East of Denver

by Gregory Hill

  * * *

  I pointed to the sole of my shoe. It was covered with burrs. “Pa, unless we take some preventative measures, our maiden journey won’t last long.”

  I got an idea. I went to the paint shelves. I said, “Maybe we can put some rotten paint in the tubes and it’ll act like that hole sealant stuff they advertise on TV.” Dad ignored my brilliant idea. Instead he pulled out a sheet of copper from behind the workbench. Using tin snips, he sliced it into two strips.

  “Try these.”

  I lined the tires with the copper. Put the tubes in the tires. Put them on the rims. Filled them with air until they were tight and hard. Bolted the wheels on. We had a frame. We had thorn-proof tubes.

  We bolted the engine to the frame, found a V-belt, linked the chain, filled the fuel tank. The bike was ready.

  “It needs paint,” said Pa.

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ll give it a coat after we test-drive it.”

  “I think we should do it now.”

  “It’ll run fine without paint.”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “It needs paint.”

  It’s about aesthetics. We painted the thing. Not a five-minute spray-paint job. No, we had to look thru the entire shed until we found the compressed-air spray gun, then stir and mix some red and yellow paint into a perfect shade of orange, then tape off everything, and then deal with Dad taking the spray can out of my hands because I was getting drips.

  The bike was orange, the engine black, the racing stripes freshened up and tidy.

  As we watched it dry, Dad said, “It needs a . . .”

  “A horn?” I said.

  “No! A word. A thing to call it by.”

  “A name?”

  “Close.”

  “A logo? A company? A means of identifying it by manufacturer?”

  He snapped his fingers. “Like Ford.”

  “Williams Bicycle Company?”

  “Just the letters.”

  “WBC?”

  “And another word.”

  I looked around the shed for ideas. My eyes stopped on the half-finished jet-tractor resting under the tarp.

  “WBC Rocket?”

  “That’s it.”

  Dad let me pencil the letters on the frame. He painted the letters in black using a tiny paintbrush. The words looked shaky. We agreed to let it dry overnight.

  The sun went down as we walked from the shed to the house. Pa was in charge. I was the best helper in the world.

  Pa said, “You wanna race?”

  Before I could say, “Yes,” he started running.

  I didn’t let him win. I ran as hard as I could and he won anyway.

  * * *

  I made chili with canned beef and canned beans. We sopped it up with busted-up crackers. We watched TV for a couple of hours and then I helped Pa brush his teeth. When I put him to bed, he said, “What’s the big plan for tomorrow?”

  “We’re going to take the WBC Rocket for a spin.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The WBC Rocket? It’s your old bicycle. The one with the washing machine engine.”

  “That thing? It’s just a pile of bones.”

  “You’ll see.” I turned off the light and started out of the room.

  “Say,” said Pa.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s real good having you out here.”

  I said, “You, too.”

  He said, “Sounds like a personal problem.”

  * * *

  I sat in bed and read the novelization of the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan. It’s pretty good for a novelization. There’s a lot of blood and torture. Khan hangs people by their ankles and slits their throats. In the book, the brain-eating worms are a million times nastier than the puppets in the movie.

  I finished the last chapter just after one A.M. When I got to the part where Spock dies, I swear to God, I cried. It didn’t matter that he comes back in the third movie. He was dead. I rubbed the tears away, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

  I woke up at 3:23. I remember because I looked at the clock. There was a noise downstairs. It sounded like it came from the kitchen.

  I thought of Clarissa McPhail. Was she sneaking into our house to take advantage of my pa? I heard Dad laugh. Was he watching TV? Probably watching TV. He was talking. Having a conversation. An argument. Maybe he was on the phone.

  I went downstairs. Pa was standing in the living room, in his underwear, talking to Mom.

  “You shouldn’t be gone like that,” he said.

  His eyes followed a figure that I couldn’t see.

  “You’re my damn wife! I’m lonesome. I can’t eat.”

  I spoke his name, real softly. He looked at me, unsurprised, and said, “You try talking to her.”

  “You want me to talk to Mom?”

  He spoke to a space a couple of feet in front of his face. “The boy knows.”

  “Dad, I think you’re dreaming.”

  He turned to the ghost. “Tell him.”

  It was dark. It was quiet. I was watching my dad discuss me with my dead mom, who wasn’t there.

  I clapped my hands. “Dad! Wake up!”

  “Quiet!” he said. “She’s talking.”

  There’s no such thing as ghosts. Dad was straddling waking life and slumberland. I was quiet. I wanted to see what my dead mother had to say.

  I waited a minute. Dad was listening with his ear cocked. He nodded.

  I said, “What’s she telling you?”

  “Let her finish.” He listened. He nodded. Smiled. It was the smile of someone who’d just been blessed. “You see?” He was talking to me.

  “Nope. What’s she saying?”

  “She’s not saying anything. She went away.” He flapped his arms like a bird. Skipped around his recliner. Started chanting, “She went away. She went away. She went away. She went away.”

  “What did she say?”

  He ignored me. I watched. He skipped, flapped his wings, chanted. The clock chimed for four o’clock.

  He ran circles faster and faster. He said, “Wheeeeeeeeeeee!”

  He kept running circles until he crumpled to the floor.

  CHAPTER 12

  HOSPITAL AND HOME

  It was a seizure, or maybe a miniature stroke. Maybe a seizure brought on by a miniature stroke. Or just light-headedness. Hard to tell. The doctor said Pa would probably be fine but they wanted to keep him in the hospital for a few days to make sure there wasn’t anything serious going on. I asked if not remembering how to tie his shoelaces would qualify as something serious. The doctor laughed pretty good at that one. Dr. Shepard. He had checked my nuts for ruptures once a year from seventh grade thru twelfth grade. Nice guy, but I always felt uncomfortable when I was alone in a room with him.

  I went in to see Pa before I left. He was real groggy. He’d gotten panicky when he first woke up in the hospital bed. I was there right when his eyes opened. He kicked his blanket off and dumped orange juice all over the floor. “Don’t put me in this place. I’m not going here. I’m not an old folks’ home.”

  I explained to him that he was in a hospital and that things were okay and that he’d be out of here and back home lickety-split. He told me to go to hell.

  He got out of bed and fell down on his ass. A couple of nurses heard the racket and hurried into the room. When they tried to help him up, he told them they were no-good bitches.

  I calmed him down by singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” He was sitting on the floor, all splayed out next to his hospital bed. The two nurses were watching him like he was a carton of bad milk. I said, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder .
. .” and Dad started singing along. Right there on the floor, he bobbed his head back and forth, closed his eyes, and tapped his knee. The nurses started singing as well. We were able to pick up Dad by his armpits and guide him back to bed. With everyone still singing, one of the nurses hustled out of the room and then hustled right back in carrying a couple of little blue pills and a paper cup full of water. She handed me the pills and I said, “Time for dessert.”

  Dad stopped singing and opened his mouth. I dropped the pills on his tongue and gave him the paper cup. He drank the water down, swallowed his pills, and lay back with his head on the pillow. A few moments later he was snoring.

  * * *

  Now it was mid-morning and he was just coming out of his dopey slumber.

  “How you doin’, Pa?” He looked pathetic, all stuck in that hospital gown. His skin was red from the sun. Hard, cracked. Skin like that didn’t belong in a hospital. Trolls like Vaughn Atkins belonged in the hospital.

  “Somewhat.” He knew he was in a hospital. You could tell that. But he was in a hospital someplace a long way from here. His eyes were shrunken and gooey.

  I set my hand on his shoulder. It felt too intimate so I took it off and hitched my thumb into my belt loop. “They’ll take care of you real good.”

  He said, “I’m sure they will. They’ve got a real normal. Normal way here.”

  “I’m going to go now.”

  He said, “Say, do you know what’s the procedure?”

  “You have to stick around for a few days so they know there’s nothing wrong with you.”

  He chuckled. “I know the answer to that question.”

  “I’ll call you every day.”

  It’s thirty-nine miles from the Strattford Hospital to our house. I drove home as slow as I could. I was tired. There was nobody else on the road.

  * * *

  The farm was quiet. There wasn’t any wind. And there wasn’t any Pa. It was remarkable.

  I could breathe. Watch whatever I wanted on TV. Read a book without him staring at me. Take a shower without him knocking on the door. I could think without thinking about him or where he was or what he needed.

  I took a nap on the couch. I woke up in the afternoon and ate a bowl of canned ravioli. I stared out the kitchen window as I ate. The world was calm.

  After I washed my plate, I went outside and weeded the garden. The tomato plants looked good. Little green tomatoes on their way. The peppers and onions were alive. I ate a baby onion in one bite and chewed my way up the green stem. I pulled up a carrot. A tiny thing. Yummy. Right there in the garden with sparrows and blackbirds and robins jumping around. I can’t tell you how free it feels to be out of sight of the whole universe, right under the sun, especially when you don’t have a two-hundred-pound three-year-old to keep an eye on.

  It was hot. I dragged an old horse tank out from behind the shed and filled it with water. I had to patch some holes with chewing gum and duct tape. Dad wasn’t the only guy around these parts who could fix stuff. I filled the tank with water, stripped down to my drawers, and climbed in. I sat there and watched the clouds just like some cowpoke from a cartoon. I stuck it out as long as possible. Sitting in cold water isn’t as comfortable as you’d imagine.

  * * *

  After my dip, I went to the shed and tried to start the Rocket. Of course it didn’t work. I used starter fluid, choked it, checked for spark, fuel, and compression. Nothing. Dad was the only guy around these parts who could fix stuff. He was a magician. I was just a dumb son in a big shed staring at a motorized bicycle my dad built when he was in elementary school. I stood in the spot where the airplane used to be.

  * * *

  The next day, I called him at the hospital.

  “Morning, Pa.”

  “Morning.”

  “Tell me what you see out the window.”

  “The moon’s just getting tired. Been up all night.”

  “Are there clouds in the sky? What’s the sky look like?”

  “The sky? It looks hot.”

  “Are there clouds?”

  “Yep. Well, a jet. A jet cloud.”

  “You getting enough food?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay. I gotta go now.”

  “What’s the hurry? Big plans?”

  “Weeding the garden. I might mow the lawn. There’s a doorknob that needs fixing. That window in the granary. Various stuff.”

  “How much longer am I going to be in here?”

  “Not much longer.”

  * * *

  I called him every morning for four days. On the fifth day, the hospital called me. They said I could come get him. When I walked into his room, he was eating pudding. He saw me and gave a big smile. His eyes were normal again. I felt like a parent. While the nurses were helping Pa into his clothes, Dr. Shepard brought me into his exam room so we could talk privately. I sat on the table, paper crinkling under my ass, legs dangling. He sat in his swivel chair and twiddled his stethoscope.

  “Your dad’s a real character.”

  “Yep.”

  “Strong, too. He’s going to be okay. I mean, as okay as he can be.”

  I said, “No more of those spells?”

  “He’s been here almost a week and we haven’t seen anything to suggest it’ll happen again. Whatever it was—stroke or seizure—it was very mild. We did tests. Scans, evaluations, everything. I spent some quality time on the phone with some very good physicians in Denver. While nothing was definitive, everything suggested that he made it thru this in good shape.”

  I nodded.

  “He’s been absolutely stable. Probably no significant brain damage. Hard to say, though. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  Dr. Shepard took a breath. “It’s a shame. Emmett was so brilliant. And a good man. He helped me save a patient’s life once. Did he ever tell you about that?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s been twenty-five years. There was a car wreck a few miles south of Strattford. A man driving a pickup fell asleep and went into the ditch. Rolled the truck, flew out the windshield. No seat belt, of course. This happened pretty close to where the Griffith ranch used to be.”

  I nodded, as if I knew where that was.

  “It was a bad one. Head injury, punctured lung, spinal. The whole damn caboodle. There was no way we could treat him here in Strattford and there was no way he was going to survive a two-hour ambulance ride to Denver.

  “Your dad—this was when everyone had a CB—your dad overheard us talking on the scanner, jumped in his airplane, and scampered himself right to the scene. He landed on the road. There wasn’t enough room to put the fellow in the plane lying down so, just as quick as you can imagine, your dad unbolted the two rear seats and dumped them in the ditch. We stuck that fellow into the plane with his feet poking into the tail and flew straight to Denver. I rode in the copilot seat. Your dad was as cool as the bottom of a rock. It was amazing.”

  “He never told me about that one.”

  “It was gruesome. The kind of thing you don’t want to think about.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “The guy in the pickup? He hung on for a couple of weeks and then he died. Those couple of weeks mattered, though. Long enough for his family to say good-bye.” Dr. Shepard looked at me real closely. Probably looking for a piece of Pa in my eyes. Good luck.

  I nodded my head solemnly, figuring that would be appropriate.

  “Yes, sir,” said Dr. Shepard. “Your dad’s a great man and a good man.” He rubbed his knee, returned to the present. “Even in his situation here, he’s still curious about everything.”

  “Yep.”

  “He climbed out of bed every chance he got. We’d find him walking the halls. Once, he even wandered into the OR in the midd
le of a surgery. We eventually had to find someone to keep an eye on him all the time.”

  “That’s probably what he wanted. Someone to watch over him.”

  “Likely as anything.”

  We looked at each other.

  The doctor said, “Any problems with depression?”

  I said, “I’m getting used to it.”

  Dr. Shepard said, “With Emmett, I mean.”

  “Oh. He seems fine. Gets a little sad sometimes. But I try to distract him.”

  “If that works, then good. Sometimes people in his situation will get depressed. It’s difficult to cheer them up because you can’t explain to them why they shouldn’t be sad. They feel sad and that’s that. If Emmett should get that—the melancholy—let me know. I’ll prescribe something.”

  “Will do.” Won’t do. People don’t use antidepressants in Strattford County.

  “How’s his diet?”

  “We eat regular stuff. Meat and vegetables.”

  “Since the dementia hit him so young, he’s very healthy, physically.”

  “He’s a tank.”

  “He could live a very long time.”

  “Yep.”

  “The end will be difficult.”

  “I know.” I wanted to leave.

  “Does he enjoy fatty foods?”

  “Like hotdogs?”

  “Oh, anything. Steak, cheese, fast food. Pizza.”

  “He’ll eat whatever I put in front of him.”

  Dr. Shepard said, “At this stage, I encourage you to feed him anything he wants. And, even though fatty foods can contribute to so-called bad cholesterol, that’s not always a bad thing, especially in the case of someone as healthy as Emmett. As his condition worsens, your father could spend years in a bed, with no idea who you are or who he is. Fed thru a tube. Diapers. It can be difficult.”

  “I expect that will be the case.” I hadn’t thought of that part yet.