Life, He Barked

Mark slept with his ex-wife Shelia twice after they divorced and on the second occasion, during an aftercuddle spent gaping at the hotel room’s scanty painting job and wondering where their lives were going or where next they might stall, he told her a story.
…..It concerned Mark as a youngster, when he was a caregiver for the developmentally disabled. It was early spring and partly sunny, temperate enough for an outing. He led his group of four on a walk along the river and, Richard, who had one leg shorter than the other and wore a special shoe trudged ahead like an Ahab, incessantly waving his arms at ducks and talking about his favorite TV shows like someone had just asked him to describe them. Mark was happy to pretend he had questioned him and they carried on a conversation even though twenty feet separated them. He accompanied Bobbie and Sue who each walked slower. Neither could speak but Bobbie often hand signed for cigarettes and though active she too moved like she had an artificial limb. Sue, who chewed on her toothless gums and was fairly obese for her small frame, moaned to get back to the house to her constant position on the floor in front of the TV. Sometimes if she was out too long she’d make one pay by peeing herself.
…..The group came to a bridge and started walking to the other side of the cold river’s shore. Halfway across a tall, ragged Native American stopped them. He had on a brown leather jacket with cracks up and down the sleeves—hair was black and stringy like it had recently spent many nights outdoors. “Good day, kind souls. How are you?” He swayed a bit. He’d been drinking and Mark slowed everyone to behold this relic—the man had been a warrior long before Mark was born. In a studied manner the Native American raised his hand in Mark’s direction but did not point. “Brother I want you to know I was a Navy SEAL for this country. When they asked me to go to Panama I did. I gave no excuses. Last week I had surgery number eight on my knee by a man who works out of his basement. Four hours, no Novocaine, nothing.”
…..What more did Mark need to hear? He started digging in his pocket. The Native American kept talking but Mark blocked it out. Richard though had taken more than an interest. He squinted his beady ice blue eyes and rubbed his cheeks raw. “Does, does, does your knee whort, man?”
…..The Native American was surprised, but he didn’t know Richard. If Martians landed he’d be the first to go up and ask how their trip was and if they needed some orange soda.
…..“It does hurt brother. It does.”
…..Richard picked his nose. “I know about wegs that whort, ha-ha-ha,” and he leaned on Mark while shaking out his shoe with the three-inch sole. Bobbie often laughed when Richard did this and she clasped her hands to her chest, breathed very fast and chortled, pointing for Mark to look at the funny man she lived with. Sue tugged at Mark’s pants while little noises of panic coughed out a throat that had never spoke a true word.
…..The Native American turned his glassy eyes on Bobbie and made a funny face—bottom lip submerged under his gums. Again she snarled and squeezed her hands in delight.
…..Mark had a dollar bill out. Richard kept speaking, “My mom lives in Coos Bay. I get to see her next weekend,” he said proudly.
…..“Richard,” Mark chided.
…..The Native American again pointed his hand up toward Mark who smiled like a little boy silenced by his parents so they could have an important discussion.
…..“Do you love your mom?” the Native American asked him.
…..“Do I wove my mom, my mom, my mommy?” Richard said in a slow sing-song voice. “Yeah,” he shook his head fast. “Yeah, yeah, yes. I wove my mom, I weawy wove my mom.”
…..“Brother I want to share something with you. My mother told me when I was small that I had to make a difference in the world. I had to do something.”
…..Richard’s crazed eyes fixed on him, waiting for more.
…..The Native American hung his head and said sharply, “Five years as a Navy SEAL. I never said no. I never complained.”
…..Mark held up the dollar bill, “Here you go man.”
…..The Native American pointed his tarnished face at Mark who blanched and almost dropped the money. The Native American took a deep breath and pulled it out of his hand. “I’m taking this and giving it to you Richard,” and the Native American pressed it into Richard’s palm.
…..Perplexed Mark nodded with approval and started to escort Bobbie and Sue to get to the other side before Sue’s cries gave way to an accident.
…..Richard called out, “Wait, wait. It’s not my money. It’s your money.” The Native American smiled. “But he gave it to you man,” Richard laughed, trying to hand it back.
…..The Native American started reciting some SEAL oath and then bowed and walked away. Richard watched him and did a play-by-play of the man leaving, “Therwa he goes. He’s going, he’s going. Over the gwass, over the hiwa. He’s gone,” he sighed. “Awa gone.”
…..Then he turned to Bobbie who kept waving goodbye though the Native American never turned. “Wook Bobbie, I’m wich. See my money,” but Richard suddenly froze. “No, no. This is Mawrk’s money. Herwa, Mawrk. I have your money fowr you.”
…..“Richard, it’s yours.”
…..He laughed. “Oh Bobbie I am wich. Sue wook.” He held the bill into the air, examining it with the sun behind. Soon it fell from his fingers and twirled to the fast river below.
…..“Oh no,” he cried. “It’s in the wiver.” They tried to follow it, but as the current picked up and plowed over it, the money sank.
…..“Alright everyone, let’s go on.”
…..Richard hugged Bobbie and Mark lead Sue who sensing the journey would soon end kept signing for pop. After the walk, Mark signed back. Just wait.
…..In the warm, sour hotel room Shelia drew the sheet down so only her legs were covered. Mark tapped her belly button and traced a fat vein on his forearm, the one he was most proud of. “All I remembered for a while is that I felt so affronted by his gesture.
…..“I’d given to someone who needed it and then he gave it to someone who’d be provided for their entire life. However noble it seemed—I thought it was fucked up.”
…..“Probably because you had no say in the matter,” she said blithely.
…..“Probably.” Mark twisted over the bed to see if his current wife Lisa had called his cell.
…..“Still free?” Shelia asked.
…..“Yep. Still free.”
…..Mark ran his fingers through Shelia’s hair. It still smelled as it once did—faintly strawberry. He felt movement and the tug and quietly buried himself into her.
…..Later when they put on their clothes Shelia said, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that before?”
…..“I don’t know. I’d forgotten. Would it have made a difference?”
…..“No, but I always asked you to tell me stories and after a while it seems you ran out and we just kept watching more movies.”
…..“Here’s your other sock.” Mark handed it over and looked at her long body, the last daylight striking to make the flesh glow dark in front of the explosive rays.
…..“That’s the new definition for life,” he barked. “People asking for things. That’s what we do, how we go on. Everyday, asking all the time.”
…..“I knew after a few months of dating you that’d you’d never change,” she snickered.
…..“Why did you stick it out then?”
…..“Because people—because I was in love. And it felt good.”
…..In a few minutes they walked to the door. “So next week?” he said. “Same time.”
…..“Are you asking or telling?”
…..“I don’t know.”
…..Shelia held her stomach, testing it to make sure she still had her figure. “Whatever happened to the people you took care of?” she asked slowly.
…..“I don’t know, they may be dead.”
…..“You’re not curious?”
…..“I’m curious about next week.”
…..When Mark came home Lisa was still at her sister’s. They were making a birthday cake to present to their father the next day and she would probably stay overnight because of the two hour return drive and because she had tired of a grouchy husband who never responded to her advances but merrily pounded away when in the mood.
…..Late at night Mark sat on his darkened porch in silence. Where were the animals, he thought. He hadn’t seen squirrels or birds for days. Sometime ago, after long hikes in youth and smearing sap across his wrists to smell and show off the smudges, he had closed off nature’s majesty. Going from office to the car and right into the house where he goaded Lisa about her prying sister, he would sit at the kitchen table fantasizing about his new and old wife in the same bed as he flexed his biceps and laughed with a rancid pity at men who had failed to enjoy the splendors and riches of the female form he so often and successfully embraced.
…..But these ego trips, sustaining him like a dark, heavy, unfathomable protein, kept bottlenecking with the afternoon’s story. He still could not understand the Native American and cursed him if he really had wanted to make a point about needs and turn Mark into a fool. He tried and tried to dismiss him as crazy but a higher law told him he couldn’t. The Native American had wisdom and generosity that never shined in Mark’s own life though he knew it should. When did he do something nice for Lisa? White roses a few times a year. He kissed and cuddled her after sex and sometimes laughed but that time was brief.
…..The people he once cared for were probably dead. They had spent the first half of their lives locked in Oregon’s state asylum, having hoses shower them with cold water and needing to shove meals into their mouths quickly, fearing others would steal their rationed food. All those agonies and the second half spent in a well-kept group home in the suburbs, but they had all disappeared in the winds of death. Who would care about them? Who would remember people who had left so little mark?
…..The answer startled him and he had no choice but to cry. His eyes burned and he saw himself fingering a credit card created under an alias that paid for his romps with Shelia and other women. A man, confused and loveless—lonely to the bone.
…..It was midnight and Mark had left his body except for his hands which felt for the wooden arms of the chair under him. He was forty-two years old that night and he asked God teach him kindness.

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Greg Gerke’s work has or will appear in Gargoyle, Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, Night Train and others. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction has been published by Blaze Vox Books. www.greggerke.com