Big Lonesome

by Joseph Scapellato

  The backwash I wiped on my jeans. I managed to keep half a block between us. Your pace was steady except for when you slowed in front of an alley, as if window-shopping. When I got there I slowed too: a grinning two-coated bum sat in a shopping cart, tossing seed to a family of pigeons that muscled dumbly through themselves. “This one, that one, this one,” the bum sing-said.

  For half an hour you walked an expanding square-like path, a maze you were making from the inside out. That’s how I knew you’d lost your job. What I didn’t say at the Mexican joint was that I could take the long and beery lunch break because I’d lost my job too.

  “A promotion,” said Uncle Nunzo, when he got too sick to work, when he was hospitalized. “Pay’s different. Different benefits!”

  You agreed without saying anything, and he was grateful for it, and I disagreed but said he’d be better soon, and he forgave me for it, and Mom wept in Italian. She always wept in Italian in hospitals.

  “Mi rompe i coglioni,” she said, and from his bed our laughing Uncle Nunzo took a bow.

  When you weren’t there he’d say to me, “Always kiss your brother on the head.” In his last months he’d demonstrate. “It’s easy!”

  I want to know: what did he say to you when I wasn’t there?

  It had to be something, something just as easy.

  It had to happen—your squares within squares broke on car-choked Lake Shore Drive, which you crossed. Then you crossed the Lakefront Trail, where bundled cyclists and joggers with sweatered dogs exercised insanely along the lake: a wind-whipped plain of caulk spilled from the sky’s bucket. You trudged onto the nearest public pier and all the way to the rail closest to the water, farthest from the city. When you passed an old man he turned and left, as if piers were for one.

  I stopped just short of the pier’s concrete lip and stomped feeling into my feet on the frozen sand. Behind us, if you’d turned to look, skyscrapers stood, broad and black.

  You didn’t turn to look. What you did was take out your phone. You held it over the rail and dropped it into the lake.

  You took off your glasses, folded them, and dropped them into the lake.

  Then your gloves. Your keys. IDs and credit cards and business cards. Your wallet. The napkin.

  You unzipped your coat and wriggled out of it and in it went. Your fleece, your button-down, your undershirt—I hadn’t seen your torso in ten years—you shook as you undid your belt.

  A bearded man in a peacoat jogged past me, to you.

  I came up from whatever I was in and into something else, something even worse, and shouted, “It’s okay!” to no one.

  As you stepped out of your jeans, the bearded man slowed, like you slowed at the alley. He set a hand on your arm. The whole time he was talking.

  At first you didn’t do anything—you looked like you looked when I slammed the can of beer into the back of your head or dumped the two boots of vomit in your lap or lied and told you, to get you to speak to her, that after the wake Mom had broken both hands while breaking a table, that Mom was out of desperation going to marry Drunken Stanley, that Mom, wanting to make sure she died before you did, had resolved to kill herself with cleaning products.

  You sat on the concrete. The bearded man sat next to you, like a dad.

  He scooted a bit to unbutton his coat, which he offered you. You shook your head. He put the coat on you anyway. You took it off and gave it back, and said something—a long something, with gestures that went from small to big, from hands to arms—and he listened, his coat on his knees, and when you were done he stood up and pointed back to the city. You said something else, to which he listened, and then you turned to face the lake. He left.

  He came towards me, putting on his coat and looking grave.

  A young woman had appeared at my side. Pins and buttons peppered her jacket and a sprout of green hair ran from her knit hat. That she was interested enraged me.

  “Think he’s okay?” she said.

  I looked at her and laughed. I laughed! You’re no addict, brother, you’re not insane, you haven’t been beaten or abused or abandoned. You’re okay! You’re okay, so what is it, what is it always, and why have we only ever talked around it?

  The bearded man came up to her and me with a face that said, I tried, and the young woman hugged him. A kid with a beard, not a bearded man. They were students. Kids.

  “I’m going to wait,” he said. “Dude might jump.”

  I said, “Wait for what?”

  “The cops,” said the girl, “I called them.”

  “The cops! The cops will tell him to go the fuck away. He’ll go the fuck away, they’ll go the fuck away, he’ll come back and they won’t, and if he’s going to jump he’ll fucking jump. He won’t jump.”

  My voice was high and tight. When I spoke I spat.

  The bearded kid came out of hugging his girl in such a way that he stood between her and me. “How do you know?”

  Muscles flexed around my heart. I said, “You’re crying?”

  “I’m—what?”

  I peered into his face.

  “It’s the wind,” he said, not backing away. “It’s windy.”

  I grabbed his arm. I was crying.

  “Okay,” he said. He put an arm around me.

  His girl tugged at him but he didn’t budge.

  A pair of cops passed us, the casual walk they reserve for the homeless.

  “He won’t jump,” I said into the kid’s arm.

  “Jump,” I said when they helped you up, when their hands kept the blanket on your back.

  Father’s Day

  The old man went with his son to a restaurant. The restaurant was in a bowling alley where the old man used to take his son to bowl when his son was a boy. When they sat down, in a booth by the door, the old man said, “This is a terrible place to die.”

  The son said, “I can’t believe we used to bowl here. Remember? Boy, was I lousy.”

  The old man didn’t say anything.

  “My wife is pregnant,” said the son.

  Their food came. It was as expected. The son paid.

  Outside it was bright and clear and cool. The son, who had driven, opened the car door for the old man. The old man shuffled in and sat down. He said, “A terrible, terrible place.”

  The son drove the old man for a long time, for longer than it took to get to the old man’s house, the house where the son had grown up. The old man grunted. He tapped the window. The son turned on news radio. They passed a chain of strip malls, a forest preserve, and three ugly rivers. The man on the radio laughed.

  When they arrived at the old folks home the son opened the car door for the old man, then the door to the lobby, then the door to the receiving office, and left. A nurse, who was fat, led the old man to his room. It smelled like an airplane smells between flights. Some of the old man’s things were already there: sweaters, slippers, pictures of his wife, his son, his son’s pregnant wife, and the ticket from the boat that had carried the old man across the ocean from the old country when he’d been an infant.

  The old man did not sit down. He said, “This is a terrible place to die.”

  The fat nurse handed him a cup of water. “All places are terrible places to die.”

  The old man coughed. That was how he laughed. He drank his water slowly and pointed at the bed. “All places are terrible places.”

  She shook her head, but in agreement. “All places are places of dying.”

  “But dying, dying itself is not terrible.”

  “Believe me,” said the nurse, preparing him for his bath, “dying is terrible. Not death. Death can’t be terrible.”

  “Nope, you’ve got it backwards.”

  The summer ended. “Tell me,” said a different nurse, male, “don’t you have a son?”

  “You bet I have a son.”

  The nurse reloaded the old man’s IV. “Well, won’t you live on through him?”

  “I want to read a book.”

  The nu
rse helped the old man into a wheelchair and pushed him to the tiny library near the cafeteria. The single bookshelf sagged with thrillers, mysteries, and romances, all donated. The room was empty.

  The old man chewed his tongue.

  The nurse gave him a cookie and said, “We don’t disagree.”

  “We do disagree,” said the old man five years later, seated in the cafeteria. He raised his swollen fists. “Dying isn’t terrible because dying is knowable, it begins and ends, but death, death is unknowable. Therefore terrible.”

  This nurse, in her first week of work, laughed. She was young and skinny and she planted her hands on her hips. “Death doesn’t end?”

  “Right,” said the old man, “only dying ends, it ends and that’s that. Now how about dessert.”

  The next day the son returned to the old folks home with the old man’s grandson, a quiet little boy. The son offered cookies his wife had baked, but the old man pretended not to smell the cookies and not to know his son and grandson and stared through their heads and chests like they were broken televisions. The son, who was sweating, told a story about this one time when they bowled together, when he was lousy. He pretended to be telling the story to the quiet little grandson but was really telling the story to the old man. He told it three times. The old man wetly cleared his throat.

  When they left, the young nurse dressed the old man for bed. “Good of them to come,” she said.

  “Wasn’t terrible. Wasn’t good. But could have been either.”

  “It was terrible,” said the nurse, crying.

  “Terrible?” he said, and, not wearing any pants or underwear, touched his thigh as she watched. His thigh was soft and gray and stank like Dumpsters in the sun. Then he touched hers, which was dark and firm and smelled like an imaginary fruit.

  “I know, I know,” she said, and kissed his scalp. She kissed again.

  He tried to push her. “Dying! Is! Not! Terrible!”

  Ten years later the old man, bedridden, exhaled fiercely and declared: “Dying is terrible.”

  The young nurse wasn’t young anymore. She was pregnant. “What about death.”

  “Death is a place.”

  “What kind of place.”

  The old man waved. “I am a place.”

  The summer came. The old man was very old.

  The grandson returned by himself, a teenager. He looked strange, with strange hair and strange clothes.

  The old man met his eyes and said, “You are strange with strange hair and strange clothes but beneath that you are a man, and beneath that you are a place, like me.”

  The grandson said, “Nice.”

  The old man grunted. Some of the tubes that were plugged into him rubbed together. “Death is a place.”

  The grandson gently touched the old man’s arm. “We have to move you to a hospice.”

  “Tell me something that I do not know.”

  The grandson took his other hand out of his pocket and counted off on fingers: “You don’t scare me; I respect you; you may know you are a place but the place itself remains unknown; the known is more terrible than the unknown; my dad won’t tell us he has cancer and always wants to take us bowling but when we go he can’t even throw the ball, he just starts crying and runs outside and waits in the car and when we knock on the window he gets out and pretends like he just showed up; my mom is awesome, super-awesome, she’s teaching me how to bake; my girlfriend’s pregnant; I’m not so sure I’m straight; today is Father’s Day; happy Father’s Day.”

  The old man touched his grandson’s face. He began to die. “That’s good,” he said to his grandson. “Don’t go.”

  Acknowledgments

  A writer writes a book with lots of help. This book wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for many incredible people, people I am deeply fortunate and grateful to know. Eleanor Jackson, thank you for your belief, your patience, and your savvy. Jenna Johnson and Pilar Garcia-Brown, thank you for your generous vision, for your brilliant challenges, and for enriching everything you touch. Thank you to David Hough for insightful and rigorous copyediting. Thank you to the literary magazine editors and contest judges who published some of this collection’s pieces in earlier forms: Zach Bean, David Ryan, Chris Boucher, Vaughan Simons, David H. Lynn, Carmen Giménez Smith, Evan Lavender-Smith, Jacob White, Christina Harrington, Analicia Sotelo, Aimee Bender, Katie Berta, Roxane Gay, Jensen Beach, Jeremy “Holy Good Goddamn!” Schraffenberger, Bridget G. Dooley, Laurie Ann Cedilnik, Joey Pizzolato, Allegra Hyde, Dana Diehl, and T. Kira Madden, with special thanks to David McLendon, for seeing this book before I did, and to Matt Bell, for the gift of your friendship. Robert Boswell, Kevin McIlvoy, and Antonya Nelson, the high desert trinity of fiction mentors: I haven’t stopped saying thank you, and won’t. CJ Hribal, thank you for telling me what an MFA is and for helping me get to one. Larry Watson, thank you for talking to me like I was a writer and for years of invaluable advice. Thank you to Amelia Zurcher and Rebecca Nowacek. Glen Brown and Kate Singletary: thank you for putting light into the lives of so many young writers. Dr. Van Lear: it all fits together. Do you know how often I talk about you? Bless you. Claire Vaye Watkins and Derek Palacio, thank you for saying, “Send the book out,” for that email, and for WT-ery. Nathan Graham and Michelle Mariano, thank you for the mountain and for potlucks, for so much time in so many cities: for the nonstop friendsgiving. Thank you to Stephen Lloyd Webber and Jade Webber for the Yard and Oakhaven, for golden b’s and green shooting stars. Dave Bachmann, thank you for the tradition of Chicago bar book-talks. Austin Tremblay, thank you for CCL. Thank you to the New Mexico State University crew, especially Parker Staley, Heather Hermann, Lindsay Armstrong, Jeff Vance, Melanie Viramontes, Nicky Pesseroff, Dana Kroos, Lillie Robertson, Jason Ronstadt, Michaela Spampinato, Cara Olexa, Carrie Grinstead, Ryan Orr, Skye Anicca, Stefan McKinstray, Jill Stukenberg, Travis Brown, Justin Chrestman, Josette Arvizu, Jeff Frawley, David MacLean, Rus Bradburd, Connie Voisine, Sheila Black, and Sarah Hagelin. Thank you to the University of Houston crew, especially J. Kastely, Alex Parsons, Chitra Divakaruni, ZZ Packer, Hosam Aboul-Ela, David Mazella, Jameelah Lang, Whit Bones, Talia Mailman, The Real Katie Condon, Sir Conor Bracken, JP Gritton, Thomas “Boot Brother” Calder, Julia Brown, Elizabeth Winston, Nancy Pearson, Selena Anderson, Tyson Morgan, Chris Hutchinson, Megan Martin, David Tomás Martinez, Claire Anderson, Sara Rolater, Greg Oaks, Bryan Owens, and Zach Martin. Ed Porter and Jacqui Sutton, as promised: thank you for the chair. Thank you to Heather Sartin and Peter Graham. Dan Chelotti, Odin-eyed birch-wizard, amico: there’s a myth for this. Thank you to the Susquehanna University crew, especially Gary Fincke, Glen Retief, Peterson Toscano, Tom Bailey, Susan Bowers, Randy Robertson, and Nick Ripatrazone. Karla Kelsey: bloodfeather swanfang forever. Thank you to Catherine Zobal Dent and Silas Dent Zobal for your wisdom and love and laughter. Moustaches to Elizabeth Deanna Morris and Kenny Lakes, Will Hoffacker and Dana Diehl, Melissa Goodrich, David Joseph, Kim Stoll, Mike Coakley, and Sarah Gzemski. Thank you to my extraordinary Bucknell University colleagues in the English Department, especially Paula Closson Buck, Robert Rosenberg, Shara McCallum, GC Waldrep, Chris Camuto, Denise Lewis, Andy Ciotola, Katie Hays, John Rickard, Ghislaine McDayter, Carmen Gillespie, and Harry Bakst. Thank you to the good people of the Bucknell University Theatre and Dance Department. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my students. Thank you to current and former Lewisburgers: Erica Delsandro, Pete Groff and Maria Balcells, Logan and Elise Connors, Nathalie Dupont, Amanda Wooden and John Enyeart, Bob and Iris Gainer, Deirdre O’Connor, Peg Cronin, Porochista Khakpour, Lazslo Strauss, Darren Hick, Chipper Dean, John Bourke, Ben Jones, Beth “Practical Visionary” Duckles, and Alex “Blood Moon Brother” Lumans. Thank you to James Tadd Adcox, Scott Onak, Matt Rowan, A.D. Jameson, Ted Gerstle, and Jacob Singer. Jeffrey Jeffecito Glodek, Professoressa Shawna Hennessey, David Slicer Miller, Vera Miller, the Wild Doty, Nikkity Crickets, Kelsey Belsey, Andrew Roddewig, Bart Davis, Meagan Kadlec, George Perry, Mary and Will
iam Martin, Sarah and Chad, Farnypoo, the McGrabbits, Crusher, Real World Reid and Debra, Lucy Kim, Double J Turowski, David Peak, Will Petty—slammit on, chombattas. Thank you to Bill from Marlins, for the questions. Thank you to the Martincichs and the Horvaths and the Stefanichs and the Kaskys and the Smiths, with special thanks to mia suocera Debbie. Thank you to the Gackis and the Kostals and the Scapellatos and the Cocos, with special thanks to Aunt Judy and Uncle Ken, Aunt Paula, Tom and Megan, Forrest and Tamara, Louie and Anthony, and the mighty Bronek. Thank you, Judy Murphy. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for showing everyone who knows you how to love people and life and language, and for much more than can fit here. Thank you to Vittorio and Matthew for being writers before me, for showing me the wonder of it. Thank you to Mario for reading everything I’ve ever written, more than once, and for being honest always. Thank you to Jen for wisdom and warmth and always asking. Thank you to Arik and Garrett: you’re natural twenties. And thank you to Dustyn, best friend, first reader—big love, no lonesome—bopadoo.

  About the Author

  JOSEPH SCAPELLATO’s fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, and other journals, and has been anthologized in Forty Stories, Gigantic Worlds: An Anthology of Science Flash Fiction, and The Best Innovative Writing. He teaches at Bucknell University and lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, daughter, and dog.