“What do you mean he hit you?” Mark said into his cell phone. The rough-sawn shiplap walls of the nursing home lobby marked the convergence of the modern and obsolete. Mark, however, liked to think of it as the union of prosperity and deterioration. His blood swelled and rustled. The sweat trickled from his blushing glands as his stomach acids crested. He regretted picking up his sister’s call at all.

“Like, he hit you with his fist? Or he slapped you? Lynn?”

“What the fuck difference does it make?” she said.

“No, no. You’re right. I get it. So, do you want to put Kurt on the phone? Like, I’ll talk to him?”

“Talk to him? You want to talk to Kurt. On the phone?”

“What am I supposed to do, Lynn? Tell me. What do you want me to do?”

“Dammit Mark, I don’t know! You should want to knock his teeth in at least.”

“I’m not sure more violence is the answer, Lynn. You could—”

“Forget it. I don’t understand why I even called you. Whenever anyone is drowning, you’re the first one to shore.”

“Lynn, come on. That’s not true. Listen, I’m heading in to visit Grandpa. Can I call you back in like a half an hour?”

“No, Mark. Because I have to pick up your niece from gymnastics with a bright red welt on my face and then bring her home to the guy who made it.”

Mark walked towards the reception desk to sign the visitor’s log. He could hear the faint moaning and groaning sounds of the patients. The voices, he thought, were like those of sea creatures communicating. The thick modulations of suffering ached to speak with his disquiet. There was a triple-chimed grandfather clock next to the nurses’ station. Weathered with a driftwood finish, dust blanketed every inch of the surface except for a few spots inscribed with fingerprints. The glass cabinet door, which at one time sheltered the blackened pendulum, was cracked and spattered with mildew. The tarnished silver hands clung to the sad old face of the clock as it clanked three times in succession.

A skinny man steeped in cheap cologne steamrolled Mark as he stared at the clock. The stink was an oily marriage of apple cider vinegar and crushed black pepper. The man offered no apology for the collision or for cutting in front of Mark to ink the blank sign-in sheet. Mark envisioned himself thrusting the plastic pen through the side of the man’s cheek like a harpooner, the ballpoint barb visible through the offender’s teeth as he howled for help. Instead, he stood still and offered the scrawny man a polite smile as he passed. Mark could hear the murmur in his tendons. The queasy ripples in the lining of his stomach set off a tart burst of saliva near the back of his mouth. On the whole, Mark was a mixture of water and fear. The ratio was constantly in flux but tended towards the latter. 

As he rapped his knuckles on door 1851, he took a deep breath to quiet the squealing gnats in his gut. Knocking on doors made him sick. The violent motions of begging entrance while steadying himself for acceptance were too much to bear. Kurt hit me, Mark. I don’t know what to do. He grabbed the moist brass handle and pushed the door open. The smell of decay and human excrement overwhelmed him. He was sure he could detect a note of colon cancer circulating in the room.

“Hey, Grandpa. How’s it going?”

“Hi-de-ho,” his grandfather said, jolted awake by the voice in the room.” Just caught me in a snoozer here. Nice to see you though, Mark. Come in, come in. Pull up a chair.”

“I’ll stand. I can’t stay too long.”

His grandfather slumped down in a checkered blue recliner. The metal arm that held the right side of the footrest tilted in its permanent state of collapse. The crooked chair made his stout frame look like a dented eggplant. There was an empty pillowcase draped along the top of the chair’s headrest. The linen had once been clean-pressed and crisp white, but now, burnished from countless years of sweat and immobility, it was a mixed palette of mustard yellows and raw umber shading. Nestled under the left armrest was a small circular table supported by three legs. Someone had wrapped one in a thick layer of white duct tape. Resting on top of the table was an empty glass and a leather-bound copy of Moby Dick.

“That’s a fancy book, huh?” Mark said. “Where did you get it?”

“This?” he asked. “Oh, a guy down the hall unloaded it on me. I lent him some money a while back so he could get some new glasses, or teeth, or something. I forget. The guy ended up being a bag full of excuses afterward though. ‘My son’s coming into some coin next week. I’ll have it for you tomorrow.’ Blah, crap, blah. After a few weeks, he offered me the book, and I took it to rid myself of the confrontations.”

“Seems like you got screwed.”

Though his grandfather didn’t seem to notice the dismissive tone, Mark winced when he realized he had sunk the cordial anecdote. He loved his grandfather and had many fond memories of him, but the disparity in their generations and the shared sense of being bound to time provided just enough insulation for their visits to be drudgery for him rather than pleasant. Mark was having a hard time committing himself to pleasantries during this visit. The tuneless humming in his brain was intensifying. Lynn’s shrill voice had hijacked his synapses and replaced each electrical signal with a screech. Kurt hit me, Mark. I don’t know what to do. Mark continued the subject as a way of bucking the silence. Anything to quiet the symphony of needles and shivers performing within him.

“I’ve never read it. Is it at least any good?”

“Haven’t started it yet, but I promised myself I’d finish it before my interview with St. Peter.”

“What the hell for?” Mark asked, shaking his leg up and down like a jackhammer. “Why Moby Dick?”

“First, it’s the one book I own. So, there’s that. But also, from what I’m told, it’s about this grizzled old seadog chasing around a big goddamned whale that’s sort of connected to him somehow. It’s like they’re all tangled up on some larger scale or something. So, he doesn’t just chase the whale, see? It’s like he is the whale. I want to see how it shakes out.”

“Sounds pretty ridiculous,” Mark said hoping to provoke a reaction. “But if it’s important to St. Peter, why don’t you start it tonight?”

“Meh, we’ll see.”

Mark watched perplexed as his grandfather’s chin plummeted towards his chest. His eyes cinched without effort. For a moment, he thought his grandfather had sunk into oblivion, but the foaming snores that followed set him straight. He was relieved he didn’t have to fake conversation, but the silence made the sound waves of self-reproach broadcasting from within much clearer. Whenever anyone is drowning, you’re the first one to shore. His fingernails went from neatly trimmed to gnawed and bloody by the time his grandfather woke up.

“Ugh. Sorry about that,” he said after waking himself with a violent, throaty snort. “All the damn medication they have me on makes me conk out like a baby forty times a day. I just go out. No warning. Nothing. I have no control over it, but the doc tells me I have to keep taking the stuff. What am I gonna do? Tell him to shove it? To keep his poison? I mean, who the hell am I to say anything?”

“I guess,” Mark said.

“Hey, how’s your sister doing? And the girls? I haven’t heard from them in a while.”

“That’s Lynn, right? Always a little too wrapped up in herself. I suppose they’re good though. She sent me a video of the baby walking a few weeks ago and Mandy is taking gymnastics classes at the middle school.”

“Good, good. And Lynn?”

“I talked to her on the way here. She’s good, but I think she’s having some problems with Kurt.”

“Problems? Like what?”

“Might be something you want to discuss with her, Grandpa.”

“Oh Christ, I just told you I haven’t talked to her in forever. It’s not like I’ve moved, Mark, or had a secretary holding my calls.”

“Okay, okay. I think Kurt hit her.”

“What the hell do you mean? What makes you think that?”

Mark tugged at his left earlobe until the cartilage made a crisp pop in his skull. “She told me.”

“She told you! What’d she say? What about the girls?”

“She didn’t say much. I got the impression the girls were fine. I don’t think Kurt would do anything to the kids.”

“But he did it to Lynn, right? What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to do much of anything. I mean—”

“You don’t think you should do anything? Who else will, Mark?”

“Listen. It’s none of my business, Grandpa. They need to work it out on their own. Split up or whatever. Nothing I do will change their problems. Maybe it was a heat of the moment thing. A mistake. I mean, if she was really in trouble why would she come to me?”

“You’re her brother. Her blood. And blood is thicker than water. No matter what.”

“That’s a cheesy cliché, Grandpa. And it doesn’t carry much weight these days. Not in situations like this. I’m not going to butt in where I don’t belong.”

“What? You don’t think you’re part of this?

“No. It’s not my place.”

“Listen. When I was in the Navy, there was this one guy no one would come within a shipyard of. Big corn-fed son of a bitch. Well, one time after trolling the Pacific for hours we docked near one of the Mariana Islands. That’s when we came under fire from—”

“What does this have to do with Lynn?” Mark asked.

“I’m getting to it. Listen, for chrissakes! So, the fight was over quick on account of our numbers and all. We’re assessing and reporting when this big ol’ southern ox yells, ‘What are you boys waiting for? Go get yourself a necklace.’ I thought he was scavenging the bodies for jewelry, or money, or something. A lot of guys took souvenirs and stuff during the war, you know? Well this guy, outta nowhere, cupped his hand and shoved it into the mouth of this dead enemy soldier. He jammed his fingers right behind the lower teeth and kinda locked his thumb in place under the chin. Then he tugged. He thrashed this lifeless head back and forth with these massive jerking motions. We all just stood there and watched in horror. There were a handful of guys who ranked higher than him there. Hell, I ranked higher than him, but no one moved. No one made as much as a peep. We were standing there sure, but we were all part of something we didn’t want to be part of. The war, the brotherhood—it made us prisoners. Going against your squad was the same as jumping overboard. And the ocean was always there . . . waiting to take up space in your warm, sticky lungs.

Anyway, there were these awful tearing and cracking sounds. And then, there was this poor lifeless bastard’s jaw dangling free from the son of a bitch’s left hand. It was all, what do you call it? Sinewy? I don’t know. I remember the teeth the most. Unless you’re a dentist, you should never see the backside of a man’s teeth. It’s not natural. One or two guys lost their lunches, but no one said anything. He yelled something like, ‘What are y’all waiting for? Get ya some.’ Honest to God, I shit my trousers right then and there. I mean, now I do it a little every day. On that day though, it was different. I was afraid. And I wasn’t just scared of this psychopath in front of me; I was scared of myself. Why didn’t I say something? Or do something? Every cell in my body was screaming for me to act. But I didn’t. And guess what? It stuck with me. I relive it every day in everything I do. Whenever the going gets tough, I sit still. Always have. Whenever any demons opened their eyes to look at me, I told them, ‘You go ahead do what you will; I won’t be a bother to you. Give my warmest regards to your boss.’ Sometimes I even gave the monsters a smile and a handshake. Every single cell is still angry as hell with me, Mark. Each one has been screaming at me nonstop for all these years. Like I said, I shit myself all the time now. The doctors say it’s because of my age and the cancer and all, but I understand the truth. It’s the cells, Mark. It’s every tiny piece of me trying to rid itself of the shame.”

Without warning his grandfather keeled over again. The wailing of Mark’s innards drowned out the snoring. He saw his opportunity to escape. For as long as he could remember, his grandfather could sense his awkwardness and apprehension. Whenever they said goodbye to one another, his grandfather joked, “Kiss me, and I’ll whack you.” Then he would offer his palm for a weak handshake.

This time the routine changed. Mark leaned over and kissed his grandfather’s pale, clammy forehead. “Kiss me, and I’ll whack you,” he thought.

He tiptoed from the room without waking him.

As he walked down the hall and through the lobby, the dissonance inside of him whirled in irritation. The buzzing in his nerves was like a hundred yellow jackets trapped in a sardine tin. He paused as he reached the door to the vestibule. With one hand grasping the door handle, he looked back towards the sign-in desk. The clock next to the nurses’ station still registered three o’clock, but the chiming had ceased. He stared at the hands of the clock as if they would lunge towards him. He took an infinite breath, pushed opened the door, and reached into his pocket for his cell phone. As he dialed, the clamoring in his veins turned into a high-frequency cry. He almost hung up when he registered the flat voice of his brother-in-law.

“Hey, Mark. Now’s not a great time. Can I—”

“Are you home?” Mark said.

“Yeah, but—”

“Stay there. I’m coming over.”

Mark ended the call without waiting for a response from Kurt then turned his cell phone off altogether. For the first time he could remember, he relished in dead air. There was no rumbling of traffic. No whir of insect wings. The electrical lines overhead carried their currents in secrecy. Mark allowed himself to drink in the stillness for just a moment, to experience the clean air in his lungs. He then resolved to find the nearest bookstore on the way home from his sister’s house to buy his own copy of Moby Dick.

An iron curtain draped his nerves, and he felt the tension in his jaw release.

# # #

Kevin Haslam is a content writer and communications professional. He was a paint salesman before shifting to writing where he earned an MA in English at Morehead State University. He resides in Cranston, Rhode Island with his wife and two boys and can be found at www.redinkwritingsolutions.com.

Photo: Eva Blue