by Dan Kolbet
What I wrote was crap. And I don't say that to earn pity or in a weak attempt at modesty. It was crap. No getting around it. Bad stories that never really ended. Or more accurately, stories that I never finished. Thus the endings didn't exist anyway. I took up the genres of the times—code books where mysteries were uncovered in ancient texts somewhere. Da Vinci books flooded the market. Then I took on vampires—hell, why not? Everyone else was doing it. Then I tried erotica—way before those Fifty Shades books came out. That stuff just gave me the creeps.
I couldn't get a sniff of attention for my writing. Probably because I was aimless and following the current wave of popular books; which meant I was about two years behind people who actually knew what they were doing. Not having a crystal ball, I said forget it and decided to write what I wanted. It turned out that people liked it. I also stopped writing with a computer. I decided to go longhand and fill up blue notebooks with my story using a pen. It slowed down the process—especially for editing, but it also made me pause before putting the words down. And it worked.
Isolated Highway was a family saga about an American Army soldier who returns home after being a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II. He struggles to settle into his old life while reliving the torturous experiences he endured during his internment. He marries, has kids and lives out his days fighting his past demons. I loosely modeled the novel on a story my grandmother once told me, but the story was mine alone. I finally used that history degree for something, if only providing color for the details of my plot.
The agent that agreed to represent me had rejected my earlier works three times already. Rightfully so. Like I said, it was crap. She worked at a big firm in New York City and sent out dozens of rejection emails every day. But for some reason she liked this WWII book and we sold it.
For two years I became the darling of the literary world—as much as an author can be considered a darling of anything. The money came rolling in. We sold the movie rights to a big name producer. I traveled to literary conventions and met with people in Europe. The book was translated and sold in 14 countries. It was actually used by some universities to teach WWII history and its impact on soldiers. I gave speeches about it and lectured classes.
It was fleeting and I was so full of shit.
* * *
You know when you wake up after a good night of sleep and for a few minutes you can totally remember the dream you just had? The vivid, wonderful dream slowly slips away; but before it does you think to yourself that maybe this dream could be a good story. Maybe I could write it out and make it a novel. Yes, I should do that, you say. But then life gets in the way. The lawn needs mowing. The kids need to do their homework and need you for something else. The in-laws are coming over, so we need to clean. I'll write when all that stuff is finished, you say.
Well, that's my story. I wrote out my vivid dream in between my living, breathing life. But dreams like that don't come often. Even if you sleep all day in the vain hope that it will come again. My dream came once. All the others were crap.
This one good thing I wrote has left a trail of destruction up and down my life.
Chapter 4
The GreyHawk Sage Retirement Community houses both assisted living residents, as well those who need long-term care. My mother wouldn't have qualified herself in either category; but then again, nobody really asked her opinion because they were likely to get it—a punishment befitting the crime. I can only imagine the hassles she caused the staff for herself or on behalf of her husband.
The building was a 13-story high-rise near Spokane's Deaconess Hospital. Several floors consisted of apartments where mobile seniors could maintain a sense of freedom, while still benefiting from dining room meals, group outings and nurse visits. They could decorate the place with their own furniture and hang pictures on the walls. It wasn't exactly home, but no one was under the illusion that anyone was meant to stay long-term. Everything had an expiration date. When it became clear that a patient could no longer live independently—or if sudden illness struck—the GreyHawk had a fully staffed assisted living facility available too.
The difference between the retirement home residents and the assisted living residents was pretty clear, and my parents—Vera and Charles Redmond—proved the rule. The two couldn't be more different.
* * *
Emanuel Sanchez—the man who had called and informed me of my brother's passing—is the GreyHawk's director. I now sit in a small waiting area outside Emanuel's office. I had a few hours before the reading of the will, so I called ahead to see if the man could meet and give me an update on how my parents are doing.
While I wait, I watch the patients amble by in the hallway, sometimes with grandkids in tow, but more often without. The place isn't as sad as I had imagined in my head. The walls are cheerfully adorned in pastel colors. Large murals line the walkways with words like "Thankfulness" and "Perseverance" written large enough that the residents can read them without their glasses.
I felt the need to meet with the director because my mother was never one to discuss her well-being, or that of my dad, with family. Thus it was my only chance to get an update before I skipped town. Mom wouldn't tell just anyone about her medical needs.
Even as a doctor, Trevor was only a modest exception to that, but as "just a plastic surgeon" how was he expected to understand all that was happening with their aging bodies? At least that was my mother's sentiment years ago when they moved into the home with much protest.
My father had been on the decline before I left Spokane, showing early signs of dementia, which had always been laughed off as forgetfulness or senior moments. His medical care was more than Mom could manage alone, something she only realized after he collapsed at the house and she could only wait for help to arrive. She was unable to do anything for him. To hear her tell it, the EMTs stopped for coffee before getting to the house. In truth, it took about six minutes. It was all perspective, but Mom's perspective wasn't always shared with others. This is, of course, part of the reason I'm at the GreyHawk now. I need to know how my parents are doing because I won't get the full story from them.
* * *
Charles Redmond enlisted in the US Army in 1965. His draft number was low—11. Knowing that he was sure to be drafted anyhow, he decided to enlist and just get it over with. He rarely, if ever, spoke about his time in the war and all of us Redmond children knew it was best to avoid the topic with our father. Trevor once asked him to answer a few questions for a high school paper about Vietnam. "Tell them we should have used the nukes," was all he said.
After the war, my father took advantage of his GI benefits and enrolled in a community college, where he met my mom. He couldn't sit still in his classes, a result of his time in Southeast Asia. He just couldn't concentrate. Today it was likely that he'd be treated for posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD, but in the late 1960s he was just another guy having trouble readjusting after the war. He wasn't alone. He spent so much time looking out the window that one of his professors told him he should just go outside.
So he did.
He quit school and started mowing lawns. Soon a few lawn-mowing jobs became a full-blown residential and commercial landscaping business. He liked being outside in nature. He taught himself how to build irrigation systems for sprinklers and eventually had to hire help to keep up with the demand. His military efficiency made him an ideal contractor. Redmond Landscape was born. He had dozens of employees under his watch, including Trevor and myself, when we were old enough. April was too young and never got the chance, if she ever wanted it.
Dad sold the company when Trevor and I were in college and his body could no longer take the physical labor. He could have directed the company from a desk, but that would have taken away the one thing he really loved about the business—being outside.
From the waiting area outside Emanuel Sanchez's office I can't help but think of how much my father would hate it here.
* * *
&n
bsp; "They are wonderful members of our community," Emanuel says. "Simply a joy to have around."
I raise my eyebrows to show my disbelief.
Emanuel was in his mid-50s with gray hair and deep wrinkles around his brown eyes.
"You don't have to B.S. me," I say. "I'm not looking to move them. That's not a decision for me to make. I would just like to know how they are holding up, since I'm unlikely to hear anything resembling the truth from them directly."
Emanuel lets out a long sigh, which I assume signals relief or possibly disappointment.
"I understand," Emanuel says. "Your mother helps lead our group outings to parks or the mall, helping the paid coordinators find the right mix of activities. If residents could form a union, she'd be the shop steward. You see, she's quite . . . I'm not sure of the right word? She's resourceful. The residents tend to go to her before they even come to me."
I nod. This is no surprise at all.
Emanuel continues.
"I don't easily admit this, but she's got quite a fan club here. The residents hold her in very high regard."
"What about you?" I ask.
"We've had our disagreements, but we all want the same basic things."
"And my father, how's he doing?"
"The Multiple Sclerosis continues to advance—"
"Wait, he has MS?"
This was the first I had heard of it, but of course, I've been away for a while.
"You didn't know?" he asks.
"No."
Just one more thing I'd missed over the years.
"As I was saying, given his age, the MS has advanced to the point that he doesn't have many treatment or therapy options."
"That's why he's confined to the wheelchair?" I ask.
"Partly, yes."
"Does he have a window?"
"I'm sorry?"
"A window. In his room."
"Well, yes, of course," Emanuel says. "He's been down in the long-term care center for the last eight months or so. His room is on the first floor. But he doesn't spend a lot of time there. Your mother comes down each morning to get him. They have breakfast in the dining room, and then she'll bring him up to her apartment for the day. The nurses come check on him, just as they would if he were in his own room."
"She parks him in front of the window, doesn't she?" I ask.
"I'm afraid I don't know anything about that," Emanuel says.
"I'm sure Mom knows what he wants."
She always has.
"I wanted to offer my condolences at the loss of your brother and sister-in-law," Emanuel said. "Dr. Redmond was a frequent visitor here and we got to know each other fairly well over the years. He was a wonderful man and I will miss him."
I should have said me too. But I'd been missing him for a long time already. So I simply nodded.
"Now that Dr. Redmond is gone, will you be my point of contact for your parents care and their account?"
"I'm not sure I understand," I say.
"Your parents' care was paid for by your brother," Emanuel says. "I just assumed that you would take over that responsibility."
I was under the impression that my parents were taking care of their own expenses. Redmond Landscape had been large enough that its sale should have brought in a pretty penny. Certainly they had some sort of Social Security or military assistance too.
"I'll have to get back to you about that," I say. "Otherwise my sister April is still in town; she can handle anything here if need be."
"Do you think that's wise?" Emanuel asks.
Obviously, he had already met her.
Chapter 5
The door to my father's room is metal. Not the nice metal doors that people paint in matching shades to fit a home's exterior color. It's a shiny beige that looks like three-day-old snot. Latex paint covers the door, screws and various fasteners in a thick lather of snot.
Perched near the upper third of the door is a simple square window sliced into diamonds by tiny gray wires. I'm not sure what you call those little wires, except that they are supposed to stop the glass from breaking into large shards that might hurt someone.
I can imagine some old kook wielding a cane and trying to smash his way through the little square window, completely forgetting that had he tried the handle, he could have simply walked out. The door was meant to keep people—my father—in. Not invite others for a visit.
My father sits facing his window—not the square one surrounded by snot, but a larger afterthought of a rectangle squeezed in at the top of the exterior wall. His back is to me. His hair is thin. The dark black color has faded to a mousy brown.
His first floor room is backed up against the side of a hill. His view is only that of a tire on a service truck parked outside. He can only look up to see outside and his view was a dirty truck tire.
I step in the room, walk around the bed and position myself so he can see me. He continues to stare at the tire.
"Dad?"
No response.
I touch his arm, which is sitting on the armrest of his wheelchair.
"Dad?"
Like a slingshot he grabs my wrist and clamps down, staring at my hand now, instead of the tire.
"I won't take them," he says. His teeth are clinched and his lips are curled back.
"Dad, it's me. It's Billy," I say.
His grip doesn't subside. In fact, his forearm shakes from the labor of the squeeze.
"It's OK Dad. You don't have to take them," I say. Whatever "them" is.
We remain like that for just a few moments. Long enough for me to see the leather restraints hanging from the headboard. My wrist was starting to ache. The strength that he'd amassed over the years has definitely not left him, even as his body deteriorates around him.
He eventually lets go of my wrist, then looks up at me, cocks his head slightly to the right. His eyes narrow. Curious.
"Jane was here," he says.
Jane?
"She brought me pencils," he says. "They don't let me sharpen them. Bastards."
"Dad, can I have my wrist back?"
He looks down at his white knuckles on my arm and lets go.
"I won't take them," he repeats.
"Take what, Dad?"
"The yellow ones. I said it before, but they don't give a damn," he says, then adds in a high-pitched mimic, "'These are your orders, sir. From the doctor.' Like I give a rat's ass what that twerp has to say . . . you know that we don't even have a flag here? No Stars and Stripes. In this day and age. Disgraceful."
Pills, obviously. He was being prescribed something that he didn't want to take. The yellow ones. Whatever the yellow ones were for.
He is back to looking at the tire, but I can't tell where his mind is—years ago with Jane and her pencils, or today fighting the nurses about his medication.
"She was sad," he says. "She gave me pencils and stayed with me."
This was impossible of course. Jane had never come to the GreyHawk before. Maybe he was mistaking her for someone else. His mind was clearly not making the connections that it should be.
"They are in the drawer," he says.
"The pills?"
"The pencils, goddamnit! Aren't you listening?" he spits the words at me.
I go to the nightstand next to his bed. It has a wood pattern in fake plastic, trimmed with brown plastic edges. Hospital-style all the way. I open the first drawer and there sits a collection of eight white pencils bound by a cracked rubber band. The band snaps as I pick up the collection.
I'd seen these types of pencils many times before. Pressed into the side of the pencils were black letters. The name of the dental office where Jane used to work—Edge Water Dentistry. Included was the phone number of the office.
Apparently she really had come to see him.
"Dad, when did you get these?" I said, showing him the pencils.
"Last week," he said. "When the world came to an end and they took all the flags down and burned them in the dining room fireplace. You
should have seen it. Stars and Stripes. Disgraceful."
"Dad, think again, when did you see her last?"
He just ignores me and looks out the window, searching for something.
"He won't be able to tell you that, William," my mother says from the door. I don't know when she came to the room. "He struggles with time. When things happened. His short term memory is OK, but everything seems to be short term for him."
She wheels over two chairs by Dad and motions for me to sit in one. She kisses Dad on the forehead and whispers something to him I can't hear, and then sits down by heaving herself into the chair. Her orange pants have blue triangles on them. I can't think of any store that would sell such a garment. Maybe she had them custom made. Quite the statement. You can always count on Mom's crazy pants.
"Jane saw us just a few days before she died," she says. "We didn't live here then though. We were still at the Corbin Park house. She and Aspen stopped by because we had a Valentine's Day gift to give Aspen. They gave us Valentine's Day cards too. The pencils were actually from Aspen. She didn't want Grandpa to go without something from her on Valentine's Day, so she pulled out those pencils from her little purse and gave them to him. I remember it well because it was the last time I saw either of them."
I was afraid for her to tell me any more of that story. To fill in the gaps of those last days of my family's life. What I caused. I knew enough to not ask for more. It hurt too badly to know. I needed to lock it away. I'd been able to do that so well by leaving. Why the hell did I have to come back home?
Mom continued in her slow measured tone, ignoring my internal wrestling.
"Jane was sad, you know, just like your father said. I'd never seen her that way. I'm not sure of the word. Despondent or dazed. She just seemed out of sorts. I guess sad is the best word to describe it. It was a long time ago. My mind doesn't recall things as fast either. You never asked me about it, so I never mentioned it. I'm sorry."
Jane had been in Spokane, but looking for me. That much I knew, even if my parents didn't. I'd been gone from our home in Spokane for over a week. I flew to New York to meet with my agent. To try to hammer out a third draft on yet another novel that I'd written and not published. The world was awaiting my next work—to see if I could top Isolated Highway. I couldn't. Not by a long shot. My agent, Monique Lang, wouldn't let those drafts see the light of day. But it was more than that. I was in New York to see Monique. And I'm not proud of what I was doing.
