Second Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2004)
Fiction
— Second Place
Tom Glenn has had thirteen stories published in Antietam Review, Potpourri, The Baltimore Review and other magazines. Among his prizes are the Hackney Award and nominations for a Pushcart Award and the ArtScape of Baltimore.
Gift
of the Father
By Tom Glenn
Mike Loring cleared his throat. "John Loring, please."
The nurse behind the counter went on reading, her painted eyes straight out of a 1960s Maybelline ad. "Visiting hours..." She glanced up. "Sorry, Reverend." She squinted at the inside wall of the counter. "606. Halfway down the corridor."
Past the philodendron, caladium, and rubber plants, down the creaking linoleum to Room 606. Mike pushed the door open. Inside, the orange blossom air freshener was tinged with sweat, iodine, and a stench he couldn't identify. The walls and sheets were dead white, the blankets and chair the color of undiluted bleach. T-shaped frames, one on each side of the bed, dangled plastic bags and tubes, all feeding into the creature below them. A high-pitched whine punctuated by contorted breathing came from the cranked-up bed. Beneath the softly throbbing tubes, an old man lay on his side, his eyes closed. His hair, what there was of it, his eyebrows and eyelashes were all as white as the wall, his yellow skin translucent as candle wax, his body small, like a stunted and withered child who had bypassed maturity and moved directly to old age.
Mike stood beside the bed and spoke his father's name, "John Loring."
The whine ceased. The plastic bags rustled. The old man quivered, and his eyes opened. The outer edges of the irises were olive green. Nearer the pupils the color faded to white, but the pupils themselves were black slits. Eyes Mike hadn't seen for almost thirty years.
The yellow hand squeezed the call button pinned to the pillow. "No visitors," the old man said in a papery voice. "I told them."
"Yes?" said the speaker above the bed.
"My shot."
"Not yet, Mr. Loring."
The eyes closed. The jaw tightened. The hands moved among the tubes, too feeble to attack them. "Somebody's bothering me." The old man fixed Mike in a sidelong glare. "A priest."
Mike grasped the bed's chrome railing. "I came because..."
"Get the fuck out." The quivering yellow fingers pumped the call button over and over.
"Papa!"
The old man's hands stopped grabbling. His eyes read Mike's face and moved to the Roman collar, then snapped shut. "How'd you find me?"
"The guy who admitted you listed Mom as next of kin."
The nurse with the Maybelline eyes appeared in her silent white shoes. "Mr. Loring, why don't you let the reverend talk to you? Then we'll have our shot." She took the old man's hand and bent toward him. "You want some nice, cold apple juice?"
"I want my shot," John said.
The nurse gave Mike a knowing smile. "Can I get you anything, Reverend?"
"No, thanks."
She padded away, leaving behind the scent of Taboo.
Mike sat in the chair next to the bed, put his elbows on his knees, smiled tentatively. The old man lay tense, eyes still slammed shut.
Mike cleared his throat. "When Mom told me, I was afraid I might be too late. I tried to get her to come, Papa."
"Don't call me that."
The taut body was motionless.
Mike scanned the room. No sign of hope. A book on the bed stand. Mike turned it over. Historie of England. Inside he found a tattered snapshot of himself as a toddler. He rested his fingertips on John's arm. "Papa, talk to me."
