Each night the stench kept me awake until my numb brain passed out from the fatigue of the day. I awoke the next morning, hoping, praying that the odor would fade. My nostrils flared. Nothing changed.
As much as I tried to convince my parents I could not sleep in that room, they said, “No, you have to. It’s what Grandma would have wanted.”
“Please come in here.” Pulling on Mom’s arm, I strained to drag her into the room. Smell it. It stinks. If you realized how much it stinks you’d understand.”
“”I’ve got house cleaning,” she replied. “I’m too busy for your foolishness.” She was so adamant about staying out of the room that she asserted it was time I learned to clean it myself. “It’s not that hard,” she said. “Just a little sweeping, and dusting. A mop every now and then.”
Dad, on the other hand, willingly marched into the room, sniffed a couple of times with his head held high and proclaimed, “I don’t smell a damned thing.” He wagged a finger in my face. “Don’t you know most boys would give their eye teeth for a room like this all to themselves?”
I didn’t mention it again. I began sweeping, dusting and changing the sheets. When Mom walked past the door, I always managed a smile. Although in my sleep I began having nightmares. . Bad dreams. The fiery ball. A hulking figure silhouetted against the flames. Each episode ended with a scream. I jumped from bed and ran to the door. Mom would stop me and hold me until the terrified gaze left my eyes and I awoke.
“Go on to bed now,” she whispered. “It’s over, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Do about what?”
“The nightmare, of course.”
She never asked what the dream was about. I think she knew but did not want to talk about it. I knew better than to talk to Dad about the nightmares. I knew better than to talk to Dad about anything. Over the years the fiery ball began to take a shape. I realized it was not a ball but more an elongated shape. I no longer was afraid of it. I felt sorry for it. I think I loved it. The hulking figure kept me from the thing I loved. Frustration and anger welled up inside like I was going to explode.
In high school I discovered if I wrote about the fire, the pain, the anger and death, the nightmares were less frequent but still bad. I learned how to write different stories but basically they were about the same images. Perhaps I should have written something happy and funny but never did. When I read my stories aloud in class, the students laughed.
The teacher told them, “Eddie’s sharing something very personal. It takes a lot of courage for someone to expose his soul like that. Only a true writer can do that. Never laugh at true talent.”
After class one girl gave me a quick hug. She smelled of something from the past. Flowers. Exactly which kind I couldn’t remember. She smiled. She had dimples. Before I could say anything, she moved on through the crowded hall. I was so upset by being laughed at, I didn’t ask her name. Eventually I noticed she always sat a seat or two away from me in the cafeteria and found some reason to ask me for the salt or something.
My English teacher said I had a knack for fiction. She called my parents to come to school for a conference. As I sat there I could not help but smile when she told showed them my papers and encouraged them to send me off to a good university to study writing.
“Mind your own damned business,” Dad growled at her. “College is for rich kids, and we’re poor as snot. Besides I need him in the plumbing business. I’m gettin’ older and can’t crawl around under houses like I used to.”
After we returned home Dad got in my face to scowl at me. “Don’t you ever write stories like that again. And get those ideas of college out of your head.”
“I always thought it would be fun to crawl around under houses,” Mom said with a smile as she nodded. “You never know what you’ll find down there. You’re lucky. Your dad would never let me help him with his work.” She shrugged. “Women aren’t good at any work like that. Oh well.”
Dad still scared me, even though I was grown up enough to take care of myself. I looked down and shuffled my feet. “What if I want to set up on my own—you know, get married?”
Mom laughed, but it sounded more like a meadowlark’s song. ”Oh, George, he thinks he wants to get married! Isn’t that sweet?”
Getting back in my face, Dad sneered. “And what woman would want to marry a man with that nasty scar on his face and who screams like a little girl in his sleep?”
Maybe if Grandma had lived, she would have given me the confidence to tell Dad off.
“I’m going to do what I want to,” I should have said. “Even if it took me ten years going to get through college part-time I was going to become a writer. And there was nothing he could do about it!”
But Grandma was not there. And the smell in my bedroom doomed me to say nothing. Bowing my head I submitted to his demands and after high school I joined him in the plumbing business. I went under houses, crawling through muddy sludge to fix plumbing.
Years went by. Customers took me aside and confided that I was a better plumber than my father ever could be. If I could not be a writer, at least I was a good plumber. I never did marry. I did notice that there was a young woman who called us to fix a pipe every few months. She always gave me a hug when we finished. Maybe she liked me. I never found out for sure. How could I marry a girl if I could not make myself look into her eyes?
After a while, my hair turned gray. My knees began to ache when I knelt to fix pipes. Notions of love, marriage and having children faded away. Once in a while, lying in my bed waiting to drift into numb slumber, I remembered what Grandma said about laughing.
“There should always be something to chuckle about. Or else what’s the use of living?”
Even her advice lost its charm. Dreams faded away also. Only once in a while, when a full moon shown through the bedroom window, did the images return. One night I actually saw the looming figure heave Grandma’s burning body through the window.
I reflexively sat up, leaned forward and strained to make out the features on the man’s face. It was my father. Ever angry. Ever filled with hate. All the frustration of not living the life he thought he deserved. It was in his face, lit by the fire. I ran for Grandma, but he pulled me back. I remembered now. The stench of his unbathed body. He pulled me away. He kept me from saving Grandma’s life. Now I knew. The bedroom stench was not the kerosene-fed fire. It was not the new coat of paint. It was my father. It was vestiges of human excrement he refused to bathe away. The testament of his hate and violence.
At that moment, a scream jolted me from my dream. I ran to my parents’ bedroom. Mom stood over Dad who was sprawled on the floor.
“Do something, Eddie! Do something! I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do!”
I turned and with deliberation walked to the telephone and called for an ambulance. Here it was almost thirty years later, and an ambulance came to the house again. This time I remembered every detail. My father was still breathing as the attendants loaded him on a stretcher. Mom collapsed in hysteria. And I was completely indifferent to the pain and hysteria. Cold. There was a god. He finally brought down his terrible sword of vengeance. Mom and I followed the ambulance to the hospital. We sat in the emergency waiting room. We stood when the doctor came out.
“Your husband had a major stroke but I think he’ll survive. He will require constant care,” he explained.
I put my arm around Mom. “We can do that, can’t we, Mom?” My grip tightened around her frail shoulders. “It’s the least we can do for Dad after all he’s done for us.”
“I suppose so.” She glanced at me and then the doctor. “Yes, I suppose we must.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. Nothing bad’s happened. Just a little stroke.” I plastered a smile on my face. “Dad will get his reward while he’s still on this earth. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Mom had that scared, little animal look in her eyes, just before she usually said something incredibly stupid. This time she couldn’t make anything come out.
“Of course, you can have home care. We have a practical nurse team that will help you out. Someone will come out every day,” the doctor explained.