Return to Oakpin(110)

            Now he heard a sound, a human sound, and he opened his old eyes again. There was always a little vertigo, and he turned to anchor himself. There was someone in the chair, a shadow, only gray, unmoving. Jimmy Brand could hear a hissing now, a friction he realized was his own blood working everywhere he touched the sheets. The shadow in the chair did not move, but Jimmy knew it was no hallucination. It was a person made of charcoal sitting still, both feet on the floor, square and sound as Lincoln’s statue in his temple. Jimmy’s eyes ached against the light, the air, and he squinted them down as if to focus, trying to focus, but they would not be hurried. He tried to swallow and could not, and then he tried to breathe, and he could. With special energy, he lifted his hand from under the covers and brought it to his face, where two fingers rubbed his eyes. He could feel his sharp cheekbone. When he dragged his hand away, the lights were sharper, and now the man in the chair was three shades of gray, four, five, and now some blue.

            “What line of work were you in?” The voice was deep and soft.

            “I was a writer,” Jimmy whispered. “I worked every day at a newspaper for years, eighteen years.” He cleared his throat. His hand appeared again and lifted toward the little bed stand and his cup of water. The water was sharply cold, and he registered it and thought: Good, I still can tell cold. Now he was fully awake, and he looked across the room at his father.

            “How does that go? Did you write the news? Did you have an office?”

            “Dad?” Jimmy Brand said.

            “Yeah,” his father said. “I just come out for a minute. You okay?”

            Jimmy shouldered his pillow so he could sit up slightly. His eyes were settling, but there was still a terrific ripping blur at the peripheries. “Is it snowing?” The window shimmered and flared with fabulous light, lifting the room.

            “Yeah, it started when your buddies left. It should go all night now.”

            “Snow.”

            “Yeah, a real storm.”

            Jimmy looked at his father, sitting in his overalls like always and always. Now his big hands were in his lap like a boy’s, and his face was still and serious and new with an expression Jimmy knew there were no words for, and his father started to speak and Jimmy also knew what he would say, and he said it quietly, “I just come out for a minute.”

            “I’m glad you did. How do you like my room?”

            “Old Craig done a good job, I’d say.”

            “Do you want to hear about my job?”

            “Was it good work?” his father asked.

            “It was a good job,” Jimmy said. “I loved to write, but it wasn’t exactly news. I covered events like the museum shows and art galleries. One time I covered the Metropolitan Car Show, early on, about 1984, all the new cars and actors and a big show. You’d have gotten a kick out of that. Women in costumes opening the car doors. It was deluxe.”

            “Were you working days?”

            Jimmy smiled. His father hadn’t moved. “It was a day shift for a long time,” he answered, “but then I started reviewing plays. It was good work, Dad. That was more of a swing shift. The plays were at eight, and then I’d go back to the office or home and write up the review. Sometimes I had the whole next day, but I like writing for a midnight deadline. I got pretty good at it.”

            “Mom said you won some awards.”

            “I did. Four awards. You get a glass statue and a little raise.”

            “A raise,” his father nodded. “That never hurts.”

            Jimmy was trying to keep track of the conversation and he felt it slipping. He’d had a custom all his life of slowing down at moments he wanted to capture, stepping aside and identifying them, so he wouldn’t miss anything, so he could know what it meant, and now he wanted this, his father talking to him, but it was slipping away like smoke. He was tired, and his heart, he could hear it trying to pound him softly into the bed. He closed his eyes, and they burned for a moment.