Everything but Bone

Tom Noyes

 

LAUREL 'S sorry for Steven's loss, says as much into his shoulder when they hug hello. “To know Charles was to love him, Steven. Truly

Steven's nose grazes Laurel 's neck, her earlobe. The soft compromise of lavender and lilac. Her bouquet, like she's a wine cork. When he and Laurel were together, Steven should've more often gone the fragrance route for birthdays and anniversaries, explored more fully the possibilities of bath oils and soaps, lotions and splashes.

Nostalgia's part of it. Steven used to be Laurel 's husband. They've met at the airport to pick up their son, Oscar, who's flying home from college for the funeral of his grandfather, Steven's father. So grief's part of it, too.

“Even after you and I split, Dad always asked about you,” Steven says softly into Laurel 's hair. He's taking long, deep whiffs, so it's a challenge getting this out, gathering the wind.

Laurel 's body feels different to Steven. He wonders if she's joined a club. It's mid-October, but she's going sleeveless, sporting toned arms and a light, healthy tan. Her hair's changed, too, since the last time he saw her. Short and spiky now. No fuss, foolproof.

When they let go of each other, Laurel digs in her purse for a Kleenex, dabs her eyes. Steven looks away, taps his watch. “On time would be now,” he says.

What Laurel says next is news to Steven. Oscar's not alone on that plane. “The girl's name is Marla,” she says.

“He's bringing a date to the funeral?” Steven says. Distressed, his tendency is to pick his beard. Oscar has the same habit. A few years back, in the week before his college boards, the boy cleared a dime-sized hole just left of his chin. Steven's father, too, pawed at his beard in uncertainty, sometimes chewed on the whiskers he plucked, like cud. From what Steven's heard of death, he knows that his father's beard continues to grow even now, three days after the last heartbeat echoed through the body. From what Steven understands, hair outlasts skin and blood, outlasts muscle, beats everything but bone.

“He called to tell me just last night,” Laurel says. “What could I say? Maybe he feels that he needs to bring her. To get through.”

“Springing this on us,” Steven says. “It changes things.”

While Steven and Laurel hang back—Laurel settles onto a bench between a newsstand and a Starbucks; Steven stands beside her—most of the people waiting to greet passengers bunch in front of the terminal exit. Two kids at the head of the swell hold balloons. The brother's balloon says welcome home, and the sister's balloon says mom . Next to them, a limo driver holds a sign, but he's got it flipped. He's hugging the name to his chest like it's a secret.

“Oscar and this girl started off lab partners,” Laurel says as the first wave of passengers rambles through the exit. “Within minutes of meeting, they were pricking each other's fingers. Prior to their first date, they'd already run a battery of tests on each other's urine.”

“Romantic,” Steven says. “I hope this isn't too forward, but may I have your atomic number?”

“You're being Oscar,” Laurel says. “You're suggesting that's a line he could've used on Marla in the lab.” She nods. “Humor was a quality of your father's. The first time you brought me home to meet Charles he told a joke to break the ice. I wish I could remember it.”

“Jokes he took seriously,” Steven says. “He bought books.”

“You should tell a couple of his favorites tomorrow at the service.”

“Sure,” Steven says. “A eulogy to bring the house down.”

“Of course not,” Laurel says. “That's not what I'm saying.” Her voice gets thick, like she's ready to weep again. “Don't hear me like that.”

“No. I know,” Steven says. Laurel 's turned from him now. She's got her compact out. “What you said wasn't wrong,” he says.

“This is hard for you, I know,” Laurel says. Her Kleenex is in a ball now, and she's turning it over in her hand, looking for a clean spot. “For all of us, though.”

“You're right,” Steven says. “We're all okay, though. We're fine.” If Steven could find a way to brush his lips against Laurel 's neck, he'd be able to preserve her essence on his moustache. He'd have it for later to fall asleep to. An olfactory lullaby.

Laurel looks past Steven, and her eyes brighten at what she sees. She waves with one hand, snaps her compact shut with the other, and stands.

When Steven turns, he's surprised by the bareness of his son's face, smooth and white as an egg, and the wisp of a girl in Capri pants who holds the boy's hand. This girl looks like Oscar. She has his small ears, his long eyelashes. She could be his sister, at least a cousin. She has his high, white forehead. Side by side, they're two blank billboards.

“You all right, Mom?” Oscar says, shifting his backpack from one shoulder to the other.

“Look at you,” Laurel says. “Baby face.” She reaches up to run her hand along her son's clean jawline and swallows him in a hug.

“I'm Marla,” says the girl, extending to Steven the hand that Oscar's just released. She slides her fingers in and out of Steven's so quickly that he barely feels them. “I'm sorry for your loss,” she says.

“Welcome,” Steven says.

When Laurel releases Oscar, he steps to Steven. “Dad,” Oscar says. He shakes Steven's hand and wraps his other arm around Steven's shoulder. Two greetings.

“You have bags to claim?” Steven asks. His son's cheeks gleam like wax fruit. Without his beard, Oscar looks more like his mom than his dad. It's not even close. Line up Oscar and Laurel next to this Marla, and any passerby would think, “Family.” The older guy with the beard? Maybe their friend. Maybe their ride.

“One suitcase,” Oscar says. “One between the two of us.”

“Packing light,” Laurel says. She keeps a hand on Marla's back as she talks. “That's a skill.”

Kliessen beards come in thick and early. There are no thin spots where you can see through to pink, not even in places where some men have problems—high on the cheek, under the bottom lip—and the color's rich and full.

In his wallet, Steven has photographs of three generations: two in color, one in black-and-white. He's trimmed the pictures to credit-card-size so they fit the plastic sleeves. They're more for himself than for others—they're not for whipping out and bragging over—but now at the baggage carousel, standing in wait with Laurel, Oscar, and Marla, Steven's tempted. One picture each. He could deal them like cards.

In the most recent picture, Oscar plays the drums. During his junior year in high school, he and his friends formed a speed-metal band, Sprained Throat. Oscar's overgrown beard served as a prop of sorts, afforded the band stage presence. During Oscar's solos it flapped frantically like a bat in the sun. Steven once saw part of a gig incognito, milled around the outskirts of the party long enough to snap a few pictures. He didn't want Oscar to see him there. He wanted to know who Oscar was when he wasn't around.

In the oldest photograph, the black-and-white shot, Steven's father sits outside on a log bench with a baby propped in his lap. A thick, bare tree branch hangs low to his left, and the ground's covered in leaves. Steven likes to think it's a clearing in the woods, but it could easily be someplace tamer, a park or backyard. His father wears a turtleneck sweater and has a pipe clamped in his teeth. The baby's fists are full of Charles's beard, and Charles's expression of mock agony causes the baby's healthy cheeks to bunch into a grin. The baby's not Steven. There's a year scrawled on the back of the photograph; Steven hadn't been born yet. Steven doesn't know who this baby is. He has no brothers or sisters, no older cousins.

In the third picture, the one of Steven, it's Halloween. He wears a werewolf mask, and his beard, hanging below the collar of his T-shirt, matches perfectly the color of the mask's mane and muzzle. His hands are cocked menacingly behind his ears, his fingers bent like claws.

Steven remembers as a kid going to an elementary school party as the Tin Man; he remembers in high school greasing his hair back and sporting fangs for Dracula; and the year before they married, he remembers dressing up with Laurel as a cave couple, the club and the fur. Truth be told, though, he can't recall the werewolf. But pictures don't lie. In the background are cupboards Steven recognizes from the kitchen of Laurel 's and his first apartment, and he recognizes the electric jack-o'-lantern glowing on the counter. He wonders if he had a good night. If there was a party, he wonders if he got carried away, drank too much, howled too often or too loudly, lifted his leg on anything.

Steven takes his wallet from his back pocket, but when Marla glances at him and smiles, he doesn't go to the pictures; instead, he leafs through the bills in the back, like there's someone he needs to tip.

When Oscar spots his suitcase on the carousel, he splits the two guys in front of him with his shoulder and an “Excuse me.” One of the guys stares at Oscar's back and shakes his head like Oscar's out of line.

What would the guy have had Oscar do? Let the bag go by, wait for the next pass? Steven would like to say something. Give the guy a long, low growl. Flash some teeth. Steven's the only one who noticed, though, and Laurel, Oscar, and Marla are already hustling off toward the parking garage, talking restaurants. Steven's five paces behind, straining to hear. He'd like to have input.

Oscar's game for anything but Mexican. Steven hears “sombrero,” then laughter, then “seafood.”

“I'm on a seafood diet,” Steven calls out.

Marla turns without breaking stride. “Whatever you see, you eat,” she says.

“You're onto me,” Steven says.

At the Red Lobster by the airport, Steven goes healthy, opts for the Broiled Seafood Platter rather than the all-fried Admiral's Feast. His three-page menu folds twice. The server collects it, turns, and smiles at Oscar because it's his turn now and because she believes that, even in her ponytail, apron, and standard-issue white blouse and black slacks, she's cuter than the girl hugging Oscar's arm.

Laurel arrives back at the table from the restroom just as the server is leaving. She'd left her order with Steven, though. Blackened tuna, no dressing on the salad, skip the potato, substitute the steamed garden medley. “There was a line,” she says. “What did I miss?”

“We ordered,” Steven says. “Before that some ice cubes clinked. The booth behind us emptied.”

“My turn now,” Marla says, reaching under her chair for her purse. “If you'll excuse me.”

“Over by the bar, hon,” Laurel says. “Under the hammock.”

“I see it,” Marla says. As she leaves, she smiles at Oscar who smiles back. They've got secrets. There's them, and then there's the rest of the world.

“That's not a hammock,” Steven says to Laurel when Marla's out of earshot. “It's a fishing net. There's a theme at work here.”

“I'd sleep in it,” Laurel says. “Looks comfortable. Right above the bar. They could hand drinks up to you. What do you think, Oscar?”

“Either, but not both,” Oscar says. “A fishing net would make for a stinky nap.”

“Oscar would know stinky naps, wouldn't he, Steven? Remember that apartment? Cramped and warm. That tiny bedroom. We had to keep the crib in the hallway.” Laurel leans across the table and grabs her son's wrists, like handcuffs. “It never failed. As soon as you'd fall asleep, you'd fill your diaper. Your father and I would agonize over whether to wake and change you or let you sleep. It took so much effort to get you to sleep!”

“Too bad Marlo's not here for this,” Steven says. “Had she turned down the stewardess, skipped that second diet cola, she'd be getting an earful right now.”

“Her name's Marla, not Marlo, Dad,” Oscar says. “An a, not an o . And what's wrong with diet cola?”

“Right,” Laurel says. “Marla's softer, more feminine. It suits her. I'd also mention that there's no such thing as a stewardess anymore. They're flight attendants, just like the young woman hustling over here to top off our iced teas isn't a waitress; she's a server.”

“Miss, I have a question,” Steven says to the girl as she arrives at the table. She's got two pitchers, iced tea and water. Both holsters full.

“All ears,” she says. She moves from glass to glass and pitcher to pitcher quickly, effortlessly.

“Steven,” Laurel says. “Cease and desist.”

Steven continues. “Would you rather be a waitress or a server?”

“If it's all the same to you,” the girl says, “let's make me a physician's assistant.”

“Good answer,” Steven says. “You'll go far.”

Laurel 's moved on. “So let's hear it, loverboy,” she says to Oscar. “How'd you meet this cutie?”

Steven remembers this about Laurel . She's most comfortable asking questions she already knows the answers to. During their marriage, Steven was sometimes annoyed by this habit, sometimes pacified. Frustrated by the senselessness of it, he nonetheless appreciated how it filled up the quiet. And he understands why she does it. Ground already covered is safe ground. The mines have been swept.

Steven would've liked to have had a few safe, pre-answered questions to ask his father over the last few weeks of his life. Early in Charles's stint at the hospital, Steven had been able to carry on conversations with him. At least they could watch a ballgame together on the wall-mounted TV. As Charles's condition worsened, though, he didn't want the TV on because he said it distracted him—from what? Steven wondered—and he became unable to harness the breath necessary for conversation. The visits grew steadily quieter. Near the end, the silence of the warm, sterile room would hum in Steven's ears for hours after he returned to his apartment.

The question Steven began every visit with—first thing in the door, he asked his father how he was feeling—was not a question he ever knew the answer to. His father would go into great detail, body part by body part, and many evenings his answers seemed to surprise even himself. Rather than taking the edge off the quietness of the room, these answers sharpened and deepened the silence that followed, and as Charles flipped through the magazines Steven had brought from the gift shop, Steven would find himself doing things like counting his father's exhalations, or staring out the window into the staff parking lot, imagining the specialty of each arrival and departure. Anesthesiologists tended to be tall and lanky, their limbs thin and flexible like plastic tubing. Male pediatricians carried a paunch; their female colleagues were heavy breasted, wide hipped. Heart surgeons walked deliberately, gracefully, as if hurrying across tightropes. Cancer specialists tucked newspapers and umbrellas under their arms. ER doctors and nurses sipped coffee out of travel mugs, wore sunglasses.

“On the third date, I cooked her dinner,” Oscar says, summarizing the story of himself and Marla. “And on the fourth date, I cooked her breakfast.”

This makes Laurel snort in her water. Steven can't tell if the snort is authentic or staged.

“Breakfast?” Laurel says between little coughs into her fist. “How'd breakfast come about?” She touches her throat lightly when she says this, like she's trying to steady her voice from the outside. Given the go-ahead, Steven would be glad to help. He'd carefully massage the length of her neck, from chin to shoulders, interrupting the process only occasionally to smell his fingers, like when he chops onions.

“How'd breakfast come about?” Oscar says. “We woke up hungry.”

“We've reared a smart-ass, Steven,” Laurel says.

Steven hadn't called Laurel with the news of his father's death. He'd called Oscar at school, and, at Steven's request, Oscar had called Laurel . Steven regrets this now, is convicted that he pushed off too much on his son. In hindsight, the child breaking the news of the grandparent's death to the parent seems unnatural, unhealthy. Also, Steven laments the missed opportunity to tell Laurel himself. Sitting next to her now, he wishes telling her was still his job. Steven would like to have to take her aside and find the voice. He'd like to feel those toned shoulders shiver.

Since their arrival at the restaurant, Laurel 's scent has shifted. Floral to citrus. Perhaps in the restroom she'd opened a new bottle and re-sprayed or re-dabbed. Is that allowed? At any rate, she's lemon-lime now, like a see-through soft drink.

Marla gets back to the table as the salads arrive. She wasn't gone long. This server and her cronies back in the kitchen are on top of things. They know it's all about turnover.

“Around here, you order salad, you get salad, and you get salad fast,” Steven says.

“That's our motto,” the server says as she distributes the plates. She has anesthesiologist arms, as thin at the biceps as they are at the wrists. “And finally the soup,” she says as she sets down Oscar's bowl.

“Hold on,” Laurel says. “What's your motto?”

“The customer's always right,” the server says as she places a basket of biscuits next to Oscar's elbow and smiles at him like they're sharing a joke. “Can I get anyone anything? No? Then I'll return soon with your entrees.”

“Marla,” Laurel says as the server departs, “are there Red Lobsters in Canada ?”

“What am I missing?” Steven says.

“It came up earlier that Marla is Canadian,” Laurel says. “You missed all sorts of interesting exchanges on the drive over, Steven. We should've had walkie-talkies so that you could've kept up in your car.”

“You don't sound Canadian,” Steven says as he watches Marla transfer tomato wedges from her salad bowl to Oscar's bread plate.

“Are you challenging her?” Laurel says. “Would you have her pass a test?”

“You could make her skin a moose,” Oscar says through a mouthful of biscuit.

“Better yet, you could have me skin a moose in French,” Marla says.

“Right,” Steven says. “Very good.” He takes a long swallow of iced tea. “So Canada . What do your parents do up there?”

“My mum's a trapper-trader, and my pop's a Mountie,” Marla says. As she talks, she holds her fork in both hands and rubs the tines with her thumbs, like it's a good luck charm.

“Good material,” Steven says. “Good delivery.”

“Seriously, though,” Marla says. “My father passed away a few years ago, and my mother helps run my grandpop's shop. Formal wear.”

“I see,” Steven says.

“A Mountie,” Oscar says. “That was great.” He's working on his bisque now, has dropped his face to within an inch of the bowl. There's barely enough room for the spoon.

“I don't mean to get carried away,” Marla says. “I know it's a hard time. I'm just excited to finally meet Oscar's family. When I'm nervous, I clown.”

“You're fine,” Laurel says. “You're being charming.”

“Levity can be good,” Steven says.

“You should come home with Oscar for Thanksgiving, Marla,” Laurel says. “A happier occasion.”

“I'm not sure what we're doing for Thanksgiving,” Oscar says.

“You might not come home?” Steven says.

“We might head to Marla's,” Oscar says. “Go camping.”

“You can camp anytime,” Laurel says. “You should come home.”

“Maybe we should, Oscar,” Marla says. “I've never done American Thanksgiving. The Macy's Parade, right? We could watch that.”

“Yes, we'll initiate you into all our exotic customs,” Steven says. “You've probably never hung a Thanksgiving stocking, never embarked on a turkey-egg hunt.”

The server passes by on her way to another table, and Steven raises his almost empty glass. “Excuse me, physician's assistant,” he says. “When you get a chance.” The server rolls her eyes as if she's annoyed, but not really—but she could be—and nods.

“What's that about?” Marla asks.

“We like humor in this family,” Steven says. “Right, Oscar? We know our way around a joke.”

“That's all I was saying at the airport, Steven,” Laurel says quietly. “That's all I meant.”

“I know,” Steven says.

“Tell me one of these jokes you know your way around,” Marla says to Steven.

“You're a science type like Oscar, right?”

“Chem major,” Marla says.

“I have a biology joke,” Steven says. “Best I can do.” He clears his throat, folds his hands in front of him on the table. “This scientist wants to do a set of experiments on the leaping ability of frogs. So he puts a frog on the floor, yells, ‘Jump!' and measures. He writes twelve feet in his notes. Then he rips off one of the frog's legs, yells, ‘Jump!' and measures. This time he writes eight feet in his notes.”

“A joke from the dismemberment genre,” Marla says.

“Not typically considered dinner fare,” Laurel says.

“It gets worse,” Steven says. “The scientist rips off a second leg, yells, ‘Jump!' and writes five feet in his notes. After he rips off a third leg and yells, ‘Jump!' he writes one foot in his notes. Finally, the scientist rips off the frog's last leg and yells, ‘Jump!' The frog doesn't move. ‘Jump!' the scientist yells again, but still the frog won't move. For the third time the scientist screams ‘Jump!' Still the frog doesn't move.” Steven pauses to swallow the last of his iced tea.

“Here comes the punch line,” Oscar says. “Take cover.”

“So,” Steven says, “the scientist writes in his notes, After four jumps, frog goes deaf .”

“Terrible,” Laurel says. “Seriously.”

“Who's to say what's funny, what's not funny?” Marla says. “Funny's relative.”

“No relative of mine,” Oscar says.

“Your grandfather was very funny, Oscar,” Laurel says.

“You don't get it,” Steven says.

“It's not that I don't,” Oscar says, sliding a tomato wedge into his mouth. “It's that I do.”

“Deaf,” Marla says. When she smiles, her teeth line up perfectly, like piano keys. “I just re-told it to myself. It was funnier the second time.”

Oscar picks up his bowl, slurps the last of his bisque. Steven crunches croutons, studies the sheen of his son's upper lip. Without the beard, the weakness of the Kliessen chin is exposed. A soft potato.

“Son, how was the bisque?” Steven says. “Easier to eat without a moustache and beard to worry about, yes?”

“Smelled good,” Laurel says. “From here.”

“When you decided to shave, Oscar, I'm glad you shaved boldly,” Steven says. “A goatee isn't a compromise; it's a half-assed beard.”

“Where do you stand on muttonchops?” Marla says. “How about the lone moustache?”

“You,” Steven says to Marla. “Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of my son's beard?”

“This is the first I've heard of any beard,” Marla says. She turns to Oscar and sits back in her chair, pushes herself away from the table for perspective. “It's hard to imagine,” she says. She turns back to Steven. “I like yours, though. Distinguished.”

“Distinguished,” Laurel says. “That's a word people use with beards.”

 

Laurel 's the last one finished with her salad, and just as she's pushing it away and wiping her mouth with her napkin, the server arrives with the entrees. Another minute or two between courses might've been appropriate, but Oscar was halfway through his bisque before his mother had swallowed her first bite of lettuce. A group like this is tough to gauge.

“Did I order tuna?” Laurel says.

“You did,” Steven says.

“You need your own booth,” the server says to Oscar as she sets down his platter of crab legs and his lobster plate. “I could check, see what's available.”

“Where he goes, I go,” Marla says.

“That's sweet,” the server says. “Enjoy.”

Oscar's meal came with a bib. Marla stands and circles behind his chair to tie it for him.

“Well, you two,” Laurel says. “Your Thanksgiving plans are up in the air, but how about Halloween? Only two weeks away. Any big doings? Dressing up this year? You should team up. Steven, you and I did that, remember?”

“The cave couple,” Steven says.

“Right,” Laurel says. “People at the party were saying, ‘Oh, you're the Flintstones.' But we weren't the Flintstones. We weren't cartoons. We were live-action cave people. I was adamant, but Steven went with it, yabba-dabba-dooed on command, called me Wilma all night.”

“Give the people what they want,” Steven says.

“Remember my ballerina year, Steven? It was a few months after I had Oscar. You called my tutu a four-four.”

“He didn't,” Marla says, seated again and twirling her fork in her shrimp linguini. She uses the bowl of her spoon for leverage. Her first forkful is heavy and tight, no loose ends.

“I don't remember saying that,” Steven says, “but I'm sorry.”

“There's sorry, and then there's sorry two decades late,” Laurel says. “Where was this apology in the eighties? Where was it in the nineties?”

“My werewolf year,” Steven says. “I think that was my best.”

“When were you a werewolf?” Laurel says.

“You don't remember?” Steven says. He takes out his wallet and flips to the picture, slaps it in the center of the table.

“That doesn't look like you, Dad,” Oscar says. He's gnawing on the fleshy end of a crab leg like it's a drumstick.

“Halloween, Oscar,” Steven says. “The whole idea is not to look like yourself.”

“That's not you, Steven,” Laurel says. “I don't know who it is, but it's not you. That was the year we hosted the neighborhood party. People used to do that kind of thing,” she tells Oscar and Marla.

“If it's not me, then why do I have the picture in my wallet?” Steven says. He's the only one at the table who hasn't yet touched his food. The lemon wedge still rests atop his scallops.

“You didn't dress up that night,” Laurel says. “You were irritable for some reason. When people asked, you told them you were disguised as your own twin. Most people didn't laugh.”

“Who's the drummer?” Marla says, flipping the werewolf picture and nodding at the snapshot of Oscar.

“Your boyfriend,” Steven says.

“No kidding,” Marla says. She picks up the wallet and takes a closer look. “I guess you did have a beard.” She turns the photo toward Oscar, who looks at it and shakes his head.

“Not me,” he says.

“That's you,” Steven says. “I snuck a camera into a gig one night.”

“This guy's playing a set of Ludwigs,” Oscar says. “I wish I had Ludwigs.”

“I didn't know you played the drums,” Marla says. “What other secrets are you keeping from me?”

“It's you,” Steven says.

Oscar takes the wallet from Marla and looks more closely. “They're not my drums,” he says, and flips to the last picture. “Is this Grandpa?”

“Yes,” Steven says. “That's Grandpa. He's holding me on his lap. It's my birthday. My first birthday.”

“He was handsome,” Marla says. “And you were a cutie.”

“Let's see,” Laurel says, reaching across the table.

Oscar begins to hand the wallet to his mother, but Steven intercepts it. “You're getting it greasy, Oscar,” Steven says, refolding the wallet and returning it to his pocket.

“Today's my birthday,” Marla says. “I know it's weird announcing it like this, but there you are in the picture, the birthday boy sitting on his father's lap, and today's mine.”

Oscar's as surprised as Steven and Laurel. Marla smiles at him and puts her hand over her mouth, like even she's surprised.

“Don't tell me you got the girl nothing,” Laurel says.

“It's not his fault,” Marla says. “I guess we never got around to exchanging birthdays.”

“I feel horrible,” Oscar says.

“How were you supposed to know?” Marla says.

“If she didn't tell you,” Steven says.

The server swings by to check on them, and Laurel springs into action, pulls the girl's ear down to her mouth, loudly whispers something about birthday cake.

Steven's skeptical, would like a look at Marla's driver's license. What would her motivation be to lie, though? Cake? To be the center of attention? To remind and instruct those around the table that birth is as real and as rampant as death?

“Who's the drummer if not you, Oscar?” Steven says. “Who's the werewolf, Laurel?”

“You're asking questions we don't have answers to,” Laurel says.

“Everyone has those, right?” Marla says. “Nagging questions are part of life. I have one. I could just look it up, I guess, but I never have. I bet none of you knows the answer either. I missed it in a church-school version of Jeopardy when I was a kid. My parents were religious for a while. I'm sure the right answer was given, but I forget. This question eliminated me from competition.”

“I missed the word major in a spelling bee once,” Laurel says. “I thought j but said g . How dumb is that?”

“Here's the question,” Marla says. “Actually, no. Forget it.”

“Let's hear it,” Laurel says.

“I spoke before thinking,” Marla says. Her face reddens; her smile fades.

“Go ahead, honey,” Oscar says. “It's your birthday.”

“Now if I don't say it,” Marla says, “the not saying it will be worse, you know?”

“Exactly,” Laurel says.

“Well,” Marla says. “Here it is. The Bible says that there was one man who never died. When his time came, God just took him up. Who was he?”

“You didn't want to say it because of my father,” Steven says.

“I'm sorry,” Marla says. “This is insensitive.”

“Not at all,” Steven says. “We're fine here.”

“Jesus,” Oscar says.

“No, he died and then lived again,” Marla says. “The guy I'm looking for never died in the first place.”

Laurel answers “Moses,” but Steven knows that's not right. Moses had God for a gravedigger, and that's something, but he still died. Neither Steven nor Oscar can come up with a better answer, though, so conversation moves on.

Steven tells himself he'll look up the answer when he gets home tonight, but with all he has on his mind, chances are he'll forget. If he were to remember, he'd find out that it's not only Laurel 's answer that's wrong; it's also Marla's question. There wasn't only one guy; there were a couple. Elijah was one. Instead of breathing a last breath, he caught a ride on a whirlwind, was swept into paradise like a lost kite. Enoch was the other. He just walked off one day. No pomp, no rigmarole. He hiked to heaven, left no trace of himself, no trail-map.

It will be tough for Steven speaking at his father's funeral tomorrow, but even he'd have to admit he's in a better spot than was Enoch's kid, Methuselah. Imagine your father's too good for death, and the eulogy's left to you. At three hundred, Methuselah hadn't yet reached middle age. His beard was probably still ash black, but long enough that he had to cinch it around his waist like a belt so as not to trip. At Enoch's funeral, though, maybe he let it down. Maybe in lieu of a eulogy, mourners simply formed a line and approached him one by one to dry their tears on his beard, a community face towel. Maybe Methuselah and the other people who'd loved Enoch didn't know what else to do. The world was so young then. Even death wasn't a given. Maybe blubbering one at a time into Methuselah's beard, the ceremony of this, united them in their grief. When Lamech reached the front of the line, wouldn't an embrace have occurred between the tearful son and the damp-bearded father? Wouldn't Lamech have begged Methuselah not to go off on his own anymore in search of Grandpa Enoch? Wouldn't enduring promises have been begged for and made between father and son at that moment?

Had Marla's question been asked and answered correctly, she or Oscar, one of the scientifically minded, might've proceeded to compare Elijah and Enoch's passages to sublimation, the process by which a solid, like ice, transforms directly into a gas, like vapor. Skips being a liquid altogether. Upon hearing this, Steven's mind might've followed his ears. Sublimation to sublime . He might've thought simply, “To make a funeral beautiful, that would be a good thing.” He might've even said this out loud.

Too late now, though. Too far gone. Probably a stretch, anyway.

Laurel 's idea about Steven using a few of Charles's jokes tomorrow, though, that might work. There are a few on the fringes of Steven's memory: a charming one about a farmer who takes his pig to a baseball game; a long, convoluted one about a gorilla and a drawbridge; and a racy one about a used car salesman and his promiscuous wife. Tonight, as Steven tosses and turns on the cusp of sleep, maybe he'll call to them, and maybe they'll answer.

Steven watches his table's server and a half-dozen other wait staff approach the table. The cake they haul is small and crooked, but it's ablaze. One of those sparkler candles. The sparks don't last long enough to land on anything. They're here and gone.

The servers horseshoe around the table, turn themselves into a chorus. They look at each other, fill their lungs and launch into it. The song they sing is not the traditional “Happy Birthday,” but something loud and fast. There's clapping, and if you don't clap along, if you don't at least tap your fingers on the edge of the table, you're considered a downer.

Oscar keeps time with his last two crab legs. He's showing off, twirling them in his fingers between taps. Marla's not watching, but the server is. When he tosses one of the legs in the air and catches it, she giggles, bails on the end of the song so that it doesn't end as cleanly as it could've. The hefty server next to her slugs her playfully but solidly in her twig of an arm.

As everyone applauds, Marla leans over Oscar, kisses him wetly in the center of his cheek. More than just a peck, it's a full-fledged smooch. It makes a sound that Steven barely hears, leaves faint lip-marks on Oscar's baby pink jowl that Steven can just barely make out.

 

Visit Tom Noyes as Image Artist of the Month for February '06

Image #44 • Winter 2005