If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF WILLIAM B. DWYER

CONCLUSION 

When he was twelve years old, Bill had learned an art that over the years he’d been able to perfect. He had been at the baseball plate in Pee Wee League when he learned to turn everything off and become a machine. It had gotten him through freshman year track in high school. It had gotten him onto the baseball team and onto an athletic scholarship at Saint Alban’s. On the baseball team a lot of his walls had come down, but not outside of Lewis Hall, the baseball dorm. Back then things had pretty much been us and them and them was the rest of the college. After all these years, David was the one person he had really opened up to and there was no opening up to him on this. At one point in time he had been open to Dena. They had loved each other. And then when Cameron was born, without reserve he could pour out all his love on her, all of his heart. But, of course, he could not tell his daughter about the fears of an aging man. 

Going on automatic pilot, David had once called it when Bill would turn himself off and go about his business. He did it now, from Grand Rapids all the way back to Geschichte Falls. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and hoped he could be away from himself long enough. How long was long enough? What was he talking about? Pulling into the driveway, he shut off the car. He suddenly wanted to cry. He was more terrified than he had ever been. He had never felt this desperate in his life.

The lights were on in the white house, 1733 Breckinridge. The kitchen was empty but brightly lit. Blue light and noise issued from the den and Dena said, bored, “Dinner’s on the stove if you’re hungry.”

“I’m fine,” Bill said. “I just need a shower.”

“Alright.”

Going up the stairs he nearly ran into Cameron who was coming down the steps.

“Dad, I’m sorry! How was your day? You get everything taken care of?”

Bill was not able to answer. He stared full up into Cameron’s face and she tilted her head and said, “Dad, what’s wrong?”

Bill couldn’t talk, so he just shook his head and moved past her. He moved into the bathroom that was sectioned off so that a vanity and a linen closet was the first part of it. A sliding door hid another vanity and the toilet and the shower. Bill was reaching to open it, when he ran into Niall and heard the toilet flushing.

“Jesus Christ, watch it Niall!”

“Sorry Dad,”

“Sorry Dad,” Bill mimicked. “And quit muttering and hanging your head all the time.”

Niall went past him. Niall was a safe place for the rage. He always had been. Bill did not completely recognize it, but the small part of him that did felt worse having yelled at his son. He stripped, turned on the shower water and stepped in.

He did not immediately realize he was scalding himself. He began to lather up, the way they did on television because he hadn’t gotten a washcloth, and he was too lazy to step out of the shower for one. He kept soaping his hair and face. He felt that this couldn’t be his body, and when he came to his groin, he didn’t want anything to do with it, or what had happened. What he wanted to do was weep.

And so he did. Delicately he sat down in the shower, putting his back to the cold back of the tub, and he drew his knees to his chest. Burying his head between his knees he sobbed under the shower water.

 

“Dad,” Cameron said while Bill was brushing his teeth, and his hair was still standing up, the color of wet cinnamon.

Foaming at the mouth, he turned to his daughter. For the first time ever he just wanted Cameron to go away.

Bill spat and rinsed out his mouth.

“I just came to say good night. And Dad, something’s wrong.”

“Baby, it’s grown-up stuff,” he tried to smile, and a look came into Cameron’s eyes he’d never seen before.

“You’ve never had grown up stuff from me.”

“That’s not true, Cam.”

“Fine!”

The tone in her voice sent Bill into a rage and he came out of the bathroom clinging to the lentil.

“Nice tone! Don’t ever talk that way to me, Cameron Dwyer!”

“Nice tone yourself!” Cameron returned. “At least it’s not just Niall, you’re shouting at anymore.”

She slammed the door and Bill went for it, and Niall stuck his head out of his room to catch a peek of the rare sight of father and daughter fighting. But like an Israelite curious of the Passover, he soon closed the door and stuck his head back in.

“Open the door!” Bill shouted. “”Open the goddamn door!”

 He pounded on it, reached for the handle, triumphed to see it wasn’t locked, and then marched in and he and Cameron looked directly at each other and catching himself, he muttered: “Oh, my God!” and put a hand to his mouth.

His eyes had filled up for the third time in one night, and he stood there in his pajama bottoms, a towel over his shoulder and put his hand to his mouth. Then he took it away. Cameron was transfixed by him.

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. Embarrassed, Bill ducked his eyes and closed the door behind him.

He stopped at Niall’s door and was getting ready to knock.

Niall opened the door.

“You know I’m sorry, don’t you?”

Niall looked down at the carpet, and then met his dad’s eyes and nodded.

“I’m sorry about what I said. I love you. You’re my son. You make me proud. Alright?”

Niall said, “Alright Dad.”

And then, because they were almost the same height, without bending, Bill reached out to embrace Niall, but was surprised by the door closing in his face.