Down Sterling Road. Adrian Michael Kelly
No need to tell me that.
They have the same name?
Think your mother owns it?
No … She left all these books to the library.
Who did?
The doctor. Art books and everything and a dictionary that has every single word in it.
Go friggin blind, you will.
I can see perfect.
Bloodywell hope so. Think I can afford glasses?
No, says Jacob, kicking a small stone down the sidewalk.
Dad digs the car keys from his pocket, sniffs the air like someone did a fart and says Jesus Murphy, factory smells something awful today. Didn’t lock your side, I see.
Sorry.
You’re always sorry. Get in.
When they get back to Hillcrest Heights there’s poor Teddy across the road, out in the wet snow, no food in his bowl and howling. Inside, Dad takes the radio to the bathroom so he can listen to repeats of The Goon Show when he’s having a shower. But the reception’s bad so he just whistles like the Black Watch Pipes and Drums. Jacob shuts his bedroom door and tries to read X-Men but can’t concentrate. Dumps the jar out on his bed, counts his allowances. Figures how much he’ll have left over after he buys Luciano Pavarotti for Dad. Maybe he can get Teddy a bone from Rick the butcher at $harpe’s $uper $ave. A huge big femur. Sneak it over. Teddy can gnaw at it all he likes. Bury it. Dig it up again in springtime.
Jacob slides the jar back under the bed. Gets some paper and the pencil stub from his nightstand. Draws bones. Human bones. An elbow joint. An ankle. A femur. Then Dad pops his head in. That’s me away.
’Kay.
What are you drawing there?
Bone.
Can see that. What’s it called?
Femur. Largest in the body.
Correct.
A lot of weight-bearing responsibility.
Aye, so don’t sit on your arse all night.
Won’t.
Get some food in that belly of yours.
Will.
Lovely piece of fish in the fridge. Perch.
’Kay.
Some spuds and peas with it, not a bad wee nosh.
Sounds good, Dad.
Time you had a haircut, too. Look like a mop.
Not that skinny.
Skin and bloody bone, boy.
Jacob breaks the point of his pencil but makes it look like an accident.
Dad stares at it, the pencil, for a sec, two, then he’s out the door and away down the stairs.
Jacob eyes the hole at the end of his pencil. Listens till he can’t hear the Gran Torino anymore. Crawls under the covers. Hopes the rest of December comes and goes like a heartbeat.
But the days don’t come and go like heartbeats, they slow down like the middle of a long run when you feel the wall coming on and just want to stop. Except, like Dad says, you’re so far down the road what the hell else are you gonna do except keep plodding on – like the second hand of the clock on Christmas Eve, it looks like it’s ready to pack it in when Dad finally calls at six and says Sorry, son, I’ll be a wee while yet.
How come?
Patient transfer.
Peterborough?
No. Serious. Kingston General.
You’re on days tomorrow, Dad. Supposed to be you gets to come home.
On-call guy’s got flu, Dad says, then he puts, Jacob can tell, his hand over the phone before he tells Jim Digby I can’t believe this kid. Jim laughs then Dad comes back on and says See you, don’t wait up.
’Kay.
After he hangs up, Jacob wraps the Luciano Pavarotti tape, leans it against the tree stand. Plugs in the lights. The old tree still looks pretty in the dark.
Gets half his spaghetti down. Tosses the rest. Dishes done. Teeth brushed like they show you in school, but his gum still bleeds. Cavity’s the size of his fingertip now. He dabs Dad’s Orajel on it. Gets into his PJS, bed. Leans over a pile of X-Men. Reads and listens for the front door and the footfalls, but his eyes get heavy, sore. Light off.
Flat on his back, Jacob makes prayer hands on his forehead. Closes his eyes. Breathes phooh and says I know we don’t go to church anymore or anything and I don’t want to be selfish so even if Dad didn’t get me Prismacolor pencils that’s okay, please just let us have a good Christmas. It’s the third one now.
Then he rolls, and curls, and breathes way down into his belly. Back at the old house by the river Dad used to climb on the roof and stomp around Ho ho ho, not asleep yet? and for a second, two, Jacob thinks he hears it. But it’s not. It’s just Dad with the lights left off, bumping into furniture and swearing on his way to the stereo. In the hush and dark Jacob hears everything – the soosh of the record being slid from its sleeve, the needle’s hiss and the speakers’ crackle heartbeats before the story begins. One Christmas was so much like another… booms the big warm voice, and Dad cranks the sound down, but Jacob knows the words … in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep …
Even when Jacob and his brother couldn’t understand the words, when they just liked the sound of the big warm voice, Dad always played Dylan Thomas on Christmas Eve – Listen, boys – and drank hot toddies and honey with Mum. Now he listens alone, to all of it, twice. Lets the record keep playing at the end – t-chikt, t-chikt – goes to the fridge and gets more ice. Jacob, heart hammering, can picture everything – the tree, blinking on, blinking off, and Dad on the sofa, drink about to spill, staring at the blank TV. Please let him go to bed, he’s working tomorrow and he needs a good sleep.
The clock flips click from 4:59 to 5:00 and Jacob’s eyes blink open again. He stays still, listens to the dark and the hush. Then hears Dad’s apnea. Lies there some more. Dad snorts, makes daft sounds. Goes quiet again. At quarter to six Jacob gets out of bed, picks up the tin wastebin in the corner of his room. Waits for a snort then drops the bin clang. But Dad just snuffles and groans.
Wake up, Dad. Wake up.
At six Jacob says to himself Just a quick look-see. Ever so slowly opens his bedroom door. The dark apartment like held breath, streetlight glow through the windows. Cold linoleum against the balls of his feet as he closes his eyes except for a slit and sneaks to the living room.
And opens his eyes.
Two presents. Dad’s, and another one. About the size of a sketchbook. Jacob sneaks over to give it a shake, but jumps when Dad’s alarm clock buzzes. Spins and takes big quiet steps back to his room.
Dad hits the button and makes big wake-up noises like he’s been dragged by the heels into the world and isn’t too sure he wants to be here because it’s all bangers and mash and bodies on stretchers.
Jacob, breath held, waits just inside his bedroom door.
Waahhh, y’up, son?
Jacob fakes a yawn. Pardon, Dad?
Dad laughs. I heard you.
Me?
Who else could it have been, I wonder.
Don’t know, Dad.
It’s quiet, then Dad says What day is it today, son?
It’s