The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

At the red light, Saber began gargling with beer, swallowing it with his neck stretched back on the seat, revving his engine, indifferent to the stares from other cars.

MY FATHER KEPT a small office at the back of the house. He had inherited the secretary bookcase from his father, a lawyer appointed head of the Public Works Administration in Louisiana by Franklin Roosevelt and one of the few men in the state with the courage to testify against Huey Long at the impeachment hearing. My father worked for years on a history of his family, his grandfather in particular, a young Confederate lieutenant who was with Jackson through the entirety of the Shenandoah campaign.

He never typed, writing page after page in longhand, sometimes late into the night, smoking cigarettes he left floating in the toilet bowl. On his shelves were boxes of letters written at First and Second Manassas, First and Second Fredericksburg, Cross Keys, Malvern Hill, Chantilly, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and a prison camp at Johnson’s Island, Ohio. My father’s tragedy was one shared by almost all his family. Their patriarch had been a generous and honest man and, as a result, died a pauper at the onset of World War II. His family believed their genteel, privileged world had died with him, and they began to drink and substitute the past for the present and let their own lives slip away.

I walked into my father’s office and sat down. He wrote with a fat, obsolete fountain pen that leaked ink. A cigarette burned on the cusp of his ashtray; a thermos of coffee rested on his desk; the window was cracked to let the attic fan draw the evening air from outside. The sky was filled with crimson and purple and black clouds that resembled plumes from an industrial furnace. I could probably say a lot about my father’s writing, but for me the most memorable words he ever wrote were contained in a single sentence on the first page of his manuscript: “Never in human history have so many fine men fought so nobly in defense of such an ignominious cause.”

“How you doing there, pal?” he said.

It was a rare moment. He was happy and did not smell of alcohol. I sat next to him.

“I’ve got a problem,” I said.

“It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“I got into it with some guys from the Heights.”

“Try not to say ‘guys,’ Aaron.”

“These aren’t kids, Daddy.”

“They insulted you?”

“They came to school today. Mr. Krauser made me walk with him to their car. He said he was going to show me how to deal with them.”

“Maybe he was acting like a good fellow. I had a teacher like that at St. Peter’s when I was a boy. All the boys looked up to him. I’ve always had fond memories of him.”

“Mr. Krauser shamed me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He said I snitched on them. One guy said I should wear a dress.”

“Your teacher was probably making them accountable.”

“Mr. Krauser is out to get Saber. He went through me to do it.”

“It’s good to stick up for your chum. But Saber can take care of himself. I bet you’ll never see those fellows again.”

“The trouble started over a girl from the Heights. Saturday night I got involved in an argument between her and her boyfriend. He lives in River Oaks. I think he’s a bad guy.”

“Don’t say—”

“I know. But he’s a bad guy, Daddy. I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe we should all have a talk. I mean if they come back. If there’s going to be a fight, there’s going to be a fight.”

“This isn’t about a fight. This guy Loren Nichols shot a man with an air pistol.”

“A BB gun?”

“The kind that shoots steel darts. It hits like a twenty-two.”

“This sounds like one of Saber’s stories. Do you want me to talk with Mr. Krauser?”

“Mr. Krauser is a liar. Why would he tell you the truth if he lied about me to a bunch of greaseballs?”

“Don’t use language like that. You want to go for a Grapette?”