Dad

by William Wharton

  This is the first night Dad starts reaching out as if there are butterflies going across in front of him. He’s reaching up with his fingers, very gently, very delicately, trying to catch something out of the air in front of him. There’s nothing I can see, but he’s tracking with his eyes and closing his fingers carefully, like a child picking motes from the sunlight.

  I put down the book and lay my head close to his on the pillow. He continues his graceful plucking. I try to see what he’s seeing. Whatever he’s reaching for, he isn’t catching it. He reaches with the frustrated movement one makes when unsuccessfully pulling a piece of thread through the other side of a needle. Whatever they are, he can’t get hold of them. But he isn’t complaining; only gibbering away with his chattering teeth and lips; saying nothing, expressing extreme concentration.

  I slip my hand over his as he reaches, strokes, grabs.

  “What is it, Dad? What are you seeing?”

  He doesn’t look at me. His eyes are focused two or three feet in front of him.

  When someone is with you and seeing something you’re not seeing, you begin to feel invisible yourself.

  First, I turn on the overhead light; maybe this will help; maybe the dim light is causing some kind of hallucination. He pauses briefly and stares at the light, then one of his “things” catches his eye and he reaches for it, his hand carefully inching up.

  I turn out the overhead. He slows for a few seconds, then starts again.

  I turn off the bedside lamp to see what will happen. In the near dark we watch each other. There’s enough light so I can see he isn’t reaching anymore. Whatever it is he’s trying to catch doesn’t fly in the dark. I listen to his trembling, babbling— “bebebebedebdedebgegbebe—”

  God, it’s scary! I run my hand over his forehead, over his shoulder and down his arm on the outside of the blankets. He’s as tense as if he’s on the mark ready to run a hundred-yard dash. You could do an anatomy lesson on his tensed-up body. You don’t expect those kinds of muscles in a feeble old man. Also, I haven’t had much experience feeling a man’s arms or shoulders. Except for drawing or painting the figure, I have practically no experience with what a man’s body is like except my own. It certainly feels different from a woman’s.

  I stroke him like that for maybe fifteen minutes and the chattering dies down. In the dark I can’t see if he’s asleep. I lean close; his breathing is shallow but I’m not sure.

  I reach back and turn on the bed light. He’s staring at me when the light comes on. Somehow, in the dark, he knew just where my eyes were all the time! He’s boring into my eyes with those unblinking, pinpoint eyes. He’s looking at me the same way he’d look at anything else, including his butterflies. He’s not looking with any recognition, only with a vague curiosity. He looks as if he has a desire to understand or know, but no expectation of doing so. He looks at me the way I might stare at the Milky Way on a starry night, not being able to put together what I see with what I know.

  I smile; it doesn’t mean anything to him. He watches and seems satisfied so long as I don’t move too fast. After what seems forever, his eyes blink a few times. Then they start flickering, then closing slowly, like the sun going over a hill. He looks dead when they’re halfway down and the pupils turn up under the lids. I listen for breathing and he begins to breathe long, staggering breaths. I settle back in the chair to read but can’t hold concentration. I vary between anxiety and falling asleep; there doesn’t seem to be any comfortable place for my mind between those two.

  Then I think, What if I fall asleep? I don’t want to find him on the floor again. What am I going to do? I can’t leave him and I can’t sit up all night. I decide I’ll get in bed with him. It might help if he feels somebody close. He’s slept all his life with someone; it must be a terrible change sleeping alone.

  I slide him against the wall so he’s blocked in, put on my sleep suit, spread out on my back and listen to his breathing. It isn’t long before I’m asleep.

  I wake scared. What wakes me is the smell of him. He’s on his hands and knees straddling me in the bed. I’m flat on my back and he’s on top of me with his head directly over mine. He’s looking straight into my face in the dark, his nose practically touching my nose.

  I jump so hard and fast I thump his head with mine. It takes me a minute to know where I am, what’s happening. I grab his shoulders and carefully roll him back into place on his side of the bed. My heart’s going blubablubulub in the dark, and I’m convinced I’m about to have a heart attack. God, how much strain can a fifty-two-year-old heart take? I’m completely freaked out.

  Dad’s lying tense beside me. I put the bedside lamp on again and look at him. He stares back at me with empty eyes, then starts after the butterflies again. Lord!

  I get up and go to the bathroom. Going back in the room, I still catch the shit smell.

  He’s picking away at his butterflies. I lie beside him and breathe slowly, trying to relax. It’s then, lying there, I figure out what he’s doing. He’s picking the pattern off the wallpaper across the room. Something’s wrong with his perception and he’s seeing that flower pattern hanging in front of his face. He’s picking flowers. I watch some more and I’m sure of it.

  I roll out of bed and pull one of the extra white sheets from the cedar chest. I drape it over the two small photographs hung on the wall. One is of Joan in third grade, a school picture at Saint Alice’s, back in Philadelphia. She has her thumbs pressed onto the desk in front of her. The other is me, seventh grade, same position. Those pictures have been on that wall since my parents moved into this house, over twenty-five years ago. I drape the sheet over them so it covers that whole wall. Then I get in bed beside Dad.

  Almost immediately he subsides. What in hell can be wrong with his perception?

  I put my arm over top of him, across his chest. That way, I’ll know if he moves. So I lie on my side, one arm over his shoulder. I can feel his body tense, shivering, jerking, kicking; like a dog dreaming.

  I can’t get to sleep. About the time he seems to settle down and I’m drifting off, he’ll jump, kick a foot or push out an arm. But he must have settled down because finally I do sleep. I’m to the point where I could sleep on a pile of nails.

  This time I wake and I’ve been punched in the eye! What he’s done is throw out his arm in a violent swing and smashed it across my face. My nose is bleeding, my lip is cut. He’s really given me a good one.

  I go into the bathroom and look. I could be in for a shiner. The nose stops bleeding and the lip is cut inside my mouth. It’s eight o’clock in the morning; I don’t feel I’ve gotten any sleep at all.

  But Dad’s been in bed for nine hours and he’s slept most of that time; it isn’t all bad. When I go back to the bedroom, he’s awake. I walk him to the bathroom. He takes his own weight and I only have to guide him. He goes to the toilet, both a piss and a shit. I’ll never get used to wiping the ass of a grown man. I’m not tuned to being a nurse. It’s something I’m finding out about myself. I take him back to the bedroom and help him get dressed. He’s better than he was last night, more with it. He even helps some with the arms of his shirt and lifts himself so I can pull his pants on.

  I feed him breakfast, take him out to the patio, tuck him into one of the chaise longues and turn on the music. I’m talking all the time but nothing’s coming back. My chatter means no more to him than the chatter of a squirrel.

  Then, sometime in the afternoon, and I can’t tell what the turning point is, he sits up straighter and takes notice. He turns and looks at me, straight in the eye, with a weird twinkle of recognition. Surprised, I lean forward and he points into the garden.

  “Mandy’s out of the pasture, Ed.”

  Who’s Ed, who’s Mandy, what pasture? My mind spins. There’s just that; then he nods his head a few times to reassure himself, a habit he’s always had, then settles back. I try to think. Ed has to be his brother, an even year older than Dad. They grew up as farm boys together in
Wisconsin.

  The best thing is go along.

  “Don’t worry about it, Jack; it’s OK.”

  I want him to stay in there. I wait. Then, about fifteen minutes later:

  “Hand me the eighteen wrench there, Jim.”

  “OK.”

  He starts the business of putting two things together. He’s holding something invisible in his left hand and pushing something invisible in his right hand against it. He’s pressing hard as he can, applying full strength and gritting his teeth. He’s pushing from one direction or another, grunting with the effort and completely concentrated.

  “How’s it going there, Jack?”

  But he only keeps grinding away and won’t answer.

  Those are the two big moments of that day. I put him down for a nap and climb in with him again. I sleep, I don’t know whether he does or not. He doesn’t clobber me or anything and we get in two peaceful hours.

  After that, I cook dinner and we eat. Then I turn on the television. This time I leave the lights on. I put him in his platform rocker and sit a little behind it. I rock his chair the way you would a baby’s cradle, the way he always did himself; he’d keep it rocking with a slight body movement while he watched. I want to reproduce things as much as possible.

  But it doesn’t matter. He begins leaning forward; then he falls to his hands and knees on the floor. He starts scooping up those phantoms of his and picking at the patterns on the rug. He crawls down the hall and into the bathroom. He looks into the toilet the way a dog does; I half expect him to push his head in and take a drink. He pulls himself up, using the sides of the sink, and stares at himself in the mirror, not moving, not doing anything; just staring. Then he grabs hold of the hot and cold faucets and pulls on those. He isn’t trying to turn them on, only tugging. I lead him back into the living room and put him in his chair.

  It starts all over again. He does the doorjamb-inspection routine several times. I’m watching, trying to get some idea of what’s going on in his mind.

  Silken ears filled with seed, every shining hair connected to a single kernel. I gently squeeze drops of oil in each ear. Some stalks have four or five, it should be a fine crop.

  The sky’s hot but the ground’s still moist on my feet, sheltered from the sun and wind. The glistening, blue-reflecting, green, wide leaves and pollen-heavy tassels rise around me. I step carefully, slowly through my self-made jungle, shaking new pollen into open crotches of waiting leaves. A slight breeze blossoms. I stop and listen to the rattling clatter as tassels and twisting leaves bend into each other.

  What can be the matter? Who is this giant infant? Is this the way he was as a child? Is he back there with no memory of his entire life? Is nothing left? Can a whole lifetime be lost just like that? It’s as if somebody passed a gigantic magnet over the memory tapes of a computer and wiped it all out. The computer, the tapes look the same, but there’s nothing in there anymore.

  He ends up on the floor stretched in front of the TV like a dead Indian from a cowboy movie. Do I wake him? What do I do? I’m having a hard time making decisions. I bring some blankets out and cover him. I slip a pillow under his head carefully not to wake him. He’s sleeping deeply.

  I’ll sit there in the chair and keep an eye on him. I close and lock all the outside doors; pull the venetian blinds. There’s no door to the hallway or the kitchen, but I close all the doors in the hall. I feel safe enough, even if I do drop off.

  I also do the same kinds of things you’d do with a baby. I move the junk from the coffee table and low tables, things with which he might be able to hurt himself. I sit back in the rocker, call Joan and tell her things are OK. She tells me Mom is behaving herself, Mario’s keeping out of sight. I hang up and then don’t last five minutes.

  When I wake he’s gone again! For a minute it doesn’t register. I try to hold down the panic. Well, he can’t have gone far; he’s probably in the kitchen. I go in there but it’s empty. I go through and look in the hall. He isn’t there. The doors to the bedrooms and bathroom are still closed. I dash down the hall and look in each of them. He isn’t to be seen.

  Hell, it isn’t a big house, I don’t think it has a thousand square feet. I make a quick check of the front and back doors; they’re still locked. Then I run back and look under his bed; I look behind the door; I look in the closet and under the cedar chest, the dresser. I’m getting desperate. What will I tell Mother and Joan if I’ve lost him?

  I go into the middle bedroom, I look under that bed; in that closet, under everything. I’m about ready to start pulling out drawers in chests and looking there. I run into the kitchen, look under the table, in the oven. I go back to the living room. I look behind the couch, behind the chair. There’s no place left. It’s one of those locked-room mysteries. What happened to the body? It walked away, that’s what; maybe right through a wall. Maybe he’s turned invisible! I’m thinking all these things. That “invisible butterfly” business has made a deep impression.

  I collapse on the platform rocker. Should I call the cops? No, I’ve got to think this out. I take some deep Yoga breaths. I get up and carefully go over all the doors. There’s no way he could’ve gotten out, the screen-door latch is still on. Even if he’d suddenly come back to his full strength and sense, opened the doors and walked away, closing the doors after him, there’s no way he could’ve latched the screen door behind him!

  Then I notice there’s one door I haven’t checked. In the hallway, on the left, just after the kitchen and before the bathroom door, there’s a louvered door opening into a tiny two-by-three closet with the heater in it. They also keep the vacuum cleaner and brooms in there. It takes all my courage to open that door.

  I open it, not really expecting he’ll be there. It’s the only place left, that’s all.

  He’s standing with his back to me, fully clothed, leaning against the heater. I don’t know how he got the door closed behind him. I don’t know how long he’s been in there, but long enough to have crapped his pants. It’s amazing I didn’t pick up the smell; then again, the nostril hairs inside my nose are still coated.

  I stand there, my heart’s pounding away, and I feel light in the head.

  “Hi, Dad. What’re you doing in here?”

  He turns at the sound of my voice. He looks through me for several seconds, then turns back to the heater. I gently take him by the arm and lead him toward the bathroom. He doesn’t resist actively but there’s a low-level reluctance. He’d like to stay in that closet.

  It’s two-thirty in the morning. I undress him, clean him off, fill the tub and throw the dirty clothes in. I wipe him off as best I can and put on the washed pajamas. I lead him back toward the bedroom. My nerves are on the very edge; it wouldn’t be hard for me to start bawling.

  Now I’ve got him in my arms leaning against the hall wall and I’m afraid to open the bedroom door. Opening any door is getting to be a traumatic event. I tell myself I’ve got to call Joan in the morning. I need time to recuperate.

  Dad lies out stiff on the bed when I finally get him in the room and stretched out. He lies there chattering and whining or whimpering sporadically like a puppy. What to do? I think of tying his hands so he can’t whack me again. My face is swollen and sore; I’d hate like hell to get hit in the face again. I bring my sweat suit into the bedroom, get undressed and put it on while I’m watching him, hoping he’ll go to sleep. I climb in bed with him. This time I do what I do with my wife.

  Vron typically turns her back to me in bed and I tuck in behind her, knees behind her knees and my arm over her. I don’t sleep all night that way but that’s the way I start.

  I find it a great comfort to sleep with someone. Sleeping with another human is one of the great life pleasures, maybe even a necessity. I’m sure it’s only recently humans have been sleeping alone. The single bed and separate rooms are probably partly responsible for our anxiety-ridden world.

  Especially, asking children to sleep alone in the dark is cruel; time is dif
ferent for a child, longer.

  And, right now, Dad is like a child. I sleep with him. Small as he is, he seems monstrous. I’ve never slept with a man before. I’d slept spoon-style in a pup tent or in a foxhole, but we were in separate fart sacks and there was no direct physical contact except bulk. The smell is different, the feel, the height of shoulders, the breadth of chest, the all-over hardness, feeling of density; it’s entirely another thing.

  But I figure I’ll hold him down if I have to.

  We sleep! He sleeps; I sleep! We sleep through the night like mice. I never move and he doesn’t either. God, it’s nice!

  I wake at nine o’clock and he’s still asleep, snoring lightly. I carefully unwrap myself. He’s in a tight, curled, fetal position again, still on his side. I pull the covers up over his shoulders. I’ll let him sleep long as he wants. If he sleeps through thirty-six hours, that’s OK with me. I take his pulse, it’s slow and regular.

  I go into the bathroom and the shitty clothes are still in the tub. Maybe I expected the brownies would wash them. I run in hot water, scrub and rinse till the water is clear, not yellow. Then I hang them on the line in back. I Ajax out the tub and fill it to near the top. I keep peeking back at Dad; he’s dead to the world. I lower myself into the tub and try to relax.

  After a ten-minute soak, I check him again and get dressed. I cook up my kind of breakfast; three eggs with cheese on top and some pieces of Canadian bacon. I organize Dad’s medicine and it’s coming onto ten-thirty. I keep checking but he’s still sleeping. I do the dishes and pick up around the house, sweep the living room, kitchen, bathroom and hall. I sweep off the patio. It’s almost noon.

  So I begin to get worried. Maybe he’s had a stroke. Maybe he’s in a coma. Maybe I haven’t been getting enough food or liquid into him and he’s dying.