Hold the Light

by Ryan Sherwood

  My father and I didn't speak, as he lay broken and coughing. I stood over him in the bed and was stoic. On that singular occasion in which I visited the stark hospital room where he lay dying, my lack of regret surprised me. The distant years of ubiquitous hatred and the solace I felt from staying far away from him purged my pity and muzzled my soul. I grew tired of staring at his decrepit body and turned to leave.

  But he wanted the last word. He always wanted it.

  "George," he muttered.

  I stopped dead in my tracks and shuddered with my clammy hand on the doorknob. I was so close to leaving him in the diminishing confines of my memory. With a deep sigh, I turned knowing I would regret it.

  His slithering hand, laden with tubes and liver spots, came closer to me as he beckoned. Against my better judgment, I took his hand and listened close enough to hear his whispers. His breath had a few small, but resilient bubbles of life left.

  "Listen to me," he said.

  I shuddered again. His voice was hideous.

  "I don't believe in death, you know."

  "Well, you better, old man," I shook my head, "Because you're dying."

  "True," he coughed. "But I'll live on."

  "Listen, you sonvabitch, I don't need to hear this shit from you now. Don't get all sentimental, it doesn't fit you." Sweat soaked my escalated resentment. Years of pent up pain flooded my eyes. "I wanted to forgive you but ..."

  "I'll live on through my kids," he spat, interrupting me. His higher volume alerted my mother, who ran into the room with my sister in tow.

  They stared at me.

  "Maybe in Amber but never in me. You'll never get that right from me."

  My anger peaked as high as I could stand.

  "You'll see," he coughed harder. I could see him stubbornly holding me liable for his lineage.

  "You'll see the curse when you have kids, boy."

  "I'd rather remain abstinent than spread your seed."

  His raspy laughter surrounded my head, stinging like wasps in a nauseating swarm. My hair stood on end and shivers of frigid lost love cascaded down my back, plucking each bone like they were harp strings.

  My mother and Amber ran to his side and I ran from them all. Inarticulate appeals cried from my mother's mouth as she clung to the doorframe, imploring reconciliation, but I ran on. His coughing rang out throughout the hallway. It sounded like uncontrollable laughter. His laughter still rings.

  Many more years later, when my sister was old enough to grasp the story, she burned with her father's anger for me. Even though neither my mother nor Amber heard what transpired between Father and I at his deathbed, it was enough for her to damn me. I knew I was to blame since I didn't come to his funeral. Mother couldn't pry the details out of him before he died, so she could only tell Amber what she saw and pieced together.

  Even more time passed and Amber grew to become more and more like her father, as Mother went fanatic with guilt and bills. I still kept away but talked to Mother often, sending her money whenever I could. On one of our many long phone calls, her ardor for my return began to melt me again. Her facilities and memories were slipping and I pondered if I could handle that house again. But on that phone call, during an indelible silence in which I could hear sorrow drip from her lips, she pleaded me to come home and rescue her from the anguish of a life that incessantly raped her heart in dull frigid thrusts.

  A few days later, I walked in through the door, and regretted my decision to return almost immediately. My family had fallen apart; I vainly tried to patch it back together. I attempted to mold a happy new life for my family, but more often than not, I wanted to run again. Distance, I found, made my heart feel safer. But I stayed at home and found a job, packing away every penny I could for college as I failed my family.

  My mother slipped away silently over time while my sister and I fought about anything and everything. Granted, at times, I got carried away with the arguments and never tried to stop them; I just saw too much of my father in my sister. My mother would shake her head and cry with her hands over her ears. I would often run after her but my sister would tug on my shirt, never allowing the argument to die, not caring what it did to Mother. Just like Father did. Both her and her father let Mother die by robbing her of her sanity and love.

  Memories from these times played out in my mind for most of my life.

  They always lingered in the back of my brain. They always hid away like I wanted to do myself. My teens passed into my twenties and time quickly moved me towards my demise.

  Chapter 29

  Time never felt linear for me after that. Barely did beforehand either. And this little bit is just a snippet as well. I realize that now, with the wisdom of age finally behind me, as I look back and see all my regrets. People often seem to do that in when they're in the state I'm in.

  I figure, as I stand before the entrance of a darkening graveyard, that if time had felt linear, I would have never made this far. Remembering my life in a jumbled fashion is the only way that makes sense to me. It is simple, too simple in ways, of that I am sure but it is how I am and I cannot change that.

  Pausing before I went through the entryway, guarded by two stone pillars eroded from time and pressure, I had to take it my surroundings. I never noticed all the detail before; the detail in life, in a person, in all of fates little intricate weaves, and especially in the ironwork arch stretched above the entryway of this cemetery. My eyes captured them now and brought me a smile for my trouble. But I couldn't linger, I had to keep on.

  Traveling into the cemetery, I was struck, realizing I had walked down this path before, noticing the details for the first time. Even with the directions, I never knew it was here. The coincidence of it all was amazing. I had done this without my wits about me, completely oblivious to all my actions last time I was here. But those were dark times and I didn't see much of anything.

  The path into the cemetery was tunneled in by aged trees that rained their leaves in an array of warm colors upon the dirt. The middle of the path was raised like most dirt roads, with tire divots on each side of the median. It was about twenty minutes before dusk and the brilliant red sun was casting down in the darkening sky, running to warm other people than me. While gazing into the sky, a misstep sent me to the dirt road. My black trench coat flapped up around my ears and the lantern clanked around, but never left my hand. My fedora sailed off my head and tore down the path with a gust of wind rolling like a coin, destined to roll as far as imagination could take it.

  "Shit," I cursed, "Just my luck. If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."

  I rose and chased the hat down the dark path until it was tripped up by a tree root and settled next to a gravestone. Reclaiming it, I crouched next to the slab of cement and ran my fingers across the divots that spelled out a woman's name and her life span. It was polished and gentle. It felt different, cold to my fingers but warm to my heart.

  It held my attention and I stopped for a moment. 'Beloved wife', it read.

  That was it, like that was all she was, a whole life squished into one sentence.

  Of course, the people visiting should know the story, but the gravestone was just like any another. Saddened, I gazed at her marker lovingly for a moment wondering if I had put her there. I must have. But I was there for a reason and I had instructions to follow.

  I slowly rose from the tombstone, using the stone slab to get up, and teetered off towards the oak tree on the hill. My short journey was slow though I knew I had little time left. Drained and agonized, pain throbbing in my side, I trudged on. More gravestones littered my walk and I wondered, as I always do, how many I put there.

  The wind picked up. Lights dimmed behind clouds and trees. The soil crunched under me. A very thin fog veiled and swirled around each tomb. Human features rose from the gravestones, peaking out from the mist as I passed. Faces emerged and screamed at me. Fear scrambled in my belly. My hair stood on end. God they all looked the same. Every last damned one of
them over the years. And they looked at me for mercy I couldn't provide.

  I had to avert my mind elsewhere before I crawled up in a ball and died.

  I turned and walked up the hill and sat down Indian-style at the foot of the grave below the tree. I placed my lantern down on the green resting place of my friend.

  The sun was in its final retreat, taking all the lingering light from the graveyard, and yanking it over the horizon in a swift pull, stealing all the security I had left. I have been waiting for this moment for quite some time, whether I knew it or not. The thought weakened me. My vision blurred as my mind wouldn't stop wandering. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths.

  I had to calm myself because this was the hard part. Hard because I wasn't sure what was going to happen but no longer frightening was the unknown.

  On top of the hill, overlooking a dark and shadowy graveyard with the languid city lights in the distance, I placed the lantern down and thought back on my life. The details eluded me but from somewhere in the forgotten depths of what I hoped was my youth, a surprise phrase surged to my lips so hard that I blurted it out.

  "I am the lantern and you are the light."

  The blues and blacks of the night were banished and I sat patiently waiting for the light.

  Chapter 30

  Basking in the new light of that desolate night, I found myself young again, back in college. Back when I was free. I was in math class, as I recall, and if I continue to recall correctly, I was testing. It was five minutes into the test and I was on the last page of seven pages. I stared at the final question and carefully contemplated my answer. It was a problem that took the whole page to show the process of the solution so I placed the pencil to write:

  "Not only am I never going to use this again in my life, this has got to be the piss poorest problem I have ever encountered. Let me explain this to you plainly so I can be off and not waste my time any longer. First, you have the Roman numeral one on the last page and seven on the first, Dick. Secondly, you have I instead of A, for answer. Slightly inebriated when writing this?"

  Flipping through the blank pages of the rest of the test, I wandered up to his desk and slammed it down and left the classroom. My whistle echoed loudly throughout the empty hallways until I left the school's confines.

  The day was sweet and I laid down on the green courtyard and lit a cigarette. The grass was soft and damp, hugging me in irenic comfort. After fifty minutes of basking in late spring sun, Jessica flowed out the school doors towards me. She led the herd of vacating students out and then broke away from them to me. I looked up and saw her strawberry blonde locks dangling and her green eyes peering into my forehead. Her sumptuous lips puckered into a smirk that was her sign that she was ready for a good explanation. Her beautiful eyes blue could never let me lie. They shone and held me in a gentle azure light of hypnosis.

  "How'd your test go?"

  "Pleasantly," I replied with a sarcastic tone and smile.

  Jessica stuck her tongue out at me and rolled her eyes.

  "Alright," I conceded. "I'll be good from now on."

  "Yeah right, George. God, if I had a grand for every time you said that ..."

  "We could get out of this place."

  I rose and we ventured off over the hill towards her dorm. The wind blew gently and conveniently, cooling the air just as the heat rose. It was so nice that I unbuttoned my shirt a bit to let that breeze in. We walked up the hill giggling.

  God, we were good together. That was until she had to leave. Her Dad was laid off and her family was forced to move to the Midwest for work. Since they paid her tuition, she had to go because the schools were cheaper in-state. And she didn't want to leave her family. I never understood why they wouldn't let her stay. Many days I sat in my apartment at school and wondered what life would have been like if I would have just stopped her from leaving or gone with her. But I was scared and unsure about leaving. Who would take care of my mother? Not Amber, she had her own self-absorbed life to lead.

  As Jessica and I climbed the hill, we came across a strange man. Planted atop the hill was a tree and the man leaning against it. Sitting in the shade, the dark figure was shrouded by a heavy black trench coat and a black hat. The front of his fedora hung down, almost touching his nose, and covered the majority of his face. His square jaw rubbed against his shirt collar and I could see a slight scowl on his lips. As we passed him, I stared and wondered who would wear that hellishly warm coat on such a beautiful day.

  "Hello," I said to him for fun.

  "Yes?" he queried with a wink of his eye as he lifted the brim of his hat.

  Confused with the queer reply, I raised an eyebrow and turned to my girlfriend whom was tugging on my shirt.

  "Don't talk to him, he looks devilishy," she said.

  "I never thought I would hear someone who hasn't ' found God yet,' say such things, like she believed," I said sarcastically.

  "I'm only perfect," she smiled at me.

  "Is devilishy even a word, my perfect?" I asked with delight, enjoying the game.

  "Yes, because I just made it up," she said with a sheepish grin as she grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the dorms.

  I looked back at the tree as we darted forward, and the man in the long coat was nowhere to be seen. Gone, like he was never there. I dismissed him and made for her dorm.

  The next day I looked for him on the same hill after my math class, but saw nothing. I retreated to a nearby bench and retrieved an apple from my bag. I just couldn't let it go. I was too curious about his strange man for some unknown reason. Once I'm into something I can't seem to quit and I wondered why I was so intrigued. He didn't seem real.

  It didn't matter though; there were tons of strange people in the world. Far too many for my liking, especially in college. Too many kids trying to be different from what they were in high school. I shrugged it off, thinking I really didn't need to know these answers, even though I could never understand why people shun their similarities. Humans are naturally social and thrive off contact. You can't beat instincts.

  Anyway, I figured he was trying to be different and draw attention to himself while actually saying that they don't care about the attention. I finished that thought and stared at my apple. I rolled it over in my hands and went to take a bite. A gush of wind brushed by my face and my apple flew from my hand and it wobbled through the damp grass.

  "Are you following me? Do I owe you money?" The man in the black coat demanded.

  "No, I was wondering who you are?" I replied rather plainly.

  "What are you after?" He accused.

  "Just what I said before," I stubbornly pressed. "Stupid curiosity. I've never seen you around before."

  "I am Randy and I do not like to be bothered," he offered.

  "I'm George and I like bothering," I probed, realizing that he may not be the rebel jackass I had pegged him to be.

  "Well, in that case," Randy cocked his head with a curious look at my apple and kicked it between his feet. "Give me a smoke and I will be happy to talk to the first person to approach me instead of turning away."

  I handed him a cigarette and we talked and smoked on that bench for hours and began our friendship like we were boys. It started up that quick. We sat and talked about our similarities and differences and what our backgrounds were. I told him I originally hailed from outside Boston and planned on moving to the city when I graduated. He wanted to move there also, but never talked about school with great frequency or seriousness or his past. After we got to know each other, I often pried about what he wanted to do with his life, but he always said that he was at college just to see if there was anything different. He never seemed to have a problem paying for school and I often wondered if he was even enrolled. Randy never really had a problem with paying for anything, attributing that to his wise saving habits over all these years. All these years ...he was in his late twenties, like me, but always talked about the past like it spanned for decades. I just wrote it off a
s one of his quirks.

  Most of our time though was spent in college splendor. We went to parties and even Jessica came to like him, though she swore she wouldn't. A stubborn one she was, if you ask me.

  Randy and I would always seemed to find our way into a little skirmish, but would back each other up. These were often in response to doing stupid tricks to impress women after I lost Jessica, to restore my ego back to almost indestructible. Randy never really needed much help with his life. He seemed to have everything figured out and that made me want to figure out life as well.