So I’m in North Bend Hospital cleaning out the bed pans of dilapidated grandmas and dropping hunks of near frozen apple sauce into half-comatose patients when—wait, I should probably tell why the fuck it is I’m drowning old people in children’s dessert before anyone gets the wrong idea...
***
It’s like this: I’m off in the corner of the lunchroom fiddling with my fifteen dollar Japanese-made, better not put it in my mouth, tracphone, just minding my own business. Next thing I know some wanker— yes, a wanker, cultural exchanges always make insults more colorful—comes at me full charge.
This guy is big, I mean ‘what the Christ have you been eating?’ big, and he’s firing out on all engines. His head’s tossed back and he’s screaming and shouting, spit flying all over, literally gallons of the stuff, a firehouse that just went off in the middle of the cafeteria. He looks like the kind of guy who shoots off steam when he works out, shoulders towering lumps of coal. He’s got this glazed over look in his eye that tells me his pop probably fumbled him like a pigskin football when he was a lad.
He’s pissed too, babbling so loud it takes me half a minute to figure out he’s even yelling at me. That probably pissed him off even more, sensing my utter lack of interest as a threat to his male supremacy. So I wait until he’s making some sense. I finally get the gist of it, mainly from his sign language.
He’s pointing from me to some smoking blonde across the room to me again. She’s in this tight skirt, thong underwear, and for reasons unknown, is staring at me with this come-hither look. Now I’m flipping.
Muscle-head’s telling me that I been “eyeballin’ his gal” as he so graciously puts it in his ‘I’m from a farm just south of the corn and I ain’t never seen no automobile’ accent.
I didn’t even glance in the chick’s direction till he pointed her out. And who’d blame me? When a perfect ten, instant boner girl checks you out, you don’t turn away from the sunset; you stare until your eyes are roasting.
But like I said, he’s pissed, and I’m no spring chicken but this guy is huge. Bear huge. Trouble huge. I know I need to make a move while he’s still spraying out the rapture, otherwise he’ll stick his foot so far up my ass that I’ll be pulling shoelaces out my teeth come winter. So I do what any gentleman would do. I stand, pick up my chair, and bust it right across his fucking teeth. He goes down. Like a squealer tied to a rock in early Chicago, he goes down.
I’m left standing alone in the lunchroom with Mr. Mini-Hulk lying unconscious at my feet and everyone, I mean everyone, is staring at me. I try that whole ‘imagine them all in their underwear’ thing but quickly stop because Miss Insta-Boner’s standing ten feet away and the last thing I need is a chubby when the cops come calling.
And that’s how I came to be here. Fifty hours of community service and all the ‘You ain’t my son!’ quips from good ol’ daddio you can handle. The cops got there before any of the swollen head, bench lifter’s friends could get back at me.
***
And here I am emptying out crap bags and dressed like Mr. Clean on one of his dirt-phobia, freak-out days, completely covered in scrubs and plastic. When you live in downtown New York you can never be too careful, just touch a toilet seat and boom; herpes.
I make my way down the hall trying to find a room that doesn’t smell like death, no luck there, and I see this one out the corner of my eye. Only reason I notice it is because a big poster of The Beatles is hanging from the wall. There’s the one with the big nose, the one with the big glasses, the one with the big eyebrows, and the one with the big baby face. They all have the same haircut.
So I enter the room and stare this bitch down. First thought that flashes through my mind is how to fit this bad boy in my back pack while keeping it in good enough shape to sell on Ebay. Then I hear a sigh. I turn. This old guy’s lying in bed, eyes half open, staring at me.
“Do me a favor,” he says with a voice like rattled tin foil, “take that hippie crap down.”
I oblige. I finish rolling the poster and stuff it into my bag. I turn to leave but he calls out to me.
“Wait.”
“What, old timer?”
“Come here.”
I drop my bags with a groan and take a seat beside the guy. For someone who’s obviously been here a while he doesn’t stink. He smells like raisins. Raisins and Dial soap.
The guy lays there staring at me, his face a sagging mess, and he smiles. “How you doing, John?”
Now my name is Tommy, but I figure I might as well play along.
“Yeah," I mutter, dragging the tip of my sneakers against the spotless floor and leaving dark scuffs in its wake.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t you recognize your dad?”
I know I should split, before things get deep, but I can’t. It’s his eyes. His eyes are like the sea. Shining. So blue. Too blue.
“Yeah I do. How are things?”
“Not too good,” he says.
“What makes you say that?”
He starts a laugh that ends in a rasping gasp. “I ain’t feeling well, kid.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“How you been?”
“Good.”
“How’s Sarah?
I should stop, should leave, but I’m stuck where I stand, staring into those eyes.
“She’s fine,” I reply and pick at the dirt beneath my nails despite the rubber gloves that cover them.
“She was a good one, the one you were going to marry. The wedding’s soon?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish I could see it.”
“You’ll be fine,” I say, but I don’t believe the words.
He shakes his head. A tear makes its way down his cheek. “No, no I won’t. They tell me I’m okay but I’m not.”
“They’re doctors—”
“Doctors don’t mean shit!”
I wince at his curse.
“They tell you the same old song to give you false hope and when they lie, what does it matter? You’re still dead.”
“You’ll be fine, old timer,” I say, but I don’t believe it. He knows I don’t believe it.
He shifts against the thin sheets. “I’m surprised you came. After what happened, I wouldn’t have thought you’d show. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m sorry I was never there for you.”
His eyes, full of pain, stare into the distance, blazing in their silver pools.
“Do you remember our house in Arkansas?”
“I do,” I reply mechanically, unsure of how long I can continue this charade.
“Do you remember the old tire swing? I used to push you on it when you were a boy.”
I need to get out, but I can’t move. The heart monitor beside me beeps a slow rhythm.
“I wish we had more time. I wish I could show you I still care. I wish I could answer all your questions,” the man whispers. He doesn’t look in my direction, almost like he’s scared to.
“You’ll be fine, old timer.”
The old man smiles. “Call me dad. Please. Just for now.”
“You’ll be fine, Dad.”
Like that, like a snap of the finger, clap of the hand, some other cliché, I realize I care more for this stranger than the drunken wife beater who raised me. The old man begins to shake.
“Can you stay? I…I'm scared," he says, voice cracked with fear.
“Yes sir.”
“I’m so scared.”
I reach out and take his liver spotted hand in mine, squeezing it tight. He looks at the open window. Beyond the glass a ravishing sunset spills across the sky.
“Lift me up. I want to see.”
I wrap his arm around my shoulder and ease him forward. He’s so thin, lighter than air. He stares at the sun and whispers in my ear.
“Can you hear it, that song? So quiet…”
His face is a shade of pale gray. He has the look, the same one my uncle had when he wasted away, the face of death.
“I love you, Son.”
“I—” I stutter.
From behind me the machine ceases its rhythmic beats. A single, unending note rings out.
“I love you, Dad,” I reply, but it’s too late. He’s gone.
I lay him back and step away, still watching the wild sunset. It takes me a while to realize I’m crying. I stand there until the doctors enter the room, questioning me as to what happened. I just continue to cry, hearing only the droning beep of the life supporter.
I don’t know what to say.
