“Hello?”
Willie hung up the phone. More fuck, fuck, fucks. Willie looked back at his reflection. He was more and more disappointed at
the man he saw there.
“You never were courageous were you? Every time you jumped you hoped that
was the time the chute failed.”
Willie’s focus shifted to the man in the photo. Actor or not, he thought, he’s hanging
in there, going to work. This
pussy in the polo shirt is more of a man than I ever was. Willie closed his eyes and eventually
drifted off to sleep.
“Dad. Dad. Dad!”
Willie woke with a start. He saw Billy standing outside his side window. He would have been less surprised if he
had seen God himself standing there.
“Billy?”
“Dad. Are you
ok?”
“Well, no, not exactly. I’m, ha, well, I can’t get up here.”
“Can you move? Can you get to the door?”
“Yeah I think so.”
He tried a sort of crawl.
“No. Christ. No I can’t.”
“Can I break in somewhere?”
“The back door.
Lean into it, it’ll open.”
Billy walked around to the back door. As he climbed the two steps up to it he
realized he’d never been back here before. The yard was otherwise unremarkable- it was a remarkable
yard for what it wasn’t: a family
gathering spot; a place where grandkids played. Billy leaned on the door and shoved. It opened. He walked through the kitchen and into the living room, where
he found his father rolled over on his back, head propped up on an accent
pillow he had taken off the sofa.
“So- well before we get to it, you’re going to need to get
that door fixed. I guess you know
that. So… what happened? Are you alright?”
Willie was silent for a moment. No, he thought, I’m not. But how do I say that?
“The nurse always tells me to wait for her. I didn’t this time. I, uh…well shit, Billy, I fell.”
Billy bent down to help him up. “Are you hurt?”
I’m hurting!
God, Billy, I’m hurting!
I’m so sorry.
“No. I’m
fine. Let’s get me up and over to
that chair there.”
Billy helped him up.
Once back on his feet, Willie remembered why he had gotten up from his
chair in the first place. He asked
Billy to help him to the bathroom.
Billy was relieved when he learned that the only help his father needed
was with the travel; safely delivered to the far end of the bathroom he could
handle the rest with the help of the bars on the wall. Billy left him there- pants still up
thank god- and went out, closing the door behind him. He leaned against the wall across from the bathroom door,
waiting to be called back in. When did my dad get so old?
“Okay, Billy. I’m ready.”
Billy went back into the bathroom and saw that his dad had
been able to get up too. He had
been willing to lift his father off the toilet of course, but he was more than
a little relieved that he wouldn’t have to.
“Well, that turned into a long trip,” Willie said as he sat
down in his chair at last. He
looked over at Billy, now seated in the sofa across from his father. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“You called me.
Do you remember?”
“Yeah. But…”
“It’s called caller i.d., Dad,” Billy said.
“Okay. But still, I…”
“When I answered I heard you breathing. Then the phone went dead. It was odd enough seeing your name on
the caller i.d. When you didn’t
say anything I guess that made it odder still. I tried calling back.
Which reminds me…” Billy got up and walked across the room to the
phone. He was not surprised to
find it slightly off its base. He
slid it into place. “…The line was
busy.”
“So you drove over to see if I was okay?” Willie asked as though he was
surprised. He was surprised.
“Well…yes.”
“Huh.” Willie
chuckled. “Thanks for your help
Billy. I can’t say I deserve it.”
“Hmmm,” Billy chuckled too. “Maybe not. But
here we are.”
This was the silence Willie had been worried about. This wasn’t small talk; this was
getting real. And he had no
goddamned idea how to do this, how to talk to his son about anything that
really mattered. The silence
became uncomfortable.
Willie looked at his son. “In ’82 or maybe ’83 a bunch of us were down in Texas…”
“Yeah I know dad.
You’ve told me this story.
You BASE jumped from a skyscraper in Houston. Are you sure you’re ok?”
Willie couldn’t tell if his son was impatient or
worried. Probably both.
“I’m fine,” he said, “that wasn’t the part of the story I
was going to tell this time. Do
you mind?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Ok. Like I say
it was ‘82 or ‘83, which would put you at, what? 8 or 9?”
Billy nodded.
“Anyway, there were 10 of us who made the jump. But there was an 11th guy
there. Irish guy. I forget his name if I ever knew
it. He was there for all the
planning and as gung-ho as anyone I guess. We had a guy who could get us in- we had to sneak up the stairwell
you know. So we’re walking up the
stairs with all of our gear. The
Irish guy was right in front of me and he kept pulling something out of his
front pocket, looking at it for a few seconds, and putting it back. Finally I slapped him on the back and
asked what the hell he was doing, a rosary? And he said, and I’ll never forget this, ‘Looking at a
picture of my son. His 10th
birthday next week.’ I’ll never
forget it because your face came out of the back of my mind and slapped
mine. But…goddamn, Billy, this is
hard. I, ah, ahem, I pushed you
out of the way and went on.”
Willie paused to collect himself before adding, “We got to the roof
finally and as you know I jumped.
The Irish guy didn’t. He
turned around and walked back down.
Never saw him again.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. And that
jump was a blast man. It really
was. We spent the next few days-
it takes days or weeks even to come down from something like that- making fun
of the guy who couldn’t do it you know?
Laughing about the scared look on his face when he turned around. But he wasn’t scared Billy, not for
himself anyway. He missed his kid
and wouldn’t take the risk. And I would. And, Billy, I’m really so fucking
ashamed of that.”
This is my second entry in a fiction challenge I'm participating in. The prompt this week was:
To go for something your character has been putting off. 1500 wd max with 50% dialogue.
Please check out the other entries, and as always, thanks for your time:
Okay, I know you really want it, so...
ReplyDeleteYour dialogue is so good. I can hear them. I can especially hear the dad. And the lead up to the big reveal is great. You don't rush it for the sake of just getting there because you think you have to. And you don't bore us to death. It moves. I'd say my only tweaks would be to maybe italicize the dad's quote at the beginning as a thought. And just ditch the final paragraph. It's too obvious. The rest is just beautifully telling and subtle.