James Kim

I keep reading about James Kim and I cannot stop crying.

6:56 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Standing

She wont dance with me and I dont know why. Maybe shes a lesbian, but later I see her with Jeff and I cuss her and go outside to smoke with the boys. Carl has Kools. I smoke Camels, but I take one anyway because Im out. He hands one to Simon who only smokes when he drinks, which has been every single night since he lost his job at Wal-Greens a month ago. And the three of us just stand there in the dirt parking lot, half drunk and all lonely.
The Kool tastes like shit and burns my throat and I wish I had one of my Camels, but I dont so I go on smoking. Carl starts in on his ex-wife, talking about how she left his ass and took the kids, the stuff a thousand country songs are made of. I want to tell him to shut the fuck up. I want to say weve heard it all before, but I dont. I wouldnt be a good buddy if I did that, so instead I pretend to listen. Simon leans his shoulder against the bricks of the bar, like theyre whispering to him about the secrets of the world and hes straining to hear. His Kool dangles on his lips and the smoke from the cherry flows up into the air until the wind picks up and flows it flat and away like a laser. His wrecking ball belly peeks out at the bottom of his T-shirt. Carls still going on about how she was a good woman, fearing of God and all that and then she ups and leaves him for a bartender from Disney World. And I tell him the same thing I always tell him. I tell him that his ex is a bitch, that shes gone and shes not coming back. I tell him that I wish I could feel his pain but Im usually the one who does the leaving, though it has been some time since Ive had anyone to leave. Simon doesnt make a peep. He just leans and smokes. And I smoke too, trying to taste the tobacco through the menthol, but I am having no luck with that. I think what a terrible thing it is that a man, by Florida law, can no longer smoke himself to death where he drinks himself to death.
The stars are out in force tonight, and if I believed in much at all Id make a wish like when I was little, but none of that shit ever works. Instead I look at the sea of them and wonder how we got here, to this point in our lives, where weve got nothing going on but nights out drinking with the boys. And I guess at least weve got that. Weve got one another.
Jeff joins us and I call him a ladies man and he smiles because he knows it is as true as gravity. He calls us all back inside and says hell buy the next round. He doesnt have to tell me twice, and I crush out the Kool between the bricks. Carl and Simon follow and I tell Jeff that Im not picky and that Ill take whatever hes drinking but I already know hes drinking Miller. The four of us pile up to the bar and I put my elbows up and watch Sportscenter on the TV. The Rays are losing by three runs in the eighth, but thats nothing new.
Our beers come and we thank Jeff with nods all around, but other than that none of us say anything. The bar is moving pretty good for a Tuesday and weve been here for close to three hours already. My teeth tingle and that is how I can tell that I am on the road to getting drunk. Simon takes the table by the juke, and his beer is already gone. Someones put in Springsteen and hes wailing about how he works at the carwash where all it ever does is rain, and Ive heard this song so many times and still I can feel his pain.
The floor beneath the table is sticky, so much so that I feel as though I might get stuck here and I wont ever get up. None of us talk. We just sit, as if weve said everything that there is to say, but that isnt true. I think its more like we dont know what to say cause our words dont seem to change shit. Carl just looks into the bubbles in his Miller and seems sad and far away. He is missing his wife who he wont call his ex because they havent been legally divorced. Hes told us that it wouldnt be proper, though I dont much see that its proper to run off with some random guy like his ex has. Jeff himself is usually full of conversation but even tonight he is quiet. He usually tells us about some new broad at work he plans to move on.
The boys finish their beers and I see that Im behind the game so I pound mine as Jeff asks if we want to hit the road. Anywhere but here, I say, as Jeff walks over to say bye to the girl he danced with.

We drive drunk in Jeffs Tacoma, headed to the lake. The highway is straight and flat and good for this type of driving. In the mornings and evenings, though, US 20 is dangerous because it runs East to West, and the sun will get you in the eyes coming or going.
Simon and I ride in the bed because Jeff doesnt want him puking in the cab and Im the only one whod volunteer to keep him company. Even though Florida is hot as hell this time of year, the breeze from driving makes me cold. There isnt a single man-made thing on either side of the highway, just the silhouettes of brush and half-burned trees from the fires two years ago. They changed the landscape. It was like driving through hell back then, small fires on both sides and enough smoke and ash to coat everything. They had looked beautiful at night, the red and bright orange flames spread against the ground, chewing up everything and wanting more. Not asking, only taking.
There wasnt any moon tonight, which was why there were so many visible stars. The Gulf of Mexico, with its bright turquoise waters was miles in the other direction, but I swear I could put my tongue to the breeze and taste its salt. Simon is hunched over, hugging his hands to his chest and keeping his head down like he is praying. He looks like a monk with the wind blowing his shaggy brown hair all around his bald spot. His snoring is so loud I can hear it over the sound of the wind crashing past my ears. He is done for the night.
Were headed to the boat launch and weve got a case of Bud from the bar although Im not happy about it being But, but it was all they had on hand; I cant wait for Jeff to hurry up and get there so I can piss. But he is driving on a six-pack so to be safe hes going the speed limit. I just sit in the bed and wait and look up into thee dark sky and let the stars swim motionless above me and let the wind try its best to carry me away.

The three of us are sitting on Jeffs tailgate and Simon is busy with being passed out drunk in the bed and he isnt moving or alert be we whisper out of habit. Carls got the Maglite and hes sweeping the water for gators, whose eyes, he says, shine like diamonds. When he sees a gator he whispers our names and we look for the glittering eye on the water. And just as quickly as we spot the gator, it dives with great and almost silent skill beneath the black water and into the cover of the lilies and grass.
Ive lived near the lake all my life and still the darkness of the water gives me chills.
Jeff is quietly rolling a joint between his fingers and he gives me the first puff. Just like the Kool, when I light it and breathe it down it burns my throat and lungs and I think green thoughts. I pass it along to Carl who stops his looking for a second so that he can take a hit. He hands me the Mag and I click it off and for the moment were there, the three of us, consumed by the dark and the sounds of the frogs and the crickets and things moving on the surface of the water. The cherry of the joint is glowing Carls face red. He hands it back to me and I offer it to Jeff, who take it and smokes it deep and long until he coughs up smoke.
With a click the light is back on, and I pop a can of beer and offer it to him. I tell him theyre getting warm and weve got a case to drink. I pop one for Carl too and one for myself and we all cheers and take a swig. And that is when Jeff drops the bomb.
Im getting up and out, Jeff says. Im moving. Got a job with CSX Railroad up in Tennessee. Ill be going from the heat and the sand to the mountains.
I knew youd been looking, Carl says. Didnt think itd come so soon, though. And I have to admit that Carl is right, that this is soon and unexpected, but what does a guy say to his friend? I cant tell him not to go. All I can is wish him well and ask when hes leaving and where the party is and if he needs help moving his shit. And so I do those things and I tell him hes crazy for leaving Florida but Im lying because I know he isnt crazy. He is brave. He is more than that though. He is our leader, the guy who calls us to go out, the one who organizes poker games, the guy we trust to drive us to the lake when weve been out drinking. And his leaving, moving on and up and out, while the rest of us, Simon, Carl, and I sit here treading water, barely keeping our heads above the surface, is something I fear may break us. Break me. We dont have much. Carl and Ive got shitty jobs at Home Depot. And weve got one another, the four of us, together.
Jeff hands me the joint and I take one small puff and wash it down with the Bud. The lake is dark and foreboding and the small light from the Mag does little but illuminate pinpoint spots. Simons snores are in concert with the sounds of the night and just now the three of us notice and laugh and crack another three beers and laugh some more.
Jeff finishes the rest of the joint and drops it to the sand. He watches it burn for a moment before stepping down from the tailgate and crushing it with his foot. The breeze ceases to blow. Simon goes on snoring. The world goes on turning and it is just the three of us there, awake in the now still and dark night.

8:02 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

All There Was to Say

All there was to say when Leslie told me, was fuck. And then more of the same. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. It was all I could say and all I could do. Those words encapsulated entire feelings and thoughts, the anger, the love and the disbelief. And then Leslie started to cry.
What a scene it was, the two of us with the lights off, sitting there on the kitchen floor with our backs up against the stove. Her tears kept coming and her shoulders shook. I put the orange Id been peeling between us on the white linoleum floor, and with sticky hands I reached out to Leslie and pulled her close. I lied and told her it would be okay. I lied because things wouldnt be okay, and I knew it. She knew it too. But lies are good. Sometimes theyre all weve got. Someday maybe things would be better. Someday theyd turn out okay. Not this day, or the next or the one after. Nothing and no one would be okay. And it would be like this for her and for me for a long time coming, and only time, as slow as it ever was, would do any good.
I held her there against me as she cried, and all I could think about was how my arms were around the same woman who a month earlier had someone else to hold her, and how all this shit now coming down was a direct result. I could feel my dick getting hard and it made me feel bad and sick but I couldnt stop it. You cant stop the automatic. Its like trying to stop the ocean waves from eating the beach. There isnt a chance in the world, it is what Mother Nature does. The bitch gives and she takes away just as easy.
I ask Leslie even though I already know the answer. The way her face was scrunched up into itself, her nose and eyes all puffy and red, it made me think of a newborn. And she tells me that it wasnt mine. That it was his. And hers. They had screwed and with that horrible knowledge I could feel the hot knife blade poking around in my gut, and the thought of Leslie with him, some fuck she barely knew. And with no idea what to do now, we just sat there on the cold kitchen floor with the half-peeled orange between us. I wanted to help and hurt and kill and bleed and run and turn back time and all of those things all into one, but all I could do was apologize. For what I didnt know.
Have you called him, I ask? Does he know? She tells me that she has and that yes he knows, but that he hasnt called back because he is busy with work. He works a lot, Leslie tells me. She is in this deep. She is one half of the equation, and here I am on the outside looking in and I already know the score. I know hes running and that he isnt going to call or offer an apology or money and I know that he is a fuck and the only thing thatll work for this guy is a nine-iron upside his head. But I dont say any of this because Leslie doesnt need to hear the truth. Not yet, and not when the truth is about as bad as it can get. Not when the truth will tell her what she already knows. She is alone.
We keep holding onto one another, like nothing will hurt either one of us as long as Im there to protect her, like Im her father and not her ex. I whisper through her long curly blonde hair that shell be okay, and I keep telling her this, that in the end it will be all right. I tell Leslie that life is dirty, that were all dirty and shit happens. Its like weve been lucky for so long that something like this was bound to happen. Just, fuck, not this. And as I let go of Leslie she wraps her arms around me tighter, holding on, sucking me in. We sit there, not moving, barely breathing, just existing with the crazy dark swirling over us, wrapping around us like a ghost.
We finally let go and I see her eyes and her lips quiver and she tells me that she feels gutted, and that even when her friend Eve went with her to the clinic that she felt all alone and cold in the stirrups and that was when it set in that she was one of those girls. One of those girls who makes a mistake and feels ashamed, and the guy rolls on and takes no responsibility. One of those girls. And I tell Leslie that this is some Maury Povich talk-show bullshit. She laughs, if only for a few seconds.
Leslie tells me that she cannot eat or sleep, says shes been drinking and smoking for the last three days. I see it in her eyes, and I tell her that for someone who is navigating through the shit storm that she is right now, she still looks as beautiful as the first day I met her. Again I lie, because really when I look at pretty Leslie sitting beside me I also see a girl who I loved who fucked some guy and let him come inside her and now shes crying and wanting me to help her out and all I can think about is how if things werent so messed up shed still be bending over for the other guy. And I think about her in those stirrups all alone in some fucking white room clinic with paintings of beaches on the walls and a five-month old People magazine in the waiting room and I immediately want to find this guy and put a cinder block up his ass and pull it out through his throat. I can feel the hot knife poking around in my stomach again, and I wonder why I am here for her, why Im here in the dark with Leslie.
I tell her that it is late, that she looks like she needs some sleep. I tell her to shower. Take a hot one, I say. I tell her Ill make her bed up and put on some tea and that I will take care of her. What I dont say is that a big part of me is wishing to run like the other guy already has, just take off, fly, get gone.
I put the tea on as she starts the shower, and I can peek through the bathroom door that has never fully closed and watch as she slides her panties down over her hips and her breasts slip out from under her black bra and she stands there waiting for the shower to heat up. I instantly want to hold her, to grab her, to feel her skin on my hands and to kiss her neck and forget all of this shit. She steps behind the shower curtain and is gone in a moment, disappeared from my eyes. I move from the kitchen into the bedroom and flick on the lights. I go about making the bed and I begin to wonder if this is where it happened and what position and if she sucked his dick or he made her come or if she was better with him or if I was smaller or larger or if he looked better naked. All of that truth we all think about but never admit to. It is better that way.
Leslie calls to me from the bathroom. Steven, she says. Come here. Shes never really called me by my whole name, and it shocks me, like hearing my mom mad at me. But I go in and there she is naked and inviting me to join her, and just then the tea kettle starts whistling, but I dont care at this point, with Leslie inviting me in, telling me she needs me, to feel something other than what she feels right now. She says she needs to feel close to me. And before I know what I am doing or the ramifications of getting naked with an ex, my clothes are dropping to the ground like the first night we spent together. I step in and hold Leslies soft smooth body to mine, and let the hot water cascade over our shoulders and run down our bodies, washing the dirt away. I soap her hair and wash her back and she brushes against my dick and laughs about how hard I am and I feel bad, like getting a boner in church when the preacher is talking about how Jesus died for all of our sins. But Leslie laughs and tells me that I was always up for sex, and as she laughs the hot water brings life to her face, as if it has ironed out the last few days of no sleep and cigarettes. She smiles, and in the kitchen the tea kettle keeps on whistling, and in that one simple smile I forget everything and it is just her and I and we are laid bare in front of one another and it is like weve been born again with the hot water slipping over our skin and falling between our toes.
Leslie leaves the shower first and runs to the bed. I turn off the stove and let the tea cool. I pour two cups of tea into the mugs we bought on vacation in The Outer Banks a year ago. How did we get from that to this? I add milk and honey to Leslies tea, the way she likes it, and I stir it as I bring the mug to her bedside.
That night I stay above the covers, clothes on, stroking her hair as she falls asleep, falls into a world for a few hours where none of this mess has happened, where she can fly or pass through time and space with a single flip of a switch, where anything and everything is possible. The only thing that stays the same is change, I whisper to her. I tell her time will heal all of this, and I can hear her breathing from under the covers. I spoon her and for a few hours we stay like that and I barely can sleep because all I want to do is hold onto her. We all need things to hold onto, and for these few hours, while she sleeps and I am beside her, I can have her. She is mine. Nothing can touch us as long as we remain here in her apartment. Not that guy, not the past or present. Its like time will stop if we just stay here, Leslie and I. Because once we walk out that front door and into the daylight, reality will come back and hit us like a fucking Mack truck. That is just the way of things I whisper to Leslie.
The hours pass and finally I have to go. I get up slowly, not wanting to leave, and grab her keys from the mantel where the clock reads 5:17am. I wonder where the time has gone, how we get from there to the here and now. For a moment I just stand there in her living room and stare at the clock. I make sure I am quiet, like I am seven again and sneaking my way into the family living room to spy on Santa Claus. But those days are long gone, and the peace of childhood has long since passed us by.
I unlock the front door and step out into the chilly morning air and take in the silence of the world at this hour. I turn back, lock Leslies door, and slip the keys back underneath the door and head off into the morning darkness.

4:36 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Air and Planes

Midnight at El Gordos and Jimmy and I are sitting at the bar and drinking Cokes cause Jimmys in recovery and says he will be all his life, and while Ive no desperate need for recovery I back him up and drink Coke too. I take mine with lemon. Even though he doesnt drink, Jimmy still likes to go out and sit in the smoke of a bar and watch the games on the tube. He doesnt mind that ESPNs showing the same game winning three-pointer by Clemson that they showed an hour earlier and the hour before that, and weve been here since nine, so weve seen Clemson win three times already.
El Gordos is like every other shithole bar, dark and smoky and full of televisions that youve gotta strain your neck to watch. And through sips of his Coke Jimmys talking about growing up in the burbs with too much money and too many expectations, and I know were each silently wondering if were failures. I think in some measure I am. Jimmy tells me that were supposed to have surpassed our parents, as they did theirs, and that we should be living a dream of big jobs and bigger money and happiness coming out of our asses. He takes another sip and pauses and then says that when he laughs he can hear his father laughing, like a ghost from inside of him. I tell him we cant help it. I tell him were the sons of our mothers and fathers and that at least he got his dads laugh because all I got was male-pattern baldness. At this Jimmy laughs, and his head of brown curls sways under El Gordos cheap track lighting and he tells me that Im going bald because of my mothers father. I nod and take a sip of my Coke and tell him that Ive heard that shit but then how come her dad was six-foot while Im a paltry five-nine and will never dunk a basketball. I wish to all hell I could dunk, I say.
The cute blonde bartender comes to refill my Coke and while shes handling my cup I trace a finger through the circle of condensation left behind. The water is cold and obedient and follows where I draw. Jimmy is still sipping on his Coke, and each time he puts it down he lets out a thick sigh like its the best drink hes ever had and then he smacks his lips together while gently laying his hands on the bar as if he was touching the top of a stove to see if it is hot. Jimmy does this without fail as if it is his religion.
Were fast approaching forty and both divorced, Jimmy twice. At least were not drunks, Jimmy says. Not tonight anyway. That was a long time ago, I tell him, and Jimmy shoots back that it wasnt as long as it feels. And I ask it; I ask Jimmy if he is happy, if hes where he dreamed hed one day be. He looks at me like Im retarded, and I guess I am, because the question sounds stupid just these five seconds later, because of course he isnt happy with where he is, sitting in the smoke and dark of El Gordos drinking Coke out of a plastic cup. And Jimmy tells me that all that shit, all of everything, his two wives, his drinking, is in the past, and that it has grown distant but not dim. I tell him I sometimes feel like my past is riding me like Im a horse, and I cant buck it off. Jimmy just sits and sips and smacks his lips and lays his hands upon the bar until the cute blonde comes to fill him up again. I hand over my cup too.
This is it boys, she says.
She doesnt need to tell us this, weve been coming here each Wednesday for a year and they should know us well enough by now. We finish the last sips and I suck on my lemon and taste the sweet and sour of it while Jimmy grabs his coat. I get up off the stool and put on my jacket and walk to the door, my shoes slightly sticking to the empty floor. Jimmy pushes the door open and we wave adios to the bartender as we head out into the Minnesota night, where our breath steams from our mouths and disappears into the cold and dark sky. Usually we drive in our separate cars, but Jimmys car is in the shop so I give him a lift in my Escort. We hop in and turn on the heat and take off for Jimmys.
The seats are cold and the wheel is even colder and feels thin in my hands, and it is always when I am stuck in my cold car that I wish I lived in the tropics where it never gets this way. Jimmy is quiet, as if he is listening to the heat vents warming up the car one degree at a time. We travel like this towards his house, and he only speaks to direct me left or right or to tell me which lane to get into, until finally were in front of his small redbrick house. His porch lights make the ice on the grass shine like someone forgot to put away the Christmas lights.
Thanks for the ride, he says, and then asks if Id be interested in coming inside to see his place. Sure, I tell him. Ive no place to be and it isnt too late, and Im lonely as hell, but I dont tell Jimmy any of this. Ill come check your place out, I say, and like that Ive got the car off and begin to open the Escorts door and the fingers of the cold air wrap around me and hold me tight. Jimmy is already halfway towards his house by the time Im up out of my seat with the door closed and locked.
Inside, his house is a pretty nice spread. It looks a lot cleaner than his cubicle back at the firm, and I give him shit for being a neat freak because Im a guy and close enough to him to call myself his friend and thats what friends do. They give each other shit. He shrugs me off and says it is part of his process towards recovery, and though I dont recognize any type of connection between being an alcoholic and keeping a clean house I just nod and agree, because what the hell do I know? But what I do know is that it is warm inside Jimmys house and that the wind doesnt blow and travel through me to my bones. Jimmy breaks my warm comfort and tells me that what hes got to show me is back in the back room, and I start thinking that maybe this is how gay pornos start. And I wonder then what it must be like to kiss a man and decide I probably couldnt do it; but then again I havent even kissed a woman in over a year. Jimmy can tell Im not paying attention because he asks what Im staring at. I tell him that Im just spacing out.
Jimmy asks if I want a drink and I ask what hes got and he tells me Coke, so I decline because weve already just ingested three hours worth of high fructose corn syrup and I dont think that I can take much more. No worries, he says and then leads me through his house, which looks much bigger on the inside than it did out. And as he steps ahead of me he tells me that what he wants to show me is right back in the extra bedroom, and the gay porn music starts to play in my head. I wonder if gay porn music is any different from straight porn music, and I snap to when Jimmy lays his hand on my shoulder and snaps the light to the room on and for the moment all I smell is model glue. I remember sniffing that stuff in eighth grade and how it made my nose sting and gave me a headache. There is no bed in the extra bedroom; just a long table covered with a white sheet that looks like it has been used as a drop cloth for a generation of painting. But its whats on top of the table and the sheet that Jimmy means for me to see.
He strides across the room and bounds back just as quickly with an airplane cradled in his hands like hes holding a newborn. Jimmy tells me its the first one he ever built, when he was twenty. An A-10 Tank Killer, otherwise known as a Warthog, he tells me. They used em in the first Gulf War to strafe the Iraqis and bust up their tanks, and how one of them lost an entire wing and was still able to make it back to base. And he keeps going on and on about the A-10, but Im looking all around at his shelves and shelves of planes. Planes on bookshelves. Planes on the table. Planes hanging from the ceiling just planes on top of planes on top of planes. There must be a thousand of them, and then Jimmy tells me he has eight hundred and thirty-five. All hand-built he says. He keeps pointing all the planes out; a 747 from PanAm, a TWA DC-10, a rare Trump 737, and exact replica of Air Force One, a Maersk cargo plane, and an entire squadron of Russian MIGs. Jimmy holds up his hands and tells me that these are what built all of these planes. My two hands, he says.
The funny thing is that with all these planes youd think Jimmy was a traveler. But in all our nights at El Gordos hes told me that hes never traveled out of the country, and never even flown anywhere, though he says he wants to go to New Zealand one day and that he has planned a bunch of other trips. But he isnt talking about any of that now, just caressing the A-10 like a lover.

When I return home, it is past two in the morning and the stairs to my apartment loom dark and all knowing and I climb them to my apartment on the third floor. I unlock the door and slip inside. The air smells stale, and as I plop down on the cold couch I take in the sound of nothing and I know that in the end it is all we have.
There isnt shit on television this late at night, but I surf the channels anyway, and find myself listening to some religious station where theyre talking about Gods love of mankind, and that doctors can heal our shells but that only He can heal our soul. And the man on the tube asks me to send him money so he can keep preaching the word of the gospel and he says amen and the people stand in their seats and clap and raise their hands into the air, and they hold them there, as if they are all reaching for something.

10:27 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

A Good and Peaceful Thing

It is early in the morning when the call comes, and I am lying naked and sticky with sweat and it is uncomfortable to reach all the way across the bed to answer my cell. I try not to wake Lindsay, who has just recently dozed off but is now stirring from the ringing. Thomas, my younger brother, is on the phone, and I can tell that something is wrong by the way his voice sounds off. Like he is cold and his teeth are chattering. I have to get out of bed and keep my voice down so that I wont wake sleeping Lindsay.
Hold on Thomas, I say.
There isnt time to hold on Bill, he says. Daddy died last night. Sometime in his sleep. Just boom, lights out.
I say nothing and take a moment to think. It hits me hard that Thomas calls our dad daddy, its like he is a young boy again and not his actual thirty years old. I can hear my brother breathing on the other end and his breaths are thick and bubbly with snot from what I suppose must be his crying.
Bill?
Im here, I say. My throat feels like it is closing up and my stomach is trying to turn itself inside out. What do we do now, I ask? And it is a strange thing, the older brother by five years asking the younger one what to do. And so I tell Thomas that dad going in his sleep is a good and peaceful thing. My voice has brought Lindsay out of her sleep and above the covers and her straight and boring blonde hair streams over her almost perfect breasts and she mouths to me, asking what is wrong? I hear Thomas move his mouth away from the receiver, and I hear that he is trying to stop his ghostly sobs from coming but they are slow and heavy and prove hard to contain.
I will get the next flight home, I tell him. I love you, I say. It is a love you that carries with it great meaning and certainty, because we are all we right now are alone in all of this.
Where are you, Thomas asks. I tell him that I am in Cleveland on business, which is partly true, but that I will be home as soon as possible. Again I tell him I love him and he says it back this time and hangs up.
Lindsay props herself up against the headboard of the bed and asks what was that about? Why do I have to leave? And so I tell her about my dad and his dying and she just stares at me like she doesnt get it or cant get it because between us we only have sex and no love or any stronger connection. She covers those perfect breasts with the covers, as if all of a sudden this girl who usually prances around our illicit hotel rooms naked and smooth as a newborn has become shy and self-conscious. But none of that mattered now. But I have to give it to Lindsay; she tries her best when she asks if there is anything I want to talk about. I tell her I need to pack and shower and get going back to Boston as soon as I can.
You know, she says quickly. My father died five years ago when I was a sophomore in college. A heart attack. It was so sudden. Never knew what hit him, they said. It was really hard for a long time. Her words leave me standing naked and cold. I stand there; I hold my ground in this shitty hotel room in some shitty suburb of Cleveland. That is when the tears come, and my face feels like it is melting. And I look at Lindsay and those breasts and all at once we are here, in this room together, and we are apart at the same time. We are connected in death and sex and sweat. We are young and without fathers, and I start towards her, my stomach tight and the tears still rolling down my face. I fall onto her and she kisses my brown hair and tells me she is sorry. I can feel her calm breathing beneath me and I almost want to never get up, just stay here forever and listen to her chest rise and fall.
Tell me about him, she says. Tell me about your father.

In the hotel shower, as the hot water rains down over my shoulders I think about how on the phone Thomas called dad daddy, and I imagine one day having a child of my own who will look up at me with strong eyes and pink cheeks and call me daddy. And I wonder what will happen now, what will change with my fathers passing? I imagine my mother, a small woman, waking up next to my hulk of a father, with him lying there dead as rock. I imagine him not breathing and how he must have looked, pale and gone. She would have called Thomas first and then 911, and my brother would have gotten there before the ambulance, and I can imagine the cold April rain falling on his coat and beading in his thinning hair as he climbed the red brick steps to the house. And I can imagine mom meeting him at the door, her face streaked maroon with grief. They would hug but they would hold it longer than usual. Maybe they waited there on those steps, in the rain, with the hopes of fending off what awaited them inside, fending off the reality of death, if only for awhile. I see now the room of his death and how it must have smelled of the old lady potpourri that mom keeps on her bedside table. And dad would be lying there, curled up on his side, his arms folded to his chest as if he were praying. He would look asleep. I imagine that Thomas must have left one final kiss on my fathers forehead and how Thomas lips must have felt the cold skin and I wonder if even now he can still feel the cold upon them. And I imagine the ambulance and how it must have roared up the street, its red and blue lights dancing along the rain-slick windowpanes of the watching houses.
I turn the shower off and step onto the cold beige tile of the bathroom floor. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I open the door to the bedroom and am greeted by a burst of chilled air and the musky smell of sex-slicked sheets. Lindsay is dressing and fussing with her hair in the mirror. She smiles and her teeth are white like new porcelain. I stare at her as she delicately arranges a stray bang with her fingertips. She smiles again and flashes those teeth and instantly I feel sick. She tells me she has to go, has a meeting at noon, but that I should call if I need to talk.
I wait for Lindsay to leave before I call my wife. She answers right away and asks if I am ok?
Ill get a flight out of here soon as possible baby, I tell her. And then I tell her how the meeting went in Cleveland but that I dont really know what to talk about because my dad is dead somewhere in some hospital and I just need to get home. I love you Anne, I say. And I mean it as if it were the first time I had said those words and was afraid the words would not be returned.
I love you too baby, she says. So much it hurts. And then she cries and I tell her it will be okay and now I am crying and she hangs up but I hold on and listen to the dead air between me and her.

Anne is waiting for me when my plane arrives and we meet at baggage claim and she glides to me over the aging off-white linoleum floor. She kisses me on the lips and her brown hair pours over her shoulders and down her back like thick coffee. She holds me and I hold her and she pushes her face against my scruffy neck. I feel sick. I let go of her only to grab my baggage and then she drives me to my mothers through the cold Boston afternoon.

Mom is sitting in the kitchen when we arrive, with a box of pink tissue and a cup of coffee in front of her. The room is calm and I place my hands on her shoulders and lean down and kiss he on the cheek. I tell her I love her. Mom starts talking just as my lips leave her skin and she starts going on and on about dad and how she misses him, how she cannot imagine life without him. And it hits me that all death is the same. There are no new lines, theyve all been used up. Hers are the same as millions of other widows in the world. She tells me about their first date and how dad was so nervous for that first kiss. Ive heard this all before, but I let her go. She tells me of their wedding and how it was simple and beautiful and how my grandmother had cut tulips from her own garden to make the wedding bouquet. And her tears start to come now and moms hair is graying and wispy and dry, tickling my nose as I hold her. Here I am, holding my widowed mother and I start thinking about Lindsay in Cleveland and how I feel dirty and horrible and that if Anne found out shed cry and hate me. I think about how I should be a better husband, like my father was. I wonder if he ever cheated. I think about Anne and how lonely my life would be without her in it. Never again, I tell myself. Never ever again. I tell myself, as I hold my mother, that Lindsay doesnt matter, those few nights of drinking and sweaty sex in cheap hotels means nothing. I will change. My father is gone now, soon to be ash, and I am his son and need to change.
I love you mom, I say. We sit this way for what feels like hours, just holding onto one another.
Thomas and Anne are on the back porch talking. Mom and I let go of one another and we go to where the voices are. The sky is growing dark and the wind picks up and the yard my father spent so much time cutting and weeding is spread out in front of us. The Daffodils that line his yard are beginning to pop just in time for Easter. Thomas looks to me and asks if I remember helping dad plant those?
Yeah man, I say. Took all day, back when I was ten and you were five. He gave us two cents for each bulb.
There must be a couple hundred back there, he says. And the four of us just sit there, saying nothing, just looking out over the yard and watching the yellow and white flowers come alive just like theyd done the year before and the year before that. Those beautiful fucking Daffodils.

10:26 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Stories

Will be posting some of my stories here in a blog form. You can read or disregard them. I cannot figure how to transfer them from WORD files to blog form so there is little to no punctuation or proper spacing. But you'll get the idea.

-Pete

9:10 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment