(This version came from my instructor in a writing class telling me not to be so nice all the time.)
Henson drove up the gravel driveway slowly, eyeing the crabgrass on the once pristine lawn and the weeds taking over what in 1973 was awarded the town’s blue ribbon garden of the year. He’d half admired the grassy hump in the middle of the drive, created over decades by cars following naturally in the depressions on either side. It reminded him of an English cottage, maybe in the Cotswolds and then he remembered how he hated the Cotswolds after the trip there with his second wife.
The old man sat on the porch staring out at him, a curious look that might have been mistaken for anxious, slowly rocking back and forth its shade. When he opened his car door and got out the old man stopped rocking put his hands on the sides of the chair and managed to lift himself up. He flipped his hand in a limp wave, maybe attempted a smile, and said, “Been waiting out here a while. A real scorcher.”
“I did text you my ETA,” said Henson, wiping sweat that had already formed on his forehead the minute he opened the car door. “I’m not late.” He squinted down at his Rolex, 11:32. He was an hour late after all. “Did you see the text?”
“Nope.” Henson felt off the hook.
“Do you ever look at my texts?”
“Not yours, boy, nor anyone else’s. Helluva thing but I just got used to emails. I don’t know why people need all that stuff. Cell phones, emails, text and this Twitter thing the moron-in-chief spews on. Your sister talks about what apt. And you wonder why I miss messages?”
Henson shook his head as he took his bag from the back seat. “I’m not wondering, just hoping. I’ll call next time. Anyway, it’s what’s ap, not what’s apt.”
“Should be what ass. I’ll stick with the old fashioned way and simply say….” He cupped his hands and yelled, “Yippy aye oh cowboy. Welcome home! Come up and cool your jets.”
Henson couldn’t help but smile in response. It was an uncontrolled reaction, like a
rubber hammer testing reflexes. His
father had been cupping his hands and yelling like that, just like that, for
years, since Henson was a kid. It was
fun once. “Dad, really, I’m not a kid.
Yippy aye oh?”
“Did I leave out kiyah again? Hell,
YIPPY AYE OH KIYAH, partner. And you’ll
always be a kid to me, my kid. Don’t
forget that.”
Henson said he couldn’t forget. He left
out the bit about his not wanting to remember it either and hated to be
reminded every time he came for a visit which was one reason, one of many, he
didn’t visit very much.
His father sat back down in the rocker and motioned Henson to the small table
that held a pitcher of iced tea. He held
his glass out and wiggled it back and forth as Henson put down his bag. “Yes?
You want something?”
“Let’s see, it’s about 100, we’re both sweating like hogs, and I’m wiggling an
empty glass in front of you. Could be I’m
looking for a refill? Would you mind?”
Henson moved to the pitcher and poured for his father. He noticed there was only one glass on the
table. “I’m going in to get myself a
glass and use the john,” he said.
“Henny, if you’re going in, mind making me a sandwich?” It wasn’t a question. “You know where
everything is. Roast turkey. Help yourself. “ said his father.
“Sure,” said Henson.
It was like this, had been for as long as he could
remember. His dad sitting on his butt
waiting for someone else to move and then asking for a favor. “Say, if you’re headed into the kitchen….oh,
you’re going into town, could you pick up….wouldn’t mind one of those myself….”
“And flush the toilet when you’re done,” Henson heard his father say as he
walked into the house. “You might need
toilet paper. There’s some under the
sink. I think. Should be.”
Henson considered a sarcastic response, would have maybe at another time, used to. But the response always got a joke, or a tease, or an argument or a slap which his father, years later, would deny. “Hit you? I never, never layed a hand on you. Name once.” It wasn’t worth an argument and, Henson couldn’t recall a specific one anyway, just the concept that burned inside when he thought back. His father was definitely a yeller, that was for sure; his mother would always tell him to stop it and his father would always yell back, “I’m not yelling, just raising my voice to make a point. Right Henny?” And Henson would nod his head.
Henson put four slices of rye in the toaster. He opened the refrigerator door to an off odor, sniffed the package of turkey and grimaced. “God damn it,” he thought, then made his father a turkey sandwich with a lot of mayo – at least the mayo smelled okay – and PB and J for himself.
He brought back the sandwiches, a pitcher of tea, poured himself one, and refilled his dad’s and pulled up a chair next to the rocker, moving it back under the cover deeper in the shade. His father took a big bite of the sandwich and wiped a bit of mayo of his lip with a finger and licked it. “Taste okay?” Henson asked. His father nodded his head vigorously, mouthing yes exposing his partially chewed sandwich. Henson rolled his eyes.
Henson looked down on the property; the garden looked even more seedy looking from the porch and his father’s Volvo 240 wagon needed a wash. Or a tow. If it hadn’t been so hot already he’d have felt heated anger rise to his face. “Jeez, Dad, how many miles do you have on that thing/ How old is it?”
“Old enough to know better.
It drives fine and’s paid off…hell I paid cash for her come to
think. Same time I paid off the
mortgage. Same year I retired for that matter. It’s been a while.”
His father sat back and fanned himself with an old copy of the New Yorker he’d
picked up at a doctor’s office. He had a
pile of magazines he’d picked up at various doctors’s offices and his son asked
if he had any on fishing.
“There’s a Grey’s Sporting Journal in here somewhere. God, I used to love that magazine
“Get a subscription. I’ll get you one if you want.”
His father stopped pumping the rocker with his legs and looked up with a
smirk. “Money. Why spend money when I can get them for
free. Used. That’s recycling, right? You’re into that. And I got to tell you it’s about perspective.”
“Perspective?”
“Per-spec-tive” – he sounded out each syllable.
“Per-spec-tive.” He explained
that fishing doesn’t change from season to season, and those New Yorker
cartoons from last year are just as funny as the new ones. “Old ones are even
better. I don’t always get the new
ones.”
“I think you’re being cheap,” said Henson.
“Just cheap. You can’t take it
with you.”
“Would want to if I could,” said his father. “There’s more important things.” He went on for a while about saving money, and how when he was young people did things, it wasn’t all about status and then got lost in thought about comparing the linoleum countertop they had in the kitchen for 30 years at least being as good as “marble or granite or that plastic stuff, corium, right?” and a boatload cheaper.
“I had a camera, Honeywell Pentax. Got it in 1963. Still was using in 1996 when we went to Italy that trip. Only stopped because some dago grabbed it off me. Nowadays people buy cameras with the change in season. Crazy waste if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask,” said Henson.
“Well you should. I must have learned something over all these years.”
Henson took a sip of tea, his lips involuntarily puckering
up. “Do you have some equal in the
house? I don’t suppose you’ve even heard
of stevia.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Your mom, god
rest, used to steal it– maybe it was Sweet n’ lo — from the coffee shop when we go in town but I
think the stuff is awful. Your sister took the last of it.”
“Figures.”
He poured glasses for himself and his father and the old man put a heaping
teaspoon of sugar into both.
“Whoa dad, I don’t want sugar.”
“That other stuff will kill you.
Chemicals. All chemicals. Artificial sweetener means just that. No harm
in a little sugar. Better than those
chemicals.”
His son acquiesced with a frown and sipped the tea, actually enjoying the sweet
granules of that refused to melt in the cold liquid.
His father leaned back, took his own sip, and looked off at the trees whose
leaves were drooping in the heat. A
humming bird sipped at a red feeder that hung from the porch. He pointed to it with some effort. “I love those little birds. Always have.”
He tried to follow it as it buzzed away.
Still looking over the garden he said,
“We have to move you know.”
“We?” said Henson.
“The papal we. The royal we. At least
me, myself and I. that’s three of us, right?”
It was a joke that Henson didn’t think was funny 50 years ago and didn’t think was
funny now. Still, at last, his father
was willing to move. The idea had been a
source of arguments, fights, more yelling matches, for a long time. When his mother was alive she’d taken his father’s side. “We’re too young. We’re fine.
We’re not ready. I’d rather die that go into one of those homes.”
They’d gotten by. They had the cleaning
lady. Then got a gardener, a Hispanic
guy, probably and illegal, who was clearly doing a lousy job, but was cheap
which suited his father just fine. The
when mom got ill there was the aide, then the nurse, the a few weeks in hospice
and then, now.
Henson looked about the yard, seeking some nostalgia, looking for a sense of
sadness rather than satisfaction. He did
some mental math. What would two acres
in this town be worth? He thought back to when he tired to convince his parents
to go into assisted living or an apartment at least. He’d once called a realtor and got a quote he
refused to believe — $2.6 mn for this dump?
“Dump?” she’d said, almost offended, “Hardly. It’s Victorian, with that wraparound porch? The barn?
Oh my, it’s a gem!”
“Three million,” he thought.
That was the agreement. His
sister got the house in Wellfleet and he got this one. “Three million.” He smiled for the first time that morning.
Moving had almost gotten serious when his father broke his hip, but
miraculously the stubborn guy recovered fully and then some. He talked about hip replacements, knee
replacements and said at this rate he’d be brand new before he’d have to move which
would never happen anyway, “not over my dead body.”
The son found a bottle of Oxycontyn in his the medicine cabinet of the bathroom to the guestroom where he increasingly spent the night, tossing and turning in his own words, so as not to keep his mother awake.
“Dad, you shouldn’t have these around. They’re kind of powerful for you, at your age
I mean. If you don’t need them, throw
them out.”
“Leave them be. They’re there for a
reason.”
“The reason being?”
His father squinted his eyes and looked away, for a second then turned back to
his son. “It’s not always easy, you
know. Getting old. I’m happy, led a good life. Hell, still lead a good one. But I see what it’s like.
“You remember Bill Webster? Coached Little League. Sonofabitch was a paratrooper on D-Day. Good guy. Anyway, he was losing it. Alzheimers I guess. Goes into a nursing home – memory facility – all locked up like some criminal. I went to visit. Bill didn’t know me at first, but came around.
“Know what he told me? He said he’d rather be dead than there. ‘My advice to you my friend,’ he said to me ‘is to do what you can, anything, to stay out of this urine-stinking place. He was dead two weeks later.”
“Too bad,” said Henson then. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Know how? His wife brought him in a bottle of single malt whisky, Langavulin, the good stuff, 16 years old. Against the rules of the place, but what the hell. she crushed in some pills, and ice, and gave him a tumblerful. He goes to sleep and when she came back he was dead as doornail with a smile on his face.”
“And that’s why I have the pills. Just in case. Which is also why all my papers, all my affairs, are well in order. Bottom drawer on the right side of my desk. Files says, ‘When I’m dead.’ I don’t like mincing words.”
Henson snorted a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” his father asked.
“Nothing.” Said Henson. “Just thinking about something.”
“Must be funny if you laughed,” said his father.
“Don’t even remember what it was,” said Henson who thinking about getting people in to arrange a yard sale, no, estate sale, and whether anyone would want the Steinway Baby grand that his mother loved.
“Dad, you keep the piano tuned after Mom died?”
“The piano? Gave it away, don’t you know? To the Unitarians. For their church. Grateful they were, too.”
“You gave it away?!? It must have been worth a fortune!” yelled Henson
“Paid a fortune for it, I remember that. $3000 if I’m right and that was in, what 1968. That’s right 1968. Mom was all depressed about Nixon getting elected and we got it to cheer her up. You and your sister would pound out chopsticks on it. On a Steinway, can you imagine that? We thought it was adorable.”
Henson ignored that, instead typing into his iPhone. “$80,000! It’s worth $80,000!”
“You don’t say. 80-grand. Hope the Unitarians are getting use out ofit. Bet the Jews at that temple there would know its value.”
Henson shook his head, taking a mental inventory of what else was in the house.
“I’ll help clean it all up, for when you move. Don’t worry about that,” offered Henson, a bit conciliatory and thinking about the coin collection. Probing, he said, “But if you still have those drugs, the oxycontin, I’ll get rid of those…..”
“Been over that.”
“Fine,” said Henson.
“Dad, what do you have in mind? I mean like where do you plan to go?”
“Huh, what to you mean?”
“You said ‘it was time to move.’ I know that’s hard, I know. But it’ll be fine. Better. What do you have in mind? “
His father looked at him, frowning, put down the tea and leaned forward.
“I know my mind, thank you very much. But I’m not sure about yours. Time to move, yes. Time to move inside where the air conditioning’s on. That’s as far as I’m going.”
A bit later that day, Henson said he’d be right back, just wanted to pick up some dinner for them and maybe a treat. He stopped at McKinnon’s Liquors on the way “It’s been a while, Henson,” said JoeMcKinnon. “How’s your dad?”
“Not so good,” said Henson. “Not good at all, to be honest. You know, everything hurts, all his friends are gone, he misses mom terribly and, and….” He hesitated looking for the words…”and he’s getting rid of things that, you know, raise memories. To be honest, he’s so depressed I’m worried about him. His memory’s going, too. Like, Bill Webster. You remember him?”
“Mr. Webster! Super guy. Super. I am so sorry to hear that. He’s been such a part of this town, one of our best customers too, and a good friend to dad when he was alive. I’m really sorry. Is there anything, anything at all, I can do?”
“No, that’s…no yes, yes as a matter of fact. I’d like a bottle of whiskey. Langavulin, the good stuff, 16 years old. It’s his favorite.”