Forgetting

I apologize in advance.  I wrote this piece and realized it was too long for one post, so I'm breaking it into two, but the second part is going to appear tomorrow, not next week.  Rose and Cherise, this one made Sugar cry already - and hit me as well, what's that about?.  Be forewarned.

A man I know and love waits in Intensive Care at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.  Over the past year I've written about this man, his name is Bill, his son is Jack and you probably remember Jack from my Story of the Vase.  Right now Bill's not one of my characters.  Right now, in that hospital, he's a real person, and even though I have written about him in memoirs and even though I've changed his name in my fiction and even though I've mixed up details of his life for my convenience, he's still a real person, and he still waits.  He has a brain tumor, so he can't be one of my characters right now, because I couldn't do that to him.  Don't get me wrong, I can be terrible to my characters, I kill them maim them and torture them beyond belief.  I take all hope from my characters, but I never take away their memories, their spark of individuality and I never hollow out their intelligence.  Only God is that cruel.

Jack sits beside the bed to keep Bill's spirits up.  Jack's his only son, his only child.  Jack's one of my best friends as well, and he's also a character in my stories but right now he's a grown man who's scared for his father as they both wait in a room filled with metal and cables and tubing and electronic beeps. 

The nurse comes in every hour.  “How are you two doing?” she asks as she checks the equipment and jots a note. 

Bill smiles at her, for she is pretty. Brown hair tied up, vaguely Asian features watered down by a generation or two of Americans.  Her mouth is turned up at the edges and it's hard to imagine her frowning and meaning it. 

“I'm doing fine, miss,” he says. “You people are feeding me, giving me a nice bed and a television and you convinced my son to come and hang out with me.  The only other things I need are a fridge full of Bud Light and a window I can open.”

She laughs with him and it sounds good together, light and gruff.  Bill's as cheerful as ever.  He's always been quick with a joke, it's a blue-collar New Englander trait to keep 'em coming no matter what gets in the way.  She turns to leave, winking at Jack, obviously happy to have a patient in such good spirits.

“Miss?” Bill calls.  She turns back around.  “There is something else.  I know there is.  I just keep forgetting what.  It's like there's something missing.”  He stops for a moment and slowly raises his hand to his head and points. “Right here.”  He's no longer smiling. 

His finger points at the bandages which cover the hole surgeons cut into his head two days ago. 

****

For many years Bill's lived with his brother and his brother's family.  He maintained the place and remodeled parts of the house in exchange for a room near the back door and a shed to store his tools.  Bill built the shed himself and somewhere around 1985 things got out of hand. 

First there were some hand-hewn double doors that he made a good deal on.  Then he put in a new floor, added an extension, and put in a refrigerator which has only ever stocked Bud Lights I might add. 

Long story short, the shed got a name and some taxidermy to go with it:  Ground Squirrel One.  It's part tool storage and part meeting hall.  The Domino's delivery drivers know it by name and the local bars have the Ground Squirrel's number on speed dial.  There's always trouble going back and forth between the bars and the Ground Squirrel. 

Besides the double doors, Bill installed a customized walk-through entrance.  It's seven inches narrower than a normal door and that insures that Montana Jones will never fit through it.  Every once in while, when Montana's in good behavior, Bill opens the double doors and they drink together, but most of the time Montana sits in the drive, drinks beer, and yells through door.

They're best friends who can't stand each other.  Bill has always avoided fights, Montana has never waited for someone else to start one.  Bill drinks Bud Light in the evenings, Montana drinks anything in a glass bottle, and some things that come in plastic.  Bill is a funny sweet-talker, Montana's a crass bully.  And so Montana sits in the drive and they talk about old times.

• Like when Montana cut off his own finger for the insurance money.
• Like when Montana lost the Korean's $25,000 fishing net on the Grand Bank.
• Like when Montana sold dead shrimp in Maine towns by convincing restaurant owners that because they were on ice, they were just sleeping. 

The drunker Montana gets, the meaner he is, and the more Bill needles him with the stories.  And everyone's glad the door's too narrow for Montana to come through. 

One night after they'd drunk the refrigerator dry, Bill leaned over to his son.

“Jack, your mother's so beautiful sometimes remembering her is all I need to get through the day.”

“Dad, you two fought like cats and dogs,” Jack says.  His parents have been divorced since he was five.

“I still love her, son.  I still love her.”

****

“Hey Billy, how's it going in here?” The man at the door has a sun-bleached beard about a fist long and ragged.  His coveralls are stained and the left strap hangs down on his arm.  He hikes it onto his shoulder with an enormous hand.  In the other huge mitt he holds his cap, a thin fishing rod, and a brown plastic shopping bag. 

“Steve, how the hell did you know I was here?”  Bill asks.  He's sitting up in bed.  He and Jack have been watching television.

“Billy, you know I used to drive cab down here sometimes when the fishing got slow,” Steve says in the way of explanation.  His huge hands were earned through 60 years hauling lobster traps up from the bottom of the sea.  He's over 70 now. 

Jack furls his brow and leans back in the chair.  “But Steve, how'd you know my dad was here?  We didn't tell anyone.”

Steve steps to the foot of the bed.  “I had to go to the Chinese herb store.  So I got a couple pounds of these herbs and I thought I'd run up here and see Billy,” he says holding the brown bag out as proof.  It's pungent with the smell of cut herbs, tangy and acrid. 

“But we didn't let anyone know,” Jack begins, but his father cuts him off.

“What do you do with those?” Bill asks.

“I eat them down a handful a day. You get used to it.”

“So you were at the Chinese market and you just stopped by?” Jack asks.  He's trying to wrap his brain around the unexpected appearance of a town stalwart.

“How long you been here, Billy?” Steve asks.  He's running his free hand through the several strands of hair left on his head.  There's a lot more on his face than on the dome.

“Oh I've been here about,” Bill pauses mid sentence and tries to work it out.  This goes on for an uncomfortable amount of time, twenty or thirty seconds.  Then he turns helplessly to Jack.

“You've been here 72 hours, dad,” Jack says.

“Then it's a good thing I didn't stop in last week,” Steve says.  “I thought about it then.”

“72 hours?” Bill asks.

“Yes.  It's been three days.” Jack says.

Bill ponders.  “I had no idea.”

“You take care of yourself, Billy. I'm going to get some fishing in.  There's no lobster right now, so I'll just do some casting.”  He's holding up the pole as he wanders out of the room and down the hall.

Jack turns to Bill.

“How do you suppose he knew?”  he asks. 

“He's a Gloucester lobsterman, son. He's been knowing where to find hidden things his whole life.”

[Continued tomorrow]

 

Comments

[julieann henneman]

Very well done. Enjoying it and I can't wait for the rest.

:)

[a rose is a rose]

#1) thanks for the warning
#2) the story means more to me than you know. my brother in law was diagnosed with a brain tumor well before he was 30. long story, but the short story is, he's fine now

[Cherise]

It's heartbreakingly sad and wonderfully written, Rick.

[Cele]

Wow, heavy heart.