The Art of Warring John Meils

The following is the first chapter of my novel in progress, tentatively entitled The Art of Warring. The book chronicles the story of Owen Ostergaard III, who returns to his southern Connecticut hometown shortly after the spectacular death of his father.

[1]
Still Life with Lunatic.

The crowd was a hodgepodge of my father’s sober brethren, half a dozen high school cheerleaders and a troop of geriatrics happy to be a part of anything that was up as early as them. Owen Sr. fidgeted in the center of the throng, his gaze alternating between his watch and the surf a few yards away. Clad in yellow swim shorts and a half-foot taller than everyone else, he would have stood out even if he wasn’t the reason for the occasion. In protest he began his usual mix of 1950s calisthenics—squat thrusts, jumping jacks, a strange arching maneuver that involved touching the ground three times before raising his arms skyward. The crowd gave him space. Separately, the cheerleaders followed suit and began rustling pom-poms, throwing leg kicks, dropping into splits. A news van rolled into the parking lot and jerked towards the action on the beach. My father spotted them as he finished a set of lunges, flinched noticeably and checked his watch again. He was waiting for the sun. When it cracked the horizon he’d enter the water. Like always.
        Through a dirty windshield and from afar I wasn’t fooled. My father never openly sought the spotlight, despite how often it found him. So this was different, brazen. Someone had called the TV guys, pitched a producer even. The new angle was a fundraiser, though looked like the usual from Owen Sr., an abundance of him. The discomfited look on his face was a ruse. The only surprising part was me, which defied easy explanation. I was worried, sure, but not about my dad. I was in my hometown, but hadn’t been in years, and I was making a mistake, the size and shape of which had yet to be determined. In any case I was there, hiding in the half-light before dawn in a rental car.
        A knock on the window and my position was exposed. I jumped at the snake-oil smile of Felix Mondragon, the only person in attendance who stuck out more than my father. In his mid-sixties, foreign and dressed like a Mormon missionary, Felix was the head of Horizon Hill, the town’s sole drug and alcohol rehab.
        I rolled down the window. The sound of surf arrived on a blast of salt air. “Master Owen,” he greeted.
        “Only you could get him to do this.” He shrugged. “It was his idea.”   
        “Naturally.”
        “Your father has changed, Owen.”
        “We’re here to commemorate ‘The Swim,’ yes?”
        “Indeed.” He knelt so we were eye to eye. “But did he not invite others to share—nay, benefit—from his accomplishment?”
        “You invited me.”
        “Ah, but your father encouraged it. He put all of this in motion—the fundraiser, the event—he made a sincere effort at something other than himself.” Felix spoke with a watery European accent that occasionally shanked on emphasis. Encouraged became en-cour-AGED, fundraiser was fund-RAI-ser. The rest of him was equally boggled—light-brown skin, dark eyes, bigish nose, smallish mouth—he could’ve been a dance instructor, a nuclear scientist or a priest. This of course won him my father’s absolute trust, per the spectacle unfolding before us.
        “He know I was coming?”
        “Claimed to.” Felix stared off sage-like, but was clearly tracking the news crew as it made its way towards Owen Sr.
        I fought the urge to roll up the window, back the car out and leave. “We all thought he was dead the first time he did this.”
        Felix didn’t miss a beat. “Everybody hits bot-tom in their own way.”
        “Not the metaphor I would’ve chosen.”
        The Swim, now legend, was a drunken crossing of Long Island Sound by my father in the spring of 1982. Given the currents, water temperature and distance (about thirteen miles from Warring, Connecticut), he never should’ve survived. When he reached the shore on Long Island—naked, hypothermic and barely able to crawl out of the water—he swore off booze. For 9,999 consecutive mornings after that, including a five-month stint in rehab, Owen Ostergaard 2d waded into the waters of Long Island Sound for sixty minutes of literal and figurative exercise. The weather mattered not—snow, wind, hurricane, Nor’easter—my father never missed a day. He had a closet full of wetsuits for every contingency. Today is to be swim number 10,000, a new milestone in crazy.
        “How goes the job?” Felix asked, his eyes still pinned to the beach.
        I was on deadline for a handful of projects at the publishing house where I worked and I lied to Erica, my long-time girlfriend, something I never did. I had deceived people, blown off responsibilities and got fleeced renting a car to do it. Owen Sr. would be proud. It was very Ostergaardian. “All is well,” I said.
        “Su-perb.”
        “You should probably go.” I motioned toward the crowd growing around my father. “He’s not good with people who talk.”
        Felix immediately lit out for the beach, slipping among the growing number of cars in the lot. As he did, I noticed a glut of American models, likely from the old folks or the sober contingent. Still, they outnumbered the Cherokees and foreign SUVs. There were also a handful of low-end Asian brands—Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans, even the odd Kia—all of which stood out in Warring like a shiny suit at a country club. Absent of course were the European sedans and coupes. These were the purview of Warring’s master class of male earners, who would surely be readying themselves for the commute in lieu of anything perpetrated by my father.
        It was the final entrant, however, that stole the show: a gold MG circa 1980, filthy and rusting, the engine rattling in disrepair. I knew the car well, had rode in countless time, driven, even pushed it. The sight of it still clinging to life dumbfounded me so thoroughly I had to stepped from my car make sure I was seeing it right. As I did, it swerved towards the back of the lot near the paddle tennis courts, away from the action. A man and a woman fell out of it half-clothed and laughing wildly. The driver, clearly drunk, fixed himself a fresh drink in a Solo cup before making his way to the beach. The woman scampered into the nearby woods to pee.
        “Freddy!” I yelled, when he was in earshot. His eyes, glazed and unfocused, took a few seconds to find me.
        “No fucking way!” he bellowed, changing course. “Trois? Is that really you? You fucking flat leaver, you fucking Benedict Arnold! I’ve been looking for you for years!”
        His hug nearly knocked me onto the hood of the rental. Half his drink spilled down my back as we both struggled to stay upright. I pushed him off as he tried to kiss me on the lips. The sharp tang of alcohol and cigarettes was on him like polish.
        “A little early,” I said, motioning to his cup.
        “A little late,” he slurred, checking his bare wrist.
        Frederick Christopher Howe wore a white silk robe covered in Kama Sutra illustrations, a T-shirt that read “I Am the New Rich” and black spandex bike shorts. He’d put on at least forty pounds since I’d last seen him and his golden locks had thinned to nothing. He was wearing mascara as well, which only drew attention to his pin-point pupils.
        “You know this is a fundraiser for a rehab?”
        “Exactly my good man,” he pounced. “If it weren’t for all us drunks in Warring, where would Horizon Hill be? I mean, this town is quite the target market am I wrong? Which leads me to my next question: Why on earth is Horizon raising money? I was under the impression it was a posh place to dry out. They should be giving us money with all the newly clean richies they’re creating over there—call it a sober tax and distribute the proceeds to the thirsty.” Freddy leaned in, mock conspiratorial. “You don’t suppose they were in on that Ponzi business do you?”
        I swallowed a laugh. It felt wrong to encourage him. “And Trois, let’s be frank, your old man’s reputation precedes him. I know it’s been a while since Mount St. Owen has erupted but this little event seems tailor made. I mean, you’re here, which indicates a certain je ne sais quoi. And don’t get me started on that little Arab devil.”
    “Felix is Arab now?” “Radicalized fruit is the easiest to pick.” He broke into a slashing cough at this, which abated only when he reached for the cigarettes in his robe pocket. “And this town has been painful lately. Even the people who aren’t poor pretend they are to save face. Those who went bust in the recession—the fun ones—they disappeared before their houses were even foreclosed. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, the great humbling of Warring, but it was supposed to be interesting—more violent, morose, liberating, whatever. No one wants cats to start fucking dogs, but it was just so boring. That’s how well it was managed. No suicides, gay affairs exposed, nobody flaming out in public. Turns out, if people can’t flaunt their money without really flaunting it there’s not much to do in Warring. At the very least I thought someone would throw a bitchin’ trash-my-house foreclosure party, you know, bring your own sledgehammer and a chick with a dick and see what happens? Alas no. And now that it’s over, sort of, everybody is waiting to see what everybody else does and yet no one wants to make the first move. It’s like a high school dance without the booze. What do you think I’m even doing here? The sun is barely up and it’s the dead of summer. I should be settling in for a long day’s sleep.”
        “So your tragically rich life is still tragic?”
        He nodded solemnly. “It is as it has always been: Freddy must make his own party. Speaking of which, where is that wench with whom I came?” 
        He swung his head around so wildly he nearly fell over. His companion, a stick-figure blonde, had made her way to the beach and was trying to coax a pair of pom-poms from one of the cheerleaders. It looked like she was offering cigarettes in exchange. Freddy, newly amused, grabbed my hand and started towards her. I stood firm. It’d been three years since I’d set in foot in Warring, ten since I’d shown my face beyond Dutchwood Lane, my old street. I didn’t feel prudent to join Owen Sr.’s brood on the arm of the only person who had gotten me into more trouble than him. Though I was tempted. By my father’s standards the scene was tame, a minor show. But that was how he lured you in—by selling the calm and not the storm.
        “Still on the path of least resistance?”
        I smirked, folded my arms. “If ain’t broke.”
        “What a shame.” He gave me the finger and sauntered off.
        On the beach Felix outed me to my father, who immediately made eye contact and motioned for us to meet at the pavilion, away from the crowd. The location seemed a fair, if ironic, compromise. The building was the town’s contribution to Oster Beach. Owen Ostergaard I, my grandfather, was the force behind the beach’s founding. In the late fifties, he somehow extracted a series of estate donations from a handful of wealthy landowners. It was the first of his myriad civic accomplishments and why our name was synonymous with Warring.
        We met under the overhang. “June.” He offered his hand.
        As the third consecutive Owen Ostergaard I’d never been called Junior, which was technically my father’s birthright. Rather, at some point before I had a say in the matter I became “June.” Owen Sr. never called me anything else.
        We shook. “Felix said you knew I’d come.” It bothered me that my father was less surprised by my presence in Warring than I was.
        “You’re here.”
        I waited.
        “C’mon, June. It doesn’t always have to be a negotiation. I get that you’re nervous but that’s a choice.”
        “I’m not nervous,” I lied. “I should be. This feels the same as always. What’s behind the curtain this time, pop?”
        “What do you mean?”
        I expected a mischievous grin but he was serious, his face gaunt and tired. I flashed to what Felix said earlier. My father had indeed changed. He’d lost at least ten pounds since I’d last seen him and the red was almost completely gone from his hair, which remained full but white, the same as his beard. He’d always had at least six inches on me—I made it to 5’11”, never achieving that final Ostergaardian inch—but it seemed like he’d shrunk. We were suddenly much closer to eye level.
        “You don’t look good.”
        “I’ve been trying to shed a few pounds.” He tapped a non-existent gut.
        “Stop, you don’t need to.”
        The comment pitched us into silence, me for showing concern and him for not knowing what to do with it.
        “So 10,000?” I said.
        “I think I’m taking a break after today.”
        “Good.”
        There was another pause, during which he seemed to almost nod off.
        “Maybe you should stop now…” I nearly called him Dad, which I never did. I couldn’t say if Felix was right, but there was something different about him. He seemed like less of a caricature—or just less, period. It might have been that I felt more relaxed than usual in Warring. It too seemed different. Or maybe it was a combination of the town and my father appearing as they truly were—more created than naturally occurring, both knocked off their axes by time and hubris. Owen Sr. squinted at me as if in pain then quickly shifted his gaze back to the ocean, to the crowd organizing on either side of an aisle lined with cheerleaders. Freddy’s girlfriend had managed not only to score some pom-poms but a skirt, which hung provocatively off her hips. She was knee-deep in the surf gyrating for the cameraman, who was more than happy to record her cameo for posterity. As she danced the sun breached the horizon, dousing a crowd that had doubled to well over 200 people, including a handful of cops, some young families with new kids and a small contingent from the Warring High marching band. The latter burst forth with a fight song in celebration of daybreak.
        “I’m sorry, Owen.”
        It was the first time he uttered the words in succession. I felt attacked. “Seriously?”
        “Sorry for being a lousy father, sorry for making it more about me than you, sorry for your mother—”
        “Enough!”
        I had been waiting most of my life for this. It happened exactly as I thought it would—my father somehow defeated, a sincere delivery at an ill-timed moment. I almost forgot I would not accept it. It wasn’t like my dad wrecked my car or something. His offenses were epic and life-altering. I was way past hoping for a better father, but I’d sure as hell hold out for a better apology, one that wasn’t offered while a marching band wailed away at dawn.
        As I scowled at him, a photographer emerged and took our picture. “The fuck…” I said, ducking from the flash like a blow.
        The guy held up his free hand and the camera. “For The Warring Times?” he asked. “You guys are never together.”
        I recognized him. We might’ve gone to high school together. Then I realized why he wanted the shot—we were standing directly under the spot where “Ostergaard” was chiseled in stone on the overhang.
        “No more,” I said, waving him off.
        The photographer was gone for seconds when Freddy streaked by without a shred of clothes on, but still with his drink in hand. Owen Sr. barely noticed. The cop who’d been chasing him stopped before us. “Owen,” he greeted my father, out of breath, before turning to me. “June, that you?”
        “Hey Brian.” We shook, he took off.
        The sun finally reached the pavilion, blinding us. As it did the band played “When the Saints Come Marching In” while a cheerleader did a series of handsprings down the aisle in the center of the crowd. When she finished, everyone broke into applause.
        “I’m gonna make it up to you,” Owen Sr. promised. “You’ll see. Isn’t that the way?”
        “Please don’t, it won’t go well, it never does.”
        He paused, looked down. “You don’t even know why you’re here...”
        “Why does there always have to be a reason?” I demanded. “And no, I don’t want to hear your theory.”
        My grandfather was bold and magnanimous. My father was bold and foolish. I was not bold. I was careful and low-key and possibly photosensitive. Given that it was a direct result of growing up under Owen Sr., it was surprising that he considered my personality “incongruent” with the Ostergaard tradition. When I left for college, he warned me that I couldn’t dodge fate forever. Eventually I realized that his theories about me spoke more to his decisions than mine. He stayed. He became the unsuitable scion, the swim-crazed nutter, first-generation poor in a rich town. I left at seventeen and had been waiting most of my life to do it.
        He eyed me for a hard moment. “Time to swim,” I said, glancing toward the crowd.
        Then did another thing he’d never done before—he hugged me.
        I didn’t hug him back.
        As he began his march to the water, the band struck up a new tune—part drum roll, part reveille. I expected my father to jog into the ocean, the same as I’d seen him do hundreds of times before. Instead he meandered, reluctantly waving to the crowd like a prom king on the way to an unwanted coronation. When he reached the water, he waded in against the semi-circle of the rising sun, took a dozen steps and dove.