David Gates - Jernigan

I pissed, then grabbed a towel down from the shower curtain rod, slung it over my shoulder and took a wad of it between my teeth. I bit down and tore off the bandage. Angry red hole, scab starting to form at the edges, a little thick blood still oozing. I would have the scar from doing this insane thing for the rest of my life. This time I made a better bandage than the drunk one the night before: a fold of gauze covering both entrance and exit wounds, and tape going all the way around the hand. Then I unbit the towel and took four Pamprins.

I went back in and lay down next to Martha. “You all done in there?” she said.

“For now,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll count the moments,” I said.

I was still staring at the ceiling when she came back and lay down next to me. Trying to imagine that the branching cracks made pictures, as the ancients found archers and shit in the random stars. The closest I could come to anything was sort of George Washington’s profile.

“So how many moments?” she said.

“Seventeen hundred and seventy-six,” I said.

“That’s an awful lot of moments.”

“You think that’s a lot,” I said, “try subdividing it into instants.”

“I think I might try counting sheep,” she said. “You mind if I nap a little? I’ve been up since five-thirty.”

A nicer man would have asked why.

“Would you stay with me till I drop off?” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

She rolled on her side, her back to me, and began the deep, slow breaths she used to relax herself. I picked up the cup and had a sip of cold, weak coffee. I stared back up at George Washington. Then I did that thing you do when you’re a kid where you imagine the ceiling as the floor, stepping high to climb through a doorway, squatting by the light fixture as if at a campfire.

Martha’s breathing got quieter and her shoulder rose and sank. I sat up and reached for the envelopes. My Christmas cards, apparently, judging by the squareness. Usual guilt over never sending any; usual contempt for those who still bothered. The white envelope was postmarked California: therefore from Rick, who had never blamed me for his sister. Which I thought said something creepy about him. I put it back, unopened. The red envelope said Warriner/Kaplan. (Now I remembered: I’d been dreaming of Uncle Fred’s funky old trailer. That combined with my father’s house in Woodstock sort of, because the rooms had just gone on and on and on.) It was one of those kitschy gilded cards: Mother and Child and Wise Men and the Star of Bethlehem and a gold-haloed angel looking down. Uncle Fred had doctored it up with faces he’d cut out of somewhere. The Virgin was a lipsticked Madonna, the Wise Men were Curly, Moe and Larry, the angel was Liberace, the Christ Child, for some reason, Nixon. Must’ve taken the son of a bitch hours to find all the pictures. And he’d cut them out so carefully, with nail scissors or something. God I missed Uncle Fred. He was the still point of the turning world. I mean, there was Uncle Fred, right? Still thinking blasphemy was funny.

I opened the card. Below the printed Bible verse (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16”), a handwritten message:

How many more years do you think you can count on before the Lord returns? And what bullshit excuse are you going to give Him for not seeing your old friends when you still had time? Call me instantly. You know the number. Now, schmuck .

Love (not to mince words) ,

Your Uncle Fred

p. s. Now. Go to the phone .

I got up and went to the phone. What time was it? Would he be in his office or out to lunch or what? Hell, what day was it? I reconstructed. Yesterday we went for the tree. So that must have been Saturday. So this was a Sunday. So he was home, if he was home.

Uncle Fred was 222 something. Somewhere along the way I’d lost track of my address book, so I ended up having to get the number from Information. His phone rang twice, then gave a click and Jim Reeves sang, “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone.” Then Uncle Fred singing, in some other key, “And don’t forget to leave a mess-age at the tone.” I waited for the beep and said, “Uncle Fred. This is the wand’ring O’Jernigan. I got your card, and, uh, thank you for — essentially for doing what I should have done, except I didn’t, and, what can I say here, let me just leave you a number here where—”

A click and Penny’s voice. “Peter?” The phone began to howl. “Don’t go ’way, Peter, just let me turn this stupid thing off.” Another click and the howling stopped. “Hi,” she said. “So good to hear your voice.”

“Hey,” I said, right back in the old ways. “Ditto mutual, hon’. How you been keepin’?”

“Uh,” she said. “Holidays.”

“Busy, huh?”

“Busy?”

“Cooking?”

“Cooking? Peter, you were always a master of understatement.”

“Can still understate any son of a bitch in the house,” I said. “Listen, speaking of sons of bitches in the house, is that Uncle Fred around?”

“Sure is,” she said. “Mikey? Peter, when are we going to see you? Mikey, it’s Peter Jernigan.”

“Good question,” I said. “Maybe we can reason it out.”

“Here’s the Fredster,” she said.

“Jernigan.” Uncle Fred’s voice. “Stand and give the password.”

“I can’t go on I’ll go on,” I said.

“I know that’s something,” said Uncle Fred. “I’m just too God damn illiterate to know what. How the hell are you? Where the hell are you?”

“Jersey still,” I said.

“Well either you’re coming in here or I’m coming out there. What are you doing this afternoon?”

“I can’t this afternoon.”

“Bullshit.”

“Seriously.”

“Right,” he said, “you’re seriously bullshitting me. What’s the big deal this afternoon? Cleaning up a toxic spill in the old backyard?”

“Truly,” I said. “I’ve got stuff to take care of here. But let’s do it after Christmas, all right?”

“No chance,” he said. “Your Uncle Fred says today.”

“You’re a hard man,” I said.

“That’s what my — no, second thought, I’m not going to touch that one. My bride here gets chagrined when I talk dirty. Isn’t that right, dear? So you’re coming to our place, right? I hate fucking New Jersey.”

“In your will, my peace,” I said.

“Now you’re talkin’. I might not know what you’re sayin’ … So you bringing your sweetie along for inspection?”

“Pas de sweetie,” I said. “She’s got to work today.” This was probably even true; wouldn’t she be going in every day now until Christmas?

“A likely story,” he said. “Where does this alleged sweetie work that she’s got to go in on a Sunday? Some top-secret chemical plant?”

“Department store,” I said. “She’s just working there over the holidays.”

“What’s her name? Glendora? Jernigan, how do I put this delicately? This sweetie isn’t, like, inflatable? Wait a second, my bride is telling me I’m terrible. So listen, whenever you can get here. You remember about the buzzer, right? Top floor, bottom buzzer?”

“What can I bring?” I said. You offer to bring something.

“Just your long-absent self,” he said. “Those shrieks of anguish you hear in the background is the fatted calf getting slain.”

And when you’re told you don’t have to bring anything you bring something anyway.