To Live

by C. G. Cooper

  Elmore stepped up to the kitchen table. “Hello.” He didn’t pry. If there was something they wanted to tell him, they would in due time. Oliver had a way of mulling, thinking things over, not unlike his father. But when words came, they usually came in a torrent, like a faucet he couldn’t turn off. Elmore braced for it.

  “Oliver has something to tell us,” Eve said, resting a hand on her son’s.

  The boy sat upright, his face strong and resolute. “I’m not who you think I am.” The words came out in a rush and it took Elmore a few seconds to piece them together.

  “What do you mean?” Eve asked well before her husband could form the words to reply.

  There was a nervous smile playing around his face. “I’m not… I don’t know how to say this.”

  “Just say it. It’s okay.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you,” Oliver said.

  “Why don’t you just tell us and I’m sure we can work it out,” Elmore finally said. He saw Eve nod, rest a second hand on her son’s shoulder. Had he stiffened at the touch or softened? Elmore couldn’t tell. He’d never seen his son so… whole.

  “I’m gay.”

  The expected torrent never came. And the rush of silence couldn’t have been there a second before. Elmore was sure of that. He didn’t know what to say because he just didn’t. When he looked back on that moment years later he tried to figure out what he should’ve done.

  He should’ve walked around the table and hugged his son.

  He should’ve said everything was going to be okay.

  He should’ve said he loved his son no matter what, and that as long as he was true to his friends, was honest and upright, loved his country, stood up for what he believed was right, put his ass on the line in service of the truth, and spoke that truth wherever he found himself, then he would be proud of him.

  But he did none of those things. He acted the part of the court jester, dumb and slack jawed. The village idiot. The father who’d forgotten every glorious gift his son had given him. He played the fool and life caught him by the short hairs before he could get his jaw moving.

  For some reason, Eve didn’t say anything either. It was only later that Elmore realized that she was looking to him, her husband, to make the first move.

  But he didn’t.

  “Are you sure?” said Elmore. It was innocent enough, he knew. But it wasn’t what he should have said. He knew what he should have said.

  Oliver’s eyes blazed now, the same fire they’d seen so many times. Eve called it the Nix fire, and Elmore knew she meant the fire came from Elmore. That fire had seen him through his broken childhood, through Vietnam. Now the fire blazed against him

  Elmore actually recoiled, and in that split second when he stepped back, he knew the action would be taken as an accusation. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t. No explanation ran from his soul, through his lungs, up through his larynx and out of his mouth. None. Zip. Zilch. Just dead air. Dead air between them.

  “I knew you wouldn’t understand.” Oliver shoved himself back from the table, wresting himself from Eve’s grip. Eve mouth dropped open. “You’re no better than the others!”

  That fire. Elmore could barely look at it.

  And that was it. Both parents were silent and Oliver was gone. Gone in a huff. Gone in a moment.

  They only talked about it one time. That night Eve cried and Elmore said their son would come back. He was their son, after all. They always came back.

  But he never came back. He never called.

  Elmore didn’t give a damn about his son’s sexual orientation. Sure, he’d thought on it. He’d seen families ripped apart by it, but he’d never… Well, he’d just never thought it through. All he wanted was a boy who would grow into someone special, someone of worth to mankind.

  The first time Oliver had left home, Elmore didn’t sleep for three straight nights. It was a big bad world out there. Elmore knew. He’d seen it firsthand. Kids blown to smithereens because some despot gets a wild hair up his ass and another leader thinks he can smash said despot back to the stone-age. You don’t want your child to be part of that. You have to protect them. You have to get them ready. You have to…

  Have to.

  Elmore knew he had to do something. But he didn’t. That had been his fatal flaw, the regret he’d lived with for over a decade. And now here it was again, the devil digging his claws deep inside.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Elmore put the two letters down. Sam was standing next to him again. She didn’t say anything, but Elmore figured she’d read the notes by now.

  “I think I need to lie down,” Elmore said, his body slack.

  She motioned to the letters. “What do you want me to do with these?”

  Elmore didn’t answer. He somehow made it to his room, locked the door – the only time he’d ever locked it – and lay down to let sleep take him.

  But sleep didn’t come. Dreams did. Waking dreams that thrashed around in his head until finally, hours later, he drifted into the abyss of darkness.

  Pfc. Nix clawed his way up one last hillock. The top of the thing was covered in mud, like it would melt away as soon as he crested. So quiet. So damned quiet.

  He looked all around. Sgt. Franks had just been behind him. They were going to take out a pair of sappers they’d just seen. Nix looked back down the hill, but the trail he expected to see was no longer there. Only nothingness, a color that wasn’t a color. A space that wasn’t a space.

  Then the sound came. He thought it was machine gunfire from far off. Tap, tap, tap, tap. He cocked his head to one side. Probably VC probing friendly lines.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  No. That wasn’t right. It sounded like an American-made weapon. He’d committed most of them to memory. It was a game now. Hear a mortar round whistling in? Quick. Guess what size it is before it hits. Winner gets a Hershey bar or a beer on R&R.

  Not that they ever really knew who the winner was. Not that it mattered. It was just one of a thousand ways to pass the time.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  Closer now.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  Nix looked around again. The nothingness surrounded him now. He didn’t seem to mind that the trees were gone and the mud that once caked his hands had disappeared.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  A knocking. Nix thought. And then he opened his eyes.

  It was dark. Pitch black.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  Moments that must have been seconds for him to get oriented.

  He was home, lying in a bed.

  Tap, tap, tap, tap.

  A giddy fear gripped his chest. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Sam. Are you okay?”

  Sam.

  Elmore eased himself to the edge of the bed. “What time is it?”

  “Almost three.”

  “In the morning?”

  Of course, you old fool. It’s dark out.

  “Yeah, three in the morning. Are you okay?”

  Elmore wiped a hand over his face. He felt like he’d been sleeping with his head in a cooler.

  He got to his feet, pins and needles spiking the length of his legs. “You can come in.”

  “The door’s locked.”

  Locked. Had he locked the door? He never locked the door. Not even when there was that string of break-ins some years back. When was that? Must have been when Oliver was still at home. Oliver. He wanted to see Oliver.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked.

  Elmore was embarrassed to realize that he’d slipped again, the mental agility losing its battle to Father Time.

  He unlocked the door, saw Sam standing there in an oversized T-shirt and gym pants.

  “Sorry. Didn’t know I’d locked it.”

  The light of a car driving by splashed across the front of the house, dousing them both in a brilliant glare. Had he forgotten to close the front curtains? How careless.

  He saw Sam�
��s face, ghostly pale. He thought it was the light that was now passed, but her mouth was hanging open just so.

  “Sam, what is it?”

  “It’s…” her hand raised. She was pointing. Pointing at him. “We need to get you to the hospital.” She’d recaptured a modicum of sanity and was moving now.

  What the devil was she yammering about? Damn girl didn’t know what she was talking about. Sure, he felt a little tired. Probably had some hair out of place, but that was no reason to get cagey. Maybe she was having a traumatic episode, something about her mother.

  Then Elmore felt it, the uncharacteristic anger. Where had it come from? Tapped from some place deep down. Like someone had slipped it in when he wasn’t looking.

  He decided to splash some water on his face. That would do the trick. Then he would talk to Sam, see what was wrong. Maybe she needed a counselor. How could he have been so stupid not to see that coming?

  “Idiot,” he told himself, slapping the side of his thigh with a sting. “Water.”

  He shook his head on the way to the master bathroom. Maybe he was dreaming. If he was, he wanted to wake up. The next thing would be unicorns and dancing pixies. What the hell was a pixie anyway? He was seized by the urge to scream out an obscenity. He wanted to tell off his dreams, curse the world. Spit in Sam’s face.

  That’s when he stopped. This wasn’t him.

  He hurried now. A flick of the light switch and there he was standing in front of the double mirror, staring at a complete stranger. The man he was looking at looked a hundred years old, with a pinched face as bitter as a crabapple.

  There were no other thoughts as he slipped to the floor, casually gripping the edge of the sink. A girl was screaming. And then the world disappeared, thankfully, dully, and completely.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Sam didn’t know how to pray. She’d never been taught.

  But she prayed now, with every high and mighty word she could think of. She gripped her hands together until they lost blood flow. And still she prayed on.

  Please, God, save Elmore Thaddeus Nix. He’s my friend. My only friend. Please, God, I don’t know what I’ll do without him. I don’t have anyone. Oh, God, I don’t have anyone.

  She didn’t know the perfect prayer and yet she said it. The words sprayed forth. Over and over the words went, spilling from her until they could spill no more.

  Doctors and nurses came and went. An orderly asked her if she wanted anything to drink. She shook her head and went back to praying.

  And the hours went by.

  “He could be out for a while,” the doctor said to George Franks.

  “Tell me the truth, Doc.” Franks leaned in close. He didn’t want Sam to hear. She’d been through enough.

  “That’s all I can say. It could be a while – if he comes out of it.”

  Franks looked over at the girl in the corner. She’d been hysterical and composed all in the same minute. Raving mad and pointedly focused. She was a strange creature, this Sam.

  “You have to understand,” said the doctor. “It’s in his brain now. We removed most of it, but we think there might’ve been damage.”

  Franks stared at the man. He’d lost friends before. He’d lost too many Marines to count. He liked to think that their faces were etched on his soul. He’d sent them to their deaths, even if he’d been under orders. He would’ve gladly given his life for theirs. Had tried on more than one occasion. But the good Lord had seen fit to keep him. He’d kept him through Vietnam, through a patchy homecoming, through alcohol.

  His heart broke seeing Elmore Nix in that bed, head half-wrapped in bandages. Nix was the indestructible one. He’d run into gunfire and come out unharmed. He was a miracle. Franks honestly believed that.

  So was this it? Was this when Almighty God took back his miracle?

  No, it couldn’t be.

  “Okay, Doc, tell me what we can do.”

  And then, to Franks’ surprise, the doctor said, “Pray.”

  So they prayed. He and Sam prayed together. They held hands and prayed to themselves and sometimes they prayed aloud. Visitors came in ones and twos, just like they’d come before. They prayed. They sang. They waited.

  All the while, Elmore Thaddeus Nix lay in a coma, still living, even if on borrowed time.

  Chapter Seventy

  No dreams. No dreams at all. Just a canvas of white with the occasional splash of Easter color. A muted blue here or a barely yellow there.

  He came in and out of it. Sometimes it felt like he was on a boat, far out to sea. There was no water, but the waves lapped him from side to side. Where was he going? Was that a seagull squawking? What were those other sounds? The sound of an engine maybe. Possibly the rigging of an old schooner squeaking in the wind.

  Ah, maybe he was on a pirate ship. He’d like that. He’d had fantasies about being a pirate as a child. Curved scimitar leading the way as they attacked merchant vessels in the Caribbean. Yes, that was the life. Sunburned and guzzling grog from a silver tankard. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.

  “Here he comes,” the nurse said.

  They’d taken out the breathing tube. There’d been signs of life. Fluttering eyelids. The twitching of fingers and toes. More prayer. More movement from the unconscious patient.

  Sam stood next to him, waiting, and her eyes sunken from lack of sleep. She had not left the hospital in the past week. Where would she go even if she could leave?

  Elmore’s eyes moved around in their sockets, searching, feeling it out.

  Sam bent over, put her mouth right next to his ear.

  “Elmore Thaddeus Nix, come back to me.”

  More twitching. Something fighting to come out. There was a moan from somewhere deep down.

  Sam moved back, fearing that she’d triggered the final death spasms.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, to Elmore, to Sgt. Franks who was always there, to the world.

  Franks caught her, held her close.

  “It’s okay. Look.”

  He pointed at their friend. Elmore’s eyes were fluttering now, baby butterflies.

  And then his eyes came open, and he was with them again.

  “Can I have some water?” Elmore asked, and Franks fell into a fit of laughter.

  “You really had us worried, you stubborn old mule,” Franks said.

  Elmore was propped up, sipping from one of those oversized water bottles painted some shade of mauve, that’s what he thought it was. An antique castoff.

  “I can’t believe I’m so thirsty. I could really use a Gatorade, the kind with all the sugar: not that zero stuff.”

  “The doctor said you should stick to water, for now,” Sam said. She hadn’t left his side and Elmore wasn’t sure he liked that look on her face. Worried for sure. But something else, like if she felt he might die.

  “Okay. Then water it is.”

  “You tell us when you’re ready for visitors,” Franks said, flipped through the newspaper, apparently no worse for his old friend’s wakeup.

  “Same as before?” Elmore meant his most recent stay in the hospital after getting shot. He was getting to be a real pro at this hospital bed thing. Maybe he’d rack up the frequent flier miles.

  “Same and more,” Franks replied, not looking up from whatever article had him so entranced.

  Elmore shook his head, still finding it impossible to comprehend that so many could care so much about an old man.

  “And how are you, Sam?”

  “I’m good,” she answered too quickly, like she’d rehearsed it.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Had any good food?”

  “Sure.”

  “Steak and eggs?”

  That got her face to change. “No. Just hospital food.”

  “That doesn’t sound very good.”

  “They make good pancakes. Really big ones. And sandwiches. The sandwiches are pretty good.”

  Franks threw him a look that said it all. Sam hadn
’t been eating. Maybe a nibble here and there. And all for what? An old man dying in a bed.

  “That settles it. As soon as I get out of here I’m buying us the most expensive meal we can find,” Elmore said, feeling suddenly energized. And besides the aches and pains of his aging body, he really did feel good. They’d told him about the brain tumor, how they’d scraped him out good. The doctor was cautiously optimistic. They were always like that. But Elmore saw the truth. He always saw the truth whenever his own demons weren’t casting shade on it. There was a very real chance that he might die. First the cancer in his back and now in this brain. The fainting spells had shown the truth. Good. One step in the right direction.

  “What d’ya say, Sam, a fancy dinner, you, me and that old goat in the corner?”

  Franks looked up from his paper. “Who you calling an old goat? Look in the mirror, Gyrene.”

  “Sam?”

  Sam’s eyes glistened. No words came.

  Elmore took her hand, made her look right into his eyes.

  “Sam, I’m not going anywhere. I’m making this promise right here and now. As long as you’re here with me, I’m going to fight this damn thing as hard as I can. I can’t promise that I won’t die. I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you that. You’re as much an adult as I am now. But I’ve decided to live. Eve taught me that and so have you.” He stared at her, those beautiful eyes full of affection. “What do you think? Will you help me?”

  And then, with a nod that turned into an ear-to-ear smile, Sam said, “It would be my pleasure, Elmore Thaddeus Nix.”