And We All Fall (Book 1)

by Michael Patrick Jr. Mahoney

  Jackson looked down the road where he saw what had to be the biggest truck ever barreling towards Jumper. “Jumper!” He leapt out of the car and ran full speed to the road as the semi sped closer, not slowing down. He yelled his dog’s name once more just before he flew from the edge of the driveway.

  He grabbed Jumper’s midsection and pulled them both out of harm’s way just as the truck came to a screeching halt, though far too late to have made any different if the hard of hearing German Shepherd wasn’t tackled and moved out of the truck’s path by the person that loved him most in the world.

  “Holy crap! You saved him!” Jax said as he ran over to his father and Jumper, both of whom were slow to get up as the driver stepped out of his truck while dirt and smoke danced in the air above the road.

  “You alright?” the driver yelled over.

  “Yeah!” Jackson yelled back as he waved to the truck driver, who then climbed back into the truck and drove away while Jackson ran his hands over the canine, wincing.

  Jumper whined a little too, still laying on the ground.

  “Sorry I hit you so hard, buddy. You alright?” Jumper licked Jackson’s face, rising up on all fours slowly. “I’ll take that as a yes. Come on.”

  The three walked back to their driveway, stopping on the way to see what Jumper was licking.

  “Cheetos?” Jackson asked with a smile after studying the orange dust. “Really?” Jumper looked guilty as he looked up at Jackson who had squatted down and ran his finger slightly through the residue on the street. He let Jumper vigorously lick the cheese powder off his finger and then pet his head. “Can’t say I blame you, Cheetos are tasty.” Jackson rubbed Jumper’s head vigorously. “You get a pass for this one solider. Come on.”

  Jackson gathered all the fruit that had spilled to the ground and the trio pulled out of the driveway. They drove for twenty minutes. The Dodge Charger then pulled into the only remaining visitor parking spot at the Oaks Manor Nursing Home.

  Jackson began to tie Jumper to a post just outside the entrance.

  “Don’t do that. I’ll hold on to him for you,” one of the residents in a wheelchair there said.

  “Alright.” Jackson handed the leash to the man. “Thanks. Be good, Jumper.”

  He then signed himself and Jax into the visitor book in the lobby. They walked down the hallway towards room 132.

  Jackson was lost in thought with a death grip on the birthday card. He didn’t see Cindy Adams walking towards him from the other direction. She was in her late twenties, attractive, red-haired administrator of Oaks Manor. Her nose was buried in a patient chart. He didn’t notice the all too familiar urine smell that always seemed to emanate in the hallway whenever he visited.

  Jackson and Cynthia crashed into each other.

  “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry,” she said after first looking down exasperated at the patient chart that was now all over the floor, unaware of who bumped into her. She looked up while kneeling down to see who it was, and smiled a grand smile.

  “Jackson! It’s so good to see you!”

  “Hi, Cindy,” Jackson replied as he peeled the birthday card off the floor.

  They both stood up. Much of the chart contents were still scattered all over the floor.

  “Jamie didn’t mention you were going to be in town.” She looked at him as though he was an old boyfriend that she never got over, and never would.

  “I’m just on furlough this week. On my way out of town with Jax. Just a quick stop to see dad, sing him happy birthday.”

  She noted the birthday card in his hand. “That’s sweet.” She turned her gaze to Jax. “Hey, Jackson Junior. How are you doing? What’s that thing strapped to your chest?”

  “A GoPro.”

  “Oh. Neat. What’s it do?”

  “It takes pictures and records videos. I’m recording you now with it.”

  The way he said that drew a strange look from her, and from his father as well. Jax shrugged, unsure what to say. “It was my birthday present.”

  Cindy acknowledged with a head tilt.

  “How is my dad doing?” Jackson asked her as he knelt down with Cindy to help her pick up the papers. Her lose blouse revealed her pink bra. They stared at each other as Jackson handed her the papers he’d collected. Her eyes were easy to read, even through the flames. It was no secret to him, or to Jax for that matter, that she wanted more from him.

  Much more.

  She made that clear to Jackson over two years ago when Jackson moved his father into the nursing home.

  “Jamie doesn’t have to know,” she whispered in his ear from behind after he came by at lunchtime to visit his father there for the first time on a cold February day.

  Her warm breath on his neck gave him goosebumps.

  “I don’t live too far from here. We could go and be back in an hour, unless you need longer.”

  He was already naked given the look in her hungry eyes.

  After his visit with his father, he met her in her office. “So?” she asked.

  “He seems to be doing okay.”

  “I know. That’s not what I’m asking,” she licked her lips slowly.

  “Look. You are a very attractive woman. Any man would be lucky to…”

  “To?”

  “I love my wife.”

  She stood up from her chair talking as she walked around the desk. “I’m not asking you to love me, Jackson. Love is overrated.” She bent over and whispered seductively in his ear. “I just want you to screw my brains out.”

  Jackson looked away, flattered, but stunned. He’d never met a woman so forward. It was strange, yet he wondered very briefly what she would be like in the sack. He stood, stepped towards the door slowly and opened it without ever looking at the knob. “I appreciate the offer, but I do love my wife. Bye, Cindy.”

  “Offer stands if you ever change your mind,” she said as he made his escape with her eyes following every move.

  Now, two years later, with the same awful stench of piss in the air, it appeared her illicit offer more than stood.

  “I wish I could say he was doing well, Jackson,” Cindy replied as they stood up, the mess finally organized in the folder. “The disease has progressed quite a bit since you last saw him. Hasn’t your wife been updating you?” she asked as if to suggest nothing Jamie did could ever be good enough for Jackson.

  “Yes, she’s been updating me. I just… don’t want to believe it, I guess.”

  “Understandable,” she said sympathetically with her eyes still ablaze.

  The three started walking together to room 132, a private room with only one name on the door labeled ‘Stan Mills.’ As they entered, subtle tears emerged from Jackson’s eyes and rolled down his cheek. It took just one look at his father’s deteriorated, ghastly condition. Seconds.

  “Hi Dad,” he said, his voice shaky, as he walked closer to the bed. He bent over to kiss his father on the head as he wiped the tears away.

  The slightly graying man in the bed was not much more than a skeleton, a mere fifty two years old today. His skin was paper-thin. He wore a diaper and socks and was wearing no other apparel. A feeding tube protruded from his stomach. The aid in the room, Annie, was in the process of giving him a sponge bath.

  “Hi, Jackson,” Annie said, sweetly. She’d gotten to know him and his family quite well over the last couple of years. They were one of the few families that bothered to routinely visit the facility to see their loved one. “Let me cover him up and give you some time alone.”

  “That would be great. Thanks for everything you do for my dad, Annie. I really appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure.” Annie laid a blanket over Stan tenderly, as if he was her father. “He’s such a sweet man. Just like his son and grandson.”

  Annie and Jackson hugged each other tightly and she kissed Jax on the cheek before she walked out of the room waving goodbye, taking jealous Cindy with her. They closed the door as they left.

  Jackson knelt slowly
down beside the bed and stared at his father, who eventually seemed to notice the presence of others in the room. He struggled to turn his head, barely able to keep his eyes open, but did so slowly until they were giant. He smiled wildly for a moment when he saw his son, exposing a few rotted teeth and the absence of the rest.

  He mouthed some part of a word, unable to control his facial movements. As he saw Jax standing in the background, he started choking on his own saliva, something all too common now as he was slipping away.

  “It’s okay, dad. Don’t speak.” Jackson sniveled and took a deep breath, trying so hard to hold back the emotion that overwhelmed him, but failing. “Don’t try to speak.”

  Jackson tenderly rubbed his father’s forehead as he looked around the room smiling and choking, completely lost. Jax stepped back with anguish in his face as his grandfather’s emaciated body suddenly began to convulse uncontrollably, throwing the blanket to the floor.

  “Easy, dad. Easy.” Jackson held his father’s brittle body as tightly as he could without crushing his fragile bones. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” The convulsion began to slow after a few seconds. “You’re okay, dad. That’s it.” As Jackson continued to stroke his father’s head, he thought about the remnant scar from the knife wound on his shoulder. He retrieved the blank off the floor and laid it over his father. He laid his head on his father’s withered chest, the sweetest, most heartbreaking thing Jax ever saw.

  Jax put his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “It’s okay, dad. It’s okay, grandpa,” he said, reassuring them both.

  “I couldn’t do it,” Jackson said to his father as he wept into the blanket, his mind traveling again to another place in time. “I just couldn’t do it, dad. I’m so sorry.”

  He held his father’s hand in his own and held them both against his own forehead as he fought the trembling that began to take the Marine over. Stan felt so cold. It all felt so cold.

  “Jax, come see your grandpa,” Jackson whimpered, something Jax just wasn’t use to. His puzzled facial expression gave that away.

  Jax walked over to his grandfather and kissed him on the forehead, just like his mother did whenever they come to see him. He snapped the GoPro out of the harness.

  “I love you, grandpa. I made you a video,” he said as he carefully placed the GoPro on the blanket covering his grandfather’s feeble chest and pointed the screen towards the patriarch’s weathered face. He pressed a button and backed away while Jackson caressed his father’s forehead once more as the video Jax made of himself singing happy birthday to his grandfather played in the otherwise deathly silent room. Jumper barked in the background of the recording.

  “I’m sorry, dad,” Jackson said one more time, his face painted with snot and tears as the video ended. “To infinity.” Jackson kissed his father’s forehead and stood the birthday card up on the bedside table. “Happy birthday.”

  A handwritten message now marked the card’s white space and could be read by anyone that walked by it. Just two words: Ad Infinitum.

  Jackson retrieved the GoPro and took one last, long look at his father now as he stood in the doorway. He and his son left the room and closed the door behind them.

  They walked down the hallway and stopped in Cindy’s office. Jackson still had tears in his eyes as he took a few steps inside the doorway. Cindy sprang up from her chair and began to tear up herself, unable to see a man cry without crying herself. She rushed over to Jackson and hugged him tightly.

  “I’m so sorry.” They released their embrace quickly, Jackson’s choice. “I know it’s hard. I’m sorry for you too, Jax. So sorry about your grandpa.”

  She moved to hug him as well, but the boy backed away. “Thank you.”

  “Where are you two heading now? You said you and Jax are going out of town.”

  “Maine,” Jackson replied.

  “That’s far.”

  “I have business there.”

  “I see. Well, I hope it goes well.”

  “Thanks. We’re going to get moving now. Bye, Cindy.” Jackson started for the doorway.

  “Oh wait! I need to talk to you about one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “Your father’s truck.”

  “His truck?”

  “Yeah. It is still parked in the back of the facility. Remember? You were supposed to move it off the property before you went back into active duty.”

  “Oh yeah. I completely forgot it was here.”

  “I’m getting some pressure from our regional director to get it off the property.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for starters, there’s a big gun in the rear window. And we’re not a vehicle storage lot.”

  “Right. Well, let’s go see if we can get it started. Probably needs a jump. Meet me back there with the keys,” Jackson said to Jax and Cindy.

  Jax and Cindy exited through the back door of the facility and walked over to the truck after she retrieved its keys from a file cabinet. The truck was right where Jackson parked it two years earlier when he brought his father here to die.

  The white and green 1971 Chevy C10 still seemed to be in good shape.

  Jackson pulled up next to it in his shiny new Charger, with Jumper again in the back. Cindy handed Jackson the keys to the truck and he unlocked the door. He slid into the long bench seat and cranked the engine. It didn’t make a sound.

  “Dead,” he said and turned his head to see the rifle still clipped into a gun rack and positioned against the rear window glass.

  “It’s been sitting awhile,” Cindy commented. “No attention.”

  “I, Now, Am Like A Flower, Unwatered, To Wilt,” Jackson uttered as he hopped out of the truck.

  Cindy looked at Jackson and smiled. “What was that you just said?”

  “I, Now, Am Like A Flower, Unwatered, To Wilt. It’s from a poem by, let’s see. I think his name is Michael… Gale,” Jackson said as he walked over to the trunk of the Charger and pulled out jumper cables. “Yeah. Gale. I share an office with a literature professor at the university. She has the poem framed on her wall. I must have read it a thousand times. A thousand too many.”

  How does the rest of it go?” Cindy sounded intrigued.

  “Let me think,” he said as he popped the hood on the truck. “My stomach gnaws at me. Like my guilt. I now am like a flower, unwatered to wilt.”

  Jackson attached the jumper cables to his car battery, his strong hands getting more and more grease on them, exciting the nursing home director.

  “A ghost without sustenance or substance. An empty shell of my former self. Nothing to claim or sell on the society shelf.”

  Jackson attached the other end of the jumper cables to the truck battery as his captive audience waited.

  “How should I go on? With help from God and Christ. Matters beyond my control. Matters much too not.”

  He sat in his Charger and revved the engine a few times. He stepped out and walked towards the truck as he continued reciting the poem.

  “Why complain? About all the world's pain. Move on and smile. Without greed or denial. Move on and send up a prayer. Kneel down and hope upwardly and stare.”

  He sat in the truck and turned the key. The engine started after a few cranks and Jackson smiled as he recalled the final verse, proud of himself.

  “He up there. Will love, forgive, and care. He can help. He does. I swear.”

  He sat silent listening to the engine purr with Cindy and Jax staring at him.

  “Nice! You got it started,” Cindy said.

  Jackson nodded. “Yep. It had a new battery in it when I parked it here nine months ago, so it should have some good life in it still.”

  “Good job, dad.”

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  “What a beautiful poem,” Cindy said. “What do you think it means?” She noted the feeling of wetness between her legs.

  Jackson thought about his father, the way he looked and the torment Jackson himself felt. Then he thought about that
morning he woke up at Walter Reed Hospital, alive, somehow. He can help. He does. I swear.

  “I don’t know. Jax, how you feel about riding in grandpa’s old pickup truck to Maine?”

  “Really?” Jax had always loved the truck. So did Jackson for that matter.

  “Sure. Seems meant to be.”

  “Let’s do it!”

  Jackson noticed Cindy staring hard at him. “I think it means that God will take care of everything in the end.”

  “Do you believe that?” she asked.

  Jackson looked at Cindy as if he agreed and disagreed at the same time. He had a hard time believing in God’s existence anymore despite being raised Catholic.

  He walked over to the Charger without responding to Cindy and grabbed his bag and the dog food from the trunk.

  “Grab your bag and laptop, Jax. Come on, Jumper,” he said and Jumper jumped out of the car. Jackson locked the Charger up and handed the keys to Cindy.

  “If you don’t mind. Don’t have this one towed, but there is a gun in the glove box. I’ll be back to get it at the end of the week.”

  “I may take it for a ride. The car and the gun,” Cindy said with a sultry grin. She wanted nothing more than to be bad for a while, though it wouldn’t be nearly as fun without Jackson by her side.

  Jackson smiled, assuming she was kidding (or meant something else), but he didn’t care either way. He was flooded with emotion after seeing his father like that and now preparing to take a road trip in his father’s truck.

  Jackson looked at Jax. “Hop in.” Jackson turned to Jumper. “Let’s go boy. Come on, Jumper. In the truck.” Jumper jumped in the truck and Jackson slid in after him.

  “Perhaps I’ll see you when you come back for the car,” Cindy said as she undressed Jackson for the umpteenth time with her eyes.

  A picture fell on to Jackson’s lap as he pulled down the visor. He stared at it and smiled.

  “What’s that?” Jax asked as he closed the door, sitting on the other side of Jumper.

  “Take care, Cynthia,” Jackson replied to Cindy, ignoring another attempt to seduce him.