Afterlife and Other Stories

Afterlife and

Other Stories

Ed Krizek

Copyright © 2004 by Ed Krizek.

ISBN:        Softcover        978-1-4134-4002-7

ISBN:        Ebook             978-1-4771-8186-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

AFTERLIFE

IN MEMORIAM

DO YOU KNOW ME?

MEMORIES LOST

OUT OF ORDER

SHORT CIRCUIT

TURNING POINT

BOY’S NIGHT OUT

THE BEGGAR

THE YELLOW CAB MAN

LETTER FROM A LAUNDROMAT

DEMOLITION

EDDIE THE JUNKIE

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

PEREGRINATION

SPRING-CLEANING

IT’S A GIFT

TRADING UP

THE GOOD CITIZEN

ONE WINTER’S EVE

WALT’S

For Caroline

AFTERLIFE

At seventy-three, her hair was almost completely white although it had a gray tinge to it. She had bristly hairs growing out of certain spots on her face. Her stroke some years ago had left her paralyzed on the left side, and food drooled down that half of her face when she ate. She wore a brace on her left leg, and her hand on that side of her body clutched involuntarily in almost a fist, as if she were trying to hold onto something.

Bob always took care of her. They had been what can be loosely called friends for the past fifteen years. He took care of her. He picked her up and sat her in her wheelchair. He wheeled it all around the city to shops, the grocery store, and the park. On nice days, he would push her several miles during the daylight hours.

Bob was older than Jean, but time had been kinder to his body. Although he had the physical strength to help Jean, he also had some problems that come with age. His memory was not what it used to be. He often forgot important tasks like going to the bank, for instance, and he became upset and confused when he ran out of money. Bob would never use automatic tellers. He could never quite get the concept of pushing buttons and receiving money. He never complained though. He was happy God had given him the chance to take care of Jean.

They were what youth-oriented America terms companions. Each had a different reason for needing the other. Jean had been a highly independent woman before her stroke, flirting and cavorting her way through life. Now God had made her a cripple who was dependent on Bob for her existence. Jean was uncomfortable with this state of affairs since she had always done for herself. Yet she recognized that perhaps this lot she had been given was appropriate since she had not always been the most giving person in her youth. She had never loved her husband who died before Bob’s wife. She just couldn’t get herself to open up and trust a man. She told her family that she didn’t love Bob either, but that she was thankful that he had come into her life since she couldn’t get along without him. And although Bob loved her dearly, he had often heard her say this but felt it was the Lord’s way of helping him atone for the life he had led in his youth. He had not been perfect either. Once Bob had been a marine, young, and strong, and ready to give his life for his country. Now he was forgetful, weak, and unwilling to give away the little time he knew was left to him.

For Bob it happened gradually. Sometimes he would see a scintilla of light flash across Jean’s eyes. He thought he could see her dancing as a young adult woman, beautiful, sensual, and full of life force. He attributed this to his deteriorating mental state at first. He knew his mind played tricks on him. For Jean, it was different. One day she was rolling in her wheelchair with Bob pushing behind. She turned and saw him in his Dress Blues, marching with his white gloved hands around the wheelchair’s handles with brass buttons shining against his uniform. Jean did a double take and was comforted to see the soft paunchy white-haired man she knew.

Neither of them talked much about their feelings. Both were concerned about the effects of old age on the brain, so the visions were never mentioned. But they persisted, and grew stronger and longer with time. There began to be days when instead of going out for wheelchair walks they stayed indoors and stared into each other’s eyes. Each seeing the glint of life in the other. Neither of them said anything, but both knew what was happening.

Finally one day Bob said, Would you like to dance, Jean?

I’d love to! she said.

They put a waltz on the record player. Bob took Jean’s right hand and helped her to stand. He put his arms around her waist and said, I love you, Jean.

I love you too, Bob, she replied.

And they were found dead by the building manager, in the middle of the living room of the apartment they shared in what was described by the coroner’s office as an embrace.

IN MEMORIAM

It’s wake-up time.

The boy rolled over and pulled the covers over his head.

It’s wake-up time.

He already knew that. His parents’ alarm had gone off fifteen minutes ago. He could always hear it from his room. It was four fifteen in the morning. Waking up was hard to do at that time. Most of his friends wouldn’t be awake for three hours.

It’s wake-up time, his mother’s voice floated in from the kitchen. She was getting his father’s thermos of tea ready for the day. He didn’t like coffee and had developed the habit of drinking large quantities of tea instead. It was a distinctive idiosyncrasy, which differentiated him from the usual construction worker.

Are you ready yet? he heard his father say.

The boy threw back his blankets and sat on the edge of the bed. The seasons were moving closer to winter, and the house was cold early in the morning. When his feet touched the floor, the sensation of the nerves in the soles sent a message to his brain, which woke him. It was cold. He walked over to his pile of clothes from yesterday and began putting them on.

In some way he really didn’t see the point to doing this since in half an hour he would take them off, put on a bathing suit, and dive into a pool for his morning workout.

Do you want anything to eat? his mother asked.

No. He could never eat before a workout. It always made him sick. He had tried it once and vomited in the pool’s gutter after an especially taxing effort. Swimming was too important for food to interfere. He could eat later.

Are you sure?

Yes. He didn’t talk much first thing in the morning, and although yesterday had been Thanksgiving, he was still tired from all the workouts of days and weeks before. One day didn’t provide enough rest. His arms still hurt.

Let’s go, his father said.

They walked to the door, and each in turn kissed his mother good-bye. She gave his father a hug, and father and son walked out to the blue Mercury Marquis, which was parked in the driveway.

Once in the passenger’s seat, the boy pulled his coat close around him and waited for the engine to warm up. Usually he dozed most of the way to the pool using his clothing and the car’s heat for warmth. In a sleep-deprived daze, he could dream and not anticipate the shock of entering the water at 5:00 am.

Today, however, was a holiday, at least from school. He was thinking about the swim team picnic, which would be held after practice. At the last swim team event, a number of people had been caught drinking beer including him. At fifteen, he was beginning to test his limits. Today he and his father talked.

John, I’ve tried to give you some of the opportunities I didn’t have. I want you to achieve. To make something worthwhile out of your life. I don’t want you to have to do what I have to do to make a living, his father said once the car was moving.

The boy knew it was true. He had given his son a great many opportunities he never had. John had gone to private schools and done well. He had excelled at swimming through the guidance and management provided by his father. The boy had talent, and his father had developed it and made it flourish.

If you want to drink, his father said, I’ll buy you a bottle, and you can drink in your room. Don’t go out behind the Y and hide in the bushes.

This seemed like a sort of compromise to the boy. Although the social aspects of drinking would be lacking, he could drink if he wanted to. Of course it was the camaraderie offered by alcohol he sought. He didn’t feel all that wonderful after drinking. Besides it didn’t really taste very good to him. He wanted to make more friends. His schedule of swim practice and school kept him somewhat isolated.

John, I want you to be better than me. I want you to be something. When his father talked like this, it always seemed odd to the boy. As far as he was concerned, his father already was something. He was proud that his father had his own business and didn’t have to suck up in some corporation. He was proud that his father could build things. He had designed and built the house they lived in now, on weekends. It looked different from every other house in the neighborhood. A relative had once remarked that the house showed all the passion of a fiery artist in his work. To some it seemed inappropriate for the area in which it was created. His father had stretched his resources to the limit to build it. Once, when his father expressed concern that he might have to sell their home, the boy told him that it didn’t matter whether or not they kept the house. What was important was the love and sacrifice that had gone into it. The family would always have that. The boy noticed a look of respect and bewilderment on his father’s face after he’d said that.

When his father jokingly threatened to arrive in his work clothes at one of the boy’s private schools in order to embarrass him, he wished he would. He was not ashamed. Few if any of the parents at these places could change a lightbulb.

They had to hire his father or someone like him to do the work. The boy loved his father fiercely and was proud of him. He never understood why his father didn’t like himself.

Over the years of traveling to swimming pools throughout the New York area, the boy and his father had spent a great deal of time in the car. During the rides they became very close. They talked about life in general, how their days had gone and about swimming. They knew every pool in the city, when they were open, how large they were, and when they would be least crowded. Trying to be something special required obsessive dedication. The pair traveled on Sundays, holidays, and at four thirty in the morning. The boy was waiting for the time when he would be something and not have to work so hard anymore. He could relax then. Maybe they both could. Sometimes the boy wished for a normal life without the pressure of success. He hoped that when he became something he could decide for himself how hard to train.

But achievement was so important to his father. He thrived on the boy’s accomplishments. He remembered his father’s face when he had been clocked in a time, which made him fifteenth in the country. His father looked at that point truly happy. He even seemed content for a few days, and the boy was glad he could make this happen.

Father and son formed a unique pair. Their emotions were inexorably intertwined. Like Siamese twins, their feelings flowed from one to the other along unseen chains of energy. They had achieved spiritual symbiosis, if nothing else. Each knew how to make the other happy. Now, John, today I want you to make sure that Freddy doesn’t beat you. On anything! Bust a gut if you have to.

Not Freddy again, thought the boy. The boy worked out twice a day. Freddy Mann only worked out once. He always waited for the boy to tire toward the end of a workout and then sprinted ahead to touch him out at the wall. Why was his father so concerned with other people? Would Freddy bust a gut for his own father? The boy wondered what life would be like without this pressure.

At that point his father started to breathe hard. He put his hand on his chest and slowed the car. The boy recognized the symptoms. His father had been having chest pains for almost a year. He had seen a doctor, and the doctor said they were little heart attacks. He told his father to lose weight. (He weighed almost three hundred pounds) And to take it easier, he had done neither.

Don’t tell your mother, his father said.

In all the times he had seen this in the days and weeks they traveled together he had never told. He thought his mother should know but respected his father’s wishes. What could be done anyway? His father still insisted on attending every swim practice even those at 5:00 a.m. After that, he went and worked work a full day of construction work. When he came home at night, he collapsed exhausted into bed. Often the boy’s mother would bring him dinner there. The boy wondered why he had to work so hard if he owned the company. His father said the men would work harder if they saw him working too.

His father’s pain subsided, and the car moved once again toward the Flushing Y pool. They said nothing. Once at the Y, his father parked the car. They walked inside together.

As their paths diverged, his father repeated, Remember about Freddy. Then the boy headed off to the locker room to change. He wished his father could relax and not care so much about Freddy. His father took his place in the stands. He was the only parent there.

The workout began with a warm-up. They always began with warm-ups. Nothing too taxing, and besides, Freddy hadn’t shown up yet. His arms moved easily through the water and stretched out the kinks in his arms and back. The soreness he had learned in school was due to a sort of poisoning from lactic acid, which built up in muscles when they were overused.

The coach’s name was Don. He had done some graduate work at Indiana University and studied with Doc Councilman, the coach there. Indiana had won the NCAA championships seven years in a row. Don said that by duplicating the workouts of a national powerhouse, the Y could create a championship dynasty of its own. Today’s workout is actually very simple, Don said.

We are going to do three 1650s. One every twenty-two minutes. The boy groaned inwardly. Sixteen hundred and fifty yards was the equivalent in yards of the longest Olympic swimming event, the 1,500-meter freestyle. Both distances were