“Dad called me yesterday.”
That was all that Jason said as he stared out across the lake. Just your normal everyday conversation starter between two brothers.
But there was nothing normal about what Jason had said. Our father had been dead for almost a year.
Jason gave me a quick look, then drained the last of his Michelob in one large swallow. He started to get up from his chair, but I grabbed him by the wrist before he could get to his feet.
”What did you just say?” I asked my younger brother, although I had heard him very clearly. After all the speech classes that he’d taken from 3rd grade into junior high, he always spoke very clearly. There was no hint of the lisp or stutter in his voice anymore that he’d been teased about for most of his childhood. I remember that I had defended him on many occasions while we were growing up. I even have a nice scar over my left eye as a reminder. That was before our mother had died. Before Jason and I had fallen out. I don’t even remember why we stopped talking to each other, but, isn’t that how fights usually are?
Jason looked down at his empty beer bottle, then back up at me. I thought that I could see a hint of the sly smile that had made me want to punch him on so many different occasions. In fact, I was ready to hit him right then and there, but then I noticed that his eyes were glossy. He was on the verge of tears.
I stared at my brother for a moment longer, still holding on to his wrist.
I didn’t let go because of the look on his face. Or even because the floodgates looked like they were about to burst wide open. I let him go because he shivered. I could feel his gooseflesh ripple against the palm of my hand. His skin was cold. It reminded me of holding a snake for the first time.
I let him go, but he just stood there.
”Jay…” I started, but he let out a choked cry that sounded like a baby gagging on its own blood.
Jason collapsed into my arms and hugged my neck fiercely. He held me so tightly that I thought I might pass out. I could feel the blood slowing in my veins, and my windpipe closed up. When he loosened his death grip, I took a deep breath and was instantly assaulted by a headache. But he didn’t let go, still holding tightly.
I didn’t know what to do. My natural Thompson instincts almost forced me to push him back, (our family had never been one high on emotional or affectionate displays) but instead, I hugged him back. The tears were flowing now, like a river. I could feel a puddle forming on my shoulder already. He buried his face deep into my neck and cried in harsh little hiccups and gasps. He tried to stop himself. I know he did. But instead his emotions got the best of him, and he let out a moan that reminded me of those ghosts in old movies. He cried harder.
His overt display hadn’t just surprised me either, apparently. I looked toward the patio doors and saw Monica standing on the other side of the doorway, behind the fly screen. She was standing there looking worried and confused. I cracked a half smile in her direction and waved her away from the door. I didn’t want Jason to see her standing there gawking. I knew he would be embarrassed that he had cried in my arms like a baby, but he would be mortified if he knew that my wife had also been witness to his outburst. I waved at Monica more pointedly, and she disappeared back into the house, probably to see to dinner.
After a while, Jason’s cries became sobs, which became hitches, and then he was fine. He ran a nervous hand through his long blonde hair. A smile appeared on his face. Not the evil looking one that made me want to obliterate his face, but an innocent one that reminded me of when we were kids.
”Sorry,” he said and shrugged. ”I don’t know what that was all about.” He took a step back from me. He was more in control of himself, but still visibly shaken.
”You alright, Jay?” I asked. He looked up at me, and I thought he was going to have another breakdown. Instead, he let out a shrill little laugh that made me smile. It sounded like a puppy’s bark.
”I think I’m going fucking crazy, Mike.” He said in a voice that was so different from his normal tone that made me think he was right, but I smiled to try and reassure him.
”What did you mean about dad, Jay?” I could tell that he didn’t want to answer, but I had always been the persistent one in the family. I asked again.
”Do you remember the phone we got dad for his birthday?” He asked, still avoiding my question.
”The cell?” There was no harm in humoring him.
”Yeah, the cell. I kept it after he died. As a reminder, y’know? I think that before he died, that fucking phone was the only thing you and me ever agreed on,” he said, ”At least after mom died.”
”Yeah,” I answered, ”and we both thought that the cell would be good for him to have for the business. I remember.”
”Yeah. Yeah, the business. Well I kept it to remind me that you and me actually could get along. I think that if I hadn’t kept it, I would probably be tanning my buns in Florida with that chick Sandra. Remember Sandra?”
I nodded.
”She was a real bitch. Anyway, I’d be in sunny Florida, and I would’ve never looked back. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with you, Mike. I really hate you sometimes. Y’know? You can be a real prick. But I figured that if we could agree about something as trivial as a birthday present for dad… Hell, we could agree on just about everything. Get along even.
I was smiling while he talked, even when he called me a prick, and I think that helped him continue the story. I still sensed that he would drop it in a heartbeat if I let him, so I urged him on. ”And you were right, too. I never realized how much I missed having you as my little brother until after dad died.” It was actually true. We had been getting along smoothly for almost a year, and I could almost forget that at one point in time I couldn’t have cared less if he had gone to Florida with what’s-her-name.
”Yeah. And I kind of like you as a big brother, too. Even though you still can be a prick.” He smiled. ”So, anyways, after dad died, I went to the house to look for a few things. I saw the phone, and I grabbed it. I don’t mean that I picked it up, either. I snatched it. I snatched it like a starving man snatches a chicken leg. It was like it was calling me, Mike. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was like…”
He paused and looked out at the lake again, and I thought that he would end the story right there. But he shook his head, snapping himself out of the temporary fugue.
”It was like I was drowning, Mike. I was drowning and that damn phone was my air.”
He looked out at the lake again, that dazed look creeping into his face. I knew the story wouldn’t continue unless I pursued it.
”Then what happened, Jay?” I asked him, but he didn’t answer. I looked over my shoulder at the lake. It’s amazing, that. If you see someone staring at something, you feel a compulsion to find out what they’re staring at. You have to see for yourself just what is so damn interesting.
What I saw was the lake, it’s waves crashing against the rocks and sand down below.
”Jay?” I called, turning toward him.
”I kept the phone, Mike.” He answered after a moment. His voice was almost a whisper, and it sent my own set of gooseflesh across my arms and neck. If I could describe his voice now, I’d say that it was the voice of a dead man.
”I kept the phone.” He was still whispering, “and I called you that night. We’ve been in touch ever since. I think we might even be friends. Hell, we’re brothers again. We’re brothers, and last night our dead father called me on his old cell phone. It hasn’t been charged, and in fact, I don’t think it even works since the accident. It hasn’t rang in the year that I had it, but I guess it doesn’t have to work when it gets calls from the other side of the grave.”
An icy chill slithered its way up my spine. Not just because of what he’d said, but how he’d said it. In that dead man’s voice. So low that I had been forced to lean forward to hear.
I was about to tell Jay that all of that couldn’t be true, even though I knew that he believed it. Dead guys just don’t call their kids when they get lonely. But Monica had appeared back in the doorway to let us know that dinner was done. Let me tell you, when she spoke, I thought Jason was going to jump off of the balcony he was so scared. Instead, Monica started laughing at the theatrics, and Jason and I both laughed right along with her. We all laughed so hard that I thought we were going to piss ourselves.
We went inside and ate. Monica had made a wonderful meal of pot roast, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. She had always been a terrific cook. All through dinner, one of us would have a giggle fit, and we’d all be laughing hard again.
As for my brother and I, we didn’t resume our conversation until the following day, four days before he killed himself.
I came down for breakfast the next morning, and saw that the patio door that led to the balcony was wide open. I had awakened before Monica, which was strange in itself. In six years of marriage I had accomplished that feat only a handful of times. I knew that it had to have been opened by Jason, either Jay or a very determined thief. One would have to be very determined to scale the eight stories to get into our penthouse condo. My over-active imagination had kicked into hyper drive, though, and I took a look around the place just to make sure that nothing else was out of the ordinary. After determining that all else was fine, I walked to the door.
As I approached the balcony, I remembered the look that had been in Jason’s eyes. I could picture Jason coming downstairs in his boxer shorts, still with that weird look plastered to his face. I could see him open the door, walk to the edge of the balcony, and hop over the side. My heart began pumping faster, but my fears were slightly eased when I got to the opening and saw Jay standing outside. He was close to the edge, but was showing no signs of attempting suicide.
He was in boxer shorts, just as I imagined. A light drizzle was coming down, but Jason didn’t seem to care. Actually, he didn’t even seem to notice. He was standing out there, as still as a statue, looking out across the lake. There was a swift, icy wind coming in off of the lake, and it blew his hair around wildly. Seeing him like that reminded me of Medusa from that old movie, “The Clash of the Titans”.
My fear had suddenly risen up again. What was his fixation with the lake?
“Jason?” I called to him, not expecting nor receiving an answer.
I walked out onto the balcony, forgetting to pull the door closed behind me. The biting morning breeze forced me to pull my robe tightly around my body. “Jay?” I said as I walked up next to him, but he still did not acknowledge my existence.
I reached out my hand to grab his shoulder, but pulled it back quickly, remembering how he had jumped at the sound of Monica’s voice yesterday. He was close to the edge, and I didn’t want him jumping like that now. It would be too easy for him to go over the edge if I startled him.
I stood next to him, and stared out at the lake with him, scanning the horizon for whatever it was that he was looking at. I saw only the slow Lake Michigan waves rolling toward their final destination of rock and sand, the private beach at the base of my building.
I had decided to finally grab him by the shoulder when he turned to face me. The look in his eyes made me want to run. He was terrified. Of what, I think I only know now.
“I think the accident changed him.” I didn’t know what that meant, though. I knew that he must have been talking about our father, though. He said nothing else.
Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks. Even the drizzling rain couldn’t hide that fact. He was shivering noticeably, but made no attempt at moving. I reached out and grabbed his hand, and pulled him toward me. He almost collapsed into my arms again, and for the first time, I noticed that he was not only scared, but exhausted, too. His eyes were bloodshot, and a deep weariness had replaced the usual happy-go-lucky appearance he normally had.
“Lets go inside, little brother.” I told him. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and led him back into the house. As I guided him toward the door, I could feel him straining with all of his will to not look back toward the water.
I brought him inside and sat him down in one of the comfortable chairs by the breakfast nook, then went back and closed the sliding patio door after realizing how cold the kitchen was. After cutting off the cold, bitter wind, I walked over to the thermostat and cranked it up to eighty-eight degrees. After the room got nice and toasty, I would turn it back down to its usual seventy-four degrees. Monica was originally from Texas, and she could tolerate nothing less than seventy-four degrees as room temperature. I, having been born and raised in Chicago, could accept sixty-eight degrees, but there was no use arguing the point with my wife. She would win out in the end anyway.
“It changed him. Made him nicer.” Jason said as I sat across from him. His voice was as cold as the wind had been outside. I had the feeling that he had been talking more to himself than me, but I answered him just the same.
“You mean dad?” I asked. I already knew the answer. Of course he meant dad.
“He was different.” He said. “You weren’t around as much as me, so you didn’t notice it. He changed.” His voice was still cold and distant.
“Well, Jay, if you had driven your car off of a bridge and into Lake Michigan, it’d probably change you too. He almost died, Jay. I think that would change anyone.” Even a cold, heartless bastard like our father. I added as an afterthought.
One month to the day after our dad’s sixty-seventh birthday, on March 14th (I know, why did an asshole like him have to be born on Valentine’s Day?), he had reached down to grab his cell phone, the same cell phone that Jason and I had gotten him as a gift for his birthday, and lost control of his Cadillac. He veered right and crashed through the safety rail, plummeting a hundred feet into the lake. A team of paramedics that had happened to be driving only a few car lengths behind him had rescued him, but he was still under the water for about fifteen minutes. He spent a couple days in Chicago Memorial with hypothermia (even in mid-March, that water is still fucking freezing) and a concussion.
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right.” His voice seemed to be coming back to him now, it wasn’t as lifeless as it was. “But things started getting better for him. He started getting more clients. He met Paula. Everything was going his way.” He paused and scratched his head, seeming to notice for the first time that it was soaked. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked at me smiling. “You know that he even offered me the business? He wanted to retire and have me take over. Did I ever tell you that?” I shook my head. “He said, ‘Mike’s got a life, Jason. Why don’t we start working on getting you one too.’ You remember how he was before the accident, Mike. Could you ever, in your wildest, imagine our dad saying something like that?”
I shook my head again. I did remember. The years after Hillary Thompson, my mother, passed away, were the worst years of my life. Mom died when I was sixteen. Dad started showing us his true colors about four months after. Jason was thirteen. The two of us were always going at it, but we had no idea about the fury that was inside our father. On several occasions, dad had been forced to hold either Jason or me home from school for a couple of days so that no one would see the bruises that he had inflicted on us. He was usually pretty smooth about it, leaving marks only in places that could be covered by clothes, but every now and then he would slip up and leave one of us with a nice, healthy shiner. During the summer vacations, he was even worse. He broke my arm once, gave Jason six stitches another time. Our trips to the emergency room were always “accidents”, and dad made sure not to bring us to the same hospital twice. That was the good thing about living in a big place like Chicago for someone like our dad. There were so many hospitals in the city, he could abuse us quite often if he wanted to. He didn’t, though. He only got out of hand every once in a while, but it was enough to make me hate him.
It wasn’t until I graduated school and got a scholarship to Indiana University that I started realizing just how much I hated him though. Our dad was a businessman. I thought that majoring in Business would make him proud, but I was wrong. That man could be proud of nothing, and he showed it by not offering me any money, not a single cent, to help out with any other educational expenses that crept up on me at school. My scholarship wouldn’t pay for books, supplies, or boarding, so I went to my dad for help.
That was the last time I took a trip to the hospital because of my father. He had hit me with a brass candlestick, and I had gotten nineteen stitches across my left eyebrow and a concussion. I didn’t talk to him again for seven years after that, even though I had been forced to quit school and move back to Chicago. I finished my Bachelor’s degree out at DePaul University, and attained my Master’s at University of Chicago, where I met Monica. The day I got married was when I began anew with my father, and sometimes, I was actually glad that we had reconciled. Of course, sometimes I wasn’t. He wouldn’t argue with me, fight with me, or even give me some of the nasty looks that I remembered so fondly from my adolescence, but he was still the cheapest bastard that I had ever known. Monica hated him from the start, and she wouldn’t let me go see him too often. Maybe that’s why our reconciliation worked at all.
Jason had continued talking, and brought me back from my wonderful trip down memory lane. I still don’t know to this day how much of that conversation I had missed. I had zoned out completely, and I never bothered to ask him to repeat himself.
I almost laughed out loud. “Leaves us?” Our dad hadn’t left us. He hadn’t packed a change of clothes and taken off in his Lincoln Continental. He hadn’t hopped a plane to Tahiti with his young-enough-to-be-his-daughter girlfriend. Not our father. No sir, our father had run himself a warm and cozy bath, sat down in it, and pulled a Black and Decker toaster into the water with him. He had plugged the toaster into the wall socket above the sink. Next to that, taped to the mirror, was the note. David Louis Thompson was a sixty-eight year old man, with a multi-million dollar business, a beautiful house (actually, it was what many people would consider a mansion), two good kids (well, one good and one not too bad), and amazingly good health. He even had a girlfriend that was thirty years younger than him. And let me tell you, she was none too hard on the eyes, either. She was, in fact, the person who found him dead.
“Things were so bad for him.” He was saying. “And the funny thing is that just when things started getting better for him, when things started getting really good, he leaves us.”
Everything that our father had, and it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to stop him from killing himself. The note that he had written only said: “Sorry.” And underneath that was: “I can’t stand it anymore.”
I remember hearing him mumble something one time when I had gone to visit him in the hospital. He had been telling me the story about the accident, making sure to emphasize the fact that he missed an important call, and he said under his breath something to the effect that it was my fault that he had been in the accident at all. I guess he blamed Jason and me for buying him the phone. That thought used to make me smile. But not anymore.
“Why do you think he did it, Mike?” Jason asked me.
I was still thinking about the events from last year, and the question caught me by surprise. “I don’t know Jay.” I told him. “I wish I did.”
Jason laughed. It was that same shrill bark that I had never heard escape him until the day before.
“I don’t know very much, bro.” Jason said, a wry smile on his face. “But I know this: That is one wish you definitely do not want to be true.”
And do you know what?
He was right.
All that happened exactly one year ago today. I never really thought about it until after Jason’s death, but I hadn’t pursued what he had said about dad calling him. If I had, maybe he would still be alive. And maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here either.
Monica left me. She walked out about four months after Jason died. She’d had another lover. I never knew. She really wasn’t that good of a wife, anyway. She could cook her butt off, and give one hell of a blowjob, but other than that… Oh well. Better to have loved and lost.
After Jason died (killed himself, Jay killed himself), I went to his apartment to go through some of his things. I found the suicide note that he’d left. It was more of a letter, actually. I also found some pictures of our family that I didn’t know existed. Like at my ninth birthday party, and Jason’s first tee-ball game. I kept them. Jason’s picture wearing the oversized helmet and much too large bat actually sits on my desk at work. I also took his little league baseball glove, and I keep that next to the picture. I took some other things, too, like his watch that I had given him last Christmas, his CD collection (I know, I know. I’m a shit. Sue me), and the cell phone. Can’t forget the cell phone. My dad’s cell phone. Jay was right. That phone brought us all closer together. That fucking thing had brought us closer than we ever thought possible.
I kept Jason’s suicide note too. It had some weird things in it. I was never very good at deciphering Jason’s chicken scratch, but I could make out some of it. In the letter he apologized to me for the many years that we’d missed out on because he’d been too stubborn to try and make up with me. It also said something about dad being a businessman to the end, that dad had made a deal with the devil. Dad had been calling him quite often on the cell phone, warning him to stay away from the lake. Crazy stuff. Or, at least that’s what I thought at the time. All that stuff and more was in his note, and I kept the phone anyway.
So anyway, I’m sitting here, in my den. I’ve had about six or seven shots of Jack Daniels. And I’ve loaded my gun. Why, do you ask? Come on! Haven’t you been paying attention?
I kept the damned cell phone!
And my dad called me yesterday.
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Very good story and plot! It needs tightening overall. You need to work on punctuation, sentence structure and leave out unnecessary words, like: had, and, that, etc. And I’m sure it’s been pointed out – Valentines day is in February! It’s a great story, but it seems to me you could elaborate and give us just a little more, I wanted it to go on and on!!! Keep up the great work and edit over and over, that’s the only way to polish this!
CAT
Amazing, isn’t it, what can develop out of one sentence or one moment in time? All in all, this is really good. Very well written. Good dialogue. No problem at all to follow. You got me on the bit about Valentine’s Day being on March 14; but, apparently that date is contested anyway. I truly hope the hint at the end about shooting yourself was fictional.
“Things were so bad for him.” He was saying. “And the funny thing is that just when things started getting better for him, when things started getting really good, he leaves us.”—this section is right smack in the middle of another sentence. Was that intentional?
-’like a baby gagging on its own blood’. This is a super odd reference. I would expect a baby to be gagging on food, or milk or something, but using blood just throws the whole simile off, as it doesn’t make much sense. I understand the use of blood going in theme with the darkness, and using a baby with blood is even darker, and I appreciate that, but it would work better with one or the other, I think. Either a baby gagging on . . something, or use blood with something else. A person – a dying man or something. There are plenty of creative references that would make so much more sense and flow much better. Just a thought.
-‘assaulted by a headache’ I really liked this one. I get super bad headaches all the time, and being assaulted is the perfect way to describe it. Well done. :)
-‘a beautiful house (actually, it was what many people…’ I don’t know if this was an oversight on your part, or if Urbis was being retarded. But this sentence is cut off after the word people, and continued on the next page, after a completely different sentence. It must be the sight. Odd.
So, overall, I thought it was a slightly slow read – until the end, of course. The end made me smile and then made every prior make more sense (as to why you wrote things in certain ways). I liked the ending a whole lot, I just thought the body of the story was lacking a bit of drive and excitement. I think maybe there could have been things added in to get the reader gripped more.
I enjoyed this story, really great ending. The brothers felt real and being a ‘good’ older brother myself the relationship resonated.
One thing really bothers me though, and I realise this is a short story so there’s not too much room to expand on minor things, but Monica not being a good wife was a bit of an abrupt surprise. She seemed supportive and understanding by trying to rescue her husband from his father. Or am I misunderstanding this? It seems more logical that the protagonist might have become more distant after his brother’s death, driving his wife into another an’s arms. I know it’s minor but I think the strength of this piece is in the character work.
One more thing:
Even a cold, heartless bastard like our father. I added as an afterthought. – I think getting rid of the ‘I added…’ sentence would heighten the impact of the sentence before.
Thanks for the story.
For me, this is an almost flawless piece. But I had one major problem and a nitpick.
You drew me in quickly. I liked the tension you build between Jason and Mike. I also liked how you slowly revealed the family “secret”. You keep it creepy without over doing it. The suspense, for the most part, kept me going.
My major problem was the following lines: As for my brother and I, we didn’t resume our conversation until the following day, four days before he killed himself and He was close to the edge, but was showing no signs of attempting suicide.
For me, it gave too much away too soon. I liked the hints of the dead man’s voice but the “baseball” bat came down with those lines. So when I got to the climax, it wasn’t as strong as it could be. I was already prepared and wasn’t shocked or stunned.
And the nitpick is Haven’t you been paying attention? and I kept the damned cell phone!. For me the ending would work much better without those lines.
But great story, overall.
Hey I really liked this, even though it’s not a favourite genre of mine. I liked your characterisation, although in a few paragraphs I found myself wondering who was doing the speaking… don’t know if that was just me or how it was written tho!
Also, like me and lots of others, the word ‘that’ could be removed a couple of times.
At the point where you talk about the thermostat, I find that rather unnecessary, at least to take it to the extent of having the exact temperature. Just didn’t seem to fit in or seem necessary.
The jump to where he tells of Jay’s death and his split with his wife was also a little confusing…. But again that might just be me :)
Other than that, interesting plot, well written, and interested to see what happens next!
Isn’t it funny how something we overhear (as writers, anyway) we can embellish upon and create a whole new scenario to? I really liked the story and the dialogue as it progresses. I liked the line “forced to lean forward to hear.” I know it’s a simple line, but it places a perspective for the reader to self associate and that’s important when writing, I think. A couple things that could be better worded or reworked. I didn’t much care for the line about “like a baby gagging on its own blood.” Maybe vomit or something, but how many people have witnessed a baby gagging on its own blood? ”Couldn’t have cared less…” I think should be “Could have cared less.” ”What’s her name…” Jay just asked Mike if he remembered her and Mike forgot her already? I would switch the word “compulsion” to compelled when Mike’s narrative is asking how funny it is when someone is staring at something… “not expecting (insert the word “to”) nor receiving. Valentines Day is FEBRUARY 14th and not March 14th… that’s a biggy! Other than that, I enjoyed this piece very much and I take my hat off to you. It was a breath of fresh air to click on the “short stories” genre to review and actually read a “short story” with a well thought out plot, beginning to end, and one of my particular favorite genre. The mood, the setting, the flow of writing style really places the reader on the lake in the condo. Well done and look forward to reading more from you. Best wishes and write on!
Sincerely,
J.L. Campbell
www.jlcampbellbooks.com
Very haunting, the imagery was outstanding. I did not like the ending, however. I like that the father calls him, but I don’t like that he’s drunk with the gun. But I wouldn’t know how to end the story otherwise. It leaves it up to the imagination.
Wow. This is a phenomonal piece. I read it twice just to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything. Very well done. Great ending, but I wish I knew why the cell phone would make you want to kill yourself. I get the fact that their father had called, but I don’t understand what he could have said to make someone want to kill themselves. Granted, I would be pretty freaked out if my dead father called me on a broken cell phone, but why would it drive me to suicide?
Your characters are extremely believe-able and you captured my attention at the beginning of the story.
I enjoyed reading this and couldn’t put it down. I would like to read more, know what happens next. The end is such a cliff-hanger!!
Very nice write.
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