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Ash
The war is over. So how come it’s still raging in my head? How come I hear gunshots and explosions in my dreams? How come the feeling of being trapped with nowhere to run remains long after I wake up? How come the echoes never die down?
Just a bunch of questions that have no actual answer. At least not an answer that would make anything better.
They’re all questions best left unasked. That’s what my father would’ve said. He’s the only one I could talk to about it. Not that he understood. But at least he sometimes listened. Now he’s dead. And I finally think that maybe he was right all along.
Twenty-seven years old and free. Whole and uninjured and with enough put by to live like a king for awhile. So I don’t know why I’m even tripping on those annoying. It’s a gorgeous fall day, the sun warm but not too hot, the sky cloudless, the air fresh, cool and thick with the smell of redwoods and the pristine dark earth they grow from. I have all of the rest of my life to look forward to. So many of my friends don’t. I’m one of the lucky ones. The war is over and I got out in one piece.
The bus ride from San Diego to my hometown Pleasantville was long and winding and took damn near all night. Now, I’m standing at the bus stop, and I hardly recognize the place. If I hadn’t read the sign, my heart sort of leaping for joy in my chest the way coming home always does whether you’re actually happy to be home or not, I’d think I got off the bus in the wrong town.
When I joined the Marines nearly seven years ago, I took a bus from this very station. Only then, it was just a sidewalk with a post and broken wooden bench. Now it’s on an island of its own, covered by a wooden roof in the shape of an overturned boat and I think the bench might be cushioned.
The whole town screams new money now, much in the same way that it used to scream no money back in the day. I bet my mother regrets moving to the next town over now. Pleasantville looks like the town of her dreams now. I guess I can ask her over dinner tonight. Or not. If I do we might end up not speaking for a couple of years again. Been there, done that, and maybe I don’t want a repeat.
Main street stretches out in front of me, every shop, cafe, juice bar and whatnot lining clean and bright like it belongs on some fake town built just for filming cheesy chick movies. Back before I left the town wasn’t much to look at. But it had character. Now it’s all just fluff.
I shoulder my bag and turn my back on the prettiness, which even smells nice now, like cotton candy, sweet coffee and orange juice, for some reason. It’s drowning out all the natural scents of this town I enjoyed through the open window of the bus.
My dad’s house is in the direction in which I’m walking, but so’s the cemetery—the place where he is now.
I haven’t come to terms with his death yet, so for awhile I just think about how my feet feel hitting the pavement and how the strap of my duffel bag feels digging into my shoulder. Not pleasant. Not as painful as it maybe should be, given that it contains all my worldly possessions.
I’m not winded, but my heart is beating a little faster as I ascend the slight hill atop which the church and cemetery stand, overlooking the town. The sun’s beating down my neck, hotter with every step I take, but the coolness and natural, earthy scent of the trees that grow thick on this hill, pressing into the cemetery as though they’ll swallow it up soon and would like nothing better, cancel it out nicely.
My father didn’t want to be buried here. He wanted his ashes scattered along the roads he so loved to ride. No one asked me before they buried him, so here he is. He also didn’t want to die.
And he sure as fuck didn’t want a white marble headstone with gold lettering. That’s my mother’s work. I’d never have let her get it if I’d been here. But I was stuck in the godforsaken, poisonous critter infested caves of northern Afghanistan and didn’t hear about his death or his funeral until after he’d been in the ground for a week.
That’s another thing I could ask my mother at dinner tonight. Or not. For the same reason, I won’t ask about anything more involved than the weather.
I run my hand across the sun-warmed headstone, feeling nothing but the hard, unyielding stone.
“I’m sorry about this, Pop,” I mutter. “I'd’ve done like you wanted.”
Nothing answers back and the stone is just as hard and warm.
And that’s about as much time as I can stand here. I would’ve liked to have been here when they laid him to rest. But not as much as I would’ve liked to find him alive and well in our home at the foot of this hill.
So I don’t think much of anything as I walk back down, keeping in the shade of the trees, practically running, because I’m dreading the return home and because unpleasant things are best done fast.
The street I grew up in lies in the shade of Resolution Hill, a short ride from my father’s MC’s headquarters. Devil’s Nightmare MC. Man, I hope my dad’s being a nightmare to the devil down in hell right now.
This used to be the shitty neighborhood. Now the progress and gentrification has reached here too in the form of shiny new buildings and even shinier trucks and expensive cars lining the sidewalk. My childhood home—my house now—sticks out like a sore with its grey, splotchy facade, unmoved lawn and rusty porch swing, which even I found tacky. Until I found out what a great make-out spot it actually was.
There’s no avoiding the tall grass, which has overgrown even the cobbled path leading across the lawn to the front door, so I just wade straight across it. My key sticks in the lock as I try to open the door, and doesn’t give until I nearly knock it down yanking on the doorknob. The smell of dust, disuse and a tightly shut up place assault me first, followed by the much nastier stench of rotten food.
“Couldn’t they at least empty the fridge?” I ask the sark, dusty, stinking house, and predictably get no answer.
Who would’ve done it? My brother? Nah, he’s been too busy with his new family and his new life. My mom? She hasn’t set foot in this house since the day she left my dad for another man fifteen years ago. One of his many girlfriends over the years? Clearly none of them felt like doing the dirty work.
No. There’s never been anyone but me, and I guess I’m here now. Though for the first time since I left the Marines I wish I’d stayed. Let this house rot from the inside out along with all the memories that’ll go with it.
I dump my duffle bag on the floor just inside the front door and head to the kitchen. But one whiff of the fridge after I open it tells me the whole thing will have to go. The stinking black mounds inside it are unrecognizable, either to look at or to smell.
The door leading from the kitchen to the garage is wide open and I walk through it without even deciding to. A dark grey tarp covers a mound in the center of the space, which is, as always much neater than the rest of the house and somehow doesn’t smell as bad. I open the garage door anyway, since this house will need to be aired out for weeks, I’m sure, and even that might not be enough.
Then I walk to the mound. I know what’s beneath the tarp. And I don’t want to see it. I suddenly feel the entire weight of the sadness over losing my dad so soon and so quickly. All the sadness I’ve been avoiding, ignoring, pretending isn’t there, since I got the call a month ago.
