Читать книгу The Complete Collection - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 43

I’m up early. When I telephone the hospital, they say Dad’s condition is critical but stable.

I take my notes from Max and sit down at the typewriter again. I type out a formal request for all the neurological examinations he said should have been done. They include an LP, or spinal tap, a brain scan, an EEG – electroencephalogram – certain blood tests and psychiatric consultation. I make a clean copy of this letter and mail it registered to Dr Chad at Perpetual. The original I put on my clipboard along with the statement of Dad’s case and the Knight & Knight signed card.

At the post office I make photocopies of all these for record. After that, I go back home and type out a recapitulation of last evening’s events at the convalescent home. Mother is curious about what I’m doing. I put her off as best I can; I’m barely holding myself together.

I go to the hospital. I stop at intensive care to see Dad but he’s still wired, taped up and unconscious. God, he looks so pitiful! It gives me strength to go through with all this.

I ask the nurse at the desk for the administrative offices. They’re on the top floor of the building; I take the elevator up. I find the office of the administrative director and tell the secretary I’d like to see Dr Benson. She gives me a look as if I’d asked to see God.

‘Dr Benson is very busy, sir. Dr Benson is preparing for a conference in Boston. Who are you and what is it you want?’

I go for broke; give her a quick summary of the situation. She listens with her pasted-on smile but doesn’t interrupt.

She sees me for what I am, crank. I’m getting nowhere. I pull the Knight & Knight card off the clipboard.

‘Give this to Dr Benson, please. Tell him my attorneys have suggested I present this card before action is taken. I’ll be downstairs in the intensive care unit with my father; the name is Dr Tremont.’

I don’t stay while she’s reading the card; it’ll work or it won’t. I walk out. This part of the building doesn’t smell like a hospital. It has the ordinary office smell of typewriter ribbons, erasers, used perfume, starch, paper and the electronic smell of computers. I take the elevator down to Dad in the nether regions.

I sit in the room with him. I check to see if the IV, catheter, monitors, oxygen are all in place. I tuck in his bedclothes; all meaningless moves, just puttering around, trying to hold myself in. A few nurses look at me but I’m so deep into grief and anger they turn away. I’m half expecting a security guard. If he does come, he’ll need a submachine gun to get me out. I stare at Dad; he seems miles away, in another world.

The water’s hot. I pour some in the washbowl and dip my shaving brush to soften it. I spin the brush on the soap and start lathering up. I work myself a thick soap beard, open my razor and strop it a few times on the strop hanging beside the mirror. That mirror has a crazy crack through the middle so I can make myself look as if I have a thick nose with three nostrils. I keep promising Bess I’ll buy a new one but always forget. I start scraping away, wiping the suds and cut stubble off on my finger.

Ten minutes later, a large, tweedy man comes strolling onto the ward. I watch him stop at the nurses’ section. Even if I didn’t see abject panic on the nurses’ faces I could tell this is top dog. He has proprietorship written all over him.

The nurses point and he heads over. As he comes in the room, he switches on the overhead light. I walk past him and turn it off again.

‘I think we can see well enough for what we have to discuss, Dr Benson. My father is in a very sensitive condition and the light might bother him.’

Two points for me and the lines are drawn. He pauses, gives a benevolent grandfatherly grin and pulls out the other chair in the room. I’ve taken the armchair for myself; he’s stuck with the armless one. He turns the chair around to straddle it, the knight talking to the peasants from his horse. It’s tubular steel frame with black seat and black padded back. It helps him maintain his Marlboro-Chief Surgeon role.

‘My secretary says you want to see me, Mr Tremont.’

So that’s the way we play it. OK.

‘That’s right, Mr Benson.’

No accent, just lay it out quietly. He wants me to go on; I wait.

I’m wishing it all weren’t so important so I could enjoy our little farce. There’s something crazy in me. I desperately avoid this competitive confrontation nonsense; it’s unrelated to my ideal of the good life. But when I’m in it, I enjoy myself. He waits as long as he can.

‘Well, Dr Tremont, I’m a very busy man; my schedule is tight and I fly to Boston in three hours. Just what is it you want to see me about?’

I pick up my clipboard and pull off the statement I showed to Knight & Knight; I include the write-up of what happened last night. I hand this to him, switch on the small light beside the bed and tilt it away from Dad.

‘I think you’d better read this first, Dr Benson.’

He takes it from me, riffles through the pages; it’s up to thirteen single-space now.

‘Really, Dr Tremont, I don’t have time to go through all this. Couldn’t you abstract this manuscript for me?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Dr Benson; this is as succinct a statement of the situation as I can possibly present. I’m sure reading it now will be to your advantage.’

He sighs, pulls his glasses from his coat pocket. The Knight & Knight card is dislodged, lifted a bit, as he slides them out. He quickly tucks it back, eases his glasses free. That quick move verifies Knight & Knight. He adjusts his glasses and tilts his head back to read through his bifocals. He’d like to move the papers closer to his chest, but he’s stuck trying to read straddled around the chair.

‘Dr Benson, I presented this statement to the firm of Knight & Knight; they suggested I show it to you.’

He shoots a full double whammy over the top of his glasses. That, combined with his graying cowlick forelock, gives him the look of a mean Will Rogers.

I’m not going to wait around while he reads, so I go over and fuss with Dad some more. I feel his head, cool; take his pulse, irregular, racing; and tuck the bedclothes in. I stare at the monitors, pretend to make some notes on my clipboard, then stand leaning in the doorway watching the nurses. They’re all in a semi-catatonic state. Here’s Dr Benson, himself, on their floor in a patient’s room with a wild-eyed, bearded man.

I wait till I’m sure he must be almost finished, then go and play with Dad again. His breathing is deep, his mouth open.

I hear Benson putting the papers together; he clears his throat. I sit in my chair again. He hands the statement to me and I lock it onto the clipboard. I slip the letter with my list of requests on top. I wait. He pulls the card out of his pocket now.

‘I suppose this means you intend to institute a suit against the hospital, Dr Tremont?’

I wait, staring at him, through him, for perhaps five seconds.

‘I’d rather not, Dr Benson.’

‘It seems to me, Dr Tremont, that all your complaints, though serious, would not constitute a malpractice suit.’

‘Knight & Knight disagree with you on that, Dr Benson.’

He’s pissed all right. I’d love to be there when he rips into Santana and Ethridge. He stares at the card again. I know he’s repressing an urge to call that security guard and have me thrown out.

‘Just what is it you want, Dr Tremont?’

Knight & Knight primed me for that, God bless their reptilian hearts.

‘Dr Benson, here’s a copy of a registered letter I mailed to Dr Chad this morning. It lists some of the things I’m asking for.’

I hand the letter across to him. It’s in the envelope unsealed. He reads it through carefully; looks up.

‘Are you a neurologist, Dr Tremont? These are rather specific requests.’

‘No, Dr Benson.’

He stares at me again; let him stew; he’s about to burst but he’s keeping his administrative cool. This guy earns his money for Perpetual.

‘I see nothing amiss in arranging for these tests if they haven’t already been performed. Most are somewhat superfluous in this case, but I can approve these procedures.’

He looks over at Dad.

‘But the condition of your father is rather critical, some of these tests are rigorous.’

‘Naturally, Dr Benson, I don’t want these tests given until my father is in a condition to support them; I assume Dr Chad has the medical judgment to determine that. I’ve chosen him on the recommendation of medical friends in this area not associated with Perpetual.’

‘Dr Tremont, I assure you Dr Chad and any doctor here at Perpetual is fully qualified to make these kinds of decisions.’

I almost expect him to stand and salute; for God, Perpetual and the AMA.

‘I disagree, Dr Benson, but that isn’t the question here. The issue is whether or not I bring a malpractice suit against the Perpetual organization, against Dr Ethridge and against Dr Santana. My attorneys await my decision.’

I sit back. There’s sweat in the hollow of my back and it surprises me when I press against it. It’s his move again. He goes to the door and one of the nurses scurries over.

‘Would you get me the records for Mr Tremont, please, Nurse?’

She practically does a full Oriental bow and a back flip. She runs off.

When he comes back, Benson turns the chair around, sits down in it and crosses his legs. We’re through with the cowboy act.

The nurse comes in. She hands the records to Benson. He opens them on his lap and starts from the front. He’s either a quick study or he’s only going through the motions. He could be thinking of something else. I couldn’t care less. I hope he doesn’t skip over that gallbladder operation. I wait. He closes the record and looks up at me.

‘Well, Dr Tremont, your father is a very sick man. I’m not sure Dr Ethridge isn’t correct in his diagnosis of a sudden decline to deep senility, or there could be some stroking. Just what is it you want from the hospital?’

I’m ready. I was awake two hours last night spinning my head on that one.

‘First, Dr Benson, I want to be the one who decides when my father is ready to leave this hospital.’

I let that sink in. He half nods his head.

‘Also, I want full visiting rights any time of day or night.’

I pause but he doesn’t respond. I go on.

‘I want my father to stay here in the intensive care unit until it’s absolutely clear it is no longer necessary.’

He looks sidewise at me on this one but I charge on.

‘I want all tests or any treatment that I or a consulting physician deem necessary.’

That one hurts too, but he dips his head slightly. He doesn’t know what’s coming.

‘Dr Benson, I’ve lost confidence in your nursing staff. You’ve read about the disgraceful incident where my father was tied to a chair here in this hospital with his wrists lacerated, his hands swollen and his catheter torn out. I don’t want anything like that to happen again. If I consider it necessary, I want the right to sleep with my father in his room and care for him or see that proper care is given.’

‘Come, Dr Tremont, we do have hospital rules. You could never stay in the intensive ward here, for example.’

‘Let me finish, Dr Benson. Here in the intensive ward I’m not worried, there’s sufficient nursing coverage, but in the regular wards, this cost-saving technique of a central station for a large number of patients is not adequate.’

Benson stands up. He puts his hands in his pockets, bends his knees and rocks on his toes. He’s into his dismissal routine. I remain seated and cross my legs. I lean forward.

‘And when I decide my father can come home, leave the hospital, I want whatever support equipment I consider necessary, including Perpetual-supplied nursing aid.’

He goes into a head-shaking routine. He pastes on an old-style ‘ain’t this ridiculous’ smile. Maybe he is Will Rogers.

‘I’m not sure all that can be arranged. It’s completely against hospital policy, especially your staying with the patient at the hospital.’

‘Dr Benson, I’ll be here with my father the rest of the morning; if, after consultation and reflection, you decide you can fulfill my requests as I’ve described them, would you have them typed out, signed by yourself and delivered to me here?’

I pause.

‘If not, you have the card from Knight & Knight; you may contact them or they’ll contact your attorneys.’

I stand up and do my dismissal routine, a slight Peter Lorre bow from the waist. We do some more eye-to-eye staring. He could still throw me off the floor and lock me out of the hospital but I can see he isn’t going to. He can’t afford it. He walks past me, out the door and off the floor.

An hour later a nurse scurries in with signed approval for everything.

During the next week, I stay with Dad a good part of the time; Billy comes and sits with Mother most days.

Dad continues in a coma. I see Dr Chad every morning; he’s kind and concerned. There’s nothing said about the confrontation with Benson. Chad does an LP; there are some red cells in the spinal fluid but nothing to indicate serious stroking. He takes an EEG, but it’s hard to tell anything while he’s comatose. These things should all have been done a long time ago. The brain scan shows no sign of a tumor. But he remains unconscious. His BUN stays high. His eyes are dilated and his pulse irregular. It looks as if there will be no problem about Dad leaving intensive care.

On Thursday afternoon, Dr Chad sits down in the chair beside me in Dad’s room. He pulls out the record and goes over the medical evidence. He looks at me.

‘Mr Tremont, I think your father’s dying. I’m still not sure just what happened. It could be any of a number of things, but his condition looks irreversible. If you want to have another consultation on this, please do.’

I look at him. It’s hard to accept. I look over at Dad. If they took off all the support – IV, oxygen, monitors, catheters, all the hardware – he’d die in hours. I can’t say anything.

‘Mr Tremont, you should probably start considering arrangements for your father’s death. I know your mother is very ill and perhaps you should try to prepare her. I don’t think he will last much more than a few days.’

I go down to the lobby and call Joan. I tell her what the doctor said. She’s shocked but not surprised; that best explains the way I’m feeling myself. Joan says she’ll meet me at Mom’s.

I go home. Billy’s in back working with the motorcycle. He took a spill on it riding the fire trails and he’s trying to straighten the forks and knock out some bumps in the gas tank. The headlamp and direction-signal lamps are broken, too. Mother’s watching TV. I sit beside her. If the show is over before Joan gets here, I’ll break it to her myself. This is another hospital show. I’m beginning to think everybody’s dressed in white, blue or green gowns. The show ends with a freeze shot of a woman screaming. Some fun.

I walk over and turn off the set. Mother’s in her dressing gown after taking a nap. She has her hair in curlers and some cream worked into her face. She’s a full subscriber to the ‘don’t let yourself go’ theory of survival.

‘Mom, I just talked to Dr Chad.’

She’s onto it right away.

‘What did he say, Jacky; is he going to die?’

I think her mind is still half in the soap opera; we’re acting out another episode. I should complain; it makes things easier for me. I take on the role of kind, loving, concerned son.

‘Dr Chad feels Dad doesn’t have much longer. He wants us to make the arrangements.’

That sounds appropriate to the genre. I’m feeling disengaged, thirty-six-plottish. Then Mother puts her fist into her mouth and starts crying, really crying. The soap opera is over.

She throws her arms around my neck. Mom’s such a tiny woman, I always forget except at times like this. If a man were her size, he’d be totally marked by it, at a terrible disadvantage. I wonder if I could be five feet tall and cope.

I hold on to her until we hear Joan’s camper roll into the driveway. Joan climbs down and comes in. Mother and Joan fall into each other. I’m empty, bare, cold inside. I’m surprised to find I’ve been crying. I’m the one it hasn’t reached yet. I’ve been so busy, arranging, arguing, fighting, I haven’t allowed it to happen to me. My father’s going to die.

It’s hard for all of us to talk about it but we need to do something. Except for an insurance policy, my folks haven’t made arrangements. Like most people, they didn’t want to think about it. Mother says she and Daddy agreed they wanted the simplest kind of funeral but buried in the ground together, in the same grave. That’s all. We decide on the Holy Cross Cemetery, about two miles from my folks’ house; no showing of the body or any of that. Mother wants any money beyond the minimum to be used for mass cards, prepaid masses said by priests in different places for his immortal soul.

I’m all primed to fight against embalming. It seems I need to fight something through these hard parts, something to keep me from thinking.

When I was fifteen, my Grandfather Tremont died. I was known in the family as the one who was good at school and I’d noised it around about wanting to be a doctor. My grandfather was to be embalmed in his own bedroom for the laying out. Friends of the family, the Downeys, who had a funeral home around the corner, were doing it. I was elected to help with the embalming.

By the time I’d watched the draining of the dark, thick blood, the cutting out of the insides, the stuffing of cotton into the sides of his mouth and into the eye sockets, it was the end of my doctoring career. I also swore nobody I loved would ever have that happen to them.

This is the first time I’ve had to check out that resolve. I’ve had thirty-seven lucky years since then, not being forced to make any of those decisions, but now it’s here.

The next day, Joan and I go to Bates, McKinley & Bates, a mortuary and funeral home on Culver Boulevard. It’s a sad business for a sunny California day but it’s good doing anything with Joan.

The mortuary home is tan, plaster-covered cement, with smoked glass windows you can’t see into from the outside. I stop at the parking meter to wind in a quarter. When I turn, Joan is standing, appraising the building.

‘What do you think, Jack; they’re afraid the corpses might escape?’

It does look like a camouflaged Nazi bunker.

She opens her purse, rummages around in it.

‘Darn, I forgot to pack my silver-plated, pearl-handled twenty-two.’

From then on, we’re into it.

The doors are dark glass, too; swinging, metal-latched. Inside, the décor is virtually colorless: blacks, pure grays and whites. Everybody’s dressed to match. It must be weird spending your days in a place like this, dealing with sad people; death on the dotted line. I want to turn around and walk back into the clean pollution and glare of Culver Boulevard.

There’s a lady at the reception desk. She’s wearing a white carnation in the lapel of a gray suit. Her hair is a muted gray but she looks young, not more than thirty-five. Joan does the talking; I’m not paying enough attention. The lady smiles and asks us to wait. I lean toward Joan.

‘I think she dyes her hair.’

I get a smile and cautioning finger.

We’re ushered into a small room with a non-view tinted window on the street. I’m shocked to see a pinking beige automobile float slowly past outside. Maybe there’s something special in this glass to make things move slowly.

Inside it’s so still. A young man with undyed blond hair in a combline-visible pompadour is sitting at a desk. He has very white, detached hands folded on the desk in front of him. He brings off the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. It’s the smile of a man with freckles who’s just been told the sun has burnt itself out.

We sit down. I’m into the act now. I’m even appropriate in a black suit with a gray tie. Mother and Joan dressed me. The suit was designed for Joan’s father-in-law to be buried in. He was dying of emphysema and spent his last gasping months planning his funeral. He had this suit designed for the laying out. It’s black with a silkish paisley, almost invisible pattern and is lined with black silk. There are narrow lapels, trick slant pockets and three buttons in places you wouldn’t expect them. Mr Lazio, Joan’s father-in-law, Mario’s father, was Italian, Sicilian actually, and liked things fancy. He was also only five feet seven inches tall. I’m wearing the trousers as hip huggers, held up by a pair of Dad’s old suspenders let out to maximum. I’m showing about two inches of cuff and can’t breathe deeply.

The reason Mr Lazio isn’t buried in this suit is because the last week before he died, he decided to change the game plan. Now he wanted a gray suit with a gray casket and a black pillow to set off his gray hair. So they had a new suit cut for him to the dimensions of this one. Carmen, Joan’s mother-in-law, gave this suit to my father, who is also five feet seven, but Dad would never wear it. He said he was afraid somebody would shoot him. So I’m the first one to wear it; probably the last. Some kind of hunched-over, hobbled pallbearer I’m going to make.

We tell the man we want the least expensive funeral possible. We try to make this sound as if it’s a deep religious conviction but I can tell he pegs us as cheapskates. He moves a small pad from the corner of his desk and starts writing down the figures. He asks questions, we answer. ‘Yes, burial, not cremation.’ ‘But cremation is so much less expensive.’ ‘That’s all right.’ We’ll blow it on a bit of ground. ‘No, we don’t have the plot; we’ll buy it after we’re finished here.’ … No, the corpse isn’t dead yet. But he’s working on it; we’ll deliver, don’t worry.

There’s some complication about burying them in the same grave on top of each other. There has to be a cement vault, California law. OK, we’re in for a double vault, cheaper in the long run and appropriate.

Then he quotes the price for the embalming: not much, about seventy-five bucks. Up to this point Joan has done most of the talking, very refined, very capable at keeping things on an even keel. I come drifting in.

‘No, please, we don’t want him embalmed.’

A small squall passes over the unlined, calm, passive features.

‘But it’s customary to embalm, sir.’

‘We don’t intend to have a showing of the body, so there’s no reason to embalm.’

‘But, Mr Tremont, it’s a California state law; the deceased must be embalmed before burial.’

‘How about the ones you cremate?’

‘They’re embalmed, too. It’s the California state law.’

He smiles. I figure he’s got us, I don’t intend to do time over an unembalmed body. But then Joan comes on.

‘I have a friend who’s Jewish Orthodox; she was allowed to bury her mother without embalming because it’s part of her religion. Is this true?’

He folds his fingers, interlacing them the other way.

‘Yes; it’s an exception to the law; a question of religious freedom.’

‘Well, we want a Jewish burial.’

She turns to me.

‘Don’t we, John?’

I nod. I can see us making arrangements at the local temple, running around sticking up crosses to confuse Mother, Oy veh! But we’re past the embalming part for the time being. We’re into caskets. He leads us down a corridor. I peek in several doors on the way. There are little metal name plaques over each door. Two I can remember: The Everlasting Peace Room, and The Eternal Truth Room. The room at the end has wall-to-wall caskets, three deep, hung on hooks and tilted slightly forward so we can see into them. They look like gigantic jewel cases. Most of them are lined with quilted silk in light colors from white through pink to gray again. The outsides of some are armored like Brink’s trucks.

Our man is going along describing each coffin, its advantages and disadvantages, quoting prices. There’s no stopping him, this is grooved-spiel time. He has instructions to give us the full treatment even if we are cheapskates.

We go along beside him, listening, waiting till he’s finished. He’s doing his best to make us feel that if we don’t buy a foam-rubber-lined coffin so Dad’ll be comfortable, with Duralumin or stainless-steel exterior to keep the worms out, we don’t really love him. Joan looks at me. I don’t know what she expects me to say.

‘Sir, do you have anything in the line of a plain pine box?’

He looks down at his shined shoes, then up at us.

‘No, the least expensive casket we have is this one. It is pine, sir, and painted metallic gray. It’s priced at only one hundred twenty-two dollars.’

‘Would it be all right if I built a casket? My father was a carpenter, so he has all the tools. I’m sure I could build a box he’d like in two days or less.’

He brings up a hand to smother a cough, probably a smirk or, hopefully, a smile.

‘I’m afraid not, sir. We shall be responsible for the funeral, transportation, ceremony and interment; the reputation of our establishment would be involved. We couldn’t allow a thing like that.’

I know I’m being ornery, dumb; maybe I’m taking it out on death. Joan pulls me by the arm and turns toward the door. She whispers.

‘That’s enough, Jack, you’ve had your fun. You know how Dad is. He wouldn’t want anything out of the ordinary. We’re not going to have a hippy funeral.’

She turns and goes back to the man.

‘We’ll take that one there.’

She points to the one with the metallic gray paint.

‘Is it possible to have it unpainted?’

He smiles and leans forward. Joan can get just about anything she wants. She’s such a handsome woman. When you’re her brother, it’s easy to forget.

‘I am sorry, madam, I don’t think there are any in our reserve without paint and if there is to be no embalming – well – we can’t wait very long.’

Oh, he is a son of a bitch but it doesn’t faze Joan; she smiles and nods.

‘All right, we’ll take this one just as it is, paint and all.’

She grabs my arm and we follow him to the office again. As we go along the narrow corridor, I fall back and take a closer look into one of those rooms. There’s a casket on a little platform, surrounded by vases of flowers. There are indirect lights and baby spots on the casket and it’s open. An old lady, dressed in orchid, is sleeping in the casket. There’s a smell of beeswax and floor polish. I run back out and catch up.

We sit down. He opens his pad and writes in the price of the casket.

‘And where shall the services be held? We have lovely chambers for private services here in our own chapel.’

I’m completely boggled again. That little smiling lady did me in; but Joan sticks with it.

‘We’ll have a funeral mass at Saint Augustine’s and then the burial will be at Holy Cross.’

He looks at her. What kind of a Jewish funeral is this? I half expect him to start talking embalming again. But he’s given up; we could ask about hiring a five-piece band and he’d go along. There’s more talk concerning the hearse, the number of limousines and a police escort. I’m not fighting anymore. It’s going to be a funeral like any other funeral and Joan’s right, that’s the way Dad would like it.

The total bill comes to something over a thousand dollars. That was the maximum we’d set when we talked with Mother. We plunk down a two-hundred-dollar deposit and say we’ll notify him when Dad dies. He also wants us to let him know soon as possible the exact location of the burial plot at Holy Cross.

We walk out, through the glare, to our car. The parking meter is almost run down. We climb in and I sit there watching the meter.

‘What in heaven’s name are you doing, Jack? What are we waiting for?’

‘I’m getting the rest of my money’s worth from this meter. Spending a thousand dollars – bam, like that, throwing it into a hole, shakes me up.

‘You know, Joan, what I can’t understand is why I’m not crying. Inside I’m like soft water flowing, going nowhere, but I can’t seem to cry.’

Joan turns and looks at me, a glint in her eye.

‘Do you really want to cry? I can make you cry.’

She folds her hands in her lap, clears her throat and starts singing:

‘Where is my Mommy, where can she be?

I’m so awfully lonesome, lonesome as can be.

Papa is brokenhearted, Mother left us alone,

So if you see my Mommy, tell her to come home.’

She hasn’t gotten into the second line before my sobs start, softly, openly. I’m crying, scared, and ashamed as I always was. I stare through my tears at Joan. She stops. I get back some control.

‘Did Mom really hide from us when we were little? Sometimes I think I made it all up; it’s so hard to believe.’

‘Yep, she really hid. She even recommended the idea to me for my kids. She’d hide behind the hedge or sometimes go over to Mrs Reynolds, for a cup of coffee.

‘She thought it was funny how she could make you do anything she wanted by threatening to sing that song. You really were a “simp” when I think about it.’

‘Well, why weren’t you scared?’

‘There is a song that makes me cry, too, you know, Jack. I never let Mother know about it and don’t you snitch. I only hope I can sing it without crying now.

‘I don’t know why I love you like I do;

I don’t know why I just do.

I don’t know why you thrill me like you do;

I don’t know why you just do.

You never seem to like my romancing;

The only time you hold me is when we’re dancing …’

I pick up the melody and we sing together. There on Culver Boulevard, under clear California sunshine, we cry our way through the rest of my quarter.

I pull out and we head toward Jefferson Boulevard. This part of town is cemeteryville. There are three cemeteries within three square miles: a Protestant one, a Jewish one and a Catholic one. I don’t know what you do if you’re an atheist or a Moslem. I wonder if there are still black cemeteries in America? There were when I was a kid. We called them colored cemeteries.

The Catholic one we’re going to is built over what used to be a riding stable.

It has an entrance gate like Mount Vernon. The main administration building is a studio-set blend of a Howard Johnson’s and a Bavarian chapel. Californians come up with the weirdest combinations in architecture. Except for Spanish-adobe style, there’s no indigenous form, and they have no fear.

Inside, it’s a more practical setup. On the wall is Pope Paul VI staring down at us. I wonder if they’ll ask for our baptismal and confirmation certificates. Who’s to know if Dad’s Catholic?

We’re ushered into a cubicle in a row of cubicles. A woman comes with a sheath of folders under her arm. We explain what we want. Again, we’re going for the cheapy but it doesn’t bother her. She puts aside two leather-bound folders and opens the folders in cardboard.

This cemetery is laid out like a golf course. There are no gravestones except flat plaques set in the ground. She shows us some plots which are still available. It’s like working with a real-estate agent, choosing a lot in a development. In a sense, that’s what it is, only the lots are tiny, the habitation subterranean, the neighbors very quiet.

Each part of the cemetery has a name. There’s the Immaculate Conception Section, the Communion of Saints Section, the Resurrection Section, the Crucifixion Section, and so forth. Joan speaks up.

‘We’d like a view in the direction of Palms.’

The lady takes this in her stride. A view from your cemetery plot? It must have been asked before, because she’s got her geography in hand. She turns the folders and points to several uncrossed-out plots.

‘This is the Resurrection Section here. Palms is in this direction.’ She points on her map. ‘You could look around in here.’

She makes a circle with her pencil without touching the map.

‘I think you’ll find what you want. It’s on a little rise and has excellent drainage. There are some in the middle, here, in your price range because they are relatively inaccessible.’

She indicates a wiggly circle with a dot in the center.

‘This is a tree. The four graves around it are slightly more expensive.’

She refers to a chart.

‘There’s one left under the tree and it’s six fifty instead of five fifty; you see, the tree makes it easier to find.’

We get the numbers and go out to look. There are winding, turning roads going all over the cemetery and she’s given us a small map to find our way. It reminds me of driving toy cars in an amusement park. There are white arrow signs pointing to the different sections and we find Resurrection with no trouble. I park, we get out and locate the cross-section markings on the edge of the road. We work our way down across graves.

When we were kids, we had a big thing about not walking on the graves in the graveyard but here you’re more or less encouraged to. Actually, the graves are so close together, and without gravestones, you can’t tell whether you’re walking on a grave or not.

We find the plots she pointed out to us, including one under the tree. This tree is a young jacaranda and that does it. Dad has always loved the jacaranda trees in California. We’ll blow the extra hundred bucks and not tell Mother. We sit under the tree, look out and search for what we think is Mom and Dad’s house.

‘We should’ve brought a picnic with us, Joan. This is a cemetery I could come visit anytime. I wonder if they’d let somebody pitch a pup tent and camp here? After all, it’s our own property; how could they stop us?’

‘Jack, don’t you dare mention that idea to any of the kids; you know they’ll do it.’

Then we start crying again.

When we’re recovered, we go back to the office. Our lady picks us up and leads us to our cubicle. It brings back the time Vron and I were buying our first new car at Central Chevrolet in Los Angeles. We made the deals in cubicles just like this. I’m almost expecting talk about a trade-in.

We tell the lady we want the one under the tree. She’s so enthusiastic you’d think she’s the one who’s going to be buried there. We tell her the plot is for two. She asks if we want a plaque. We decide to buy one at seventy-five dollars. We’re caught up in the spirit of things. We give Mom and Dad’s names. We’ll have Dad’s name first and both the year of birth and death cut. There’s something final about putting down the year of death like that when it’s only early April. We just put down the year of Mom’s birth.

The lady asks if we want a flower holder installed. This is twenty dollars more. It’s a metal holder set in the ground for flowers. I insist on having one; Joan thinks I’m crazy but goes along. All together, we drop about another seven hundred and fifty bucks at the cemetery. It looks as if the funeral’s going to cost somewhere around two thousand. It’s worth staying alive.

Outside in the car, Joan wants to know why I bought the flower holder.

‘Gosh, Jack, we could bring a trowel, dig a little hole and stick flowers in the ground if you want. Mom’s never going to go up there and visit; she’s never visited her mother’s or father’s or any of her sisters’ graves. She’s afraid of cemeteries.’

‘I know, Joan, but someday I might want to do a little putting.’

We go back home and explain to Mother what we’ve done. She doesn’t want to know too much.

‘When he’s dead he’s dead and that’s all there is to it. The only thing makes sense is buying mass cards and praying for him.’

I don’t think it’s truly hit yet. She knows he’s going to die but not that he’s going to be dead. The first is an event, the second is a fact of being. There’s a big difference. It’s only beginning to sink in to me. Dad isn’t going to be anymore. We’ve said the last things to each other. I’ve seen him move around the garden or fix things in his shop for the last time. He’ll never plant another flower or laugh again. He’ll be gone.

Billy is there during all this. Thank God he doesn’t say anything in front of Mother but out back he lets me know his feelings. I sit in the rocking chair and he flops on the bed.

‘Christ, Dad, it’s barbaric. Why don’t we rent a rowboat at the Santa Monica pier and dump him in the water? Who needs all this funeral crap?’

‘There are California laws, Bill. It took some doing just not having him embalmed.’

We still haven’t told Mother about not embalming. We told her there wouldn’t be any viewing of the body, but there was no reason going into the rest of it.

‘You mean you got out of embalming him?’

‘That’s right. Joan quoted some obscure rule about Jewish religious custom and he’s getting a Jewish non-embalmed funeral.’

Billy stands up and starts pacing.

‘That’s great, that’s really great! It’ll be almost like a real funeral. Remember how when Mme Mathilde died we packed ice around her in the bed till M Didier could get the coffin made? Then we lowered her into the box and walked her up hill to the church, then to the churchyard. The gravediggers were M Perrichot, M Boule, the mayor, and Maurice. There was an extra shovel, so I gave them a hand. We had that grave filled and tamped down in fifteen minutes. That’s my idea of a funeral.’

‘You’re right, Bill, but it’s not enough of a funeral for your grandmother. She’s being terrific about the whole thing, and we’ve got to give her credit.’

‘Dad, I don’t have a suit of any kind, let alone a black suit. What do you think?’

‘Look in Granddad’s closet, Bill; maybe one of his will fit you. I’m wearing one.’

‘You mean you’re going to the funeral in your dead father’s clothes?’

He sits down. I’m too tired to explain about Mr Lazio.

‘I don’t think I could do it, Dad. That’s too creepy. If he weren’t my own granddad, I could, maybe; but I couldn’t do that.’

He shakes his whole body and closes his eyes. Sometimes I forget how young he is. A young man like him looks so grown up, it’s easy to forget.

‘Then go to the Salvation Army, Bill; they’ll have something in a dark suit that’ll fit you. Here’s fifteen dollars. See if you can pick up a pair of shoes for a buck or so, too. You can wear them for the funeral, then toss them if you want. Your feet are too big for either Dad’s shoes or mine.’

Billy says first he’ll wait till Dad’s dead. I think again about our putting the year of death on that grave plaque. I hate to be superstitious but it’s there in all of us; from books, movies, TV, the games we play as children. I ask Billy to stay with Mom. I want to be with Dad as much as I can.

The nurses are definitely different. Somebody tipped them off about me as a troublemaker. But they’re polite. I feel like an accountant in a bank who’s come to examine the books. I don’t care; I’m not running a popularity contest with nurses.

Dad’s the same. When I go in the room, I kiss him on the forehead and speak to him but he only continues his deep sleep. I wonder how they can tell a coma from sleep; maybe it’s only a question of depth and length.

I’m just finished washing up when Lizbet comes wobbling into the kitchen. She has on her nightgown and her eyes are half open. I pull my suspenders over my shoulders and pick her up. She cuddles against me and I carry her to the maple rocking chair Gene made for Bess last Christmas. He sure has a knack with hardwoods. I sit and rock softly in the slowly lightening room. Lizbet tucks her toes into my crotch and sticks her middle two fingers in her mouth. Bess is afraid she’ll pull her teeth out of straight but I let her suck, a nice sound like a calf nuzzling a teat. I breathe the smells of hay and child through the red gold of her hair.

The nurses are in and out every fifteen minutes. Dad’s getting the royal treatment all right. I ask one what medication he’s being given. She shows me the chart. I pretend I can read the squiggles, lines and abbreviations; smile and give it back. I don’t see any narcotics listed and that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t see any hydrochlorothiazide or Zaroxolyn either, so I figure they’ve discontinued his diuretic for the blood pressure. While you’re in a coma, I don’t imagine high blood pressure is much of a problem.

I’m getting nothing but bad vibes all over the floor. I don’t know it then but the LVNs, kitchen help and all maintenance people are voting right that day to go on strike. In a little while these RNs will need to take over the whole hospital by themselves. I think they’re pissed at me but actually they’re pissed at the world in general and I’m only part of the world.

Dr Chad comes in twice a day, once at ten-thirty in the morning and again about four in the afternoon. Each time he sits beside Dad, takes his pulse, listens to his heart, takes his blood pressure, looks at the catheter bottle and, with his stethoscope, listens to Dad’s breathing. Each time he speaks softly, then more loudly, calling Dad’s name.

‘Mr Tremont? How are you, Mr Tremont?’

He pinches Dad’s shoulder and slaps his face lightly, then harder. Each time there’s no response. It’s like trying to wake a drunk.

On the afternoon of the third day, there’s a slight response when he slaps Dad; his eyes flicker open briefly, he turns his head, lifts his right arm slowly, then settles back. Dr Chad slaps him again, calling, but there’s no more. It’s so like Jesus calling Lazarus back from the dead, especially since Chad has a full, black beard.

Every day, Chad explains the situation and what he’s doing. He’s running continual daily checks on the blood, urine, sputum and feces. He’s beginning to think a big part of the problem might be metabolic. He doesn’t know what set it off or how to re-establish life functions. When I ask, he still says he can’t give me any hope; he’s doing what he can but it looks terminal.

He’s willing to tell me, exactly, everything he’s trying and he’s a natural teacher. I feel he’s glad I’m interested and wants me to know.

The big thing is he’s moved the IV from Dad’s arm to the superior vena cava on his neck. He’s giving nitrogen as protein hydrolysates, backing up with 150 calories for each gram of nitrogen. Chad tells me all this as if I should know what he’s talking about. I feel he’s truly doing something and it makes sense as he explains it.

After juggling around a few days, he settles on 165 grams of anhydrous dextrose plus 860 milliliters of 5 percent dextrose in 5 percent fibrin hydrolysate. To this he’s adding 30 milliequivalents sodium chloride and 50 milliequivalents potassium chloride and 8 milliequivalents of magnesium sulfate. He says it’s a delicate balance he’s trying to establish. He explains all this but admits he’s only taking shots in the dark.

But he’s trying and I let him know how much I appreciate it. I only wish this kind of care had been given from the beginning. The nurses need to prepare these brews for the IV by filtration sterilization because they’d be destroyed by heat. This is a lot of additional work and they’re not happy.

Still I hang in there, Chad hangs in and, most important, Dad’s hanging on.