“One in twenty?”
“They’re much worse than that now.”
“When did you last see my dad before you retired?”
Doctor Tan had to think about it. “I think he came in for a checkup a year after the triple bypass.”
“He was seventy-one or so, then? Right? You ever hear about the muggers who attacked him maybe a year after that?” Doctor Tan shook his head no. “Two young men jumped him coming out of the grocery store. He was carrying hundreds of dollars on him, and he walked out of the grocery store folding it up to put it in his pocket, because it never occurred to him that anyone would look at him and see an old man who could be mugged.” Kevin grinned at the doctor. “My old man beat those muggers half to death. He knocked out one of them with a single punch, got the other in a headlock and started pounding him in the face. The guy he knocked out started moving so my dad stomped on his hand and broke it and stood there on it grinding it into the sidewalk until the police came.”
Doctor Tan laughed. “That’s a great story, Kevin.”
Kevin shrugged. “It’s just the truth. That man’s a fighter. He told me once he’d fought fifty men and had never lost a fight. I believe him.”
“Kevin ... your father might not want this fight. I would think about that.”
“HE NEEDS TO put on muscle,” said Barbara Washington.
Barbara was a striking ash blonde in her early twenties, by outward appearance. Kevin knew her professionally; he’d been her therapist for five years, two decades previously. She was roughly his age and was one of the best agathic doctors in Los Angeles.
Kevin said bluntly, “He’s going to be dead in two months, Barbara. He’s not going to be lifting weights again. He’s not going to be gaining any weight – the throat cancer makes it hard for him to swallow.”
“Once he swallows, can he keep it down?”
From his hospital bed Richard said dryly, “I’m right here in the room, young lady.”
It didn’t throw her. “Sorry. If I bring you a special milkshake, can you keep that down? Do you like strawberry?”
“I have trouble eating,” said Richard. “But I’ve kept down what I’ve managed to swallow.”
“Mr. O’Donnell, I’ve mapped your DNA. I’m going to mix you a 1,500 calorie milkshake, various amino acids and proteins designed for your DNA specifically, that you’ll drink four times a day. If you can keep it up for two weeks, we’ll give this a shot. It’s up to you.”
Richard nodded. “Let me talk to my son for a moment, Miss.”
“‘Miss?’” Barbara smiled at him. Richard thought it was the prettiest smile he’d seen in years. “You are old. You’re going to have to lose that, if you hang around.”
After she was gone, Richard looked at Kevin. “She mapped my DNA.”
“You’re pissed off.”
“Boy, I didn’t authorize that.”
“I did.”
“You can’t.”
“Old man, I have the same cramped control-freak handwriting you do. I can sign your name well enough.”
Despite himself Richard had to smile at that. “Yeah, I remember some samples, when you were in high school. It was good work.”
“I’m a little rusty these days. But I don’t think anyone looked at it twice.”
Richard looked away. Through the window he could see the bright sunlight dancing atop the waves as they came crashing into shore, just the other side of Pacific Coast Highway. “I’m tired of waiting to die. Tell that girl we’ll give it a shot.”
THEY MOVED HIM to Cedars Sinai for the treatment.
He lived.
SHORT BLACK HAIR covered his skull. The white fringe was growing out black – he had white hair with black roots, everywhere he’d had any hair.
The liver spots were gone. So were most of the wrinkles. He was even thinner than he’d been, the suite of transform viruses had knocked his weight down to 145 pounds ... but he’d gained five pounds in the last two weeks.
He could only talk in a whisper. The throat cancer had been knocked back, but it was still there and talking was difficult for him.
“How many reporters?”
Kevin shook his head. “Thousands. From all over the world. Cedars-Sinai has celebrities here all the time, movie stars ... they’ve never had a press crush like this one. You’re nine years older than the next-oldest person to survive the treatment. Someone tried to break into the house –”
Richard looked up at that.
“Alarm apparently scared them off. I have a guard on it, now.”
“What’s that costing?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Even in a whisper Richard managed to sound loud. “Goddamnit, boy! That’s not your money!”
“In fact, it is,” said Kevin mildly. “I’m paying for the guard, not you. I haven’t touched your accounts for anything except medical expenses.”
Richard took a deep breath. His appearance intrigued Kevin – he didn’t look young, but he didn’t look old, either. His skin and hair looked better, yes, but his ears and nose were still over-sized; cartilage keeps growing as you age. His hands looked odd, gnarled; and the skin around his throat still hung loose. His biceps and wrists had no muscle to speak of, though there was still some around his shoulders. “All right,” Richard whispered. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
ON KEVIN’S FIFTH birthday they went to the beach at Malibu, and then the Santa Monica pier. When the day was over, Richard was burned roughly the color of a ripe tomato. He spent the morning teaching Kevin how to ride a boogie board, and then in the afternoon Kevin and his older sister Celine had a joint birthday party on the pier. Celine had been born on July 10; Kevin on July 12; and Richard had been born on July 14. Celine turned 13 two days before Kevin turned five, four days before Richard turned forty-five.
Richard and Anna bought all-day wristbands for the kids and their friends – nine of them, in all, Celine and five of her friends, Kevin and two of his – and spent the rest of the day chasing the nine kids around the pier as they went from ride to ride. Anna mostly watched the three boys; Richard spent the day trailing the girls. At the rock climbing wall Celine wanted to race Richard up the wall – “I’m going to whip you bad,” she told him. She’d climbed it before, at a birthday party for another of her friends. For about fifteen minutes, standing in line, Richard watched people climbing the wall. Nobody got to the top in less than a minute. He was overweight even then – thirty or forty pounds. Still, most of his two hundred fifty pounds was muscle and when he and Celine got to the wall together, big as he was, he went up it in just under thirty seconds.
Celine was so angry she didn’t talk to him for the next hour. She’d forgotten about it by dinner, though. Richard took Anna and the nine kids to the Crocodile Café across the street from the pier, on Ocean Boulevard. He had the Oakwood Burger – 1/2 pound of superb ground beef, shredded lettuce, pickles, pickle relish, tomatoes, mayonnaise, mustard, and cheddar cheese on a sesame seed bun. He ordered it medium rare and after picking it up ate it without putting it back down. It was the best cheeseburger in the city, in Richard’s informed opinion.
When they got home, Anna put Kevin to bed and read him his bedtime story. Afterward Richard came in to kiss him goodnight.
Kevin smiled at him. “I know a joke.”
“OK.”
“Knock knock.”
&n
bsp; “Who’s there?”
“The chicken who wanted to go across the street! Get it? Get it?”
Richard laughed. “That’s pretty funny.”
“How come I can’t eat my french fries in the car? Aunt Patty lets me eat french fries in the car.”
There had been a discussion about that in the car on the way home. Anna had driven the girls and their friends home in the van; Richard had driven Kevin and his friends home in the Jaguar, dropping the other two boys off at their houses. Richard had let Kevin sit in the front seat, despite the passenger-side airbag – Richard thought there were too many laws about airbags and child seats and he ignored them when it suited him.
Kevin hadn’t finished his french fries when it was time to leave the restaurant and had wanted to bring them with him. Sitting next to Kevin’s bed that night, Richard said, “Aunt Patty drives a Ford. Daddy drives what?”
Kevin said in a resigned voice, almost chanting it, “A Jaguar and we keep it clean.”
“When you turn eighteen, that’s going to be your car. Then you can make messes in it.”
“When I grow up, I’m going to have a car that flies.”
“Really?”
“A big car. As big as ... McDonalds.”
“There aren’t any cars that big, Kevin.”
“Yes there are. The Power Rangers have one. And it flies and it turns into things. I’m going to have that. And I’m going to be a Power Ranger too.”
“I thought you were going to play for the Miami Hurricanes when you grow up.”
“That too. When I grow up –” Kevin paused. “How old are you, Daddy?”
“I’m forty-five, boy. I’m the same age you are, plus 40. You came home from the hospital on my birthday.”
“You’re going to be pretty old when I grow up.”
“That’s true.”
“Is Mama going to die? I don’t want her to.”
Richard thought about how to answer it. “Kevin,” he said finally, “Mama’s not even as old as I am, and I’m not very old. You know how long Mama’s going to live? When you grow up to be my age, I’m still going to be alive. Then you’re going to have children of your own, and those will be Mama’s and my grandchildren. And Mama will be alive like your grandma and grandpa are now. And that’s a long, long, long time from now.”
Kevin nodded sleepily. “OK. Can we go for another ride tomorrow? Just you and me?”
“Sure. Did you have a good time today?”
“Yes,” said the boy who had been to the beach and the pier for a birthday party: “I like going for rides with you.”
“I like going for rides with you too. Whose boy are you?”
“I’m your boy.”
“Good night, boy.” Richard gave him a hug and a kiss on the top of his head. Kevin lay back and drew the covers up around himself.
As Richard was closing the door to the bedroom, Kevin said, “Daddy?”
Richard stopped in the doorway. “Yeah?”
Kevin looked up at him. “When you get old, I’ll drive you everywhere you want to go.”
SOME HOURS LATER, after Celine went to bed, he got in the shower with Anna and found sand in surprising places. “I guess I went face-first into the muck more often than I remember,” he told her. “I’ve got sand in my eyebrows.”
“Tell me you didn’t enjoy yourself and I’ll call you the liar you are.”
“Oh, sure. Another couple of years, I can take down that Bill Stewart longboard in the garage and teach the boy to surf.”
“You’re not afraid to get up on a surfboard, at your age?”
He scowled at her. “Not you too. Kevin was asking about the two of us getting old and dying, just now.”
“Most of his friends have parents younger than us.” Anna was three and a half years younger than Richard. “He notices. Let me wash your back.”
Richard stood under the hot shower while she kneaded the tight muscles in his upper back. “My hands are sore,” he admitted. “Going up that rock wall today? My hands are killing me.”
“Well, you certainly couldn’t let a thirteen-year-old girl beat you.”
Richard glanced over his shoulder at her. “That’s sarcasm, isn’t it.”
“And people make fun of you for being slow.”
Richard turned back and ducked his head back into the water. “I may be slow, but I got you. How many rocket scientists you date, back in the day?”
“A few.”
“How many propose?”
“One or two.”
“Mmm-hmm. I used to have a car when I was a young man, this gorgeous black muscle car, I’d gotten rid of it by the time you met me. Every now and then I’d be walking through a parking lot and I’d see it and not recognize it at first, and think to myself what a good looking car it was ... and then I’d realize it was mine, and it always made me feel good.
“At the pier today, I was standing outside the roller coaster exit waiting for the girls when this looker in a short white dress came walking by. I was admiring her legs and her ass, you know, thinking that if you came up and saw me checking out the local talent, you’d be a little insulted. Then she turned around and it was you, and I had that same rush.”
He could hear the amusement in Anna’s voice. “So that’s what I am to you, a great ass on the boardwalk?”
“That too.” He turned around in the shower to look at her and said soberly, “I’ve known you almost twenty years? In twenty years, you’ve always been the most interesting person in the room.”
“Damn,” she said in a quiet voice. “Let’s get this soap off you and get to bed.”
TWO YEARS LATER, during the summer around the time of the three birthdays, Richard got up on a surfboard long enough to teach Kevin how to surf. It bothered his knees and made him walk stiffly for two days afterwards, but they went surfing together every weekend for almost two months. By the time the summer was over, Kevin was surfing as well as could be expected of any seven-year-old boy.
Kevin surfed by himself a little more each summer thereafter; Richard’s knees couldn’t take the pounding of going surfing every weekend. The summer Kevin was twelve Richard had his first heart attack, and after that they never went surfing together again.
LATE IN OCTOBER Kevin drove Richard home from the hospital.
It made Richard irritable. “I can drive,” he said.
Kevin thought he probably could. “Your license expired. You have to pass the test again.”
Richard settled in the passenger seat. He moved like an old man – slowly, carefully. Kevin knew he was still weak; his weight was still hovering around 150 pounds – he was on six thousand calories a day and it was just barely keeping up with the changes as the transform viruses continued their wild course through his body.
Kevin darkened the windows as they pulled up out of the garage and onto Melrose Boulevard. There were half a dozen news vans parked along Melrose that Kevin knew were there for his father – Cedars Sinai had announced that Richard was going home Sunday morning. Hundreds of press were expected, from around the world; these were just the early arrivers, fighting for good spaces.
Nobody noticed them leaving.
Kevin drove up to Sunset and then drove down Sunset, through the winding hills to Pacific Coast Highway. He drove up into the Palisades and to the street on which he had grown up. He passed two gates – the streets hadn’t been gated when he
was a child, but the neighborhood hadn’t been so wealthy then, either.
He parked half a block down and watched the house to make sure that no reporters had gotten through the gates and staked it out. All he saw was the security guard, parked at the curb in the unmarked car. He drove the rest of the way up, pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. The guard got out of his car and came over. Kevin rolled down the driver’s window.
“Mr. O’Donnell,” said the man. He was speaking to Kevin. “And this is –”
“This is my father,” said Kevin. “Also Mr. O’Donnell.”
“You need any help getting him in?”
“No,” said Kevin.
“I’ll be in the car if you need me for anything.”
“Thank you.”
As the security guard headed back to his vehicle, Richard said softly, “I built this house for your mother. I never expected to live so long in it without her.”
“Yes, sir. I know.”
“Would it upset you if I sold it?”
Kevin had to think about it for a moment. “No. No, it would be Okay.”
“I wish you’d had children,” said Richard. “I’d have been happy to have you raise your children in this house.”
“Maybe I will yet,” said Kevin. “I’m young again ... and so are you.” Richard nodded. “Do you want me to come in with you?”
Richard shook his head. “No. Come by tomorrow. I can manage until then.”
RICHARD SPENT THE night sleeping on the couch in the living room. He knew his doctors would have been appalled if he’d told them he was going to, so he hadn’t told them. He hadn’t slept in the bedroom since Anna died.
He had to hunt for the remote control – Kevin had cleaned up the house on him while he was in the hospital, and Richard could never find things after Kevin cleaned. Richard had teased both Kevin and Celine about it for years, about Kevin compulsively cleaning the place whenever he visited, while Celine, who was married with three children of her own, visited less often and never cleaned.
Tales of the Continuing Time and Other Stories Page 24
