Catch Me in Chicago

Short story project for my creative writing class from fall 2015.

           “What in the hell,” Roger Hughes said under his breath as he limped to the sound of knocking on his front door, while clothed in the sole comfort of boxer-briefs. Each knock startled him like the pounding sound of machine-gun fire from his time in Vietnam over forty years ago.

           Now, as a retired mechanic at the age of sixty-eight, his large Santa Claus beard and full head of long white hair, pulled into a ponytail, framed the wrinkles of his pudgy, pale face while his body sported the consistency of a newly opened can of Pillsbury biscuits.

           As he moved slowly through his living room, Roger's prosthetic left leg caught the corner of a tire almost causing him to fall into a weight bench and a stack of aged magazines. The displacement sent a dozen or so cockroaches scampering along the floor as they attempted to find their next home.

           “Go on, get!” Roger hollered at the insects.

           Along with the infestation of insects and the plethora of empty antidepressant and sleeping pill bottles housed in his three-bedroom Georgia home, Roger's treasures included dirt caked garden gnomes, lawn tools, a broken pool pump, several television sets, various scattered books, rusted exercise equipment, and various car parts, all placed �" with no apparent organization whatsoever �" around his home.

           After he regained his balance, he approached the door and turned the knob. The routine screeching of its old hinges whaled like a high-pitched scream as he opened it.

           The evening sun felt bright in Roger's eyes causing him to squint. At first, he did not recognize his middle-aged son, Stephen, standing in his doorway.

           “Stephen?” Roger said as his eyebrows rose on his head in surprise.

           “Hey Dad,” Stephen said, his tensed shoulders relaxed. “Can I come in?”

           Roger looked down at his boxer briefs, mumbled incoherently to himself and shut the door in Stephen's face. Through Stephen's questioning muffled phrases behind the closed door, Roger hobbled over to the coat rack by the door and grabbed a pair of shorts he had carelessly thrown on to the rack several days before.

           Now semi-clothed for this surprise visit, Roger hesitated before he extended an offer for Stephen to enter. Roger led his son through his home as he recalled it had been more than twelve years since they had last seen one another.

            Roger remained calm as his son was greeted by the once usual sights of his accumulated materials spread out and piled around the house. The look in Roger's eyes reflected not pride for his home but that of a boy caught with his pants to his ankles.

           Stephen maneuvered his own careful way through his father's home. He was a tall, well-built man. His facial features matched many of his mother's, but his stubbornness and argumentative nature, which led him to pursue a law degree, he could attribute to his father. He was dressed in black shoes, matching trousers, a white button-down, and a red tie. With one hand, he grasped a black jacket draped over his shoulder while the other held a briefcase that was large enough to double as an overnight luggage carrier.

           Stephen attempted to hold his breath once the familiar mixture of various odors took reign in his nostrils. The varied sized mounds of materials his father had accumulated gave Stephen images of his childhood from long ago.

           Stephen formed some of his earliest childhood memories by playing among the piles of Dad's clutter in the spare bedroom. He pretended the stack of Sunday newspapers dated years prior, soda cans contained in plastic bags, and a half dozen cordless radios provided the perfect cover for him when he acted as a soldier in fierce combat like he was a part of his father's platoon.

           Now as a middle aged adult and after high stepping several boxes of old radiators, a printer, and a few coiled hoses, Stephen's childish awe with Dad's love for things did not hold the same weight.  Dad's possessions had increased drastically since when Stephen was a boy. He followed Roger from the foyer and living room through the winding path surrounded by unorganized piles of his father's deep rooted obsession.

           When Roger reached his chair on the back end of the living room, he dropped his entire weight into his recliner, one of the only furniture pieces not under submission of unorganized clutter. Stephen grabbed a worn folding chair that was resting on a microwave. As he opened it up, a few roaches were unsettled and started to crawl around the chair until he flung them onto the floor. He set his briefcase down, lay the coat behind the chair before he took a seat, and began to roll his sleeves.

           Roger could feel his hands begin to shake as he tried to rationalize why his son had returned home for the first time in forty years. The last time he saw his son in the flesh, the two briefly spoke at a large church in Chicago twelve years ago for the funeral of Roger's ex-wife who held the title of Stephen's mother. Roger's tearless eyes were a rarity among the crowd of attendees who passed the open casket. The smell of fresh cut wood and perfume masked her smell of death as she lay in her mahogany coffin. What had destroyed their marriage almost thirty years ago was the night Roger caught himself with his hands around her throat after a war nightmare. His sleeping pills and antidepressants were unable to remove him from his severe mental disorder and the trauma he gave to others.

           “You will not call him and you sure as hell will not visit him,” she said to Roger just before she drove off with what little she owned including their seven-year-old son after being granted full custody over him. “You try to do any of that, and I'm calling the police.”

           Several clocks were echoing through the still home when Stephen decided to bring up small talk that returned Roger to the present with Stephen.

           The two men exchanged a few words then the dialogue came to a halt when Stephen shook off a few beetles from his pant legs. With his face flushed, Roger held a rolled newspaper out to his son to remove the bugs.

           Stephen grew tired of the insects harassing him and finally decided on standing, coat in hand.

           “I'm sure you're wondering why I am here,” Stephen said.

           Stephen explained how, last year, he was overcome with worry for his father. When his mother was alive, she explained to Stephen how Roger would never change his violent and depressive demeanor. “Your father is and will always be sick in the mind!” she repeatedly said in an ungracious tone. These hard truths instilled caution towards accepting his father's neurotic habits. At his mother's funeral, however, he saw Roger's debilitating morale. But within the past year, Stephen developed a hope for his father's restoration.

           “I've done some research and found the best counselor in Chicago,” Stephen said. “You'd be able to live with me and Carol for several months and receive the best possible treatment there.”

           “I see what you’re saying,” Roger said. “But I don't need treatment. I've come to terms with the life I live.”

           “I know you don't mean that,” Stephen said. “Look at yourself; look at your house!”

           “Now, that's enough, “Roger said sternly. “I won't go.”

           Roger unscrewed the lid of an orange transparent bottle housing his anti-depressants that he kept on the TV tray by his chair.

           “What is that you're taking?” Stephen asked.

           “Heart medicine,” Roger lied with two pills in his mouth as he took a sip of water.

           “I didn't know you relied on heart medicine,” Stephen said.

           “There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Stephen!” Roger said. “I'm getting tired.”

           Stephen reached down to his phone, as it buzzed.

           “I'm going to take this,” Stephen said before he answered the call from his wife as he walked toward the door leading outside. “Hey, Carol.”

           Roger could hear Stephen talk on the phone like a natural conversationalist. He thought to himself that it wasn't a skill he passed on to him. Although his mouth would never voice 'thanks for the visit, Stephen,' he was more than thankful his son was here.

           Stephen was important to him, therefore, once he was taken away, Roger felt like his son was surgically removed from his heart. He found his time revolved around the obsession with a need to hold onto past possessions.

           Roger exhaled deeply, reclined his chair, and laid his head back as he turned on John Wayne's “True Grit.” His eyes weighted heavily from the recent dosage of heart medicine, rather, sleeping pills he ingested moments ago. His vision became blurry, he blinked a few times to remove the sleep from his eyes, but the medication already set in. His mind drifted into a deep slumber.

Roger's eyes opened while lying on his back under a damp, humid canopy of trees with the nag of persistent mosquitoes having begun a feast on his face. His ears felt like a dam had broken free with a mixture of dirt and blood. When he attempted to sit up, he had the sensation that someone had taken a few chops with an ax to his left leg. He couldn't tell how much of his leg the mine had eaten. His lower torso had little feeling and gave off a great deal of steam. His blood, he assumed, was draining either very quickly or the mine had cauterized the wound from his leg.

           Roger's disorientation out-weighed his grip on the rational world. His head rang out as if church bells were planted in his ears. He would have shifted his weight to the right side of his body if he didn't have a sharp pain in his side. He let out a deeply exasperated moan. He glanced to his right as much as pain would allow, and he noticed several motionless corpses. When he turned his head to the left he stared directly into the half-charred, steaming face of gravely injured Private Howard “Howie” Livingstone, his best friend. The man who was drafted, like Roger, at eighteen. They had survived basic together and had spent the last seventeen months in South Vietnam together. What they didn't realize was the Battle of la Drang would be a bloodbath.

           Howie's mouth pooled with blood as he uncontrollably spat it onto Roger's face.

           Roger looked into Howie's weeping eyes as the soldier's lips released several incoherent sounds.

           A sprinting enemy soldier suddenly appeared and pierced Howie's throat with his bayonet. The enemy was quickly gunned down by a group of marines who then put Howie and Roger onto gurneys.

           The look in Roger's best friend's eyes, of this nineteen-year-old boy, was a sight that Roger would relive for the rest of his life, never forgetting the agony and confusion he saw in them.

“Howie!” Roger screamed as his eyes opened from what was one of his frequent reminiscent nightmares. “I can't �" I can't save you!”

           As he lay in his chair, several cockroaches made their way from behind the head rest onto his face. He shook his head violently as he raked his fingernails across his face. As if his lungs had but a few moments before they'd collapse, each breath felt it would be his last. His vision became clouded with tears as he shrieked in pain.

           “No, no,” Roger frantically said as a mysterious dark silhouette, outlined by a small light illuminating behind it, approached him.

           A hand grasped his own as a recognizable voice spoke to him.

           “Dad, I'm here,” Stephen calmly said as he wiped the tears from his father's eyes. “It's going to be all right.”

           For the past forty years, Roger had been removed from what he needed every night, comfort to alleviate the pain from his nightmares. Roger felt the comfort of his son's embrace and realized his stubbornness couldn't sustain him.

“This isn't permanent, Dad,” Stephen said as he loaded the trunk of his vehicle with several of Roger's suitcases. “I want you to spend a few weeks with me and Carol. Whenever you are ready, I'll be happy to contact the counselor.”

           While standing on the front steps, Roger stared back into his home. He observed the many objects each with its own unique story: the soda cans from Stephen's fifth birthday at the park, the car parts of the vehicle he and his ex-wife used as teenagers on their first date, and several garden gnomes that belonged to his late parents.

           “I'll take you up on that offer,” Roger said with every intention of temporarily leaving his collection of things for the hope of being with his son. “If you really think it can help.”

           "It will,” Stephen said with a smile. “The luggage is packed.”

           After Stephen entered the car, he fired up the engine.

           Roger taped a piece of paper onto the front door.

           'I'll Be In Chicago.'

Author's Note

Needs clarity why the son thought of the father and clarity of change in the father to leave. Please give me any type of feedback. Don't worry about being "too critical" because I'll appreciate any help I can receive. Thanks for the read.