St. Paul, Minnesota-2005
Narration by the Person Behind
Chapter Seven
(A Week later) Carla Lawson (who has, since her divorce from her husband some fifteen-years prior, taken back her maiden name) sits back in a wooden chair by her window looking out it, down three floors. Eyes drooping, remembering her years of marriage, her husband's drinking, and staying out late, the years he was in the Army, in Germany, and when she had joined him. The number of times she ran away from him, then came back, her hospital visits, her medications.... "I can't love them boys like I love my daughter, I'm scared of the boys now, they terrify me," she says out loud to herself, mumbling, motionless. Then moving her head in circles, as if to draw circles in the cloud she sees outside, lights up a cigarette-as often she does, one after the other-she's not supposed to smoke in her room, but she does, everybody does she tells the visiting nurse. She sees her ex-husband entering the room, remembers his shape, handsome, rigid, he enters the room, and slips through her day-dream so fast she's trying to backtrack and bring him back into her dream, but other intervening thoughts enter the path he was on before he reaches her window-and he vanishes. His high drunken faces come back to her in burps, fragmented images, pale eyes, high-blooded face. "I told her you weren't a bad father," she said staring out the window, "shut up!" seeing someone peeking into her conversation; she says, continues to look out the window, staring and not seeing, quieter than a mouse, "you got no affection or gentleness, you never had any" she says, then looks around to see if that peeping tom is still peeping inside her head, "You could have been better!" she tries to explain. She rubs her eyes, puts her hands on her knees, she says hardly, savagely, in silence-not one spoken word: it's getting ready to rain, and I got to go downstairs and give account to those damn board members, I should never had elected to be the treasure.
She wakes up from her sleep; she dozed off for a moment. Last time he called, Christopher Wright called her, was a year ago, talking about Natasha and Boris hitting the kids too much, and the state would not intervene. And the last time she called him was a year before that, trying to convince him to tell Natasha to call her because they were fighting and she wanted to make up she even told him "Natasha's the only one I care about." This now was fading in her mind, as she gained her composure sitting in that chair.
She now glances behind her to see if the peeping tom has manifested himself to a physical being, somewhere in her three-hundred and fifty square foot apartment, "Well......" she says, it's not real after all, awry she stands up as if to gain the rest of her composure to go downstairs to meet the board members of the establishment.
"I wonder what he's doing now?" she questions, in a mumble.
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St. Paul, Minnesota-
2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
Narrated by Carla Larson
Chapter Eight
I wonder what he's doing now.
I wonder what he's doing now.
I wonder what he's doing now.
I wonder what he's doing now.
I wonder what he's doing now.
I wonder what he's doing now....
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Lima, Peru, 2010
Narrated by Christopher Wright
Chapter Nine
"When I was poor, we were all knitted together like bees in a honeycomb, once I became rich and tried to help, they all flew away, thinking they were all innocent with their resentments: and it was time for me to pay for my sins."
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Minnesota, 2004
(A phone conversation between Delilah and her sister Mini, in 2010 between Minnesota and Huancayo, Peru...)
Narrated by Delilah Wright
(Step-mother to the three children)
Chapter Ten
Did you know, a day in late summer of 2004, Christopher checked out one of his apartments Boris had worked on-he was his one of three of his handymen, putting in a new kitchen floor of tiles, there was small cracks between the tiles showing, consequently, a job done too fast, and overlooked-in essence, not well done at all. Within the hour, he had called his daughter up; they lived across the street from us back then, in one of our apartment buildings. That is, Christopher owned six buildings at that time-since Boris was a handyman, caretaker of two of his buildings, this one in question, being the one we lived in ourselves and the apartment was next to ours on the second floor.
Natasha had two boys, one eight, the other six, Christopher's grandchildren, we saw them quite often in those days and they took quite a liking for their grandfather, and he them, the youngest Willie, would ask his dad, often asked his dad, perhaps too often: "Why does grandpa work so hard and you just lie around?" I used to laugh at that, Boris being such a large man, and lazy as the day is long, pert near, or close to, two-hundred and seventy-five pounds, let's say, almost six-foot. And when Christopher explained to his daughter it was a bad job, she took offense, told her husband, "He yelled at me, and said you did a very bad job," and Boris came over like a mad elephant and tried to kill my husband, tried to break his ribs, I jumped on his back, and then I said, "Give me the key to the cellar room, you can still wash your cloths here, but you'll have to ask you father for the key from now on, I no longer trust your intentions." And had it been up to me I would have called the police and had him arrested for assault, but Christopher insisted he didn't want to, I think the reason being, the kids would have no father for a while, and he understood that better than anybody-because he never had a father, and a lazy no good for nothing father, one that loved his kids even if he slapped them in the back of the head too often, was better than no father at all, as long as he didn't damaged the kids none. He didn't drink any, and he didn't beat the kids to pulp, he just slapped the back of their heads too often too much. But that never hurt the kids all that much; it just gave them better reflexes, so it appeared.
"You'll never see your grandkids again," said Boris to Christopher, in a near whisper, as he left the house, walking down those wooden stairs like a lopsided elephant, with a smirk on his face.
I didn't know he had said that until Christopher, until he told me a year or so later, sometime later, and from thereon, they never spoke to us again, and if the kids tried to greet their grandfather, either Boris or the daughter, would slap the kids on the back of the head to apparently stop them.
"What did I do," asked my mother-in-law, one day, Teresa to her son, because they wouldn't speak to her either. And Christopher simple said, "It's all right, you didn't do anything, you didn't need to do anything."
It was like Boris and Natasha had to knock everything down in front of them, like they couldn't stand just anything that had to do with us thereafter, except giving bloody noses-passing through our yard to get to the nearby bar and visit their friends, and smirk some more if they saw us on the porch. Not sure why they even cross over that way. For the first year they walked around the house to get to Rice Street, or the local bar, now it was through the yard as if they were going to inherit it, and the daughter was simply notifying us of that. Boris was more apprehensive of doing it, so it looked on his face. But somehow I always think daughters no matter how much they tell everyone they hate their fathers, they don't mean it, they say it to make a point to someone impress someone else - maybe I'm wrong. They weren't sorry for a thing, and I wondered why Christopher didn't get Boris on an assault, he said, "If I did, the kids would never forgive me, nor ever really understand, and it's better for the kids, they'll learn someday by accident." And so that's what he said, and that's kind of what I figured.
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Columbus, Ohio, 1998 (Now 2010)
Narrated by Sergei Wright
Chapter Eleven
"Once a bastard, always a bastard," that's what my brother said father was. That's what I told everybody he said, about my dad back then and what I tell them now if they ask me. I even tell them "You're lucky if you don't know him." I told him, my father, "I'm grown up now, you can't fool me anymore," and he didn't understand what I meant by saying fool him anymore, I suppose what I meant was I didn't have any more faith in him, I didn't believe a word he was saying even if he wasn't saying a word, but just thinking of saying a word, and not saying one. But what he said, he said, back in 1998, what Pavlenko said he said to dad was: "I'm a Marine now, and just as tough as you." And pa said "Prove it!" And Pavlenko resented that. And I knew, and pa knew he was on medication, like mother was on medication for twenty-years or more, the same debilitating illness. And Pavlenko said, "This is the last time you'll ever see me," because he didn't want to prove it, not sure why, he had actually built up a current, and their voices were high, and he meant it, but he didn't back up his word, and maybe father knew he wouldn't, or couldn't, but he created the devilment and perhaps got embarrassed he couldn't pull through it. He put pa in the corner, and as pa used to say "If you ever put someone in the corner he's got to fight or run like hell, or melt right there, you don't give him many choices, so it's best you leave a little room for both of you to wiggle out of..." and neither one left that inch to wiggle out of. And he told pa, I hated him just as bad as he hated him, and pa asked me, "Do you hate me like Pavlenko hates me?" And I said "No," but that was a lie too. Maybe not a complete lie not likes his lie mine was a white lie, a distortion-no, a generalization-no, I just left something out didn't say the whole thing: a deletion that's what it was. I didn't hate him; I simply resented him for thinking he was so innocent.
And paw told me, "If you spent more time teaching your daughter how to spell, than on the computer looking for a wife over in the Philippines, and riding on that motorcycle of yours, she'd be able to spell "Get," the proper way, not like she does now: "Git", and that infuriated me, and I told him to apologize to her, and now she doesn't want talk to Grandpa anymore because he won't apologize and I made an issue out of it. And grandpa isn't going to say he's sorry because he's not sorry, and doesn't understand why he should be sorry for correcting her-he wrote me and said: "That's a grandfather's job...!"
I told him then that I got my bad spelling from him and she got it from me, although he doesn't spell that bad anymore, he must have practiced, or he carries a dictionary around with him nowadays, since he got his Doctorate in Education, he can't afford to be a bad speller anymore, not to say he isn't, he just can't afford to show it like I do, and my daughter does. I don't blame her for not talking to dad, and I'm not sure if I blame him, but if I don't blame someone I got to blame myself, and I don't feel guilty. But perhaps that's my sin-no one else.
Then I got thinking: So what, so he did what he did, other father's have done worse, he has to pass through them gates to get to heaven just like I got to, just like everyone has to, God is no respecter of men: my father's own words, and that even Christ Himself, will not take a sinner in unless they've asked for, forgiveness, and have also forgiven another person, forgiven everybody who has ever done them wrong, and not forgiving is just as bad as about any sin I know of, and father knows that better than anyone I know of, and so he's taking that route to heaven I bet. Gee I thought I'd never understand why, but now I'm beginning to, believe that maybe I do. And that is all I'm thinking of at this moment.
I can just see us three kids now, when we were young, in that time, and day, we all followed him, trusted him, anyway followed him because we were supposed to, into hell or hi waters, we would have followed him, for the reason that he was who he was, then we came home, then we went back to our foster homes, then we grew up. Certainly, why not blame him now; because we can. I can remember if I didn't think about pa taking us, and just eating, it was off my mind. For a while anyhow: and Grandmother Teresa, never seemed to care much one way or the other, if she did she only showed it in giving us gifts, he was like her, he didn't want the responsibility, couldn't deal with it I suppose. But it's all right, I got used to it in time, I even expected it.
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Lima, Peru, 2010
Narrated by: Delilah Wright
Chapter Twelve
Christopher, had come to the point, realizing that Pavlenko, who now lived in St. Louis, Missouri, with his daughter, he had never seen, never been told her name, unknown wife's name, and Natasha, her two boys of whom he had a very good relationship with until Boris took care of that, they still lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the same apartment building Christopher once owned, and he sold it, and told the new owner to leave the rent the same as it was, $450 dollars for four months, because he wanted to raise it to $750, of which, Boris only paid $100-dollars of the $450 anyhow because of the little work his son-in-law did and daughter did, said she did, but seldom did like cleaning up the hallways, and then we'd get a call from the tenants, to clean the hallways; and Sergei, now living in Ohio, and his son Sergei Jr, who lived in Florida, and his daughter who lived with his second divorced wife, in Florida, he had simply reached the point where it was utterly hopeless to try to put back any kind of a relationship with any of them, So here he was, "I'm tired of trying to fix up something I don't know anything about, old resentments, wounds that turned to scars, scars that healed but in the wrong places, where one can see them every day and maul over them. My mother was in an orphanage, and she never hated my grandfather for it, and I was in a foster farm because my mother had to work for and save money for three years, and here the children are in foster homes for six-years, and they hate me, and their ill mother. That's just fine. If anything they are downright honest about their feelings, coming out with them in the bright sunlight. They just don't know the circumstances, and likely never will; the only one here that is up to date is me. If they ever will be; one is just as wrong as the other. They got half of it right. But by and large, they aint got a thing to complain about."
I told Christopher, "Calm down, Christopher, you'll have another heart attack. Go to bed, rest you'll feel better." He read a disturbing e-mail from his son Sergei, scolding him again.
"I can't," he said. "I tried." He looked at me. "I'm the father, not him, and he's treating me like I was his son, it's better we have no communication than this?" he questioned, it was more a statement-question, one not to be answered but, thought through.
"Of course you're the father," I said. "Certainly, he is the son," I added. Not really knowing what in the world I was talking about, just trying to reconfirm, he was who he knew he was.
"No," he said "I don't feel like a father, and don't want to be one anymore if that is how it is; it is just as best we part even part that part."
"Yes," I said, "Do you want me to write him and say never to write again if he can't write something decent?"
"Yes," he told me. Then he said, "I'm tired," and went to bed.
The following day, I said: "It's all said and done, all open now between you and Sergei." And then I told myself to keep my mouth shut, stay out of it, although I objected to Sergei's insults on the internet to his father, and I wrote him and told him so. And it was then, he invited all the church members over to our house, and the nuns from the convent, and had ten papers made up, and had them all sign it, leaving them everything, two houses, three bank accounts, $100,000-dollars in books, and antiques, everything from shoe laces to diamond rings.
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Interlude, 2005
Narrated by: the Person Behind
Chapter Thirteen
As for Christopher a simple and easy choice would be to mend fences or you don't mend fences and wash your hands good and clean of it all. And then there are those folks who say you want to mend them, or tell other people you want to, would like to mend fences, just for telling sake. And this is what Sergei was telling people, implying he'd like to do with his father...but? Yes, he had questions, too many. You might say it was to his advantage with his son, he looked good, giving him a tender and gentle heart, who's to say it couldn't melt over night? But that was faith and a lie and I mean, Sergei Jr, was a thousand miles away, but Christopher wrote Sergei one day said, "You better hope your emulating isn't picked up by your son," which never proved much because he never got an answer back. But he had not stopped giving his father advice on how to be a good father, and I doubt, Delilah, if anybody was happy about that.
It was in the winter of 2005 the unthinkable took place. Hate that was still under the bridge came out, enough to fill up the Mississippi River. And if his daughter didn't want anything to do with it, she was outvoted by John, the old caretaker, Christopher fired for stealing, everything he could get his hands on, and now living with Boris and his daughter across the street on Albemarle Street. Or maybe it didn't even take a vote, maybe she wanted to go along for the ride-that's to say? They knew Christopher was moving to Peru, he had sent them a Postcard, that took three days to get to them that would have taken three minutes to deliver to them across the street, but they were not talking to Christopher.
"I'll deliver it to them," said Delilah.
"No," said Christopher, "never mind that. I forgot how to talk to them nowadays." The bridge that was destroyed by them had become uncrossable, even for Delilah-but somehow she was willing to attempt to walk through fire to get to them for her husband. If it could have been it would have been, that Delilah would have sent fireballs down their chimney. All the efforts to settle things had come to a halt. Mike Hides, had even started a rumor with the neighbors, that Old Man Wright, was telling fibs of the lady next door, about her wanting to go to bed with him, and he extended that to other gossip in the neighborhood. You feel sadness over this, as Christopher did, a sadness that rises from the death of a child-will a literal death but close to it, a merciless separation that is forced upon you. In a world and in a sphere that one has only so many days to count until his last day approaches. If the kids forgot anything, it was one thing for sure; they created a conspiracy, a scheme, a plot, with the salamander, not realizing they can go on living in rain-soaked stumps. He may be the outcast, but they go on surviving. They are capable of regenerating lost limps. And Christopher knew himself better than most men know their bad habits. And so he didn't seek revenge that is why he gave his daughter reduced rent even after he sold the house, made a deal with the new owner. He knew revenge destroyed two, not one person in the overall picture; in this case a whole family was being on a Pilgrimage to the Village of Hades.
But he had been doing this for awhile, Mike had been spreading rumors for awhile, and when confronted by Christopher, saying, "If you're talking about me, tell them all I've done for you, already done for you, not your troubles, and your painless resentment and conspiracy toward me, and that, that you don't like me. And that you don't know why you don't like me, perhaps because your children admire me, and you less, or perhaps because the house you live in belongs to me, but tell them it is the house I wanted to give to you, the four-plex, but you was too lazy to take it, accept it, because you didn't want the responsibility of collecting the rent, and paying the rest of the house mortgage, which after you collected the rent you'd live free-so I told you and showed you. You didn't tell them that, did you? Of course you didn't, you're slow but not that dense, just resentful and revengeful and disrespectful and you'd rather accept the butts you father throws on the floor, than doing an honest day's work for me, that's called pride. You'll take the money alright but not the responsibility."
His wife would say, "My husband gives you vacations and cheap rent and money, and gifts, and all your father gives you Boris, are his old cigarette butts, and you respect him more, why?"
"I can say what I want to say," he'd say to Delilah, and she'd just shake her head; but the unbelievable took place that winter of 2005, but I guess they ain't the first critters to come up with such diabolical scheme, or schemes on their parents.
At this juncture Christopher was worn out, exhausted but still he restrained himself from wanting to close the door completely on their relationship, leaving it ajar for reconciliation.
John was the caretaker of Christopher's nine-plex, and overall handyman of the six properties. Knowing his ex employer, the one that was going to give him a free house also, if he proved to be loyal, but with Boris -and alleged daughter, they tried to set the house on fire, via the garage, setting several brooms together, and pouring gasoline on them, and on the cement, soaking into the cement, all the way to the car, lit it on fire, and ran like hell. It was 4:00 a.m., in the morning,
For what? For $450,000-dollars of liquid free assets; His will had not been altered yet: but it soon would be.
In time, Christopher would find out this supposed secret, of it being them who tried to set the fire in the garage, Boris had babbled it already to everyone in the neighborhood. It just happened to beDelilah heard a voice while they were sleeping; it sounded like Teresa's voice-her mother in laws, "Wake up, wake up, wake up..." an everlasting echo. And it woke Delilah up, and she woke her husband who was ill with a debilitating neurological disease, to escape the impending fire in the garage. Delilah then put it out with a wet towel. The footsteps outside in the Minnesota snow looked like Boris' that let up to the opened garage, and then it downed on Christopher Boris still had the garage key, and the neighbor indicated-had said "...it was a big man," that it could have been Boris: but it remains an unsolved mystery-for the police, because Christopher never would allow himself to crystallize such a theory to the point of involving the police for his own reasons: "Had the fire connected with the upper part of the inside garage," said the Fire Chief, "the whole house would have went up in a matter of minutes."
