Read Online Past Due by William Lashner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Lashner
Ads: Link
the girl in the pleated skirt.
“Dad, really, I don’t want to hear it. Is that okay? I just don’t.”
He stayed still for a moment, breathing noisily in and out. I reached for the television remote control, hanging by a cord from the wall, but he yanked it away with surprising strength for a COPDer. “They’re going to kill me,” he said.
“Who?”
“The doctors. With their knives. They’re going to slash out my lungs.”
“That’s the procedure. It’s lung reduction surgery. They explained it all, didn’t they? Something about tidal volume and residual volume. The upshot is that the surgery should increase the amount of useful air your lungs breathe in.”
“I know what they say. But they’re going to kill me.”
“Dad,” I said, “no, they’re not,” but even as I was saying it I was thinking that yes, yes they would.
“You should know about her before I die,” he said. “You need to. About her, about what we did, about what I buried.”
“Dad.”
“Dammit it, just listen for once in your life. Can you? Just listen without being a smart-ass? I don’t ask for much, do I?”
He was right, my father. He didn’t ask for much, he had never asked for much. That was maybe his greatest strength and greatest flaw. He had never asked for much and so was accepting of all thathe had never received. He had never asked for much from me and gotten exactly that. If I had a strength it was that I could accept the truth when it flopped into my face like a dead reeking fish. He never asked for much but he was asking for this, he was asking me to listen. And not just to listen, but to listen actively, to listen in a way that gave full expression to a story his weakened lungs wouldn’t allow him to flesh out by himself. I could do that. The least I could do for my father, my dying father, was to do that. And heaven knows the least from me was the most he could ever expect.
“All right, Dad,” I said. “Go ahead, tell me about her, tell me about the girl in the pleated skirt.”
“I had seen her before,” said my father between rasps of breath.
He had seen her walking down the street, on Locust or Spruce, always dressed prim and proper in an era where that stood out. And he had seen her drive by in the passenger seat of a long burgundy car with a high chrome grill, the girl staring forward, stiff and formal in that beast of a car, luminous, unobtainable. She was like something from a different era with her combed hair spilling behind out of a white hair band, her back straight, her pleated skirt.
Things were just starting to break down then, the social mores of his own boyhood. Hair was getting longer, kids were wearing dirty jeans and sandals, some just let themselves completely go and were proud of it. It was like clothes and hair and cleanliness, everything that once marked a man or woman, didn’t matter anymore. But for my father, they still did. My father was a throwback, like he too was from a different era, with his hair greased and combed back nattily, his pants pressed. Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Fabian, the Philly kids who had made it big on the left coast set the style and that was the way the boys on my father’s block dressed and acted before he did his tour in Germany. When he came back he saw no good reason to change. So he had noticed her when he had spied her, walking on the streets or driving by in that car, because of the way she dressed and the way she carried herself, like a dream from an age that was already passing him by. And of course, she had the face of an angel.
“But this time she walked by me. South Street.” South Street in the sixties. I hadn’t ever thought of my father cruising South Street in the sixties. By then the song had already been written, the song had already hit the charts: Where do all the hippies meet? South Street. Sure, but the conversion isn’t total yet. There is a clash of cultures, the old-style Philly boys and the new-style
“Dad, really, I don’t want to hear it. Is that okay? I just don’t.”
He stayed still for a moment, breathing noisily in and out. I reached for the television remote control, hanging by a cord from the wall, but he yanked it away with surprising strength for a COPDer. “They’re going to kill me,” he said.
“Who?”
“The doctors. With their knives. They’re going to slash out my lungs.”
“That’s the procedure. It’s lung reduction surgery. They explained it all, didn’t they? Something about tidal volume and residual volume. The upshot is that the surgery should increase the amount of useful air your lungs breathe in.”
“I know what they say. But they’re going to kill me.”
“Dad,” I said, “no, they’re not,” but even as I was saying it I was thinking that yes, yes they would.
“You should know about her before I die,” he said. “You need to. About her, about what we did, about what I buried.”
“Dad.”
“Dammit it, just listen for once in your life. Can you? Just listen without being a smart-ass? I don’t ask for much, do I?”
He was right, my father. He didn’t ask for much, he had never asked for much. That was maybe his greatest strength and greatest flaw. He had never asked for much and so was accepting of all thathe had never received. He had never asked for much from me and gotten exactly that. If I had a strength it was that I could accept the truth when it flopped into my face like a dead reeking fish. He never asked for much but he was asking for this, he was asking me to listen. And not just to listen, but to listen actively, to listen in a way that gave full expression to a story his weakened lungs wouldn’t allow him to flesh out by himself. I could do that. The least I could do for my father, my dying father, was to do that. And heaven knows the least from me was the most he could ever expect.
“All right, Dad,” I said. “Go ahead, tell me about her, tell me about the girl in the pleated skirt.”
“I had seen her before,” said my father between rasps of breath.
He had seen her walking down the street, on Locust or Spruce, always dressed prim and proper in an era where that stood out. And he had seen her drive by in the passenger seat of a long burgundy car with a high chrome grill, the girl staring forward, stiff and formal in that beast of a car, luminous, unobtainable. She was like something from a different era with her combed hair spilling behind out of a white hair band, her back straight, her pleated skirt.
Things were just starting to break down then, the social mores of his own boyhood. Hair was getting longer, kids were wearing dirty jeans and sandals, some just let themselves completely go and were proud of it. It was like clothes and hair and cleanliness, everything that once marked a man or woman, didn’t matter anymore. But for my father, they still did. My father was a throwback, like he too was from a different era, with his hair greased and combed back nattily, his pants pressed. Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Fabian, the Philly kids who had made it big on the left coast set the style and that was the way the boys on my father’s block dressed and acted before he did his tour in Germany. When he came back he saw no good reason to change. So he had noticed her when he had spied her, walking on the streets or driving by in that car, because of the way she dressed and the way she carried herself, like a dream from an age that was already passing him by. And of course, she had the face of an angel.
“But this time she walked by me. South Street.” South Street in the sixties. I hadn’t ever thought of my father cruising South Street in the sixties. By then the song had already been written, the song had already hit the charts: Where do all the hippies meet? South Street. Sure, but the conversion isn’t total yet. There is a clash of cultures, the old-style Philly boys and the new-style
Similar Books
