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The
Writing Life
"The
Rebirth"
by Sandy Tritt
Sam
Miller propped open the rusted screen door with his well-worn work
boot. He stared at the man he hadn't seen for twenty-one years. He
appeared smaller than Sam remembered, and his skin had taken on the
texture of the baseball mitt he'd given Sam thirty-some years before,
but the blue eyes and bulbous nose matched Sam's perfectly. Sam cleared
his throat. "What the hell do you want?"
"I quit
drinking," Jake Miller said, as though that explained everything.
Sam positioned
his obese body to block Jake's view into the trailer. "A little late,
ain't it?"
Jake smiled
apologetically. "Guess I left you with a mess."
Sam's eyes
narrowed. "A mess? Is that what you call it?"
"I'm sorry.
I—" Sweat beaded
on Jake's ruddy face.
"You think me
and the boys didn't miss Mom, too? You think I knew how to run a house
and take care of kids and pay the bills?"
Jake danced
from foot to foot on the uneven cement blocks used for steps. "I wanna
make it up to you."
Sam slammed the
door and twisted the lock.
Alma jerked a
loose thread from her cut-offs. "Who was that?"
"Wrong number."
Sam peeked between sagging priscillas and watched his father trudge to
the beat-up Plymouth, his body bent.
"That's your
Daddy, ain't it?"
Sam rubbed his
chest. "Get me a beer."
"Pete
was just saying the other day he wondered if his Daddy was still alive.
On your birthday, 'member? When Pete and Annie and Howie and Marlene
and the kids were all out here? Pete told Annie that's why we never had
no kids. Cause you had him and Howie and Bobby and that was enough
heartache. Didn't need no more."
Sam lit a
Camel, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. "Just get me a beer,
would you?"
For
two weeks, Sam chased his beer with Alka Seltzer, but nothing stopped
the ache that started deep in his oversized gut, penetrated his heart
and dulled as it reached his neck and shoulders. He'd suffered from
heartburn for years, but since his father's visit, it never let up.
Sam watched the
tiny bubbles mimic a colorless fireworks display and wondered why he
bothered.
"Another tummy
ache?" Alma wrapped her arms around his portly waist.
Sam shrugged
and swallowed the antacid.
Alma
moved her hand under his thin undershirt and rubbed the hair around his
belly button, the way she did when she had words to say he wouldn't
want to hear. "Your daddy called earlier. Said he didn't blame you for
hating him, but he wanted you to know he'd changed."
A jagged pain
ripped across Sam's shoulder and down his arm. He sucked in his breath.
Alma curled his
belly hair around her finger. "You got too good a heart to let it rot
with hate."
He
pulled away from her and dropped into one of the vinyl chairs circling
the Formica dinette table, his body spilling over the small frame.
A car pulled
into the driveway, spewing gravel.
"Speaking of
the son-of-a-bitch—"
Alma patted his
arm on her way to the door. "Be nice."
Sam made a
face. He didn't feel like fighting. He was shaky, like he was coming
down with a virus.
Alma opened the
door. "You must be Sam's daddy."
"Jake. Call me
Jake."
Sam shoved away
from the table, a cold sweat on his brow. "Get the hell outta my house."
"Now, Sam,"
Alma said, touching his shoulder, "don't be like that."
"I wanted—"
Jake looked at his son's damp, doughy face. "You okay?"
Sam
wiped at the sweat on his forehead. It was the flu. It had to be the
flu. He was hot, dizzy, nauseated. Lightning pierced his shoulder
again, traveled down his arm and extended through his fingers.
"Sam?" Alma's
voice echoed like she was in a tunnel, far away.
The
table melted, the fake wood grain swirling in a brown pool with
wavering black lines. Sam stared at it, trying to make sense of it.
"Come lay
down." Jake's voice seemed as distant as Alma's had.
Sam
put his fingers through the liquid table. The Formica puddle grabbed
his hand, bending and twisting his arm with agonizing pain, squeezing
his chest until his breath left him, then sucked him into the black
abyss. He tried to jerk back, but the spiraling depths consumed him,
drawing him deeper and deeper into the darkness.
Jake
jumped behind his son, easing Sam's fall. He rolled Sam to his back and
put his ear close to Sam's mouth. "He ain't breathing." He shook Sam's
shoulder. "Sammy!"
Sam gave no
response.
Jake
tilted Sam's head back, pushed his chin up and forced two quick breaths
into Sam's lungs. He felt for a pulse. "Call an ambulance."
"What's wrong
with him?" Alma asked, her voice unusually high.
Jake
knelt by Sam's side and positioned his hands two fingertips above Sam's
rib triangle, his arms straight. "Get an ambulance. Now."
Sam
hovered in a dream-like state of flowing nothingness. A scene danced in
the distance. As he was propelled forward, the old farmhouse from his
childhood came into focus. The screen door flapped in the wind and
light glowed from the kitchen. A young man stood at the range, spatula
in hand. Smells of potatoes frying and chicken roasting filled the
autumn air. As Sam moved closer, he recognized his own
twenty-two-year-old body, bloated biceps straining his dirty T-shirt.
The
frustration of those horrible years washed over him. Each day he
expected his father to return. Instead, each day presented
ever-increasing problems for which he was unprepared. Bobby and Howard
smoked dope behind the barn. Little Pete cried for his parents and had
trouble with school. Howard fell off the loft and broke his leg.
Bobby's tummy ache turned into appendicitis.
Day
after day, Sam's legs ached from ten hours on concrete, changing oil
and rotating tires at Smitty's Exxon, then coming home and cleaning and
cooking and worrying. He never quit worrying, even after the boys
graduated. A thousand times Sam's heart was busted. Bobby died in
Vietnam. Howard turned to drugs and thumbed his way around the country.
Little Pete loved too hard, drove too fast and drank too much. And all
the while, Sam's resentment for the man who'd left them grew into hate.
The
scene blackened and Sam spun in dizzying circles, like he was trapped
in an out-of-control carnival ride, then deposited in view of another
scene. He saw himself again, about the same age as before, perhaps a
bit younger, walking through the cornfield at dusk. He searched his
memory for the situation, but couldn't locate it.
Young
Sammy continued walking, on and on, until the cornfield eased into the
distance and he entered thick woods. Just inside the tree canopy, his
mother's fresh grave glowed. "Dad?" he called, his voice wavering.
His
father rose from the shadows. His face was distorted, enlarged, his
fingers clutching an empty Jack Daniel's bottle. He held an antique oil
lantern, the source of the strange light. "I can't do it," he mumbled,
his words rolled together, the smell of stale whiskey oozing from his
breath.
"Dad, we need
you."
"I can't," he
said, his words becoming sobs. "I'm sorry. I can't. Maybe someday
you'll understand."
Sam
tried to shut his eyes, but the vision of his weak, slobbering father
remained, igniting the anger that smoldered within Sam. Just when he
gave up fighting the view, he was grabbed by the whirlwind and turned
to face another vision.
Sam
recognized the cramped bedroom of his youth—the twin bed
shoved
against the painted blue wall, dirty clothes littering the floor and
school books—Geometry,
American History and Auto Mechanics—resting on
the homemade desk of concrete blocks and plywood. A fan vibrated in the
window, yet it was still humid and stuffy.
On
the middle of the unmade bed sat seventeen-year-old Sammy—already
chubby, already hanging over his clothes--his head buried in his arms,
his shoulders shaking. A gold-framed eight-by-ten of pretty Sarah
Martin smiled next to him. Sam's senior ring, still wrapped in red
angora and smelling of Sarah's perfume, rolled on the glass.
The bedroom
door opened and Jake walked in. "I'm so sorry," he said, draping his
arm over his son.
Sammy's
shoulders heaved.
Jake
stayed next to his son for a long time, saying nothing. But his
presence spoke loudly and formed the words Jake couldn't: "I know you
loved her. I know you were good to her. And I know I can't say anything
to make your pain go away. But I'm here and I'll stand behind you no
matter what."
The
vacuum swallowed Sam and carried him for what seemed a great distance
before expelling him. A man and a small boy hiked through the woods.
Sam smiled as he recalled his fifth birthday. The only thing he wanted
that year was a camping trip. His mother made a knap-sack from scraps
of material and his father, despite the unbearable heat of the August
night, took him to the cave deep in the hills behind the farm.
Sam
watched, knowing what would happen. The boy—young Sammy—raced into
the dark cave. "I get to sleep here!" he shouted, throwing his
knap-sack deep in the recess. He plunged forward, then froze at the
sound of the rattle echoing off stone walls.
"Don't move,"
Jake said, his voice unnaturally calm.
The rattle
became louder, more urgent, as Sammy's eyes adjusted to the dimness and
saw the snake posed to strike.
A
large rock whizzed through the air. It struck the rattler, knocking it
to the ground. Jake leapt from behind Sammy, moving faster than Sammy
thought was possible. His heavy work boot stomped on the snake's head,
and within seconds his hunting knife ripped through the tough hide.
Later,
after Jake disposed of the body and they had eaten, Sammy drifted off
to sleep with visions of black bears dozing next to him.
But
the adult Sam saw something the child Sammy hadn't: instead of making
his own bed, Jake leaned against the stone wall next to his son, his
eyes and ears alert in the darkness, and guarded his son until daybreak.
Although he
didn't want to leave, Sam was jerked back into the void and dropped at
another scene.
A woman
squatted on the floor, her down-turned face covered by long black hair.
Next to her, a teen-aged boy wrung his hands.
Sam was
curious. He moved closer, straining for a better view.
"Please, Dee.
Let me call Mrs. Jones."
Dee—Deloris--Sam's
mother—gripped the
piano leg and grunted. Blood dripped onto the
towels under her. She panted, then took a deep breath.
"Dee. Please,
Dee." The young man was Sam's father.
"Get ready,"
she said.
Jake held a
towel under her. "The head. I see the head."
"Catch it."
"Shit. It has
hair."
Sam watched,
amazed, as his father worked the head, then the shoulders. The baby
emerged, gray and mucus-covered.
"He ain't
breathing." Jake held the baby in both hands.
Deloris rolled
back on her hips and straightened her legs.
"He
ain't breathing," Jake repeated. He wiped the baby's face. "Come on,
Sammy," he said, "come on." He placed the tiny body on the floor and
rubbed the chest, then covered the infant's mouth with his own. He blew
air until the chest rose. "Breathe, Sammy. Please breathe."
_____
The baby
kicked, then turned from gray to blue to deep pink. Jake cradled the
infant tight against his chest.
Sam wanted to
stay, wanted to continue to watch, but the darkness grabbed him and
took him away.
"Come
on, Sammy," Jake said. "Come on." He jumped to Sam's head and breathed
for him. He felt again for a pulse. There was none. He moved back to
the side and started chest compressions.
Alma sat on the
floor and squeezed Sam's limp hand. "Mrs. Jones. Maybe Mrs. Jones—"
"No,"
Jake said. "He needs equipment." His arms ached. It seemed he had been
pumping forever. He heard sirens in the distance, growing closer.
"Breathe, Sammy," he whispered, "please breathe."
Sam's
throat burned. Beeping and sighing sounds echoed in the silence. And
his chest. The pressure was unbearable, like an elephant rested on it.
Maybe he was underwater. That would account for the distortion of sound
and the struggle to breathe.
Sam tried to
open his eyes, but they were too thick.
"He's
starting to wake up." He knew the voice. It was important to him,
belonging to someone he loved. His wife. He scanned his memory for her
name.
"I'll wait in
the lobby. I don't wanna upset him." Another familiar voice. His
father's.
"Now, Jake, the
doctor said it ain't your fault."
"Yeah,
it is," Jake said, his voice quiet. "It's my fault I let Jack Daniel's
make my decisions for me, made me think my boys were better off without
me."
The dizzying
darkness threatened to overtake Sam again, and he fought it. He forced
his heavy eyelids to open.
"He's awake."
Alma patted his arm. "You had a heart attack."
Sam loved her
voice. It was calm, reassuring. He wished he could remember her name.
"You're at the
hospital, doing fine." Alma moved closer so he could see her face.
"Your daddy saved your life."
Jake touched
Sam's hand. "I know you can't talk, but if you want me to leave, lift
your finger, okay? I don't wanna upset you."
Sam
didn't lift just one finger, but all of them. Then he moved his hand on
top of his father's and wrapped his fingers around it and squeezed as
tightly as he could. He felt the darkness coming, but he didn't fight
it. As long as his father was there to watch over him, he'd be fine.
© 1999. Sandy Tritt. Published
in Mountain Echoes (2004); in
Mountain
Voices (2006)
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