Of All Things

by Michael Neal Morris

Chapter One

 

Arthur and his father built just about everything that didn't come with his parents' house. In addition to the work area, they constructed bookshelves, tables, cabinets, and chairs. It was during these projects, Arthur was later to remember, that the boy had confided to the man his secret fears and aspirations, and where the man had confided in the boy some of the fearful secrets of manhood.

When Arthur and Mimi Blight (she born Mimi Gathers) returned from their honeymoon, Mr. Blight had a new table waiting for them in the center of their new apartment. A note in the center of the stained maple top read, "You'll have to wait for the chairs." Mimi kept wondering aloud how the structure could have gotten in and what kind of security existed where a total stranger could just waltz in a drop a table in the middle of a locked apartment. But Arthur Blight did not hear her anxiety because he was inspecting his father's craftsmanship with awe.

"He must have spent twelve hours on this leg alone," he exclaimed.

Arthur spent many of his Saturday mornings and sometimes Sunday afternoons the next couple years "piddlin'" with his father. In less than two weeks, the four chairs had been completed. The senior Blight said that two more were needed, and when Arthur protested, his father replied that it was always good to have a spare. "Besides, where are you going to put your mother and me when your children come?"

At first, the time Arthur spent with his father made Mimi feel like a real wife. It was nice to have a man who was so involved with his family. But after a while, the sweetness of it wore off, and she felt compelled to provide him the scowl of an annoyed person.

He would come in sweaty and happy, sawdust falling off him onto the carpet or grease staining the doorknobs. When he was later returning than he said he'd be, his apologetic grin was that of a twelve year old who had let time get away from him during a sandlot baseball game.

The birth of their first child, Margaret, changed of much this. The late night crying and new worries (Mimi went back to work as soon as she could find a daycare that would take the baby) tired both parents. In addition, because Arthur was suddenly worried about his finances, he worked harder and longer at the architectural firm that hired him shortly after his graduation and marriage. He took on more projects and concentrated more energy on each, bringing his work home a couple times a week.

All this caused Arthur to cherish the weekends he was able to spend cutting and sawing and hammering with his father. Mimi, however, was increasingly unhappy about it, and decided to confront him.

His reply was, "If you like, I could take up drinking." The response puzzled her, but she never said another word about it, just frowned a lot during supper.

 

One afternoon, Mr. Blight suggested that they knock off early. He was feeling sluggish, he said, and thought they should go in and watch the baseball game. Arthur offered to get a couple beers from the refrigerator, and when he returned, his father was on the floor clutching his chest as if he needed to hold it in.

Arthur seemed so calm as he dialed 911 that his mother did not suspect anything until her son said into the receiver, "I think he's having a heart attack." Then she screamed and ran to her husband. Soon she was holding his head in her lap and sobbing.

Arthur instructed his mother to ride in the ambulance with his father while he followed. He called Mimi on his car phone and told her where he was going.

"Do I need to go there?"

"No. I don't really have time to get you. I'll call you again when I get to the hospital and know something more definite."

So Mimi waited. She tried watching television and thumbed through a magazine while the baby played on the floor. She held the cordless in her hand. Now and then, she would click it on to check it, but the only thing wrong with the phone was it wouldn't ring.

Arthur came in about nine. "He's alright, I think. Don't know, actually." He told her that the heart attack was pretty serious, that his father might need surgery. Arthur was going back to spend the night with him. His mother needed to go home, but was waiting for Arthur to return. Mimi said, "Let me go with you." Arthur did not want her to go, but knew she'd just sit around fretting if she stayed in the apartment.

"Maybe you can get my mom to go eat something. She's a wreck. Besides, seeing the baby might do her some good."

So Mimi spent the night with Mrs. Blight while Arthur watched his father's deep rhythmic breathing and listened to the man's lungs expand and contract as tiny, thin lines of light bounced across a small green monitor beside the bed.

The man-boy struggled for a time to read from a magazine he found in the waiting room, but words and letters seemed like wallpaper in a room that was all at once familiar and ugly. So Arthur watched his father sleep, wishing either of them could talk.

Time seemed to move at an uneven pace, first slow as Arthur glanced at the clock three times in the same minute, then quickly as he noticed an hour or so had gone by between looks.

A full day and a half later, Mr. Blight was declared "better" The family expected him to come home soon.

The patient was awake and sitting up in bed, joking with his visitors, and spent many minutes comforting his wife, whose nerves were shot.

When Arthur went home finally to take a shower and change clothes, his apartment seemed foreign to him. It was as if he not only had the furniture rearranged, but also reupholstered and refinished. His hand running across the back of the couch felt rough spots he never noticed before. His favorite chair smelled dusty, as if it had been in a garage for months rather than in front of the television.

When Arthur dropped the mail onto the reading table, the sound was duller than usual. Only the table seemed right, sad in its place, and Arthur was afraid that if he inspected it, he might find a flaw. Thus he went quickly to the shower.

*While drying, Arthur noticed the blinking light of his answering machine. He pushed the button, listened to the tape rewind its one message, then Mimi's voice, "Something's wrong with your father. You better get up here soon."

Arthur dropped the towel on the floor and dressed, water still dripping from his hair and soaking his back.

He rushed past the nurses' station to the room Mr. Blight had been moved to that morning. It was empty except for his newspaper and his mother's purse.

"My father. Where is he? He was here this afternoon. I got a call at home. I'm his son."

The orderly, a member of the Perpetual Smiles Club, said, "Oh" and "Uh," then told Arthur that Mr. Blight had been moved, he thought, to ICU.

"You think? Could you find out?"

The orderly rushed away, mumbling about rudeness.

Arthur walked up and down the room, looking for some clue as to where his father had been moved.

After an eternal twelve minutes, a prim, middle-aged nurse came into the room and asked if she could help him.

"Yes.”

“Tell me where my father is. He was moved to this room this morning. I went home for a few minutes and then got a call from my wife that something was wrong."

"Well, let me see. I just came on," the nurse said. "What's his name?"

"Blight," the son replied, obviously holding back the scream. "I'll go check it out."

"Do that," Arthur said and turned toward the window. He watched pigeons on the roof annoy each other as he tried to not think about the staff of this hospital, where he was certain he would not in the future send a dog, and tried to think about where his father could possibly have disappeared to.

Moments later, the nurse reappeared and said, "He's been moved.”

When Arthur reached his father, he found the face of the older Blight was slightly swollen along with his hands and feet, the latter of which stuck out obscenely from under the bed linens. A barrage of monitors was hooked up. They blipped and jumped with each inner movement.

Every few minutes a band around his bicep inflated with a whoosh, recorded Mr. Blight's blood pressure, and then deflated with a hiss. Arthur was silent for a long time. His eyes inspected his father and the bed, as if making sure he'd found the right man after a long trip. The nurse was sure she was off the hook and began to leave the partitioned room. Arthur held up his hand and said "Stop" so firmly that she was surprised at the grip on her.

Arthur turned to her, as if in a daze, and asked, "What happened to him?" "I'm not at liberty to say, sir," she began. "There was a problem."

All at once, he was upon her, the fingers of his hand circling her wrist with a hold that was not tight, but was certain. He looked, not just into her eyes, but her whole face she felt, and he spoke with absolute threat, though not of physical violence.

"What kind of problem? When I left this hospital, he was okay. Now he doesn't even look like my father. What did you do to him?"

The "you" was both personal and, professional

"Honest. I'm not sure. I can't talk. I have to get someone. A hospital administrator will--"

"You. Tell me what happened to my father!" Though his hand never moved, his hold seemed tighter. The nurse was surprised at how easily she removed it with her other hand.

"He's had a stroke," she said. "Or something like it. I'm not sure, but I think he was given the wrong medicine in his IV."

A moment or so passed and then Arthur realized that she had gotten away.

The families of the other patients in the ward were obviously looking at him, avoiding eye contact. But one, a man about his father's age, looked right at Arthur, and then looked at the old woman on the bed in front of him sadly. He and Arthur seemed locked in a companionship of terror.

After three days in a coma, life support machines were taken off Arthur Blight's father. This was at Mrs. Blight's request and according to the living will shown to Arthur the previous day. But Mrs. Blight could not bring herself to the small private room where her husband lay. She stayed at home, talking nervously over coffee with Mimi, and jumping at each sound remotely approximating the ring of a telephone.

In the small, brightly quiet room, Arthur had been facing the other direction, perhaps at the window, perhaps at the door of the bathroom, when he heard a stirring from the bed. He father was sitting up.

Arthur hurried to the bed and put his hand on his father's. Mr. Blight seemed to be looking ahead of himself. Arthur put his face in front of his father's.

"Dad? You alright? It's me, Arthur."

The elder Blight did not see his son. From his mouth came a loud, "Ah!" The chest heaved as if after a race. Then came a soft "Ah" as his back came to rest on the hospital bed. The eyes closed and the lungs stopped their expanding. Then Arthur Blight’s father was gone.

© Michael Neal Morris