The next thing I remember is opening my eyes to the painful bright morning light coming through the sliding glass door.  My cheek pressed against the stiff carpet, my body spread eagle in the middle of the living room, I tried to lift myself up.  That’s when my head screamed in pain.  I groaned.  I moaned.  I moaned and groaned.  Oh, my head had never felt like that before.  I needed aspirin or something to help with the pain, but they were all the way in the bathroom.  No way could I make it.  I was pretty sure I had already wet my pants.

From my spot on the floor, I could see my sister asleep on the sofa.  I was reminded that today was Sunday and that my father expected me to drive my sister home in my car.  How could I drive anything, I wondered, when I couldn’t get up off the floor?  At that moment I couldn’t ever see myself getting up off the floor.  Knowing how to drive stick did me no good in my condition.  It seemed a useless skill to possess. Of all the things for my father to teach me, why couldn’t he have taught me something I really needed to know how to do, like believe in myself?

And why, I wondered, did he let me buy a car that was so old, so expensive and so impractical for what I needed?  In my weakened condition I admitted to myself that a mistake had been made.  I suspected it wasn’t the only one.

I thought about waking my sister.  Maybe she could get me something for my head.  I decided not to wake her though.  I really didn’t want her to see her older brother like this, so helpless.  I figured that because she had a boyfriend and always had somewhere to go, something to do, and I had nothing of the sort, that she saw me as helpless already.  The last thing I wanted was to give her further proof.

And so I lay there on my father’s apartment living room floor for another hour or so closing my eyes then opening them, then closing them.   Eventually, I heard my father’s bedroom door open.  My head was turned the other way.  I opened my eyes, looked into the dark space under the sofa and listened to his steps coming towards me.  For a second he paused.  I imagined him looking at my sister and me to see if we were awake yet.  Assuming us to be asleep still, he turned around and headed to the bathroom.  I spoke as loudly as I could, which in my condition proved no louder than a soft whisper, too soft for him, or anyone, to hear.  I said, “Dad, teach me how to get out of this.”

 

Kelly DeLong is published in many literary journals including The Sun, Evansville Review, The Jabberwock Review, Roanoke Review, Palo Alto Review, among others. He is also the author of the novel The Poor Sucker. Further, his non-fiction book, The Freshman Year at an HBCU was published last year.