Becoming Andy Hunsinger Read online

  We found Mom in a hallway, just outside the Intensive Care Unit, on the hospital’s fourth floor. Dressed in a light blue pantsuit, she sat on a straight back chair with her hands resting in her lap and her gaze fixed on her leather pumps. When she heard our approach, she rose. Dark crescents smudged the lower halves of her eye sockets, and her shoulders sagged as though she carried cinder blocks in both her hands. When her gaze met mine, her upper lip quivered

  “Oh, Andy...”

  I took her in my arms, and then I squeezed as hard as I could without hurting her.

  “It’s going to be okay, Mom; I know it will.”

  Mom let me go. Then she hugged Bucky.

  “It’s good of you to come,” she told him.

  “Martha,” Bucky said. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else right now.”

  Mom sat in her chair. Then she spoke to us in with a tremble in her voice. “He came home from work around noon. His face was as pale as an egg. He said he wasn’t feeling well -- he said he needed to lie down -- but never made it to the bed. He clutched his chest, and then he collapsed onto the kitchen floor.”

  Bucky jingled the change in his pants pocket. “Jesus,” he muttered.

  I chewed my lower lip while my stomach roiled and my knees shook. For a moment, I feared I might pass out. How could this be happening?

  “I thought the ambulance would never arrive,” Mom said. “I didn’t know what to do, so I knelt on the floor and held his hand. I kept telling him, ‘Hold on, Drake. Help’s on the way. You have to hold on.’”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  She pointed to a pair of swinging doors, just a few feet from us.

  “What caused this, Mom? I don’t understand?”

  She pulled a hank of hair from her brow. After tucking the hank behind an ear, she explained.

  “The doctor said something called ‘plaque’ had clogged the arteries feeding blood to your father’s heart. They don’t yet know how much damage was caused; it’s too early to tell.”

  “Can I see him?”

  She nodded. “But he’s under sedation; he’s not conscious.”

  “I just want to see him,” I said.

  The ICU hummed with activity. Several nurses in scrubs tended a dozen or so patients in beds, with scrims separating the patients. My dad lay with his upper body elevated. A blanket covered his lower body. He wore a green hospital gown. A heart monitor stood beside his bed; it bleeped and blipped. Clear liquid dripped into Dad’s arm from a tube hooked to a bag hanging from a metal stand.

  Dad’s eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell. His hands lay limp on his blanket; his face was the color of cake flour. He seemed to have aged ten years since I’d last seen him. And how long had that been? It took me a moment before I realized I hadn’t come home since Easter, three months before, when I’d broken the news about my personal life.

  A wave of guilt washed over me. Why hadn’t I visited home more often? What was so important in my life that I couldn’t make time for my folks?

  You’re a selfish ingrate, Hunsinger. Look at all he’s done for you, and think of how little you’ve done for him.

  When I took one of Dad’s hands in both of mine, his palm felt cold and moist. I shivered beneath the glow of a fluorescent ceiling fixture. The grayness in the hair at Dad’s temples seemed to have spread upward, toward the crown of his head, since I’d last seen him. The furrows in his forehead and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes seemed deeper than before. Had all this happened recently, or had I been so consumed with my own personal issues that I’d failed to notice my father’s aging?

  I thought back to Jake’s Tallassee visit, weeks before. What was it he’d said about my folks’ attitude toward me being gay?

  “I think they’ve seen past it.”

  Maybe so, but then again... maybe not. Maybe the stress I’d dumped into their lives was somehow linked to my dad’s present condition. Didn’t stress cause heart attacks? My eyes clouded, and then my tears dripped onto Dad’s hairy forearm. He drew a deep breath. Then he let it out, but his eyes remained closed.

  “Oh, Daddy,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you.”

  ***

  My brother arrived in Pensacola, the morning after Dad’s heart attack, just after the sun rose. Jake had driven all night from North Carolina. His hair was tousled, and stubble shaded his face. His hand shook when he brought a glass of orange juice to his lips.

  We sat in our kitchen’s breakfast nook, at the Formica-topped table: Jake, Mom, and I. Odors of fried bacon and freshly brewed coffee scented the air. Beyond the nook’s casement windows, a bluejay flitted about the branches of an azalea shrub, glancing here and there, perhaps looking for bugs to eat. His tail feathers twitched.

  My mother looked as shell-shocked as Bucky’s brother, Eddie. She wore no makeup. Normally, she kept her hair perfectly coiffed, but that morning her chestnut tresses looked as wind-tossed as Jake’s. Dark crescents remained beneath her eyes, and her shoulders slumped. She wore a terrycloth robe with her monogram stitched on one pocket, a Christmas gift Jake and I had bought her, many years before. Eschewing breakfast, she stared into her coffee cup.

  I felt like hell, and probably looked worse. Mom and I had remained at the hospital, well past midnight. Bucky had driven back to Tallahassee, but I spent the night at my parents’ home, in my old bedroom, among mementoes from my childhood and adolescence: Little League trophies, yearbooks, my framed high school diploma, and so forth.

  I slept fitfully, tossing about my bed like I wrestled with a demon. Visions of my dad -- little vignettes from the past -- kept filling my head: Dad carving our Thanksgiving turkey, using an electric knife for the first time and marveling at its precision; Dad taking Jake and I horseback riding at an Okaloosa County ranch when I was nine and Jake five; Dad and Bucky grilling venison in our back yard, after they’d hunted in Montana; Dad and Mom renewing their wedding vows before a crowd of a hundred friends and family, on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

  And so on.

  It surprised me how many events I recalled so vividly. Some I hadn’t thought about in years, but now they bubbled up like lava from the recesses of my brain. I supposed we often take these sorts of family experiences for granted. We fail to pay them the homage they deserve, until we learn there may not be any more of them, until it’s too late to create more memories.

  Now, in the breakfast nook, Jake jabbered about his camp counselor job while Mom and I listened stoically.

  “I supervise a cabin with a dozen campers between eight and thirteen years old. They’re all are rich kids from the south: Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida, and Alabama. One kid’s a bed-wetter, another cries in his sleep, and one boy has Tourette’s Syndrome; he can’t sit still. You wouldn’t believe how screwed up so many kids are.”

  Mom rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Try teaching junior high school English for a year,” she said. “I fear for the future of our country at times.”

  I talked about the guys I caddied with at Capital City. “Money spoils kids, I believe. Rich boys develop an attitude; think they’re better than those who don’t come from wealth.”

  I spoke of the incident involving Dustin Ausley and Jerry Justus, after my appearance on TV at the Bryant demonstration. I described how Dustin had called me a ‘fag’, and then how Jerry assaulted Dustin in the caddy tent.

  Jake ceased chewing on a piece of toast; he pointed a finger at my nose. “If I’d been there, I would’ve punched that kid’s face in.”

  My mom looked at my brother and scowled. “Jacob, your father wouldn’t approve of what you just said. Violence never solves a problem. It just makes things worse.”

  Jake started to reply to Mom’s remark, but then the wall phone rang before he could. All three of us leapt to our feet, but my mother raised a palm to Jake and me.

  “Both of you stay where you are,” she said, “I’ll take this call myself.”

  Mom clenched her jaw
. Then she lifted the receiver, said hello in an even voice. A ten-minute conversation ensued. The party on the other end did most of the talking. Mom said things like, “Yes, I see,” or “All right, okay,” and not much else.

  Jake and I sat on the edge of the breakfast nook bench, with our gazes fixed on our mother. What was going on? My heart slammed against my rib cage. Was my dad alive or dead? If Dad was gone, how would our family bear it?

  At long last, Mom said, “Thank you, Doctor, for all you’ve done. God bless you.” Then she hung up and turned her gaze to us. “Your father’s okay,” she said. “He’s actually sitting up and talking.”

  Mom thrust her face into her hands. Her shoulders shook while she wept. Jake and I hugged each other so tightly our joints crackled.

  “Thank God, Little Brother,” I whispered. “Dad’s alive.”

  ***

  Dad’s surgeon belonged on a daytime soap opera; he was silver-haired, with a baritone voice, a deep suntan, a lab coat, and a stethoscope hung about his shoulders. He met with Mom, me, and Jake in a conference room overlooking Baptist Hospital’s parking lot. Morning sunshine poured into the room through Venetian blinds, casting bars of light onto the room’s mint green walls.

  “We performed a double bypass procedure,” the doctor told us. “We relieved the blockage in his arteries -- his heart’s pumping well, considering -- but he’ll be weak for at least a month. He’ll need help getting out of bed, with bathing, and using the toilet.”

  Mom chewed her lower lip. “Drake’s a big man,” she told the doctor. “I’m not sure I could lift him.”

  “I can” Jake said. “I’ll quit my job and come home, right away.”

  Do something, Andy. For once, be a help instead of a burden.

  “No, you won’t,” I told Jake. “You need to save money for school.”

  Jake lowered his gaze and didn’t say anything.

  I looked at Mom. “I’ll come home,” I said. “Business is slow at the country club this time of year. Bucky won’t mind if I’m gone for a month.”

  Mom looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “You’re sure, Andy?”

  I nodded.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jake drove me to Tallahassee, on his way back to North Carolina. After I’d packed all my summer clothing in the Vega’s trunk, I called Travis; I asked him to water my houseplants once a week.

  “I’ll leave a key in my mailbox,” I told him.

  Then I drove to Pensacola on Highway 90, passing through Panhandle towns like Quincy, Chipley, and De Funiak Springs, little burgs with one or two traffic lights and Winn Dixie shopping centers.

  Mom wouldn’t report for work until the third week of August. Dad, of course, would spend most of his time in bed. We’d be together -- the three of us -- all day and night, seven days a week, for a spell. And how would that be? I had my own place now; I was used to coming and going without explaining my plans. I ate what I wanted to, slept as late as I chose to. Would that all change? I was twenty-two years old now, no longer a kid. Would my parents expect me to revert to the role I’d played in back in high school, the dutiful son?

  I thought about Jeff Dellinger, the serviceman I’d dated the previous summer. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a year. For all I knew, he’d transferred to another base, but... maybe not. Okay, Jeff hadn’t really been a “boyfriend”, per se. Our meetings were sexual encounters, nothing more. But sex for its own sake was better than no sex, right?

  I seized my wallet and rummaged through it with one hand. A minute or so passed before I located a scrap of notebook paper with Jeff’s phone number scribbled on it. Studying the number, I thought of Jeff’s lanky limbs, his dark hair and eyes.

  Call him, dumbass, as soon as you get to Pensacola.

  I stopped for gasoline in Marianna, another small town with a single traffic light. Heat shimmered over the asphalt road. Brick buildings in the old downtown were mostly vacant, their storefronts papered. But the Jackson County courthouse, a three-story beauty built of dimpled block, with stately columns and a cupola, still hummed with activity. Uniformed deputies conversed with briefcase-toting lawyers on the sidewalk. Beneath a live oak with spreading limbs, a Confederate soldier statue stood guard. The Stars and Stripes and the Florida state flag hung as limply as dishrags in the still afternoon.

  At a Sinclair station, a gangly high school kid with auburn hair, a turned-up nose, and freckles pumped my gas and cleaned my windshield. After giving me change for a twenty, he pointed to a sticker on my Vega’s rear window.

  “You’re an FSU student?” he asked in a scratchy tenor.

  I nodded.

  “I hope to go there, after I graduate next year. I can’t wait to leave Marianna.”

  I glanced left and right. “Is it so bad here?”

  When he looked at me and bobbed his chin, I saw desperation in his emerald eyes, the same I’d often seen in my bathroom mirror when I was his age.

  “People here can’t see past the ends of their noses. Everyone thinks the same, acts the same. Know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “But it’s different in Tallahassee.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Is it?”

  “You can be yourself, whatever that is.”

  He studied a transfer truck that blew past on Highway 90. Then he swung his gaze back to me. “Do you think a kid from a town like this could cut it at Florida State?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never been more than fifty miles from Marianna. I’m a hick, you might say, not too... worldly.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t let life scare you. Get out there and try your best. You’ll get what you want if you do.”

  He tilted his head toward a shoulder. “I don’t know...”

  “Look,” I said, “I know leaving home can be frightening. FSU’s a big school -- 25,000 kids -- but you’d find your place there. Most everyone does; it only takes a little time.”

  He extended a hand. “I’m Carter.”

  We shook. “I’m Andy,” I said. “Tallahassee’s only an hour’s drive from here. You should pay a visit, take a tour of campus.”

  “But I don’t know anyone there.”

  I chuckled. “You do now.”

  After I pulled a writing pen and a napkin from the Vega’s glove box, I scribbled my name and phone number on the napkin. Then I gave the napkin to Carter. “I’m spending the next month in Pensacola,” I said. “But in September, I’ll start law school, in Tallahassee. Call me then, you can drive over and I’ll show you around, how’s that?”

  A grin spread across Carter’s freckled face. “You’re serious?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I only live a mile from campus; it’s no problem.”

  Carter stuffed the napkin into the hip pocket of his Dickies work pants.

  ***

  Once home, I had much to do. Mom and I moved my parents’ bed into the garage. Then a rental service delivered medical devices to my folks’ home: a hospital bed with an electric motor that raised and lowered the mattress at either end; an aluminum “walker”, the kind with wheels on the front legs; a stainless steel bed pan, and a set of walkie-talkies Dad could use to call Mom or me if he needed help. Mom borrowed a portable TV with rabbit ears from a friend, and I set the TV up in my folks’ bedroom, atop the bureau.

  “I’ll sleep in Jake’s room,” Mom told me, “so I don’t disturb your father when I get up at night.”

  They brought Dad home in an ambulance. Two guys in white scrubs wheeled him into the house on a stretcher. Then they helped him into the hospital bed. Dad was still as pale as cake flour, and his cheeks looked sunken, like he’d lost twenty pounds. Silver stubble dusted his chin and cheeks. His breath wheezed while he maneuvered from the stretcher to the bed, with both guys holding him up by his elbows. His voice sounded raspy and weak when he spoke.

  After the ambulance fellows left, the first thing Dad said to me was, “Get me out of this damned hospital gown
, would you? I’m tired of my ass hanging out for the world to see; I want real pajamas, something a little more dignified.”

  I helped him into a pair of briefs, and then his PJs while his breath huffed and puffed.

  “I’m as weak as a kitten,” he told me. “Doc says it’ll be a while before I can walk on my own.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said. “I won’t leave until you’re better.”

  He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “When does school start?”

  “The day after Labor Day.”

  “I don’t care what happens,” Dad said, pointing a finger at my nose. “You’re going back to Tallahassee at the end of August. We’ve never had a lawyer in the Hunsinger family -- you’ll be our first -- and nothing, I mean nothing, will get in the way of that.”

  “Dad --”

  “I mean it, Andy: nothing.”

  My mother brought Dad’s lunch on a bed tray: a bowl of tomato soup and a dish of Saltines.

  Dad studied the food. “This is it? How about a McDonald’s cheeseburger instead?”

  My mother put her hands on her hips; she spoke to Dad like he was one her students. “Doctor Lipton says no heavy foods, period.”

  Dad grimaced and shook his head. Then he picked up his spoon and dipped it into the soup.

  My mother looked at me and rolled her eyes. “I need to talk with your father privately. Why don’t you take an hour’s drive somewhere?”

  I looked at Dad, then her. “You’re sure it’s okay if I leave?”

  Dad set down his spoon and glared at me. “Jesus Christ, don’t treat me like a child.”

  “Go on,” Mom said. “We’ll be fine.”

  I drove the Vega across Pensacola Causeway, to the beach highway. Then I turned west and drove to Gulf Islands National Seashore, a federal park with soaring dunes and sand as white as table sugar. The Gulf was emerald green, as clear as tap water, and groves of sand pines swayed in a gentle breeze. As a teenager, I had tent-camped on this stretch of coast with my friends, several times. We built sandcastles, roasted weenies, drank beer, and even skinny-dipped in the Gulf while the sun glowed above the western horizon. People said the park looked the same as it had when Andrew Jackson was Florida’s first Governor: undeveloped and pristine, a part of Florida most tourists never saw when they visited.