This work was my first published work. It was printed in the Columbus Dispatch Sunday Magazine on June 13, 1982. I hope you enjoy it.
The Visit
I walked into the old house after having not been there for almost five years. It had been built around the turn of the century, and the years showed clearly on its weatherworn shingles. The living room, with its faded walnut paneling, had not changed much in my absence. This room had been my play spot when I was a very young child.
I left the room and walked into the next. This was the dining room. It was painted sky blue. I remember that the summer before we moved in we tore out the room’s old plaster walls and replaced them with dry wall. The room remained the creamy color of drywall for many years, after he died.
He was a part of this house, and he has been dead for more than 10 years now. I remember his old, wrinkled face – intense ebony and shining from the perspiration that streamed down it constantly. He had a small, thin mustache and millions of hair nubs protruding from his face. He was one of the best things to happen to this family of ours.
He had this red truck, with a black starter button on it. He used to let me push the button after he had turned the key and pressed in the clutch. We used to go into the country, he and I, and collect scrap metal that people left alongside the the road. When the bed of truck was full, we would take it to the scrap yard, have it weighed and get almost $5 for a Saturday’s work. He didn’t need the money, so we would use it to buy ice cream and strawberries for the family. He was good.
I can’t say I was his favorite; yet, everywhere that he went, I would tag along. I liked to watch him fix things, because he was a jack-of-all-trades. It would fascinate me just to see him take something apart and put it right back together. I learned many things from being around him all the time.
He drove us to Georgia one summer so we could see our people. He didn’t seem to mind. On the way, we detoured to Mississippi to see his sister. I remember that we got lost in Nashville, Tennessee, because he could neither read nor write and I had been reading the road signs and maps for him. I failed him by falling asleep. He didn’t wake me, though. I guess he felt that I needed the sleep. Too proud to stop and ask the way, he tried on his own. When I woke, we were lost. “No need to worry,” he said, “because as long as we go south we will get to where we have to go.” Pretty soon we are there, all because no one bothered to worry. We trusted him.
I looked around the dining room and saw the old Sears Kenmore heater, still sitting there and still working. It was summer, and the heat was not on, but the pilot was lit. The pilot had been on for more than 11 years, because my mother allowed no one to turn it off.
Putting that old Kenmore heater in this house was the last thing he did for us. He had planned to install a furnace and had indeed purchased it, but the cold weather set in early that fall. I remember him saying that if we could make it through the winter with the Kenmore heater, he would install the furnace in June. We knew that we could make it, because he had confidence in us.
June came for us, but he never lived to see it. My mother found him dead in his back yard on Mother’s Day of 1969. When I used to think of him, I would look into the flames of the old heater and see his face.
I gazed around the room. The place was indeed decrepit. It deserved to be razed, and I actually believe that destroying it would be a service. Yet it was more than a crumbling old building. It was the place that my brothers and sisters and I had lived for more than 15 years, with nothing to warm us but that small heater that he had wanted us to use for one winter. The place gave us something to aim high for in life, and it gave my mother something to be proud of. There had always been imperfections in it, but we had owned it all these years. It was a part of use; and although we denounce it many times, complained of the cold constantly, bickered over the lack of room, deep down we knew we loved the old place. Now we are all adults. My mother is nearly 60 and still lives in the house. She still complains about the cold and the falling structure; yet she passes up every opportunity to leave the place. Taking her away from it would be removing a part of her. One day it will be torn down , and it will hurt. it will hurt because it is part of our heritage and a memorial to him. He helped us.
It was time for me to leave and return to school. It was good to see the place. I knew though, that I had to see him once again before I left. I turned the small thermostat and heater came on. I looked into the flames, and there he was. He was perspiring, as usual, and smiling. His eyes seed to be saying, “not to worry, everything will be all right.” The vision disappeared. I lifted myself from the heater, turned the thermostat to the “off” position and slowly walked out the house. As I walked out the door, I sensed his presence. He knew that I had been home to visit. Yes, he was good.
