Chapter 30

"Mom and Dad's House"

WE WERE SITTING IN THE KITCHEN.

IT WAS RAINING. THE FORECAST WAS FOR RAIN ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT; NOT CLEARING UNTIL LATE TOMORROW MORNING. NOT THAT I GAVE A DAMN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER … I WASN'T GOING ANYWHERE … BUT IT CAST A GLOOMY PALL OVER EVERYTHING. WE HAD TO HAVE THE HOUSE LIGHTS ON IN THE DAYTIME, AND EVEN THAT DIDN'T HELP LIFT THE SHADOWS. IT DIDN'T GIVE US MUCH INCENTIVE TO DO WHAT HAD TO BE DONE … SUCH AS BEGIN THE EXTENSIVE INVENTORY OF THIS HOUSE AND ITS CONTENTS AND MAKE LISTS FOR THE TEAM THAT WOULD CONDUCT THE REAL ESTATE SALE COMING UP A LOT SOONER THAN WE EVEN WANTED TO THINK ABOUT.

WILLY FINISHED LOADING THE DISHWASHER WITH DIRTY DISHES FROM THE PAST FEW DAYS, PLOPPED IN A GLOB OF DETERGENT AND TURNED THE THING ON. WE SAT AT THE TABLE WITH THE LAST OF THE MORNING'S COFFEE AND STARED AT THE RAIN THAT WAS COMING DOWN BY THE BUCKETFULS.

THE CRAPPY WEATHER MADE MY LEG ACHE, AND I RUBBED MY PALM OVER THE PROTECTIVE ELASTIC IN AN EFFORT TO CALM IT. I WAS TEMPTED TO REMOVE THE DAMN BANDAGE WHEN I GOT UP, BUT DIDN'T, CONCEDING THAT IT HELPED CURB THE CONSTANT JANGLE OF MISFIRING NERVE ENDINGS. WHAT I HAD NOW WAS AN ANNOYING ACHE, BUT I VIEWED IT AS THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS.

FROM ACROSS THE TABLE, WILLY WATCHED ME WITHOUT COMMENT. HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING, BUT IT MADE ME WONDER IF FOUL WEATHER DIDN'T SOMETIMES MAKE HIS STUMP ACHE THE SAME WAY THE TRUNCATED MUSCLE ACHED THROUGHOUT MY THIGH.

EARLIER, HE RELATED TO ME HIS EXPERIENCE DRIVING THE DYNASTY FROM NEWARK TO LEXINGTON, AND HIS SURPRISE AT THE SMOOTH WAY THE OLD CAR HANDLED … ALMOST LIKE A MUCH NEWER MODEL. I REFRAINED FROM TELLING HIM HOW I'D SMASHED IT TO HELL IN A FIT OF RAGE AND HAD TO HAVE IT REBUILT FROM THE GROUND UP.

I'D BEEN TRYING TO PUT MY PAST BEHIND ME WHERE IT BELONGS. I WAS DOING PRETTY WELL, I THOUGHT, BUT WILLY'S BRINGING THAT INCIDENT BACK TO MIND JUST RENEWED THE AGONY.

I SMILED A LITTLE IN RESPONSE AND TOLD HIM I'D BOUGHT THE CAR NEW AND HAD TAKEN CARE OF IT FOR GOD-KNEW-HOW-MANY YEARS. (PERPETUATING THE LIE …)

MOSTLY, I RESPONDED TO HIS ATTEMPTS AT CONVERSATION WITH SHRUGS AND GRUNTS THAT MASQUERADED AS COMMUNICATION. HE PROBABLY THOUGHT MY LEG HURT, AND HE DIDN'T PRESS ME TO TALK.

SO WE SAT THERE FOR TOO LONG, COMPANIONABLY SILENT, STARING OUT THE WINDOW AT THE BLURRED LANDSCAPE, WATCHING TRAFFIC SPLASH BACK AND FORTH ON THE STREET OUT FRONT.

Mom and Dad's house is in an isolated neighborhood on the outer fringes of Lexington, about three fields and a country road away from spotless maroon and white horse barns and white-fenced pastures. Out here, Kentucky Blue Grass isn't just a fancy way of romanticizing the commonwealth and its Sport of Kings. Early most mornings when the sun peeks above the horizon, one can hear the high-pitched squeals of foals and the deep-throated nickers of the mares in response. The grass really does have a bluish cast in the first rays of daylight.

Today, however, I couldn't have cared less. I had taken an Immitrax as soon as I got awake, and it had quickly muted some of the leg pain, but not diminished it. It still rang like a steeple bell throughout my thigh. I needed something to keep me occupied and take my mind away from the need to moan and groan. I scanned the adjoining rooms for a project that would give me something worthwhile to do and make me look like I was at least half interested in doing it.

The old console TV was unplugged from the wall; its antenna and DTA system packed away in a cardboard box alongside it. Their clunky floor-model hi-fi, bought in the early 60s when I was still rattling hell out of the sides of my play pen, stood under the picture window within easy access of Dad's old recliner. I remember him sitting for hours playing what he called "cowboy music" … 78 rpm records in albums that must, by now, be worth a bundle. He took meticulous care of them, and most of the printed covers, as well as the records sheathed within, were in like-new condition. I remember hearing Little Jimmy Dickens, Lula Belle and Scotty, Sons of the Pioneers, original Hank Williams classics. They must all be squirreled away in their cartons around here somewhere …

If I really wanted to look, this house was filled with memories. Many articles of memorabilia we had collected over the years had been stored in Aunt Sarah's barn in Ohio while we ran around all over the world, courtesy of the Marine Corps. When Dad retired and they moved here, everything was lovingly transported in reinforced crates and placed in attic, basement, garage, and special display cases.

I did not want to go through any of it, fearing that some of the stuff would bring tears to my eyes if I saw it again, and I could not afford to have that happen. My "gruff-bastard" persona didn't mean a damned thing to anyone around here, but my overblown pride kept refusing me any outward show of emotion where nostalgia was concerned.

*Suck it up, Greg. Be a man! Remember who you are and where you came from!*

Yeah, Dad … I get it.

Willy was up and about again, scrubbing at a couple of pots he didn't trust to the dishwasher, and wiping off the work surfaces and kitchen island.

I pushed to my feet and turned toward the bedroom, awaiting one of the inevitable questions that greeted me every time I moved.

"Everything okay, Greg?"

I grunted back at him: "Mother Nature calls."

"Okay … holler if you need me."

I almost burst out laughing at that one. "Got it."

I continued back the hallway, grousing to myself at the amount of time Willy and Luther wasted keeping track of my movements and wellbeing and the status of my leg. I resented the questions that were geared to finding out if I might be hiding something. I was, but it was none of their damn business.

You'd have thought they didn't trust me.

I kept reminding them that I was a doctor, and I was very well versed on the multitude of things that could go south with the damned leg. Long years of bitter experience babying it made me an expert on the subject.

The oft-mentioned admonition about a doctor being his own worst patient ran through my mind for a few seconds, but I quickly dismissed it. God forbid I say anything about that to Luther. Delaney would probably tell him himself …

I knew I was putting off going through all the stored cartons and crates of inherited loot scattered about. What I wanted to do instead was spend the night on the couch in the living room with my own thoughts, surrounded by all the stuff I didn't need or want. What I wanted was to be alone with the memories and an old ambiance that would soon be gone forever. I was feeling a little nostalgic and a little regretful and a little lost … and I wanted to deal with all of it in private. No sympathetic bystanders. I wished for a fleeting moment that we had not been so efficient in shipping out the Baldwin spinet …

Later, I could tell Willy that I would like to be alone that night to poke around through some of the old cartons and find a few things that would bring back memories of my parents. The estate sale would blur those memories for the rest of my life, and I would like to be surrounded by them and maybe achieve some closure with the people who had given me life and chased me upward to manhood.

Actually, the speech I intended to make would be fabricated from total bullshit to keep him off my back and afford me a break from solicitous stares and annoying questions about the current state of my health. Willy didn't really know me that well yet, and maybe he wouldn't have his 'bullshit meter' turned on and realize he was being fed a line of crap that would have rivaled the cardboard tanks on Normandy beach.

But Willy bought it; all the crap I poured on like maple syrup.

He grasped my upper arm in a manly grip before he left; said he and Luther would see me in the morning and we could begin the inventory then …

… to which I nodded sadly.

When twilight turned to darkness, I turned off all the lights in the place except for one table lamp in the living room. The atmosphere of the house changed immediately, and everything seemed to exude an aura of spooky strangeness. Like a place of sanctuary awaiting the return of its guardians.

Down the street I glimpsed the same street light that had shone through the bedroom window a few years ago as I lay awake listening to Wilson snore like a buzz saw across our shared bedroom in the housekeeper's quarters. From here, however, the light was dimmer and more diffused by the shadowy leaves on the trees. In the quiet night I could hear the surge of the big central air conditioning system in the basement. Ambient sounds of this big house echoed a sense of belonging that was never present in the military billets we inhabited when Dad was still jockeying with the Marines.

I sat on the couch awhile with my head leaned back across the top. For a few minutes I traveled backward in time and listened to the voices in my head … some of the good times when Dad would let me ride with him in the front seat of the Army Jeep he tooled around the base in … let me wear his 'cover' … the military hat with the officers' brass and the shiny brim. "Little Big Man", he called me during those times, and I was so shivery with excitement at the extra attention, I could almost feel my bones rattling.

The times when he took Mom and me on picnics near whatever base we were stationed. Showed us points of interest and some of the prettiest places he knew about, but where we dependents seldom had an opportunity to see. We ate hot dogs in the shadows of the Great Pyramids. Went fishing in the Seine, sampled their delectable chocolate candy and climbed the Eifel Tower. Walked through the teeming streets and smelled the Akamiso of Tokyo.

Thinking about it made me hungry. I got up and wandered out to the refrigerator. The light hit me in the face, and I thought: *Wow! Food!*

Milk, bread, cold cuts, eggs, cheese, condiments, chicken nuggets, onions … and a six-pack of beer. Serendipity.

Immediately there was a dilemma. I couldn't concoct a decent snack on crutches. No hands. No way. I closed the refrigerator and clumped down the dark hallway to the bedroom. Located the wheelchair with the glow from the street light. Crutches plunked across the bed, my butt in the wheelchair. Hah! Two free hands. And a lap.

I ate a sandwich at the kitchen table, at the place where the regular chair had been pulled away into a corner so I could get the wheelchair under there. I munched the goodies, crunched a handful of chips from the bag in the breadbox, and gulped a beer. Belched. Reached for the second can to take back to the living room with me …

This time I sat in the semi-darkness. On the carpet; leaning back into the front of the couch. A position I'd often assumed as a kid to do my homework … no matter where we were in the world.

Sometimes Dad would sit in his recliner by the front window; the chair with the cigarette burn on the arm. There would be a stogie in his mouth and he'd be reading the local newspaper or a copy of Stars and Stripes. Mom would sit in the big easy chair across from him, or sometimes at the piano, playing softly for her own amusement … and ours.

Those were some of the good times; the good times when the old man wasn't acting like a Jarhead or pointing out loudly a list of everything I'd done wrong that day. I would lean my head back; my home-work spread out around me, listening to Mom play some Hoagy Carmichael or Irving Berlin. I would slug a root beer or two and wish that family life could always be so tranquil …

Tonight I drank three beers, ate a ham sandwich and an entire box of chicken nuggets smothered with ketchup and mustard, and most of a bag of potato chips. Who said I had no appetite?

After a time I found myself fighting sleep and the idyllic dream-images of long-ago family life turned darker. I remember rousing myself long enough to pull up onto the couch and stare at the ceiling.

I did not wipe away the salty tears that spilled down my cheeks.

I was simply trying to find a way to say:

*Goodbye …"

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