Decalog

By David Barlow

You’re a hardworking family man in a tight spot. Your side-business is failing, as is your marriage, daughter Nora needs surgery, son Graham has college dreams you can’t afford. It chafes because you were raised to be a winner and never shook that expectation. The lengths a father goes to hold family together can make living with yourself a bit crowded. It’s not 99% of a man that must be accounted, just the little sliver nobody knows. Can it be undone? How much does it matter if the question can’t stop asking itself?

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Barlow
• Release date: Jul 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370038312

David Barlow

Author, novelist, screenwriter, poet, fiction (and other keywords) David Barlow grew up in the cushy suburban digs of Ridgewood, New Jersey. Graduating up there in his class at Emerson College with a BFA in creative writing he pilgrimaged to Los Angeles for the script business. Skittering through several big Hollywood near-misses David plied a trade in writing copy, PR, and professional collateral. All while honing that edge for prose, verse, etc. Some time now those efforts have been enjoyed from the wilds of New Hampshire.

Book preview

Decalog

a novel by

David Barlow

© 2015 Smashwords edition

Chapters

1977

1987

1997

1977

The incredible so-much you don’t know. Millions of mitigating details in a single choice let alone a lifetime. Each thin strand taken together informs you. Life seems a jungle down deep in that mowed lawn of reaction, speculating what you missed just creaks the rope. The past is finished. Memory may spark the pulse but you kept marching. Stark lessons of regret were fuel for better next time, a rosy creed yet still you had no idea. A daily deluge of banal regret makes the numb there never stop welling. Leaving small chance to feel anything else your fuel burned.

Legalities confirm no pulse. Feel of a corpse is unlike anything a body puts off. A presence in the room but not, vacance and anything bound. Netherly reaches had no impact on your work; gentle and precise spoke of respect, Father’s can-do, industry that brought you along but always promised better.

Close the mouth, shut the eyes, massage a better expression from that beaten face. Every soul has its time, most come too soon but some feel overdue. Imagine had he succumbed before your assistance, how senseless would that have been?

Straighten the patient for transport. All routine but the weight of it, no redundance death be a morbid affair. Vague exclamation, too often encountered that void begins to draw. Leon on a notepad fit back into your sporty uniform. Redundance. Phobias weren’t tolerated but plain-old failure was a bugaboo easily conjured. Man of little use, a shameful squander of skills, who wouldn’t pick at that? This and other setbacks paled your hopes. What’s that ethos, keep marching? A busy night ahead.

Work didn’t come like it had. A dayjob barely floating the family can’t hold a faltering business. Nelson best pony up another raise. His three bays of Chevy modulars subcontracted for the county. Look at the career you invented! First certified EMT in the state, now a licensed paramedic. A public benefit centuries beyond the linebackers who once manned ambulances, hired mainly to carry fatass down all them stairs. You had saved -- stabilized -- countless lives but none of it could face down this sinkhole. Numbers don’t lie.

More hateful than failure is not trying; you’d manage, always had. That jangle was a lingering ghost of expectation. In youth Father was a star and you all lived accordingly.

Twelve years now any time your name gets out people approach. Startling how fresh the indignance remained. What Channel 5 did, the man coulda run for mayor. I am so sorry! For him you’re gracious, really though were one to change his name. Say Jarrow and someone gets righteous. Consoling.

Into adulthood Herman Jarrow anchored the news one handsome region beyond New York. Everybody knew him, his the right pedigree for a jump to the bigs. That remote aplomb -- byproduct of camera-time -- cast a broad shadow and shortchanged your best to scraps. No father would want that, his demise should not enshrine every move.

Your association with Elroy Urlaut began like any other. County won’t sponsor invasive surgery for a semi-indigent of 71, terminal cancer sent home to die. Pain management a month tops, coding for which Medicaid rarely exceeds $500. Factor in the hourly and most aid stayed on the truck. Robust palliative care required direct-billing the beleaguered, who as a matter of course pay up front. A gritty business. In the grand scheme close enough you hoped to charity. Of course Academy didn’t specialize in terminals, the company did come to rely on them. It wormed your sleep.

Wake in the dark airily loose, too full for questions. Reducing your state to words compacts it beyond meaning. Integrity rarely grows. Principle was what Father left, an honored family name. You worked 80 hours a week.

Saturday drove the Pinto to your office, the cramped bathroom into uniform: racing whites with a flashy blue sidestripe, Fritz Jarrow scripted atop the pocket with a nifty logo and bigger one on back. Spitpolish furthers the trust. Caregiving can be exact, i.e. perfect, i.e. every penny county paid for. You’d be a doctor had this rolled.

Office floorspace mostly a garage for your great capital outlay, a custom van dubbed the Academax. Mag wheels catch the eye, a three-color paintjob Academy Home Healthcare. Best thing since a visiting physician!

Elroy O. Urlaut lived in the Fitzgerald apartments off old downtown. Exhaustion had you on autopilot. Graham had a game later, how those de-stressed, you went often as possible. Stop-in bedside readings maintained for Nora the illusion of a champ. Susan got leftovers, weekends no different. An old cure family vacation lapsed three summers now. That sandy beachhouse took on heavenly qualities, not accurate or rational but delightful all the same. Isolating dawn walks on the Gulf with an expanded self, more tangible discovery too. Washed ashore a thick knob of salt-cured roots scoured clean. A crusty asterisk brought home on the roof of your wagon. Cleaned and trimmed to stand, sanded, stained and sealed, topped by a glass oval now your showpiece dinner table. You could do much well, precisely why this could not stand.

A wide dead street with a hulking five-story that didn’t need to be there but already was. Inflation, unemployment and gas crunches reeled everyone. Cities were expiring, all over the country outdated blocks like these another ghost-town. People lived here barely, edgy downtown action not far. Parking no problem, nor theft. The Academax boasted the latest in auto-security, a motion-sensor blared sirens so loud nobody pissed it off twice.

Drunk and reeling the Fitzgerald apartments towered over its footprint. Tough visits over the years, ODs mostly, often young, often late. A building hardly infamous as welfare won’t foot much. Sign in with the super at the doordesk. County was obliged to release patients lacking transport anywhere within three miles so Mr. Urlaut would be tidied to bed.

The elevator lumbered up powered by hope. Removal would need a special gurney with uptilt, county had rentals pretty cheap. The pairing this posed side-by-side in the cramped compartment, a sheet didn’t always do, bodybags can be worth the cost.

Dead clunk of ding as the door eased open. The hall had a window at each end and one bulb between, the old high ceiling made quiet overhang. Doors passed hinted no music or life of any kind. Another day at the office to an old pro. Old and 35 though, that’s just wrong.

5H received a firm knock. A low scraggly voice said fuckinhell.

Academy Home Healthcare at your service Mr. Urlaut.

Steps sped, the door opened. Don’t say my name all over god’s green earth! Urlaut was short and frail with a large head and nose. To another he looked ill but not terminal.

Fritz Jarrow. Point at the embroidery on your medical jumpsuit like a stewardess shows exits. Death is fearful and confusing, overwhelmed doesn’t begin to cover it, taking on all that alone needs a sure hand. Routine helps enormously. March on past into his scabby little flat. Newspapers.

Librarian care arranged folded stacks on steel shelves, floor to ceiling they lined the walls of his room. Centering this a floppy bed. Unpack gear as the old man tenuously sat. Sporting remains of a hospital shave his overlong bedhead wedged an ashy flame. Hairshirt and plaid boxers, an old rusty bathrobe thinned at the shoulders. Arms folded. You ain’t no doctor.

Blood-pressure cuff. "I’m better than a doctor.

How’s that? he sniffed.

Puff puff puff. I’m here. Compression around his vealy arm.

What I gotta do? skepticism squeezed.

Well aware of the shortlist death induces, poor-me the worst, a curse one is prone to or not. Litmus time. Happy to wipe your ass Elroy but you seem capable.

The old man drew back as if slapped, perhaps deservedly. He pulled the tie on his bathrobe. Damn straight, he muttered. Wash myself too by the by.

You said 90 over 50, he said shit I’ll live forever. Thumb his wrist. An apartment grimy with urban decades, his bedspace nitpicked as life’s kinetics reduced to this spot. Padded in newsprint muffled all hint of the world. Pulse 52 Elroy, you may outlive me.

His eyes sharpened. How long they say?

Oh I ain’t going first.

He bruffed a phlegmy laugh. Well shit, I bagged-out on next month’s rent. Clucked his dentures. Broke my streak at 563.

Allowances accorded the dying cannot be overstated. So little grace is retained the least to be done was fit with them, be or get what’s needed. A little while. Local boy eh?

Hell no. Eyebrows stitched. How much it gonna hurt?

Having roused trust, offer a nurse’s hand. Little as you like.

Some statements unpack. Elroy had latitude in his departure, you too. The thin edge of death is beholden to no law, making endless wiggle-room what’s taken when and how-much. Four words conveyed this, a potent candor that instilled Urlaut. He sat on quickening breath. Explain it.

To witness humans confront their mortal truth, the scope of this long ago enlarged you. Had you only known. Well you got la-la land which is painfree, take zilch and hurt all over, or a whole lot of between.

A nod. How bad is zilch?

Of all the world’s expertise, the beset turn to you for guidance, reassurance and the end. Pervasive ache. If they overlap and join it gets sharp. Wrenching, that sort of thing.

Bushy brows sheltered appraisal. The tradeoff being out to lunch?

To one degree or another yeah.

He plunked it down. I’ll go long as I can. Elroy blinked back more, his stained eyes locked on. One promise. He took your arm. It ends here, no more hospitals.

I’m not legally allowed--

I’ll request someone else!

Mr. Urlaut, I understand the request. Patients must feel listened to, understood. What anyone wants. Do you have a relative or friend I can inform?

Sir I have no one in this world. Not selfpity but private pride.

Next-of-kin?

Them especially.

First-day firehose, vitals, symptoms, prescriptions, diet, insurance, last wishes, clergy, disposal. Dying stands a brazen legal maneuver. Through it all your client remained duteous. A discipline that vied with the papery mausoleum to which he’d interred.

Okay Elroy, unless you want me bathing you, get in there and lather up. A full-on bath? Once a week you replied. Look on the bright side, only a few left.

It went like an egg. Ahh Mr. Fritz, you’re a card.

Even at the end with all its setback, gallows humor prevailed. Stepping into frayed flats Elroy dickered off. The bathroom gave his tired voice boost. No inquiries about my library?

Set up the hydrator. You like news.

Sportspage only, boxscores in fact. You told him daily wash the filter. Baseball, he maintained, a better sport than the rest added up. Due solemnity, "Even if it is slow."

He won’t be cleaning any filters. My son plays varsity, you bragged. His inward savor replied I’ll be damned. Sheets were a stained mess, set to it. Fresh bedding, clients enjoyed many unbilled benefits.

Have you know I barnstormed in my youth Mr. Fritz.

To skimp on the terminal, what violation is more profane?

Ex-big leaguers or the darkies, whoa nellie they made it look easy.

Comfort may not induce healing but it does help everywhere else.

I was in left when Josh Gibson clocked one, that ball sailed so hard over my head I felt a whistling. The mattress surpassed him for haggard and beat. Felt not heard. Fit the sheet at a corner, horizontal along its pitiful side ranged an old zipper. His groggle softened, Wanna know when I felt that sound again?

Metal teeth encrusted green petals of corrosion from an ancient fecund bed.

Island paradise named Saipan. Incoming shells. Fit that sheet into place. I’d feel Josh Gibson coming and run for my motherfucking life.

Never knew your depths until Nora’s turn. Down there worry sounds forever. Add in the rest and life sang with strain. Stagger on in disavowal of a breaking point. Internal rips make for lasting growth, others it ruins utterly. Shouldn’t haunt you; giving up weren’t your flaw, but oh the buoy it would be to convey efforts matter most when they fail.

Self-doubt was tidied from the kids. Dad the font of wisdom, really they’re your best: Graham and Nora tight despite eight years apart and in opposite worlds. Mainly it came down to time and patience for her, which he had always.

Recruit him and pal Jeremy for a Sears-run to grab a new mattress and liner. Poor thing braved recurrent nightmares, lately a Nora of sand each gust blew away. Unimpressed with those purveying a healthful mind -- shrinks and their theories no closer to peace -- only Father’s kind of selfish inhibits any relief your daughter may find. Why must the fees be so offensive? All it got so far was your 8-year-old’s in self-mourning. Genius.

Adjust the rearview as boys jabbered away. Their two loves: The Mets and their cassette collections. This time a croaker calling himself Boz Scaggs. The Beatles it weren’t.

Jeremy said Craig their senior leftfielder drew scouts. Graham knew college awaits only by scholarship. He could own a pitcher but an education was a longshot as there’s no money in college baseball. Exactly how Dad-the-provider goes porcelain trophy. Father never foresaw this, nor you, a step back down. A high school golf game got into the nineties. Can’t call it fondling a memory if it only hurts.

Ease with your boy stood centuries beyond what you knew. Graham actually enjoyed his dad, the most yours ever did was expect too much. Click off the croaker. Graham, can you promise me something?

A little nervous, Sure Dad.

Wave passing a cop. Always look out for your sister. In the rearview square a look men share. You got the extra Nora didn’t.

He slumped a little, unaccustomed to the size of life. Yessir, definitely.

Ahh Graham you don’t have to call me sir.

That’s Coach Karsky Mr. Jarrow, Jeremy said. He says giving respect gets it back.

You seemed serious, Graham admitted. Thought I’d try it out.

What kids say when it’s safe! Father you never told squat which suited him fine. If they had allstar managers, you replied, Coach Karsky heads the squad.

He’s the best, Graham professed. Know what he calls Jeremy? Scooter!

Debate ensued how to fix the Mets who were tanking. Tom Seaver wanted more money, the brass attacked him through fronts in the press. Dave King-Kong Kingman wasn’t clobbering moonshots. The team played hard competitive ball nearly ten years but the always-iffy bats got off to a more-than iffy start. Something had to give.

Leaving Sears a wait at their pumps only five cars deep. Boys carried the mattress, you bungeed it atop the Country Squire and drove in line. $86 with a washable liner, large chunk of a day’s pay. Unbudgeted bills killed you, what next boloney dinner? Last retreat a second mortgage really