father, or the pain that lingers

Lucas Fotch: July 3rd, 2021

I walked into Mel’s diner for the first time twenty-five years ago, and the smells hadn’t changed when I came that July. The woman behind the counter, Mary was what her name tag said, had a mess of black-gray hair knotted on top of her head like a rat’s nest. I’d seen her a hundred times as a kid. She was short, fat, and ugly then, too; her hair just wasn’t gray.

“Lucas honey, it’s good to see you back.” she said when I walked in. The smell of black-burned chicken filling my nostrils. I nodded to her, and she grinned and leaned on the counter. “You back in town for long? I heard about your daddy.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’ll be around for a little while. Gotta get the whole situation worked out. Johnny didn’t leave a will ‘cept that he wanted me to deal with everything.” I hated that man. It stung to say his name. To think of his face and his hands and his damn breath hot on my neck. My whole body started to feel empty like it was waiting for another hit.

“I guess he just figured that you were the best one. Most mature.” she said with a grin.

“I figure it’s just because I’m the oldest.”

Mary gave a laugh and shook her empty head. “Well, anything I can get for you?”

I thought of my brothers. I thought of my poor mother. I thought of Saturdays. “Apple pie and a glass of water,” I said, scratching at the sores on my arms.

James Fotch: July 4th, 2021

I stretched my legs the best I could as I drove through the thick piney woods of South Mississippi. The small, back roads twisted in the dark, moonless night, but even after ten years, I remembered them well. The light from the diner sign came as a shock when the trees parted and the town of Smyrna came into view. I pulled into the parking lot of Mel’s Diner and put my car in park. I sat there dazed for ten minutes staring at the black windows and trying to remember the last time I had seen the hazy-blue wood frame of the diner. July 4th, I thought to myself, closed. As I backed my car out of the parking lot and headed on towards my childhood home, the soft light filtered through the dense pine needles. I drove, and I thought of my brothers, my mother, Saturdays, and the sour taste of apple pie. And I thought of my father.

Lucas Fotch: July 4th, 2021

I swear sometimes you get a feeling in your toes that’s like getting your hand cut off but instead of painful it feels really good, and I can’t explain it any clearer than that. I just want people to understand what he did hurt so much, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same but sometimes the heroin makes it go away so that’s why. Oh my god he never cleaned this house and why did he have to send me the key and make me open it up it just hurt so much he was our dad why would he do that and mother never did anything but apple pie apple pie apple pie, just like pie could make those hands go and it just feels like I shouldn’t even be here but I think James called me, but I don’t know if it was yesterday or a year ago.

There was a bang on the door. I didn’t know how to get up. I could see the curtains moving. The face was his. The banging was louder. I forgot to lock the door.

“Lucas?” he called. “Lucas, you in there?”

I tried to say living room, but all that came out was a groan. Then he walked in, and all I could see were his eyes. Brown like Johnny’s. I had to get away. I was helpless and couldn’t get away. He's going to do it, and I don’t want any more apple pie. He was putting his hands on me.

“Lucas, calm down, it's James. It’s just James. Are you okay? What’s going on?”

I heard a ringing. He stopped talking. I think he saw the needle. He left me on the floor. He walked away. He looked just like dad.

James Fotch: July 4th, 2021

Just as I found Lucas laying on the ground, needle still in his arm, my phone rang. I stopped and answered. “Hey Mat, how’s it going?”

“Fine.”

Stiff as always. “How long before you make it into town?”

“Tomorrow. Is Lucas there?”

“Yeah, halfway. He’s passed out on the living room floor.”

“So, you’re in the house?”

I took a breath. I knew what he was fishing for and I didn’t want to be a part of it. “Mmhm.”

“How is it?”

“Disgusting.”

“Have you been in the room yet?”

His voice was cold and accusing. I squeezed the phone in my hand. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Yeah.”

He paused. My face grew hot.

“I think I’ll stop by Mel’s for some apple pie.”

Matthew Daniels: July 5th, 2021

Matthew sat down at the counter and ran his hands through his long, black hair. His tanned skin marked him to everyone there as a day laborer, and though he had spent his whole childhood in that town, no one recognized him. The woman behind the counter took out a pad and pen before resting her elbows on the countertop. Matthew sat across from her in almost that same spot he had sat with his mother and Brothers every Saturday as a teenager, but she looked at him like he was a total stranger. He understood why no one saw him as the string bean teenager he had been. His hair was to his shoulders now. His back was broad and marked with muscles. His skin was so dark he barely appeared to come from the Irish heritage his family claimed. Matthew was grateful for that, for the change he had created for himself, even though it had never given him any real distance from his home.

“What are you having?” the woman asked. “Need a menu?”

Matthew glanced at the woman’s face and gave a soft smile. “Does this place still have apple pie?” he asked.

“Yes sir, we do. Be—”

“Best in the county,” he interrupted. “I remember.”

Mary the waitress gave a puzzled look and walked away, sliding her pen and pad back into her apron. Matthew sat in silence, and ran his hands over a small, leather-bound book. The name Johnny was embossed in gold print on the cover. After a moment, Mary brought a plate heaping with apple pie and sat it down.

“Anything to drink?” Mary asked.

“Just water.”

She set a glass of water down, trying to work out who this stranger was. “That’ll be four bucks.”

Matthew reached for his wallet. Mary started to reach for the card reader, but he raised his hand to stop her. He laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “Keep the change.”

Mary nodded and thanked him as she picked up the money before going over to the register. Matthew sat at the counter and ate the pie with a deliberate nature, his mind working through the task that was ahead of him one step at a time. He never took his left hand from the leather-bound book.

#

Matthew stepped out of his truck, its dark blue color contrasted with splatterings of white paint, and scratched at the back of his neck. A fresh sunburn still worked its way out from the long hours he had spent on rooftops in Knoxville the week before, but he shrugged it off as he crossed the gravel yard. He walked up to the front porch of his childhood home, the soft crunch of leaves under his feet, and as he neared the door, it creaked open. A stocky, balding man of medium height stood in the doorway, the spitting image of their father. The leather book began to feel heavy in Matthew’s front pocket.

“It’s good to see you,” said the man.

“James,” said Matthew.

“How long has it been since you’ve been here?”

“A decade.”

“Well, come in. Don’t step on Lucas. He’s still lying on the floor.”

Matthew sighed and walked through the door, unable to believe that James had left Lucas wallowing for an entire day. The house was disgusting, layered with cigarette smoke and trash. In the center of the room, Lucas laid unconscious. Matthew looked down at his thin, pale face. Lucas’s slow, shallow breaths showed that he was alive, just in another world.

“How long has he been like this?” asked Matthew.

“All day, yesterday,” answered James. “He stirred to piss and down a glass of water before passing back out.”

Matthew said nothing and walked over to the kitchen sink. The entire countertop was covered in a thin layer of sticky tar with a stench so strong it took his breath away. He didn’t remember his father smoking, but it made sense that he picked it up. Filthy habits for filthy people, he thought. He reached into one of the cabinets, pulled out a large plastic cup, and filled it with water. He walked back over to Lucas’s unconscious body and stood over him. He dumped the cold water on Lucas’s face who jerked awake and began groaning. “When he stirs, get him in the shower. I’m going to the sheriff station to see Uncle Rorley.”

“Why?” asked James.

“Just get him clean. I’ll be back later. Call if anything comes up.”

James grimaced and knelt down to try and stir Lucas back into reality while Matthew headed back outside. The gravel driveway groaned against his tires as he backed out and started on the blacktop towards Collins, the county seat. It was a drive he had made more times than he could count, either as driver or a passenger, to visit his uncle Rorley. His uncle had served as sheriff of Covington County for more than twenty years, a fact that had gained their family a great deal of respect. With his father the mayor of Smyrna, his uncle the sheriff, and his grandfather the Justice of the Peace, Smyrnans had all expected great things out of him and his brothers.

The drive from Smyrna to Collins wasn’t long, just ten minutes of winding country road and pine trees. Collins, the largest town in the county, was just a dot on the long stretch of Highway 49 between Hattiesburg and Magee. “Downtown” consisted of only about three square blocks, and at the center, behind the county courthouse, was the sheriff’s station. Matthew pulled into the front and parked beside his uncle’s cruiser. He walked inside and was immediately greeted by the white-haired receptionist working behind the counter.

“Matty Fotch, it musta’ been ten years since you were here,” said the woman. “You look so different. So tall! Your uncle said he thought you’d started a construction business up in Knoxville, that right?”

“Yes Ma’am, Mrs. Connie, but it's Matthew Daniels now. I’m here to see my uncle.”

“Oh, you took your mama’s name, ain’t that sweet. Lord knows I miss her, and I know you boys miss her, too. He’s in his office, honey, you go on in.”

Matthew nodded and strode down the hallway. He walked through the heavy, steel door at the end of the hallway, across from one marked “cells” with a cheap paper sign, and tapped on the door. His uncle looked up at him from his newspaper.

“Matthew, how are you?” asked Rorley.

“Fantastic,” Matthew answered with a flat tone. He took a seat across the desk from his uncle. The cracked vinyl groaned at him.

“Your brothers in town, yet?”

“They’re at Johnny’s house.”

“They didn’t want to come?”

“I thought it would be best if I came to handle this, alone. Johnny put Lucas in charge of the estate, but he’s acting up.”

“I got you. Well, I know you boys want to get this over with and get out of town, but there were some circumstances that made things...difficult.”

“What circumstances?”

Rorley shifted in his seat. “Folks in this county talk, you know that. Have you heard what happened? Have any of y’all heard anything?”

“No. I haven’t been in town long. James would have told me if he heard anything. The only one I can figure is Lucas, and he was passed out on the floor when I got there.”

“Your daddy was killed by Michael Overfitch.” Rorley’s eyes darted around the room. “Do you know him?”

“I know of him. A doctor if I remember right.”

“Nurse practitioner at the clinic in town, but right. Nancy Overfitch is a historian or some such in Hattiesburg. Accordin’ to Michael, Johnny was supposed to be over there mowing their yard while he was at work, and Nancy was in Jackson at a conference. John had picked up yard work after he retired last year.”

Matthew said nothing and tapped his index finger on his elbow. His eyes never moved from Rorley’s.

“Michael got off work early and came home…says he caught Johnny with his son Anthony in their living room. Kid is only eleven years old.” Rorley sighed and cleared his throat. “Michael beat the ever-loving shit out of John right there. Caught him in the back of the head with a golf club older than I am. I couldn’t even recognize him when I got there.”

“Is Overfitch in jail?” asked Matthew. His voice didn’t waiver, the harsh; the unfeeling look on his face did not change.

Rorley shook his head and leaned back in his desk chair. “Naw, and the case is closed up tight. I didn’t see any reason to keep them tied up with all of that. I chocked it up as self-defense, and no one has said a word. My brother may have been mayor for some thirty years, but everyone knew Johnny could be nasty. Haven’t had any questions about it so far, anyway. I think Overfitch and his family have gone out of town for a little while.”

“Then why did you want to see me?”

Rorley’s facial expression changed, and he leaned forward in his chair with his elbows on his desk. “Son, I doubt you want me to ask this question. Matter of fact, I’d put money on it that you’d pay me not to. But. . . shit, Johnny was my brother, and all this was going on right under my nose. He’d been cutting Overfitch’s yard for damn near two years.”

“Ask what you need to ask.”

Rorley sighed. His head looked like it was hanging onto his shoulders by a thread. “Did he ever touch you boys?”

Matthew stood up and closed the door.

James Fotch: July 5th, 2021

I stirred Lucas and got him breathing right again. I don’t think he had any clue about where he was at the time, but he wasn’t writhing on the floor anymore. I figured that would satisfy Matthew. I could never handle seeing my brother like that, so I walked out onto the front porch and sat down in the old rocking chair, the same place I had spent most of the previous day. It creaked as I sat down, and as I looked to make sure it wasn’t going to collapse underneath me, I realized that that chair hadn’t moved since we left. At least, I didn’t think it had. It was still the same chair I had always watched my father sit in as I played at his feet. My brothers were what he called “yard boys,” but I always preferred to be close to him. He always told me that I was his favorite boy. I liked that then.

From inside the house, I heard the sound of Lucas scrambling to the bathroom. Just as I walked inside, I saw that the bathroom door was flung open and heard him retching. I walked up and stood in the doorway, where I saw Lucas crumpled on the floor with his head held just over the edge of the toilet bowl.

“You alright?” I asked.

He retched, no answer.

“Anything you need?”

He retched again. “For Matt to fuck right off and die,” he answered. His words were thick and labored. The two of them had always been close. Matthew had known how to handle Lucas’s habits, I hadn’t.

I laughed and propped myself up on the door frame. “How long have you been using again?”

“Shit, I never really stopped. It just got worse when I found out I had to come back here.”

“Did they tell you how? What happened to dad, I mean.”

He retched, flinching at the question. This time it was less than before. “No. You?”

I shook my head, “Not a thing. Matt is at the Sheriff’s station, so I figure that’s what he’s—” My phone began to ring, cutting me off. I glanced at the screen and saw Matthew’s name. “That’s him, hold on.”

As I answered the phone, Lucas retched again. “Hey, find anything out?” I asked.

“I’ve got another piece of business to deal with here in town.”

“What’d Rorley say?”

He hung up on me, and I dropped my phone back into my pocket, cussing him under my breath. I walked back over to check on Lucas, and he was sitting up now.

“You open it yet?” he asked as I walked back into the doorway.

I didn’t need to ask what he was talking about. I knew. His eyes felt like they were driving a hole through me as they stayed locked on the door across the hall.

“No.” I hated that question. He knew I hated that question. I knew what he wanted me to talk about, and I refused. I had always refused, no matter how much they or my mother hated me for it.

“Me either.” His eyes never moved. “I don’t wanna see how it's changed.”

Matthew Daniels: July 5th, 2021

Matthew pulled into the Overfitch’s driveway and got out of his car. He’d always driven past this house in the center of Smyrna but had never given any thought to who lived in it. He’d never given any thought to the lives and worries of the town doctor or his family. He walked up to the front door of the house and knocked three times, but no one answered. Matthew pulled a folded piece of paper out of his front pocket and placed it in the mailbox that hung beside the front door.

Lucas Fotch: July 5th, 2021

I pulled myself up off the floor and walked back into the living room with James. I could see him for himself now, but in the back of my mind he still, and always would, look like that bastard. It made me hurt and think of that damn room, and apple pie, and Saturdays, and my poor, scared mother.

“Where’s Matt?” I asked. He was standing there with his shoulders slumped forward and his big gut poked out. If you saw him from behind, you’d swear it was that fuck. But he was dead, I knew that.

“Went to see Uncle Rorley,” he answered. “I don’t know when he’ll be back. Been gone near about all day now. I told you that earlier, don't you remember?”

I ignored him; he knew the answer to that. “Shouldn’t we have gone to see Rorley too?” I had always liked Rorley, he was good to us and mother and his daughters had always been good friends. They were the only ones to ever call or come visit us and our mother in Knoxville after she took us all away, and they were the only ones who had come to her funeral when she passed.

“Well, we might’ve done that if you hadn’t been fucked out of your mind.”

“Fuck you James.” He had raised his voice, and it was the same scratchy yowl Johnny had used to scold us. God, I fucking hated that man, and being around James only ever made me hate him more. None of us deserved what he did, but it happened and James had never admitted it, never acknowledged it. He had called our mother a liar until the day she died. He turned to me with the same hate filled look Johnny used to look at all of us with and started to say something, but before he could, we both heard the crunch of gravel and the soft hum of an engine. We walked out to the front porch and saw that it was Matthew. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his eyes were red, but I didn’t understand why. What had Rorley told him?

“How’d it go?” asked James.

“It went.” answered Matthew. His voice sounded so tired that it was almost like he couldn’t answer.

Matt walked past us and into the living room like we weren’t even there. It was obvious that something was wrong, but I couldn’t focus well enough to put my finger on what it was. My mind still ebbed in and out of reality. He sat down on the couch, and we walked back in behind him.

“What’d Uncle Rorley have to say?” I asked.

“Nothing worth talking about” answered Matthew, rubbing at his face. “We need to finish getting all this shit together so we can get out of here. Lucas, are you together enough to sign all that paperwork that came in?”

I nodded. The stuff wasn’t out of me all the way, yet, but I could see and hear clear enough to know what I needed to do. I wanted to leave that place, too.

“Now hold on,” said James. His face was red, and he was standing there with his arms crossed like Johnny used to do. “You need to tell us what Rorley called you out to Collins for.”

“It was between me and Rorley, not y’all.”

“Bullshit, he was our father, too.”

Matt’s face twisted with anger, and he stood up from the couch. I remembered seeing that look so many times before mother finally left and took us with her. I remembered the day we left, Matthew leaving Johnny with a black eye as a gift goodbye.

“He was NOT my father” spat Matthew. His face was red and full of rage, and with every step he took towards James, he seemed to get madder. “He was NOTHING to me.”

“He WAS your father, and a fucking name change won’t do anything about that!” shouted James. They were getting closer and closer and I couldn’t stand it. I scrambled for the door, and as I started to cross the front porch, I heard James yell again.

“YOU’D DO WELL TO LEARN TO RESPECT THE MAN WHO MADE YOU WHO YOU ARE!”

Matthew Daniels: July 5th, 2021

Matthew grabbed James by the collar and picked him up off the ground. James was six years older than his brother, but Matthew had long outgrown him. His job as a contractor had only made the difference more obvious.

“You want me to respect that piece of shit?!” asked Matthew. The hate in his voice came out in waves. He thought of all the times James had sat on the front porch at their father’s feet and of all the times he had refused to talk with their mother about what they went through. “I’ll show you respect, god dammit.”

“Matt, stop it!” pleaded James, struggling against his brother’s grip. “Stop, please.”

Matthew paid no attention, his mind and heart too full of rage to even care. He dragged him half in the air across the living room and into the hallway. As he stopped in front of the door, James began to writhe and shriek in his grasp.

“NO, NO, STOP IT NO PLEASE NO!”

Matthew lifted his left leg and kicked the door in with such force that splinters of wood filled the hallway. The room was poorly lit, the windows covered in aluminum foil. A twin sized mattress laid on the floor with a dusty set of clean white sheets covering it. The wall behind the mattress was covered in polaroid photographs of the boys as children, and an ancient camera stood on a tripod on the opposite side of the room. Matthew grabbed James by the throat and threw him into the room, sending his brother crashing into the camera which flew into the wall and shattered as it struck the shiplap paneling.

“There’s your goddamn respect. Now lie here in your daddy’s favorite room.”

Matthew turned and walked away from the room, leaving James lying on the floor, sobbing. He walked back outside to the front porch where he saw Lucas sitting under the live oak which stood at the edge of the yard. He eased to the tree and stood beside Lucas, who was sitting cross-legged with his eyes locked on the road in front of them.

“Did you kill him?” Lucas asked. His voice was weak and tired.

Matthew looked down at him in shock. “What? No, I didn’t kill him.”       

“What’d you do?”

“Threw him in the room.”

There was a long silence between the two of them before Lucas looked up at Matthew with cold, empty eyes. “I’d rather be dead.”

James Fotch: July 6th, 2021

I gathered my things in a hurry the morning after the fight. Being back in that room was more than I could handle, and I had to leave. I left a note on the kitchen table telling them I didn’t want anything of Johnny’s, and that I didn’t ever want to speak to either of them again. I told them that I was sorry for before.

I got in my car and left as fast as I could. About ten miles outside of Smyrna, I was sobbing too hard to see the road and pulled over. The sun hadn’t even come out yet, so I sat there on the side of the road framed by hazy Mississippi moonlight. I sat there thinking of my mother, Saturdays, and the way the apple pie tried to wash away the shame. I thought of the ways I had refused my past, even as it was happening around us, even as my mother took us away. Even as she lay on her deathbed. I thought of my own sons whom I had pictures of at home. I thought of just how much like my father I was.

I opened the glove box and reached for my pistol.

Matthew Daniels: July 6th, 2021

Matthew and Lucas had woken early that morning to find James and all of his things gone. They read a tear-stained letter from him that morning as they ate their breakfast and waited for the lawyer to arrive. Lucas begged that they go find James, but Matthew refused. Once it was all done, they finished the paperwork and told them they wanted their father’s body donated to science, wherever would take him, and that Lucas was keeping the house and everything in it. As the lawyer left, he told the boys how much he had liked their father, and all they could do was smile and nod. Later that evening, they both sat on the tailgate of Matthew’s truck drinking as they looked out at the road ahead of them.

“You doing okay?” asked Matthew.

“Better than I’ve been in a long time,” answered Lucas, “at least since mama died.” He was rubbing his pock-marked arm in-between drinks.

Matthew pulled the leather notebook out of his pocket and handed it to Lucas. “I stole this from the house before we left. I don’t think I ever showed it to you.”

Lucas opened the book and flipped the pages. It was a leather-bound pocket calendar he remembered seeing his father flip through all the time. It didn’t take him long to notice a block of time marked off every Friday night. It read PHOTO SHOOT. “Why would you keep this?” he asked, handing it back to Matthew.

“So I’d remember.”   

Lucas nodded and took a drink of his beer. “I think I shot up all the heroin in Mississippi to forget everything that happened here.”

Matthew let out a long sigh and tapped his beer bottle against the tailgate. “You know, I’ve got some work building subdivision houses I could use your help with.”

Lucas looked over at him and gave a smile. “I could use the work,” he said, “and I’m handy.”

“You’d have to stay sober.”

Lucas looked down at his hands and at all the needle marks along his arms. “That might be a nice change of pace.”

The two of them sat there for a moment longer as they watched the cars go by. Neither one of them knew it, but they were both thinking of how peaceful their world felt, how much more real the world felt.

“What’re you going to do with this place?” asked Matthew, breaking the silence.

Lucas gave a big grin and reached into the back of the truck. He pulled a red gas can onto the tailgate. “We’re going to have the biggest bonfire Covington County has ever seen.”

Epilogue:

Mr. Overfitch,

I am sorry we never did anything when it was us. I am sorry that your little boy had to suffer because we were too afraid to stand up to him.

Thank you for putting an end to my nightmare.

Matthew Fotch