The Death Bed
Lewis rushed out of the bathroom and followed his uncle into the garage where he hopped excitedly into the passenger seat of the car.
“Do you know what you’re going to do this week?” Luke asked excitedly. “We’re learning to use hatchets so we can get firewood on the spring break hike! And then we’re going to practice setting up tents and then we’re going to . . .”
* * *
Hannah Manchell held her head up as she stepped into Abigail’s townhouse, in which she’d taken residence after the fire.
“I won’t have you staying in some hotel,” Abigail had insisted. The moving process didn’t take much, just transporting clothes from the drycleaners—they all reeked of smoke—and a few boxes of knickknacks and some furniture that had survived the flames.
Despite the passage of several months, Hannah still walked timidly across the living room, as if she didn’t belong. The briefcase that Hannah held firmly in her left hand contained almost a week’s worth of work. She would have finished going over all of it that evening if time would only consent to stand still for her. She opened the front door and went to the study where she felt most at home. She sat at Abigail’s old desk; hers hadn’t survived the fire, and opened the briefcase. She spread a few pages out on the desk and stared at them for a few seconds before getting started on the main pile of work she’d brought from the office.
She worked furiously, allowing her consciousness to be completely absorbed in the pile of papers. From time to time she glanced over at the phone and wished desperately that it would ring, though she didn’t know who would be calling for her. It never did.
* * *
“Hey Lewis, watch this,” James Guthrie called out. Lewis turned around in time to see the freckle faced boy balancing a match between his left index finger and the matchbox, which he was holding up with his left thumb and middle finger. With his right hand he flicked the match so that it lit on the strip as it flew from the matchbox and spiraled toward him. Lewis was sitting down in one of the folding chairs waiting for his turn to go out and practice with the hatchet, and couldn’t move in time to avoid the match, which landed in his lap and went out without so much as singeing his uniform pants. Despite the fact that he could see that no harm had been done, he frantically exclaimed, “What’d you do that for?”
James smiled mischievously, shrugged his shoulders with complete indifference, and replied, “I don’t know. I felt like it.”
“You could’ve burned my pants or set me on fire.” Lewis was doing his best to fight back tears. He didn’t understand why the incident had upset him so much. He could see that his pants hadn’t been harmed, and he knew from practicing starting fires last week that one little match could hardly set him on fire so easily. Maybe it was the fact that Tommy Johnson would never do something like that to him, or maybe because he was startled and confused, not understanding why someone would want to flick a match at him for no reason. So many maybes flooded his mind, and he knew he couldn’t keep back the tears. He knew without a doubt that tears would lead to laughing, and teasing, and maybe even more matches. He turned his back so that James couldn’t see his face and walked calmly out of the room, and turned the corner down the hall. As soon as he was around the corner he ran to the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
The Boy Scout troop met in the foyer of a local church building. As Lewis stood in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to calm down so he could go back out and be ready when his turn came to practice using the hatchet, he saw a cartoon picture of Jesus surrounded by cartoon children who were all playing together and laughing. Nobody was flicking matches at anybody else, and the grass was green. Everything looked right. It all looked so fake, but everything was right.
Lewis tried hard to understand why the world wasn’t like that. He couldn’t conceive of a logical explanation for why people wouldn’t want to be happy and get along with each other. He looked at the little picture of paradise on a sunny green hill and knew that the picture wasn’t real, but he wished that it were. He wiped the snot from his nose with the sleeve of his uniform and went back out to the foyer to wait for his turn. He didn’t talk to anyone, but he saw James Guthrie sneaking up behind one of the other boys with a match balanced between his left finger and the matchbox.
* * *
Julia went to Sara’s house after rehearsal on that Thursday. She didn’t knock like she’d done at first. Every now and then she forgot herself and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Peterson would always come to open the door for her with forced politeness, but each time Julia could tell that she was slightly offended. Her face seemed to say, “How long have you been staying here and you still ring the doorbell?” But her voice maintained its soft melodic quality as it said, “You really can just let yourself in now. That’s why we gave you a key.”
This time Julia didn’t ring the doorbell, and opened the door, which had been left unlocked, and went into the second room on her right. The room had been a study of some sort a few months ago, but had been hastily converted into a guest bedroom after the fire. She flung her backpack into the back corner and turned around when she heard Sara coming toward her down the hallway.
“You’re home early,” Sara said cheerfully.
“I had to leave rehearsal early,” Julia muttered.
Sara stopped walking. “You never talk about rehearsal,” she said in surprise.
“I guess I have kept that whole part of my life sectioned off,” Julia said pensively, as if she were realizing the fact for the first time herself.
“Anyway, what happened?” Sara asked with genuine curiosity.
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Julia said.
* * *
After seventy minutes of cursing and bumper to bumper traffic Peter pulled into the parking spot marked D12. He turned off the car and stepped outside. The wind blew into the opened car door, and created a flurry of hamburger wrappers and straw paper before he slammed it shut. A young couple rushed past him as he walked across the parking lot. The girl was beautiful and she clung tightly to the boy’s arm as they raced to his car. The wind blew her hair in her face while she waited for the boy to open the door, and she laughed as she kissed him before stepping into the car. Peter glanced at them over his shoulder, and tripped on the curb. He only barely managed to keep from falling. He stole one last glance at the lovebirds before devoting his attention to the creaky steps that led up to his apartment. He jiggled the key in the door until he managed to turn the lock and disappear inside the door.
When he walked inside, the carpet, the walls, the temporary furniture, everything reminded him of how low the rent was. He tossed his briefcase on the dining room table as he walked past it and collapsed into the couch, which gave way so much that it felt like he was being swallowed up by the cushions. Getting up from the monstrosity always proved difficult, but it was a task that Peter didn’t anticipate attempting for several hours thanks to fresh batteries in the remote and a full bag of snack crackers on the end table.
The news, sitcoms, drama, and primetime flickered on the screen in front of him, and his restlessness found an outlet in his right thumb as it clicked feverishly. He couldn’t force himself to stay on just one channel; even if he really enjoyed a certain program, he changed it as soon as it came to a commercial break. In this way he passed over several shows that he might have enjoyed in favor of a montage of programming that seemed to be strewn together into one unorganized mess of a program—the same show he’d watched every night for so long. The day faded into evening and evening began to give way to night, which was what Peter had been waiting for ever since he woke up in the morning, not because of any specific plans, but simply because then it would be time to go to sleep again. All day at the office he had been looking forward to this nothing, looking forward to it in the same spirit as his coworkers were looking forward to going out on dates or spending time with their families.
At some point during the evening, Peter, though hi
s body had no reason whatsoever to be tired, began to feel drowsy. He found a basketball game on a sports network and woke up around halftime. The nap was too refreshing, and Peter cursed himself for dozing off, knowing that as a result he’d have a much harder time getting to sleep later that night. He thought about going out, just driving with no planned destination. Then he considered driving by Hannah’s place, or the old house. But in the end he never got up from the couch. Life hadn’t changed a bit, except there was nobody to nag him—not that Hannah had nagged—but the thought of her being in the house with him had always made him feel guilty about being such a bum. He reasoned that the guilt was worse than nagging, and changed the channel again.
* * *
“You know I don’t think you should have agreed to Lewis staying with his uncle,” Abigail said over the phone. “It’s like you’re just giving up on the custody battle. You want to be able to convince the court that he needs you more, and that not only Peter, but his entire side of the family, is incompetent and couldn’t handle the responsibility of raising a son.”
“I know it seems like I’m giving Peter an edge,” Hannah confessed. “But there’s no way he can win this one. Besides, I don’t want Lewis living here in your townhouse. It’s great for me now but it’s not where I want to raise my son.”
“First of all it’s your townhouse since I moved out months ago. The lease is in your name now; you signed it.”
“I know. I still have a hard time thinking of this place as home, that’s all.”
“You signed the lease and extended it out for another year.” Abigail became accusatory.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Hannah fired back.
“If it doesn’t feel like home, and you don’t want to keep Lewis there, why did you extend the lease? Do you even want to win this custody battle?”
“Of course I do! How could you insinuate that,” Hannah didn’t finish.
“Do you really?”
“I love my son and all I want is for him to be with me. He can’t be with Peter. I have to win custody because I can’t let Peter have him. That would be disastrous.”
“I believe that you don’t want Peter to win custody, but if you really wanted your son why did you extend the lease?”
“The lease was up and the early termination fee was cheaper than just going month to month. I didn’t think it would have any bearing on the case. But a momentary lapse in judgment doesn’t prove that I don’t want custody of my son.”
“Not in court at least,” Abigail mused.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that your year long lease won’t have any affect in a court of law. Neither will the fact that you let your son stay with his uncle and aunt. None of those things will be able to prove in a court of law that you don’t really want custody of your son. Peter’s lawyer probably won’t ever think to make mention of them.”
“No I’m sure he won’t,” Hannah retorted.
After courteous goodbyes Hannah hung up the phone and sunk into Abigail’s sofa. Or was it hers? Had Abigail left it as a gift, or just out of convenience? She got up from the couch, unsure of whose it was, and went into the study that was legally hers but still felt like Abigail’s. She sat at the desk that wasn’t anymore hers than anything else in the townhouse and pulled out some of the papers from her briefcase. She sat at that desk working until she forgot that everything around her felt so foreign, until the ambiance faded away completely and all that existed was her and those papers—something familiar, the closest thing she had to home.
* * *
“Make yourself at home,” Mr. Peterson said when Julia walked into the living room. He and his wife were snuggled up under a blanket on the couch. Julia wasn’t sure what she was interrupting, but noticed that the television wasn’t on.
“I’m just getting a glass of water,” she replied.
It was a lie, but Julia walked past them into the kitchen and got a glass out of the olive colored cabinet. She broke some ice out of one of the trays and put two cubes in her glass before filling it with water out of the beige kitchen sink. She still didn’t feel at ease walking into the kitchen for a late night snack. Maybe if the cabinets were mahogany, or if the freezer had an icemaker, or if the sink were a sleek silver she would have felt more comfortable. She’d tried to offer paying rent, but they wouldn’t even consider it.
“We’d be ashamed if you gave us a single penny,” Mrs. Peterson said firmly when it became apparent that Julia’s stay was going to be longer than what they had expected at first.
Julia went back to her room with the glass of water and sat down at the little desk to finish her homework. She put her headphones in her ears and forgot the outside world until Sara poked her head into the room and asked, “Is it due tomorrow?”
Julia took the headphones out of her ears and gave Sara a blank look.
“Is it due tomorrow?” Sara repeated.
“Not until next week. It’s that stupid story we have to write for senior English.”
“I haven’t even started mine,” Sara confessed.
Julia waited, but Sara didn’t leave or enter the room. Finally, Julia put down her pen as if to say, “What do you want to talk about?”
“You know that Jason called earlier,” Sara offered. “That’s who I was on the phone with for so long.”
Julia wasn’t aware that the phone had rung. She wasn’t aware of much that went on in the rest of the house when she was wearing the headphones.
“What’d you talk about?” she asked.
“You,” Sara answered.
“You talked about me!”
“He called about something different . . . about . . . but that doesn’t matter, and I mentioned what you told me about theater practice being tough, and he wanted to know if you were okay.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth,” Sara said sheepishly.
“And what is the truth?”
“I told him that I didn’t know if you were okay. Are you?”
“I’m fine. I wasn’t really as upset as I made it sound earlier. Something happened that made me remember something else from a while back, but I’m fine,” Julia said.
“You’re really okay?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure at least.”
Sara turned to leave but stopped in the hallway, as if she’d just remembered something important.
“You know you don’t have to always use headphones. Nobody’s going to mind if you listen to music in your room, and it doesn’t bother my parents. They noticed that you always wore headphones, and they wanted me to tell you that you should feel comfortable here. Goodnight.”
Sara closed the door behind her and Julia put the headphones back into her ears as she pulled the chair back up to the little desk.
* * *
“Yes I’ve got a problem with something leaking from my ceiling . . . I know the office closes in twenty minutes . . . because the leaking just now started . . . no it can’t wait until tomorrow . . . because there’s something leaking from the apartment above me all over the floor . . . fine. While you’re at it maybe you can bring a screw to fix this doorknob . . . bye.”
Thomas hung up the phone in exasperation and paced up and down the hallway until someone knocked on the door. He opened it and let the maintenance man in. He was poorly dressed: ratty jeans, a t-shirt, and a yellow baseball cap that didn’t come close to matching.
“Man alive, you wasn’t kidding about that leak!” he exclaimed. “But it looks to me like it’s coming from the apartment right above ya.”
“That’s what I said over the phone.”
“Probly got a crack in the pipes. Have to get on that first thing tomorrow.”
The leak had spread out along the ceiling and was now dripping in three places. The handyman left without saying a word and soon reappeared with two buckets which he placed under two of the drips.
“What about the third one?” Thomas asked.
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“I only found two buckets. Maybe you can use a pan or something.” The friendliness of the suggestion seemed so genuine that Thomas didn’t know if the man was only trying to avoid a scene or if he really didn’t understand that he was acting like a complete idiot.
When the handyman left, Thomas went back to the pantry, put the knob back in the hole in the door and opened it, carefully this time. He spent several minutes trying to decide between instant noodles and a peanut butter sandwich. He had just decided on the sandwich because it didn’t require boiling water when his cell phone rang. It was Mark.
“You know Abdul from the floor?” Mark asked.
“Not very well but I know who you’re talking about.”
“Well he’s never seen snow before. He’s from Saudi Arabia or Iran or one of those places you know, and we were going to all go out and have a snowball fight or make a snowman or something like that. He’s really excited and me and John were wondering if you wanted to come over.”
“Sure I’ll be right over.”
“We don’t hang out that much since you moved out of the dorms. You liking the apartment?”
“It has a few problems but overall it’s a really good setup.”
Thomas said goodbye and hung up the phone. He wondered if the buckets would be overflowing by the time he got back home, realized that he didn’t really care about the carpet being ruined, put on his jacket, and turned the thermostat off before escaping out the front door.
* * *
Abraham finished the western and tossed it on the floor next to his bed before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.
Chapter 2
Making a Sandwich
At three in the morning the world was dead.
The only sound of life came
from the subtle humming of the refrigerator motor,
never noticeable during all the commotion that
the sun brings at dawn.
But at night worry and the siren’s call beckoned him,
despite a stomach that was too twisted up to eat,
and a worn out diet plan contrived to shortcut
losing weight without exercise.
With an infomercial selling another guaranteed
weight loss pill playing in the background