to clean off the grime of the east side, it didn't do anything to settle the restlessness that filled him. He thought about eating something. Some fried chicken maybe. But he knew it wasn't food he wanted. What he really wanted was to feel the way he'd felt during his vision of his father in Mexico. He wanted to experience more of that bond with the man that he realized he was only now starting to get to know. And wasn't that funny? Paul had to kill the man to understand him.

No, he thought, correcting himself, No, that really isn't all that funny. None of it is. Not all the death. Not the confusion. Not the fear. Not the unknowing. None of it is all that funny.

He put on a pair of boxer shorts and a t-s.h.i.+rt, then went around the apartment turning on the box fans that he and Rachel had started using because the air conditioner just couldn't be counted on anymore. Rachel said she woke up four or five times a night because of how hot she got. During the day he sometimes had to go to the kitchen and put a wet rag in the freezer box so he could put it on his forehead while he slept. The landlord had promised to get the unit fixed, but so far they were still baking.

Once he had a good cross breeze working through the apartment he went back to the recliner next to the bed and put the box of stuff from his father's house on the floor in front of him. He went through the contents one by one, taking each picture out and holding it in his hands, waiting for that certain image to rent the veil between this world and the other, the one where his father waited. He paused for a long time over the picture that had set his last vision in motion, the one of his father and mother and him on his mother's hip in front of the house in Smithson Valley, and when nothing happened he grew irritated with himself, angry that he wasn't doing something he was supposed to know how to do.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

Finally, frustrated, he tossed the pictures back in the box and kicked it away from him. The box slid across the hardwood floor and struck the wall, where it made a small, dark hole.

"No," he said, thinking about the three hundred and fifty dollar security deposit they wouldn't be getting back now. "No."

He crossed the floor to the box and pushed it aside. Then he probed the hole in the wall with his fingers and was surprised at how mushy the drywall felt. Almost like it was rain-sodden.

"f.u.c.k," he said. Then, almost shouting it, "f.u.c.k! Stupid, stupid, stupid."

Wait. Maybe I can fix it.

He threw on a pair of jeans and went down to his truck to get his toolbox. When he came back up he sat Indian style on the floor in front of the hole and opened the toolbox. He pushed a hammer and some screwdrivers aside, looking for a retractable blade. But when he picked up a battered old Craftsman socket wrench, he went numb.

He raised it to eye level and saw "M.H." scratched into the handle. His father's wrench. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat, and when the world around him started to turn hazy and dark and a different world began to take its place, Paul Henninger smiled and let it come.

It took him a moment to realize where he was. The floor beneath him was a metal mesh catwalk. The walls were not walls, but metal railings. Metal pipes crisscrossed above him, throwing striped shadows across the catwalk. Ahead of him the catwalk joined with the floor of a large, circular chamber. Paul heard the sounds of men working, voices yelling on the catwalks around him, heavy trucks straining in low gear down below him. The smokestacks gave it away. He could see them peeking out over the rim of the chamber ahead of him and to the left, and he realized this was the Morgan Rollins Iron Works-not as he knew it, but as it had once been.

A transistor radio was playing one of his favorite songs, The Steve Miller Band's "The Joker," and it brought a smile to his face. He followed the music into the chamber and saw a big diesel generator hunkered down in the middle of the room like a sleeping dinosaur. Machine parts were scattered everywhere. The place smelled like dust and oil, but it wasn't an unpleasant smell. Sunlight filled every corner of the room, but it wasn't hot. It felt like springtime.

He caught a flash of movement and saw a man's legs sticking out from under the generator, black slacks and black Red Wing boots. A black Stetson leaned against the man's narrow hips.

"Daddy," Paul said.

There was no fear. Not this time. He knew the man couldn't see him, couldn't hear him. Whatever was about to happen was for his benefit, but he was not an active player in the show. He was a ghost in a theater.

Martin Henninger worked on the generator with calm, steady determination. Paul knelt by his father's hat and watched him work the wrench onto a bolt and dog it down, and he could almost hear the man's mantra of You do one thing at a time and you do it until it's done; you try to do more than one thing at a time, nothing gets done in every swing of his elbow. Growing up, his father had worked that philosophy into him with the same relentless single-mindedness with which he did everything in his life. It didn't matter if he was eating fried chicken or reseating a cylinder. It was always the same. How do you eat an elephant? You take it one bite at a time.

Now Paul sat watching him, remembering the things he told him, and he wondered why it had taken him so long to appreciate the man's ability to focus, his gift of being able to immerse himself in a problem for as long as it took to reason it out. He was a man to whom distraction was a cardinal sin, willpower a religion.

But then Martin Henninger's concentration broke. Paul saw it happen, and for a moment he was terrified. His father's gaze left the tool in his hand and seemed to lock with his own. His expression turned hard, almost violent. He grabbed a bar above his head and pulled himself out from under the generator, still looking right at Paul.

No, not right at me. Through me.

Paul rocked back on his heels and then rose to his feet. He backed away hurriedly as his father got to his feet. Martin Henninger stepped into the s.p.a.ce where Paul had just been standing and stopped. He looked one way and then the other. The Steve Miller Band faded out and Janice Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" started up. Martin Henninger reached over to the radio and turned it down.

"What is that?" he said, and turned to face the ground behind Paul.

Paul spun around. Skeins of dust were moving over the chamber floor, curling around one another like fine silk scarves caught in the wind. Paul watched the dust take shape, saw it settle onto the floor and form an unmistakable image. It was his own face he saw, but his face as he had been twenty years earlier, a boy of four.

His father stepped past him, eyes fixed on the image.

"Paul," he said.

Paul looked at his father, and he saw the man's eyes had rolled up into his head. His hands fell to his side and the wrench he held slipped from his fingertips and clattered to the metal floor.

"What does this mean?" Paul asked.

At first there was no sound but the breeze through the superstructure, the distant, muted voices of men working. But then Martin Henninger began to mutter, and Paul turned to face him.

He was rocking on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, his upper body moving in a circular sway. His lips moved, but the sounds weren't in English. They weren't Spanish either. He continued to sway, and soon he was moving in such large circles that Paul couldn't stop himself. He reached for his father and grabbed his shoulder.

The feeling was like putting his finger into a light socket-so much power, so much energy concentrated in one blast. He felt his body go numb and his bowels nearly let go, but somehow he kept his feet.

He staggered backwards. His eyelids fluttered. He looked at his father. And then his father turned and looked at him.

"Paul?" his father said.

"Daddy? You can see me?"

His father nodded.

"It's me," Paul said. "I saw it, there in the sand. It's not you...it's me. I'm the one that's supposed to..."

"Yes," Martin Henninger said. "You see it."

"Yes."

"I didn't understand when she first told me, all those years ago in Mexico. I was vain. I thought I was the one. But it was always you. I was meant to keep the power burning. But you are the one who is meant to wield it. Do you know what that means, Paul?"

Paul shook his head. He was too stunned to speak.

"You'll be able to see into men's souls. You will know their fears and desires like they were written on their face. No one will ever be able to hide the truth from you. Men will be drawn to you like a lodestar. I spent my life trying to see what lies beyond the doors to perception. But I was never meant to see that country. It was meant for you."

"My inheritance," Paul said, his voice barely a whisper.

"And your charge. You'll make a kingdom of this world."

Paul looked at him intently, and it was like he was seeing the man for the first time. "You knew, Daddy. You knew about this the night that I...that I..." He swallowed. "Daddy, why? Why did it have to be this way?"

Martin Henninger touched his chest where the aerator's spikes had pierced him and black soot poured from his fingertips.

"Do you see this soot, Paul? Every time I appear to you, a little more of me burns away. I can't hold the gates open for long."

"Just tell me why, Daddy. Why did you have to die?"

"I can't tell you everything, Paul. I had to learn it on my own. You do, too."

"I don't understand, Daddy. I want you back."

"I could tell you what I know, but you wouldn't understand it. That's the whole point, Paul. Knowledge without experience is impossible. Do you understand that? Paul, you're meant to do some great things, but you won't be able to get any of it done if you don't learn how the power works. There's only one way to do that, and that's the hard way. The way I learned it."

"Daddy..."

But there was nothing else. The world melted away in a flash of daylight...

...and became the living room of the family ranch house in Smithson Valley. His parents were standing just inside the doorway that led to the kitchen, and Paul could tell by their faces that they had been arguing.

"And what are we supposed to do for money while you're hanging around the house all day?" his mother said. She was staring at his father with wide, unblinking eyes. Her mouth was set in a stern thin line, and there was a forcefulness to her that shocked Paul. He had never seen her like this, so solid, so totally unafraid, not a trace of fragility. "Huh? Did you think about that?"

"Money ain't gonna be a problem," his father said. "The land's all paid for. We ain't got nothing but the county taxes, and that ain't nothing with our agricultural exemption. We can make it work on what we get from the peach crop during the summer."

"And food? Electricity? We got bills to pay, Martin. You didn't think about that when you quit your job, did you? How are we gonna put food on the table?"

"We ain't gonna starve, Carol."

His mother waited, her hands balled into fists and resting on her hips.

"That's it?" she said. "We ain't gonna starve. That's the best you got? Martin, you aren't a bachelor any more. You got me. You got that boy out there."

"It's for him that I'm doing it, Carol."

"For him? What the h.e.l.l does that mean? This home and this land, they're his birthright. You're gonna risk losing his birthright for him? You tell me if that makes sense to you. Huh, does it?"

"I made my decision, Carol. This is the way it's gonna be."

"Oh, okay. That's great, Martin. f.u.c.kin' fantastic."

She reached behind her back and untied the ap.r.o.n she wore. She pulled it off and folded it and put it in a cupboard next to the stove. Then she fell back against the wall and ran her hands over her face.

Martin Henninger walked through the kitchen and leaned against the doorway that led outside. Paul walked up beside him and looked out the doorway. What he saw there took his breath away. It was him. It was Paul at four, playing in the cheatgra.s.s that came up to the middle of his thighs. He had a stick in one hand and he was using it to slash at the tops of the gra.s.s like it was a pirate's cutla.s.s.

"So much depends on that boy," he said to himself.

Carol Henninger looked at her husband, made a disgusted noise, and turned away.

Paul watched her, still shocked at the obvious strength in the woman. He reached back into his memories but couldn't think of a time she had looked so well put together. In his mind, she was always the frail little stick of a woman who lived in the shadows of their home, too fragile to step into the light. What happened to her? he wondered. Why did she change?

His father stiffened beside him. Paul turned around and looked at him, then turned to where he was looking, at his younger self playing in the gra.s.s.

"Paul, get over here! Now!"

Martin Henninger jumped down the concrete steps onto the gra.s.s and ran for his son, yelling his name the whole way.

Paul followed him, though he couldn't see what had excited the man so much. His father was sprinting at full speed now. Behind him, Paul saw his mother coming down the steps. Her expression was stricken with panic.

He heard his younger self let out a high-pitched yelp, and then he was tripping over his feet and screaming as he tried to dodge something on the ground at his feet. Watching the scene, Paul felt his gut tighten. He knew what this was. He remembered now. He remembered the snake, the way it kept coming after him, the dusky gray of its body in a constant state of unfolding. He remembered the milky pink of its open mouth.

And with the memory he felt himself back there in that time, moving like a dancer to get his feet away from the charging snake. He felt his father's iron grip on his shoulder. He felt-not remembered, but felt-his father lift him off the ground and move him out of the way. Paul watched the man from the boy's eyes, watched his father put himself between the child and the snake. He looked into his father's eyes and saw fear and anger and love all in one hard glare.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, boy!" Martin Henninger shouted. "d.a.m.n it. Get your a.s.s inside. Move!"

Paul staggered backwards, and as he did, he watched his father reach down into the gra.s.s and come up with the snake. He held the limp animal by its middle, doubled over like it was a rope. The thing had to be six feet in length and as thick around as Paul's thigh, but in his father's fist it was docile.

His father turned to him, the snake hanging from his fist. "I told you to get inside, boy. Move your a.s.s."

"But Daddy..."

"Move!"

The boy turned and ran to his mother. He ran into the house at full speed and threw his hands around her. She put an arm down across his back and stroked his shoulder while she watched her husband walking down the white dirt road that led out to the horse pasture.

"Come on inside," his mother said. "I'll make you some dinner."

She led him inside and he followed her without another word. Paul stood near the back door, watching them, watching his mother as she moved through the kitchen, gathering up flour and salt and an egg and a big, ancient-looking chef's knife. They had had chicken fried steak that night. He remembered that clear as a bell. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did.

His father was coming back up the road now, and he was carrying sticks. Lots of them. Paul watched him come on to the house, watched him carry the sticks inside. There was a skein of baling wire wrapped around his fist.

"What are you making for dinner?" he asked.

"Chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes."

"How long's that gonna take."

"I don't know. Forty-five minutes maybe."

Martin Henninger grunted, then walked into the living room, where he dropped the sticks and the baling on the floor. He came back to the kitchen then and said, "Paul, you hurry up with your dinner. I want you in bed early tonight. You hear me?"

"Yes, Daddy."

He grunted again, then went back outside for more sticks.

Paul watched the man walk away, the bill of his Stetson like a black halo in the fading evening sunlight, and he realized that he remembered what came next. This was the night his mother had told him it was best to steer clear of Daddy when he got this way. That it was best for everybody if he didn't bother his Daddy while he a.s.sembled his stick lattices. This was the night Paul stayed awake in antic.i.p.ation, the night he came down in the middle of the night to see what the fuss was all about and saw the man with his eyes rolled back up into his head, an unknown language on his murmuring lips.

Darkness fell around him. He was standing on the bottom stair of the house in Smithson Valley. The kitchen was dark. So too was the flight of stairs leading up to his room. From around the corner, in the living room, he heard the sound of his father mumbling, the faint clatter of oak sticks fitted together and tied with baling wire.

He heard the stairs creaking above him. He turned and saw himself at four, a bright, mischievous glint in his eyes as he quietly walked down the stairs. The adult Paul stepped into the kitchen. Off to his left he could see his father working on the lattice, rocking back and forth in the dark, mumbling to himself. Even in the dark he could see the man's eyes were turned up into his skull, his hands working independently, as though they were on remote control. The murmuring stopped. His mouth stayed open in an O.

Four-year-old Paul stepped into the kitchen. He was barefoot, wearing a t-s.h.i.+rt and his underwear. He stepped into the kitchen and stopped.

"Daddy?" he said, and Paul thought, Freaked out, definitely freaked out.