Blood

Grief will come to you and those you love. Grief says: sooner or later, I will nose my way into your life. I will throw my foot in between the door and the jamb, or drop to my knees and peel up the welcome mat to find your spare key. I will find my merry way in, like groundwater finding a foundation’s crack. May your hearth always be warm and your cupboard always full, but you will know me, because you are alive. /~/~/~/~/ I. Chandler Tsonda was alive. He knew so because the indignities and inconveniences of hotel check-in were, as far as he knew, restricted only to the living. “There’s your room key, Mr. Stonda. Anything else I can do for you?” “Tsonda.” He didn’t have the energy to correct the front desk agent, but it was muscle memory. Some reservoir of energy, the same one he had drawn from to get himself here, into this Four Seasons. Grief was a locomotive, allowing Chandler nothing but to follow its tracks, traveling in familiar ways through familiar rituals. He had spent most of his life on the road, so when he learned the news, he robotically, without thinking, checked into this hotel. He simply couldn’t be home. “My apologies, Mr. Tsonda. Anything else I can do for you?” The young man smiled gravely. Or maybe Chandler just saw everything as grave, and he smiled normally. “I thought there might be a message or two for me. Do you have anything?” The desk agent rummaged. Chandler ran a hand across his forehead and through his hair until the desk agent looked back up. “I don’t see anything. You’ll be pleased to find a welcome package in your room upon your arrival.” “Thanks.” When he got to the room, Chandler put his duffel bag down and slumped into the subpar office chair at the subpar hotel desk. A plastic wrapped bundle of shit he didn’t need lay on the bed. This prevented him from flopping into a horizontal state, and he thought if he lay down, he wouldn’t get up until tomorrow. And tomorrow he would have to bury his father. Chandler Tsonda was alive, and Ettore Calvino was dead. /~/~/~/~/ II. Aubrey hadn’t said much to Chandler, once she conveyed that his father —her uncle—had finally died. She broke the silence between them only to share the bad news. They had talked about logistics, there in that random conference room at Tsuperstar Enterprises. There was something surreally comic to making small talk about their aunt Lucia’s flight from JFK while Aubrey remained furious at Chandler, Chandler remained desperate to get her back, and they both rode waves of emotion for a man neither of them liked. “It feels like every other time,” Chandler had said. “I’ve gotten so many phone calls, so many emails, that this time he, no seriously forreal, is about to kick the bucket and wants to settle our tab. I still feel like I might walk into his funeral and find it’s all a setup to get me to make peace with him.” “Funny,” Aubrey said, in a tone that was anything but. “I always thought that persistence, to the point of annoyance, was the one thing you two had in common.” “Are we fighting? Because if we’re fighting, it means we’re back enough for you to be mad at me which means— “I won’t do this, Chandler,” Aubrey said, cutting him off at the knees. He didn’t ask what she meant. He knew. “I’ll play my role as part of this family,” she had said, a steely look on her face. “I suggest you pretend, for everyone’s sake, that you know how to do the same.” /~/~/~/~/ Bad news: If you and your father are lucky, you will bury him, and not the other way around. You will look at his still face and see what time takes from all of us. You will see yourself, and—though you have known somewhere, as a grim and horrible abstraction, that Death is yours and you are Death’s—you will see your own face with years of weathering and that mortal tally. And if life has been kind to you, you will weep for the man who was your father. And if life has been unkind to you, you will weep for yourself.  /~/~/~/~/ III. Chandler Tsonda, in his black suit, looked at his dead father, in his black suit. Despite his at-best-frosty relations with the Calvino family, Tsonda was allowed this time alone with the corpse of his father. Their Italian conservative traditionalism of the Calvinos was useful for Chandler in this way; a boy should get a chance to mourn his dead father, all agreed, no matter the complications. The back room of the funeral home contained a basic masking scent, something neutral and pleasant that Chandler could barely detect, but that clearly did the work of covering formaldehyde and rot. His senses sparkled. That was the medicinal grade psilocybin doing its job. Two weeks ago, Chandler had learned that his father, Ettore Calvino, was dead. One week ago, he had gone to his very normal job and done his very normal work of kicking another man into submission so that he could fly through the air and stun the man, Sean O’Neill, for long enough to pin him to the mat. In a week, he would go fight and tear and claw at dozens of other men to try and get back something that had been his a long time ago. Today, he was tripping on shrooms, because it was more fun than sobriety, under the circumstances. Chandler thought for a moment about how much more common it was to bury a father than it was to do the other things he did. Most humans on earth would experience the death of their father. Very few would ever moonsault off the top rope in front of thousands. Fewer still would win a match like the Manhunt. The mushrooms offered unique perspective. “That’s what you’re thinking about? Your crummy wrestling?” Chandler Tsonda, in his black suit, looked at his upright father, in his black suit. Ettore lay in the casket. He was still dead, that much was certain. Next to the casket stood a living, breathing Ettore. “Chrissakes,” Chandler said. It was something about his brain chemistry, but seeing a doppelganger of his father wasn’t exactly a surprise. It just…was. “Ey, watch your mouth.” Ettore’s voice was a hearty tobacco rasp. “You’re not real. You’re the combination of approximately one gram of boom shrooms and my own confusion about your stupid death and your much stupider life.” “I’m sure you’d like that, if this was all the sound of your own voice. You always did love it.” “The fuck you know,” Chandler spat. “Get over yourself,” his father shot back. “You came up tough because of me, and you ended up tough because of me. You’ve got millions in the bank and you’re famous world over. You can hate me all you like, but you gotta admit that whatever happened: it worked.” “Man, you know what?” Chandler realized he had taken a step forward and balled his fists up. He laughed and shook his head. “You’re nothing but my subconscious. You can’t get under my skin. I’m only here to try and make things right with Aubrey, and be done with you and the few wretched memories I have of you.” “Your skin, heh,” Ettore laughed, an ugly growl. “I’m in your veins. I’m a ghost in your house, and the whole reason you exist. You want to be rid of me, boy? You can use your little hide-and-go-seek wrestling match as a distraction, but your head is swimming with me. Why do you think I’m gone but I’m still here? Fathers and sons, we are forever.” Chandler ignored the baiting use of “boy,” though he thought he might be developing an eye twitch. “What do you want, Jacob Marley?” he asked. “Someone’s not having a very good trip, are they?” Chandler reasoned that Ettore the apparition was his own summoning of this man who had meant both a great deal and absolutely nothing to him. And by that token, Chandler could say nothing and Ettore the blowhard would eventually come out with the answer. “You’re not special,” Ettore said. “How many times did I offer for you to come out to the house? For us to bury the hatchet like men? And you said no. Not because you’re noble. Or a man of principle. You want closure like everyone else. Just like you tried to get with your boyfriend Danny Ferguson.” He laughed, very pleased with himself. “You said no,” Ettore continued, “out of spite. You don’t like me, but you hate yourself. You’re the same as every little boy. You need to be told you’re very special and daddy loved you before it all ends. But my son the fairy wants to punish himself like one of them, whadyacallits, Flagellants. And so you wouldn’t let yourself come and let me make peace between us. That about it?” Chandler hadn’t smoked a cigarette in a very long time, but there was a nicotine urge that bored at the base of his skull. “This is incessant,” he said. “Even more screwy when you consider you’re doing it to yourself,” Ettore said, his white eyebrows tipping playfully. Chandler looked down and straightened the lapels of his suit. “I know it all, Ettore. All the things you can torment me with. ‘Chandler Tsonda, he’s proof money can’t buy a good life. He was dangerously close to real happiness, but he wasn’t winning matches so he torpedoed it all. He’s his own no-man’s-land, as alone in burying his dad as he will be when he steps into a Manhunt he claims he could actually win. He’s the second most interesting former Amigo, the third or fourth most successful active ReVolution Uni champ, a .500 record who blusters at GOAT status because he’s perilously insecure about being forgotten and dying alone.’ That about it?” The living dead man exchanged a glance with his son. “What do you think happens when the drugs wear off?” “For one, I’ll stop hallucinating that you’re alive, and we’ll return you comfortably to your reserved table in hell.” “Will you have reached some kind of higher understanding? Something clear and true about what it means to have been my boy?” “Don’t call me that.” “Or will this all be a bad dream? A ghost story? You’re fifty years old with daddy issues. Have some respect for yourself, boy. Or if not for yourself, for the family na— “Don’t call me that.” “You’re my boy, and I’ll call you it. My little rice paddy refugee boy. War baby boy. Boy without a country. Boy-king Midas all alone in a golden palace with no family or friends. Boy in Neverland who won’t grow up, boy who can’t finish a sentence without a four-letter word because of his stunted development. Boy who can’t even carry on his father’s name, and what the hell kinda man would end a family line, huh? That ain’t no man, that’s a boy.” Ettore was calm, though his voice was tinged with rage. It was only when Chandler looked down that he realized that it was he who was shaking. “I never came to see you because you’re a lowlife, Ettore. I have nothing to say to someone who blusters—and oh brother, do you ever shut the fuck up? You make me look like the picture of brevity in comparison—someone who blusters and goes on and on about what makes a man, but abandons his own kid.” “You sure you want to talk about being a father figu— Chandler beat him to the punch, spittle flying as he countered. “I left Jaime and Jasmine behind for six months, and it hollows me out like fucking cancer. I’ll turn my soul inside out to try and make it right. You left your son for life, and the only time it stirred a thing in you was when you thought about how your almighty God would find you wanting.” His chest heaved, and his nostrils ran hot. “And the funny thing, Calvino, is that I told my mother that I would take your call, here at the end. That I would give up on a lifetime of turning you away. I agreed I would try to let you have some peace. I would have tolerated your deathbed confession, something about how your own father was a hard man, and you had to choose your American family, and some castoffs from North Vietnam. Hard choices without right answers. Sure, whatever. You went and died, and you took both of our absolution with you.” “You think this,” he said, gesturing at the two of them, “would be put back together with forgiveness? Or…wait.” Ettore put a finger to his mouth, a realization. “Oh this is too sweet. You’re afraid that your cousin and those kids won’t forgive you, because you don’t forgive me.” “I don’t want this pissing contest with my superego. I don’t want to transcend through self-dialogue. Not everything in life can be explained by having a shitty dad, even though I hit the lottery when it comes to that. I just want to put you in the fucking ground and move on with my life.” “What life?” Ettore asked, and snorted with glee. His laughter boomed in echo. Chandler closed his eyes, and smoothed out the tension in his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. “You’re not worth hating anymore.” When he opened his eyes, his father was in a casket, dead in his black suit. /~/~/~/~/ There is nothing you can do about grace. Grace is unearned. A merciful, loving god knows that to live is to, inevitably, live wrong at some point. This god forgives, though we haven’t earned this forgiveness. What a blessing. What a burden. In this, we learn that living right is not for god’s favor, mercy, or love, which are offered to us regardless. Living right is our greatest way to express that we possess some of god in us. We humans rarely, if ever, possess the capacity for grace. When we locate grace within our flawed selves, we experience the fleeting, intoxicating touch of godliness.  /~/~/~/~/ IV. After the funeral, Chandler lingered to watch the group dissipate. A bunch of dour-looking nonnas consoled two middle-aged women with raven hair. Chandler recognized Ettore’s daughters, the half-sisters who Chandler supposed wouldn’t spit on him to douse a fire. They were in the last group of mourners to depart, before he made his way to the graveside. In keeping with everything Chandler knew about Ettore Calvino, the man’s headstone was tacky. It had one of those laser-cut pictures of him, as well as the phrase: Husband, father, veteran. “Guess ‘thrice ex-husband, deadbeat, criminal’ didn’t make the final draft,” Chandler said to no one. “It’s quite very sad to see.” Chandler whipped off his sunglasses, his eyes bugging out from his skull. “Ma?” Sam Thi Ngo stood there in her shimmery white ao dai. Was it catching the light, or was she herself a projection of light? He caught the scent of her yellow mai flower perfume. Chandler swore he would only do a half-dose next time. “That’s your ao dai for family funerals. You’re wearing it for him? For his awful family who think you’re nothing, and that I’m a half-breed bastard?” “Yes. You look so nice in your suit.” “Did you come to say goodbye?” “There should be a grand altar,” she said, ignoring another question. “These are Catholics. You think one of these paisans was going to rig up a Buddhist altar?” “I don't think that's right,” she muttered. Birdsong chirped out from the trees nearby. Every moment with his father had been unpleasant, but the only pain here was that it would end. Chandler couldn’t bear the idea that his mother would soon blink out of this hallucinated existence. When neither of them had said anything for a long time, Chandler broke the silence. “He was very cruel to you.” “Yes. And once he was very sweet. We were young in a war. Everything is time. Everyone is contradiction.” Chandler bit the inside of his lip. The light malapropisms and accidental beauty of her cobbled-together English were among the things he missed the most. “He went to the grave without paying us what we’re owed.” “What does that matter now?” “It matters because we struggled. You struggled! We could’ve been comfortable, like he was.” “It was my choice,” she said. “Be upset with me, or don’t. Nothing to do with him. I would never give him satisfaction of paying for our life.” Stubbornness, Chandler was reminded, was among their most powerful family heirlooms. “You deserved more, and better,” he said. “Chan, we have so much.” Her smile was sunshine. “We really did.” Chandler clung to the sight of her, willing his eyes to stay open. He would have to blink, and he knew then, that she would be gone. Committed to the same earth as Ettore Calvino. Chandler kept his eyes open as long as he could, even as they quivered and begged for relief. And when finally they closed, he held them tight. And he smelled yellow mai flower. She would not be there when he blinked back into the sunlight. “Thank you.” /~/~/~/~/ V. Chandler knocked on Aubrey’s office door, and waited until he was beckoned in to enter and speak. “Hi.” She gestured to the empty chair, and Chandler sat down. It had been several days since the funeral, and they had been polite but terse in the minimal texts they had exchanged. “What do you want?” “To apologize.” She nodded and leaned back in her chair, as if welcoming whatever Chander had to say. That was at least how he, hopeful, read it. “I was selfish. I’m always selfish. I insinuated myself into your life, the parts of our life that require both of us, and then dipped without a word. I know I’m not reliable. I don’t wanna be like him.” He didn’t like saying it aloud, but he hoped that Aubrey would recognize that his discomfort was a gift to her. It was Chandler without an ounce of glib, unicorn level rarity. He had to look at his hands to get through with it. “Being part of the Calvino family, if you can even call it that, has been nothing but a curse. I’m glad Ettore’s gone. The only good thing about the Calvinos is that it makes you and me family. And I’m hoping you don’t give up on family. I’m hoping that’s true, cousin. Because I love you and I hate that I did something that makes you doubt that. I’m so sorry.” When his gaze moved up to his cousin, Chandler was more surprised than at either of his phantom parents. Aubrey Calvino, heart as strong as an ox and as immovable as strong alloy, was crying. Chandler stared straight ahead, and a room with two motormouths was as quiet as it had ever been. “Fucking hormones,” she said, cursing into her tissue as she blew her nose. “Do I get any credit for a good apology?” he asked. He smiled at his cousin softly. He didn’t want to undo his earnest work. “You’d like that,” she said. “It was a good apology. But you don’t get credit for this tsunami of hormones.” Chandler Tsonda was a man, and a little clueless about certain things as men tend to be. No one said anything for several seconds. “Oh. Oh! Holy shit! Holy shit! Wait, for real?” Aubrey nodded. She had yet to entirely thaw towards her cousin, but she let a smirk appear at the edges of her mouth. “Oh my god. Dude, congratulations!” He was across the desk before he knew what happened. “Can I—can we hug?” “Yes, idiot.” Chandler wrapped his arms around his cousin. She was small in the clasp of his embrace. “Please forgive me,” he said. “I don’t know.” When she spoke, it vibrated in his ribcage. “I know, I know. I just don’t want to be like him.” It came out wobbly. He loved her for many reasons, especially because she ignored the catch in his voice. “I know. You won’t. No matter what.” She paused. “I have to think about what’s best for my kid.. And if that’s going to mean you in her life…I need time to think.” “A girl,” he said, a thrill of an exhale that came out in a rush. He felt his heart race. “Incredible.” Nothing but quiet. “Thank you.” “You don’t have to do that,” Aubrey said. “Even if we’re not good, you’re family.” “We really are."