An old, new day

Today we reflect on the past. I'll admit it's not an easy read for many reasons, but I have several that I will share following the story, written by my father almost 50 years ago. Only during the last few years did I become aware that he had written this and I felt like it was a good time to share...

Let Her Die

by Walter Karwacki

Three knocks ripped into the dream like a series of explosions resounding through the dormitory corridor.

"Wa'?"

"Phone for you Uncle Waltie," came the reply affectionately.

"Alkay...Thanks."

With eyes half-lidded, I clamored habitually through the Siberian darkness to the door. Luckily, the phone was situated directly across the hallway from my single room so that I avoided any hazardous sleepful treks for early morning phone calls. If I merely fell forward after opening the door, I could latch onto the receiver on the way down.

"'el-lo."

"Walt...This is Mike...There's been an accident."

"Oh-my-God-no!' Mikes' announcement woke me completely.

"Listen, Walt...Walt...Joanne and Bobbie are in the hospital...but they're alright." His pauses convinced me more of the critical state of the girls' plight.

 Mike awaited any semblance of a reply, but my introvertedness controlled my tongue. The cornered lynx and I have nothing in common -- his ferocity is my submission.

"We'll pick you up in five minutes," Mike hopelessly uttered.

Bang -- ChevyII -- green -- red --Joanne's -- no -- didn't happen -- Joanne -- what do I do now -- shirt -- trousers -- socks -- shoes -- jacket -- no...no, no!

Sprinting down three flights of stairs, I nearly collided with Mike coming into St. Denis Hall. Together, we hurried to Steve's lingering sedan. Steve was Mike's roommate, and as chauffeur, he screeched out of the campus parking lot leaving clouds of dust to keep company with the 3 o'clock emitting from the tower chimes of a nearby church.

Nazareth Hospital was only twenty minutes distant. Shamefully, I needed four hours to arrive -- and even then I retreated cowardly.

Nearing the hospital, I noticed two screaming police cars perched aggressively on the driveway feeding the emergency entrance. Winking red lights echoed chilling telegraphs of misfortune and disorder. At the foot of the gentle slope of asphalt loomed a solitary, imposing paddie wagon.

"Are you the owner of the other vehicle?" the lean, calm-faced, but authoritative officer inquired as I approached him.

"Yes-s, sir-r... How bad-d is it-t?"

"Pretty bad, I'm afraid."

 My earlier convictions of anomaly changed to abandonment crawling up the spine, soaking every muscle in my body. The officer's leather jacket clanged like iron platings when he stirred.

"Do you have the registration?"

"In the car...It's-s...in the glove compart-ment...How bad is-s-sh...are th-they...the girls?"

"The injuries are severe," he replied impersonally. A crude tenderness shown through his bureaucratic procedure as he paused to examine his questioner. "They'll be all right," he admitted. But his inclemency, though harsh, was more sincere. The leather exploded bureaucratically again as I timidly meandered toward the swinging gray doors of Nazareth's emergency ward.

Once inside, Mary Kay -- with eyes downcast like an apologetic child - intercepted me. For several tedious seconds, Joanne's classmate studied my expression.

"Walt...Joanne will be all right."

"Yea, so they tell me," I muttered turning away from her gaze.

"Don't say it that way, Walt," she pleaded as she tenderly captured my hand.

"Why not? everybody keeps saying she'll be fine but they don't tell me anything else!"

"They don't know any more, Walt!"

Outside, it was bitterness, inside, despair. What was I supposed to feign -- confidence, optimism, austerity? Within the most unknown recesses of the self, I endured destruction, vanquishment, freedom and simultaneously death. Upon the gelid, white operating table, Joanne lay unconscious -- dying. Though our love we had questioned for so long had actually thrived, now that concealed love became the tool of my destruction. Without her, I was nonexistent. Standing at the bottom of the caverns of despair, I waited for her approaching footsteps.

From around the corner of tiled wall appeared a nun -- one of Joanne's teachers. Forced hope plastered her face, and weary, reddened eyes flanked her nose. Searching for a means to break the morose silence, Mary Kay leaned away from the table that supported us.

"Sister Patrice, this is Walt," the girl said, seemingly much relieved to hear the sound of her voice above the incessant din of human breathing.

Neither Sister Patrice nor I uttered a word of greeting, or conversation. It was as if we had picked the looks to each other's consciousness. A stream of understanding flowed between us. Our eyes revealed more than minds could imagine.

"Pray, my child. Joanne is gravely ill," she pleaded.

"But prayer isn't enough."

"it's all you have. You can't aid the situation any other way."

"I love her, Sister."

"I know you do and she loves you, and God loves you both. So, talk with Him."

Sister Patrice assumed Mary Kay's vigil as the latter moved to an untried of the endless segments of emergency wards. The terror of a 3 o'clock distress call dotted Sister's countenance still, but the despair and vulnerability that donned my spirits was nowhere exposed on her. While I looked for confidence -- a shoulder -- a hand, this nun had found assurance. Why couldn't I? Was God that powerful a life force? What kept me from trust, hope -- faith? Maybe the same thing that kept me from realizing love. What were these warring elements inside my soul?

From across the linoleum, a dark-curly haired, squat man emerged from the washroom and stood several feet in front of me. Blackened blood stains from a head wound patterned his shirt and tie. Unexpectedly, the clanging leather policeman who had come inside to type his report courtesy of the receptionist's desk, stepped beside the squat man.

"This is the owner of the other car," the officer told the man perceiving me with a cautiousness that passed for indifference -- a lethargy toward the accumulation of misfortune and woe.

On my part, apathy rose from immediate hate.

Turning away, I drifted to an uninhabited quarter of the lobby. As I peered up discovering the crucified Christ hanging on the wall, the reflection of Sister Patrice's face lodged among rambling contemplations. Unfamiliarly and guilty from abstention, I "Talked with God" with a "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee..." I substituted fingers for beads. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...I know I really never had much faith, dear God, and I realize that I'm not what you might call a devout Christian...but I beg of you...help us...help us out of this...Normally, I'd bribe you with a promise -- but I know I wouldn't keep it." I paused. "Why her, though! W-why h-her!"

On the wall, the crucifix wobbled in blurriness. I smeared a wettened face on a dry sleeve as tears overflowed their lids.

"I have to be strong for two now," I thought. "She can't fight alone -- she needs me."

"Walt?" called Sister Patrice softly, "do you want to see Joanne? They're taking her upstairs."

"No," I stammered nearly apologizing for the fright and cowardice clutching at my legs that wouldn't move to the hallway for a glimpse of Joanne. I couldn't bear it. Couldn't tolerate knowing her battered, tortured body...

Thoughts of fantasy haunted my rationale -- the sense of avoiding reality to ward off the throes of despondency.

It was a dream -- all a dream -- I'll wake up soon.

But I didn't awaken, and neither did Joanne. "Upstairs" for her was the Intensive Care Unit. Early hospital reports afforded her a compound fracture of the left thigh and a crushed left ankle, broken ribs and multiple bruises. Concussion, contusion and lacerations of the head foreshadowed brain damage.

Could she ever sustain all this? I had to find Mike.

The silence of expectation hammered a silver needle through my spine.

"Mike, let's go and see the car."

"At the fifth light, take a right...that'll be Grant Ave," I directed Steve as we turned onto Route 1.

In the stillness, I heard the approach of sunrise.

"Here?"

"Yea, Steve, right!" snapped Mike, tensely impatient.

"It should have been somewhere past this gas station," I offered, all the time wanting nothing to be there. I clung to the fantasies of youthful hope.

If we can't find the car, then it didn't happen -- none of it happened.

But my imaginative whims snapped as Steve topped a slope in the road. Below lay a disarrayed trio of cars -- one green, one black, and one blinking red.

The Chevy II's front straddled the curbing and enveloped the brilliant orange fireplug that had stopped the car's forward motion. To the left and facing the bent Chevy rested the dated and threatening Chrysler, its grill resembling the gritted teeth of a lurching, stalking Alaskan wolf.

Still, it wasn't the broken glass, the dented metal, or the gas spewed on the asphalt that created nausea within me. Rather, it was the blood soaked upholstery, the bits of brownish hair lodged on the jagged corners of metal and glass, and which innocently dipped to the biting dawn breeze that wrestled an outlandish agony never experienced before -- traces of human life, and now, human suffering. The strangeness hinged on a single brief image -- a young woman bouncing from seat to roof over a steering wheel as her head crashed through the windshield -- then there was red...and pain...and screams.

Myriads of thoughts crisscrossed the lines but nothing registered. I was numb. Nothing mattered -- nothing was. To me, a world had stopped -- and maybe, ended by now. To me, there was no world -- I had jumped off. Feeling disoriented, I secretly claimed none of this as mine -- the car or the woman. It wasn't my responsibility.

Back in the second floor lounge across the hall from the intensive care ward, I paced. Mike lay curled up in a corner that hid from the less warm rays of sunrise. His attempts at sleep were futile. He moved to a red-cushioned arm chair and perched anxiously on its front edge while he puffed on half cigarette after half cigarette. His Bobbie had been Joanne's passenger and she too fought for her own life across the hall. Clouds of smoke from Mike's cigarettes exploded uproariously off the walls and ceiling.

Suddenly, a chill electrifying pulse flushed numbness from my bones as if someone were vicariously climbing into my skin. A prickling nervous energy imbibed my every muscle.

"Help me, W-Walt...help m-me...W-W-W..."

"She's fighting -- She's fighting back," I thought. Happy panic surged through my veins. I wanted to enfold her in my arms and tell her everything would be all right.
"You're going to make it, Sweatheart! We'll make it!"
Dear God, don't let her die please don;t let her die dear God please, please make her well please keep her alive don't let her die."
Choking sobs made the mental prayers more audible.
"P-pleass-se dear G-god d-don't let-t her die oh p-please, please, please God-d don't take her a-a-away from-m-me d-d-don't let-t h-her die God don't."

At seven in the morning, the muffled sound of a nurse's footsteps lulled along the corridor. Seconds later, she peeked into the lounge before gliding in smoothly.
"You can see the girls now for a few minutes," she offered. The invitation sounded appealing and warm suggesting that Joanne and Bobbie were propped up in bed chatting about the spring social.
Mike stabbed out his Winston, and we followed the nurse into the intensive care unit. We walked up an aisle past three beds to our right and three more to the left. I saw Bobbie as Mike moved ahead to her bedside.
Where was Joanne, I wondered. Maybe they moved her to another room, was my answer. I stood at the foot of the bed parallel to Bobbie's, and observed Mike painfully waiting.

The nurse with the muffled footsteps leaned over a silver railing to check on one of her patients.
"Joanne, someone's here to see you," the nurse whispered.
Instantaneously, a thick, dry fog obliterated the room except for the bruised, bandaged, motionless figure on the bed before me.
The nurse's voice banged against my temples as the fog concealed her.
White...
"Joanne, wake up."
Plastic tubes...intravenous...bruises...blue, brown, red...cuts...splints...
"Joanne? Joanne?"
Head...stitches...black...
"You've got a visitor, Joanne."
Her head...oh my God...her head is cut open...oh no...no...no..........no.
"Don't wake her. Let'er sleep."
Bolting through the dry fog, I saw it...a small rectangle...light...closer and closer...sunshine...into the corridor...away...away.
"Let her die, God, let her die! I can't! I can't.

###

Another Ron White Moment...

So, I told you that story, to tell you this story...we've been here before, right?

Like my father, I am a big fan of the ellipses, which you already know. In his recounting of the traumatic events that night, I saw my own writing style, reflected at least somewhat in a story I wrote about his passing 25 years ago today. I still haven't really finished it quite the way I want to. I don't want to lose you, so stay with me here.

My mother, referred to in the story as the driver of the Chevy II, miraculously survived the accident. It's always given me pause during difficult times in my life, to reflect that I was put on this earth for a reason, because the threatening Chrysler could have just as easily ended my mother's story, and mine would never have existed.

We are all here for a reason. Despite our tragedies and our triumphs (which often come at the same time,) there is a purpose behind our life's interconnected events, woven amid the lives of others' paths we may cross, or may cross someday.

My mother and I visited the Kindred Spirit Mailbox today. If you ever get a chance, you should go. It's well worth the walk and the beach is beautiful. Words failed me some as I held one of many notebooks from the mailbox. I couldn't share exactly how much I still miss him every day...how much I missed him that first Thanksgiving and Christmas...how he missed my wedding and his grandchildren...and retiring to North Carolina and becoming a writer. But we're still here...I'm still here, living in North Carolina...and pursuing the life, of The Incomplete Writer.

More Flavor

I was laying on my back, staring at the ceiling. It had been at least an hour since I looked at the clock last, so when I rolled onto my side I wasn't shocked to see that it now read, 3:12 am. Just another typical night...Four hours in bed, two hours of sleep and not sure how to get back to sleep again. Unwinding at the end of the day has never been my strong suit. I think too much.

I could hear the slow, methodical, mocking tick-tick-tick of the cheap watch on my night stand. That got me thinking...about how I need to stop buying cheap watches. Now I had a song in my head too. Brain Stew. Green Day.

I'm having trouble trying to sleep/ I'm counting sheep but running out/As time ticks by/And still I try/

Counting sheep. How pedestrian. Been a long time since I've done that anyway. Guess that should bore me to sleep. But what kind of sheep to count. Regular, real sheep? Maybe some surreal, all big and fluffy? Cartoony sheep. Perhaps claymation sheep like Shaun the Sheep and his friends. Shaun was awesome. That show led my son adopting sheep as his favorite animal. I don't think there are any great movies with sheep...I wasn't really thinking of counting sheep anyway and I'm off on another tangent. You know what was a great movie?..Real Genius...fantastic. Val Kilmer was outstanding. You could never remake that movie nowadays - I hate remakes anyway...God, I'm the poster child for ADHD.

It's just idea gnats, around my ears and eyes and everywhere. Well, 3:24 and no sleep in sight. I have to be up to get ready for work in a few hours and, as usual, I am wide awake. And now I want something...I want...ice cream. It just popped in there. Like the Staypuft Marshmallow Man. No reason for it. I wonder what kind we have? Maybe some mint chocolate chip or cookies and cream...No. No. I am not getting out of bed. I need to sleep, at least a little. But I can't. I've been forcing my eyes to be closed so long now that it physically hurts. 

I open my eyes wide and stare though the blackness as the ceiling fan slowly becomes more visible. tick-tick-tick...I swear. I am going to throw out this watch when I get up. Of course, it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so darn quiet...and I'm still thinking about ice cream. Maybe we have some chocolate chip cookie dough. We had some in there. How long ago was that? I was trying to visualize the freezer from my last trip in there...crap. I do not need to get up for ice cream.

I try to clear my head, think of nothing, go all Jedi, but suddenly I the silence is broken and I canhear  the dogs begin to bark at the house next door, on the other side of the house as my bedroom. And then, they're quiet again. Mind tricks be damned. Silence. It's just torture and now my mind is attempting to fill the void again.

I wrote about this one time in college, about trying to fall asleep. The uneasiness, the struggle all the way down to finally sinking into the mattress and drifting off. I wonder where I put that? I read it in college for a voice articulation class. I gradually lowered my voice as it went on, inadvertently (I'm just good like that) and I think one of my classmates actually fell asleep. Maybe I should be a hypnotist. That would be cool. Know what else is cool?...ice cream. Damn!

I wonder what kind of flavor I would be if I were ice cream? Certainly not rocky road or butter pecan. I don't like nuts, nothing with nuts. Although, I am a little nutty myself...Not chocolate chip or cookies and cream, or moose tracks...nothing interesting there, somebody just added topping to a flavor and, oh look, new flavor, um, not really. Hmmm....I'm not just plain vanilla, and not really chocolate, plus chocolate gets a bad rep and there's lots more people that don't like chocolate than you think there should be. I don't get it personally.

I could have my own flavor, like Cherry Garcia, you know a play on Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead? God, I'm old. Or maybe like Liz Lemon. I mean, she's not even a real person, just a character from 30 Rock on Television, or Netflix, whatever...I really feel like I'm more than one flavor. I need to get out more, I can't think of any more flavors.

Vanilla and chocolate aren't so bad. I can fit in anywhere like vanilla, chocolate is a little more interesting...I'm not just one flavor though. There's something missing...I wonder if that's where Neapolitan ice cream came from. I remember having ice cream in grade school. Always Neapolitan, a little something for everybody, but nothing specifically for anybody, very non-committal. I mean does anyone sit around and say, "You know what? I could go for some Neapolitan ice cream." I doubt that very much. I mean that's what you get when you have no idea what you want, for a picnic, a family event, some corporate outing.

There was this one time when a girl came into the store where I was working and she asked me if we had 5 gallon buckets of Napoleon ice cream. I was trying not to be surly, and I don't think she took it that way, but I corrected her question as I responded. "Do you mean the one gallon buckets of Neapolitan ice cream?" I showed her where it was, she grabbed a tub and left. Really?! Even the people who are looking it for it don't know what they're looking for...Dear God! I...am Neapolitan ice cream. Well...that's going to keep me up the rest of the night...

So that's when I started the informal poll. I simply asked random people (mostly co-workers) whether or not they liked Neapolitan ice cream. One or two liked it, but it wasn't exactly their favorite flavor. And only one out of about every five ate all three flavors. I was getting all the answers that I expected. A lot left the strawberry. I mean vanilla and chocolate are the basics, they can go together. I have no idea where that pink flavor came from anyway. (I refuse to Google that.) One of my survey takers simply didn't like that all the flavors are touching. I thought they were divided quite nicely, goes to show what I know about people.

The most poignant remark came from one of my acquaintances to which I posed the question.

"It's like it doesn't know what it wants to be," she said. 

That one comment has haunted me for some time now. Doesn't know what it wants to be. Remarkable. Poignant.

That's where the rubber means the road. I never really made my mind up about what I wanted to be when I grew up. But, is it so bad if you don't want to grow up? Worked for Walt Disney. Robin Williams had a child-like energy. Pee Wee Herman. Ok. Bad example. That's what happens when you don't get enough sleep each night...thinking about being Neapolitan ice cream.

There's a fine line when you're a parent, walking the tightrope between encouraging your children and helping them find their path. I had many experiences growing up. I played baseball and soccer, even was captain of the bowling team in high school. I'm not sure if that's bragging or embarrassing. I enjoyed the stage too, so I performed in dramas and musicals. I did well in school and participated in academic competitions.

I was always near the top of everything I did, but I was rarely the best. I wasn't the fastest, strongest, smartest, most creative, best singer, actor, artist. I always knew I was one the best, and it was generally recognized that I would be near the top or at least very good, but I never distinguished myself as the unequivocal leader. I gave all of myself to anything I chose to do, but never threw all myself at one thing. I was never discouraged from doing anything...except playing football. I liked soccer better anyway. Anyway, I was into a thousand different things, all at once. I still am.

Everybody has a thing. Something you have or collect, some activity that you enjoy, that one thing that others recognize you for. (Like ending a sentence with a preposition.) That person pops into your head when you hear a song, see a car, watch a movie. Maybe they're your go to for computer questions, a fan of a sport or team. You probably know what you are.

It's a little after four a.m. now on yet another sleepless night and the wheels are still turning. I try to go back in my mind to figure out where I went wrong. Or maybe, just maybe, this is my path. I think about my neurons firing, everywhere, all at the same time, like my own internal brain storm.

When I was in the fifth grade I wrote a story for an assignment. It was a simple story about friends enjoying a great day. We had a big storm and we rode through the neighborhood, checking out the almost overflowing creek and riding through the puddles left behind. It was pretty good. I think that was the first time I considered being a writer. It was about that time that Mrs. Califf told me to start printing because my cursive was terrible. But that was fifth grade. That was the same year that I watched Ernie Jewell perform in the Delran High School production of Damn Yankees as Mr. Applegate, the deal-making devil. He was amazing. Charismatic. I wanted to be like him, and I wanted to be an actor when I grew up...if there is even such a thing...as growing up.

Somewhere between then and now I have wandered and stumbled, from one thing to the next, and I lost myself a little in trying to be responsible. I gave everything to the job. I lost touch with friends from high school and college. Even family stopped working around my schedule. If I could be there, I would be there, either way...

I'm not the guy you call when you want to go have a beer. I was probably working then too. No need to ask if I want to go to that big game with that extra ticket you have. You have other friends, closer friends, more dependable friends, old friends, whatever...I'm not first on that list. Maybe not anywhere on that list. I don't really have any friends to speak of. Lots of acquaintances, co-workers...all of whom I am very friendly with and appreciate greatly....but we don't do friend things. I remember so many names, faces, moments, people. I wondered what sort of impression I made on people and why I just fade away...like Neapolitan ice cream...

Now, I'm just staring at the screen, wondering what comes next. Probably more rambly crap that my editor hates...I still have that song in my head.

My mind is set on overdrive/ The clock is laughing in my face/ My crooked spine, my senses dulled/ Passed the point of delirium/ On my own, here we go

I really didn't need to find any more to think about than I already have in my head, but I've gone and done it again. I need to write more. I need to be able to shift gears and train my mind to work the way that I want it to. Damn. Still ended a sentence with a preposition. No matter.

I need to connect with more people. Reconnect with people. Fragment. Crap. If it wasn't for Facebook, I could probably disappear completely. The last few years have brought so many changes, and I've made at least some effort to build more relationships, find old friends from college and even visit them. I'm just not good at the process...with anything.

I have ideas. I start activities. I just want to have it perfect and finished and done, right away. I'm willing to work hard, sometimes I just don't know where to start or how to even go about starting. It makes me look like a procrastinator...I prefer the term perfectionist. But it does have it's drawbacks...like taking too long to get where I am right now.

It's time to shake things up. Do things a little bit differently, perhaps. Take new paths. Meet new people. Not be Neapolitan ice cream for crying out loud.

So let's do that. I don't normally encourage guest posts. But I have one that is special, and will all make sense soon. Until then, I am Neapolitan ice cream...for now. But somehow I think that I will always be, the Incomplete Writer.