“It’s been more than that, Dad.”
He loosens his hand, interlocks his fingers, looks at them, turns them over.
“Say, I must’ve really been sick.”
Dr. Chad stands and backs to the door. He signals me with his eyes to follow. The nurse tucks Dad in; she has a basin of water to wash his face and hands. Chad’s face is a cross between perplexed and elated.
“Don’t ask me to explain it, Mr. Tremont. I’ve never seen anything like it. It could have been the metabolism all along.”
“Dr. Chad, it’s more than that. He’s different. He’s so clear, so calm, somehow younger than he was even before his operation. What can it be? Is it permanent?”
Chad shakes his head and we go over to the counter. He writes a long time in Dad’s medical record. Finally he looks up.
“Mr. Tremont, I really don’t know. He could go back into a coma anytime. We’ll stay with the metabolic approach and be careful of his diet. I don’t want to take the vena cava off too soon. We’ll let him eat but keep the IV so long as he remains rational.”
After I get dressed, I start feeding him soup. He takes the spoon away and feeds himself. He has all the control of a young man; he’s weak but he has control. He drinks some orange juice and is still hungry. He complains about the catheter and IV again. I explain what Dr. Chad said. He wants to know what’s been happening to him.
The last he remembers is coming to the hospital for his operation. He can’t believe that was six weeks ago. He remembers Mother’s heart attacks and wants to know how she is. I tell him she’s fine. I tell about the strike here and how I’ve been sleeping in the room with him.
He accepts all this. He wants to know when Mother and Joan can come visit; when he can go home. I tell him they’ll come soon as possible but he should stay in the hospital until he’s really on his feet again.
The nurses are all in and out of the room. They’re almost as pleased as Dad and I are. A pretty Japanese nurse takes Dad’s hand and he puts his other hand on top of hers.
“Gee, you look so well, Mr. Tremont.”
There are tears in the corners of her eyes. Dad looks up at me.
“Maybe I will just stay on here in this hospital, Johnny; it’s not so bad.”
At nine o’clock, I call Joan. I try preparing her for what’s happening and insist she come immediately. She’s there within the hour.
She holds on to Dad and sobs. He looks past her at me; he can’t really understand why she’s crying.
It’s the same thing when we bring Mom; she cries so hard we need to take her straight home. Joan stays with her that night.
Three days later, Chad takes off the IV. Five days later, off goes the catheter. Dad hates to use the bedpan and urine bottle, so I carry him into the toilet and back. There’s a little handrail beside the toilet; he hangs on to it and insists I leave the room while he “does his business.” We’ve started him on light, solid food with a backup of pills and medication Chad has worked out. Chad keeps an eye on the blood pressure but it stays stable. He says he doesn’t want to start medication for the blood pressure unless it’s absolutely necessary. He’s willing to let it go high as one sixty or one seventy over a hundred; he wants to guarantee blood circulation in the brain. He also continues all his measures on intake and output. Chad admits he’s still only flailing around, guessing; he has no real explanation as to what happened or what’s happening now. The strike is still on and I stay at the hospital.
Dad’s taking on some weight but still doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds. It was bad enough when he was lying still in bed; now he’s so active, he resembles a living skeleton and it’s frightening. But his color is improving and he’s hungry all the time.
On about the tenth day, when the food comes into the room, he sniffs like a dog catching a scent.
“You know, Johnny, I can smell that food. I haven’t been able to smell anything for over twenty years.”
I take his tray from the nurse and put it in front of him. He puts his head down close and sniffs each dish.
“I can even smell spinach; it smells something like the Atlantic Ocean. I’d forgotten how good things smell.”
He starts with the veal cutlet, chewing carefully and long before he swallows. He’s like a TV ad for food.
“It’s exactly the way it was after I quit smoking, John; food tastes so good, so strong. Each thing is different.”
The next day he asks about Dr. Ethridge. I tell him I changed doctors because I’d lost confidence in Ethridge. He looks at me.
“You mean you fired him?”
“Well, no, Dad. I only had him removed from your case. He still works for Perpetual.”
“But I’ve had him as a doctor for fifteen years, Johnny. He’s from Wisconsin, you know.”
“I know, Dad, but I became convinced he wasn’t giving you the kind of medical care you needed. I truly believe you’d be dead today if we hadn’t changed doctors. Dr. Chad seems to have figured out your problem; at least you’re here.”
He stops eating; he looks me in the eyes, smiles, shakes his head and starts eating again.
“You’re a boss, all right, Johnny. I don’t know if I like having a boss for a son.”
“Well, you’re stuck with it, Dad. You were too far gone to fight me, so I took over. You can always go back to Ethridge again if you want.”
He stops with a forkful of spinach in front of his mouth.
“Oh, no. I believe you. I’ve always felt he made a mistake with that gall-bladder operation. They didn’t need to take out my gall bladder.”
I’m glad Dad can admit it. He begins cutting his veal cutlet. It’s wonderful to see his mechanic’s hands working.
“It’s just the idea of ‘firing’ a doctor; I could never get the nerve to do a thing like that.”
“Remember, Dad, they’re here to serve you; you’re paying them, just the way you’d pay somebody to fix your car.”
He waves his knife at me, shakes it.
“Oh, no I’m not; it’s Douglas and the union pays.”
“Sure you’re paying, Dad. The money they give to Perpetual comes from somewhere. It comes from the money you earned for Douglas, money they made off you and your work. It’s not charity, you earned every dime. They made a fortune off your work over the years, don’t forget that.”
“OK, Johnny, OK. We’ll fire Ethridge, maybe take over this whole hospital. That’s just fine with me.”
I’m enjoying watching him eat. After all the feeding—trying to get his mouth open, then get the spoon out; catching the drivels—it seems like a miracle to watch him shove food in his mouth.
I’ve always liked watching Dad chew anyway. When he chews, there are tight muscles at the juncture of his jaws which flex with each bite in a way I’ve never seen on anybody else. They flex into a hard round nutlike muscle under his thin skin. It’s the same way when he bears down to tighten or loosen a bolt or nut. I remember as a kid trying to develop that chewing muscle; it never came. It’s like his hammering muscle.
“Dad, let’s see if you still have that old hammering muscle of yours.”
He puts down the fork and looks at his withered, wrinkled right arm. It’s liver-spotted and the skin is somewhere between something a snake would discard and old parchment. Even most of the hair has rubbed off. But when he bends his wrist, it’s still there. A bump about the size of a marble rises in the middle of his lower arm. He pushes on it with the index finger of his left hand.
“Soft as a lump of pig fat. I’d never get a job now with a hammering bump like that.”
He peers at me and smiles.
“But you know what, Johnny; I don’t need a job. I’m retired. I own my own house, I’ve got money in the bank, a pension and Social Security. I don’t ever have to work again. Hot dawg!”
He picks up his spoon and starts scraping, cleaning the corners of the dishes. I think he could eat another whole meal.
Before he was married, Dad worked as an outside carpenter
in Philadelphia. He and his brothers worked for their father, who did the basic contracting. Sometimes they’d get a big job and hire extra people. Dad told me his dad never asked about apprenticeship papers or recommendations. He’d only ask to see if the guy had a hammering bump. If it was there, he’d touch it the way Dad did just now and if it was hard the guy got the job.
My granddad refused to pay a salary. Everybody who worked with him was a free agent. He’d offer a job like sheeting a roof and promise a certain amount of money if it was done well in a certain amount of time. Dad said if you worked your tail off and were good, you could make a lot of money working for him but if you loafed on the job you’d wind up broke.
This way Granddad got the best carpenters in Philadelphia and was known for getting a job done quickly and well.
The trouble was he couldn’t expand with his “no salary” system, so it was mostly job carpentry. Then too, just when he did get things rolling for him, building six houses on speculation, the Depression hit. He lost everything, worked ten years paying off his debts and died within the year.
I never developed a hammering muscle. I’ve rebuilt three houses, adding a total of six bedrooms and two baths as well as building a two-car garage, but that hammering muscle never came. Once when I was helping Dad build his place I asked about it. Then he was about my age now; I was maybe twenty-five, just finished my master’s.
“You have to work years, Johnny; eight hours a day, hammering. Don’t worry about it; you’ve got your hammering bumps in your head.”
It was that same day we were putting shingles on his roof. Dad’d showed me how to fit the shingle and nail, working up. He started on the right half, and I’m working on the left. After about an hour, I look over and he’s done four times as much as I have. I stop and study to find what he’s doing I’m not.
He has his mouth full of roofing nails and works them out between his lips, point first, as he needs them. He fits the shingle with his right hand, still holding on to the hammer, reaches up to his mouth with his left, pulls the nail out, holds it in place and hits twice, once to settle it in, the second time, hard, to drive it home. He’s already working that new nail between his lips, without pausing, shifting and getting the new shingle. It’s sort of: pause—bang-BANG—pause—bang-BANG. My sound has been: long pause—pulling nail out of can, fitting shingle in place, starting nail—then bang-bang-bang BANG-BANG; start over.
So I watch a few cycles, then fill my mouth with nails. I cheat by starting with three already in place between my lips. I work the shingle in with my hammer hand, then try to get the rhythm with him: bang-BANG—nail shingle—bang-BANG—nail shingle—bang-BANG. I’m trying to concentrate on hitting the nail hard enough and at the same time working a nail with my tongue into my lips. The nails have an electric, galvanized taste. Nail shingle—bang-BANG—nail shingle—bang-BANG—YOUUWWWWW!
I’ve hit my thumb with a full swing of the hammer! I stand up and almost fall off the slanted roof. Dad looks over at me. I’ve spit out the nails with my holler. Vron and Mom run from inside where they’ve been painting. I manage to get down the ladder and put my thumb in cold water but that thumbnail is smashed and already on its way out. I still have a bump in my left thumbnail. I didn’t develop a hammering bump but I developed a thumb bump in one fell swing; a twenty-seven-year-old reminder that I’ll always be an amateur carpenter.
Every day Dad grows stronger. He’s a big favorite with the nurses. The strike ends, the main crew comes back and I start sleeping at Mother’s. Billy, who’s been going stir-crazy, moves up onto the forty acres again.
But Billy does come down almost every other day to visit Dad at the hospital. Dad’s been moved to a regular ward and has a whole new set of nurses to play with. They’ve given him a walker and he’s getting up out of bed a little bit every day. He tells Billy he has the walker to keep the nurses from attacking him. Billy stays long times with Dad and tells me he can’t believe it’s the same man, his grandfather. Billy never knew my father like this; I can hardly remember him this way myself.
One day I’m sitting and joking along with Dad when he says:
“You know, Johnny, I might not have to go to hell after all.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about. Maybe he’s slipping gears again.
“Heck, Dad, if you’re not going, then I’m not going either.”
“No, John, remember I was worried about going to hell ’cause I couldn’t work up any feelings of love for niggers? We were talking about it one day before I went into my tailspin. Remember?”
“Yeah, I remember now, Dad.”
Oh boy, here we go again.
“Well, John, I’ve been having some visits from one of the nicest people in the world and she’s almost black, a medium soft brown, but definitely a nigger for sure.”
“You’ve got to admit, Dad, some of these nurses here have been awfully kind to you, no matter what color they are.”
“Oh, this isn’t a nurse, Johnny. Well, actually she is, sort of. Sometimes she comes in her uniform, but she doesn’t work here.”
It still doesn’t register. I’m thinking he’s confused.
“She says she’s a friend of yours, John; she has one green eye. You wouldn’t think anybody could be pretty as she is with one eye a different color like that.”
I can feel the blush rising over me, but Dad isn’t noticing.
“She tells me she was a nurse in some hospital I was in that I don’t even remember. She brought them African violets there; raised them from cuttings. She has seventeen different varieties of African violets alone; I only got eight myself.
“You are keeping up the watering on my plants and things, aren’t you, Johnny?”
I nod.
“I’ve been watering, Dad, and staying up with most of the weeding, too. Alicia’s a fine person all right; one night she helped save your life.”
“She told me all about that, John. I could hardly believe it. She sure thinks the world of you, says you were better’n a doctor. You know, this is a peculiar thing to say, considering everything, but that girl reminds me of my own mother, your grandmother, Mary Duheme, more than any person I ever met in my life. That’s why I’m not going to hell, John, I can love that woman, nigger or not, just as much as I can love my own mother.”
He smiles at me and I smile back. I think of asking what time she comes but I don’t. Before leaving I say if she comes again to say hello for me.
Dad tells the nurses he doesn’t want to be shaved anymore. The nurses talk to the doctor and Chad comes to me. I talk to Dad.
“We’ve been through all this before, Dad. You know how Mother feels about beards. Here she’s got a bearded son and three bearded grandsons; don’t you think a bearded husband might be too much of a good thing?”
“Don’t worry, let me talk to her, John. After all, I almost died; I have some rights. I’m an old man; old men should be allowed to have beards if they want. Besides, I have a very tender face. Since I can’t grow hair on top, I’ll grow some on my chin.”
There’s no stopping him. I tell Chad it’s OK. He smiles out of his bush. He thinks this is one of the funniest things happening in the hospital. He tells the nurses and they don’t fight. It’s no fun shaving an old man with a heavy beard and folds of neck wrinkles. I go home to prepare Mother.
“I tell you, Jacky, he’s gone completely crazy; he isn’t the same. He’s turning into some kind of Don Juan. I think he’s senile; going into his second childhood. You wait till I get him home, we’ll see about that beard; nobody with a beard is going to kiss me, I’ll tell you that much!”
I try calming her down. I call Joan; she’s convinced I’ve talked Dad into it; she’s going to the hospital and discuss it with him, then she’ll come over to Mother’s.
Mother’s still raving when Joan drives up. Joan comes in the door laughing. She goes over and gives Mother a kiss and a hug. Before Mother can get in a word, Joan lets it out.
“
Mother, you’ll just have to try living with Santa Claus for a while. He’s got this bug to grow a beard and he’s as excited as a kid.”
Joan throws her purse on the couch and flops beside it. She’s still giggling.
“I had no more chance with him than I did with Jeff and Ted. He’s convinced you’ll like it, Mother.”
“Do you think he’s gone crazy, Joan? Tell me, is he crazy?”
Joan spreads her arms along the top of the couch, spreads her legs, kicks off her shoes. She looks at me.
“He’s no crazier than this one here, or Billy, or Jeff, or Teddy; he’s only doing some kind of ‘man’ thing on us.”
I get up, go in, and bring out some of the muscatel. I pour us all a glass and pass it around.
Mother begins to see the humorous side.
“My God, Joan. How will I ever explain it to the neighbors? They’ll all think I have a hippy boyfriend.”
Joan takes a sip of the cold wine.
“Maybe you do, Mother; he’s so different. He’s like a seventeen-year-old and I don’t mean he’s senile; his mind is young. He’s making jokes, smiling at everything, at everybody in the hospital.”
She sips again, looks at me.
“You know, it’ll give him something to think about. He’s always been a farmer at heart, now he can grow a garden—on his face.”
Mother laughs, almost spills her wine.
“You’re crazy too, Joan; it’s in that damned Tremont blood.”
I know Mom can laugh because she’s convinced she’ll talk Dad out of the beard.
I help her back to the bedroom for her nap. Joan and I sit out on the patio. It’s a fine sunny day, not too hot but with strong sun and a soft breeze. There’s practically no smog. It’s the kind of day L.A. is supposed to have all the time. I’ve rolled out the two redwood chaise longues. Joan stretches herself on one and I lower myself onto the other.
“Tell me, Jack, what does the doctor say? What’s going on? It’s like Dad stepped into a time machine; he makes me feel older than he is.”
She has the back of her hand across her eyes against the sun. She takes the hand away and leans forward.