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| (visual by No Trams To Lime Street via this license) |
dispatch fourteen
Caravel by Ian Singleton
debuted 15 October 2009 | kept 483 times | click to keep
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. |