William Wharton - Dad

‘The ticket’s for twenty-one to forty-five days.’

‘That should be enough, I hope.’

She rolls onto her side, slips off her shoes.

‘Don’t worry, Joan. I’ll stay with Dad. It’ll work out. At home, I’m a newfangled house husband.’

She shoots me one of her ‘straight on’ looks.

‘Are you sure? You know he’s practically a baby.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s my father too, you know.’

‘That’d be great.’

Joan gives me a rundown on a typical day here. She says the main thing is keeping everything on an even keel. She explains how Mother has a schedule and their whole life is essentially one long routine.

‘First, Mom gets up early and does her exercises. For her, it’s the best time of day; she has the whole house to herself. At about ten she takes a cup of coffee in to Dad, gives him his blood-pressure pills, vitamin pills and any other pills she’s into. The morning coffee is real coffee, not decaffeinated.

‘You know, Jack, Dad has somehow managed over the past eight years to keep alive the feeling he’s on an extended vacation; that sooner or later he must go back to work. He lives each day as if it might be his last.’

She tells me the pills Dad takes. I recognize some and he’s heavily medicated. I think maybe I’ll try getting him into meditation or even yoga. I hold my own pressure down that way. I’ve brought my cuff with me, so I’ll check him when I do myself. That reserpine he’s on is deadly stuff; it’s basically poison.

Joan reels off the rest of this daily routine, including mandatory soap operas. I tell her I’ll try sticking it out; but my mind is spinning, figuring ways to sharpen life up. I can’t leave other people’s lives alone. I especially want to wean him from those three hours of ‘soaps’ in the middle of the day. What a waste, to be living in California with all the sunshine out there, sitting inside staring at moving colored lines. My God, the ocean’s less than ten minutes away.

‘Another thing, Jack, Dad works a bit in his shop but he doesn’t have his old coordination; this drives him crazy. You know how he could fix almost anything? Now he has trouble keeping his own electric razor running.’

Her eyes fill and she looks down.

‘He’s beginning to think I’m a mechanical genius because I can fix his razor; clean it, replace the blade, things like that.’

‘But you are a mechanical genius!’

When we were kids, she was roller-skating at four when I was seven and I couldn’t even stand up on the damned things. She rode a two-wheeler before I did. I got the Erector set for Christmas and she played with it. That’s the way it was.

‘Try going along with him, Jack; help without making him feel inept. He’s fine as long as he doesn’t get flustered.’

She gets up from the bed, slips on her shoes.

‘We’d better get out there before they think we’ve flown the coop.’

The game’s still on. Oakland’s running away with it. We come in just after Rollie Fingers hits a bases-loaded homer. We watch the replay.

Joan and Mario leave after the home run. I’m alone with Dad. I can’t remember when I was last alone with him. As we watch the end of the game, I go over in my mind the things Joan told me. I’m a fair-to-middling cook and housekeeper but it scares me trying to fill in for Mother.

Before she left, Joan fixed dinner, so, at about six-thirty, I go in the kitchen and heat it up. I set the table for two. Dad’s in his regular place at the end of the table and I take my usual place to his left. I don’t take Mom’s place on the kitchen side, even though it’d be more convenient.

Dad’s watching me. I bring out the butter, salt, pepper, dishes, knives, forks, spoons. I carry the meal hot from the stove and put it on a plate in the middle of the table.

‘Where did you learn to cook, Johnny?’

Dad usually calls me Johnny; once in a rare while, John. I don’t know how he decides which. Mom always calls me Jacky. I changed my name from Johnny or Jacky to Jack when I went to high school. But at home it never took. I don’t know why Mom and Dad call me by different names but that’s the way it is. It’s almost as if I’m a different person to each of them.

‘I didn’t cook this, Dad; Joan did. I’m only putting it out. Come on, let’s eat.’

I know he doesn’t believe me. I’m bringing food out of the kitchen so I must be cooking it. People cook food in kitchens. He designed this kitchen, put in the stove, sink, refrigerator; built the cabinets; maintains it when anything goes wrong. But using it is an absolute mystery to him. He can no more use a kitchen than he can use one of those jet airplanes he helped build at Douglas for twenty years.

It’s a fine meal and afterward we watch more TV. During the station breaks and ads, I scoot in the kitchen and clean up. Then I begin hauling my things to the back bedroom out in the garden. I carry some blankets along with my bags. Dad’s watching me.

‘I wouldn’t sleep out there, Johnny, it’s awfully cold and damp; you’d be better off sleeping in here. I leave the heat on low at night so it’s warm.’

Frankly, I like sleeping in the cold. My parents keep their house too hot for me and besides, they’re electric-blanket people. I’m not. I don’t feel comfortable, even in California, unless I have weight on top of me; a light electric blanket with only a sheet leaves me feeling vulnerable. I know I’m warm but I don’t feel I should be. But I can’t tell Dad these things; he’d take it as an insult.

Still, I’m getting the message. He’s scared. He’d probably like me to climb in bed with him back there but he could never ask; even if I volunteered he couldn’t. He probably hasn’t slept alone since the last time Mother was hospitalized, over thirty-five years ago. He’s dreading it. So what do I do? I can’t take him by the hand, lead him to the bedroom and dress him in his pajamas.

‘Well, Dad, we’d better hit the sack.’

Reluctantly he gets up and turns off the television. Then he sets the thermostat down a fraction. He checks all the doors and windows to see if they’re locked. These are his routines I know about. He puts out the lights except for a night-light on the baseboard in the hall. He goes back to his bedroom.

I decide I’ll sleep in the side bedroom; I can’t leave him alone feeling the way he does. I’ll shut the vanes on the heater vent. I’ll close the door and open the window.

I’ve just climbed into bed when he knocks on the door and opens it.

‘Johnny, I can’t find my pajamas; I don’t know where she keeps them.’

I paddle barefoot into his bedroom with him. There’s a closet and a chest with three drawers. I look through the drawers and find them right away. Mother’s organized herself into the top drawer; the middle drawer is for Dad and the bottom drawer is filled with sweaters. I hand him the pajamas. He looks at me as if I’m a wonder man.

We say good night again and he asks me to leave on his baseboard night-light in the hall. He’s holding on; he doesn’t want to be left in that bedroom alone. If I were a really sensitive, loving, thoughtful son, I’d’ve offered to have him sleep in the side room and I could’ve slept back there. That big, empty bed without Mother is scaring him. It’s hard to know the right thing.

‘Hey, Dad; wake up! Come on, Dad!’

Christ, maybe he’s dead. He’s breathing; man, is he ever breathing; sounds like the death rattle.

‘Come on, Dad, let’s go. It’s eight o’clock already.’

That’s real time, Pacific time. We still haven’t crossed into Mountain time. He moans and rolls over. Maybe he isn’t dead. With all the crap he’s been through, he could easily have a heart attack or stroke. I look at him close; he seems OK.