Lancelot

drifted away. Even his expert opinion was nutty. In the same breath he complained about the well producing and not producing and didn’t listen long enough to hear the contradiction. Getting rich had made him so miserable he must make everyone miserable.
    Why didn’t I do something about Siobhan, not about the well, which I couldn’t have cared less about, whether it produced or not, went dry or blew up, but why didn’t I do something about Siobhan? Either throw Tex out or give her back to Suellen or both. They’d both be better off. Christ, for all I knew Tex was fooling with her. Doesn’t it happen sometimes with fine fond upstanding grandfathers? You nod. You mean they’re penitent afterwards? Good for them. Suellen was good to Siobhan before and would be again. She had raised me, thousands of Suellens had raised thousands like me, kept us warm in the kitchen, saved us from our fond bemused batty parents, my father screwed up by poesy, dreaming of Robert E. Lee and Lancelot Andrewes and Episcopal chapels in the wildwood, and my poor stranded mother going out for joyrides with Uncle Harry.
    Why didn’t I do something about Siobhan earlier? Here’s a confession, Father. Because I didn’t really care, and that had nothing to do with her not being my daughter (that made me feel better, gave me an excuse). We are supposed to “love” our children. But what does that mean?
    Yet, and here’s the strangest thing of all, it was only after my discovery, after I found out that Siobhan was not my child, that I was able to do something about it. Since Siobhan was not my child, I could help her! It was simple after all: (1) Tex was bad for the child, (2) something should be done, (3) nobody was doing anything or even noticing, (4) therefore I would tell Tex to move back to New Orleans and let Suellen take care of Siobhan.
    Why couldn’t I take care of her? To tell you the truth, she got on my nerves.
    Why didn’t I love Siobhan when I thought she was my own child? Well, I suppose I “loved” her. What is love? Why this dread coldness toward those closest to you and most innocent? Have families ever loved each other except when some dread thing happens to somebody?
    Oh, yes, you speak of love. That is easy to do. But do you wish to know my theory? That sort of love is impossible now if it ever was. The only way it will ever be possible again is if the world should end.
    Siobhan turned fretfully to the TV to watch the animated cartoon.
    â€œWhat a coinkidinki!” Tex cried, hugging Siobhan. “Just when you asked about runny babbits. Tex turned on the TV and there they were.”
    â€œSay coincidence,” I told Tex.
    â€œWhat’s that?” he asked quickly, cupping his ear, listening for the first time.
    â€œI said, don’t say coinkidinki to her, for Christ’s sake. Say coincidence.”
    â€œAll right. Lance,” said Tex. He listened! Maybe he hadn’t listened to me before because I hadn’t told him anything.
    I pondered. Could it be true all one needs to know nowadays is what one wants?
    Leaving the pleached alley of oaks, my usual route, I cut across the meadowlike front yard, took the gardener’s gate through the iron fence, and climbed the levee.
    Believe it or not. I had not seen the river for years. A diesel towboat was pushing an acre of barges against the current. It sounded like a freight engine spinning its wheels. I turned around. Belle Isle looked like an isle, a small dark islet hemmed in by Ethyl pipery, Dow towers. Kaiser stacks, all humming away. Farther away, near the highway, gas burnoffs flared in the night as if giant hunters still stalked the old swamp.
    The stars were dim but by following the handle of the dipper I recognized Arcturus, which my father showed me years ago. My father: a failed man who missed the boat all around but who knew how far away Arcturus was. He was editor of a local weekly, where he published his own poems and historical vignettes about this region on such subjects as St. Andrew’s Chapel: the First Non-Roman Church in the Parish (I remember thinking that my ancestors must have arrived here to find the swamp teeming not with wild Indians but with Romans). The Kiwanis Club gave him a certificate officially entitling him the Poet Laureate of Feliciana Parish. He was an ordinary newspaper poet, an ordinary newspaper historian, and he had an ordinary