Sunday

By Dan Steinbacher

There is a boy, and he is sitting in the back of his parents grey station wagon. They are coming from church, and his father has the windows of the car down. The air is invigorating, full of chimney smoke and brisk breezes. The father inhales deeply-- he loves this weather. It reminds him of football, of childhoods. Church has briefly pierced the walls he fastidiously keeps around himself, and he feels goodwill towards most, if not all, men. Time slows to a crawl for him, during this drive, as he subconsciously takes the longest route home he can. He senses deep in his gut that today is important, a fork in the road day. Because the services were so rousing that morning, the hymns sung were such uplifting songs, and the pastors sermon, delivered in his irish brogue, was especially good, the father attributes this feeling to God. In that spirit, sensing the potentiality of the day and merging it with his faith, the father decides today is a perfect day to teach his son a lesson about doing good.

How will he do it? The father is unsure. There are so many ways to do good. Most of them, he thinks, are bound not to work out the way he wants. This experience, he knows, will color his son, will mark out the territory of his character for years to come, so it has to be perfect.

Driving past a familiar road, he suddenly knows what to do, so he takes a rather sharp left, jostling the boy, who is smart, sometimes a little too much for his own good, who carries dark circles under his eyes that make him look faraway, which he usually is.

The father is smiling. They are seconds away from the grandfather's house, a big house that has been a little too empty since his mother died. His father, not knowing how (or perhaps not caring) to clean up after a house himself, lives in a dark, dusty castle with blue-green shag carpet and cobwebbed abalone shells. But it is not the inside of the house that bothers the father, it is the yard. The yard is huge, twice the size of all the others in the area, and it is completely wild. This agitates the father, who as a teen, used to care for this yard by himself, because he hated having his house look ugly on the outside.

Appearances are very important to the father. By having the boy do yardwork at his grandfather's house, it will impart so many lessons to the boy! It will teach him the value of hard work, of caring for family. Three generations of his line will be working together, side by side, in the autumn air. They will rake leaves for a few hours, tell stories and then have hot cocoa inside. He'll light a fire in the fireplace, and his wife and son and father will all sit around it, talking and laughing. His son will remember it as a wonderful day, and when he has a son of his own, will bring him to his father's house, and they will relive the day again.

This is all as clear as day in his mind as he tells his son, "Let's go to your granddad's place and rake some leaves, whaddya say?", looking at him from the rearview mirror.

The boy, who has been staring out the window, pauses, which is hard to do because he hadn't said anything yet, and thinks not of the yard or the house, not of the cocoa or the fireplace or really even his granddad, who he loves as all eight-year olds love their granddads. He is thinking about the dog. His grandfather's dog is old, and dying slowly. Yet because he is such a good dog, so full of life and joy, he does not seem to mind his hips dislocating as he wags his tail, dying to get a single pat, some love from these people he has protected all these years. But the grandfather is too lonely and lost to pet the dog, let alone feed it regularly, and every time they visit, the dog is skinnier, more desperate. It breaks the boy's heart into a billion pieces to see this. The boy often sees the injustice and cruelty in the world and takes it in stride, but this, this is a terrifying punishment for being a good dog. The boy has played with the dog for hours when he was there before, knowing it was not enough, seeing the bewildered desperation in those cataract-grey dog eyes, understanding that there is nothing he can do. When the dog howled as they left, his parents didn't seem to notice, but the sound gave him nightmares for days.

Thinking in a way he does, by not thinking at all, the boy grasps the situation at hand. On some level he ascertains what his father is hoping to accomplish, as well the fact that his father would never understand the reasons why he didn't want to go help his granddad. The boy doubts he could ever articulate exactly how he is feeling anyhow. It feels to big for words to contain. It is fear the boy feels, not fear of death or illness, but the fear that the world contains so much hurt that one day the vibrating feeling that accompanies it, the thrum in the pit of his stomach that makes the bottom of his heart turn to cold stone will one day overload him, and he will lose control of his emotions, and they will tear him to pieces with their force. Faced with imminent death or parental disappointment of the highest degree, the boy closes his eyes and makes his choice.

"I don't want to go."

"You don't want to help your granddad?"

"No. I'm just...tired. I want to watch tv."

The father's mental picture shatters, deflates, implodes. He tries hard to be a good father, but his child is lazy. Television, video games, he has been spoiled rotten by all of his father's hard work. All that has sought to accomplish has left him with a son who is selfish. He shouldn't say it. But he promised himself that he wouldn't coddle his son, that he would dish it straight even if it was hard to hear.

"That's really selfish of you, son. I would think after all the nice things your grandfather does for you, you can't even help him rake some leaves? Too much to ask to get off your ass and help someone?" The volume and venom in his voice steadily increase.

The boy winces. He knew this was coming, and wishes that today wasn't such focal point, wasn't such a defining moment. He fights back some tears, reasoning that this hurts far less that seeing the dog, angry at situations that are beyond his control and seem to be set against him.

"I'm sorry, I just don't want to do it." he says, finally.

"Fine." The father does a U-turn in the middle of the street, sullen and silent, the tires squealing.

He ignores him for the rest of the day, which is easy because the boy spends it sitting in his room, grounded from tv for a week, reading and imagining God as a being comprised of a infinite number of ears, eternally listening to the prayers of the world and unable to stop listening to go help anyone.