by Johnny Shaw
I drove past the spot where Nathanael West died, an unremarkable intersection with a fifty-acre scrap yard on one corner, a John Deere dealership on another, and abandoned hay sheds on the other two. The tragedy was in his death, but driving past the desolate anonymity of the site made it more regrettable. If West had avoided the Imperial Valley, he wouldn’t have died in that car accident. There’s a lesson to be learned somewhere in there.
I passed the WELCOME TO EL CENTRO sign, a cartoon sun wearing sunglasses welcoming me to “The Largest U.S. City Entirely Below Sea Level.” When I had been a kid, El Centro had thrived. But as I drove down Main Street, I saw more empty storefronts than open businesses. A mass of concrete, dirt, and scattered palms, El Centro was the kind of town that needed a bath. Even the buildings seemed to sweat. Still it was “The Center.” And if you lived down here, you had to go to El Centro or Calexico eventually. When you’ve got the big stores, the movie theaters, the hospital, the Sears, and the courthouse, you don’t have to get all dolled up.
The house was too hot in the summer and hospice was only available on a temporary basis, so Pop had made arrangements. He had wanted to stay close, so the best he could do was Harris Convalescent Care. I knew a few people’s grandparents who died there, seemingly satisfied customers. I got off Main and headed down Ross past the hospital.
Sadly, there were plenty of parking spots in the Visitors Parking Area. My truck was one of two cars. Before going inside, I paced and smoked a cigarette. I hadn’t seen Pop in a while, and I didn’t know what to expect. I accepted that a certain amount of mental preparation was necessary. As much as I was looking forward to seeing and talking to him, a nervousness sat in my stomach. It felt like the first sentence of a final chapter.
I tried to concentrate on the positive. I was looking forward to prodding Pop to tell me stories of his youth. It seemed like an appropriate time for that kind of thing. Beyond a few repeated army stories that were probably lies, I knew very little about my father’s life before I was born. And he was fifty-four when I clocked in. That’s a lot of life. A lot of questions. Born in the Depression, drafted into World War II, and everything before and after, you’d think he’d have a story or two that didn’t involve a weekend pass, a half bottle of applejack, and a USO singer in a shit-brown dress.
Of course I’d known him my whole life, but I left home at eighteen. And not a particularly mature eighteen. This was to be the most concentrated amount of time together in our adult relationship. That was important. I knew who Pop was, but not who he had been. The story felt incomplete. We had the chance to get to know each other as father and son, as friends, but mostly, as grown men.
I crushed my cigarette underfoot, took a breath of hot, less-than-refreshing air, and headed into the pink-stuccoed building. The air-conditioning made me light-headed when I walked through the glass doors. I leaned one hand against the wall, needing a two-second break to avoid passing out. From one hundred degrees to sixty in one second could not be good for the body.
I was greeted by an angry woman’s voice.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I looked up. Behind the reception counter, dressed in lavender scrubs, Angela Torres was trying to kill me with her eyes. She clenched her face in a fist, eyes squinting tight, lines burrowing into her forehead. She looked pissed. She looked beautiful.
“Angie?” I had never pegged Pop for that kind of treachery. If I hadn’t known better, I’d think that he had set up this situation. “Wow. How’re you doing?”
“You haven’t answered my question,” she demanded. “Your father has been here for weeks. You’re just showing up now?”
“I didn’t know you worked here.” Then I realized she had asked me a question. “He didn’t tell me he was sick until a couple days ago.”
“Yeah, why would he. You’re only his only son.”
“I honestly had no clue. Ask him. Came straight when I heard.”
“Okay, go see him then,” Angie said, pretending like she was reading a piece of paper she had picked up at random.
“It’s good to see you, Angie. You look great.”
She did. Even in scrubs and with her hair spilling out of a knot on the back of her head. The twelve years that had passed since I last saw her had only made her more striking. Barely five feet tall and with curves in all the right places, Angie could turn some heads. But it was her face that made you fall in love. Big brown eyes and full lips set on smooth brown skin, Angie had the kind of face that made men stupid.
“We haven’t talked in like ten years, Jimmy. That’s a long time. Nice to see you, whatever, but we’re not really friends anymore, are we?”
“Fair enough, Angie. But if you’re mad, you’re mad at someone I’m not anymore.”
She held up a finger, shutting me up. She continued to fake read. Then she said, “I’m not angry, Jimmy. It’s just not something I think about.”
“I’ve thought about you,” I said.
Angie stared at me, biting the inside of her cheek. I’m pretty sure she was trying to decide whether to punch me in the face or not. In high school, she had been a little hitty.
“Go see your father,” she said, clearly dismissing me. “Room eighteen. Down the hall.”
I began to walk down the hall, and then I turned back.
“Don’t say anything,” she said. “If you’ve been thinking about me, it still wasn’t enough for you to call. It doesn’t matter what you felt or thought. It’s what you did. Or didn’t do.”
“I know, but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sorry. I’m not going to piss you off more with excuses. I’m sorry, Angie. Really. That’s all. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t.”
I walked slowly down the hall with a feeling very close to being punched in the stomach. The past could be one hell of a stalker, lurking and ready to pounce. But for all the conflict, seeing Angie had brought a lot of good memories back, too. Even if she hated me, I couldn’t help but smile at the surprise of seeing her again.
Convalescent homes, like hospitals, are a heterogeneous goulash of odors. Underneath the dominant cocktail of urine and disinfectant is the pleasant latex smell of Band-Aids, wafts of sweat, something close to tapioca, and that musty mildew that seemed out of place in such a dry climate. It smelled like someone just finished shampooing a three-month-dead cat.
I found room eighteen, took a deep breath, put a big stupid smile on my face, and knocked on Pop’s door lightly as I let myself in.
“Where are the strippers? I wouldn’t’ve come if I’d known there weren’t any strippers,” I announced.
Pop turned his head from the propped-up position in his bed. His smile was weak, but his eyes were bright. He had lost so much weight that the shape of his skull was prominent around his eyes and cheekbones. The skin hung loose under his chin. His bald head was mottled with dark spots and a couple of scabs. The deep laugh lines at the side of his eyes reminded me of the man I knew.
In better days, Pop was a wiry six-foot-six farmer of Norwegian and German stock. He had always been thin and muscular, and I had never seen any amount of weight that he couldn’t lift. His strength hadn’t come from his frame, but will. He could lift tons because he believed he could. I once saw him carry a full beer keg up two flights of stairs. Granted, he had been pretty drunk and feeling no pain, but still a feat. Now he looked like he could barely lift a napkin to his face.
I grabbed a chair from against the wall and moved it to the side of the bed. I gave the room a cursory glance. It appeared to be clean and livable, yet had the anonymity of a hotel room. No pictures or personal items decorated the room. The small stack of books and crossword puzzles at the side of the bed were the only indication of identity.
“How was the drive?” Pop asked. His voice was strong, although rough from silence.
“No adventure. Straight shot down. Steady daydreaming,” I answered, trying not to react to the n
oticeable change in his features. I focused on the bloody pieces of toilet paper stuck to his chin.
“Shaving yourself, I see. What’d you use? Whipped cream and a plastic knife?”
Pop smirked. “If they gave me the whole hot towel treatment, I’d let them shave me. But I ain’t going to give up my routine for a nurse with a ten-cent disposable.”
I remember watching Pop shave when I was a kid. The straight razor across his face sounded like sandpaper on glass. It looked so dangerous for so little reward.
“You ever thought about growing out your beard? Might give you the respectability that you’ve always craved,” I said, smiling.
Pop laughed. “Yeah, I considered growing a goatee and playing folk music in beatnik bookstores and coffee shops, but it’s a real son of a bitch finding mandolin strings this time of year.”
“It’s never too late. Big Jack Veeder and the Literate Farmers.”
And that’s how it started. For the next twenty minutes, Pop and I came up with names for his imaginary folk band and their playlist. Bad puns and idiotic humor would often fill our hour-long phone conversations. Pop chimed in, “Thank you. That was Jack Veeder and the Bed Sores playing, ‘Cancer? I Didn’t Even Know Her.’” The worse the band name, the harder we laughed: The Colostomy Bags, The Atheist Catholics, and my favorite, Jack Veeder and the Fuck You I’m Dying Tropical All-Stars.
As Pop was doing his best deejay voice to introduce the song, “The Only Thing the Army Taught Me Was How to Shit While Someone Watched,” a nurse who wasn’t Angie came in to give Pop some pills, breaking up our rhythm.
It was a shame. When Pop and I were joking and laughing, it was like he wasn’t sick. A large part of our relationship was centered on our attempts to make each other laugh. I couldn’t think of a stronger foundation for a friendship. I suppose some people would find it superficial, but they’re just not funny enough to understand.
Many of our phone conversations over the last dozen years were predicated on our attempts to find “The Big Laugh.” That elusive, once-a-year laugh that was so rare. The contagious laughter that hurt your face and sides, but you couldn’t stop through the pain. Hell, “The Big Laugh” wasn’t even fun. Didn’t mean it wasn’t our goal. It had been too long for both of us. I could see Pop’s face in my mind, memories of the pain and laughter of “The Big Laugh.” It didn’t look like he had it in him anymore.
As the nurse changed Pop’s colostomy bag, my mind raced with jokes, but they all seemed inappropriate or stupid. All of them in the “you’re full of shit” family. Pop would have laughed, but the nurse would have judged me insensitive.
After the nurse left, we watched a couple of hours of television, which gave Pop an excuse to steal a short nap. Around one, an orderly brought Pop his lunch and meds. Due to his condition, Pop ate slowly and deliberately, concentrating on every bite. Eating was work, but I could tell he took pride that he didn’t have to be fed through a tube. Over lunch, we watched a rerun of Macmillan and Wife. Neither of us particularly liked the show; however, there was a certain non-offensive ease to how the plot played out, a familiar and affable time-eater. We were both pleasantly disappointed when we couldn’t figure out the who in the whodunit in the first five minutes. I don’t know if it was the medication or the food, but after lunch Pop seemed a little more energized.
“I need a few things from the house,” Pop said.
I got a small pad from my back pocket and found a pen on top of one of Pop’s crosswords.
“I got some fingernail clippers. They should be on the nightstand next to my bed. The ones here tear my nails out.” He reached for a folded piece of paper and handed it to me. “And I wrote down a couple of books. If you can’t find them in the house, Book Nook in town might have some of them.” I glanced down at the paper, Pop’s inimitable block print showing eight or ten titles.
I knew the function of the list. Pop had talked about this for a long time. He was an avid reader. But if he liked an author, he never read everything that author wrote, particularly if they were dead. Pop claimed that the disappointment in knowing there wasn’t any more work out there was depressing. So he always kept one book on the shelf, unread. Each of those books had potential energy, one more story just when Pop needed it. Possibly saved for just that moment.
“You need any more crosswords?” I asked.
“Not yet. They’re getting harder to concentrate on. Even with my glasses. I can read, but they only make the easy ones in large print, and those bore the hell out of me. What’s the point of doing a crossword you know you can finish?”
“Hey,” I said. “Did you know Angela Torres worked here?”
Pop went poker faced, which told me more than whatever bullshit he was about to say. “Torres? Torres? Pretty Mexican girl, right? Was she in your year?”
“You can do better than that. I went to prom with her. Don’t act like you don’t remember Angie.”
“She works here?”
“You’re diabolical.”
“I knew it didn’t end quite right. What’s the harm? I’m an old romantic.”
“What makes you think I care?”
“The look on your face.”
I shrugged, wondering what my face looked like. I tried to think of something else to talk about.
Pop and I didn’t have the kind of relationship that necessitated discussing our feelings. Even though we talked for hours, emotions and personal matters never came up. We didn’t hug. We didn’t tell each other “I love you.” And I had no need or desire to ever sing for my father. We didn’t need to do those things because we knew them, and saying them would be redundant and would cheapen an implicit understanding.
So it surprised me when I asked, “Are you disappointed I didn’t take over the farm?” I honestly have no idea where it came from. But I’d never had much of a filter. My mouth was like the end of a construction chute, dumping out whatever garbage my brain manufactured.
“Hell” was Pop’s mumbled response, as if that was answer enough.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” I felt my face flush, embarrassed that I had drifted outside of our unspoken boundaries.
Pop laughed. “Afraid I’m disappointed in you or something? I thought you had a little more confidence than that. I thought you’d be smart enough not to give a damn what I think. What anyone thinks.”
I shrugged, still not knowing why I asked and now not knowing what to say. My mouth and my brain really needed to get on the same page.
Pop used his arms to prop himself higher in the inclined bed. “Everything I did raising you was to make sure you didn’t become a farmer. When you graduated college—hell, when you went to your first class—I couldn’t’ve been prouder.”
“Don’t want to burst that bubble, Pop, but that degree hasn’t really done me a hell of a lot of good.”
“The hell.” Pop almost showed anger, but anger wasn’t a strong emotion in his palette. It came out as annoyance. “By my standards, you’re a success. And I’m proud to have been an accomplice in your escape. You know how it goes. You could’ve easily knocked up some girl in high school, did ‘the right thing,’ and married her. The right thing? What horseshit. There’s an order to it, and one small mistake would’ve put you in line. You would’ve leased eighty acres, planted some alfalfa. It would’ve been tough, but slowly you’d work more acreage. Knocked out a few more kids. Then, in fifty years or so, you’d die. The fact you avoided any of that means you won.”
“Come on. Farming ain’t that bad,” I said.
“Maybe. For you, back then, it would’ve been. Anything can be a curse if it ain’t a choice. If it’s all you know. If you do it because your father did it. And you do it because it’s familiar and safe and you’re afraid to do something else. Even if all you want to do is anything else.
“You know how many books I’ve read where farmers are the salt of the earth. The salt of the earth. Backhanded compliment if I ever heard one. You put salt on the ea
rth and nothing grows. Farming is a noble profession is what they’ll tell you. It ain’t any more noble than coal mining or meat packing or grave digging. If having a shit job is all it takes to be noble, then I’m the Queen of Norway. They may exist, but I ain’t never met a first-generation farmer.”
Pop paused, staring me directly in the eye, his breath rapid. The sad look of his sunken eyes made me a little uncomfortable. He spoke slowly and seriously.
“I didn’t really want to have the dying father/loving son mortality talk, but I suppose we should.” Pop looked at me, more somber than I’d ever seen him. “Let’s get this straight. We’re going to do this once. Once. Then we’re not going to talk about it again. Then this bullshit seriousness is done and we get back to it. It’s too ordinary. I taught you to be funnier than this.”
I nodded, my throat instantly dry. I needed a glass of water, but I didn’t want to move. I leaned in close to Pop, as if we were sharing a secret.
“I’m dying and I’m scared to death. Well, not ‘to death,’ I guess.” He couldn’t help a small smile. “But what good would panicking do? What good would complaining or crying or hiding under the covers do me? It’s going to happen, and from the way I feel, soon. Dying is a bitch when you don’t believe in God. But I ain’t going to start now just because I’m scared. I’m afraid, and the only way I know how to kill that fear is distraction. I want to die happy. I want to die laughing.”
I just listened, trying not to move.
“It’s about the time left. It’s about this time. It’s about watching crappy TV with my son. It’s about laughing in the face of that fear, and I can’t do it without you. I know why you’re here. I know you’ve made sacrifices to be here. That means a lot. I know. But for you and for me, let’s not let this get dark and sad and morose. Leave the crying to the women.”
