too. Just think of that. Picture it. Imagine it as often as possible and one day it will happen. We’ll go to an opera. You ever been to the opera? I go every year. Faust is my favorite. They play it at the Metropolitan all the time. You know what it’s about? It’s about a man who makes a pact with Lucifer in exchange for knowledge. Imagine seeing that. Picture it. Just keep picturing it and one day we’ll be there, both of us at the Met. Just don’t stop the lessons. Don’t stop. Do you understand?”
I nodded and tears fell from my chin.
“Okay,” he said. He flattened his mustache with his finger and thumb. “Well. Next lesson, then.”
19.
THE EXACT DAY OF the accident is lost to me. After hours of sullen invectives, I had relented and allowed Harnett to join me on a dig. Just forty-five minutes from the cabin, I knew it would be a job so easy even he couldn’t derail it.
But he was drunk, not stupid. He was offended by the simplicity of the dig and griped at me the entire way there. I kept my mouth shut and drove. Once we were at the location, he snatched the Root from me. I sighed and watched him murder the earth, trying to keep track of what went where so I could put it all back together again when he was through.
“You’re so eager to get rid of me,” he spat between strikes. “One of these days you’ll get your wish. I’ll be dead and you’ll finally be happy.”
“I’ll never be happy,” I said. “Keep digging.”
“Don’t do me like Lionel. That’s all I ask. Don’t stick me in a box and shove me down a hole. At least have that much respect for your old man.”
I pictured Lionel’s plot, perched so magisterially above the Atlantic. “You’d be lucky to have what he has.”
“Hell with that. You burn me. Incinerate me. Toss me around so I’m scattered in the wind.”
“Strewn,” I said, remembering a fact from one of Harnett’s books. “The church prefers strewn.”
“Think I give a damn what the church prefers?”
A thunking noise—he was at the casket already. Graceless as he was, his strength and speed were undeniable.
He muttered from below. “Even better: excarnation. Will you do me the kindness?”
The term was familiar, but I couldn’t immediately define it. Harnett, desperate for ways to trump me, pounced.
“It’s Tibetan tradition. Celestial burial, sky burial, excarnation. Same thing. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. It’s more than I deserve, but maybe you’ll take pity and give it to me anyway.”
I heard the skipping thumps of the crowbar slipping from his hands. Reluctantly I moved forward and peeked down the hole.
“Three days.” He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. “You let me sit for three days. Don’t bury me, don’t do nothing. Just let me ripen for three goddamn days. Then take my clothes off, take me out to the country. If that’s too much of a goddamn hassle for you, sit me out in the backyard, I don’t give a damn.”
I kneeled down at the edge. “Let me help you.”
“You want to help me? Then dismember me first, if you got the stomach for it. It’s Tibetan tradition.” His lips curled in resentment as he tried again to pry the lid. “Forget it. You don’t have the stomach. Just toss me out in the grass.”
Part of the problem was that the Root was down there with him, getting in his way. “The Root,” I said. “Hand her up.”
“Not a lot of vultures in Iowa,” he said. “But plenty of birds. They’ll come in, one or two of them at first, and pick at me. You just stay back and let them. Pretty soon they’ll be there by the dozens. They’ll eat me, part of me, every one, and they’ll carry me into the sky. And then when they shit, I’ll be everywhere. It’s goddamn beautiful and more than I deserve, but maybe, just maybe, you’ll do your father the kindness.”
He was visibly wobbling and slumped to the dirt wall for balance.
“Get out.” I tried to be firm. I held out a hand. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Get out.”
“Don’t forget to bring a sledgehammer,” he slurred. “When the birds are done, you gotta shatter my bones to bits. Tibetan tradition.”
“You’re wasting time. Get out.”
There was a pause and then he moved with alarming speed, snatching the crowbar and the Root in either hand and clambering up the hole. I remained