5.
Down South
Celia was eager to get down to Knoxville to see her family before she was too pregnant to fly. Though her mother and stepfather had moved away, first to Hawaii and then Indiana to pursue better-paying jobs, Celia’s father and his wife were still living in her hometown. The relative ease of the first trimester had given way to more months of good health. If you asked Celia how she was feeling, she would tell you she was absolutely fine.
It was the first question put to her by her father, D.W. He had arrived at the Knoxville airport thirty minutes late to pick us up, unsurprisingly, as it were. Like his accent, his life had a kind of drawl to it, a lag. His height seemed to have something to do with this. It took effort to lift those large feet and extend his long legs and carry forward his upper bulk. You wouldn’t tell a giant to hurry up for the obvious reason that he might use his strength on you, but also because he wouldn’t be able to go any faster if he tried. D.W. called his daughter Nippers, as in, “How was the flight, Nippers?” and spoke with a gentleness that could almost be mistaken for sadness. He carried his daughter’s suitcase, despite the handle and wheels available to him, lumbering through the uncrowded baggage claim, a bit off-kilter and about six feet ahead of us.
He was silent in the white Jeep Cherokee, riding back to the house. Celia tried to make small talk: she inquired about Lily, D.W.’s wife of some ten years, tried to find out how her school year was going—she taught fourth grade—and the latest on Lily’s sons. D.W. answered, though never with more than three words. I sat in the back of the car not saying much myself. I had already met D.W. and Lily during a trip to Knoxville some eight months back. If our past visit had told me anything, it was that D.W. was open-minded and could accept that his then married daughter was in an open relationship and seeing other people. That is, in his quiet style, he had treated me with kindness and decency. I also learned that he would offer me a very tall glass of whiskey and ice the moment we came in the door and that he would keep my glass full for the remainder of the trip, and for that I was grateful.
But then shortly after arriving at his home, with Celia and I having put our suitcases down and said hello to Lily and settled onto the patio overlooking the bean-shaped swimming pool, D.W. handed me a glass of tepid water with a single ice cube and then lowered himself onto a folding chair that nearly collapsed beneath his weight. Taking a moment to find his voice, he finally said, “Listen here, son—you listening?—you are going to marry my Celia, all right? You hearing me?”
I didn’t doubt that I had heard him correctly. The severity of his tone assured me that I had understood him, too. Celia sat silently in a chair near the pool’s edge, her big brown eyes downcast and her painter’s hands folded on the curvature of her stomach. Lily, a redheaded daughter of Knoxville, a tall, ex-beauty contestant, set a tray of salty snacks down onto a picnic table and said, “Now, D.W., please,” but nothing more.
In the folding chair beside D.W., I took in a mouthful of the lukewarm water, holding it at the back of my throat before swallowing. “Sir,” I said, “I appreciate where you’re coming from—”
“What? You appreciate it, son?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if Celia and I will get married. I’m sorry, but—”
“Oh, no, no—you’re not hearing me, Paul. You are not hearing me.”
“And, right, yes, well, I mean, Celia and I have discussed marrying and I just can’t say with any confidence that it’s where she and I are heading and—”
“Young man, you are not hearing me.”
“Yes, I know, but here’s the thing, sir, because I want to spend my whole life with your daughter and I want to be buried in the plot directly next to hers and I know that one hundred and ten percent, and you have my word and I’d write it for you in blood.”
“Paul! Do you have a hearing problem? Answer me. Do you? Can you not hear, son?”
“No, sir. I do not have a hearing problem.”
“Are you sure? Have you had your hearing checked? Have you? Have you been to a doctor?”
“I have not, sir.”
“Well, you might want to schedule an appointment.” D.W.’s gaze was set forward toward the cool clear sky above. Exhaling, tense and laboring, he said, “Now if I have to drag your ass to the chapel, son, I will drag your ass to the chapel.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Son, I will put you in that flippin’ car out front and I will haul your ass up the drive and down the road to that chapel. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir. I think I do, but—”
“Because you are marrying my daughter.”
“Okay. Thank you, yes.”
“You are marrying her.”
“Yep. Yes. Yes, I am.”
D.W. stood, his giant mass unfolding part by part until it assumed a towering presence over me. His right eye twitched, his dimpled chin held drops of sweat. I didn’t know if he would pick me up next and throw me into the swimming pool, where an orange Volunteers raft floated on the surface of the water. D.W. himself seemed unsure what to do now, his body perhaps in conflict with itself, as if his head and limbs could not agree on a direction. I braced, then I heard D.W. huff and all of a sudden he was marching back into the house.
Lily flashed us a concerned look and then followed after him.
Once the sliding glass door had closed behind her, I rose from my seat, and said, “Holy fucking hell.”
“You did great, baby.”
“Great? You think so?”
“He loves me so much. Can you blame him? It really was very sweet of him.”
“I mean, sure, okay, but is he going to fucking kill me?”
“Daddy? No.”
The color in Celia’s cheeks was full, ruddy. Her eyes gleamed with pride.
I lowered to my knees, taking her hands. I said, “You know I do want to spend my whole life with you and be buried next to you? You know that, don’t you? I meant that.”
“You promise?”
“Absolutely—yes, I promise.”
“Should we get married then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should,” I said, kissing Celia’s pregnant stomach. “We could.”
“I just don’t know what I think of marriage anymore.”
“I understand. But maybe our kid will be happier if his parents are married.”
“That could be.”
“Maybe we do get married. Maybe I’m going to put a large rock on your finger.”
“You will not.”
“Maybe I will—a big rock for the whole village to see.”
“You better not,” said Celia, squeezing me close to her. “Just tell me you love me and that you always will.”
“I love you and I always will,” I said.
“You promise me, Paul?”
“I do. I promise, I promise,” I said. “Now let’s go find a hotel.”
~
Julian Tepper is the author of the novels Between the Records, Balls, Ark, and Cooler Heads. His writing has appeared in the Paris Review, Playboy, The Brooklyn Rail, Zyzzyva, The Daily Beast, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. He was born and raised in New York City and lives there still.
Cooler Heads is out now from Rare Bird Press, available online and at your favorite local independent bookstore. Want to read more? A full excerpt of Cooler Heads is published in EXCERPT Magazine - No 2
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