"We'll soon see; and seeing is better than prophecy.
Son, have you heard the final verdict?
Are you angry at your father,
Or do you love me regardless,
Whatever I do and how?"

"Antigone," Translation by Richard Emil Braun, Lines 767-771. Used without permission.
 

MICHAEL:

We scramble into our clothes, like post haste...I don't think Martha'd rat us out, I mean, she seems like she's okay that way.

And if she does, well, she's a fucking hypocrite, because it's just like so obvious she'd like to do the deed with Dad.

Oh God. Horrible thought.

Other night, I come in his room, it's kind of late because I didn't finish work till 7, and it's like almost 8 when I get there, and I look in...

And she's giving him a backrub. Jesus.

Not on top of his clothes, either, nope, she had the back open on him, and all you could see is this spread of skin.

My first thought is, thank God he doesn't have the Bigfoot hairy back...which is good, because I probably won't get one, either.

Nice that I can think of a plus here. I mean, let's see...from him so far I got being short, bad eyesight, acne, too much facial hair, and I'll probably lose my hair. I mean, really, how much do I need to sacrifice to appease the gods of guyness?

If Martha's having a problem with what she probably thinks we were doing (and she'd be right), then she doesn't show it. She just says, hi, how are you?

"We're fine." Kelly's kind of turning red, but she's smiling anyway. Might be a while before that smile gets wiped off her face.

I can live with that.

She looks around, and it's like, if she thinks that our house is pretty gross, and it is, she doesn't make nasty faces or obnoxious comments or anything. I mean, we got two men living here. You want neatness? Don't go anywhere you got two bachelors living together.

Better yet, go see Byers. Only man to ever get the good housekeeping seal of approval.

"How do you want to divide this up?" She asks us.

"Well...okay...I guess I'll do the bathroom." I mean, Dad and I, we haven't cleaned it in a while. This could be a way to get her to scream and run, but I'm not as anxious to kick her out as I was once. She's been good for Dad. And what's cool is, if she thinks he's reaming me too hard, she stomps on him and tells him to lighten up.

Kelly says she'll do the kitchen, that leaves Martha with the living room. I'm not sure what we'll do about Dad's room, and my room? Screw it. Nobody goes in there but me and Kelly. Okay, well, J and the prof spent a few nights there last month, but since then, it's returned to its regularly scheduled mess.

I keep thinking, maybe I should just throw a few gallons of bleach over the bathroom, hose it down, and that'd do it. And I would, except we haven't got a garden hose...guess I'm actually gonna have to clean it.

I sort of laugh, I'd like my mom to catch this one. When I was living with her, she was always on me about my room and what a slob I was...and I managed to ignore her completely for years. Dad bitches at me, too, but he's got no room to talk. He's just as bad as me. About the only thing that's neat in the house are the videos...

Oh Christ. The videos.

And I don't dare move them, where would I put them anyway? And like I said, they're about the only thing in order around here...

Well, she's gonna find out sooner or later. Sooner might be better.
 

MARTHA:

You can tell that no women live here. I wouldn't call the place filthy-dirt is not the primary problem here, although there certainly is some-but the disorder reigns paramount.

Mel's desk is an unruly pile of bank statements, bills, magazines, journal papers, diskettes, and various and sundry pieces of computers (I'm assuming that's what they are. Computers, while not an alien species to me, are not something I've ever learned the internals of. When mine has a breakdown, I stand in front of Gizzie's husband and cry until he fixes it. Works for
me).

I'm rather glad the children offered the living room to me...and my motives in this case are hardly altruistic.

I confess. I'm being totally nosy. I'm dying to know more about this man...what better way to find out than to see his home?

First task is to organize the papers on the desk. I sort it into several stacks. I start with the bank statements.

He's certainly not rich. No bounced checks-always a good sign-but no savings to speak of, and a low balance in the checking account. No checks of unusual amounts or to parties that could be considered anything but ordinary-Virginia Power & Light, Bell Atlantic, Visa.

He does need to get more organized, though-how he can get everything paid-and seemingly on time-is a mystery to me.

Beyond the basic paperwork of daily living, there's not much in this that's revealing...except for the bottom desk drawer, which includes a number of back issues of Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler. I suspect you could call that revealing.

I don't think this man ever throws things away...I find receipts from the supermarket that are at least two years old in the detritus. I think those can safely be tossed. Some of the receipts for computer equipment are even older, but I'm more hesitant on those...I'm not certain if warranties may be involved. I file those away in the basic filing system I'm attempting to create.

When I'm done, you can actually see the top of the desk.

Next I move to the media collection. I see that he hasn't gone to CD's. Everything is vinyl still. And there's a lot of it.

Good stuff, too...Delfonics, Ray Charles, Righteous Brothers...

Oh God. He likes the Righteous Brothers. A man after my own heart.

Unlike the paperwork, the vinyl is alphabetized by artist, and most of the albums look mint. He either never plays them, or he takes very good care of them...and I suspect it's the latter. I slip a few errant albums back in their correct places.

He and his boy have literally hundreds of videos, and these are more of a mishmash. Some of them have not been placed back in their jackets, and they're definitely out of order, so I attack those next.

There's a cupboard to one side of the TV; I'm guessing that's where they store a great many of these. I open it and find...

Hundreds more videos. Only these are in order, neatly filed...

And have, to say the least, very interesting titles...Debbie Does Dallas (he is obviously into classics), Nymphos in Trenchcoats, I Like it Hot, Emmanuelle on Holiday...

These are all what would be politely termed by the industry as 'adult entertainment.'

I may have grown up in the South, but I also grew up on military bases. And being a nurse, people's bodies are not mysterious to me. So I know exactly what this means.

It means that at least he's been practicing safe sex.
 

MICHAEL:

I'm kind of surprised, with three of us doing it, doesn't take that long to get the place looking that good.

If Martha found the videos, well, she didn't scream, at any rate.

"Looks good," she tells me and Kelly. "What about your dad's bedroom, Michael?"

"Um...well...it's down here." I lead her into it. I think I'm gonna help her with this one.

Just like he left it...the bed's not made, same sheets have been on there for a while. Blue bunny jammies are still in the bag, Kelly and me brought that and the raggedy sheepdog to the hospital, but he hasn't been allowed to wear his own stuff, so we dragged it back home. If it got lost in the hospital, he'd have a cow. Never mind that the shit deserved to be tossed years ago.

Wonder if she knows about these articles of clothing. Well, if she's gonna take care of him after he gets home, she's gonna learn.

She wanders over to his night table, where he's got bunches of pics of me and Les.

She picks up the one at my baptism, with my dad holding me.

"Is that you?"

"Uh-huh." This is kind of weird.

"And that's Mel...your dad, holding you?"

"Yep."

"You look just like him."

"So I'm told." I'm not sure this is necessarily a compliment.

"And that's your sister?" She points to a pic of Les in her little Catholic school uniform, she looks real young, like she's six or seven."

"Uh-huh."

She looks at me. "I think it was good you didn't tell your sister what happened to you dad. He's mentioned he'd love to see her-when he's feeling better."

"Yeah, well, blame lack of time, mostly." And a general unwillingness to deal with Les, but I don't say that.

"Did you tell your mother?"

"Nope." Not gonna spoil Mom's fun right now. She's getting married October 4. I'm supposed to go to NJ for it. "You know my mom's a nurse, too."

"So Mel said."

"They split a long time ago."

"Yes."

"How long were you married?" I ask her.

"Me?" She seems a little surprised, but she gets over that quick-or she's a good actress. "I married my high school sweetheart, right after I turned 18. My father had a fit." She smiles a little. "He was three years ahead of me, and I started dating him freshman year. My father wasn't happy about the relationship-Daniel was planning a military career, and he railed at me the entire time."

"Your dad was in the military, though."

"Which is why he wasn't happy about it. And he and my mom married young, and he worried about that, too."

"Worked for you."

"Yes...but it was hard. Daniel was away constantly, and I...I never knew if he was going to come home in one piece...or in a body bag. He was Special Forces."

I knew that.

"After about two years of married life, worrying constantly, and having a job I hated, I decided to attend nursing school. I needed the routine, I needed more money-believe me, you don't get rich in the military-and I needed the mental stimulation."

"And that was okay?"

"It was very difficult. We rarely saw each other while I was at school...when he was home, I was away at classes...and on my vacations, he almost never had leave...it was very hard."

"You stuck it out, though."

"I loved him."

"You were only 18 when you got married?"

"I'm 43. We'd have had our 26th wedding anniversary in October. I turned 18 on October 15 and got married on October 24."
 
"Didn't waste any time, did you?"

"No, we didn't." She laughs. "I don't know...I think if I had to do it over again, I'd have waited longer, gone to school first." She looks at me. "I know I'm probably telling tales out of home here, but I'm sure you've heard it from your father. He worries about you and Kelly."

"No kidding."

"He keeps worrying that you two won't finish your schooling...that you got rather serious very quickly."

"Hey, I'm 25."

"He says Kelly's 19. I'm not passing any judgments, Michael...I'm merely reiterating what you probably already know. And Kelly plans to go to medical school...have you two talked about that?"

"Yep." I'm helping her put new sheets on Dad's bed while we're talking about this. "He doesn't have to worry. We're not gonna get married till we get our bachelor's."

She raises her eyes. "You two are engaged?"

"Yep." I can't help but grin.

"For how long?"

"Let's see...it's what, 9:30? I think about 3 and a half hours."

"You proposed to her tonight?"

"Yes, I did. She said yes."

"So your dad doesn't know anything about this yet."

"Well, we were thinking we'd wait until he was doing a little better...look, you promise you won't say anything to him? It's like, he finds out, he's gonna not be happy, but if he finds out I didn't tell him first, he's gonna be real unhappy."

She smiles. "Your secret is safe with me." We finish turning back the covers. "And Michael?"

"Yeah?"

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."
 

When we're done, Martha suggests we celebrate...again.

Baskin-Robbins.

If it's ice cream, I don't care who's buying...just get me there.

What's real nice is, she seems like she's genuinely happy for us, although she keeps telling us over and over that we need to finish school, maybe even let Kelly do a couple years of med school.

"Lots of people do get married in medical school...but I'm telling you, it's a hard row to hoe. You know you probably won't see much of her while she's training, don't you, Michael?"

Hmm...I mean, I figured it was hard...but I didn't know for sure how much work it involved.

"I'm not trying to deter you two. I'm very happy for you. I'm just warning you, it's brutal when you're in any kind of medical training. What really amazes me is when you have couples doing it together, when both of them are training-I don't know how they do it."

"Hey, I don't even have a major declared yet." Though I damn better get on it soon.

"That concerns your dad a lot."

"Yeah, since he like gets on me about it at least once a day, when he's home...it's almost like I haven't gotten my full RDA of Dad bitching at me about my career plans, although I'm sure he'll make up for it when he gets home."

"Just remember that it's going to cost a lot for you to go through training," she reminds Kelly. And me. "Even if you get loans and scholarships, it's expensive."

Well, we kind of suspected that.

"You weren't planning to have children quickly, were you? If at all?"

"No," we both answer together.

"I mean, we want them," Kelly says. "But not soon. Right, Michael?"

"Right." Oh yeah, you're not kidding.

Near miss is still pretty fresh.

I feel much better knowing we didn't have a defective condom tonight. Hate to say it, but first thing I did after I came, I pulled out to check.

And breathed a giant sigh of relief.

We went in Martha's car-she's got a cute little Mazda Protégé, sort of like a newer model of Kelly's 323-so she drives us back to the apartment.

"You think my dad's gonna get out Sunday?" For some reason, I sound like this whining little kid.

"As long as he holds steady, I think so," Martha says to us. "You do know that this isn't going to be easy for him."

"Or for us." I wrap my arm around Kelly.

"How was your dad after his first heart attack, Michael?"

He was a total bastard, thank you very much.

"He got pretty bummed out, wouldn't do anything for a while."

"That's common, and after heart surgery, that can be even more exacerbated. I'm just warning you. And he's not terribly mobile, as you know. Just be prepared."

"So you agree we shouldn't tell Mr. Frohike we got engaged right away?" Kelly says. She still calls my dad Mr. Frohike.

"I think that's a wise move. And I'm not going to say anything to him, either, so don't worry about that."

She comes up, says she's gonna go home to Baltimore and try to catch up on her sleep since she has to go back to her regular job tomorrow night-but she says she's only gonna work three-12 hour shifts per week for a while, so she'll have time to take care of Dad.

"Um...we're not gonna be able to pay you that much."

She turns kind of red. "That's...been taken care of."

That's right. Papa Byers.

We get interrupted by somebody pounding on the door, which freaks me out, because nobody ever really comes here much, and we're not making much noise, so it can't be the neighbors bitching.

"Who is it?" I yell out, trying to sound menacing.

"Open up, asshole, it's me!"

Oh fuck!

It's Les!

She didn't say anything about coming down...did she? Dad's been checking his e-mail from his laptop...and if he got anything from her, he'd have said something...

"Les, what're you doing here?"

"Excuse me, are you the only child here? I don't think so! Open the damn door, dickhead!"

Nothing subtle about Les, that's for sure.

I turn to Martha. "Seriously, I had nothing to do with this-"

"You'd better let her in," she says.
 

"So where's Daddy?" She yells when she comes in.

"Hello to you, too, bitch. Did you ever hear of phoning first?"

"I wanted to surprise him. Where is he?"

Oh boy.

"Um...Les, you remember Kelly, don't you?"

"Oh, hi, yeah." She waves at Kelly. Les gets focused, it's like she's got tunnel vision.

Don't even think she's looked at Martha yet.

"And...um...this is Martha Small."

"Didn't know you did older women, and two at a time."

"Jesus, Les, you have to be such a bitch all the time?"

Martha stands up, extends her hand. "I'm Martha Small...I'm a friend of your father's."

Les just looks kind of disgusted. "Good. Then maybe you can tell me where he is."

"Well...sit down, Leslie. We need to talk."

I think I'm glad Martha's here for this one.
 

"Can't I get a beer in this place?" Les bitches when she sits down.

"We're out."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding!"

"We've got J&B."

"Fine, I'll take that. So where the hell is Daddy, and you'd better not be bullshitting me, dickhead."

"Leslie," Martha starts up. "Your dad's been quite ill."

That sort of shuts Les up, for about ten seconds. Then she starts on her rant again.

"WHAT?! When the hell did this happen? And you didn't tell me, you asshole?" She's got her finger pointed in my face.

"Leslie-" Martha holds up her hand, and her voice is real quiet, but it like sort of gets Les's attention. Les isn't used to having people try and tell her to shut up.

I like that about Martha.

So Martha goes through the whole thing...I'm real glad I don't have to do this myself.

"I wanna see him. NOW!" Les is like on her feet, and she's pumped full of J&B-Kelly handed her a glass with three fingers, she liked gulped the whole fucking thing down.

"Leslie, he's asleep by now, and he needs to not be disturbed. You can see him in the morning-IF you promise to keep calm." Martha gives her this total mom look.

She may never have had kids, but she's got that look down.

Les wants to, I think, just go off on her-but I think Martha won this round.

Yay. Two points for Martha.

"Young lady," Martha continues, and it's almost funny because she's got this sweet soft voice-but her words aren't. "Your father wants to see you very much, but if you can't keep it together, I'm going to have to keep you away from him."

"And who the fuck are you that you can do that?" Les demands.

You thought I had a bad mouth? You haven't heard Les in action.

"I'm his nurse."

"Seriously."

"Seriously. And you will do as I say, young lady, or you won't see your father."

Martha looks over at Kelly and me. "Michael, I think a beer run is in order here."

And I willingly escape.

END OF PART 42