The Southside of Paradise - Ch. 6

 Chapter 6- You Can't Outrun the Shadows

     Dean's dad was dying. Dean had put off the trip to the hospital as long as he could, not because he didn't love Jack Lowell but because of how much he did. He knew his father was never going walk out of the hospital room alive.

      Walking in, Dean waved at Marcy Martinez, a girl he knew from school who was manning the front desk as a part of her Work Study class. She smiled back at him. Marcy used to have a crush on him in elementary school, long before Dean had shed his first innocent snake skin and donned the new darker covering worn by all the members of the Wham Bam Thank You, Ma'am Club, an organization of which Dean was held in high standing.

      The change made a lot of the girls reluctant to go out on dates with him, as he had acquired the reputation of a wolf who often attacked the belt line  before he even said hello. There were a few who felt they could handle his advances; ones who knew what they were gettin into before they even opened the door of his metallic emerald green '57 Chevy with its pale green top.  Marcy used to be one of those girls.

      She was tat bit chunky but possessed a voluptuous figure and had cleavage for days, but her eyes were the real main attraction and were as shiny and emerald as Dean's car, a fact that he often brought to her attention.

        " Damn, Marcy, them beautiful eyes of yours would look damn fine looking out the window of my Chevy."

           " Not if they're in panic mode from having to fend off the wild man who drives that sumbitch, " she snapped back with a smile.

        Dean acted out being hit by an arrow to the chest, " Agh, girl, here you go again with that shit. You're killing me, Marcy."

         She didn't respond to that, but only asked, " Jack doing any better?" She already knew the answer.

      He responded with a tight grimace. Thus reminded of his purpose, he waved to Marcy and proceeded down the hall to his left.  Jack's room was at the end of hall, turn to your right, and the third door on the left. It had an outside window which was good. The rooms on the right faced a courtyard where the nurses and doctor's ate when the weather was reasonable.

     Dean was counting the alternating gray and white tiles. He always looked down when he walked down this hall as it pale tan walls reminded him too much of when Little Darryl, his younger brother by four minutes, was brought in from a country ditch about a mile from their house where he had dove in, hit his head and drowned.  Lewis Lloyd, his best friend, had tried to save him but abandoned the effort in order to save himself after Darryl had tried to drown Lewis in his panic.

       Dean remembered running into Lewis outside the hospital as he was crying loudly to everyone passing by, "Darryl's dead, Goddamn it. He's dead." So, Dean knew before he entered the building that he was heading to see the corpse of his twin. Since that day, just entering the hospital building caused him a shortness of breath.

       Now he was going to see Jack, and Jack was dying too, dying of cancer after smoking a pack or two a day for most of his life.

     Jack had been a good father, as much as he could be at least. He worked steady and worked hard as a welder and a mechanic for Barnwell and Sons Farming.  He started working there just after the war ended when he got out of the navy. He impregnated a young waitress named Laura Lee and married her. They quickly had four kids, Henry the oldest, Dean and Darryl in the middle, and the youngest, a girl named Karla Jean.

      Laura and Jack had divorced five years before Jack was diagnosed with cancer.  Karla Jean went with her mother, but, the boys figuring that their dad would be out most nights, opted for the freedom that it allowed them.  Jack was an inveterate card player and spend most nights at either Earl's Place or at the Green Door, two bars with poker tables in the back. Jack and Danny's dad were friends and often played together. That was before Bill Wilson got religion and gave up cards and Jack Daniels for good.

          Jack was well liked by everyone. He spent generously when he won, and never complained about losing. He was good with jokes and wasn't stingy about doling out praise like some people. He drank Four Roses, two fingers, served up neat and would light his next smoke with the butt of the one he was smoking.

     Whenever Dean needed to talk to his dad, it was usually while looking through a cloud of exhaled smoke and over an ashtray piled high with cigarette butts. His dad would hold his cards with one hand and cigarette with the other, take a sip of the whiskey, raise the ante, and then answer whatever question that Dean had asked, sometimes taking a twenty dollar bill from his pot and handing it to his son with a chuckle, "Damn it, Dean, you always bring me good luck. One these days, you're going  to have grab a seat and let me teach you how to play." Then he'd wink and go back to playing.  The next morning, without fail, he would rise and cook breakfast for the three of them before he left for work.

       The hospital room door was opened and Jack was asleep hooked up to a bag and with two tubes running out of his nose. Dean studied his father's face. It was thin and emaciated looking. You could tell though that it had been a handsome face. He had craggy good looks, a man's look. He was losing hair from the cancer treatments, but what he had left was Oklahoma dark brown and curly on the neck. His breaths came from somewhere deep and labored to escape his heaving chest.

       Dean looked around the room and took it all in, knowing that this sterile landscape would be the last his father ever saw. The walls were light green and the floor was white tile. There was a single bed that looked like it was hooked to a shit load of machines and two white metal chairs with padded metallic red seats. Dean thought to himself that the color of the seat pads would look nice in his car.

         The window was the saving grace. It was partially shaded by a tall ash tree but yielded up enough light to make the room seem bright and airy. There was table in front of the window with a large green vase full of brightly colored flowers sitting on it. There was an opened card by the vase, and Dean knew without looking that it was from Aunt Barbara, his dad's sister who lived in Missouri. The flowers and the card signified that she could afford to come to the funeral or to the bedside but not both. She would be there for the burying as she always was.

    Jack gave a brittle cough and opened up his left eye. He signaled to his son that he needed to spit out some phlegm, and Dean picked up a small green plastic tray and held it to his father's lips.

   When his dad finally spoke it sounded more like a rusty hinge than language, " Son."

     "Hey, Pop. Man, they hooked you up some, ain't they?" Dean almost whispered.

        Jack nodded just a bit then raised one hand and struck his chest lightly, "Dying, Son." His eyes were bleary red, serious and sad.

         " I know, Pop." His owned eyes welled up. " I know."

      Jack made a weak effort to raise his other hand. Dean stood up, got closer to the bed, and took his father's it in his own.
 
       Jack looked up at him and mumbled. Dean leaned over got close to his dad's mouth and made out the word, "Sister." It was his dad's instruction to look after Karla, the baby sister. Dean nodded and touched his heart.

       Jack beckoned him down again, and this time Dean heard the whispered the words that the whole world thirsted for like water, "Love ya, Son."

        "Me too, Dad. Me too," the words came out hoarsely and right before a pretty little dark haired nurse entered the room pushing a rattling white metal cart before her.

          "Time for your vitals, Mr. Lowell," she chirped like an annoying little bird. She looked up at Danny and volunteered, "You can stay if you want, but I need you to step outside for a minute."

            Danny, bent over, kissed his dad on the top of his head and left.  Karla was on her way with her husband, and he knew his dad's friends would trickle in after they got off work and before they went to the club. Besides, he didn't feel quite right about leaving Danny alone after the flat tire affair that afternoon.