Dispensations

by Randolph Thomas

  She turned in at their driveway. As she started up the hill, he perked up and leaned forward in his seat.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “What’s what?”

  “I think somebody’s back there. Can you pull around behind the house and shine the headlights back there?”

  Behind the house was a plank fence, and beyond the fence, the woods and the low ridges of the mountain.

  “Jesus,” she said. “First you hit a dog that you thought was a person, and now you think you see somebody in the woods behind the house. Are you falling apart on me?”

  “I’ve had a feeling somebody’s been watching the place,” he said.

  “You haven’t said anything.”

  “I’ve had other things on my mind. Would you just do it?” She drove onto the grass, across the bumpy backyard, and slowly pulled around to the side of the house so the headlights pointed at the trees.

  “Leave the lights on,” he said. “Let’s go inside and look around.”

  They got out and climbed the steps to the deck door. He went in first and turned on the light by the door.

  “Stay here,” he said. He went down the stairs, and she could hear him moving around in the basement. When he came back up shaking his head, she followed him upstairs and they looked into each of the bedrooms.

  “I don’t think anybody’s been in here,” he said.

  “I’m sure you’re right. It was probably a deer. Or maybe another dog.”

  She’d meant to be rude, but her rudeness didn’t seem to have registered with him.

  “I thought somebody was out there,” he said.

  He put his hand against her cheek and stared at her with a defeated, empty look, and she knew who it was, who he kept seeing.

  “Maybe I am falling apart,” he said.

  His voice sounded hoarse, like he was getting sober enough to stumble on some truth. She hoped he might continue, “It’s not just the time you were away in Atlanta, but the reasons you went in the first place. It’s not just the other man, it’s someone else, it’s you,” but these were her words, she knew, not his.

  “I need to move the car,” she said.

  She kissed him on the cheek and went back down the stairs. She went out the deck door and crossed the lawn to the car. She got in and started the engine. Sensing that her husband was watching her and maybe the woods too, she glanced back and saw his face in their bedroom window. She put the car into reverse and eased her foot onto the gas pedal.

  It came to her then that her husband might have seen someone real after all. She’d seen someone earlier, after they’d fought about going into town and she’d stormed out of the house. She’d climbed over the fence and hiked the short path through the trees. She’d stopped on the ridge, stood and watched the house. She watched her husband get into the Chevy, back down the driveway, and turn sharply onto Barger Road. She was thinking that she was starting to get a new perspective on the whole thing, literally and figuratively.

  She’d heard footsteps crunching through the leaves. She was still thinking of the other man, although not in the way her husband imagined, and she was still angry with her husband. She was saying to herself that there could never be any mercy in what the other man had done, not for any of them, and she was wondering if they would ever get beyond her life in Atlanta.

  Turning, she saw who it was: Mr. Cooper, a rifle under one arm, three or four rabbits slung over his shoulder, and Josey, her nose following the fresh kills, close at his heels.

  THE LOST ARTS

  I walk out of the room that used to be mine—where I spent endless hours listening to music, reading comics and magazines my folks sold as soon as I was out the door, probably for next to nothing, where I planned what life would be like once I got out of there—the walls I covered with posters now lined with shelves of my mother’s paperback mysteries.

  It’s my first morning back. In the kitchen, already suited up for work, my mother, huffs past me. Getting her lunch together, she’s a ghost from every morning of my childhood.

  Hunched at the table, in his robe and glasses, my father is a ghost too, his hair long and gray.

  “Don’t forget his pills,” my mother says. “He got up late. I didn’t have time to give him breakfast.”

  When she’s gone, I pour cereal and skim milk into two bowls, cut a grapefruit in half, pour two glasses of orange juice, and carry our breakfast to the table.

  “What time is it?” my father says, like he has someplace to go.

  “A few minutes ’til eight,” I say.

  “My watch,” he says. “It’s broken.”

  He dangles his wristwatch close to his ear and twists the knob, but I doubt anything’s wrong with it. Along with everything else, the stroke seems to have affected his ability to work simple mechanical things and to tell time.

  “Let me look at it,” I say, but he glares at me like I might steal it from him.

  We eat together in silence, and I leave him at the table shaking his watch. I put away the breakfast things and head for the living room. While I flip through cable channels, he staggers back to his and Mom’s bedroom. When he comes back, he’s dressed in a business suit with no tie, and his white shirt is buttoned wrong. One of his boots is unzipped and the cuff of his pant leg is crammed down into the top. He steps sideways into the room, watching me and rubbing his arm.

  I ask him what’s up, and he scratches his head, a cartoon gesture of somebody thinking hard.

  “Left some things in the car,” he says. He mumbles when he speaks to me, his eyes never on me, always on something else.

  “Okay. You need me?”

  “I’m grown man. Fifty-nine years old.”

  “But you’re not yourself.”

  “Who am I then?” he says, the good side of his mouth grinning at his own joke.

  As long as I’ve known him, he’s sold advertising, at first for local radio and TV stations, then for the local newspaper. When he was about forty, he said he was fed up with working for other people, and he started a guide for visitors, the kind of small slick rag you see on racks in motel lobbies and restaurants. Over the years he’s done a little better than break even. He spent his days and many evenings in restaurants, motel offices, lounges, and civic centers. When I was a kid, during summer vacation, I’d ride into the city with him. While he talked to clients, I’d wait around, sitting in restaurants drinking bottomless glasses of soft drinks, and listening to his pitches and stories. Some days he’d drop me at a movie theater and pick me up hours later after I’d sat through the same movie many times.

  I feel guilty for the way I’ve been looking at him, so I look away. He opens the door and goes out. I’m supposed to be watching him, and he’s not supposed to go anywhere. How could he? When I hear the car door slam, I throw down the channel changer and step onto the porch. I can see the back of his car sticking out from under the carport at the side of the house. The ignition grinds. I rush down the front steps, down the sidewalk to the car, and I open the driver’s door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I say.

  He doesn’t answer, acts like he hasn’t even heard me. He’s flooded the engine, but he can’t seem to tell. He just keeps on turning the key, stomping the gas.

  “Stop it,” I shout, and after a second, he does.

  “I need go into the city,” he says, staring at the wheel in his hands. He sucks his bottom lip and squints.

  “You don’t need to go anywhere,” I say. “Why don’t you come back inside the house?”

  “I have business.”

  “I know,” I say, “but right now you’re still too sick to go anywhere. The doctor says you’ll get better, but right now you need to rest.”

  I see the keychain dangling from the ignition. I reach into the car past him, take the key out, and he grabs hold of my wrist. It’s amazing how strong his good hand is. We pull back and forth a few times.

  “Let go,” I say. “You’re not getting
them back that way.”

  Gradually his big, shaky eyes narrow a little, showing some understanding, and then his fingers let go. My hands are trembling.

  “I want my keys,” he says.

  His eyes follow the keys to my pocket.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” I say. “Please.”

  “Give my goddamn keys.”

  I shake my head.

  “It won’t be forever,” I say. “I promise that.”

  He squints and chews his lower lip.

  “I need go through some things,” he says. “In the trunk.”

  He doesn’t trust me enough to tell me what he’s looking for. He has me open the trunk, and I stand at the end of the sidewalk while he hovers over his boxes, squinting in the morning sunlight. He can’t find what he needs so the next step is for me to heft each box and carry it inside. He watches me the whole time like I might steal something, like I’d want anything of his.

  He spends the rest of the morning hunched at the dining room table examining the contents of his boxes: brochures, menus, and folders of ad copy, like they’re artifacts from ancient Rome. He studies the phone book and his little black book, stuffed with cards and slips of paper. He goes through the briefcase that is always right beside the chair he sits in. He stares at his watch, asking again and again what time it is. He makes phone calls. I don’t have the heart to stop him, but after he dials a number, he sits with the phone cradled below his chin for a long time before speaking and sometimes doesn’t speak at all. Often, after five or ten minutes, he lays the phone on the table like he’s forgotten it.

  For his therapy, we go to the backyard. The ball I pitch to him is oversized, plastic, and hollow, like the bat he tries to hit it with.

  “If I hit a home run, I get my keys,” he says.

  When I throw the ball, he squints at it. He doesn’t swing until the ball has flown past him. He gets tired quickly, and the therapy ends. Most of the afternoon he naps and sits at the table.

  At a quarter ’til five, my mother comes home from work. Today has been her first day back on the job since my father’s stroke, and when she walks in, her eyes dart around the living room after something I’ve done wrong that she can correct me about.

  In the kitchen, my father stares at his watch. He shakes it, holds it to his ear. My mother looks him over, fusses with him, and tells him with her sharp voice he needs to sit up straighter, to concentrate, to look at people when they talk to him. Then she heads back to their bedroom to change clothes. I follow her, stop her in the hall, and tell her about the incident with the car.

  At first she looks furious, like I’ve done something wrong. She nods and says, “See, you have to watch him every minute. He’s devious and secretive, but you know what he’s like.” After a moment, she exhales, and looking tired, says, “You probably saved his life today.”

  “What about his keys?” I say.

  “You’d better hang onto those. At least until he gets it through his head there’s something wrong with him.”

  After supper, they sit in the living room. My mother does the crossword, and he sits next to her with his eyes closed. Just being around them, after having been with him all day, tires me out.

  I tell them, tell her, “I think I’ll go out now.”

  She narrows her eyes at me like she thinks I might drive off and not come back, then nods sharply. Of course, she says, I’m free to do as I please, but she reminds me yet again that for the last couple of weeks, before I agreed to come home, she was with him 24-7 with no breaks.

  I sold my car, an old Ford, to the junk man right before I left LA to fly home, so I take my father’s Toyota. He has a round compass stuck to the dashboard, other unnecessary things, stickers, name-tags from meet-and-greets, stuck everywhere.

  I drive to the Tavern, a place with money from around the world, all of it faded and crinkled, stapled to the corkboard ceiling to give the impression, I suppose, that people somewhere else care what goes on here. The karaoke stage is empty; on the sign, Thursday Night Karaoke has been crossed through with a magic marker. I sit at the bar and drink five or six drafts. I don’t even know the bartender anymore.

  I see one person I know, Janine, from high school. Janine’s mother is, or used to be, a nurse at the plant where my mother works. I wave at Janine, but I don’t want to talk to her or anyone who knows me.

  Maybe one person.

  On her way out, Janine taps me on the shoulder and says hi. I ask her if she’s seen Melanie, where Melanie’s working now, and she tells me. I want to ask more, but Janine’s friends, two middle-aged ladies, are in too much of a hurry for her to talk.

  My parents are right where I left them, except that they’ve changed into their pajamas. My mother is wearing the glasses that make her eyes look old, watching some English mystery on TV, and my father is asleep with his mouth open.

  I put on the same sober act as in high school and say that I saw Janine. My mother says Janine’s mother has retired and Janine has a good job someplace. My mother says as soon as my father’s able to stay by himself, I ought to start looking for some part-time work.

  “Anything is fine with me, as long as there’s no commitment.”

  “Of course not,” she says. “You wouldn’t want a job that would lead to something.”

  She stares at the TV, and feeling like I’ve been dismissed, I turn and go.

  “Just as long as your father’s able to take care of himself,” she says. “Try to stick around until he’s well.”

  I nod, and she fixes her stare on me.

  “You have to watch out for the police here,” she says. “They arrest people who don’t obey the law.”

  I say I’m going to bed now, and she tells me good night.

  At the breakfast table, my father asks if I’d be willing to take him into the city.

  “We ought to hang out here,” I say.

  “You could drive me around. I could see people. You could go to the movies. Like old times.”

  I shake my head, hoping he doesn’t push it. Given his condition, he wouldn’t be able to make much of a sales pitch anyway. He wouldn’t be able to put his magazine together, not without lots of help, and helping him with his magazine is something I have zero interest in.

  “Don’t tell your mother,” he says. “It’ll just upset her.”

  I say I’ll keep it between us.

  In the afternoon, I drive my father to the doctor’s office for his exam. Dr. Cupp, who is a year or so younger than my father, apologizes for not having foreseen the stroke. It broadsided them both, he says.

  My father takes off his shirt and sits on the examination table. Dr. Cupp looks into my father’s ears and taps his knees. When he touches a stethoscope against my father’s back, my father shivers.

  “He minding all right?” Dr. Cupp asks. He’s listening to my father’s heart, talking to me.

  “I’ve been good,” my father says.

  “I asked him, didn’t I?”

  “He’s doing okay,” I say.

  “When do I go back to work?” my father says.

  “I can’t kid you. I don’t know the answer, but we’ll know it’s time when it’s time.”

  “Can I see you alone?” my father asks.

  The doctor looks at me apologetically, so I go out. All the chairs are full, so I lean by the checkout window with my arms crossed. When the doctor steps out of the examination room, he waves me over.

  “Your dad been after you to take him places?” he says.

  “He wants to go back to work,” I say.

  The doctor shakes his head. “Short walks for light exercise might be okay now,” he says, “but don’t let him drag you into the city to see people. He’s got to have some downtime, stress-free.”

  That afternoon, while my father is asleep at the kitchen table, I go back out, closing the front door softly behind me. I drive to the shopping center and park in front of Hobby Lobby. I find Melanie where Janine said she’d be, near
the back of the store, cutting a frame for a customer. She’s wearing funny-looking goggles and operating a buzz-saw. Her hair is pulled back by a headband and she’s wearing capri pants under her Hobby Lobby smock. She notices me when I walk up, but she has to finish with the customer. I wait.

  “Look at you,” she says, once she’s finished. “What’s it been, five years, and I’ve heard nothing?”

  “I told you what it was going to be like,” I say. “I didn’t want to do anything that would create any false hope. Not for either of us.”

  “Right, right.”

  Melanie’s just looking at me, and neither one of us knows what to say, so I take a deep breath and start telling her about my father’s stroke. I say it’s the reason I came back. I say I can’t leave my dad alone too long, I just wanted to drop in and say hi, and after a moment’s pause I say I needed to see her.

  Shaking her head, she says she can’t believe I’m here, that I’d just suddenly walk in like this. She says she can’t get over it.

  I say I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I say I don’t want her to get into trouble for talking to me when she should be talking to customers. I say I’d like to talk to her, though, away from here. I suggest we get together for a drink or something to eat.

  “Think about it, please,” I say.

  The front door is standing open. I park under the carport and get out calling my father. I walk into the living room, into the dining room where he’s spread his stuff over the table. The receiver is buzzing on the table, so I hang it up. I look in the bedrooms, go down in the basement and look there. I go back outside and look all around the backyard, then back inside to check the telephone messages, but there are none. Calling my mother crosses my mind, but then it exits quickly. If I can just find him, maybe I can keep her from knowing I’ve screwed up.

  He might have called a cab or someone he knows, but I drive around the neighborhood anyway. I drive slowly, making larger and larger circumferences. I drive nearly a mile along Cove Road toward the city, watching the sidewalk.

  I’ve never known him to take a bus anywhere, but when I see him he’s sitting alone on a bench at a bus stop. He looks calm but worn out, thin, and elderly. He’s got his briefcase with him and he’s clutching it to his chest. I pull over and park on a wide gravel shoulder, get out, and go over to him. His face sags. He’s nodding off and doesn’t even notice when I walk up.