The Ashes of Ehud Finch
A story of revolutionary love
The Ashes of Ehud Finch
“Hey, Sonny! You hear the news?” Jax called to me from across the street as I strapped on my bike helmet.
“What? No, what news?” I didn’t look up. I was almost late for work and Jax was always trying to start conversations I didn’t want to have. I’d shared too much of my life with him a long time ago, and he had a tendency to put peoples’ business in the street.
“Ehud Finch just died,” he said knowingly, lowering his voice a little, letting the words dangle there between us. I refused to react.
“Mm-hmm, you don’t say.”
“Yeah, dude, yesterday. They say it was a heart attack.” Jax was fishing.
“You don’t believe that.”
“Fuck no. Nothing natural ever happens to guys like Ehud Finch. Wanna know what I think it was?”
“Not really. I gotta get to work. I’ll listen to your theory later.”
“Man, you of all people oughtta wanna know. Am I wrong?”
I glared at Jax and threw my leg over my bike.
“Alright, whatever, Sonny,” he said, disappointed, shaking his head, waving me off. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah, see you later.”
I stood out of the saddle and launched myself down the street, slaloming potholes and railing it around the nearest corner into a quiet street. As soon as I was out of sight I braked to a stop and put both feet down. Doubled over, elbows on bars, I breathed and searched for whatever emotions I was supposed to be having. Grandpa Ehud. Shit.
How long had he been in prison? 40 years? Fuck. More than half his life. Only met him once. My dad brought me on a visit. Proof of life, I guess. I was seven. I remember his lean, wrinkled face. Red. Bald. Stick and poke tats on his forearms, biceps. Intense as fuck. Don’t remember if he smiled, but I remember crows feet anyways. Don’t remember what he said. Just the serious face.
I remember the drive home after. Dad didn’t say shit. Just the highway and steep green mountains all around and the paragliders overhead, circling like buzzards. Then looking down from the rainbow chutes and dad wiping a tear off his face real quick like I wouldn’t notice.
Nothing. I turned around and pedaled to work. I had the early Monday shift at the day shelter and it was my turn to light the woodstove: my favorite thing, watching the flames consume the wood and paper and feeling the gentle warmth radiate into the chill. Made getting up early and riding in the sub-freezing air worth it. I waded through the little knot of folks and their steamy breath and cigarette smoke stamp stamping their feet and tucking their hands in their armpits, waiting for opening time. A few trash bags full of clothes and shoes and birth certificates: new arrivals. New to town. Or newly evicted.
I was still crouched by the stove when the kitchen staff opened the doors and people rushed into the warmth.
“Hey, Sonny, you give me some diesel and I’ll get that fire going quick!”
“You’re crazy, Patch! Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
“You try rolling up newspaper?”
I waved the rolled papers. “Seriously, Patch, get yourself a cup of coffee and sit down. Tell me about your night.”
The fire had caught by the time Patch pulled up the chair, slipped off his boots, and propped his feet on the warming cast iron.
“You hear about that guy Finch? Kicked the bucket last night. Why do the bad ones always live the longest? You ask me they should have given him the needle.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, well, he was a terrorist. Let people like him off easy and those antifa types destroy everything that makes this country great.”
My jaw rippled. “Hmm. I’m trying to remember, what did Finch say he did it for?”
“Beats me. Doesn’t matter. Can’t have people just running around murdering people.”
“Sure.” I sat back and propped my feet next to his. Stove was getting hot. “You ever tell me where you’re from, Patch?” Of course he had, many times.
“Don’t remember if I did. From down in Buckley County. Family had a nice piece of land there until I was ten, then we got run off.”
“Run off?” I knew the answer.
“By the damn pipeline.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah, we never recovered after that. Couldn’t afford a place of our own. Bounced from relatives to friends to the streets. Then CPS took me and I was in foster care until I aged out. On the streets ever since. Funny thing is, the pipeline never got finished. But we didn’t get our land back, neither.”
“Damn. I’m sorry. I wonder why it never got finished…” I struggled to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but my sympathy was genuine.
“Beats me. But one thing’s for sure, we sure did get fucked over by that company. Sorry for the language.”
“No, that’s fine – that’s the right word for what happened.”
I looked up and Felicia was giving me the “do I have any mail?” look she gave me every morning at exactly 7:45. I left the warmth of the stove and rifled through the alphabetized slots behind the front desk. Bills. Nothing but medical bills for Felicia. All anyone ever got here. She tore them up and tossed them in the trash, poured a cup, and dropped into a chair and put her head down on the table. I think she fell asleep as soon as her eyes hit her elbow. Got kicked out of the shelter, I figured. Only a night walking around in the cold made someone that tired.
A knot of people came blustering and breezing and stamping through the door. A couple came straight to me at the desk. I checked their mail. Bills. Letter from the jail with ornate colored pencil designs on the envelope. They needed showers. I put them on the schedule.
Lou slowly strolled up to the desk, steaming cup in his hands. Lou was the retired reporter, alcoholic. Hadn’t lost his analytical touch.
“You hear about Ehud Finch?”
“You mean the guy who assassinated that Senator? And that CEO?”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“You a cop?”
Lou laughed. “Of course not. I hate cops. Just thought I’d get your take.”
“Well, it worked right?”
“What worked?”
“The pipeline. Killed it.”
Lou nodded and shook his head at the same time, his “I don’t like it but you’re not wrong” gesture.
“You know I wrote the story on it?”
“Seriously?”
“Front page. Washington Post, above the fold.” He held up his hands, making a frame with his fingers: “Senator Marcus; ScanCorps CEO Assassinated, Alleged Gunman in Custody. The permitting bill died the next day. All those political favors owed? Written off the moment the bodies hit the ground.”
I nodded. Too late for Patch, but not too late to save a cold winter’s day in 2065. I stepped outside and pulled out my phone. People always laughed at my phone. Called me a Luddite, but all my people on the street used them, too. NeuroChips too expensive, and you can’t get one if you’re on probation.
“Hey Dad.”
“Hey.”
“I heard on the news. How come you didn’t call?”
Silence.
“Dad, are you planning anything?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was your father, Dad. You should do something.”
“I still haven’t heard from the prison.”
“About what?”
“Claiming the body.”
“Oh. Right. Maybe you should call them.”
“No. I’m not ready to deal with them.”
“You want me to do it?”
I heard his deep breath. “Sure. They might only want to deal with me, though. But yeah, try.”
I decided to call off the rest of the day. Bereavement. Condolences from coworkers and crowd. They had no idea it was him. I barely did, either. Once in my life and a lifetime of silence. Hard red face. Had it been worth it? For him?
I stepped out into the nippy air, flurries flying, smokers huddled in the butt hut. Killing a pipeline only bought us time. You can still end up on the streets in 2065.
A text from Marigold: You okay?
I stared at my phone, straddling my bike.
I don’t know.
Come over?
Yeah. Be there in a minute.
I peddled to the apartment. Marigold stayed there with three of our friends. The apartment was one bedroom, but splitting it made it cheap as long as the landlord didn’t know. Two shared a bed in the bedroom, two flopped on the couches in the living room. She was alone when I got there and threw her arms around me when I opened the door. Smell of weed and incense.
“You okay?” She asked again. I put my arms around her waist and searched for my missing emotions.
“I don’t feel anything.”
She let go and looked me in the face, full of concern.
“You never knew him. It makes sense.”
“Yeah.”
“You know how we all feel.”
“Yeah. Thank you for writing to him.”
“Of course. We might put together a zine to commemorate him. You want to write something? Draw?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I…just don’t know. It’s different for me, seeing how it affected my family.”
“I’m sorry. There’s no pressure.”
“No, don’t worry. I didn’t take it that way.”
“Good. You taking the day off?”
“Yeah. The week. I have to call the prison.”
“Fuck,” Marigold shook her head sympathetically.
“Yeah. Fuck.”
“You want to make the call here? You can crash here after if you want.”
“I would like that. Thanks.”
Dealing with the prison admin was as shitty as I’d hoped. When it was over I called my dad, told him I’d ordered him cremated. We had to drive there to pick him up in three days. Memorial service? Burial?
Silence.
“Dad?”
Hard sob.
“It’s okay, Dad. Take your time. I’ll call you later?”
“Yeah.”
He hung up. I stared at my phone and Marigold put her hand over mine. It was my father’s tears that got me. My mouth twitched in the way a mouth does when you crack and it was my turn to cry. Over a hard-faced man with tats who I saw only once. Marigold held me and I cried harder. Over the pain it caused my father. Over the silences. Over the morbid entertainment it gave consumers like Jax. Over the hate from everyday street guys like Patch who just didn’t know any better, and some who did. Over the years I didn’t understand and thought grandpa was bad because it’s what everybody said on the true crime trash TV and edutainment flicks: the mind of a murderer! A fanatic! A terrorist! What was wrong with his childhood and how fucked up are his kids?
Finally, a grown-ass adult, just making peace with him, and he’s gone. I’d told myself I’d visit one day soon. Idiot. Procrastinated. There were flurries in the air because of him. And I couldn’t even tell people I was his grandson. Only people like Marigold. When I calmed down we flopped on her bed, my head on her shoulder. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember was the other three rustling through the door. Dolly, Jay, and Ship. Ship poked their head in.
“Hey you two, we brought groceries. Help us unpack?”
Bleary eyed, we got up and helped. Ship touched my shoulder, looked me in the eye.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I nodded at Marigold. She had been there for me.
Ship nodded. “Good.”
“We’re working on a zine,” they said.
“I know. Not sure if I’m doing anything, but thanks. It’s a good idea.”
We sat and relaxed and talked shit and it was nice because between Marigold and these friends I felt lighter for a while. I didn’t think about the prison or memorials or zines. I called off work for the rest of the week. I liked the job. Good people. Plenty of annoying street drama but the community, the work, was real. Not like some corporate shit jobs like a lot of my peers were doing. Or academia. We ran the day shelter as a co-op, and my coworkers understood the need for rest, for grief. They gave me the time I needed.
I called my dad a couple hours later and he was calm and collected. We’d drive down together and collect the ashes. Memorial with family only, then scatter them two days after that in the forest where he’d felt the most free. Others could join, invitation only. I invited my friends.
The mountains looked smaller than they did when I was seven. The day was cold and cloudy and the snowpack on the slopes was covered with the gray stubble of the winter forest. There would be no paragliders this time of year. The drive was five hours one-way. A long time to grieve in silence.
“How long has it been, Dad?”
He gripped the wheel of his truck with both hands, 10 and 2, staring down the highway.
“A month ago,” he said with a little nod.
“How was he?”
“Old. First time he ever looked old to me. You know how no matter what you’ve done in life you look innocent when you’re old? Sort of like how we see a child? Age brings you down to earth.”
“Yeah.”
“Do I look innocent, Sonny?”
I looked at him, white knuckles peering over the wheel, electric motor humming along the analog lane at 60 mph, the AI cars zooming past at 100. His eyes were afraid.
“You never did anything wrong.”
“I was his son. That was enough.”
“No. You are not accountable for him, whether he was good or bad. Who he was, what he did, has nothing to do with you. You did the best you could and it was a shitty, fucked-up situation.”
“You know I hated him for years.”
“Of course you did. He signed you up for something you had no say in. How about now?”
“I forgave him a long time ago. But he made it hard to love him all the same. He still had that hard stubborn look in his eye. Even at his age, throwing up the defenses, like I was judge, jury, and executioner. His accuser. We talked about trivial nonsense until it was time to go.
We glided in silence the rest of the way. Took over an hour to pick up the urn. It wasn’t complicated. CO’s made us wait. Cheap plastic box. Surprisingly heavy. I’d never held someone’s ashes before.
“You start on the memorial plans yet?”
“Yup. Your mother is coming, plus your aunt and uncle. Uncle Remis won’t call back. He won’t come. He hated him.”
“Not surprising. Anyone else? Anyone from his…people?”
“Not invited. They can come for the scattering.”
“Dad, if there’s anyone who could help do this, it’s--”
“No. I’m done with those people, his whole world. I’ve made peace with why he did it. Don’t push me to make peace with them.”
“Okay. Fine.”
I held my grandpa’s ashes on my lap on the journey home. I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing, having him cremated. If he could have had anything, I think he would have chosen to be buried in a pine box under a tree, to give his body back to the forest he had defended with his life. We couldn’t afford a real burial. A coffin cost a year’s rent.
My dad dropped me off at 2am and went on with my grandpa’s ashes. He had another two hours to drive. It could have been one hour if he turned on the AI, but he hated the thing. He and I, both Luddites. I think we got it from Grandpa Ehud. There was no politics behind it for dad. Just instinctual revulsion at the loss of agency. The newest models didn’t even have steering wheels.
I got up late the next morning and felt like I should have been busy with something. Aren’t funerals supposed to be stressful and complicated? I supposed if there was anything stressful or complicated my dad was handling it. But I called anyways. Nothing to be done. All there was to do was wait around. I was tempted to cancel my leave from boredom, but I didn’t. Our private gathering was at his place two days later. I borrowed Marigold’s car for the trip – an analog, just like dad’s.
Our little family met in dad’s living room. The meal was a potluck. I brought my specialty: a stir-fried conglomeration of dumpstered sweet potatoes, onions, peppers, black beans, and spices. Only I didn’t tell them about the dumpster. Mom and my aunt and uncle and five cousins came with spouses and kids.
My elders all managed to pull off the normie thing after it happened. They had to change their names. I was a Fletcher, not a Finch. They scattered to new towns. It worked. They gave me and my cousins “normal” childhoods. And I had rebelled. Still was rebelling. I did my best to fit in for a day.
“Thank you for helping out with the prison, Samuel,” my mom said. “It was very adult of you.”
That’s because I am a grown-ass adult, mom, I wanted to say.
“It’s no problem. Anything I can do to help,” I said.
She leaned closer and whispered. “Remember this is a family gathering. Keep it appropriate or keep it to yourself.”
I squinted at her. “What do you think I’m going to say? I barely knew him.”
“You know what I’m talking about. Politics.”
“Don’t worry Mom, I wasn’t planning on saying anything.”
She pressed her lips together, holding me with commanding eyes. I wheeled and went up to one of my cousins, offering my hand. I hadn’t seen him for over a decade.
“Liam, good to see you, man.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“So, these your offspring here?”
“Yeah, the three-year-old is Dorothy – we call her Dot – and the five-year-old is Nathan. Those little ones over there belong to Kathy and George.”
“Cool. They all seem to get along well together.”
“Yeah, they see each other most days. We live just up the road from each other now. Did you know that?” I sensed a note of accusation in his voice.
“Yeah, I did.” I’m not that out of touch, asshole! “So what are you and Sally up to?”
“Just got back from vacation in Maui, actually. Tons of fun.”
“Wait, I thought there was a tourist restriction?” I squinted at him. “Did that stop?”
“Oh, no, that wasn’t real,” he waved his hand dismissively. “Just the extremist Native groups thumping their chests. Tourism was in full swing. We had a good time.”
“Right, got it. Hey, look, it’s good to see you. I’m gonna hit the bathroom.”
I think I smacked my forehead a dozen times in front of the bathroom mirror. I should have confronted Liam about his so-called vacation. But I was supposed to keep quiet about politics. I let myself off the hook: it was my grandpa’s funeral, for fuck’s sake. I wasn’t going to stir the pot. But Liam had stirred the pot with me. I hated hypocrisy like this: his pot stirring was socially acceptable. Mine wasn’t.
One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.
We gathered and said all the words. Only the nice things, please. We learned that Ehud had been a kid once. Family consensus was that he even had a mother. The dog he loved. Camping by the creek. Train set. School band. To listen to them he had died when he was seventeen, because there were no stories from after that, from his radical days as a young adult. Nobody here was alive when he was seventeen. Family stories passed down. Okay, there was, like, one college story. Dad was quiet, looking at the urn the whole time until everyone went and it was quiet for a minute or two. Then he cleared his throat.
“I visited him once a month,” he said. He didn’t break his gaze on the urn. Mom fidgeted as the affected cheer and positivity fled the room.
“Forty-years, every month unless I was sick. First with mom, then on my own after I was grown. I planned everything around it. And the funny thing? I was angry at him. So angry, for about thirty of those forty years. I was mad because he left me and didn’t give me a say in it. It was his choice. Not something that just happened, you know? And he never changed. Each visit, hard and stubborn. I don’t know if it was a front he put up to show me he was strong, or if it…prison…was making him hard like that.”
My aunt started crying when dad said the “p” word. My uncle pressed his lips together and the muscles on his jaw rippled. The little ones fidgeted and squirmed because they were tired of the grown-ups talking and being quiet.
“But I forgave him. Eventually. It didn’t make it any easier. I still don’t fully understand him. But you know what? It could have been so much harder if I kept hating him. I didn’t deserve all this. Changing our name. Moving to a new state. But I forgave him because that wasn’t on him. It was the world that did that to us. He loved us the best way he knew how. It’s a love that is really, really hard to understand and accept. But I believe he was doing his best, too. Right up to the end.
“You all know what? I didn’t think about it until the past couple days, but he always smiled, at least once, even if he had to force himself. He always smiled at me at least once when I saw him.”
I was almost bawling at this point and I glanced around and the others were like me: crying or trying not to cry. I had been frustrated at my dad all these years. I thought he had been ashamed of Grandpa Ehud. I thought he had distanced himself and rejected his politics like a typical child rebels against a parent. I had judged him for living like a fucking normie. And there he was, steadfast in his love for this man the whole world first hated, then thought was crazy, then mostly forgot. Even his own family acted like he didn’t exist. My dad, a fucking radical. He had spent his life shielding me from the world’s judgment. I walked across the room and sat next to him and put my arm around his shoulders while he cried.
At least everyone hugged him tight after that and didn’t try to speak more words. Not until the food and the drinks brought us back down from the transient and transcendent state of self-examination and giving-a-fuck. People complimented my secret freegan veggie special. I kept to myself as much as I could. My dad was doing his best, but he had to dip into the bedroom with his siblings to talk business. The estate. Hard to believe a man imprisoned for forty years had an estate. Not much, but he did. Stuff he technically owned that hadn’t been formally disposed of.
“I don’t give a shit about that stuff. They can have it,” my dad said to me afterwards. “But his journals. I was hoping to get those. Your aunt is being a jerk about it.”
“Why does she care?”
“Between you and me, I think she’s trying to sell the movie rights to his story.”
“Fuck that.”
“Yeah. Vultures.”
I put my arm around him again.
“You did good, dad. I’m sorry for not seeing you. But you did good.”
I drove straight to my friends’ place after the funeral. A blunt and a couple of beers later and I was on the couch cuddled up with Marigold. Ship and Jay were cooking something in the next room and it smelled heavenly of cumin and cinnamon.
“How was it?” Marigold asked.
“About like you’d expect, I guess. Except for my dad. I decided he might be one of the bravest people I know.”
“Really? You’ve always been mad at him.”
“I know. But seeing him there with everyone else made me realize he stood with my grandpa. In his own way. And he paid a price, too.”
Marigold rolled onto her side and looked at me quizzically, almost suspiciously.
“Nobody loved him,” I said. “Only my dad. The whole fucking world left him to rot except my dad. You know he visited him every month for forty fucking years, even though he was angry? Who does that? That is love. I think that was his job: to keep showing up for him. Not even I did that! Say what you will about my normie family, he was the one who did right by him.”
Marigold curled up and returned her head to my shoulder, pensive. We didn’t say anything more about Grandpa Ehud that night. I fell asleep while the rest of them worked quietly on the zine. We were scattering the ashes in two days and they wanted copies ready. I had decided I wasn’t writing anything.
Pieces of the zine were spread across the kitchen table when I emerged from the bedroom next morning. Art, poetry, two essays. I picked up one of them and read.
Ehud Finch was the reincarnation of John Brown. Wherever a system of domination crushes the life and spirit of human beings for profit, there are always the rare few who see clearly and understand what it takes to end its oppression. Ehud Finch was one of those. He rejected the half measures and compromises that told us the lie that we could stop climate change without abolishing the systems that caused it.
He would not compromise with the facts. The facts were that there were certain individuals – Senator Marcus and Philip Scanlon, CEO of ScanCorps – who were personally culpable for the impending destruction of life on Earth. The facts were that stopping them by any means necessary would have an immediate effect. His courageous act scuttled the ScanCorps pipeline and bought the world time. We are here today because of Ehud Finch.
I stopped mid-way and set the paper down. A hagiography. Of course they would make him a saint, like he did what he did all on his own. I picked up one of the drawings. A black and white pencil sketch. On one side, two smartly dressed men shaking hands at a podium, presiding over a banquet, squiggly shadowy figures at tables. On the other in the foreground a man dressed as a waiter, gun concealed in his left hand under his tray, determined eyes skewering his targets. The CEO and the Senator, patron and client, baron of fracked gas and his political muscle. And their assassin closing in for the kill.
My Grandpa Ehud. The political prisoner. The martyr. The symbol. The romantic revolutionary hero.
“Hey.”
I turned and it was Marigold.
“Hey,” I replied as she sauntered up and hugged me.
“What do you think?”
“Honestly? Weird.”
“Really? I thought you’d like it.”
“Why?”
“You’re his grandson, stupid. We want to give him a fitting tribute. He’s an ancestor now. Your ancestor. You carry his legacy.”
I stepped away from her.
“No. I don’t.”
She squinted.
“It’s written like he did what he did all on his own,” I explained. “He had crew. Just like I have you all. Please don’t make it about me. I only met him once. I was a little kid. I didn’t know him any more than you did.”
She cocked her head and crossed her arms.
“You know why you don’t know my legal name, right?” I asked.
“Same as any of us. To keep us safe.”
“Right. Now I’d change it again if it would make you forget! I’m no more connected to him than you. You want to honor him? Don’t make it about him. Or about me. We carry it together.”
She put her arms around my neck. “I will always know.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “That is why I need you. All of you. I need this little pod. You know, but you see me, and it isn’t weird, so I can let my shit hang out and you won’t judge. As soon as I become Ehud Finch’s legacy and not Sonny, I lose you.”
I pointed at the scraps on the table. “Please, cut the vanguardist bullshit. Try again.”
“You write something, Sonny.”
“Fuck…” I rolled my eyes.
“You know you should.”
I sighed. “Yeah. Fuck it. I know. Let me borrow your neuroset.”
I was zoned into the word processing construct all day, but I got it done, a reflection on Ehud Finch by an “anonymous descendent.” On Sacrifice, the title read. Of course my family knew it was me, but they wouldn’t talk. They were embarrassed by me. By him.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to die for what I believe in.
The day of the scattering was bitterly cold and gray. My friends handed out the zines like church bulletins in the parking lot. Our breaths puff puffed like little steam engines as we walked in a line up the winding path to the spot by the creek. We moved slow. Half the crowd was over eighty years old. I watched them. Comrades? Friends? School mates? Lovers? Where had they been all these years?
I imagine the embrace of it, of being surrounded by a cloud of people who love me and will carry my memory forever.
The walk wasn’t far, only ten minutes to a little picnic area with a creek babbling by. The surface had frozen, the water level dropped, leaving a delicate shelf of crystal ice hanging over the flow. We silently gathered around, my family on one side, the visitors on the other. The new ones far outnumbered the family. I looked at my dad. I assumed he would begin. He looked insistently back at me, holding out the urn.
The thing about dying is that there is no work to do when it’s over. If there are consequences to be born, the dead do not bear them. If there is glory in it, it is because others have extolled them. Death is to lose control, but it is also to rest from labor.
I liked writing, but I’m not one for making pretty speeches. I did my best. I felt like I had no business doing it, having met him only once. But for some reason dad thought it was my turn. So I said the boilerplate words: “thank you for coming, it would mean a lot to him to see you here, we’re here among the trees because he fought to defend them, etc., etc...”
Ehud Finch met a different kind of death. His act ended his life, but instead of rest, he faced a living death. Was he loved in his death? Was he carried by others? He was vilified. He was extolled. In the end he was forgotten by most. But yet he breathed. He was not rewarded with the peace of rest. So he bore the consequences of the webs they wove around him, for good or for ill.
I opened the lid of the urn and unfurled the plastic bag that contained my grandpa’s ashes. I nodded to my dad and he joined me. I took a handful. Spread them on the bank of the creek. Dad took a handful. Spread them under an old oak. We walked up the trail a little further, just the two of us.
I am Ehud Finch’s grandchild. I believe in what he stood for. But I do not believe he was a hero. That is because he was not alone. He was part of a movement. He simply assumed a responsibility. Making people heroes or villains is a way of making them alone, making them not-like-us, setting them apart, thereby absolving ourselves from our responsibility to them and to ourselves.
“He never got to see the forest he saved,” my dad said, gently scattering the gray dust.
“Yeah, I know. Was it any comfort to him, knowing it’s still here?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Dad had never acknowledged it, that grandpa’s act had made a difference. I wondered how long he’d felt that way, and if that made it any easier to bear. I decided it didn’t matter.
There are many in the movement who abandoned him to sainthood. There are many in the world who don’t know what to make of him. Others who would consign him to hell. And then there were those who wrote him letters and visited him. Who showed up for him, month after month for forty years, faithful to him, even when there was a cost to drawing near. They may not have looked or talked or believed like radicals. They might have looked quite ordinary. Invisible, even. But revolution is about much more than belief. It is the simple practice of active quotidian love.
We emerged and rejoined the group. They were talking quietly and looked up from their conversations when we appeared among them. It was over. That simple. People began returning to the cars, but Dad and I hung back. A small knot of elders hung with us.
“Marlo,” an old man gave his name, extending his hand.
“Sonny.”
“Nice piece,” he said, holding up the zine with a wry grin.
“Really?”
“A bit hard on us, don’t you think?” He smiled and winked.
“I wasn’t making accusations.”
“It stung anyways,” he said softly, acceptingly.
“Hmm. What about it stung you?”
We are meant to walk together. My grandfather needed his people to make his living death life again. The labor of living death is not heroic. It is harsh when faced alone, bearable when faced together. Together keeping him enfleshed in the face of a world that would make him a hollow symbol, an idea, a ghost.
“I feel like I wasn’t there for him,” Marlo admitted. “Not like your father.”
I looked around at the others. They were listening.
“How about them?” I asked, gesturing at Grandpa’s old comrades. “How are you showing up for each other now? It’s not too late.”
Marlo turned and looked at them and smiled.
“And what about us?” I continued, gesturing at Marigold and Ship and Dolly and Nathan. “We’re all here for this movement, and you are our elders. We need you.”
“The world only knew him for a thing that lasted a few seconds,” Marlo said. “Ehud was hard to know. If you wanted to know him you had to be patient. Your father is a very patient man.”
“Yes. He is.”
Love and revolution are not heroic. If it depended on heroism, we would have nothing to fight the tyrants with. Tyrants have heroes, too. Revolution is quotidian. It is showing up for each other. Even if there is nothing to do but talk about the weather. Love is known through presence. Patient, persistent presence.
I looked up at the canopy of the forest, the bare bone branches twisting their way across the chilly white sky. The sleeping trees, the sting of the cold. Things that would not be if Ehud Finch had not pulled the trigger that day. Just one moment of a long life defined its entirety in the eyes of the world. Trees and frost, the existence of winter, the lungs of the Earth: his touch on the world, his only presence in my life.
“Did anybody know him? Did anybody really know him?”
My dad gave a little sniff and a smile.
“Well, there was this one time…”
They gathered around and listened. Those old revolutionaries – friends of Ehud Finch – and the normie son who wanted nothing to do with them. And one story led to the next, and there was laughter, usually at grandpa’s expense. Taboo laughter. Laughter about the Ehud Finch who ate junk food and hated alcohol and said and did silly and stupid things and had hobbies and unapologetically read all of the romance novels in the prison library.
I went back to work that Monday, opening shift, feeling light.
“Don’t even start, Patch,” I said, bending over the stove. I was struggling with the fire.
“C’mon, Sonny. I got the jerry can!”
“Get over here. I’ll let you light it this time. No diesel!”
He laughed and snatched the lighter out of my hand and began stuffing newspaper into the stove.
“What you get up to this weekend?” he asked.
“Funeral out of state.”
“Oh, right. Condolences, brother. Were you close?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t know it until I was there. Then I realized he’s been there all along. Still is.”
“Huh, still with you even now? Sounds like some kind of ancestral thing. That’s cool.”
“It gave me perspective. We just have to keep showing up for each other, Patch, even when we drive each other batshit crazy.” I clapped him on the shoulder as he gave me the side-eye and chuckled.
“Like we talk shit about this woodstove every Monday morning,” he said, “and then shoot the shit until Felicia asks for her mail at 7:45.”
“Exactly like that. Every damn day.”