Arthur’s hands were still wet when he bumped into the old man outside the men’s room. Arthur’s eyes were immediately drawn to the creases around the gentleman’s eyes and mouth, thin and sprawling so that his face had the qualities of an old catcher’s mitt. Since he’d been a boy, there had been something about the elderly that frightened Arthur. He wouldn’t begin to suspect this until much later, while leaving his grandfather’s side, but this fear was in part due to the abundance of creases that came with age. There was an inherent frailness about them, as if someone could walk right up and make their bodies crumble just by blowing on them, that made Arthur sometimes wish that he would be blessed enough to die young.
“They out of hand towels again?” the old man asked, shifting his weight against the wood of the cane in his hand. This made it so that the hump of his back aligned evenly with the cane.
“Afraid so,” Arthur said, fumbling to wipe his hands on his slacks because he could not take his eyes of the man’s face, “I hate that slick feeling; it’s like a cold sweat that never goes away.”
The old man hobbled past Arthur, making a clicking sound that might have been a chuckle but could just as easily been his joints grinding together. He looked back before going in and replied, “that’s just life preparing you for your golden years, plan accordingly son.” He faltered for just a moment, and then Arthur began moving back to his table.
The restaurant had undergone renovations for the third time since the proprietor, Mr. Cam, had died. Now the walls were a tan color, covered with paintings of Buddha meditating in jungles and young women with bright dresses and brighter smiles selling beer. There were gold lights hanging alongside the edges of the front window, so anyone walking by would look in and see well lit groups dining and conversing. There were only ever woman serving the customers, dressed in bright red blouses and red lipstick so that the contrast against the makeup plastered on their faces made them look like dolls. It was a Friday evening, so the dinner service was crowded: a young couple on a date by the front door, a family of four quietly eating by the kitchen, a group of seven laughing the night away by the front window. Arthur’s first sight when he reached his table in the center was of his father’s balding head, bright as a radish and shining under a light hanging overhead.
“Get a load of this bull,” he said as he slid a small, folded piece of paper towards Arthur, “I think this qualifies as proving my point.”
Arthur took the paper, unfolded it, and read the fortune inside three times before looking at his father.
“As far as last thoughts go, ‘at least I won’t die alone is one of the better ones’,” Arthur said as he ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the paper, almost as if he was uncertain he was holding something real, “hmm, isn’t that something?”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, it’s a really deep,” Arthur began, still sliding his fingers over the fortune, “I mean, in a metaphysical sense this is some real,” now Arthur fidgeted against the wood of his chair, as if he genuinely couldn’t get comfortable, “Screw it, I’ve got nothing.”
“That,” his father began, pointing one index finger at the fortune and pounding the other against his plate to drive his point home, “that is the kind of fluffy, nonsensical shit I was telling you about earlier.”
“Oh come on, I wouldn’t go that far. There’s still some measure of truth to the idea, even if it doesn’t qualify as a fortune.”
Arthur and his father had spent dinner going through their normal conversation: they spoke of movies, current events, wars raging in foreign places, inept policies of the current government, the things they went through to make the passing of time more enjoyable. Before Arthur had left for the bathroom, his father had finished his fourth drink that was served to him in a small, green bottle with Chinese characters on the label. He’d been picking at a problem he had with the human condition: the need to rationalize things one couldn’t control as a means of comfort.
“Is that a fact?” his father said, running a finger over the remaining pool of black sauce on his plate, “Please enlighten me.”
“Oh yeah,” Arthur started and then paused briefly, taking a drink of water as an excuse to collect his thoughts, “I mean, a lot of people want die with their loved ones around.”
“Ah, so you mean it as ‘as far as last thoughts go, ‘at least I won’t die without someone else in the same space watching me expire’ is one of the better ones’?”
“Some people dig that kind of thing.”
His father lifted his finger to his mouth, licking off the last of the sauce from it, and then lifted the plate itself.
“Allow me to retort, son, with apples and oranges. What do you see?”
Arthur let his eyes follow the circular path his father’s finger had created on the plate, a black swirl against white porcelain.
“A dirty, fingerprint stained plate with blue trim?”
“Correct, but a plate nonetheless. It came into this world a plate and, regardless of what succulent goods it may be heaped with,” he waved his opposite arm out at the plates on the other tables, adorned with piles of steaming vegetables and meats, “it remains a plate, a completely separate entity from anything it comes into contact with.”
“Ok, I follow you.”
“This, my boy, is the human condition: we enter this world, pink and helpless and unaware of the infinity that sits before us, in a room full of people, but fundamentally alone. We exist as individuals, interacting and socializing and forming groups that stand for something larger, but we still remain fundamentally individual and, therefore, alone. One can die in the presence of a high school marching band and a church choir, but they are still fundamentally alone. That is how we die. The sugarcoated ideal on that slip of paper is one more way people try to comfort themselves about where they’re headed when the lights go out.”
He paused for a moment, and then casually held the plate out over the table and let go of it. Arthur made no attempt to stop him, bracing himself a bit so that the impending clatter wouldn’t provoke a visible shock. It landed upside down, shattering immediately and sending several large pieces of porcelain across the floor. Arthur felt a large piece land against the front of his right shoe. He took a moment to look around at the shocked patrons watching their table, and then focused back on his father’s smiling face.
“See?” he said, reaching into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet, “regardless of how many eyes are on him, a dying man is a dead man is a dead man, just the same.”
There was a ruckus from the kitchen. One of the cooks was yelling something in Mandarin, something angry and too fast to repeat phonetically. The woman at the cash register was yelling back at him, trying to calm things down while weaving her way to Arthur’s table. She stopped alongside the table so she stood in between him and his father. She had the same doll aesthetic as the waitresses, except for less makeup and a tight bun adorning her head.
“Is there some sort of problem here gentleman?”
“Not in the least bit darling, just proving a point to my boy here.” Arthur’s father said, holding up several green bills, “that should cover the disturbance. Do be a dear and send the check our way, please?”
She said nothing, taking the bills and moving back towards the front desk, yelling something to a waitress behind the register. The patrons had already begun to settle back into their conversations. No one bothered a second glance at Arthur’s table.
Arthur was slowly finishing his drink and, after he felt his heart settle back into a rhythm, laughed and said “make sure to include all that in your acceptance speech when you win man of the year”.
There was a long silence while they waited for the check, where neither one of them spoke. Arthur knew what was coming: they had been meeting for dinner since his first year of college, four years prior, and it was always at the end of the meal when they reached the only awkward part of the conversation. Arthur wasn’t sure if his father felt the same way about it, but it bothered him, almost as much as the thought of being old did. He’d spend the week prior to dinner thinking about this portion of the conversation, focusing on just what to say and not to say. Years of living with his father had given him practice on how to steer conversations to suitable ends, but he’d never quite mastered how to start the conversation. He pulled the watch in his pocket out by its chain that hung from one of his belt loops. He didn’t bother checking the time, simply admiring the silver casing as an excuse to look occupied.
“So,” his father began, his eyes focused on the leather-bound check a waitress had just brought him, “how are things?”
“Good, things are good. School is good. I just got acceptance letters from the law schools at Berkeley and Los Angeles.”
“Outstanding. What have you heard of your brother?”
“The kids are alright. Ben just joined a little league team, and Anna is starting first grade next week.”
“Uh huh,” his father grunted, sliding several bills into the leather book and slamming it shut before he handed it to a passing waitress, “and what have you heard of your brother?”
“I hear he’s still out of work. I hear he’s taken up drinking, so not all bad news. You know I haven’t spoken to him since my freshman year. That would be like me asking you how your brother is doing.”
His father laughed at this, a low, guttural sound that was the most sincere laugh that Arthur had heard from his father in years.
“Oh, that mess can’t occupy the same house as me without bawling like an infant.”
There was another pause as someone came hobbling by the table, the old man from before. Arthur didn’t look up at him, quickly fixing his eyes onto a poster of a girl kissing a mahogany bottle. He turned back in time to see a waitress prop the door open for the man, who thanked her and hobbled out into the night air. His father cleared his throat.
“So, how is Kristine?”
“Good. Kristine is good. She’s throwing me a party tomorrow tonight, celebration for my birthday.”
“That’s nice of her. You deserve it, a man only turns twenty-one once.”
Another long silence, as Arthur watched as his father neatly folded the change and put it into his wallet.
“I think I might ask Kristine to marry me.”
“Oh? Really?” his father said, taking his eyes off his wallet to watch his son for a moment, “that’s wonderful. She sounds like a lovely girl, I’m sure your mother would be proud.”
He began to stand when Arthur spoke quickly, “Have you talked to mom lately?”
There was no sudden movement on his father’s face to suggest a genuine reaction. The impression of exhaustion in his voice was believable.
“I’ve been meaning to, but I’m so buried in work most days that it just,” Arthur didn’t take his eyes off of his father as he popped his forehead with his hand, “slips my mind.”
There was a nod from Arthur as he put his coat on and the two men made their way outside the restaurant. There was still some life in the evening sky, a dulcet haze of purple and pink, but the majority was blocked out by the metropolitan skyline around them. The street had enough lighting of its own, the headlights of passing cars illuminating the road and the glow of streetlamps hanging over the sidewalk. Arthur was watching the flickering of a neon sign, “Ace Playing Cards” in orange, when something occurred to him.
“Dad, how’s grandpa?”
Arthur had his eyes on his father the entire time and clearly saw a moment where his body shook, as if a chill had shaken him violently for a brief moment. He turned to face his son, and this time the exhaustion looked genuine. For the first time all evening, his cheeks sunk so his lips hung a bit, as if they were just remembering what age they were. He still maintained a degree of eloquence when he spoke, but it was much more strained now.
“He’s good. Your grandfather is good. He’s tired most of the time, but the nurses say he talks their ears off when he’s up for it.”
He began to turn to leave, but he stopped again. Arthur followed his eyes and saw nothing in that direction but a newspaper man beginning to close his stand. His father finally turned back and addressed him again, his jaw moving more deliberately than usual.
“He was asking for you the other day. You should try to see him soon, if you can spare the time.”
Arthur didn’t speak at first. He was too focused on his father’s face, the sudden change in demeanor. He didn’t speak until the request had fully sunken in.
“Of course, I’ll see him as soon as I can. Same time, next week?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it for the world kiddo.”
Arthur didn’t move for a long while after his father turned and walked off. He was certain that something had gone wrong, but he wasn’t sure what or why. Of all the things to unsettle him that night, watching his planned dialogue come apart as quickly as a smile turns was almost the worst. It was the sight of the old man, the way he moved and the curve in his back that made Arthur remember his grandfather. A light rain began to fall over the street. It wasn’t until long after he’d gotten into his car and driven across town to the retirement home, while he waited for Betty to come back to the nurse’s station, that he realized that there wasn’t any scheduled rainfall for that night.
The station was just as he remembered it from the day his grandfather was first checked in, stacks of patient files on one side and the other dedicated to family pictures of the respective nurses that worked the different shifts. It was the rest of the main hall that looked odd: the line separating the tile of the main walkway from the living room split to a world Arthur was unfamiliar with. The cream color of the walls was replaced with a subtle green, like ferns he’d seen when he was a boy. A limestone table sat in the center of the room, Venetian rugs lined the floor from one wall to the next, and “Starry Night” rested on the wall above the fireplace. Even the acoustics of the room was foreign, as the sound of Betty’s rubber shoes moving across the tile when she entered reverberated as if she were everywhere.
“Sorry to keep you waiting honey, but Mrs. Grayson can’t sleep without her medication.”
Betty was a close friend of Arthur’s family. She’d grown up with his grandfather, had been around for the births of both his father and Arthur and his brothers. It had been under her suggestion that Arthur’s grandfather was checked into Kingsley Manor, shortly after his grandmother had died.
“That’s fine Betty,” Arthur said, watching as her heavy frame moved around the desk to replace a file and take another, “say, what happened to the Rembrandt that was on the wall. It really brightened the room up the last time I was here.”
“The Rembrandt,” Betty began, stopping when the answer didn’t come to her immediately, “why we replaced that old thing almost four years ago. I remember there was a new group of trainees the morning it was changed.”
Betty came out from behind the desk, her dark skin more subtle when she stood against the colors of the living room. She began to move towards the opposite end of the hall and motioned Arthur to follow.
“Wait a second, four years? That can’t be, I remember that painting like it was yesterday. It can’t have been that long since I last visited.”
Betty chuckled, a hearty sound with an undertone of a fading cold, and looked back as she walked, “You’re starting to sound like some of the regulars around here. You were a week from starting college the last time you came around, remember? You’d just split from that girl you’d been seeing, Kiley, Kendra…”
Arthur stopped walking, his head slightly spinning as if he’d gone drinking the night prior. “Keely. I remember you threatened to call the dean of the school and tell him you had caught me stealing medication if I didn’t tell you what happened with her. That was the weekend before I started classes.”
Betty stopped to face Arthur, her head cocked to one side to take the young man in fully. “Life has a funny way of moving on when we’re not looking. Your father always mentioned you when he visited, how hard you were working to get into law school. It wasn’t my place to judge, lord knows I had my doubts though. The important thing is you’re here now, I’m not sure how much longer he was going to be around.”
“Wait, around? What are you talking about, who isn’t going to be around?”
Betty had been turning back around when Arthur’s words stopped her. She turned slowly to face him, the look on her face almost identical to the sunken features he’d seen on his father.
“Wait, you mean your father hasn’t told you?”
Arthur’s mouth was drier than he remembered when he arrived at the desk, his tongue scraping the roof of his mouth. There was something he’d missed, something in his planning of the night that he couldn’t have taken into account because he’d known nothing about it. One of the lights overhead flickered for an instant.
“What hasn’t he told me?”
Irritation shot across Betty’s face. There was moment when she said nothing, her voice trembling a bit when she finally did. “That lying bastard, I should have known when you didn’t come running. I knew it. I knew your mother raised a better man than that. Leave it to your father to ignore a problem and pretend nothing’s wrong, he’s been like that since he was your age.”
“Betty, what’s wrong with my grandfather?”
“He’s old Art. There wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop it. It’s something that just happens.”
“Betty, explain it like you were using apples and oranges, good and simple. What is wrong with him?”
Betty didn’t speak, instead motioning to Arthur to follow and leading him further down the hallway. They went another few feet and made several turns, white walls and green doors along their way. They stopped at a door with a black “451” against a maroon plaque on its left. Betty reached to open the door, but stopped and looked back to address Arthur.
“Remember son, you didn’t know about any of this. You’d have come if you had, I know it.”
She opened the door and led Arthur inside. The room was dark, save for the light of a lamp on a dresser on the far side of the room, next to an empty bed. The light was casting shadows off of the paintings on the walls and the curtains against the window on the opposite end of the room and a single chair that sat near the dresser with the lamp. There was a smell in the air, a cross between pine oil and the faint, metallic smell that blood emits. Arthur’s eyes scanned the room twice over, as he was still unsure of what he was looking for among the shadows. Then he heard it, a rustling coming from the bed. The outline of something round on the pillow could be seen turning towards the doorway where Arthur and Betty stood. And then he saw him.
Arthur moved slowly at first, hesitantly, as if what he was seeing wasn’t really there. What he’d originally mistaken for an empty bed was really his grandfather, reduced to a pivoting head covered with wild patches of white hair and a twin bed body dressed in blue-trimmed quilts. Arthur heard his own voice remarking on how his grandfather’s body, from the neck down, wasn’t visible through the quilt. From the door, Betty said something about how, without the quilts wrapped around him, he looked as frail as a bird caught in a storm, soaked down to the point where his feathers didn’t hide his thin bones.
“It started about three years ago. His mind started to go, subtle at first. He’d forget where he was, how he’d gotten someplace. Then it just went from there, he’d forget people, forget what day it was, what age he was. He’d start wandering off in the home, thinking he had someplace to be. It was hard enough at first, but then he’d go losing his balance and hitting his head on something. After the third fall, he’d start to spend more time out of his mind than in.”
Arthur let himself sink into the chair that sat by the dresser. He felt cold, but the window was shut tight and there was no draft in the room.
“How did he get so small?”
“Sickness mostly, the fevers he’d get after his falls ate away at him bit by bit. The immune system goes just as fast as flesh and bone do. His dementia didn’t help either, especially once the hallucinations became routine.
Arthur began to ask something, but was interrupted by a ticking sound that emerged from the lamp. He looked over and was blinded by light reflecting from something hanging from the switch. Arthur reached forward and pulled a small, circular pocket watch that was hanging by a chain. Its silver casing was pristine, but the glass was cracked and a gear appeared to be broken, as the hands were caught on 7:45 and struggling to move forward. Arthur could feel the struggling gears vibrate.
“This is the watch my grandmother gave to him when they were married. It’s the only thing he wanted to bring with him when we moved him in,” Arthur said, bringing the watch closer to his face to examine the damaged face, “it’s been like this since she died. I thought my dad was going to take it to get fixed.”
“He tried, but your grandfather would fight tooth and nail when he came close, gripped it tighter than a dead man. He said the watch was already broken enough, saw more ill in removing the extraordinary from an ordinary thing than he saw right in doing what seemed appropriate.”
Arthur turned the watch over to inspect the back and found an inscription, “To an ordinary day, from Laura.”
Arthur would have dropped the watch when his grandfather suddenly spoke, saved only by the chain coiled around his wrist. His voice was hoarse, reminiscent of sandpaper dragged against gravel.
“Late! Late, Laura, Laura, Laura late,” he said, pausing for air in breaths that sounded strained and locking his eyes on the watch, then on Arthur’s face, “Eli, Eli help, get ready, late, carnival.”
A moment of silence passed, and then the ticking stopped. The hands found themselves at 7:40, and the watch began to work normally again. Another moment and Arthur’s grandfather grew silent. “All these years, and he’s had the same five minute loop playing in his pocket?
Betty nodded, clearing her throat before she spoke, “The inscription is something your grandfather told your grandmother the morning he asked her to marry him. The night before had been their anniversary, which they’d spent at a local carnival. It was the first time in years your grandfather showed up on time for a date.”
Betty had moved closer to Arthur as she said this, sitting down at the foot of the bed and chuckling softly before continuing.
“He made such a big deal about how he just had to make that night perfect. He spent all week with his brother, Eli, planning on how to make it just perfect. And it would have been, except the Ferris wheel broke down and left your grandparents stuck 50 feet off of the ground. Your grandmother laughed and blamed karma, sticking it to your grandfather for the years he’d been late. He later told me that he was certain, watching your grandmother laugh, that he could die happily if only she’d marry him.”
Arthur didn’t say a word at first. He was unaware that he’d been gripping the watch tightly until the cracked glass had begun to cut into his skin. His eyes were trained on his grandfather’s face, glassy eyes lost in a sea of worn creases.
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of that. I remember he would try to tell me stories when I was a boy, but I would never sit still long enough to listen. A whirling dervish, he’d tell everyone his grandson was a whirling dervish.”
Arthur watched his grandfather’s face, the way the creases around his mouth created an oval shape that made the lines covering his cheeks almost dance when his lips moved. His mouth was moving, but not a single sound emerged, save for strained breaths. When he blinked, Arthur could see a single wide line on each eyelid that trembled as if his eyes wanted to fail him. His eyes were focused on neither Arthur nor Betty, moving back and forth between spots of darkness in between the rays of light splashed across the wall. Betty leaned forward slightly so she could grip Arthur’s shoulder with a large hand.
“That’s just how kids are. They’ve got so much of the world lit up in their eyes that they just want to run towards it, never anytime to stop and listen to what’s around them. I know he’d be proud of everything you’ve done for yourself.”
Arthur reached over to touch Betty’s hand on his shoulder, but didn’t take his eyes off his grandfather. “Do you think he’s even aware that I’m here right now? Of what the last thing I said to him was? I can’t. I keep straining to think of something, and I can’t. I can’t remember what the last thing I said to my grandfather was Betty. That’s what I know right now.
Arthur took another look at the watch, front to back, and then gripped it a bit tighter. “His marriage wasn’t perfect, but he still loved it. I remember that much. And all he can remember is that he might mess it all up by being late. The kind of suffering he goes through stuck in his own head, and all for this busted piece of junk. If he’d only let dad get it fixed, he wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“God almighty, you sound more like your father than I care for,” Betty interrupted, causing Arthur to choke on the words he’d planned on saying next, “it’s talk like that why your mother, bless her heart, got out when she did.”
Arthur looked at Betty, confused at this unexpected response. His grip on the watch loosened a bit, and then completely when Betty let go of his shoulder and took it from his hand.
“When your grandmother asked your grandfather why he popped the question the morning after their anniversary, he looked her straight in the eyes and said ‘I waited the extra day because I liked the idea of making an ordinary day extraordinary more than doing what seemed appropriate or rational’. That’s what your father never understood.”
Arthur was no longer slumped against the back of the chair, his hands no longer fumbling for something to keep him busy. His eyes were finally watching Betty, the way her eyes never once broke contact with his face.
“On principle, I can’t disagree with the things your father says because, at the end of the day, he’s right about all of it. No one saw that more than your grandfather. The difference between them is that your grandfather never tried to argue him on it, he just stood on the opposite side of the road and was happy with where he was.”
Betty laid the watch on Arthur’s leg as she stood, her hand using his shoulder as a support. “Your grandfather believed that the point of being human wasn’t to try and compensate for the things we can’t control. The point, the real reason, humans live happily is because we take what life throws at us, good or bad, and we keep going as best as we can. Life moves on, with or without us. He couldn’t’ have known keeping that watch as is would do this to him. All he saw was that he loved your grandmother, and that’s how he wanted to remember her going forward: his reason for making ordinary days so much more.”
Betty gave Arthur’s shoulder a squeeze before she’d begun making her way back to the door. She stopped in the doorway, her frame blocking most of the light that was coming from the hall.
“So, maybe your grandfather won’t remember you being here. And you can’t remember what the last thing he’ll remember you saying to him was. There’s nothing either of you can do to change that now, is there? You can either spend the rest of your life being a better man because of it, or don’t. It’s your call Arthur. Just remember that.”
Betty closed the door as she walked out. The only sound in the room was the shallow sound made every time Arthur’s grandfather’s chest rose and fell. Arthur began to say something, but then his grandfather’s watch became stuck again, its gears straining to move its hands past 7:45. Arthur looked at his grandfather and saw his eyes focused on the watch again. His lips began to move frantically, almost in tune with the ticking of the watch but there was still no audible sound.
Arthur quietly loosened the screw that held the silver button at the top of the watch in place and, when it was as loose as possible, he pulled up on the button as hard as he could. The gears in the watch stopped moving, the straining sound abruptly halting so that the hands were perfectly aligned over the 7 and 9 on the face of the watch. He reached over and hung the watch back on the switch of the lamp, careful that it wouldn’t swing when he let go. He then removed the chain of his own watch from around his belt loop, took the small piece of cold steel from his pocket and hung it next to his grandfather’s watch on the lamp switch. His grandfather’s eyes watched as he did this.
“You may not remember who I am right now,” Arthur said, leaning forward and gently taking his grandfather’s frail hand in his own, “but that doesn’t matter right now. My name’s Arthur and I am your grandson.”
Arthur didn’t expect any response to this. His grandfather’s eyes were no longer moving around the room, instead fixed on his grandson’s eyes watching him intently. His mouth no longer uttered things either man could hear. Without any sort of movement, Arthur thought, the lines around his face had a certain quality that was almost comforting. Arthur squeezed his hand a bit more, and his grandfather squeezed back.
“I know that I haven’t been the best grandson, and I am sorry for that. I can never tell you how sorry I am. But I’m here now, and I want you to know that you aren’t alone.”
His grandfather simply watched him. Arthur would stay long after night had faded away, talking of all the things he had done and everything he hoped to do.
2
