Free St. Patrick's Bed (Ashland, 3) by Terence M. Green Page A

his money, that I didn't want the responsibility. As in other dreams, he was young. His hair had blond streaks in it—which, if you'd seen my father, made no sense at all.
    He told me that young people are always angry, that when I was older, more damaged, I'd understand.
    The dream was already fading as I stepped out of my morning shower. Sitting on the edge of the bed, studying the map of Dayton, I realized that it had disappeared down drains, into the rivers around the city—the Greater Miami, Wolf Creek, the Stillwater. Mad River.
     
    Mad River.
    During the last six months of his life, Dad suffered from dementia. It was triggered by the first of the two bouts of pneumonia that finished him. It was explained to me that pneumonia in the elderly can act like a stroke, cutting off necessary oxygen to the brain.
    There were moments of lucidity, mingled with the madness. One day, sitting in the green, cloth-covered chair in his room, five days before he died, he talked.
    "I'm near the end. I know that." Pause. "If you move over to the other side of the plane, there are better seats. I was in Hamilton yesterday. Today I was in Kingston." The eyes, watery. "I slept with a woman last night. She was a big woman, bigger than that nurse who used to come to see me." Struggling. A frown. Then: "I dream a lot now. I don't know when I'm dreaming and when I'm not."
    I listened.
     
    I'd phoned Jeanne before I went to bed the previous night.
    "Tonight?"
    "Hampton Inn."
    "Big spender. What's Dayton like?"
    "Don't know yet."
    "You must have some impression."
    I thought about it, about the Convention Center, Otis Elevator, the Greyhound Bus Station, the building near Arby's, boarded up, ready for demolition. I thought about Oakwood, the gazebo, hills, trees, the Peasant Stock Restaurant in the mall. "You can't pigeonhole it. I saw a business section, some inner-city stuff. Then you drive farther, there's a beautiful suburb, big houses. It's like you. Too complex."
    We sipped our beers, four hundred miles apart.
    "So I'm complex, huh?"
    "Isn't complex good?"
    "How am I complex?"
    "You're always planning ahead. You're smarter than me."
    "How could anyone be smarter than you?"
    "Touché."
    "One example. Just one."
    "You taught me how to shop, how to plan. Buy bulk. Like the running shoes on sale, you bought two pairs, put one in the closet. I only bought the one pair. Two years later, you whip out your second pair, toss the old away. Me, I had to go shopping again. Like a dumbhead."
    "I got 'em on right now."
    "I know you do."
    "How do you know?"
    "You wear them when you're cleaning. You're cleaning, aren't you? Like a wild woman?"
    "Maybe you're wrong. Maybe I'm stark naked."
    "Maybe you are."
    "Think about it."
    "I am." And I did. But not for long. I knew I'd never sleep.
    We listened to each other breathe over the phone. It was comforting. She never asked the questions she wanted to ask, and I was grateful, because I didn't know any of the answers.
     
    Da, my father's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather—whose name was Thomas Samuel Sutton—was an imposing figure. On a wall in his room my father kept a black-and-white photograph in a twelve-by-fourteen-inch frame of my brother Ron, circa 1934, at about two years of age, sitting on Da's knee. It's a handsome photo—done in a studio. If I were guessing, I'd say Da paid for it. He looks pretty proud.
    Ron is wearing a sailor suit. Da has on a three-piece suit and a bow tie. My father has Da's ears, the long lobes. He has his mouth.
    If Nanny was the matriarch of my memory, Da was the patriarch of the previous generation. My father must have lived in his shadow. Certainly Bampi—Dad's father—did. There are some good stories of Da still circulating through the family. I've heard them. Jacquie has told me most of them.
    Da couldn't read or write. He used to get one of the kids around the house to read the newspaper to him. He spent time in the backyard, the garden, the garage of the