“Mary,” Mark yelled while half awake, “I love you!” He then fell toward the ground and smashed his head on the metal drain. Everything from the machines tugged and fell along with Mark. Mary ran over, found a red string next to the toilet, and pulled it out the wall, triggering a screeching alarm different from the others. There were two of those triggers; the other was connected to the TV remote, connected to the wall. Four nurses rushed in, checked his pulse, picked up the machines, then asked for him to speak and answer simple questions while one nurse shined a light in one eye and another felt his pulse with her thumb jammed into his wrist. He slowly woke up and said quietly, quieter and calmer than anyone else, “I’m alive?”
The nurses checked his central line, and luckily it was undamaged because he had landed on his side, but the nurses changed the needle. They also checked his nose tube, and for brain damage, his doctor sent Mark down to the second floor for a CAT scan. Mary waited with him in his portable plastic bed, sitting on a chair in her nightgown with almost all of her sleep drained away; then she asked why he said what he did. Mark stopped his jokes that she felt no entertainment toward and patted his blankets.
“I thought I died.”
Mary hurt deeply, but the back of her hand on her cheek and her exhausted expression were unchanged. She thought so as well; for a second she thought that a little after the two weeks they spent, the war from the gates of Hell ended, that she lost yet another to the afterlife.
After the CAT scan, they were informed that no problems were occurring in his head. He was as normal as before, only sleep-deprived. Then, at 2:15 a.m., Mary got a call from Iraq, and the rest is history. Now Mark and her father sat at the window. He squinted at the thick darkness outside as Mr. Kenny stood there silent, until Mark spoke.
“You know, a while before Operation Desert Storm, Mary, Tom, and I sat around the table.” Mark laughed while continuing to speak, feeling pride from Tom’s name. “And, and it was a special day. He was about to be a corporal. Man, he worked hard for that title. I watched him fight, I watched him cry, and he always said, ‘Maybe tomorrow, Mark, maybe tomorrow.’ He said this whenever he failed, whenever he was yelled at. ‘Tomorrow will be better, maybe tomorrow.’ But now he has no tomorrow.” Mark froze to catch his breath from the exhaustion of speaking, his enflamed throat, and continued. “Well, at the table, Tom told me that he was afraid. Afraid that one day he would be sent to war and either die or become a drunk like his old man, that he would never be better.” Mark’s lip began to roll out and shake. “I told him I’d prevent it, that I would never allow such a thing to occur.”
Silence among the men. They continued to stare into the moonless night, at the two men throwing the last stray boxes into the bin while they laughed. One middle-aged short white man was talking about how drunk he’d been the night before, while swaying from side to side, portraying the severity of his drunkenness twenty-four hours ago. The other, a tall, young Hispanic man, fell onto the ground in uncontrollable laughter. Mark and Kenny watched the two men, as if they were inexperienced children who did not yet understand what life could entail, although the Hispanic boy (the youngest of the two) was three years older than Mark. They were so close, the two hospital maintenance men, Mark and Kenny, from the sixth floor to the hospital ground below, yet both their worlds were so far apart.
“Then he called me Dad!” Mark broke down, and Kenny quickly grabbed his light body and gave him a rough, clasped hug. Mark squeezed with his growing heartache, his uncontrollable gasps for breath filling the tragic floor, yet not an unreasonable noise for a place like this. “He called me Dad,” Mark cried. “Anything else would have been less painful.”
“It’s okay, Mark,” said Kenny, “he’s with his real dad now. He’s with God.”
He continued to cry for a while in Kenny’s arms as Kenny ran his fingers though his son-in-law’s hair, watching the two men outside hop into the hospital-branded pickup and leave without any afterthought. Less than two hundred died in the coalition against Iraq. Tom was one of the first to go and the last generation of the Freemans. This was Mark’s breaking point.
Umbrella
Mark continued through the floors in the hospital, his rage building more and more as if there were bugs in his hair, and every step they bit harder, stretching his desire to open the cracked-paint green door leading to Mary’s bedridden body. Mark pushed through the doors toward the third floor. Tom screamed but Mark didn’t listen; he only heard what was wanted, his mind so far gone as he led a trail of dark red blood from his gushing nostrils. He pushed the doors leading to the second floor, and while Tom continued to follow closely behind with his useless screams, Mark froze in place. “Tom,” said Mark calmly. “This is where Mary got the phone call. This is where you died.”
“I’m right here, Mark,” Tom whispered, rushing to his side. “I’m here for you right now, please trust me.”
Mark turned around aggressively and had a face of stiff madness, his eyes wide and fists clenched so hard his nails turned white.
“You’re dead. Leave me alone.” He turned back and came to the first floor’s doors, slamming them open with even more force than before. Everything was ground level, with a door at the end of a short hallway, and another significantly longer, more winding corridor to the right, with a bright exit sign above both doors at the end of each hallway, illuminating its faint glow. The two steel elevator doors were to the left, as shiny and metallic as they were twenty years ago, as if time never passed. The rain pelted the concrete walkways behind the door, echoing louder and louder through the walls and ceiling as a million tiny impacts crashed against the building.
But as Mark walked closer to the glowing exit sign, lost in a trance of desire, Aaron strolled toward the other exit sign on the opposite side of the building. He faintly wondered if Mark was inside, if he had covered his face and run in for the safe haven of dry clothes and comfort. If Mark was sitting, waiting for Aaron on another bench in the hospital. In fact, a part of him wished Mark had run inside and awaited his friend’s attendance like a kindergartener waiting for their mother, because a growing itch of nervousness crept into his mind as he strolled closer and closer to the exit sign, somehow knowing by his own superstitions that the bench was abandoned, that destiny had taken ahold of Mark’s life once again. Then, through the exit door, past the men on stretchers, fifteen seconds before Mark, who blew passed Aaron like a racing dog, and ran through the long, winding hallway toward the operating room.
“Stop, Mark!” yelled Tom. “You need to live in the present! Stop this insane plot of overwhelming rage, before you walk through those final doors outside! I will not follow you into that darkness, into your own self-pity, your madness, your stubborn denial.” Tom stared over his shoulder, toward the roof and back to the sixth floor with a sober gaze. Then he whispered, yet more as a reminder to himself than a statement to Mark, “I must stay in the hospital, for now. I must be here tonight.”
The two men on red stretchers raced by like lightning. The car accident victims were bleeding profusely, gashes on their torsos ripped out from shards of metal and glass, their eyes bloodshot red from the amount of blood rushing through their noses, and their calves cut as if touched by a food dispenser for a pinch of time. First responders and nurses surrounded them, holding bags of blood over their heads while rushing them over to the operating room. Mark froze, his insanity paused briefly to muse on how one accident could lead to death, how frail life has always been. One man, an older gentleman, prayed like a frantic rabbit. The other, a young twenty-one-year-old college football athlete, fainted on scene, awakening without a single memory as to what had happened to his ragged body. The one who asked for a prayer remembered everything, yet the one who fainted only remembered his damaged car, a pointless care while Death flipped through a Rolling Stone magazine, waiting in the lobby for the opportunity of death. Mark felt a spark flare off as the sounds and screams from
the accident’s aftermath faded into the second story. His feet, for a few seconds, felt like they were in three inches of dry concrete. Stay, some faint, inward voice told him, stay. Then as fast as it came, the feeling of his anchored feet left. He opened the glass door without a second thought, rushing to the outside storm like a housefly to the glowing bulb of a bug zapper. The storm was blazing with rampant power and fight, rage and death, love and disappointment. Ironwoods whistled through the wind like rabid wolves, dancing with unpredictable, dramatic movements, while the heavy rain created a wall thicker than a fog. The wind blasted the inside with its bite of rain, drenching and mixing Mark’s blood on the floor with the drooling water. Tom reached out for Mark with an outstretched hand from the other side of the hallway, only five yards of length. Distress grabbed ahold of his voice, from the knowledge of what Mark’s actions would entail, while he stared at the back of his head. Mark stared at the rain, one foot out of the door, below the glowing red exit sign as his nose continued to stream blood.
“Please…Dad,” the phantom said.
Mark responded the instant Tom was quiet, loud and without care. His concern for Tom’s existence was completely exterminated. In fact, his concern for the two victims as well, along with Kennedy, Kenny, Aaron, and even Tyler, was gone like a simple cupped hand brushing salt off a table. He faced the raging storm, his mind only on the cracked green door, determined to be with his dying wife.
“Your father is a drunk.” Mark stepped into the storm toward Aaron’s police car, Mary’s room, and the rage. Aaron walked out the opposite exit and saw Mark’s ring. It was shining in a puddle from the hospital lights that lit a few yards out into the storm, like a yellow phantom laying his cloak in a three-foot perimeter. He knew what Mark had done, where he went, and what he saw. The sixth floor was a trigger, the hospital itself was a trigger, and Aaron knew Mark’s visit was unsafe.
“Mark,” he whispered. “No. Please no.” Aaron shoved the ring far in his denim jeans and ran over, through the hospital, slipping in his drenched shoes on the smooth, winding white tile and screaming toward his car. There was a fifteen-second delay from door to door, like the red stretchers before. The thunder roared, and Mark ripped out part of the car under the key ignition with ease. He then hotwired the police car, turned on the headlights and windshield wipers, and backed the stick out of the parking spot. He fiddled with the radio, police scanner, and middle console, then found a steel black nine-millimeter revolver, loaded to the top of the wide barrel—Aaron’s favorite choice of weapon. Without a second thought, he picked up the firearm and placed it in his front right pocket, with an uncontrollable fit of laughter crawling up onto his lips.
“Aaron,” he yelled, “I’ve known all along, I’ve known all along that you took all my firearms! You didn’t trust me, and I played along because sometimes children need candy, sometimes you have to look out for the little man. I loaded my weapon in secret so you can feel like the man in control, the man with power.”
Behind the car, Aaron screamed for Mark, screamed for him to stop. Mark heard but hit the ground with the gas petal all the more and sprayed Aaron with rocks and mud, drenching him as he ran toward his fading car. The fear in his eyes expanded, and Aaron screamed curse words into the clouds, kicking the puddles around him like a child. Then Aaron abruptly pulled out his phone and called the station. “This is Chief of Police Aaron Hudson. My car was stolen. Track it down and pick me up now! I’m at the hospital on Broadway, and hurry, lives will be lost.” The man on the phone, Wilber Hexton, hastily informed the station of the message through his adult braces. Then he responded.
“Mr. Hudson, there is an officer a mile from your location that was assigned to an accident on the intersection—”
“I don’t care, just get him over here!” yelled Aaron, interrupting. He continued to stomp around in anger, screaming into the darkened atmosphere until the police car came a minute later. Aaron made him switch seats, and they turned on the siren, shining just enough to see the rain, and sputtered off the parking lot and into the road like a rocket.
“What’re you doing, sir?” said the sixty-year-old police sergeant in the passenger seat.
“I’m catching the man who stole my car!” yelled Aaron angrily. “And next time don’t ask and I’ll tell you myself. That mouth will get you fired.” The old man quickly forced his head down and apologized. But Aaron knew who had stolen his car, knew the second he saw Mark’s ring on the bench, a flicker of light like the end of a match caught in his head like Mark’s, his fingers slipping from the illusion of control.
◆◆◆
Time went on, and joyful times were in sight. Mark’s cancer began to subside, and more frequent checkouts were occurring. He was also growing some peach fuzz, and Mary would rub it while he slowly fell asleep in their bed. She also began to paint joyful paintings; some were explosions of just plain, exciting, and plump youth-filled lines or dots mushed together. But more than those were Christian paintings of churches, steeples, children praying, and choirs singing in the name of God. Since Tom had gone missing, she loved God even more. Tom had been an amazing Christian, and Mary continued to say how it didn’t matter if Tom was dead or alive—he’d want them to be strong Christians of the Gospel. So their faith grew and extended past many boundaries because of their marriage and strength. She also began to sell her art to scrape up money for bills and food. There wasn’t a pantry full of snacks and cuisines anymore, nothing but the necessities.
“I thought the day would never come when I’d be able to see the back of the pantry,” chuckled Mark.
“Any more backtalk and you might wake up bald,” Mary said, smiling deviously before she walked over and kissed the feather-light layer of hair on the top of his head.
As Mark became closer and closer to remission, he joined the police force. Aaron was an assistant chief and an amazing influence. He snagged Mark a job on the computers, collecting 911 distress calls and sending the officers out. Sometimes he was able to ride with another officer, which was the luxury of a smaller town compared to Los Angeles and Chicago, but only when there was a safe call to attend and watch. He was still very weak and wasn’t contributing much but was respected highly on the team. They would hold the door, joke, and sit down at lunch. But the other officers were also terribly afraid. Men saw him as someone who’d been through a tough, complex life, and so they didn’t want to complain about their problems or show any negativity. Mark caught this at first glance and began to detest the ones who did, who sometimes feared Mark’s theoretical judicious eyes. As Mark grew in strength, he began to rent books at the public library. Broadway was, at the time, a pleasant, clean road with churchgoers, children running in and out of toy stores, young adults riding bikes from their homes to their work, and a variety of coffee shops to choose from. Full of life and inspiration was that road, full of a bright future. Mark would walk over to many coffee shops, but his favorite was the one called Tempus Garrapatas. He wouldn’t always buy coffee because the prices were outrageous, but he would sit down and learn about how a psychopath thinks, how drugs are smuggled, how they affect people’s appearances and personalities, and how professional drivers could speed down roads through tough, unavoidable obstacles like water in a stream. This was more than six months past diagnosis: August 30, 1991. After Mark partially read the books, and the sun was falling, he was picked up by Aaron and came home to Mary. She was crying in the corner, wearing a white painting apron splattered with a variety of spontaneous colors and sizes. Her hair was in a ponytail, with a few paint marks in there as well, although significantly tinier and gluing some strands of hair together. Mark ran up with his minimal strength and keeled down. He groaned a tad from the pain of bending his knees but didn’t yield to think about his stiff, small muscles as he continued to stare at what he believed was the most beautiful person in the world.
“Mary, what’s wrong?” Mark asked. Mary continued to cry and l
et go of a painting she was grasping toward her chest, the fresh paint on the side of the canvas smeared from her fingerprints gripping the painting. Mark reached in front of her and picked the painting up. It was the graffiti one with the three swans in the front, painted for Mark’s return.
My Hand Mitten Page 13
