It was his father’s voice. His shadowed profile. His hands. He did show him his hands—without the wedding ring which he had bequeathed to Frank. “Have her give you this. You will understand, then.” But he had not understood, not even now, maybe especially now.
Somehow they had gotten through enemy lines. Made their way to the beach and then by covert dashes in and out of this and that—hours and hours, several days—into what he assumed was the villa outside of Hanoi where his dad was supposed to be.
No one was killed. No one had to be murdered. In fact, Frank really didn’t see anyone. Just shadows. Movements. Voices speaking a language he did not understand—“Must be Vietnamese,” sounded stupid just as he thought it.
Once inside the villa, he knew his dad was about: a feeling. Not just a belief, but a real sense of him...maybe his aftershave or deodorant or …?
I want to see you.
Seeing is believing—are we still there?
Yeah...angry.
Trust me.
Sure...angry.
Look, this happened to me…
Yeah?
And it will happen to your son as it did to my father’s father’s father…that’s part of who we are. Are you listening? Hearing?
Hearing is stronger than seeing, just remember that.
I hear you—shaken adolescent not wanting to disbelieve his “Can do no wrong” father.
Okay.
What?
If you’d see me, you wouldn’t be seeing me.
Pause.
I’m not being difficult, just…exact.
Okay...resigned.
We need to begin, so listen to this...when you believe in yourself you will no longer see yourself…then you’ll understand, or at least you might understand.
You see me as father and businessman and electrical engineer and wealthy person and…and certain weaknesses—which are only your way of seeing, but not now…now, I want you to accept this as your short-sightedness…I want you to practice, well, for lack of a better term—far-sightedness.
You want me to be a TV? Sarcastic short snort. Flashing images of himself with “rabbit ears” antennae sticking out from his head. Beep beep beep as airwaves bombard him…a moment of unsullied silliness.
A consternated quiet drifts from his father’s side of the grille.
Okay. Remember, you told me, tele-vision means “far sight,” no?
Hmmmpf.
There are great evils in the world. Satan. The Devil. Witches. Many names. Demons. They exist only insofar as people believe in them.
You mean…?
Quiet. Let me say my piece. Listen.…The history of the world—what you studied in school. The great spiritual history of the Bible—what you learned in Catechism and your other studies. These are all only what people want to see. They are not all that can be seen. And because of this lack of imagination, this lack of believing, there is given to us, to some of us—call us teachers, call us prophets, call us shamans or mystics or magi…many who are called insane and burned at the stake, but that’s another… Listen—The world is yet to be imagined, is yet to be seen...for there is yet to be full and complete belief.
But there can be.
There will be.
It will be...as it was…is a Restoration. This is why you’re here.
Grand sweep? But Frank kept quiet.
When the talking stopped—Did it stop?—and the imagining began, Frank did not know, did not care to know, for he was inside of a dreaming embrace with his father, as if the words, themselves, were sculptor’s tools...as his father spoke so did a new reality, a new presence, a new way of seeing become—an imaging of a restoration—as the sculpture restores the presence of the human soul and beauty captured, imprisoned, caught in the dark evil grip of the sightless stone.
Communism is godless atheism. A deadness of soul and body. Capitalism and militarism are not much better, but we must work with what we’re given.
Your fathers—back beyond blessed sight—each had to restore an imagining in a period of deadness. Your fathers were thinkers, explorers, artists, ascetics, mystics, scientists, healers, inventors…imaginers!
“Dopers?!” but he didn’t utter it.
They believed and so they saw.
Belief was their map?
Even off the map. Fearless, faithful voyagers.
Were they good—all?
No one sees what we do as good because they do not believe as we do.
We?
We—there is a Revelation which has been revealed but not yet restored. There is a Perfection which exists but has not been believed. There is a fullness, a Pleorma, which has only been described by people with empty arms.
“We’re Catholics. What are you saying?”
“You had to see as they see in order to believe as you must believe. As your fathers have believed. Do believe.”
“You’re saying your fathers are not dead?”
“Believe.”
I know I’m dreaming. This is a dream. I will wake up. This is a nightmare!
Evil. You want to know about Evil.
This is how.
It is their women.
They hide their Evil inside their women.
Inside their women is their dream.
They hide it in their caves.
In their bones.
In their dreams.
At night their women visit them. Replenish them.
They dream as they copulate.
It has always been. It shall always be. Women are their imagining.
When he woke, for a moment, he thought he was back with Dalores—no, Bertha! “Aw, shit!”
“Shit?”—it was Brad.
“Great way to salute the day?” Mocking laugh. “Maybe you were a Marine?” Bemused chuckle, to himself.
He didn’t have to ask. His father was gone. Dead?
He knew that Brad would show him the way.
“Here’s the map”...he shows him a map with red circled xes.