In Which Sam Martone Attempts His Father's Exercise

Writing Exercise: Begin a story with a horrific death, an agonizing scene of violence, then use the story to track the trauma, its aftermath. One track unavailable to you is vengeance or retribution. There is no further violence; no one else dies for the duration of the story. The story is to be about the living, with the death happily or not, ever after.

Sam Martone does not know much about death or dying or the way things are after someone has died. What a mouth is like when it is empty of stories. He can count on one hand the people he knew who died: a great grandmother, a grandfather, a great uncle, a boy from middle school he met once or twice. He thinks often of the strangeness of death. That someone could simply not be there anymore. When Sam Martone sits down to write a story that begins with death, he does not know whose death it should be. And he has questions: when you begin with death, what happens to the stories of the dead, the characters who never had a chance to live? When you delete a paragraph, where does that moment go?

When Sam Martone tells his father that he has read “The Spirit of St. Louis,” a story about a grieving father and son, a story that begins with death, his father tells him, “I wrote that when I was your age.” He means it as a compliment, to imply that Sam Martone has been as or more successful with his writing than his father. But now, Sam Martone worries that his stories will never come of age, that the shadow cast by his father is impossible to escape from.

“The Spirit of St. Louis 2: This Time, It’s Impersonal” (a story): Leaving the funeral home with his small son, he saw the sun closing on the horizon. The parking lot contained no cars but their own. Beyond the cars, the sun fell to the point where he could look at it without squinting. It was suspended as a small glare in the windshield. With his small son, he wanted to share memories of when he was young, but, what he said was, “You can almost touch it. The sun.”

“Who was he?” his son answered, talking about the man in the coffin.

“Someone I knew. An old friend. You met him once, too.”

“Yeah, but who was he?” he asked his father. The sun was sinking in the reflection of his father’s glasses. It looked like two suns. He did not remember meeting the man who was dead before he was dead.

“He helped me build my first model, or maybe my second,” his father said, and, “Do you want to stay up late tonight?”

“Will Mommy mind?” he asked.

“No, she’ll already be asleep.”

“What can we do? Can we watch TV?” He was watching the two suns disappear from his father’s glasses.

“No, let’s not watch TV,” his father said. “We don’t want to wake Mommy. Let’s do something quiet.”

“What then?”

“Let’s write a story,” his father answered.

Michael Martone, Sam Martone’s father, writes about the coming-of-age of his ten-year-old son in an essay. Sam Martone cannot tell which son his father is talking about: himself or his brother. Sam Martone does not remember being very afraid of death at that, or any, age. But he does remember his father comforting him when he was sick. Sam Martone is unsure if his father’s essay has identified a point in his life where he grew up. Perhaps this is another son, one that died at the beginning of the story, or something that never happened: a story, an anecdote, that Michael Martone retold over and over, until the day when his fingers met the keys and nothing real was left. Yet the words still smack of reality, and Sam Martone feels as though he could be that boy, feels as though he could remember those memories, even if they are not true.

This is the problem with writers: they rehearse and replay and rewrite each event in their lives, reshaping reality until it is just another story. Sam Martone often hears his father recall a spring fair when Sam Martone was in elementary school, the first time he would not let his father hug him in public. Sam Martone remembers this, too, or at least thinks he does—but perhaps he only remembers all the times his father has retold it. He knows that he and his father remember it differently, often debating the year in which this irrevocable change occurred. Sam Martone is no longer sure which version is the one he believes and which is the version his father swears is true.

“The Spirit of the Spirit of St. Louis” (another story): Leaving the funeral home with his mother, he saw the clouds splitting into pink waves above the sun. His father once said that flying through those sunset clouds tasted like strawberries. He was a famous pilot. He died attempting to recreate Charles Lindbergh’s legendary flight. He flew a plane called the Spirit of the Spirit of St. Louis. The last thing he said to his father was, “Don’t fly too high.”

“Do you want to stay up late tonight?” she asked him.

“Would Daddy mind?” he answered.

“No, I don’t think he would.”

“What can we do?” He was watching the birds flying in a ‘V’ pattern. He wanted to touch his father’s cheek, the tufts of beard that felt like feathers.

“We could watch TV,” his mother answered. “Or play games.”

“Let’s do something special.” The clouds were fading. He had looked away only for a second and they were almost gone. He studied the sunset.

“Let’s go,” his mother said opening the car door.

“What are we going to do?” he said to his mother. He looked at the car parked across from theirs and saw a bumper sticker, “My Other Car is a 747.”

“Let’s build a pair of wings,” his mother answered.

At seventeen, Sam Martone listens to his father give a reading at the college Sam Martone will one day attend. This is when Sam Martone realizes his father is not just his father, a man who writes, but a writer who happens to be his father. A writer whose stories people read. The room is full of people listening, and when Michael Martone arrives at the story about superheroes having sex, Sam Martone is not asked to leave like he would have been when he was younger. Instead, he listens and wonders if, perhaps, he has now, finally, come of age. The student who asked Michael Martone to read leans over to Sam Martone and asks, “Was that really weird for you?” Sam Martone then attempts to figure out if it was weird or not, and if it was, what exactly was weird about it. The next year, when he attends this college, people come up to him occasionally and say they read one of his father’s stories in their literature classes. This is when it feels strange, when other people know the words of his father. Sam Martone realizes then that people have read and heard stories about him, Sam Martone. He realizes that he is a character, and he wonders if the character Sam Martone ever sits down to write a story that begins with death.

“The Robot of St. Louis” (a true story): Leaving the college he attends, Sam Martone walks with Michael Martone towards the parked car. The trunk is loaded full of Sam Martone’s things, bags full of clothing and CDs and books. The sun begins to descend from its highest point. Sam Martone wishes it was not so bright, or hot. Michael Martone puts his arm around his son, and Sam Martone does not pull away.

“Do I still embarrass you?” his father asks.

“No,” he says. “Not really.” He watches his recently graduated classmates follow their families back to their own cars. Some walk so close, they could reach out and touch each other if they were to try.

Michael Martone lets go of his son, and they both climb into the car. Together with Sam Martone’s mother and brother, they drive home, watching the sun get farther and farther away. The ride is uneventful, and no one dies because no stories are told.

“Let’s build a robot,” Sam Martone said, many years ago, when he was very young, before he had come of age. “One that works.” Now, he does not ask to build anything.

What does it feel like to come of age? Sam Martone stills feels like the same person he was at seven when he realized the logistical problems of building a robot; at ten when he wouldn’t let his father hug him public; at eighteen when he went away to college. So how can he have come of age yet? He imagines that it should feel like all the bones in your body suddenly fit into place, that all the thoughts in your head and skips of your heart suddenly make sense. He thinks coming of age must only happen at funerals, and realizes he has never been to a funeral, where all those memories of someone loved are distorted by the passing of years and a desire to honor the deceased. The mourning people, their memories must seep into you and fill your body, and you take on the weight of someone else’s story. It must make you understand that, one day, your story too will be retold again and again, while you lie motionless, in an open casket. The character of yourself makes choices you never made, and your life is remolded in the voices of those burying you, tucking you in with these stories about you, as though you were just a child and their words a nightlight in the dark.