Man, Father, King (Published)

David Venol turned down the private road that led to the family’s country house near Monticello, New York. Of all the properties the family owned, he was least fond of this one. During his childhood this place was where he spent most of his time, outside of their brownstone in the city. Here he learned how to hunt or fish or start a fire. All of the things that his father thought a man should know how to do. Ironic that it would be at this place, that David would tell his father he’s walking away from it all.

David paused his sedan at the entrance. Reaching out of the window he punched in the code on the metal box the granite post. The blackened steel and bronze gate creaked open across its track, getting stuck for a fraction of a second in the same place that it had for forty years. He smirked at the familiarity.

In the distance he could see the estate manager waiting to greet him at the end of the gravel driveway to the right of the magnificent main entrance. Grand as it was, David tried to remember if he’d ever entered through that door. He couldn't recall a single time.

The morning air permeated the car through the open window, smelling of dew-soaked pine and grass. It filled his nostrils and he was immediately reminded of his childhood. He used to hate that smell, it meant that he was up too early. Now, it simply brought to mind a simpler time. A time without worries or cares. A time unrecognizable to the current one.

David was now fully a part of the machine; the multinational conglomerate that was Venol International. It’s not that he had anything against the company itself. It was more that, as the oldest child, he was forcefully indoctrinated to its way of life. David was the most submerged in the family business and thus bore the weight of the most expectations. In truth, he appreciated his position within the company and made no illusions about his privilege; still there was always a pull within him to live his own life.

There was his tiny flat in L’Estaque, outside of Marseille, that he thought about often. Its walls were mostly bare, their sole purpose holding the litter of windows. He’d concealed it under a blind trust in a friend’s name. He did this with anything that he wanted to keep to himself; buried it under a mountain of paperwork. Although, it was more for his own psyche than anything else. He wanted it to feel separate. There was a desk nestled against the east wall of the small apartment where he would write in the mornings with his coffee from the café across the street. A little drawing board lived against the south wall where he would sketch after lunch. A high table with a shelf behind it on the west served as his bar when he would entertain his friends before they ventured out into the night. The remaining two rooms held a bathroom with a finicky toilet and a small bedroom that could barely fit a queen bed. He’d learned that originally the whole floor was one occupant, his bedroom used to be the walk-in closet. Admittedly, it was a simple place, not much to brag about. But he felt more at home there than anywhere else in the world.

He’d been saving for years, waiting to tell his father he was going to retire from the business. He had enough to live in that simple place, leading his simple life, for at least ten years according to his calculations. After that… well, he was sure he’d figure it out.

David jumped at the invitation from his father. This rare time alone would provide the perfect opportunity to tender his resignation which was typed and signed in his pocket.

François, the estate manager and one of his father’s executive assistants opened his car door.

“Welcome, Master Venol. How was the drive?” David had long given up the fight to get Francois to call him by his first name. He was steeped in tradition and integrity; David was often left feeling confused and slightly uneducated after attempting to debate Francois on how to address him or any other subject for that matter.

“Well, François. Thank you.” David said shaking his hand. His grip was as firm now as it had been when Davis was a kid. The man had to be in his sixties at least but stood straight as an arrow. “How are you holding up with the old man around more now?”

François repressed a smile, his mostly bald head showing a slight glisten from whatever conditioner he used.

“I saw that. You’re getting old François,” David poked fun, retrieving his bag of clothes from the trunk. “You should retire, you know.”

“And miss the chance to one day see your misguided son talk sideways about you?

Never, sir.”

Point for François.

“Shall I take that for you? Your father is waiting in the solarium.”

David glanced at his watch disappointed; he was twenty minutes ahead of the scheduled time, but that did not matter. If his father arrives ahead of him, David would be treated as though he were late, no matter the agreed upon time. And David hated appearing late.

“François -“

“Your guns have been cleaned and in the drawing room, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Samuel Venol sat in the solarium with his newspaper and his cup. It was a scene all too familiar to David. The morning sun dropping eloquently on his paper, the aroma of fresh Kopi Luwak filling the room. His father was an imposing man. Husky in his appearance, but never fat. When he moved his face, the hundreds of various lines it created were pronounced and deep. When he would frown, a chasm appeared down the middle of his forehead and met the varying lines that pronounced themselves around his eyebrows that rested proudly above his deep dark eyes. A face fit for a scolding father.

He looked up from his paper and regarded David.

“Right on time,” He said. David couldn’t tell if he was being facetious or not. He looked for his infamous frown but there was no hint of it on his face. Instead his deep lines surrounding his mouth protruded registering a slight smile. There was small but noticeable gap between his front upper teeth that he never bothered to fix, and yet he never let a single hair on his head be out of place. Not even when the white hairs started invading the dark brown. Although at this point, it was clear which was winning the war as his thick beard was completely white at present.

“Coffee?” He asked nodding to the tray.

David poured himself a cup. Then, grabbing the sugar lump dish, sat at the table opposite his father. Samuel turned back to his paper. David looked out at the room. It was a beautiful setting in the mornings. With glass on the ceiling and glass on three out of the four sides the room, it was the perfect halfway point between the indoor and outdoor. The sun rising behind his father bathed the room in its warmth, contrasting the briskness of outside. You could see and hear the birds going about doing whatever it is that birds do. The trees swayed back and forth gently in every breeze. It was more peaceful than he had remembered.

After they’d finished their coffee, the pair made their way to the rear of the house where some of the estate staff were milling around two four-wheel ATVs that they had prepared for the father and son. Rifles lay across the seat of each and leg holsters with a Walther PPK hung over the handlebars of both. David slung the rifle over his shoulder and strapped the thigh holster on his right leg, he was careful to ensure the rifle strap didn’t wrinkle the letter of resignation in his jacket pocket. Mary, from the kitchen, had already packed them some breakfast and lunch in the ATV’s rear storage compartment. He opened the cargo box and felt around under his carefully placed Tupperware; his fingers touched the bottle of whiskey. He looked up at Mary, who was walking back towards the house. She glanced over her shoulder as she turned the corner and winked at David. He always did love Mary. George, the groundskeeper, made his way around the building with two 5-gallon plastic containers of gas. He secured them tight on the rear rack next to the cargo box. David, out of habit, checked it anyway when George went to attach his father’s.

Oddly enough, François oversaw all of this. Naturally, all orders of the house fell under his purview but this didn’t merit his direct attention.

“Enjoy your day, sir.” George said when he’d finished and shook Mr. Venol’s hand. George’s back was slightly hunched over which didn’t help his already odd mannerisms. He held onto Samuel’s hand longer than average until François cleared his throat. George then scurried off to wherever it was that he hid when he wasn’t working. David was always weirded out by George. He used to call him the 'young Prince' and stand entirely too close for David’s liking, but his father always ignored him and kept him on for as long as he could remember.

“Let’s have breakfast by the lake.” David’s father said mounting his ATV. “You remember the way, right?”

“I do.” David responded and started his four-wheeler. He looked to his father for an indication of whom he wanted to go first. The path was too narrow to ride side by side. Samuel just nodded at his son. David stomped down on the gear throwing into first and sped off through the half acre of backyard boarder on all sides by trees. Near the northern end of the eastern side, David took a right between the two trees he’d remembered from his youth and started out down the path through the woods, his father not too far behind him.

Twenty minutes later, they sat at the lake enjoying their breakfast. When David was a kid, they had made a sitting arrangement out of a tree broken by a storm. His father had smoothed out the stump first, then cut the trunk in two. David and his brother made a fire pit out of stone between the stump and the water’s edge. Then arranged the two logs on either sides of the fire, the fire pit becoming the center piece of their outdoor seating design.

David made a small fire in case they wanted to warm their coffees, but the thermos had done its job. In truth, he half made it for the coffee and half made it to preempt any wilderness field tests by his father. Despite David’s best efforts to ignore his father; he could shoot, fish, build a fire, and generally survive in the woods. He just didn’t like being told to do it.

He looked at the old man across the fire sitting on the hard, uncomfortable log like it was his favorite plush armchair. David’s resentment towards him had been built up for years. But now, sitting here in the quiet of the morning, perhaps it was more what he represented than the man himself. He felt guilty for what he was about to do. He knew it would disappoint his father.

“You know I hated my father.” The senior Venol said. His voice cutting through the countless indistinguishable sounds of the forest.

“Really?” This was surprising to David, as he always spoke highly of him.

“He was a phenomenal man but not a nice person; didn’t do small talk.”

“Well I would have never guessed… given your renown as a social butterfly.” David commented sarcastically.

His Dad laughed. Bellowed, rather. It was the first time David had heard him laugh like that for years. He smiled.

“Yes, he was a real piece of work.” The old man said, still recovering from his amusement. “Ah, how tragic. I hated him right up until the day he died.”

David assumed this last statement was from a 16th century Shakespearean play or the likes. His father had a knack for seamlessly weaving the past into the present, but David dare not ask and risk ruining the calm morning with a history lecture.

He glanced at his father who was suddenly solemn. He didn’t know if it was reminiscing or regretting, but David has hesitant to interrupt the memory that was obviously playing behind his eyes. Instead, David sipped his coffee, watching the water lap up against the embankment.

“Do you ever miss him?” David said breaking the silence.

“I didn’t use to. But lately …. Daily.” There seemed to be something else there. Something left unsaid. “I wish I could have had time to figure out how to talk to him. My guess is it would have helped me figure out how to talk with you better.”

“We have a good relationship, Dad.” David said almost instinctively trying to alleviate whatever remorse he was feeling. “You’ve been a great Dad and I know you do what you think is best; for all of us. I’ve never doubted that. I’ve only slightly disagreed on what’s best.”

His father seemed to accept this platitude from his son. It was taken with a faint nod. David didn’t quite see why it was being brought up now, however.

“When your father had his accident-“ David started to probe.

“It wasn’t an accident.” The old man quietly corrected.

“What? What do you mean? Grandpa was on the boat and –“

Samuel put up a hand to quiet him. David obliged the gesture, waiting for an explanation, but none came. It was like his father had gotten stuck in his head.

“What is it?” David pushed. His voice seemed to get his father out of whatever mental loop he’d been held in.

“You know successions are always the weakest period of any empire or Kingdom. By far the most likely time to see it all fall apart.” The statement in itself seemed to ring true to David, but he had no idea what it had to do with their conversation. His father had an elaborate way of changing the subject sometimes. “Alexander’s failure to name a clear successor resulted in the collapse of the Romans.”

“Ok?” David said acknowledging he was listening but was still lost.

“My father used to tell me a story about his father inheriting some land and small building in the sixties from an Aunt who married rich. She was a clever woman from what I’ve heard. Anyway, my grandfather took this meaningless plot and started farming on it. Of course, he didn’t have anything, so to him it was a grand domain.” His father smiled again, convinced that he’d lost David completely but confident he would catch up. “A few years later the state wanted an interstate cut right across it to the nearby city and suddenly this land was more valuable. He sold the passage rights to the state and used that money to start developing. Gas stations, markets, houses, etcetera. One thing, always being the collateral for funding the next. One day he’s digging a foundation for mechanics shop and finds the soil contaminated… turns out there’s a bit of oil. Not a lot but a taste. Just enough to sell it to investors.”

He told this story with excitement in his voice like he was telling it for the first time. It was almost as if he was jealous. Envious of the prospect of starting from scratch, having only one move to make and no safety net. He grinned at no one in particular.

“I know this story, Dad.” David said, trying to refocus the discourse.

“Yes, but here’s the part you don’t know. Your great Uncle-in-law had an estranged brother. One that everyone thought died in the war. There had been a search, but at the time hundreds of thousands of body parts were scattered all over Europe. And this man, having nothing to come back to, didn’t. Upon finding out about the death of his brother, though, he decided to come back. He came straight to my grandfather demanding the inheritance that was rightfully his. Which would have been fine enough except he didn’t want money, he wanted the actual land. The land on which my grandfather had built his own little empire from dirt. “ He sighed thinking of it. Something about this part of the story poked at Samuel.

“He probably could have won a court case,” Samuel continued, “but grandad didn’t know anything about the law or the courts. So instead he invited the old vet to take a ride with him in his new blue Chevy pickup truck. Then drove that pick-up truck off a bridge, killing them both. Leaving my father with an inheritance that given some time and skill he could make something of. Eventually he did. And when my father’s cancer returned, as mine has, the two of us took a boat ride.”

“Jesus Dad. Are you ok?” David moved to his father’s side and gripped his shoulder. The implications of the story were lost on David through the rush of emotions. David didn’t know what to process first: the murder-suicide of his great grandfather, the apparent suicide of his father’s father or his father’s impending doom. He felt heavy suddenly. Saddled with an unorthodox burst of dread.

“No, no, none of that. I’m fine.” he tapped his son’s hand in appreciation.

“Is this why you called me out here; to tell me this?”

“No son, I bought you out here so you can shoot me and make it look like an accident.” David’s father said blankly.

David pulled the words from his head and ran them back through his ears again. The words he understood. Nevertheless, he couldn’t comprehend their meaning. He searched his father’s face for a hint of a jest. He saw none.

“wh- … I’m sorry?”

“Succession, son. Always the worse time.” A daunting thought finally struck home with David, as a massive cloud darkened his world several shades: He was serious. “I wish we would’ve talked more, son.”

“W- We have time now. We can talk, let’s take a trip somewhere.”

“No, I don’t mean talk like this. This isn’t talking, this is… an extended goodbye. This is making peace. No, I wish we talked more normally. Just as father and son… as men.”

There was a sincere introspection behind his dark eyes. It was a genuine thought. “I feel I could have learned a lot from you. And despite my incessant badgering, I had more experiences I wish I’d shared.”

“Dad, there’s no-“ David didn’t even know where to start, “Wh- what are we even talking about here?”

Samuel ’s weathered face held a familiar look. David did not immediately place it. Likely, because it wasn’t fitting in this situation. He finally recognized it. It was… disappointment. David was experiencing the full range of emotion now as his anger started to rise in response to his father’s displeasure at him resisting this task.

“Why not do it yourself?” David practically yelled exasperated, “Why do you need me?”

“Because when you kill me, I know you’ll be ready to rule.” Samuel stated plainly.

“There are no Kings anymore, Dad.” David said pointedly.

Samuel shook his head.

“I raised you to be smarter than that,” Samuel said again wearing a face of disappointment. “It’s worse now then it ever was. At least hundreds of years ago we knew who the Kings were. Now they are hidden in the shadows; buried under shell companies, trusts, off-shore accounts, … political offices.”

David tried to slow time slightly with deep breaths. He tried to review the situation as a joke, but his father was not one for elaborate practical jokes.

“Take away all of your preconceived notions of morality and laws that you’re filtering my words through. Take away guilt and the idea of a conscious. Weigh what I am saying dispassionately.”

David tried. The idea of morality was embedded in him from youth by the very man that was asking him to throw it away.

“You taught me-“

“I taught you a guideline. How to operate in a civilized society. But Laws and morality, these things don’t really apply to Kings.”

David felt alone in the forest in a way he had never felt before. He was tempted to get on his ATV and ride off, but he was sure he’d never be able to leave. He felt like the forest went on forever in this moment.

“It’s doesn’t make sense.”

“Logic exists only at the mercy of our comprehension.”

“Did you kill Grandpa?” David asked finally putting the pieces together from the story that seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Yes.” Samuel’s gaze was level and clear. “He didn’t want to wither away in some hospital room; his wife and children taking turns changing his diaper while the cancer ate away at everything that made him, him. Your grandfather was a Lion. Lion’s don’t die in hospice care. And you are gravely mistaken if you think I’m going to let my family’s last memory of me be a pathetic, fragile, dried up leaf of a man; drowning in an ocean of tears while some Judas’ picks apart my family’s wealth. ” His voice roared through the forest as his eyes raged. Cancer was not going to beat him, there was not a spec of doubt in his piercing gaze. “Word gets out about my sickness, loyalties will erode. They will vacate my seat due to being impaired. Hamilton will wrestle away control and by the time you inherit my seat in six months when I'm dead, you’ll just be a nuisance. Someone drawing a salary that they will soon look to phase out.”

David had never sat in on the board meetings, but he knew Hamilton. He was more sleaze than man. If anyone would take advantage of the situation it would be him.

“What I am asking you for is mercy, son. An act of love.” Samuel pleaded.

“What happens if I refuse?” His father sighed slightly as if David was inconveniencing him by making him explain his asinine request.

“Well, I’ll go on a hunting trip with your younger brother.”

“So get him then! You think he’ll do this?” David shrieked somehow, inexplicably, offend.

“I don’t know. I know he’d likely never forgive you for this.” Samuel stated the obvious. Accident or no, it was David’s brother personality was to assign blame and then hold a grudge. “I am even more certain however, that if he takes over, everything will crumble in the next few years.” He allowed the accuracy of that statement to sink in. David didn’t bother to refute it. “At which point all those people at the house we just left are out of a job. Your mother and sister and you would be…” He shrugged, unable to find a word, “just like everyone else... You think they’d survive that?”

The old man stared at his son intensely. David knew the answer as well as his father did. Unlike David, the rest of the family embraced their good fortune. They were generous with others to a fault and were never in danger of being called frugal. David’s mother, the saint, was the linchpin in several foundations whose sole purpose was raising money from wealthy families like their own and redistributing it among third world countries.

David, for his part, liked to think that he didn’t need the money like the rest of his family. Now, however, the letter of resignation felt like lead in his pocket. David did not kid himself into believing that his choice to live simply was synonymous with the need to live simply; in order to survive. His last name always gave him a safety net.

There was this growing feeling that David had now. It had started deep in the pit of his stomach and had now grown to the bottom of his chest. He felt aged and heavy. Empty and full at the same time. All since the conversation started.

“What was it like?” David asked. His father raised a brow. “To be like everyone else.”

Samuel inhaled deeply and exhaled looking down, searching the furthest reaches of his memory.

“I don’t really remember, son.” He answered truthfully. Such a simple and honest answer from an honest man. You could see him pause mid thought. As if trying to dreg up some lost recollection. He gave up and shook his head subtly. “Don’t remember.”

There was a silence that engulfed them, made up of all the things that they never said to each other and perhaps never would. The old man’s face was a picture of equity.

“Is there a woman?” The old man broke the silence with an odd question.

“What?”

“In Marseille? Is there a woman?”

“How do-“

David’s father met his surprised gaze with an expression of comical disappointment this time. He looked almost insulted that his son didn’t think he knew everything happening in his realm.

“A couple of years before I met your mother there a woman. Raquel.” Samuel continued ignoring David’s shock, “Hair deep red like... blood spilt on the ground.” He gestured to the dirt beneath their feet. “Light eyes and freckles. Such a pretty shell for such a dangerous creature. But Damn, she could make you feel… alive“ Samuel grinned to himself shaking his head, “We were meant to go to South America and bounce around for a few months. Then maybe Greece after that. We’d saved a little cash and anyway she wasn’t much for luxury.”

The old man was no longer looking at David. He was gazing into the small fire. The red shades flickering in his eyes as it popped and hissed and danced for him. Samuel lost himself in the story; the memory. Samuel had once had the ridiculous notion to leave it all behind, much as he knew his son did. He’d never tell David how much he considered it. How close he came.

Finally, Samuel was back in the present and met David’s eye with the stern look that his son was familiar with. “After your grandfather died, I had a choice. I could protect what my father and his father worked and died for… or I could chase a theory of happiness that I had no real long-term evidence to support. There was no chance at keeping both. Raquel was a wild woman. It would be like trying to keep a mountain lion in the pantry.”

“You left her?”

Samuel shrugged at a decision long forgotten.

“She went to South America … I went to work.”

“Did you see her when she got back?”

“No… I’m not even sure she came back.”

David looked upon his father differently then he had prior to this excursion. How many men lay within the man sitting before him? He wondered. How many stories untold would die with him?

The old man smiled wide. “Some time later I found your mom and we were able to be happy… But the point son, is that there was no guarantee I would find someone as special as your mother when I left Raquel. I left, because it was what was required.”

David regarded the self-assurance of his father. He felt he’d never acquired that particular confidence.

“I acknowledge that you think that you could be happy, … you know, as an artist in France. It’s likely you would be. Unfortunately, that was not the hand you were dealt.”

David stood up and walked to the water. The sun was now in full blaze above them. His father rose as well and stood by him, looking out at the lake.

“There is a discomfort in becoming the leader.” Samuel’s voice was low and soothing. But more so, it was apologetic. “A deep loneness that no one can quite understand. That no one should understand. That hollow, dark, void that you’ve felt growing inside your chest from the moment I told you I was not long for this world… it will only continue to grow. It will expand and be evermore vast and disconcerting, but for good reason. That’s where you will keep the pressure and responsibility of your family, the people who depend on you, your kids and kid’s kids. In that abyss, that you’ll never shake, you’ll hold all your fears for them. All your pain. And what’s more, you’ll keep theirs as well.” Samuel voice seemed to be vibrating the marrow in David’s bones. “When you watch your son fail and cry and then blame you. When you receive the pain and hurt they will cause; you won’t lash out at them. No, you’ll store it right there and carry it along with you; knowing every decision you make affects so many lives. Your stress will feed that abyss; that sickening darkness. And I’m sure one day you’ll think you don’t want to do this… you’ll think: I just want to be happy. I just want to be responsible for myself… but you won’t let go of the abyss and you know why?”

Samuel turned to his son who continued to look out at the water. David didn’t move. Even the air he breathed was heavy now.

“You won’t let go of that abyss because you know that you carry the dark void so that everyone else doesn’t have to. You’re the sin eater. You can’t be happy because happiness for you, means unhappiness for everyone you love. The day you are happy, is the day everyone gets little abysses of their own. They will all have to walk around with dark holes in them. Though you have the strength to pull them all, you know that they do not. Thus your happiness will be polluted by the knowledge that you’ve made everyone else unhappy; the knowledge that by giving them their own balls of despair, you’ve broken them. The only way to protect them, is to keep all the desolation, all the darkness, all the heavy, hallow, and deep despair in the only place that you can be sure it will truly do no harm…. Right here.”

Samuel laid his hand on his son’s chest. David could feel the emptiness growing inside of him and imagined that it was finally abating for his father. A sort of transference. It was excruciating but David, like his father, was built to withstand it.

“I’ve been dying since that day on the boat. Let me die with dignity. Let me rest in peace knowing I protected my family.” Samuel kissed David on the cheek. “Take care of the family, show me some kindness and put me out of my misery. “

Samuel handed him the gun, “I love you, son.” He said and turned away walking a few steps upstream.

David thought of his small flat in Marseille. It’s was such a nice place; he thought while coming to grips with the fact that he would likely never see it again. There would be no late nights and sleep in’s. No ramblings he would write and hope to publish one day. No sketches to frame and hang on his bare walls. Andja wouldn’t wait for him and even if she did, the man he now had to become would be unrecognizable to the one she’d known.

He took the thoughts and aspirations of that life and fed it to the growing abyss inside of him. His father was right. David could handle it but no one else could.

It was strange; David spent most of his life resenting this man. To realize, much too late, that he loved him more than he ever hoped to articulate. What was more, he was destined to soon become him. The crown, now on his head, fit awkward and heavy.

“I love you, son.” Samuel repeated without turning around.

“I love you, Dad”

The birds fluttered out of the trees startled by the gunshot. Tears stung David’s eyes as he fell to his knees. He wept for the great man. He wept for the piece of himself that he would bury along with his father. He wept for the part of the man that he’d never known and wept even more still for the part that he did.

Finally, he rose from his knees. David looked down at the man, the father, the king. Reaching into his pocket, he removed the envelop, and tossed the resignation letter into the fire.