Of course, my father, being a politician, could never have uttered those words in public. His supporters would not have understood the difference between empathy for a lost soul and sympathy with a terrorist’s politics. Make no mistake: My father was no moral relativist. He wanted each criminal to be judged by his crimes, not by his motivations or biography.
My father refused to believe that all cultures were equal. He believed that representative democracy was a God-given gift to humans.
“I think that our perfect God will protect us in a perfect afterlife,” he was fond of saying in public. “But in this highly imperfect world, we highly imperfect humans need to be protected from one another, and only a progressive republican government can guarantee any sort of protection.”
In private, my father said this: “Fuck the fucking leftists and their fucking love of secularism and communism. Those bastards haven’t yet figured out that the secular Hitler and the communist Stalin slaughtered millions and millions of people.”
Don’t get me wrong. My father knew that the world was complicated and unpredictable—and that only God knew the ultimate truth—but he also knew that each citizen of that world was ultimately responsible for his actions. My father staked his political career, his entire life, on one basic principle: An unpredictable world demands a predictable moral code.
“Son,” my father said to me many a time in the years after September 11, “a thief should be judged by the theft. A rapist should be judged by the rape. A murderer should be judged by the murder. A terrorist should be judged by the terror.”
And so I sat, a man capable of inexplicable violence against an innocent, eager to be judged by my God and by my father. I wanted to account and be held accountable.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have attacked those men. I shouldn’t have walked away from the scene. At least, I should have gone back to the scene. I should go back now and turn myself into the police.”
“But you’re not telling me why you did it,” my father said. “Can you tell me that? Why did you do it?”
I searched my soul for an answer and could not find one. I could not make sense of it. But if I’d known that it was Jeremy I’d assaulted, I could have spoken about Cain and Abel and let my father determine the moral of the story.
“Spence and Eddie—”
“No,” my father interrupted. “This is not about them. This is about you.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m really confused here, Dad. I’m trying to do the right thing. And I need you to help me. Tell me what the right thing is. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
And so my father told me what he had learned from confidential sources. The gay men had reported the assault but, obviously shocked and confused, had provided conflicting descriptions of Spence, Eddie, and Bernard and no description of me other than “white male, twenties to thirties, five-eight to six feet, one-eighty to two hundred pounds.” In other words, I could have been almost any Caucasian guy in Seattle. The victims didn’t catch the license plate of the suspects’ car and could only describe it as a “dark four-door.” There were no other witnesses to the assault as of yet. Most curious, the victims disagreed on whether or not the perpetrators brandished guns.
“What do the police think?” I asked.
“They think the victims are hiding something,” my father said.
“They’re just scared and freaked out.”
“No. I agree with the police. I think they’re hiding something.”
“No, they’re not hiding anything, Dad. They’re just confused. I’d be confused if somebody attacked me like that.”
“No, they’re hiding the fact that they started the fight and they don’t want the police to know it.”
I was shocked. Was this really my father or his lying twin? Was I talking to my father or his murderous brother?
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t think the police really have anything to go on. And I don’t think they’re going to pursue this much further. But we’re going to monitor the investigation very closely. And we’re going to be preemptive if we sense any real danger.”
“What are you talking about? Are you going to hurt them?”
More enraged than ever before, my father grabbed me by the shirt. “Don’t you say such things. Don’t you dare! This is the United States of America, not some third world shit heap! I am not in the business of intimidation or violence. I am not in the business of murder.”
It was true. My father believed in life, the sacred spark of humans, more strongly than any other man I’d ever known. As a Republican, he was predictably antiabortion, but he was also against capital punishment. His famous speech: “It is the business of man to judge and punish on this mortal Earth; but it is the business of God to give and take away life. I believe that abortion is a great evil, but it is just as evil to abandon any child to the vagaries of economics. I believe it is evil to murder another human being, but it is just as evil for a government to kill its citizens based on the vagaries of justice.”
Yes, this was the man I had accused of conspiracy. I had insulted my father. I’d questioned his honor. I’d deemed him capable of murder. He was right to shake me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m just confused. Help me. Please, Daddy, help me. I love you. Please, please help me.”
And so he held me while I wept.
“I love you, son,” he said. “But you have to listen to me. You have to understand. I know that you were wrong to do what you did. It was a mortal sin. You sinned against God, against those men, and against me. And you should pay for those sins.”
My good father wanted me to be a good man.
“But it’s not that easy,” my father said. “If you turn yourself in to the police, I will also pay for your sins. And I know I should pay for your sins because I am your father, and I have obviously failed to raise you well. But I will also pay for your sins as a U.S. senator, so our state and country will also pay for them. A scandal like this will ruin my career. It will ruin our party. And it will ruin our country. And though I know I will be judged harshly by God, I can’t let you tell the truth.”
My father wanted me to lie. No, he was forcing me to lie.
“William, Willy,” he said. “If we begin to suspect that you might be implicated in this, we’re going to go on the offensive. We’re going to kill their reputations.”
If it is true that children pay for the sins of their fathers, is it also true that fathers pay for the sins of their children?
Three days later, I returned to my condominium in downtown Seattle and found a message waiting on my voice mail.
“Hey, William, it’s—um, me, Jeremy. You really need to call me.”
And so I called Jeremy and agreed to meet him at his house in Magnolia, an upper-class neighborhood of Seattle. It was a small but lovely house, painted blue and chocolate.
I rang the doorbell. Jeremy answered. His face and nose were swollen purple, yellow, and black; his eyes were bloodshot and tear-filled.
“It was you,” I said, suddenly caught in an inferno of shame.
“Of course it was me. Get your ass in here.”
Inside, we sat in his study, a modernist room decorated with beautiful and useless furniture. What good is a filing cabinet that can only hold an inch of paperwork?
“I’m so sorry, Jeremy,” I said. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“Oh, so I’m supposed to be happy about that? Things would be okay if you’d beaten the shit out of a fag you didn’t know?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay, then, what did you mean?”
“I was wrong to do what I did. Completely wrong.”
“Yes, you were,” he said.
He was smiling. I recognized that smile. Jeremy was giving me shit. Was he going to torture me before he killed me?
“Why didn’t you tell the police it was me?” I asked.
“Because the police don’t give a sh
it about fags.”
“But we assaulted you. We could have killed you.”
“Doubtful. James had already kicked the crap out of your friends. And he would have kicked the crap out of you and the guy with the tire iron. Let’s just call it a split decision.”
“You didn’t tell James it was me, did you?”
“No, of course not. I told the police a completely different story than James did. And I was the one with the broken face, so they believed me.”
“But what about James? What’s he going to do?”
“Oh, who cares? I barely knew him.”
“But it was a hate crime.”
“Aren’t all crimes, by definition, hate crimes? I mean, people don’t rob banks because they love tellers.”
“I don’t understand you. Why haven’t you gone public with this? You could destroy my father. And me.”
Jeremy sighed.
“Oh, William,” he said. “You’re still such an adolescent. And so romantic. I haven’t turned you in because I’m a Republican, a good one, and I think your father is the finest senator we’ve ever had. I used to think he was a closet Democrat. But he’s become something special. This kind of shit would completely fuck his chance at the presidency.”
Jesus, was this guy more a son to my father than I was?
“And, okay, maybe I’m a romantic, too,” Jeremy said. “I didn’t turn you in because we were best friends and because I still consider you my best friend.”
“But my father hates gay people.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
And so Jeremy explained to me that his sexual preference had nothing to do with his political beliefs.
“Hey,” he said. “I don’t expect to be judged negatively for my fuck buddies. But I don’t want to be judged positively, either. It’s just sex. It’s not like it’s some specialized skill or something. Hell, right now, in this house, one hundred thousand bugs are fucking away. In this city, millions of bugs are fucking at this very moment. And, hey, probably ten thousand humans—and registered voters—are fucking somewhere in this city. Four or five of them might even be married.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Anybody who thinks that sex somehow relates to the national debt or terrorism or poverty or crime or moral values or any kind of politics is just an idiot.”
“Damn, Jeremy, you’ve gotten hard.”
“That’s what all the boys say.”
“And what does James say? What if he goes to the press? What if he sees my face in the newspapers or on TV and recognizes me?”
“James is a little fag coffee barista from Bumfuck, Idaho. Nobody cares what he has to say. Little James could deliver a Martian directly to the White House and people would think it was a green poodle with funny ears.”
I wondered if I’d completely scrambled Jeremy’s brains when I punched him in the head.
“Will you listen to me?” I said. “My father will destroy your life if he feels threatened.”
“Did you know your father called my father that day up in North Bend?” Jeremy asked.
“What day?” I asked. But I knew.
“Don’t be obtuse. After I told you I was gay, you told your father, and your father told my father. And my father beat the shit out of me.”
“You’re lying,” I said. But I knew he wasn’t.
“You think my face looks bad now? Oh, man, my dad broke my cheekbone. Broke my arm. Broke my leg. A hairline fracture of the skull. A severe concussion. I saw double for two months.”
“How come you didn’t go to the police?”
“Oh, my dad took me to the police. Said a gang of kids did it to me. Hoodlums, he called them.”
“How come you didn’t tell the police the truth?”
“Because my dad said he’d kill my mom if I told the truth.”
“I don’t think I believe any of this.”
“You can believe what you want. I know what happened. My father beat the shit out of me because he was ashamed of me. And I let him because I was ashamed of me. And because I loved my mom.”
I stared at him. Could he possibly be telling the truth? Are there truths as horrible as this one? In abandoning him when he was sixteen, did I doom him to a life with a violent father and a beaten mother?
“But you know the best thing about all of this?” he asked.
I couldn’t believe there’d be any good in this story.
“When my father was lying in his hospital bed, he asked for me,” Jeremy said. “Think about it. My father was dying of cancer. And he called for me. He needed me to forgive him. And you know what?”
“What?” I asked, though I didn’t want to know.
“I went into his room, hugged him and told him I forgave him and I loved him, and we cried and then he died.”
“I can’t believe any of this.”
“It’s all true.”
“You forgave your father?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “It really made me wish I was Roman or Greek, you know? A classical Greek god would have killed his lying, cheating father and then given him forgiveness. And a classical Greek god would have better abs, too. That’s what Greek gods are all about, you know? Patricide and low body fat.”
How could anybody be capable of that much forgiveness? I was reminded of the black man, the convicted rapist, who’d quietly proclaimed his innocence all during his thirty years in prison. After he was exonerated by DNA evidence and finally freed, that black man completely forgave the white woman who’d identified him as her rapist. He said he forgave her because it would do him no good to carry that much anger in his heart. I often wonder if that man was Jesus come back.
“The thing is, Willy,” Jeremy said, “you’ve always been such a moral guy. Six years old, and you made sure that everybody got equal time on the swings, on the teeter-totter, on the baseball field. Even the losers. And you learned that from your father.”
“My father is a great man,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. I had to believe it, though, or my foundations would collapse.
“No,” Jeremy said. “Your father has great ideas, but he’s an ordinary man, just like all of us. No, your father is more of an asshole than usual. He likes to hit people.”
“He’s only hit me a couple of times.”
“That you can remember.”
“What does that mean?”
“We wouldn’t practice denial if it didn’t work.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
“Oh, you’re scary. What are you going to do, punch me in the face?”
We laughed.
“It comes down to this,” Jeremy said. “You can’t be a great father and a great politician at the same time. Impossible. Can’t be a great father and a great writer, either. Just ask Hemingway’s kids.”
“I prefer Faulkner.”
“Yeah, there’s another candidate for Father of the Year.”
“Okay, okay, writers are bad dads. What’s your point?”
“Your father is great because of his ideas. And those great ideas will make him a great president.”
“Why do you believe in him so much?”
“It’s about sacrifice. Listen, I am a wealthy American male. I can’t campaign for something as silly and fractured as gay marriage when there are millions of Muslim women who can’t even show their ankles. Your daddy knows that. Everybody knows it.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I hate to sound like a campaign worker or something, but listen to me. I believe in him so much that I’ll pay ten bucks for a gallon of gas. I believe in him so much that I’m going to let you go free.”
I wondered if Jeremy had been beaten so often that it had destroyed his spirit. Had he lost the ability to defend himself? How many times could he forgive the men who had bloodied and broken him? Is there a finite amount of forgiveness in the world? Was there a point after which forgiveness, even the most divinely inspired, is simply the ac
t of a coward? Or has forgiveness always been used as political capital?
“Jeremy,” I asked, “what am I supposed to do with all this information?”
“That’s up to you, sweetheart.”
Oh, there are more things in heaven and earth than can be explained by Meet the Press.
Jeremy and I haven’t talked since that day. We agreed that our friendship was best left abandoned in the past. My crime against him was also left in the past. As expected, the police did not pursue the case, and it was soon filed away. There was never any need to invent a story.
I cannot tell you what happened to James, or to Eddie and Spence, or to Bernard. We who shared the most important moment of our lives no longer have any part in the lives of the others. It happens that way. I imagine that someday one of them might try to tell the whole story. And I imagine nobody would believe them. Who would believe any of them? Or me? Has a liar ever told the truth?
As for my father, he lost his reelection bid and retired to the relatively sad life of an ex-senator. He plays golf three times a week. State leaders beg for his advice.
My father and I have never again discussed that horrible night. We have no need or right to judge each other for sins that might have already doomed us to a fiery afterlife. Instead, we both silently forgave each other, and separately and loudly pray to God for his forgiveness. I’ll let you know how that works out.
Another Proclamation
When
Lincoln
Delivered
The
Emancipation
Proclamation,
Who
Knew
that, one year earlier, in 1862, he’d signed and approved the order for the largest public execution in United States history? Who did they execute? “Mulatto, mixed-bloods, and Indians.” Why did they execute them? “For uprisings against the State and her citizens.” Where did they execute them? Mankato, Minnesota. How did they execute them? Well, Abraham Lincoln thought it was good
And
Just
To
Hang
Thirty-eight
Sioux
simultaneously. Yes, in front of a large and cheering crowd, thirty-eight Indians dropped to their deaths. Yes, thirty-eight necks snapped. But before they died, thirty-eight Indians sang their death songs. Can you imagine the cacophony of thirty-eight different death songs? But wait, one Indian was pardoned at the last minute, so only thirty-seven Indians had to sing their death songs. But, O, O, O, O, can you imagine the cacophony of that one survivor’s mourning song? If he taught you the words, do you think you would sing along?