“Your daddy wanted you should know,” Elva said, then hung up without saying goodbye.
When Cal got back from the house he told T.J., “My old man is dying. Elva said maybe he’s got three or four days, maybe a week at most. Granny told me to go say my goodbyes. She isn’t interested.”
T.J. thought about this a moment, then said, “That’s tough, man, sorry to hear that. I’ll go with you, if you want.” A dreamy, distant look crossed his face.
“It’s the first I’ve heard from him in a couple years. He don’t mean nothin’ to me, never was much of a father.”
“You’re goin’ there,” T.J. said. “You gotta. It’s your flesh and blood. Don’t matter what he was or wasn’t to you. Blood is blood.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Fuck him, fuck you, T.J. He ain’t nothing to you.”
“Where they got him?”
“Reno, Nevada. Outside Reno, Nevada a ways. At the Veterans.”
Cal’s mostly restored 1978 Chevy stepside was his pride and joy. Jacked up 28 inches, and with the highway racing under him at 75 miles per hour, it was almost like flying. They were higher above the pavement than most eighteen wheelers, eye-to-eye with the drivers.
T.J. slipped into a blissful state, almost as good as being high, whenever he rode with Cal. Looking out the side window at the blur of pavement under him, or at the tiny Japanese cars they passed, he felt a groin-tingling shiver, like climbing to the top of one of the tall pine trees at home.
“I’m thinking,” T.J. said. “Let’s say your old man wants to go for a ride.”
“He’s in no shape to go for no ride,” Cal said, shaking his head in disbelief. Sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, T.J.’s ideas were just plain nuts. “They got him all hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes. He’s on his way out, man. You listening to me?”
“Sure, I hear you. But let’s say he did want to,” T.J. said. “We’d need a stepladder to get him up here.” He rested his chin against his palm, elbow resting on one knee. “I’m thinking, if it were me laying there dying like that, hooked up to some friggin’ machines in a hospital, I’d want to be out of there.”
“It’s his choice.”
“You don’t know that. It’s just what they do, man. They don’t ask you. I’m telling you this, if I ever die, take me for a ride, say out to the desert, so as I can annoy coyotes and rattlers until I die. Maybe scare up a puma in my last minutes and let him chow down on me. You know, there’s these people, Tibetans, who live up in some mountains in China, they do this when somebody dies. They have a person like we have undertakers, only they cremate the bodies of their dead and then chop up what’s left, the bones and stuff, and take them out high in the mountains for the wild animals. See, your meat and bones, they nurture the animals. It’s true man. That’s what I want. Hospitals spook me. You hear what I’m saying?”
“T.J., you’re so full of shit. You really are, man. You know they’d never allow that in this country.”
“I think we should do it.”
“Do what?”
“The old man. Pull all his hookups. Drive him out to the desert, listening to rock and roll at about a thousand decibels. Get him high on some really good dope. You know? That’s what I’d want.”
“Well, he ain’t you. He’s got his own ideas.”
“Maybe he don’t have no ideas at all. You get sick. You go into the hospital, and they do what they tell you to do. It’s like going to prison except they don’t yell at you.”
“Yeah, well....”
“What’s he like?”
“My old man? I don’t know. A guy. He used to be a road man for some Indian shaman. They traveled around the west, teaching people all about the old ways, the Indian ways. Then the old Indian died. Dad sold time shares up in Tahoe after that. But he loved to fly. Once he took me up in this little Piper Cub he had. It was helluv fun. He promised he’d teach me to fly one day but he never did.”
“I’d like to hear his stories,” T.J. said. “You got any money?”
“Credit card. Why are you worried about money?”
“To get a stepladder.”
“We’re not getting a goddamn stepladder because we’re not taking the old man out of the goddamn hospital. Hell, there’s a good chance he’ll be dead by the time we get there.”
“But if he isn’t, Cal, I say you owe it to him and me to give it a chance.”
“I don’t owe nobody, least of all you because he ain’t your dad.”
“It’s not about whose dad it is. It’s about dying, Cal. Don’t you see? It’s an opportunity to crack the great mystery. It’s about facing down death like a wild pig and helping his soul slip through. And it’s about life, too, you know, except you mostly see life coming, like with your kittens or puppies getting born, and that’s different. The coming into life is more straight forward and easy to handle. You get all happy about it and everything. It’s the going out that is the biggest mystery. It’s the going out that really has us all stumped. What if they could, let’s say, be talking to you when they slip over into this parallel universe? Wouldn’t you want to know about this?”
“You got shit for brains,” Cal said. “My old man is not going to talk to someone he doesn’t even know about something you don’t even know is real.”
“You mean, about parallel universes,” T.J. said, sitting smugly, staring out the side window. “I’m telling you, they’re real....you’ll see.”
The next afternoon, they were in Grover City. They stopped at the first hardware store they found and bought a four foot, fiberglass stepladder, on sale for eighteen dollars. It was red and green and fit neatly into the back of the pickup.
“Just in case,” T.J. said. “Nothin’ wrong with being prepared.”
It is no small feat smuggling a dying man out of a hospital. Bundled up in the extra shirt and jacket T.J. brought from home, and with a blanket across his lap, his upper body supported with a couple bungy cords fastened to the wheelchair, Whalen handled the trip down in the elevator, then out through the hallway to the emergency room exit pretty well. It was only thanks to T.J. ‘s foresight with the stepladder that they were able to lift him up into the cab of Cal’s jacked up pickup, escaping with only a few bruises when he slipped from their grip on the first try.
Safely ensconced between the two younger men, and with a layer of adult diapers under him, Whalen was ready to go. Cal tossed the wheelchair and stepladder into the bed of the truck and they were off.
“So, Whalen,” T.J. said as they pulled out onto the freeway. “You like the desert?”
“Awtaroarayahway,” Whalen replied, his drugged head bobbing against his chest as the truck picked up speed.
“O awr, for sure,” T.J. said, answering as if he knew exactly what Whalen was saying. When his aunt was dying, T.J. had heard the lady from hospice tell the whole family to just agree with anything the old woman said. “Your auntie is in her own reality,” the hospice lady said. “Humor her.” T.J. leaned over and gave Whalen a peremptory hug.
“I understand you’re a pilot. Or was,” T.J. said. “Always wanted to take lessons myself. What’s it like to fly?”
“Good,” Whalen said. “It’s good! Real good. Better’n sex.” His interest aroused by the subject, the dying man managed to raise his head and speak with great effort and great emphasis, ending with a kind of coughing chuckle.
“Well, that much is clear,” T.J. said. “Isn’t it, Cal? What Whalen said?”
Cal had nothing to say.
“I hear when a guy is dying, he sees things,” T.J. said. He paused to select his words carefully. “Like maybe he has the feeling he’s leaving his body. Had any of that, Whalen?”
“Comin’ in on a wing ‘n a prayer,” Whalen said, doing his best to keep up with the conversation. “Bring ‘er in. Keep the nose on the h’rizon.”
“In any pain?” T.J. asked. He reached into his jacket pocket, held up the bo
ttle of pills he’d snatched from the side table at the hospital and rattled them.
“Not,” Whalen said.
“Okay, then, you just let me know. We’ll take care of you,” T.J. said, studying the label on the bottle. “These things any good?”
“No pain, no gain,” Whalen said, then emitted a sound that T.J. speculated might have started as laughter but ended up coughing.
T.J. watched with concern. When Whalen finally stopped, he wiped the old man’s mouth with his own handkerchief, which came away bloody.
“Denks,” Whalen said. “Sorry ‘boutdercoff.”
“I gotta ask you something, Whalen. You don’t need to answer. But, well, are you ready to meet your maker?” He waited a few moments for an answer. When none came, he said, “The reason we come for you is we’re thinking Whalen should be out sitting on the desert where it’s warm. That’s the place for a guy to die. When you’re gone, what the hell, we can have a ceremony and maybe bury you out there like the Indians used to do.”
“Who says?”
“Who says what?”
“Dyin’. I’m not dead.”
“What did the doc tell you?” T.J. asked.
“Shut up,” Cal said. “Leave him alone. Maybe he don’t want to know.”
“Damnit. If you was dying, Cal, wouldn’t you want to know?”
“Aw, jeez, aw shitshitshitshitshit,” Whalen wailed. “This is about dyin’, is it? Did Elva told you? Did she said this?”
“Yeah,” Cal said. “Elva told me.”
“The who you say?” Whalen asked. “Who?”
“Doctors, I guess,” Cal said. “I’m just assuming.”
“I ain’t,” Whalen said, resolutely. “I ain’t dead. Don’t want to.”
“Chrissake,” T.J. said. “You see, Whalen, we clumb out on a limb for you....”
“Don’t let me,” Whalen said. “Oh, criminy Jesus.”
For a long time nobody said anything. T.J. finally found the words: “You can’t expect us to smuggle you back in there. That’s strictly out.”
Whalen mumbled something about nurses and pink jello, then laughed. “You ever heard that one?”
T.J. said he wasn’t much into nurse jokes. He wondered what had happened to the conversation about dying.
Whalen stared at T.J.’s hand. “What happened to your fingers?” he asked, reaching out to touch.
“That’s how he was born, Dad,” Cal said. “He’s always been like that.”
“Changeling,” Whalen said, pulling back away from T.J. and leaning into Cal. “Changeling. You know what a changeling is? Do you know?”
“Fuck your changeling shit,” T.J. said. “I read about it. Indians say we’re touched by the Great Spirit.”
“My ass,” Whalen said. “You best read your holy bible.”
“Sure,” T.J. said. He was feeling defensive. “Ain’t nothing in there about changelings.”
“Let me see your hand,” Whalen said. “Gimme your hand.”
T.J. held up his left hand, turned it so Whalen could see his palm.
“Be damned,” Whalen said. “Look here.” He pointed to something he saw in T.J.’s palm. “Long life line, long heart line....”
“Meaning what?” T.J. asked.
“You damn right. Maybe you’re an angel,” Whalen said. “Gimme one of those pills, give me two.”
T.J. squinted at the writing on the label. “It says only one every three hours.” He unscrewed the top and shook out two pills.
Whalen leaned back his head, opened his mouth, and T.J. dropped a pill onto his tongue. Whalen swallowed hard, choked momentarily. T.J. put the other pill in his own mouth and swallowed. “What are they?” he asked.
“Blue,” Whalen said.
“Blue what?”
“Blue pills.”
“These were white pills.”
“White pills?” Whalen said. “Then I don’t know.”
Red lights flashed behind them. A highway patrol car drew up alongside and then sped past, lights flashing far into the distance ahead of them.
“You ever been to Reno?” T.J. asked.
“Where I met Elva,” Whalen said. “You boys hungry?”
“You hungry, Cal?” T.J. asked. “I could use a burger.”
“Gotta use the rest room,” Whalen said.
Cal drove on, looking for a rest stop where they could take Whalen to the toilet without attracting too much attention. It was beginning to stink in the truck. T.J. opened the window a crack. “Who cut one?” he asked. “Whalen, you fucking cut one!”
Whalen was slumped forward, head bouncing on his chest like before. He had nothing to say.
“Dad?” Cal said, nudging his father gently with his elbow. “You shit your pants or what? See did he shit his pants, T.J.”
“You’re the son,” T.J. said. “I’m not about to go peeking inside your old man’s pants.”
“You fucking idiot, I’m driving.”
T.J. pulled at Whalen’s pants and looked inside the adult diapers Cal had put on him at the hospital. “Cristo,” he said. “You gotta see this. Pull over, Cal. He’s bleeding or something all down his leg and over the goddamn floor. Jeeziz!”
“I can’t pull over,” Cal said. “The cops will be on us in a second if I pull over.”
“Godamighty,” T.J. said. “I hate that stink. It ain’t hardly human. Something about it.”
The lights of a gas station glowed in the night ahead.
“What’d you expect, T.J?” Cal said. “When you started all this, what did you expect?”
“I never knew such a stink.”
Around one AM they pulled into the gas station and filled the tank. The rest room was around to the side of the tin building housing the tiny office where the attendant, a large gray haired lady wearing jeans and a bright red Hawaiian shirt sat on a tall stool overseeing the pumps, a candy counter, and a cooler with sliding glass doors where sodas were kept. She handed Cal the restroom key wired to the twisted connecting rod from a Ford truck.
They set Whalen on the toilet and stripped off his things, soaked with bright, red, soupy feces and urine, then wiped him off with paper towels soaked from the single, cold water faucet in the dingy sink. They worked silently and grim-faced, gingerly cleaning the wrinkled skin of Whalen’s bottom, his thighs and around his shrunken genitals. Washing him down, Cal was thinking, This is my father. It is from these balls that I was sprung. He did not say this aloud but he wanted to ask his father a question about what it had been like for him the night he was conceived, if indeed it was at night, which he somehow figured it was. Twenty eight years ago, this man was in his prime. Twenty eight years ago, this man was twenty eight, maybe twenty nine. My age, Cal thought.
It took them nearly half an hour to get Whalen cleaned up and into the fresh clothes they’d had the foresight to bring for him. Whalen was skin and bones so the jeans had to be held up with a bungee cord Cal found in the back of the truck. Together, the two young men hoisted Whalen up into the cab again and asked if he wanted anything from the store inside. “Potato chips and a coke,” Whalen answered. “The barbecue kind. Hot stuff.”
They gave the key fastened to the connecting rod back to the lady in the red Hawaiian shirt and loaded up on candy bars, a large bag of barbecue potato chips, and a half dozen 12 ounce bottles of Coke.
Exiting from the gas station, their arms filled with their purchases, T.J. said, “Willya look at that?”
Across the broad apron under the stark lights around the pumps, the pickup looked like something out of a Road Warrior movie. Headlights on high, engine revving, Whalen was lodged behind the wheel. He was waving for them to hurry up.
“You ain’t going to let him drive,” T.J. said, his tone incredulous, though stating what he feared almost like a question. “He can’t possibly.”
“It’s my dad,” Cal said. “Maybe he’ll handle it okay. Maybe he’s not as bad off as they say he is. I’ve heard of people, dyin’ like that, getting
a kind of second wind or something, able to pull themselves together for a little while.”
“Yeah? You think?”
“Well, I say maybe. Give him a chance, man. He was always a good driver when he was young. He was a professional driver, for Chrisake. He knows the road.”
“Why’re you doing this?”
Cal shrugged. “He’s my dad, T.J. You understand?”
T.J. nodded, reached forward with his free hand and play-punched Cal on the shoulder.
“I’ll sit up next to him,” Cal said, “in case he loses it or anything.”
“Dead man driving!”
“This was all your idea, T.J. . . It was your fucking idea, not mine.”
“I ain’t really complaining, man. It just strikes me as damn bizarre.”
The old man did okay for nearly an hour. Then, as they tooled down the highway at 75 mph, Cal leaned across his father’s chest to reach the dimmer switch. The old man’s hands dropped to his lap and he fell forward against the steering wheel. The truck veered to the right, tires squealing. The cement sound wall loomed before them as Cal wrestled with the wheel and kicked his father’s foot off the accelerator. Too late, the truck bounced over the weather curb and caromed off the wall with a deafening screech of metal, sparks flying in every direction.
“Wooo hah,” T.J. cried. “Ride ‘em cowboy!”
The truck skidded along the wall for a moment, scattering a shower of sparks behind, lurched away from it and then zoomed back onto the freeway, finally slipping in behind a semi, barely missing the back end of it. Cal had his own foot back on the accelerator, as he leaned against his dad to push him away from the wheel, finally straightening the truck out and bringing it back into its own lane, now a hundred yards behind the semi they’d barely missed. With his left shoulder pushing against his father’s chest, Cal held his speed and navigated down the highway, searching for the next exit.
“I think he’s dead,” Cal said.
Neither Cal nor T.J. spoke for a long time after that. They drove on for another fifteen or twenty minutes until the lights of a rest stop appeared ahead of them. Cal drove past the parked semis and the building at the center of the area and sought the most remote parking slot. At last he pulled in, shut off the engine and killed the lights. As the engine stopped the only sound they could hear was the chugging of the air conditioners aboard the six or eight semis parked across the way. The night was warm, the dry desert air comforting.
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