Into This River I Drown

It runs softly, beautifully. The water is a crystal clear blue. It laps gently at its banks. It does not feel threatening. It is not—

A man is crouched on the riverbank near a large cracked boulder. His massive back is to me, his face hidden. He lets a hand drift in the water. He’s a big man, bigger than any man I’ve ever seen. He must be the biggest man in the world. In his chest must beat a great heart that pumps furiously to keep such a man alive. His dark hair is cut short, almost shaved completely, like my own. He’s staring down at the river as if looking at his reflection. I…. He….

Oh, my heart. Oh, my soul.

I need him to turn around, but I can’t find my voice.

Impossible, I think. Improbable.

I take a step toward him and then stop.

“Dad?” I whisper.

As if he can hear me, the man turns to look up to me. His green eyes shine like fireworks across a dark sky. Edward Benjamin Green, Big Eddie, my father, smiles up at me.

“Dad!”

And then I’m running. I’m running as fast as I can toward him, and everything around me slows and bleeds together and I—

am five years old, and he laughs a big laugh because no one laughs like my father. None laugh like him, and it is such a joyous sound, a happy sound, an amazing sound that my heart swells until I am sure it will burst. I

—leave the road, my feet crunching in gravel and dirt, and I—

am ten years old, and my father shows up to pick me up at school unexpectedly. He walks in, having to lower his head so it doesn’t hit the doorjamb. I am worried at first, thinking something is wrong at home. But then he grins at me and winks, speaking quietly with Mrs. Norris. She laughs, and he beckons me with his hand. He steers me out of the classroom and out the door and we spend the rest of the day fishing off the old covered bridge. My

—feet hit the grass, and he starts to rise from his crouch and he—

asks me to hand him a wrench while he curses under his breath without looking up from underneath the hood of the Ford. I’m thirteen years old and scowl at his big hand engulfing my own when I hand him the wrench, wondering when I’m going to get my growth spurt so I can be big like Big Eddie. Somehow he knows what I’m thinking because he turns back to me, a grease smear on his nose, and says, “Only the size of your heart matters, Benj. The only thing that matters is”

—that I reach him as soon as possible. I feel like I could fly down the embankment. I feel like I’m—

dying. I feel like I’m dying as I stand under cloudy skies in a place called Lone Hill Memorial. I feel like I’m dying because I’m one of hundreds moving toward a waiting stone angel emblazed with fifteen words that mean nothing, that don’t even begin to show the measure of the man they are supposed to represent. People hover nearby. My mother, the Trio. Abe. Rosie stands to my left, next to Doc Heward. So many others. They’re all waiting for me to break. They’re all waiting for me to shatter into a billion pieces. How can I explain that I already have? How can I explain that there is nothing left to me but dust and shadows and memories that rise like ghosts? They can’t know. They couldn’t possibly.

But that is not this moment. All that matters at this moment is the weight on my shoulder as I help carry my father up the dirt path to where the stone angel stands, her arms outstretched. All that matters is I can feel the corner of the coffin digging into my skin, the pain bright and vivid. All that matters is that I carry my father so he can sleep.

We reach the hole in the ground, perfectly dug and fitted with the lowering device. A member of the funeral home rushes over and points out quietly how the coffin should fit against the device. This makes it more real, and I almost refuse, wanting to tell everyone to go home, that I’ve changed my mind and I will not leave him here. Abe must see the look on my face, because he steps to my side, putting his hand on my shoulder and whispering soothing words in my ear that I can’t quite make out. I nod and there’s a count to three and we set my father down.

Later, after we’re all seated, my mother clutching my hand, Pastor Thomas Landeros says, “Into the ground we lower a man who was a husband. A father. A friend, both to us and this community. God’s plan may not make sense to us right now, and it may even make us angry, but rest assured there is a reason for all things, even if that reason is hidden from our eyes. Isaiah forty-one verse ten reads: ‘Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; Yea I will help thee. I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.’”

Fuck you, God, I think. You fucking bastard. Fuck you….

We stand, and people sing a hymn behind me. Their voices carry and wash over me, and I realize I am not broken completely because yet another part of me fragments. A tear falls down my cheek. The singing gets louder in my head, and I float along the river because I’m bound to its goddamn surface, and these stones fill my pockets, and it’s into this fucking river I drown. I weep as I lay a single blue rose on top of the casket, my mother’s hand at my back. Tears drop onto the oak lid, and I feel my knees begin to buckle. They give way as the coffin starts to lower into the ground, and I let out such a scream, such a howl of heartbreak and loss that everyone in the crowd shudders and sighs, bowing their heads and I—

can’t get to him fast enough, I can’t get to him fast enough, I can’t get

—over the fact that I’m graduating high school. It’s an odd feeling, really, that I’ve survived to get to this point. But when they call my name and I hear the roar from my family, I grin and walk across the stage. I accept my diploma and flip the tassel. I take a deep breath and walk down the steps. Later, we all throw our caps in the air, relieved and scared that this part of our lives is over.

My father is the first to reach me, running almost full tilt, and I freeze. I freeze, because for a moment, I think he had died in a river when I was sixteen, drowned after his truck flipped into the Umpqua. I have the feeling of being split, a duality that threatens to tear me apart. But then it’s gone because he’s laughing that big laugh and hugging me tightly, spinning me around in circles like he used to do when I was a kid. “You did it,” he whispers in my ear. “Congrats, boy, you did it.”

In one world I reach the bottom of an embankment, running toward my father while trapped

in the memories of another world that never happened.

I’m twenty-four when I come home to Big House for Christmas. I’m nervous because for the first time, I’m not coming alone. I knock on the door, dusting snow off Jeremy’s hat as he winks at me. My mother opens the door and smiles at me widely, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. She shakes Jeremy’s hand before laughing and pulling him into a hug. Big Eddie waits just off the doorway, looking imposing as all hell, big arms crossed, a stern look on his face. My boyfriend Jeremy (who I might just be starting to love) quakes a little in his designer boots but holds his head high and reaches out to shake my dad’s hand. My dad just stares at him until Jeremy drops his hand awkwardly. I roll my eyes and punch my dad in the arm, and it’s all he can take before the façade breaks and he welcomes Jeremy with open arms.

I’m twenty-eight when Jeremy asks me to marry him.

I’m twenty-nine when my father stands beside me as my best man, trying his best not to cry as Jeremy slides a ring on my finger.