The hospital waiting room was empty.
We had been secluded, my brother and I. Placed in a waiting room for the people who had enough money to ask for one, when really they had just placed us in a lounge and told us if anyone came in it was being occupied.
I was tired.
Working up to moments like these, you never expect them to happen, to sting you as much as they do and when they do (because they always do) it takes a lot out of you. It takes whatever fire you have out and you have to sit there and think about the last actions, the last words you said to whoever ended up on the hospital bed, dead-or dying.
He hadn't died yet.
The he, being my father.
But I knew, you always know they will.
I survey the room, note that the four walled room is gray, probably to evoke a sense of strong emotion, to drive the point home that something fucked up is happening and you have to sit there and deal. No paintings, adorned the walls, just a hanging television set-muted and playing a rerun of LOST. My brother had walked over to a vending machine, he remarked to me while pressing buttons “That if his brownie gets stuck in the machine then he's going to kill someone.” He's been standing there for a few minutes now, trying to push and tip the machine in order for his lodged confection to hopefully break free of the barrier holding it back.
“I wish I could sue these fuckers.”
I ignore him.
I shift in my uncomfortable though cushioned chair and cross my legs, feeling the denim tightening as I move my position. I play with the draw string on my black hoodie and wait for the time to pass, which it doesn't as my brother continues to talk out loud, to me, to himself.
“I wish you wouldn't sit there and act so juvenile.”
He says this a bit bothered and looks over me, running a hand over his slicked back brown hair. His brown eyes look at me-questioning me-saying what I could imagine something that went along the lines of “I don't want to be here, but he's our father and I have to be, just as much as you have to be.” I don't say anything as he adjusts the navy tie of his gray suit and sets his black coat down on a table that also held a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times. He coughs before sitting besides me and saying-
“I know this is hard for you.”
Which it isn't.
“But Dad is probably going to die.”
The thought doesn't linger, it drifts into the back of my head as I nod, not looking at him.
“So if he does, we have to be ready, kid.”
“I'm not a kid anymore Grant. You're like 4 years older then me.”
“I'm 24, you're 20. I'm more established Chris, you're still a fledgling.”
He says this all with just a hint of arrogance.
For a moment he just looks over at me and doesn't say anything before putting a hand on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze. He stands and tells me that he's going to find the doctor who's supposed to be telling us what is happening to Dad and why it's happening. When he leaves, I stare up at the television and think about the episode that's playing right now, something about cowboys and daddy issues.
While I'm looking up, reading the subtitles on the muted television I think about the last time I spoke to, the last time I saw my father. It'd been over the summer at his (our?) home in Los Angeles before I moved to Chicago. It was late afternoon, the kind of lazy afternoon that leaves you restless, and or floating upside down in your pool just to see if you can flip yourself over once you start to run out of air. I had been doing laps in our pool, trying to at least get some excersise instead of just sitting around and watching old music videos. I had just made my 10th lap when I saw him standing in the doorway of our large, sand colored ranch styled home. He was dressed, dressed for a meeting probably for some movie in production.
He didn't say anything.
He just stared.
He looked grim in his black suit and tie, he must've been hot but he looked cold, stone cold, the kind of cold someone who's heartless gives off. Or at least someone who wears an emotional mask. His white hair was slicked back ( a style my brother had either stolen from him, or the 80's I never asked) and he just wouldn't stop staring, so I stared back.
The next day I left for Chicago.
Here I am, back in Los Angeles, tired and wanting to leave all over again.
My brother walks back in, I can only assume it's been about half an hour because LOST is almost over. He's by himself and not saying much, instead he's rubbing his neck, loosening his tie and clearing his throat. I can tell he's upset, or rather bothered, extremely bothered but I don't say anything.
“Don't you want to know what the doctor said? Goddamn, you're always silent, do you ever care about anything?”
I shrug, not caring enough about how he feels to give him a real answer.
“Whatever, I talked to a doctor.”
“And?”
“And, Dad probably isn't going to make. They said it's alcohol or something, they gave me the details and everything. He must've drank himself damn near to death because it raised his blood pressure so much he had a heart attack. His heart has always been weak and now he just isn't responding. Nothing, I went in there and tried to hold the mans hand and nothing. No response, just cold, goddamn cold.”
“I didn't know Dad drank.” I say
“You're never around, remember ?” Grant shoots at me
He takes a seat next to me again and says “I'm going to start making phone calls, start contacting his contacts and start making funeral plans. You know what room he's in, you should probably go make amends, or something, whatever you have to do to make your transient peace with him.”
When Grant leaves, I don't say anything, or look at anything. Instead I sit there. I sit there and I try to piece together what went wrong-if anything went wrong, or if it was just me and my inability to cope that people simply make mistakes. That everyone is infallible.
I tremble.
I think of the day I settled into my Chicago apartment, he came to visit for an hour or two, he had come to drop off some money, see the place, you know. Critique my style of living. The studio apartment was slightly cramped but big enough to accommodate a lofted steel bed. He'd stood in the doorway making his appearance brief-
“I just want to let you know that you're doing okay, Chris. You're going to make shitty pay as a writer but you're okay. You'll figure it out someday son, but this is your life and all I can do is watch it happen.”
After he says this he hands me an envelope full of ten 100-dollar bills. I go to tell him “Thank You” and “I Love You” but he's left the studio already and I don't find it important enough to chase after him.
And now here I am. I'm shuffling down this long, white, hospital hallway. I try to ignore the sound of beeping machines and breathing apparatuses as I make my way towards his room at the end of the hall. When I open the door, the room is dark and he's laying, laying in his bed and he's bathed in white by the overhead light that I assumed was halogen. He looked pitiful, weak but peaceful.
“You've really fucked up now old man.” I say, under my breath
I move over to his side and touch his hand. Cold, like he always is.
He doesn't stir as I stand over him, examining his features, the every bump and curve of his face. He's breathing, breathing slowly and very thinly and I imagine that the moment is coming soon, at any second.
I can't figure out why I dislike him so.
I feel like sitting in the chair beside the bed, but I don't. I figure if my mother was here she'd be crying by now but she had given up on caring about him by this point. Trying to pinpoint where our relationship deteriorated I can't find an exact point, so instead I stand there, and stroke his head-trying not to be distant for once.
And like that he was gone.
No answers, no reasoning as to why he drank himself to death. No long talk about why we don't have a relationship. Instead he stops breathing and the sound of his heart monitor flat lining fills the chasm of silence I'd help create. I can hear footsteps in the hall, so instead of waiting for them to get there I take some items sitting on the nightstand next to him and walk out of the room, past the nurses, past the doctors and towards the elevator.
I can hear Grant calling to me as the elevator closes.
In the lobby of the hospital I trifle through the items I took, nothing but junk. A magazine someone must've left, some envelopes from when I assume Grant came to visit. I'm about to discard them when I come upon an envelope that has my name written across the front in curse “Chris Hume”.
Ripping it open I find a small white letter, nothing more and it's folded, folded into a rectangle and it has visible ink stains from whatever type of pen he was using. I unfold it and read what it says, slowly and to myself.
You're doing Chris. You're doing okay.
I don't ball up the letter, instead I stuff it into my jeans and fight back the urge to cry for once. What was he thinking? Why did he write this? Did he know he was going to die? The fact that he committed suicide wouldn't cross my mind until I put the thought together with the note. His goodbye-note or whatever you want to call it had been him saying in his own way “You're okay, kid.” I don't fight back the urge to cry, instead I fight the urge to storm back into the hospital room and beat him back to life. To demand some sort of closure I was never going to get.
I wanted to cry.
Instead I would step outside the lobby, and take in the chilled Los Angeles air.
