Imperfections

by Bradley Somer

  We almost made it to Mother and Dr. Sloane’s apartment.

  It was three minutes after midnight. I was completely aware of each minute that passed. The suspense was killing me. I needed to know how I would die. To me, each minute was a lease, a bittersweet triumph and one more anxious minute closer to the unknown.

  We were one block from the apartment.

  We were walking past Verdi Square, a small triangular park between 72nd and 73rd. Donna was telling me how it was named after a great Italian opera composter, when we noticed our trio had become a duo. Donna and I turned in unison and saw Father lying on the sidewalk. The nearby streetlight reflected in the slushy puddle where he lay.

  Donna and I ran to his side, us both falling to our knees, me searching for a pulse and Donna calling 911 on her cellphone.

  Five minutes after midnight and the true impacts of the new millennium were becoming known to the world. There had been no sweeping darkness and no planes had dropped out of the sky.

  In Delaware, 150 lotto machines went out of service.

  In New York, one ticket dispenser on subway platform 56 in Grand Central Terminal stopped dispensing tickets.

  On Central Park Street, those crowds waiting for the bank machines to spew out their contents went home to their apartments none the richer.

  On Broadway, Donna stood in the street and waved her arms in the night. Headlights of passing cars swept across her body. The flashing red light of the approaching ambulance strobed her body.

  On Broadway, between 72nd and 73rd, I knelt in the slush. Cold hard concrete pushed a chill deep into my knees. My jeans wicked the melting slush with each passing moment.

  I compressed Father’s chest.

  I put my lips to his to blow breath into his lungs.

  On Broadway, near the statue of Giuseppe Verdi and between chest compressions, I choked out one phrase over and over again.

  “Please don’t die, Dad.”

  CHAPTER 14

  We Have Started Our Descent

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have started our descent…”

  Truer words had never been spoken. At twenty-five years old, I was still too young to recognize the captain was talking about more than the airplane I was strapped into.

  “The ground temperature is a lovely 82 degrees and sunny. We’ll be landing in twenty minutes and will have you to the terminal shortly after that. Right now though, please ensure your seat belt is fastened and your seat back and tray table have been returned to their upright and locked positions…”

  Landing is the most dangerous part of flying. It is the only difference between having flown and having crashed. One pilot, one co-pilot, a crew of eight, four hundred passengers, 400,000 kilograms of people, luggage, machinery and the occasional Shih Tzu plummeting toward a very solid tarmac at 450 kilometres per hour, I guessed things should be as tidy as possible in the event of something going wrong. It was only civilized.

  I watch my seatmate wrap his earphones around a tiny device he had been listening to.

  “It’s an iPod,” he said and looked at me as if he suspected I was a bit simple.

  I nodded and smiled vacantly which seemed to confirm his suspicion.

  It was August 2001, a month before those guys flew those planes into those towers. The world didn’t know anything in August. After September, we would know the span of time it took a building to fall was the exact time it took to judge an entire people, how long it took for someone to fall in love and how long it took to change the world. Twenty seconds. In twenty seconds, judgments are made. I have said it before. It’s all about math and it happens faster than our conscious mind works. We don’t even know we do it, but we do.

  But then, one month earlier, in a more naive world, the plane I was on bumped into the earth and screamed to a halt. A few people clapped, as if they weren’t expecting to make it but somehow survived and thought that subdued clapping was a sufficient celebration of life.

  Since New Year’s Eve, I’d floated. I had spent most of my life savings. I had turned down shows and effectively snuffed out my career. I said goodbye to my friends and family. I had been ready to die and had been at peace with the fact, maybe I had even secretly looked forward to it.

  Then, I lived.

  It wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened but it took some adjustment. I realized, over my career, I had worked everywhere but had never really been anywhere. So with what little money I hadn’t given away or spent, I travelled. I bought a ticket to Southeast Asia.

  I started writing strange sentences on errant pieces of paper.

  I have packed my suitcase with a million of your tears.

  On napkins and boarding passes.

  On the loneliest night, even the dogs don’t howl.

  And on menus and receipts.

  My heart is held captive in the prison of these ribs.

  I littered the world with words as I travelled. My accommodations degenerated from hotel to hostel to tent to street. My mode of travel went from airplane to train to bus to hitchhiking and walking.

  I got the runs in Delhi.

  I got crabs in Thailand.

  On a prescription for medicated shampoo, Love is a sexually transmitted disease.

  I got drunk in Greece.

  I got lost in Belgrade.

  On a city map on which all the street names were written in Cyrillic, I am lost in a city full of people who know exactly where they are.

  I went hiking in South Africa.

  I saw some old ruins in Zimbabwe.

  On a tourist brochure, Everything we are has been before and failed.

  I made friends, then left them behind.

  I left my family behind.

  I left my bags behind.

  In the end, I was left with nothing but the feeling of being a small man in a gigantic world and anything that I did in life mattered, but only for a short while and only to a few people.

  Dad didn’t die on New Year’s. Donna rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. I called Mother and Dr. Sloane and we made our way to join them, together but in silence. When we arrived, a doctor pulled us all aside, took us to a private room. He flipped a switch and fluorescent lights tick-tick-hummed to life.

  “Jack is doing well. He suffered a heart attack but we think we got to him in time. A full recovery is expected,” the doctor said.

  “It sounds like there’s more,” Mother said.

  “There is. In the course of our tests, we saw something that pushed us in a different direction. There is no gentle way to say this… Jack has cancer.”

  Donna held a hand over her mouth and started to cry.

  “And,” the doctor continued, “well, there’s a lot of it and it’s spread. We’ve located several metastatic tumours.”

  After a week of observation, they released Dad into a different world than he had known previously. I had left shortly after.

  On my last call to Mother, I was somewhere on the northern coast of Africa, at a dusty phone booth in Tripoli, I think. She said I should come home right away. She wired me money for the next available flight. The airplane home seemed too clean and modern. I had become unaccustomed to soft chairs and fabrics that didn’t smell of sweat. The television in the seat back in front of me was a magical mesmerist.

  I handed over the last forty dollars of Mother’s money to the taxi driver when he dropped me off in front of the hospital. It was early evening and the heat of the day lingered in wavering ghosts escaping from the asphalt and concrete. It coated me with a tactile embrace.

  I stood on the curb as the taxi drove away, its crown light glowing a thin yellow in the fleeting light of the day. I inhaled and concentrated on the air held in my lungs.

  I stood as people came and went through the automatic door, it sliding open and shut under the backlit Entrance sign. The motor hummed as it worked. Watching those people, I focused on consciously experiencing their presence, seeing them move through th
is world and then seeing them no more.

  I stood until the streetlights flickered on overhead and then, I went into the hospital.

  I was struck by the antiseptic smell in the air. It took me back to the last time I had been in a hospital and the immediate association I made with the smell was Mother.

  I approached the information desk.

  “I’m here to see Jack Trench,” I said.

  The man behind the counter removed his hands from where they had been resting, fingers interlaced on his belly. “Are you family?” he asked. His sausage fingers poked at a keyboard.

  “He’s my dad.”

  “Six fourteen,” the man said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Bank of elevators. Sixth floor. Take a left once you get there.”

  His chair creaked as he leaned back and wove his fingers together over top of his belly again. He looked over my shoulder, into the night outside.

  Bank of elevators. Sixth floor. Took a left. Six fourteen.

  I surveyed the room from the door. Mother was looking out the window. Dr. Sloane sat in one of the two chairs in the room, his fingers templed in front of his mouth and a blissful look on his face. Donna was in the other chair, which was pulled up to Dad’s side. She held his hand.

  Dad was pale and gaunt. I didn’t recognize him from when I left seven months ago. He had come to the airport to see me off. He had still been a bit unsteady. When I glanced back from the far side of the security scanners, he stood, the only stationary person in the bustling airport, and waved goodbye to me. He had been a mountain of a man then.

  Now, his hand seemed frail in Donna’s. His skin was slack, draped like a shroud over his bones. His eyes were sunken, his lips thin. What hair he had left was a baby’s wisp, but grey.

  Then, surveying the room, I knew why I had left. I couldn’t watch him turn into this. I couldn’t watch him fade away. Even so, I came back because I needed to watch him die. I owed it to him.

  What I had learned about myself over the past months was that I was afraid of this. More than anything, I was afraid of drifting away in time without a trace. That was why I needed to watch Dad die. I wanted him to know he wouldn’t just disappear, that he would be remembered; that as his son I would do my duty and carry him on in the world after he was gone. Regardless of what had happened over the past twenty-five years, I owed him.

  I cleared my throat.

  Mother spun on her heel.

  “Richard, you made it.” In a blink she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around me. I squeezed her back. Over her shoulder, my eyes locked with Donna’s and I saw pain and something else I had never seen before in those eyes. Awareness.

  “What’s wrong with Dr. Sloane?” I asked. Sloane hadn’t moved a titch.

  Mother released me. “He’s conversing with the universal flow. Trying to ease Jack’s passing.”

  I wanted to cross the room and stick my foot through his chest, pushing his heart under my heel until it was impaled on the shards of his broken ribs. Then, as he bled out into his chest cavity, I wanted to watch the last painful moments of his life fade from his eyes. I wished it were he who was rotting from the inside, not Dad.

  Mother went to Dr. Sloane and rubbed his shoulders. He didn’t move.

  I joined Donna by Dad’s side.

  She stood and I embraced her.

  “How’re you holding up?” I asked.

  “He’s sleeping,” she said, fear and sadness wavering in her voice. “I’m so scared for him.” She whispered, her breath warm in my ear. Her cheek, wet with tears, pressed against mine.

  “I know,” I said and held her out at arm’s length. “When the time comes, you and I have one job.”

  “I don’t want him to go. It’s not fair,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone again, not like I was with you.”

  If we were still together that comment would have festered in me, one more thorn among many. I let the slight slide. I knew what she meant. Since we parted years ago, I had grown to understand her.

  “I know,” I said. “But that’s our job, Donna. Don’t let him leave you. Remember him well.”

  Donna’s body shook in my arms. I had never given Donna credit to be able to feel such true emotion. I wondered when she had learned it, or was it always there and I had just chalked it up to drama.

  “You’re small,” a croak came from the bed. “You should hit the gym.” While Dad’s face was pained, his eyes sparkled.

  “You’re one to talk,” I said and released Donna.

  “Harsh,” Dad’s chuckle sounded more like a series of breathless coughs. He grimaced. His lips looked blue set against his ashen skin. “I’m glad you’re here, Richard.”

  Donna sat back in her chair. She fought her tears, wiping them from her face with an open hand.

  “You don’t have to be so brave, Donna,” Dad said, reaching out an IV-tentacled arm to her. “It’s okay to be sad.”

  “I know,” Donna said. “It’s not easy though.”

  “Richard.” Dad held out his hand.

  I took it and tried not to flinch at how frail and clammy it felt in mine. I remembered how strong his hand used to be from those foggy childhood memories of him holding me, to the crushing hug I had received when I introduced Donna as my fiancée to the family, to the tens of nearly forgotten handshakes and hearty backslaps we had shared.

  Dad had waved goodbye at the airport and then faded to this.

  I finally understood why Donna and Dad worked so well together. Dad could see through Donna’s facade. He saw who she was after the catwalk show was over and the venue was dark and empty. He deciphered Donna’s language and translated it into something he could love. Donna knew this and, in a world where she was always eyed and known whisperingly as Prima Donna, she had found someone who finally knew her. In her eyes, he was the only person in the world who could comprehend the words she said and the things she did.

  I squeezed Dad’s hand and felt a weak contraction in response and then it went limp again.

  I had nearly forgotten Dr. Sloane was in the room, he had been sitting in his trance for so long. Then he said, “He’s gone.”

  “He’s fine,” I shot over my shoulder, through gritted teeth.

  “He is fine, but he’s also gone,” Dr. Sloane said.

  I looked down at Dad. The blanket covering him no longer stretched and crinkled with his breathing. His hand, which had been so weak in mine, was still.

  Donna wept openly and with abandon. I leaned forward, kissed Dad’s forehead and said, “You did well.”

  I tucked his hand under the blanket and stepped back from the bed to make room for Donna to fling herself on it. I left her there, raw and undignified. It was what she needed.

  I joined Mother and Dr. Sloane who were in a quiet embrace near the window. I stood for a minute, looking into the dark night, until they released each other.

  “I miss him,” Mother said to me.

  “I know. I want you to know something though. I wanted to say…”

  “You still loved him a little bit,” Dr. Sloane interrupted. “We carry little pieces of the people we know, inside us. Some people leave bigger pieces behind and those tug to rejoin the universal flow, to be with the rest of him. That’s what we’re feeling now. Little pieces of Jack left embedded in each of us, trying to rejoin him.”

  I punched Dr. Sloane in the mouth. It was lightning quick and carried as much might as I could muster. I had never punched anyone before. I felt his lip split and warm blood pour over my fist. I felt two of his teeth fold, sliding neatly from their sockets. My fist met bone. There was some give in his jaw as it strained against tendon and muscle. It kept its form though, and that was where my fist stopped.

  Dr. Sloane dropped to the floor.

  I kissed Mother’s cheek, which was taut because her mouth hung open.

  “I wanted to say I love you, Mom. I wanted to say that because we never know when we’ll get another chance to,” I said.

 
; “I love you too, honey,” Mom stammered.

  I left the room. I don’t remember anything until I was going down in the elevator, picking at the torn skin on my knuckles. The elevator door dinged and slid open. I shuffled to one side, making room for whoever was getting on.

  “Richard.”

  Without looking up I said, “I think there’s some tooth lodged in my knuckle.”

  “Richard.”

  My name snapped me back to reality. Leonard stood in front of me, his foot wedging the door open, which chimed from being held ajar for too long.

  “Leonard?”

  “Yeah. Are you okay?”

  I staggered out of the elevator and it took me a moment to register the question. I looked down a bustling corridor over Leonard’s shoulder. Nurses in pale green uniforms flitted like leaves in rapid water, in and out of rooms. Doctors in white coats and stethoscopes draped across their shoulders moved like icebergs, examining charts and chewing on the ends of pens. Patients and visitors moved in and out of the bustle, flotsam drifting around in an eddy.

  Life went on.

  “Dad just died,” I blurted out.

  My cheeks burned. I cried. Relief spilled out of me in big waves. I hadn’t realized I had been carrying so much.

  Over the past year’s travels I thought I had grown strong and gained control. I had convinced myself I was ready for anything and, suddenly, that was gone. But maybe, I thought, maybe this was strength. Maybe strength is reaction and is allowing control to be lost. Without control, without a filter, blubbering incoherently like a child with a gelatinous pendulum of spit quivering from the corner of my gaping mouth, maybe this was strength.

  Leonard embraced me. He wrapped his arms around me, his open palms on my back. He held on tightly.

  “I knew he was here,” he said. “I was just on my way up.”

  Leonard smelled. I could smell his armpits and the nutty scent of his unwashed hair and skin. I wrapped my arms around him, returning his embrace. After a while, my breathing became regular, matching Leonard’s. His chest slowly, smoothly expanded and contracted against mine. My breathing grew calm.

  Through his open palms on my back, the embrace of his arms, the pulse of the crook where his shoulder met his neck, that same spot I had inadvertently deposited my stringy spit to form a dark, damp spot, I felt my heartbeat align with his.