When I emerged from the bathroom, the three amigos were standing there, by the door, ready to go. Nat was particularly striking in grey yoga pants, a purple athletic shirt, and flip-flops, a small, white purse strung over her shoulder. Her long, red hair was perfectly done, not a strand out of place, parted down the middle. Her form-fitting clothes accentuated her height, which was already above normal to begin with. I felt like a tiny person next to her even though I was 5' 10," at least. She was an Amazonian compared to my dumpy self. It's tough to feel manly next to a woman much taller and in better physical shape than yourself. It's true.
"What took you so long, Daddy?" good ol' Sammie Boy said, annoyed. "We need to eat and go see PeePaw."
"Yeah, and before they run out of waffles!" Jessie said, ribbing her brother.
"All you care about is waffles! What about PeePaw?!"
"I care about PeePaw, too!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"Last one there is a rotten egg!" Jessie said, stiff-arming Sammie then running out the door and down the hallway. Her brother followed as quick as he could, protesting about things not being fair and that she cheated and for them to start over and so on and so forth. Nat chuckled then shook her head. I followed her out the door and down the hallway. Except for construction sounds seeping up through the walls from the first floor, the fourth floor was relatively quiet and seemed uninhabited by any other families or business travelers or people in general. The long, beige hallway with the muted beige carpet and the white baseboards stretched out in front of us. I was surprised to not see anyone else around, particularly since free breakfast was being served downstairs. Maybe the breakfast was not as good as we hoped or as good as advertised. Maybe, being FREE was the only good thing about it. The kids impatiently waited in the elevator, Sammie holding the door open by leaning his full weight on one side and waving his arms.
"Hurry, Daddy!" he said, straining to hold the sliding door open. "It's heavy!"
Nat and I entered the elevator and stood in the rear. Jessie assumed the role of elevator operator, pressing the first-floor button. The door slid shut; the elevator descended; the country music played quietly.
When the doors dinged and opened on the first floor, I expected to see hungry families or travelers or workers making their way to the dining area for the free breakfast but there was no one--not a single soul. Even the construction noise floated in air as if being piped in through the speakers in the ceiling: faint, muffled, as if from far, far away. The reception desk was vacant, too. Ms. B. Smith must have been hiding in the back, under her desk, sucking on an e-cigarette or a vaporizer or whatever she was puffing on yesterday that smelled of maple syrup and chemical propellant. It was a weird scene straight out of a suspense movie, there in the lobby of the hotel. Where was everybody?
The kids rushed to the back of the dining area where the buffet was setup, a cornucopia of crap that would make most adults shiver awaited us in all its lukewarm, prepackaged splendor. But to Sammie and Jessie, it was absolutely delightful. There were plastic dispensers of colorful, sugary cereals, danishes and muffins wrapped in cellophane, ripe bananas with large black spots and dull, red apples, heated pans of scrambled eggs and leathery strips of meat that I assumed was bacon or something similar, an aluminum vat of oatmeal, a small refrigerator with rows of strawberry yogurt and cartons of 2% milk that we could see through its glass door, and stacks of plates and plastic cups. But none of this was quite as magical or delightful or divine as the appliance that awaited us at the end of the buffet: the waffle-making station. The kids ran directly to it like bees to sunflowers, then they danced their little, excited, bee dance. They knew what was going to happen and I did too: the waffle apocalypse.
"Waffles!" they screamed, jumping up and down and making a spectacle. "Waffles! Waffles! Waffles!"
"I see that," I said, not as enthused as they were for electronically ironed bread.
"And look, Daddy! The waffles will be shaped like Texas!" Sammie said, entranced, admiring the waffle iron's resemblance to our home state. "That is so awesome!"
"Can we make waffles?!" Jessie said, her hands clinched as if praying to be absolved.
"Sure," I said, pulling a chair out from one of the dining tables for Nat to sit in. She blushed, caught off guard by my gentlemanly gesture, then sat down. I sat next to her. "Are you going to have one, too?" I said to her.
"No," she said. "But I might have, like, an apple."
"I might have some coffee."
"That's an excellent idea," she said, placing her purse on the dining table.
The kids manned the waffle making station. There were two irons at front--both shaped like a miniature Texas--and a tall, batter dispenser in the back with two varieties of batter: regular and blueberry. I imagined the blueberries to be fake, little blue specks of sugar and food coloring interspersed in a goopy blend of inexpensive ingredients and preservatives. The dispensers had photos of children on the front, looking happy and excited. I knew my kids wouldn't be excited after the raging case of diarrhea I was certain they would both be infected with later in the day. But sometimes, parents have to look past these observations and insights. It's no fun raining on a kid's parade all the time. Sometimes, you just have to let the kid get rained on. It's true.
Sammie and Jessie each filled their batter dispenser cups with the yellow goop--Sammie got regular and Jessie got blueberry--then poured it in their respective irons. When they clamped the irons shut, the handles spun the irons on a hinge--180 degrees--so the waffles would cook evenly. A timer with red, digital numbers on each iron began to countdown from two minutes. Good ol' Sammie Boy counted aloud as the seconds descended: 59, 58, 57, and so on. As he patiently counted, I retrieved a cup of black coffee and the best-looking apple for Nat. I was back at the table before Sammie was even close to finishing his countdown.
"22, 21, 20!" he said. He was so excited. He could hardly stand it.
I leaned over to Nat and whispered, "It looks like he's going to pee his pants." She giggled. His countdown continued into the final minute.
"49, 48, 47!"
"I can't wait!" said little Jessie, equally as excited.
Through the excruciating final seconds, the kids jumped up and down, and when the buzzer finally went off, they excavated the waffles from their irons using some plastic tongs, slathered maple syrup on their breakfast, and ran over to our table. They began devouring their breakfast before their butts settled in their seats.
"Are they good?" I said, curious. Both kids nodded in the affirmative. I continued to drink my coffee even though it was boiling hot and the little liquid I could swallow was bitter and weak. There really was nothing worse than a bad cup of coffee, especially in this setting. I mean, how hard could it be to buy at least a half-decent variety of medium blend coffee and brew it correctly? It really wasn't that hard. Nat didn't seem too enthused about her apple, either. It sat in front of her, abandoned. It really was a pathetic excuse for a piece of fruit: dull and askew with a filmy coating of--what?--I didn't know. "Not hungry?" I said to her.
She politely shook her head.
"Daddy, can I ask you a question?" said good ol' Sammie Boy.
"Of course."
"When are we leaving to go see PeePaw?"
"When we're done eating our breakfast."
"Then we must eat faster!" he said, stuffing his mouth with large chunks of waffle. Jessie's eyes widen with disbelief as he stuffed his mouth like a determined squirrel preparing for a tough winter, his cheeks inflating to an obscene size.
"Don’t choke yourself," I said, folding my arms, casting a disheartened stare. He didn't heed my warning and continued to eat at a god-awful pace.
"When do you think we'll be back?" said Nat.
"I have no idea," I said. "It might take all day."
"That's fine. I was just curious."
"Isn't it weird that there isn't anyone else around," I said, peering around the dining room and the lobby
for someone--anyone.
"I was thinking the same thing," Nat said. "It's, like, we're the only people here."
Just then, as if on cue, a door at the back of the dining room opened, and out from a utility room came Ms. B. Smith--the hotel receptionist--a plume of smoke rising to the ceiling from behind her head, wearing the same thing as the night before except for a clear, plastic apron strapped to the front of her body, as if she had worked all through the night, a trash bag in one of her hands, the other hand wearing a bright yellow, latex glove. She hobbled over to one end of the breakfast buffet, the end opposite the waffle making station, and began unceremoniously dumping the breakfast items in the trash bag. She lifted the bowl of bananas and apples and tossed the fruit in the bag then dropped the empty bowl back on the buffet, hard. She picked up the tray of little cereal boxes and, without examining them or even looking at them, tilted the tray into the trash bag, the little boxes of sugary cereal sliding to their demise. Soon, the trash bag was heavy enough that the bottom of it touched the linoleum floor. She attacked each station of the buffet, discarding the food as if it was contaminated, while dragging the garbage bag behind her. Sammie and Jessie were horrified, to say the least. They looked on--mouths agape, eyes wide--with disbelief and concern.
"What about the waffles?" said good ol' Sammie Boy, a tinge of sadness quivering his voice, one of his cheeks filled with his bready breakfast.
"Looks like the waffles will be toast," I said, nonchalantly.
"How do waffles become toast?" said Jessie.
"They don't," I said. "It's a figure of speech. It means they are done for."
"What if I want seconds?" said Sammie, puzzled.
"Do you want seconds?" said Nat.
"Who doesn't?!" said Jessie.
"Well, now's the time," I said.
The two kids launched from their chairs and lunged to the waffle making station to make a second round of waffles before Ms. B. Smith unceremoniously tossed the waffle batter into the trash bag as well. Watching my two kids attempt to make a second round of waffles before the batter saw its doom was like watching a housewife on a TV game show compete in a timed round for a brand-new washer and dryer set that she desperately wanted. The tension was palatable. They really hungered for a second helping of those Texas-shaped waffles. Ms. B. Smith didn't miss a beat, though. She continued trashing the remains of the breakfast like a machine: an unrepentant terminator.
"All that food, like, gone to waste," said Nat, placing her hand over her mouth as if witnessing a car accident.
As I watched Ms. B. Smith dump the food, I wondered if my dad, retired Colonel Burchwood, was even thinking about us at all. Was he thinking about all we were going through to go visit him? Did he realize the amount of effort it took for me to get the kids out of school, pack for this trip, bring along Nat, and align all the things needed to leave Austin and drive to Autumn Grove in San Antonio, just to see him? Did he ever think I would find out about Sharice and his weekly trips to the Gentleman's Club in the Autumn Grove limousine? Did he worry what I would think or if I would allow it to continue if I ever found out? The older I became, I still was no closer to understanding my father, who he was, or what motivated him. He was an enigma to me, pure and simple, the shadowy figure that followed me through life, lurking in the background, threatening to cause trouble. Strange how someone can have so much influence over your life, isn't it? Very strange, indeed.
When the kids saw Ms. B. Smith toss the remnants of the oatmeal from the scalding, aluminum vat into the trash bag, they knew the waffle station was next. Fortunately for them, the countdown for the waffles alerted them to take their waffles and they quickly dashed back to the table. Not long after, Ms. B. opened the front of the waffle batter dispenser, pulled out the two bags of waffle batter, and tossed them into the trash bag. She unplugged the waffle makers then dragged the trash bag back into the utility room, closing the door behind her, not saying a word to any of us. The breakfast terminator was gone.
"Bizarre," said Nat, pulling a compact mirror from her purse and completing the touch-up job on her face.
The kids dove into their second round of breakfast while I reminded them that it was time to go visit PeePaw. They quickly shoved a few forkfuls of waffle in their mouths then slid their plates off the table to toss in the trash and, just like that--in one swift motion from breakfast to trash to the exit--we were out the door, all four of us, into the sunlit parking lot. We found the Volvo S70 parked in the rear of the parking lot, where I had left it the night before.
And this... this is where things get a little bit fuzzy for me.
If you've ever lived through a catastrophic event, then you know that sorting through the pieces of your memory for the sequence of events that explain the truth of that moment is as difficult as if someone tossed the pieces of a puzzle onto the ground then asked you to put the thousand pieces of the puzzle back together as quickly as possible. I remember getting in the car and driving to Autumn Grove. I remember hearing the kids cheering in the back seat about seeing PeePaw. I remember looking at Nat's face in profile and thinking that she had a perfect nose--small, freckled, straight. I remember the procedurals of traffic--the stopping, the turning, and the passing of cars. I remember seeing duct tape flapping in the breeze from the seam of the car hood. The duct tape was grey and its edges frayed, the white threads of the tape undulating like the legs of a centipede, the tape flapping in the wind like a miniature flag. And I remember (I know this will sound very strange to you but I'm telling you the truth) looking at the seat of Sammie's shorts and thinking to myself, 'Why am I looking at Sammie's butt?'
Isn't that funny?
So strange what happens during a car crash.
I didn't hear a thing. Or, the crash was so loud that it blew my hearing out. I don't know.
No one really explained it to me in detail.
No one really explains anything to you in detail when you really want them to.
Life just happens then you are left to sort it out the best you can.
Life is strange. Really.
It's true.
Chapter Eleven
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a curtain covered with cartoon animals, hanging in front of me, about 8 or 9 feet away, jungle animals, I think. There were monkeys and parrots and wild cats and butterflies and ants and whatever else the graphic design company that created them could think of that lived in an imaginary, cartoon jungle. The animals appeared to be living together in a harmonious state that only existed in the imagination of an underpaid, overworked, graphic designer in Cleveland, Ohio--the farthest place in the world from a real jungle. The animals had stupid-looking, dopey faces and they grinned and winked at each other as if they knew something I didn't know, which was a pretty silly notion, if you asked me. But I didn't give a shit because you never give a shit when the narcotic warmth of morphine flows through your veins, the level of comfort being somewhere near that of a baby being swaddled in a warm blanket by its mother while breastfeeding. That's pretty goddamn comfortable if you ask me. Right? You know I'm right.
But honestly, I didn't know I had a morphine drip plugged into my arm either at the time, now that I think back on it. I didn't know anything but that I felt pretty goddamn good and any worry or apprehension about not knowing where I was didn't exist. When you're in that state, in a hospital after a traumatic event, nothing is normal, nothing is as it was, the repetitive loop of everyday life broken, the routine sameness destroyed, with a nurse delivering the liquid complacency via an intravenous drip. That's the miracle of modern medicine and, particularly, opioid narcotics. You want to talk about modern miracles? Painkillers are modern miracles of the highest order. They're like magic. It's true.
The rest of the emergency room I laid in was not as festive as the cartoon animal curtain, drab in its utilitarian whites and beiges: a desk mounted on the wall with a metal stool in front of it, some machines with small, digital screens, waste disposal b
ins on the floor and also mounted on the wall (biohazard stickers decorating those, the skull and crossbones were not as charming as the dopey, cartoon, jungle animals), posters of human bodies severed in half, their bones and arteries on display like windows of merchandise at the entrance of a department store, and jars of swabs and tongue depressors and the like. I examined the room with the aloofness of someone who had seen this room before--like a million times--and the idea that I had never been in this room before didn't strike me as unusual or anything. In fact, the notion that I didn't know the whereabouts of my children or Nat the nanny didn't seem to concern me at all, either. I was both concerned and unconcerned at the same time, a middle of the road complacency leading to I-Don't-Care-Ville. Actually, if anything at all, I seemed more concerned that I had a rock-hard erection while I laid under a sheet as thin as cheese cloth than the whereabouts of my family. Boy, I was feeling pretty damn good and there wasn't much else I cared about. Ahhh... morphine drip.
After a few moments of marveling at the erection I had, the curtains to the room slowly opened and a woman appeared, a short, stocky woman, who looked quite a bit older than myself, maybe in her late 50s, going about her business in a professional, nurse-like manner. She came into the room and closed the curtains, then walked around my bed, doing this and that to the machines, opening and closing drawers, unconcerned that my erection propped the sheet up like a New England maypole in springtime.
"I'm sorry," I said, my speech slurred as if I had consumed five margaritas then five beers then five more shots of an unknown concoction served by a malicious bartender but without all the aggression that comes from being drunk off your ass from alcohol. I was drooling, too.
"Excuse me?" she said, still not looking at me, still busy doing something administrative, something nurse-like, like a real, medical professional would do.
"I said I'm sorry for... you know?"
She sat down at the desk and typed something on the computer. She typed fast and furious with purpose. She must have taken typing class in high school or at the community college or wherever she got her medical training. I never took typing class in high school. When I typed, I typed with two fingers like two sandpipers pecking coastal sand for unsuspecting mollusks. My typing skills were ridiculously amateurish for someone who had once attempted a career as a writer. It's true.
Sammie & Budgie Page 26