Short Fiction

The Paternal Pasture

By Christian Mueth

The birds chirped. The sunlight crackled as it hit the pavement. The sky was a stainless blue. The grass was a stainless green.

The bench that I was sitting on was stained gray.

It was a park bench. I was in a park. A nice little grove, where people walked their dogs, went bike-riding, and took jogs. There was great weather on that day too. The trees provided essential shade. There was a soft breeze. The sun brought warmth— even if maybe a little too much.

It was almost seemed like perfect day.

“Well… This was the most imperfect day I’ve ever endured.”

There was a man sitting next to me. His hair was wild, and his eyes were too. His voice was as haggard as they come. I watched and grimaced as he shoved a cigarette in his mouth. His puffs of smoke were so exaggerated that I could practically taste the tobacco.

“So many tears,” he continued. “Like a waterfall. You’d think that they were all crying about some saint…”

He let out a series of coughs.

“Don’t matter though, I guess. They’ll realize soon enough… So, how about that game from last night?”

“Realize what, exactly?” I asked, with a scowl.

He didn’t answer me.

“I… I don’t care what you say. I wish that dad was still here,” I said.

“But I’m your dad. At least, as close as you’re gonna’ get,” he said.

My eyes started to swell.

“Stop pretending that you can replace him.”

“Dead is dead,” he said, giving a signature chuckle. “Get over it.”

He leaned back into the park bench smugly, and let out even bigger puffs of smoke.

“Don’t you even care about what happened?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Naw. I mean—I’m sorry for you. But… I mean, it was always coming. I had been talking about the signs for years.”

“Sympathetic as ever,” I said.

I looked out at the grove. People were walking by, biding their time. Me though? I was just wasting mine.

“I don’t care what others say: he was a good man,” I said. “I might not have known much about him, but nobody did.”

I dried my eyes.

“He was always… distant. He never talked often. Sometimes, I wonder if even he knew what he was like. Then again, maybe I’m just telling myself that to convince myself that he never was able to share himself with me. Maybe I’m just trying to pretend that all of the wasted hours that could’ve been spent with him weren’t wasted… But, I still think that he was—.”

“Maybe you need to stop saying maybe.”

He wheezed.

“You’re wrong, by the way. I knew him well. I suppose you could say we were close— he kept to himself. He wasn’t a talker, so I can understand why you might feel like nobody understood him. However, the people who say he was a bad person are right…

“So, how about that game from last night?”

He flicked his cigarette away, and lit another.

“He gave to charities though. He worked in soup kitchens. He helped the homeless.”

“Eh… We both know that those things don’t make a man.”

“If we can’t judge people by their actions, what can we judge them by?”

“Their actions…” he said. “I knew your father for who he was… Not who he pretended to be. He was a gambler. A cynic. He ended up bankrupting himself, just because he couldn’t kick his gambling habit. He hurt people… Got in fights with people… He cared about people too. But, he mostly just cared about himself.”

“Is that what you really think?”

“Maybe… Maybe not… Doesn’t matter all that much though. The man is gone. You and I—the memory of him— that’s all that’s left of him…”

I winced.

“You’re right that memories that are all that’s left. But, which memories are we supposed to choose to focus on? The good, or the bad?”

“I say we should focus on the whole— how a man is remembered is what defines him. And, on the whole? Your father was a bad man, and will be remembered as one…”

He flicked another cigarette away.

“So, how about that game?”

I sat for a while, counting the seconds that ticked by on my watch.

“It was alright…” I finally said. “Would’ve been better if the Cowboys had a better coach though. Speaking of which… Don’t you remember when he coached the high school football team? Remember all the people that he touched? That wasn’t the only thing he did either. His family… His friends… He changed them all. Are you really telling me that it had all been fake—all a sham?”

He spit out his cigarette, and became rigid. He looked out into space blankly— a gape lingered on his face.

“We should focus on the whole,” I said. “And, despite of the failings, he was a good man— you’re a good man.”

He let out a sigh. No smoke this time.

“He and I remember pretending to touch a lot of lives, son,” he said. “But, we never actually could. There’ve always been two sides to me… Him and I. And, I feel that he— the worst part of me— won out, in the end.”

He leaned toward me, to hug me. I watched his arms make a grand sweep— but, his arms never touched me. He wasn’t there.

I was alone, on a gray park bench… Talking to myself.

A car pulled up.

“There you are, Steve,” a woman said. My mom. “I’ve been worried sick about you. What are you doing here?”

“Not much.”

I looked at the ground.

“Just— just imagining one last talk with dad,” I said. “What it might’ve been like…”

“Just a figment of my imagination though,” I thought. “Never real. I shouldn’t have pretended that I could replace him…”

I sobbed.

Red eyes. Smoked skies. Dead grass.

Alas. Ten minutes went by, and I was still sitting on the gray park bench.

I finally felt the arms touch me—they were my mother’s, but I still felt my father behind him.

“He lives on, in us,” she said. “We remember people on the whole— and on the whole, your father was a man who will never be forgotten. We all miss him.”

The line between bad and good is often smoky. I’m alright with that.

Today should’ve been the perfect day. But then… It’s the imperfections— the stains— that help make life into what it is.

End