Mark continued through the floors in the hospital, his rage building more and more as if there were bugs in his hair, and every step they bit harder, stretching his desire to open the cracked-paint green door leading to Mary’s bedridden body. Mark pushed through the doors toward the third floor. Tom screamed but Mark didn’t listen; he only heard what was wanted, his mind so far gone as he led a trail of dark red blood from his gushing nostrils. He pushed the doors leading to the second floor, and while Tom continued to follow closely behind with his useless screams, Mark froze in place. “Tom,” said Mark calmly. “This is where Mary got the phone call. This is where you died.”
“I’m right here, Mark,” Tom whispered, rushing to his side. “I’m here for you right now, please trust me.”
Mark turned around aggressively and had a face of stiff madness, his eyes wide and fists clenched so hard his nails turned white.
“You’re dead. Leave me alone.” He turned back and came to the first floor’s doors, slamming them open with even more force than before. Everything was ground level, with a door at the end of a short hallway, and another significantly longer, more winding corridor to the right, with a bright exit sign above both doors at the end of each hallway, illuminating its faint glow. The two steel elevator doors were to the left, as shiny and metallic as they were twenty years ago, as if time never passed. The rain pelted the concrete walkways behind the door, echoing louder and louder through the walls and ceiling as a million tiny impacts crashed against the building.
But as Mark walked closer to the glowing exit sign, lost in a trance of desire, Aaron strolled toward the other exit sign on the opposite side of the building. He faintly wondered if Mark was inside, if he had covered his face and run in for the safe haven of dry clothes and comfort. If Mark was sitting, waiting for Aaron on another bench in the hospital. In fact, a part of him wished Mark had run inside and awaited his friend’s attendance like a kindergartener waiting for their mother, because a growing itch of nervousness crept into his mind as he strolled closer and closer to the exit sign, somehow knowing by his own superstitions that the bench was abandoned, that destiny had taken ahold of Mark’s life once again. Then, through the exit door, past the men on stretchers, fifteen seconds before Mark, who blew passed Aaron like a racing dog, and ran through the long, winding hallway toward the operating room.
“Stop, Mark!” yelled Tom. “You need to live in the present! Stop this insane plot of overwhelming rage, before you walk through those final doors outside! I will not follow you into that darkness, into your own self-pity, your madness, your stubborn denial.” Tom stared over his shoulder, toward the roof and back to the sixth floor with a sober gaze. Then he whispered, yet more as a reminder to himself than a statement to Mark, “I must stay in the hospital, for now. I must be here tonight.”
The two men on red stretchers raced by like lightning. The car accident victims were bleeding profusely, gashes on their torsos ripped out from shards of metal and glass, their eyes bloodshot red from the amount of blood rushing through their noses, and their calves cut as if touched by a food dispenser for a pinch of time. First responders and nurses surrounded them, holding bags of blood over their heads while rushing them over to the operating room. Mark froze, his insanity paused briefly to muse on how one accident could lead to death, how frail life has always been. One man, an older gentleman, prayed like a frantic rabbit. The other, a young twenty-one-year-old college football athlete, fainted on scene, awakening without a single memory as to what had happened to his ragged body. The one who asked for a prayer remembered everything, yet the one who fainted only remembered his damaged car, a pointless care while Death flipped through a Rolling Stone magazine, waiting in the lobby for the opportunity of death. Mark felt a spark flare off as the sounds and screams from the accident’s aftermath faded into the second story. His feet, for a few seconds, felt like they were in three inches of dry concrete. Stay, some faint, inward voice told him, stay. Then as fast as it came, the feeling of his anchored feet left. He opened the glass door without a second thought, rushing to the outside storm like a housefly to the glowing bulb of a bug zapper. The storm was blazing with rampant power and fight, rage and death, love and disappointment. Ironwoods whistled through the wind like rabid wolves, dancing with unpredictable, dramatic movements, while the heavy rain created a wall thicker than a fog. The wind blasted the inside with its bite of rain, drenching and mixing Mark’s blood on the floor with the drooling water. Tom reached out for Mark with an outstretched hand from the other side of the hallway, only five yards of length. Distress grabbed ahold of his voice, from the knowledge of what Mark’s actions would entail, while he stared at the back of his head. Mark stared at the rain, one foot out of the door, below the glowing red exit sign as his nose continued to stream blood.
“Please…Dad,” the phantom said.
Mark responded the instant Tom was quiet, loud and without care. His concern for Tom’s existence was completely exterminated. In fact, his concern for the two victims as well, along with Kennedy, Kenny, Aaron, and even Tyler, was gone like a simple cupped hand brushing salt off a table. He faced the raging storm, his mind only on the cracked green door, determined to be with his dying wife.
“Your father is a drunk.” Mark stepped into the storm toward Aaron’s police car, Mary’s room, and the rage. Aaron walked out the opposite exit and saw Mark’s ring. It was shining in a puddle from the hospital lights that lit a few yards out into the storm, like a yellow phantom laying his cloak in a three-foot perimeter. He knew what Mark had done, where he went, and what he saw. The sixth floor was a trigger, the hospital itself was a trigger, and Aaron knew Mark’s visit was unsafe.
“Mark,” he whispered. “No. Please no.” Aaron shoved the ring far in his denim jeans and ran over, through the hospital, slipping in his drenched shoes on the smooth, winding white tile and screaming toward his car. There was a fifteen-second delay from door to door, like the red stretchers before. The thunder roared, and Mark ripped out part of the car under the key ignition with ease. He then hotwired the police car, turned on the headlights and windshield wipers, and backed the stick out of the parking spot. He fiddled with the radio, police scanner, and middle console, then found a steel black nine-millimeter revolver, loaded to the top of the wide barrel—Aaron’s favorite choice of weapon. Without a second thought, he picked up the firearm and placed it in his front right pocket, with an uncontrollable fit of laughter crawling up onto his lips.
“Aaron,” he yelled, “I’ve known all along, I’ve known all along that you took all my firearms! You didn’t trust me, and I played along because sometimes children need candy, sometimes you have to look out for the little man. I loaded my weapon in secret so you can feel like the man in control, the man with power.”
Behind the car, Aaron screamed for Mark, screamed for him to stop. Mark heard but hit the ground with the gas petal all the more and sprayed Aaron with rocks and mud, drenching him as he ran toward his fading car. The fear in his eyes expanded, and Aaron screamed curse words into the clouds, kicking the puddles around him like a child. Then Aaron abruptly pulled out his phone and called the station. “This is Chief of Police Aaron Hudson. My car was stolen. Track it down and pick me up now! I’m at the hospital on Broadway, and hurry, lives will be lost.” The man on the phone, Wilber Hexton, hastily informed the station of the message through his adult braces. Then he responded.
“Mr. Hudson, there is an officer a mile from your location that was assigned to an accident on the intersection—”
“I don’t care, just get him over here!” yelled Aaron, interrupting. He continued to stomp around in anger, screaming into the darkened atmosphere until the police car came a minute later. Aaron made him switch seats, and they turned on the siren, shining just enough to see the rain, and sputtered off the parking lot and into the road like a rocket.
“What’re you doing, sir?” said the sixty-year-old police sergeant in the passenger seat.
“I’m catching the man who stole my car!” yelled Aaron angrily. “And next time don’t ask and I’ll tell you myself. That mouth will get you fired.” The old man quickly forced his head down and apologized. But Aaron knew who had stolen his car, knew the second he saw Mark’s ring on the bench, a flicker of light like the end of a match caught in his head like Mark’s, his fingers slipping from the illusion of control.
◆◆◆
Time went on, and joyful times were in sight. Mark’s cancer began to subside, and more frequent checkouts were occurring. He was also growing some peach fuzz, and Mary would rub it while he slowly fell asleep in their bed. She also began to paint joyful paintings; some were explosions of just plain, exciting, and plump youth-filled lines or dots mushed together. But more than those were Christian paintings of churches, steeples, children praying, and choirs singing in the name of God. Since Tom had gone missing, she loved God even more. Tom had been an amazing Christian, and Mary continued to say how it didn’t matter if Tom was dead or alive—he’d want them to be strong Christians of the Gospel. So their faith grew and extended past many boundaries because of their marriage and strength. She also began to sell her art to scrape up money for bills and food. There wasn’t a pantry full of snacks and cuisines anymore, nothing but the necessities.
“I thought the day would never come when I’d be able to see the back of the pantry,” chuckled Mark.
“Any more backtalk and you might wake up bald,” Mary said, smiling deviously before she walked over and kissed the feather-light layer of hair on the top of his head.
As Mark became closer and closer to remission, he joined the police force. Aaron was an assistant chief and an amazing influence. He snagged Mark a job on the computers, collecting 911 distress calls and sending the officers out. Sometimes he was able to ride with another officer, which was the luxury of a smaller town compared to Los Angeles and Chicago, but only when there was a safe call to attend and watch. He was still very weak and wasn’t contributing much but was respected highly on the team. They would hold the door, joke, and sit down at lunch. But the other officers were also terribly afraid. Men saw him as someone who’d been through a tough, complex life, and so they didn’t want to complain about their problems or show any negativity. Mark caught this at first glance and began to detest the ones who did, who sometimes feared Mark’s theoretical judicious eyes. As Mark grew in strength, he began to rent books at the public library. Broadway was, at the time, a pleasant, clean road with churchgoers, children running in and out of toy stores, young adults riding bikes from their homes to their work, and a variety of coffee shops to choose from. Full of life and inspiration was that road, full of a bright future. Mark would walk over to many coffee shops, but his favorite was the one called Tempus Garrapatas. He wouldn’t always buy coffee because the prices were outrageous, but he would sit down and learn about how a psychopath thinks, how drugs are smuggled, how they affect people’s appearances and personalities, and how professional drivers could speed down roads through tough, unavoidable obstacles like water in a stream. This was more than six months past diagnosis: August 30, 1991. After Mark partially read the books, and the sun was falling, he was picked up by Aaron and came home to Mary. She was crying in the corner, wearing a white painting apron splattered with a variety of spontaneous colors and sizes. Her hair was in a ponytail, with a few paint marks in there as well, although significantly tinier and gluing some strands of hair together. Mark ran up with his minimal strength and keeled down. He groaned a tad from the pain of bending his knees but didn’t yield to think about his stiff, small muscles as he continued to stare at what he believed was the most beautiful person in the world.
“Mary, what’s wrong?” Mark asked. Mary continued to cry and let go of a painting she was grasping toward her chest, the fresh paint on the side of the canvas smeared from her fingerprints gripping the painting. Mark reached in front of her and picked the painting up. It was the graffiti one with the three swans in the front, painted for Mark’s return.
“I found it scrunched in the back,” cried Mary. “I had to finish it. But I—” Mary began to bawl again. Mark slid his hand into hers.
“But you what?” whispered Mark. Mary rested her head on Mark’s shoulder, rolling it as a gesture of self-shame, catching her breath to finish her sentence. Although she tried, during irrepressible tears the words were no better than breathless gasps.
“I, I couldn’t paint Tom,” Mary cried as her face fell back into her knees like she were a guilty child. She was referring to the little swan in the painting, symbolizing Tom and his acceptance into the family, the endless years together as a family. Yet every time she picked up the brush to paint, shade, and complete this final addition, the black swan, she couldn’t. The black swan seemed to glare back, to shame the entire painting as a symbol of deep remorse for her lack of saving Tom. The black swan’s glare reminded her of why she had originally painted that canvas: for the endless, joyful years to come once the two returned from Kuwait, a dream that would never happen. Completing the painting was deemed pointless, and she knew it, guilt running wild as she stretched her will further and further to complete that final animal, the black swan, knowing that its simple, solid black color now made it the focal point of the painting, and her fingerprints also turning the original symbol into an idea she never dreamed to plan. With the people laughing in the buildings, the wall’s graffiti welcoming Mark’s return, the two swans kissing, and the incomplete, glaring black swan to the side, the painting was complete. Mark kissed the back of her head.
“Mary, he will come back, you will see him again. I know Tom inside and out, he survived, just please believe me,” Mark said, completely unaware of his own shockingly deep and therapeutic denial. But Mary continued to cry, her gasps for air never more than a second until she cried profusely again. Seeing her destroyed, Mark came forward and gently wrapped his arms around her and began singing a song lightly into her left ear. It was a lullaby that fell in the melody of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Mary stopped crying when he sang, and listened.
Umbrella, umbrella please don’t go, you keep me away from this cold snow, I’d have no protection so please hug me, or I’d run to the old apple tree. Umbrella, umbrella please don’t go, you keep me away from this cold snow. The wind is strong, this is true, but you’d hug me, and I’d hug you, so umbrella, umbrella please don’t go, you keep me away from this cold snow. The rain is wet, it makes me cry, but with you we’d get by, so umbrella, umbrella please don’t go…
Mary whispered the last verse with Mark. “You keep me away from this cold snow.” They stared into each other’s eyes with equal understanding until Aaron walked in and turned on the light in the room.
“Is everything okay, guys?” exclaimed Aaron with a concerned face, completely unaware of very direct social signs.
“Yes!” said Mary while quickly lifting herself up. “Just talking about life.”
Mark tried standing up but was unable to. Mary quickly looked at Mark and reached her hand out with great concern. She struggled as Mark used her supporting hand as leverage off the ground. She could not support his heavy weight all on her own. Aaron ran over and finished the rest, grabbing Mark’s second hand, and together they pulled him to his feet. Mark wobbled when he began to stand again, and everyone burst out into belly-aching laughter.
“Well,” Aaron said energetically, “the bar is having a happy hour, and—”
“Aaron,” Mark plainly remarked, “I’m on eight pills, an antibiotic, and steroids. I can’t drink.” There was a nice, crisp silence as everyone froze and thought of a solution. Then Aaron spoke again.
“Applebee’s is having a happy hour.”
They all laughed and disagreed in their own individual ways. But thirty minutes later, Aaron, Mark, and Mary all scrunched over half-off appetizers.