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There’s no doubt in my mind as vital energy seeped out through buckling knees on Jell-0 legs, brain imploding, that I’ve come, finally, inevitably, and a tad sooner than I’d guessed, face to face with Death..
A sharp cracking sound, not unlike a shotgun, goes off somewhere (in my head?) Crows shoot up scattering at random, fleeing the cornfield and words I want to scream aloud, somewhere between head and tongue, are lost along the way, every single one, leaving me standing unsteadily, mouth agape.
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Silent. Scream stifled, words swallowed down, a shaky finger pointing. Wide eyes wild, darting back and forth between the black dots beelike and zooming all around angrily, dilated pupils jumping like Mexican beans from dot to dot, drawing invisible lines between them. Like in those Drug Store puzzle books Join-the-Dots. Got to connect the holes because, eventually, when all the lines are drawn, a picture is revealed.
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I’m shrinking beneath a certain heaviness I’ve been experiencing a lot lately - and that can only mean one thing: Gravity has gained a lot of weight – either very suddenly or without me noticing. And that, of course, could only mean one thing: my body will act independently of will and involuntarily fall over. Which is just what I do and as I do I catch a glance at the face beneath the hood. A familiar face. Yes, that was the word all right. I fall to the couch light as a feather and see stars as head meets plump cushion. Apart from heart stopping, the most immediate sensation is a high-pitched ringing. Ringing? Or is it more like an echo? A cracking noise repeating crack endless click déjà vu tock tick. .
Another loud cracking sound. Or is it the same one from before
seconds that feel like years ago now? Echoing
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Is it me, or has the air grown thin?
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(A kind of embarrassed feeling comes over me now as I look back. A glaring discrepancy between what I imagined was about to happen - namely, my tragic departure - and what actually, in the unwinding of the strange interlude, came to pass. Anti-climactically, the entity in the cloak was benign. In fact, nothing was what it had seemed at first: the hood turned out to be a scarf, and the cloak was actually a grey overcoat so rain-sodden that, in the darkness of the room, seemed black. Unsurprisingly, the thing inside the soggy garment wasn’t Death after all, just the old man. Which wasn’t surprising either, once the shock and feeling of being let down began to subside. Scary what you can imagine in the dark.)
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Familiar - of course – it’s Jack who’s entered the room like a Tasmanian Devil, partially unhinging the screen door from its frame, returning guiltily from Maggie’s Pub (his local - an Irish-themed bar down on the corner) where he’s pissed another night away. He smells like an ashtray of bent butts and brewers yeast.
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Upon his whirlwind entrance he’s lost balance and stumbles forth like an upset-to-be-awakened Lazarus: confused, half blind and pretty pissed. Producing a sharp crack, his shinbone connects with the edge of the coffee-table – kerrrraaack - the sound of baseball kissing bat. A stream of high-volume curses ensues. Fists waving at the inanimate lump of wood responsible for his pain, staring at it as if daring it to say something..
‘What the fuck happened to the lights?’ he beseeches, though it really sounds more like: Whaddafuck happentalights? His weakly moaned words assure me that he was indeed addressing the coffee table - and with a look that could kill and a whole bunch of gesticulative abuse to go right along with it. Swaying on ropy legs, he says, ‘I’ll kick the fucking shit out of you!’ (I’ll kickda fuckinshitouttaya.)
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Jack’s language is known to get more colourful (blue, in particular) when he’s been drinking, or when he’s really pissed off about something. There is no mistaking it - at this moment he is both. With initial shock subsiding, I sit up again, swing feet to floor, clap hands at pole-lamp by Jack’s La-Zee-Boy chair. The room is ambushwhacked by brightness.
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‘Dad, its okay, take it easy.’ Looking into his bloodshot emerald-colored eyes makes me think of a pair of trapped frogs drowning in a puddle of blood, crazily darting about as they acclimatise to sudden light.
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Appearing to be astounded by this on/off gizmo thing called the Clapper, he tilts his head back and scratches his chin. An expression crosses his face that makes him look like a man who’s just said, let there be light, and there was light. Mom bought it for him last Father's Day from a shopping channel. He’d thought it was the coolest thing. Now he contemplates it as though it were a total stranger. I’m about to ask him the whereabouts of the fire, when he speaks..
‘Leo? That you? What’s going on? Why’re you sittin’ front the one-eyed monster? Why’rn’t you doin’ something more constructive?’ His words are knobs of butter sliding on a hot knife.
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‘Like what, Dad?’
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‘Well, I don’t know. Writin’ maybe. You used to like doing that, didn’t you?’
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‘Dad, its 12:30 on a Friday night. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was watching a movie. What’s with this sudden interest in my-'
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‘Don’t give me any of your lip, mister.’ A forefinger wags unsteadily in my general direction. ‘Why’re you rotting your brain out when you could be readin’? Or writin’?’
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His finger now wags at the TV. My gaze wanders over his shoulder, out the front door, into the yard, half expecting (half hoping) to see Allen Funt, smiling and saying, Smile! - You’re on Candid Camera! It might explain what’s going on here. Whatever this was, it’s really weird – even for Dad.
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‘Things are going to change round here, Leo.’ Speechless, awe-struck, jaw stuck hanging open slack, I’m denied a reply. ‘And for the better, too!’ he throws in by way of exclamation. .
Why do I suddenly feel like a kid again? Give me any of your lip? Mister? What on earth is the old man going on about? Whatever next? Will I be sent to bed without desert? Wondering what’s brought all this on, I keep telling myself that he’s just drunk. Seeing him drunk, especially since The Accident, is hardly a rarity, but he’s never acted quite like this before - whatever this is. The last time he talked to me like I was 6-years old was when I was 9-years old. Heyyy I’m 17 now, or hasn’t he noticed? Completely acluistic, I keep my mouth closed and study his face for signs and clues, trying to get the scoop, Betty-Boop.
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But his usual poker-like façade seems to have cracked under the harsh light, revealing complex emotions beneath the shifting clouds of his features. Waves of changing moods crash upon his leathery, weather-battered skin. And there, in the eye of the storm, in his watery eyes, I think I can make out Grief in the midst of it all, with Dread lurking there too, tugging like an undertow, while the frogs of his eyes flop about in the deep-end of his sockets.
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Had he been crying earlier? Perhaps. But then again, he is drunk (that’s what I keep telling myself), and too much drink can produce the same teary-eyed effect, right?
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He turns to me and our eyes meet instantaneously, lock for an eternity, let go effortlessly,
and I look away into the middle distance, flooding my periphery, focusing on nothing particular. Remotely killing the TV, I ask, not intending to whisper, what’s wrong.
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‘Wrong?’ he echos, frown turned upside down. ‘It’s not what’s wrong, but what’s right! I made a decision today. Taking early 'tirement, son, shaping out, selling off, shipping up. We’re goin’ home.’ And on the tail of that assertion he pulls a brown paper bag from his overcoat pocket and tosses it to/at me. Narrowly missing my head, it bounces off a cushion and cartwheels to the floor, landing neatly between my feet.
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Did he really say, son? Hardly ever calls me that. Beats mister, though.
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He starts singing – incredibly badly – a Simon and Garfunkel song:
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He stops to rub his eyes..
Retrieving the unknown object from inside the paper bag, I guess, by the feel and weight of it, that it’s a large book of some sort. The leather cover is a burnt orange color.
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‘It’s a book!’ Jack sings. ‘Surprise!’ A book of wordless pages. Blank, save for endless rows of parallel lines dead-straight thin-blue.
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‘A book,’ I venture hesitantly, trying to sound pleased. ‘But where’s the writing? Is the author the Invisible Man?’ He doesn’t laugh. ‘It’s a joke,’ I point out. ‘It was supposed to be funny.’
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‘It’s a journal. For you.’.
‘A journal?’ My gast was flabbered. Dad’s not one for giving gifts for no reason whatsoever. ‘What for?’
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‘For writin’ in, ovbiously - ’
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‘Yeah, I know - I don’t mean that. I mean, why - ’
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‘Oh - your birthday,’ he says, as if it were just as ovbious.
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‘But my birthday’s not till the end of July.’
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‘So,’ he scratches his head, ‘think of it as an advance, okay? Jeez-Louise! Don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth, kid.’
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Ah, now, this sounds more like Dad. The urgent edge in his voice replaced by his usual tone of bored-cheerfulness. He approaches me, goes to ruffle my hair or something, but only manages to fumble the tip of an ear instead. Without deliberation, I pull away from his touch, sit back into the cushiony couch. Manage to relax a little, even though I’m no closer to understanding what the hell is going on here.
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‘Why a journal?’ The words are barely out of my mouth when I wish I could take them back. Jack wanders off on one of his long-winded monologues – this time about the (supposed) talent God’s given me, and how I’m wasting it, and how that’s a Mortal Sin, and how that’s a pretty big sin and all. He instructs me to check out the story in the Bible about the ‘talents’ and the wicked slothful servant who disappointed his Master and the awful consequences he suffered.
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‘Sure, Dad, I’ll look it up.’ Like in a million years.
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