Engine Trouble

 

Two brothers are picking up their father at the airport; in the lackadaisical heat and the mid-morning colors of inspiration, they coast down the highway, disconcerted, on edge, as they have not seen their father in years.  The man has relinquished any pleasure in the form of children, having lost that element.  The thrumming of the engine gives under the weight of abnormality.  For is this normal?  An elder son and his brother seeing their father for the first time in a decade?  They feel the tentative thought giving way, underneath their legs; and in this time they decide to take him out for a cup of coffee, having agreed—this is the first time in years and the very last time they are seeing him.

            Mother has died; and she is not coming back, and father is coming only to collect.

            Collect what?  They thoughts that have collected in a puddle around their mother’s ankles, like dirty dishwater and fibrousness.  The crystalline morning is lacking, in the way of identity.

The morning identifies with the people; but the people do not identify with each other.  It is for this reason the brothers are on edge, in a place in between comfort and the uncouth.  He’s always been liberal—liberally sprinkling salt on his food, liberally taking what he wants.

            They are looking forward to the goodbye—an impersonal separating of blood.  Some genuineness will trickle over, maybe.  It has to be a day at the amusement park; for if it is not, the day will crumble, like crackers in soup.

            He enters the car, says, “Hello.”  They shake hands, like men.  And the radio is on, quietly.  They wait for a word, but it never comes.  And at noon, they go for coffee, as they have agreed; and weighed down are the feet of the brothers; and lightly on edge does the father feel; and they sip hot coffee; and they wait.  They wait for the cue to leave, to get back in the car and descend to quasi-normality.

            It is in this stasis that a son says, “Welcome home.”

            “Home is in Kentucky,” says the father.

            “Indeed,” says the eldest son.

            They have coffee cups in the cup holders, angst is in the engine, folly is in their hearts; the sons realize that their father has died long before their mother.

 

Anders M. Svenning