Reaching the Beginning
A Short Story
The casket had been closed for nearly an hour when a faint, wheezing oboe rendition of The Beatles “I Should Have Known Better” penetrated the thick summer air. Accompanying birds chirped from the perches of surrounding oak tree branches and tombstones. A modest group of people gathered around the casket of Sylvie Rosenthal, dabbing at droplets of sweat, while Otto Rosenthal concluded the musical tribute to his deceased wife. Reverend John Becker made a wry comment about the irony of a drought at a funeral before he began the Rite of Committal.
The crumbling hulk of Otto then sat down next to his two young boys, Levin and Horace. Levin rolled up the sleeves of his over-starched brown button up shirt, not yet quite the age of seven, and stared at the lacquered coffin that sat in front of him. Horace, his blonde-haired brother, three years his junior, tugged at the pant leg of Levin and whispered, “Lee! Lee! How come daddy is crying?” Levin knew but couldn’t explain why.
A few weeks later, heavy rainfall finally swept through the land. It seemed as if God was giving the world a reprieve, a chance to make amends. Otto saw the rain as a glorious sign from his wife. He kissed his children goodnight and dialed 911. After the call had been made, he went outside to sit down upon a chilled stone bench, his polished shoes in fresh puddles. He smiled, whispering lines of an old sonnet to his beloved Sylvie. Then, Otto looked skyward at the falling mesh of rain and shot himself in the head.
His will had stipulated his children must remain together regardless of circumstance. Fritz, Otto’s brother, didn’t want them because he had his own family to take care of and a car dealership to manage. Besides, he still lived in Germany. His brother’s children would be too much of an inconvenience. Child services then queried Edith Jacob, Sylvie’s first cousin who taught sociology at Camden. She was sympathetic to a degree, but unwilling to adapt to the drastic change that raising two young boys while grading term papers would induce.
And so, arms locked together, Levin and Horace went to live temporarily with the Pollocks in Pittsburgh. And then the Valentine family in Philadelphia. And then finally the Weisz family after Mr. Valentine was found to be an irresponsible opiate addict. Paul and Rhiannon Weisz had a sixteen-year-old daughter named Irene by the time thirteen-year-old Levin and ten-year-old Horace fell into their laps. The five of them lived in a ranch style house on the corner of Vicker and Lyndon. A chain link fence enclosed Max, their pit bull. Two sycamores resided in the back yard, parallel to each other like the uprights of a football post. They were old trees in an even older neighborhood; their combined canopy encroached upon the house, leaning over it as if to whisper a secret.
The boys spent a majority of their early days at the Weisz household in the backyard, becoming acquainted with the dog, playing amongst shadows. Max no longer had a right hind leg. It had to be surgically removed after being hit by a drunk driver, roaming the city streets at the age of two. Paul and Rhiannon, while waiting for the inconceivable amount of adoption paperwork to process, had stumbled upon Max in an animal shelter. His overall demeanor initially expressed defeat, but he persevered, smiling and panting all the same. Their friends and co-workers called the Weisz family suckers — not in any P.T. Barnum sense of the word, but because of their unwavering belief in altruism.
In truth, they admitted to each other early in their marriage, lying awake in bed together late one night, the overwhelming compassion they both felt for those who couldn’t escape capricious circumstances. Fate, they felt, had blessed them in its own weird way. To them, concepts such as irony and pessimism were just words in a dictionary, overused and misunderstood. After all, it was this uncanny stringing of events that had brought them all together — Paul to Rhiannon, Rhiannon to Irene, Paul to Max, and finally, Levin and Horace to them.
And so life continued on for this patchwork family in the outskirts of Philly. Paul had quit his job working as a manager at a textile plant and began driving a semi-truck for a bit more income. While he managed to be home everyday and every other weekend, the hours were such that Paul usually woke up just as everyone else was off to bed. Such an absurd sleep schedule meant he rarely had time to see his kids and wife anymore. Sure, he made time to drop Levin and Horace off at soccer practice or drop off his daughter and her group of friends at the movies. On a free weekend, he and Rhiannon might take Max for a walk at the park. Paul didn’t want to be an absentee father, but a lot of the time he felt he was just mindlessly punching the clock.
Rhiannon did her part in raising the kids. She had a gift for architecture and graduated with honors from Penn State, but jobs coming out of college in the mid 70s weren’t the easiest to find. She found work as an apprentice in the City Planning department, but that gig mostly consisted of serving Edmund Bacon coffee in the morning. Fate struck again when one of her girlfriends, Kelsie Jancovich, set her up on a blind date with Paul. Three months after their first date, they had dinner and a bottle of Cabernet Franc (which tasted strongly of blueberries) at Roselli’s. A little later that night, little Irene was conceived.
In February of 1986, Rhiannon quit her job to raise her child. She told her husband they would just have to make do with what they had, finances be damned. Finances were damned, however, when it was discovered Irene had been born with Marfans syndrome. No, it probably wouldn’t be life threatening, Dr. Greenaway explained. As it was a disorder that affected connective tissue, however, there was a good chance Irene’s cardiovascular system might be affected. The doc added, almost as an aside, the possibility she could eventually develop scoliosis or other skeletal diseases. Or she might be tall and spindly and hate it. For Rhiannon, this was devastating news. She thought her greatest challenge would be losing those extra pregnancy pounds.
But the Weisz family coped and adapted, as they always did. Irene’s symptoms weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been. While she did top out at just over six feet in height and had a spine that curved in two places, regular echocardiographs showed her cardiovascular system was in fine working order. Extra parental caution, however, kept her away from most sports and she ended up spending a majority of her time indoors, fascinated with her mother’s old architecture textbooks. She took life with Marfans in stride, after realizing she wasn’t alone in the world with this condition. Her father told her Julius Caesar once had the very same thing.
Rhiannon lost her post-pregnancy baby fat quick enough, but still thought there was an extra layer of pudge that didn’t exist beforehand. Paul, though he kept his mouth shut, thought it was rather cute.
While she was pregnant with Irene, Rhiannon became quite the insomniac. Apparently Irene’s baby feet were deft and she kicked her mother’s stomach often. The onset of gastric reflux didn’t help either. Neither did Tums. During her numerous late nights lying awake in the living room, separated from her sleeping husband, her worldly conscience started to grow. She saw starving children and orphans; poverty-stricken, illiterate kids roaming the planet, neglected and unprotected. It wasn’t just distasteful to her; it was an abomination. Paul agreed as if he had known this the entire time.
They contributed what spare funds they had over the next few years to various charities. But discontent grew within. They didn’t know if they were doing enough. The two of them surely couldn’t run off and volunteer their own bodies for the sake of others. That time had long past. They had their own child who had her own problems. It wasn’t until several years later, when Irene was about to start junior high that they started looking into adopting a child.
Rhiannon was wary of toddlers, having tipped past forty a couple years before. She complained to Paul: “I don’t want to be a grandmother with a kid still in high school.” It was easy enough to acquiesce to her wishes. Some news had been made of the Otto Rosenthal suicide in the Philadelphia area, though they didn’t realize Levin and Horace were the byproduct of what Paul deemed “those terrible deaths” at the time.
When Levin and Horace popped onto the adoption board once more, Paul drove across town to the agency in order to personally request the Rosenthal boys, even if it was a ludicrous gesture. In a way, the boys falling into their laps was a kind of miracle. The Weisz’s weren’t regular churchgoers, the result of Paul’s parents being a bit too devoutly Catholic when he was growing up, but had they attended service the Sunday they brought Levin and Horace home, Paul felt sure Father Moretti would have announced: “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Horace, even at the age of ten, had asserted himself as the politician of the family. He had a reason or excuse for everything, even if he had no idea what he was arguing about. He had let his blond hair, straight as straight can be, grow down past his ears and eyebrows. The family started calling him “Shaggy.” It was he a name he adored.
Levin, only called Lee by Horace because people thought his full name sounded “charming,” kept his black hair short and spiky. He hated when his hair grew too long. It curled up into a frazzled out-of-control Afro if left unmanaged, and that was something Levin would never allow. Most of his fellow students at school designated him as shy but nice. It wasn’t the most flattering of remarks, but after his second day of high school, Levin confided in his little brother that his peers were idiots and fools, not worthy of his attention. Horace asked why, but Levin didn’t elaborate further. They kicked the soccer ball instead.
Both were intelligent, but of the two, Levin applied himself harder and eventually found a niche in literature. It was an odd romance, but later on in high school, women were charmed by his intuitive control of language and his knowledge of Shakespeare outside of knowing that Romeo and Juliet both die. He started smoking cigarettes at sixteen, pumping quarters into cigarette stalls near the entrances to bars while Horace kept a lookout for over-interested eyes. Horace tried smoking one of Levin’s cigarettes on two occasions and nearly threw up both times. He figured it wasn’t for him.
Art, however, spurred Horace’s interest. He became obsessed with painting, getting a job as a busboy at DeMarco’s Deli when he turned fifteen just to be able to afford easels, brushes, pastels, and oils. By this point, Levin was a senior in high school. Irene ended up going to her mother’s alma mater, Penn State. She was knee-deep in drafting and architectural design courses. She took metal working as a minor. Paul and Rhiannon were pleased when Irene told them she had a wonderful boyfriend she had been seeing for the last year. They were doubly pleased when Irene informed them she was on the pill.
Levin had a girlfriend himself. Her name was Rebecca Chow. Levin and Rebecca met through mutual friends. Somehow, Levin’s friend Nick Ford suckered him into attending a high school basketball game. He promised it would be a great time. Sitting on hardwood benches and being forced to endure subpar basketball could hardly be considered a great time by any stretch of Levin’s imagination. The school’s band seemed to play the same three songs, but mostly some variation of the Irish Fight Song. A group of them had gone together: Levin, Nick and his girlfriend, Kathy Fredricks, Victor Garcés, Ben Tucker, Mickey Smits, Vanessa Sauvence, Leia McTavish, and, of course, Rebecca Chow. Horace was mysteriously absent from this teenaged social gathering.
Nick asked Levin: “Yo, where’s the Shagmaster at tonight?”
Levin shrugged. “I dunno.”
At that moment, miles away, back within the walls of the Weisz household, Paul was dozing off in his Laz-E-Boy recliner. The Three Stooges pranced around on the TeeVee in front of him. Rhiannon sat in bed with a mild case of the flu, reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. And lying on his back on the hardwood floor of he and his brother’s room, Horace breathed in silence while The Beatles sang away on vinyl. Paint dried on his hands: shades of black, green, and baby vomit yellow. He picked at gray flakes caught underneath his thumbnail. Sketchbooks were scattered all around him, all open to some drawing or another, crafted with combinations of ballpoint pen, colored pencil, charcoal, and watercolor.
A 25 X 25 piece of paper was taped to the floor next to Horace. Dozens of shades of blue were layered, one on top of the other to form a blurred image of his deceased mother, Sylvie. The portrait was taken from a wallet-sized photograph he usually kept hidden within the first book his mother had ever read to him. He didn’t like to open the book too often. He felt it somehow infringed upon the sanctity of her memory, that looking at the image would somehow spoil that which he had been building up in his head for all these years. But this evening was different. His brother would be gone for at least a few hours. For what seemed like the first time, he felt alone and at peace.
Being alone, now sitting upright, cross-legged on the floor, Horace scrutinized his work, his art, comparing each line and shadow to the faded and creased picture of Sylvie. Serenity temporarily ruled the moment, and Horace became lost within reflections. Lost, but not gone or detached. Focused. Self-aware. Willfully disappearing into his constructed world of blue — still able to see the representation of his mother, sure — but mostly, Horace could finally, vividly see himself. He sat this way for several minutes, caught within a trance, a wet paintbrush still dangling from his fingertips.
Levin and Rebecca were talking now, about music, about movies, about school, about life. They both subconsciously knew they were sizing one another up with endless quotations and meta-remarks about this or that, pop culture a frequent target to their witticisms and jabs. Neither of them were sure how thoughts of “we might like each other” developed. The basketball game was background noise to their growing banter, filled with teases and good-natured lewdness, all for the sake of rising sexual tension. And this was after having known each other for an hour. By the time Rebecca’s eighteenth birthday came about five weeks later, Levin and Rebecca had transformed into the same entity, a mutually beneficial symbiosis of beauty, charm, and wit.
They waited two months before having sex, though they both agreed after having an awkward, but passionate foray on Rebecca’s living room floor that it had been well worth the wait. Meanwhile, Horace, loquacious and handsome as ever, attracted cute freshman girls by the handful and he would kiss some and grope others, all for the sake of experience of just being alive.
Yet he secretly pined for a senior, a girl he saw talking to Levin one day after school before Rebecca arrived and scared her off. Dominique Vashon was the tractor beam of Horace’s worthwhile affections. He could offer those freshman dollies his lips and his body, but his soul was latched within the silver locket she wore around her neck. Secret admirers sometimes do irrational things, yet this move caused Dominique to feel secretly flattered. She told people who asked that it was a gift from her mother.
Horace, ever the conversationalist, the man who could chat with absolute strangers walking down the street, couldn’t bring himself to talk to her. He didn’t understand it himself. Was it because she was a foreign exchange student? He didn’t know. Was it because he thought she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen? That might have had something to do with it. During their lunch hour, after people had eaten and gone outside to chat and hang out, Horace would sometimes admire her from a distance. Sitting down, leaning his back against the brick wall of his school, he would draw sketches: hair, hands, legs, torso, and smile. The face of those sketches remained hazed and incomplete, should his drawings ever fall into the wrong hands.
One spring afternoon on the weekend, Rebecca was lounging around on the bottom of Levin and Horace’s bunk bed while the brothers sat on the floor playing a game of spades. Considering the haphazard approach Horace took to putting most things away, a lot of these spare sketchbooks were often within reach. He didn’t mind it when people looked at his art; he encouraged it, really, but was somewhat apprehensive that day when Rebecca said, “Ooooh, so who’s this supposed to be, Shaggy?”
He looked up at Rebecca. She held the sketchbook out, rested on her palms, her eyebrows curled in expectation of a response. Horace’s eyes temporarily widened, thinking maybe Rebecca had managed to identify the object of his affection. He assumed the position of authority, telling her she was the product of his imagination, every line and posture.
“She’s beautiful,” she said.
“She’s art,” he said.
Levin was looking at the sketch now too. His comment could be found in his smile.
Levin turned eighteen and became a legal adult the month after graduating high school. The Weisz’s were no longer technically legally responsible for him, but family is family. While Irene went away to Penn State, Levin figured there were plenty of good local colleges to attend. That’s what Rebecca thought too. They both decided to enroll at Philadelphia University. Then, after the first year, maybe they would get an apartment together closer downtown.
He wasn’t ready to leave behind his brother. Levin, as expected, took advanced English courses. Preliminary musings of perhaps one day becoming a teacher, nay, a professor started to cross his mind. Rebecca took advanced math and biology courses in preparation for being a mechanical engineer with an emphasis on biomechanics. Levin thought she should have gone to MIT. Rebecca didn’t want to leave behind Levin.
For a little while, Rebecca and Levin didn’t see much of each other. Levin was absolutely buried with reading for the semester. Works like Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Sun Also Rises, and Absalom! Absalom! filled his spare moments. He took a Shakespeare course for enjoyment, focusing on the comedies, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Rebecca spent a lot of time learning linear equations and fluid mechanics. One of her professors, Dr. Salil, told her by the end of the semester, she would never be able to forget Hooke’s Law, that it would stamped upon her mind.
A friend in her calculus class, “Johnny” Zhéng Leung, introduced Rebecca to marijuana one day after class. When they were high and Johnny made a move for Rebecca’s skirt, she quickly rebuked him. She didn’t tell Levin about her near sexual confrontation, but she did tell him about the marijuana. Sometimes, they would go outside in the backyard late at night to smoke a joint, blowing the smoke towards Max in the hopes he would feel good too. In between hits, Rebecca would rub Max’s belly. Inside, Rhiannon could smell what her son was doing with his girlfriend. She wasn’t naïve and she had the nose of a hound, but she kept quiet. He was his own man now.
Horace kept busy with his art. Through one of his mom’s friends, he managed to sell a few paintings for several hundred dollars a pop. The money he saved, he put away in a savings account under the pretense of a college fund, but he had other plans.
Dominique was gone, of course, having departed whenever Levin and Rebecca graduated together. Horace managed to make an imprint on her mind before she left though. The last day of class they literally ran into one another in the hallway. They hit head-on with no warning. Dominique had had her back turned, saying goodbye to someone while Horace slurped water at the water fountain. When she turned around to walk forward and Horace had stopped drinking and backed away, the thud of bodies and a simultaneous “Oh!” escaped both of their mouths. Books were dropped by both parties, scattered across the floor, among them one of Horace’s sketchbooks. It opened to a colored pencil drawing he had done earlier that day. It was a picture of a woman sitting with her legs crossed in a chair, sipping on a cup of tea. There was no chance Dominique wouldn’t notice. She grabbed the sketchbook and inspected it closer.
“This is wonderful! Je l’aime beaucoup! Are you an artist?” It sounded like she had said arteest.
Horace was dumbstruck, but managed a nod.
“Vous l’aimez vraiment?” he asked. For the first time, Horace was glad there was a foreign language requirement.
“Do I like it? Oh, I adore it, I want it!”
Horace couldn’t help smiling during their entire exchange. She finally knew who he was. He had finally spoken to her. Again, by chance, ask the Good Lord to answer that one. Horace tore the page out of his sketchbook and signed his name at the bottom of the drawing. She kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye. Horace walked home from school elated.
And then time seemed to move onward for a while with everything changing without seeming to change at all. It was like watching a river on a summer afternoon. The sun rose and fell, the fishes kept swimming. And one morning when the sun rose, Horace realized he would be eighteen in a week, nearly graduated.
Irene was married and lived in Los Angeles. She and her husband would have a son of their own in three months. Paul and Rhiannon Weisz were going to be grandparents and they couldn’t have been happier. Levin and Rebecca rented an apartment closer to downtown. Their first joint purchase together was a cat they named Otto. He had long yellow fur and liked to play fetch and have his belly rubbed. Rebecca encouraged Levin to grow out his hair. She liked it curly; by this point, he was inclined to agree.
Horace, much to the initial dismay of Paul and Rhiannon, didn’t apply to college for the fall. They said, “Why don’t you apply to some art schools? What about RISD or Maryland or something?”
No, Horace said he had other plans. Levin thought he was crazy when he told him.
“You’re out of your gourd! You’re off your rocker. France? Are you fucking serious?”
“Well . . . Yeah.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s something dad would have done for mom.”
Levin, who, up until that point, had been pacing around the living room in his apartment, sat down next to his brother on the couch.
“I’m sorry, Horace, but I can’t see dad moving to Paris to live as an artist, in desperate search for some girl.”
“No, you’re right. Instead, he came to America to work as a welder, in search of some girl. Our mother.”
To Levin, Horace’s plan sounded like an ill-conceived lark. He had forgotten about the French foreign exchange student. Yes, she was cute with her short brown hair, plaid skirts with legwarmers underneath, and rainbow mittens. Beautiful lips, sensuously long legs, she was definitely a looker. But to cross an ocean in search of love? The word “absurd” kept coming to his mind as he sat there, computing the logistics of it all.
He told his baby brother that she could be anywhere. She could be dating. She could be married. She could have a kid. She could have multiple kids. Hell, she could be a lesbian. Or she could be single, but not love you. What if she doesn’t remember you? What if you can’t find her? Horace didn’t care. To him, it had to be done. It was essential. Otherwise, he would never feel alive. He felt as if he had been waiting long enough. He needed to know.
For being a painter still in high school, it had been quite the lucrative endeavor up to that point in his life. He had made thousands of dollars over the last three years and built up enough of a nest egg so that he could survive for some time on his own. Doubts of whether or not he was truly ready crept into his mind, of course, small ethereal cobwebs, but he swept them away as quickly as they appeared. There was some terribly romantic notion inside of him that sat in the pit of his stomach. He felt confident that could make it as an artist in Europe. Making money with paint would never be a problem.
Levin never really tried to talk Horace out of going to France that afternoon on the couch. As Horace had said, it had to be done. A tinge of sadness nevertheless began to settle on Levin’s face. Contrary to their father’s last wishes, if Horace did this, they would finally be apart. Levin’s apartment was close enough that a fifteen-minute bus ride ensured Horace could come over whenever he desired. Despite the passing flux of life branching out into an infinite number of directions, the two brothers still made time to see one another. But if Horace did this, if he really went through with it, that would be all changing. For the first time ever, he didn’t know when he might see his little brother, his best friend again.
“When will you be leaving?”
“In one month.”
They both sat on the couch in a breath of silence. Levin lit up a cigarette and leaned back against the couch, putting an arm around his brother. He thought back on things, events like little Polaroids being laid down onto the felt table of his memory, dealt by seeming chance, perhaps fate. One particular memory struck him strongly and he stood up again.
“Now wait a second, dude. This girl . . . your drawings . . . that one day when Rebecca saw . . . that was her?”
Horace scratched his chin. “I thought you knew?”
“You never told me!”
“Now you know, Lee. What difference does it make?”
Levin sat down again and puffed on his cigarette. He snubbed it out in the ashtray, as his gray eyes seemed to search for an answer.
“It makes all the difference in the world, Horace.” Levin paused. “I’ve heard this saying somewhere before, that life and love is all a matter of timing.”
Horace stood up and hugged his brother. “And in a month the time will be now.”
Before anyone knew it, Horace was graduated from high school and the month had passed. Horace got encouraging words from his sister in L.A. She sent emails of her stomach, which grew larger in each attached photo. She knew he would be fine no matter where he went and what he did. Paul and Rhiannon felt the same way, though their thoughts were mixed with feelings of parental anxiety.
Things would be different; the house wouldn’t be quite the same. Rhiannon felt bad for poor old Max. Paul felt a new chapter was beginning. He went and adopted another dog, a beagle named Dora. Delight was the word of the day and Rhiannon showered her husband with kisses. On a Thursday, Horace woke up early to hug and kiss his parents goodbye. He left a drawing of the entire family on the kitchen table and made promises to call and write often as soon as he got settled. Horace caught the bus to Levin’s place. Levin would be taking him to the train station at noon.
Rebecca was at work that morning, but she left Horace a new sketchbook as a goodbye present. They sat around on the couch passing the time. They played soccer on the Playstation.
“I wish you’d be here, Shaggy,” Levin said, taking out a tiny silver box. “I’m going to propose to her this fall.”
“That’s quite a rock, Lee. When do you think you’ll walk her down the aisle?”
“All in due time. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes/and her passion ends the play.”
“Okay, okay, barded one. Congratulations. I’m happy as hell for you. Whaddaya say we hit the road?”
Horace gathered up his luggage and walked to Levin’s car. He’d catch the train to New York, and then zoom out of JFK International to Germany. He made arrangements to meet his Uncle Fritz for a weekend before he went to Paris. Everything was already set up. All he had to do was take those first few steps and let the chips fall where they may. Levin popped the trunk and leaned against his car. The wind blew through the tendrils of his dark hair. Horace tossed his bags in the back and they hopped in the car and drove.
Sprinkles pattered the pavement as they pulled into the station. Levin parked and walked with his brother to the gate. These were their final minutes together. Somewhere, someone was listening to “I Should Have Known Better,” forming memories (perhaps of undying love) one second at a time, latched onto the invisible pull of the song. Levin wiped at his eyes and they embraced, a hug that reminded each of them deep down of the super strong hugs Sylvie used to give them years and years before. Goodbyes were whispered and Levin turned to head back to the parking lot before he heard Horace holler, “Wait!”
Horace reached within his blue jacket pocket and removed a permanent marker as Levin walked back towards him. He asked Levin to roll up the sleeve of his shirt while he took off his jacket. The black marker uncapped, Horace first drew a thick semicircle sketch on his brother’s forearm. He then drew the same design on his own. Horace pressed their arms together and the circle was, at least for a moment, whole. Levin opened his mouth to ask why, but could find no sound to match his surprise. Horace stepped back, shook his blonde shag and smiled. “So we’ll be together forever.”
The End.
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