The twilight is cold and still…and so too is Richard Fairbanks, Sr. In the next room, the others talk amongst themselves reverently…sorrowfully…bravely. In his sitting room, Richard Fairbanks, Sr. stares into the darkness, the half bottle of 20-year-old scotch he’d drunk during the past couple of hours not making the slightest dent in his anger and his pain. A small envelope, distended out of shape by the cassette tape inside, sits accusingly on the small table next to his plush chair. Richard Fairbanks, Sr. gives that no thought either. It doesn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
Earlier in the day, he had buried his only son.
Richard Fairbanks, Jr. had grown up as the proverbial apple of his father’s eye…a reflection and a tribute, one man’s life echoed and amplified in the flowering of another. They were the best of friends with a bond so intimate and strong that Marilyn Boyd-Fairbanks, doting wife and mother, had always felt vaguely excluded in the house in which she was the emotional foundation that made it a home.
And so it was for 19 years until the blackest day (before this one) in the life of Richard Fairbanks, Sr. On a day that Richard Fairbanks, Sr. remembers as being gray and stormy (though in fact it was quite balmy and blue), his only child…the son of his soul…broke his father’s unsuspecting heart with a simple declarative statement: “Dad, I’m gay.”
The air had rushed out of the room with a thunderous howl and Richard Fairbanks, Sr. had found himself tumbling through a chaotic haze (he doesn’t remember the acid tears and cruel invective…but they were there just the same) and when the air returned, the front door was slamming in the wake of his only son and his wife’s eyes were regarding him with the daunting mixture of volcanic rage and icy accusation.
Six years passed. Letters and Father’s Day cards were returned unopened. Marilyn Boyd-Fairbanks hovered in more distant orbits around her husband’s increasingly bitter and unforgiving life. Richard Fairbanks, Sr. thought of his only son constantly but spoke of him to no one. In whispers and echoes and eavesdropping on his wife’s end of phone conversations he gathered information about his son’s life…tales of love won and lost, activism proudly indulged, a bright, blossoming path that Richard Fairbanks, Sr. could barely comprehend.
And then, three prior to his blackest day, an unusually late evening phone call…tears and anguish from behind Marilyn Boyd-Fairbanks’ locked bedroom door…the words of vapid newscaster blandly telling the tale after the second commercial break: “gay activist…Rich Fairbanks…arriving home after talk show appearance…bullet from speeding pickup…died en route to hospital…”
And now, Richard Fairbanks, Sr. reaches for the scotch only to accidentally brush the envelope onto the floor. A tall young man with liquid, sad and unforgiving, eyes…Scott something or other…had pressed into Richard Fairbanks, Sr.’s hands…”Rich wanted you to have this.”
Richard Fairbanks, Sr. puts aside his glass and retrieves the envelope and opens it. The cassette tumbles out along with a folded sheet of paper. He unfolds the paper, instantly recognizing his son’s handwriting, and he reads it barely comprehending the words. He takes the tape and crosses the room. He places the tape into the stereo and plays it.
Richard Fairbanks, Sr. gives a start as propulsive music begins to play. He crosses back to his chair and takes up the letter again. He listens as the singer…identified at the top of the letter as Stevie Wonder…begins to sing:
…I was just walking down the street,
looking forward to seeing the friends
I was to meet…
Richard Fairbanks, Sr., a dyed-in-the-wool Sinatra fan, wonders why his son chose this song. He reads the letter: “Dear Dad, If you are reading this then I am gone…probably murdered. I’ve tried to get in touch with you for years but you rebuffed me every time. I hope that we can finally make our peace…”
Stevie sings:
….I started to turn to go back
and they up and blew me away…
Richard Fairbanks, Sr. murmurs inaudibly. …listen to the song, Dad. Listen and remember me always…
…though my life they’ve taken,
they can’t take what we’ve shared.
spread the love I’ve given and I’ll be there…
my love is with you, wherever you are,
my love is with you…
Richard Fairbanks, Sr. glances up into the gathering darkness as his foolish heart sheds some of the ice he had willfully placed around it for years. He barely notices the tears falling like winter rain on the paper making blue-black pools in the words written there.
….when you’re joyful, when you’re lonely,
when you’re happy, when tears are streamin’
right down your face….
my love is with you, my father,
I’m with you…
Richard Fairbanks, Sr. looks at the letter, his tired, shattered heart full of love, regret, aching sadness, and boundless loss…Despite it all, I always loved you, Dad. Never forget that. My love is with you. As always, Richie…he rises from the chair as the song ends and walks towards the door, towards the company of the other people who loved Richard Fairbanks, Jr….towards the company of the other people who loved his only son.
“My Love is With You”
words and music by Stevie Wonder
©1995 Stevland Morris Music (ASCAP)
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