Arthur didn’t mind the weird metallic smell of air conditioning and bleach any longer. Who knew, maybe being in a place that smells like that for too long forces you to get used to it. Or, maybe his nose didn’t work that well at ninety-nine as it used to. Anyway, I guess that even that awful smell was better than the one in the old house, especially after the pipes started backing up.
It’s weird, but Arthur spent a lot of time thinking of those pipes, and it’s fun how he wouldn’t instead think of bigger events he experienced, maybe the war, or the Great Depression, or even that one time he got promoted. Arthur spent his time thinking of that day the kitchen sink overflowed in 1984 and he spent hours under the cabinets, trying to fix the issues, while Martha stood in the doorway and wouldn’t stop complaining about the hardwood floors. He even remembered how Martha looked that day, with her floral apron on, and her hair in a bun as she always styled it. Truth was, Arthur missed her yelling during those quiet days at the hospital room. The silence of the hospital was polite, it really was, but for this old man, polite meant empty.
The nurses were young. Actually, everyone was young. They had bright, garish scrubs with owls and cartoon characters on them, and rushed around with incredible energy, so Arthur’s head spined if he looked at them for too long. They’d come in and say, “How are we doing today, Arthur?” and he’d think, “Who is ‘we’? You’re doing all right, and I’m a wreck,” but he’d just smile and nod at them because they were trying, and they’d always be taking his blood pressure.
And then, of course, there was the food, and to Arthur, that food looked disguising. The thing was that he was used to colors when it came to his diet, and the hospital’s food had all shades of beige, and that was it. He was served mashed potatoes he didn’t like, and some mystery meat that was supposedly a Salisbury steak, which he also didn’t like because to him it tasted like cardboard. So, Arthur would play with the food using the plastic fork, because he wasn’t even hungry, because hunger is for people with a future, and to him, eating was just a chore.
Richard was the only thing that felt solid. The dog was a mess, really. The fur on his back had been shedding in clumps from the stress of going to the hospital, and there was one spot on his elbow where his fur had all been licked off. But when Richard put his weight against the side of the bed, it was a real weight. It wasn’t the “gentle” touch of a nurse or the “supportive” pat of a doctor. It was seventy pounds of living, breathing, slightly-smelly dog who didn’t care a thing for medical charts.
Arthur recalled the day Richard entered his home. It was hid daughter who brought that ball of fluff over to him and said, “Dad, you need a companion.” Arthur also recalled how he thought his daughter had lost her mind. He told he that she was crazy and that he hated the idea walking a dog outside. But the dog ran towards Arthur and then chewed on his mahogany table and that made him smile. It was then that Arthur smiled after many months. He was lonely and didn’t really smile after Martha died.
At that moment, something about that puppy made him feel a bit better.
Richard wasn’t a puppy anymore. He was twelve, maybe thirteen—they’d lost track. His muzzle was almost entirely white, and he had these fatty lumps under his skin that the vet said were nothing to worry about, just “old dog things.” Arthur knew all about old dog things. He had his own lumps and bumps, his own creaky joints that popped every time he tried to shift his weight.
The nights were the longest, and that’s when the hospital felt like a waiting room. The lights in the halls were dim, but never off.
Arthur would lay there, trying to think of the names of all the people he used to know. It was a game, of sorts. He thought about his first-grade class. Tommy Miller, Sarah Jenkins, he wondered what they were doing now. Probably under a headstone somewhere, or in a place just like this one, staring at a Kidney-bean-shaped spot on the ceiling.
Then he thought of his kids who called on Sundays. They talked about the weather in Chicago, or the traffic in LA. The also told him about their own kids, his grandkids, who were doing a bunch of youngsters’ stuff he was too old to understand. One was a “social media manager,” which Arthur thought was a title concocted out of thin air. He’d nod and say, “That’s nice, real nice,” trying to remember which one liked dinosaurs or which one played the flute.
The calls however became less frequent during the final years of Arthur’s life, and he somehow felt left behind, you know, like the last guest standing at a party and feels like he overstayed his welcome by a decade.
One day, the sun hit at a particular angle and it reminded Arthur of his old porch. He could have sworn he could smell the fresh cut grass and the charcoal from his neighbor’s grill. He used to spend hours on that porch, having his iced tea, and watching the world go by. Richard would spend hours on that porch too. He was mostly lying on the cool concrete, snapping at flies that weren’t even there. It was a boring life, you know, but to Arthur it was this cool kind of boring, and he somehow didn’t realize that until it was gone.
Arthur’s breathing became even harder over time, he struggled to inhale and exhale, and every breath felt painful. But Richard was still there. He was fully on the bed and had his head on Arthur’s chest.