The Renaissance Man

The news came in intermittent bursts of ringing telephones. The Freeman-Parker household had received two phone calls from the military that evening.

“You would think,” Mr. Freeman-Parker began, “that they would think that we would get the point. ‘Your son didn’t come back from the skirmish. We can’t find his body. Blah blah blah.’ I get it already!”

Ms. Parker-Freeman, busy darning a pair of socks, paused to look at her husband. There were creases on her face that Mr. Freeman-Parker did not recognize.
“Tom hasn’t telephoned in three days,” she said, “Do you think…”

“Preposterous,” said Mr. Freeman-Parker, “The boy is in North Carolina, not Tehran. He doesn’t have the brains to concoct such absurd fictions.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker rose from his chair, hoping the telephone would not ring again. The thought of it made him feel light-headed. He walked out into their study room, a room which contained no less than thirty-seven clocks. The clocks were neatly ordered, nestled into crannies between picture frames, looming above windows. The nine digital clocks were stacked in columns of three on top of a black oak dresser. Between two potted plants that hung from the ceiling stood a seven-foot high grandfather clock, its gold pendulum paused in anticipation. Mr. Freeman-Parker, sometimes unable to sleep late at night due to a general excitement about life, would often enter this room just to calm himself with the resonant quarter-hour gongs of the old grandfather clock.

“It’s eleven-twenty-three, my dear,” Mr. Freeman-Parker announced, returning to the reading room, “Perhaps it is time we retire.”

“Yes, but will those awful men ever stop calling?”

Mr. Freeman-Parker moved over to the wall and removed their fire-red phone from its jack.

“All they’ll be calling is a hole in the wall.”

The night was notable only because the couple did not make love. Despite their aristocratic pretensions, Mr. & Ms. Freeman-Parker both shared the viewpoint that the human being was inherently sexual, a device intended to harness the finer sensualities of life. For this worldly couple, there was a certain understanding that the primary needs of mammals were nothing more than sex and food. And thus this proto-aristocratic family, a lawyer and a doctor, respectively, ravished themselves with the tastes of fine wines and exotic cheeses. In the bedroom, they explored position after position, the thirst for discovery never satiated. It had to do with a unique comprehension of privilege, an understanding that they possessed things that other people would sell their souls for. Why be the man who has everything except happiness?

Their lone child, Tom, never seemed to partake in their refined philosophies and ways of doing things. He was by all accounts an average student and preferred Big Macs to haute cuisine. As a result, there was always a disconnect between parents and child. It was probably nothing more complicated than teenage rebellion, a desire imparted upon Tom by his peer group to do things 'differently.' But because the Freeman-Parkers had everything, especially happiness, they assumed their child was ill when just after high school graduation, he informed them that he was off to join the Army.

"We hate the military," pronounced Ms. Parker-Freeman.

"If I wanted someone to die for my country, I'd do it myself," offered Mr. Freeman-Parker.

Tom, his eyes pointing at the ground, said only "Someone has to keep the country safe."

"Well, Tom, this is where college would really help with your uninformed outlook," said Ms. Freeman-Parker. "Our country is perfectly safe. War is only valid if the very existence of our country is being called into question."

"The Civil War, perhaps, is an example?" said Mr. Freeman-Parker, now openly reading the Wall Street Journal.

"I’d say the Revolutionary War is the only example. The Civil War would have re-shaped the country, divided it into two, but us Northerners could still have had our piece of the pie."

Later that week, after Tom had long since packed his bags and departed for the train station, the Freeman-Parkers continued to politely bicker about what qualified as a just war. They came to no solid conclusions besides one: the Iranian war was the most unjust of all.

* * *

A few weeks after Tom’s departure from the household, the fire-red telephone had begun to ring. The sound of their landline was as obnoxious as any cell phone. It buzzed with a low, flatted sound, like someone blowing through a tuba with a small, dead animal inside.

“Parker-Freeman residence,” answered Mr. Freeman-Parker.

“Hello… Dad,” said Tom, on the other line, a tremor in his voice.

Mr. Freeman-Parker sighed and walked over to his plush white chair, telephone in hand.

“Hello Tom.” If there was any tension in his mind, he failed to show it.

“I didn’t expect they would let make you any calls from Guantanamo. It’s of course nice to hear from you as always. Shall I fetch your mother? She seems to miss you.”

“No, Dad. I wanted to tell you, you were right about the Army.” Tom hesitated. “I’m at my training base. Camp Wahooie in North Carolina. Well, to tell the truth, I ditched about six hours ago.”

“What did you expect?” Mr. Freeman-Parker interrupted. “There’s a reason rich men don’t send their children off to war anymore and it’s not because of money. It’s because our sons are weak and bloodless, pampered with luxuries from a young age. I’m not surprised you’re failing to keep up.”

“It’s not that, Dad. Why don’t you put Mom on the phone?”

“I guess it takes a woman to know a woman,” said Mr. Freeman-Parker before passing on the phone to his red-faced wife. She was flapping her wrists excitedly.

“Oh Tom!” she cried.

Mr. Freeman-Parker slid open the glass door that led out to the deck. The wood was dry and chipping. It was unlike him to leave it in such a state. He would have to lay a new coat of varnish. He walked down the red side steps into his yard. The grass was kept at six inches’ length at all times during the summer. He liked to keep his feet cool and enjoyed the intermingling of nature with his skin. He walked over to an oak tree, a member of the surrounding forest that had snuck within twenty feet of the house. Leaning against its reassuring trunk, he thought about his ceaseless quest to make himself a superior human being. He felt he had rather succeeded. Tom did have potential. But the military was a dead end. Even if Tom became a general, he could hardly hope to be a Renaissance man.

Ms. Parker-Freeman stomped onto the back porch.

“You know, darling,” she said, her teeth gritted, “you nearly convinced him to return to the base. He told me he wanted to stick it to you.”

“He never sticks to anything. He dallies, but he drifts.”

“Tom didn’t leave because he couldn’t cut it, dear. He left because he feels like let us down.”

“He should feel that way. I am let down.” Mr. Freeman-Parker put a comical frown onto his face as he flopped to the grass, intending to appeal to his wife’s sense of humor.

“I know we said remorse is for the proletariat,” Ms. Parker-Freeman began.

“As is anger, sadness, depression, any negative feeling at all.”

“But I told him that this time, at least, we were wrong. I told him I regretted the imposition I put into his life. I told him that we should have been willing to hear what he had to say.” She shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to expect from her husband, who as always, showed not even the slightest sign of perturbation.

Mr. Freeman-Parker, still sprawled in the grass, sighed.

“When’s he coming back home?”

“In a month. He says he’s going to visit some friends on the coast.”

“Perhaps I’ll write him a sonnet. Somewhat romantic, somewhat conciliatory. It should serve much better than an apology.”

“Maybe you should get your head out of your ass,” Ms. Parker-Freeman retorted. She immediately put her hand over her mouth. It was her reaction any time she engaged in a faux pas. Mr. Freeman-Parker said nothing, but began to pluck individual blades of grass from the ground.

* * *

During the month of July, the Freeman-Parkers received daily phone calls from Tom. He seemed eager to talk to both of them, even dear old Dad, who he had so frequently appeared to detest during his last year at home. He told them lavish tales of his and his friends’ adventures on the North Carolina shore; sailing on the Atlantic Ocean at dusk, counting seagulls and skipping stones into the shallow rock pools near the coast. Every anecdote pleased Mr. Freeman-Parker especially, who was convinced that his son was beginning to lead the enriched life that he himself led.

Meanwhile across the country, Army reserve units were being called to fight the new war in Iran. As there were still plenty of troops in Iraq, the military was stretched more thinly than ever. With the political climate unwilling to support drastic measures like the draft, trainees with zero combat experience were packed into helicopters and dropped onto the Arabian desert with canteens of water and thirty-five pounds of gear. Even the baby-faced troops at Camp Wahooie were summoned into action, enlisted to shore up defenses in Tehran. Although Mr. Freeman-Parker was beginning to believe that his son might even have benefited from seeing combat, assuming of course, that he returned promptly home to attend university after the war, Ms. Parker-Freeman was grateful that her boy was safe with his starched-white friends on the Atlantic seaboard, friends who were heirs to a lighthouse fortune.

One evening, as Mr. Freeman-Parker read that day’s Wall Street Journal and as Ms. Parker-Freeman worked furiously on a pair of maroon velvet socks for Tom’s Christmas present, their phone began ringing. Ms. Parker-Freeman motioned her husband to sit down, then got up herself and answered the phone. She listened calmly to whatever the person on the other line was saying, adding nothing herself. Had Mr. Freeman-Parker been observing her and not his stock portfolio, he might have noticed that she looked rather pale. Yet by the time she had set the phone back onto its receiver, she was wearing a cheery smile.

“I say, dear,” she said, “the military must never have taken our son off the rolls.”

"What's that?"

"They're saying he's gone missing."

"Like I always say, military men are only good for polishing shoes and shaving their beards. Let someone else keep the books."

The obvious hung in the air between them all that night, even as they mercilessly severed the phone from its hook. Yet neither would admit to its portent.

* * *

At around six thirty the next morning, Ms. Parker-Freeman awoke to a sharp knocking on the door. Still naked, she rushed to the door, pulling a silk bathrobe around her body. She groaned as she entered the vestibule, where through the front windows, she could clearly see the jacketed figures of two military men. Both wore rows and rows of badges, flags, and pins, meant to connote their high ranks. She had to admit, there was a certain gravitas to their presence. The man on the left had to be pushing seventy, yet he held his body firm and strong, staring into her front door without appearing to blink. The man on the right, was younger, perhaps in his forties, black. As soon as she opened the door, the man on the right began to speak, his voice stern and rich.

"We don't normally do this, ma'am -"

"But we felt that you must be in great denial to ignore our calls."

"Tom was under my command, ma'am. I'm Col. Alonzo T. Jackson." He proffered his right hand. She shook it, expecting a firm, officious handshake, yet his grasp was tender and light. A man you could die for. The thought raced through her head.

"If you don't mind me asking, Colonel Jackson, what do you, as a black man, think you're getting from the military? What did this country ever do for you, besides to treat you and your ancestors like animals?"

The older man winced. Col. Jackson stared coolly into her eyes, his expression unchanged.

"Your son is missing, Ms. Parker."

"Freeman-Parker," she corrected instinctively.

"We don't expect to find his body." Jackson put his hand on her wrist, holding it with affection.

"Tom quit the Army," she said, but she found herself beginning to weep. The other man put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm truly sorry," he said, “Tom was one of the most courageous soldiers I’ve ever had the pleasure to command.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker’s denial was harder to shake. It certainly unnerved him to wake to the sounds of Ms. Parker-Freeman sobbing, to have his eyes open to the vision of two stern-faced officers flanking his shrieking, beloved wife. He had never seen her cry, not on their wedding day, not when Tom was born. Crying was allowed in the Freeman-Parker household only if it indicated some cathartic joy.

“Mr. Freeman-Parker. My name is Genl. Richard Woodward,” the older officer said, holding out his left hand.

Mr. Freeman-Parker shook the hand firmly and then shook the hand of Col. Jackson.

“What seems to be the matter, gentlemen?” he said. He was putting on a façade, even he could tell, but he was in unknown territory.

Col. Jackson clenched his fists as he began to speak.

“Your son, Tom. We believe he was killed in battle in Tehran, about seventeen hours ago.”

Without a change in expression, Mr. Freeman-Parker continued his questioning.

“What would he be doing in battle? He left the Army after his first week. He said it wasn’t what he expected.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, sir, nothing has been what we’ve expected these days. We’ve rushed privates into battle and seen more and more casualties each day.” It was Woodward speaking, his hands held in front of his waist.

“But Tom was special. He knew how to lead men. He was prepared for all contingencies,” offered Col. Jackson.

“Except death.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker shook his head. His wife walked over to him and lay her head on his shoulder.

“It’s all true, Edgar. They took our boy.”

Edgar. He barely recognized his birth name. Mr. Freeman-Parker held his shaking wife then, staring wide-eyed out of the bedroom window. After some time he became aware of the animalistic sobs escaping from his chest. He could not control them.

"We'll be holding a military funeral in three weeks," said Genl. Woodward.

"It will give us time to see if anything changes," added Col. Jackson. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up."

Col. Jackson walked over to the Freeman-Parkers and patted Mr. Freeman-Parker on the shoulder hesitantly. Genl. Woodward shook his head and the two departed from the house, leaving the Freeman-Parkers to wallow in despair.

* * *

Mr. Freeman-Parker had always been of the opinion that grieving over death was an act borne of selfishness. Certainly the person who was dead would have no opinion regarding their death. No, it was us left behind who cared, it was we who were unable to fathom that we would never see our loved one again. He had tried to tell his wife as much but she had stared at him, her eyes wide and red. Now he spent most of his days lying in a plastic lawn chair on the back patio, attempting to distract himself through his favorite hobby of bird-watching. He was deeply ashamed that the military men had witnessed him shedding tears. Through a shapely pair of black binoculars, he gazed out into their backyard, a yard that dropped off quickly into dense forestation. The bluebirds and red-breasted nuthatches were nowhere to be found. In their place were what appeared to be thousands of black grackles shrieking mindlessly at some perceived slight. Through the distorting perspective of the binoculars the birds seemed enormous and terrible. He leaned back in the lawn chair and collapsed onto the porch, the angry canopy of trees staring into his face through the portal of the lens as night descended on the Freeman-Parker household.

He awoke to see his wife peering into his face. Tom’s funeral was in three days.

“Edgar,” she said, “you’re wrong about death.”

“Oh, but I’m right. It’s past time to stop moping.”

“We don’t have to be ashamed of being human, is all I’m saying. We’re allowed to miss our boy. We’re allowed to think about what we could have done differently.”

He reached out his hand and placed it delicately on her cheek. She smiled.

“No,” he said.

She grabbed his hand and threw it off her as if it were diseased.

“Fuck you, Edgar. Fuck you.”

As Ms. Freeman-Parker opened the door to the patio, she thought of something that she knew would breach her husband’s impressive defense mechanisms.

“I’m going to let the other doctors at the practice know something,” she said, almost sneering with rage. “I’m going to let them know to call me Dr. Parker.”

* * *

The sky was a pastel gray, the sun buried behind a constellation of clouds. Mr. Freeman knelt in the patchy earth of the graveyard, his hand held tremulously above his heart. He produced a small velvet bag from his front pocket.

"It's time, Mr. Freeman," the mortician said.

Mr. Freeman. The absence of his second surname, the sundering of his beloved hyphen. Gone. His eyes were as dry as always, but his fingers began to shake. His body trembled. With a jerk, Mr. Freeman gently laid the bag into the small rectangular pit that had been carved out of the ground. Tom’s body had never been recovered.

Guns fired into the air as a marching band began to play taps.

"We are here today to honor a fallen comrade," Col. Jackson began. Mr. Freeman ceased to listen, the world dissolving into a tuneless hum.