Hope: A Tragedy (12 page)

15.

KUGEL AWOKE EARLY the next morning, turning his face from the harsh rays of intruding sunlight that stretched across the room like some goddamned thing that stretches across some other goddamned thing.

Why did children always draw the sun smiling? he wondered. It’s a giant ball of
fire
, kids. It’s rage and fury. Whatever it’s doing, it isn’t fucking smiling.

Kugel sat up, dressed, went out back, left vegetables for Mother in her garden, gave Anne Frank the finger, and decided to go for a bicycle ride.

Bree had given him the bike as a gift when they first moved in—that seemed like so long ago now—all titanium and carbon fiber and bright yellow paint, hoping he would use it to relieve his stress, to change his mood. It hadn’t quite worked out that way. He found bike riding stressful—the worries about flat tires, the concerns about getting up the next hill, the cars and trucks speeding by only inches away. Still, he couldn’t give up on the idea—riding a bike
should
be calming, even if it wasn’t so for him—and he didn’t want Bree to think that he didn’t appreciate the gift or, worse, that he was incapable of enjoying it, of enjoying anything (anhedonia, a psychiatrist once told him by way of diagnosis, the inability to feel pleasure; it isn’t the inability, Kugel argued, it’s the knowledge that pleasure is just a prelude to pain; exactly, said the psychiatrist). So Kugel rode, hoping it would calm him, knowing it probably wouldn’t, hoping it would mollify Bree’s anger, knowing it probably couldn’t. Perhaps, he hoped, she would see him riding back up the driveway, and think, Well, he’s trying. Perhaps she’d spy him through the living room window, struggling up the impossible gravel drive, and she’d think, That’s why I love him. That’s why I’ve always loved him. He’s made some mistakes, sure, but they were with the best of intentions, and isn’t he doing what he can now to correct them, to make things anew? This can’t be easy on him, either, can it? Perhaps, she would think, an apology was in order.

Kugel set off, the wind in what would have been, some years ago, his hair.

Everything this morning was dead.

Crushed turtles.

Burst raccoons.

Flattened chipmunks.

Of all the roadkill Kugel passed, chipmunks were always the most troubling. Maybe it was because they seemed so innocent. They weren’t, though, he knew that; he had watched them now and then in the garden, fighting, stealing food, attacking birds. They were adorable, territorial pricks. They were survivors, and survival wasn’t pretty. What, then, was so disturbing about the flat ones? Maybe it was because they always seemed so desperate to survive, forever darting, running, fleeing. Maybe it was because they always seemed so terrified, and Kugel hated to see their fears validated for future generations of chipmunks. This patch of hair, Mother Chipmunk would say to her children, was your grandfather; this bloodstain was your aunt. Or maybe it was because when they darted across the road, more than any other animal, they seemed so certain they would make it to the other side. Deer, like Kugel himself, seemed certain they wouldn’t make it. Tentatively they stepped into the road, frightened, waiting for the truck that would slam into them, for the car that would split them in two. Maybe, he thought, stopping his bike and kneeling down beside the furry remains of one such now two-dimensional chipmunk, it was just the way they popped. He picked up a nearby stick and prodded it. Most other animals seemed to get flattened, pressed like a dress shirt onto the roadway, everything staying tight and contained and crushed. Chipmunks seemed to pop, from the inside out, like a tube of toothpaste squeezed from the bottom up, like hairy little ketchup packets, the rolling pressure of the enormous vehicle above them forcing all their guts and brains right out through the tops of their little heads. Pop. The chipmunk at Kugel’s feet lay there like all chipmunks lay there: a furry, flattened body with a red/gray ejaculation of blood and brains having burst from his little exploded head. To Kugel, chipmunks looked as if they’d died of a good idea; a great idea; an idea so unbelievably revolutionary that it made their lovable little heads burst. Like they’d cured some disease. Like they’d proved (or disproved) the existence of God. Like they’d figured out the meaning of life.

Well I’ll be damned, Stan, we’re only here to
ka
-
pow
.

The irony, thought Kugel, as he peeled the dead chipmunk off the road with the stick, was that what they’d actually died of was a bad idea. A terrible idea. They’d died of the worst idea in the world, an idea that always seemed like a great one at the time: they died of “Let’s cross the road.” They died of “Let’s see what’s over there.”

I wonder if life is better on that
splat
.

That looks like a nice place to raise a
wham
.

Well, we can always come back if it doesn’t
oof
.

Maybe they bothered him because in their desperate hope they reminded him of himself. Maybe Professor Jove had been right. As this hopeful chipmunk’s corpse was beginning to disintegrate, Chipmunk Anne Frank was at home, storing her nuts for winter and letting all the foolish dreamer chipmunks try their luck on the other side of the road.

What if she died? Kugel wondered.

Anne Frank.

What if she was dead already?

He flicked the dead chipmunk to the side of the road, happy to help the little believer, albeit in death, reach his dreamed-of destination, got back on his bike, and continued riding. He wasn’t so much concerned for Anne Frank’s passing as he was that there would be a corpse in the house, even for a small amount of time. What if she died in her bed, directly over Jonah’s bedroom? What if she died of a great idea? Kugel was surprised to realize that he had gone, in such a short time, from wanting to kill her to worrying that she might be dead. Who could blame her, after all? Maybe hiding in an attic your whole life wasn’t insane; maybe not hiding in an attic your whole life was. Ask the chipmunk.

What would Anne Frank’s last words be? he wondered as he rode.

Gas is running low, said Amelia Earhart in her last radio communication before her plane disappeared. Of course those were just the last words she ever said to anyone else—her actual last word, as the plane went down, might just have been
Fuuuuuuck
. Most likely it was
Fuuuuuuck
, why wouldn’t it be? Nobody is going to admit that
fuuuuuuck
was someone’s last word, even if it is the most appropriate last word of all. It’s possible she didn’t die going down, of course; she might have landed safely on an island, thanked God, and then discovered the island was deserted and had no food sources. Last words: Fuck, now what?

He liked that.

Now what?

He would write that down when he got back home.

Now it has come, said Laurence Sterne.

He meant
Fuuuuuuck
.

More light! shouted Goethe. More light!

He meant
Fuuuuuuck
.

Fuuuuuuck
isn’t a bad way to go. To hell with all the profundity and wit and pithiness; Anne Frank struck him as someone who might just want her last word to be
fuuuuuuck
.

Let’s do it, said Gary Gilmore.

Toodle-oo, said Allen Ginsberg.

Kugel, thinking of last words and Anne Frank’s demise, drifted into the middle of the road. A black van sped by, horn blaring.

Asshole! called the driver.

Kugel steadied his bike and held up his middle finger. The driver leaned on his horn in reply.

Vans are the vehicles of murderers. Serial killers, rapists, thieves. Nothing good ever happens in a van. Police should be allowed to arrest van drivers without cause. The van is the cause, asshole.

Kugel spent the rest of the ride worrying that the black van would return. He worried the driver would force him into a ditch, or mow him down, or drive by and shoot him in the head. Then he’d steal the bike Bree gave him and sell it on eBay.
Like new. Ridden once. Light scratches on
frame
.

The attic life, thought Kugel, is the life for me.

I should go for a bike ride, it will help me
ka-blammo
.

I need to learn to stop and smell the
wham
.

It’s a wonderful
ka
-
pow
.

Kugel entered the house, covered in sweat, glancing back at the road before closing the door to see if the black van had followed him.

He locked the door behind him.

Then he unlocked the door, wheeled in the bicycle, and locked the door again.

He stood and listened. He could hear Bree in the kitchen preparing breakfast, but that was all. He went to his knees and pressed his ear against the vent. No tapping, that was good. He could hear the tenant, though, speaking on his phone. Laughing. What was he laughing about? He was probably laughing at Kugel, mocking him.

Dad? asked Jonah.

Kugel looked up. Jonah was standing before him, still in his Spider-Man pajamas, which were covered in crumbs.

Oh, said Kugel, hey, buddy.

What are you doing?

I was just checking the heat.

Is it broken?

No, no. It’s fine.

Dad?

Yeah, buddy?

Why is the bicycle in the house?

Why? I thought it would be safer here. What are you eating?

Jonah held up the piece of bread in his hand.

Grandma’s bread, he said.

Grandma’s bread? asked Kugel.

Jonah nodded.

Was she eating it? Kugel asked.

Jonah shook his head.

I got it from the couch, he said.

Kugel sighed. Mother had been hiding bread around the house ever since reading that this was common behavior among survivors of the Holocaust. She hid it under her mattress, beneath the rugs, in between the cushions of the couch.

Did Grandma say you could have it? Kugel asked, getting to his feet.

Jonah nodded, taking a bite out of it.

She did?

I saw her putting it there last night, said Jonah.

And she said you could have it?

Mm-hmm, said Jonah. She said I would thank her for it.

Joney, said Kugel, bending down to kiss Jonah on the head, don’t eat Grandma’s bread. If you want bread, just ask me.

Dad? asked Jonah.

Yeah, buddy?

How come Grandma puts bread in the couch?

Well, said Kugel, she’s old, buddy.

Are you going to put bread in the couch when you’re old?

Probably, said Kugel.

Am I?

I hope not.

Mother came into the room then, wearing her sun hat and carrying her basket full of vegetables. Kugel asked Jonah to go into the kitchen for breakfast.

I asked you, Kugel said to Mother when Jonah had gone, not to do that here.

Not to do what?

Not to hide bread.

Mother waved at him with annoyance.

They don’t have Holocausts in Stockton? she asked.

No, said Kugel. They don’t.

We’ll see.

Mother, I asked you not to. I was concerned my son might discover it.

And?

And he has.

And?

And I don’t want to get into the meaning of genocide with him just yet, Mother.

Why not?

He’s three.

So?

So I don’t want to frighten him.

He’ll thank me when they kick his doors in.

When who kicks his doors in?

Whoever.

Whoever?

What’s the difference? said Mother. A kicked-in door is a kicked-in door. You care so much who’s doing the kicking in?

Kugel decided then and there that he would die a happy man, that he would consider his meager life a success, if in years to come, somewhere, someday, someone kicked in Jonah’s door and Jonah was surprised. Shocked. Amazed. Let him be utterly bewildered, dear God. Let him wonder, raised-eyebrowed and slack-jawed, They kick doors in now? Since when? Hang on, hang on—they’re putting people in
ovens
? You can’t be serious. Since when do people put other people in
ovens
?

If you have to hide it, said Kugel, hide it in your own room.

Mother waved him off again and headed for the kitchen.

Oh, please, she said. That’s the first place they’ll look.

Let him be floored, O Lord, thought Kugel.

Let him be stunned.

Let him be flabber-fucking-gasted.

After checking that he’d locked the front door, Kugel entered the kitchen. Bree was at the stove, scrambling eggs; Jonah was at the table, which Bree had set and filled with plates of bread and muffins; through the window, Kugel could see Mother back in her garden, filling a second basket with store-bought groceries and rejoicing at the bounty she had brought forth into the world.