Christopher Kloeble - Almost Everything Very Fast

“My nose …,” said Fred, and his head fell sideways.

A Stranger

Violet slammed on the brakes in the middle of the street. Albert, like Klondi, was thrown back in his seat; they had both leaned forward to look at Fred, whose taut seat belt had held him upright. Violet went to open her door without checking the oncoming lane, and Klondi screamed to stop her from stepping out into the path of a minivan that blew past them, honking. Albert had trouble unfastening his seat belt, and Klondi had to help him. One after another they leapt from the driver’s-side door. The last one out, Albert ran around the Beetle, shoved Violet aside, tore the door open, and saw the blood streaming from Fred’s nose, flowing over his lip, his chin, down his throat, staining his shirt rust-red.

“Fred?” said Albert, and louder: “Frederick?”

No reaction.

Albert bent over him and undid his seat belt. Someone laid a hand on his back, and he heard whispering — but it was all far away. Here in his head his pulse was thudding, and the sweetish-metallic smell of blood filled his nose, and he knew that the time had come. Fred was dying.

Small, rough hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away, and he inhaled the fresh air. Klondi slapped him and spat a torrent of words into his face: “PullyourselftogetherAlbertpullyourselftogetherthisgod damnminute!” Then she turned away and, with Violet’s help, wrestled Fred from the car. Together they dragged him over to the curb, then laid him down on the sidewalk. Albert clutched his makeup compact, knelt beside Fred, and checked his pulse: weak. Klondi grabbed Albert by the collar and told him not to move, before hurrying off toward the next house on the street. Violet wiped tears from her face, ran back to the Beetle, and started the motor. Albert yelled, “Hey!”

“What is it?” asked Fred. His voice was muted, as if he were speaking from the far side of some thin membrane.

“Quiet.” Albert laid a hand on his chest, which felt warm and damp. “You shouldn’t talk.”

“Am I going dead?”

“No.”

“I still have to say good-bye.”

“You don’t, you certainly don’t,” he said, and saw that Violet was turning the car’s wheels to the right. There was a bump as she went up onto the curb. The car was left aslant on the sidewalk.

Warmth pressed into Albert’s side: Klondi was back, and nodding in the direction of a terraced house, whose front door stood open. She gripped Fred beneath the arms: “Let’s go!”

Panting and taking many tiny steps, they carried Fred to the house’s entryway. Albert had slung Fred’s right arm over his shoulders, his thigh muscles were shaking. Klondi’s breath rattled. Violet tried to help her but couldn’t get a firm grip on Fred.

Fred said that he was dirty.

Just before they reached the threshold, a man stepped out of the house to meet them. He wore jeans and a plain white T-shirt that contrasted sharply with a salon tan. Klondi and Albert wanted to carry Fred farther, but he struggled and slipped loose, and hit the ground. More blood ran from his nose; he wiped it with the sleeve of his shirt. “Not in there!”

“Why not?” asked Klondi.

“That’s a stranger!”

Klondi, who was leaning against the wall of the house with one arm and struggling for breath, shot Albert a questioning look.

“What’s your problem?” said the man, and planted himself in front of Fred, who repeated: “That’s a stranger!”

Violet laughed the way one laughs to defuse a situation; she stepped over to the man and whispered something in his ear. He looked at Fred, Violet, back at Fred, and his furrowed brow smoothed itself, and he squatted and extended his hand. A yellow-toothed smile: “My name is Clemens.”

Fred shook his head in slow motion.

“Give him your hand,” ordered Albert. “Now.”

To Albert’s amazement, Fred complied. “I am Frederick Arkadiusz Driajes!”

“What are you so afraid of?”

Fred snorted. “I’m never afraid!”

With a welcoming gesture, Clemens pointed to the doorway: “Well, come on, then.”

Everything’s Okay

Clemens, Klondi, Violet, and Albert drank lemon tea at an oval plastic table. The kitchen reminded Albert of illustrations from a furniture catalog — it was too coherent, too tidy. No coffee stains, no personal snapshots of weddings or office parties pinned to the walls, no chipped edges or notepads lying around or, for that matter, windows with Zorro-esque initials. Even Albert, with his impoverished past, would have been able to breathe more warmth into a kitchen than this one had.

“Do you live alone?” asked Albert.

Clemens slurped at his tea louder than necessary. “Is it so obvious?”

Behind the door to the living room — a sofa-, book-, and plant-free zone, remarkably bare, even for a bachelor’s house — Fred was sleeping on two air mattresses set end-to-end, since Clemens’s bed had turned out to be too short for him. The recommendation of the local doctor — a man in his early fifties whose beard, and the heavy bags beneath his eyes, made him look like a man in his late sixties — had sounded to Albert like the result of a self-diagnosis: rest. Shouldn’t they at least take Fred to the hospital? Shouldn’t they hook him up to an IV and inject him with vitamins? Monitor his pulse? The doctor’s answer: “You could do that.” Albert had never heard anyone put such an emphasis on the word but without actually pronouncing it. His memory supplied scraps of dialogue from the prime-time hospital TV shows that Violet’s father had produced: But don’t get your hopes up. — But enjoy the time you have left with him. — But just look at him. — But try to keep calm. — But make arrangements. — But tell him the things you’ve always wanted to say. — But accept that things are going to run their course.

Clemens gestured toward the living room: “If you don’t mind my asking: what do you call what he has?”

Albert answered the way he always answered this sort of question: “Fred is simply Fred.”

“Has he always been like this?”

“Yes,” said Albert, annoyed, “yes,” and, setting his cup down, splashed some tea on the table.

“It was only a question,” mumbled Clemens.

Klondi suggested stepping out for a smoke, and Albert, who’d been longing for a cigarette, declined, while Violet, the nonsmoker, eagerly accompanied her.

Clemens slipped both hands around his teacup. “Please don’t imagine I haven’t noticed how completely stressed out you all are. Are you related to him?”

“He’s my father.” Even in his irritation Albert registered how uncommonly easily the words passed through his lips.

“I’m sorry,” said Clemens.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you sorry? Why does everyone always say that?”

Clemens leaned back, holding the teacup defensively in front of his chest. “Because it certainly can’t be easy.”

“And why should anyone be sorry about that? It isn’t your fault, right? You have nothing to do with it, you have no sense of what it’s like — easy or hard or whatever. You don’t have the faintest idea.”

Albert was thinking — and not for the first time — that people said that they were sorry only because they were glad. They were expressing how goddamn happy they were not to be dealing with the same shit. People like Clemens, who lived all alone in their awful terraced houses and wanted only to fit in, to dress their little girls in pink and their little boys in sky-blue, and sort screws on the weekends in their very own garages, just like everybody else; Clemens, all of them, were so goddamn glad that they’d finally found someone whose life was even shittier than their own, and that’s what they were celebrating with their stupid I’m sorrie s.