Chapter 26

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a good relationship with your father. Mine was troubled, and that’s putting a spin on it that any public relations flack would admire.

We never did the typical father and son things like fishing, camping or playing ball together. Dad was always too busy trying to put up some image to impress everybody else. For them, he would do anything. If somebody needed help, he was always the first one in line.

Good old Dad, yep, he was always ready to help everybody who needed help, except his oldest son. I had to take a number, one that he never quite reached before something else came up.

He was cold, pure and simple. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t want a child, or if I never measured up to his expectations. The old man had done so much to try and ruin my life. I had done okay, although there were probably some issues that only a really good shrink could overcome.

Dad had failed to destroy my life, but had done a pretty good job of messing up Manny’s, and never meant to do it. I wanted to tell him what a miserable person he was and how I detested every hair and pore on his body.

But I couldn’t get the words out. I don’t know if I was feeling sympathy for him, knowing his days were numbered, or that would lower me to his level.

He looked so bad, lying in this hospital bed that I knew Dad hated with a passion. There were all kinds of tubes attached to him and running in and out of body parts. The bed was tilted up at a slight angle, so he could watch television. The television wasn’t on. All Dad was watching was the wall.

I wondered what thoughts ran through a person’s mind when they knew they were dying. Were there regrets over things they had done, or didn’t do? Was Dad pleased with his life, or sad that things never really worked out the way he planned them?

I also wondered how he could find any peace. My father had paid some young girl money to kill what would have been his grandchild. I’m sure he expected to have others, but fate must have paid him back. Now he was going to die, probably never knowing there was a grandchild, one that never sat on his knee, called him “Grampa” or told him that she loved him.

There was no way I was going to tell him. I was sure he had paid a price over the years. He could die, the same way my father had lived for the last twenty years, not knowing about her.

“What’s all that ruckus out in the halls?” Dad asked.

“It’s Squiggy and a couple of friends,” I replied.

“Figures. That boy must’ve lost some of his marbles somewhere along the way. Did I ever tell you about Squiggy’s dad?”

“Not that I remember.” Squiggy’s father was even worse than his son. He took crude and vulgar to a level that Squiggy could never even hope to attain.

“He was married three times,” Dad remembered, and even smiled. “I can’t remember which one had Squiggy. They were all named Sally.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m serious. He got serious with another lady late in his life. Everybody thought they were going to get married. His name was Elrod, remember that?”

“I couldn’t remember his name. I tried to avoid him. He scared me.”

The man was huge, standing well over six-foot tall. He was like one big muscle, formed from cutting and hauling pulpwood all his life. Squiggy’s father was the hairiest guy I’d ever seen. He could shave and fifteen minutes later have a heavy beard, not that Elrod worried about shaving much. His head was almost covered with the thick, black hairs, only a little skin showing below his eyes and his nose, of course.

“He broke it off with the woman, surprising everybody,” Dad remembered. These were the kinds of stories he never shared with me, always too busy hollering and demanding things from me. “I asked him why they weren’t getting married. He said there wasn’t any way he could marry her cause her first name wasn’t Sally. That seemed kind of strange to me and I asked him why that bothered him. Elrod said it was much easier to marry women with the same name, that way he never worried about calling her the wrong name.”

Dad smiled, one of the few times that he had done so when it was just us together. He coughed and wiped his mouth with the sheet.

“Your mother doesn’t care for that Squiggy,” Dad added, like I didn’t already know this. “She’s going to have a conniption if somebody realizes that he’s here because of you.”

“Yeah, I’m hoping he’ll leave.”

The noise level out in the halls started to rise again. They were coming back toward us. The bed was banging against the wall and the doors. Squiggy was whooping and hollering. Right after their last pass, I heard somebody hollering at them, probably security.

Dad reached for the tray and grabbed a cup. He took a drink, closed his eyes and leaned his head back. His other hand was clenching the sheet, making a fist that was straining to squeeze the cover. He was hurting bad. Right now, he didn’t appear to be a monster.

His eyes opened, about the same time another cough escaped. He arched his back and grabbed for the rail. I hoped to never be in this situation. When I die, hopefully it will be something quick and painless. I don’t want to go through what my father is.

“Do you need the nurse?” I asked.

He shook his head and reached out his hand. I looked at it, wondering what to do. It was almost like he wanted me to hold his hand, but my father never wanted any contact with me. Until I learned that it was a waste of time, I used to hug him. He never hugged back, kissed or made any physical contact, other than to spank my rear when I offended him with my words or actions.

Dad kept his hand out. It was pretty much all bones with a thin layer of skin surrounding it, almost skeleton like. It shook and I slowly reached for his hand. I took it and lowered it down to the bed. It felt so fragile, almost like it could shatter if I applied too much pressure.

I held his hand. He seemed to like it, so I guess it was okay. He was looking at me and I realized how scared my father was of dying.

“Do you hate me?” he asked.

I never expected that question. It was one that I didn’t know how to answer. At times, I did, but right now, it was hard to feel that way.

“No, Dad, I don’t hate you,” I answered. His eyes were starting to get all misty.

“Good,” he answered. “I need to get things right with you before…”

He let it linger, unable to finish the sentence. I knew the ending and didn’t need to hear him say those words.

“It’s okay,” I replied. His boney hand squeezed my fingers.

“No, it’s not okay. I wasn’t the father you or your brother deserved. I’d give anything to go back and do it all over.”

I didn’t share his enthusiasm. That was something I never wanted to repeat.

“You turned out okay,” he added. Not good, or great, just okay. “Manny didn’t.”

That was an understatement. I started to get mad, but held it in check.

“Why’d you treat me so bad?” I asked. The words blurted out before I could stop them.

It caught my father off guard. He had started to say something, but I cut him off. This was a question he had trouble answering. He took another drink, coughed lightly this time and resumed staring at the wall.

“I don’t know,” Dad said, took a heavy breath and sighed. “That’s how my father treated me.”

“Did you like it?”

“No, I didn’t. I thought that was how you dealt with children.”

“It’s not.”

He nodded, still staring at that spot on the wall. His gown was twisted in the front and appeared to be cutting into his neck. He didn’t seem to mind.

“I can’t take it back,” Dad stated. “All I can do is tell you I’m sorry.”

Now my eyes were starting to get all misty. I wondered for the first time, if part of the reason that I never wanted children was out of fear of being like my father. That thought staggered me. A George Foreman punch could not have done as much damage.

I tried to tell myself that it would not have been that way, but there was no way to be positive.

“I need you to put out the newspaper this week,” he added. Dad didn’t ask, of course, just said I needed to do it.

“I can’t.”

“You have got to do it.”

“Dad, I could get fired. My bosses wouldn’t like me putting out another newspaper when they’re paying me. They expect me to be back on Monday.”

“There’s not anybody else!” he almost shouted, then lowered the volume several notches. “If you don’t get the paper out, we’ll be destroyed.”

That caused me to jerk upright. It would be bad, but it shouldn’t destroy anything. But he didn’t say it would destroy the newspaper or him. Who was the “we” he was talking about?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He told me. Nothing he had ever done or said before hurt so bad.

Chapter 27