Closed Door Blues by Alec Kissoondyal

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One Friday evening, Uncle Jim beat Aunt Linda bloody and knocked out her front teeth during an argument that started when she accidentally bumped her leg against the kitchen table and spilled some of his whiskey. Instead of calling the cops, she phoned my dad, Uncle Jim’s older brother.

It had been ten years since the last time I’d seen Uncle Jim. I was five at the time, and he held me during my mom’s funeral while people swarmed my dad and smothered him with their condolences. Even back then, I smelled a hint of alcohol under his cologne. This time the stench of liquor flooded the house as Dad half-carried, half-dragged Uncle Jim through the living room, where I sat watching TV. They were roughly the same height, and both shared the same long face and small, dark eyes. But Dad was a wall of muscle from years working at the warehouse, while Uncle Jim was thin and wispy like the memory of smoke. 

“I’m sorry,” Uncle Jim slurred, his left arm slung over my dad’s shoulders. His right arm dangled by his side; his knuckles were torn and bloody. 

I stood up to help, but Dad shook his head. “It’s alright, Trevor,” he said firmly.  “I’ve got him.” I hesitated for a second, then sat back down. They shambled past me and disappeared into the guestroom.

A few minutes later, Dad returned to the living room and sat next to me on the couch. He told me what happened and why Uncle Jim was staying with us. I opened my mouth to protest, but he spoke first.

“Look, Trev,” he sighed. “It’s only until he gets back on his feet. I don’t like this anymore than you do, but he’s family.”

“Okay,” 

“If your mom was here, she’d want me to—”

“Okay,” I repeated.

“Alright.”

I didn’t see much of my uncle during the first week. He was asleep when I left for school in the mornings and spent evenings exploring the neighborhood or attending AA meetings at the church across the street. Sometimes we ran into each other at night when he left his room to grab a snack from the kitchen or to use the bathroom. He’d flash a quick smile, lower his head, and hurry away. 

 On Saturday, I woke up at two in the afternoon and grabbed my guitar. I’d been obsessed with playing ever since I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? when I was ten years old and heard Chris Thomas King’s cover of “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.” 

  I took my guitar into the living room and found Uncle Jim on the couch. He wore an oversized black t-shirt that my dad had lent him, and his left hand was wrapped in a cast (the morning after Dad brought him home, it was discovered that he’d broken two of his knuckles against Aunt Linda’s face.) Although he was the younger brother, wrinkles crisscrossed his face like mud in a dried-up riverbed.

“Hey,” Uncle Jim said. “Your dad left a note on the fridge. Said he was picking up an extra shift.” He passed his unbroken hand through his shock of greying hair. “It’s a shame, I was hoping me and him would spend today catching up.” He eyed my guitar. “Did you need me to leave so you can practice?”

My first instinct was to offer up some excuse about needing to practice alone, but fear or curiosity—maybe a bit of both—made me say, “You can stay if you want.”  I sat down on the other end of the couch, keeping the middle cushion between us. 

“I never took up the guitar myself,” he said. “I never had the patience. But I’ll tell you what though. When I was your age, I had those old school delta bluesmen on vinyl. I played those records so much my dad swore he’d throw them out the window.”

“Did he?”

“No, thank God.” Uncle Jim chuckled. “I still have those records stashed away somewhere in my garage.”

“You don’t listen to them anymore?”

“No,” he said. “Not these days.”

“Was it a phase you grew out of or something?”

“More like I grew into the blues and didn’t like how they fit,” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like to be hated for the color of my skin or locked up on Parchman Farm. But when those guys sing about soul crushing jobs and being broke and the million other little things that pile up and make you hurt, you really feel it, man. And when you’re as old as I am, you realize that pain isn’t as cool as it seems when you’re a kid.”

 I shrugged, trying to act casual. I set my guitar down on the cushion between us. “I figure everybody gets the blues at one point or another.”

“I’d agree with that,” Uncle Jim replied. “Hell, your grandpa never cared much for the blues, but he sure as hell had ‘em.”

“I don’t know much about Grandpa,” I admitted. “Dad never talks about him.”

“Well, let me tell you,” Uncle Jim said. “Me and your dad loved war movies when we were kids. Full Metal Jacket, A Bridge Too Far, you name it, we’d watch it. Now, our dad—your grandpa—was a Vietnam vet. And every time we’d put on one of those movies, he’d lock himself in his room and wouldn’t come out until the credits rolled. Christ, we were a couple of stupid kids, always wanting to know how big of a badass our dad was, how many people he killed.” He shook his head. “Look, what I’m trying to say is, I agree that everyone’s burden is different, y’know? Some pain is harder to wrap your head around than others. Most times, it’s hard enough to make sense of your own.”

I kneaded the arm of the couch. “I didn’t know that—about Grandpa, I mean.”

“Yeah, well.” Uncle Jim’s leg bounced up and down like a sewing machine needle, and he stared at the wall. “Normally, your grandpa liked his peace and quiet; he kept to himself and all that. Sometimes though, when he got really drunk, he was someone else.” He looked up at me. “It’s probably the reason your dad doesn’t keep any booze around the house, huh?”

He studied my face for a few moments and turned back to the wall.

“Anyway,” Uncle Jim continued, “I think me and your dad inherited different parts of our old man. “Your dad got the strong, silent part, and I, well—” he ran the fingers of his unbroken hand across his cast. “You seem like a good kid. I guess you take after your mother.”

“Dad doesn’t talk about her, either.”

The day after Mom’s funeral, Dad went through the house and gathered all the photos we had of her. He packed them in cardboard boxes along with all her belongings and locked them in the attic, where they had remained ever since. There was no evidence of her existence anywhere, and soon, I started to forget what she looked like. I don’t know which of her features faded from my memory first, but her eyes went last. They were big and blue, and they got bigger and bluer the harder I tried to remember her until they took up most of her face. Then one day, they faded away too.

“Sorry,” Uncle Jim said quickly. “I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories. Since we were talking about parents, I figured—” 

“We were talking about the blues just now, weren’t we?”

“That’s right,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “Do you know ‘Crossroad Blues?’”

“Robert Johnson?”

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead, then,” he said. “I’d love to hear you play.”

I plucked at the strings. Uncle Jim started singing. His voice was beautiful in a rough and jagged sort of way, like a broken bottle in the gutter when the sunlight hits it just right. 

We kept playing well into the evening. We took a break for dinner, then ran through the best of the Delta Blues from Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go” to Bukka White’s “Aberdeen Mississippi Blues.” Dad came home around nine. He paused when he saw me and Uncle Jim on the couch.

“Everything OK, Trev?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

“Never mind.”

Uncle Jim stood up. “Hey, I was hoping we could stop and talk for a—”

“Sorry, Jimmy,” Dad walked past us. “I have a hell of a migraine. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”

He went to his room. Uncle Jim stood in the middle of the living room with his mouth open. 

“I’m sure it’ll pass,” I said. “Probably from all the dust at work.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” he said. “I think I’m going to rest up as well.”

I watched him go and heard the door close. I sat alone and rubbed my calloused fingertips against each other. 

I woke up the next day around noon and found Uncle Jim sitting on the couch again, staring at Dad’s bedroom door.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning,” he replied without turning his head. 

“Is he working today, too?”

“He’s still in his room.” Uncle Jim said. “I heard him moving around, but he hasn’t come out all morning.”

“If you want, I can play some more blues,” I suggested.

“It’s OK.” He glanced at me and forced a smile. “I’d prefer to wait here alone, if you don’t mind.”

I went to my room and spent the day playing my guitar and catching up on homework. When evening rolled around, I went to check on Uncle Jim and found him asleep on the couch. He’d dozed off where he sat; his head rested against his shoulder and a string of saliva dripped onto his shirt. 

Dad didn’t emerge from his room until he left for work the next day.

In the weeks that followed, a pattern emerged. I barely saw Uncle Jim on the weekdays, but he spent his weekends on the couch, waiting for my dad, who picked up an extra shift every Saturday and spent Sundays in his room. A month came and went, and then I woke up one Sunday morning and found my dad sitting at the kitchen table and drinking a cup of coffee.

“Morning,” he said. “There’s more in the pot if you want some.”

“Where’s Uncle Jim?”

“Home,” Dad replied. “I dropped him off a little while ago. He felt like it was about time, and Linda was fine with him going back.” 

“You didn’t tell me he was leaving.”

Dad frowned. “I didn’t think it’d matter either way.”

“He’s lived with us for over a month, Dad,” I protested. “Why would you think I wouldn’t want to say goodbye?”

“Trev, listen. I didn’t—”

“It’s alright, Dad,” I said. “You don’t have to explain.”

 He rested his mug on the table and stared at the wall.

A week after Uncle Jim returned home, we got another call from Aunt Linda. 

“What did he do now?” Dad asked. He never raised his voice, but his tone was rough and sharp, like the teeth of a hacksaw. I couldn’t hear what Aunt Linda said, but Dad’s expression softened. When he spoke again, his voice broke. “Peacefully?”

According to Aunt Linda, everything was fine for a few days, but then Uncle Jim went searching for a new job and came home with a bottle of whiskey. They got into another argument, and Aunt Linda spent the night at a motel. When she came home the next day, she found Uncle Jim lying on the floor next to the whiskey and an empty bottle of painkillers. 

Dad didn’t cry at Mom’s funeral, but he sobbed as we stood over Uncle Jim’s open casket. Aunt Linda stood with us. Her mouth wide open as though she were screaming, but no sound came out. I stared at the gap where her teeth used to be, then looked down at Uncle Jim. His face was caked with so many cosmetics he looked more like a wax sculpture than a man. His hands were folded across his stomach; his cast had been removed, and his left hand was as pale as dust rising off a limestone road.

I didn’t speak to Dad for a week following the funeral. I went to school as usual and spent the afternoons and evenings in my room, playing the guitar until my nails chipped and my fingers hurt. Once, I saw the shadows of Dad’s feet through the thin gap at the bottom of my door. He stood there for a while, then walked away.

On Saturday I woke up to the low purr of my dad’s pickup. I stayed in bed until I heard him disappear around the corner. I got out of bed and grabbed my guitar. I plucked at the strings, but I remembered Uncle Jim and resisted the temptation to smash my guitar against the wall. Instead, I set it down on my bed and lay next to it. I stared at the ceiling, wondering what strain of the blues flowed in our veins and compelled us to shut the door on the people we love until our casket lids were the only things that remained open to the world. 

I heard my dad pull into the driveway. Then came his booted footsteps and a knock on my door. 

“Yeah?”

“Mind if I come in, Trev?”

I thought about continuing the family tradition of keeping my door shut on all the pain, but Uncle Jim must have been right about me taking after my mother. I opened the door. 

My dad held two cardboard boxes, one stacked on top of the other. “Is there a place I can set this down?”

“I thought you were at work,” I said.

“I was checking on Aunt Linda.”

“How is she?”

“She’s getting through it.” He adjusted his grip on the box. “I brought something for you. Is there a place I can set this down?”

I gestured at the floor in the corner of the room opposite the door. “What’s inside?”

“Take a look.”

Inside were dozens of records and a portable record player. There were records of all kinds: rock n’ roll, folk, jazz, but the blues outnumbered the rest. 

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to listen to a record with me?”

He sat on the edge of my bed as I pulled out a record and placed it on the turntable. The needle zipped and popped against the vinyl. I sat next to him and stared through the open door as Skip James’s voice oozed through the speakers, bittersweet, like syrup cut with turpentine. 

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Alec Kissoondyal is an undergraduate at the University of Florida pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English. His short stories have appeared in Zephyr Literary Journal, Bacopa Literary Review, The Bookends Review, Roadrunner Review, and more. You can read more of his published work on his website, alecauthor.com

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27 January 2023