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Chapter Nine
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Chapter Nine It’s hard to pack for the trip. I can’t get the image out of my head of the cops arresting my father during our family Thanksgiving meal in Smallwood. Ike was there with Susana and their firstborn, who was just a baby. Wendy was in diapers, too, but toddling around the house. It was a year after his two other arrests, all of us complicit, as if it were simply a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, but this was the third one, after a strange event that happened while he and Mom were camping near the Indiana Dunes. a woman had complained about him to the park ranger, who arranged his own stakeout , catching Dad in the alleged act at about 2 a.m.—on film, and compromised . he tried to run, but was apprehended in no time. Mom had called Ike, who’d called me, and I think it was the first time any of us started to silently figure out in our heads that he wasn’t going to stop. as I said, the arrest at the Thanksgiving meal was both a shock and an expectation ; Dad stood up and went outside on the porch with the two deputies as Mom’s face went white. She scooped out huge amounts of mashed potatoes onto our plates. She put so many potatoes on Ike’s plate, it looked like a white beehive. I can remember my little Wendy at the living room window that looked out onto the porch; she knew her granddad was out there, and she pounded on the glass with her chubby hand, squealing with delight. Mom screamed a tiny bit, then ran into the bathroom and puked, while Ike and our wives and I watched them cart Dad away in a shiny cruiser, the autumn sun gleaming off the hood and loose leaves somersaulting over the dead lawn. Wendy started to wail, her grandfather gone. We’d find out later he’d been the focus of surveillance: pictures of him, some video, and three women willing to testify that he was the one they’d seen taking pictures of them from the parking lot at some apartments in town. I actually have to shake my head to get focused, pack up the little bit I own. There’s a photo of Wendy and me in a black frame; she has on her winter coat, zipped up to that vulnerable little neck. her hair is in a French braid, one that I had done, poorly, off center, but she was little and thought I was the best dad ever because I could give her a braid. I tuck the photo into my large rucksack, along with tablets of paper, four or five pairs of jeans, a wad of T-shirts and underwear. There’s not much else in the apartment, a few cooking items, some of Dad’s beloved homeBeam Wares pots, a few cans of soup, and boxes of dried noodles. The muscleman in the leasing office assured me my mattress and kitchen items could be stored until I return. I drag the big duffel bag toward the door. Pascal tries to attack it, almost riding the thing as he paws and chews on the top. I look back into the empty apartment that has been my home for almost five years. I’m about to close the door behind me when the phone rings, and I realize it’s something I’ve failed to disconnect. It rings and rings, and I’m reminded of how much the memoir pissed off Ike. he kept calling one night, until finally, drunk and surly, he said to me, “hey there, tattletale.” I thought I could hear him almost vomit. “I’ve been reading your little book of horrors, asshole. nice work, I mean, I’m sure our kids will be so proud of their genealogy.” I could hear Susana telling him to get off the phone. he told her, in a high-pitched sarcastic tone, “Shh, honey, I’m talking with the greatest writer of our generation. he’s gonna be on Oprah next week. There’ll be a parade thrown in gabe fucking Burke’s honor right here in Smallwood. he’s a regular Jack fucking Kerouac.” I tried to say something to him but knew it was useless. “Shut the fuck up,” Ike said. “listen,” he continued in a whispered, conspiratorial tone, “let me make one thing...