Connor’s experience was that most conflicts could be avoided given sufficient time and distance. His family put a big premium on avoiding conflict. At worst, the women fumed and the men (well, his father) retreated to the Cave.
“It wasn’t so bad,” his mother told him once, referring to his dad, “after I figured out that he never got mad at me. In my family, a silent man was the uneasy calm before the storm. A silent McKenzie is a man waiting for the storm to blow over. And McKenzie men can wait a long time.”
But according to Billy Bragg, the whole passive-aggressive thing was preferable to the yelling and the crying and the hard objects bouncing off the walls.
His parents left Utah thirty years ago, that was time and distance. As a consequence, they had to trek west once again every time a relative died. His father was the youngest in his family, and his mother second to last among her siblings. So Connor’s grand-relatives died off at a brisk clip.
His mother’s father attended Connor’s blessing. Connor was a month old in the photograph, cradled in the man’s spotted, spidery arms. At Brigham Young University, his maternal grandfather had been a professor of some small renown, the chairman of the chemistry department before he retired. In the photograph, his face was drawn with age, his shoulders bent with osteoarthritis, his eyes bulbous behind thick lenses.
Connor was seven years old. They were gathered around the kitchen table eating dinner when the phone rang and his mother learned that her father had died. He had never seen his mother cry before. Two days later, his parents and his oldest sister Diane flew to Utah to attend the funeral. He didn’t go with them. Neither did Judith, Margaret, or Sara Beth.
His sisters stayed with the Hunsakers. Connor got sent to the Durrants. He pleaded, “Why can’t I stay with Billy?”
“They already have Billy’s grandfather living with them,” his mother pointed out. She killed that idea pretty quickly, which was too bad, because Connor really liked Billy’s grandfather.
He called himself the Grumpy Old Fart. “That’s me, kid,” the old guy gleefully confessed. “The GOF. I calls ’em like I sees ’em.”
Connor and Billy giggled. The GOF chomped down on his cigar and grinned broadly, reveling in his indecorous character. “Here, have a Slim Jim,” he’d say, and launch into one of his war stories. “Boys, there was so much blood in the water wading ashore at Tarawa, it stained my skivvies pink. And I was in the third wave. Or I wouldn’t be sitting here, kid.”
That was the moral of every story: had it been any different than the way it was, he’d be a corpse under a cross in Arlington.
The time Connor told him he was a Mormon: “Yeah, I seen God too, just like that Joe Smith guy. We were off the coast of Okinawa and this Zero kamikazes into our port side. If he’d hit us amidships, I wouldn’t be here talking to the two of you. But the aft triple-A sawed off his left wing at the last second and he corkscrewed into the bow. Half my platoon had a come-to-Jesus meeting right then and there.”
He paused to take a puff. “Still, nice place, Japan. Even with all that B29 urban renewal. I was there the first year of the Occupation. You ought to go there sometime, kid. I hear it’s really changed. I think you’d like it.”
Connor promised him he would.
The GOF didn’t care that Connor’s family was Mormon. If he didn’t care, Connor didn’t see why his parents should care. It was the smoking, he figured. Even Billy’s mom sent the GOF to the back porch to light up. In the dead of winter, he’d sit out there blanketed in a white cloud. He smelled terrible all the time. Connor’d wear the smell home on his clothes, like after a week at Scout camp. But the GOF had a seemingly infinite supply of Slim Jims and stories. Connor liked his stories. He was a pretty good guy as far as GOFs went. He’d trade grandfathers with Billy any day of the week, cigar smoke and all.
The Durrants had just moved into the ward. They were nice enough people, but they were still complete strangers. Their boy, Jason, was a year older than Connor. Neither of them was inclined to get to know each other better at the time (and never really did). But there weren’t that many Mormons in upstate New York. A family of believers couldn’t afford to be choosy.
His parents and Diane flew off to Utah on a cool Saturday morning in October. Connor went home with the Durrants.
At the age of seven, he learned that there was no solitude emptier than the loneliness he felt in the company of well-meaning strangers. And because all people were at some time strangers to each other, those seeking the greatest security found it always within the shell of the self.
It was the way of all McKenzie men.
The only grand-relative left by the time Connor was old enough to care was his Grandpa McKenzie. He lasted until Connor’s freshman year at BYU, the day after Thanksgiving. The doctors said he died of a heart attack. But Connor knew when somebody’s that pissed off at the world, there’s no silent treatment like the silence of the dead.
But this business with Elly Packard—silence wouldn’t work. She didn’t mind giving him a piece of her mind. He couldn’t keep up. I don’t want you to leave me. How was he supposed to respond? What happened can’t be undone. What was that supposed to mean anyway?
You know what she means, the voice in his head responded. Ah, so his superego was cruising for a little Socratic smackdown, was it? He saved the email he was composing to Nobuo (his weekly list of terminology entries for the SDF translation database). He pushed away from the desk and spun lazily around. Why did he leave her? Because the only intimate connection they shared was purely physical. If anything was wrong, that was. Right?
Except that leaving her didn’t change anything. He left her because of the next logical step. Marriage. He caught his breath and let it out. Yes, the ol’ fear of commitment. Well, why not marriage? He rolled the chair back to the desk, brought up Word on his laptop, stared for a minute at the blank, white window, and typed:
Elly McKenzie
He frowned. Something was wrong with the list, besides the sheer childishness of it. No, McKenzie pragmatism! Compare, contrast, analyze. Consider all the options! Look before you leap! He scanned the list again.
Elly McKenzie
He pounded the up-arrow key, deleted, and typed: Elly Packard. Connor sighed. This was all so stupid. The computer dinged out a beepboop, indicating incoming mail. He switched to Outlook and clicked on the message. It was from Elly.
“I got your email address from Uncle Nobuo,” she began. “He hopes you’ll come back next summer. He promises he’ll be able to pay you this time. So, yoroshiku.” In the next paragraph she wrote, “You’re right. We should talk. How about Monday at five? Same place, above the clock. I promise not to yell at you this time.”
Connor replied, “Tell your uncle I’m looking forward to working with him next year. See you Monday.”