Rapture

CHAPTER TWO

Jeff drove with all the windows down. The air was like warm syrup, but he didn't turn on the air conditioner, because he hated sealing himself in a car, even on a scorcher of a day like this. It was the middle of the afternoon, early May, and Connecticut was experiencing a premature heat wave. Sweat trickled down Jeffs back, sides, and chest beneath his halfunbuttoned shirt.

It should have taken two hours to get where he was going, the town of Millville, up in the Brass Valley, but traffic and tolls had slowed him. The car, which he'd rented at La Guardia Airport, was only a year old, but it moved like a pig. One of the speaker wires must have been loose, because there were bursts of static that soon forced Jeff to turn off the radio.

So his father was dead. Chopping wood on a hot afternoon at the age of seventy-six. The damn fool. What did he expect? Who bothered to chop wood at the beginning of May? Perhaps his father simply didn't care any more. Jeff lit another cigarette.

The wake was tomorrow, the funeral the day after. Jeff thought he should feel sorrier about his father's death, but the truth was he didn't. It was more of an inconvenience than anything else, just about the only thing that could force him to travel clear across the country. But now that he was here, he felt a curious sense of anticipation. It might yet prove interesting, after all this time.

Jeff and his father hadn't been close in a long time, and they had hardly communicated at all since his mother died several years ago. There wasn't any open hostility between them, but neither was there any real warmth. Father and son were alike in this regard: each was a very separate, private person.

The traffic on 1-95 thinned out a little after Westport, and Jeff was able to make better time. Connecticut looked unfamiliar to him, what he could see of it from the highway. He had been living in Southern California for twenty years and had no desire to be anywhere else. He had it made out there.

The Waterbury sign appeared just after Bridgeport, and Jeff drifted into the right lane. He fell in behind a semi with its signal light blinking. He knew the exit was just ahead, although he couldn't see it, but he suddenly felt hesitant and indecisive. The truck stayed on the highway, and he followed it, passing the Waterbury exit. He cursed as he put his foot down and swung the car out to pass, but he didn't know whether he was angry with the truck driver or with himself. Now he would have to take route 63 north, the old New Haven Road. He knew it well enough, having traveled it many times. When you were in high school in the Brass Valley, New Haven was an attractive place to visit.

He caught the beginning of rush hour at New Haven, which slowed him some more. Once he got out of the city again, he was pleased to find route 63 in better shape than he remembered it. He seemed to fly up through Woodbridge and Bethany in no time. The road was wider, and there were new buildings everywhere. Twenty years ago it had still been vaguely rural, but now it was just another stretch of suburban America.

As Jeff approached Millville he slowed down to an almost stately cruise. Now he knew every side street, and the changes were even more glaring. A meadow that had been used as a picnic ground had given way to tract housing. High on one hill was a cluster of condominiums. The drive-in was still there, but it apparently no longer played creature features for audiences of impassioned high-school kids. Now-sign of the times-it showed three X-rated "adult hits" nightly. A little farther along, he discovered that the driving range had been replaced by a small industrial park. Across from it, two national hamburger chains had pitched their gaudy camps.

He spotted a familiar mailbox ahead on the right. It was the same, still there, with the name Slaton painted in black on the side. Jeff had known the Slaton family well when he was in high school, and the sight of their mailbox made him smile. But then, abruptly, he pulled the car off the road and stopped. He had just noticed, a couple of yards from the Slaton driveway, a For Sale sign with the name and telephone number of a local realtor. It was a shock, and Jeff felt as if another fragment of his youth had just died within him. He got out of the car.

The driveway, exactly as he remembered, ran about a hundred yards up a gradual slope and then swung around behind some trees to the house, which was only partially visible from the road. It was impossible to tell if anyone was there. But the bushes along the drive spilled over onto it, and weeds sprouted up through wide cracks in the asphalt. The mailbox, and even the For Sale sign, looked dirty and neglected. They had to be gone, Jeff thought sadly. Perhaps Mr. Slaton had been transferred somewhere else, and they had moved without waiting for the house to be sold. Then Jeff shook his head and smiled, realizing that he had lost track of time. By now Mr. Slaton was probably retired, the family scattered. Time to sell the house and move to a smaller place, a better climate. Yes, that was the most likely explanation. Not that it made him feel any better.

He drove on into Millville. Many of the businesses on Main Street had changed, but the old buildings were still the same. No hint of a new skyline here. Millville was aptly named. It was an old mill town, struggling to survive in a new era. That industrial park on the edge of town was probably only a recent flicker of hope. A few of the kids Jeff had known would still be here, but most, like him, would have gone elsewhere to make their lives.

Jeff drove through the quiet residential streets on the east side of town, and finally parked in front of a small, blistering, white Cape Cod house. Uncle Roy and Aunt Kitty came out to the front lawn to greet him. They looked fragile, but their movements were energetic, and he felt surprising strength in them as they hugged him. Still pretty sturdy, he thought. No doubt his father had been the same, right to the end.

"How long has it been?" Uncle Roy asked as they went into the house.

It was a perfectly natural question, but the old man immediately realized his mistake, and his wife flashed him a nasty look in case he didn't.

"I'm ashamed to say I haven't been back here since Mom died," Jeff admitted promptly.

Aunt Kitty nodded sorrowfully and tried to smooth it over by fussing about some food. Jeff declined, saying he had eaten on the road. It wasn't true, but he wasn't hungry. He merely felt tired now, very tired. Uncle Roy brought him a cold beer that was so good Jeff drained the can in minutes, then leisurely sipped a second.

"Let me get your suitcases out of the car," Uncle Roy offered while Jeff relaxed.

"No. Leave it."

"Well, later, then."

"No," Jeff repeated. "I'm going to stay over at my father's house tonight."

"We've got the spare room all ready for you," Aunt Kitty protested. You don't want to stay at the other house all alone."

"That's right," Uncle Roy echoed.

The two of them were so kind and well-meaning that Jeff hated to disappoint them, but his mind was made up.

"Thanks, really," he said, "but it's still my house and I want to spend the night there. At least tonight. I have a lot of old junk stored there and I want to begin sorting through it."

"Maybe tomorrow, then," Uncle Roy said quietly.

"Uh ... you said that Dad didn't suffer. Is that right?"

"Yes," Aunt Kitty confirmed. "Next-door neighbor, Mr. Hall-remember him? He called us right after he called the ambulance. Said he'd seen George chopping wood in the backyard. It was a hot day, just like this one."

"We've been having a helluvan early hot spell," Uncle Roy put in quickly.

"Anyway," Aunt Kitty continued. "Next time he looked that way, he saw George lying on the ground. He didn't wait; he called the ambulance right away, then us, and then he ran outside. He told us later that your father seemed to be gone already when he got to him."

"He couldn't tell," Uncle Roy added. "But he said he seemed to be gone. He couldn't find no pulse or breath in him at all."

"I'm just glad he didn't go through a lot of pain."

"No, he didn't. Thank God for that," Aunt Kitty said.

She showed Jeff his father's obituary in the local newspaper, and while he tried to read the brief notice she told him how good the ambulance crew was at CPR, how they'd got to the house in seven minutes, according to Mr. Hall, and ... Jeff found himself blinking to keep his eyes open. The flight, followed by the long hot drive, was catching up with him. The beer was good, but it made him sleepier. He rose from his seat to leave.

"1'm sorry," he said. "I guess I'm jet-lagged."

"Sure you are," Uncle Roy said, understandingly. "Here's your dad's keys. This one's the house and this one the garage."

"Thanks." Jeff put the keys in his pocket. "I haven't even thought to ask how Nancy is."

Nancy Lisker was his cousin, two years older and, like him, an only child.

"Oh, she's fine," Aunt Kitty said. "She'll be there tomorrow, in the afternoon and in the evening."

"Good," Jeff said. "It'll be nice to see her again."

"You know where the Butler Funeral Home is?" Uncle Roy asked. "Sure you do. The wake's there, from two to four in the afternoon and from seven to nine in the evening."

"You come around for breakfast in the morning," Aunt Kitty told him. "Anytime'll be fine."

"I'll call you first," Jeff said. "Uh ... is there something I should do or somebody I should see about any of the arrangements? There must be a lot of things to get squared away."

"The wake and the funeral and burial are all taken care of," Uncle Roy said soothingly, a hand on Jeffs back. "Just get yourself a good night's sleep, and we can talk tomorrow. Dick Hudson's your dad's lawyer. He'll be at the wake, and he'll fill you in on any unfinished business."

Jeff hugged Uncle Roy and Aunt Kitty again, and finally got away. They were fine people, but he wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy their company. As soon as he got in the car, he felt more awake.

It took less than ten minutes to drive to his father's house, his house, on the other side of town. It was another Cape, but with a better yard and on a nicer street. Had it been repainted in the last seven or eight years? Probably, but Jeff couldn't be sure. He pulled the car into the small driveway, took his two suitcases out of the back seat, and went inside.

The place was warm and stuffy from being shut up for a couple of days, but impeccably neat and tidy. Jeff opened several windows. In addition to a few items of food, he found a couple of cans of beer in the refrigerator. He took one and drank it while wandering from room to room. The house seemed remarkably impersonal, as if his father had taken care of every possible aspect of his private life and died leaving not so much as a scrap of paper out of place.

Jeff left the lights off as he sat in the front room for a while, drinking the beer and watching the dusk darken into night outside. Cool air gradually filled the house. He felt relaxed, even peaceful, and no longer quite so weary.

Next time I come back here, he thought, it'll be for Roy's funeral, or Kitty's. Unpleasant thought; he liked both of them. Roy would probably go first. Either way, there were at least two more return visits in Jeff's future.

At least? Now what does that mean, Jeff wondered as he went into the kitchen to get the other beer. He smiled at himself and at the way his mind sometimes surprised him. Something was taking shape, but what? Maybe nothing.

He was thinking about the Slaton house again. Almost as much as his father's death, that For Sale sign seemed to signify a door shutting on the past. The Slaton house, the mere name Slaton, held many bittersweet memories. They were still real, twenty years later.

The father-what was his name? He was some kind of engineer, wasn't he? A soft-spoken, more or less invisible man. Successful in his chosen field and within his own limits, but not the sort of person you noticed much, even when you were in the same room with him.

The mother-Dora, or Doris? She was a bit of a snob, in the silliest ways. She always left her latest book-club purchases on the coffee table. Once, out of the blue, she'd asked Jeff: "Have you read Mr. Mailer's latest?" She had a habit of talking to teenagers with that ridiculous mock-seriousness some adults think is real communication.

There were two Slaton boys, both of them several years younger than Jeff. He couldn't remember their names either. At the time, they had been kid brothers, occasional pests, nothing more. It was odd to think of them now as grown up, living their individual lives, somewhere.

And one daughter, Jeffs classmate and good friend: Georgianne Slaton. They had never been boyfriendgirlfriend to each other, but they had spent a great deal of time together. There had been a bond, a closeness between them that had lasted for four or five years. It was something good in his life to remember.

Jeff couldn't count the number of double dates he and Georgianne had been out on together. He with one of his three successive high-school romances, Georgianne always with Mike Rollins, her steady. Wherever Georgianne was now, it surely wouldn't be with Mike. He may have been a good high-school date, but she must have done better since then. Mike was jolly and energetic, but it was mostly surface flash. He'd probably found a place in marketing somewhere, but he couldn't have held on to Georgianne.

She had gone to college in Boston, as Jeff recalled. He didn't know where Mike had gone. A couple of months after graduation, Jeff had gone out to UCLA. He'd soon lost touch with Mike and Georgianne. High-school friendships, however intense at the time, often prove to be the most perishable.

Jeff put the empty beer cans in the kitchen. His old bedroom, he found, was almost completely stripped of personal items. It was like a guest room now, or a motel room, but at least the bed was made up. Jeffs body was tired, but he was awake for a long time, thinking, before he found his way to sleep.

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