Whispered Dead
He wet the bed. Sully Masterson hadn’t done that since the age of ten. Yet here he woke fifty-five years later with his backside swimming in his own unique pool of piss. There was no rush to change and hide the soiled sheets, anxiety kicking it into overdrive, pumping adrenaline throughout his whole system with the fear that his parents would find out what their little man had done. They have been gone and dead for twenty years now. There was no one to chide him and call him a disgusting little pig now. He thanked God that Johanna, his wife, was also deceased these past two months now and did not have to witness his embarrassment. And even though the wetness of his pajama bottoms chilled the very skin they clung to, he still did not rise. He just lay there in the predawn darkness of his bedroom basting, too tired to care or get up.
He felt sorry for himself, he felt depressed, and he felt angry. He was mostly angry. Some of his anger was focused inward at himself for acting so damned sorry for himself. Some of his anger was directed toward his late wife and her audacity to die and leave him so helpless without her. But most the anger stemmed from the whispers. The whispers were everywhere.
He had heard the whispers making their circuit around town, in the church gossip circles, his neighbors, even his children talking about his now inevitable demise since Johanna had gone. There were whispers discussing and deciding his own future, a future which he seemed to have no say. It wasn’t the ghost of his late wife or the seemingly haunting memories they shared that came to him at all hours of the day that bothered Sully, it was those damnable whispers. They were like the resumed animated corpses of a sci-fi B movie chasing him everywhere he went. No matter where he turned, those ghastly whispers were always right behind him, in front of him, beside him, within him. And the whispers didn’t even wait till his Johanna was in the ground before they started in on him, ostensibly caring but in reality they seemed to really want to devour his flesh, his brain, his soul. It wasn’t the fact that his wife had left him, the oldness of his age, or even his failing kidneys that was slowly killing him. It was those damn whispers.
“It’s only a matter of time now that mom’s gone,” he heard his oldest son Charlie saying to his wife from the next room. It was late afternoon and Sully was lying on the couch in the living room, pretending to be asleep, but only pretending so that he would not have to talk to anybody. Charlie and his wife Kelly had brought him home from the hospital about an hour ago. An hour after she passed away. He lied to them and himself when he told them he would be fine to drive home himself, but they would not hear any of it. So, there they were, an hour later in his kitchen discussing his future like he wasn’t even there.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, studies show that men have a mortality rate of fifty-three percent during the first month after his spouse dies,” Charlie said softly.
“Really? That’s awful,” replied his wife and Sully rolled his eyes. Her and her poignant concern could go to Hell for all he cared. He knew deep down that it was all as real as the breasts of those women you see now on the television.
Sully did not approve of Charlie’s marriage and never had. From the first day that his little boy brought that woman home, he had always been cold and dead set against Charlie’s future wife. Johanna, on the other hand, took to this girl right away and blessed the relationship from the get go. He had no real reason to dislike her, or at least no valid one not to (as Johanna constantly pointed out). But Charlie’s wife had just always rubbed him the wrong way. He believed he sensed something off about her, something he could never put a finger on. It was like she was artificial. She wasn’t the genuine article. Perhaps it was her smile. Her smile just seemed too faux, like a salesman’s smile. But Johanna had long ago declared the issue dead and Sully was forbidden to act or say anything against the girl.
Reluctantly Sully agreed and bit his tongue, but from that moment on, to keep his sanity he decided that he would never use Charlie’s wife name in her presence. He would always refer to her as Charlie’s wife, his wife, or the wife. And in this, he felt it was a small victory won in the war for what he thought was his duty to ensure his son’s happiness.
“Yup. And even if he doesn’t pass on, the studies show that at the very least he is likely to be hospitalized within the next few months,” said Charlie.
“You mean he’ll get sick—from what?” she spat out, raising her voice from the whisper that was.
“I suppose, I really don’t know from what, really. Old people just tend to catch a lot of sickness when they’re old. Something simple like the flu can send an aged person to the hospital quite easily. It’s their immune system. It kinda quits working, or at least it becomes too worn down to fight off all the normal threats we face everyday to stop simple illnesses from turning into something worse, like pneumonia or something,” replied Charlie. Sully could hear the strain in his son’s voice to keep himself and his wife quite. “Keep it down. I don’t want to wake Dad. He’s had a really tough day already. Hell, a really tough week.”
“And what about you Charlie? You’re week, your day, hasn’t that been tough too? Plus all that’s to come? Maybe you should lie down as well.” asked Kelly.
“Don’t worry about me hon, I guess we’ve really been expecting this for quite some time now and I got time to grieve later.”
“So then, what are going to do now?” she asked.
“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to start on the funeral arrangements and I already called Sissy and her husband. Maggie’s flying in tonight and her plane arrives at seven. She said she’d take care of writing the obit on the plane and then call the paper in the morning. Peter is off calling everyone and the meeting with the director isn’t until tomorrow. So, for the time being—I guess we just sit and wait a bit. Dad’ll be up in a bit and like it or not, he’s gonna need some company…”
There was a pause in the conversation and he heard the kitchen chair scuff against the floor followed by footsteps walking toward the stove. From the clumping sound the shoes made, Sully assumed that it was his son doing the walking. He heard the fridge pop open and then the rustling of a couple of bottles. He’s stealing one of my beers, damn him, thought Sully.
The thought made him grin a little. Ever since Charlie was old enough to know what alcohol was, he had been stealing his father’s beer from the fridge. When he was younger, Sully had to punish the boy for his thievery, even though somewhere deep within, Sully felt proud of his boy. On the day Charlie turned eighteen, Sully’s pride for his son led him to the decision of welcoming his son into manhood by letting him help himself to his stock whenever he wished. Of course he regretted that decision a few months later when more often than not Sully came home to find his fridge raided of both his food and spirits. Sully began a sort of inside joke between his wife and son that year. From then on, every time he saw his son he would claim that his son, “Chucky” was not only eating, but drinking Sully “out of house and home.” Secretly, he would not have it any other way.
Sully all of a sudden felt awful for letting himself grin. He rolled over on his side with his back facing the kitchen. Not today, he thought. Today, I cannot be happy. I will not let myself feel happy today… then adding, and perhaps I will never again. He also felt suddenly ashamed for the way he had been so selfish. He was not the only one who was lost today. Here he was, the supposed man of the family, the patron, and it was his son who was being strong supporting others. Not him. Here he was sulking by himself, pretending to be asleep just so he wouldn’t have to talk or see anyone (let alone them see him) listening in on his son. Though he felt ashamed in this, he still couldn’t muster the will to let his son know he was awake. The fact that Charlie’s wife was there somewhat helped him in that decision.
“That’s not really what I meant,” she said. “What about your father?”
Charlie sighed his buying time sigh. It was the sigh he always gave right before he was about to tell a lie or when he felt awkward. Like a nervous tick some people have when they lie, Charlie always tried to buy time with a sigh before fibbing. This sigh was worn and resinously clung silent to the air. “What do you mean,” he said and there was another long pause.
“We talked about this last Sunday,” the wife said and continued, “Don’t give me you’re innocent look. You know what I mean.”
What are you talking about! Thought Sully, though for a second there, he thought he said it out loud. Yet the conversation continued on as if he didn’t and Sully still held his silence.
“Kelly, now is not the appropriate time or the place to be arguing about this—”
“No one is arguing Charles. We’re discussing it—or should be anyhow. As far as appropriateness, well, when is a good time to discuss the management of your father?”
“What! You make it sound so cold. ‘Management of my father?’ Who the hell talks like that anyhow?”
“Yes, the management of your father. It is the perfect, though it may be cold, it is the word to describe what I mean. He cannot take care of himself. He’s been relying on his wife to do that for years—probably since they were married. Before that it was probably his mother who took care of him.”
So, they were thinking—scratch that—she was thinking that she’d put me in one of those damn homes, thought Sully. And even though his temper was rising, and he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs for them to get out of his house, he silently listened on.
“That’s not true… What about when Mom got sick. Who took care of her? Who took care of himself?” Charlie asked his wife.
“The nurse that you had to pay for did both and you know it. Face it. He cannot and probably will not take care of himself. Without your mother here, surely he’s going to be one of those statistics you were just going on about. He is going to need professional care.” She said. She was still speaking ever so politely, so sweetly, and it was this that bothered Sully the most. Her damned sugar-coated voice corrupting his son, feeding him like the Devil himself only could.
“Well, let’s just say you’re right—”
“I am right and the painful part is that you know it. Don’t feel bad. I know it is your father, but you have to face reality, Charles.”
”Okay, you’re right. Whatever… Then why don’t we just keep the nurse on then to help out.” He asked.
“We are not paying double the amount of money it would cost that nurse to care for him then a home would, Charlie,” she said. “We’ve wasted enough of our savings on that already.”
“Perhaps Peter and Maggie could help out with the burden if we ask them.”
“You know more than I do that they aren’t the kind of people to have the amount of money to pay even half.”
“Well then, how about he comes and lives with us?” Charlie asked.
“Out of the question,” she said and there was a quick pause before Charlie broke the silence.
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, for starters, how about because he hates me? Or better yet, because he hates me, he would never agree to it.” She responded loudly, knowing and hoping fully well that her voice would carry into the living room.
“And he’ll agree to this?”
“It’s better than living with me, right?” she said “You are just going to have to make him understand that.”
“Maybe,” said Charlie. He once again paused, sighed, and continued, “But Dad’s in the next room sleeping and this is not the time or place for this argument.” He said and this time she did not contradict him about his semantics. Not because she agreed that it was indeed an argument or had become one, but because Sully finally decided to let them know of his awareness.
“I’m awake and I do think that’s enough of that as well…” Sully cried from the couch. He thought about getting up and confronting the two conspirators, but he couldn’t seem to muster the energy for more than yelling and turning to face the kitchen side of the room once more. “Chucky, I also think it’s time you took that damn wife of yours home and leave me the hell alone.”
“Dad?” asked Charlie as he made his way out of the kitchen toward his father.
“It ain’t your mother. She’s dead, ya remember? I’m not the one dead…or deaf,” said Sully bitterly. Charlie whipped around the corner at that moment with a concerned look upon his face. He was still holding onto the bottle he took out of the fridge. His boy looked just like his mother. Charlie received the same eyes, the same nose, hair color (sandy brown) from his mother. The only thing Sully seemed to have passed on to Charlie was his strong cleft chin. It pained Sully to see Johanna reflected in that face and he looked up toward the ceiling. “But perhaps I should get busy to it. Wouldn’t want to upset those studies you’ve read now that your momma’s gone. ‘Sides, it seems that if you’re gonna try and stick me in an old folks home I’d rather be dead anyway…”
“Don’t say that Dad. It’s not fair.” Charlie said and then sighed. “We thought you were asleep and you are taking what we said out of context. I don’t want you to die and I surely don’t—”
“Save it.” Sully interrupted his son while sticking his hand out in his direction, never taking an eye off the ceiling. “Just get you and your wife out of here. Maybe I’ll see you at the funeral——that is—if I haven’t died yet.”
At some point while Sully was trying to martyr himself in front of his son, Kelly decided to join the living room. Sully was too detached to notice her presence until her face popped into view hanging over his looking down. She was smiling the same old pretentious smile of hers and it was she who spoke next not her son.
“We will leave now, Sully. Charlie and his wife are going to leave. We hope to see you at the funeral. Don’t die on us just yet.” She chuckled and continued; “Now I’m not going to pretend that you didn’t overhear us, spying as you were—”
“SPYING! IT’S MY HOUSE!”
“Well, that may be, but let’s not pretend shall we. Think about what we discussed then. We don’t want to see you—”
“Ah get the hell outta here why don’cha already and leave me the hell alone…” interrupted Sully with a tone of finality and Charlie sensing his tone took hold of his wife’s arm and led her out of the house. Finally alone, Sully broke down and cried.
He hadn’t stopped crying since that time, and Sully only left the house twice in those two months. The two times he had gone out was to visit Johanna at the wake and the next day at the funeral. And here he was two months, seven days, and fifteen hours later still crying while he lay in a bed of his own urine.
Maybe they were right. He thought to himself, shaking perhaps from his chilling soaked backside or from the lurking animosity he felt toward that woman of Charlie’s. And it was at this point he finally decided to sit up. I’m not going to give into that woman.
Sully slowly and achingly edged his legs over the side of the bed, grunting his old man’s grunt as he stood up and immediately began to undress in the dark. After forty years lived within the same room, the same furniture, there was no need to turn on any lights. He then walked to the master bathroom and flipped the switch. The lights blinded him and it took several moments before the haze and dizziness subsided and he could focus. He turned on the bath tap and began to look at himself in the mirror as he waited for the water to heat up and collect in the bottom of the tub.
His roman nose stuck out even more prominently. It was the only part of his face that didn’t seem to sag. Sully reached up, ran his hands through his thinning grayed hair, and then took a hunk of his cheeks in both hands and yanked backwards “There you are…” he said silently to his doppelganger makeshift facelift image. He let go and the cheeks drooped sadly down once again.
“How long have you been dead old man? When did it end for you? Is this the end then?” Sully asked his mirrored self. When no reply came, Sully waved off his reflection and shook his head. He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out his bottle of pain relievers and an old packet of matches. He then turned his attention to the toilet and more specifically the scented candle on top and lit the wick. This had been somewhat of a tradition of Sully’s since his wife had passed on. For two months now, he had been living on for his wife vicariously by doing some of things she used to do, wearing some of the things she used to wear. From taking baths with cheesy named scented candles to wearing her one of her specific evening gowns because it carried her scent so strongly, every little bit he did, no matter how odd, he felt that it was for his Jo and his Jo was there. Though there was little comfort, at the very least he thought that it was something. It was at least something to make her live once again.
Sully added her bubble bath, some sort of berry scented concoction and before entering the tub. He checked the temperature of the water with his hand and judged it to perfection. The candle’s aroma, also strawberry flavored, dubbed simply Strawberry Sensations, draped heavily in the air and at once Sully felt at one with his wife again. As he sat in the warm water and tried to wash away both his physical and mental pains. But no matter how much he tried to let the anger, the regret, the sorrow, and those whispers slip away, the harder they clung to him like the strawberry scented lotions, soaps, and candle stuck within his nose. Everything including Charlie’s damned wife to the whispers of the little old church ladies seem to haunt him now, but his soiled sheets seemed to spoil his concentration on his wife as well.
It’s funny, he thought to himself, how life works. We people come kicking and screaming into this world. Pissing and shitting all over the goddamn place, letting others clean up our mess. And likewise he believed after waking up this morning that he would leave this world the same way. He picked up the bottle of pain relief pills and stared blankly at the label.
That’s when he heard her voice, whether it was from the back of his mind or an apparition that spoke, he heard, “There are different types of choices that confront us, hon… There are those that we make, and many that are made for us. Don’t let this be one of the choices that you think was made for you Sullivan…” Whether it was his wife (and he had no doubt that it was) or his hungered imagination for her and only his conscious mind was telling him so.
“But I can’t—not without you…” he responded. “You’re all I had left, and now you’re gone too. I just can’t make it without you, Jo.”
“You’re gonna have to, sweetheart. Perhaps after you are dead we can be together, but can you take that risk?” the voice responded.
Sully looked up from the label to try and find the discombobulated voice’s source. There was nothing there. He sighed and questioned, “What do you mean? What risk?”
“The risk that if there is an afterlife, one that has been taught to us by the Judeo-Christian churches, then to commit suicide would definitely bar us from being each other.” She said. “And that is the risk. If I am really talking to you, and am not just your subconscious schizophrenically communicating with you, then most likely the afterlife we’ve been promised for all of our lives is real. And then you must live on naturally in order to be whole with me again.”
“And if you are just my head messing with me—”
“And there is no afterlife?” she finished asking. Just like she always did. Jo had been finishing his sentences since their first date so many years ago. It was one of the reasons that he knew she was the one. A single tear broke and started to stream down his left cheek, taking its time to find all the nooks and crannies within his skin.
“Well, yeah…” he responded.
“If there is no afterlife… Well, then I don’t exist anymore and it is up to you to keep on living for the both of us, for I can only live with inside you now. You carry both of our memories together. You and only those who remember me can keep me alive, when those too who carry them pass on, then I will truly be dead. Either way, can you risk it?”
“I don’t think I am strong enough, Jo” he said releasing another tear.
“You are and you will be…” the voice said and said no more.
“I will, I will for you, Jo” Sully said softly, and then he finally let himself brake down and cry once again. Knowing it wouldn’t be the last time he did so, but it would be the last for awhile. “I’ll survive if only it is to help you survive, Johanna…” he croaked. He paused, as if he was reassuring himself or perhaps someone else he was sure was in the room with him and then added, “Kicking, screaming, mess and all!”
He then climbed out of the tub, dried himself off, dressed, and at once began to collect the sheets upon the bed in order to take them down to the laundry.
He felt sorry for himself, he felt depressed, and he felt angry. He was mostly angry. Some of his anger was focused inward at himself for acting so damned sorry for himself. Some of his anger was directed toward his late wife and her audacity to die and leave him so helpless without her. But most the anger stemmed from the whispers. The whispers were everywhere.
He had heard the whispers making their circuit around town, in the church gossip circles, his neighbors, even his children talking about his now inevitable demise since Johanna had gone. There were whispers discussing and deciding his own future, a future which he seemed to have no say. It wasn’t the ghost of his late wife or the seemingly haunting memories they shared that came to him at all hours of the day that bothered Sully, it was those damnable whispers. They were like the resumed animated corpses of a sci-fi B movie chasing him everywhere he went. No matter where he turned, those ghastly whispers were always right behind him, in front of him, beside him, within him. And the whispers didn’t even wait till his Johanna was in the ground before they started in on him, ostensibly caring but in reality they seemed to really want to devour his flesh, his brain, his soul. It wasn’t the fact that his wife had left him, the oldness of his age, or even his failing kidneys that was slowly killing him. It was those damn whispers.
“It’s only a matter of time now that mom’s gone,” he heard his oldest son Charlie saying to his wife from the next room. It was late afternoon and Sully was lying on the couch in the living room, pretending to be asleep, but only pretending so that he would not have to talk to anybody. Charlie and his wife Kelly had brought him home from the hospital about an hour ago. An hour after she passed away. He lied to them and himself when he told them he would be fine to drive home himself, but they would not hear any of it. So, there they were, an hour later in his kitchen discussing his future like he wasn’t even there.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, studies show that men have a mortality rate of fifty-three percent during the first month after his spouse dies,” Charlie said softly.
“Really? That’s awful,” replied his wife and Sully rolled his eyes. Her and her poignant concern could go to Hell for all he cared. He knew deep down that it was all as real as the breasts of those women you see now on the television.
Sully did not approve of Charlie’s marriage and never had. From the first day that his little boy brought that woman home, he had always been cold and dead set against Charlie’s future wife. Johanna, on the other hand, took to this girl right away and blessed the relationship from the get go. He had no real reason to dislike her, or at least no valid one not to (as Johanna constantly pointed out). But Charlie’s wife had just always rubbed him the wrong way. He believed he sensed something off about her, something he could never put a finger on. It was like she was artificial. She wasn’t the genuine article. Perhaps it was her smile. Her smile just seemed too faux, like a salesman’s smile. But Johanna had long ago declared the issue dead and Sully was forbidden to act or say anything against the girl.
Reluctantly Sully agreed and bit his tongue, but from that moment on, to keep his sanity he decided that he would never use Charlie’s wife name in her presence. He would always refer to her as Charlie’s wife, his wife, or the wife. And in this, he felt it was a small victory won in the war for what he thought was his duty to ensure his son’s happiness.
“Yup. And even if he doesn’t pass on, the studies show that at the very least he is likely to be hospitalized within the next few months,” said Charlie.
“You mean he’ll get sick—from what?” she spat out, raising her voice from the whisper that was.
“I suppose, I really don’t know from what, really. Old people just tend to catch a lot of sickness when they’re old. Something simple like the flu can send an aged person to the hospital quite easily. It’s their immune system. It kinda quits working, or at least it becomes too worn down to fight off all the normal threats we face everyday to stop simple illnesses from turning into something worse, like pneumonia or something,” replied Charlie. Sully could hear the strain in his son’s voice to keep himself and his wife quite. “Keep it down. I don’t want to wake Dad. He’s had a really tough day already. Hell, a really tough week.”
“And what about you Charlie? You’re week, your day, hasn’t that been tough too? Plus all that’s to come? Maybe you should lie down as well.” asked Kelly.
“Don’t worry about me hon, I guess we’ve really been expecting this for quite some time now and I got time to grieve later.”
“So then, what are going to do now?” she asked.
“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to start on the funeral arrangements and I already called Sissy and her husband. Maggie’s flying in tonight and her plane arrives at seven. She said she’d take care of writing the obit on the plane and then call the paper in the morning. Peter is off calling everyone and the meeting with the director isn’t until tomorrow. So, for the time being—I guess we just sit and wait a bit. Dad’ll be up in a bit and like it or not, he’s gonna need some company…”
There was a pause in the conversation and he heard the kitchen chair scuff against the floor followed by footsteps walking toward the stove. From the clumping sound the shoes made, Sully assumed that it was his son doing the walking. He heard the fridge pop open and then the rustling of a couple of bottles. He’s stealing one of my beers, damn him, thought Sully.
The thought made him grin a little. Ever since Charlie was old enough to know what alcohol was, he had been stealing his father’s beer from the fridge. When he was younger, Sully had to punish the boy for his thievery, even though somewhere deep within, Sully felt proud of his boy. On the day Charlie turned eighteen, Sully’s pride for his son led him to the decision of welcoming his son into manhood by letting him help himself to his stock whenever he wished. Of course he regretted that decision a few months later when more often than not Sully came home to find his fridge raided of both his food and spirits. Sully began a sort of inside joke between his wife and son that year. From then on, every time he saw his son he would claim that his son, “Chucky” was not only eating, but drinking Sully “out of house and home.” Secretly, he would not have it any other way.
Sully all of a sudden felt awful for letting himself grin. He rolled over on his side with his back facing the kitchen. Not today, he thought. Today, I cannot be happy. I will not let myself feel happy today… then adding, and perhaps I will never again. He also felt suddenly ashamed for the way he had been so selfish. He was not the only one who was lost today. Here he was, the supposed man of the family, the patron, and it was his son who was being strong supporting others. Not him. Here he was sulking by himself, pretending to be asleep just so he wouldn’t have to talk or see anyone (let alone them see him) listening in on his son. Though he felt ashamed in this, he still couldn’t muster the will to let his son know he was awake. The fact that Charlie’s wife was there somewhat helped him in that decision.
“That’s not really what I meant,” she said. “What about your father?”
Charlie sighed his buying time sigh. It was the sigh he always gave right before he was about to tell a lie or when he felt awkward. Like a nervous tick some people have when they lie, Charlie always tried to buy time with a sigh before fibbing. This sigh was worn and resinously clung silent to the air. “What do you mean,” he said and there was another long pause.
“We talked about this last Sunday,” the wife said and continued, “Don’t give me you’re innocent look. You know what I mean.”
What are you talking about! Thought Sully, though for a second there, he thought he said it out loud. Yet the conversation continued on as if he didn’t and Sully still held his silence.
“Kelly, now is not the appropriate time or the place to be arguing about this—”
“No one is arguing Charles. We’re discussing it—or should be anyhow. As far as appropriateness, well, when is a good time to discuss the management of your father?”
“What! You make it sound so cold. ‘Management of my father?’ Who the hell talks like that anyhow?”
“Yes, the management of your father. It is the perfect, though it may be cold, it is the word to describe what I mean. He cannot take care of himself. He’s been relying on his wife to do that for years—probably since they were married. Before that it was probably his mother who took care of him.”
So, they were thinking—scratch that—she was thinking that she’d put me in one of those damn homes, thought Sully. And even though his temper was rising, and he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs for them to get out of his house, he silently listened on.
“That’s not true… What about when Mom got sick. Who took care of her? Who took care of himself?” Charlie asked his wife.
“The nurse that you had to pay for did both and you know it. Face it. He cannot and probably will not take care of himself. Without your mother here, surely he’s going to be one of those statistics you were just going on about. He is going to need professional care.” She said. She was still speaking ever so politely, so sweetly, and it was this that bothered Sully the most. Her damned sugar-coated voice corrupting his son, feeding him like the Devil himself only could.
“Well, let’s just say you’re right—”
“I am right and the painful part is that you know it. Don’t feel bad. I know it is your father, but you have to face reality, Charles.”
”Okay, you’re right. Whatever… Then why don’t we just keep the nurse on then to help out.” He asked.
“We are not paying double the amount of money it would cost that nurse to care for him then a home would, Charlie,” she said. “We’ve wasted enough of our savings on that already.”
“Perhaps Peter and Maggie could help out with the burden if we ask them.”
“You know more than I do that they aren’t the kind of people to have the amount of money to pay even half.”
“Well then, how about he comes and lives with us?” Charlie asked.
“Out of the question,” she said and there was a quick pause before Charlie broke the silence.
“Why?” he asked.
“Well, for starters, how about because he hates me? Or better yet, because he hates me, he would never agree to it.” She responded loudly, knowing and hoping fully well that her voice would carry into the living room.
“And he’ll agree to this?”
“It’s better than living with me, right?” she said “You are just going to have to make him understand that.”
“Maybe,” said Charlie. He once again paused, sighed, and continued, “But Dad’s in the next room sleeping and this is not the time or place for this argument.” He said and this time she did not contradict him about his semantics. Not because she agreed that it was indeed an argument or had become one, but because Sully finally decided to let them know of his awareness.
“I’m awake and I do think that’s enough of that as well…” Sully cried from the couch. He thought about getting up and confronting the two conspirators, but he couldn’t seem to muster the energy for more than yelling and turning to face the kitchen side of the room once more. “Chucky, I also think it’s time you took that damn wife of yours home and leave me the hell alone.”
“Dad?” asked Charlie as he made his way out of the kitchen toward his father.
“It ain’t your mother. She’s dead, ya remember? I’m not the one dead…or deaf,” said Sully bitterly. Charlie whipped around the corner at that moment with a concerned look upon his face. He was still holding onto the bottle he took out of the fridge. His boy looked just like his mother. Charlie received the same eyes, the same nose, hair color (sandy brown) from his mother. The only thing Sully seemed to have passed on to Charlie was his strong cleft chin. It pained Sully to see Johanna reflected in that face and he looked up toward the ceiling. “But perhaps I should get busy to it. Wouldn’t want to upset those studies you’ve read now that your momma’s gone. ‘Sides, it seems that if you’re gonna try and stick me in an old folks home I’d rather be dead anyway…”
“Don’t say that Dad. It’s not fair.” Charlie said and then sighed. “We thought you were asleep and you are taking what we said out of context. I don’t want you to die and I surely don’t—”
“Save it.” Sully interrupted his son while sticking his hand out in his direction, never taking an eye off the ceiling. “Just get you and your wife out of here. Maybe I’ll see you at the funeral——that is—if I haven’t died yet.”
At some point while Sully was trying to martyr himself in front of his son, Kelly decided to join the living room. Sully was too detached to notice her presence until her face popped into view hanging over his looking down. She was smiling the same old pretentious smile of hers and it was she who spoke next not her son.
“We will leave now, Sully. Charlie and his wife are going to leave. We hope to see you at the funeral. Don’t die on us just yet.” She chuckled and continued; “Now I’m not going to pretend that you didn’t overhear us, spying as you were—”
“SPYING! IT’S MY HOUSE!”
“Well, that may be, but let’s not pretend shall we. Think about what we discussed then. We don’t want to see you—”
“Ah get the hell outta here why don’cha already and leave me the hell alone…” interrupted Sully with a tone of finality and Charlie sensing his tone took hold of his wife’s arm and led her out of the house. Finally alone, Sully broke down and cried.
He hadn’t stopped crying since that time, and Sully only left the house twice in those two months. The two times he had gone out was to visit Johanna at the wake and the next day at the funeral. And here he was two months, seven days, and fifteen hours later still crying while he lay in a bed of his own urine.
Maybe they were right. He thought to himself, shaking perhaps from his chilling soaked backside or from the lurking animosity he felt toward that woman of Charlie’s. And it was at this point he finally decided to sit up. I’m not going to give into that woman.
Sully slowly and achingly edged his legs over the side of the bed, grunting his old man’s grunt as he stood up and immediately began to undress in the dark. After forty years lived within the same room, the same furniture, there was no need to turn on any lights. He then walked to the master bathroom and flipped the switch. The lights blinded him and it took several moments before the haze and dizziness subsided and he could focus. He turned on the bath tap and began to look at himself in the mirror as he waited for the water to heat up and collect in the bottom of the tub.
His roman nose stuck out even more prominently. It was the only part of his face that didn’t seem to sag. Sully reached up, ran his hands through his thinning grayed hair, and then took a hunk of his cheeks in both hands and yanked backwards “There you are…” he said silently to his doppelganger makeshift facelift image. He let go and the cheeks drooped sadly down once again.
“How long have you been dead old man? When did it end for you? Is this the end then?” Sully asked his mirrored self. When no reply came, Sully waved off his reflection and shook his head. He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out his bottle of pain relievers and an old packet of matches. He then turned his attention to the toilet and more specifically the scented candle on top and lit the wick. This had been somewhat of a tradition of Sully’s since his wife had passed on. For two months now, he had been living on for his wife vicariously by doing some of things she used to do, wearing some of the things she used to wear. From taking baths with cheesy named scented candles to wearing her one of her specific evening gowns because it carried her scent so strongly, every little bit he did, no matter how odd, he felt that it was for his Jo and his Jo was there. Though there was little comfort, at the very least he thought that it was something. It was at least something to make her live once again.
Sully added her bubble bath, some sort of berry scented concoction and before entering the tub. He checked the temperature of the water with his hand and judged it to perfection. The candle’s aroma, also strawberry flavored, dubbed simply Strawberry Sensations, draped heavily in the air and at once Sully felt at one with his wife again. As he sat in the warm water and tried to wash away both his physical and mental pains. But no matter how much he tried to let the anger, the regret, the sorrow, and those whispers slip away, the harder they clung to him like the strawberry scented lotions, soaps, and candle stuck within his nose. Everything including Charlie’s damned wife to the whispers of the little old church ladies seem to haunt him now, but his soiled sheets seemed to spoil his concentration on his wife as well.
It’s funny, he thought to himself, how life works. We people come kicking and screaming into this world. Pissing and shitting all over the goddamn place, letting others clean up our mess. And likewise he believed after waking up this morning that he would leave this world the same way. He picked up the bottle of pain relief pills and stared blankly at the label.
That’s when he heard her voice, whether it was from the back of his mind or an apparition that spoke, he heard, “There are different types of choices that confront us, hon… There are those that we make, and many that are made for us. Don’t let this be one of the choices that you think was made for you Sullivan…” Whether it was his wife (and he had no doubt that it was) or his hungered imagination for her and only his conscious mind was telling him so.
“But I can’t—not without you…” he responded. “You’re all I had left, and now you’re gone too. I just can’t make it without you, Jo.”
“You’re gonna have to, sweetheart. Perhaps after you are dead we can be together, but can you take that risk?” the voice responded.
Sully looked up from the label to try and find the discombobulated voice’s source. There was nothing there. He sighed and questioned, “What do you mean? What risk?”
“The risk that if there is an afterlife, one that has been taught to us by the Judeo-Christian churches, then to commit suicide would definitely bar us from being each other.” She said. “And that is the risk. If I am really talking to you, and am not just your subconscious schizophrenically communicating with you, then most likely the afterlife we’ve been promised for all of our lives is real. And then you must live on naturally in order to be whole with me again.”
“And if you are just my head messing with me—”
“And there is no afterlife?” she finished asking. Just like she always did. Jo had been finishing his sentences since their first date so many years ago. It was one of the reasons that he knew she was the one. A single tear broke and started to stream down his left cheek, taking its time to find all the nooks and crannies within his skin.
“Well, yeah…” he responded.
“If there is no afterlife… Well, then I don’t exist anymore and it is up to you to keep on living for the both of us, for I can only live with inside you now. You carry both of our memories together. You and only those who remember me can keep me alive, when those too who carry them pass on, then I will truly be dead. Either way, can you risk it?”
“I don’t think I am strong enough, Jo” he said releasing another tear.
“You are and you will be…” the voice said and said no more.
“I will, I will for you, Jo” Sully said softly, and then he finally let himself brake down and cry once again. Knowing it wouldn’t be the last time he did so, but it would be the last for awhile. “I’ll survive if only it is to help you survive, Johanna…” he croaked. He paused, as if he was reassuring himself or perhaps someone else he was sure was in the room with him and then added, “Kicking, screaming, mess and all!”
He then climbed out of the tub, dried himself off, dressed, and at once began to collect the sheets upon the bed in order to take them down to the laundry.
the Omnipotent... Everybody loves SuperInsignificantBoy wrote this at 1:04 AM
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