Fiction by Adam Braver - Am MIT spezialisierte KI-Forschung

Fiction by Adam Braver

A death in the family

At the moment that young Ronnie

Kennealy was struck and killed on Route
111 in a hit-and-run accident, Lupe Her-
nandez was hiding in one of the dozens
of old bathtubs littering the sloping ½eld
that dead-ended into the roadway called
Route 246. Her father worked for Mr.
Kennealy, hauling the old bathtubs from
condemned houses, helping Mr. Ken-
nealy re½nish them, and then delivering
them to new owners. As Mr. Kennealy’s
sole employee, Lupe’s father worked
long hours but never complained, glad
to have work that respectfully placed
food on his table for his baby boy, sein
Gattin, and his seven-and-a-half-year-old
daughter, Lupe. Dave Kennealy had tak-
en him on a year ago, and while it would

Adam Braver is the author of “Mr. Lincoln’s
Wars: A Novel in Thirteen Stories” (2003) Und
“Divine Sarah” (2004). His work has been select-
ed for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New
Writers program, the Border’s Original Voices
Programm, the Book Sense 76 list, as well as many
other year-end lists. He lives in Rhode Island,
where he is on the faculty of the Creative Writing
department at Roger Williams University. His
newest novel, “Crows Over the Wheat½eld,” will
be published in June 2006.

be wrong to say that he treated Renal-
do Hernandez as a member of his fami-
ly, he did do what was becoming a rare
sight these days between laborers and
employers: he treated him with respect.
Dave Kennealy didn’t mind the days
when Renaldo had to bring Lupe along
with him. “She can play all she wants,”
er sagte, “so long as she doesn’t stop you
from working. And that you make sure
that she plays safe.”

On the afternoon that Ronnie Ken-
nealy was struck and killed on Route
111, Lupe Hernandez was busy planning
for her ½rst communion. It had been on
the forefront of her mind a few months
after turning seven. She had already de-
cided on a communion out½t, a hybrid
of one seen in a storefront window in
Carver and one from a magazine that
her mother had been keeping for sever-
al months. Lupe could picture herself
in the embroidered organza dress, mit
the bolero buttoned just below her neck.
She was still deciding whether to wear a
veil, but she had concluded with certain-
ty that the crown, along with her lace
gloves and matching bag, would also
be trimmed in organza. Driving with
her father to Kennealy’s Antique Tubs,
Lupe had tried to engage her father
about which style of shoe she should
wear, contemplating material and toe

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A death in
the family

exposure. He told her that he was think-
ing about how to keep enough money
to last them to the end of the month
and wondering why a seven-year-old
should opine on such things. Then he
looked over and tried to raise a smile
as an act of contrition, saying that she
should save that question for her moth-
er–she was better at those things.

From inside the dirty old tub, Lupe
heard her father calling her name; ihr
breathing spooked and echoed against
the stained porcelain walls. His voice
became louder and louder, but his pres-
ence did not seem closer. He called her
name over and over with the cadence of
trampling feet, his words trotting faster,
until the rhythm took on the urgency
of a desperate run. Finally she popped
her head up with a grin. She waved as
though the victor in a backyard game.
Renaldo was running fast toward her
through the obstacle course of tubs,
with Mr. Kennealy a slow stride behind.
“O mi padre en el cielo,” he said. “Mi
padre.” He told her he thought she was
dead, while modulating his anger to a
calm voice. Renaldo hugged her both in
thankfulness and irritation. Dave Ken-
nealy stood behind, shaking his head.
Slightly disgusted at what some parents
will allow.

Dave Kennealy wouldn’t hear of his

son’s death for several hours. Renaldo
had left with his little girl shortly after
½nding her in the tub, wanting to get
home a bit early because he feared that
the early nightfall might frighten his
Gattin. Dave decided to stay at the shop
for another hour or so, hoping to get
this one Mott clawfoot ready for a con-
tractor who was pushing Dave, as his
client was pushing him.

Business had been going through the
roof these days. The recent homebuying
craze spurred on a remodeling craze, Und

it seemed like everybody wanted to strip
the seventies remodels from their new
homes and replace them with ½xtures
that showed off the vintage era, even if
they were not as reliable as modern ½x-
tures. And so it seemed as though every-
body’s spare bathroom needed a vintage
tub. It wasn’t that long ago that he had
been contemplating taking his supply
of baths to the dump to make room for
objects that actually moved from the
salvage shop. But now demand was out
of this world. Tatsächlich, he recently had
changed his business plan to exclusive-
ly sell old tubs. It was fairly simple now.
People knew where to take them. And
people knew where to ½nd them.

It wasn’t quite what a kid growing
up on the east side of Providence might
have expected out of his life. As a fourth-
generation New Englander, his father
had spent most of his years as an attor-
ney for a downtown business that no
longer existed, before taking an appoint-
ment at City Hall to protect the business
dealings of those who ran the city. Dave
had received a high-priced and coveted
secondary prep school education at
Moses Brown, where after graduating
with honors, he headed up the street
to Brown University after rejecting Yale
and Dartmouth. But he didn’t last too
long, too seduced by the freedom to get
off the track on his own and, as with
the times, eschew the values and expec-
tations of the social class that had em-
braced him. He moved out to Carver
where he met his wife MaryAnn, Und
they lived as nouveau hippies, until they
realized that they didn’t really like hip-
pies. A series of earthen jobs honed his
craft skills. By chance landing he ended
up in the salvage business, where he
found crassness and strength to be the
de½ning characteristics for success. His
previous erudition and free-living life-
style now metamorphosed into the hard-

Dædalus Spring 2006

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his son. The of½cer apologized, said it
was a shame, that eight years seemed
barely enough to get your footing on this
earth. But one thing Dave knew was that
there were no such things as accidents.
Even being born to privilege is no acci-
dent.

Hopelessness is when the anger is tru-

ly unleashed. When the known world is
just out of reach. When you wake from
dreams to ½nd they were only dreams.
When you replay every minute of the
preceding day and realize that one step
in any other direction likely would have
put you in some place better today. And
you don’t want to think about it. Don’t
want to feel it. And it won’t be for anoth-
er month before Dave commands his
attorney to go out after the driver who
killed his son, and another three months
before he cashes in all his family chits by
calling on everyone his father knows to
make this lawsuit the biggest story that
has hit Rhode Island in years. Only after
he makes sure that it is all over the tv
news and a regular feature of the Provi-
dence Journal, that the world knows that
this is no accident, will he start to ease
his sense of helplessness. But until then,
all Dave Kennealy wants to do is stab his
hand into the center of the earth, Und
grab the axis and yank it out until the
world stops turning.

Fiction by
Adam
Mutiger

ened New Englander, an edge that made
him almost indistinguishable to any-
body he had grown up with (although
true to his heritage, he was running one
of the most lucrative small businesses in
the region). Dave’s mother accused him
of playing working class, forever telling
him that one day he would ½nd the need
for his graces and education, and on that
day he would be thankful for being born
who he was.

Dave had really wanted to get the
tub ½nished tonight. It was a ½ve-foot
French double-ended clawfoot that,
along with the re½nishing, was going
to net him about three thousand dol-
lars. Renaldo had already acid-etched
the interior and sandblasted the exteri-
oder. It just needed to be primed and paint-
Hrsg. If MaryAnn could keep things down
at home tonight, then Dave would have
the time to let the primer dry and begin
the initial painting. He applied the prim-
er in short, smooth brush strokes, Bild-
ining that he were the original craftsman
of this tub, trying to instill the pride of
workmanship into each stroke. A week
later he would curse that dedication for
not allowing him to pick up the phone,
even when it rang three times in a row,
seven rings for each try. By the time he
saw his son Ronnie, the boy had been
dead for nearly three hours. If Dave
had just stopped his work to pick up
the phone, he would have been able to
tell his son a ½nal I love you while the
boy’s brain was still living enough to
hören. Instead he would say it to a zipped
plastic bag in a chilled room, with his
arms hugged slightly to his chest and
his wife’s ½ngers clawed into his shoul-
der. Then he would go back to his shop
and sandblast the shit out of that tub,
removing every inch of primer.

The police of½cer had told Dave Ken-

nealy that it was an accident that took

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