He said that, yes, he was fortunate financially. The Dubuque meat packer who married his mother and adopted him had sold his business to the Shah of Bratpuhr shortly before he died, and had been paid in gold bricks deposited in a bank in Switzerland.
The meat packers name was Lowell Fenstermaker, so my sons full name was Rob Roy Fenstermaker. Rob Roy said he certainly wasnt going to change his last name to Hartke, that he felt like Fenstermaker and not Hartke.
His stepfather had been very good to him. Rob Roy said that the only thing he didnt like about him was the way he raised calves for veal. The baby animals, scarcely out of the womb, were put in cages so cramped that they could hardly move, to make their muscles nice and tender. When they were big enough their throats were cut, and they had never run or jumped or made friends, or done anything that might have made life a worthwhile experience.
What was their crime?
Rob Roy said that his inherited wealth was at first an embarrassment. He said that until very recently he never would have considered buying a car like the 1 parked outside, or wearing a cashmere jacket and lizard-skin shoes made in Italy. That was what he was wearing in my office. When nobody else in Dubuque
could afford black-market coffee and gasoline, I, too, did without. I used to walk everywhere.¨
What happened very recently?¨ I said.
I was arrested for molesting little children,¨ he said. I itched all over with a sudden attack of psychosomatic hives.
He told me the whole story.
I said to him, I thank you for sharing that with me.¨
The hives went away as quickly as they had come.
I felt wonderful, very happy to have him look me over and think what he would. I had seldom been happy to have my legitimate children look me over and think what they would.
What made the difference? I hate to say so, because my answer is so paltry. But here it is: I had always wanted to be a General, and there I was wearing Generals stars.
How embarrassing to be human.
There was this, too: I was no longer encumbered by my wife and motherin-law. Why did I keep them at home so long, even though it was plain that they were making the lives of my children unbearable?
It could be, I suppose, because somewhere in the back of my mind I believed that there might really be a big book in which all things were written, and that I wanted some impressive proof that I could be compassionate recorded there.
I asked Rob Roy where he had gone to college.
Yale,¨ he said.
I told him what Helen Dole said about Yale, that it ought to be called Plantation Owners Tech.¨
I dont get it,¨ he said.
I had to ask her to explain it myself,¨ I said. She said Yale was where plantation owners learned how to get the natives to kill each other instead of them.¨
Thats a bit strong,¨ he said. And then he asked me if my first wife was still alive.
Ive only had 1,¨ I said. Shes still alive.¨
There was a lot about her in Mothers letter,¨ he said.
Really?¨ I said. Like what?¨
About how she was hit by a car the day before you were going to take her to the senior prom. About how she was paralyzed from the waist down, but you still married her, even though she would have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.¨
If that was in the letter, I must have told his mother that.
And your father, is he still alive?¨ he said.
No,¨ I said. The ceiling of a gift shop fell on him at Niagara Falls.¨
Did he ever regain his eyesight?¨ he said.
Regain his what?¨ I said. And then I realized that his question was based on some other lie I had told his mother.
His eyesight,¨ he said.
No,¨ I said. Never did.¨
I think its so beautiful,¨ he said, how he came home from the war blind, and you used to read Shakespeare to him.¨
He sure loved Shakespeare,¨ I said.
So,¨ he said, I am descended not just from I war hero, but 2.¨
War hero?¨ I said.
I know you would never call yourself that,¨ he said.
But thats what Mother said you were. And you can certainly call your father that. How many Americans shot down 28 German planes in World War II?¨
We could go up to the library and look it up,¨ I said. They have a very good library here. You can find out anything, if you really try.¨
Where is my Uncle Bob buried?¨ he said.
Your what?¨ I said.
Your brother Bob, my Uncle Bob,¨ he said.
I had never had a brother of any kind. I took a wild guess. We threw his ashes out of an airplane,¨ I said.
You have certainly had some bad luck,¨ he said. Your father comes home blind from the war. Your childhood sweetheart is hit by a car right before the senior prom. Your brother dies of spinal meningitis right after he is invited to try out for the New York Yankees.¨
Yes, well, all you can do is play the cards they deal you,¨ I said.
Have you still got his glove?¨ he said.
No,¨ I said. What kind of glove could I have told his mother about when we were both sozzled on Sweet Rob Roys in Manila 24 years ago?
You carried it all the way through the war, but now its gone?¨ he said.
He had to be talking about the nonexistent baseball glove of my nonexistent brother. Somebody stole it from me after I got home,¨ I said, thinking it was just another baseball glove, Im sure. Whoever stole it had no idea how much it meant to me.¨
He stood. I really must be going now.¨
I stood, too.
I shook my head sadly. It isnt going to be as easy
as you think to give up on the country of your birth.¨
Thats about as meaningful as my astrological sign,¨ he said.
What is?¨ I said.
The country of my birth,¨ he said.
You might be surprised,¨ I said.
Well, Dad,¨ he said, it certainly wont be the first time.¨
Can you tell me who in this valley might have gasoline?¨ he said. Ill pay anything.¨
Do you have enough gas to make it back to Rochester?¨ I said.
Yes,¨ he said.
Well,¨ I said, head back the way you came. Thats the only way you can get back, so you cant get lost. Right at the Rochester city limits you will see the Meadowdale Cinema Complex. Behind that is a crematorium. Dont look for smoke. Its smokeless.¨
A crematorium?¨ he said.
Thats right, a crematorium,¨ I said. You drive up to the crematorium, and you ask for Guido. From what I hear, if youve got the money, hes got the gasoline.¨
And chocolate bars, do you think?¨ he said.
I dont know,¨ I said. Wont hurt to ask.¨
40
N
ot that there is any shortage of real child-molesters, child-shooters, child-starvers, child-bombers, childdrowners, child-whippers, child-burners, and childdefenestrators on this happy planet. Turn on the TV. By the luck of the draw, though, my son Rob Roy Fenstermaker does not happen to be one of them.
OK. My story is almost ended.
And here is the news that knocked the wind out of me so recently. When I heard it from my lawyer, I actually said, Ooof!¨
Hiroshi Matsumoto was dead by his own hand in his hometown of Hiroshima! But why would I care so much?
He did it in the wee hours of the morning, Japanese time, of course, while sitting in his motor-driven wheelchair at the base of the monument marking the point of impact of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima when we were little boys.
He didnt use a gun or poison. He committed harakin with a knife, disemboweling himself in a ritual of self-loathing once practiced by humiliated members of the ancient caste of professional soldiers, the samurai.
And yet, so far as I am able to determine, he never shirked his duty, never stole anything, and never killed or wounded anyone.
Still waters run deep. R.I.P.
If there really is a big book somewhere, in which all things are written, and which is to be read line by line, omitting nothing, on Judgment Day, let it be recorded that I, when Warden of this place, moved the convicted felons out of the tents on the Quadrangle and into the surrounding buildings. They no longer had to excrete in buckets or, in the middle of the night, have their homes blown down. The buildings, except for this I, were divided into cement-block cells intended for 2 men, but most holding 5.