Bum's Rush.

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BUMS RUSH.

I heard the phone ring in an abstract manner. Not being certain of the
origin of the abstraction, I ignored it. Anyway I was absorbed with a
problem. The absorption was an arboreal one, the problem one of
pragmatism. The jangling continued.
The enormity of my task was beginning to take it's toll, I was in stiff
need of a drink. Do I strip this tree of all branches and dignity, and
allow in a glimmer of sunlight pandering to my beloved wife's wishes -
or slope off to the pub and have a pint?. The real problem was that I
couldn't actually sneak out of the garden gate without her seeing me,
although one couldn't see the garden gate from her vantage point but
this woman has supernatural powers.
I stared at nature in deadly earnest. It stared back.
This particular tree, a Laurel, had found favour with my wife and had
behaved itself but now it was threatening the world!.
The jangling stopped. The tree grew.
Why had I allowed myself to get involved with all of this? why did I
drink so much last night?. My head was throbbing like a Pneumatic drill
on heat. The last question of course being rhetorical, my thirst for
wisdom and self-knowledge had always been tempered with my thirst for a
drink. But the question repeated itself like a dose of dyspeptic bile,
why had I agreed to prune this fucking Laurel tree?. Ah yes I remember,
the old girl was at this moment trowelling make-up on to her visage and
I cannot bear reality becoming a burlesque. She was off to visit her
mother who bore an uncanny resemblance to a bulldog and dribbled and
snorted like one. I had been invited along so the idea of pruning the
tree took on a positive hue. The clank of the sash cord weights as my
wife lifted the window some minutes later signalled an immediate
cessation of hostilities between man and nature. She's about to go out,
drinkytime methinks.
"That was your sister on the phone" she yelled, "Your father's in
hospital, he's absolutely riddled with cancer and has only a few weeks
left - do you want coffee?".
"Yes lovely - thanks" I yelled back without missing a beat, "I'll come
up".
Now she knew how I hated the atrabilious old bastard but she could have
displayed a tad of sensitivity.
No she couldn't-not her forte.
This brief verbal exchange must have seemed 'Pinteresque' in its
callous charm to anyone in earshot. The window was shut and the clank
of the sash-cord weights began to take on a bell like tone. Ah, for
whom the sash cord weights toll?.
I returned my sister's call and could tell by her well modulated tone
that here was a real life tragedy to supplant the tediously
manufactured ones of her daily existence. Here was real pain, here was
real death, I imagined her flinging herself on the coffin and sobbing
'Papa Papa!'.
We arranged a day for me to go and see him on my own, I had some vague
notion that he might want to say 'sorry'. I chuckled to myself
sarcastically, now who's being fanciful?.
In the few intervening days I recalled our lives under his roof, not
that the recollection was ever very far away. The insane drunken rages,
the malevolent stare, the crashing fist, the sudden quiet of his boot
on the garden path. They were all now to be laid to rest.
On the drive down I became increasingly restless and knew I'd have to
calm my nerves with a glass or two, if I were to survive that mordant
wit of his. I pulled over at the first available pub which was to prove
almost cathartic. The neon sign beckoned. Once inside I was immediately
assaulted by an array of lights that made the Aurora Borealis seem like
a thousand dead fireflies. The volume of the juke-box had already
awoken the dead judging by the gormless vacant stares of the clientele.
Do people really come here to drink and socialise? I wondered. Could
this hell-hole possibly be mistaken for one's local?, it had obviously
been designed by some mad architect making a 'statement' or seeking
revenge.
I hurried to the bar not wishing to stay longer than was humanly
possible. I assumed the barman couldn't hear a thing so I just pointed
at some cans of beer and held up four fingers, the barman gave me my
change and I hurried outside. In the car park contemplating the fact
that my aural faculties might well be damaged beyond repair, I sat
staring at this monstrous winking palace of despair. I began to think
of the recent tele-visual images concerning some poor mis-begotten race
in some far-flung God forsaken country. I thought of the Doe eyed
babies and their distended bellies, and the look of incomprehension on
their faces. I thought of the distended bellies inside the pub and the
same uncomprehending look of despair. I realised my own inadequacy and
drank long and deep to it.
I reached the hospital more or less on time and negotiated a space in
the car park with no real difficulty and headed for the main building.
I discovered the floor I required and got into the gaping lift.
My tension rose.
I got out on the fifth floor and saw the given ward on my left. A nurse
with a dark blue band around her waist denoting staff nurse status
scurried toward me and I gained the necessary information and walked
slowly to the room indicated. It was all of ten years that we'd last
met and I'd been reminded of a driverless express train with me
managing to divert the points.
I turned into the numbered recess and saw four beds with the minutae of
separate lives spilling out of the various lockers, lazily draped over
chairs or piled onto mobile bed trays. A portable television flickered
silently, its message lost. The incumbents of the ward were all asleep
but the stertorous sounds emanating from one corner were all I needed
to be reminded of my father. I saw his shock of grey-brown hair just
poking out from the white of the sheets, looking for all the world like
a little boy lost - which in essence I suppose he still was. As I stood
over him with my emotions conveniently blocked, I began to notice a
foetid smell. Oh god he's crapped himself, I wondered why the nurses
hadn't smelled it. But these young girls, their olfactory senses
bludgeoned by familiarity, will have been busy with more pressing
demands to have noticed.
I found a nurse and ten minutes later he was ready. I walked back in
and noticed the yellow-green hue of death about his skin and the
bloated stomach denoting a liver that had thrown in the towel. This
just seemed to condign a punishment for him, he was obviously in pain.
I tried not to gloat, I hadn't come for that. Had I?.
As I stood there at the foot of the bed, he opened his eyes and began
trying to focus. There was a brief glimmer of recognition and the
familiar minatory gaze returned. "I came to see you" was all I could
think of saying. His lips moved but no discernible words came out. He
kept moving his lips trying to speak but I couldn't hear him. He moved
his right arm slightly and crooked his index finger in a motion
beckoning me closer. So I moved to him and put my ear close to his lips
and could make out just two one syllable words:
"Fuck off".
I straightened up and smiled at him-he'd always hated that. My ability
to mock him even as he was beating me. I turned and walked away biting
my lip. On the drive back I mused upon the thought that he might well
have been delivering his epitaph to the world at large. I wondered
whether the relevant authorities would allow me to have it engraved on
his tombstone. I didn't go straight home but made a small diversion to
my local pub. A couple of friends were in a corner in animated
conversation as usual, so I joined them. We talked about love and death
and the absence of one and the prevalence of the other. I left them
after a few drinks without mentioning anything of the days events, When
I arrived home, my despair alleviated by alcohol, the look on my wife's
face told me: "He died about an hour ago-your sister phoned do-yah
wanna drink?".
I said nothing - her words were meaningless. I was numb.
So; this great tempest of a man had finally been neutered, the storm
that raged within had succumbed to a greater force and exhausted
itself. The cool night air in the park was sweet and crisp - I felt
nothing. 'To be born enslaved is meaningless - to be released -
everything' I had read somewhere.
One of us was now free.