by Mark McCann
And We Are All Right
“So you realize what that sounds like: telling me lies to get me to believe in magic?” I asked. Right away my dad began motioning for me to do something, I wasn’t sure. He looked to be fanning his throat, but I didn’t understand his drunken charades. “Kill the engine, kill you? Kill everyone? I don’t, what does that… just speak with your face.” I looked at Katie; she shrugged. I was about to ask Nate, but then Candy’s face said it all. Something was very wrong and it was with her. I only knew I was puzzled and missing pieces.
She looked angry, and before I could say anything more, she said very sharply, “No, go on, say it, you were going to say something: something about God.”
“Whoa,” I said somewhat mystified by the explosion that was trying to consume me, “easy, okay; use your female voice; I was talking about Santa. You have no idea the lengths this man,” I pointed to my dad, “and my mom went to trying to convince me Santa was real. One year they stuck a piece of red fabric to the corner of the fireplace to make it look like the big guy got caught on it, which I was instead devastated over, I mean, all I saw was that he’d wrecked his magic suit at our house. Then, I think it might have been the next year, we went out by the airport at night where one of my dad’s friends flew a loop in his airplane on cue, and it had a dotted line of red lights along it. They told me it was Santa in his sleigh. Man, I remember getting in so much trouble because I yelled ‘Holy shit.’” On remembering that, I laughed and shook my head. “I didn’t really know what it meant but I knew when to use it.”
Candy sprung at me with a hug. I hugged her back, awkwardly. She caught me with my arms down, so I could only flap at her sides like a penguin as best I could until she released me. She went back to stand with Nate. My dad leaned over and said quietly, “Um, she’s a bit of a fanatic when it comes to her faith,” and then mouthed, ‘wow.’ I shrugged and laughed. While it did surprise me; it hardly mattered.
My dad, with his gleaming eyes and knowing face, pointed to me with a smile, and said with wisely chosen words, “One man’s commotion is another man’s multiple choice.”
Katie leaned forward, and pointed a thumb toward Nate, “One man’s holy shit is another man’s meh.”
I laughed and pointed to Candy, “One man’s balls are another man’s vagina.” We all laughed, especially her. We all stopped laughing, quickly. It was great she had a sense of humour, but not if she was going to continue to laugh like that.
Nate’s mouth gaped open as he shook his head like everything had just gone terribly wrong. “No, no, no,” he repeated and stepped toward her like an intervention might be in order.
That laugh was one of the few truths in all of this, which Nate had described to me what felt now like a lifetime ago.
I wanted to let the dust settle and pretend I wasn’t with the person who laughed like a freak, so I excused myself and went to finally use the washroom. On my way back I stopped beside my trendy mannequin friends. I was unsure how they fit into everything that had taken place, but I was sure it was in there somewhere. I turned to face in the same direction they were and held my arms out in front of me so I fit in better. I wasn’t sure who was adopting who, but we were family now. Only the bond mattered. It was the same thread that ran through everything else; realize it and you could almost hold out your hand and touch it. Or you could look at some books and pretend to have an idea and then go on a mind-obliterating bender: to each their own.
The mannequins had certainly enjoyed a good view of our strange, little drama. I could hear Nate where I was, telling my dad his ‘regarding re-guarding’ story. I looked at the father figure of the mannequin family. “I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure your wife was made under the same roof as you. That’s probably why your kids have no heads.” I thought I was funny and informative. I laughed. Katie came up beside me then, curious about these well-dressed friends of mine, and what had me laughing. Her face was bright with optimism. She was so very, truly beautiful. I smiled, kissed her cheek and whispered, “Can you run on the treadmill when we get home?” She laughed and slowly nodded. I was a fool for her and knew that was simply perfect for me. Past her, I could see my dad making a face I’d never seen before. I knew Nate’s joke was bad, but not that bad; it looked like – I leaped past Katie and made it to my dad with just enough time to grab onto his arm as he crumpled to the floor.
I kept my hold and his weight brought me down with him. We ended up in an awkward heap. Part of him was on me and part of me was on him. I tried desperately to move myself and him so that I could see his face. That was what I needed most: to see his face. I could hear myself yelling for him. I tried to straighten him, then myself, and then Nate was helping. We got him lying straight and I kneeled beside him. I took hold of my dad’s wrist like I was going to check his pulse, but then gently set it at his side. My dad was having a heart attack and I had nothing but an idea from television running through my head.
“Dad,” I tried to say but suddenly hadn’t the voice. I could barely see him through the tears in my eyes. His were shut. I took a breath and tried again, “Dad!” His eyes flittered. He groaned and clutched at his chest. His back arched as pain twisted him like a rag. He gasped. “Dad, can you hear me? What – we’re not done here – do you hear me? There’s so much more I have to stand here and not say to you.” I looked up, “WHAT DO I DO?”
“Help is coming,” Katie said desperately. Candy was on her phone telling someone what was happening and where we were.
I had my dad’s hand tightly in mine. “Dad,” I said weakly, “I – please, there’s so much more I need to say to you.” His eyes opened. He tried to speak. He couldn’t. He was struggling to breathe. His mouth opened and shut. Then he seemed not to be trying at all. The grip his hand had on his chest fell open.
My mouth was open. Nothing came out of it. Nothing registered with me. Tears were falling from my face. I shook him, “Dad,” I whispered, “don’t die.” His eyes shut. I looked away. I thought I was falling over. It was Nate. He was next to me, against me. He hovered over my dad, checking for a pulse. Nate shut his eyes for a moment and then opened them. He put his hands together and began pumping my dad’s chest. I could hear him counting, he breathed into my dad’s mouth, and continued again pumping his chest.
“Really?” I was bewildered and crashed into by every emotion.
“I know CPR,” he said quickly and glanced at me as if to say, we can be surprised about it later.
Only then did I realize I was watching my dad die. Death had only to tighten its grip on him, but Nate was relentless. He worked on him, pumping his chest and breathing into him, pumping and breathing, over and over, until the paramedics arrived. We were made to stand back. Then everything seemed to stop when one of them said, “clear.” I hugged Nate and we both jumped at the sound of the defibrillator. Nate let go of me as they raised the stretcher. He was crying. That was something else I had never seen. Katie was moving toward me. I reached for her.
Nate was sitting forward in his chair ready to jump up out of it. Candy was leaning against him. Every few minutes she looked like she was about to say something before deciding against it. Katie sat in the seat next to her, wringing her hands, between bouts of staring at the door, me, and the clock. At times I sat next to her. When I wasn’t there; I was asking the nurse for an update or pacing the room. I, like the rest of them, was waiting for the doctor to come through those doors once the emergency bypass on my dad was over. My dad had gone in to the operating room with a faint pulse. It had been three hours. If all went well, it would be another two.
I was feeling faint and nauseous. My body needed sleep twelve hours ago. I moved whenever it occurred to me. I didn’t care. I got up to go stare into a vending machine. I asked if anyone wanted anything. No one did. Candy offered to get us all coffee. No one accepted. No one wanted anything; nothing but the doctor to walk through those doors with good news for us. We were together when it happened, though n
o one wanted to say it, I was certain we wanted to be together when we heard how he was.
I walked back to the seat next to Katie. She looked at me with a very weak and tired smile. “You can go home,” I said.
“I know,” she said as if it was also pronounced, as if.
I took her hand in mine, “I’m going to apologize now. From here on out, I may never shut up. I don’t know if I didn’t let him in or I didn’t let myself out, but I didn’t talk to him, hell, I probably didn’t listen.” I looked at her very seriously, “I won’t make that mistake again.”
She leaned toward me, kissed me and then looked in my eyes, “He is going to be fine, you are going to be fine, and everything is going to be so much better.”
I nodded, “I know.”
