Finding My Thunder (24 page)

Finding My Thunder 37

“What
should I do?” I asked Naomi, concerning Lonnie.

“Pray.
That’s the most powerful thing you can do. And you can call to find out how
he’s doing. They’ll tell you over the phone. Then, when he wakes up…it’s up to
you.”

“I
think seeing me might upset him more,” I said.

“It
might,” she said.

“I
can’t really do anything,” I said.

“You
can’t,” she said.

“I
think I’ll just call…maybe now. I’ll call now, and then…every so often to know
his progress,” I said.

“Sounds
like a plan,” she said.

So
that’s what I did. He had still not regained consciousness, they said. His
vitals were stable. He was in intensive care being watched closely. They had
x-rayed him and there were some broken bones. Some swelling in the extremities,
so probably internal bleeding. They’d know more in a few hours.

I
hung up the phone. It was a helpless and strange feeling. I had given up the
house with little more than a ripple. This felt similar. By staying away…it was
so confusing. But he was my father.

“Naomi,”
I said.

“Yes,”
she said.

“When
you and me were talking about Eugene and I wondered if he could be my
father…and you said Lonnie Grunier was my father….”

“Yes?”

“And
you said something about the blood, and Eugene couldn’t be my father because of
his blood….”

“I
don’t remember saying that. I did say he was not your father when you asked and
I may have said the blood type pretty well ruled out such a possibility. That’s
what I would have meant.
Renata
and Eugene were
brother and sister.”

“Were
they more?”

“Hilly,”
she said like she’d caught me playing in the toilet bowl or something. “Sometimes
I think you like to torture yourself with these things. Isn’t life difficult
enough?”

“If
Lonnie knew the truth, he would….”

“He
might have killed you. Certainly your mother.”

“He
did kill her. Pretty much.”

“I
know what you are trying to say…but you have to find a way to turn him over to
God.”

“I
have,” I said. “And now he’s lying in the hospital unconscious. Is that how God
works?”

“You’ve
heard me talk about how God works all your life. God works in many ways. All
mysterious.”

“Yes
Ma’am. What if this is God?”

“That’s
God’s business. Last I looked he doesn’t operate like that or we’d all be in
trouble.”

“I
don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“Let
it sit, then. Pray for that man.”

I
nod. I wanted it to be God, not out of hatred for Lonnie or anything at all
concerning him. I had my own reasons. I surely did.

“Do
you need to tell me something?” she asked.

“No,”
I say quick. “I don’t know anything. I’m just wondering.”

She
sat back and kept looking at me, and like I said before, her gaze could be
really hard to hold.

It’s
five days later when Lonnie wakes up, but then he doesn’t really come around. He
has trouble speaking, trouble moving at all. He’s lethargic, irritable. They
x-ray him but they are not sure. Seems he has brain damage. They think he’s had
a stroke, or a series of strokes.

Naomi
travels the yard from our house to Lonnie’s. She carries a pie. Just the boy is
home. He takes it and says, “Thank you.”

He’s
a freshman. I see him sometimes at school. I don’t know him but I know this, he
doesn’t have a clue who he is.

Robert
comes over that same night. “Hey,” I say.

“Hilly,”
he says, “we need to talk some.”

“Is
Sooner okay?”

“She
sure is. She has her own cushion at the table…that same one. And the pups, you
wouldn’t hardly know them. We’re all so attached. It sounds like a kennel at
our house.”

We
laugh some.

“You
look good,” he says and I look down at my long skirt and my bare feet.

We
sit side by side on the porch stairs. It’s so pleasant out now that it’s fall.

“Hear
from Danny?”

“Pretty
much. Twice now. But I write him every day.”

“That
right?”

“Sure.”

“Well…I
just went to see Lonnie. He’s…I don’t know what to think. It’s gonna take a
miracle…and it’s like…I think he’s given up on himself or something, there’s no
fire in him, you know? That just ain’t Lonnie.”

“Can
you carry on by yourself?”

“That’s
the thing. I can’t do it all.”

Him
and me…we just kept looking at each other. I was thinking how cute he was and
wondering what Hannah would think of him. He had some of her same views and
those two together…well she wouldn’t think a thing of the age difference. But
did she really need another man in her life? Probably not. And he had all kinds
of women.

“Why
don’t you come back to work with me? Maybe together….”

“Me?
I…got school.”

“Yeah,
but…who’s gonna take care of Lonnie? I mean…think about it.”

“Well
Loreena
, I suppose.”

“Where
is she? The nurse told me no one comes to see him. She wanted to get married
while he was practically still in the coma. He about went crazy…crazier and
they like to couldn’t get him calmed down. Well…I talked to her some and she’s
gone through all his business. She knows what he owes. Fact is…she’s moving out
of that house. She said she’s tired of carrying everything and that place ain’t
what she thought. We’re in shit so deep at work. He ain’t handled
nothin
’. I got to get paid somehow. I’ve sold off some of
the scrap and just kept the money. I ain’t trying to screw him…well like he
does me…but I got to eat, too.”

“I
don’t know,” I said.

“You’re
still his daughter,” he said.

“Yeah,
but…you know how it is. He’s disowned me.”

“Well…typical
Lonnie, he didn’t bother to make it legal so…you’re still his daughter. Something
happens to him, it goes to you. That’s what me and Danny always said.”

“Why
were you talking about it with Danny?”

“Cause
he was so pissed off the way Lonnie treated you. You know Danny…he can’t be
passive about anything…especially where you’re concerned. If he could of killed
Lonnie and hid the body…he’d of done it.”

“You
do know he broke up with me before he left?”

He
shook his head. “Nah. Not really. He pushed you back for your own good. You’re
the one for him. Not that I believe in it, but he ain’t gonna change.”

“Let’s
go over to the shop so I can look at things,” I say. But it’s not just the
paperwork I want to go through. I want to see the cellar.

“You
don’t want to go down there. There’s rats down there,” he said.

I
am against the wall on the stairs, around five feet away from him. I can see
the dark stain from the oil on several of the stairs. “He came down here
sometimes,” I repeated from what Naomi had said.

“Sometimes,”
he said. “That’s why there’s no light. He’d sit in the dark and drink his
whiskey. Hard stuff for hard times I guess.”

“Can
you get light bulbs so we can see what’s down here?”

“He
broke the bulbs off. We’ll have to dig out the sockets.”

“Then…do
we have more flashlights?”

“Wait
here,” he said, and he came down a step or two and handed me his flashlight,
then went back up. I squatted and shone the light around. I could see the old
block wall a bit, the grime, a board shelf and old trash on it. He could sit
down here with the lights broken out? Why?

Robert
came with two more flashlights, neither of them very good. We went down
carefully then, shining the lights. It looked like a dirty old cellar. Nothing
down here he would have been working on. Nothing but a filthy floor and a
workbench of sorts and a couple of shelves and a box of various rusty metal
fittings and a stack of old green pads and some brown paper. There was
rustling, and a hole in the wall that cool air came out of and in the opening,
right there, a half drunk bottle of Jack.

We
went back up.

I
looked around. “That oil,” I said.

“Yeah…I
don’t know. That’s grease.”

“Did
he carry something down there?”

“He
didn’t have anything when they brought him up. You saw. It’s a spill looks
like. He could of done it anytime. That stuff….”

“It
doesn’t absorb into that old wood?”

“You
can still see it. It’s not absorbed yet.”

“Yeah.
The stairs are so worn you could fall anyway,” I said.

I
went to the desk then and started to casually look through the mess.

“Remember
you said there was money due. We got so many people showing up here for money. He
yanked the phone out of the wall.”

“What’s
he been doing?”

“He
was going to let
Loreena
keep the books and fix it,
but I don’t think she was interested. She’s got her own business to run. She
tried some but you can’t tell him what to do. I think she was…fed up.”

“She’s
not going to stick with him?”

“Don’t
seem like it.”

“Well,
nothing we can do.”

I
found a box and started to put all the paper in there, the checkbook and a
couple of ledgers. I fit as much in there as I could carry.

“I’ll
take it home and see. He’d have a fit though. He don’t want me here.”

“But
Hilly…it’s like I said…you’re the daughter. You’re it. He’s not…he’s not in charge
anymore. Not now. Hilly…you need to go see him…see for yourself. Let me take
you. You don’t even have to talk to him. Just take a look.”

“He
didn’t want me,” I said hatefully. “He hated me…he hated my mother. He wanted
to kill us…that’s what I felt from him…murder. He hated us that much. It had to
be hidden from him that my mother had a black father. People had to hide what
they were…who they were. He’s a villain. He’s Hitler. He’s Goliath. My whole
life…nothing. He let us starve. We had to dismantle our house…sell bits and pieces.
He’s the reason we’ve invented free love. He’s shit. Inside…he’s all shit.”

My
face was on my knees now. My deal with God? Up in the air. Robert was just this
open gate, I could say anything to him and he wouldn’t punish me for it or even
need me to explain it. He wasn’t anything like Hannah. I’d been so wrong. She’d
be going crazy over what I’d just said. She’d hate with me. But Robert, he’d
dig through it and keep me looking at what mattered.

“This
might be a real shot for you,” he said. “Maybe you could make this place
pay…something. Or maybe close it down…I don’t know. But don’t you want to try? You
did this summer. You tried. Now he can’t stop you.”

“But
don’t we need him?”

“For
what? If we could get this place going…manage it…we could hire someone else.”

“You’ve
got my head spinning.” This is how he was like Hannah.

“I’ve
got some really good shit that will do that anytime you want,” he laughed.

“Oh
yeah? Not at work,” I said.

“No…a…right.”

He
was like a big kid. On the way home I told him we could go by the hospital. Maybe
I did need to see what had happened for myself. I walked in there, knowing my
way around really well. I asked at the desk and they told me it was late, but I
hadn’t been there before and they were aware so they said I could go in. I
tried to say I just wanted a look, but they didn’t care about all that, so I
just shut up and went down the hall and it was a series of bays, not rooms like
usual, but stalls, each one a dwindling, just hanging-on someone. Sometimes a
friend or loved one sat near, sometimes not. Then in the last bay, Lonnie.

I
wasn’t indifferent like I thought I’d be. I was…sad…and humble. I didn’t feel
the need to understand myself it just was this sad humility.

I
went a little closer to the bed and looked upon the bandaged man whose mouth
was slack and whose one eye was closed while the other was only partly closed. I
stood all the way in where he could see me if he wanted. I just kept looking at
him.

The
mighty had fallen. That’s all I could think. It was finally his turn to get a
rock in his forehead.

Naomi
was right. We were all going to die. It was inevitable. But how we lived…that
was the thing that blew the predictability out of the water.

I
felt something then, on the hand I had unknowingly placed on the bed, the
trembling light brush of a finger, as light as a mosquito landing. I looked at
him. He had touched me.

How
did he mean it? Was it meant to be a slap? A punch?

Was
it meant to be a hug? A plea?

Then
a tear from the one eye that seemed to still work. He tried to speak but a
garble came out and he swallowed and was frustrated. He tried again and grew
anxious and another strange sound came out.

I
bent over him a little. “I…I’m your daughter,” I said. “Maybe you think I’m
someone else.”

He
got agitated then.

“It’s
okay,” I said. I was good with sick people. And crazy ones. “I just wanted you
to know…I really am your daughter.”

Another
tear and the hand lifting and shaking and falling back to the bed, then lifting
again and falling against my arm and I went ahead and took it and in its way it
tried to hold on to me. So I stood there holding onto his gnarled hand and he
was looking at me, this desperate look like he was about to go under water and
I was the only thing to keep him up, the only thing.

And
I thought of Danny and what it would have been like…in the quarry…if he had let
me go.

“Rest,”
I said. Oh…God, this was a big, sneaky deal you’ve sprung on me, I was
thinking. I was going to set the terms on our deal…not you. I had already said
what it would be. I painted the Temple. I quit smoking. I went to church. I
babysat. Once. I was trying not to curse. I was good for Naomi. I endured at
school. Turned the other cheek. Yes I laughed a lot sometimes at various
authority figures and assholes who spoke crap, I wasn’t going for perfection,
but this…a rotting house, a failing business, and Lonnie looking like Boris
Karloff in The Mummy? Oh no. Oh no you don’t. No, no, no, no, no, no…no.