THE ONCE-SON
J. Paul Ross
The boy sits in the back of his father’s car. It is cold outside, and ice covers the Buick’s windows and slush bounces off the undercarriage in heavy thuds. There is snow on the ground and in the trees and every few blocks, he feels the tires spin beneath him and hears his father curse. Usually, his mother would say something about those words but when she remains silent, the boy goes back to trying to remember the important question he was going to ask.
“The new James Dean movie’s coming out,” his mother says from the front seat. “You know, the one with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor? The one he made before that awful car accident last year? Anyway, I was thinking that maybe we could go next week sometime.”
“Hmm,” his father says. “That sounds—”
“What does mem-or-I-am mean?” the boy asks.
His mother turns around. “What was that, Tadpole?”
“Mem-or-I-am. It was in the paper.”
“Mem or . . . What?”
“He means memoriam,” his sister interprets from next to him.
“He must’ve seen dad’s obit,” says his father. “I’m sorry. I meant to throw it out but . . .”
His mother sighs. “It means . . . Well, in memory of. It’s used for people who aren’t with us anymore.”
The boy frowns.
“Tad, remember the talk we had when your father was getting ready this morning? The one about your Grandpa Bowman and how we’re saying goodbye to him today?”
“We’re going to Grandpa Bowman’s?” the boy asks, sitting up. “Can we go to the Rexall store? It’s right across the street. Grandpa Bowman always gives me a nickel and—”
“No, Tadpole we can’t,” she tells him. “In fact, we . . . Oh, never mind.”
“But it wouldn’t take long. I’d go—”
“Tad. Please.”
“But I want—”
“Tad! What did I tell you about behaving today?”
“You said I had to be quiet and be a good boy. You said we’d go to the A&W tomorrow and I could get a hot chocolate if I was good and didn’t cause trouble.”
“Do you want a hot chocolate?”
“Oh, yes. I want mine with marshmallows.”
“Well, if that’s what you want, you can’t act like this, not where we’re going.”
“Where are we going?”
“Tad!”
She says something else, but he cannot hear her because the car swerves and the slush
makes another loud thump beneath him.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” his mother then groans. “They’re really going to take the whole procession by Tony’s Inn? I thought you were pulling my leg.”
“Why wouldn’t we?” his father asks. “He spent more time there than he did at home.”
His father shifts his hands on the steering wheel and they turn on Fifth where the pavement is snow-covered, and men are shoveling the sidewalks. In the distance, the boy can see the amusement park rising over the bare cottonwoods, the hump of the roller coaster seeming rickety and splintered even from a block away.
“Can we go to Selman’s?” he asks, putting his face next to the window.
His mother turns around again. “We can’t, Tadpole. They’re not open in the wintertime.”
“But we don’t have to go on the rides. There’s a lot of snow in there — a lot more than at our house. I want to build a big snowman — bigger than the one me and Stevie built last year.”
“Like I said, Tadpole; it’s closed. Besides, I don’t want your new clothes to get wet.”
“I don’t like these clothes. They’re itchy.”
“Your grandpa used to call them funeral suits,” his father mutters. “They were the nicest things we owned and we—”
“What’s a funeral?”
“What did I tell you about interrupting your father?”
“You said I shouldn’t but I—”
“Tad! This is your last warning.”
“Yes, mama.”
“Anyway,” his father goes on. “We couldn’t wear them anywhere else and they had to be spotless and ironed and . . .”
He takes a deep breath.
“Did you get to build snowmen in your funeral suits?” the boy asks.
The car swerves again and his father hisses and then says, “No. I never liked building snowmen. But sometimes, your grandpa would take us sledding. We’d drive over to Denver, eat a huge breakfast and then go up the mountains.” He chuckles quietly. “We’d spend hours flying down huge hills in these old wooden sleds. Sometimes, we’d go so fast that we’d jump right off the road and into the air. In fact, your Uncle Dan once landed in a snow bank that buried him from his boots to the top of his head.”
“Uncle Danny’s six feet tall!” the boy says.
“This was when daddy and his brother were kids,” his sister puts in. “They—”
“I . . . I remember the time Uncle Danny carried me on his shoulders from Grandpa Bowman’s house to Rexall’s,” the boy interrupts. “It was a really short walk. It only took a few minutes and then we looked at the model planes. He wanted to buy me one but they didn’t have any good ones, so we went to Mr. Hill’s Diner for sodas instead. And he carried me the whole day and I got to see the tops of people’s hats. It would take a ton of snow to cover Uncle Danny.”
“It’s like Gloria said,” his mother states. “It was a long time ago.”
The boy frowns again. “But if Uncle Danny was covered up to his head, how did Grandpa
Bowman find him?”
His father does not answer, and they turn onto a street the boy does not know. There are cars parked on both sides and there are buildings with bright signs and stores that he has never been to.
“I can’t believe how empty the service was last night,” his mother says. “I thought he had more friends than that.”
“You knew him,” his father replies. “He didn’t have friends, just drinking buddies. And since he slowed down, it’s a good bet he didn’t even have those.”
“Still, you’d think that some of . . .” She stares at the boy’s father. “Well, at least it was good of Mr. Tennyson to come, don’t you think? Not many employers would do that for someone who worked for them.”
“You know I’ll never understand why Mr. Tennyson kept my dad on for so long. I mean, sometimes he’d disappear for a week and yet Mr. Tennyson would always take him back.” The boy’s father stops talking and when he starts again, his voice is quiet. “I wonder if he would’ve done that if he knew what it was like at our house. The way dad would come home in the middle of the night stinking of whiskey. How you knew from the creak of the floorboards how bad it was going to be. Him dragging us out of bed and making us sing those old war songs with him. How we’d head for the closet when he beat my mother. Hiding there, wondering why no one—”
“Maybe Mr. Tennyson did know. Maybe that’s why he kept your dad on. You needed to eat, right? Who else would’ve employed him?”
“I never considered that.”
“Well, he’s gone, Josh. He can’t do those things anymore.”
“I know. It’s . . .” His father sighs.
“What?”
“It’s nothing,” he says after a long moment. “Nothing at all.”
***
The once son, now father, glances from the hearse’s tail lights to the newspaper on the dashboard, its pages trembling amid the air conditioner’s whir, the letters warped by the crease but the words sharp and clear as if etched in glass.
IN MEMORIAM
Joshua Lee Bowman Jr.
1909-1978
“God, Tad,” his wife continues, “I know you two didn’t talk for the last fifteen years but do you have any idea why he moved out here? I mean, Wyoming of all places. I swear the wind hasn’t stopped blowing since we crossed the state line.”
He looks at the endless blue sky that dwarfs everything beneath it and then to the tumbleweeds pinned against the cattle fence lining the highway’s edge. “Who knows,” he says, shifting his hands on the steering wheel. “I never understood anything that man did.”
“Who are we talking about?” his son asks.
“Your grandpa,” his wife states, turning to the rear seat.
“Poppy?”
“No. You’re other grandpa. The one you’ve never met. Your Grandpa Bowman.”
“You know,” the once-son growls, “your asshole grandfather.”
“Tad!”
He shrugs. “What? It’s true. There’s no point lying about it.”
“That’s not—”
“You didn’t grow up with him, Lori,” he says to her. “So, please, don’t defend him.”
“I wasn’t—”
“ASS-HOLE,” proclaims his son.
His wife again turns to the back seat. “Marcus James Bowman, what did you say?”
“I—”
She waves her hand. “Go back to your comic book. I’m not in the mood.”
“Sorry,” the once-son mutters. “I can remember the first time my pop heard me say that. It was during a Fourth of July parade when I was nine.” He whistles and motions his head to the rear seat. “I guess he’s got a two-year head start on me, huh?”
“Two years? Right. I swear, between you and your drinking buddies from the Rosa . . .”
She sighs. “Anyway, I still don’t understand why you don’t want to hang around here for a bit.
You know, maybe see where he’s been living for the last decade. Maybe deal with some stuff.”
“I told you I can’t take the time off.”
“Use a vacation day.”
He clenches his jaw. “I need those for the Lake Powell trip.”
“Well then call in — that’s what I did.”
“The restaurant doesn’t buy back your unused sick days. I need that cash for the trip.”
She nods, and his body relaxes and he glances to the line of headlights that stretch behind him in the rearview mirror. He can hardly see the end of that line and he takes a deep breath and is about to say something when his wife asks,
“Have you given any more thought about bringing Mark to Lake Powell this year?”
“I told you,” he says. “We’re going there to fish not babysit. Besides, we got the company picnic at Selman’s right before we go. You said he had a lot of fun last—”
“Well, maybe you could bring him up to the Elk River this July?”
He squeezes the wheel. “It’s too late for that. They only have so many horses to rent—”
“Horseys?” his son asks. “Where?”
“Go back to your comic,” orders the once-son.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” his wife says. “It’s not until—”
“Okay, okay . . . I guess I can ask the guys when I see them at the Rosa Monday night.
But I’ve got to warn you, Carl and Jack aren’t bringing their kids and Steve’s single now so—”
“What happened to that woman he was with? Donna or Debbie? Didn’t she have a kid?”
“They broke up. According to the Coop, it was getting a little serious and he didn’t want to ruin the good time. You know, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”
“I hope that’s one of your father’s pearls and not one of yours.”
“What? Oh, yeah, I guess it is. Sorry.”
They turn off the highway and his wife nods toward the autumn-hued plains, yellow and brown and sere.
“God,” she says. “I thought we lived out in the boonies. Say, you don’t think Gloria got lost or something, do you? I mean that turn off from Laramie was pretty confusing.”
“She’s not lost. Big sis isn’t here because she doesn’t want to be here. But she always was the smart one. You know all the time growing up, I think she was the only one who never got suckered in by pop’s bullshit? Not once. It was like she was immune or something.” He sneers. “And speaking of suckers, can you believe that crap from the service? You know, that guy telling us what a great man my father was? How he’d challenge the school kids to Christmas snowball fights and how they’d cry like babies if they weren’t on his side. And what about that old bag? Sitting there, telling us how her husband was housebound when pop first moved here. How he was such a big help to the both of them. What a load.”
His wife looks behind her. “One thing’s for sure, there’s a lot more people here than were at your mom’s funeral.”
“You know I think that was the only funeral he ever missed?” He shakes his head. “I’m betting that’s why we got all these people, these suckers, behind us. God, that man should’ve been an actor. He would’ve won an Academy Award every day of his life. I swear, being the most popular man in town was like a second job for him. I wonder what they would’ve said if they knew him like we did. Sure, if you didn’t know my pop, he was the greatest man alive. But I’m guessing he never told them that he never wanted a family or how even when he was there at home, he wasn’t there. How he volunteered to work nights because he wanted to be sleeping when we left for school and leaving when we got home. And I bet none of them ever knew how me and Gloria could get away with murder so long as we didn’t do it in public. Because if you ever embarrassed him in front of someone, you were sent right to the closet the minute you got home. Do not pass go. Do not collect—”
“The closet?”
“That was where you went to choose the belt. He’d make you walk in and then ask
‘buckle or leather?’”
His wife bites her lip and remains silent for a moment before saying, “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like talking about him but . . . God, it’s such a bummer you’ve got these issues.”
“Jesus. I don’t need any of your psychobabble right now, Lori. None of this I’m okay, you’re okay bull.”
“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m trying to—”
“I’m sorry. It’s—”
“Oh, I know what it is, and you need to let it go, Tad. I mean, he was your father and you haven’t cried or—”
“Screw that. You know I can remember my grandfather’s funeral? Him calling the man names and going on about what a son-of-a-bitch Grandpa Bowman was. Shit, I loved that old guy. Going to see him was practically like Christmas morning with all the cash he used to give me. I’d sit on his lap while he told me war stores and then we’d go out to his garden and pick raspberries. But the day we buried him, man . . . I don’t remember everything pop said but it was cold-blooded. And the kicker was that the second we were outside at the cemetery, pop started sobbing. Damn near fell over in fact. They had to stop the whole thing and wait until he got it together. It was humiliating. People were coming up and patting him on the back and none of them had a clue he was faking it. He just wanted to be the center of attention and have people feel sorry for the poor, abandoned son.”
“See. This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got so many—”
“Look. He’s been out of my life for years and I’m okay with that. I mean it’s not like he was around that much anyway. Plus, he always made sure we knew that everyone else was more important than us. So, I’m done with him.” He laughs and gazes out to the windswept farmland around him. “Jesus Christ,” he goes on. “You know what I should do? I should just turn around and . . . Aw, what the hell.”
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” the once-son replies as he pulls over. “Let his ‘friends’ put him in the ground. I’m done.”
“But—”
“No. I’m done. I’ve already wasted too much time on him and I’ve got a life of my own. I’ve got shit to do, you know? Screw him. Just . . . Screw him.”
***
His hometown has become a city since he left and the old man stares out the cab’s window to familiar streets now lined with unfamiliar buildings. Exhaust fumes have replaced the smells of fertilizer and dust, and potholes litter the asphalt while the echoes of impatient car horns fill the air. Even the cottonwoods have vanished and the sky is tinged yellow and pale, and he gazes down at his hands to avoid seeing it between the tops of storefronts and the silhouettes of parking garages.
“So, you headed to the South Platte?” the driver asks, running a yellow light.
“Excuse me?”
“I saw the fly-rod with your luggage. First time in Colorado, Mr. Bowman?”
“It’s Tad and no, it isn’t. I actually grew up in this very town. In fact, I think my old high school’s a few blocks away.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. I haven’t been back in twenty-eight years.”
“Wow. I bet you don’t recognize the place then. I drive it every day and I’m always running into a new housing development or construction site.”
The old man nods and returns to staring at his palms.
“So, what brings you back?” continues the driver. “Come to see the sights? I heard you mention your high school. Is there a reunion or something?”
“No,” he says. “I’m here for a . . . I’m here to meet my family.”
“Ah, a big get-together, huh?”
“Something like that. I haven’t seen my son in . . . Well, there were some problems — not my fault but . . . Well, it’s nobody’s fault really. I mean, his mom turned him against me after she found out about . . . I guess I should’ve tried to fix things sooner but I . . .”
“I get it. Mending fences, huh? Well from the case there, that’s some rod you brought. I’m guessing it’ll make an awesome gift. There’s nothing like the sun on your face and a quiet stream around your feet to help ease things over.”
“Oh,” he sputters. “It’s been years since Mark . . . After that last trip, he never.” The old
man sighs. “The rod’s mine. Figured I might head to some of the old spots while I’m here.”
“Well, I guess they’re biting. Bass and walleye from what they say.”
He nods again. “That’s great,” he mutters. “I was — Holy shit! Is that the Rosa Mia? My god, it is. Who would’ve — I can’t believe it’s still open. You know before I quit drinking, that was where me and the guys used to go after work?”
“They say it’s the best brewpub outside of Denver.”
“Brewpub? You’re kidding me. That place was a dive.”
“Not anymore. It’s kind of famous actually. I mean, after they tore down Selman’s
Gardens, it’s sort of become—”
“The amusement park’s gone?”
“Oh, yeah. Ten, fifteen years, I think.”
“The company picnic used to be there. Our wives and kids would go on the rides while we’d sit and drink beer. Hell, most of the time, we’d finish the keg by three and then head across the street to Tony’s Inn.”
“That’s still a dive bar but considering it’s at the south end of the Fifth Avenue Mall, I’d be surprised if—”
“They put a shopping mall on Fifth? That’s where we’d go cruising Friday and Saturday nights.”
“They didn’t put a mall on Fifth. Fifth is a mall. It’s filled with high-end shops and restaurants these days. Art galleries and tourist places.”
“God, we had fun there. Racing between stop lights. Hanging out and chasing girls. Meister Braus and pork chop sandwiches at Hill’s Diner. Of course, that all changed after I got married but that’s the way things go, I guess.” He gazes through the window to yet another unfamiliar building, another unfamiliar landmark. “Fifth Ave. Shit. I can’t tell you how many times me and Steve Cooper would take one of his dad’s cars and—”
The driver laughs. “You don’t mean the Steve Cooper, do you? You know, the guy from
Cooper’s Auto?”
“Well, his dad used to own a car lot on Pico.”
“That’s the place.”
“God. We haven’t spoken in thirty-five years. Ever since that trip up to the Elk River.” The old man leans forward. “You know we met back in kindergarten? Why growing up, we did everything together and we always had a great time. I swear, that man always had a joke to tell.”
“I can believe it. In fact, you should see his commercials. They’re hilarious. The new one has his granddaughter with a monkey and—”
“Wait. The Coop? A grandfather? Wow. You know I got two of those myself — Thomas and Rebecca from what I’ve heard.” The old man whistles and sits back. “I always regretted what happened between me and the Coop. I mean, it wasn’t his fault my kid got lost on that last trip. Sure, he was supposed to keep an eye on him while I went to check out the upper fork but I guess it’s time to let bygones be bygones. Am I right?” He laughs again. “I wonder what he’d do if I showed up at his car lot today. What do you think?”
“It’s up to you Mr. Bowman. Depending on traffic, it wouldn’t take long to get there.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll stop by and see him. Hell, I guess maybe I wouldn’t mind taking a tour of the old hangouts why we’re at it. Stop by the Rosa and Tony’s Inn. Maybe go see my grandfather’s house. Shit, I think I’ll even check out this new mall of yours. Maybe they got a tackle store. I’ve been meaning to get a new landing net.” He turns to the window and the streets shadowed by five story apartment blocks and unrecognizable to him. “God, I’d forgotten how many good times I had here. Spinning doughnuts in Mr. Tennyson’s new sod in the ‘Coop’s old Merc. Giving swirlies to the vice-principle’s kid.” He slaps his knee. “Then there was that time we had the bright idea to piss in the mail slot of Emmaus Baptist Church during the Easter freeze of ‘62. The Coop laughing so hard he couldn’t get it into the hole. God, that was funny.”
“Well, I’ll be happy to take you around,” the driver says. “But just so you know, we’re pulling up to your destination. 2345 Dover. Our Lady of — Ah, shit. I’m . . . so sorry.”
“Sorry? What about?” Tadpole asks, his brow furrowed until he sees the notice by the church’s doors.
Services for:
Marcus James Bowman
1972-2015
IN MEMORIAM
“Oh,” the once-father then says. “That.”
J. Paul Ross is a graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver and a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. His fiction has appeared in numerous online and in print magazines and journals including The Antioch Review, Border Crossing, La Revista Literaria Centroamericana, and West Trade Review. Currently, he is working on a novel set along the Pan-American Highway.