The Most Dangerous Animal of All - Susan Mustafa D.

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      When my grandfather refused to bend, my grandmother filed for divorce.

      Van begged his father to let him stay with him, but Earl insisted that it was best he live with his mother. “You’ll be fine,” he told his son.

      Van knew he would not be fine. So did Earl, and his heart was heavy as he boarded the train that would take him back to South Carolina, more than two thousand miles away from his nine-year-old son.

      Gertrude and Van moved to 514 Noe Street, located on a steep hill in the heart of the Castro District. Their home, a two-story, turn-of-the-century Victorian, was divided into two apartments – one upstairs and one downstairs. Gertrude and Van occupied the first floor. The house was one of the few that had not been destroyed during the 1906 earthquake. Noe Street, unlike many streets throughout San Francisco that were built on sand dunes, had a solid rock foundation, which spared all of the houses on the hill from destruction.

      Van’s room soon became his refuge and his prison. He filled it with his beloved books, and when he wasn’t in school, he hid there while his mother gave piano lessons to the neighborhood children. He could hear the sounds of the children laughing in the living room beside him and his mother laughing with them as they banged away on the keys of the piano.

      Gertrude did what she had to do for Van – she made sure he ate and went to school. Other than that, she ignored him. She embraced her newfound freedom, and soon a bevy of men were steadily making their way to her home.

      Van could hear, sometimes, the banging of the headboard, the moans and gasps permeating the walls. He let the sounds of his music – flutes and violins and clarinets – swirl around him as he turned up the volume of his phonograph to drown out the banging. As he listened to The Mikado, the tale of lust and deceit captured in the opera mimicked his own life, and he listened over and over, memorizing every word.

      Other times he occupied himself with writing codes, wishing his father were sitting across from him trying to decipher the meaning. Van missed his father. Even though he was strict, my grandfather had given him attention, had challenged him, had made him feel like he was important. In San Francisco, Van felt like he was nothing more than a nuisance, invisible.

      Nobody.

      Earl would spend the rest of his life regretting his decision to allow his only son to live with his ex-wife, but at the time, he had been convinced that a child was better off being raised by his mother.

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      On the day his divorce from Gertrude became final, Earl married Eleanor “Ellie” Bycraft Auble, a widow twelve years his junior. He had met Ellie two years earlier, when he was tasked with informing her that her husband, George Coleman Auble, had been killed in an explosion while loading depth charges on the USS Serpens on March 10, 1943. Ellie had appreciated the comfort the chaplain had given her, and when Earl returned from San Francisco, these two souls searching for comfort in an unfair world were drawn to each other immediately. Neither of them had deserved their fates, but together their wounds could heal. Earl fell in love with Ellie’s genteel manners and steadfastness. She was a woman who would be faithful, a woman who would be a role model for Van.

      After they married, the couple moved to Indianapolis so that my grandfather could teach military intelligence and business at the U.S. Army Finance School at Fort Benjamin Harrison. He had been excommunicated from the Methodist Church because of his divorce, but the preacher was soon welcomed into the Disciples of Christ ministry in Indianapolis.

      The following year, Earl flew Van from San Francisco to Chicago for summer break. When he got off the plane, Van ran into Earl’s arms, excited to see him after so long.

      “Van, this is Ellie, your new mother,” Earl said, prying Van’s arms from around his neck. “She’s my wife now, and you are to listen to her and give her the respect you give me.”

      Van turned slowly and looked at the pretty young woman standing next to his father. The smile that had lit up his face when he saw Earl disappeared into a trembling frown.

      Ellie reached out her hand.

      Van hesitated, then shook it when Earl urged him forward.

      “Hi, Van. It’s so nice to meet you. Your father has told me so much about you.”

      Van didn’t respond.

      “Are you ready for the beach?” she asked.

      Van nodded and turned to walk with them to the waiting car. Each year, all of the Bests gathered in the family-owned beach house at 302 Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for summer vacation. Van had looked forward to this trip for months, and now this woman had ruined everything. Van slumped into the backseat and stared out the window, occasionally stealing glances at the woman who held his father’s attention.

      “How do you like San Francisco?” Ellie inquired.

      “I don’t,” Van said.

      “Watch yourself, young man,” Earl warned.

      “Well, she asked. I don’t like it.”

      “Why not?” Ellie pressed.

      “Mother has too many boyfriends,” Van said, hoping the shock value of his words would make them leave him alone.

      It worked.

      Ellie gave up and spent the next fourteen hours on the road ignoring Van, who spoke to his father in Japanese so Ellie couldn’t understand him. When Earl insisted he speak in English, Van stopped talking.

      By the time they reached the beach house, the animosity my father felt for his new stepmother had reached a fever pitch. Grabbing his bag, he stomped up the stairs into the house, ignoring Louise, Aileen, and Bits when they said hello. He ran into his usual bedroom, slammed the door, threw himself on the bed, and cried. He was still crying when Earl walked in.

      “I had hoped you would have grown up some and learned how to behave yourself properly, but apparently your mother has not been disciplining you,” Earl said, pulling off his belt. “You will treat my wife with respect. Now bend over,” he added sternly.

      Aileen and Bits were listening and giggling down the hall. “He just got here. What do you think he did?” Bits said.

      “I don’t know, but it must have been bad. Uncle Earl sounds real mad,” Aileen replied.

      The next morning, Aileen was waiting for him in the hall. “How’s your backside?” she said, laughing. Van punched her in the arm. Hard.

      It didn’t take long for Van’s cousins to pick up where they had left off when he moved. At breakfast, the girls began making fun of him for reading a book at the table. When Aileen accidentally spilled milk on his book, Van exploded.

      “Don’t cry over spilt milk,” his cousins jeered.

      “You have no idea. This is a first edition,” Van cried, grabbing his book and running into the kitchen to tenderly dry each page.

      The girls spent the summer teasing him mercilessly. One afternoon, as Van sat alone on the handrail of the second-floor porch, reading, Ellie asked him to go to the car and fetch her sunglasses. Startled from his book, Van fell over the railing, landing on his head in front of the whole family. Ellie screamed when Van hit the sandy ground with a thud. For a moment, everyone thought he was dead. Embarrassed, my father lay there stunned for a moment, then got up, brushed the sand from his clothes, and disappeared into a far room in the back of the house to cry. He knew this was more ammunition for his cousins. He was different and could not fit in. And he didn’t care enough to try. He preferred rummaging through an old trunk he’d found in the attic, looking at the crinkled papers and yellowed christening gowns someone had tucked away years ago, rather than playing silly games. He didn’t want to run on the beach with them or swim in Withers Swash. He wanted to be left alone with his books, his escape from his family.

      As the summer wore on, Van began longing for San Francisco.

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