Sliver Of Truth

“That night I woke up to rocks being thrown at my window. I looked out on the street and saw Max standing there. He had a crowbar in his hand. He just stood there under the streetlight and I could see those eyes. He knew I was a chicken-hell, he’d been pushing me around since we were in diapers. I never said another word.”

I sat in silence. He seemed like an honest man, simple and down-to-earth. The kitchen was neat and clean, like any working-class suburban kitchen-nothing fancy but everything in decent shape. His story had just enough detail but not too much flourish. It had the ring of truth-I could see that he believed the things he’d said, that it still haunted him. I didn’t know what to say. I must have just stared at him with my horror and disbelief because he shifted uncomfortably beneath my gaze.

“I told you to let the dead lie,” he said. “You should have listened.”

Nobody likes a know-it-all.

6

My uncle Max (of course, he’ll always be that in my mind) was a great bear of a man-big in stature with a heart and a personality to match. He was an amusement park, a toy store, an ice-cream parlor. Occasionally, my parents would travel and have Ace and me stay with him (and a nanny, of course, because Max was not one for tying shoes and making grilled-cheese sandwiches). Those memories are among the happiest of my childhood. I never saw him without a smile on his face. His arms were always filled with gifts, his pockets full of money or candy or small surprises.

At least these are my memories of him. These days, though, I distrust my recollection of the past-not the actual events, necessarily, but the layers and nuances that clearly had eluded me. So much of my life was built on a foundation of lies that my past seems like a dark fairy tale-pretty on the surface but with a terrible black undercurrent. There were monsters under my bed and I was too naive to even fear the dark.

On the plane back to New York, I searched my memories for fissures, for the spaces through which the “real” Max might show himself, this psychotic and abused young man who killed his mother and framed his father and terrorized his young cousin into silence. The “real” Max, my father.

I thought about the last conversation I had with him.

It was nearing the end of my parents’ annual Christmas Eve party. My father had led a group out for the inevitable neighborhood candlelight stroll, and my mother was furiously scrubbing pots in the kitchen, rebuffing all of my attempts to help her with the usual implication that no one could do it the way she could. Whatever. I wandered into the front room in search of more cookies and found my uncle Max sitting by himself in the dim light of the room before our gigantic Christmas tree. That’s one of my favorite things in the world, the sight of a lit Christmas tree in a darkened room. I plopped myself down next to him on the couch and he threw an arm around my shoulder, balancing a glass of bourbon on his knee with his free hand.

“What’s up, Uncle Max?”

“Not much, kid. Nice party.”

“Yeah.”

We sat like that in a companionable silence for a while until something made me look up at him. He was crying, not making a sound, thin lines of tears streaming down his face. His expression was almost blank in its hopeless sadness. I think I just stared at him in shock. I grabbed his big bear-claw hand in both of mine.

“What is it, Uncle Max?” I whispered, as if afraid that someone would find him like this, his true face exposed to the world. I wanted to protect him.

“It’s all coming back on me, Ridley.”

“What is?”

“All the good I tried to do. I fucked it up. Man, I fucked it up so bad.” There was a shake in his voice.

I shook my head. I was thinking, He’s drunk. He’s just drunk. But he grabbed me then by both of my shoulders, not hard but passionately. His eyes were bright and clear in his desperation.

“You’re happy, right, Ridley? You grew up loved, safe. Right?”

“Yes, Uncle Max. Of course,” I said, wanting so badly to reassure him, though I was uncertain why my happiness meant so much to him at that moment. He nodded and loosened his grip on me but still looked at me dead in the eye. “Ridley,” he said, “you might be the only good I’ve ever done.”

“What’s going on? Max?” We both turned to see my father standing in the doorway. He was just a black form surrounded by light and his voice sounded odd. Something foreign had crept into him. Max’s whole body seemed to stiffen, and he released me as if I’d burned his hands.

“Max, let’s talk,” said my father, and Max rose. I followed him through the doorway and my father placed a hand on my shoulder. Max continued and walked through the French doors that led to my father’s study. His shoulders sagged and his head was down, but he turned to give me a smile before he disappeared behind the closing doors.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked my father.