The Wicked Remain Among Us
Kwyjibo
Posts: 662
its not letting me indent for some reason. Even if I use space instead of tab. That might make it hard to understand.
I don’t remember my mother’s parents. I couldn’t have been more than four years old when her mother died, and the only thing I recall about her death is that it was one of only three times I’ve ever seen my mother crying. I don’t recall much of anything, so most of what I’ll tell you is something that has been related to me somewhere down the line. The second time I saw my mother crying was when her father died a year later. She wept not only for her loss, but for the loss the entire world should have felt. I was quite a bit older the third time I saw my mother cry. It was long after my father’s cancer, long after his recovery, and long after their divorce.
We were living in a rundown house that she was determined to fix up for us. She worked hard all day at her job, and then came home and worked even harder. Things were starting to go well for us. The putrid yellowish shag carpet had been ripped up and the hardwood floors beneath had been sanded and varnished by her own hands. Holes in the walls had been spackled and layers of beautiful hand-mixed paint had taken the place of the dilapidated off-white wallpaper. Things were starting to look up. But while we were at midnight Mass on Christmas eve, the pipes froze and then burst, and inches of rotten water soon filled every room. We got
home from Mass and the living room looked like a wading pool in a rundown city park. But
instead of a statuesque seal spewing forth water from his mouth for our fountain, we had a rusty burst mainline. The water destroyed almost all of the improvements she made. And that was the last time I saw her cry. She was on her knees vainly sucking up water with a shop-vac at two in the morning on Christmas day. She cried hard, and I hid in the bathroom. It was similar to the tears of loss she shed for the death of her parents. But they were more than tears of loss. They were tears of bitter resignation.
She was a good mother, as I like to recall. I feel confident that I can thank her upbringing for her strong will and grace. Her mother was an Irish Catholic immigrant. She was pretty in her youth, though not stunning. As she aged, she grew plump and jolly, partly because of her malfunctioning thyroid and partly because of a depression era instillment that one must always clean their plate. Her father was German-American. He was slender and moved gracefully. We called him Papa. He was an extremely patient man. He would calmly mediate his daughters’ screaming feuds. He was very liberal and idealistic. He seemed to clash with the generalized image one has of a father in the year 1950. He valued his wife’s opinion. Every night at eight they would have ‘cocktail’ and none of the children were aloud in the room. They would drink a few mixed drinks and discuss politics, or religion, or literature. They would discuss whatever she wanted to discuss. She was a housewife, and did not work. But it was more a function of utility than tradition, because together they had five daughters. I’m sure Papa went straight to heaven, and is probably a candidate for sainthood, because I think that any man that has to share a house with six females probably goes straight through the gates and doesn’t even have to wait in line, like a car-pool lane or maybe like first class airline ticket privileges. Granny (That’s what
we called my grandmother on mom’s side) was pure Irish blood. She would cook huge meals that were gourmet quality, even though they could only afford meager and humble ingredients. She would make fudge from scratch without the aid of a written recipe or anything to measure with. The girls would clear the table after dinner, and when they had company Granny would climb atop the table and do a traditional Irish jig. Before her daughters were old enough to be embarrassed, they would join her.
All I can really remember about them is sitting on Papa’s knee when we went to visit, and eating. But the most intriguing part of their story isn’t what I remember, it’s something that wasn’t made known to me until I was much older.
Part I
My mother was standing in the kitchen. It had bright lime linoleum and plastic chairs with swooping concave arched backs. Two of her sisters were with her and all three were crying. The year was 1970–fifteen years before my birth. My father was sitting on the couch drinking Miller Genuine Draft out of a can. He had a slight Afro and thick moustache.
“What is it?” he asked, staring at a TV program he had already seen.
“It’s, it’s my dad,” she sobbed.
“What? Did he die or something?” he asked bluntly.
“No. He has Parkinson’s disease.”
“Really? That’s too bad. He’s not that old.”
“We really need to go up there this weekend. My sisters will need me there,” she said, preparing herself for the ensuing discharge of insensitivity.
“God dammit, I like your dad and all. He’s a great guy and all, but Christ, we just saw
them like three weeks ago.”
They went up to see her parents a lot more after that. It was a long drive, but her parents treasured the visits, though they wouldn’t admit it. They certainly didn’t want to be a bother. They wanted their children to live their own lives. They didn’t want them to worry themselves with the business of their failing health.
“How are you dad?” she would ask him.
“Just fine, just fine,” Papa would reply with a smile. His hands would be shaking, and he would look thin and tired.
“Is the medication helping?”
“No, not at all, but, I’ll keep taking it. It’ll settle in. You know it’s strange, I never shook like this before I got diagnosed. I guess it’s good they caught it early, before these symptoms set in. I’d probably be way worse off without these pills.” He was always smiling, even when he was suffering. He suffered a lot, but he had the solid determination of his generation. He didn’t complain. He didn’t let anyone know how bad he really had it. He found the courage to keep living his life exactly the way he wanted to live it. Every morning he would wake up at five and shower. The water would splash off of his head and run down his shaking hands. His hands shook so hard that it took him the better part of an hour just to comb his hair. But Papa struggled through it every day. He made sure every single hair was in its proper place. It took around three hours for him to get ready. He refused to hire a nurse to live with them, or any other helper. He also refused to be a burden on his wife.
“I have to do it!” he would say sternly.
“Why? Why can’t you just let me help you?” she would always ask him.
“Because when I get better I don’t want to have forgotten how.”
But he wasn’t getting any better, and no one seemed to know why. His medications didn’t seem to help at all. He simply got worse and worse. Years passed and the symptoms only increased in number and severity.
“I just don’t understand it,” their family physician said to my mother in private, “it’s not like he’s giving up. Usually someone with this much desire to improve responds well to these treatments. But your father,” he paused, “I’ve upped the doses, and it hasn’t helped. I don’t know what to tell you, other than that something isn’t right here.”
Family and friends were not surprised by his fortitude throughout his illness. Papa had always been a strong family man and good husband. He raised tough, hardworking daughters. His will and character did not diminish, and he continued his struggle. Five years passed and Papa’s hands shook as he gave my mother away in marriage. My father gained a courageous father-in-law, and my mother gained something quite less.
Part II
My grandpa on my father’s side was a bitter old man. He had worked all of his life as a farmer. He did quite well in the trade. He bought up land as fast as the other farmers would sell it to him–which was quite fast. They would go under and he would buy their land at less than what it was worth. But eventually he became so decrepit and wrought by dementia that he had to sell his land. When he finally retired from farming, he sold his farm for just less than two million dollars.
I remember him as bitter. I remember him as a bigot. I remember as a young man having
to go visit him. He was almost one hundred years old by then, and I was pretty sure there was no
I don’t remember my mother’s parents. I couldn’t have been more than four years old when her mother died, and the only thing I recall about her death is that it was one of only three times I’ve ever seen my mother crying. I don’t recall much of anything, so most of what I’ll tell you is something that has been related to me somewhere down the line. The second time I saw my mother crying was when her father died a year later. She wept not only for her loss, but for the loss the entire world should have felt. I was quite a bit older the third time I saw my mother cry. It was long after my father’s cancer, long after his recovery, and long after their divorce.
We were living in a rundown house that she was determined to fix up for us. She worked hard all day at her job, and then came home and worked even harder. Things were starting to go well for us. The putrid yellowish shag carpet had been ripped up and the hardwood floors beneath had been sanded and varnished by her own hands. Holes in the walls had been spackled and layers of beautiful hand-mixed paint had taken the place of the dilapidated off-white wallpaper. Things were starting to look up. But while we were at midnight Mass on Christmas eve, the pipes froze and then burst, and inches of rotten water soon filled every room. We got
home from Mass and the living room looked like a wading pool in a rundown city park. But
instead of a statuesque seal spewing forth water from his mouth for our fountain, we had a rusty burst mainline. The water destroyed almost all of the improvements she made. And that was the last time I saw her cry. She was on her knees vainly sucking up water with a shop-vac at two in the morning on Christmas day. She cried hard, and I hid in the bathroom. It was similar to the tears of loss she shed for the death of her parents. But they were more than tears of loss. They were tears of bitter resignation.
She was a good mother, as I like to recall. I feel confident that I can thank her upbringing for her strong will and grace. Her mother was an Irish Catholic immigrant. She was pretty in her youth, though not stunning. As she aged, she grew plump and jolly, partly because of her malfunctioning thyroid and partly because of a depression era instillment that one must always clean their plate. Her father was German-American. He was slender and moved gracefully. We called him Papa. He was an extremely patient man. He would calmly mediate his daughters’ screaming feuds. He was very liberal and idealistic. He seemed to clash with the generalized image one has of a father in the year 1950. He valued his wife’s opinion. Every night at eight they would have ‘cocktail’ and none of the children were aloud in the room. They would drink a few mixed drinks and discuss politics, or religion, or literature. They would discuss whatever she wanted to discuss. She was a housewife, and did not work. But it was more a function of utility than tradition, because together they had five daughters. I’m sure Papa went straight to heaven, and is probably a candidate for sainthood, because I think that any man that has to share a house with six females probably goes straight through the gates and doesn’t even have to wait in line, like a car-pool lane or maybe like first class airline ticket privileges. Granny (That’s what
we called my grandmother on mom’s side) was pure Irish blood. She would cook huge meals that were gourmet quality, even though they could only afford meager and humble ingredients. She would make fudge from scratch without the aid of a written recipe or anything to measure with. The girls would clear the table after dinner, and when they had company Granny would climb atop the table and do a traditional Irish jig. Before her daughters were old enough to be embarrassed, they would join her.
All I can really remember about them is sitting on Papa’s knee when we went to visit, and eating. But the most intriguing part of their story isn’t what I remember, it’s something that wasn’t made known to me until I was much older.
Part I
My mother was standing in the kitchen. It had bright lime linoleum and plastic chairs with swooping concave arched backs. Two of her sisters were with her and all three were crying. The year was 1970–fifteen years before my birth. My father was sitting on the couch drinking Miller Genuine Draft out of a can. He had a slight Afro and thick moustache.
“What is it?” he asked, staring at a TV program he had already seen.
“It’s, it’s my dad,” she sobbed.
“What? Did he die or something?” he asked bluntly.
“No. He has Parkinson’s disease.”
“Really? That’s too bad. He’s not that old.”
“We really need to go up there this weekend. My sisters will need me there,” she said, preparing herself for the ensuing discharge of insensitivity.
“God dammit, I like your dad and all. He’s a great guy and all, but Christ, we just saw
them like three weeks ago.”
They went up to see her parents a lot more after that. It was a long drive, but her parents treasured the visits, though they wouldn’t admit it. They certainly didn’t want to be a bother. They wanted their children to live their own lives. They didn’t want them to worry themselves with the business of their failing health.
“How are you dad?” she would ask him.
“Just fine, just fine,” Papa would reply with a smile. His hands would be shaking, and he would look thin and tired.
“Is the medication helping?”
“No, not at all, but, I’ll keep taking it. It’ll settle in. You know it’s strange, I never shook like this before I got diagnosed. I guess it’s good they caught it early, before these symptoms set in. I’d probably be way worse off without these pills.” He was always smiling, even when he was suffering. He suffered a lot, but he had the solid determination of his generation. He didn’t complain. He didn’t let anyone know how bad he really had it. He found the courage to keep living his life exactly the way he wanted to live it. Every morning he would wake up at five and shower. The water would splash off of his head and run down his shaking hands. His hands shook so hard that it took him the better part of an hour just to comb his hair. But Papa struggled through it every day. He made sure every single hair was in its proper place. It took around three hours for him to get ready. He refused to hire a nurse to live with them, or any other helper. He also refused to be a burden on his wife.
“I have to do it!” he would say sternly.
“Why? Why can’t you just let me help you?” she would always ask him.
“Because when I get better I don’t want to have forgotten how.”
But he wasn’t getting any better, and no one seemed to know why. His medications didn’t seem to help at all. He simply got worse and worse. Years passed and the symptoms only increased in number and severity.
“I just don’t understand it,” their family physician said to my mother in private, “it’s not like he’s giving up. Usually someone with this much desire to improve responds well to these treatments. But your father,” he paused, “I’ve upped the doses, and it hasn’t helped. I don’t know what to tell you, other than that something isn’t right here.”
Family and friends were not surprised by his fortitude throughout his illness. Papa had always been a strong family man and good husband. He raised tough, hardworking daughters. His will and character did not diminish, and he continued his struggle. Five years passed and Papa’s hands shook as he gave my mother away in marriage. My father gained a courageous father-in-law, and my mother gained something quite less.
Part II
My grandpa on my father’s side was a bitter old man. He had worked all of his life as a farmer. He did quite well in the trade. He bought up land as fast as the other farmers would sell it to him–which was quite fast. They would go under and he would buy their land at less than what it was worth. But eventually he became so decrepit and wrought by dementia that he had to sell his land. When he finally retired from farming, he sold his farm for just less than two million dollars.
I remember him as bitter. I remember him as a bigot. I remember as a young man having
to go visit him. He was almost one hundred years old by then, and I was pretty sure there was no
The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway, is that its you, and that you're standing in the doorway.
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
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second stroke. They told him that treatment at his age would probably add ten years to his life. He opted not to go through with the radiation treatment and surgery, but he lived another twenty-five years with untreated prostate cancer. He never told his wife.
He clung to life like no one I have ever seen. He feared death, I think, because he wondered who or what would be waiting for him on the other side. My mother once told me that she thought he probably had a lot to account for when he met his maker. I walked in and he was sitting in his easy chair. There were little tubes coming out of his nose, and also out of his arms. Two middle-aged live-in nurses scurried about the room. One was injecting his wrinkly swollen belly with insulin and the other was changing the rapidly filling catheter bag. He was staring at the TV, and he was drinking his eighth cup of coffee. That was all he really had done in the twenty-five years since he sold his farm. They think that TV probably added to his rapid mental deterioration: his brain was never challenged. He was watching an all-day news channel and little headlines scrolled across the bottom. It was only a few days after the giant tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia.
“It’s terrible. Isn’t it dad?” My father said.
“That’s the,” his throat gurgled and the mucus in his mouth formed a stringy spit bubble around his lips. It lingered for a second and finally popped. He weakly coughed and ventured to continue. “That’s the dirtiest place on earth,” he said coldly. “They don’t care if they die, it’s quicker than starving.” I had to leave the room.
My grandpa’s bigotry wasn’t confined to only the Indonesians. He really hated everyone
with an uncharacteristic equality. He hated the Irish, of course, because they drank; even though he had been a raging–and I mean raging–alcoholic his entire life. He hated the snooty British
despite being almost entirely of English heritage. He hated Mexicans, he hated Africans, he hated Jews, he hated hippies, he hated women, he hated everyone–even groups in which he was included. He didn’t despise the Chinese though, he had visited Bangkok and recalled being treated like a king by the ‘polite little people’.
He was a vicious man. When I was a child, he would regale my brother and I with tales of my father’s childhood. He would laugh and drink and tell us about how he nearly beat my father to death for playing a trick. A farm hand that had been cruel to my father was sleeping behind a shed. My father poured oil all over the man’s hands and then tickled his nose with length of wheat. He was beaten so long and hard that fifty years later the markings still showed. Grandpa loved that story a little too much. I remember one particular visit to his farm when I was maybe seven years old. My grandpa drank all night. He told the story nine times.
“Grandpa, you told us this story already,” my brother said. My mother hated the story more than anyone.
“Jim,” my mother said, trying to sound neutral, “maybe you shouldn’t tell this story again. Maybe the boys would appreciate a different story.”
“Bullshit!” he growled, slamming his fist down on the ancient TV tray. Whiskey sloshed over the rim of the tall glass. He picked it up, and took a long slow pull. He didn’t wince as he set it down. “I’ll tell any god-damned story I wanna tell.”
“OK! Just don’t swear in front of the boys.” She looked at my father, trying to catch his eye, trying to plead for help, but he wouldn’t look up.
“So one day, when your daddy was about your age, I had some trouble with him misbehaving,” he said, beginning the story. “I caught him playing a trick.” His speech was already starting to slur. He picked the hamburger up off of his plate. His gnarled old farmer’s hands clenched the bun and the grease dripped down his wrist. He took a giant bite–filling his mouth. The undercooked burger oozed out of his lips. Pink grease dribbled down his chin. His yellow teeth mashed the food loudly. Then he began to cough. It was the cough of a man who had smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey for 60 years. It was a cough of permanent phlegm–a cough that accomplished nothing. He grabbed the tall glass of whiskey with his greasy hands and took another long drink to wash down the meat and to quiet his wheezing. “Anyway,” he continued the story, “So your daddy got engine grease all over the combine and all over the house and all over Neil. Boy, I was mad. So I grabbed him by the back of his neck and took him out to the garage.”
How my mother hated this story! It made her sick to her stomach. She was furious that he loved to tell it in front of her children. She was even more furious that my father let him get away with it. She wished he had a spine.
“So I take off my belt, and I start giving him a,” he paused, searching for the word. He didn’t want to sound too violent. “I start giving him a spanking.” He decided on a word that two little boys could associate with punishment. “Do you know what the little smart ass says to me?” He asked the boys. They knew the answer–this was the second telling of the night–but they knew they weren’t actually supposed to reply. “Tell em’ what you said son.”
My father looked up for this first time. His eyes were shiny and wet, and his skin was red. “Dad, I think that’s enough, the boys are probably,”
“Just tell em’ what you said!” He screamed, interrupting. He pounded his fist down again. This time his whiskey glass and half-eaten burger were both catapulted onto the floor.
The screaming triggered another coughing fit. He pushed himself out of his black leather chair. It looked like the throne of an evil villain. The arms arched upward and metal studs held the leather at the seams. He went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. He took another long draw–it seemed to help. He came back and sat down, clutching the bottle against his chest.
“Okay,” my father said. “ You were spanking me.”
“And what did you say you little smart ass?” The old man looked amused.
“Why don’t you just beat me to death?” With that statement he looked back at the ground, the pain of the memory becoming real again. His hatred for his father was suppressed by his fear.
“That’s right, that’s what you said,” he laughed, “and so then I said ‘maybe I will, maybe I will’. And then I beat him for the better part of an hour.” The old man started laughing. He was howling in joy over the memory of beating his child
Though he was successful, my father’s upbringing had left him scarred and sad. He was bitter at life and expected submission from those around him. Some people don’t break the cycle of abuse, they perpetuate it by becoming what they hate the most. He became his father. That’s probably why my mother, with a strong will of her own, divorced him.
Part III
When Granny died my mother wept alone in her bedroom. I was too young to understand death, and no one bothered explaining what was happening. We made a long drive in my father’s brand new blue Chevy Astro van. It was a sunny, early spring day. I looked longingly at the passing scenery, resting my head on the cool backseat window. I hated long family car trips with their impenetrable silence. The snow was already mostly melted away. The wet yellow
grass was matted to the ground like it was a span of shag carpet where a great dog had peed. My mother wept the entire three hour trip.
The funeral was two days later and I sat next to my brother in the third pew with my father. The service was held in a large Catholic church. It wasn’t a grand or picturesque cathedral. It was a more modern church. It had grey plastered walls and no stained glass windows. It was simple, modern, and dull. It’s only artistic convention was the large crucifix behind on the wall behind the altar. The carved face of the broken Jesus had such a pain in his eyes–such a mournful countenance.
My mother and her sisters were all sitting in the front row together with Papa. They had such similar voices that their sobs seemed to blend into unison. I remember their laughter did that too. The sound it produced was quite eery and a little frightening. My father’s parents were sitting behind us. The eulogy was read by my mother. Tears didn’t roll gently down her face, no, her entire face was wet with them. Her bangs were matted to her face and her eyes were dark and red. Somehow she pulled herself together.
“She was a loving mother,” she said, her lips quivering, “she taught us five daughters everything about life and being good women. Mostly, I think she’d want to be remembered in this sad time as the beautiful and joyous Irish woman that she was. She was proud of her Irish heritage and lived with a gaiety natural to her life and family. She was a good, true, loving Irish woman, and,” she was interrupted by shouting. The noise was coming from behind me. It was my father’s dad. It was Grandpa.
“God damned Irish!” he shouted at my mother from across the church. No one could tell
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
combination of both. “Nothing but a bunch of God damned drunks! Every last one of em’! Never been one single good Irishman and there never God damned will be,” he said, standing up. His wife tried to pull him back down, but he hit her arm away and glared menacingly at her.
“Dad! That’s enough,” my father started.
“Shut up, boy!” Grandpa yelled back at him. “You’re probably a God damned Irish too!”
Several of the men had to physically remove him from the church. He was a tough old farmer, so it took a good number of the larger men. The whole way out he was screaming about the Irish being drunken and lazy. Papa kept his usual demeanor of grace and understanding.
“God, I’m so sorry that my dad made a scene,” my father said later to Papa.
“It’s ok son. It isn’t your fault. It isn’t your father’s fault either. He can’t help his mind. Just like I can’t help but shake,” he smiled sadly.
“It’s not that simple,”
“Oh, but it is. It is that simple,” he said, placing a shaking hand on my father’s shoulder. “If anyone deserves an apology, it’s my daughters–particularly your wife.”
“You’re right. You’re always right. Thank you for being so understanding. If only when I was younger I had, well known you, and . . . ” he trailed off.
Part IV
About two years later my mother got another phone call. I was sitting on her lap. I had just finished my first day of kindergarten. I was telling my mother all about my classroom. I told her about the potty and about how pretty my teacher was. I told her that I was tied with Colt for tallest in the class.
“Now you and Colt weren’t naughty today, were you?” she asked me. She was smiling so
I knew that she was only joking.
“Only a little, but teacher says it’s good that we are good friends already,” I told her. The
phone interrupted our little conversation.
“Hello?” my mother answered, then said, “yes, this she.” After that she didn’t say anything for a little while. I could hear a voice on the other line talking rather solemnly. “Oh God,” she said, “how long do you think?” There was another pause. “Ok. We’ll be up tonight.” She hung up the phone and immediately started crying. At that age I didn’t understand that mothers were people too. I thought that they were impervious to all harm and sadness. I thought that her only worry in life was to wash away all of my pain. I tried to put my skinny arms around her neck, but she told me to go play with my toys in my room for a while. I was glad to go play. These things were too hard for me to understand. Also, I had just gotten home from school, and I missed my toys. Through the wall I could hear her calling each one of her sisters. I could hear more crying, and it scared me. Finally, after four sobbing phone calls, she rang my dad at work.
“It’s my father,” she said.
“What? Did he die or something?”
“No, but I mean, he’s going to. He’s in the hospital. He doesn’t have much time. We need to leave tonight.”
“Ok. That’s fine. That’s exactly what I want to do. I’ll just drop everything here and come straight home,” he said sarcastically.
“Please,” she said, “after what happened at my mom’s funeral you still owe me.”
“Oh Christ! After two years you’re still going to hold that over my head. Jesus. You know what? Fine, I’ll be right home.” He hung up. Actually she could still hold it against him because she knew very well that he still felt awful about it.
We made the long drive again, this time in the dark. The silence was intensified by the darkness. I was tired, but I didn’t sleep. The murmur of the engine and tires, and the ambient glow of the driver’s console, seemed to lull us into some strange hypnotic weariness. Somehow my father’s weary eyes guided us through the innumerable walls of snow. We went into the hospital, and my mother and father left my brother and I in the waiting room under the supervision of our older cousins. They were led into Papa’s room. Her sisters and their husbands were all already gathered around his bed.
“How are you feeling Dad?” she asked him softly. He looked horrible. He was lying in his death bed and he knew it. Even as feeble as Papa had become, he still shook violently. He was completely overcome by tremors. His twenty-year struggle with Parkinson’s was almost over.
“There’s my favorite girl,” Papa said weakly. It was the same thing he had said to each of his daughters as they entered the room. “You didn’t need to come all the way here tonight. I’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ve got too many reasons to be alive to die. Actually I’ve got exactly five.”
“Dad, the doctors say,” my mother started.
“I know what they say,” he interrupted. “I just don’t want you all to be put out by all of this.”
“Dad, we love you. You haven’t once thought of yourself since the moment I was born. There is no shame in being selfish at a time like this. It’s expected. Don’t worry yourself with us when you’re going to.” She couldn’t say the word. She started crying hard. There was some sort of chain reaction. It was like a little blue spark jumping from finger to finger. All the sisters
wept hard. Their sisterly sobs sounded again so similarly. They started to come together. Now
they were all making the same sobbing sounds in perfect unison. The resonating echo reverberated down the cold hospital hallways, echoed out the door, upward through the snow and
into the glowing frozen night sky. The nurses were startled by the strange noise and gathered around the window to Papa’s room, looking inquisitively at them. One nurse looked like a dog, confused by its master having sex.
Things were calming down when a young, handsome looking doctor came into the room. He asked to privately speak to my mother and her sisters. They followed him through a maze of white hallways and into his office. He had files scattered all over his desk. He picked some up and sat down. He looked very grave.
“What is it?” my mother asked him. “We’d really like to be with him right now.”
“Can’t the paperwork wait?” her sisters chimed in.
“Listen, ladies. I,” he cleared his throat. He was nervous. “I have something to tell you that I don’t think you’re going to like very much.”
“The woman over the phone told us this already. We know he’s probably not going to make it.”
“You’re right. He’s not. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you,” he said. He looked very serious. Despite his grave expression he was still very handsome. He had wavy brown hair, just long enough to be stylish, and just short enough to look professional. He seemed too young to be a doctor, but he was probably close to thirty. “I’ve just been assigned to your father. I don’t really think anyone has looked at his original medical records for a long time. I wanted to be thorough so I spent the last few hours reviewing his old files. I don’t really know how to say
this,” he paused, thinking. The women were still crying, and he looked a little teary-eyed as well. “Your father,” he paused again, expanding the tension and compounding whatever he was about to tell them. “I don’t think your father was properly diagnosed by his original doctor.” The
women looked puzzled. “I don’t think he ever had Parkinson’s disease.”
“What do you mean?” they demanded, “He shook all the time, our family physician said it was clear-cut Parkinson’s. He said that we caught it early, and.” They were interrupted by the doctor.
“And he was surprised that the medicine wasn’t working. I think the medicine is what caused his shaking. To put it simply, he’s been taking poison for the past twenty years. I wanted to tell you privately, so you can decide what to tell your father. You also might want to consider a lawyer.”
Actually their family physician had died years earlier from heart failure. Papa had actually outlived the doctor that diagnosed him. He ran a private practice and their was no real legal recourse that they could take. The doctor showed them all of the files and explained explicitly the details of their father’s situation. It was too late to do anything for him now. Had Papa stopped taking his medication at any point during the first ten years, he probably would have made a full recovery.
The doctor let them stay in his office to decide what to tell their father. Could they really tell him that he struggled for twenty years in vain? Could they really tell him that their family physician had hoped higher doses of medicine would cure his disease, when in actuality, the higher doses hurried the poisoning of his body? Neurons in his brain were disconnected because of the incompetency of a doctor that had been his close friend. Could they tell him that
it was this that actually caused him to develop Parkinson’s over time? No, they couldn’t tell him
that. So they returned to his room–unwilling to break his heart further in his last hour
They watched him die peacefully. Papa died unaware of the outrages committed against
him. His neck muscles tensed as he made his last attempt to fight the creeping cold hand. His eyes faded like the sun sets in winter: the last light flickers out across the horizon beneath an array of pink air against pure white clouds. Papa’s eyes. Every vessel and capillary twinged and popped and the whites of his eyes were glazed with pink. His neck muscles relaxed and his head fell softly on the small white pillow. His eyes fluttered again and he closed them, unable to resist anymore.
Part V
Papa’s funeral was situated much like his wife’s. I sat with my father and brother. But this time my dad’s parents weren’t sitting behind us. My father wanted them to come, but my mother had refused. Papa would get the hero’s service that he deserved. There were a great number of people at the funeral. Papa had been an inspiration to a number of people in his life, and all were there, solemnly observing the passing of a great man. The service started.
My grandpa silently slid open the door and sat in a pew in the back. He was wearing very large, very dark sunglasses. Only my mother saw him, and she stiffened. She wondered what hateful remarks he would have for her father. But the service continued. The eulogy was read and there was no great outburst from the old man in the back. The mass ended and there was a gathering of people paying their condolences and talking quietly. My grandpa approached my mother. She saw him coming and her whole body tensed. She was holding my hand, and her grip around my fingers became painful. I yelped and she let go.
“I just wanted to say,” he started. He hadn’t taken off his large, dark red sunglasses, even
though it was a night service and the church was poorly lit. “Your father was the greatest man
I’ve ever known.” My mother was taken aback by this statement from the hateful old man. He
finally removed his sunglasses. In the short moment before he wiped his eyes with his hanky and returned the glasses to the bridge of his nose, my mother saw why he had been wearing the sunglasses. His eyes had a film of wet tears and they were such a deep red they almost looked purple. It was the first time she could remember not smelling whiskey on his breath.
“Thank you, it really means a lot coming from you,” my mother said, trying not to sound sarcastic. He took off his sunglasses once more. Tears were in every crease and wrinkle of the old farmer’s face. He looked directly in her eyes.
“It’s not fair that a man like him has to die, while a wicked man like me lives on,” he said. It was true. It wasn’t fair, that this awful hate-filled man still walks among us, still clings to life, when a loving courageous man like Papa got taken away.
“It really does mean a lot. I needed to hear that from you.” She was telling the truth. From any other person it might have seemed like a vague attempt at condolence. But from him it was a completely broken down sincerity. My grandfather, like everyone else who ever really knew him, loved Papa.
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
Mitch Hedberg- RIP 1968-2005. your jokes have laughed me through a lot. I thank you.
I didn't think anyone would actually read that much. I know I wouldn't have the patience to read something that long on here. thanks!
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbours start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
I've been going through the piece with a fine comb trying to find things you could improve. The piece is clearly competently done and there's nothing glaringly dodgy that needs rethinking. There are one or two small points I'd mention though, to do with conception rather than the actual form or content of your piece. There's a lot of 'telling' in the first couple of paragraphs and you could either work on 'showing' the narrative more or think: is what you say by means of exposition of character and social milieu totally necessary to the unfolding narrative, or can some go? Will the piece still work with less background? Will you in fact improve its pace as a story?
It's good.
If I think of anything else to point out, I shall. Cheers.
glad you liked it. We workshopped it the other day and that was pretty much the same ad
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
anyway
that was pretty much the same advice my peers and professor gave me too. The whole showing and telling thing that is. they also thought that the narrator was a little awkward, and maybe make it close third person on the mother.
My prof. even asked me to consider writing another draft in first person from the mother. Don't know if I will tho, that'd be hard.
I write down good reasons to freeze to death in my spiral ring notebook. But in the long tresses of your hair--I am a babbling brook.
(a) A first person narrative from the mother's perspective. You have a good ear for dialogue so you'd be able to capture her voice in monologue. But you'd have to think about how you could convey limitations in the character's viewpoint. Could you tell the story ironically so that though the mother is recounting events she is 'unreliable' or doesn't realise the implications of events/the consequences even of her actions? That's tough because you have to hint at subtexts in the story.
(b) Third person narrative with an omniscient narrator who has privileged access into the mother's thoughts and feelings (using a technique called focalisation.
I wrote and posted this explanation of focalisation some months back but I'll repeat it here. It seems appropriate. Hope it's of use.
When a third-person, "omniscient" narrator plunges into the consciousness of a character and represents their thoughts but still in the third-person, this technique is called focalization.
And there are different levels of focalization. Used to great effect, the narrator can display a particular level of empathy with a character, for a different effect. Let me demonstrate how this works.
A character's quoted monologue, "Have I wasted my time in this job all these years?" would, in focalization, be converted to the third person and the past tense, using for example the following three techniques:
1 "She wondered if she had wasted her time in her job, all those years." This sentence is an example of what is called psycho-narration. The narrator is reporting indirectly the character's thought, changing the pronoun and tense, and substituting the demonstrative adjective "those" for "these".
2 "Had she squandered her time by remaining in that occupation for all those years?": This sentence is an example of narrated monologue. Note that there's no phrase such as "She wondered" in this example to identify the prominence of an obtrusive authorial narrator here, which means we have greater emphasis on the character's thoughts, without any additional narratorial reportage. However, the language used is more writerly than in the character's own quoted monologue, so we say that here is an example of narrated monologue of the dissonant kind.
3 "Had she wasted her time in his job, all those years?" This is narrated monologue of the consonant kind, because though it phrases the character's thought in the third person and switches tense, it is the closest kind of focalization we have seen to the original example of quoted monologue quoted above.
Example 3, and, to an extent, example 2, are known in linguistics as free indirect discourse. Such discourse is 'free' because it's not preceded by phrases such as "She said" to make it reported speech that emphasises the narrator's standpoint; it's indirect because it's not a first person utterance.
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Cheers.