John bought and sold run down residential rental units in Detroit, made a decent living and only lied when necessary to close a deal. At age forty five he carried the size and shape of a Big Ten linebacker gone to seed. He told lurid stories and seldom bullied a smaller guy. He only beat one man to a broken, bloody pulp and everybody agreed that the son of a bitch deserved it. Both men and women called him a man’s man.
Early one morning, while his wife was helping the kids put on their Sunday go to church clothes, John was still playing poker at an after hours joint. He made another lucky draw, this time to an inside straight, and raked in the largest pot of the game. “I’m out of here,” he said. “Thanks suckers.”
John celebrated by grabbing a working gal who had hung around with high hopes. Something to polish off the night before heading home. He planned to plunk down a deposit on a new Caddy, and maybe give his wife enough for a ruby ring since he forgot her birthday again. He never got the chance. Two guys jumped him. One hit him over the head with a pipe. The other stuck a blade into his chest.
The doctors thought the operations were a success. John soon began blustering about getting the bastards that messed him up and stole his winnings. He pinched or slapped every nurse’s butt that came in reach. Still, John couldn’t shake an infection that developed in his lungs, and his headaches worsened. A few men dropped by, laughed at his jokes and listened to him brag about the fortune he was just about to make “if the damn doctors get their shit together and fix me up right.” None of the guys made a second visit.
John’s half-brother, Ibrahim, was different; he came everyday at 6 pm despite being either ignored or called a wimp. He was a short, thin accountant that wore glasses and winced at John’s dirty jokes. He read everything he could find; John stopped after reading Gunga Din in high school. “That’s why they make movies,” he said when ridiculing Ibrahim for still burying his nose in books.
Before long John became weaker, wheezed while breathing and sank into stupors. He reluctantly informed his wife that he had let the life insurance lapse. She cried. Then moaned and tore at her hair when he revealed that everything was mortgaged to the hilt. He said he just needed a little more money to complete some deals that would make them rich.
That’s when John began talking quietly with Ibrahim during the daily visits. Once he whispered urgently in his brother’s ear. Ibrahim patted his hand and told him it would be alright. He showed John some papers, Power of Attorney he called them. John got mad, “you’re a four eyed sand nigger. It’ll take a real man to close those deals.” The next afternoon he signed the papers in front of the hospital notary. At 6 pm he handed them to Ibrahim, saying “I can’t have my wife and kids tossed out in the street penniless.”
John began pressing his hands to his head, squeezing tight and whimpering, “stop the pain. Stop the pain.” His breathing became irregular and more labored. One day he muttered to himself over and over, “if only he were me.”
The next day Ibrahim appeared in mid-morning. He shook John out of a stupor and showed him three certified checks. John cried for the first time of his hospitalization. He couldn’t stop weeping as he looked at the checks. Finally, still sobbing, he looked at his half-brother, grabbed his hand and held on for dear life. He rasped, “you’re a better man than I am.”
John lapsed into a coma that afternoon. He died three days later.
PawPawJack©12/11/10
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