Stagnation

“‘All you have to do is try to shake off the idea that that’s Gregor. Our real misfortune comes from having believed it for so long. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have long since have realized that it’s impossible for people to live side by side with an animal like that, and would have gone away of his own free will.’”

—Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” (trans. Stanley Applebaum)

            As Ian Falking stepped off the bus from a long journey home, he found himself confronted with “Welcome Home” banners that were not for him. He was dressed in his fatigues as he had seen veterans wear in films. He dragged his footlocker behind him to an old beat-up station wagon where his grandmother, Denise, silently waited for him. As she drove the young man home, he gazed at the signs that had sprung up in yards and that were taped to signposts. “Welcome Home, Bill!” The signs read.

            What has happened here? Ian had had a nightmare once. All of the kids in Ian’s high school gathered around to make fun of him. At the center of this mob was Bill Newman. Bill and Ian grew up in Still Water—near the river that gave the town its name—and had lived on Walker Street, which was connected to Main by Valencia Drive; it was an alleyway, really, perfect for them to play basketball together. Both their fathers worked at the treatment plant, and both fathers had lost their wives after the births of their daughters. Ian and Bill stood six feet tall. They had dark hair and eyes.

            The similarities stopped there. Since elementary school, Ian and Bill began to take divergent paths. While Ian was busy failing his courses and applying medications to his terrible acne problem, Bill became more involved with his humanitarian projects, his eventual valedictorian status, and his sudden, inexplicable popularity. Ian grew to hate Bill. It wasn’t as though Bill had ever done anything to Ian. Bill had never done anything to Ian, at all—that was why Ian hated him. Why should he get all of the luck? I have it harder than him! Why don’t I get any recognition? Ian’s problems came from his unfortunate appearance and his apathy toward work, but people only noticed—according to Ian—because Bill was so perfect!

            When Denise pulled into the drive, she wordlessly shut off the engine, and walked inside without so much as looking at her grandson. There was another car parked outside of Ian’s house. The car looked expensive and was polished. The back window displayed those little stick-figure stickers of a happy family holding hands: father, son, daughter, and dog. Ian dragged his footlocker past his old bike—still propped against the side of the house—and up to the house where he was met by William Newman—Bill’s father—who hobbled around with a brace on his leg.

            “Welcome home, kiddo! Jenna told us that you were coming back today!” Mr. Newman helped Ian shove the footlocker against the wall, and led him into the dingy Falking-family kitchen. Ian’s sister Jenna was sitting, speaking excitedly with Bill’s mousy little sister Kallie. Kallie looked as though she had not eaten in weeks, and had forgotten how to take care of herself.

Jenna, in contrast, looked lively—she was all made-up as though she was expecting a date soon. She looked up when Ian came in. “Oh. I thought you were dad.” And then, as if it were an after-thought: “You kill anyone before they sent you back?” Jenna walked over and gave her brother an obligatory hug.

“We were going to meet you at the bus stop,” Mr. Newman smiled. “When we got here, though, your grandmother had already left for you.”

Denise was sitting in a rocking chair, staring blankly at the wall, crocheting the same scarf that she had been working on for five years. The kitchen was as stagnant as Ian remembered. It reeked of stale cigarettes. Ian could imagine a cockroach skittering across the floor. The sink was filled with empty beer cans, and the trash can was full. The only notable feature of the room was a frame that held an old golden necklace that had once belonged to Ian’s mother. It was going to be Jenna’s one day, but Ian put it in the frame so that he could remember his mother whenever he saw it. That necklace, and an old photo of his mother dressed in furs were the only things in the house that proved his mother had ever lived there.

 Ian pulled out a chair beside Mr. Newman and asked what he did not want to ask: “Where’s Bill?”

Jenna gasped, and Kallie looked like she might cry. “You haven’t heard?” Jenna jumped up with a look that was somewhere between disgust and infuriation. Mr. Newman gestured for Ian’s sister to sit down, and he began to tell Ian the story of how his son was coming back from the dead.

The Newmans never had a lot of money, so it was infeasible to send Bill to Harvard as the boy had hoped to do. The town tried to pull together money to send the boy to college, but he told them not to trouble themselves. The citizens of Still Water were proud of their small town hero. He was a tutor, a mentor, and one of the first kids to ever aspire to leave for something better. Instead, Bill joined the military, knowing that the military could pay his way into school. Ian knew this—he had joined for the same reason. The people were proud that he was going off to fight, to protect them.

It had been particularly hard for Mr. Newman, though. Before Bill (and Ian) had left for the Middle East, Mr. Newman had been in a drunken driving accident, which did serious damage to the man’s leg. It was Ian’s father at the wheel of the other car. Mr. Newman had not been able to work, and so relied strongly on his monthly disability check and a few debts and owed favors he called-in. Mr. Falking had to work the night shift at the plant and pull extra hours so that he could pay back Mr. Newman for the accident. The community, Mr. Newman told Ian, had really pulled together to support him while Bill was gone. Bill, as it turned out, had been working a full-time job to support the family, and to send his sister to Julliard to play violin.

“About two months ago, a couple of men in suits showed up at the house. They handed me a flag, and told me that my son had been declared ‘killed-in-action,’” Mr. Newman sipped from a mug of coffee. “We all mourned, and the whole town showed up for the funeral. Kallie dropped out of school to keep me holding on.”

“But just last week, Mr. Newman got a call,” Jenna interjected. “Bill! It was from Bill! He said that he’d been captured, but was involved in a prisoner exchange. He’s coming home tonight!” The news spread like wildfire, and Still Water—which was just about ready to accept Bill’s death—suddenly found their spirits renewed. They all cleaned up their yards, and put up welcoming posters.

And so Ian Falking’s return from war was almost completely overshadowed by Bill Newman’s return from the dead. Ian thanked the Newmans for being so kind to come to his house to welcome him home, but as he saw them to the door, he ground his teeth. Some people. Luck! Ian was suspicious, though. He knew that people weren’t declared KIA unless there was some sort of proof of their death. Otherwise, they were just listed as missing.

            Back inside, after the Newmans left, Ian tried to take his footlocker upstairs to his old room. “It’s filled with trash and furniture. Let me know when dad gets home.” Jenna shouted from her room, with the door closed.

            When Allen Falking came home that night, he had already been drinking. He walked right by Ian, sat beside Denise, still crocheting, and turned on the television. “Bring me a beer, boy!” he shouted behind him, as though Ian were actually in a different room. “When’d you get in?” Ian didn’t answer, because he already knew his father wasn’t going to listen.

Jenna ran downstairs and took Allen’s keys. “Do you want to come too? We’re all of us going to meet Bill at the bus!” She was wearing a short skirt, and a top that his father wouldn’t have normally let her leave the house in. Ian shook his head. Jenna yelled over her shoulder, “Suit yourself. Don’t shoot anyone while I’m gone!”

This was the way Ian’s life was for several weeks. Bill’s return had left Ian in total obscurity. He spent days looking around the town for a job, and afternoons he spent trying to talk with Denise. She never asked him a question. Ian told her about the technical support he ran for the army. He told her about how his group that had never seen any action was sent out to repair some vital medical equipment. Ian could swear that he saw a glimmer of concern in Denise’s eyes when he told her about how he got shot—grazed really—in the side by a wounded enemy in the hospital tent, and how they had sent him home because of it. When he thought about it, Ian felt sure that he had seen Bill at that camp. That concern that Ian saw in his grandmother’s eyes was what made Ian keep talking to her, even though the first thing she said to him since he got home was “Did you hear about that Bill Newman boy?”

Bill was received as a hero by the town. Even though Ian had not seen Bill since his return, his sister talked about him daily. Apparently the two had been dating before the accident. They had started when Jenna turned eighteen. “He looked like one of those starving Africans!” she told Ian over dinner one night. “He was so thin. He survived all alone, you know? They tried to torture secrets out of him and everything! But he wouldn’t spill. They kept him though, ‘cause he’d killed so many of theirs!” Ian was sure that Bill was lying. Somehow, somewhere, Bill had made some story up. Who could possibly prove that he was lying, after all? He tried to desert. That’s what happened, I bet. Faked his own death and laid low for a couple months.

Ian got a job around the third week after Bill’s return. Ian’s father finally showed up drunk to work one-too-many times at the treatment plant, and so he was fired. Ian took the position, and found himself riding his bike across town every day to work alongside William Newman in his leg brace. Ian was surprised the man was working there, and asked about Mr. Newman’s disability.

“Having Bill back home just gives me the energy to manage working, you know? I can hobble around and manage, still,” Mr. Newman told him. “You know, Bill was so shocked when he read his first obituary. I can only imagine how strange it would be, to see my face there, and read about my own death. Like Tom Sawyer, I’d imagine, right, Ian?”

Come lunch break, mousy Kallie brought her father a bag with a sandwich and milk. She said hello to Ian, who sat without lunch on his break. Ian nodded to Kallie before she left. “In truth,” Mr. Newman said. “We need the money, so I had to come back to work. We are still working to pay off the deposit from Kallie’s New York place, and the leftover tuition bills from when she left Julliard after the plane accident.” Ian had heard Kallie play violin once in a school concert. She was good. “And I couldn’t possibly ask Bill to get a job. He just died, after all! And he’s already done so much to keep us safe.”

That was the way Ian’s life was for several weeks. Ian would ride his bike in to work. He would come in and work tirelessly, treating the town’s wastewater. I’m keeping you safe now, with this water. Not that I get any respect. Ian took pride in his work. Nights he would come home and listen to the bitter groaning of his father, who would occasionally lash out at him. “Steal my job, you damn bastard! I’ll show you!” Some nights, the plant’s foreman would be there, too, drinking with his father and laughing about how boring Ian was at the plant.

“Just a shame we couldn’t keep you, Allen. Best damn worker we seen in fifty years! All your boy does is work work work! Ain’t any humor in that. Shame we couldn’t get that Newman boy in instead of his daddy, too, that limp-ass sunovabitch! His son told me this joke once—” Ian had tried to complain, once, to the pair. He worked hard, after all, and showed up on-time. He met his deadlines, and was efficient. He tried to complain too about being disrespected. I went to war for you people. Why does no one respect me? All his complaining managed to achieve, though, was to make the town think that Ian was disrespectful. Even fewer people spoke with him after that, and so Ian learned to be quiet.

At the plant, Kallie had started to bring a sandwich and milk for Ian, too. Each day he would smile and thank her, and each day Kallie would smile and leave.

One night Ian heard Jenna speaking with Bill. Ian had been sleeping in the upstairs hallway because there was nowhere to move the collection of debris in his old room. He had nightmares where Bill and the doctors at the camp were making fun of him while he tried to repair equipment. “So you’ve gained some weight? It’s no big deal, baby!” It sounded like she was comforting Bill over the phone. “No one is bothered! You could use a few pounds anyway…We’re just glad you’re alive….Why would you need a job? Your dad likes working at the plant again….yeah, Ian told me so.” Ian said no such thing.

On Bill’s birthday, the whole neighborhood threw a big party.  Several businesses shut down, and even Ian was sent home early from the treatment plant. By now, Ian was used to people making a big deal out of Bill. He was disturbed, though, that no one had noticed that Bill hadn’t actually done anything since he had “come back from the dead.” From what Ian understood from snippets of conversations with Mr. Newman and Jenna, Bill had gotten lazy. It was as though Bill believed the community would continue providing for him indefinitely. Bill no longer went out to clean litter from the highways. He never babysat or tutored anymore. He didn’t play the organ at the church or even go anymore, for that matter. It was as though Bill had just stopped or really died. Ian waited for the day that the people would realize that Bill was really dead. No one was so lucky that he could just continue like that forever, after all.

But that was how Bill lived for the rest of that year, and the next year around, the neighborhood threw another block party for Bill’s birthday. Ian continued working, anonymous to the citizens of Still Water. About a week after the second party, Ian was speaking with Denise. He was telling her about his suspicions about Bill’s war stories. Jenna overheard.

“What? What! How can you even say something like that? How dare you even!” Jenna was livid.  “Ian, you’re an asshole! His whole squad died in that explosion! You’re so insensitive! All of his friends and family were about to move on and forget him! Can you even imagine how that would feel?”

Ian tried to explain to her that Bill’s story didn’t make sense. He tried a different tact, and tried to explain that he had just noticed that Bill didn’t work or anything anymore. She wouldn’t listen, though. “And you—You! You sit there all high-and-mighty! You didn’t even shoot anyone, you lousy coward! You know, I tried to keep Dad from moving all that stuff into your room. I told him that you were coming back. He was ready for you to die, but I was waiting for you! But you’re not even the same person anymore!”

Jenna moved in with Bill the next day. Ian moved into her room, and slept in a real bed for the first time in over a year. He dreamt of bombs falling all around Bill. At the plant, Mr. Newman would not speak to him. Kallie did not bring Ian a sandwich, and did not smile when she left after leaving her father his. Whenever Ian would go out, people would shoot him glares. At the grocery store, he was even refused service from a cashier who had heard that Ian had assaulted his sister; the store manager had had to come out and make him leave. People would swear under their breath about the disrespectful Falking boy. People believed that Ian had done something to his sister to make her move. She would not talk about it, but—they said—if she could stand her father for so long, then her brother must be worse.

That was the way Ian’s life was for the next several weeks. Ian spoke to no one except for Denise, who still sat beside piles of un-knit yarn. Ian was moved to night-shift, and no longer worked with Mr. Newman. It was quiet. He got used to how still the water seemed at night, and how quiet the plant was with no one else on shift. It was quiet for a long time.

One morning, though, he came home to find his father passed out on the kitchen floor. The old man had thrown up on himself. There was an empty bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand. Allen did not have money for alcohol the day before and had thrown things around the kitchen. Denise, in a moment of clarity, had left the house to avoid Allen’s tantrum. She did not come back until later that day, after Allen had finally settled down.

Ian prodded his dad awake and asked how he had paid for the whiskey. “I sold it,” his father said. “Your mother’s necklace. I sold it.” The old man passed out and Ian looked up at the wall. The necklace was gone. It was one of the last objects left in the house that had been his mother’s. He remembered that after she died, he would occasionally sneak into Denise’s room just to look at the necklace. His father had complained when Ian insisted on framing it, but Allen eventually allowed it. In a fit of anger, Ian threw the nearest thing he could find at his father—a rotten apple. It was soggy in his hand and thumped! against his father’s head. Bits of apple lodged in his hair, and the old man groaned and threw up. There was blood.

The results of Allen Falking’s medical exam revealed that he had developed liver cancer. He stayed in the hospital for a couple of days to have additional blood work done. When he came home, he did not speak. He simply walked into the house, sat beside Denise, and turned on the television, without a word.

And that was the way that Allen Falking’s life was for the next few days. He watched re-runs of talk shows. Ian continued to work and the world outside continued to praise Bill Newman.

By the week after the hospital visit, Ian realized that he was tired. He was tired of the plant. He was tired of Still Water. He was tired of his father. Ian’s bike was vandalized by kids who were taught to hate Ian-the-sister-beater by their parents. Ian had no friends, and his sister would only occasionally speak to him, and only if she needed something from him. He was tired of very many things, but most of all, he was tired of Bill Newman. Bill Newman, in Ian’s eyes, was the source of everything that was wrong in that town. He was the reason people did not like Ian. Were it not for Bill, people would appreciate Ian. People would pay him the respect he deserved. Because Bill was alive, people failed to notice how hard Ian worked. If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t have any clean water to drink. I am important! I protect these people, and they treat me horribly!

It was that very thought that drove Ian to open his footlocker that was still sitting in the upstairs hall. He reached inside and grasped the cold metal before going downstairs to walk up Walker Street. Since his return, Ian had yet to actually see Bill, and he looked forward to seeing what he hoped would be terror in Bill’s eyes.

When Ian got to Bill’s, however, there were police lights flashing outside the Newman house. There was an old beat-up station wagon, crashed into a telephone pole. Mr. Newman was wrapped in a blanket and was sitting on the curb. Ian caught a glimpse of his father being shoved into a squad car before it took off. An unhurried paramedic loaded a stretcher into an ambulance. Jenna was on the steps of the Newman house, screaming and crying. Kallie held her back as she tried to run toward the medics.

Ian was reminded of when his father had hit Mr. Newman with that same station wagon. That had been the same scene as this one, but in fast-forward, with people rushing to save the Mr. Newman. Now, it was as if the world was still. Ian turned and walked back into his house, walked upstairs, and sat on the bed. Still.

The town held another funeral for Bill Newman, and in time, the town truly grieved. Ian was moved back to day shift, and was promoted. People would occasionally ask him about the war, but he would tell them it wasn’t important. Jenna moved back in and helped Ian take care of their father, who, like the town, was recovering again. Denise finished her scarf. Kallie began bringing lunch to Ian at work, and they would eat together. After work, Ian would meet Kallie, and she would play a little song on her violin while they sat by the river. Ian didn’t dream about Bill anymore, but sometimes, when he looked into the swirling water of the stream, he thought about Bill. He thought about how stagnant his own life had been. He thought about recovery and change. And that was how Ian learned to live.