My Father's Grave

December 1941, San Fernando Valley, California. A cabin built between the fields and forest, flanked by farmland, beside a stretch of dirt road running from the town a few miles north. The first rays of a brisk Saturday morning filter through a window in the kitchen, past the open curtains, illuminating the room and its furnishings with a soft golden light.

KARL sits in one of the chairs at the table, absently drumming his fingers on the wooden surface. His sleek, pale features, faint gray eyes and yellow-blond hair almost glow in the sunlight; his face is thinly lined with wear and time, giving away the impression that he is older than in reality. A drab-green open jacket is fitted neatly on him, sleeves folded to the elbows, taut at his shoulders, which are as broad as they can be with his lithe build. Even seated he is clearly tall, perhaps even a little imposing, but more quiet strength than intimidation seems to radiate from his presence.

Directly across from him, JONATHAN’s brow creases as he glances over the front page of the weekly paper. Brown hair and bright-green eyes warmly compliment his maroon vest, an article that once belonged to his father. Even in the middle of December, the day feels especially warm with his grace and presence like a summer breeze, though these characteristics are not displayed in full as he loosely, somewhat lazily props up his chin with one hand, elbow on the tabletop. He appears younger, livelier than his companion, not wise, beat down or withdrawn, but still far from naive.

With a hint of hesitation, KARL clears his throat, raises a hand to his mouth for a moment before lowering it, and fidgets with the handle of his fork in silence. After a few minutes have passed, he is seen to pick up a bit of toast and start chewing on it tentatively.

JONATHAN

What’s the matter, feeling alright?

KARL

Yes. (swallows) Well — you haven’t touched your food. I should be asking you.

JONATHAN

(Waving the first page airily) Paper’s got my name on it. A man’s gotta stay informed, you know, ’specially near these times we got now. Fronts, scuffles, movements, bombings —

KARL

Why don’t you focus on those after breakfast?

JONATHAN

What, it spoils your appetite? I suppose I — ah, I shouldn’t be sayin’ that, I’m sorry. Here. I’ll go ahead an’ — (folds the newspaper and sets it aside) — do that later. You know, it gets closer by the day, calling all manners of men to the lines. . .headlines and deadlines. The lot, the fight.

KARL

(tight-lipped) You sure seem enthusiastic about it.

JONATHAN

It ain’t enough sitting around on the home front for me. (Takes a quick sip of his coffee, then licks his lips and looks aimlessly around the kitchen) Not that I’ve got any business killin’ anybody, but it’s a war, a World War.

KARL

(picking at his bacon) A war we — you — shouldn’t be running headlong into, that’s what. We’ve had this conversation more times than I could count.

JONATHAN

They need as many of us as they can get. That’s why they go looking, after all. An old space near the post office’s been made a recruiting station, and I see lines there every time I go downtown. Thinking. Every pair of hands —

KARL

Not yours. (shaking his head) Oh, Jon, you’re one man. If you go, the differences it’ll make won’t measure up to be worth risking life and limb for.

JONATHAN

(stops with his fork halfway to his mouth) You think I’m not fit for it?

KARL

No, no, that’s not what I mean. . .it’s just a lot to think about. You should think about it.

JONATHAN

(letting his fork clatter to the plate) I have, Karl, for two goddamn years, since Poland got its ass kicked and through last year when they upturned France! It ain’t right and you know it, out of all the people in this stinking world I’d imagine — you see those headlines, the radio, everything. Don’t you get me wrong, I got no love for violence, but my hands are as good as any and I’ll prove that right!

KARL

Jon —

JONATHAN

Watch what comes down if we don’t lift another finger. (raising his voice) You saw it, when the Japanese, the Axis bombed Pearl Harbor to bits two weeks ago, killin’ thousands faster than the eye can blink and you think I’ll stand to the side and watch it burn?! Hitler got no pity for our homes and families, when that day comes and they’ve crossed the English Channel and the Atlantic, what do you damn well think a man should do? Stand around and —

KARL

Jon!

JONATHAN

STOP IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, THAT’S WHAT!

Silence reigns in the room like a leaden sheet. A frozen expression of bemusement and shock has taken up KARL’s features, spoon elevated slightly in his left hand; JONATHAN’s shoulders are trembling from his sudden outburst and the anger in his eyes quickly dissolves. He reseats himself, folds his hands in front of his forehead as he leans forward and lets out a tremendous sigh.

JONATHAN

I’ve gone and yelled at you, I’m so sorry. I never yell. . .I didn’t, at least. . .didn’t mean. . .

KARL

(tiredly, with fresh exhaustion gathering in his slumped frame, the food forgotten) It’s alright. It’s alright, I know. It just feels like a punch to my gut, thinking about you getting hurt out there. Not coming back home. Never being able to see you again outside of a casket and pall.

JONATHAN

(softly) You’ve got the same face on you Ma did when she talked about how my daddy died.

KARL

Oh, Jon. . .

JONATHAN

(chuckling faintly, wiping at his eyes) Know what she’d say? Ma would take one look at us, laugh with her pretty smile and say to us, “You two bicker like you’re married.” Like we’re an old wed couple —

KARL

(hushed) Your parents —

JONATHAN

But Ma never really knew I’d love a man. (A distant, rather hazy look gathers in his eyes.) She never will. (He pauses for a long time, stuck in thought and an odd reverie.)

KARL

(gripping his mug firmly, jaw set) I don’t want you to worry or beat yourself down. . .

JONATHAN

Maybe that’s for the best, that she don’t know.

KARL

(trying to comfort him) Whatever the case, she and your father, you know how much they loved you. You’re their living mark on this world, and you are everything they poured into you, love and light, more. They wouldn’t want to see you in pain. Running off to war like that.

JONATHAN

That first war took my father, Karl. (bites his lip) And my mother in the long run. You’re staying here, nothing touches that, dangerous to assume they’d take you anyway, where you’re from and what’s going on now. . .I won’t lose you. I’ll be fighting for the both of us, for this whole-ass country, even if it don’t deserve my help.

KARL

You’ll lose yourself.

JONATHAN

(setting his forearms on the table, eyes fierce) I’m trying to finish what my Pa started and do it for him, for everything I’ve got and everything I am. I got a choice, not like he had, and I’m makin’ the right one in his memory. I ain’t letting anyone down. I’m the person deciding I wanna serve, protect, give myself for others.

KARL

(desperately) What’s it worth in the end if all that comes back home is a death notice?

JONATHAN

What’s it worth! My family, my legacy, our home, that’s what! (drawing a deep breath) I love you, Karl. But my parents, I loved them too. I’m the only one left who can fill my father’s shoes, and you can bet he didn’t go and die for nothin’. He was younger than I am now. There was hope, and I’m carryin’ that with me when I go.

KARL

But you —

JONATHAN

(tensely, rapping his knuckles on the side of his chair) And why you acting like you know I’m gonna die? I won’t. I won’t, I say. I’ll come back home to you and we’ll leave it behind when this is all over and the world is well again and we’ve turned the Axis on its head for good.

They stare at one another for a moment, KARL to JONATHAN as if regarding the latter for the first time in a new light, previously buried and unknown to him for the past eight years they’d known each other. Something glistens in his eye, and he squeezes his hands together so tightly his knuckles show in ridges of pale white. The food has gone cold by now.

KARL

You are wonderful, Jonathan Hayes, wonderful and stubborn and hardy and loyal. Maybe you’ll survive, but you won’t be the same man. . .

JONATHAN

I will always be a part of you. Always me, deep down and on the surface.

KARL

(quietly) War dictates more of you than it might seem on the outside.

JONATHAN

Well, men are its workhorses. Stubborn and strong. We are the shields of our homes and families, and you tell me if you ever see us let that up for a second.

KARL

(looking up with a new kind of set defiance) You do all this for a flawed nation.

JONATHAN

(slamming both hands down on the table) I don’t do shit for their America, for the men in high castles in their chairs and suits, grand and high! Not for their benefit, for every life they give to the lines, what they try to instill in us since we were old enough to listen — not for them white forefathers buildin’ this country off the ‘equality of man’ while steppin’ all over the colored folk with their outsize boots. Not for the politicians and the high-ups and the system that treats us queers like we’re trash on the street, that gone and fucked the whole world over! (pausing to take a short breath)

JONATHAN

We are still privileged in the social hierarchy, long as nobody knows we’re gay, all for the color of our skin. ’Cause I’m white and the gentleman behind me ain’t. I know this nation’s flawed, Karl, I know it as well as anyone with right common sense and morals in their head. I don’t fight just for them. It’s for you and me, our home, my family, my daddy who died under their orders. Long as we divided like this, there’s no ounce of United in these States. So I figure, if I go and fight these nasty invaders, Hitler and his asshole company — I’m helping push a step closer to what my Pa wanted for us, and for the world.

KARL

(slowly) Your optimism is difficult for me to understand sometimes. Beautiful, but so much. . .

JONATHAN

I know. (Leaning back in his chair a little, he takes a long drink of coffee and sighs.) I got big dreams, for me and for this fucked-up world, but it’s hope that carried me this far and you know it. You got strength in you too, Karl Steiner. I dragged you half-dead from the forest and look how far you’ve come.

KARL

(lowering his gaze) I had to leave my family there in Germany. They still toiled and suffered and struggled. More and more it just feels like I tried to escape it and abandoned them. My father, he’s like you, so stubborn — would never kneel under Hitler’s flag, he could get caught speaking against —

JONATHAN

(gently) You didn’t abandon nobody. You did the right thing, the best thing you could, and they’re better because of you. I am, too. You are a survivor, and so much braver than you know. Look at me — look. Look at me.

Taking KARL’s chin and meeting his eyes sincerely from across the table, JONATHAN nods a single, firm time, lips tight, everything about his expression bold in the face of oppression and struggle.

JONATHAN

Strength.

KARL

I need you here. Please stay.

JONATHAN

(quickly pulling back and taking a seat, folding his hands) The world needs me.

KARL

You’re putting yourself in terrible danger —

JONATHAN

(with decisive finality) And that is the price I’ll pay to protect what I love. I’ll be one of millions out there, Karl, and you know I’m cautious. They’ll never know about us. When the time comes, I’m going to do my job, answer the call, finish what Pa started and do it right, then come back home in one piece. I promise you.

Looking as if he has entirely run out of words, KARL puts another cold piece of bread in his mouth and chews it mindlessly, his eyes glazed over with a loss of focus, staring impossibly far away. For minutes on end his head rests limply in his arms, arranged haphazardly on the table, starkly pallid in every inch. When JONATHAN reaches forward to try and comfort him, he grasps the offered hand immediately as if he would never let go.

KARL

You feel like home to me. . .

JONATHAN

I’ll be right here. (Reaches across the table and places his free hand over KARL’s heart) All the time. I need you to trust me and to let me make a life for myself again. Go out to the world and do something good.

KARL

(draws himself up and clasps his palms in front of his face again, appearing as if he is in prayer) I do. I trust you with everything I have. But I don’t like this, letting you go. Away.

JONATHAN

(reassuringly, with a hint of bold determination) Ain’t there a thing in this world I ever asked for without working my ass off to get first. And I’m gonna show them who I can be. Don’t think for a second that you’re slipping from me, because nothing breaks our true bonds. We’ll smile about it someday when this is all over.

KARL

(tears visibly gathering in his eyes, which he tries to blink back) You can’t end it yourself.

JONATHAN

No. But I can lend a hand.

KARL

(finally pulling his head up after a few more moments of laying there, grasping JONATHAN’s hand over the tabletop) I’ll miss you.

JONATHAN

We’ll cross that old bridge when we come to it. When it comes to us, maybe.

KARL

(helplessly) Jonathan Hayes. . .

JONATHAN

Nothing’s makin’ me turn back from what I said. I love you more than anything, you know that.

KARL

(closing his eyes, distantly, weakly) I do.

JONATHAN

Have a little faith in me —

KARL

I swear —

JONATHAN

And I will come back home, delivered to your waiting arms by the great Atlantic sea.

KARL

Oh, by God. . .

JONATHAN

Strength.

They remain in their seats for a moment, then JONATHAN stands, pulls himself close to KARL as the latter sits up fully and meets his lips in a soft kiss. The aging morning light glances across his palms on KARL’s cheeks, warm and golden, filtering, sparkling where it meets the dewdrops trailing on the window panes. The newspaper is draped forgotten off one edge of the kitchen table, faint birdsong echoes from the trees far away and their arms slowly circle to embrace one another.

END.