Less Than Perfect Circumstance (19 page)

He didn’t seem to have too much to say. What was he calling for now
, I thought. I
was i
n no rush to talk to Patrick. I was still fuming from ou
r conversation.

“Tell him I’ll be ther
e shortly,
”
I instructed.

“Uncle
Rick…
,
”
J.R. began, before becoming silent again.
“Uncle Rick, what’s wrong?”

The words didn’t fall from J.R.’s
mouth quickly enough before I
was grabbing the phone from him. Patrick had already hung up.

“What did he say?”

“He said
it’s an emergency, and
for you
to meet him at St. Christian’s.”

What could have happened? It’s only been thirty minutes since we left him,
I

thought
. I grabbed my keys and J.R. and I
were back in the car heading to St. Christian’s.

My mind raced
a mile
a minute. It was raining, but I
was too busy thinking to pay the rain any attention. The raindrops got
bigger and fell harder, but my
only thoughts were to get to where Patrick was.

There were more cars on the road than earlier. I slowed as I was sandwiched between two eighteen-wheelers, but I couldn’t avoid the avalanche that met my windshield.
The windshield wipers wer
e moving faster, but
not fast enough. There we
re red lights in front of me
, and bright headlights approaching.
Several cars going faster than they should be, given the condition, passed by, splashing settled water onto my windshield. An SUV in front of me slammed on its brakes.

“Uncle Dexter,” J.R. yelled.

I could hear the fright in his voice.

I responded, stepping on my brakes, sending my car into a quick slide. I recovered, checking my side mirrors before quickly changing lanes. I paid no attention to how close the cars behind me followed.

Maybe I should just turn around,
I thought,
but
I ignored and kept driving, rac
ing carefully to Patrick’s rescue
,
though I wasn’t sure what I was about to rescue him from. The rain was unrelenting. A care next to me swerved left then right, and then veered close to a
guard rail
. J.R. extended his leg, pressing a phantom brake on the passenger side. He then quickly turned his head to see the impact that followed.

“Are you okay?” I asked, extending my hand over J.R.’s chest. His heart was beating double-time. “Relax, man. It’s just a little rain. We’ll make it,” I added, trying to ease his fear. We were a few exits from the hospital.

The rain was falling even harder. The road, which was barely visible before, suddenly disappeared. I
ste
pped on the brakes and braced
m
y
self for the unknown.

“Uncle Dexter,” J.R. screamed.

The
car went sliding out of control.

“J.R., hold on,” I instructed, steering the car in the direction of the slide.

The car went
slamming into an
eighteen-wheeler that was pulling
over to avoid the bad
weather. If my life flashed before my
eyes
, I couldn’t remember. I
went in and out of consciousness.

“
Are they going to be ok?” I heard a strange voice as I
faded away.

When I regained consciousness, I
was lying o
n my back in a hospital room. W
here
was my
nephew
? W
here
was Patrick? W
hat
the hell happened to
m
e? I
didn’t
worry about the pain I
was
in.I
needed to find my
nephew
.

“My nephew, is he okay? Where is he?” I
asked a white-faced man after he had finish
shining a miniature flashlight into my
eyes.

“Mr. DeGregor
y, my name is Dr. Zachary Oliver
. Do you know where you are?”

“Can someone please tell me if J.R. is ok
ay?” I
tried to r
a
ise
myself up but the pain paralyzed my
attempt

A
ll I could think about was J.R. As much pain as I was in, all I thought about was how much time he had stayed in the hospital after he was born. And here he was, again, all because of me. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was when the doctors told me he was
fine. Thank GOD for seatbelts.

I wanted to see J.R. Hearing that he was okay wasn’t enough, but they ignored my request. I couldn’t worry about myself until I was sure my J.R. was okay, and I needed to see for myself. And even though
Patrick and I had our break-up earlier, I needed to make sure he was okay, too.

“I need to see my nephew. Where is he?” I demanded in frustration. The pain was becoming more excruciating. 

“Mr. DeGregory,
calm down. I assure you,
your nephew is going to be ok.
This is Mr. Trevor Harrison, the man who made the call to 911. He wanted to stay until your family had been notified.”

“Is my sister here?” I asked through pained voice. “Does she know J.R. is ok?”

“Your
sister? No sir. A Mr. Patrick McKay is in the waiting area. He was the last person you called on your cell phone.”

“Patrick,” I spoke.“Patrick.
Is he ok
ay
, doctor? Please tell me he’s ok
ay
.” The doctors looked at each other with puzzled faces.

“Mr. DeGregory, you were in a car accident near the Myles Drive exit. Do you remember?”

My head was pounding. I felt as if I had been kicked in the face by a thoroughbred. I couldn’t remember much of anything.

“Mr. DeGregory, was Mr. McKay in the car with you and your nephew?” They knew the answer to the question. They just wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

My eyes had the same puzzled look.“No.” Ipaused. I closed my
eyes, cring
ing as the pain shot through my
body again. “No, he wasn’t.
”

I shook my head to clear my
thoughts.

“
Dad, when they told me Patrick
was fine, a pain shot through my heart. Again, I had given Patrick another chance to do what he did best; lie.  He knew exactly what to do when he wanted to know how much I cared, or if I still loved him. When I said I had had enough, I was serious, and Patrick knew it. There wasn’t anything he could say or do to get me to change my mind, so he pulled that stunt. J.R. and I could have died. I remember telling Patrick that one day his lies were going to hurt me, and I almost didn’t live to tell you everything.”

I had been talking non-stop. My
mouth was
dry, my
palms were sweaty, and
I
was f
eeling hot. The bottled water I had
boug
ht at the airport was long gone, but there was still one more score I had to settle with my father.

“You know,” I leaned in closer. “I haven’t forgiven you for abandoning my brother and me. Although what happened to my mother wasn’t entirely your fault, you and your actions drove her to it. Maybe Dane has forgiven you, because he was the good son. But me, I was the bane of your existence. I was the one you showed public smiles, but in private you dished out unreserved disgust because of the person I chose to love. No matter what, Patrick wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. And obviously, my mother wasn’t enough
,
either. Have you ever though
t
that I held on to Patrick out of pure contempt? It was
the only way to hurt you without physically harming you. See father, you were stuck in your ways, and I knew that seeing your son loving another man was ripping your inside. Your hatred for me didn’t start with
Patrick,
it started when you realized Dane and I were different. You couldn’t find it in your heart to love me, even though you were so great pretending. You made your hatred for me solely about Patrick, and I played along.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

I thought abo
ut the love my mother had for my brother and me
. Connie admitted she fell in love with us the moment she heard the rapid thumping of our hearts. But even though Marvin had been there to watch us grow, it still wasn’t enough to keep him around. He came home from work one afternoon, packed all he could, and left. I remember coming home from school and finding my mother in the couch, lying in fetal position. A Marlboro Light
rested in a
make-shift
ashtray. M
y mother didn’t even smoke. I could tell from the whiskey glass that sat in a pool of its own perspiration that she had been drinking, too. Her eyes were blood-shot red, and I could tell she had been sleeping, and crying when sleep didn’t give her the escape she needed.

Connie had always been a strong woman. That was the only type of woman who could actually love the man who was my father. Unfortunately, loving him only broke her down. I rem
ember Dane dropping his book bag
on the living room floor and walking over to
Mother. She didn’t look like the woman we had come to know. I stood at the entrance to the living room
,
frozen in fear.

“Mom!” Dane yelled out to my mother, and shook her gently. He tried not to startle her, but it was almost like she was already dead to the world. She managed to respond, but in a whisper. I began picking up the empty bottles and cigarette cartons that added to the unusual tidiness.

“Boys, I need to tell you something,” she said, reaching for the cigarette that had already burned closer to the butt.

I gave my
mother no
chance to sugarcoat what she needed to tell us. I could tell by my mother’s condition and the state of the house that my father was gone.   

Marvin DeGregory didn’t always play the role of perfect daddy. He stopped loving my mother long before he walked away. My mother was too in love to know it. I began picking up the mess my mother had unintentionally created. When the living room was clean, I looked at my mother, hugged her tightly, and then kissed her on her forehead. When I turned to walk away, my mother grabbed me.

“I love you, son,” she said, and smiled. 

I walked upstairs to my mother’s bathroom and ran her a bath. I thought it was something she needed. I wasn’t sure if that was the remedy for my mother’s
pain and heartache, but
that
was
all I could come up with.

Dane sat outside the bathroom, leaning against the wall.

“Dexter, is she okay?” he asked.

He didn’t give me a chance to respond before he asked his next question.

“Do you think he’s coming back?”

I went back downstairs, unintentionally ignoring my brother’s questions, and escorted my mother to the bath that was waiting for her. I sat on the bathroom floor with my knees pulled up to my chest. I clasped my hands around my legs so they couldn’t slide from me, and listened to my mother talked. She smiled, reminiscing on the good times she had shared with Marvin. As it hit her that the one man she had loved for as long as she could remember had left, the tears rained heavily from her eyes. She tried to mask the tears by squeezing the warm water from the sponge cloth over her face. When her arms became too heavy, her attempt to disguise the tears failed. I offered her no additional comfort, allowing her to have the cry she needed. I hoped the hur
t she felt and the heartache that
Marvin’s leaving had created would one day be replaced.

I excused myself and retreated to my mother’s bedroom. My face was still, and sadness had taken my breath away. In my mother’s room, I turned down the comforter and fluffed her pillows. When I returned to the bathroom, I handed my mother her robe. I walked my mother to her side of the bed, lifted her feet and placed them under the covers,
and slowly pulled the comforter up to her neck. She tried to convince me she was going to be fine, but she couldn’t hide how she truly felt.

When I finally went to my room, I stood with my back leaned against the wall. When I realized my father had not only left my mother, bu
t had also left my brother and me
without warning or explanation, the tears overwhelmed me. I felt my body slide towards the floor, and I found myself in the exact position I was in as I listened to my mother in the bathroom. I missed my father already.

When morning came, I inhaled, searching for the whiff of Saturday morning breakfast my mother usually prepared. I walked to the bathroom, but before I could enter, I noticed how quiet and still the morning had been. My father was gone, so the usual Saturday morning sports news wasn’t being listened to at some excruciating level.