LIW&B Chapter 15 (Conclusion)

"Rosa, meet Happy," Mel introduced. "He's my son."
Happy took a step toward the old woman and extended his hand. Rosa looked at it rather than shake it heartily. She looked up at his face again and back at Mel. Silence was a rarity for the old ax, but there were dots to connect. Rosa remembered the last time her ex husband left her a voicemail. She had expected disaster.

"You call him 'Daddy'?" Rosa asked the boy, pointing at Mel.
Happy nodded, oblivious to the buzzard's hostile disbelief. "Yeah, he's my dad," Happy confirmed.
Rosa whistled high and shrill, an exclamation of her shock. "Well, I'll be dipped in shit. I can't believe you're still alive either."

Rosa took Happy's hand and gave it a shake. "Pleased to meet ya, Happy. You must be a good kid 'cuz God sure took a liking to ya." Rosa couldn't imagine Mel raising a child.
"You like livin' at the dump?" She asked the boy.
"Oh yes," Happy fervently agreed.
Rosa shook her head trying to picture a kid running around so much garbage and waste.
"Roll me in peanuts and flush me down the can," She said. Happy kept ignorant of her tone.

Rosa turned her chair to Mel and didn't worry about blocking out the boy. Mel was her target of aim.
"All right, Mel," she said, "I don't s'pose you called me down here after all these years just to say 'I told you so'. What's going on here? What do you want?"

A lot of people would shrink away from such a reaction, but Mel knew Rosa was just being herself. Mel proceeded gently, as diplomatic as he could.
"I won't bullshit around Rosa. I'll just cut to it. I'm dyin' of cancer. The doctor says I could go any day now."
Happy looked away from them and out into the hallway. He hated to hear Mel say this out loud. Happy distracted himself with hallway activity to avoid crying openly. Rosa didn't flinch. At her age death rivaled the weather as the subject of conversation.
"What kind of cancer you got?" Rosa inquired.
Mel exhaled and looked to the ceiling trying to recall all the doctor had told him.
"Hell, I don't know," Mel answered. "Every kind I think."
Rosa laughed her old smoky throated laugh and wished she had a cigarette.

"Anyway," Mel continued, "As you can see, I got a son now and he needs someone to watch out for him when I'm gone."
The low croak that begins a growl clicked in his ex wife's neck. Rosa waited to attack the fool.
"Now he doesn't need you to raise him," Mel explained. "I done handled all of that. He cook his own food and make his bed...."
Mel looked up at Happy and finished his sentence, "And he knows to wash up after himself and clean his dishes when he's done with him. Ain't that right?"
Happy brought his attention from a passing gurnee in the hall. He nodded as father wanted, unsure of what was happening. Mel hadn't mentioned Rosa. Mel hadn't mentioned anything.
"I clean up after myself," Happy announced.

"The boy's grown," Mel said. "He's 12 years old. He's been on his own all ready. I just prefer him to be under a friendly roof if I can help it."
"When's he been on his own?" Rosa asked, trying to poke a hole in her ex husband's story. "I thought you raised him."
Mel put his hands up to give him a chance.
"Well, I never quite got any legal guardianship of him when I found him as a baby," Mel explained shamefully. "Almost a year ago, the state came and snatched him up and stuck him in a children's home. I just now got him back."

Rosa considered this and didn't like the way it smelled.
"How'd you get him back?"
Mel watched the old fox, speechless, searching for a quick answer in his cancerous crumbling brain. Rosa interpreted the silence.
"You tryin' to stick me with a fugitive?" She accused.
"No, no," Mel lathered, "Don't be silly, this boy ain't no fugitive. The state just had its hands full. They didn't know what to do with him. So they," Mel paused, trying to think of something realistic, "They just decided to send him back home." Mel held his lip tight knowing he failed.
"Mel Stotch!" Rosa harped, "How dare you lie to my face! You know damn well the state didn't up and change its mind and send the boy back. That shit never works like that in the courts. If you don't tell me the truth I ain't helping you one bit."
"OK," Mel surrendered, "Yeah, you're right. He's a fugitive. He ran away from the place and came home to me."
Rosa looked at Happy who had come forward to be closer to his father's bed, a sight she never expected to see in her lifetime.
"He just got home yesterday and now I'm dying," Mel finished. "I don't want him going back to that goddamn hole! You're the only person I know that might be able to take him in. If you can't, I'll pack him a bag and buy him a map. I'll tell him how to catch a train."

The old man would have preferred his son not hear his plans shouted in such a manner. This brutish delivery completely opposed Mel's care and deceptive smile. But he laid it all out on the floor. It was his only chance to get what he thought would be the best for his son.

Rosa watched her dying ex husband, still as bullish and tricky as he was stupid. Had she been asked the favor over the phone she would've declined with a vicious verbal thrashing. Sitting in her wheelchair, weak and short on time herself, she saw this unimaginable boy who loved his father who she had the opportunity to help. If a bullish, stupid, asinine could be a part of something so virtuous and driven she saw no reason why she shouldn't do the same.

"I could use a hand around the house," She admitted. "But I'm older than you, Mel. My sand is running out right behind yours. You sure bouncin' him from grave to grave is the right thing to do? Tell me this ain't some half assed plan you cocked after they pumped ya full of morphine."

"It ain't that," Mel said with a grin. He knew his son had a home.
"And I ain't just droppin' a bill in your lap neither," Mel pushed. "I'm leavin' my yard to you and all I got saved over the years."
"Oh Jesus Christ Mel, the last thing I want is that nasty shithole! And how much cash could you possibly have saved?" Rosa couldn't hide the disgust.
Mel smiled defiantly and momentarily forgot his pain in his victory. Now was his time to say 'I told you so'.
"I got almost fifty thousand in the bank, forty nine thousand and change. I ain't spent shit on nothin' except food, booze and cigars since we got divorced." Mel waited for the retreat.
Rosa looked at him wide eyed, bags of skin sagging and slanted.
"Mel Stotch! I can't believe all that money's honest!"
"Well it is," Mel assured. "And if it wasn't honest would you turn it away?"
"Hell no!" Rosa shrieked, "I'd just put it in the freezer instead of the bank."

Rosa looked up at Happy. The boy was rubbing a loving paw over his father's shriveled head.
"I never dreamed this morning that I'd have a kid livin' with me by the end of the day." Rosa reached out and tugged Happy's arm. "Kid, you ready to come live with an old woman instead of an old man for a switch?"
Happy looked down at her, smiling instinctively to a friendly voice. He didn't know how to reply. This was the first he had heard of such an arrangement. He was relieved when Rosa shot back at Mel with another question, veering away from the subject.

"Wait a minute, Mel." Rosa sounded disenchanted, "How'm I s'posed to take control of this money? And I still don't want the damn junkyard."
"I'll need to sign it over to you I guess," Mel thought. "I'll write up a will. And don't you have a nephew or somebody that needs a job? Just give the yard to them."

Rosa closed her eyes and shook her head. The fool hadn't covered all the details as usual.
"Mel, you can't just 'sign it over to me'. On what, a hospital bib? You're gonna need a lawyer to settle all that. Have you got a lawyer ready to deal with all this?"
Mel thought of the unpleasant experience in Byron Mittle's office. He still stung from the memory.
"No," Mel insisted, "No goddamn lawyers! I'm leavin' this world without seeing another one!"
Rosa hung her head and groaned in disappointment. "Mel, you goddamn fool! This ain't somethin' to hold your breath 'til you get your way about. You got no choice. Without a lawyer you're gonna die and leave everything to the state. That what happens when you got no next of kin."
Mel bared his teeth at the old woman. She loved ramming facts down his throat.
"Your precious dump will be plowed over with asphault and the highway expanded. That's what'll happen without a lawyer!" Rosa declared.

"Dad, what about my cats?" Happy asked, nervous at the news of the highway.
"Don't worry about the cats," Mel fended, "She don't know what she's talking about. The dump ain't goin' nowhere."
"I know what I'm talkin' about," Rosa countered. "And you know I'm right!"
Mel swiped his hand in a gesture to wave her off, but he knew she was right.

"Goddammit woman," Mel cussed. "Why do you got to make everything so hard?"
Rosa threw up her drooping arms, "How is this my fault? I was ready to take the boy without the money. I don't know nothin' about no cats or give a damn about the dump. That's all your problems."

Mel scowled at her again knowing she was right. He was the only one that needed a lawyer. The money and the property were only his loss. Mel frowned and bent his hairless eyebrows, the burning of his organ decay reaching through the painkiller. He didn't have long. The old man couldn't tolerate the thought of a lawyer any more than he could tolerate the thought of losing the fruits of a lifetime of labor. He had to think of a solution. He had plan some other way.

The room stayed quiet except for the beeps of the heart monitor. Rosa cracked her knuckles while Happy fidgeted nervously. Mel laughed out loud when the idea came to him.
"I got it Rosa!" Mel trumpeted. "I'll marry ya!"
The old man beamed as if he just cured his own cancer.

"What?" Rosa howled. "You can't be serious, Mel. I actually sat here and watched you pull that out of your ass."
"What do you mean?" Mel argued, "It's a great idea! You'll be my wife and next of kin. You'll get everything! You just don't want to take my last name so the state can't track Happy back to you. But there'll be a legal marriage license that entitles you to my property. And it don't take no damn lawyers!"

Rosa only looked at him, giving him a silent message he knew well. Same old shit different decade.
"OK, how are we gonna get married? That's a helluva lot more complicated than having a lawyer type up a will."
"Not at all," Mel answered, "It's $25 for a marriage license. We can grab a chaplain here in the hospital. We can get the same fella that'll read me my last rites! We can do it tomorrow right here by my bed!"
Rosa continued looking at him, quietly repulsed.
"What's the problem?" Mel pleaded, "You got nothin' to lose!"
"No I ain't got nothin' to lose!" Rosa snapped. "But just 'cuz you're almost dead and didn't plan shit til the last minute don't make your plans so perfect and smart! Just 'cuz I'm eighty eight years old don't mean I'm gonna get hitched without thinkin' it through!"
Rosa looked around the room, at Happy, then back at Mel.
"Did you even talk to your boy about any of this? He don't seem like he knows anything you're talking about," Rosa scolded. "He don't know nothin' about coming to live with me."

Both father and son looked embarrassed. Happy took his father's hands to show his support. Mel looked at Happy, shamed and wanting an excuse.
"Happy knows I'm doing what's best for him. Ain't that right, Happy? You know I'm only gonna do you right."
Happy stated his loyalty. "Yeah, Dad, I'll go where you want me to," Happy still remained cautious, "But can you tell me about this lady first?"
Rosa burst into laughter, the first time in a long time for the aged bird.
"Look Mel, tell the kid who I am and what your plans are," she instructed. "And if he's still OK to come live with me, I'll marry ya and take everything you got."
Rosa backed her chair away to give them more space.

Mel looked at his son and felt in awe. He couldn't have been more proud had the boy been from his own blood. Mel reached out a withered, dying hand and took his son's arm. He pulled it close to him and used the other dying hand to stroke it while he spoke.
"I'm sorry Happy," Mel said, "I don't mean to be runnin' around behind your back tellin' your business to everyone but you. But I ain't got much time. I got to take care of you first and tell you about it later."
"That's OK, Dad," Happy assured. "I know better."

"Rosa here is my ex wife," Mel informed. "We never had no kids of our own. You'll be the first for both of us. You mind her like you would me. It'll be a good roof over your head."
Tears clung to the corners of his son's eyes, ready to spill like a broken levee.
"Can I stay here until you die?" Happy asked.
"Oh sure," Mel squeezed his hand to calm the boy. "I wouldn't have it any other way. My son stays by my side 'til the end. Don't let anyone tell you different, Happy."

Happy smiled politely at his father, battling emotion he thought his father didn't want to see. Mel saw the struggle and insisted it stop. He patted his sunken chest and called for his boy.
"Come on and hug your daddy," Mel said. "Just lie down here next to me and give me a hug."
Happy bent and maneuvered slowly beside his father in bed. Tears began to flow and he covered his face in his father's shoulder as he hugged him. The struggle was over. Happy wept conveniently as his father had designed.

"Dad," Happy asked with a wavering voice, "What am I gonna do when I grow up?"
"Well," Mel soothed, "That's no big deal. That ain't nothin' to worry about or lose any sleep over." He rubbed his son's back hoping to relieve some fear in the future.
"You'll just get a job and start workin'. Then you'll find a wife and have a kid. Then you'll figure out a way to get out of workin', something that brings in some money but doesn't keep you occupied more than a couple hours a day. Then you just live. Hopefully, your wife and kid are still with ya at that point."
Mel patted his son's back and scratched his bald head.

"Get the chaplain in here," Rosa called out into the hallway, pressing her beeper for a nurse. "I need to get hitched before I feel like gettin' divorced again."