Dad

by William Wharton

  I find the key where I’d hung it on the shed door. I hook up the battery, but, of course, it’s run down. I pull the battery, put it in the car trunk; Dad and I drive to the nearest service station for a quick charge. They tell me there it’ll take an hour.

  “OK, Dad, while we wait, let’s go have a beer in that bar across the street.”

  He looks at me.

  “What?”

  “There’s a little bar there, let’s go chug one down while we’re waiting.”

  “Do you think that’ll be all right?”

  “Sure, come on, we’re both over twenty-one; there’s no law against having an afternoon beer in a bar. That’s what they’re for.”

  It’s an ordinary bar; dim, mildly air-conditioned, an old window blower humming away. There’s something I like about going into a bar daytimes, especially here in California. After a while, that high, bluish sky and the strange blankness of everything bears me down. It’s a relief ducking into the dark, thick air of a bar.

  We sit in a booth. This is a classic place; a few regulars are standing or sitting at the bar and there’s at least one hustler working up after-lunch customers.

  “What’ll you have, Dad?”

  “Well, a beer would be fine, but we’ve got plenty of cold beer in the refrigerator just around the corner.”

  I order two beers and ask Dad if he’d rather sit at the bar.

  “Do you think that’d be OK?”

  “Sure, come on.”

  We climb up on stools; the bartender shoves a bowl of peanuts down to us.

  “Do the peanuts cost extra, John?”

  “Not usually, Dad, unless inflation’s really hit hard here.”

  I take a handful and Dad carefully picks out one.

  Dad tells me he hasn’t been in a bar by himself for over fifty years, not since before he got married. He’s looking at the people, using the mirror behind the bar. He’s peeking at the women; one of them gives him a nice smile. He looks away fast and stares into his beer.

  “Do you come into bars like this often, John?”

  “In Paris, it’s not so much bars, Dad; we have cafés. You can sit, drink a coffee or a beer, but it isn’t like this; some of them you sit outside. It’s different. Not many days go by when I don’t stop in one of my favorite cafés.”

  Dad looks as if he isn’t sure this mightn’t be wicked. I glance at my watch; we still have almost half an hour. I try encouraging Dad to talk about what it was like before he was married, when he was working at Hog Island carpentering with his father and brothers. I don’t get anywhere. It’s difficult to know if he doesn’t remember or just doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t even remember when Uncle Harry lived with us at home in Philly. That’s an important part of my personal life and it’s hard for me to accept he doesn’t remember at all.

  I know Vron has strong memories of things we did together, things I don’t remember, and it’s the same with me. In a terrible way, we’re all alone.

  We pick up the battery, drive home and mount it on the bike. I turn the key, kick it and the motor turns right over. It’s a terrific feeling getting a motor moving again, bringing something back to life.

  I buzz the bike up and down the street a few times. It’s been sitting so long it blows off black smoke and backfires but then smoothes out. I roll in and park on the driveway. It idles, ticking over.

  It’s coming on to dinnertime and I consider a restaurant but decide the business with the bar was enough excitement for one day. Dad’s already missed his “soaps” and is wandering around looking at the clock, turning the TV on and off. A big part of his life didn’t happen today. He’s gotten to a point where that TV world is real life, and I’m responsible for a missing day.

  I decide to compensate by whipping up a tasty dinner. I scrounge the freezer and find a pair of reasonable-looking Spencer steaks. I’ll put together one of my quickie specials. I defrost, then fry up the steaks in a sauce made from mushroom soup. Then I pour a touch of wine over this, simmering it slowly for an hour on the back burner, set low with a cover. It comes out a savory dish somewhere between steak and stew. Using one of those toaster-oven affairs with the glass front, I unfreeze some packaged French fries, and open up a can of peas. I’m enjoying myself. Dad’s out in the garden watering, then he goes into the greenhouse. I keep looking to see if he’s all right but in there he’s invisible to me.

  Fixing a spade in the potting shed, locking its shaft in my vise; smooth hickory, shined by calluses, like time.

  I set the table and call Dad. He’s surprised again that I’ve pulled food from the kitchen; that it’s hot, and on plates.

  He asks if there are any onions in the meat and I assure him there aren’t. I suggest we have beer with the dinner.

  “We’re going to get drunk drinking beer all the time, John.”

  “A couple bottles of beer never hurt anybody I know of, Dad. Come on, it’ll help us both relax.”

  So we have beer with the meal and coffee after. I make a reasonably strong cup; it’s instant, and only a matter of how many spoonfuls you put in boiling water, not such a big deal.

  Dad pours in his usual single level spoonful of sugar, stirs it intently for almost a minute then dinks off the last drops from his spoon on the inside edge of his cup. He lifts the cup carefully, his lips sticking out the way a horse or mule goes into a bucket of water. He blows gently before he sips. My father’s lips are notoriously sensitive to hot drinks.

  He pulls his head back and looks into the cup, puts in two more spoonfuls of sugar, goes through the stirring and dinking routine again. This time he sips his way through the rest of the coffee as if he’s drinking calvados or a good marc de Bourgogne.

  “Boy, John, that’s some coffee. Was that decaffeinated? Your mother and I only drink real coffee in the morning.”

  I assure him it’s decaffeinated.

  “Well, it certainly is strong. Is that the way they make coffee in the army?”

  “No, that’s French style, Dad. They drink tiny cups of very strong coffee, usually without cream or milk.”

  “I sure hope I sleep tonight.”

  After dishes, we head off to the hospital. This time Dad can point out a few street names. It’s coming back. I explain how in an emergency he might need to drive Mother to the hospital.

  “But I don’t have a driver’s license, John.”

  “It’d be an emergency, Dad. If it’s a question of life and death, they’re not going to arrest you.”

  I ought to have him drive me around the block a few times, for practice.

  Mother’s complaining. They won’t let her watch TV. There’s a TV hanging on the other side of the room but the nurses won’t allow her a control panel. She wants to know if there isn’t some way I can make them take off the monitors.

  “It’s driving me crazy, Jacky; those dumb green lines wiggle up and down and that red dot’s blinking all the time making different numbers. It’d drive anybody insane.”

  I explain about the pulse and the electrocardiograph; how the nurses watch all the time.

  “See, they’re only using me as a guinea pig! I knew it! How’s all that going to help me get better? They’re experimenting on me. We pay good money and they don’t care if I live or die.”

  Dad shakes his head.

  “Now, Bette, you just do what the doctors say. They know their business. You’ve got to trust them.”

  As we’re about to go, he comes out with it again. I was hoping I’d get him away in time.

  “When are you coming home, Bette?”

  Mom gives me another look. She has a way of not only raising her eyebrows but dropping her left eye in a slow, lewd, knowing wink. Dad sees and shrivels.

  “Don’t you worry, Dad; Mother’s comfortable here and we’ll have her home soon’s the doctors say she’s ready.”

  Mother charges in.

  “Believe me, nobody wants to get out any faster than I do.”

  Mom ins
ists I talk with the doctor about her indigestion theory. I tell her I’ll make an appointment.

  When we get home, I talk to Dad about the things he has to learn.

  “I’ll never remember all that, Johnny. You have to remember I forget.”

  I start making lists. I print these lists in capital letters with a felt-tip pen on five-by-seven cards. It’s like computer programming. I reduce it all to yes-no fact, on-off thinking; binary. I try to make everything simple and clear. For example, when I say wash dishes, I list every act involved in washing dishes. There are thirty-seven distinct steps, such as: put one squeeze of soap in the water, or pull stopper from sink, wring out sponge. I hang this card over the sink. For dusting, I list all the things that need to be dusted, where the dustcloth is and finish with “put dustcloth back on hook in hall closet.”

  It’s fun for me; and Dad enters into the spirit of things. He isn’t insulted. He likes having me tell him what to do in clear terms so there’s no chance he can make a mistake. It’s the boss-worker syndrome again.

  I put one set of cards on a clipboard with the jobs in order as they need to be done during a typical day. He carries that clipboard around. At night he puts it on his night table beside him.

  Next morning he dresses himself, makes his bed and comes out, heading for the bathroom, with his aircraft-carrier cap on his head. He’s reading from the clipboard as he shuffles down the hall. It’s pitiful and funny, but he’s happy; it’s like a treasure hunt. That evening, when he isn’t watching television, he goes over his board, looking at the different cards, asking me questions.

  “I can do this; I’m sure I can get this all worked out.”

  I also begin preparing him to care for Mom. I’m worried she’ll have another heart attack at home after I’m gone. So much can be done in those first minutes. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and external heart massage can be the difference between life and death. Dad has to learn.

  I start talking to him about it, but something in him doesn’t want to listen; he doesn’t want to be involved with such a stressful situation. But I press on. It’s somewhere in here I can’t baby him.

  “Look, Dad, I’ll show you how. You only need to follow instructions.”

  He won’t meet my eyes.

  “This is something I learned in the army, Dad; hundreds of people’s lives have been saved this way.”

  I hate lying to him, but I’m pulling out all stops. The only time I ever gave mouth-to-mouth or external massage was to an old lady in France and she was already dead. I learned what little I know from my personal bible, the Merck Manual.

  When the station break and ad come on, I talk Dad into getting down on the floor in front of the TV. He lies out and crosses his hands on his chest like a corpse. He stares at the ceiling, still not looking at me. I kneel beside him, put a hand under his neck and lift.

  “Now open your mouth and stick out your tongue, Dad.”

  He does it, I grab hold under his chin, lifting and pulling back at the same time; I pinch his nostrils shut with my fingers; he’s looking at me. All the time, I’m explaining in what I hope is a calm, quiet voice.

  “Now right here, Dad, is where I put my mouth over yours and breathe for you.”

  He begins struggling. He twists his head and turns on his side.

  “Oh, no; don’t do that!”

  He gets to his knees.

  “I wasn’t going to actually do it, Dad, I was only explaining!”

  I lie down on the rug and ask him to take hold of me the way I did him. I work his hand under my neck and stick my tongue out. I position his other hand so he can pinch my nostrils. His hands are shaking so he almost pulls my nose off. He keeps sneaking looks at the TV for the show to start again. He looks down.

  “Do people do this to each other in public, John?”

  “Sure, you might have to do this for Mother. If she has another heart attack, you’ll need to force air into her lungs so oxygen gets to her brain. It’s the only chance she’ll have.”

  He leans back. He pushes himself up onto his feet and backs his way to the platform rocker.

  “That might be right, John, but it looks sinful. Do men do that to each other? Maybe sometimes God just means for us to die.”

  I relax and watch TV with him. I can understand his feelings but he’s got to get over it; it’s too important.

  At the next break, I want to show him something about external heart massage. I talk him into getting down on the floor again.

  “Now look, Dad, while you’re doing mouth-to-mouth, you should also give external heart massage. This is to get the heart beating again. You have to push hard, once every second, right in the center of the chest.”

  I lean over and begin pressing him with the heel of my hand on his sternum about half as hard as you should for effective heart stimulation, but hard enough so he gets the idea.

  “Hey, that hurts! That would really hurt a woman; you’d be hitting her right on the…in the…breasts.”

  “She wouldn’t feel anything, Dad, she’d be unconscious. It’s better having a few black-and-blue marks than being dead, isn’t it?”

  He lifts himself up on one elbow.

  “She’d never let me do that, Johnny. She’d never let me hit her like that. I’ve never hit a woman in my life. I could never do that.”

  “You’d have to, Dad; it’d be a matter of life and death.”

  The program’s on again; it’s about some smart dolphin, if you can believe it. Dad settles with a deep sigh into his rocker. He’s breathing hard and sneaks looks at me as if he’s narrowly escaped from a crazed sex maniac.

  While he’s busy with the TV, I write out on cards, in big letters, the hospital phone numbers, the fire department, the nearest ambulance and Joan. I stick these cards on the wall over both phones, the one in the living room and the one in the bedroom. The big trouble is Dad never uses a phone. It’s hard even getting him to pick up a phone and hold it when someone else has called him. To be honest, I’ve never seen him dial a number. We didn’t have a phone when I lived at home. It’s only here in California they’ve had one. I hate phones myself, but Christ, in this world, spread out as it is, you can’t just ignore them.

  So it’s going to be tough preparing Dad to dial a number, then get across an emergency message. I try reducing it to simplest terms. I tape the message over each of the phones. It says:

  THIS IS A HEART ATTACK EMERGENCY. THE VICTIM IS

  UNCONSCIOUS. COME IMMEDIATELY. ADDRESS 10432

  COLBY LANE, OFF OVERLAND AT PALMS.

  I have Dad repeat this till he knows it by heart. We practice dialing Joan’s number with the phone on the hook till he can do it. Then I go into the bedroom and call Joan. I tell her Dad’s going to phone and practice his emergency-call routine. She says she’ll wait.

  I put the phone down and go into the bathroom. When I come back into the living room, Dad’s watching dolphins again. I crumple onto the floor in front of him and lie there with my arms spread.

  “Now, Dad, I’m Mother and I’ve just had a heart attack. Call Joan and give her the message.”

  He gets up and stands over me.

  “Are you all right, Johnny?”

  “Yes. Now do what we practiced.”

  He drops to his knees and starts putting his hand behind my head, pulling away and back.

  “No, Dad. Call Joan first, give her the message.”

  He struggles up and goes over to the phone. He dials without lifting the receiver.

  “Lift the receiver, Dad.”

  He lifts it and holds it against his ear listening but now he isn’t dialing.

  “Dial, Dad.”

  He has the receiver wrong way around, the wire coming out of his ear.

  “Turn it around, Dad.”

  He turns the phone around on the table.

  “No, the receiver, Dad. Turn it so the wire comes out the mouth part.”

  He pulls it away from his head, stares at it, then slowly turns
it around. He smiles. Now he concentrates on the card tacked to the wall.

  “Remember, Dad. Call Joan, not the ambulance or the fire department or the hospital. Call Joan.”

  “Yeah, I got it, John, Joan.”

  He begins dialing. He dials each number with great precision, keeping his finger in the hole to and fro. From the floor I can hear the phone ringing. Thank God, it’s Joan’s voice. I strain to listen. Dad’s holding the receiver two inches from his head.

  “Hello, Dad?”

  “Oh! Hi, Joan, how are you, nice to hear from you.”

  I loud-whisper from the floor.

  “Give her the message.”

  “Here, Joan, Johnny wants to talk with you.”

  He starts trying to pass the receiver down to me on the floor but the cord isn’t long enough.

  “No, Dad. Give her the message, remember, the message.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember. Joan? Johnny’s lying on the floor here, in front of me, and he says he’s Mother and he’s had a heart attack.”

  I’m not sure at this point if he’s kidding. I get up and take the phone.

  “Hello, Joan; guess who.”

  I can’t get a sensible word out of her. I’d been so involved with making my invincible plan work I hadn’t been seeing how funny it all is. I start laughing, too, and Dad’s sitting in the chair smiling. He’s glad to hear us laughing.

  We practice this sociodrama till Dad has it down pat. I phone the ambulance company and ask if they’ll handle a dummy call. They’re cooperative and go along with it. Dad spends half an hour afterward opening the door, expecting an ambulance.

  The next day he takes his usual hour making the bed. I peer in. He’s carefully smoothing out every wrinkle, crawling around on his knees, checking to see if the covers are hanging evenly on all sides. I try to show how he can just pull the covers up, tuck them under the pillows, pull the spread tight and smooth it all out. It’s one of those chenille bedspreads with little white bumps in a swirling diamond pattern.

  Dad’s worrying there are hidden folds in the sheet underneath. I’m building a Frankenstein monster. He’s only got two sheets, the electric blanket and the bedspread but it’s enough to occupy him for an hour.