LAST CALL
-An Excerpt-
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...My father’s story was a long one for such an obvious conclusion. Maybe he’d read something like it in Reader’s Digest and was now confusing the glossy tale with our family. He’d had all of his life to work on the aphorism, and it should’ve ended sooner. Perhaps I was to blame the tale didn’t end at the part where we were friends. Words were failing us. The myths didn’t offer answers.
“That’s frightening,” I said, “to die just like that. Maybe it would be better to get sick for—”
“I like to drink,” my father said. “I’m going to keep drinking because that’s one of the few things I still like to do.”
Night was falling. Here and there, camp stoves flared in the dusk. Grace was a climber, with considerable orienteering skills, so it only took me several martinis to not worry about her extended walk. She was giving us time. We drank quietly for a while, occasionally ducking errant Frisbees. Every few minutes my father would mutter something, smile, or frown as if he were by himself, then look back up at me, surprise creasing his sweaty brow.
“Are you getting hungry yet, Dad?” I finally said. “We should eat something.”
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’m fine.”
There wasn’t much in the cooler. Though I didn’t usually keep the fish I caught, I’d planned on killing a few for dinner. My father’s back was to me against the tree. His cup was almost empty again.
“We better go fishing,” I said, standing before him.
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re all right, professor, you know that?”
I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me.
“You know I’m proud of you, don’t you?”
I felt silly about how his comment warmed me inside. Then I sat as a wave of guilt washed over me about what I’d been thinking of him.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I want all of this for you. Your big house. Grace. Your degrees and your job. What father wouldn’t? Every man should be lucky enough to be an embarrassment to his son.”
“Is that what you think? That I’m ashamed of you?”
“You know I killed a man not long ago,” he said.
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