Finishing The Job

by Harley Fox

  He’s so close I can smell the beer on his breath. But I stay where I am. My body is absolutely still.

  “Either you do what I fucking tell you,” he wafts malt and hops into my eyes, “or you’re out of this family, do you hear me? Out.”

  My mom sobs. It’s Patricia’s turn to hold her. My dad’s eyes are bloodshot as they stare into mine. And then he turns away.

  The room dissolves and I’m standing again, but this time I’m in a church. One of the small ones, just on the outskirts of a town a couple junctions away. My dad made the arrangements.

  Patricia is with me. She’s wearing a dress, to hide her belly. The pews are mostly empty. My mom and dad are there. Patricia’s dad, and his lawyer. But not her stepmom. I don’t ask why.

  The preacher or priest or whatever he is says the words and I utter “I do,” and Patricia says “I do,” and then we kiss and sign the papers and it’s over with. Nobody applauded when we kissed. Everybody gets up. We all leave the church together, out into the cold outdoors. It’s a chilly January this year.

  Patricia and I hold hands as we walk to our car. We don’t say anything. Nobody’s saying anything.

  “Son,” my dad says. He’s at his truck, my mother about to get into the passenger side. He beckons me over with a nod of his head. I hesitate a moment, and Patricia gives my hand a squeeze. So I take the keys out of my pocket and hand them to her, then walk over to him. His eyes are bloodshot, as usual.

  “Son, I … I want you to know, I’m proud of you.”

  He’s looking at me. I’m not smiling. I don’t say anything. I glance into the truck and see his shotgun lying on the front seat. I look back at him.

  “You did the right thing.” He grabs the back of my neck, squeezes it like he would a dog’s. My muscles tense and I grimace. He lets go.

  “I’ll see you at home,” he says. He nods, then turns and unlocks his truck, leans over the shotgun and unlocks the passenger side so my mom can get in. I watch her climb into her seat. She closes the door and then looks at me. Past my father, out the driver’s side window, right at me. She gives a weak smile, and then the truck grumbles to life and my dad drives away.

  I turn back to my car. Patricia’s in the passenger seat. She’s already got the engine running, warming up in the January cold. I walk over and get into the driver’s seat, closing the door behind me.

  “What did your dad want?” Patricia asks. I put the car into gear and pull away from the church.

  “He just said congratulations.”

  The small building recedes in the distance. I drive south. The other cars are ahead of us. I let them get farther.

  “You have the wedding papers, right?” I ask Patricia. She cranes around and checks the back seat.

  “Yep, we’ve got them.”

  The other cars are out of sight now. “Good.”

  I turn west instead of east. Patricia stiffens, looking around.

  “Will? You went the wrong way.”

  But I shake my head. “No I didn’t. We’re married now, Patricia. We can make our own way. You and me, we’re never going back there again.”

  I think she starts crying, but I can’t quite remember. All I remember is the sun slowly getting closer to the horizon.

  White mist fills my vision and blocks everything out. When it clears I’m on a dirty bed, in front of Patricia. She’s on her back, sweating, screaming. Her legs are spread. Her underwear is off.

  “Oh god! Oh god!”

  “Come on, baby! Push!”

  Loud, banging sounds from the neighbors downstairs. They’re hitting the ceiling again, yelling at us. But I ignore them. Underneath Patricia are towels, and beside me are more. As many towels as we have. On the floor are pots with boiled water, although I have no idea what to use them for. I wipe sweat from my forehead with my arm.

  “Come on, push!”

  “Hhhnnaaauuugghhh!!!!”

  The baby crowns. A disgusting thing, purple and slimy and covered in hair. My first thought is that it’s dead, but we’ve got to get it out of Patricia anyway. I don’t want her dying on me.

  “Come on, that’s it! Keep going! I can see the head!”

  Patricia’s fists pull the sheets up in bunches as she pushes again, her face red, her muscles shaking. The baby’s head pops out and I reach forward to cradle it.

  “Come on, one more! One more push!”

  Patricia breathes deeply a few times, readies herself, and then pushes.

  “Hhnnnngghhhhaaaauuugghhhhh!!!!!”

  The baby’s shoulders slip out of her vagina and the rest slithers out, like a long, purple alien. I almost drop it, trying to catch it, and eventually pick the slimy thing up, cradling it as best I can.

  It starts moving, writhing in my arms. A wash of relief comes over me, for Patricia’s sake more than my own. Thank god it’s not dead. I grab the knife from beside me and loop the umbilical cord around, slicing through it. The baby opens its mouth, sucks in some breath, and begins to cry.

  “Hey,” Patricia says. I look up at her. She looks sweaty, dirty, exhausted … but she’s smiling. She lifts her arms. “Bring him here.”

  I shuffle over on the bed, sliding up beside her. I pass the baby from my arms to hers and she takes it—him, it’s a little boy—cradling him against her chest.

  “Little Craig Silver,” she says in a tired voice. Craig is still crying. Patricia reaches down, takes out one of her breasts, and guides Craig’s little mouth to her nipple. After a few tries he gets it, and his crying quiets down as he begins to suckle.

  “Oh, god,” Patricia sighs. She smiles up at me. “We’re a family now, Will. We did it.”

  I nod. Lean down, kissing the top of her head. My hand finds hers and our fingers interlock. We sit silent for a minute, listening to this new life suck milk from my wife.

  “Do you think you can stay home tomorrow?” she asks. “Spend time with me and Craig?”

  She looks up at me again. My expression doesn’t change.

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  Patricia sighs. I hear the tears on the edge of her voice.

  “Can’t you just take one day off? Just this once?”

  “We have a gig in the works,” I tell her. “I can’t just take a day off. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “But, honey … your family …”

  I shake my head. “Listen, Patricia. It’ll be done in a week or two, okay? And then I can take some time off. But this is how we’re making money. This is how we’re saving up. You want to be able to save, don’t you? Move out of this junk hole?”

  Our fingers are still entwined. I hear Patricia sniff, a wet sound.

  “I just want to be with you,” she says. “No matter where we are. I just want to be with you.”

  She isn’t looking at me. I shake my head. “No wonder you never apply yourself,” I mutter, too low for her to hear it.

  The room dissolves in a misty white, and when it comes clear again I’m in a different apartment. Our first place in Santa Espera. Patricia’s holding Craig, three months old now, in her arms while I bring boxes in from the car.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to help?” she asks as I walk in with a brown cardboard box full of plates. Patricia is bouncing Craig up and down while he watches me out of his bright, curious eyes.

  “Oh no, I got it,” I say in a strained voice. We’re in the kitchen and I put the box down with the others. We don’t have a table yet, but we’ll get one. There must be a place to get cheap furniture around here.

  It’s November but I’m in short sleeves from the work. I stand back up and exaggerate wiping my brow with the back of my hand, pretending to flick the sweat away. Craig laughs and coos in his mother’s arms. I walk over and plant a kiss on his little head, then kiss Patricia. Her hand finds my back and she holds me.

  “Ah, our very own place,” she says, looking up into my eyes. “Although not the first town I would have chosen, but …”

  I keep my ex
pression neutral, try not to show the pang of annoyance at her attitude.

  “That may be true,” I say with a forced smile. “But there’s possibility.” I take her arm and lead her and Craig to the front door of the kitchen, out onto the sidewalk. “There, look down there,” I say. “Tell me what you see.”

  The street is empty, destitute. No people walking, no children playing. Not even any cars parked on our street, even though I’m certain I saw a few people peering through their windows when we drove in.

  “Nothing,” Patricia says in a flat tone. “I see nothing.”

  “That’s because you lack ambition,” I tell her. “Do you know what I see?” I put my arm around her shoulders, looking out on the street with my head beside hers. “I see possibility. I see a town that’s in dire need of industry, and economy. And I’m going to be the one to bring it to them.”

  “With your little street hustle jobs?”

  Twang. I push down the annoyance. “They’re not little street hustles. But yes, with those. Walt and Douglas and Alfie and I have something going. And I ran the numbers last night. In just a few more months, I’m going to have enough saved to start up something great. I’ve already started filing the paperwork for it.”

  “We could have been using that money,” Patricia points out with a raised eyebrow. “Gotten ourselves a better place instead of the cheapest one we could find.”

  I smile now, giving her another kiss on the forehead. “Oh honey. You just lack ambition.”

  The world swirls into white mist and when it comes back I feel tired. I open the front door of the apartment, stepping into the kitchen. Craig is four years old now. He comes running from the family room, screaming my name.

  “Daddy! Daddy daddy daddy!”

  I scoop him up into my arms, give him a peck on the cheek, and let him go as quickly as I can.

  “Hey sport.”

  Patricia walks into the kitchen, moving slower than Craig. She’s been moving more slowly as of late. And her color is getting worse.

  “Hey sweety,” she says with a smile, despite her hoarse voice. “How was your day?”

  “Ugh.” I open up the cupboard above the fridge and take down the bottle of whiskey, grab a glass from over the sink. “These fucking idiots who work for me. They have no idea what they’re doing.”

  “Darling! Language.”

  Something inside of me tenses when she says that, but I remain composed as I open up the freezer and grab a couple of ice cubes, hear them clink and clatter when they land in the glass.

  “It’s fine,” I tell her. “My dad swore around me and I turned out all right.”

  She doesn’t say anything to that. I sit down and pour whiskey into my glass, placing the bottle down with a thunk. I drink and watch Patricia over the rim of my glass as she makes her way to the table. Craig has already run back into the family room to keep playing.

  I lower my glass, half-empty now, and put it down on the table beside the bottle. Patricia’s eyes are somewhat lowered, not quite meeting mine. I stare at her for a moment.

  “It’s the people,” I finally say. “This fucking city. When PharmaChem started I meant for it to be a, a … a mecca, for all the smart and driven people to flock to. Make this city great! But instead all that trickle in are the fucking dregs, the outcasts of whatever other cities, San Jose and San Francisco, those fucking places.” It fills me with rage, just thinking about it. I take another drink and set down the glass.

  “They’re just looking for refuge,” Patricia says. “You’ve brought Santa Espera back to life. They have a second chance here.”

  “And in the meantime they’re shitting the place up with their fighting and whoring and trying to steal from the businesses that I brought back from the dead!”

  “Will,” Patricia pleads. Her eyes have dark circles around them.

  I sigh, a long exhale of sound. “Sorry,” I tell her. “I’m just … tired. This place was supposed to be prosperous. Instead it feels like I’m fighting an uphill battle.”

  “You’re doing good work, though,” she tells him. “You’re bringing the cost of drugs down. You’re helping people.”

  “Not you, though,” I point out. “Once those fucking quacks get a sniff of who you are? Whoosh, up go the prices!” I shake my head. “Those fucking … they shouldn’t take advantage like that.”

  “They can’t help it,” she says. “It’s capitalism.”

  “What we need,” I say, thinking, “is a way of getting you better on our own. So we’re not reliant on fucking doctors jacking up prices for all these specialty drugs.”

  “What’re you going to do?” she asks with a wan smile. “Start making your own drugs? Would you even know where to start?”

  Her face dissolves, everything dissolves, into a misty white. When it comes back I’m walking into the kitchen again. It’s Christmas. Or just before it. Craig is seven now. We have a fake Christmas tree set up in the family room.

  “Dad!” Craig shouts as he gets up from his usual spot in front of the television. He runs into the kitchen. “Dad, where were you? You missed dinner. I make pancakes!”

  “I know, sport,” I say, ruffling his hair. “I had to work late.”

  I feel excited. But why? I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out an orange pharmaceutical container. And then I remember.

  Oh, no.

  “What’s that?” Craig asks. I smile down at him, shaking the plastic bottle, making its contents rattle around inside.

  “This,” I say, “is going to make your mom all better.”

  His face lights up. “Really?”

  I nod. “Really.”

  I walk through the kitchen, through the family room, around the back and into the master bedroom where Patricia is lying down on the bed. I turn the light on using the switch on the wall but she sucks in quick breath and I turn it off.

  “Oops, sorry hon,” I tell her. Instead I walk over and turn on the lamp on the table beside the bed. Sit down beside my wife. We’ve put a lower wattage bulb in so it gives off less light. The dim glow hardly lights the room. Craig has followed me into the room, but he stays at the foot of our bed.

  “Will?” Patricia croaks. She’s wearing her nightgown, tucked into bed. Her eyes are sunken into her head. None of the doctors we went to—even after forking over the high prices they demanded—knew exactly what was wrong with her. But that didn’t stop me. I shake the orange container, making it rattle again.

  “Do you know what this is?” I ask her. She breathes deep. Slowly moves her head to look at what I’m holding. Gives her head a shake.

  “No. What is it?”

  “This,” I say as I twist the white cap off the orange bottle, “is going to make you get better.”

  I shake out two of the long pink pills, putting the container on the bedside table. My guys at PharmaChem told me two before bed and two in the morning should do it. We did some tests on a few rabbits, but the permits for those things are expensive and take time. I don’t have time. I urged them to work faster, produce results quicker. Finally they gave me the pills I offer out to Patricia.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “We made it,” I tell her. I feel like a kid on Christmas. I mean, it is Christmas. But that’s not the same. “This is our first bonafide drug. Patricia!” I can’t hide the excitement in my voice. “We did it!”

  She struggles to smile. A hand slowly snakes its way out from underneath the covers. It appears and I place the two pills in her palm, but she’s shaking and so she drops them. I pick them back up for her.

  “Here,” I say, taking her hand in mine instead. “I’ll help.”

  She opens her mouth and I place one of the pills on her tongue.

  “One at a time,” I tell her. I grab the half-full glass of water from beside the bed and bring it to her lips, tilt it, letting her drink at her own pace. She quietly fills her mouth with water, swallows, opens it for the next pill. I place it on her tongue and help her dr
ink again. This time she swallows but starts coughing.

  “Patricia?”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. Craig steps forward, looking scared. Patricia coughs some more to clear her throat, then recovers.

  “Craig,” I turn to him, handing him the glass. “Get your mom some more water.”

  “Okay.” And with that he’s out of the room. I turn back to my wife. She’s settled now.

  “You okay?”

  Patricia nods, smiling lightly. “Yes,” she says. “I’m fine.”

  “The pill wasn’t too big?” I ask. “I asked if they could make them smaller.”

  “No,” she keeps smiling. “It wasn’t—”

  But then she stops. Her eyes widen. I feel, beneath the covers, her muscles all tense at once.

  “Patricia?” There’s panic in my voice. Stop it! “Patricia?”

  She starts to shake. Convulse. Sharp heaving sounds erupt out of her. Her body trembles on the bed. My eyes are wide, I can feel them.

  “Patricia!”

  I try grabbing her but she can’t seem to stop. She shakes and shakes, her hand squeezing mine tightly. And then, as suddenly as she started, she stops. Her body relaxes. An exhale of breath leaves her mouth. I wait for the following inhale … but it never comes.

  “Patricia?”

  I’m holding her hand still. I give it a shake.

  “Patricia?”

  She isn’t breathing. I feel my chest tighten up. My eyes start to water and burn. They haven’t done that in a long time. I blink but it doesn’t stop them. I look over at the orange pill bottle on the bedside table. Think of the doctors over at PharmaChem.

  “Mommy?”

  Craig’s voice. He’s back in the room. I turn and see him standing there, holding the glass of water. He’s staring at Patricia, his eyes wide, aghast.

  I swallow, pulling the tightness and pain back into myself.

  “Mommy died,” I tell him. “She had a heart attack. She died.”

  I can hear Craig start to blubber, but I’m too caught up in my own mind to be mad at him.