Dead End

The young man makes his way through the multitude of patients and staff lining the corridors of the clinic, until he reaches the area named INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. He pauses for a second in front of the sign, looks around, and turns to a veteran nurse who's going through some forms behind the counter.

"Excuse me, I just got here. They told me my father was admitted to this place. He came today."

"Name?" The nurse asks, without looking up from the forms.

"Mine? George Jenkins."

"No, your father's."

"Ah! Sorry. Oliver James Jenkins."

"Oh yeah! The polytrauma. He's in room 4B. Please wait. I'll call the doctor. Did you come with someone else?"

"No. I am his only family."

George remembers his mother Caroline, who passed away a few years ago after battling leukemia in vain. And his brother William, who died while riding his motorcycle last summer. It seems that he will end up burying everyone.

"Well, wait I call the doctor," says the nurse, and disappears through a swing door.

George can tell that behind that door is a deserted corridor, which leads to several closed doors. And he imagines that behind each of those doors takes place a drama similar to that of his father. The only thing the police told him was that he had been in a major car accident and that he had been taken to that clinic. That they had called him because he was listed as a contact on the cell phone. And that they had not been able to locate anyone else.

George is wondering how many hours his father has been there and thinking that perhaps it is not that serious, when the nurse returns with a young man looking tired, wearing turquoise medical scrubs, who extends his hand to greet him with a forced smile.

"I am Dr. Hamilton, the therapist on call."

“George Jenkins.”

"I am taking care of your father."

“I came as soon as I found out. How is he?"

The doctor looks him in the eye, takes a deep breath and says in a slow voice, as if it were a confidence, “he had an accident driving his truck. He pulled off the road and crashed head-on into a tree. He suffered various injuries. But we believe that before the collision he had a stroke, which was what caused him to lose control of the vehicle. We have been conducting studies ..."

"Is he going to recover?" George interrupts him.

The doctor takes a moment to give his answer.

"Your father is seventy-five years old."

"He turns seventy-five the day after tomorrow."

"It makes no difference. He suffered significant brain damage causing heart and kidney failure. We catheterized him and gave him inotropic drugs."

"Is he awake?"

“He's in a coma, sedated, on mechanical ventilation. For now he is compensated, but the prognosis is not good. "

"Can I come by to see him?"

"Yes, of course. Later we will need you to sign some papers."

The doctor escorts him to room 4B, opens the door, shows him in, and leaves. George is surprised by the tranquility inside that small room. The last rays of the evening sun slip through the window with its shutters. A monitor blinks with a barely audible intermittent mechanical beep. His father is on an articulated bed with white sheets, hooked up to a slightly oscillating ventilator, a monitor, and an IV from a pump. George guesses that there are a lot of electrodes and catheters under the sheets, although he prefers not to investigate. He didn't go there for that.

Oliver James Jenkins has his eyes closed, the upper lids are lowered curtains that hide those eyes that his son always envied. The ancient Jenkins bloodline sported blue eyes. George has an old grudge: both he and his brother have inherited totally vulgar brown eyes. Mud instead of sky. One more reason to hate the old man.

George notices that his father has a calm, relaxed and even happy expression. Could it be that they are giving him morphine? The doctor had said he was sedated. They are definitely gorging him on the damn morphine and easing his agony.

Almost like in a trance, George runs his slender fingers over the contour and knobs of the ventilator and the monitor, playing and fondling with every switch. He marvels and at the same time is frightened by this technology so little thunderous, that almost with an intimate whisper it manages to keep his father alive. George feels that he has adapted to this new surroundings, such as when he practices mindful breathing and meditation.

Suddenly, all sounds have completely disappeared and he is there, in the center of the universe, relaxed, almost a god. Now, George owns his father's life and death, he has the old bastard at his mercy, totally defenseless. He smiles, takes a deep breath, exhales in a controlled way and enjoys that moment of luminous epiphany.

He turns his head slowly and glances sideways at his father, who is no longer his father. Since he arrived in that room, George did not utter a single word. Would a good son, a politically correct one, not speak to his dying father even though he could not hear him? George remains impassively silent.

He approaches the bed and notices the cadaverous paleness of his father's face. But he won't break into tears right now. He sits down in a chair next to him and in a fit of guilt he takes his hand. "By God, nobody sees me," he thinks. George notices that the cold fingers he is holding are stained with nicotine: his father always smoked, despite the protests of the whole family. If he had teeth, they would be stained too, but his father wears removable dentures that have now been taken away to put on his breathing tube.

Without teeth, he seems older and smaller, despite the fact that George remembers him as a big man, the kind who manages to take advantage of his strong personality. He is messy now, with his long gray hair, wispy beard, and hard white hairs sticking out of his nose and ears. Perfect for a souvenir postcard. Maybe he should take a picture of him with his cell phone.

George realizes that he is with a dying man who is close to him by blood but is also a stranger. Some say that time and distance heal everything, but he knows that in this case it is not so. "Weeds are not killed by the frost," he thinks. The sinister memory will not die, he promises himself, even if the old man passes away. He came to witness the fall of the monster, to topple the bronze statue of the dictator, to be the first and the last to throw the stone. Or a handful of dirt on his grave.

After a few moments, he releases his father's hand, which falls inert. He wants to get up, run away, and be notified by phone when his father is definitely and hopelessly dead. He doesn't want to be told the details. How long does it take for someone to die? As long as he's dead, that's enough. Dead, buried and forgotten. There are things that even death cannot repair. George finds it pathetic when people take pity on someone just because they have passed away. If you are a son of a bitch, you will be so in life and also after your death.

He doesn't believe in Heaven and Hell either, but if there were, he's sure his father would go to Hell without further ado. To meet her mother, may she not rest in peace. If you argued your whole life, you can keep arguing for all eternity. But without making anyone else suffer. A private punishment, in some subsoil of the Underworld, at the worst level of all. It would be fair, George thinks. An eternal torment with no possibility of escape.

He remembers his childhood with his brother William. His father had always spoiled his brother, the perfect one and the smartest. For him, he had only dispensed indifference, hatred and contempt. And his mother made common cause with his father and also turned against him. Luckily, as soon as he could, he left to start his life anew, like his brother, although each with his own codes, quite different.

Years later, when he returned to visit his father for his mother's funeral, he found him dejected but more intolerant than ever. They argued for the umpteenth time for the same reason and he vowed never to forgive him, not even after his death. That time, despite the old man's protests, he closed the door before attending the funeral and left. He never said goodbye to his mother.

George imagines her encouraging his father to die, when he sees as if it were a nightmare that the old man opens his eyes, turns his head and looks at him with an expression of perplexity. His piercing blue eyes are bluer and hateful than ever. George intends to get up, but his father stops him by grabbing his wrist with superhuman strength.

Like in a slow-motion movie, he watches in unreal terror as his father rips the ventilator tube off, takes a deep breath on his own, and sits up in bed. The monitors are unfazed. Nothing seems to have changed except that the dying old man is not dying.

George manages to say, "Dad! You shouldn't take that off."

His father looks at him sternly.

“At my age you are not going to tell me what I can and cannot do. I don't want to spend my birthday in a hospital. "

"But the doctor said ..."

“Doctors don't know anything. They always exaggerate. Or they make it up, just to bill. I don't need any of this,” he says looking at the monitors, the IV, the respirator."

"They told me you were going to die," George insists.

"That's what you want, isn't it? Let me die, like your mother. Nobody screw you. You were always a softie. Since you were little, a shame for everyone. Not like your brother."

"William is dead. And he didn't love you either. We thought the same on that subject."

"But he wasn't a fag like you. Too bad he never married and didn't give me grandchildren."

George would like to explain to his father what true love is. But he knows he won't understand, with his old-fashioned country warlord mentality. When he wanted to introduce Andy to him, the old man hit the roof. After that day, he vowed never to visit him again. He had only broken that oath when he went to his mother's wake, but even then they could not remotely amend.

To his regret, George is hypnotized by the delirious vitality of this stubborn old man who doesn't give up and clings to his world denying reality.

George plucks up his courage and says,

"I came to say goodbye."

"I didn't ask you to come."

"Sure. You'd rather be dead than concede and apologize for everything you did to me."

"I never did anything to you."

"You threw me out like a dog."

"You left alone."

"Because you didn't give me a choice."

“I did what I had to do with you. The right thing."

"Because I went wrong, right?"

“We are not going to discuss Natural Order now. God knows we gave you a chance to straighten out. You didn't even listen to the priest. "

“The perverted one? No way! "

"You never respected the institutions."

“As I already told you, I came to say goodbye. When I saw you I thought you weren't going to be able to listen or talk. "

"Do you want to talk? I have nothing new to say to you. You are no longer my son. And don't tell me now that you've switched teams again."

George notices that his father, for the first time, is distressed, his neck muscles are tense and his hands are clenched like claws. The old man gasps for air, screaming and cursing incoherently.

“I have something to tell you, Dad: you will never have grandchildren. Your genetic lineage came to an end. Same as you."

George, a self-satisfied smirk playing across full, watches as his father collapses onto his bed with bloodshot eyes and thick drool dripping from his crooked mouth into a definitive grimace.

Like an automaton, George gets up from his chair, turns the ventilator and monitors back on, and leaves the room as alarms go off.

Just then, he remembers that he has to sign some papers.