The Memory of a Man

When he thinks about his father, he remembers Bethie sitting in the hallway of that abysmal hospital playing with her teddy bear. There should be more than just that memory, he knows, but they had never made memories worth keeping. Instead, he finds himself thinking about Bethie and wondering what she remembers of that day. He hopes that she has forgotten it even if he can’t. 

August, 1974

Mike hated hospitals. He stared up at the pink sandstone building wishing he had ignored the phone that morning. He kicked at a rock, sending it ricocheting into the tire of a beat up El Camino. What the hell did he care if his father wanted to see him? He should have ignored that damned phone.

He opened the car door and unbuckled the little girl in the back seat. She slipped one tiny hand into his and gripped a ratty stuffed bear with the other. Bringing Bethie wasn’t his idea, but her mother was at work and the sitter had a stomach bug. A hospital room was no place for a kid, Mike thought, leading her to the front doors of the hospital. He cursed the old man again for forcing him into this.

It was cool inside, a grateful change from the oppressive summer heat outside. He stopped at the information desk and asked for the room number. The crone behind the desk glared at him over cat eye glasses, inspecting his denim jacket with a distasteful glare. “Family or friend?” 

“Family,” he replied. 

She flipped a page in her book and gave him a reproachful look. “Haven’t seen you before. His daughter gets up here all the time though.” She peered at Bethie with a look of concern that said he should know better than to bring a kid to a hospital. Of course he knew better. But sometimes, you just did what you had to do.

“Children aren’t allowed in some of the rooms. Better check with the nurse on duty. Room 218.” She gave him a pinched nod, dismissing him.

He didn’t bother to thank her. What did he care what she thought of him? The room was on the second floor at the end of a long hallway. It was quiet, their footfalls echoing on the dingy linoleum. Outside the room, he paused at a bank of chairs and settled Bethie on them, fishing in his pocket for some change. 

“You stay here, Bethie. I’m just going to get you a soda pop out of the machine.” He left her for a moment, returning with a bottle of orange soda just as a nurse knelt down beside her. The nurse looked up as he approached and smiled. 

“Is this your little girl? Are you visiting someone today?”

“Carl Gentry.”

“You must be his son. He said you were coming today.”  She held out a hand for the soda. “Why don’t you go on in? I’ll keep an eye on her.” At least, Bethie wouldn’t have to go into the room and see the old man, he thought, giving her a quick pat on the head. She was the lucky one.

 He paused at the door, again wishing that he had ignored the telephone. The old man lay in the bed nearest the door reading a novel, his reading glasses perched precariously on this tip of his nose. Mike cleared his throat lightly, catching the old man’s attention. Now or never, Mike decided. He tried to smile but it felt more like a grimace.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in. Thought you were too busy.”

“Hey Pop,” Mike said. “How’re you feeling?”

“How do you think I feel?” The old man snapped. “Stuck in this room, day and night…” He let the old man rant. He’d learned a long time ago to give him room when he was worked up. “Nurses come in here, all the time poking and prodding, asking me am I thirsty? Do I want my pillows fluffed? How about some television, Mr. Gentry? Damned tired of it all is how I feel.” He paused in his tirade against the nursing staff to turn his venom on his son. “How come it took you so long to come see me?”

Mike shifted uncomfortably, looking around the room for the first time. There were two other beds in the room, separated by limp blue curtains. The furthest bed was blocked from view by the curtain. The closer bed was occupied by a heavy man with wisps of black hair combed across his head and a thin pencil mustache. The man was staring at the ceiling feigning disinterest but definitely paying attention. And why not? Mike’s visit might be the most interesting thing to happen since he’d been lying in that hospital bed.

“Well, Pop, I had to call work-”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. How come I got to call you to get you up here?” The book was tossed aside on the end table next to the bed, forgotten for the moment. “Your sister’s been here practically every damned day making a nuisance of herself. I want to know why I have to call in the first place and why I have to beg for your presence? And don’t hand me a story about not knowing I was here. Penny tells me she calls you and your mother nearly every day.”

Of course, he knew. Penny made it a point to share every unnecessary detail. He would have been fine not knowing any of it at all but Penny saw things differently. She and Pop always got on well. Even after he left, she would telephone him and share all his goings on with them. Penny was a right spiteful bitch.

“You didn’t beg, Pop,” he said after a moment. Demanded was more like it. “I’ve been busy and like you said, Penny lets me know how you’re doing.”

“Busy.” The old man spit the word back at him. “Got a girlfriend or something? Thought you were married to the best woman in the world? I warned you she was a cold fish. Did she kick out a couple of brats and then close shop on you? Can’t say I’m surprised. She always was too big for her britches.”

“Linda’s the one who told me I should come visit today!” Mike snapped, defending his wife. 

“Should I thank her? Bow at her feet? I suppose I should be honored that you decided to drop. You being such a busy man and all.”

“I’ve got a job,” MIke replied through clenched teeth. “Something you may not be too familiar with. Maybe I should explain how it works? See, I show up every day at the same time and do what they tell me to do. At the end of the week, they hand me a check. That’s how I feed my family and pay my bills. Something else you probably don’t know much about.”

Pop’s roommate turned his head and blatantly ogled them both, his mouth hanging open. The old man caught the expression and rolled his eyes. “Pull that curtain closed. Let’s have some private space.” 

Mike did as he was told, pulling the curtain closed between the two beds. He pulled a chair to the old man’s bedside, settling on the edge. Closer to his father, he saw how old the illness had made him. He looked small and withered.

The old man fell silent, spent after his tirade. For his part, Mike had nothing to say after his outburst. What could he say? 

“I sure am sorry you’re in the hospital Pop, but I got somewhere to be. My kid’s waiting for me and I would just as soon hang out with a three year old than sit in here one more minute. Penny can tell me if I need to come back and we can just forget about these uncomfortable reparations. That’s what this is all about right? Making things right before you die? That won’t be necessary. I can live with the crummy hand I’ve been dealt even if you can’t die with it. I’ll just be on my way then. Good luck to you, Pop.”

Of course not. He had some decency to him. He had no doubt that he had been summoned for a peace conference between the two of them. Didn’t mean he wanted an accord though. He came for his mother mostly. She still loved the man regardless of how he had damaged them all. She wanted peace.

“Your mother came by for a visit yesterday,” the old man said, reading his thoughts. “She always had a big heart. I used to tell her, you’re going to get that heart stomped on real bad someday Suzy. Didn’t know it would be me always stomping on it.” 

“Good of you to admit it,” Mike muttered.

“Your mother wants us to be on good terms. I told her our terms were okay. What do you think?”

Mike crossed his arms over his chest protectively. “Sure Pop. Whatever you say it is,” he replied, feeling surly.

“Whatever I say it is,” the old man repeated. “I say it’s a goddamn shame you feel so sorry for yourself all the time. And don’t give me that look. You took any pride in yourself, you wouldn’t show up here looking like a deadbeat. I suppose you could blame that on me. Never taught you how to be a man. Left it to your mother.”

He pressed his lips together in a tight line, trying to keep his temper in check. He sure as hell didn’t feel sorry for himself. And he had plenty of pride. If he was ashamed of anything it was the old man. As for where he learned to be a man, the old man was wrong on that one. He had learned enough about the kind of man he wanted to be just by watching his pops. He watched everything his father did for years and decided that being a man was the exact opposite. 

Sometimes he thought he managed it and sometimes he thought he couldn’t run away from it. He loved his wife and kids, but there were days he wished he could just walk away like the old man had done. But that wish always came with guilt and shame. He would rededicate himself to Linda, take her out to dinner or offer some silly romantic gesture. He’d pick the kids up from school early and treat them to Dairy Queen. And he would remind himself that he wasn’t his father.

“I didn’t come here to have faults pointed out to me, Pop.”

“No, I don’t expect you did. I’m old, I forget sometimes you’re not a kid anymore.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mike replied, his temper ebbing away.

The two men fell silent, uncomfortable in the moment of truce. They had never known how to be in a room together. He looked around the room searching for something to turn the conversation towards. It was sparse, as hospital rooms went, painted in an off white color. Someone had hung a painting of a field of yellow daisies on the wall opposite the old man’s bed. The whole thing was in dark green and shades of mustard yellow. Whoever put it there likely thought it was cheerful. He considered it depressing and would hate it if he had to stare at the thing for days on end. 

Hushed voices from the last bed drifted across the room, a man and a woman speaking in soft tones. There was no anger or animosity in those tones, only sadness and love. The old man jerked his head toward the curtain and said quietly, “That’s Frank. His wife comes every day and sits with him. He’s got four kids and none of them are allowed to see him. She won’t let ‘em come. I guess she’s afraid that seeing their dad laid up will scare ‘em somehow. Gotta face reality I say.”

A bubble of laughter floated into the room from the hall. At least Bethie was having a good time. The old man cocked an ear to the open door listening. “That a kid out in the hall?”

“It’s Beth,” Mike replied. “I didn’t have anyone to watch her.”

“She’s okay out there by herself?”

Mike flicked a glance out the door where he could just see the back of her head as she played with her teddy bear. “There’s a nurse keeping an eye on her.” 

“Frank’s kids sit out there sometimes. Sometimes I make faces at them to keep them entertained.” 

He found himself surprised by the image. The old man playing peekaboo with a toddler was strange to him and he struggled with it. He supposed there were things about the old man he didn’t know. He spent the best portion of his life running from his father and his ways, choosing not to know him in any way that resembled a relationship. The mere fact that the old man was capable of kindness to a stranger’s child offended him. This version of his father had never existed for him.

“Look, I got something to say to you,” the old man said suddenly. “You said our terms are what I say they are. Well, I think you and I are too alike to admit that we got problems. And don’t go saying how we don’t have problems because we do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had to beg for a visit on my deathbed.”

“Pop, you’re not dying.”

“What do you know? I am dying whether you want to care or not.” 

He didn’t argue. If the old man just said what was on his mind, he could get out of there faster. He desperately wanted to be anywhere but sitting next to his father’s hospital bed and listening to what a crummy relationship they had. 

“I didn’t ask you to come just so we could fight with each other. I want to make things right. You don’t like me, that’s fine. Sometimes, I don’t like you much either. But I don’t want to die knowing I could have fixed things between us. So tell me what I need to do to put us on good terms.”

“Come on, Pop, you don’t need to do anything,” he replied wearily. “And you’re not dying, so just cut it out.” 

The old man’s face was turning an alarming shade of red. “Dammit, I am not going to die with this hanging over me!”

“You’re not dying!” Mike’s anger sparked into life again. “And there is nothing hanging over you. It is what it is, man. That’s it. Nothing else. You just live with whatever crap you’ve been handed. That’s it.”

“I know you think I was a lousy father to you and your sister but I did what I could. You remember when you fell out of that tree in the backyard and broke your arm? Maybe I couldn’t make it better myself but by God I made sure those doctors saw you right quick! When you wanted that motorcycle, who told your mother to let you get it?” The old man was getting a full head of steam. His voice raised to an angry pitch. “You think less of me because I walked away from a marriage that made everyone miserable. Let me tell you, son, it would have been a lot worse if I had stuck around!”

He was rescued from responding by a nurse who poked her head into the room. She glanced between him and the old man, eyeing them both suspiciously. She stomped over to the bed, reaching for the old man’s chart hanging on the wall.

“Really now, Mr. Gentry,” she said in a tone Mike thought she had used on the old man many times before now. “You’re upsetting yourself and I’m sure your roommates don’t appreciate all this ruckus. Did you know there’s a little girl in the hallway out there? You should know better than to raise your voice.” The old man scowled darkly at her and clamped his mouth shut. “That’s better. You shouldn’t get so worked up all the time.”

The nurse made a small note on the clipboard and replaced it on its peg. She gave him a disapproving glare and left, her scolding over for now. Mike got to his feet, scraping the chair back against the linoleum. He needed to leave before either of them said something they would regret.

“I have to go. I’m sorry you’re laid up here,” he said. “But you’ll be better soon. We’ll have you over for Sunday dinner when you get out.”

“Yeah, sure.” The old man leaned back onto the pillows still agitated. “Go on and go. I know you’re a busy man.”

He knew that the old man had some idea of easing his conscience but too much time and too much anger had passed between them. Mike was fine leaving things the way they were. Maybe he didn’t love his father like a son ought to but he could at least feel pity for him, lying up here all alone knowing he might never leave the place. 

“You need anything, Pop? I could stop at the gift shop and get you something.”

“No, you go on.” The old man waved a gnarled hand at him. “I’ll make do until your sister drops by later.” His eyes closed, effectively ending the visit. Mike mumbled a half hearted farewell before bolting from the room and closing the door behind him. He held his arms out to Bethie, stooping to swing her into his arms. 

She pointed at the closed door. “Is that man mad at you? He yelled.” 

He gave his daughter a quick hug. “Naw, he’s just sick. Let’s go home.”