Read Online There's a Man With a Gun Over There by R. M. Ryan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: R. M. Ryan
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even though I havenât passed up a chance to drive a car since I got my driverâs license.
Traveling Milton Avenue to the Main Street Bridge, we pass through downtown. The stores have been there forever, I think. Forever. Time slows again . . . slower and slower the stores go by. They never change. Theyâll never go away, will they? Not the Clark gas station with its little plaqueâ On this spot in 1898, Carrie Jacobs Bond wrote âI Love You Truly.â Not Harrison Chevrolet, Wisconsin Bell, Woolworthâs . . . slowly, slowly going by. My mother bent over the steering wheel, looking straight ahead, hypnotized by the vaporous draw of an opaque future.
âWhereâs my watch?â my dad says when he wakes up. âWhat time is it? Did he get it all?â
âThere, there, Earl,â my mother says. A nurse propels the gurney my fatherâs lying on through the warren of hallways in the basement of Mercy Hospital. My mother and I trot beside it, trying to keep up. My mother tries to hold my fatherâs hand as we move along, but the nurse keeps pushing him out ahead of us, as if my father is on his way to an urgent meeting somewhere. A second nurse trots along with an IV on wheels. Its tube is hooked to my fatherâs arm. A clear plastic bag sits on the end of his bed, holding dark blood and tissue, the black, oozing detritus of his surgery.
âItâs kind of early, isnât it?â my father asks the world, the heavens over him.
I look over at my father. He has fat tears in his eyes. Since heâs lying down, they donât drain away. He shakes his head. âNo.â He seems to be mouthing the word, âNo.â His mouth quivers with his silent crying. My mother pats his hands as she trots along, saying, âThere, there,â over and over. My father sobs, gagging on his tears.
20.
T ime passed in a dream. Days, I worked in the Janesville Chevrolet assembly plant, earning money to pay for my last years of college. Nights and weekends, I took care of my father.
He never had a chance. He had barely recovered from the surgery when the cancer got him in its final grip. It squeezed the flesh right out of him. He must have lost a pound a day until, by early June, he looked like one of those whoâs barely survived a concentration camp. He was all bones and tendons and ligaments. His skin hung like a loose-fitting costume over the wires and pulleys of his skeletal system.
We all tried to hope, but the disease just took everything out of him. His head was just this skull with giant eyes on his scrawny body.
We decided to take care of him at home and moved a hospital bed into my bedroom, which had slightly more room than his. By July the cancer was painful, and the doctor showed me how to give him shots of morphine. Even with this instruction, I sometimes missed the vein and hit the bone in his skinny arm or leg, and he whimpered, his large eyes tearing up with love and pity and pain.
He leaned on me as we walked to the bathroom. I could feel his joints rubbing together in his diminished body. I fed him and bathed him and, every couple of days shaved him. Pretty soon, he didnât have the strength to walk, and I reached beneath his body and lifted him out of bed for his trips to the bathroom. He was light to carry. His body felt as though it were made of papier-mâché. The joints in his hips and knees looked huge next to his wasted legs and torso.
These were intimate moments; Iâd never been so close to my father. I could have learned so much, but you know what?âI was embarrassed. He creeped me out. He frightened me. His breath smelled rotten, and his face was sunken because heâd quit wearing his tooth bridge. When I carried him, his limp body felt as though it were made out of rubber hoses. I looked at him in horror. I could hardly bear to touch him, afraid that this fierce disease would somehow rub off on me. Never, ever would I
Traveling Milton Avenue to the Main Street Bridge, we pass through downtown. The stores have been there forever, I think. Forever. Time slows again . . . slower and slower the stores go by. They never change. Theyâll never go away, will they? Not the Clark gas station with its little plaqueâ On this spot in 1898, Carrie Jacobs Bond wrote âI Love You Truly.â Not Harrison Chevrolet, Wisconsin Bell, Woolworthâs . . . slowly, slowly going by. My mother bent over the steering wheel, looking straight ahead, hypnotized by the vaporous draw of an opaque future.
âWhereâs my watch?â my dad says when he wakes up. âWhat time is it? Did he get it all?â
âThere, there, Earl,â my mother says. A nurse propels the gurney my fatherâs lying on through the warren of hallways in the basement of Mercy Hospital. My mother and I trot beside it, trying to keep up. My mother tries to hold my fatherâs hand as we move along, but the nurse keeps pushing him out ahead of us, as if my father is on his way to an urgent meeting somewhere. A second nurse trots along with an IV on wheels. Its tube is hooked to my fatherâs arm. A clear plastic bag sits on the end of his bed, holding dark blood and tissue, the black, oozing detritus of his surgery.
âItâs kind of early, isnât it?â my father asks the world, the heavens over him.
I look over at my father. He has fat tears in his eyes. Since heâs lying down, they donât drain away. He shakes his head. âNo.â He seems to be mouthing the word, âNo.â His mouth quivers with his silent crying. My mother pats his hands as she trots along, saying, âThere, there,â over and over. My father sobs, gagging on his tears.
20.
T ime passed in a dream. Days, I worked in the Janesville Chevrolet assembly plant, earning money to pay for my last years of college. Nights and weekends, I took care of my father.
He never had a chance. He had barely recovered from the surgery when the cancer got him in its final grip. It squeezed the flesh right out of him. He must have lost a pound a day until, by early June, he looked like one of those whoâs barely survived a concentration camp. He was all bones and tendons and ligaments. His skin hung like a loose-fitting costume over the wires and pulleys of his skeletal system.
We all tried to hope, but the disease just took everything out of him. His head was just this skull with giant eyes on his scrawny body.
We decided to take care of him at home and moved a hospital bed into my bedroom, which had slightly more room than his. By July the cancer was painful, and the doctor showed me how to give him shots of morphine. Even with this instruction, I sometimes missed the vein and hit the bone in his skinny arm or leg, and he whimpered, his large eyes tearing up with love and pity and pain.
He leaned on me as we walked to the bathroom. I could feel his joints rubbing together in his diminished body. I fed him and bathed him and, every couple of days shaved him. Pretty soon, he didnât have the strength to walk, and I reached beneath his body and lifted him out of bed for his trips to the bathroom. He was light to carry. His body felt as though it were made of papier-mâché. The joints in his hips and knees looked huge next to his wasted legs and torso.
These were intimate moments; Iâd never been so close to my father. I could have learned so much, but you know what?âI was embarrassed. He creeped me out. He frightened me. His breath smelled rotten, and his face was sunken because heâd quit wearing his tooth bridge. When I carried him, his limp body felt as though it were made out of rubber hoses. I looked at him in horror. I could hardly bear to touch him, afraid that this fierce disease would somehow rub off on me. Never, ever would I
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