Leaving the Sea: Stories by Marcus Ben

Author:Marcus, Ben [Marcus, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780307379382
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-06T20:00:00+00:00

The Loyalty Protocol

The phone call said to come alone, but he couldn’t just leave them. Perhaps they’d been called, too, and didn’t remember the procedure, which would only figure. His father was not good with instructions. Worse, his father was fatally indifferent to what people said. Other people spoke and the man’s face went blank, as if any voice but his own was in a foreign language. Perhaps his father had not heard the phone. Or maybe he mistook the message for a prank and hung up.

Later, his helpless parents in tow, Edward could explain the mistake, if necessary. By then it’d be too conspicuous to leave them stranded in the road while everyone else left town.

Owing to the roadblock that would be set up on Morris Avenue, Edward parked at Grove and Williams and trekked through muddy backyards to the apartment complex. He cursed himself, because he’d have to lead his parents back the same way, down a wet slope where his car would be waiting. In the many configurations they’d rehearsed at the workshop, somehow he had not accounted for this major obstacle: herding his parents in the dark down a steep, wet slope.

His father was awake and packed already, wandering through the apartment. When Edward walked in, his father started to put on his coat.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Not coming, I guess,” his father said.

“Dad.”

“You try. I tried already. You try if you want to. I’m disgusted. I’m ready to go. Do you know how many times I’ve had to do this?”

“Did they call you?” Edward asked.

“Did who call me?” His father was on the defensive. Had he even slept? Had he been up all night, waiting?

“Did your phone ring tonight?” Edward asked, trying not to sound impatient. There were cautions against this very thing, the petty quarrels associated with departure, which only escalate during an emergency.

“I don’t know, Eddie. Our phone doesn’t work. I’m ready to go. I’m always ready. We’re down there almost every night. Why not tonight?”

Edward picked up the phone and heard an odd pitch. More like an emergency signal than a dial tone.

“You don’t believe me?” his father said. “I tell you the phone doesn’t work and you don’t trust me?”

“I trust you. Let’s get Mom and go.”

His mother was in bed, sheets pulled over her face. It felt wrong to sit on his parents’ bed, to touch his mother while she was lying down. Standing up, he could hug and kiss his mother with only the usual awkwardness, but once she was prone it seemed inappropriate, like touching a dead person. He shook her gently.

“C’mon, Mom, let’s go. Get dressed.”

She answered from under the sheets, in a voice that was fully awake. Awake and bothered.

“I’m too tired. I’m not going.”

They’d been told that, at times like this, old people dig in their heels. More than any other population, the elderly refuse to go. They hide in their homes, wait in the dark of their yards while their houses are searched. Often they request to die.

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