"The past is full of life, eager to irritate us,
provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it."
--Milan Kundera, The Book of
Laughter and Forgetting
********
Charley
Bob Brewer was 30 years old when they found him in his house on the night of October
14th, a fatal gunshot wound peeking out from his chest. It's hard to believe I
had just seen him, and even harder to admit what I was thinking about him the
day he died. I feel bad because I was thinking that though he appeared to be a
nice guy, I couldn't find it in myself to like him very much.
See,
Charley was hired to fix my mother's ailing computer, and it became clear early
on that he didn't really know what he was doing and my mother's bill was
growing in direct proportion to his ignorance. He came to my mother's house
three times and each time he suggested she replace another component. After the
first time, I told her that I didn't think he knew what he was doing. She
seemed to agree, but she felt it would be counterproductive to go to someone
else after he had already done so much work on the computer. So the process
dragged on unnecessarily for weeks. Classic inertia.
As much
as I'm inclined to dislike people who try to take advantage of my mother, I
think what troubled me the most was the two times he brought his family along
when he came to do repairs. The first time, I was at the house alone and he was
supposed to install a piece of hardware and be on his way. Several hiccups and
nearly an hour later things were not working, and he decided to take the
computer home to work on it. It wasn't until I walked him to the door that I
saw his wife and kids sitting in the car, parked in the driveway beneath the
baking sun. I asked him why he didn't tell me they were there, as they were
more than welcome to come inside. He just laughed, said they didn't mind, got
in the car and drove off.
It took
an inordinately long time, but he finally returned my mother's computer. This
time both of my parents were home, so I let them field his never-ending flow of
affable chatter. On an impulse I looked out the window to see if the car was
occupied, but I didn't have a clear view. Twenty minutes later, I heard a car
door open and I looked out again. There were his wife and two kids, opening the
car doors to get some fresh air. He might have been unclear on the etiquette of
bringing his family on house calls the first time, but after an explicit
invitation the second time seemed intentional. Charley was still happily
chatting away and didn't look to be in any rush, so I discreetly motioned my
father over and explained the situation. He and my mother gently sidestepped
Charley's objections and invited them inside to relax on the couch and enjoy
some refreshments.
It was
an odd experience. I mostly stayed in my room, but there was definitely some
unease in the air. The kids were young, 3 and 6, and they quickly warmed up to
the new environment and the strangers who inhabited it. Indeed, the 6 year old
appeared to have inherited his daddy's gift of gab. Charley's wife, Cheryl,
began to smile shyly as she saw her kids having fun, but there was an electric
thread of tension between her and Charley. He was still laughing and smiling,
but it felt a bit forced, and she wouldn't meet his eyes. Chalking it up to
some people just being awkward around strangers, I mostly stayed to myself
until Charley finished working on the computer and we all said goodbye. That
was October 13th.
********
The
police are reporting that Cheryl called 911 to say she had shot her husband.
Further details have not been made public as of yet, but it is my understanding
that no charges have been filed. At the very least I can say that as of October
27th she was not incarcerated. That was the day she came to my parents' house
for the last time.
At the
time it only seemed moderately strange. My mother answered the doorbell and
found Cheryl on the stoop with a package for her. My mother did not recognize
her until Cheryl said that the package contained my mother's old internet
adapter. I thought it was strange that she brought the adapter alone, but I
didn't give it much thought since every interaction with them had been strange.
But
tonight we found out that Charley was shot, and my mother reflected that she'd
also found the interaction to be strange. Not because Cheryl was alone, but
because she had gently held onto my mother's hand for a moment when she handed
her the package. My mother told her to tell the boys hello, but Cheryl didn't
respond. It's eerie to learn now that she brought the forgotten internet
adapter without her husband because he was already dead, perhaps by her hand. When
Cheryl left that last time, we had assumed that we would never hear about
Charley and Cheryl Brewer again.
********
It's
amazing how the mind molds our memories. I read somewhere that the memories we hold
onto most, the ones we most often rehearse, are just that – rehearsed. They
shift subtly with each retelling, fitting more closely to the larger framework
we are using to make sense of the world and our lives. We add embellishments
and change time frames, all toward the end of shaping a memory that does not
hinder the flow of how we narrate ourselves. It took me years to realize that
my memory of seeing the Space
Shuttle Challenger explode at liftoff in 1986 was erroneously staged in the
house which we didn’t move into until 1988. A counselor friend of mine told me
this might be a subconscious way of staging a traumatic event in a safer
environment, which makes me wonder how many other memories have received such
treatment. It seems that the things I can consistently remember are often
shockingly inconsistent with reality.
Who can
say if my mother really noticed those details when Cheryl came to our door? But
after her recollection a pensive silence fell around the dinner table. I was
thinking about my various interactions with them, wondering if there was some
way I could have known, could have prevented what would happen. Would one extra
smile at Cheryl and the kids have made the difference? Was the electric thread
of tension between them exacerbated by my interfering with their house call
arrangement? Did it pull and pull and pull until everything unraveled in a
flash of gunpowder and blood?
Speculation
abounds, not just in my head but on the streets. Small communities are
genetically predisposed to parse through the gossip and take sides, and right
now there are several factions. One says that Charley was a saint, but Cheryl
struggled to kick a drug habit. She is therefore obviously guilty of murder and
ought to be locked up. Another muses that Charley was abusive behind closed doors
and Cheryl shot him in self-defense. Why else wouldn't she be in custody? Yet another
posits that it might have been an accident, being hunting season and all.
Finally, some folks whisper that Charley had recently experienced some
significant educational and occupational setbacks, and the pressure might have
been too much for him to handle. All of these sides only show that speculation
often conforms itself to our preferred narratives, according it a tenuous tie
to reality similar in nature to that of memory.
However
much we scour our memories for hints, however many theories run through the
gossip mill, the reality is that Charley is dead. His grandparents have
outlived him. His young sons are partial orphans, his wife a widow. Reality as
they knew it has changed irreversibly, and it is heartbreaking. Denied the
power to change reality, we can only speculate and tinker with our memories
until we tell a story that lulls us to sleep, dreaming that we've made sense of
things at last.
