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dispatch fourteen
Caravel by Ian Singleton
debuted 15 October 2009 | kept 482 times | click to keep
The bar was dark and covered in a thin industrial carpeting, crowded with hangdog strangers. A man who looked like my Uncle sat quietly on a stool by a karaoke machine, clutching his drink and a microphone. An orange coat came in through a plume of breath into the warm din. He sat down next to me and ordered in a Spanish accent. How you doing, he asked.
I’m all right, I said.
All right, here’s to you my friend, he said and lifted his glass.
Thank you, I said. We drank and set our glasses down. Behind the bar, on a hutch above half-full bottles of sundry liquors, hung pictures of men standing on logs or in front of empty dirt fields, as well as a photograph of Ernest Hemingway sporting a mustache and a sage smile.
You know who looks like Ernest Hemingway, I asked.
Who, replied my friend.
My Uncle. He looks like Hemingway, I mumbled.
That man drank a lot, said my friend.
My Uncle and Hemingway could’ve been twin brothers, I said.
I seen a picture, my friend. He drank, like, a couple bottles of the hot stuff a day.
I drew in my whiskey, savored the burn, and wheezed, He was a tough dude.
You got it, my friend.
I heard a woman’s hoarse laugh behind us and said, You can drink like that when you’ve been through as much trouble with women as him.
We bought another round, shot it. My friend faced me and said, I want to tell you a story. I lose my mother to the cancer. She was very special to me. On the night when I lose her, I was at the bar and had one drink. Just one, my friend! I wake up the next day. I was in the alley.
I see, I said nodding at the bartender to pour again.
I am no light drinker my friend.
I spotted a pair of legs two seats away, looked at my phone, and slid over. My friend chuckled. They were holding their drinks with gentle hands, watching the bartender open the floor panel. As I approached, one set her glass down and pinched shut the purse in her lap. I nodded and the brunette smiled at me, then flashed blue eyes at her friend. Do you want a drink, I asked.
She sat back and smiled with thin stretched lips. Why don’t you buy us a couple and take it easy yourself, hon?
How many have you had, I asked. I realized I had growled at her and the bar had become silent. I ordered another drink and raised my empty glass to Ernest Hemingway. Looks like my Uncle, I said.
I woke sitting up from the sofa to reach the phone.
Tommy?
Hello. Who’s speaking?
It’s your pop.
I didn’t reply.
Tommy, listen. You gotta listen to me now, your Uncle’s passed away.
Which, I asked.
My father stopped breathing. He started again slow, Uncle Dem. Uncle Demetrius. He’s been missing for some time now.
Yes, I know that. Fifteen years.
His body was found in a motel down in Bridgman, Michigan.
As the night before came back to me, I almost tumbled into laughter.
I think–here my father paused for thought–I think he was trying to get closer to South Bend. He had a lot of memories down there.
So you want me to go? To take care of this business?
Yeah. You’re gonna have to, Tommy. You live closest.
What if I don’t give a damn?
Tommy, this is your blood relative.
Aren’t you his blood relative too? His long-lost brother who hasn’t seen him in forever?
My father swallowed a deep breath over the receiver.
I’ll go, but only ’cause no one else will. Blood relations, I said.
All right.
Bye.
He sighed once more.
I said bye.
Bye, Tommy.
Sunday morning around nine, I left for Bridgman. I set the odometer to zero, planning to drive the highway until I saw Lake Michigan’s reflection on the pavement, then switch to the shore road. I put on some music, a faint dwindling guitar and voice.
You wouldn’t make the five hour drive back to Petoskey to be at work Monday morning anyways. You should have called Jessie and told her, even though she said it was over. The morning sun had paled and sooty clouds butted against the horizon. That evening you and Jess made plans to see a movie and met to carpool. On the way, she asked to stop on that hilltop while the sun set. There was plenty of time, so you pulled in. The sun was a beautiful sherbet color. You peered straight into it, focused until your eyes quivered and dampened and you had to shut them. When you opened, the sky was darker and she was staring at you. She came closer and you embraced. You made love on the highway without worrying about passing cars seeing into the backseat. You even returned to the same spot after a few drinks and made love again, then slept until morning. Right before the sun rose you woke and watched it, alert, waiting and wanting to cry again. But the clouds blocked the light.
I eyed myself in the mirror and saw the clouds in the reflection. Uncle Dem was always a sad story. A member of my family died, like my father said. I stretched my back and sat upright. The wedding of cousin Claude, Uncle Dem’s son, came to mind.
You were smoking in an alley by a hotel and ma was after you. She spotted you in the lobby and nagged all the way to the twelfth floor. Even when she came out of the elevator, her voice echoed off the walls. Inside the room, Grandpa and Pop and Neal waited by the window, each in a suit and tie. You were rifling through your suitcase for the blazer and ma shook her head as she passed all us men then shut the door to the bathroom. We only get together every once in a while and you gotta mess everything up, she moaned, muffled by the door. We’re waiting for you now. C’mon, your father said. The light through the window shone down on grandpa as if he were already in Heaven. You were sliding your arms through the blazer, but then you had to put on the tie so you took the blazer off. While you were fiddling with that, grandpa said, He was about your age when we moved. We moved a lot too. That’s probably when he started drinking. Probably when it started to go bad for him. That was soon after Uncle Dem disappeared with his car and a forty-five, the start of fifteen years without contact. The Family imagined him working odd jobs, barely living. Ma prayed he wouldn’t use the pistol to harm anyone including himself and her prayers were answered–no one heard anything. But all that day, Uncle Dem was the one who did it first–snuck cigarettes, the ones for moms losing weight; drove around with his friends; smoked at the mall and catcalled women. You thought you would die in a field drinking cheap beer.
At eleven am, I reached the city of Manistee. in view of Lake Michigan to the west. The sun emerged from the clouds and glistened on the lake through the spokes of trees, making slivers of the dalliance. I pulled off as soon as I could, but when I stopped at a dirt road and pointed toward the lake, clouds shrouded the sun and the glimmer on the water vanished.
When I saw a few haggard trees above a dirt lot with a trailer, I braked and tooled into the parking lot. A sign read Roadside Café. I stepped in the door and found a seat across from a short blonde sitting on the outside of a booth, her legs snug beneath the table in ski pants. When she stood I watched her. She must have seen me from the reflection in the window because she glanced over her shoulder and twitched her mouth. She entered the Women’s. I opened the greasy menu and read the specials, flipping the page, slouching. Three small children bounced in unattended. I lowered the menu to see the blonde paying the cashier and trying to keep the children from hopping into her elbows. There was no glance back as I watched her leave herded by the kids toward a man outside blocking the sun from his eyes.
You from around here, asked the waitress.
No.
What can I get you?
She was staring away and rolling her shoulders to stretch her neck.
I just want a coffee, I said.
She huffed as she wrote on her pad, mentioned how quick it would be, and swiveled on her heel.
An old man was smoking a cigarette and looking at two buzzcuts in baggy jeans and sweatshirts sitting on the curb next to their bikes. I slid out of the booth and raised my hand to signal the waitress. I’m just gonna go over to that gas station for a minute.
It’s gonna be ready in a sec, hon.
I just gotta get some smokes, I said. I bounded toward the door and pushed through, then clasped my coat around myself and took long scissoring strides to the gas station.
The boys yelled at me to buy them cigarettes. The first time you bought smokes was at a store that sold to minors. You used the money ma gave you for a treat before you stepped out the door that afternoon. Dem started at about fourteen. He must have been smoking in the diner where he met his wife, Fran, and soon after moved into that apartment outside South Bend. She mothered two children, Claude and Belle, after finding work as a secretary at a lawyer’s office–a real good job, the family said. He must have been sitting there smoking and drinking in the living room and in comes Fran. It was a hard day at work, but Dem got a head start on the drinking. The kids are out playing and it’s a late winter evening so the sun slants through the windows and exposes all the winter dust in the room. She comes in with a bang of the door and another bang when she slams her bags against the baseboard.
You know how much time I spent on the goddamn phone today?
He chortles and stretches out his back.
Yeah, I see you give a crap sittin’ there in your chair.
Well, don’t bring it up if it was such a bad day, he says. You’re home now. Have a drinky-poo, he says raising the glass to her without taking his eyes off the television.
This is about all you do, isn’t it, she snarls.
About all you do is bitch, he murmurs. Then the plastic ashtray by the sofa licks him in the cheek. He’s dusting his lips, the ashes moist in his mouth. He opens his eyes and sees the cigarette butts in his lap. When he blinks the ash falls from his eyelids. He rises, levelling his glare, tosses his beer bottle sloshing in the seat, and takes one step to slap her on her cheek. And it lands hard and knocks her into the corner where she sinks down muttering apologies and touching her face. He raises his hand again but then stops. Instead, he shatters the small window in the door with his fist, bloodying his hand, and is out the door.
Then he left and traveled almost seven years, visiting less and less. Until Claude left too and Belle lost touch and the fifteen years’ absence began.
I entered through the door again, just as the waitress approached and set a styrofoam cup down.
It’s to-go. I’ll just be right here, she said as she sat down at the counter and began to read a book the size of a pulp novel. After a little while she spoke, You sure you don’t want some eggs or something?
I raised an eyebrow, shaking my head and stirring my coffee.
It’s been a year since you spoke to ma except to send her a card on Mother’s Day. You left work with some friends who had stopped at the store to buy cards for their mothers. You watched them select theirs then grabbed one yourself. While the three of them stood in line you felt a shame deep inside.
The waitress was staring so I turned to her and she faced the kitchen again.
Hey. Where am I exactly, I asked.
You’re just north of Holland. About half an hour south of Muskegon.
I’m coming from Petoskey.
Welcome. You doing a road trip?
I hesitated then mumbled, My Uncle died.
She winced and let herself off the stool, Well you’re doing a good thing for your family by coming down here.
She shuffled into the kitchen watching over her shoulder. The look made me realize I was alone in the diner. I turned to the window and saw that the sun was getting lower, the day darker. The metal trailer wall pressed cold against my elbow. A vague inertia kept me sitting there. I lit a cigarette and watched the sunset, then stood to order another coffee. Time wasted any way you did it.
The cook came out and set down another cup of coffee, then smiled with buck teeth.
Pop drove you down here. You shouldn’t have come this far just because of him.
I stood again and asked for the check. This time, the waitress stepped through the door while the cook watched from behind the counter. She strode up and, as I was sitting back down, let the check fall like a leaf onto the table.
Once in my car again, I wondered if Jessie had called and opened the dashboard to search for my cellphone. Then I stopped, took a deep breath, and shut the compartment. The sun was setting. I watched the yellow line on the highway.
One night you locked yourself out on the porch, on the cold wooden two-by-fours. You almost froze that night.
When I entered Bridgman after driving all day, my throat had started to close. The coroner’s office was the only bright building on the street. I squealed into an empty spot and shut the car off. I rotated my shoulders while exhaling to crack my spine. I looked for another person attending to a dead relative. You were always alone. I stepped out and climbed the many stairs to enter the warm building, my legs jumping after such a long drive.
The columns echoed my steps as I approached the window. My words were automatic until the officer on duty chuckled.
You got here just in time. We don’t usually take people after six.
Thank you, I said.
He led me down a long dim hallway. We passed through two sets of metal-plated swinging doors into a room bright with fluorescence.
In an instant, the mortician had removed the body and laid it on a table. I identified my Uncle and shut my eyes. He no longer looked like Ernest Hemingway or the man, real or imagined, in my memories. He looked like my father. The mortician was watching me when I opened my eyes again.
The possessions are up here. I just gotta get you to sign. There’s not very much.
How was it he died?
We determined it was exhaustion and poisoning related to alcohol.
So–I began to speak in a deeper voice but winced. I nodded until my neck cracked, then winced again and scribbled my name on each form.
Well, if there’s no more questions?
I dropped the pen, No.
I’m sorry for you. It’s good that you came.
Thanks.
I saw the floor just below the table where my Uncle lay.
How did you want to handle the burial?
I want a cremation.
Tomorrow you should head to the Lynch parlor down thirty-one. They’ll help you. He lowered his voice to add, I know he was on Social. They’ll give you a good price.
I nodded.
You’re a good son.
I nodded again without correcting the man. My cheeks trembled but I stopped myself from crying. The mortician covered the body and I shut my eyes once more, then turned to leave. I halted once I was through the swinging doors. But the rubber slapped against itself and the sound of feet on the concrete floor sent me hurrying through the hall.
In the car again, I picked up my cell phone and peered back at the gray night air under the street lamps. It was black and never-ending and I became dizzy when I stared off beyond the coroner’s office into the trees. I dialed my father.
Hello?
It’s me.
You do it?
Pop I...he’s gone.
Okay. I’ll send you money, son.
I hope there’s at least one person who can come arrange this when I die, I heard myself say.
He said nothing.
Dad?
What? You don’t think somebody else would have come?
My voice caught in my throat.
Maybe you don’t remember. You’re not the first one to come and rescue your Uncle. Your Uncle Demetrius, my brother, I was visiting with him up in Trois-Rivières. I went there cause your grandpa asked me. Uncle Dem was gonna kill himself, he said. I went up there and stopped him. It was all true. He said to me, It’s like a well you’re in Maurice. You can see the light but you can’t get out. It’s too far up. I guess he couldn’t escape. Then, he and I drove down into the States. Now you can laugh as if you’re the only one who cared.
I sighed.
And you’re gonna tell me you’re worried no one’s gonna come be there for you when you need ‘em?
I just always thought that you thought I was like him.
He wheezed over the phone and when he spoke again his voice rang heavier through the earpiece. Son. You know you gotta have a family first before you can lose one.
After hanging up, I checked to see if I had received any other calls.
It’s over, she said. They told you that one night Uncle Demetrius left a bar and was crossing the street when a car hit him and knocked his head against the asphalt. Slushy snow must have dampened his clothes by the time he arrived at the hospital. He was in a three-week coma. When he came to, he believed he was on what he called a caravel. As soon as they released him, he set off in his car and disappeared. When you sail, you sail. His delusions will pass. But this might just keep happening, one doctor droned in a low voice. But your grandpa signed the bill. He breathed in, nodded his head, and signed his name again and again.
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Ian Singleton is from southeast Michigan, has lived in Alabama, and currently resides in Boston. He is a student, librarian, and volunteer teacher in the PEN Prison Writing Program. |