The Exit Coach

by Megan Staffel

  But his father was alive. There was nothing to fear, not yet, and when the nurse took him to the room, he set down his bag, pulled out a chair, and waited for her to leave before he dared look at the figure in the bed. Alive. But clearly, only just. The body was flattened. The mouth was open, the expression mindless. On the console next to the bed a line zigzagged across a screen. The room was hot. He shrugged out of his jacket and sweater, then searched under the blanket for his father’s hand, but when he closed his fingers around it, nothing changed on the face.

  His father’s hand was useful, more useful than his own would ever be. It knew its way around engines. How to adjust a carburetor, clean a spark plug, lubricate, tighten, replace. He stroked the skin on the back of the hand with his thumb, feeling all the hours of anticipation settle into numbness. What he had feared had finally arrived, but he could see right away that this extreme would be different than the others because his father, unlike his mother and sister, had achieved the expected age for a mortal event.

  When he was little, his friend Colby had shot a wild turkey out of season. They’d dragged the body out from the thickets, and when the involuntary movements ceased, they’d plucked the feathers. They’d scraped the innards just as they’d seen their fathers do, then they covered the raw, pitiful thing with a blanket of leaves and built a fire over it, squatting under the winter sky, nursing the flame one stick at a time, smoke climbing the frosty air. They roasted it all morning and when they poked it out of its bed it was a greasy, black, burnt ghost of itself, and though the charred meat took a lot of chewing, it was good. The burnt parts had the salty flavor of fire; the meat tasted like leaves. They sucked the bones, passing the carcass between them, telling each other the only thing they lacked was whiskey. But they were nine years old and the romance of their fathers’ worlds hadn’t yet translated to action. Not that Dan’s father ever drank; he disdained anything soft or easy, but Colby had seen it first-hand most weekends. He had watched how the bottle caused a bloom of liveliness and in high school he would be the one to bring drugs back to their village.

  “Dad?”

  Now that he had arrived, the bird in his chest was finally settled. A hen turkey, he decided. She folded her long, tattered wings, tucked her beak under feathers, and found the right place on his rib bone to rest. The same one, the same young hen they had eaten.

  “Dad?”

  There was no sound. But it wasn’t like his father to sleep so trustingly. He was the one who woke at every disturbance, a cat in heat, a chipmunk running cross the attic, a son’s late return. He liked to joke that he was his own best guard-dog. That’s how he had known when Dan was getting into trouble in high school. And that’s how his father had stopped him. He knew about his sister too, but maybe he had lacked the courage to demand a change. So he must have known when their mother had strayed, but that too he let pass. Maybe he had less certainty with the women. But when his boy went out with the wrong people, and weekend after weekend, the cars pulled up to drop him off and the last one, the final one, drove off before his son could even get himself through the door, he made his demand. “You got to stand on your own two feet and be solid. You’re it! You’re the only one left.” He remembered the long leathery finger raising itself out of the bathrobe pocket, coming through the air to stab his sternum.

  He was hungry. His only food had been candy bars from the bus stations on the road, and he couldn’t stomach any more sweetness. He closed his eyes and let the day catch up to him. Unlike his father, Dan slept deeply and in any situation, a sofa, a chair, a seat on the subway, he could disappear into sunken, comfortless oblivion. Once, when a girl took him back to her apartment, he fell asleep on her coach before they even got to her bedroom. So she assumed he wasn’t interested. And maybe he hadn’t been. There were times when sex scared him. Particularly if it was a desperate kind of a woman. He was attracted to the cool ones, the ones it was a challenge to get to know, because the easy ones reminded him of the women in his family, his mother and sister, two females who had ignited hot and burned up quickly.

  His mother had died when a small plane piloted by a man no one knew crashed into a hillside. Nothing to explain it: the weather calm, the fuel tank full, and the man, probably her boyfriend, an experienced pilot.

  Evelyn blazed out on reckless driving and for that event there were too many facts. She had been sixteen. They pulled the car from the ravine; she was the one at the wheel, fully dressed, while the boy next to her was naked. His father, not a man who ever had money to spare, wrote a check for three hundred and seventy five dollars to the reporter to hold back that embarrassing fact. So Dan didn’t find out till high school when any swill about anyone was slopped around.

  Neither death was “honorable,” his father’s word, so his father didn’t miss a day at the garage and wouldn’t allow his son to miss school. It passed. The worst of anything always passed.

  When Dan jolted awake, he was thinking about money. The bus ticket had wiped him out. There had been enough gas in his father’s car to get him to Dansville, but he was counting on the old man to have a couple of twenties. Otherwise, he didn’t know what they would do because all Dan had was a five.

  First, he’d started the car. Then he’d gone into the house. The back door, as always, was unlocked, and when he turned on the fluorescent, the kitchen was a mess, dishes piled on the counter, boxes of food sitting on the table, chili or something in a pan on the stove. The toilet was running in the bathroom. He jiggled the handle to get it to stop and then he checked the Webster’s sitting on the bookcase in the hallway where his father hid cash. He turned to the word “field,” and all he saw was a five. He grabbed it, figuring his dad had taken the rest when the neighbor ran him to the hospital. But it was strange about the kitchen. His father hated mess. He was neat and scrupulously frugal, storing every scrap of food in the fridge till it rotted. Unlike Dan who consumed and tossed like a man with no tomorrows.

  He went back to sleep because it was night still, and dreamed that his father’s 1966 Pontiac Bonneville, now parked outside at the Dansville hospital, roared down the street, carrying his father away. That was the other odd thing. His father prided himself on keeping his ancient car in mint condition, but he hadn’t replaced the muffler. Had he been in pain for a long time? Was that why things were neglected? When he woke again, light filled the room. Two orderlies were sliding the old man onto a gurney.

  “Hey, wait a minute! Dad?”

  He followed the gurney down the hall to the elevator. “Helicopter’s waiting,” the nurse informed him.

  “Why? Where’s he going?”

  “Surgery’s scheduled in Rochester.”

  “Rochester?” That was another hour, another half tank of gas. “Why can’t they do it here?”

  “Most surgeries are in Rochester. That’s where the specialists are.”

  When he kissed his father’s cheek, his eyes blinkered open. The fingers slid out from the blanket and, as the gurney was pushed into the elevator, they waved. Dan squeezed in as the door slid closed, but the nurse stopped it, made him get out.

  “Sorry, restricted area. Only hospital personnel.” She took him to the nurse’s station where she typed at a monitor and gave him a printout with the name and location of the bigger hospital. It was all the way on the north side of Rochester, and gas was going to be a problem. Last month, he’d snipped his credit card into a million pieces. End of temptation. Nothing on the debit card: he’d been out of work and the new job was so new it hadn’t paid yet.

  “Fuck!” He hissed it with such vehemence it should have attracted notice, but everyone at the nurses’ station was occupied. He walked into the lounge and banged the Coke machine, imagining the canned, comic jangle of quarters into the change cup, but the steady illuminated face gave nothing. He and Colby, the same winter as the turkey feast, had tested all the soda machines in the village, two at the gas station, one at the village office, and at 2:00 a.m. they imagined that their sh
arp, precise kicks would knock loose some kind of gate on the inside and all the sweet money the machines hoarded would fall into the cup faster than they could grab it with their chubby hands. It didn’t work, but defeat gave them the giggles. Dan’s mother had died the year before; Colby’s mother was about to disappear, and crazy laughter in the freezing dark night on an empty street where nothing moved except the pink rat’s tale of an opossum sliding under a wood pile, was the only way to announce their collusion with badness. He didn’t laugh now, but the machine’s vivid colors inspired the same rage.

  There was a chapel down the hall. He hated religion. He hated its presumption of authority. He didn’t believe in God and was suspicious of the Bible; all it seemed to do was advocate for terrible things. Interdenominational. That word was over the door. Right, he thought, but none of the books of other religions were any better. He peeked inside. The lighting was muted and the carpet and two short pews were bathed in the default beige of public places. There was a piece of stained glass, but it was a false window, he could see the bulb behind it, and the design was abstract and meaningless. A woman with long brown hair sat in the first pew, but he ignored her. Now he wondered if perhaps she could help.

  “Excuse me.”

  She looked up.

  “Are you the minister or something?”

  “Sure.”

  That confused him. Either she was or she wasn’t. “I mean, are you?”

  “Yes, and I give free counsel.”

  He stepped inside. “Meaning what?”

  “I’m an artist. The doctor’s with the person I was visiting and I can’t stand TV and it’s always on in there.” She nodded towards the lounge.

  He smiled at that. “Yeah, I hate TV too,” he lied, remembering all the hours he’d been spellbound. TV had been a more dependable, and later, the only mother in his and Evelyn’s childhood, and on days they were home alone, its disorder had been the most reliable order they had. “Hey…. listen, could you loan me like eighty bucks? I’ve got to drive to Rochester. My dad was just flown up there for emergency surgery and I have his car and I’m out of cash, this was so unexpected, and I have to fill the tank. I swear I will send you a money order when I get home. I swear I will pay you back. I know you probably don’t have eighty dollars, but maybe you could ride with me to the gas station and put a tank on your card? My debit card’s empty and I….” but he knew he couldn’t tell her about his credit problems.

  “What’s he up there for?”

  He looked at the paper he was holding. “Neuro something. I think it’s his stomach. He has terrible ulcers.”

  “May I look?”

  He watched her eyes read the unintelligible phrases. She was pretty. She had a clean, fresh face and smart eyebrows, smart eyes. Her mouth was a no-nonsense mouth, not a pouting mouth, a serious straight-on mouth that would talk straight to you, maybe. And the hair that just hung there. She didn’t touch it. She didn’t fling it or swish it or do anything but ignore it. So it just sat there on its own, in its own amber light.

  “I don’t know what it is either. They didn’t tell you?”

  “I know this is really bizarre, but I just got here. So I haven’t spoken to any doctors.”

  “Well, you have to get to Rochester, don’t you? Come on.”

  Daniel Field was used to people giving him the finger. Bosses, girlfriends, buddies, the woman at the makeshift office where he volunteered after 9/11—the finger manifested as any number of disappointments—a check that never came, a call that wasn’t returned, a job that was only a rumor. So he was prepared. In fact, maybe it was the presumption of failure that allowed the growing absurdity of his attempts. On the long bus ride up there he’d figured out some things, mostly his foolishness. Like eighty dollars, how ridiculous was that?

  So he wasn’t surprised when she disappeared. But then, there was a little exhale in his brain, something like the whoosh on a cell phone when a message comes in, and he replayed it: You have to get to Rochester, don’t you? Come on.

  After they gassed up, she slipped into the front seat next to him though the hospital was only two blocks away. Then he remembered that people who lived in rural places never thought about walking. So he pressed the gas and the engine roared. “The funny thing is that my dad is a mechanic, a really good one,” he said because he was embarrassed about the muffler. Last night, when the roar had filled the empty garage, it seemed a sure sign that his father was lost. Now, as he steered the noisy car in the direction of the hospital, he was hopeful.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Your friend? The doctor’s probably done, right?”

  She laughed. “Doesn’t matter. I was ready to leave anyway. I’m going to move on.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, just give me your address and I have the receipt and like I said...”

  “Could you take me to Rochester? Drop me off downtown?”

  “You don’t have a car?” He was beginning to think she was just as shiftless as he was. And he didn’t need that kind of baggage, not now. He was done with that type. He had to take care of his father.

  “I got a ride down and I would love to get a ride back. I would be extremely grateful. Could you drop me off on Goodman Street?”

  But he didn’t want to get off the expressway. He wanted to go straight to the hospital.

  She must have felt his hesitation because she said, “Or I could come to the hospital with you. I could help.”

  “Well, that’s the thing, I don’t need help. I’ve got to do this on my own. Things are kind of rough right now, okay?” The turkey slapped its wings. The sudden noise, the absurdity of a large bird sitting in the top of a tree. He wanted to leave the woman in Dansville.

  On the highway, they didn’t speak even though they could have. With speed, the muffler was quiet. All at once, she made a sudden movement and he startled, as though she were going for a gun, as though she were some kind of a crazy person. But she was just reaching for the canvas bag she’d thrown onto the back seat when she first got in. It was too large for a purse, and from the corner of his eye seemed to be more like a suitcase. He saw a hairbrush, some socks. Then she pulled out a camera. “Do you mind if I take your photo?”

  “Ah, I don’t think so. No pictures.” What was she? Some kind of undercover agent? Going after Colby’s friends? Was he dealing even now, even in the VA?

  “Okay, no argument.” She put the camera back into the bag and tossed the bag over the seat again. “Photos are not so good in a car anyway. It will be better at the hospital.”

  “No photos, please. Not anywhere.” She was some kind of narcotics agent and since he was Colby’s oldest friend, he was maybe a prime suspect. They should leave the poor sucker alone. The poor pathetic….

  “No photos? But that is my purpose. American Pictures, it’s a full half of my project. May I tell you about it?”

  “Look, I’m really sorry. But I lost my job; I have no money; my dad’s in trouble. No photos, okay? I’m really kind of a fuck-up right now.”

  “What do you mean, fuck-up?”

  The question seemed impossible. “Who are you? A fuck-up? You’re looking at one. So you tell me, what is it?”

  He said it in anger but she took the question seriously. “A man of many loose ends, maybe? Not quite certain he is okay? I don’t know, something like that?”

  “Seriously, where have you been, Tanzania?”

  “I have been away, though not Africa. I’ve been in France actually, speaking French for the last maybe dozen years? So my idioms, they’re a little rusty.”

  “France, huh? Why France?”

  “I am a dual citizen. French and American. My mother American, my father French, and my project is to compare the cultures. Make a book. In America, which is a land of no, no, no, no, many, many no’s, I meet people and I say yes and I see where that takes me. I document each person I talk to with photos. I started in Atlanta, Georgia, and now I am in Rochester, New York. One person at a time. M
y journey is determined by nothing but casual encounters, and at the end of a year in America and then a year in France, there will be a gallery show and a book. That is my hope.”

  “So what’s this say yes thing about?”

  “Well…” there was a pause while she looked at the road ahead of her. “Saying yes is about the simple act of saying yes.”

  “That’s not telling me a whole hell of a lot.” The line had sailed into his mind, tone and everything, and before it was out of his mouth he realized it had been spoken to him not even twenty-four hours ago when he couldn’t answer any of the questions put to him by his boss. Hospital, emergency, father: what more did he want?

  Specifics, it turned out, like appendix, stroke, infection. But Dan didn’t know. The hospital hadn’t run the tests. That’s why he needed to be there.

  Unfortunately, the boss hadn’t heard about the Say Yes campaign. “Listen, Field, I’m not making this up. This is the truth. When you get back from your little vacation don’t bring your ugly mug to any of my parking lots. We’re finished, got it?”

  It didn’t put her off. So when she asked with a brightness that seemed absurd, “Where did you come from?” he didn’t just say The City. He elaborated a little, “downstate, you know, Brooklyn,” just to show that he was grateful. Then, for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he gave her the whole run-down, going to New York after 9/11, feeling like he needed to help because of the same thing in his life, the plane, the crash, losing someone in such a sudden and inexplicable way. But after a few months he began to notice that they always gave him the brute jobs and the college kids the desk-work, the answering-phones-stuff. So he stopped showing up. Let the rich kids ruin their lungs too. But he’d stayed in the city, moving from one couch to another, trying to save enough to rent an actual corner of a room somewhere, and getting nothing but shitty jobs, the last one the lowest so far, parking cars for a parking lot empire, and having no luck at anything, all of it falling apart.