Infernal

1

"Well," Tom said as they walked away from the grave, "that's it then. Still hard to believe he's gone."

Jack only nodded. He felt drained, emotionally and physically spent.

He was now an orphan. That had struck him like a blow as he'd watched his father laid to rest beside his mother.

Gia clung to his arm, wiping away tears for a man she'd never met. Vicky held her mother's hand, cheery but bewildered.

Everyone else had left. Tom's current wife, Terry, a shapely brunette about ten years his junior, had fled the chill to wait in their car.

During the past twenty-four hours Jack had encountered a dizzying array of new names and faces. The parade of mourners telling him how sorry they were, what a terrible tragedy it was, how his dad would be missed. He'd met his sister's kids and had almost lost it when he saw how closely Lizzie resembled Kate when she was a teen. Like going back in time.

Tom's two ex-wives—the oft-referred-to Skanks from Hell—showed up. Their splits from Tom apparently hadn't lessened their affection for his father. Tom's two sons from his first marriage and the daughter from his second had come along. Jack still wasn't sure what name went with what face. Not that it mattered. Small chance he'd see any of them again.

As they reached the curb at the bottom of the slope, a white Lincoln Navigator raced up and screeched to a halt. Four young black men jumped out, all dressed in snappy-looking suits.

The tallest of the four, who'd emerged from the front passenger seat, looked at Jack and said, "Are we too late? Did we miss it?" His quick, dark eyes shifted between Jack and Tom. "You guys Tom's boys?"

Jack nodded. "Uh-huh. And you gentlemen are…?"

He stepped forward and extended his hand. "Ty Jameson."

He quickly introduced his three companions. The names blurred through Jack's brain.

"We're really sorry about your father. An awful fu—"—a quick glance at Gia and Vicky—"an awful, awful thing to happen to anyone, but your father…" Was that a catch in his voice? "He was one of the good ones. We would have been here sooner but we only heard this morning."

Tom cleared his throat. "What's your connection to my father?"

Our father, Jack thought.

"He taught us computer programming back when we were in middle school." He checked with his companions. "About fourteen-fifteen years ago, am I right?"

They all nodded.

Jack tossed Tom a questioning look.

He shrugged. "News to me."

"We belonged to a Boys Club in Camden where he used to volunteer. He donated two PCs—used but still in great shape—and every Wednesday afternoon after school he'd be there to teach the rudiments of BASIC to anyone who was interested. We were interested."

The three others nodded. One of them said, "Word. Changed our lives."

Jack remembered Dad's fascination with the home computer, remembered the time he'd bought and assembled an Apple I—back in the antediluvian days when data was stored on cassette tapes.

Ty nodded. "He infected us with the bug. We joined the computer club in high school, took programming courses there and in CCC. Finally we decided we didn't need degrees to do what we wanted, so we dropped out and started our own Web design company."

Jack nodded toward the big, spotless SUV behind them.

"Looks like you're doing okay."

He grinned. "More than okay. We flush." The smile faltered. "Everything I have I owe your dad. Did more for me than my own father ever did. I tried to get in touch with him last year to, you know, thank him and let him know how he'd changed our lives, but he'd moved away." Ty swiped at a tear starting to roll down his left cheek. "And now he's gone, and I can't tell him. He'll never know."

Ty's voice choked off. Jack heard Gia sob, and he wanted to say something but couldn't speak past the baseball-size lump in his throat.

Ty recovered first. He pointed up the hill toward the gravesite.

"We want to go up and pay our respects, but first…"

He reached into a pocket and came up with a small gold case. He handed business cards to Jack and Tom.

"Either of you ever need anything a computer can do—anything—you just give us a call."

All four again shook hands with Jack and Tom, then trooped up the slope.

Jack watched them, trying to get a handle on this stunning revelation. Never in a million years would he have guessed…

"Can you believe that?" Tom said.

"I'd like to. I want to."

"No, I mean dear old Dad, Mr. Conservative, charter subscriber to the Limbaugh Letter, doing something like that."

During his Florida trip, Jack had realized that his father's conservatism was neither political nor ideological.

"Dad was mostly a traditionalist. You know, this is the way we've always done it, so this is the way we should go on doing it. But he was never racist."

"Hey, he retired because of the company's affirmative action policy."

"Yeah. He told me about that. Called it 'profiling.'"

During Jack's last night in Florida he and his father had had a long, rambling, scotch-fueled talk about all sorts of things. Some of it touched on his career as an accountant.

"But that's only half the story. Do you know the hell he caught back in sixty-one for hiring a black guy for his department—the angry calls he got from his fellow employees, calling him a commie and a nigger lover?"

Tom shook his head, his expression confused, surprised. "No, I—"

"He told me he wanted to hire this particular guy because, of all the applicants, he was the best qualified. Dad didn't care what color he was, he wanted the best. So he hired him. The result? The fast track Dad had been on suddenly slowed. That hire cost him promotions and position. I won't say he didn't care, because I sensed he was still a little bitter about it. Then in the nineties things exploded when he was directed to hire a black guy over a white guy. Dad refused because this time the white guy was better qualified. He still wanted the best guy. Dad hadn't changed, but the world had. The former commie nigger-lover was now a right-wing racist bigot. He couldn't take it, and refused to be part of a system that put ability second, so he opted out."

Tom looked hurt, but his tone was angry. "How come he never told me any of this?"

Jack shrugged. He had no answer.

He put his arm around Gia's shoulders and they looked back at the four young men standing around his father's grave with bowed heads and folded hands.

Gia whispered, "I guess that's proof the good a man does isn't always interred with his bones."

Jack, not trusting himself to speak, could only nod.