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Authors: Mark Richard Zubro

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BOOK: Rust On the Razor
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Scott stared wide-eyed at the machines. His dad stirred for a moment but did not waken.
I wondered where everybody was.
Scott approached the bed. “Daddy?” he whispered. “Daddy?”
The side rails on the bed were up. Scott took his father's hand gently and held it. With his other hand Scott carefully pushed back the sparse gray hair on his father's head. A few moments later his father's eyes opened. Scott whispered, “I love you, Daddy.”
“Scottie?” his dad murmured.
“I'm here, Daddy.”
The man sighed contentedly, closed his eyes, and slept.
Scott leaned awkwardly over the rail and hugged the sleeping figure.
He pulled up a straight-back chair next to the bed and sat in it while holding his father's hand. He stayed like that for the longest time. I stood in the background, unwilling to break the passing of time with words or gestures.
Abruptly, a male nurse appeared in the doorway, saw me, and shattered the serenity of the moment by demanding, “What are you doing here?”
“Singing opera arias,” I said. Somehow, when faced with officiousness, I have a tendency to give smart-ass answers.
He spoke with a southern drawl—as did everybody. I'm not going to keep mentioning it; you can assume they did because everybody had an accent. Even Scott's got more pronounced the longer we stayed.
Scott stirred and the nurse took note of him.
“Who are you two?” the nurse asked. “You can't be here.”
Scott walked over to us. We both towered over the man, who seemed to be in his late twenties. He had a small mustache and a rounded belly that bulged under his white uniform.
“I'm Scott Carpenter. This is my father.”
“Oh.”
“The sign in the lounge said visiting in cardiac care could happen anytime, but no one answered our call.”
“I was on break.”
“Isn't someone supposed to be on duty all the time in cardiac care?” I asked.
“We only have two patients.”
“While my father is here, it won't happen again,” Scott said very quietly. “I don't know where my family is, but one of us will be here from now on, and so will someone from the hospital staff. I'll talk to your supervisor in the morning.”
“You're trying to bully me.”
“If my father dies because of any kind of neglect, the least of your worries will be the lawsuit with which I will take every penny you could possibly earn for the rest of your life.”
The nurse glanced around the room with his eyes finally coming to rest on me. “Is he part of the family?” he asked Scott.
“He's Tom Mason. He's my lover,” Scott said. “He'll stay if I want him.”
“Not if the supervisor says he can't. Only family in here.”
“Where is everybody?” Scott asked.
“Mrs. Carpenter and her daughter went to the machines in the cafeteria to get some coffee a while ago. I thought I'd be back before they returned. I'm sorry. I apologize. Still, the only people allowed in cardiac care are immediate family. When your mother and sister return, he'll have to leave.”
I could see Scott preparing to be stubborn. I didn't want a fight, but I wanted to do whatever I could for him. The phone buzzed on the nurse's desk. He hurried the eight feet to answer it. He listened for a minute and then said, “Only two at a time.”
In a minute Scott's mom entered the room. She leaned on Scott's sister Mary's arm. Scott hurried to her, and they embraced.
“It's good to see you, son. So good.” Mary hugged the two of them simultaneously. His mother gave me a warm smile and patted my arm. Mary thanked me for coming.
“What's happening, Mama?” Scott asked.
“You can't all be here,” the nurse said.
“What needs to happen,” Scott said, “is for me to get a status report from my family, and if necessary, from available medical personnel, which I assume is you, and you
are going to be very helpful and pleasant.”
The nurse hesitated. Scott turned to his mother and sister. “Any news?”
They shook their heads. “They want him to rest. The doctors won't be sure for a while what to do. They may want to operate. They don't know how much damage has been done to his heart.”
“He recognized me,” Scott said.
“He hasn't wakened,” Mary said.
“It was just for a second.”
“Is that good?” Mrs. Carpenter asked the nurse.
He shrugged. “You'll have to ask the doctor in the morning.”
“You okay, Mama?” Scott asked. “Shouldn't you be home trying to get some sleep? Mary and I can stay tonight. Tom will drive you home.”
She smiled at her son. “Your father and I haven't been apart a night in forty years. I'll stay for a little bit. I slept for a while earlier, and I can nap on the couch in the waiting room if necessary.”
“I just got here a bit ago,” Mary said. “I'll stay. Shannon and Nathan were here all day.”
I melted into the background as they discussed logistics, which son or daughter would be expected and when, who was keeping which parts of the family informed.
“Do you have a place to stay?” Mary asked.
We shook our heads.
She offered her home.
“You're too crowded as it is,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “And you're too far away. They will stay at the house with me and your daddy.”
 
Scott spent the rest of the night sitting with his dad. I stayed with him for brief intervals. Mostly, I read my book or counted holes in the tile of the ceiling of the waiting
room. Once I escorted Mrs. Carpenter to the lounge for a nap. I chatted with Mary for half an hour in the hall and brought up orange juice, candy bars, moon pies, and RC cola from the machines in the basement, depending on who wanted what when. Around four, three teenagers spent half an hour on the waiting-room pay phone making frantic calls. A nurse came and led them away to another part of the hospital.
An hour after dawn, the nurses' shift changed. I was half-dozing next to Mary when three people entered the waiting room. Mary introduced them as Hiram, who'd written the nasty letter, and Shannon, a sister of Scott's. The third was a woman in her sixties, Sally, a distant cousin.
Sally nodded to me. Hiram and Shannon ignored my outstretched hand. They both had Scott's piercing blue eyes. Hiram was in a gray polyester suit. Shannon wore a long-sleeve light-peach blouse and a calf-length dark-green skirt. She wore absolutely no makeup.
Scott joined us. “The doctor's here. We can meet with him.” I held back, but Scott took my arm and said, “You come too.”
We met his mother in the hall and entered a conference room, full of furniture made of blond wood.
After we were all seated the doctor said, “I just examined Mr. Carpenter.” The doctor was an attractive man in his mid-thirties. He had a small mustache, a slight stoop, a thin torso, and the most wonderful green eyes, which looked carefully at each of us as he spoke.
“We admitted him because he was having the signs and symptoms of having a heart attack. He will be in the cardiac care unit while we monitor him and give him some blood tests. We won't know anything for sure for a day or two, until we get some of the tests back. We have to find out how much damage has been done. At times a person
with mild symptoms has massive damage; sometimes it is the reverse.”
“Will he need an operation?” Mrs. Carpenter asked.
“We'll have to see after the tests are in.”
“He's not that old,” Shannon said. “He's always been healthy. Why him?”
“No one has an answer to that,” the doctor said.
After the conference, it was agreed that Hiram would take Shannon and the cousin home. They would come back later. Mrs. Carpenter and Mary would keep watch in the hospital.
Scott said, “I'd like to grab some breakfast and then come back here for a while. Then we'll go to the house.”
We walked down to the cafeteria. Scott looked at the watery eggs and stale toast at the breakfast buffet, gazed around at the white-clad hospital workers, and said, “This is more hospital than I need right now.”
We strolled the two blocks to the Waffle House to eat. As soon as we left the air-conditioned hospital, the humidity struck.
“Doesn't it cool off at night or in the mornings?” I asked.
“Some,” Scott said.
I breathed deeply. “Fresh pine,” I said.
“We're halfway in the middle of the Jefferson National Forest. Jefferson National Swamp is five miles that way.” He pointed east.
I eyed the towering trees that lined the street and met above our heads. I knew some were pines and others hardwoods, but that's as good as my botany gets.
The headline on the
Burr County Clarion
outside the Waffle House said, “High School Hero Queer.” I stuck a quarter in and bought a paper. I paid for the two that were left in the stack and tossed them in a pink plastic trash can inside the door.
Patrons filled half the booths at the restaurant. A row of men sat along a counter. Most of them wore T-shirts or flannel shirts with cut-off sleeves revealing burly biceps. I felt like a stranger walking into a bar in an old western. All talk stopped. All eyes followed us. A waitress in a beehive hairdo and, I swear to God, with a pencil sticking out of her hair said, “Sit anywheres you want.”
We picked a booth that looked out on the passing traffic. Across the street sat a huge old house with graying paint, several pillars at an angle, and a porch that needed propping up. I couldn't see anything through its windows. Everything in the restaurant except, I hoped, the food seemed to be made of plastic: chairs, table, salt and pepper shakers, cash register. Even the menus were covered with it.
The waitress seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to arrive at our table for our order. When she showed up, she smiled shyly at Scott. “You don't remember me,” she said to him.
He smiled at her. “Tell me your name.”
“I'm Louise Bottoms. I was a year behind you in school. I'm sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks,” Scott said.
She filled our coffee cups.
I'd never been in a Waffle House, so I ordered a waffle. Always go with the house specialty, I figure. Scott ordered biscuits and gravy. The waitress left. A glance around the restaurant showed me most faces quickly averted, some boldly staring, and a few with studied indifference.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I'm not sure.” Scott rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at me. “I didn't know what I'd do when I saw my daddy. It feels so strange. I hoped my mama would be there. I love both my parents, but it's tough. I guess you always figure you'll be the one to bury your parents, but
sitting there last night was …” He sipped his coffee. “Mostly I remembered stuff from when I was a kid. He used to always take us fishing—nearly every Saturday, when it wasn't planting or harvest. You could go fishing almost every weekend. I remembered the first time he held me in his lap and showed me how to put a worm on a hook. He was patient and gentle. I felt warm and safe and honored for being with my daddy in a quiet and peaceful world only he and I shared. I think I remember the song of every bird, the murmur of every fly, and the water as it touched the banks of the stream. I was the oldest boy, and he was still young and strong. The night before that first trip, I was so excited I couldn't sleep. I must have been four or five.”
I gave him an encouraging murmur. If remembering helped, I would listen for hours. He rarely talked about when he was a kid.
“I remember he used to sing us to sleep when we were scared. Oh, yeah … .” He gazed off into the distance. Scott began to sing softly the words from “Jimmy Crack Corn.” He stopped when tears began to run down his cheeks.
I reached for his hand and covered it with mine. “You're going to be okay,” I said.
I heard someone clear his or her throat. I looked up. Louise was there with orange juice, water, silverware, and napkins. She was staring at our clasped hands as if they were a live rattler squirming toward her. I noted that a good chunk of the other patrons must have witnessed my gesture of affection. I squeezed Scott's hand gently and slowly removed my hand. What was there to hide? If the local paper had made our sexuality front-page news, what was the problem? Everybody knew. A gesture I wouldn't hesitate to make in Chicago was now fraught with significance. If people could radiate collective waves of disapproval, this crowd did.
I glanced at Scott. He wiped his tears and blew his nose.
He didn't need extra aggravation at a time like this. I decided I had best watch my behavior very carefully.
BOOK: Rust On the Razor
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