Broken Ice and Backstops, Floor Tiles and Ham...
Stephen Guinan

        Then the telephone rings again. Mary Metzger, the neighbor across the street. They've dropped off flowers at her house by mistake. Somebody needs to get it. I can't talk to her now, Mom says. She'll tell me about her stomach. Evidently she's had to have several procedures to reduce. Mrs. Metzger's a widow across the street, her husband having died a few years back. Very particular about her flowers, lawn. I was once commissioned to cut her grass, back when I was fourteen, so I had my buddy John Eckhart help me out, making work an excuse to goof off. John Eckhart was driving the riding lawn mower and I was pelting him with apples from the apple tree in the middle of the yard. Then I lost my balance and fell, puncturing my thigh on a little nub of branch. There was blood, and stitches, which dad removed himself a few weeks later, out on the back deck, pulling them out with a needle nose pliers, an idea he'd come up with in an after-dinner reverie. I was never asked to mow the lawn again, what with all the fuss.
        The phone was ringing. This time it's the Elks Club of Maumee, calling to confirm a reservation for the after the funeral luncheon. There are many questions, Mom taking notes on an envelope as she stands at the counter. I need a pen that works, she says.

        Dad's computer monitor doesn't work, as though it and dad had died simultaneously, as though bound in a cult pact. When you hit the ON button the monitor makes a clicking sound in the back, then coughs and peters out. I keep trying it, turning it off then back on, as though one more time might resuscitate the screen. Same clicking, coughing, petering out. The den is a sty; file folders and seventy's era pop-psychology books and a blinking clock radio have infested the room, which was right off the foyer, with a pull out couch that we'd unfold for my girlfriends or Mary's boyfriends when they visited during the college years because of the No Mixed Company Rule. The No Mixed Company Rule actually was instituted long before college, by some estimates as far back as fifth grade, when Mary was not allowed to be a cheerleader for the St. Joseph's fifth and sixth grade football team. We were the fighting carpenters, and my father said that we were not to have MIXED COMPANY in the bedroom. The phrase was beyond our years, adultish, councilor-ish, and had the effect of punishing us before we had done anything wrong, or knew we had the power to do anything wrong. The high school years were the era of high NO MIXED COMPANY RULE, Mary and I openly mocking it whenever someone of the opposite sex crossed the blue carpet lines of the bedroom. By the time I was in college I would become uncomfortable and clumsy any time a girl set foot in my room, even Mary. When my college girlfriend came to stay, I sometimes showed her my room, never sitting down or dwelling, in a voice a notch louder, nerdier, nothing to inspire silence as she surveyed for clues: a picture of my dog Scuffy on the bulletin board, or my high school composite, me looking over my shoulder, a little fifth grader.

        When I arrive at the hospital I'm bracing. Everything in my entire life up to this point has been a bracing. I see the nurse behind the desk. She tells me second floor, intensive care. At second floor, intensive care, another nurse behind the barrier desk says no, he's not here yet, go back to the first floor. A long hallway. The elevator. The desk again. Then. A room, designed for this very Moment. There's Mom...Father Bacik...the Pritchers...My Aunt Roseanne. Sit down, we're going over the situation. This doesn't look good.

        I try not to stay long at Mrs. Metzgers, leaving the door behind me an escape route. But it's too cold, biting cold, so the door closes and locks me into conversation. We're doing okay. Lot's to do. Very busy. One thing after another. It comes in waves, you know. You know I had my stomach decreased, she says, and I just can't eat very much anymore.

        I fall back asleep on the couch. I hear my daughter Claire coughing upstairs. I linger there half conscious. I have the urge to pee, all that coffee. I don't move. The dull pain is inside my skin, longing to come out. I dream of lion cubs, bathed and kept in line by mother.

        We drive Mary's husband Steve to the airport, which requires no highway driving. All back country roads toward Monclova, past farms being bought up and developed. It's getting dark. We drive past an air force base. Wasn't your dad in the military? asks Steve. We laugh. My dad told the story of going into the reserves, which he signed up for before he was eighteen. He was a helicopter repairman. I can see the picture of him, squatting, smiling next to some large, green military apparatus, a helicopter I guess. Mary laughs. What a joke. Last year, when he was filling out some retirement plan, they couldn't verify his military records. Everything had been burned up in a fire in Missouri. There is no record of his having existed.

        I wake in a black hole. Like drowning, emerging from the depths, gasping not for air but for place. Where am I? Allow it to happen, consciousness running its course. I'm in Columbus. I see the hallway nightlight. Claire is coughing. It's the middle of the night. I cannot guess what time it is. I don't dare try.

        I pick my nose like a maniac. A cold snap had set in, the air was desert dry, many nose particles. A constant battle. In the mornings, several nose blowings, just to get started, the shelling to soften the defenses before the infantry. Or commando squads, trained killers, ruthless, they'll stop at nothing, nothing, to apprehend their target. Or the diplomats, softly cajoling the hostage takers out, slowly on the tip, then to be flung causally aside.

        When I was eight he built a house along the river in Maumee. He hired the architects and the engineers and the planners. The house was built on a hill, an aesthetic of wood and asphalt shingle. Purely practical, on the cheap, by hammer and nail. A ranch house flung into the side of a muddy hill with a mutant sized black roof that was designed to support solar panels. Solar panels. At the bottom of the hill the earth flattened out to the river, a surface plain that would flood in the spring. We played baseball there. Home plate was a small corner by the willow tree and the river embankment, a huge, redwood-esque old timber, a relic from colonial river goers. It didn't take very long to figure out that you had to be careful not to foul off the ball, it would sail up and over the embankment and sink splashless into the river, bobbing in the muddy water then disappearing under the docks of the Edison Boat Club. Dad built a backstop with 2 x 4's and a variety of fencing and chicken wire left over from construction. If you saw it you might actually think: backstop. Or the cross section of an igloo. Four panels fastened together wobbily. A backstop, and the game was on.

        His left leg sometimes falls off the bed. It works its way out from under the hard sheets and hangs over the floor. We put it back. Where do you think you're going, Jimmy, says Mom. Get back here.

        December. The body oscillates between moments of strength and weakness, facing the cold and bowing away. Christmas Eve is seven days after the funeral. The whole affair in replay. A man so great he had to be grieved twice, someone says. People, friends, family coming and going, all lost in a void. The ice storm hits on Thursday and knocks out power across the state. On Christmas the three of us, Mary, Mom, and I, bracing. And then I pack a suitcase and climb in to my dad's SUV and leave town, heading south. I'm not in a rush, just sloshing down 75. I stop at gas station in Findlay, Flag City USA, even though I had plenty of fuel to go all the way. I am rejuvenated. According to the digital thermometer on the rear view it is five degrees, like breathing glass. I cannot explain it, but inside the Sunoco I am stunned at the beauty of the world. I survey the fruits of civilization, the aisles of brightly labeled beverages, the hot dogs, all crusted over and greasy. I grab a bag of Doritos. I explore selections on cassette tape. Heavy metal classics. Jesus is my savior. Conway Twitty. I am overcome with joy. I begin to miss everybody. I long to relive the whole sad parade. I miss colonizing the intensive care waiting room. I miss the smell of the hospital. I miss the smorgasbord we ate and ate. I miss going to the mortuary to make the arrangements. I miss stopping at Anderson's for a sandwich when we realized, shit, we better eat something. As I stand at the counter, waiting, I miss leaving town earlier that morning. I miss arriving at the Sunoco. Then I miss the crusty hot dogs and the wall of Gatorade that I had beheld a moment ago as I step back out into the cold.

        We wake, no hurry, he's not going anywhere. I slug down two glasses of tap water for a lingering headache from all that wine. I grind old coffee beans, looking out the window to the river. The sky is a thick gray, billowing. No chance of sunshine. We've been grounded from the sun, punishment for our sins. The wind is kicking up too. I take a shower. Dress in the same pants I wore the day before. I have no idea what day it is. Well, says Mom. At least the hospital isn't so far away. We put our coats on, climb in Mom's car, a Honda Civic. We complain about our inability to get good coffee in Maumee. Plus that vinyl fence the city put up along the Anthony Wayne Trail is hideous. Why'd they do that? says Mary. It looks so trashy.
        Mom knows pattern of the stoplights, pointing out which way to turn depending on which light you get.
        Go straight here, she says.
        I know the way, but I ease back into the straight lane. I'll do anything you tell me. Tell me to drive forever and I will.
        She notes my miniscule resistance: If you turn here you miss the light on Conant.

        We're anxious by eleven o'clock. We know what we have to do. We have decided to do it. There are no questions. No questions whatsoever. Done. We made the decision, heck we made it on Saturday and now its Tuesday, so right there we're three days removed from any doubts at all. There will be no doubts! We will have none of it! We're here today at eleven o'clock to remove my dad from the respirator and that's final. We sit in the ICU waiting room. We don't talk. Joan, my mother's ex-sister in law who works at the hospital appears. Chatter. How you holdin up? If there's anything, ANYTHING I can do...If there were any doubts, any lingering ghosts, well then by gum...we're well past that. We don't talk again. I walk deliberately, placing each shoe inside the floor tiles, sparkling mopped squares, step by step. My feet fit in the square perfectly, if I angle them slightly.

        Matt Mermer flies in from Oregon and brings a ham. Voices come and go, bringing with them a blast of cold air. Then Richard Miller, from San Francisco. We drink wine, make toasts, tell stories. More people. More wine. Richard Miller makes a toast, to Jim Guinan. A guru, he calls him. We stay up later and later, telling stories of the trouble, or near trouble, we got into in high school. I tell the story of how when I was twelve, dad sent me out on the frozen river to fetch someone's dock that the ice had ripped away. Must be a couple hundred dollars in wood and barrels, he said. He tied the nylon yellow rope around my waste, his hands securing the knot tight. The other end he ties to an oak tree. Just be careful he said. The ice on the river had broken, like it does in spring, all grey and brown broken sheets of ice like a junkyard extending to the horizon. I hop freely on the enormous shards, testing, a bug on a train wreck. I tie the rope around the dock, and make my way back, hitting the safe spots in reverse. Back on dry land, we exhaled. I was safe. I was careful. I had done my job. Just as the very thought crossed our minds, the river, like Jack's giant, woke up. It breathed, the ice chunks popping here and there. And then the whole river of ice, a glacier, began its move north, toward Lake Erie. The yellow rope grew taut, the dock gave slightly, then the rope snapped, like a rubber band, and the dock was gone, just as I would have been had I been out there, like I'd been a minute before.

        The vacuum cleaner breaks. Something isn't right about this, says Mom. We have to go to the bank again. Plus we should eat something. Maybe think about groceries for dinner. Maybe steaks. Let's all go. And so we go. My sister and her three kids and Mom and I plus the vacuum cleaner pile into their minivan, a tan town and country, then drive up to the Golden Gate strip Mall. We stop at the bank. I wait in the car with the kids. There's a vacuum cleaner repair shop in a strip mall which also hold a Mexican restaurant called El Salto. We park by the restaurant so the kids don't have to walk far in the cold. I unload the vacuum cleaner, and for a little while I'm a man pushing a vacuum cleaner in a parking lot. I push it proudly, defiantly. I dare anyone to defy me. Do not fuck with me. I'm a man with a Hoover. And I will cross the parking lot, and I will get it fixed. In the restaurant we are the only people there. We joke with Chris and Cassidy, gee whiz, it's a good thing we got here when we did. Boy, this place is PACKED. They laugh giddily. We repeat the joke in a variety of forms which get funnier and funnier. It lasts through the entire lunch of stale chips and huevos rancheros. Later I check in on the Hoover. Turns out a belt was busted. The repairman had diagnosed the problem and fixed it happily. You're good to go, he said. I load up the vacuum cleaner triumphantly. Hey that really worked out, I said. Great, Mom said.

        In the dream he shows up late. We welcome him into the kitchen. He's happy to see us. We're happy to see him. Everyone is happy. I tell him that I published a story. He's happy even more. Still, in the back of my mind, I know he's dead, that this isn't really him, but a movie of him. And he knows it too, by the look in his eye. As though we both know that soon he will have to leave, and that this conversation, and this party, and this story, and this kitchen will soon not exist, will have never existed.

        They have predicted a severe winter storm. Temperatures will plummet. Wind chills in the minuses. Somewhere inside me, underneath everything, I hold out hope that the forecast is an exaggeration, a bunch of hype. When Thursday night rolls around, sure enough, snow falls invisibly from the dark into a thin blanket. The storm has begun, snowflakes twirl and flutter, silent and merciless in the night.

        In Columbus the telephone rings. I'm still in bed. It's 8:44 AM. I'm slow to move. By the time I get to the phone, they had hung up. I go back to bed. In five minutes the phone rings again. I know who it is. I know the news is bad. My mom can't really talk. The words don't come to her. She says dad collapsed. I walk into Claire's room. Keep moving, moving already. I sit on her bed. The paramedics are here she said. I hear men in the background, working. There are instruments. Shuffling. The words are only smoke. What happened? When did this happen? Where are you standing now? A real question comes to me. Is he conscious? I don't know she says. She's walking, pacing. She repeats me. Is he conscious? There's a pause. I hear their answer. A shade petulant, a dumb question. Nope.
        No, Mom says. He's not conscious.
        I'll be right there, I say. I'll be there in two hours.

        The telephone rings. I should mention the tone of the phone. It's a shrill piercing shriek, bursting through the room. You never know when it will strike. Goddamned phone, I say, marching. I'm getting you a new one, Mom, I swear.
        It's Brian Degroft. Buddy from high school. We're all real sorry, he says. Your dad was a good man. Shit, not like my dad, he says. I walk through the house. I stand in my parents' bedroom, in front of the mirror. Brian wants to talk, and I let him. He tells a getting drunk story. The telling isn't as good, he's forcing it, he exaggerates. We both know it. I keep moving. I walk though the kitchen, the living room, the pantry. I remember that I should drink water. Keep up the fluids. Thanks for calling, I say, genuinely. Everybody's calling.

        The phone rings. I'm sitting in my dad's chair. My eyes are closed. It's late afternoon. The sun has peeked out of the clouds, the light is soft, the snow softly aglow. I sleep with a blanket over me. I brace for the next ring, and file through the list of people it could be--the Elks Club regarding business with the post funeral luncheon. Father Patrick from St. Joseph's. The secretary from Corpus Chirsti. The funeral home people. It could be Roseanne, who calls every few hours for updates. It could be anyone on planet earth. Everybody's calling. Mom answers. I tap in Momentarily, measuring her tone of voice, calculating. Hi. I don't know. We didn't talk about that. I'll ask them. He's sleeping now.
        What? I say. My eyes stay closed.
        It's Cathy. She wants to know if they gave us a cloth for the ashes.
        Aunt Cathy is overseeing the arrangements. She works at a church in Michigan. She has experience in these matters. Evidently one needs some kind of cloth to drape over the ashes, which are enclosed in a box. At the funeral home they have a fine selection of urns, ranging from the hundreds to the thousands of dollars. Porcelain. Marble. Gold. They have an urn in the style of a duck, just like the decoys. The ashes go inside the duck. The most spared down version of the urn was two hundred and fifty dollars. A light-blue porcelain box, stylized, something to put designer soaps in. We weren't impressed. The last option was to forgo the urn, they'll hand over the ashes in a thick cardboard box. But you can't just display a cardboard box at a funeral. One needs a cloth. We decide on an embroidered olive green cloth with fringes, a fancy kitchen towel. Just so it's green, Mom says. He liked green.

        When it is over I move through rooms in increments. My steps are lighter, as though on ice. Stepping out of the ICU room is a small chapter. I linger by the counter. The sunlight is now breaking in from the rooms into the florescent light. Then to the waiting room. There is no time. There is no day. There is no week. There is no month. There is no year. I can never leave. I can never stay. Mary speaks for us all. I'm ready. I nod. We don't move. I'm going to get some air, I say. I head back to the elevators, my steps having discovered purpose, any purpose, just to find the right way to go outside. I take a right on the first floor and head the other way, a different way from where we had come in. I follow the light. Through swinging doors and into the lobby. The sun has broken and the world is bathed in light, blinding winter light, and I walk though the sliding doors and they open for me and I walk into the cold bright light.

        Back when Deb's father died, dad said that your parents dying is like when you were a kid, and hitting batting practice, only now the backstop was taken away, gone, nothing there to keep those foul balls flying off into the weeds, or the water. I am down there now, by the river. I'm up to bat, in my backyard. There is no backstop. And here comes the pitch.



Next: "Snow Storm" Claire Guinan  &  "Winter"  Owen Rasegan
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