Choosing To Let Go
By: Michael Clark
Tags: Drama, Fiction, Murder, Short Story

Dark Drama / Fiction / Little thread of death (Part 3)

Some deaths are lingering, like Sam’s, or so he thought. But then some lives are pointless to begin with.

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The stairs were steep and seemed to get steeper by the minute. Tenth, fifteenth, eighteenth floor, Sam was almost there. Finally, the door in front of him said, “Roof Access.” He was sweating and out of breath as he looked back down the stairs. Peering over the railing at the long spiral down, Sam thought about how the stairs were like life. We struggle every day going uphill, each day as hard as the next until finally, tired, we reach the end. All choices and second thoughts about this or that, what did it all mean in the end? He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Turning around, he pushed the long handle. The door swished open like the lid of a sealed jar. The cold breeze rushed past him as Sam took a deep breath of fresh air. Stepping forward onto the roof, Sam escaped the stale, sterile air of the hospital. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky; the city stretched beyond the rooftop. He had hoped to be alone, but there was a young man, dressed in a robe like him. The man was sitting on the rail at the edge of the building, smoking a cigarette.

Sam slowly made his way across the roof; his worsening health now hindered every activity. The young man heard him coming and gave him a glance.

“Hey, how’s it going?” asked the young man.

“OK, I could complain, but what good would it do,” said Sam. “You?”

“Another day in paradise,” the young man said and took a drag of his cigarette.

Sam reclined on the bench, trying to relax a moment, but he felt the need to continue the conversation, to be polite. But he couldn’t help feeling cheated out of being alone.

“Those will kill you,” said Sam.

The young man again gave him a glance. “I should be so lucky,” he said, looking out over the edge of the building.

“Why is that?” asked Sam. But the young man didn’t respond. The two sat quietly for five or ten minutes while Sam recovered from the arduous climb to the roof. He decided to make his way to the railing where the young man was sitting.

“Does it ever piss you off?” the young man asked Sam.

“What?” Sam asked, confused.

“To be sick, to be dying,” he continued without looking at Sam.

“Oh. Well, I don’t think so. I don’t give it a lot of thought,” said Sam.

“Never?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Well, you know, when I turned 65, a few of my friends died, then a few more, but I don’t recall being mad, upset maybe. What about you?” asked Sam.

“All the time, I don’t remember a time when it didn’t piss me off. I grew up in this place,” said the young man.

“Really?” asked Sam.

“Yeah, lymphoma, diagnosed when I was four,” he said. “I go into remission off and on. Shit, this has been my home long enough that every time I come back, the nurse hands me my mail, like I just went on vacation.” The young man took another drag of his cigarette and exhaled.

Sam looked at the horizon and out across the city. So many memories all around him. The church he attended just in view. Beyond that, Sam recalled the old orchard that used to be there, which was now a housing development; the development where he had lived most of his adult life.

“You from around here?” asked the young man.

“Yeah,” Sam pointed to the horizon. He added a few details he knew, not that they were of any concern to the man as he recalled his life.

“Cool,” he said.

“You? Are you from around here?” Sam asked.

“No, Detroit. Some specialist is here. It’s all bullshit. No one knows what they are doing,” he said.

“Well, they try, I guess. It’s hope,” said Sam.

“Maybe for my mother, but I just wish one day they would just say, that’s it, we did it all,” he complained.

“Well, they used to say that,” Sam interjected. “When I was a kid, my grandfather was sick, they said it was in God’s hands,” he said and immediately recalled the scene those many years ago, amazed at how vividly it came to him.

“God,” the young man scoffed. “Don’t get me started.”

“You don’t believe in God?” asked Sam.

“What’s to believe? He must want me dead, or worse, likes suffering. No, I don’t think there is a God. No one is that big of a prick,” he said.

“How about your father?” Sam asked.

“My old man? I haven’t seen him in what, ten years. Parents used to fight over my cancer, it got to be too much,” said the young man.

“Is that why you’re angry?” asked Sam.

“Na. It used to upset me, I guess. But now, I understand. Who wants to live around all this illness every day?” he said.

Sam stood next to the man. The longer they talked, the more he realized how long he had lived, how lucky he had been. That car wreck he had survived in 1987, the flus and other illnesses, that case of food poisoning. He looked out at the horizon, memories everywhere. He had things the young man would never have. Even now, he had memories of family, his kids growing up, a full life.

“Does your mother visit much?” Sam asked.

“No, she’s in California,” he answered. “When she does make it, it’s too hard. You do this long enough you learn to be alone, it gets to be too much trouble. You can’t make friends. If you do, they feel like they have to feel sorry for you,” he said, crushing out his cigarette.

“Well, maybe if you get well,” Sam started to say.

“What do you have?” the young man interrupted.

It took Sam a moment to respond, “Colon cancer. Stage 4,” said Sam.

“See, you’re lucky in a way,” said the young man, which surprised Sam. “They put a number on your cancer,” he said. “That means you’re pretty much done. ‘Recurrent Lymphoma,’ that’s what they call mine. They stopped numbering it a while ago. I’m forever in limbo,” he said.

It did seem unfair in a way. Sam considered so many things this man had to go through. He had nothing to lean on. Sam tried to imagine how hard it would be, only to focus on the pain in life and never be able to reflect on anything positive.

“What’s your name?” Sam asked.

“Jax, like the game,” the young man responded.

“Well Jax, I’m Sam,” Sam said extending his hand. Jax met his grip. It was frail and cold, a light shake. Sam looked Jax in the face, looking at the sunken visage. Jax was bald, blue veins traced along his white skin like veins of color in marble. Sam returned Jax’s weak smile as they broke the handshake.

As Sam watched Jax move his hand back to the rail, he was suddenly hit with a strange impulse and he lunged forward and pushed Jax off the railing and over the side of the building. Jax had not expected it. Sam’s adrenaline was pumping, and he was breathing heavily even though it not had taken very much effort.

It took a long time for Jax to fall, longer than Sam had expected, long enough for Sam to consider what he had done. Sam had not planned it. If he had, he might have thought about the cars on the road or people on the sidewalk. Sam’s chest went tight as he watched the fall. What if Jax didn’t die? The moment was terrible, but not because a man was falling to his death, but because of all the unanswered questions. It must have been how Jax lived his whole life.

But it was not long before the answers came. As Jax crashed onto the top of a parked car, there were screams and activity all around, and Jax did not move. Sam tried to recall, but he didn’t think Jax even screamed on the way down.

Finally, Sam was alone on the roof. The sunny, cloudless sky, the cold breeze comforted him again. He stepped away from the railing and sat back down on the bench. He had no more questions. They would come and ask if Jax had jumped. He would tell them the truth. Then what? Would they take an old dying man to jail? Would they just assume it was suicide and even ask him at all? But if they asked, he would not lie. He felt he had done a good thing, a kind thing for Jax.

Sam sincerely felt this was the first and only thing he would do in his life that he truly believed was the right choice, without a second thought.