The Beard Part 7

"Yeah."

"And I'm pretty sure she's sleeping with one of the Nefarions. It's rare that they make the transition between their world and ours but, when they do, they are usually pretty successful. I mean, after all, they're magic. If I could have any job I wanted it would be one that allowed me to surround myself with beautiful women willing to do anything to advance their careers."

"Makes sense," I said. "So what are we going to do about it?"

"That flame," he said. "It's up in the attic. I think we should try and restore it. Give it back to the Nefarions and then maybe they'll lift the curse."

"Sounds a little shaky."

"Well, first we'd have to find them... of course."

"Of course."

"You'll have to help me."

"Look, I'm pretty tired and I'm really lazy. I don't know if I have it in me."

"Well, after today, you won't have a place to live."

"Meant to ask you about that. What's happening to the house?"

"I sold it to that Action fellow. I thought he would just move in but he seems to be moving it out to where his tent used to be. Says he's going to put a bus station here."

"Sounds like him."

"So, whaddya say? You up for a road trip?"

"Do I really have much of a choice?"

"Probably not."

"That's really nice of you. Offering to help and everything."

"Truth be told: I don't really have much else to do these days. I'm too old to start a second job. And I don't really have any skills. Imposter father doesn't really do much on a resume. I'll go up and get Brilliance."

"I'll sit here on the floor," I said, noticing the couch was gone.

I sat there on the floor for a few minutes, listening to Wrench stomp around up in the attic. It sounded like he tripped over a number of things and maybe fell down a few times. Action loosed another wall from the house and I thought about how he didn't really look that strong when he had given me a ride in his truck. I got tired and fell asleep. Wrench woke me up, shouting, "Rise and s.h.i.+ne!" and nudging my leg vigorously with his foot. He held something that looked like an urn, a weak flame licking out the top of it. I wiped the sleep from my eyes.

"That's Brilliance?" I asked.

"I think it has to be. Don't you?"

"I guess. I can't imagine how many eternally burning flames my parents would have kept in their attic. I was expecting it to be a little more..."

"Brilliant?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Also, while I was up there, I found this."

He handed me a Ziploc bag of something that looked like old p.o.o.p.

"What's this?" I asked, thinking I probably already knew the answer.

"If I'm right, I think it's the bark from the ancient Arapahoe canoe. We might need that if we want to find the Nefarions."

"I thought that was for the Johnsons."

"Whatever. We'll have to alter our perception of reality in some way or the other."

I watched Action singlehandedly remove the roof from the house and march back to the woods with it. I thought my perception of reality was probably altered plenty enough just the way it was.

"I guess we better get rolling," Wrench said.

I followed him out of the house. I felt like, for an excursion of this scope we might need some form of supplies but he seemed to be perfectly content with just the flame and the bark. It was hard to imagine he had been my father for the past twenty years. In a lot of ways, that made him more my father than my actual father. If I were feeling sentimental, perhaps at a later time, I would have brought that up to him.

Outside, the sky was a radiant blue. The rains from yesterday had completely disappeared and the air had just that hint of crispness it has in late summer. All in all, I figured it was a good day to set out on a fantastic journey. In the driveway, Mom's El Camino had turned into a black Econoline with a giant white skull painted on the side.

"That's odd," Wrench said. "I don't remember the car looking like this. Oh well, I guess we can use the room."

He hopped in the driver's side. I hopped in the pa.s.senger's side. He pulled the steering wheel a couple of times and the van started right up.

"These new cars are amazing," he said.

I had to agree with him.

"Do you have a map or anything?" I asked.

"Nah," he said. He handed me the urn. "How'd you like to be the keeper of the flame?"

I didn't guess I had much of a choice. I sat the urn on the floor and enclosed my bare feet on either side of it. I still wore the suit from yesterday, minus the blazer. Luckily, the prolonged wearing had loosened it a little bit. I rubbed my beard. The constant, steady, evergrowing beard.

"We don't need a map, do we?" he asked.

"I don't know. I find they come in handy sometimes."

"It's all intuition. We're not dealing with the everyday world, here."

"I guess you're right."

"We'll let the flame lead the way."

I looked down at the flame. It didn't seem to be pointing any particular direction and I didn't think the van traveled up.

Wrench navigated the van down the driveway and we hit the road just as Action pulled down another wall of the house.

"It's a good thing I decided to sell the house," Wrench said.

"Was it really your decision to make?"

"Do you want to be the decision maker?"

He had a point there. I definitely did not want to be the decision maker.

"If I hadn't sold the house," he said. "We might never have left. Or maybe we would have left for a little bit but then come back after we'd given up. I don't want to give up. I want to find your family and help you lift this curse."

"That sounds like a plan."

And that was how my road trip with my father's imposter began.

Fifteen.

Sitting in the pa.s.senger seat I tried to adjust to Gary Wrench. It was odd, having to adjust to a person. Usually, you meet a person and decide whether or not you like them. If you like them, you talk to them, things grow out of that, you get to know one another. If you don't like them you tend not to talk to them unless it is out of necessity or you're just spouting something you have to share and they're the only one close by. But nothing really develops from this. No deeper understanding. More like an icy distance. Rarely did you have to adjust to a person. Maybe this is what a child or a pet experiences when a parent gets a radical new hairstyle or changes their wardrobe or something. But not, in my adult life, had I ever experienced knowing someone and then watching that person change physical appearances only to realize I had never known who they were. It made me think of other things. How much of our life is an act, anyway? You become a parent, you play a role. You act happy when you're depressed. You act like you are enthused by some things that hold no interest for you whatsoever. But sometimes, through this acting, this repeatedly telling yourself you really do like something, some form of appreciation sprouts.

Was this the case with Gary Wrench; this man who, as a father, I was so familiar with but, as his real self, was a stranger?

"What did you think of being a father?" I asked him.

"Huh?" he said. He was very focused on the road. He drove very fast. Still out in the country roads, we didn't pa.s.s many cars.

"Well, you were playing the part of father to Ca.s.sie and me... What did you think of that?"

"It was okay, I guess."

"How can I put this?" I said. "We both thought you were our father but you knew you were not our father?"

"Mm-hm," he said. He looked like he was trying to understand or like it was something much simpler to him than me.

"Do you have any real children?"

"Nope. Lifetime bachelor."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm trying to wrap my mind around this. It's very difficult. It's kind of like you were a step parent but you weren't. You were an employee. So..."

I looked down at the flame, sputtering there on the floorboard, trying to find the right words. Perhaps this was why I had failed miserably as a writer.

"Okay. Take a man and his job..."

"Okay."

"Some people develop a love of something and that love is a lifelong love. Like, say, a scientist. He is on a quest for knowledge. He loves theories. He loves testing his theories. He loves this quest for knowledge. And maybe he is only a teacher or a professor but he still loves this knowledge, he loves what he does and he wants to share it with people. Sure, there are some days when he doesn't want to get out of bed in the morning and go to the job but when he stands back and, and... puts it all into perspective... he realizes it's not that bad at all. He likes what he does. On the other hand, you take a man who works in a factory. It's unrealistic to think this man likes putting the same bolt in the same part or whatever for eight to twelve hours a day. He does it for a paycheck so he can support his family or his booze habit or whatever. But every day, when he goes to work, he has to put himself into something like a coma because he hates what he does so much. Do you follow me?"

"I think so."

"I guess what I'm asking is... did you love us? Do you love us?"

He stroked his mustache with his left hand, keeping his right hand on the wheel. We pulled into the town of Grainville. I saw my imposter standing on the corner, hara.s.sing a small child. My imposter did not have a beard. Of course he didn't. Even though he knew of my beard growing intentions, he had not seen me with a beard. He'd told me he couldn't grow a beard. He glanced up and saw me, brandished his fist and I imagined, the next time I saw him, he would most likely have a false beard and wear an ill-fitting suit.

"That's a really tough question. I'd have to say no."

"No?" This kind of shocked me. In a way, it answered a lot of things. Most of the things I had done since adolescence, an outsider would probably say I did them because I felt a lack of love in my life. But to have this suspicion validated by a very simple word was staggering. Also, I kind of thought he might say yes just because that was the obvious answer he was supposed to give.

"Would you like me to qualify that?" Also, at that point, I realized, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this was most a.s.suredly not the person I had spent the last twenty years around. The factory-working father I knew would never have used the word *qualify'. His was a simple, nearly monosyllabic vocabulary. I wondered if I might grow to like this Gary Wrench fellow more than I had my real father who was Gary Wrench playing the role of my father. The more I thought about it the more confused I became.

"Sure," I said.

"In order to love, one has to let himself love something. Understand? There were times I spent around you and Ca.s.sie that truly warmed my heart, that caused a swelling inside. Something most people would probably call love. The good times we had on family vacations. When I would read stories to you before bed. When you would fight with your mother and seek comfort in me. But, you have to understand, those were just natural human reactions. You see a cute puppy wandering along the side of the road, you feel the same thing. But you don't take home every stray dog you find. I had to live every day around you as though it might be my last. There was a point, about two years into it, when I asked your mother if we might work something out in case your father came back. Like, if he came back, then I could disappear and then reappear as like an uncle you had never met before or something. So I'd still get to see you." He had a faraway look in his eye, recalling the past. "She said she didn't think that would be a good idea. At that point, I think Ca.s.sie was already suspicious..."

"Hm," I said. I didn't know what else to say.

"So, did I love you? I could never tell myself that. Could I have loved you? Definitely, given time, given the freedom. Also, remember, I'm an actor. I had to a.s.sume the emotions of the role I was playing. So, when I was around you, I told myself I loved you every second of the day but, when I went home at night, I tried to forget about you because if I didn't then I would wish I was there and I couldn't be there... That would have made me too much like a real father."

"Yeah. How did you guys work that out? I thought you worked in a factory all night and then slept most of the day. Did you actually work in a factory?"

"No."

"Did you sleep at the house?"

"Only during the summer. When you would have been home from school and noticed my comings and goings."

"So, when you weren't there, which was quite a bit, what were you doing?"

"Oh, I don't know. This and that. I keep a small studio apartment in Dayton. I do a lot of reading. A lot of napping."

"What about like a girlfriend or something? Did you ever sleep with Mom?"

"We slept in the same room a number of times. She wouldn't let me sleep in the bed with her. She said that would feel too much like cheating even though I think she was pretty well aware of my s.e.xual orientation."

"Gay?"

"b.e.s.t.i.a.lity."

"Oh," I said.

"Just kidding," he said.

"Oh," I laughed.

"No I'm not," he said. "I wish I was. I have a female orangutan. Actually, a friend of mine keeps her most of the time. I can't leave her home alone so much. But she's always very amorous when I go pick her up. I wouldn't call it rape."

I still didn't really know if he was serious or not so I kept my mouth shut.