Blake Charles Donley

Finding Fidelity – Take This Job and Shove it 

Posted on September 26, 2022     Leave a Comment

Rather than thrifting, napping, or just blowing off lunch, Leo and I had begun a weekly ritual of sharing lunch on his newly reconditioned redwood picnic. This always occurred on Tuesdays. Under the circumstances of my life at the moment, this seemed apropos. 

As is the natural evolution of things, I was tasked with ordering, fetching, and paying for lunch. This was totally OK, however. At his age and value, the cost was a pittance for the wisdom these sessions yielded. I was beginning to realize how much he’d given me despite myself.  

I’d managed to navigate his harrowing drive with a pair of subs from Erbert & Gerbert’s, which had fortuitously opened a smattering of locations in MSP. Their expansion was both welcomed and evocative of too much collegiate nostalgia.  

As I walked around the corner of his strangely geometric home, I found him perched atop one of the reconditioned benches. When I spotted him, I paused. He was sitting just over the X-shaped strut that held up the end of the bench.  He was gazing into space like there was something there. From my vantage point, there was nothing. Capturing him there like that was akin to spotting a wild turkey in its natural habitat—you just linger and observe. 

 “Hey,” I announced. 

Leo swung around, “Hey!” he echoed. 

“What’s out there,” I pointed. 

”Not sure,” he offered, “Maybe turkeys, but I can’t tell yet.” 

“You are surrounded by wildlife out here for sure,” I made the sort of master-of-the-obvious observation I loathed. 

“Yea,” Leo waived me over as he resumed staring into space. 

I took a moment to assess him as he was. His feet were still swollen, at least up to his ankles. He was wearing some odd slide-on slippers that I swear he’d stolen from the hospital. But under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to critique his choice in footwear.

While his feet appeared to have expanded, the rest of him seemed withdrawn. Every time I’d seen him, he looked somehow diminished. He was not the robust Leo that played my father in so many memories, which were feverishly jockeying for position in my consciousness at that moment. 

“So, what’s REALLY out there?,” I asked in an effort to snap myself out of my own head. 

“Everything,” he answered. 

I ventured a rejoinder, “The past and futire and the whole nine yards?” 

“Maybe…” was all I got in response. 

“Well, if you spot it, point me in the right direction.” 

“I will,” he assured, more upbeat as he maintained his thousand-yard stare. 

I proceeded to gingerly unload the paper bag containing our meal. I was careful not to make too much noise so as to scare off whatever snipe Leo was stalking in his mind’s eye. I nearly silently placed his wrapped sub and bag of chips near his resting elbow. 

This was reminiscent of so many moments from my childhood where Brandon and I were just too terrified to bother the old man. He was so obtuse that we generally didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. But we knew not to bother him when he was in one of his various fugue states. 

As a kid, I once woke him from a nap because someone was knocking on the door. Leo didn’t dispense much verbal advice. Most of his conveyances were non-verbal in the manner of monkey see, monkey do. But when his eyes blinked open, he scared the shit out of young me when he barked, “Never wake someone up by shaking them. You’ll give them a heart attack.” 

This advice stuck with me. It was one of those seminal moments where fresh knowledge hits you so hard, it never forgets you. 

I repeated the almost silent outlay of food on my half of the table.  

Rather than crinkling up the bag, I placed it at the end of the table. As Leo was still staring into the mystic, I whispered, “I’m going to grab some water.” 

He nodded and added, “There are Diet Coke’s in the fridge.” 

“Thanks,” I acknowledged. 

Nothing had changed inside. The place was floor-to-ceiling stuff. At some point after his split from Mercedes, Leo had decided that he was no longer going to be beholden to convention or neatness. The clutter accumulated at an alarming pace. Either this was always his dream, or he was doing it out of spite and protest. Regardless, he was undeniably a hoarder.

Despite his contention that everything was worth something, most of it looked like vintage dime-store junk. Gazing at it all, it seemed like the sort of stuff that would be scattered all over Wollworth’s in the ‘80s—the shiny trinkets that would draw Brandon and I like magpies. Unfortunately, Brandon and I would have to deal with all of it at some point in the near future. And it had long since lost its luster. 

I grabbed the handle of Leo’s ancient fridge and flung it open. I expected to see the usual contents. What I actually saw staggered me. There was nothing in the fridge but cardboard containers of leftovers in various states of decay and enough Diet Cokes to give Nessie a brain tumor. 

“Fucking hell!” I exclaimed to no one, as I shook my head. 

It’s not like I expected the guy who once regularly procured nearly-expired discount ham to fry up for dinner to shop at Whole Foods. But clearly he’d abandoned any notion of grocery shopping, much less nutrition. I grabbed a pair of Diet Cokes, took another long look at the fridge, and I flung the door shut. 

I tucked the cans behind my left arm as I glided the door open. 

For his part, Leo remained a fucking statue. He’d yet to move a millimeter. At least the weather was perfect: 72 degrees with a dew point in the 40s. Many wonder, rightfully so, why anyone would live in Minnesota. Days like this were the answer.

I deposited Leo’s Diet Coke close enough to him, yet gently enough, to slowly jar him from his reverie. He gingerly turned toward me and swung his leg over the bench so that he was facing forward. He looked ashen and his face had sunken a bit. I hadn’t seen him in a week, but the change was somewhat unexpected. It was like his face was draining into his feet.  

I tried to lighten my own mood, “What’s new here at the zoo?” I called it the zoo because any and all manner of wildlife could appear out of nowhere at any given moment. 

He chuckled a bit, “Ah, you know, pretty much the same.” 

Even though I didn’t want to, I contemplated asking the fucking stupidest question anyone could ask someone who was clearly dying slowly. Mainly because no one ever answers the question truthfully, I spat out the words, “How are ya doin’?”  

He began to unwrap his food with some difficulty. 

“Let me,” I said as I unwrapped his sandwich and tor open his bag of chips. 

“Oh, you know, I’m fine most days. Just the usual issues. I have trouble sleeping, because I have to piss about every other hour, and these damn swollen feet.” 

“But otherwise, you’re doing OK?” 

“Yea.” 

As we both bit into our sandwiches and chewed, there were a million things going through my head. Paramount among them, I wanted to ask what the fuck was going on in his fridge. I also wanted to how the hell he was getting along alone in his condition. I really wanted to know if he was lonely or scared. But most of all, I wanted to know what thoughts were rattling around in his head. 

I knew all too well what a fucking terrifying place one’s own mind was. And I couldn’t imagine his current situation was doing anything to ameliorate that spectacular hell. But way too long ago, we’d carved our rules of engagement in stone. I never confronted my old man, and he gave up absolutely nothing. If I got anything authentic from him, it was a complete happenstance. 

Logically, under the circumstances, none of this made any sense. He was old and becoming increasingly childlike. I was obviously the adult at the table. And yet I could not seem to find any clear path out of the jungle that captured me and separated us from having any meaningful conversation. It was as ridiculous as it was frustrating. All I had to do was speak the words—I knew how to speak at least.

Although I couldn’t pinpoint the moment it happened, by every possible measure, I had surpassed my old man. This was a strange and unnerving realization. I was now physically bigger and stronger. I was intellectually equal if not superior to him. At the very least, I was more adept at operating in modern times. I had accumulated some hard-won wisdom through my own divorce and midlife struggles. As a parent, I felt like I was much more loving and tender than he ever was. I’d long since bested my old man to stand atop the mountain.  

And yet there I sat, silently chewing on thoughts I could not articulate.  

I felt like I was under some spell cast way back in time that should’ve long since faded. Everything seemed to stem from that seminal moment when we listened to “American Pie”. I was sitting in his lap, and he was so clearly the father lion with his little cub. But it wasn’t just the music, it was the circumstance. We could sit there and enjoy Peter’s record collection, but we could never talk about what happened to Peter.

By any measure, the current version of me that was sitting across from my old man was a father lion in his own right. But in my head, in his presence, I was forever a cub. 

It was ironic that Brandon, the younger cub, seemed to have found a way out of the jungle that had forever sequestered me. As the alpha cub, I was supposed to be the one to take the helm. I was the heir apparent. And yet I desperately wanted my little bro sitting next to me at this moment. He bolstered my spirit. He doubled my confidence by simply being in my orbit. He had an uncanny ability to clear me straight out of my head. I could be the king of the jungle when he was around. But now, I found myself just staring into space.

Leo snapped me out of it, “How’s work?” he asked as he reached for his soda. 

This was one area where we were uniquely coupled. Leo and I had somehow managed to have parallel professional lives—something that Brandon could not claim. I was over 20 years into my corporate American dream. Leo was cut loose a month shy of 30 years, a casualty of a pension cost savings initiative. But we’d both spent considerable time in the corpora trenches.

“Oh, you know, just a bunch of self-appointed management types rearranging the chess board to their advantage. Us pawns just occupy our little squares waiting on their next pointless move.” 

Leo guffawed at this analogy, “Well, at least nothing’s changed. I used to say, new manager, new desk.” 

It was my turn to guffaw, “Why do managers love to rearrange desks in your day and cubicles in mine?” I asked. 

Leo wasted no time in responding with a mouth full of sandwich, “It’s in their nature! It’s all they know how to do—rearrange the chess board,” he set down his sandwich and circled both hands around the table top as though he was rearranging chess pieces. It was the most animated I’d seen him in a couple weeks. 

With a mouth full of sandwich, I pointed back at him and nodded vigorously, “Hell yes! It’s like the manager’s handbook reads, #1: rearrange staff, #2: just look generally but not specifically busy.” 

Leo laughed righteously at the truth of this observation. 

“It’s like management by rearrangement,” Leo yelled through a mouthful of sandwich, launching a small piece of bread that hit me in the cheek.  

I brushed it off the table and replied, “It’s rearrangement management at its finest, godammit!” 

We both took a moment to absorb the absurdity of our respective professional lives. Like nearly everything else, the parallelism remained unspoken. Still lost in the jungle and without Brandon to assist, I choked on the words to express it. I took another bite of my sandwich instead. 

—
Excerpt from Finding Fidelity, the forthcoming novel from Blake Charles Donley

Finding Fidelity – Knocking on Heaven’s Door 

Posted on January 24, 2022     1 Comment

We both sat silently leafing through our respective magazines for what seemed like a half dozen eternities. The whole scene struck me as absurd. At least half of the people in the vast waiting zone were terrified about the forthcoming tests and test results. Even in their own tiny support groups, everyone was isolated inside of their racing minds.

I began to wonder if I should ask Leo if he was scared. But I was secretly afraid of his answer. I felt completely inadequate and superfluous. I felt like I did at the funeral when he reached out for support and Mercedes held us back. I sorta hated myself at that moment. 

“Leo Holst,” A heftier middle-aged woman heralded from the opposite end of the waiting room. She was standing in the threshold of a heavy maple door with a large aluminum handle. In the typical medical costume of powder blue hospital scrubs, I could make out nearly every curve and bulge of her squishy frame.  

Leo folded his magazine and discarded it on the table in front of us, “That’s us!” 

I folded mine and tossed atop his. I leapt from my seat with more gusto than was necessary, “Yup.” 

“Leo Holst” the squat Smurfette bellowed again. 

“Yea!” Leo bellowed as he hobbled unsteadily toward her. 

I looked in her general direction, “We’re on our way,” I assured, as I patted him on the back a couple of times for encouragement.  

She looked down at the clipboard cradled in her left arm, and looked back up with an expressionless expression. Clearly, she was having…a day. And as we slowly made our way toward her, we were in its crosshairs. 

“I’m Carol, I’ll be your nurse,” a resigned smile threatened cracked her rigid face wide open. We both nodded as we sauntered past her into the hallway. 

“Just step over here,” she gestured toward a contraption that measured both weight and height.” 

Leo walked toward the contraption and looked at his swollen feet. 

“You can remove your shoes,” she assured. 

Leo stepped on the back of his left shoe with his right. As he tried to step out, he became a bit unsteady, and both of us grabbed an elbow. He stepped out of it. He and we repeated this maneuver on the opposite foot. He stepped on the scale. Carol noted his weight on her clipboard.  

I was shocked that the gray digital numbers on the LCD screen read 183.  I couldn’t even remember that last time he was that svelte. It was not in my lifetime. I recalled a number of Mercedes’ rants about how slender he used to be, but I was used to the 220-lb version of him that had occupied the vast majority of my lifetime. It was surreal to see those numbers. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could scoop him up and cradle him in my arms, if only for a few seconds. The truth of this hit me like a meteor strike. 

Carol extended the long steel ruler that protruded from the rear of the scale and instructed Leo to, “Stand up straight.” 

When the perpendicular portion came to rest atop Leo’s head, he was 5’9”. 

“How tall am I now-a-days?” he asked.” 

“5-9,” Carol responded coldly as she recorded the measurement on her clipboard. 

He made a half smile and looked at me, “Huh, still shrinking,”  

I gave my head a single shake, “I guess that’s what happens, right?” 

“Apparently.” he agreed. 

Not only was Leo exactly my height at my age, he was my shoe size, waist size, and lord knows what else. Other than my looks—I resembled Mercedes, while Brandon resembled Leo—we were fraternal twins of a sort. All of the vintage suits he’d managed to hang onto fit me perfectly. His swanky vintage shoes fit me as well. 

I was not until he hit 50 that he began to expand horizontally and contract vertically. I was not looking forward to suffering a similar fate. 

“This way,” Carol directed us down the long hallway. 

We were ushered into a typical exam room. It gave me the shivers. All exam rooms gave me the shivers. There was something so terminal about exam rooms. No one was ever in an exam room in hopes of receiving excellent news. Other than finding out you are not dying of some horrible imagined malady, which was a sort of excellent news, nothing good ever happened in this foreboding setting. 

Carol proceeded to take the rest of Leo’s vitals. For the most part, the numbers were as good as could’ve been expected under his current circumstance. Before her exit, she assured us, “The doctor should be with you shortly.” 

This was spectacular bullshit, and we both knew it. But the inevitable delay forced us to endure the rare occasion of being alone together in a small room. 

Accordingly, I small-talked him, “So, do you know what tests they plan to do?” 

Leo rolled his eyes, “Probably the same ones that were already done back at home: x-ray, MRI, EKG ECG, stress test, we’ll be here all day.” 

“Sounds exciting!” I said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. 

“For me, yes. You get to sit in this room all day,” Leo swept his right arm from side to said, “All this is yours, all day.” 

I smirked and chuckled a bit, ”So, you already had all of these tests done?” 

“Yup.” 

“Isn’t the infinite redundancy of the medical industrial complex exhausting?” 

“It’s infuriating,” he corrected. 

“You know this is how your grandfather died,” Leo said soberly. 

“Waiting all day in an exam room?” 

Leo chuckled briefly, “No, from congestive heart failure.” 

“No, I didn’t know that.” 

“Yeah, it was pretty dreadful watching him struggle.” 

“I remember that part, but not a lot.” 

“Yeah, I kept thinking, please don’t let this be my fate,” Leo fanned his hands outward, “And here I am.” 

I exhaled deeply in an effort to ground myself before asking the question to which I really didn’t want an answer, “Yeah, but how bad is it really?” 

“Really? No one knows.” 

I nodded with a look of resignation. 

“One doctor tells me I could live another ten years. The next one says five. Today I might find out I have a couple of weeks to live.” 

Again, I wanted to make some sort of move toward him and provide physical comfort. But that vision of him at my grandmother’s funeral, and the force of Mercedes’ arms held me back, even now. 

“That has to be maddening,” I offered. 

Leo shook his head, “It was at first. But now, frankly, I don’t give a fuck. These doctors have proven one thing to me, and it’s that they have no idea what the fuck they are doing.” 

I nodded in solidarity. 

“They have all of this training, and equipment, and technology, but they can’t tell me, give or take a decade, how much time I have left. And frankly, they are slowly torturing me during the time I do have left with all of these trips, and tests, and ominous meetings about the results.” 

All I could do was continue to nod. 

“I barely care anymore. I just want to go home and sort postcards. If I have a bit of difficulty breathing, or my heartbeat goes screwy, or I get light-headed, I’ll just pass out in my chair for a bit. Then, I’ll go back to sorting postcards.” 

“That makes sense to me,” I agreed. 

He continued, “This bullshit—tests, tests, and more tests, with different doctors every month,” resting his head in his hands, Leo paused for a long moment. When he finally looked up, he seemed on the verge of tears. 

There is something about someone about to cry that is universally reflexive. As the result of some deep empathy that runs through all living things, you want to join them. It’s akin to the infectiousness of laughter. And seeing him with that pained expression on his face twisted my insides abruptly. It triggered an instant reaction which I battled fiercely, despite the fact that I wanted to sob. 

“I feel like it’s all killing me faster,” he continued with a crack in his voice that I had recalled from that fateful day. 

I nearly lost it. 

I wanted Brandon’s huge paw on my shoulder like at the picnic table when Leo originally announced his diagnosis. But this one was all me. I had to be the strong one. 

“Hey, listen, you’re right—you don’t have to see another set of specialists. You’re entitled to just sit in your house and sort postcards until you keel over at the dining room table.” 

I paused for effect, and a little humor, “We’ll find you eventually, right?” 

He chuckled a bit. 

“Why are we here?” 

“You know, it’s the Mayo Clinic, there could be some experimental treatment that could extend my life by six months while it cuts the quality in half.” 

“Ha, there surely is. But is that what you want?” 

“Honestly, no. I thought I did at first. I thought I wanted to be around to see Josie get married, or Drew graduate from college, but who am I kidding. I’m never going to live that long—not this time around.” 

“Then let’s go home.” 

Leo looked shocked, “Now?!” 

“Yeah now—we ain’t at the intake facility for Stillwater State Prison for Christ’s sake!” 

Leo contemplated this for a moment, “Yeah, let’s get the fuck outta here before they toss me an assless gown to put on for my first test.” 

“Great, and let’s hope we don’t get farted on in the elevator to the parking ramp.” 

Leo guffawed at this. 

We stood up in unison. Leo swayed a bit and I grabbed his arm with all of the stern force I couldn’t muster when he was about to cry. I lead him proudly out the door of the exam room.  

We retraced our steps toward the waiting room and past the height/weight station. 

Carol was there weighting the next victim and pointed at us hollering, “Where are you going?” 

“To sort some postcards,” Leo fired back. 

We reached my car without incident and hit the road toward home. 

Before dropping Leo to sort postcards, we stopped at Sunffy’s Malt Shop for cheeseburgers, home fries, and chocolate malts. 

I walked him into the hovel he called home. He hobbled toward his trusty recliner, fell into it, and popped the leg rest. 

“Ahhh, so good,” he moaned. 

“I’m gonna head home, but I’m glad we sorted that all out,” I chuckled. 

He laughed, and then said, “Thanks honey.” 

This statement stuck me sideways. “Honey” is what he used to call Brandon and I when we were kids. It was the only term of endearment he’d ever used. And I hadn’t heard it since I was in high school. I wasn’t sure if it was a lapse or done intentionally. Either way, it was nice to hear anything endearing coming from my old man. 

—
Excerpt from Finding Fidelity, a forthcoming novel from Blake Charles Donley