Free A Song for Carmine by M Spio Page A

are loose, they hang. My shirt is wrinkled and stained, I fold it at the elbows and go.
    “You see, he didn’t always know what was right, how to raise you good, you know? But you gotta know he meant well and that he loved you—you know that, right?” She lights another cigarette and stares at me with those same wet eyes.
    I look back at her, don’t blink or frown, just look back. I fold my legs beneath me and the table, fidget in my seat. I don’t know what she’s talking about.
    “I hear you, Ma.” I can hear the train passing in the distance; it rattles the house. The washing machine on the back porch switches cycles, a phone rings in the neighborhood somewhere; all of life is happening at once.
    *     *     *
    I wake up from a dream that night to hear my father scream: this is the worst that it has gotten, and I don’t know how to let it pass without grabbing hold of it and trying to wrestle it to the ground. Give it a good fight. Make it go away.
    “Lord, take me. Goddamn it—take me!” His cries are muffled by the sound of Ma pacing the wood floors, a scuffling sound, her feet pushing the energy from room to room. She stops at Dad’s bedside again, and I can see the hunch of her old back in my mind, I hold my groin and listen. Wait. Hope she can do something to make it stop. Just make it fucking stop.
    In Dallas everything, anything was within reach. I hold myself tighter and fall into another dream. I am commanding death, a cloaked figure, to come and take the old man away; a weary fog surrounds me. Whatever it costs, I’ll pay it.
    I chase the dream awhile, put the pillow over my head, manage to escape for an hour or two, less, more, I don’t know. The heavy curtains are pulled in my room and there is nothing but black.
    When I wake up again, my father is crying and screaming again, but the sounds are softer. Outside the heavy curtains, the dawn is busting through, and the light is a dull shade of pink.
    “You son of a bitch, you motherfucker. I can’t take this pain anymore…” My breathing is shallow as I listen and remember and feel small in this twin bed. I am suddenly aware of my own intestines, my liver, the beat of my heart pulsing warm blood through me. The bed squeaks beneath me as I turn.
    In the morning, as I’m on my way out to the front porch for a smoke, Pa calls to me from his bedroom. His voice echoes off the paneling in the hall; so much of it comes back, the past is just a series of echoes bouncing off walls and I know it. I pause at his door for a second before stepping back into the hallway. I reach for something in my pocket; it’s what I’ve always done: the silver money clip, loose change, even the cotton lining, something to stop the spin.
    The house is quiet; Ma has stepped out for the morning. I am going out to fax some resumes. Two days ago, I left another message for Diego, hoping he’d have something in the works, hoping I could close my eyes and follow the next thing, sleep through another decade.
    “Carmine, come in here for a second, would you?” When he speaks, he brings me back to this reality, but I am startled, and I don’t know if I am in the present or remembering something again. His voice sounds old but still wicked and sour.
    I walk into the room and smell him before I see him, find the footboard of the bed with my feet before I can see him; my eyes don’t want to adjust to the light.
    He clears his throat. I blink my eyes, and there he is.
    “What’s up?” I stop and look at him; he sags into the bed. I turn a pack of cigarettes and lighter in my hands, squeeze the end of the bed, hold back great images of attack, see planes fly around in my head and then crash-land.
    “Listen, Carmine. Your ma, she’s going to need you real soon. I’ve got nothing else to give her in this life, ain’t had much to give her in a long time, if I ever did. I got nothing else to give nobody. Can’t even get myself to the bathroom to take a shit