Page 31 of Phoenix Fire

“What we really need to focus on is ...”

The doctor was interrupted by an abrupt movement and sound from the hospital gurney. Dr. Seeley and Jason turned together to look at Carlton, then rushed to his side.

Carlton's eyes were open and vacant, his ashen face twitching and moving rapidly from side to side. His head began to nod in frantic gestures and his throat muscles constricted and expanded in a grotesque kind of melodic frenzy. The medical equipment in the room seemed to match the human activity on the gurney. The beeps were strident in their intensity, and the gurgling sounds raced to keep pace with the aura of confusion.

Jason eyes, wide with fear, were locked into the same visceral and arcane circuitry of the movement surrounding him, twitched and started in quick jerks, first in one direction and then another, his head swiftly darting from equipment to Carlton to Doctor to equipment. The room was chaotic.

Dr. Seeley moved with haste, mumbled orders to hospital personnel who had rushed into the room. Voices clashed in decibel disharmony. One of the nurses adjusted a knob, something, on the intravenous line, turned a couple of dials on the heart monitoring machine. Standing over the frenetic body on the gurney the doctor pulled the tubes from Carlton's mouth and nose, began a hurried procedure of resuscitation, pounding his fist onto the sternum. Other rushing bodies in white were wheeling some new equipment closer to the bed, preparing for electroshock treatment.

Jason stood nervously watching the actions on the edge of the hospital group, mesmerized by the organized bedlam of activity. He was conscious of a mad throbbing at his temples. His mind seemed in some kind of paroxysmal state. Then his eyes became riveted to the face of his brother. Like a master calendar for all the years, flashing and flipping its pages backward in time, the flickering cine scenes came to him, unbidden. Faces happy and sad, in play and in loss. His life, Carlton's life, together and apart, all a steady unraveling of the years. Jason stood among the people who were blurs of white and green, staring at the body on the gurney, helpless and alone. Tears slowly rose and tumbled down his cheeks.

Then, an eerie sort of cessation came to the medical equipment and to Carlton's thrashing. A relative quiet fell over the room. The nurses, the aids, the doctor, the newly arrived intern, Jason, all looked at the equipment, the patient, and each other in an awkward acknowledgment, temporarily stupefied by the turn of events. The heart monitor beeped normally. The gurgling resumed a steady pattern of sound.

Dr. Seeley checked the pulse and blood pressure of the patient. Carlton's cheeks had gained some modest color and his head settled quietly into the pillow. His eyes occasionally and lightly twitched as though trying to open. The doctor shook his head and stepped back from the gurney.

After some adjustments were made Jason moved to his brother's side and looked down upon the suddenly placid face. He felt a warm and uncommon sensation go through his body. He was reminded in a flash of another time in their lives. It was a time when Carlton was sick with the flu and his face had held the same pink serenity that it did now. Looking down now at Carlton's relaxed countenance, Jason could see the former youth that was his playmate. The child showed himself in that quiescent moment. Carlton was nice to Jason at that time in their youth. He had not wanted Jason to leave his side, and Jason had felt an ambiguous need then to stay, to cater to his wishes. He had felt sibling love and a warm sense of pride and unity. Jason felt much the same now, looking down on his brother's body.

Jason noticed the silence in the room. It was as though he and Carlton was all alone there for a time. He looked around and no one was there. They were alone. The doctor, someone, might have mentioned a brief absence but he had not heard. He sat lightly on the edge of the gurney, more a leaning than a sitting, and gazed again upon his brother.

A sadness followed. He wanted to go back in time, really go back, to have another chance with his brother, to change the divergence of their ways. Unbidden, another tear rose and fell down his cheek. Then, another. More tears came and he soon was erupting with great heaving sobs. “Why, God, could we have not been more to each other?” he softly intoned.

Carlton slowly opened his eyes. There was no anxiety or fear, the orbs calm and suffused with a poignant pathos.

Jason stood quickly and leaned to touch his brother's arm. “Carlton, I'm here.” His voice was tinged with compassion, sadness, and hope.

Carlton stared silently and steadily into Jason's eyes, a beckoning and sorrowful look. A sad smile slowly formed on Carlton's lips, a smile of secret knowing. A finger feebly moved, willing his bandaged hand to lift from his side.

Jason noticed and gently placed his hand tenderly into Carlton's. “What do you need, Carlton? I will get it for you.”

The lips quivered to speak, the smile still there, the eyes watery in their sorrow. Carlton conjured a forgotten will and finally spoke, his voice a wispy whisper of supplication. “Jason, forgive me, my dear brother. Tell grandmother that I love her.” It appeared that he wanted to say more, but his will abandoned him. He seemed to sink further into his pillow, the wistful smile lingering like a fragrant rose.

Jason felt an awful agony in his heart as he neared some heretofore unknown, emotional precipice. Tears flowed down his cheeks and he tried to answer his brother's plea.

Then, with a soft caress of his hand, Carlton closed his eyes. The smile upon his lips dwindled to a passive serenity. His hand now lay limp on Jason's palm. A near inaudible sigh escaped Carlton's lips, a rapturous resignation to his fate.

Carlton Prince was dead.

Oblivious to the noisy sounds of medical equipment being moved and people rushing into the room, Jason remained, staring upon his brother's face, not believing, not accepting, what his heart knew to be the truth. Jason did not heed the voices and he was finally, physically, unclasped from Carlton's hand and moved away from the gurney.

*****

The noble efforts were all for naught. The voices were sincere and caring, but the words fell in resonant bits of incomprehension upon his ears. Jason stood in a corner of the hospital room, a suffocating void consuming him, still denying, still clinging to a distant hope.

He was finally led from the death room, and the lights, the movement, and the people brought him around, enough so that he could accept at last the awful truth of Carlton's death.

Jason submitted to the deluge of thought that came. Why had he not made more of an effort with Carlton? Why could he not have said 'I love you' before Carlton had died? What was he to say to his Grandma Myrena? He felt an emotional heaviness he had never known. Why? Why? Why? The truth was an ugly, stinging, serpent of pain. He was too busy with his own life, with his own world of selfish dreams, to heed Carlton's unvoiced call for help.

Jason sat for a long time in the main hospital lobby, not motivated to move. He was possessed of a great lethargy of mind and spirit. His thoughts lazily bounced around his torpid brain.

He finally acknowledged that Jenny sat waiting for him in the ER waiting room. So much of him wanted to go to her, to find solace and peace in her arms, to find a way to fill the void in his soul. But a nagging impediment would not be removed from his mind. He loved her but something was not right. It was the wrong moment for adjustments. His head swirled with cumbersome and conflicting thoughts, mixed with doubt and sorrow. He wanted to go to her, to receive her warmth, but he could not reconcile the nagging notions that toyed with his mind. There was a nebulous matter of faith, of loyalty, and of trust. Somehow, Jenny had violated some inner code which he had set up to judge her. Even among the heavy feelings of loss for his brother, these thoughts of Jenny persisted.

He loved her but he could not go to her. He felt a sense of shame, a childish descent into sulky behavior, and he could not shake it. He could not somehow dismiss the feeling that Jenny was with Carlton. On his death bed Carlton had even asked for forgiveness. Jason did not want these ugly thoughts. They were so against his nature, but they were there, creeping, crawling, gnawing on his heart and on his brain. They were there, even in the midst of death's agony.

He must see Grandma Myrena. She must be told. With her terminal illness, he must bring yet another pain into her cancer shortened life. This pain just might accelerate her end.

Jason left the hospital through the front lobby entry doors, his mind still swirling with apprehensive thoughts.

In the ER lobby, Jenny became increasingly concerned with the passing time.

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