A Brief Stay

by James Katowich

Gerald woke and for a moment thought he was still at the hospital. Outside his open window a car groaned and hissed as it cooled in his driveway. He heard the car door open and shut.

He saw it was noon and his first thought was that the outpatient nurse was coming by to check on him. He raised up from his stomach to yell at him to get lost and saw instead his son Clayton hurrying to the front door. He lay down with a grunt. Moving was like being shot again. Every hole in his back where they'd dug out the pellets flamed up and he had to grit his teeth to keep from yelling.

He heard the front door open; Clayton must have remembered the rock Gerald kept over the spare key. Clayton came into the house and stood for a moment in the door to Gerald's room. Clayton looked as if he hadn't had a bath in a week. His skin was a mess and his scant beard did little to hide the fact.

"Where'd they hit you?" was all he said.

"Look, how'd you find it out anyway?"

"They had it on the news, Sir. They caught the woman who did it."

"The woman. Oh, yeah. Well, it makes sense," he said, "It was her house I was turnin her out of." He hadn't expected her to be the type to keep an over-and-under behind the seat of her Chevy Luv. She'd looked too dead inside to have that kind of will. Gerald evicted as many as three people a week and had been doing it for sixteen years. He didn't see how she'd been any different from the rest. Most times, the job was easy. People would yell and get mad, but with a wave of the eviction notice and his badge they'd die down quick like a wet match and then give up. He never even took the sheriff with him anymore. This woman, she'd walked stiffly to her truck. He turned to put the deadbolt on the door and that's when it happened. He felt it like a kick in the small of his back and he fell off the porch and his ears rang as he lay there with the pain sizzling. It felt like red hot worms boring into him. Then he'd blacked out.

"Does it hurt Sir?" his son asked.

"Not too much."

"But they said you almost died. And that you're paralyzed."

Gerald managed a shrug.

Clayton put a fist to his mouth and coughed. "Well," he said, "I think I can stay here awhile and take care of things."

"Yeah, well thanks, but I don't need any help."

Clayton frowned and grunted. "You can't even walk." "That's right. I can't even walk. I got this wonderful goddamn wheelchair right there takes me around alright."

"Well, I can cook. I work in the servery at the dorm."

"You can cook. You got another roommate yet?"

"No Sir."

Clayton had called him one night during his freshman year, crying about his roommate. It was the first time they'd talked in months. Clayton called because the guy that shared the dorm room had slapped him in the head and kicked him a few times. Then the guy had packed up and left the dorm. Gerald told Clayton to unhook a spring from the bed frame and put it to the guy's face. Clayton only wanted to cry into the phone and Gerald hung up on him.

"And hell," Gerald said, "It's middle of the school year."

Clayton shrugged his shoulders. "I'll just take a week off. Until you're better. Let me make you some pancakes."

Clayton's mother used to make them both pancakes on Sunday mornings. Gail had been dead eight years.

"I don't want any damn pancakes."

"I'm going to go make them."

"Fine," Gerald sighed. "Fix'em."

Clayton smiled broadly. "Yes, Sir," he said.

Gerald closed his eyes. He didn't want the boy in the house. He'd had the place to himself since he and Gail divorced twelve years ago. The courts didn't even considered him for custody after Gail told them how he'd disciplined the boy for dropping matches into a gas can. After she was gone, Clayton lived with Gail's parents. When they died their money put him into college and to the dormitory.

In the first years after the divorce Clayton stayed with Gerald in the summer and during holidays. But Gerald worked even then, and he often had to leave Clayton at home all day. One Easter, when Clayton had chicken pox, Gerald put him in the car and did his rounds. That day, he had to take a mover out to an old man's trailer and evict him and remove everything from the trailer.

Gerald and the mover carried the man's bed and furniture from the trailer. They threw everything into the yard beside the street. They put the rest of the man's property in boxes and carried them out also. The man kept retrieving small things from the boxes and carrying them back inside. Finally, the mover had to kick the old man in the side of the knee and the old man lay on his side holding his leg.

Apparently Clayton had seen it all from the car. Gerald returned, and found Clayton had vomited across the front seat. His forehead was moist and hot and the small sores from the Chicken Pox were dark against his white face.

After that Gail's parents didn't let Clayton come over during holidays. Gerald got used to being by himself. Then, Gail's parents died, and Clayton started calling often from the dorm. And now he was staying a week.

Clayton returned soon with a tray of pancakes and milk, but the pain had increased and Gerald couldn't eat. Clayton sat there watching as he pushed the food around the plate. They had been sitting like this for some time when there was a knock at the door. Gerald looked out the window. A tall man with unnaturally blond hair stood on the porch in light blue scrubs.

"It's that damn nurse," he said.

Clayton stood. "I'll get it."

"No, let him knock."

"Mister Lassett!" the nurse yelled.

Half a minute passed. Gerald pulled the shade away from the window. "We're all fine in here," he shouted.

"Well, good to hear it," the nurse called. "But I'll come in and see just the same."

"I don't want you to."

They heard nothing for a moment. Then, the nurse yelled, "I don't have to see you, you know. I can just tell them at the hospital that you're fine. I'd like to sleep in late too. I work sixteen hours a day and I don't much care for getting out of bed just to argue with you, Mister Lassett."

Gerald made a circular motion with one finger. "He goes on and on."

The nurse went on. "I could just stay in bed. I can do that and let you get an infection. Your legs may not work now, but at least they're still there."

Clayton made as if to stand. "Stay there," he told him.

"Or I can come in--" They heard the door open. "--and change your bedpans give you a nice bath and we can work those legs." There were footsteps, and the nurse appeared in the door of the room. Sweat had collected on his forehead above his dark eyebrows. He was not a fat man, but a plump belly clung to him, filling out his shirt. He carried a black zippered satchel.

"I didn't ask you in," Gerald said.

"If I waited for you to ask, Mister Lassett, I wouldn't have ever gotten in." The nurse talked fast. He came to Gerald's side, raising the flap of his shirt to look at his back.

"Very colorful, Mister Lassett. You should see this."

Gerald said nothing. He imagined the nurse's face yellow-brown with bruises, and pellet-holes.

He felt the nurse poking his skin with a pencil. Each touch blossomed a flower of fire that shoved roots across his back. "Having much pain?" the nurse asked.

"Feels fine."

"I'll bet it does." The nurse sprayed something from a can across his back. It felt cold. "You have a little bit of infection setting in. Your medication should take care of it, though. Long as we keep you clean and antiseptic."

"I can wash myself," Gerald said.

"I don't think so Mister Lassett, and besides you can't keep your legs toned by yourself, now can you?"

"My boy there can do it."

Clayton looked over, wide-eyed and nodding yes.

"I don't think he's had quite enough schooling."

"Hell, he's a genius."

"Well maybe so, but--"

Gerald pushed himself up on his elbows and turned around as far as he could. "Just show him the therapy and get the hell out."

The nurse fumbled in his bag. Mumbling to himself, he brought out a book and ripped two pages from it. He handed the pages to Clayton.

"Do that twice a day and make sure his back stays clean." He turned to Gerald. "I'll call you on saturdays to check up." Then he left.

Clayton stared intently at the pages. He came beside Gerald and started bending his leg at the knee. Each time, a glow of pain settled in Gerald's back.

"Stop that," Gerald told him.

"You have to do this, Sir. You told him." He bent the leg back.

"For Christ's sake," Gerald said, but he couldn't say anything more.

Clayton washed his back and moved his legs each afternoon. After the first days, the pain dulled, and soon when Clayton massaged his thighs Gerald thought he felt them tingle. The stiffness left his back and he was able to move from the bed and sit a few hours in the wheelchair. Clayton did not return to school. They watched television in the evenings, mostly old war movies or westerns. Gerald's favorite movies were those in which the hero was wounded or badly beaten and had to hide out until he was well enough to seek revenge. He would grip and slap the padded arms of the wheelchair and curse the villains bitterly.

"Look at that," he'd say. "This damn world will get you in a second. You never forget that. It got your mother quick and it almost got me."

Each night Clayton would massage Gerald's legs a second time and then wash him. Gerald's legs would resist at first and he would feel the tightness in his back. Then, gradually, the pain would lessen, and Clayton would say to Gerald how smoothly the muscles still worked. Gerald often watched Clayton from the corner of his eye. He watched his foot rise and fall and for moments he could not believe that it was something of his own body. It seemed attached to him arbitrarily, a non-living thing.

The nightly ritual seemed also to relax Clayton. Gerald noticed during this time the boy's manner was less forced. Clayton talked constantly as he massaged or cleaned Gerald. Gerald would lie with his cheek against one arm and half-listen to his son, feeling the rhythm and pause of the words and the cool touch of the wash-cloth against his shoulder or side. And abruptly when the bath stopped, Clayton would regain his clumsiness and he would put the things away hurriedly and pause at the door sometimes while his mouth closed and opened as he tried to speak. This would irritate Gerald, and he would flip off the lamp and put his head to the pillow, leaving Clayton to shut the door.

Clayton spent much of the day away from the house, driving around the county in his car. He told Gerald that he often went to his mother's grave. The cemetery was a two-hour drive away. Gerald wanted to do something kind for the boy and agreed to visit the grave. They hadn't driven more than ten miles before the vibrations of the road began to sear into his back. He made Clayton stop the car and he leaned the seat back as far as it would go. Gerald felt as if all the feeling and pain that his legs were denied gathered at his back and flamed at the borders of his feeling. After a few minutes Clayton turned around and drove slowly back home, creeping over railroad tracks and potholes.

Clayton had a dark look to his face as he drove. Gerald felt angry with himself for being unable to take the pain. He felt worse that Clayton had to have seen it, and now the boy looked as if he were disappointed in him.

Gerald braced his arm against the car door to support his back. "Son," he said, "your mother ever tell you about our first date?"

Clayton shook his head.

"Well, I'd seen her several times at the bank where she worked. I'd always go out of my way to get in her line when I cashed my paycheck on Friday's. It turned out she lived in a neighborhood I passed through on the way to work. She'd be getting in her car in the morning lots of times I drove by. So I went to call on her one time; I had some flowers I'd gotten by the side of the road. Before I even rang her doorbell this other fellow came up the walk with a fancy suit and a bottle of champagne. Seems he had the same designs I did. We had words, and I took the bottle from him and belted him over the head with it. He dropped like a wet mattress and I drug him around the side of the house. I rung that doorbell like nothin'd happened."

"And Mom never knew?"

"Nope. Wasn't more'n a month later we married. I never did tell her. Never saw that guy again, either."

"I can't believe you did that," Clayton laughed.

"You see what you want, you got to go get it. And it don't matter who's standing between you and that. Next time you see some gal, you think about that."

"Yes, Sir," Clayton said.

Gerald half-slapped his shoulder. "Hey, no more of that sir stuff, alright?"

Clayton smiled and drove.

One night after dinner they sat on the back porch, in the shade of a twisted old walnut tree that leaned over the house. The sun had gone down, but the sky still glowed palely. Around them was the repeated screech of cicadas in the air, on the tree and bushes around the house. Gerald could see them clumped along the wire fence that separated the back yard from the adjacent houses. When he was five, Clayton had snipped the fence apart with wire cutters so he and the neighbor boy could play football. Gerald had spanked him and made him apologize to the neighbor and Gerald had tacked the wire ends to a scrap of wood to reconnect them. Often when he thought of Clayton he thought of how the boy looked after he'd been disciplined.

Clayton started to speak but stopped.

Gerald turned to him. "Clayton, what's on your mind?" He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. "You're a man now, son. Speak your mind."

Clayton's face reddened. "Well--it's just that I never knew why you guys split up. I mean what was your problem with her?"

"What makes you think it was my fault?" he said.

Clayton looked down. "I just figured. She left you, didn't she? And gave you the house. She didn't like it living with her parents. She must've wanted away pretty bad."

"She must have."

"Well what was it?"

"Jesus, Clay," Gerald said.

Clayton went on. "I think about it all the time. When I was a kid I'd planned to get a car when I grew up and bring her back here."

"It takes a lot to live with a woman, son." He shook his head. "Sometimes you have to talk, sometimes you got to shut the hell up. Or you got to be jealous when your not and not jealous when you are." He spat into the yard. "I never had the timing for that shit."

"She always told me it takes more guts to talk about how you feel."

"I'll bet she did."

"Yeah, she did and I remember she said once if she was in a place where she couldn't express herself she'd go crazy. Was that it?" "She called it expressing, I called it complaining," Gerald said.

Gerald could remember taking Gail to a restaurant for her birthday. It was the first time they'd gone out since Clayton's birth. The restaurant had just been built, a nice Italian place with vine-covered stucco walls, and fireplaces and a singing waiter.

Gail wore khaki shorts and a sleeveless red shirt. It was an outfit she'd worn when they dated. Seeing her in it made Gerald see how she'd changed. Her face looked to him lifeless; she was listless and quiet.

"Cheer up, will you?" he said. "I'll be glad when you figure out what's the matter with yourself."

She straightened her back and touched at her hair and looked across the room. "Nothing. There's nothing the matter, Gerald."

He remembered how securely happy she'd been when they learned of the pregnancy. But as the months went by she'd had a worse time of it and her labor was long. Still, Clayton was more than a year old and she hadn't shaken free of the depression.

"Good. That's good." A muscle tightened almost involuntarily in Gerald's cheek. He had an urge to slap her.

The waiter came. Gerald ordered for both of them. "Something special for the birthday girl," he said. "Oh," the waiter said. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "For birthdays, we have something special!" He patted Gerald on the shoulder.

Gail smiled weakly. "Oh, Gerald. You don't have to do that."

Gerald said, louder, "It's her birthday, I said."

"Gerald, please no," she said.

The waiter clapped his hands and several other waiters came to the table. Then came the busboys and the cooks. Gail blushed and put a hand to her forehead. She cursed under her breath. Gerald put his hand up to stop them but it was too late. They clapped their hands, marching around the table and singing in Italian. She put her head to the table.

He prodded her arm. "Gail, hey. Christ. C'mon now."

She put her hands over her ears. The singing stopped. The men looked at them. Some still had their hands raised. He could hear the soft chink of silverware against plates around them. Gail jumped up and pushed her way past the ring of men. He stood up and she turned back to him and screamed that she hated him and ran out. And he'd sat back down there at the table with the cloth napkin in his fist.

He turned in his wheelchair and looked at Clayton. The boy was Gail all over. He had her round face and her hands, slender and fine. And she'd somehow in her death pressed into him a tender weakness, passed it on like a family heirloom. He watched Clayton trying both to speak and to not cry beside him on porch. He felt pity seep into him like water into cloth and he spat in disgust at himself.

"I planned a talk," Clayton said, "Planned this word-for-word talk that we'd talk about her. That you'd--you'd say something. That I'd tell you how she was when she died and that I was there and you'd tell me how strong I was." He laughed and wiped his nose on a sleeve. "They released her from the hospital when it was too far gone. She wanted to be home with her parents. With me. And one night she knew she was dying soon and she called for me to be with her. But I couldn't do it, couldn't make myself go in there, I just hid in the closet under the stairs. Even when Grandpa went through the house yelling for me. And she started yelling too but I couldn't go and in the morning she was gone."

Gerald found he was tapping the armrest of the wheelchair and held his hands to stop himself. Clayton sat there with his shoulders stooped and Gerald thought that he could say something, only he could not think what and his mind moved quickly and sporadically until he could not think at all. And past this cloud of thoughts he saw his son in the chair beside him and he could not even unclench his own hands to place one of them upon the boy's shoulder.

Gerald sat like this for some time until Clayton went to his room. He sat there in the thickening night as the shrieking of the insects multiplied and the breeze sifted through the trees. He rolled himself into the house and to his bed. He tried to pull himself from the chair but lacked the strength. He made a racket in the attempt and Clayton came to his room and wordlessly lifted him into the bed. Gerald realized how easily his Clayton moved him. Clayton left without exercising Gerald's legs for him. His back felt stiff and he wanted to ask Clayton but found himself unable to disturb the silence.

He could not sleep for the pain and the night passed by him slowly. Sometime before dawn he heard Clayton moving about in the house. A door opened, shut. He looked out the window and saw Clayton's car light up for a moment as the door opened. He pulled himself from the bed and into the wheelchair. Clamped whimpers escaped from him and when he slid into the chair the pain darkened his vision. Breathing heavily, he brought the chair out of the room and opened the front door. The car coasted from the drive and stopped in the road. He could see dimly the shadowed form of his son within the car. He flipped on the porch light so Clayton would see him. The car's engine came to life. It rose, whining for a moment, and dropped as the car moved forward. Gerald tried to move the chair from the porch but a wheel slipped. The chair tipped forward. He pitched to the ground and the pain seemed to encompass and outstrip his ability to feel it. Gasping, he strained his neck to watch the car gain speed and distance until it was gone.