I think I wrote this originally when I was 30 or so, around the time my grandfather died. Formatting is a little fucked up.
He dipped his hands into his pockets as he stared at me across the table, with his left hand his cigarettes and lighter came out. Flipping one cigarette into his mouth from the soft pack of camel’s, he suddenly swapped the pack and lighter between his fingers. A deft move of his forefinger and the familiar click-ding of the zippo lighter head flipping open, a quick scratch against the flint and the flame sparkled to life. The cigarette pack and lighter switched places in his hands again and dipped back into his left pocket, ready for the next time they were called upon.
He left his hands in his pockets as he stared at me, squinting through the smoke, with that sardonic grin that he always wore, that one that said that he knew everything you were thinking plus some things you weren’t. The smoke puffed from his mouth and he let go of the first drag, his smile broke and he looked at me hard. I got a nervous feeling when he looked at me like that, left over from when I was a kid and he would get that look when he knew I’d done something wrong. I glanced about the small coffee shop, the normal yuppie crowd snatching glances at the two of us over the rims of their iced mocha latte’s. Eyes darting back and forth, not quite sure what to think of two like us in their uptown establishment.
“Fine I’ll tell ya,” he said, snapping me back to him. “If you’d know, I’d tell ya.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I said looking at him, not knowing that I was giving that same intense look he had just given me. He snapped back for a second, startled almost then smiled and took another drag from his smoke.
“It all started when I died,” he paused here for effect, he had that way about him, how to tell stories with effect. “That’s right,” he said, replying to my looked of feigned astonishment, “When I died and let me say this, you always hear what color you see when you die don’t ya’”
“White,” I said knowing it was the answer he was looking for.
“Well when I died, I saw the color blue, ocean blue.”
I sat back in my chair, knowing that I’d finally gotten him to tell me his tale, glancing about at the yuppies still sneaking looks our way. I smiled at them trying to let them know that good old StarFucks (the story of how I came to call it this is a completely different one) was just as good as gold, that nothing was going wrong in their pretty little world. I nodded in the old man’s direction, motioning for him to continue and absently fingered a cigarette from my pack in my right pocket. Spinning the lighter in my right hand to light it and return it to it’s proper place next to the pack. I took a deep pull from the smoke and sank deeper into the wire wicker-looking chair (if that’s possible).
Blue I tell ya, blue as can be. It was the ocean and the sound of the waves lapping on the lazy coast has always calmed me in my times of need, ocean waves and the company of a woman just about all that can do it I say. Now, I knew just a minute before I was laying all tangled up in wires and hoses in the hospital, but know here I was walking down this little road next to the ocean. Walking ain’t quite the word though, it felt like walking to the eyes, but the body didn’t seem to have anything to do with it if you get me. There was me, traipsing along the path gayer than a perv in a titty bar (I sneered at this and he laughed, heartily). After a minute or three, I saw up ahead a single tree off to the side of the road to the side of the beach. It was a cypress always loved them damn things, not sure why, but they always seemed to be the most peaceful things I ever saw.
The tree was next to a rock, but when I got close I realized it was the rock. This big giant tree was growing directly out the rock (die-rectly is the way he said it, die-rectly out the rock). The tree cast a fair bit of shade and I thought when I got there I would have a sit and smoke (as he said this he lit another cigarette in his customary deft way).
Of course when I got closer I realized that there was already someone sitting there, with it being the only bit of shade for what seemed to be miles, beach on the right hand and a marsh like plains on the other, with that just one lonely tree. Well I didn’t care too much, I could share, plenty of shade to go around. Somewhere in the back of my mind I felt a bit of a tug, didn’t think too much of it, but did think it was kinda strange to not be alone on this road. Always thought I should be alone on this road, but it was nice to know I wasn’t.
I get within about 20 yards of the tree and the person sitting under it, now I can tell it’s a boy, maybe 10 or so, waves to me; waves me over, with a smile as bright as lightning. So I walk over and sit myself down. I reach down to my pockets for my smokes and realize there aren’t any there, I frown to myself over that would have just been keen to have a smoke at that moment.
The boy looks at me still with that blinding smile and points to the ground next to my left hand, and there they are, my smokes and my gold Zippo (he’d had this lighter for years, as long as I could remember, never did find out where it might have come from, but it looked like it had been with him a long time).
I asked the boy his name, but I never could remember it, it started with an S. (He looked up at me and smiled while taking a pull from a newly lit cigarette). Of course everyone’s names seem to be starting with an S these days.
(I looked at him, again with that intense look I didn’t realize and said, “There were some J’s too”. He answered, “That there were, my boy, that there were.” Without quite realizing before I said it, I said “And don’t forget the M’s,” he snapped his glance tightly at me, “Don’t you bring that up right now boy, that’s another story and you know it.")
Anyway, an S it started with but I can’t remember for my life what it were. He says to me, ‘It scary that way you came from’’
I look up at him through the smoke and say, ‘Nope, ain’t scary at all.’ I stare down the road in the direction of where he was coming from, ‘What about that way’’
‘Nothing to be scared of in that direction either.’
‘Good to know.’
‘I could say the same,’ the boy answered, again with that bright smile. He looked me up and down and said, ‘I know you want to keep on this path, but you can’t, I need you to do something for me.’
I gave him my what-the-hell-you-mean look (which he recreated for a moment for me ' his audience ' before breaking into a laugh). The boy laughed at me; a big hearty laugh, deep in the body - it echoed around us. He said, ‘It’s not time for you to walk that path yet, there’s another you must walk first.’
I glanced about and didn’t see another, it was a one way path, well two way I guess as he was sitting here next to me, going the opposite direction as I. I knew what he said was right, I knew deep down that there was something else I needed to do, and again I felt that tug deep down, really hard this time and things started blinking around me. I was seeing stars, penumbra, the whole world was going blinky on me. He gave me an intense look that boy did, a deep stare that could’ve killed small animals I think, it surely startled the hell out of me and said, ‘You must go back your way, and tell them everything will be fine. Tell them everything will be ok. Its important, very important that you tell them that.’
‘So I go back and tell them everything is good. No prob-’
‘NO!’ he stare deepened, he eyes grew brighter, which was difficult as they were brown, but they did it anyway. The stars blinking in my eyes were getting stronger and I started to feel another tug, slower but stronger this time. Stronger ten-fold. ‘You will say, ‘Everything will be fine.’’
‘Everything will be fine.’ I said, repeating it with the same inflection. The boy’s eyes returned to normal and his smile came back, and I returned it with one of my own. Just then the tug got stronger, this time it wouldn’t let go. This time, I knew I couldn’t stay any longer, and I said with one quick gasp as it tightened around me, ‘Good-bye.’
‘Bye, grandfather, see you soon.’ The boy answered and then the blue came again, and I heard crying.
When I came to, the crying was my wife. She did that a lot you know, and there was a crash. Just as my eyes opened, my daughter dropped to the ground like a sack. But I wasn’t there yet, I was still stuck in the blue, I couldn’t talk. My lungs tried to scream, but they couldn’t. All they could do was sigh, but that was enough for the wife. She leapt up and started screaming in happiness that I was ok, she snatched up my hand and I waved it away and tried to sit up. I couldn’t though, I was still in the blue, and there was something holding me down. Not hands though, they had me tied. I was a bit of a fighter when I didn’t know what was going on you see, so they always restrained me in the hospital. Otherwise orderlies ended up not so orderly, if you know what I mean.
(He gave a quick smile and wink, then lit another cigarette.)
The wife looked and saw that our baby girl had dropped to the ground, she was moaning in pain I could hear her, but I couldn’t comfort her, my voice was still in the blue. I could hear here husband saying something, damn fool of a man, could barely tie his own shoes I tell ya. Doctor’s rushed in and snatched her off the floor, I fought to get up, but I couldn’t, things started to go blue again, and I dropped back to the bed unconscious. No pretty blue ocean this time, it was just plain black, I heard a word though, just before the lights went out, ‘baby.’
See my daughter was pregnant and in that darkness, that black, while I was sitting there alone in my chair (he always liked to sit in the dark, used to say it was his favorite pastime, sit in the dark and smoke) I realized that everything started to click. There was a reason I went to the blue, ‘Everything will be fine.’ Just hearing those words in my head, things started to clear up, the blackness started to drift away. I came to, with just the wife sitting next to me, crying again. I told ya she did it often, I did didn’t I’
While I tried to sit up, I said ‘Everything will be fine.’ I pulled against the straps on my arms and the netting vest that was tangled to the bed. Whipped my arms back and forth, I kept saying it to myself, ‘Everything will be fine.’ It became a mantra, and I started chanting it, as I started working against the restraints. She looked at me with big eyes full of tears; longing for me, and all I could say was, ‘Dammit woman help me!’
She started to cry again and I said, ‘Everything will be fine.’ She slipped my hands free of the restraints and I struggled to get out of the chest restraint. ‘Everything will be fine.’ A couple rooms down, my daughter with child was turning for the worse, her system was going into overload, the stress of seeing me in the hospital had put her into childbirth too soon, a month or so too soon. ‘Everything will be fine.’ I flipped off the restraints, and felt the pain in my chest, but not the same as before this was a left over pain, a soreness.
I swung my feet over the bed, and tried to get down, but I was still tethered to all the machines. The woman was moving; she snatched the IV from the holder and put it onto one of the rolling stands. I smiled at her and said, ‘Everything will be fine.’ She started crying again, I snarled and started moving as best I could. As I exited the door of my room, there were men standing there, they looked to me like they were orderlies, and they looked to me like they knew how un-orderly I could be. ‘Sir, you really must-', they started.
‘Everything will be fine,’ and I waved my hand at ‘em, stopped ‘em dead it did. I could hear the doctor’s down the hall, talking about my daughter; saying that she was too wound up, that her heart rate was too high. They were going to lose the baby. I struggled down the hall, it took what seemed forever. They had her sitting in the room, with her legs up, it seemed they didn’t have time to get her to a proper delivery room and just used what was closest.
I could hear her man screaming at the doctor’s to do something; they were talking about drugs to calm her down. ‘Everything will be fine,’ I said to myself, still struggling down the hall, the IV cart on rollers trailing behind me almost forgotten. I reached the door, I knocked on it. The doctor’s looked up, and their eyes got big, like in the cartoons. Thought they were gonna fall out of their heads.
I opened the door and two nurses got into my way. ‘Everything will be fine.’ I said over them, ‘Honey, honey, its Daddy. Everything will be fine.’
The black started to come back, I could feel it pulling me back down, but then I heard all the machines stop barking warnings. I heard the doctor’s saying that she was calming down, one of the nurses whispered it was a miracle as that damn fool boy that couldn’t tie his shoes caught me before I dropped to the floor. The black took me.
‘So that’s it, that’s the story and I’m sticking to it.’ He smiled and lit another cigarette. Click-ding as the lighter opened.
‘I didn’t need to hear the story, I just came to have some coffee.’ I said, lighting my own smoke as I did. My Bic lighter didn’t have the same cool sound, when I lit my cigarettes and I frowned.
He slid the lighter across the table to me, I picked it up and flicked it open with my right forefinger and lit the cigarette. When I started to set it back on the table, he stared at me with that intense look and shook his head. I dropped it into my right pocket and set the Bic down instead. He picked it up twirled it over the back of his fingers and dropped it into his left pocket. ‘Yes, but it was time you heard the tale, the way it was supposed to be told.’
I nodded at this, knowing that it was the only acceptable answer.
‘And now you’ve heard it, and I’ve got somewhere to be and so do you.’ He stood up as he said this, snuffing out the half-smoked cigarette and started for the door. I walked with him. He walked me to my car and I stood there and watched for a minute as he strolled back out to the street, to finish the rest of his morning walk (which normally ended up at the pub 2 blocks away, much to his wife’s dismay). I had a feeling I might not see him again, like he was going from my life for good this time, so I called after him. ‘Good-bye Grandfather.’ He raised his hand as he puffed on another cigarette and didn’t break stride nor did he look back, he just kept on his path as if he’d never stopped.
Dedicated (as much as this is) to my grandfather, though he’s not the grandfather of the story, he was one just the same.
This got third place in a writing contest and was published in small magazine.