Poor Tom
Breathless, Tom clawed hand over hand at the rope attached to his chest, adjusting his grip while being whipped by willow switch and broken limbs, they hurtled past and over. Dragged on his belly up dry creek bed through high desert canyon, somewhere close to Madras, was all Tom knew for sure. Tried to see past clouds of dust kicked up ahead by some animal that dragged him, a mule, he guessed by the silhouette, led by a man in black, of whom he got an occasional glimpse. Fifteen feet of rope twixt him and them, Tom estimated, attached to a thick metal plate strapped tight to his chest, via some sort of upper body harness and linkage… this was no accident. Hands on rope and elbows spread, his only hope for control… somebody planned it. A ways back he’d ventured a hand to investigate the metal plate and harness attached to his chest but got pitched of a sudden, end over end, by a squat juniper hedge, for what seemed an awful long and painful tumble, before he could get a grip and stabilize his swing. Tom had a knife in his pocket, he often thought of (his father didn’t know he had) but didn’t dare reach for it, as the rocks got bigger, the further they went, and all hands on deck needed to negotiate impending impacts. His arms hurt so bad from repeated slams into rocks and tree trunks and only fear of far worse (tumbling end over end) kept his grip where it was and eyes focused on up the path, head bobbing and weaving to avoid smacks to the face from random vegetation, living and dead.
Fast as it started it stopped… well, Tom did not actually remember how or when it started but clearly they stopped. Face down, arms outstretched, he could no longer feel rope or hands, only metal plate impinging upon his solar plexus and bundled linkage of rope connection, now lumped in his gut, made it hard to breathe, breath voluntary and driven by need. This singular focus on rapid short breath, met frantic prompts from within to detach or cut the rope, lest the torture resume. But arms and legs splayed, would not activate. Pain in chest and need of breath—the only clear feelings he had left.
“I brung y’ thus far son but y’ gotta go the rest on yer lonesome. I cain’t cross the Jordan, anymore’n I can breathe underwater!” A voice! Sounded like… Johnny Cash? The rope engaged and again he was dragged on ahead by the hands, as the mule sought water. Tom tried to see but neck limp, head twisted back, face scraping dirt… saw only rocks and dust as they passed. The harness bit into his back but the plate lifted slightly off his chest, allowing for deeper breaths, “We done the best we could with what we had,” the man said as he dragged and lifted Tom until he lay face first against a rock wall, “made the most of it, most a the time and more’n others would’ve, tell you what. Bent over backwards give’n y’all a leg up. You only got yerself t’ blame,” he crouched and whispered in Tom’s ear, “You stepped in to a burn’n ring a fire, boy.”
Tom’s chest swelled with resentment of… his father? Talking to him like that… to him!? He the loser if anybody ever was… or was it Johnny Cash? Tom didn’t know. His father loved Johnny Cash—The Man in Black, and so did Tom, until The Stones came along and rock ‘n roll took off. Why would he do this to him, his own father? Tom cried out, but no one answered and then a flood of relief hit, as the harness and steel plate disengaged and fell away. Tom peed his pants and gulped, like at first ever breaths, like a little baby, he guessed, as the man in black jammed Tom’s hands into a narrow crack and positioned them so he hung, face to rock, torso vertical, legs horizontal, stabbing pain in his lower back, bent at what seemed an impossible angle, near as not to break in half.
Tom felt on his face a trickle… water? Up against a moss covered dam of limestone block cut from southern Indiana quarries in 1970 and stacked tight at a slight incline against the water pressure behind… didn’t know how he knew all that, still too dark to see… or was his face just pressed into thick layers of dry moss getting wet with water, trickling now from between his hands, stuck in cracks but… bound? Was he bound or not bound? Tom forgot when last he’d had a drink, or time to think. Once wet reached his lips he suckled… just enough to swish and spit, grit twixt his teeth… erosion of the moss bed, no doubt undisturbed until now. Bent like that, stabbing pain in back, fear of losing consciousness, he summoned all he had to shift position and free his hands. Built momentum for the impending attempt with shoulder shrugs and butt lifts, waited for the perfect moment when… with a lift and hard twist, he managed to heave himself around somehow, almost passed out from the pain in his back. Wedged in a crack between blocks, his hands held fast, arms now crossed in front of his face, legs straight, heels on a slight ledge, toes dangling above a dark abyss, sensation returning to limbs. He had a hard time accounting for this transition but no need greater than the present… Tom strained his eyes in blue moonlight… could see harness and steel plate hung from a broom handle stuck in the rocks beside him. Thinner than it seemed, when crushing his chest… rusted, bent and stamped with letters that read: D.A.M. Dreams All Mine. Tom thought—This is it! Sensation in his arms again, he jerked at his hands, still unsure what held them, as increasing volumes of water ran down and over his head. Anticipating a breach in the dam and/or possible avalanche—a freefall sickening impulse, he tried not to have… Tom redoubled his efforts to get back his hands and finally did, pulled them down as if doing a rep on the Universal weight machine back in college. And down they came, evenly the same, uncrossed from the blocks they were wedged with. Slimy water spouted from his mouth, as, hands free now, he scrambled up, spitting water out, staggered maybe would be better said, on legs of lead, to stay above the deluge tearing at the holes he’d left, blowing out block after block on his heels as he fled. Reaching the still stable rim, he watched from this tenuous perch, twixt falls and a disturbed lake of uncertain depth, bleached bags tumble out a hole in the dam. Eyes adjusting through the thundering mist, he saw… they weren’t bleached bags at all but bloated bodies, pale as a blue moon, churning in a white water flood down the canyon, some, caught on branches, posed in vaguely suggestive positions.
Tom gasped and sat up… what? Where was he? In a too small bed? Where? The choked up smell of mold… big painful lumps in throat and chest, coughed violently and groped his way to standing, leg asleep, a million pinpricks… cold concrete wall his hand was on or cinder block? He rubbed his eyes and wrists, could see across the room and limped to a laundry sink, splashed his face, recognized splatters of paint on the wall above it… remembered this was his mother’s basement… poster of Bo Derek, from the movie ‘10’… used to be his… looked back in dim light at where he’d been… black wrought iron, too small bed… pinstripe mattress, bare and stained, green sleeping bag, unzipped, pillow but no case, billowing cobwebs. Same bag he’d had as a kid… too small bed. Still dressed, boots off, exhausted… pants wet and cold. He shuffled back… felt sick, throat hurt and chest, coughing up phlegm, spit into a towel, hoped it wasn’t pneumonia again. They told him that might happen. In his mother’s basement? He curled up under the bag again but his pants were wet… and the bed. Wondered—how’d they get wet? Must have peed the bed… Ugh! Insult to injury! Up quick or it’ll soak in! His mother would say to Teri, when she did, across the hall from him, as a kid. But not him! He jumped up, undressed and threw everything in the wash, added double detergent and started it. Cleaned himself at the sink and dried with the shirt he’d had on, shivered over to and rifled thru some clothes in a trash bag, all of which smelled like cow shit and/or sour milk, got dressed and surveyed the dismal scene. In one corner, occupying a quarter of the basement at least, stacked floor to ceiling, his remains—furniture, boxes and crates, hurriedly thrown in his truck before being escorted off the farm by the county Sherriff. Everything else, all the stuff Cindy left, went into an enormous dumpster, provided (free of charge) by the bank. Tools, the only thing he cared much about and his truck. Tom could not remember—where was his truck? He threw on a stinky coat that smelled of sour milk and sweat, ran upstairs and outside, barefoot in the rain, saw his truck in the driveway… blocked by Teri’s car! No space anywhere on the street. No way!
Tom ran back inside, could not stand being blocked by Teri. His mom, Constance, was in the kitchen making coffee and breakfast for Sally—Tom’s niece, who sat at the table playing with Teri’s phone.
“Where’s Teri’s keys?”
“What? Good morning to you too… got somewhere to be?”
“Where are they? She’s blocking me in.”
“I don’t know. Everything okay, Tom?”
“Everything okay?” Tom, by this question perplexed, knew he shouldn’t be, “No, not ok, mom. Sorry but I’d just like to focus on moving Teri’s car? Blocked in, need to leave like—now.”
“Sit Tom, eat. Coffee, I’m making… Teri’ll be down… she’s get’n the boys up. It’s 6 o’clock Tom. Where y’ go’n?”
“Mom! Stop with the questions. Where’s Teri’s keys?”
“In her purse so she always knows right where they are,” Sally said.
“Where’s the purse?”
“Tom Brown! You do not dig thru your sister’s purse!”
“By the stairs so she always…”
“Sally Mae—hush!” Sally slumped in her seat and focused more intently on the phone screen, playing some game. Tom went to the front entry, where Teri’s purse hung on a newel post at the base of the stairs. He opened it and started looking. Full of crap… was about to pour everything out, when Teri appeared, top of the steps, “What’re you do’n? Get outa my purse, jerk!” She hurried down the stairs and snatched it from him.
“Move your car… you blocked me in.”
“Jesus, Tom… it’s the crack a fuck’n dawn!”
“Don’t park behind me and we won’t have to do this!”
“Ok—Fred! What is up with you… first thing in the morning?”
Tom would look back and marvel at how, first morning at his mom’s house, he felt like a man with an open wound spurting blood, everyone acting like nothing’s wrong—same old, same old Tom. But at that moment, he had no such perspective, only a blind drive to get the fuck out of that house! “Move your fuck’n car! Or I’ll back over the piece a shit!” He spun right into his mom, Sally close behind, phone in hand, extended obediently towards Teri, who took it.
“Tom Brown! Stop it, right now! You are in my house! What is wrong with you?”
That was all he heard as he sidestepped them, ran back to and down the narrow basement steps, grabbed keys, billfold and coat, ran out and started his truck, warmed it up and sat for an hour at least, listening to The Jim Rome sports show, grinding his teeth while he searched for jobs on his phone. Did not even look at the house, until after Teri and kids came out, piled into her car and left, whence Tom went back in, made some toast with jam, poured coffee in a thermos and drove out 84 East to the Columbia gorge. Steady rain, sky a monotone gray, he kept a close eye on the gas gauge and turned back when it read half, as he had no money for gas, had no money at all and no prospects. Cindy, his ex- (divorce not finalized yet) had cheated, stolen money, bailed on their organic dairy, left him high and dry to try and save it by himself—an impossible task he’d failed at, had to let it go and file for bankruptcy, accept humiliation, wrecked credit, relationships gone bad. Tom had one dollar and eight cents in his pocket, was fighting with the bank to keep his truck from being repossessed. He had a large jar which held maybe fifty bucks in change but that was it, everything else—net negative. There was a war going on inside him. The determination to rise again undermined by dark inertia—life sucking and heavily fortified. To the occasion, Tom had never in his life been unable to rise. Competitive swimmer at age eight, he practiced six days a week, rode his bike, rain or shine, never got a ride. Excellent in distance events, he only quit when organized basketball began in fifth grade and he could not do both. Only acceptable excuse for missing basketball activities in Indiana was serious illness and/or impending death—not swim meets. Being a swimmer got you labeled ‘sissy’, back then, for wearing Speedo panties in public. Tom, always the tallest and best in his class at most things, learned discipline from athletics—show up every day, every play and give your all, no matter how you feel and never reveal how you feel unless it intimidates your opponent. This was Tom’s biggest complaint about Cindy—lack of discipline and reflex production of reasons why she could not do her share of difficult tasks, seemed oblivious to the fact that he would do them instead. If he brought it up or suggested imbalance—she launched an attack which left him speechless, called him a patriarchal remnant, said it was his own poverty mentality manifesting in their relationship, never enough could get done to satisfy him, lack, lack, lack was all he could see. Tom, tail tucked, shrunk away and did whatever it was himself, seething with resentment.
Returning home to peace and quiet, Tom descended the basement steps, smelled smoke and found a teenage boy, hunched over his phone, smoking a cigarette on Tom’s bed! “Who the fuck are you?” Tom asked but didn’t wait for an answer, “Put that out—now!” The boy looked up as if Tom spoke a language he didn’t understand, face expressionless, “You no speak English?” He took another drag, blew smoke out the side of his mouth, snuffed and tucked it behind an ear. Tom saw a new pack of Marlboro Reds, on the floor by the bed and stepped on them, felt the cellophane pop, cigarettes flatten.
“Hey, fuck!” That got his attention. He jumped up, dropped his phone and tried to push Tom off the crushed cigarettes but Tom grabbed his wrists and held them.
“You're on my coat, Dumbass!” He screamed at Tom in obvious pain.
“And I’ll be on you, you don't chill the fuck out!” Tom threw him back on the bed. The boy hit his head on the wall but showed no signs of distress, started feeling all over the bed, looking for his phone.
“Who are you? Sorry ‘bout the rough treatment but you’re in my house.”
“I live here! Who’re you?” Phone found, he returned his attention to it.
“I live here! That’s my bed—get off it!” This gave Tom physical pain to say, about that too short bed, but he felt competition from this kid, turned and looked at his stuff, made sure it was his. The kid bolted up the steps. Tom followed, three at a time, caught him in the kitchen, “Don’t touch me!” He reacted so violently, Tom let go.
“Where’s Constance, my mother?” Tom could see the kid knew who he was, stayed put when he thought he would run, crossed his arms in defiance, “What’s your name kid?”
“J-Justin.”
“And…”
“And what?”
“Why are you here… in our house?”
“I live here.”
“Since when?”
“Foster home. Today.”
This was like a punch to the gut. Foster kid? He had to live in a house with Teri and four kids? A snot-nose teenage boy who smokes cigarettes? “No smoke in the house—capiche?”
He just shrugged, sat down at the kitchen table and took out his phone again.
“Right… okay… know where she is?”
“Who?” He didn’t look up.
“Foster Mom, Short Bus! Constance!” Tom sounded like his father now.
“Fuck you, asshole!” Justin gave him the finger.
“Listen dude! I’m in the dark over here,” he pointed at the basement steps, “I come home, smart ass kid on my bed, smoke’n a cigarette, flip’n attitude when I ask him not to… so let’s start over. Know where my mother is?” Tom felt of a sudden nauseous and light headed as he asked this, realized he’d only had jam and toast and coffee, grabbed a mug intending to pour some more.
“Some guy offed himself… Fred something, I think. She went to tell your sister… at work.”
Tom swooned, looked at and could see Justin knew who Fred was and Teri, same as he.
“That your dad?” He asked, matter of fact.
Is that possible? Tom flipped quick thru everyone he knew named Fred. There was none other his mother would run off to tell Teri about. He staggered to the sink, only with the utmost determination, filled his cup with water, drank deliberate slow gulps, coaxing swallows past throat and chest lumps. Tom did not notice Justin leave… only put the cup down on the counter and stood for a long while, staring into the sink at coffee grounds, bits of American cheese, a broken tea bag, soggy bread and lettuce leaf, decomposing…
Fred Brown filled up with gas at ‘76 on Main, like he always did, drove to an apartment complex he owned in Brownsburg and pulled his 2014 Coupe de Ville into the garage of a vacant unit, wrote a note on an envelope and stuck it to the dashboard with a thumbtack. Most radical thing he’d done in his life perhaps—make a hole in his dash with a thumbtack… totally uncharacteristic… would have punished the kids for doing it. Raised on fear and strict obedience, he remembered what not to do, beat into submission with a belt or threats. No excuses… he made it… cheated his way through college, worked hard and had a successful career. Affairs along the way… seemed right at the time, justified. He knew how to move on and forget, water under the bridge, walked out on his first family and felt nothing—a change of routine, new monthly payments. Earned his keep, never got fired or beat anyone, paid child support on time, taxes. His father, a nasty drunk, beat his mother and kids every chance he got. Made the boys get jobs soon as the law said—pay to live in his house, ignored the girls, more or less. Fred’s kids did not appreciate how good they had it. But how could they? Fred reread his note as he duct taped the crack around an exhaust hose sticking thru the window: Sorry for the worst. Did the best I could. Made some mistakes but always loved you kids. Appreciate what you have. It can go away fast… he didn’t sign it, just started the car, reclined his seat all the way back and, so tired… took a nap…
Firefighters found him, two hours later, dead… after a woman, lived next door, smelled gas, saw smoke and called it in.
Tom stood staring into the sink hole, mind blank but more than blank—gone. Offline, he later called it, like the one who knows, vanished… but started up again when Justin slammed the front door. The whole house shook. Tom not amazed so much as certain… but of what he wasn’t sure, other than something way out of the ordinary occurred.
“Ol’ lady back yet?” Justin asked, for no particular reason, as he shuffled into the kitchen, sagging pants, some long green sugar covered worm hanging out his mouth. Tom looked at his reflection a moment in the window and did not recognize himself, felt old. His phone rang and Constance told him his father was dead, killed himself with car exhaust. Tom laughed, tried not to… but it burst forth like a breached dam. She scolded him and said they’d be home soon, asked in a hopeful voice, “Did you meet Justin?” Tom hung up without answering.
“What room you in?” He asked Justin who sat at the kitchen table, playing with his phone.
“Basement.”
“No,” Tom said, then, “Where’d you sleep last night?”
“Basement.”
“No you didn’t. I was down there.”
“Last house. I come here this morn’n, genius. You write’n a book or what?”
“Well… not this one. I’ll talk to mom and we’ll figure it out. Why aren’t you at school?”
Justin shrugged, played something on his phone and munched sour worms.
The women returned, Constance supporting Teri, who sobbed loudly and shuffled along like any second she might collapse. Mom looked at Tom, as if to pass her off, but he pretended not to notice, poured coffee, ignored Teri and sat down at the table with a jar of peanut butter and some bread. Teri was a drama queen and Tom would not indulge it. Once on the living room couch, Constance got some ginger-ale and slices of apple with peanut butter for her. When she returned to the kitchen and started wiping down counters, Tom said, “Mom, we need to talk. A foster kid?” He pointed at Justin, “Aren’t things cramped enough?”
“Justin, you get some breakfast Honey?”
“Yup,” he nodded without looking up.
“No, he didn’t. All he ate was candy. Candy for breakfast!”
“Tom… settle down, please? There is a lot going on, we are trying to sort out.”
Tom got up from the table and approached her, “You’re not going to the funeral?”
Constance stopped wiping the counter, put down her sponge, took him by both arms and said, “Tom, we are not the only ones in this room. I will talk to you about this later…”
“No—now,” Tom demanded, “He doesn’t care. You encouraged me to move here. You didn’t mention a foster kid. Where’s he gonna sleep?” Sick of being kept in the dark, he felt like leaving right then but couldn’t think of anywhere to go.
“Honey,” she reached up and took his face in her wet clammy hands, “You’ve been thru a lot, I know and believe me, I wish things were different. We’ve all been thru a lot—Teri’s divorce, Justin’s transition… and now this.”
“Okay, Mom,” he took her hands from his face, gently lowered and held them, “Why a foster kid? And why are you going to that jerk’s funeral?”
“Stop it!” Teri barked from the living room and sobbed louder.
“That’s your only father Tom. You think about it,” she freed a hand and pointed at his heart, “You get one shot at this and that’s it—live with the consequences the rest of your life.”
“I already live with the consequences the rest of my life, Mom. Don’t see what this changes or how it makes him anything but a dumber asshole.”
“Stop it, Tom!” Teri shrieked, got up and staggered into the kitchen, sobbing. Tom, grabbed his jacket, brushed her aside and left, went for a walk to the ReBuilding Center. When he returned, two hours later, his mother had five flights booked to Indianapolis and had given Teri, now asleep on the couch, a valium, she got from a neighbor. Justin gone, a post-traumatic calm set in and Tom for the first time that day, did not feel about to explode. The impromptu walk, availability of cheap material and the needs of an expanding household, gave him some much needed direction.
“Mom?” Tom sat down at the table, followed by Constance with two cups of coffee, just like she had so many times for Fred, when Tom was a kid, “At the ReBuilding Center I found materials to frame out and finish walls enough for two basement rooms. They got foam insulation cheap. I trade labor for rent and you buy materials… think it’ll come in around $300, if that. A couple months rent for me and I’ll get the outside door unstuck so you can lease rooms after we’re gone or take on more foster kids if you want. I hear people are making big money with something called Air B and B and rents are thru the roof. Why a foster kid? You never mentioned that. Isn’t that something I should know?”
Constance looked tired—tending to others was all she ever did. Bubble bath and romance novel before bed, her only indulgences, the occasional chocolate. She held up a hand and counted out reasons starting with a thumb, “You got no job, lawyer costs, Teri’s got no settlement, Jim pays nothing, I could get laid off… for starters. We get $1200 a month for Justin to live here and he’s got his own food card—need I go on? As far as Fred’s death goes? Cheryl and the kids won’t have anything to do with him, refused to handle the arrangements, “Suicide’s a grave sin,” she says. His family’s all dead. Breaks my heart. He took care of them. Woman hasn’t worked in twenty years! Paid for the kids’ college.”
So that’s how you got sucked in… Tom thought, Cheryl and the kids? Sensible enough to shed his toxic presence, want nothing to do with the foul waste of his remains! Tom wanted to say but knew better than to antagonize his mother, “I know you laid out a lot for this, Mom and I admire your spunk, always have. I understand if $300 is too much. I’ll make do. We can pull out the couch for Justin. I need the basement. Sorry I can’t go but I can’t, makes no sense.”
Constance nodded and patted his hand. She knew Tom would not go to the funeral. Still felt bad about their alienation from Fred—she’d been neutral towards at best. Justin was not allowed to stay alone so she needed Tom home, needed to go do this for Teri and the kids. Scooting her chair back, she got up, crossed the kitchen, opened the freezer, pulled out five pounds of hamburger, set it in the sink to thaw for supper and then a Tupperware container, closed the freezer and returned with it to the table. Inside, foil wrapped, was a roll of cash in a rubber band. She peeled away three hundreds and laid them out, “This is there,” nodded at the freezer, “if you need more,” raised an eyebrow and held up the roll as she replaced rubber band and foil, scooted back her chair and returned the Tupperware to its spot in the freezer, making sure Tom could see where—below the Otter Pops box. Tom knew his mom had hiding spots, places she kept emergency funds, a thing that drove Fred nuts—never being able to account for what she’d hid, suspected she had a source of income not his. He was an accountant, believed balance achieved only in the light of dispassionate transparency and since no one ever met that gold standard (Tom failed early on and Teri was a born liar) Fred excused his own deviations. Those who cannot deliver truth, are not subject to its privilege.
“You become what you do,” he’d tell Tom as a kid, “Get what you deserve,” and Tom believed him—wanted to become a professional baseball or basketball player, worked hard. Even in swimming, early on, Tom had great success and if he’d had a father would drive him to out of town meets or pay for him to stay overnight in Cincinnati or Indianapolis? Sky was the limit, perhaps the Olympics. But those things weren’t in the budget and the bottom line measured out their lives. Tom witnessed often as a kid, his mother being interrogated for a breach in discipline. It might have been a hot parking lot where they sat, windows up, so no one would hear Fred dress her down, for giving in and buying the kids chocolate, “Don’t give in to them! You could have purchased gallons of milk for what that cost! Use your head! Give them chocolate bars and they want a drink. Give them drinks and they need to pee! We have to stop! It all costs money, Constance!” It always seemed her fault and she’d turn to the backseat, rally Tom and Teri, make them save the rest, “Wrap it up, make it last! Save the rest for later, after supper,” Tom would argue with her, melting chocolate in his hand, aware his father watched in the rearview mirror, making sure he didn’t eat it, knew how much was there and yelled, “Tom!” if it approached his lips, hit the brakes, reached his hand back as if to smack him. Tom felt every pleasure he ever had should last and last. Fred dead… felt good, the best thing he ever did—realized what a worthless piece of shit he was and ended it.
“I know you know better now,” he used to tell Tom about things he didn’t want him to do, “That means you understand the consequences and will be accounted justice as such, without backtalk,” Omniscience = God knows you know better… Mrs. Schuler wrote on the chalkboard and assured their Sunday school class that God knows everything in thought and deed and judges them accordingly. Tom tested this, thought he’d be able to feel it, watched his thoughts and deeds for signs and hints of sins he wanted to commit or needed to confess? Nothing much stood out, no influence felt and most of his urges and deeds were tame compared to what his peers pulled off, who did not seem to suffer much either, in this world anyway.
When Tom was 13 and Teri 10, Fred left and never looked back. Tom refused to join the church and, after Fred repeatedly threatened violence, his mother backed him. They separated and both kids refused to go to their father’s house, ten miles outside town. Constance tried to convince them they should give it a chance but ultimately supported their decision when he threatened to go after sole custody if she did not force them to stay with him on schedule. She told him she would expose all the times he hit the kids and her and talk about his affairs and name names. So… after the divorce, Fred sold his house and moved to Brownsburg, married an old girlfriend and had three more kids. Never spoke to any of them again, even though Constance sent Christmas and him birthday cards, every year.
Next day, Tom drove his mom, Teri and kids to the airport, “Hey Tom, I heard Cindy and Maya moved to Por…” Teri said, soon as she got the kids settled in. Tom did not want to hear it and went off the road into loose gravel, “Tom!” She predictably screamed, “Watch where you’re going!” He turned up the radio, wondering—did they move to Portland? The possibility of seeing her now, hung like a toxic cloud, every time he went out.
Tom talked more with his mom about the basement and gave her a hug, as Teri unloaded the kids and their bags on the curb. Once they were all out and situated, he climbed back in and pulled away, headed straight for The ReBuilding Center. Found most of what he needed there and raided dumpsters late night/early mornings for the rest. Built two rooms in the basement, insulated walls and ceiling with four inch foam—stuff Justin brought home one day, unsolicited. He seemed interested in helping so Tom showed him where construction dumpsters were and texted him pictures of what they needed. Didn’t ask where he got stuff, at first, paid him pennies on the dollar for it. Also sent him on runs to Hankin’s Hardware, for things they needed right away. Justin would always ride the twenty blocks, rain or shine, on his ridiculous too small bike, pants half down, underwear billowing out in the wind, hooded sweatshirt, weaving through traffic, on and off the sidewalk, jumping curbs, no helmet. One morning a 250 foot roll of 12-2 Romex wire appeared, along with a high end Panasonic exhaust fan, still in the box and several new arc-fault circuit breakers, very expensive. Tom told him to stop then, suspected he got into one of the multi-unit building projects going up along MLK, but didn’t press the issue or really want to know. Constance said something about his being on probation before she left. Justin loved being out at night and Tom was supposed to enforce a curfew but didn’t, figured if he got in trouble… good riddance.
They lived at NE 20th and Going, a Portland four-square, not near as big as it looked from the curb, certainly not big enough for four kids and three adults to live comfortably in. One bathroom on the second floor, in serious need of an update, cracked and curling vinyl, smells of bleach and pee, cast iron pedestal sink and claw foot tub with rust stains around the drains, gooseneck shower extension, all wrapped in a stinking mass of clear plastic curtain dotted with tropical fish. Floaty toys all over the place. Tom offered to remodel it several times since moving to Oregon and Constance was amenable, saved money to do it but the farm consumed him. One bathroom insufficient, Tom made an executive decision to put another in the basement, assumed his mother would go along or he would pay for it somehow, if she didn’t.
He found a fiberglass shower pan and brand new surround kit (corner of a nail flange broke off, was all) in a dumpster, used his concrete saw to cut a foot wide swath, eight feet long, broke it up with a sledge and dug a twenty inch deep trench for the drain pipe. At one end of the trench a two foot square hole exposed the 4" cast iron main line, where he cut in an ABS 4x3 Tee. Justin helped, sprayed with the hose to cool the blade and control dust as they cut concrete, smoked cigarettes while doing this and refused to use a respirator, when Tom offered. Figuring a cigarette filter was better than nothing, Tom bought him a pack (to replace the ones he’d crushed) and suggested he chain smoke, which he got a big kick out of and did. Helped smash out the cut concrete with a sledge hammer, for about five minutes, until he got tired and left. Tom worked twenty hours straight, got it done more or less—concrete poured, toilet, sink and shower set. Surrounded the open sides with a hospital curtain on roller track, hung from a curved metal channel he found in a dumpster at Providence Hospital, along with waiting room chairs, coffee and side tables and two kid size couches, he used to furnish both their rooms.
This manic activity kept his mind occupied. Getting things done was good for Tom and the rosy fatigue, just before sleep… best part of the day until dreams. Was beginning to feel he might even like Portland, some things, and getting work would be easy with so much building but… another strange event from out of nowhere overwhelmed this uptick and sent him into a tailspin. In the garage, one morning towards the end of the project, needing paint to finish the basement bathroom with, Tom set up a rickety wooden step ladder, a little too far from the storage loft than he liked. All the kids bikes and scooters and pogo sticks were in the way and he didn’t want to move them. Standing on the second from top step and reaching out to his left, one hand on a rafter for support, he moved cans around and found the one he wanted. Full but without a handle, so he had to use both hands and no sooner did he lift it than the ladder twisted, tipped and Tom, falling back, stretched out his arms with the can and somehow caught the edge of an eight foot tall Athenian head, made of painted plywood which leaned against two of the posts supporting the loft. It was the entry door through which basketball players ran while being introduced at Crawfordsville High School. Something Tom had done many times—followed tumbling cheerleaders into the roaring mayhem of a sell-out crowd. But now, caught at a forty-five degree angle, face up, stretched out over a mass of bikes, scooters, skateboards and pogo sticks. Every muscle straining to keep the paint can’s bottom edge tight against the top of the Athenian head, feet trapped by the ladder, which was twisted and wedged against a dividing wall. He had either to pull it back under him or… fall. Saw no hope for letting go of the can, nothing else to grab so he pressed back on it with everything he had and twisted his legs, hard. The ladder snapped and Tom, managed a half spin to land upright, feet between bikes, face to face with the Athenian, can still in hands for a moment before falling back on top of the tangled mess. A massive rush of adrenaline came from what could have been much worse—only a sharp pain in his back from a handlebar jab.
Scrambling out, he cursed Teri for carting that stupid head around in the first place (even though it very likely saved him). Her senior year, they built a new gym, stopped using it and she won the raffle at Homecoming to give it away, called Tom at college that same night and told him, as if he gave a shit. Admitted later—she rigged the raffle! All the names in the hat were hers or Jenna’s, her best friend, fellow cheerleader and class president, who picked the winner and disposed of the evidence, like any responsible representative. Tom hung up. He lived in the present not the past, could care less about the Athenian head or Teri’s low moral standards… Thought of what he could do with it in the basement… cut it up somehow, paint it? Looked at the paint can—dark blue, Dutch Boy, eggshell finish. Something about that seemed strange to him… like déjà vu and it happened again, same as at the kitchen sink in the wake of his father’s death—a blip in consciousness … nothingness… then… the undifferentiated… paint can still in hand and looking at it, some amount of time passed. Eventually he came back, realized it had happened but remained unalarmed, somewhat soothed even. He stood tall, felt blessed, knew not what to make of them and yet reassured somehow in their painless passage that these blips had a purpose. He had a sense of being reset, brain recalibrated to a new frequency or something—a brief relief from accumulated grief, he thought and waited for an explanation or reason to click in, void to fill out with recognizable significance… how did it happen? What was this? The paint can brought him back. See what you’re looking at… he could hear his old coach say. The Little Dutch Boy… popped into his head, a story his mother read him about some kid who saved his village—plugged a hole in the dyke a long time with his thumb, until help arrived.
“We done the best we could with what we had,” Tom said or thought or heard said. This reanimated somehow, the dream he’d had that first morning in his mother’s basement. A flicker of revelation… followed hard upon by high voltage defibrillation, a shock wave omnipresent—physical, emotional, mental, elemental, spiritual, all cried out at once… as if the bodies from his dream somehow poisoned all existence, ran through his very veins, the past itself undammed, run rampant out of order, an avalanche of fragments displaced from what held them, now all jagged edges tearing down the path and whatever else they met to shreds.
What happened next defies description… Tom’s mind flipped thru so much at first flush there was nothing to do but survive it. The worst imaginable pain, the very pith of being exposed, his continuity of thought collapsed, as if the dream dam had been its only support. He dropped the can and got out of the garage by focusing on his breath, looking down at each step, progressed by sheer force of will and repetition—like anything else but getting to his bed by the minimum amount of steps, meant craziness would win and whoever went on living, would regret it
Tom curled up in a ball beneath his old sleeping bag with the phrase, “You stepped into a ring of fire, boy…” rattling thru his brain, stillness the only relief—relentlessly sought, approached but never quite achieved… a dangled carrot. A long slow fall thru cold dark space, like Scrooge, shown his checkered path in chains, flickering past replayed. His? Was that his suffering? Had he a choice or chance for change? To answer for the misdeeds… of his ancestors? On who’s terms? Tom saw no way to correlate what he thought with what he felt or in his head replayed. Lines of continuity scrambled, he found some relief by pressing palms together and with hands between his upper thighs, rocking to short shallow breath. Justin came in, after a long time of this, his bed banging the wall, “You okay? I found your phone… heard it… in the garage. Think it’s your mom,” he moved a table close to Tom’s bed and put the phone on it, refilled his water glass. Tom said, “Thanks J.,” but that was it. Lost all track of time after that.
Next thing Tom knew, his mom, bent over him, nudged his shoulder and, face very close to his, said, “Tom?”
“What?” He said, without opening his eyes, same thing he did last time she tried to needle him. Brain like dried up glue caked on the inside of… wherever he was. Severely dehydrated, he had stopped drinking to avoid bathroom trips, each a painful crawl across cold concrete to a toilet he couldn’t clean. Reason seemed to escape him.
“Come on now… you need something to eat and drink. Here, have some water, sit up.”
His mother… had the authority to move him. She’d grown impatient with his mysterious collapse, of a sudden, just before they got back from his father’s funeral service. Tom sat, exhausted, sick, disoriented. His back hurt bad, stomach and one eyelid twitched, drank some water and had to lay down again, felt nauseous, shooting pains down the back of both legs.
“Four days in bed… we need to talk Tom. All the money from the freezer’s gone, when I got home. Did you use it for the bathroom? I really like, by the way… although I wish you’d asked. Makes me nervous, without any permits. I know your message said… well, I just wanted to tell you, your father left you his Cadillac, which Cheryl’s brother John is going to sell on your behalf. Hope that’s okay? I said, go ahead. Don’t see how you were going to get it and he can get a good deal, knows a guy at the auction…”
“Mom,” Tom waved a hand and shook his head.
“Hmm?”
“I hurt my back… real bad. Need to rest.”
“Okay… but that mattress is awful and… did you? The money? From the freezer?”
“Yes, yes… take the car. I’ll get it back to you. The money… I get a job… soon.”
“No worries,” she patted his hand, “just wanted to make sure, you know… where it went? Feel like you could eat some chicken soup? I made a pot… or just broth? Oh, and Teri got a new job, a promotion, I mean, making more money. She’s a department manager now, more hours too.”
“Mom! Please?” Tom pointed fingers like with a gun to his head and feigned a shot.
“I’ll get you a bowl. I see you’ve got the microwave,” she said, stood up and left.
Tom did not register her return with the soup. Although he did later eat it, dragged the microwave by the cord to his bed, heated and gulped it down, burned his mouth but soon fell back into the phantasmagorical replay of past events, he seemed unable to do anything but witness. Tom did not remember any of what happened like that… his memory until then had been a linear concatenation of facts—dates, times, names, places, who came with whom, what they said, when they went and how, had no feelings really about any of it, except hatred for his father perhaps, although… even memories of him were at times melancholic and somewhat pleasant. Whatever the past had kept hid, was back now and blasting away at all semblance of who he thought he was, doing what, and when… if he ever did?
Nothing quite describes it… interpenetrating dreams, animated by cross-references, appearing in no clear pattern, like startling blue streaks flashed at random across Tom’s inner horizon and exploded with nebulous feeling, “Clouds of meaning,” he heard repeat like the steep uphill chug of a steam locomotive or pronouncement by judge of a sentence, “An opening maintaining its clearance…” The hardest track ever and breathing hard, “Life feeds upon life… it’s the way of the world…” driven by a heart he felt might just figure this ain’t worth it and quit, yet bounced back over and over again—bang-bang, jump, thump and pump on, do what you can to get back on track, start again, stack another sandbag against further slips. Keep your head down, hold fast—want to turn out like the old man, desiring your own death?
Unconscious of having slept, in the wake of shallow sleep, things veered towards broken dreams—Tom chased by boys with clubs and knives who wanted to beat him, mostly. That or women in lab coats concealing syringes to stick him with. But even wide awake, sitting up, dragging himself to the bathroom and back to bed, his mind would crackle with passing car shadow or branch taps on a window startle. Laundry scent could shock him back into painful frames of regress, anxiety ridden past—Cindy leaving, full of regrets, fear of being cut, incurable diseases, punishment for which was his present circumstance. Tom had never hurt so much, always been strong as an ox, able to do whatever, admired by others. Herniated disc… a stabbing pain in his brain to say… an eye twitch.
Spring of his junior year Tom witnessed, the best player at his college and good friend, Bernard Sims, crumple to the floor with a sharp twinge in his back, “One of the best to ever play here,” Coach always said. “Felt like being stabbed,” Bernard later told Tom, who had been spotting him in a squat set. He never played again. Herniated a disc, last rep of the last set… and still in chronic pain over three decades and two surgeries later, coaches high school basketball in Chicago, standing up. Tom had known so many men who suffered chronic ailments that started like this or stemmed from sports or vehicle accidents. Sharp twinge one day out trimming the hedge and you’re never the same, “You’re not them and that’s not what this is…” he repeated ad nauseam.