The Death Bed

  She looked up to see the rest of the party now crowding around them, and watched as Clint fought through the huddled mass to the front.

  “Dude, what’s going on?” he shouted at Thomas. “What do you think you’re doing?” He grabbed Thomas by the collar.

  “He was trying to,” Thomas said before Clint jerked him to his feet.

  “What were you going to say?” Clint asked again, holding Thomas’s face close to his own.

  “He was attacking my sister,” Thomas shouted boldly.

  Julia didn’t get up, but gripped her brother’s leg with both hands. “Please Thomas.”

  Clint looked down at Julia and loosened his grip on Thomas’s shirt.

  “He was attacking my sister,” Thomas said again in a softer voice.

  “They were just going to have a good time,” Clint shouted. “You didn’t have to beat his head in!”

  “He was attacking my sister!”

  “So now you think it’s wrong?” Clint snarled.

  “She’s my sister!”

  “But if she wasn’t then it would be okay?” he said, obviously toying with him. “What, no answer? Is it because you’ve done the same thing to someone else’s sister? Is it bad now when he does it? Is it wrong when it’s your sister? Now you want to say what wrong is, but I don’t think it’s wrong because he just gave it to her to help her lighten up because she wasn’t having a good time. So maybe what seems wrong to you might not seem so wrong to him. He was just trying to help.”

  “Shut up! Get out of here!” Thomas yelled.

  “That’s a rational response,” Clint fired back.

  “Somebody call an ambulance,” a voice shouted from the doorway. Clint had begun to help Robert up, but the voice called his attention back to the crowd. Julia followed his eyes as they scanned the crowd and then as they locked onto his friend who still lay bleeding on the pavement.

  “Don’t call any ambulance,” Clint shouted to the group of bystanders. “Now somebody give me a shirt or something so I can wrap it around his head and stop the bleeding.”

  Someone from the mob produced a shirt and Clint wrapped it around Robert’s bleeding head.

  “You okay man?” Clint asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just feel a little woozy,” Robert answered.

  “You all hear that? He’s fine. So nobody needs to be calling anyone,” Clint shouted again. “He just needs to go inside and recover. So everyone can just put their cell phones up and go home, ‘cause we don’t want anyone getting arrested for anything like assault.”

  Clint glared at Thomas as he pronounced that last word, then helped Robert to his feet and walked him to the house. The rest of the crowd dissipated into the night air.

  Thomas knelt down next to Julia who still clung to him with her bleeding hand still pressed to his body.

  “This is all my fault,” he said finally. “Everything that happened to you is because of me. If I hadn’t wanted to prove that,” he faltered. “This is all wrong. I’m sorry Julia. I was wrong about everything.”

  “I don’t want to press charges,” Julia said.

  “Do it. I’m not afraid of going to court. Even if they get me for assault, even if I do end up going to jail, I’m not afraid.”

  “It’s over. I’m safe. That’s all that matters. Let it be over.”

  “But Julia,” Thomas began.

  “Let it be over for me,” Julia said as she leaned into his chest. Blood still oozed from her hand and Thomas gave her his already bloody shirt to wrap the wound. “Look at all the blood,” Julia said distantly. “They say that our life is in our blood.”

  “We should wash it off of the pavement, but after we go inside and take care of your hand,” Thomas suggested.

  After a while Robert came out from the house with Clint’s help.

  “I hope you’re happy,” Clint shouted as he helped Robert into his car.

  Julia looked at Thomas with pleading eyes, and he didn’t respond. When the car had driven out of sight Julia said, “We’d better go in. It’s about to rain.”

  “I hope it does,” Thomas said in response. “I hope it rains hard enough to wash away all this blood.”

  Chapter 6

  It did rain that night, and Julia called to tell Maggie that she wouldn’t be able to baby-sit because Thomas was taking her to the emergency room. When they got back she lay awake in her bed listening to the soft patter of raindrops as they splashed at a slight angle onto her bedroom window. In the morning she found Thomas sitting on the couch in the living room with a vacant expression. Debris from the previous night’s festivities littered the floor around him.

  “I need to go,” Julia said meekly.

  “Where?” Thomas asked.

  “I need to go home. I don’t exactly know where that is anymore, but I was hoping you could drive.”

  * * *

  When Thomas and Julia arrived at the door to their father’s apartment, neither of them knew quite what to do. Julia hadn’t detected any of the animosity that her father had shown towards her on her previous visit. He had sounded excited, even relieved that his children would be coming to visit, and he promised to take them out to a nice dinner. Still they hesitated to knock, and as they stood outside waiting to find their nerve, Peter opened the front door and leaned on the knob for support. He swayed a little as the door wobbled under his weight.

  “Dad?” Julia asked as she walked into his apartment. “Have you been drinking?”

  “I’m sorry sweetie,” Peter offered. “I haven’t called you sweetie in a while. Is it okay?”

  “Is what okay?”

  “Is it okay if I call you sweetie? I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be like this for you. When you called I made up my mind not to touch a drop because I wanted to be not like this for you.”

  “That’s okay Dad.”

  “You should know that it’s not all my fault though. It’s partly all my fault because I didn’t want to be like this, but I am anyway, but it’s all her fault too.”

  “What are you talking about? Where do you even get enough money to buy enough beer to get drunk? You haven’t been working for months.”

  “I wanted to stay sober because you’re my daughter and I love you, but it’s her. Your mother keeps giving me just enough to get by, and I use it for this.”

  Peter staggered back into the house, and Julia and Thomas entered behind him.

  “Don’t ever drink,” Peter said looking at Thomas. “If you do, don’t do it like me. Don’t drink to forget.” He looked at Julia and his face softened. “I know I’m pathetic for taking her money, but she’s worse. I only take her money because I’m weak and can’t stop myself. I don’t want to take it, but I can’t help it. But her, it’s much worse with her.”

  “Come on Dad,” Julia said. “What are you talking about? If she’s giving you money then she’s the only reason you haven’t hit rock bottom. You really have had too much to drink.”

  “I have. I’ve had way too much to drink,” Peter confessed. “But all that’s only because I’m weak. But it’s not only because I’m weak, it’s because of her and her money. You’re right about everything. I’ve had too much to drink, and if it weren’t for her I’d have hit rock bottom. That’s why she’s worse than me. I do everything because I’m weak, but she does it so I never hit rock bottom. She knows what I use it for, and she gives it to me anyway. Forgive the way I’m talking. You see, she knows that when I run out of money, when I can’t take one more step forward, that I’ll wake up and that I’ll find the strength to stand up on my own again. I don’t know where or how I’ll find it, but I know that when I can’t take one more step that I’ll find it somewhere, because then I’ll look for it with all my heart. I’ve had too much to drink. She knows it too, and that’s why she gives me just enough to keep me from standing up again.

  “I do everything because I can’t help myself but she does everything because of wrath. You see, I’ll learn how to stand up again
, because this isn’t who I really am, and it hasn’t changed me deep down. Everything’s still on the surface with me, but with her she’s marred herself in here.” Peter tried to point to the left side of his chest and looked like a man failing a sobriety test. “As long as everything’s on the surface you can go back if you just stand up again, but with her she’s destroying herself deep down, and soon there won’t be anything left of her.” Peter laughed out loud. “She was trying to destroy me, and in the end she’s only ruined herself. As long as I only take the money because I’m weak she’ll only be hurting herself.”

  “You’re not weak!” Julia pleaded. “You can stop whenever you want to. You got everything under control once, and you can do it again.”

  “Don’t say that!” Peter snapped. “I am weak. I take her money because I’m weak and that’s the only reason. If I ever took it for the other reason it would mean . . . but that’s not the case it’s only because I’m weak. I know I only take it because I’m weak, because I didn’t want to be like this when you came; I wanted to be better for you and I couldn’t.” Peter grew frantic. “Do you still go to that church?”

  “No,” Julia answered. “I only visited it a few times.”

  “But you’ll still pray for me? I don’t believe in God enough to pray, but I believe enough to want you to pray for me.”

  “I don’t really know if I believe myself,” Julia objected.

  “But you believe more than me, and that’s all that matters. Pray that I only take her money because I’m weak. If I start taking her money for the other reason then I’ll be just like her, worse than her, because I’ll be just like her and weak. I wouldn’t be saying any of this to you, but I’ve had too much to drink, but I mean everything, even though I’ve had too much to drink, I still mean everything I said and everything I’ve said makes perfect sense, don’t think I’m just talking because I’ve had too much to drink because everything is, everything is . . .”

  “I understand, and I believe you,” Julia said without the slightest hint of patronization. “But you need to sleep now.” She offered him a pillow that had been left on the couch.

  “I’ll go to sleep but remember what I said. Remember to pray for me, because I feel it coming for me even though I only do everything out of weakness, I feel it coming for me all the same, and it will take me just like it’ll take her, except with me it’ll be worse because all I had to do was stand up, and she’s marred her soul. Remember to pray for me because if you don’t I’ll start taking her money for the other reason, and then we’ll both be marring our souls together. That’s the way it always ends up in the end, and that’s why everybody lives to destroy everybody else.”

  “What is this ‘other reason’ you keep mentioning?” Julia asked.

  “It’s not that, not yet. I only take it because I’m weak.”

  “But what is it?”

  “It’s the kind of thing that mars the soul. I’ll come to that one day. I started taking her money because I’m weak, but one day I’ll take it for the other reason.”

  “Dad! What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll take it because I know that every time she gives it she mars her soul a little more, so I’ll keep taking it to destroy her. I’ll take her money to get revenge. Pray for me because now all I have to do is stand up, but if it comes to the other reason then I’ll never make it back. Remember to pray for me.”

  “I told you that I don’t even know if I believe.”

  “But you have to believe, even if it’s not true, because I don’t believe even though I want to believe now, and not only because I’m drunk. Remember to pray for me because if there is a God then maybe one day I’ll stand up, and when I do I’ll believe in him too. I wouldn’t say this if I weren’t drunk, but I mean it all, every word. I only say it like this because I’ve had too much to drink. But you understand me even though I say it all like this.”

  “I understand Dad.”

  “I knew you would understand everything, you and only you. You’re the only one left who can understand. And you’ll believe and pray for me?”

  “And I’ll pray for you. Now lay down.”

  “Don’t pray for me. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t need prayer. I need some money, money that isn’t hers.”

  “I’ll give you the money,” Julia said. “Then you won’t have to take anything from her.”

  “It’s not like that,” Peter said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I took your money I’d have to live better. I’m a weak man. I was strong for a moment. I was brave and courageous and I stood up for myself. But that was just a moment. Sometimes we get a glimpse of who we could have been. That was my glimpse. I wish I hadn’t been strong then. I think about that moment every day you know.”

  By now Peter was talking more to the air than to his children. “If I hadn’t been strong in that moment, I could pretend that I was born a weak man. But I had a choice, and I chose to be strong once, and that proves that I could be strong again if I wanted it bad enough. That’s why I can’t take your money.” He addressed Julia with this last remark, as if remembering her presence all of a sudden. “I don’t want to be strong or good. If I took money from you I’d have to be strong, because that’s why you’d be giving it to me.”

  “I’d be giving it to you to help you,” Julia insisted.

  “I know. You’d be giving it to me to help me get back on my feet, so I could be good and strong again. I don’t want that. I wish that I wanted that, but I don’t. She gives it to me so I can be weak. That’s why you’re better than her, and why I’ll always take her money instead of yours.”

  “Dad!” Julia shouted in an attempt to win her father over by sheer volume.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t pity me. Don’t respect me. Just look at me with loathing. Or better yet, don’t look at me at all. I don’t deserve to be seen. I was strong once, up on that mountain with the wind and the snow. But that was a different life. There was still hope back then so I was strong for a moment.”

  Thomas finally joined the conversation. “You’re not talking about that nature hike you went on a year ago. Everyone knows that nothing happened up there.”

  “But something did happen. I chose to be strong, to stand up like a man.”

  “We’re not little kids anymore. Nobody’s ever going to believe your story because it’s all a bunch of lies,” Thomas said.

  “Thomas?” Julia said in disbelief.

  “He’s right about not deserving to be pitied,” Thomas said. “That might be the only right thing he’s ever said. You come here because you need him, and he can’t even stay sober for a few hours.”

  Peter didn’t argue. He just shook his head before lying down on the couch and closing his eyes. Julia and Thomas watched as his ribs began to move up and down in a deep rhythm.

  “Come on Julia, there’s no hope for him,” Thomas said.

  “There’s always hope.”

  “Do you really believe that? Look at him,” Thomas motioned to their slumbering father. “How can you believe that there’s hope for someone like him?”

  “Because I have to,” Julia stated flatly.

  “I understand that you’ve been through a lot, Julia. But you have to understand that it’s only natural that when you don’t like the world as it is, you tend to invent a better world to believe in, and since you can’t believe in fairytales you have to call it hope or the afterlife. But it’s like a kid who gets mad about having to eat vegetables, so he pretends that he’s a king who can do whatever he wants. I don’t mean to be insensitive. I know life has been tough for you lately, but I don’t want you to run off on a quest for something that doesn’t exist. You of all people should know that there’s no hope of goodness or redemption, so why do you still choose to believe in all of that even now?”

  “Because I have to believe. Even if I didn’t want to believe I couldn’t help it. If you’d been there in that shanty
house in the rain, if you’d been through what I’ve been through, everything I’ve been through, then you’d have to believe too.”

  “But that’s my point, Julia. You’re believing a lie because you need something to hold on to.”

  “It’s not a lie. And I believe because all my experience has taught me that if there isn’t anything else out there, then what we see here isn’t worth living for. And somehow people have managed to go on living. If there isn’t an eternal love or goodness somewhere past this mess then,” she stopped short. “I don’t have to finish. You know what that would mean.”

  Thomas didn’t respond, but took one last look at their father, as he lay sprawled out on the couch.

  “Is there anyone else you want to see while we’re here?” he asked.

  Julia nodded, but didn’t take her eyes off of Peter.

  “Then let’s go. We can come back later if you still want to see him again.”

  “Could you stay here?” Julia asked. “I feel up to driving, and I’d like to go by myself if that’s alright.

  * * *

  “Did you come to see your grandfather?” Susan asked when Julia walked through the doors at Grace Assisted Living Center.

  “That’s why I came,” Julia answered guardedly. “Is this a good time?”

  An awkward silence filled the space between the two before Susan spoke again.

  “I think you should come see your grandfather now. His condition has deteriorated considerably.”

  “What do you mean by considerably? Is he still conscious?”

  “He’s conscious.”

  “Can he talk?” Julia asked.

  “That’s the problem. He won’t stop talking. As soon as anyone walks in the room he starts up and won’t stop long enough for anyone to get in a word.”

  “What’s he say?”

  “It’s all nonsense. He’s talking out of his head. The doctor came by earlier and seemed just as baffled as anyone else, and he said that surely there wasn’t much time.”