The Old Man's Request


Blog For Free!

Archives
Home
2005 June

My Links
Cahall's Blog
Craig's pics

tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images


Sponsored
Blog




Free Hit Counter
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 10
06.30.05 (5:59 am)   [edit]
I have never been embarrassed to have Squiggy as a friend. I would rather some people did not know it, but in all the years we have known each other, I have never wished he lived somewhere else, like Mars.

A lot of other people did, however. Like my mother. She thought Squiggy was disgusting, something she shared with many others. My mom, just like most other mothers, preferred their children keep company with people who had good morals and knew the advantages of frequent bathing.

Squiggy didn’t have either of these two attributes high on his “To Do” list. He knew a lot of people didn’t like him. I’m sure it must have bothered him, but he never showed any remorse.

He tended to do the wrong things and say the wrong things at the worst possible moments.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that he waited until we got to my mom’s house to give me the scoop on Trevor Adams. He revved his engine to a higher decibel while driving through the residential areas and almost blew out the pipes once we parked in the driveway.

I wanted to find out what Squiggy knew about Trevor, but also wanted the Reader’s Digest abridged version, knowing my mother would not be happy about this beast parked in her driveway. Mom had pretty much given up worrying about what most of the neighbors thought since the ones she liked or worried about had died or fled to the countryside.

Squiggy couldn’t even get the story started before my cell phone rang.

I answered it, knowing what was coming.

“Michael, if you’re in that THING, I want it out of my driveway!” she practically yelled, skipping all greetings. “Somebody might drive by and see it!”

“Okay, Mom, nice talking to you,” I responded and flipped the phone shut.

Squiggy opened the door and hopped out, followed by Psycho.

“Uh, Squiggy, what are you doing?” I hollered. “Get back in the truck!”

“Hold youse horsies,” Squiggy replied. “Psycho’s gotta wee and sos do I.”

This was not good. I tried not to watch as Squiggy walked over next to a maple and relieved his beer-bloated bladder. Psycho was also about blitzed by now and staged over to the flower bed and did nature’s business, adding an extra helping of fertilizer that I doubted Mom wanted mixed in with her pansies.

The phone rang again and I ignored it. First, Squiggy parked this thing in her driveway and was now using her yard as a public restroom. This was more than Mom could handle. I saw her looking through the mini-blinds, madder than a swarm of South American bees.

Squiggy walked back to the truck, followed by Psycho. I could swear they were both smiling, especially the dog.

“Git yo butt in the truck,” Squiggy hollered. Psycho took a running start and tried to jump in the truck. I heard a loud thud that shook the truck, then that little “hee-hee” of Squiggy and knew the dog had failed.

Psycho let out a yip that could barely be heard over Squiggy’s laughing.

“Aw, is okay, girl,” Squiggy consoled his dog, leaning down and petting her. For just a second, I forgot what a foul creature he was. He lovingly picked her up, took her over to the entrance and heaved her inside, right on top of me.

The force of Psycho hitting me caused my head to thump against Squiggy’s sniper rifle. I saw stars for several seconds and wasn’t wakened out of my daze until Psycho started licking my face.

“She’s a startin to a warm up to youse now,” Squiggy commented.

“Ugh,” I responded and pushed her away. I looked at the house and saw Mom standing at the doorway. “Tell me what you knew about Trevor Adams. Mom’s about to have a cow.”

I shouldn’t have put it that way. Squiggy looked at my mother and tried to figure out how that would be possible.

He finished the last two-thirds of a beer in one swig then hacked up the massive chaw and tossed it in the yard. I made a mental note to get a shovel and remove that from the yard. It looked like it could bend a mower blade.

“Trevor Adams moved here last March from Yale,” he said, speaking with a clarity that almost made him sound like a normal person.

“The university?” I asked.

Squiggy looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Naw, the town up near Stillwater.”

“Why’d he come to Langford?”

“I’m a gittin to it if you’d be patient.”

“Sorry,” I said. I should have known better than to rush one of Squiggy’s stories. You just have to let it develop and ferment, just like the homemade beer he keeps in the bathtub.

“Anyways, our football team’s pretty much stunk the last five years or so,” he continued. “The school board finally got rid of the old coach and they hired Trevor.”

“You’re kidding?” I asked, knowing he wasn’t. “That man is a leader of our youth?”

“Naw, he’s our football coach,” Squiggy countered. “There’s a big difference. He’s hired to win some football games, not make good citizens of our boys.”

“Were all the good coaches hired?” I asked.

“Pretty much. Either that or they didn’t wanna come to Langford since most of the boys around here’d rather chase the chicks or hunt and fish.”

At one time, Langford was a powerhouse in all sports, especially football. I can’t remember the exact numbers, but only remember losing five or six games while we were in high school. Even Squiggy was a stud, a nose guard who took great pleasure in physically mauling the other team’s players. His personal record was sending four players to the hospital in one game thanks to his trademark ankle twist in the bottom of a pile and his groin gouging.

“Is he a good coach?” I asked.

Squiggy shrugged, eyeing his sack of beer.

“I ain’t real impressed with him,” he stated. “He was a dadgum assistant coach at a school smaller than Langford.”

“I can’t believe Langford would hire him,” I added, almost putting in “we” instead of “Langford”.

“They’re teams have been winning some ballgames so maybe somes of that’ll rub off on the boys.”

“I doubt it. How’ve they done so far?”

Squiggy shook his head and sneered at me.

“First game’s tonight against Vian,” he said. “Ya wanna go? It’s here.”

“I doubt it. I’ve got a lot of other things to do.”

Not that I did, but surely I could find something better to occupy my time instead of watching my old high school play football with that idiot coach.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said, then climbed down from the truck. I didn’t tear any ligaments or break any bones, so I was happy.

Psycho moved to the door and stared down at me. I reached up to pet her. She growled and slobbered at me, so I pulled my hand back.

“I’ll sees ya later,” Squiggy hollered as he revved up the engine and flew out of the driveway. I didn’t know if it was a promise or a threat.

Mom was waiting for me as soon as I entered the house.

“Please don’t allow that man near my house,” she requested.

“He just gave me a ride home,” I told her.

“You left with Sandy and return home with that thug,” she shook her head and looked disappointed.

I tried to explain what happened but she wouldn’t listen.

There was some loud ruckus in the back of the house.

“What was that?” I asked.

“It’s your father,” she answered. “He’s watching the ‘Wheel’.”

“He must be feeling better.”

“Your father always perks up a little this time of the day. I think it’s cause of Vanna. Go talk to him.”

It was either that or a continued tongue lashing from Mom about Squiggy so I decided to check up on my father. Every few seconds, I heard him holler something. His door was open so I walked in. Dad didn’t notice me until I sat down.

He was sitting up in his bed, a little of the color had returned to his face. Dad was staring at the television with an intensity that bordered on maniac.

I turned to see what was so important and saw that he was watching Vanna and Pat on the “Wheel of Fortune.”

One of today’s contestants started to spin.

“Bankrupt!” Dad hollered. “Land on bankrupt!”

I had almost forgotten the joy Dad got from cheering against the contestants on this show. He watched it every night and went through the same ritual. I never saw him happier than he was when one of the contestants with a lot of money landed in the bankrupt slot.

“Yes!” he hollered. Some dorkey-looking guy had just hit bankrupt. While the contestant’s world looked like it was coming to an end, I had seldom seen Dad happier. “You deserved it, you commie!”

I had no idea why Dad was against this little fellow or considered him a “commie”, not that I really wanted to know either.

Back in my younger days, I used to get pleasure messing with Dad. The “Wheel” was always aired on two different channels, one out of Tulsa and the other out of Fort Smith. The Tulsa channel aired the show about one minute earlier. Dad always watched the Fort Smith channel since the reception was better.

I would figure out the answers and walk in the family room and solve the puzzle. There would be some long answer with a bunch of letters and I would solve it with only two or three letters showing.

He never figured out how I did it, but it severely hacked him off. Dad actually bought the “Wheel of Fortune” board game to try and teach me a lesson but I beat him bad. We only played once, since I won so easily, and the game was forever banned to the hallway closet.

I waited as Pat told the millions watching on television that they would be right back after this message from one of their sponsors.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked.

“A little,” he answered and took a drink. “What was your mother screaming about?”

“Squiggy.”

Dad needed no further explanation. He stared at me long enough that it made me feel uncomfortable.

“What?” I asked, fearing he would jump on me for something.

“Nothing.”

We watched a commercial talking about how Bob’s confidence is increased by taking some obscure medication and how Missus Bob was much happier now.

“What do they mean by that?” Dad asked.

“You got me,” I say, deciding my father doesn’t need to know about natural male enhancement. He has lived this long without them, or at least I hope he has, and can continue down that path.

A car commercial for a Chevy dealership in Fort Smith comes on, offering zero percent interest on select models for qualified buyers. The ad forgets to mention it is only for the cars nobody wants to buy.

“I almost forgot, you need to do something for me,” he said.

That was “said”, not “asked”. It was a statement.

The “Wheel” came back on and he told me what it was, something I wished he never remembered.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 9
06.29.05 (5:51 am)   [edit]
I tried to grin and bear it after hearing that Sandy and the ignoramus were getting married. There were the standard congratulations and lies about how happy I was.

It was a bunch of crud, though. I knew it and could tell Sandy knew how I felt, which was really strange. It had been over twenty years and from just a little time together, it was like we were never apart. I wanted to spend time with her, do cool stuff and make up all these years we had lost. There was no way for that to happen in the real world, but in the fantasy, make-believe world we all live in from time to time, it seemed like a good idea to me.

Trevor had no desire for me to be there. I felt the same about him. I waited a few more minutes and bid my farewells.

Sandy offered to give me a ride, getting a dirty look from her beau in the process. I declined, lying again that I wanted to walk around town since I had not done that in years. I could care less about strolling around the streets of Langford in a little reminiscing journey. I would rather forget about this place instead of remember things that I wish could be deleted from my memory banks.

I left Verna’s and started walking back toward downtown. The sidewalks were in bad shape and I hoped to avoid the loose concrete and the holes and not break a leg. I jaywalked just for the fun of it since you are technically not supposed to do it in Tulsa and would probably get hit by a car if you did. But in Langford, rules like that are not upheld.

The cops here probably don’t know what jaywalking is, so I don’t worry about it too much. A Mexican driving a green and black truck had to stop and glares at me, wondering what this crazy gringo is doing.

He apparently has a pretty good stereo system as the bass is booming loud enough that it almost gives me a headache.

I cross over in front of the Bank of Langford. It is a nice building, one of the few nice ones left in our dying downtown. I look back toward the highway and admire the fine parking lot the bank built. At one time, there was a funeral home, a flower shop and several other businesses there.

There was a bad fire a few years ago. The buildings were torn down and the businesses that didn’t take the insurance money and run, relocated to the highway. Now there is a parking lot. A nice one, but still a parking lot where there should be small businesses that are the heart of small towns.

That bothers me, even if it shouldn’t. I had no say in the matter and don’t even live here.

I also don’t bank with them, of course, since I live in Tulsa. I used to have an account with the Langford State Bank, the other bank in town. But a few years ago, my bank was bought out. Then the same holding company that had purchased the Langford State Bank bought the other bank and decided to form a monopoly by being the only bank in town.

A bank from Poteau opened a branch so the monopoly deal didn’t work out as planned.

Across the street is where city hall used to be until they bought the old Langford State Bank building and moved the offices out of downtown. The building is huge, some three-stories high. Just south of the former city hall building is where the old theater was until it burned. The front part of the theater was salvaged and the awning is still out front, but looks like it could crash to the ground at any moment.

I pass by the one clothing store in town and several empty buildings. On the opposite corner, there is a thriving Hispanic business. Several odd-colored cars and trucks are parked outside. A few Mexicans linger about, talking and admiring those same cars and trucks.

As I start to cross the street, a loud roar comes from the road. I cover my ears, wondering what is making that terrible noise. As soon as it dies down, I hear a shout.

“Hey Lenny!” he hollers.

I hurry across the street. I know that voice and the only person who would call me “Lenny”. I really don’t want to acknowledge him. But he roars the engine again and pulls next to me. I still try to ignore him, but it’s no use. He parks in one of the many empty parking lots downtown in front of Flora’s Flowers and waits for me to approach.

He is sitting in a truck that some would consider a “monster truck”. I believe it is more along the lines of monster fecal material. It is jacked up beyond belief, so high that the step is almost to my waist. The truck has tires that look like they were stolen off a semi. At one time, the truck was a purple, but now it is impossible to tell.

It looks like he keeps trying out different colors with a spray can and doesn’t bother to cover up the previous tries. There’s a bumper sticker is on his rear window. “The BOXCAR Bar - Poker in the front - Liquor in the back!” it proudly proclaims. That’s certainly a surprise, but I figure he’s only experienced half of the items. He has another sticker, one of the Dixie flag, like that really fits in. Apparently he wasn’t paying attention in history class when the teacher taught us that Oklahoma wasn’t even a state during the Civil War, certainly not a part of the south.

I walk around the truck and approach the driver’s door.

The window is tinted so dark it is impossible to see him. Not that I mind. The window slowly lowers and I see him for the first time in ten years.

“Hey Walter,” I say. He had been smiling until I said that.

“Don’t be callin' me ‘Walter’,” he says. “Ya gotta call me ‘Squiggy’.”

He is the kind of guy who parks in the handicapped spot at Wal-Mart even when the weather isn’t bad.

Ah, a part of my life I would rather forget. He was Squiggy, I was Lenny. We were bequeathed those names from the old “Laverne and Shirley” show. That is a nickname I have tried my best to forget.. He did look a little like Squiggy since he was short, had greasy black hair and his voice was rather irritating. I was tall, thin and blonde haired, at least back then, but that was where the comparisons to Lenny ended.

Squiggy was not a great friend, but I was nice to him and he wound up clinging to me like a tick on a blind guy’s privates.

He has on old hat on that is so dirty it is impossible to tell what product was once advertising. Now, it’s the color of dirt and oil. It is tilted to the side so I can see Squiggy, aka Walter Jennings, is racing me to see who can go bald first.

His hair is long on the sides and the back, where it is tied up in a ponytail. Squiggy’s eyebrows are still connected in the middle, making it look like there is only one that stretches across his face. He has on a designer pair of sunglasses that are smeared so badly I don’t see how he can see anything. A razor had not touched that face in a long time, neither had soap, I realized as I got closer than I should.

Squiggy’s wearing a red “American Idol” tee-shirt without the sleeves. The irritating English chap is pictured. The shirt was not made to be sleeveless originally and it was obvious he had removed the sleeves with a pocket knife. The shirt ran out of fabric and falls short, approximately halfway through his belly button, exposing the lower half of a belly marked by stretch marks and what appear to be old zit scars.

His jeans are old and have holes in both knees. The pants are tucked into a pair of rattlesnake cowboy boots that look out of place since they appear to be new.

He has a chaw of tobacco so big it looks like somebody shoved a softball in his mouth. Squiggy holds a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer bottle in one hand with beer in it. He has another bottle nestled between his legs, half full of spit.

“Good to see you,” I lie.

I hear some strange noise and look down at his wheels. Although his truck has parked, part of the wheels appears to still be moving.

“Hey, that’s cool,” I lie again.

“Yep,” Squiggy agrees. “Them things are spinners. S-P-E-E-N-E-R-S.”

Spelling was also not one of Squiggy’s strengths in school.

A dog sits next to him, a big, brown, mean-looking pit bull. He leans forward and glares at me, eyeing me like I would make a good TV dinner. He growls and a large quantity of slobber is slung throughout the truck’s cab.

“That’s Psycho,” Squiggy says proudly.

“You call your dog ‘Psycho’?” I ask. “Does the name fit?”

That question was a little more than Squiggy could handle. He leaned out the window and spit on the road, expertly avoiding my leg. An elderly woman was exiting Flora’s Flower Shop with a bouquet of flowers. She was one of the older women who don’t leave their house unless they are dressed perfectly and have their hair just right.

Apparently, she didn’t approve of Squiggy’s actions. She opened her mouth and looked like a yack was forming. It must have passed as she closed the mouth, glared at him and shook her head.

“What’s yer problem, ya old biddy!” Squiggy shouted, making me wish I could disappear. This was probably one of my dad’s Baptist buddies and would soon be on the phone to Mom, snitching on me.

The old woman probably had not moved that fast in years. She set a new land speed record while practically sprinting to her car, her eyes never leaving Squiggy. Psycho growled loud enough for her to hear and she almost dove the final yards.

“Hee, hee! At’s a good girl,” Squiggy said, leaning close and letting Psycho lick him. I couldn’t decide what disgusted me more, Psycho licking him or Squiggy getting so much enjoyment out of it.

“Psycho’s a girl?” I asked.

“Yep, I’m a gonna breed her.”

Hopefully with another dog, I thought.

I had already had enough of Squiggy for the next ten years.

“I’m going to have to…” I started to say, then got stuck. Where could I tell Squiggy I was going and have him believe it?

Squiggy and Psycho looked at me, waiting for my answer. He drained about half a beer in one drink, then let out a burp that could probably be heard in Arkansas. The old lady was backing out and burned rubber as she escaped.

“…home,” I finally added.

Squiggy nodded for way too long.

“Git in,” he said, two words I hoped to never heard. “I’ll give ya a ride.”

There were a lot of things I would like to be doing. Riding in a truck with Squiggy and Psycho wasn’t one of them.

“I’ll just walk,” I said. “Need the exercise.”

“Ya can get yer exercise later,” he argued. “Git yer butt in and I’ll take ya home.”

Squiggy might not register as drunk, yet, but was getting close. I knew he would argue with me until one of us passed out and it was no use.

“Okay,” I finally said, faked a smile that I definitely did not feel and walked around the back of the truck. He revved the engine about the time I passed the pipes, causing me to jump higher than Doctor J ever did. I heard Squiggy laugh and thought Psycho joined in.

I doubt a man heading to his lethal injection walked any slower than I did. Finally, I approached the door and wondered just how I was supposed to get in. I stood on my tiptoes and could barely reach the door handle. The door popped open and Psycho lunged at me, throwing spit and slobber all over me. Apparently she didn’t share the enthusiasm her owner did as per my riding in the truck.

“Chill,” Squiggy hollered, took off his hat and popped her over the head with it. She sat back down next to him, panting heavily, her squinty, vicious eyes never leaving me.

I grabbed the handle next to the door, stepped up in the ridiculously high step and entered the cab. Psycho was growling and still eyeing me during the process, but hopefully had decided her next meal would have to come from somewhere else.

A police car drove by with its window down. A young officer with a bad case of acne stared at Squiggy. He almost came to a stop and lowered his shades.

“What’re ya lookin at, ya homo!” Squiggy hollered, then held up his beer bottle. I have never really envisioned how nice it would be to invisible, until now. Here I was in a truck with some lunatic man and his crazed dog. Squiggy questions the police officer’s sexual preference then holds up a beer bottle for everybody to see. I knew Squiggy would get us thrown in the pokey for open container and and a list of outstanding warrants that were longer than a romance novel.
The cop slowly raised his hand and waved, not wanting to deal with Squiggy.

“How come he let you do that?” I asked.

Squiggy giggled, snorted really loud and spit out the window again.

“I caught him wif his sister,” Squiggy said, information I did not want or need to hear.

I expected Squiggy to tell the whole story, but luckily his short attention span had already changed.

I hit my head on something and turned around to see what it was. It appeared to be a sniper rifle in the gun rack on his rear window.

“Uh, nice gun,” I said. “It’s not loaded, is it?”

He looked at me again like I had lost too many brain cells over the years.

“A gun ain’t no good if it ain’t loaded,” Squiggy informed me. I tried to keep track of the grammar errors in his response but gave up.

I nodded, not in agreement but because that seemed to be the proper action.

“What do you shoot?” I regretted the question even while asking it.

“Been shootin some crow,” Squiggy mentioned, then nodded toward the back of the truck. I knew better than to look, but did so anyway. There appeared to be at least a hundred dead crows in the back of his truck, mixed with beer bottles, tools, clothes, chicken bones and other trash.

“I didn’t know it was crow season.”

He snickered, Psycho growled.

“There ain’t no such thing as ‘crow season’, ya idiot.”

“What do you do with them?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t let them stay in the back until they were bones, or eat them.

“I find me somebody who keeps their lawn a lookin real good then dump em in their yard.”

Oh, a logical explanation.

“Want a brew?” he asked, pointing at the sack in the floor. “Only had em since yesterday mornin.”

“No thanks, I don’t drink,” I said.

Squiggy stared at me for way too long.

“Ya don’t drink?” it was almost too hard for Squiggy to believe.

“Not anymore,” I replied. I had never been much of a drinker but there was a time when I could hold my own.

Squiggy muttered some word I could not decipher.

“Guess I’ll have to finish em myself,” he added. “Still gotta couple of hours till work.”

“How are you going to sober up by then?” I foolishly asked.

The Squigster glared at me again. So did Psycho.

“I ain’t.”

“You’re going to go to work drunk?”

“Heck yeah, don’t you?”

“I try not to,” I answered. “What do you do?”

“Drive one of them big old equipment thingamajigees.”

“Even if you’re drunk?”

A stupid question if I had ever asked one.

“Course,” he answered.

“Aren’t you worried about hitting somebody?”

“Naw, they ain’t smart nuff to get outta my way, they deserves to get a splattered.”

“What about your bosses?”

“They’s pretty good bout gittin outta the way.”

“No, don’t they get upset if you’re drunk?”

“They’s always on that internet thingey looking up pictures of nekkid womens,” he answered.

I hoped my pension plan had not invested any of my retirement savings in that corporation.

“Watch this,” Squiggy ordered. “Pyscho! Beer!”

Psycho reached his monstrous head into the sack and came out with a beer bottle. She handed it to Squiggy and got a kiss in return. That seemed to make her day.

“That’s good,” I said. “Does she wipe for you too?”

“Naw, I do that myself,” he answered, way too serious. “Here ya go, girl.”

Squiggy dug under his seat through the mounds of fast food wrappers and other junk until he found a plastic bowl. He opened the beer and poured some in it. Squiggy set it next to Psycho and she went to town.

“She likes the beer,” Squiggy mentioned.

I could see that. Yep, just what we needed, a drunken pit bull that obviously did not care for me.
We cruised around town for a little while. Luckily the tinted windows obscured my identity. He kept up a running commentary on practically every white person we saw. So-and-so is cheating on their wife while some other guy got fired for stealing. It was more than I really wanted to know.

“How do you know so much?” I asked.

“That’s what I do,” he answered. I watched him for a few seconds, wondering how he decides how to swallow beer without the tobacco juice and spit without losing the beer. A person would have to be far more intelligent than I am to figure that out.

I decided to test his knowledge of the local populace.

“You know about some guy named Trevor Adams?” I asked.

He smiled, revealing teeth that were in drastic need of dental care, then told me more than I could imagine.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 8
06.28.05 (4:20 am)   [edit]
“I need to tell you something,” Sandy stated, after a long pause. All the noise in Verna’s Café had gone away, blocked out. “I really don’t know how to say it.”

She had never had any problem saying what was on her mind, one of the many things I always liked about her. I was the exact opposite, especially when it came to relationships.

“Go ahead,” I urged. She already had me on the edge and was now pulling me over in anticipation.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, Sandy. It’s just you and me, just like the old times.”

She let that comment settle in for a few seconds. Sandy took a drink and spent too much time staring at me.

“No, it’s not like the old times,” she informed me. “That was over twenty years ago. We don’t know each other anymore.”

She did have a point. But I knew Sandy was still the one person I could trust with anything and hoped she felt the same way about me.

“You’ve changed so much,” Sandy added. “You’re big time, working at a big newspaper.”

“That’s no big deal,” I argued. The newspaper where I worked has never been considered “big time” by the serious and good journalists. It’s a good newspaper, but isn’t exactly battling for Pulitzers every year.

“It is to me. I read your stories and wonder how you’re doing.”

“I get by.”

“You should do more than ‘get by’,” she admonished me. “You’ve escaped Langford and your father. I guess you’ve got everything you ever wanted.”

It was my time to let something settle before I tested the waters.

“Not everything,” I countered, wishing it could be left at that.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to say for twenty years…”

She was interrupted by a loud commotion near the front door. The noise in Verna’s had risen considerably. I turned around and saw a man about our age talking and laughing with all the regulars. He appeared to be popular as they all turned their attention to him and laughed at whatever the man was saying.

Sandy saw him and leaned closer, needing to tell me quickly for some reason.

“I’m sorry for what happened between us,” she said. “I got scared and ran you off.”

I couldn’t believe Sandy would feel bad about what happened so long ago. It certainly wasn’t her fault and she didn’t run me off. My dad contributed mightily to that cause, along with this little town. A lot of people got trapped here and don’t escape, stuck in a life that would never change.

There would be a spouse, or two, kids and a job that never paid enough to meet their basic needs. But they could hunt, fish and hang out at the local watering hole and drink beer, telling each other lies that were repeated enough that they eventually came to believe them.

“Sandy, you have nothing to apologize about,” I argued. “You didn’t run me off. I went away to school and…”

“I’m talking about before that,” she countered, interrupting me. “After graduation night, we both felt different about each other. I’ve never been happier than I was when you were holding me and that first kiss. All my nerves were on end and I’ve never felt so, I don’t know, alive, I guess.”

“It wasn’t just you.”

“Most of it was. You kept coming around for a while then I ran you off. I got scared. We had always been close, but nothing compared to how I felt after that night. I would be rude to you until you went away then feel awful about it.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I wish that night never happened.”

“Why?”

“Because it changed things between us. We were never the same after that.”

“You didn’t feel the way I did that night?”

If only she knew. I had been looking to recapture the passion I felt that night ever since, never getting close.

“Yeah, but maybe it’s good that it didn’t go past that point. I’m apparently not good at relationships.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Sandy, I’ve been in three marriages that were disasters. I can guarantee you that the third time is not any more charming than the first two.”

“It takes two to tango,” she argued, something I’ve thought many times but never been able to convince myself.

“Yeah, but they didn’t work. You’re lucky you’ve never gone through it.”

Sandy stared at me intently before responding.

“I’ve been through a lot,” she added. “But nothing hurt as bad as losing you.”

“You didn’t lose me,” I argued. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

I had laid my cell phone on the table when we sat down and it started ringing. Everybody turned and sneered at me as the ringing took away their idol worship from the guy moving in between them, shaking hands and smiling, looking a lot like a politician.

The caller ID showed it was the newspaper, not that it was a surprise. Brewster had already called three times during my drive to Langford. I had answered those calls, but nothing could drag me away from this now.

I set the phone back on the table. It kept ringing and everybody in Verna’s was staring at the phone. I don’t have one of the fancy ring tones that so many people like, just a simple ring to tell me somebody is calling.

“Ain’t you gonna get that?” asked an old man sitting a couple of tables away. He was an older guy, a little squirt of a man. His hair was trimmed in what used to be considered a crewcut. He wore a cheap pair of jeans and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Half his shirt was unbuttoned, either because he thought it was sexy or they wouldn’t button anymore. The man had developed a pretty impressive roll, but was obviously still trying to wear the same pants from when he was smaller.

“Naw, it’s my boss,” I said.

Several people heard my response and nodded in either satisfaction or appreciation. They didn’t seem to be the type to want to talk to their bosses either, not that many of the people in Verna’s seemed to have jobs or bosses to worry about.

The ringing finally stopped and I knew there was going to be some urgent message left on my voice mail.

Sandy was watching the man as he circulated through the room. She leaned a little closer so nobody could hear.

“No, I lost you and have regretted it ever since then. Maybe it was meant to be and that’s why our personal lives have been such a mess.”

She made a good point, but I didn’t understand why we were even talking about it. I was okay with being single and never thought she wanted a serious relationship or marriage.

“I didn’t realize you were having problems.”

“You’ve been gone a long time,” Sandy pointed out, not that it was needed. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

“I’m sorry if you’ve had a tough time. I’d always heard how you were doing so good at selling houses and everything else.”

“Selling real estate is my job,” she replied. “It’s not my life. My life is what it is. There are good days and bad days. But I mainly just wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I’ve needed to say that for a long time.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize about,” I argued. Heck, I was beginning to think Sandy wanted us to get together and give it a whirl. Not a bad idea, as far as I was concerned. I had pretty much sworn off all relationships, but would be willing to make an exception for her.

She clammed up and leaned back in her chair. Sandy watched the man approach us until he stood next to us. I wished he would go politic somewhere else and let us get back to talking about possibly getting back together.

Myrtle was watching the man eagerly, ready to pounce whenever he sat down. Apparently she must have a crush on him or he must be a good tipper.

“You must be Mike,” the man said, smiling in the way only a man who knows he is handsome can. He held out his hand and I took it, hoping it would send him on his way.

“Michael Hunt,” I countered.

“Don’t blame you for using that name,” he said. “Were your parents mad at you?”

“Not when I was born. Why do you ask?”

“They named you ‘Mike Hunt’,” the man said. “Isn’t it embarrassing?”

What a clever guy. Hitting me with the old “Mike Hunt” line. Damn the writers of the movie "Porky's". Yes, I do know how it sounds when people say my name. In fact, after I got old enough to get it, I found it mildly amusing the first few hundred times I heard it. The thousands since then were not the least bit funny.

“Not really,” I answered, wanting to ask him if he was embarrassed to be living in Langford, but letting it pass. “And you are?”

Trevor Adams,” the man offered. I had heard that name somewhere but could not place it. He squeezed my hand too hard before letting go. Trevor had obviously lifted a lot of weights in his life and was all buffed up.

“Glad to meet you,” I lied, wishing he would go his merry way.

“You, too,” he added, but had turned away from me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Hope it was good.”

He turned to look back at me. The smile slipped away.

“Some was,” he added. “some wasn’t.”

I turned to stare at him. Right before I counterattacked, he sat down in a chair at our table. I was about to tell him to go bug somebody else when he leaned over to Sandy. She turned to face him and got kissed on the lips.

“Hey baby,” Trevor said, but looked at me for my reaction.

“Hello Trevor,” Sandy replied. She was smiling at him, but it looked forced.

“Did she tell you the big news?” Trevor asked.

“I don’t guess so,” I answered, turning to look at Sandy.

“Trevor,” she protested and the forced smile was fading fast.

“Tell him,” he said. It was more than a suggestion, almost an order.

It was obvious Sandy didn’t want to tell me whatever it was that Trevor wanted to share.

“Go ahead,” Trevor added, with much more insistence.

Sandy faked a smile as she looked at me.

“We’re getting married,” she said, and it felt like the roof was falling down on me.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 7
06.27.05 (4:31 am)   [edit]
When I was but a wee child running the streets of Langford, the town seemed huge. Sandy and I walked wherever our adventures took us. It might be downtown to the old Ben Franklin store where they had old ladies working that followed our every step, wanting to make sure no shoplifting occurred on their shift.

Or it might be to the old pharmacy where they served the best ice cream and vanilla Cokes I ever had the pleasure of consuming. It might even be across town to the high school to play on the swings and other playground goodies. That was before the school built the new gym and elementary school and wiped out our playground.

We felt safe back then strolling the streets since we knew most of the people and didn’t worry about unsavory people doing bad things to us. I guess there were bad ones then, just like there are now. But they seemed to have multiplied over the years faster than the rabbit population.

If I had children, which luckily is not the case as I would be a paranoid father, there is no way they would roam the streets like we did.

There just seems to be bad in a lot of places, and not hard to find. I don’t know if it’s the drugs or a meltdown of civilization since Johnny Carson retired from “The Tonight Show”, but it’s a jungle out there, like the old sarge on “Hill Street Blues” used to say before sending his guys and gals out to fight the onslaught of crime.

Langford has changed so much over the years. So have the quality of the people living here. Most of what I would consider the quality people have moved out to what would be the suburbs, if Langford was big enough to have suburbs.

Some of it is the fear of actually having a Mexican move in next door. I have never actually lived next door to a Hispanic since my apartment charges enough to keep out the foreigners and the riff-raff, but I doubt it could be worse than some of the people I have had for neighbors.

I’ve always figured there are good Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, Indians and whatever other race and creeds there are out there. Just like there are some good whities. I doubt there is any percentage of good and bad of any race out there, some sociologist has probably studied it and has the answer. I don’t.

But as we drove around town, it seemed many of the Mexicans kept their houses and yards a lot nicer than the whites who have yet to flee to the countryside.

Most of the houses have declined, along with the quality of people living in them. The highway running through Langford has undergone a transformation also with most of the new businesses locating there. A lot of old trashy houses have been replaced with new branch banks, office buildings and fast-food restaurants.

As Sandy drove me through town, many memories of events that seemed to have happened in a different lifetime came rushing back. Things we did and talked about doing when we got older, but never got around to doing.

We always expected to be the best of friends and run around together. That was before life got in the way. I look at her and I’m amazed again at how good she looks, nothing like the shell of a person I am.

I want to tell her this but decide it wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m afraid she would think I am hitting on her and don’t want to scare her away.

She is quiet as we cruise through town, avoiding the massive potholes that are probably visible from the Moon. We cross the railroad tracks and go into our dying downtown. Several of the old brick buildings have been painted bright colors that don’t look right. Not that the bright neon lights of Harvey’s Liquor Store with the huge sign proudly saying “Liquor” fits in either. But Harvey was white and didn’t get that many complaints, even though his sign would look a lot better in Vegas than it did in Langford.

The people who painted the buildings purple, gold, red and blue were Hispanic so naturally there was an uproar. There were angry letters to the editor in the Langford Review from both sides, not that Dad minded. It was controvery and sold more copies. He was neutral about the situation, feeling like if the whites didn’t like the buildings, they should buy them and sandblast them back to their original condition.

The story even made it to the Fort Smith television stations. That’s when you knew something was big in Langford, if the television stations saw fit to cover an event and put it on the news.

We passed by the old theater where we used to go on the weekends. Movies were only shown on Friday and Saturday nights, but it was a big deal to us. Sometimes we went both nights, even though the same movie was showing both nights and were usually bad. The movies were always rated “PG” and above, what would be considered quality family entertainment today, if such a thing existed.

All the kids and high schoolers used to always hang out downtown on the weekends, going to the movie, the pool hall, parking and talking to your buds, or driving the two blocks, making a u-turn and repeating the same action at the other end of downtown.

The theater burned during my sophomore year of high school, the start of the demise of our downtown as a place for entertainment. The old family businesses were already hurting thanks to a Wal-Mart that opened in Poteau and sucked in the customers and closed businesses that had been open half a century.

The kids don’t come downtown anymore and it is sad, one of the few things about Langford that I miss.

Sandy parked in front of Verna’s Café, an old building that used to have a different owner or manager almost every year. Some lady named Verna that I don’t know owns it now. Dad has griped about her not placing ads in the paper so she isn’t real popular with him. Verna also doesn’t go to his church so there are two big strikes against her.

We got out of Sandy’s car and walk toward the door. A sign on it says “NO SMOKING” in big, block letters. But after I open the door, the smell of smoke and old grease is bad enough to almost make me gag.

The front section of the restaurant is fairly clean. Most of the tables are occupied by people who have nothing better to do than sit around, drink coffee and talk to others in the same situation. Several stare at me as I walk past, trying to figure out who I am and what I am doing here.

She leads me to a table on the far side and we sit down. One of the waitresses is sitting at a table with the other hired hands. She doesn't appear to be all that happy about having to actually do the work Verna hired her to do. She is a large lady with a green shirt advertising “Verna’s Café”. I notice the apron she is wearing. It was probably white at one time but is now more colors than I could count, or would want to try.

The waitress wears a pair of white shorts that are several sizes too small, and I regret looking at her. She tops off the ensemble with a pair of what appears to be brown dress socks and a cheap pair of Keds.

The woman slowly walks toward us, carrying a couple of menus that should have been replaced months ago, and sneering like she had to clean a toilet that had not been flushed in weeks.

“What’ll y’all want?” the large lady asked in a booming tone that makes my ears hurt as she throws the menus down on the table.

“Water,” I say.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Sandy says. “Most people don’t drink the water since all the chicken farms started polluting everything. I don’t think the water’s safe anymore. It always smells funny. Right Myrtle?”

Myrtle shrugs her shoulders. The water quality of Langford does not seem to be a concern to her.

“How about a Coke?” I ask, looking for Sandy’s approval. She nods and I feel better.

“Make mine a diet,” she requests.

Myrtle stands there for a second. I look up and notice she has a pretty good mustache growing and some serious eye boogers stranded in her eye lashes.

“Y’all gonna eat?” she asks.

I look to Sandy for direction.

“Maybe later,” she says. I’m about to starve, but nod in agreement.

Myrtle lumbers off in search of our drinks, her hopes of getting a decent tip fading away. I repeat my earlier mistake of looking at her. She’s sporting a wedgie that seems to stretch out at least a foot. Because the wedgie sucked up some of her pants into the great divide and wouldn’t release the fabric, too much of the back of her legs are showing.

I see that Myrtle has some serious cottage cheese going on and whatever appetite I once had has faded into oblivion. Sandy notices what I have been staring at and probably the look of disgust on my face.

I shiver despite the warmth.

Sandy is staring at me and I want to melt away, kind of like the wicked witch in “The Wizard of Oz”, a movie we watched together every year when we young. Her mom would make us some popcorn and we would lie on the floor in front of their old black and white television, eating and drinking cherry Kool-Aid. All was right in the world then.

“It’s been a long time,” she finally says.

I show my excellent communication skills by nodding in agreement.

There is a loud buzzing sound, the voices of all the people trying to talk louder than everybody else so their opinion on whatever can be heard since it is more important than what anybody else has to say. Myrtle drops off our drinks and I refuse to watch her walk away.

“How have you been?” she asks.

“Pretty good,” I reply. “Work most of the time.”

“You don’t come home very often.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“Not any more than I have to,” I answered.

She nodded and took a drink.

“I used to drive by all the time to see if you were there,” Sandy stated. “I gave up after a while. Now my mom always tells me what your mom tells her.”

I wonder how much was true and figured the percentage that was highly fabricated.

She has a scar over her eye that I don’t remember. There is a sadness in her eyes, not the look of joy and wonderment that was always there when we were younger.

Sandy started to say something, but stopped. I waited a little longer, hoping she got the courage to say whatever it was that brought us here together.

“How have you been?” I asked. A question I should have known without asking.

“Okay,” she answered, then took a deep breath.

Sandy looked me into the eyes and proceeded to tell me what it was that brought us together. Something I never expected to hear from her.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 6
06.26.05 (11:12 am)   [edit]
I am no great philosopher by any means. All I am is a person who writes stories about people, places and things that my editor thinks would be interesting to our readers.

Some of the stories are interesting. Others are better suited for the bottom of bird cages. So it’s not like me to expound on deep thoughts. I usually don’t have them, nor do I try to share the few I have with anybody else.

It’s not my nature. Plus, I figured everybody would say I was full of you know what.

But I firmly believe, and have since I was a little squirt, that each person has one special friend in their life. The one person they can share their dreams with and not worry about being laughed at, or tell any secret and know it will never be repeated.

Most people’s best friend was the same sex. That’s just how the old ball bounces. For most people, it made things easier. They could do the same things like playing basketball or dolls and that was okay. Plus, for most people, that meant a physical attraction would never develop.

There were some, of course, who had a best friend of a different sex. That was the way it was for me. Her name was Sandra Daniels, but I always called her Sandy. We were tight back before friends described their relationship that way.

She lived a block away. From the age we were old enough to walk until adulthood raised its ugly head and sent me in a separate direction, we did pretty much everything together. A lot of people thought it was a little strange. We didn’t care.

We were buddies. That’s all that mattered, the kind of friends who would do anything for each other. No questions asked or expected. Our mothers were good friends and used to spend a lot of time together. That’s how it got started.

It never got to the point where we spent the night with each other, as that would be pushing it. Not that we would ever do anything other than laugh and have a good time. The sex part or physical attraction was not there.

Until the night of our high-school graduation. We had both dated others and were okay with that, usually laughing at what turned out to be a terrible night. But that night, after shedding our cap and gown and leaving behind Langford High School, we drove out to Cedar Lake and sat down on the dock. We took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pant legs and let our feet dangle in the cool water. For some reason, maybe it was the closure of our youth, or because it was something that had been bottled up inside us for many years, we saw something different that night when we looked at each other.

Neither of us said a word. There was just something different between us. All we shared were a few kisses under a full moon with the wind whipping through the pine trees. No sex or groping each other’s young bodies. That just wouldn’t be right.

But things were never the same after that night. The feelings were different and neither of us felt comfortable walking down that road. We continued to stay in contact with each other, but I left for school the following fall and only came home when I had to. Sandy wanted to go to college but didn’t have the money and decided to try something else.

Over the last twenty years, I have seen her fewer times than I have fingers on either hand. Rarely does a day go by I don’t think about her. But she has her life, I have mine, and the paths never cross.

Until I left my father’s bedroom, walked into the family room and saw her talking to my mother, that is. She had changed a little, some aging on her face and a different hairdo and color. But Sandy looked as good as she had that spring night so long ago when my heart melted like chocolate left out in a summer sun.

In the years since that night, I have been through three failed marriages and some relationships that fizzled out for whatever reason bad relationships always do. I know a lot of that was because none of them could measure up to her.

“Hello,” I finally managed to reply, after a very long and very awkward silence.

A smile slowly formed on her face and I saw the corners of her eyes turn up, the way they always did when she was happy.

“I just came by to check on your dad,” Sandy stated. She was wearing a pair of old jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. There was something written on the shirt but I couldn’t make it out. Her hair was longer as she used to keep it as short as her mother allowed.

No rings were on her fingers and I was glad to see that. It just didn’t seem right for Sandy to be married. From what my mother told me the last time the subject was brought up, she had never married.

I dreamed that it was probably because she was waiting for her knight in shining armor, namely me, to ride back into town and sweep her off her feet, but knew that was not the case. Sandy was her own person and would not let anybody boss her around, especially a member of the opposite sex.

“Thank you,” I said, which sounded rather stupid. But I was not through. “I passed by your house.”

Duh, like that was big news. I always passed by her house when I was driving to my parent's home. I did the same thing when I left, too.

She waited, the smile fading a little, obviously waiting to hear the reason for my saying that. There wasn’t one, of course, so I let it fade away, much like the smell of an untimely body function in the midst of a crowded elevator.

“It’s good to see you, Michael,” Sandy stated. She never used to call me “Michael” or “Mike”, it was always “Mikey”, a name reserved for her use only. It bothered me that she was so formal, but decided Sandy probably called me that, thinking I didn't want to be called by such a childish name.

I nodded, not knowing what to say. For a person who spends a large part of most days either talking or thinking of something to write or say, the sudden inability to communicate bothered me.

She stood, waiting for anything from me. I felt worse than I did my first date while waiting to meet the parents. A 42-year old man should not be this way. My mother was glaring at me like I had yelled an obscenity during an altar call.

“Uh, Sandra is a real estate agent now,” my mother tossed in, trying to break me out of my brain freeze.

“Great!” I finally managed to say. Man, I was feeling dumber than the town derilect.

“I hope your father gets to feeling better,” Sandy added.

Gosh, what to say? I labored over this for way to long.

“So do I,” was all I managed. Ever since the caveman strutted his stuff, man has always wanted to improve the ability to communicate. That is why we have cell phones, email, instant messaging, text messaging and all these other ways to tell somebody something. I was setting man’s effort to better communicate back into the dark ages.

Another awkward silence. My mother looked at me like I was a complete fool, a sentiment I was sure Sandy shared.

“I guess I better go,” Sandy concluded. She was still smiling, but it was forced.

“Thanks for coming by,” I said, then walked over and held out my hand.

Sandy raised one eyebrow higher than it should physically be possible as she stared at my hand. I stood there with my hand outstretched, hoping for some response. I quickly realized this was really stupid, but knew I had gone too far now.

Finally, Sandy slowly stuck her hand out and shook mine. As she turned to walk toward the door, I saw the smile had vanished.

Sandy paused at the door, acting like she wanted to say something, then decided to let it pass. She left and so did my spirit.

I turned to look at Mom, who was still glaring at me.

“Is that all?” she asked. “The girl makes a special trip to see you and that’s it?”

I didn’t know what to say. I stood there for several seconds, feeling like a Rod Serling voiceover should begin any second telling me I was trapped in the Twilight Zone.

All I heard was the sound of my heartbeat and the ticking of Mom's grandfather clock, which at one time was actually owned by her grandfather, making it a true grandfather's clock. Tick, tock, over and over it went. My heart was thumping too quick and loud enough I figured Mom could hear it. After a few more tick, tocks and thump, thumps, it somehow woke me out of whatever funk I was in.

I took off sprinting to the door and slammed in to it as Mom must have just waxed the floor.

It felt like I broke something in my shoulder, but not even a little pain could stop me now. I was on a roll. I flung open the door and ran out on the porch, hoping she had not left. Sandy was in her car, backing out of the driveway. I jumped off the porch in a way I hadn’t since my teenage years, and ran toward her, amazed with my speed and not breaking any bones in my lower extremities.

She saw me and stopped the car. I ran to the driver’s side and made several turns with my arm and hand, indicating I wanted her to roll the window down. Once again, I felt quite stupid and figured she shared that opinion. Sandy used the button to roll the window down and looked at me.

“Wait,” I said, which she already had. “Don’t go.”

She stared at me for several seconds, obviously wondering if I had gone psycho over the years.

“Get in,” Sandy finally replied. “I have something to tell you.”
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 5
06.24.05 (5:52 am)   [edit]
As a journalist, I have seen death and others that were close. I have witnessed the effects of trains crashing into cars, people attacked by animals and bodies surfacing after months of being in the water.

I don’t like it, of course, and have never gotten used to it. Luckily, most of those types of stories now go to younger people on the staff and I can avoid them.

So it’s not like I have not seen some pretty bad things in my life.

But nothing I had seen before prepared me for my father.

I expected him to be, well, just sick. He was that, all right, and much more. My first glance at him convinced me this time the old man was not playing sick. He was sick, and in a bad way.

Dad has always been fairly healthy and active, except during his little sick spells. He walks almost every day and tries to eat right, aside from the occasional treat.

But the man lying in the bed was not the same person I saw and avoided at Christmas. Dad had lost at least 20 pounds that he really did not need to lose, leaving him all gaunt and boney. His eyes were sunken back into his skull and his skin looked like dried prunes that had been left out in the sun for too long.

His left arm was outside the sheet and appeared to have no muscle or fat, just bone. Judging from the smell, Dad had not been able to make it to the restroom. It was enough to make me gag.

He turned to look at me and it seemed to take all his energy. His mouth was hanging open and it looked like his tongue was black, no longer pink or red. Dad slowly lifted his boney arm and waved me into the room, each long finger beckoning, followed by the next.

Mom was behind me, gently nudging me in the back.

“It’s okay,” she told me.

I took slow, baby steps into the room, worried what I might see next. There was a chair from the dining room table sitting next to the bed, probably for my mother or other visitors to sit in and keep vigil.

The door closed behind me and I felt trapped.

“Hello, Michael,” he said, a wheezy voice that sounded like air was escaping from somewhere. The words were slow and appeared to be difficult for him to say.

I made my way to the wooden chair. It was not the most comfortable thing and I wished Mom had something else to sit on. That had to be pretty rough on her back. The chair creaked and moaned when I sat down. There was a humidifier at the foot of the bed, making a noise close to how Dad sounded with every breath.

“Hello, Dad,” I finally said. “How are you feeling?”

That was all I could say. It’s not like I could tell him he was looking good. That would be a lie. I also couldn’t tell him I missed him, since that would also be a lie. You didn’t lie to my father. He could cut through them like a hot knife through butter. I thought of him often, but certainly did not want to spend time with him.

“You’re losing your hair,” he mentioned, again barely managing to say the sentence. Of all the things he could say, naturally Dad mentioned the one thing bothering me the most. Yes, the old hairs had been leaving in quite a rush, clogging my drain in the shower every morning and showing more of my forehead every day. It was like telling a large person it looked like they were getting fatter.

“Yeah, I guess it’s that time,” I replied.

“You must get that from your mother’s side of the family. All my side kept its hair.”

Aside from his sister, Shirlene, I wanted to point out, but didn’t. I saw her without one of her wigs once and still have bad memories. She wears some of the most awful wigs imaginable and naturally wears them at all the family gatherings. I do not have this as documented fact, but Shirlene must buy the ones at closeout, the wigs so terrible nobody else wants to wear or buy, probably because she got a good deal.

She doesn’t think anybody knows they are wigs. But they are, bad wigs at that. Shirlene wears the same kinds of wigs everyday that most people would only put on at Halloween as a joke.

“I expected you earlier,” he added, then hacked out a bad cough. I could see the pain when he coughed. They continued for several seconds, so severe his body seemed to have mini-seizures.

He tried to grab a glass of water. It was a little out of his reach so I helped him. He waited for the coughs to subside then took a drink. I watched his Adam’s Apple go in and out as the water went down his throat, making a gulping sound.

“Sorry,” Dad said, a word I could never remember him telling me. “That comes and goes.”

“Are you okay now?” I asked.

He stared at me for a few seconds, the same way he always did when I said something stupid.

“Except that I’m dying.”

I nodded my head. Nobody could make me feel like a silly little kid the way he could. I always said and did the wrong thing around him. That’s one of the main reasons why I avoid him.

“Mom didn’t tell me,” I added, “but what’s wrong with you?”

“The cancer got me,” he stated, speaking slow and seeming to think too long over every word. “Two weeks ago, I felt as fine as a fiddle. I hadn’t felt that good in years. One morning I woke up, felt bad and it just got worse. Now look at me. I look terrible.”

Yes, he did.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

“You know I hate the hospital,” he spat back, causing a little color returned to his face. “I was too far gone and wasn’t going to take my last breath there. I plan to be right here when the time comes.”

He sounded like my father for a minute. But it took a lot out of him and I could tell he was tiring.

I sat in that uncomfortable wooden chair, looking out the window so I could avoid looking at him. His breathing slowed and wasn’t as loud. He had fallen asleep and for that I was grateful since it gave me the chance to leave.

I slowly got out of the chair and made my way to the door. As I turned the handle, I heard a voice from behind me.

“I’m glad you came,” the old man managed to say.

I turned around, fully expecting him to be talking in his sleep. But he was looking at me with those beady eyes of his, a look of sadness on his face I never saw before. He never showed emotion, other than anger at me, even during funerals of family and friends.

I felt some of the anger and hate that had been carried all these years leave, almost like it was dirt sucked up in a vacuum.

“Thank you.” I stopped and looked back at him until he turned away. A tear was slowly falling down his cheek and I watched until it reached the pillow.

I opened the door and walked down the hallway. As I turned the corner, I saw Mom talking to somebody. She nodded and they turned in my direction. After seeing the visitor, I had to grab the wall to steady myself.

“Hello, Michael,” she said, and my knees wobbled.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 4
06.23.05 (4:07 am)   [edit]
I dreaded the trip to Langford even before I left Tulsa. The closer I got to Langford, the worse it got. Most people look forward to coming home to see their relatives, friends and where they grew up.

Not me. The pain from my ulcer kept getting worse. I was okay until I hit Sallisaw, but the final forty miles was bad. It wasn't just the driving home that bothered me. It was also the driving. I usually don’t admit this, but me and driving don’t mix, never have.

Most of the kids I grew up with couldn’t wait to turn sixteen and get their license. I didn’t get my license until I was seventeen and did it then because I was tired of people ragging me about not having one. With my job, I have to travel so I must have a car and drive. Not that I like it. But at least the traffic isn’t terrible most of the time and the roads are good.

I had four-lane roads all the way from Tulsa to Sallisaw. After turning south on Highway 59, that all changed. It would be two-lane and curvy most of the way home, the only break at Poteau where a new four-lane bypass took traffic around town.

If my stomach had not been aching, I would have stopped at Wildhorse Barbeque just south of Sallisaw. I have had a lot of barbeque in my forty-two years and never found anything as good. Established in the 1950's by an old man named Hubert, it was not much to look at, something most good barbeque places share, but the ribs and chopped-beef sandwiches are smoking.

Autographed pictures of famous people touting Hubert's barbeque, such as Johnny Paycheck and Micky Gilley, line the walls. It was an unwritten rule that you never asked what kind of meat was in the mix, because you really didn't want to know the answer. Up until the late 1980's, you could buy beer in cans from a vending machine in front of the store 24 hours a day without any identification. Small town life has its perks.

Traffic wasn’t bad until I got out of Poteau. The last fifteen miles were the worse, because of the driving and the dread. I got behind some old goat driving a John Deere tractor down the highway south of Poteau. There were cars backed up behind him for almost a quarter of a mile, not that it seemed to bother him.

He kept the traffic tied up going over Longlake Hill and didn’t bother to let anybody pass until we reached a passing zone, where he finally pulled to the side and motioned for people to come around. The old man smiled and waved at the first couple of cars until a Ford SUV with Kansas plates honked several times and flipped the bird in his direction.

People get flipped off and honked at in Tulsa all the time. I was used to seeing that, but not familiar with people driving a tractor down a highway. Tulsa’s finest probably wouldn’t put up with that.

After passing through the last speed-trap of a little town, I arrived at the outskirts of Langford, feeling a dread like I never had before. The doctors sent Dad home earlier in the morning, saying there wasn’t much they could do for him, probably tired of having to deal with the old coot.

The same sign that had greeted visitors for the last twenty years was at the city limits. It was green with white lettering. WELCOME TO LANGFORD, POPULATION 2,500 AND COUNTING it said. I guess it was supposed to make people laugh but I had never seen any humor in it.

Some of the lettering had faded and the sign was rusty. The rust along with the bullet holes made it tough to read. I remember when the Chamber of Commerce put the sign up. A lot of people were proud of it, at least until the next weekend when some of my classmates took target practice at the sign with a .22 while riding in the back of the truck.

I passed a used-car lot owned by a guy who was a year younger. He was always a good guy and apparently doing well as the building is new and several cars and trucks are in the sales lot.

The rest of town doesn’t seem to have changed since my last visit. There is a convenience store on the edge of town that has bankrupted three owners, now owned by the Choctaw Tribe, which has made enough from bingo and casino gaming to give this a place a try. They can sell their tobacco cheaper than anyone else since they are not as heavily taxed. After being mistreated so long, now they are profiting from the vices of the white man. Makes me wonder what Sequoyia would say.

A new Family Dollar store is being built where the Chevy dealership used to be until it went belly-up in 1989. I passed by the new branch bank and several eating places before stopping at the one stoplight in town. A train is flying through town on the tracks that run parallel to the highway and has traffic backed up at the two crossings. The grocery store on the right seems to be doing okay as the parking lot is full of mostly older cars and trucks. Rust seems to be a popular color on many of the vehicles.

Over the last ten years, many of the older homes along the highway have been torn down and replaced by commercial property. Downtown is dying, aside from several Hispanic ventures, as most of the new businesses have relocated to where the traffic is.

I pass by the second branch bank in town and slowly turn off the highway. It is three more blocks to my parent’s house. I don’t really notice it at first, but I am driving slow enough that some little kid on a bike with training wheels is keeping pace. I look at him and see he is going all out, smiling as he drives beside me. He looks like so many other kids around here, wearing old tattered clothes and shoes that should have been replaced months ago.

Bathing was obviously not a priority as I see the dirt smeared heavily on his face, barely letting me see the smile on his face. He looks to be around six, a little young to be playing out in the road. His hair is long, blond and caught up the breeze.

I stop at the first intersection and look at the boy. He doesn’t bother stopping and drives through the four-way. Luckily, no other cars are coming or the little Fred would have gotten smacked.

He turned south and cruises away, looking for other excitement.

The houses are the same ones I used to walk past on the way to and from school. Some of them are still nice. All of them are showing the age and years of neglect. Many houses are well past their prime and need to be torn down. They used to be owned by people who actually lived in them, but many are rental houses now and show it.

I slow even more while driving by her house. I remember sitting out in the porch swing when we were young, laughing, talking and enjoying each other’s company in a way you never could as an adult. During those moments, nothing could bring me down. Not living in Langford, or even my father.

She still lives in the house, at least that’s what my mother mentioned the last time we talked about her. She takes care of her parents and works for a realtor in Poteau. The driveway is empty of cars so I know she isn’t home. I wonder if she still thinks of me and the times we had together so many years ago.

My mind is sidetracked for a few seconds and I almost drive by my parents' house. It’s one of the nicer homes in Langford, a two-story house on a corner. Both cars are parked in the driveway, along with one I don’t recognize. It’s one of those big cars that could pass for a boat so I imagine it is one of Dad's friends coming by to see how the old man is doing so they can pass it on to others.

The house is a light blue now. It was white when I was a child. The grass could use some care as it needs mowed and trimmed. I hear a dog yipping and turn around. The house across the street looks like it should be condemned. The grass is almost knee high and several junkers are parked in the front yard. My favorite is an old Chevy truck with a maple tree growing up through the hood. An old beagle that appears to have mange is pinned up in a small cage. He is barking at me, either to try and warn his owners about my presence or asking for my help in releasing him. He stands in the one place that affords him the luxury of not stepping in poop.

Judd Perkins owns this fine property and the dog. He is sitting out on the porch in his rocker, holding his cane in one hand. I’ve always thought he looked like a child molester and my opinion has not changed. Old Judd is not like wine as he obviously has not gotten better with age. He has a perpetual sneer on his face that has always worried me. As far as I know, Judd has never been convicted of any crimes. Charged with several, at least according to Mom, but never convicted. I always stayed away from him as a kid and like to maintain my distance as an adult.

He's one of the countless old people in this country that most of the people have forgotten about and most of the others would like to not know about. Judd's wearing a pair of overalls, sans a shirt. I see Judd has put on some weight over the years and looks like a bra would be in order. He’s a hairy man, I notice with much regret, as the grey chest hairs are hanging over the top of his overalls. Judd wears a pair of sandals with black socks on his feet, an interesting fashion statement, and a blue hat on his head that looks like it has been dunked in a vat of oil.

A razor has not met that face in weeks. He had not bothered to put in his teeth today so his mouth looks like it has caved in. Judd raises a gnarled hand and waves at me, causing the flab that should be the tricep muscles to jiggle like a bowl of jello.

He says something I cannot understand. I wave halfheartedly and walk the rest of the way up the sidewalk. I pause at the door, not sure whether I should go in or ring the doorbell. Technically, it is not my house anymore.

I spend way too much time worrying about this before the door opens. My mother is standing before me, looking like she wants to cry. A short woman, she seems to have lost a little of her height. Her hair is perfect, of course, and Mom is dressed like she's fixing to go to church. Of course, that’s how she always dresses so it isn't a surprise.

Her hair is starting to grey, despite the best efforts of her beautician. Seeing me, Mom, tries to smile, but I know it is fake.

“Hello, Michael,” she says. Mom is not a huggy, touchy, kind of person. Neither am I. It is something we know, respect and are comfortable with.

“Hi, Mom,” I answer, also trying to fake a smile. I don’t want to be here and she knows it.

She steps aside so I can enter. I am carrying a gym back with the necessities, a camera bag that holds my Canon and my laptop and nothing more.

The house is the same as it has been all these years. The furniture, smell and look have not changed. I guess for most people that would be comforting. For me, it gives me the chills.

“I’m glad you made it,” she adds. Apparently Mom was worried, judging from the five times she called me during the two-hour drive to make sure I had not pulled a U-turn. “This will really mean a lot to your father.”

I had my doubts about that, but did not voice them.

She escorted me through the living room and down the hallway toward their bedroom. The door was closed and we stopped.

“You need to prepare yourself,” Mom advised.

“For what?” I asked. I always prepared myself before I had to see my father.

“He’s in bad shape.”

I thought she was getting a little carried away, until I opened the door and saw him.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 3
06.22.05 (3:57 am)   [edit]
I have not always been the mature, stable person I am now. There were periods in my life, usually after divorces, when my wild side surfaced.

Those are times I am not proud of. I drank too much, partied like a crazed person and even chased the occasional bar fly. Fortunately, I didn’t catch any of them or anything from them.

I had a pair of dachshunds once after divorce number one. They were a boy and a girl. I thought it would be cute, so their names were “Go” and “Nad”.

We were living in a small house in Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa, at the time. My neighbors were not the friendliest people and I got a lot of delight in putting the dogs in the back yard then hollering at them.

“Go, Nad!” I would holler, way louder than necessary. It made it sound like I was hollering “Gonad”, as in testicals. Like I said, it was when I was younger and a little more immature.

They were great, loving dogs, but they did like to bark. I wasn’t home enough to care for them like I should, but we had a lot of fun. We went for walks, played ball, wrestled and watched a lot of television together. Go would always lay down on my left while Nad was on the right.

Life was pretty good until I came home from work one summer evening and found Go and Nad in the backyard. At least one of the neighbors had gotten tired of their yippy little barks and decided to end it by putting some rat poison in hamburger meat and feeding it to them.

They were both gone by the time I got home. I am normally not the type to want to physically attack anybody, but if I had found out who killed Go and Nad, it would have taken the Tulsa Swat squad to pull me off them.

I had some ideas who did it, but was never positive. Go and Nad were buried in the backyard with little gravemarkers. I doubt the next residents of the house kept them up, but it was like they had their own little pet cemetery.

Those were the last pets I have owned. Some people say it’s better to have loved and lost then to never have loved at all. I don’t share that opinion. They obviously have never seen the agony etched forever on the faces of two dogs that were dying.

Since then, the only living things that have shared my island were the last two Mrs. Hunts. There have been some others who tried to visit, but like the stupid television show Survivor, they were voted off the island of Michael Hunt.

That is just the way I like it. Some friends from work, worried about my mental state, bought me the DVD of About a Boy two years ago. In the movie, the character played by Hugh Grant, is happy and single, doing all kinds of things to date women.

He is his own island, just like the song by Jon Bon Jovi that is mentioned in the movie. Through a series of events, Hugh’s character realizes he is living a life devoid of the interplay with others that makes life worth living. He comes to his senses, gets serious with a woman and starts to become a dork.

It was a good movie, but didn’t get me to change my ways.

Now the second of the three former Mrs. Hunts, April, was trying to change my island ways.

“Michael, I have a son,” she said. We were standing in the parking lot of Langford High School. There was a street light overhead, giving off just enough light to see each other. Her naval ring was shining brightly and I stared at it. She had both hands in her pockets and looked at me for my reaction.

I wondered how horrified I looked while realizing this was not good.

“How old is he?” I asked, dreading the answer.

It was only a couple of seconds before April answered, but it seemed like hours.

“Five.”

That was a big relief and I breathed for the first time since she told me about the boy. There was no way the little crumb grabber could be mine. It had been some ten years since we were together.

“Congratulations,” I said, not knowing anything else to say and wondering why she was telling me this.

“Thank you. His name is Michael.”

“Was that his father’s name?” I asked, then realize from her look that she doesn’t even know who the father was.

“No, I named him after you.”

“Why would you do that?”

April leaned back against her car. I have never seen her cry, but there was some heavy moisture building up in and around her eyes.

“I wanted to name him after the most kind and decent guy I know.”

There must have been another Michael in the endless stream of men she entertained.

“I named him after you,” she added. Now that was a stunner. April obviously had a higher opinion of me than she did ten years ago. “After I had Michael, I realized how badly I had messed up everything and hurt so many people, especially you.”

She certainly did that. My first wife found out she liked the company of other women over me. Then the second one liked the company of any guy she came across, not necessarily more than mine, but at least enough to share a romantic interlude.

All I could do was nod. I wasn’t going to tear into her and say how badly she hurt me. I always figured she hurt herself a lot worse.

“I need to tell you I’m sorry,” April continued, and let loose the waterworks. They must have been stored up for a long time because once the tears started, they came in torrents.

Something was wrong here, I realized. She didn’t “want” to tell me she was sorry, but needed to instead.

“It was a long time ago,” I said, trying to make her feel better.

“That’s no excuse. I promised to stay with you until the day we died and didn’t. I wasn’t even strong enough to stay away from other guys on our honeymoon.”

That was not something I needed or wanted to know. I didn’t think she started doing that until way after we got married. We went on a cruise to the Bahamas for our honeymoon, no wonder she kept disappearing.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“I need to make my peace with you and tell you how sorry I am,” she mumbled, crying badly.

“But why?” I continued. There had to be some reason. It wasn’t logical, as Spock would say.

“I did you wrong and I had to tell you that.”

I looked in my truck for some tissues, anything to help with the tears streaming down her face. There was one in the ash tray, but it was used and I didn’t think she’d like to mix her tears with my snot. I found a tee-shirt and handed it to her. She wiped away the tears.

“This shirt smells like you,” she mentioned.

I hoped the shirt was clean and it wasn’t my body odor.

“Okay, I accept your apology,” I said. “I hope you have a good life and all that but I need to go.”

I opened the door to my truck and get in. She walks over to the truck and waits for me to roll the window down.

She sticks her head inside the passenger door.

“I need your help, Michael.”

Uh oh, I think, here it goes.

“With what?” I ask, really suspicious now.

“I’m sick.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How can I possibly help? It’s not like I’m a doctor.”

“I know that,” she replies, wiping away the tears on her shirt. “I have lymphatic cancer. The doctor thinks he can control it, but I’ll have to take chemo and all that. I’ll be really messed up for a while.”

“Again, I’m sorry to hear that. But what does that have to do with me?”

“I need somebody to take care of Michael while I’m sick.”

This was not going in a direction that I wanted to travel.

“Okay, but why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“I wanted to see if you could take care of him.”

“I can barely take care of myself. Why me?”

“You’re the only one I trust.”

“What about your parents? They always seemed to be okay.”

Actually, I always thought they were rather weird, but never shared my feelings with her.

“They won’t have anything to do with us.”

“Why?”

“Because I had Michael when I wasn’t married and they did not approve of my lifestyle.”

“So they won’t have anything to do with their daughter or grandchild?”

“No, they won’t.”

“What about the boy’s father?” I asked.

“I don’t know who it is.”

I should have stayed in Tulsa.

“I wouldn’t be any good at this,” I protest. “I work a lot and don’t know anything about taking care of some little kid.”

“He’s not just some little kid,” she fires back. “He’s mine.”

“April, this won’t work. Surely you can find somebody else?”

“You’re the only one.”

She has a lot more faith in me than I do.

“I don’t know about this,” I add. Warning bells are going off at an alarming rate.

“Will you just meet him?”

I could do that.

“Okay,” I give in. “When?”

“Tomorrow?”

“I can’t do it,” I say. After all, that is when I am sneaking off to Tulsa with Sandy, hopefully without Trevor’s knowledge. My life is starting to be like one of the soap operas April used to watch.

“How about Sunday?” she asks.

“That would be fine,” I said, knowing I will dread this for the next two days.

“Thank you, Michael,” April adds, pulls out of the truck and starts to walk away. She stops, just before getting in her car. “I need to tell you something else.”

She tells me and I long for Tulsa and the calmness of my island.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 2
06.21.05 (4:46 am)   [edit]
Sleep was rather elusive following my mother’s call. I knew what I needed to do and what I wanted to do, but they were in a serious conflict.

I would rather have lit matches stuck under my toenails than return to Langford, the small town in southeastern Oklahoma where I was raised and spent a good deal of my life trying to escape.

The only times I came home as an adult were at holidays. I didn't even want to come then, but it was one of those irritating traditions a person must follow or be considered weird. Very little would have changed since my last visit

Some businesses would have come and gone and a few of the oldtimers would be pushing up the daisies, but that was about it. The only real change in the years since I left was the arrival of a chicken processing plant and the influx of the Mexicans to work in it since most of the whites believed the work was below them. Along with being too hard when they could make almost as much courtesy of Uncle Sam.

My father is the owner and publisher of the Langford Review, a weekly newspaper that has been in the family for close to eighty years. He sends me a copy every week and I glance through it, sickened to see the lack of journalistic standards.

I work at a newspaper in Tulsa and know we would never run the crap that is in the Review. Stories like Aunt Flo going to visit her cousin in Texas who is undergoing treatment for a severe case of buttock boils.

Okay, that was stretching it a little bit. My father and buttock boils would never come together in speech, or certainly not in his beloved Review. His loyal bluehaired readers would not be pleased to see anything like that in the paper and they read every word from cover to cover.

I knew a trip to Langford was in order. My last trip was at Christmas, almost six months ago. The drive was only a little over two hours from Tulsa, thanks to the Muskogee Turnpike and I-40 before venturing off to the two-land highways that make travel in many parts of the state such an adventure. But for me at least, because of the dread, it seems to take much longer.

Since I couldn’t sleep, I gave up trying and got out of bed. I walked into the family room of my apartment and sat in the dark, wondering if my father was really that sick. It was like a person crying wolf repeatedly. After a while, nobody believed them when the wolf actually came calling.

I always figured the old geezer would live forever, terrorizing me the same way it had always been. I could never please him and finally gave up trying a long time ago. He always treated Manny with kid gloves and allowed my brother to do whatever he wanted.

That was certainly not the case with me. I was expected to be the perfect child, work constantly with little play, and make straight “A’s” at school. If I wasn’t doing homework, I was supposed to do some other of work at home to help my mother or get my little tush down to the newspaper and help my dad.

Housework and I never got along, which is why my apartment will never be featured in any magazine unless somebody comes up with a “Messy Home” magazine. Then I would be on the cover and could qualify as an expert columnist.

But cleaning and mowing sure beat helping my dad. He was on me like a fly on fresh poop, his personal punching bag. If somebody failed to pay their bill, it was Mike’s fault. Or if Dad was constipated and couldn’t float a log, I was to blame.

No horse has ever been rode as hard as I was by the old man. As I got older, my responsibilities increased. I had to write stories, take photographs and compose the ads. I did get to cover the football, basketball and baseball games for Langford, but would have rather been playing in them.

All my friends and the coaches always thought I was a natural athlete, but I never got the chance to prove it as my father thought playing sports were a waste of time. I know he didn’t really want the sports covered, but too many people complained and failed to buy a paper if the results of the girl’s slowpitch softball game were not in that week's paper.

That started hitting my dad hard and his views changed. That’s how I got the opportunity to cover my friends and classmates as they grappled on the gridiron or dueled on the diamond.

I didn’t mind covering the games, or writing the stories, it was the handing the stories in to my father that was difficult. I could have turned in a story plagarized by Ernest Hemingway and gotten torn to pieces.

Dad made me rewrite the story several times until he decided it was decent enough to be included in the Review. Poor grammar was a cardinal sin. But if I misspelled a word, Dad would make the character Jack Nicholson played in “The Shining” look like a choir boy.

“You just don’t do that at a newspaper!” he would start off yelling, gradually working himself into a tizzy. The blood vessels in his forehead would pop out so much I expected them to bust and blood splatter everywhere.

The only thing that saved me was if a customer came in to buy a paper or get an ad. Dad would do his Jekyl and Hyde impersonation and go from the bad dude to the good guy.

I put up with this until I graduated from high school. By then, I knew things had to change or a visit to the loony bin in Vinita would be on the agenda.

My grades and score on the ACT were good enough to get a scholarship from every college in the state. Since Dad had always been so big on me getting good grades, I expected to go off to college.

That was wrong. He wanted me to stay in Langford and work at the newspaper. Dad had never been to college, he argued, and done okay. Why would I want to go hang out with a bunch of liberal nuts just to get a piece of paper to put up on the wall?

A lot of it was to get away from him. We argued most of the summer. He continued to try and dominate me while I finally held my ground.

That was the first time I stood up to him and that bothered him more than me going off to school. By the time August rolled around, I packed up my bags and caught a ride off to college, leaving and hoping to never come back.

All those memories of growing up were weighing heavily upon me as I sat in my recliner, staring at the blank screen of the television. The longer I thought about it, the more my stomach got upset, a reminder of the ulcer the old man helped me get back in my younger days.

I knew there was no getting out of going to Langford, but I certainly didn’t plan on staying long.

Or expect what would happen when I got there.
 
The Old Man's Request-Chapter 1
06.20.05 (10:05 am)   [edit]

This is a book that I am writing online. It is a story about a man named Michael Hunt who returns home to a town he spent the first part of his life trying to escape. I will add a chapter a day so please bookmark the site and come back to check it out.


The shrill ringing of my cell phone woke me up from the kind of deep slumber only true exhaustion can bring.


I went to sleep early that night, somewhere around 10, and the old eyes had not opened since. I looked at the clock and saw the red lights of the digital clock showed it was 12:41 in the a.m., I decided, and hoped I was right, otherwise work would have started several hours ago without my presence.


My glasses were on the nightstand and I grabbed for them. The old eyesight isn't what it used to be and I knocked a bottled water off and it fell to the floor. Luckily, the lid was on and no moisture escaped on to the carpet.


I located the glasses and rubbed my eyes for a brief instant, trying to clear the fog before putting them on. I stood, a little too quick as it caused a light case of dizziness, then walked over to retrieve the phone from my dresser. Truth be told, I had a pretty good idea who was calling.


It would be my mother. Either that or a wrong number. I hoped it was a wrong number as I didn't really want to talk to my mother. At one time, it could have been a drunken crank call, but most of my old college pals had matured past that point.


I opened my flip phone and saw MOM under the caller's name, complete with her phone number, right before hitting the send button to receive the call. This never made sense to me. Why should I hit the send button to receive a call? Shouldn't it be a retrieve or answer button?


"Ugh," I grumbled into the phone since my vocal chords did not seem to be working.


"Michael?" my mother asked.


I cleared my throat in what could best be considered a cross between a cough and a snort.


"Yeah," I finally managed to mumble.


"You really shouldn't make that noise into the phone," she chastisted me, as if I didn't know that. She shouldn't be calling me this late at night either, I wanted to add, but didn't. It was my mother, after all.


"Sorry," I said. "What's up?"


There was a brief silence, I don't know if it was to create a dramatic pause or if she was working up the nerve to say something. I could imagine my mother sitting at the kitchen table in some nightgown that was probably thirty years old. Using that old antique roatary-dial lime green phone attached to the wall.


"It's your father," she finally spit out.


Like that was a surprise. It was always about my father.


"What's he done now?"


She paused again. This time, I deciphered it was because Mom was trying to work up the nerve to say whatever it was that that was worthy of a call at this hour.


"He's sick."


Again, like that was a surprise. My father was always sick, convinced he would die before the sun rose the next day. He loved doctors and the idea something was deathly wrong with him. Every time my medical premiums went up, I blamed him.


"Mom, he's always sick," I pointed out.


"This time's different."


"What do you mean?"


She had to choke back what sounded like a cry.


"It's really bad," she added.


I had trouble believing this. I figured the old coot was just playing sick again and had Mom fooled.


"Have you taken him to the hospital?" I asked.


"No, you know how he feels about the hospital."


Yeah, I do. For somebody who loves being sick and going to the doctor, the old man flat out refused to step foot in a hospital unless it was to visit one of the old bluehaired women that go to his church. I figured he acted felt this was because the doctors at the hospital didn't have the time to mess with him, or wanted to cut him open and have a look.


"Have you had Manny talk to him?" I asked, referring to my younger brother, who had a way with my father that I never did.


"No, Manny's off again."


Another big surprise. Mom wouldn't come out and say it, but my little brother was off on another of his drug tangents. At one time, Manny was brilliant, much smarter than I could ever dream of.


Now, his brain had been abused by practically every drug that could produce any kind of a high. He was gone all the time now, not just some of the time. If it hadn't been for my dad, Manny would be rotting away in some jail. Or dead.


Instead, he was probably off in some seedy house with some disease-carrying chick wasting away his few remaining blood cells.


It had been rough on the parents all these years, but they were convinced that all Manny had to do was get the right kind of help and he would return to the same person he was so many years ago.


I had given up hope. Manny didn't want help. Plus it was past the point where anybody could or would help him. He was still a gentle and loving person, except when he was put in rehab. Then Manny would be so violent that his stay was always short.


"Mom, I'd like to come, but..." I tried to plead.


"Michael, I don't ask for much of you," she retorted, only a mild stretch of the truth. "But you need to come see your father quickly."


"Why?" I asked, knowing the old man wouldn't bother to urinate on me if I was on fire and that was the only source of moisture to put out the flames. Not that I would really want Dad to pee on me, it was more of an example of the way I knew he felt about me.


"He's dying."