First fictions: River Kings by Penn Javdan

1
King carried a silence inside him that had been ballooning for three years, ever since the death of his son Miles. His firstborn. The only one.

He’d been living in a forest cabin near the city of Niagara Falls, reducing life to its essentials. A hot plate, a coffee press, lanterns and flashlights. It was a short trek by foot to where Miles’ ten-year-old body had washed down the river. King never saw it, only where he was meant to be buried.

For too long, his mind was a maze. He couldn’t trust his own thoughts. In his darkest moments, King would dream of returning the favor to the man who murdered his son. Knowing that revenge and justice were different things. That the demon inside of him was so primitive, so biological. Ignoring his commitment to being better than mere biology. Telling himself that if he had to choose between justice and his son, he would choose his son.

King once confronted his son’s killer in prison. Giving him fair warning, confessing his plans to him. Believing that, as a father, the man deserved to know. So King readily opened himself up to the possibility that, one day, someone would feed him to the birds that sang outside his cabin window.

King eventually awoke from that fantasy. Because he wasn’t a violent man. He could never hurt a child.

But with each passing year, King got worse, not better.

He began talking to himself. Sleepwalking through the trees. Seeing things.

2
Before Miles was born, King’s wife, Sophie, decided to move her psychiatric practice eastward. She wanted to be closer to her own father, convincing King to move with her to Niagara from Redwood City, out west. Even though Sophie’s father, a well-known businessman in the region, had made it clear that he didn’t want his daughter to marry a black man.

But King quickly found success as an architect. Translating skills he’d acquired as a military carpenter in the jungles of Southeast Asia, now he was drawing pathways for people to move through the city. Ensuring that buildings would stand firm over the falls. Rebuilding Niagara against the pollution of the electrical companies, the chemical footprint of the tourist trade. Toxins that had chewed into bridges and clouded the waters of 1990s Western New York. The earth, his office.

Soon after Miles died, Sophie threw money at the problem. Sending him to the most expensive therapists. Buying him the most modern drugs. Forcing him to talk to God. Despite her best efforts, the silence stuck, the feeling going on and on in him. King had always believed that money could never make an ugly thing beautiful.

Instead, he would take to the river on his speedboat, remembering the times he’d done the same thing with Miles. Bumping along the current, the boy holding his hand to the wind. King hearing his own laughter in his son’s laughter.
 
This memory would soon become a burden, too. It would remind King of the damage he’d done to his wife: using the boat to slip away at night; creeping on the outskirts of town to sneak drinks with women he’d met on site, surveyors and designers who admired the artistry in his work. It would remind King that his son might still be alive if he’d been the father he'd promised to be.

3
Slowly, unknowingly, King became part of the land he was meant to develop. He quit his job as an architect. He liked to light fires and lie down under the stars. He kept quiet for as long as he could, month after month, trying to see how close he could come to forgetting the sound of his own voice. Making a ritual of his solitude. Mastering the art of being alone. 

King had promised Sophie he would never give up the boat, even after he'd retreated to the woods. Sophie vowed to leave him if he did. She’d wanted the boat untouched. To leave the only artifact of their son intact.

But King’s promise turned out to be a lie. He was tired of holding on, living like he didn’t exist. Finally deciding to set himself free.
 
4
King kept a fisherman waiting at the harbor. Wanting to go for one last ride before selling the boat. That morning, Sophie had argued with him about it, knowing what he was about to do. He’d defended himself by telling her this was his way of coming back to the city, to her. It would be a chance for them to begin again, the chance they’d been waiting for. He hung up before letting her tell him that he’d made her wait too long. That she didn’t want him anymore.

The boat purred as King squinted at the dawn. He relented down the river, the blue going pink at his back, the torch of sky trading colors behind him.

For a moment, he closed his eyes and pulled his hands off the wheel of the boat. As if the river might carry him toward an answer.

He decided to remember his son the way he deserved to be remembered. Still himself. Still alive.

Letting go of the boy the best way he knew how.