May, 1997
"This could be it," were the only words I remembered Mom telling me before I entered the hospital room. Flower arrangements and get-well cards decorated the otherwise drab surroundings. No sound could overpower the constant ticking of the cardiograph machine precariously hidden in the corner of the room. Each signal resounded like my father was trying to regain the overwhelming recognition he demanded in any conversation we had.
Finally my eyes rested their glare on the sterile bed centerpiecing the room. Beneath a thin bed sheet rested my father's body. The wrinkled skin of his upper neck contrasted, not in color but in texture, to the smooth restraints keeping his head in traction. His neck seemed thin compared to the size of his head. His mouth lay slightly gaped open, surgical tubing surrounded his nostrils, and his eyes remained firmly shut. He looked different; hell, he looked dead. The only resemblance this dying body had to my father was the long strips of gray hair which coated the shiny baldness of his scalp. They remained strung across his head like they always had. This just furthered my belief that Mom had always groomed him. It wasn't like he had been doing it himself these last few weeks
As I stared, trying to capture any little detail that would allow me to reminisce in silence with this stranger, I noticed a slow gurgling escape his throat ever so infrequently. Despite how much I hated this man, this whole situation was starting to depress me. If it wasn't for the lucid memories of my childhood growing up under "his" roof, as he would have said, I might even pity him. As I struggled to squeeze a drop of sorrow for him, my mind became fixated on one ironic memory out of the hundreds of horrid memories of my beaten childhood.
It was fifteen years ago. I know that because Dad always raved that a roof must be redone every fifteen years. I was either eight or nine years old. Dad was up on the roof tacking down shingles. I remained on the ground looking up in the hot summer sun at his hair flopping in the air like a rug over his head. Every once in a while he would ask me for some more nails. I had a mild childhood fear of heights, so I would meet him halfway up the ladder to hand them to him. Each time he would ridicule me. "What's wrong boy, scared of heights?"
His.mouth would hold that same smirk of disappointment that it did for years hence. I'd say nothing and retreat down the ladder. Finally after a few hours of this, Dad slowly came down the ladder and made a strong request to me. "Boy, I think its time you join me up there." I remember just looking at him in terror and shaking my head. This did not stop him. With me loosely strapped over his shoulder he climbed the ladder telling me it was time to lose my fear of heights.
Plopping me on the peak of the roof, he descended the ladder. I was too stricken with fear to move. I just clung to that roof as if it were a wild horse ready to throw me. I heard the screen door to the house open and my father holler, "Come down when your ready, boy, and remember you won't fall as long as you aren't scared. Only carpenters and roofers fall of roofs." He chuckled. "And you ain't one of those." And with that the door slammed shut.
So there I remained until after the sun fell and the summer bugs came out. I was frozen with fear and my body was sore and riddled with bug bites. I thought I was stuck there forever. Then I heard the rattle of the ladder and the scratch of feet on rock and asphalt. It was Dad. As he came close to me I could smell beer on his breath. "You don't learn too fast, do you, boy?"
And now as I looked down on his withered, dying frame, I had little trouble believing that this was the man that had beaten me so that July night fifteen years ago for being afraid of heights. I wished he would open his eyes one last time so I could relate the entire story back to him and then watch the irony of his expression. Yes, the thought of that made me smile.
As I left the room I pretended that he was awake and had just heard my story. Opening the door, I turned towards him. "Funny... I thought only carpenters and roofers fell off roofs, Dad. Maybe if you were afraid of heights, like me. . ."
And with that I left.
Copyright © Ed Canty
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Ed Canty lives in a bus somewhere in Portland.