Yesterday my father “woke up.” He’s on dialysis and has two secondary infections, but he’s now able to communicate his needs though more with the shake of his head than with an audible voice. Still, it feels like progress.

Hobo Time
He gives me credit for the image, but did I do the same? Hell no.

Ohio River with a barge in the distance.

Deaconess Hospital with Matt’s car (or is that too new?).

Woke up early this morning and from my bed
looked far across the Strait to see
a small boat moving through the choppy water,
a single running light on. Remembered
my friend who used to shout
his dead wife’s name from hilltops
around Prerugia. Who set a plate
for her at his simple table long after
she was gone. and opened the windows
so she could have fresh air. Such display
I found embarrassing. So did his other
friends. I couldn’t see it.
Not until this morning.

Raymond Carver

Between hospital visits, Jeff and I work off a list Karen’s created at my request. Stop the upstairs toilet from rocking, replace the outside light, install a new downstairs bath faucet, clean out the dryer vent, patch the crumbling plaster on the way to the basement, that sort of thing. Every job, with the exception of buying a new paper towel holder, mushroomed into a This Old House How-Not-To, and we mostly drove back and forth to Home Depot.

For our first home improvement project we tackled the door bell that rang by itself, and now, rather than a continuous buzzing, we’ve been surprised only once by the phantom ringer.

“I’ll get it.”

“Who was it?”

“The door bell.”

I’d call it fixed, which is why I was surprised Monday, after Jeff and Karen slipped off to work, to hear banging on the front door. I opened it and smiling before me was a nineteen year old (I’m guessin’) with short red hair and eyes way too close together.

He said hi and I said hi and even before he peered down at his clipboard, he said, “What’s with the si…?”

I knew where he was going so I cut him off.

“What can I do for you?”

He looked back at his clipboard, ran his finger down his list of names and said, “I see you’re an Insight customer and you have Broadband. We’d like to package it with..”

“I don’t live here.”

“cable TV at a low rate of…”

“See that green truck other there, opposite those signs. That’s mine. I’m from Boston. And, besides, I know the owners and they don’t want watch anything but The News Hour on PBS.”

Red (I’m guessin’) wasn’t phased. He dropped his clipboard to his side and said, “You tell them if they change their minds to call us.” Then he motioned over his left shoulder. “Say, what’s with the signs ?”

“Impeach Bush?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty neat, huh?”

“They’re big, I’ll give you that. You don’t see much of that around here.”

“Where I live you see them everywhere.” I lied.

“In New England?”

“Yep.”

“Not here. This is the Bible Belt.”

Late Night with Fog and Horses

They were in the living room. Saying their
goodbyes. Loss ringing in their ears.
They’d been through a lot together, but now
they couldn’t go another step. Besides, for him
there was someone else. Tears were falling
when a horse stepped out of the fog
into the front yard. Then another, and
another. She went outside and said,
“Where did you come from, you sweet horses?”
and moved in amongst them, weeping,
touching their flanks. The horses began
to graze in the front yard.
He made two calls: one call went straight
to he sheriff – “someone’s horses are out.”
But there was that other call, too.
Then he joined his wife in the front
yard, where they talked and murmured
to the horses together. (Whatever was
happening now was happening in another time.)
Horses cropped the grass in the yard
that night. A red emergency light
flashed as a sedan crept in out of fog.
Voices carried out of the fog.
At the end of that long night,
when they finally put their arms around
each other, their embrace was full of
passion and memory. Each recalled
the other’s youth. Now something had ended,
something else rushing in to take its place.
Came the moment of leave-taking itself.
“Goodbye, go on,” she said.
And then pulling away.
Much later,
he remembered making a disastrous phone call.
One that had hung on and hung on,
a malediction. It’s boiled down
to that. The rest of his life.
Malediction.

Raymond Carver