“Well, I don’t remember it all. It was short. I guess he said he was dead. He told me where to find him.” Sam scratched his chin now, trying to recall.
James turned to face his father. “Can we see it?” Nana leaned forward as if to protect Sam, and rested a hand on his knee. But she didn’t say anything. They all waited.
“I don’t have it anymore. The police wanted to know how I found him. When I mentioned the note, they asked me to fetch it right away. I gave it to them.”
James slumped on the rail, his face a mask of frustration. “What else did it say?” he asked.
“Well, I was just trying to remember. Somebody was going to contact me in a few days, but I can’t remember the name. Lannam. Something like that.”
James turned again, voice pleading. “Did he say why he…” Sam shook his head, looking into the middle distance. “Did he say why you?” Again, Sam shook his head. The group settled into a sort of buzzing silence. So many questions, so few answers.
9 / What’s in a Name
The evening of Mr. Thompson’s funeral, Nana served a Sunday dinner. It was a pleasant change for a Tuesday, which was always baked hot dog and mashed potatoes with melted cheese on top. Tonight, it was roast chicken and baked potatoes, and corn and fresh-baked bread.
James looked around the table. Looking in our window, you might think we were normal. Mother’s probably in the kitchen fetching the butter dish. He smirked, smoldering.
“What made you decide to come back?” he said, stirring his crushed potato.
His father had been back now since before Thanksgiving. James tried to be gone most of the time.
“Hmmm.” It was plain that though James had asked the question, his father was preparing to answer everyone.
“I always wanted to come back. At first, when I left, I just thought that even though it’d be hard for you, you’d be a lot better off without me around, because of what I was becoming. Had become.”
James rested his fingertips lightly on the edge of the table. He studied the fingers of each hand in turn as they tapped a quiet cadence on the edge of the smooth maple wood.
“So let’s see. I lose my brother. Stolen.” He glanced up at his father. “And… it makes you feel bad too, and so you leave, because that somehow is better than you staying.”
James’s eyes locked again on his fingers. His father’s eyes were dark swirling pools. James plowed on. “David was your son. He was my brother. I guess because I was a kid, I didn’t have the choice of cutting out and drowning my pain.”
He could feel his eyes reddening, and the vein throbbing on the side of his head. “You say you left because of David.” His mouth set, and he lifted his eyes to stare back at Sam. “But you still had a son, you bastard.”
His dad continued to look on James as if his son were describing a football play, or an accident downtown. Outside, a blue jay squawked, chasing the smaller birds off the feeder just beyond the window. James didn’t think anyone else noticed.
“How. Do. You. Think. It. Made. Me. Feel.” James spit each word in a low growl. Separate and distinct. His own quiet fury made him think of a leg-trapped possum he had seen once on the far side of the river.
“I’m sorry, son.” His father’s voice was low, as gentle as a mother coaxing her infant to sleep. “There is nothing I can do to change what’s passed.” Sam dropped his head. “I wish I could, but wishing won’t change any of it.”
Nana moved to lay a hand on Sam’s, but held back when he raised his head, chin firm. “I can only try to do the next right thing.” He paused. “When I talked to your mother last, when she was…she asked me if I remembered how it was, back before...” His father’s eyes misted and he shook his head, as if trying to rattle the right words loose.
“You boys are entitled to a father. Doesn’t mean I’m entitled to be one. But…” He gave a slight smile. “I’m likely the closest you’re gonna get. So if you’ll have me, I’d like to stay.” At these last words, Nana’s hand covered her son’s, and she patted his lightly.
“Well, don’t you think it’s a little late for me?” James said. “I could be gone next year.” His tone had softened a fraction.
“We are free to start over again, anytime we like. Maybe time isn’t all there is.” Sam shifted in his chair, leaning forward over the table. He continued: “We all have had some hard lessons. Thing is, maybe we learned some things that can help each other. Maybe we need each other some.”
Sam looked out the window at the sound of the ice cream truck crawling down Nash Street, Buster tailing it in joyous pursuit.
“I want to tell you a little about your mother, too. Some things you don’t know.” His father somehow knew better than to move toward James, who had quiet tears rolling down his face.
“Your mother was a big James Brown fan. The colored singer? His voice would just get her swooning.” His mouth curled in a small smile, remembering. “She always said she just liked the name. I always told her I didn’t believe her.”
“So who named me?” Dylan asked.
“Ah, Dylan was my idea,” His father replied, smiling. “Do you recall,” he asked Nana, “How Mo fought me on that one?” Nana nodded.
“Mo?” Dylan asked.
“Maureen. Your mother. I called her Mo. No one else was allowed to. She was not big for nicknames.” His father was more at ease than James ever remembered seeing him. Funny, considering how the talk had started. James knew there were tough things, not yet discussed.
“For reasons that escape me now, I was a fan of the poet Dylan Thomas. Seems like I used to understand his poems, and now I don’t anymore. He was quite a drinker too, in his day. I still like the name, though.”
“He’s dead?” Dylan asked.
“I’m afraid so. He was not yet forty. The booze I think got him.”
James stared hard at his father. “If drinking made him die, didn’t you think about that when you drank?”
“I didn’t think about the dying part, though I did think the way he drank was sort of…tragic and heroic, all in one.” Sam looked down at the table’s surface, rubbing his jaw. “It’s a little hard to say. In the beginning, I drank so I would understand his poetry. I thought it was the secret elixir of the gods.”
“Who named David?” James asked quietly.
Sam pursed his lips, watching his own fingers tap the table in cadence. Maybe it was like the way Dylan avoided the sidewalk cracks. Patterns that gave assurance. Then it struck James. Sam tapped just the same way he did.
“The name David was your mother’s all the way,” he said to the middle of the table. “Don’t know where it came from, really.” Nana set a tray service down in the center of the table. It held two cups for coffee and a small pot, and two tall glasses of lemonade, along with a plate of Oreos. His father ran a hand along the side of his head, and then sniffed a bit.
“So David it was.” He leaned the chair back on its two back legs, balancing with his knees on the side of the table. Dylan waited for the reproof from Nana—four legs on the floor, that’s why they give a chair four legs, for the floor—but she sat quietly, sipping at her cup.
“I kind of think your mom always wanted a girl. Not instead of either of you,” he hastened to say. “I just think probably every mother wants a little girl. Is that so?” He raised his face to Nana.
“I was happy enough with you,” she said shortly. “Of course,” she sighed, as she poured a half cup of coffee, “I suppose it would’ve been nice to dress