Micro Novel
by Gary Cadwallader
This is the story of Eddie Steed a patient man who left no sons or
daughters. Born in 1918, he lived as well as he could, swimming in
conflicting emotional waters until he died out of his mind, bellowing Hail
Mary's in a private room at the far, far end of the hospital.
I am Eddie's step-son.
He was five-foot-two in his flimsy black socks. Hair black, even when
he died. Wore a pencil mustache in his middle years. The depression
hit the Steeds hard. "We ate biscuits every day," Eddie said. "I took
them for my lunch until my sack broke, spilling biscuits everywhere.
Got into a fight."
He moved to Kansas City in the Thirties. Wide-open and corrupt the
town was then, with slot machines in every gas station and even a little
man could get him some if he took the girl to Club Reno where the
likes of Ellington and Basie played and reefer smoke was thick like
river fog.
Once when they were drunk, Eddie Steed got some on a park bench
from a girl named Smith. Thought that was her name. He remembered
he'd met Charlie Parker at Paseo Hall that night and Charlie had
impressed him somehow. That was before Charlie was much of
anything except a guy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Eddie was bussing dishes at the Crossroad's Bar when the city
widened 40 HWY right around a light pole. Eddie would help carry
victims from the inevitable car wrecks using an old door for a
stretcher. Lots of times the people died. Lots of times.
He was too little for the war, though they said different. What they said
was he didn't weigh enough. "4F" they said. Someone told him to eat
bananas and he tried that for six weeks until he was sick to death of
them.
He married twice. His first wife cheated and that's all he would ever say
about that. The second wife was my mother. He was driving a Ford by
then. It was dark green like a tank.
She was mean as hell. Hard to live with. I watched her scream and yell
that she wanted a divorce every few months. You could tell the
seasons by her ranting. Eddie would sweet talk her. I wondered why.
"Mood swings," he'd say. "Always starting crazy things and then
quitting. Just like that. She's done with it. But I'd be no one without her."
They were married for thirty years. Her all crazy and yelling and him
still working at the same job he'd had since the depression. Railroad
clerk. When he retired the bosses said, "Eddie just what is it that you
do?" No one knew, what with him outlasting all his superiors and then
the place overrun by young Turks all peach-eyed with MBAs.
"Started getting old after I retired," he said. "Man's gotta work."
All those years he'd been the one to raise me and maybe he stood
taller when I graduated and went to college. I taught at the university
and Eddie said, "You put it all on the line, like your momma. Don't be
quiet like me."
I made my kids call him "Grandpa."
Then Eddie's heart attacks started. This was after Mom's "real"
breakdown and before the stroke.
Eddie wasn't as patient as he'd always been and sometimes he'd yell
back when Mom started in. I told her, "Shut up, you got it good."
She didn't care or shut up either. She had a stroke instead. It made
her much more pleasant to be around and damn if the last five years
of her life weren't too bad. Being all crippled up made her grateful to
have someone I suppose.
Finally, she had the big stroke and was in a coma for six weeks. A
rambling coma it was, her all twisting in the bed like she was fighting
wildcats. Eddie admired that even as he told her, "Just let go, darling."
"She's a fighter," he said. "Been chasing away demons all her life, I
reckon," and he was there with her every day until she gurgled a little.
And that was the end.
Since Eddie had returned to the Catholic Church after his heart
attack, he had her buried Catholic and chuckled a bit because her
father had been a Methodist minister and he knew what a fit she must
be having.
When Eddie started going downhill, he moved in with me where my job
was to always have the car ready for those trips to the emergency
room.
They came four or five times a year about when Mom would've been
having a fit. But of course she wasn't there. She was being snooty to
Catholic people up in heaven. Eddie imagined God had pulled out all
his hair by then.
Eddie was losing it, putting pepper on cereal, washing clothes with
salt. Had constant dizziness. I would find candy wrappers all over the
house. Never found his stash. He went into the hospital and out of his
head. Six days he was nuts and spent the whole time yelling, "Hail
Mary full of grapes." Grapes!
They moved him to his own room way, way at the end of the wing. And
he gave up without much fight.
I had him buried Catholic. Same priest that buried Mom. I laughed
because the priest was so damn effeminate and poor Eddie never
understood or suspected things like that. I figured what the hell? If
Mom had to go to Catholic heaven, my Pop, Eddie, could hang out
with gay angels. And I spoke at the funeral saying, "Eddie was a good
soldier. Never complained. Kept his cool. He worked hard and played
the hand he was dealt."
That's his story through my eyes. No one ever told him, "You're my
hero." No one ever saw him score a touchdown. He was a little bubble
in the burst of champagne that was KC Swing way back when. I figure
he's okay with that.
###
with 2 house cats, a dog, a Shetland pony, 3
horses, 6 barn cats, very few mice, and ... oh
yeah, his wife!