"You comfortable?"
"Sure, I'm just a little cold."
"Still?"
"Still, like always, it seems. Now."
It was a reference to a discussion they'd had earlier, about how the dying always seem to be cold. She wanted him to be just seeking sympathy, but it seemed like the time for all that had passed. So easy, like watching a quarter roll under the Coke machine and come to a rest just out of sight. So easy, to have yesterday's arguments and issues gone in this silence.
She sat next to the hospital bed that had replaced his oak dining table. He was gaunt and tired looking. Everything smelled funny and not recognizable. She assumed most of the smells had to do with his sickness, but she didn't want to try hard to tease out what the smells of normal life were.
"Do you want me to play you some music?"
"Not right now. Maybe some Clapton later,"
She smiled.
"Clapton always helps"
He didn't smile.
There was some conversation, somewhere in their past, something beautiful about the complex language of notes. Blues guitars that could weep gently and black curtains in white rooms. It seemed strange for things to be so quiet now. Only a hospital monitor to indicate he still had a heartbeat. Like a metronome. The days of singing seemed so far away from them at that moment.
She watched as he curled onto his side in a fetal position, looking into her eyes. There was no more conversation to be had. Or music.
His eyes started to water. She couldn't tell if he was crying or if this is what old dying men do. He reached out to her with a hand made out of blue veins and bone and cupped her cheek. Her eyes began to water too. This wouldn't do for a caretaker, she tried to pull away.
"Sit by my side. Come as close as the air," he whispered in a croak.
It was easier to agree, to crawl into his bed, to have him struggle to sit up and support his frailness with her large breasts, her arms winding around him like a shawl. Like a cloak of memory, a support, a backbone. Her soft cheek against his scruffy whiskers, whatever grows beyond the five o'clock shadow of a man whose won't have another shave in his lifetime.
There was so much space outside that circle of their arms. His drafty farmhouse, all the cracks he never got around to patching. Outside of that, the coldness of the December outside. And the entire state of Connecticut, all those miles of highways and farmland. Had they really traveled 500,000 miles? Maybe more. The world was so big outside them. And so big inside, too.
They stayed there for minutes, or hours, she couldn't tell. Just stroking each other. Looking into her eyes was all he wanted to do, like a lover pushing for sex, for intimacy. She couldn't deny him, even though it was hard and was breaking her heart. She let him in like a lover, opening up her eyes to him and all they contained.
They cried and then their eyes dried, they seemed to run out of tears, but then it all started up again. Looking him in the eyes was the hardest thing, but she held on. Looking, seeing, witnessing, all the words that had gone before were an introduction to this, these moments. Her eyes explored his face like a caress, all those lines, every mile on the landscape of his face. But he kept getting her gaze back, he wanted to drink her in through his eyes. Make love to her in that space beyond their bodies. It had the same force as foreplay, thrusting, gentle caresses, the ebb and flow between lovers.
She stayed with him until he closed his eyes, tired, not dead. Just the sweet relief of sleep.
He shifted position and lay his head against her breasts, to hear her heart; she swung her leg gently around to the other side of him.
She tried hard to think of everything and nothing.
Holding a man for the last night of his life. The next room where they made love for the last time 20 years ago. The wooden kitchen butcherblock, she noticed the first time she walked in, terrified and intimidated.
The circle of the clock. The circle of the moon. The complete cycle of a beep, his heart metronome and how if she closed her eyes, she could feel the sound become something visual and red. The cold air outside, the col moon, the coldness of getting out of a gig at 2 in the morning, having said their last goodbyes and having to get to the motel on little to no gas.
How her mother used to hold her like this. Don't think about that. In the comfort of what they called, "Her Boat". Her mother, enclosing a small girl on the couch to watch television, to watch the old tv shows, Lawrence Welk and everything else. His show. The perfect contentment she felt in that boat. Sending him off in the same Boat. This man-child she never had. The children he never had, despite all those times he tried, despite all his genuine kindnesses and moments of beauty. His heart had called out to her as she was driving by, hers had called out to him. Everytime was goodbye. Every hello was a reconciliation. They never belonged apart.
She looked out the window, thinking how much his lamppost looked like the moon. And how even that was good enough for her.
From Phil Ochs' Changes
"Sure, I'm just a little cold."
"Still?"
"Still, like always, it seems. Now."
It was a reference to a discussion they'd had earlier, about how the dying always seem to be cold. She wanted him to be just seeking sympathy, but it seemed like the time for all that had passed. So easy, like watching a quarter roll under the Coke machine and come to a rest just out of sight. So easy, to have yesterday's arguments and issues gone in this silence.
She sat next to the hospital bed that had replaced his oak dining table. He was gaunt and tired looking. Everything smelled funny and not recognizable. She assumed most of the smells had to do with his sickness, but she didn't want to try hard to tease out what the smells of normal life were.
"Do you want me to play you some music?"
"Not right now. Maybe some Clapton later,"
She smiled.
"Clapton always helps"
He didn't smile.
There was some conversation, somewhere in their past, something beautiful about the complex language of notes. Blues guitars that could weep gently and black curtains in white rooms. It seemed strange for things to be so quiet now. Only a hospital monitor to indicate he still had a heartbeat. Like a metronome. The days of singing seemed so far away from them at that moment.
She watched as he curled onto his side in a fetal position, looking into her eyes. There was no more conversation to be had. Or music.
His eyes started to water. She couldn't tell if he was crying or if this is what old dying men do. He reached out to her with a hand made out of blue veins and bone and cupped her cheek. Her eyes began to water too. This wouldn't do for a caretaker, she tried to pull away.
"Sit by my side. Come as close as the air," he whispered in a croak.
It was easier to agree, to crawl into his bed, to have him struggle to sit up and support his frailness with her large breasts, her arms winding around him like a shawl. Like a cloak of memory, a support, a backbone. Her soft cheek against his scruffy whiskers, whatever grows beyond the five o'clock shadow of a man whose won't have another shave in his lifetime.
There was so much space outside that circle of their arms. His drafty farmhouse, all the cracks he never got around to patching. Outside of that, the coldness of the December outside. And the entire state of Connecticut, all those miles of highways and farmland. Had they really traveled 500,000 miles? Maybe more. The world was so big outside them. And so big inside, too.
They stayed there for minutes, or hours, she couldn't tell. Just stroking each other. Looking into her eyes was all he wanted to do, like a lover pushing for sex, for intimacy. She couldn't deny him, even though it was hard and was breaking her heart. She let him in like a lover, opening up her eyes to him and all they contained.
They cried and then their eyes dried, they seemed to run out of tears, but then it all started up again. Looking him in the eyes was the hardest thing, but she held on. Looking, seeing, witnessing, all the words that had gone before were an introduction to this, these moments. Her eyes explored his face like a caress, all those lines, every mile on the landscape of his face. But he kept getting her gaze back, he wanted to drink her in through his eyes. Make love to her in that space beyond their bodies. It had the same force as foreplay, thrusting, gentle caresses, the ebb and flow between lovers.
She stayed with him until he closed his eyes, tired, not dead. Just the sweet relief of sleep.
He shifted position and lay his head against her breasts, to hear her heart; she swung her leg gently around to the other side of him.
She tried hard to think of everything and nothing.
Holding a man for the last night of his life. The next room where they made love for the last time 20 years ago. The wooden kitchen butcherblock, she noticed the first time she walked in, terrified and intimidated.
The circle of the clock. The circle of the moon. The complete cycle of a beep, his heart metronome and how if she closed her eyes, she could feel the sound become something visual and red. The cold air outside, the col moon, the coldness of getting out of a gig at 2 in the morning, having said their last goodbyes and having to get to the motel on little to no gas.
How her mother used to hold her like this. Don't think about that. In the comfort of what they called, "Her Boat". Her mother, enclosing a small girl on the couch to watch television, to watch the old tv shows, Lawrence Welk and everything else. His show. The perfect contentment she felt in that boat. Sending him off in the same Boat. This man-child she never had. The children he never had, despite all those times he tried, despite all his genuine kindnesses and moments of beauty. His heart had called out to her as she was driving by, hers had called out to him. Everytime was goodbye. Every hello was a reconciliation. They never belonged apart.
She looked out the window, thinking how much his lamppost looked like the moon. And how even that was good enough for her.
From Phil Ochs' Changes
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