The Final Gift

Eleven A. M. The phone chirps. Chirps. Chirps. Chirps. Insistent. Like an excerpt from some Hitchcockian nightmare. Jeff struggles up from the depths, irritated, his much-needed sleep disturbed. In the last ten years, sleep has become a precious commodity. He works while sane humanity sleeps. Daylight is for business: banking, shopping, ordering, selling, the occasional odd job to make ends meet, in short, sleeplessness. His circadian rhythms are all askew.

Fifteen years earlier, following the advice of the indomitable Mr. Greeley, Bev and he had sold their home, cashed in the retirement and bank accounts and headed west to make their fortune, to follow the American Dream. Their Choice, or at least the only choice they could afford, was a small independent bakery. In this weird, sad, straight-laced and provincial little town, Jeff, though still not accepted as an actual community member, has become known far and wide as the 'Donut Man', the sleepy guy in white on TV who mumbles, "Time to make the donuts."

Shaking his head to dispel the cobwebs, he takes a deep breath, aerating his resentment, and reaches for the phone, hoping beyond hope that whoever it is will take the hint and hang up.

"Hello? Hello?"

"Hi. Bro?"

"Ernie?" If the caller is indeed his younger brother, the news cannot be good. Dad has been very ill. Ernie knows Jeff sleeps days and would never wake him unless it were important.

"Listen , Jeff, Dad's real sick! I talked to the doctor and he ain't gonna make it long. If you want to see him one more time, you'd better move up your flight and get out here right away." (Jeff has already purchased tickets to visit mom and dad in about four weeks time, now useless.)

Hanging up the phone and heading to the kitchen for a cup of joe, his mind whirling and spinning from sudden bad news and a flood of memories, Jeff stubs his big toe on Bev's rocker. He spends the next five minutes whooping and jumping around on one foot. "Okay, Okay, I'm awake!" He mutters to whatever gods there be.

As he stands in the kitchen waiting for coffee to brew, one potent image flashes through his mind. The last time he saw his dad! "Dad," what a mix of thoughts and emotions floods through him at that idea. He loves his father, no doubt about that. But how much pain can a love cause before one detaches for protection. How much hurt, rejection, abuse, is required? His relationship with his father had certainly tested the mettle of his heart.

And now the old fuck was going, dying. Jeff could not sort out how he felt about that. For many years he had spoken to his father only in widely separated brief moments. When Jeff had called home, if Dad answered he would always say "Hi, Here's your mother," and hand the phone over. It had been like that since that afternoon eleven years earlier.

This particular fight was about a tiny house Jeff had purchased from his mother who purchased it for his brother Dave, who she thinks let it go to hell while he thinks she threw him out to give to Jeff, while dad is pissed because mom didn't tell him about it in the first place and somehow came up with ten thousand dollars out of nowhere and. . . etc. . . etc. . . etc. . . in one of those family things that go on and on and, in which, as in a house of mirrors, what one sees depends upon where one is standing..

At the edges of the screaming match, Jeff's mom circles, head turning back and forth, as if watching a tennis match, pleading. "Bob, stop, let's go home, honey, please. Jeff don't! Stop! He's your father" Back and forth.

The old man had sat in his beloved car, (all his dad's cars are beloved, since most of his life has been spent not owning one). Spittle and invectives fly from his father's mouth in equivalent amounts. One soils Jeff's face; the other his soul. In typical Hunter fashion; that is, without thinking, Jeff returns the favor, spits directly in his father's face. His father! Since that day they have spoken perhaps two dozen words to one another, enough to transact whatever business is necessary and to maintain contact with Jeff's mom, no more.

* * *

Arrangements are swiftly made,tickets changed. Moving the ticket date has cost an extra thousand Jeff can ill afford. The airline's compassionate discount magnanimously trims fifty from the $1300 total. Beverly drives him to the airport and, as is her feminine wont, understands and does not require speech from him. A simple kiss good bye. "Be careful! Be good. Take care of yourself." Call me!" Her total contribution.

The flight back to the Midwest is long and tiring. Sleep comes only in fits and starts. Each tiny segment of sleep contains a dream, each one of dad. The loving images from his early youth struggle for a place amid later recriminations, curses, screams and yes, abuse. Beloved images struggle to keep their heads above a sea of alcohol.

Raucous, cheerful, gift-filled and joyful Christmases that often turned into screaming matches or actual fights between family members. Baseball games and bike rides and cotton candied circuses. Smiles earned in one of Dad's numerous trivia quizzes. Brutal sarcasm in place of praises earned.

A frozen moment flashes through his fitful doze. His earliest memory! "Was he two, three?" Giggling, perched upon his dad's shoulders one hand holding tight to the balding forehead. The other tiny paw clutches three saltine crackers. Up to an old fashioned pillared porch down the block where there dwells a flapping, squawking creature of red and gold and green and blue. Jeff's little butt bounces up and down in rapid rhythm on his dad's shoulders in expectation. It feels like a ritual many times performed as he holds out the morsel. The large elegant bird caws clearly, "Polly want a cracker," snatching the treat from his bravely outstretched hand. Rolling with pleasure and laughter, the boy nearly falls from his perch, but his dad's strong hands on his ankles hold him tight. "Polly want a cracker", the multi-colored parrot repeats, having made short work of the first treat.

The little boy waits. This is the troubling part. Years later Jeff was to wonder why they never brought two, or four crackers for the parrot. The dilema: should he offer the bird a second cracker, saving only one for the return, or save both for the return trip?

Dad never makes the decision, but sometimes Jeff can sense that he may be impatient for a decision.

The bird looks on with obvious greed. "Why doesn't the stupid bird ask again, help with the decision?" This night Jeff decides to give the second reward immediately.

On their return, the gorgeous parrot is waiting, and begins his refrain while they are still out at the street. This is Jeff's favorite part, for the bird seems to recognize him. They move up the walk. "Okay," dad says, laughing and Jeff extends his arm. The bird snatches and crumbles his snack. A few minutes later, Jeff is off to bed, well satisfied with the miracle of life.

*** *** ***

"Would you like a drink sir? Sir?"

"Huh, wha?"

"A drink sir? Would you care for a beverage?"

He is greatly tempted, the dread need surging up, but he knows she could never pour enough; that neither pints, nor quarts, nor gallons can hope to fill the dark black hole of his desire, his want of that never-ending thirst which is, perhaps, a gift from his dad's genes.

"Coffee, please," he replies, hoping beyond all hope to either wake or sleep.

She passes on as if she herself were the dream. He dozes.

His brother and he lie on the floor in their communal bedroom, ears pressed to the old fashioned, non functioning heat grate which opens directly to the living room below, If they slide aside aside one board. A flood of abuse and pleas arise from below, sounds of blows struck. "Bitch! Cunt! Whore!

"Bob, stop the kids'll hear!"

Neither of the boys dares to look at the other but Ernie's small hand clutches his tightly. The tiny sharp pain is a connection between them, expressing their shared wordless agony. The battle rages below for about thirty minutes before burning itself out. No word, no glance passes between Ernie and him but the younger boy curls his small body against Jeff, rather than retiring to his own bed across the room. "Suh. Suh. Suh" A long series of small tremors rustles through Ernie's Roy Rogers Pajamas as he lapses into sleep. Before long, the gentle rhythm drags Jeff down also, fists clenched angrily in front of his small frame.

*** *** ***

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Please fasten your seat belts secure all belongings and return your trays to the upright position in preparation for landing at Milwaukee's Mitchell Field. The temperature on the ground is forty-seven degrees and a light rain is falling. Thank you for flying with us today."

Milwaukee is not exactly L.A. or even Portland. Getting to his rental necessitates a run through near freezing drizzle.

The drive to Midfield, though not long, is arduous, bumper to bumper and stop and go. Nonetheless it is soothing in its way, mind numbing in the extreme.

Since his mind, is not required for driving, it is free to roam, drift, remember.

His dad had worked most of his life as a clerk in an upper North Shore grocery which catered to the very rich. Mostly he dealt with servants, but would occasionally deal directly with an Armour, a Swift or a Cudahay. The family had never been hard up for food, not even the luxuries of the very rich: bittersweet almost black or creamy white chocolates from Holland; bristling sardines from the North Sea; huge legs of greasy lamb, standing rib roasts, and genuine Polish hams for Sunday dinners; raspberries and strawberries and blueberries and blackberries; the freshest finest fruits and vegetables, and once even chocolate covered bees from England. Dad and his employers had a sort of unwritten agreement that whatever he could carry out was a sort of "perk" of the job. (Or maybe it was only a one-way agreement, Jeff had never known for sure and had certainly never asked).

Each morning Jeff's dad would be up before dawn, walk the sixteen blocks to the station and ride the commuter train to Lake Forest. Each evening he would reverse the process. Except on Wednesdays. In those days, the moguls of high industry all closed their various establishments at noon on Wednesday, so his father, too, enjoyed this luxury. , the beach at the Lake Michigan shore was the only refuge from the stifling heat. In the heat of Summer, the entire family would cram into a taxi and ride down the long, long hill to the beach on the Lake Michigan Shore, Midfield's only refuge from the stifling heat. The old man would walk down from the train station to join them about one in the afternoon..

"God, how packed with life those afternoons were!. The boys would have purple lips and bright red backs before they finally emerged from the icy water. The night before, mom would have prepared an enormous roasting pan of fried chicken and pork chops steamed in each other's gravy. Dad would build a fire in a pit in the sand, nestling the huge pan on the coals where its contents would simmer and simmer. Our stomachs would growl for hours before we could finally partake.

Jeff, brought suddenly back to the present by the blare of a semi's air horn, swerved back into his own lane, shook his head, and carefully took the turn off for highway 120.

It was sad how the memories of those sweet, sweet seasons had all been washed away by a sea of chilled cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and pint-sized bottles of E&J.

Jeff enters the familiar house cautiously, reluctantly, wishing he did not have to perform this duty. His mother meets him at the door, attempting to smile through her pain, and hugging and kissing him warmly. Moving into the space off the kitchen where his father's bed had been placed, he becomes intensely aware of the cloying scent of death. Jeff knows the smell only because several years earlier, a few mice he had poisoned had died inside the walls of his house. The idea itself is a horror to him and he fights to force down the sourness in his throat. The deep, deep red of his father's disintegrating liver drips slowly into a plastic medical bag slung low on the rails of the hospital type bed.

He swallows hard, moves slowly and quietly to the foot of the bed. He stands for a few moments watching his father sleep. Could this tiny, tiny shriveled emptiness be the same man who had inspired all that fear, all that shame, for all those years? The focus of that awe-filled fear of "something to cry about"? The source of all the shriveling insults, searing satires, and sharp, sudden, slaps in the face?

Jeff forces his mind to fix on those long-gone summer seasons, on he all day jaunts to the beach; on the raucous, joy-filled family Christmases, gifts piled high; on the walks to feed the 'polly'; on the baseball games and bike rides and cotton candied carnivals.

His father's eyes pop suddenly open. At seeing Jeff, his face immediately breaks into a smile so broad, so wonderfully spontaneous, that Jeff is moved by the love that shines there. His father is glad to see him! A large equally radiant smile breaks onto Jeff's own face.

And all the abuse of all the years; all the arguments, all the dark shame, is washed away from the souls of both these men, in the brilliance of that single radiant smile. Jeff feels a great weight, a burden of his own design, lift from his heart that night. And though his father's life would bleed out into that awful bag before the long night passed, their last hours together were warm, loving, as they had not been for a very long time.

His father was lucid to the end and they spoke of many things. Neither said, "I'm sorry" Neither had to. As he had dozed off to sleep that night, Jeff's dad had given him an assignment: to make a minor repair to the storm door for his mother. And as dad slept, Jeff bent to the chore, for he had little time. Apparently dad felt that his final duty had been performed, for when Jeff returned to his bedside, he had passed on. It felt good, right, to Jeff that he had been entrusted with his father's final chore, however small.

The awesome chores of the next week: the funeral and internment; the inevitable 'dinner'; the phony smiles to the phony friends; the burden of his mother's grieving on his arm and his soul; all were easier, lighter in the glow of that radiant smile flashing upon his inward eye. Indeed, for all Jeff's life, that smile would remain a tiny but constant beacon of serenity, his father's final gift.