**(has some bad language)**

GOING OUT

Elizabeth was tying his shoes too tight. Her teeth clicked, as if accidentally, with each yank. 'I'm here to help you, and when people help you, there's no need to go out of your way to be rude.'� Click! 'It will only hurt me to hear you say something negative'� click! 'about me. I get that enough from my mother and husband'� click! 'I certainly don't need to hear from you that the eggs are too dry'� click! 'or the flowers stink'� click! 'or the curtains still let in light.'� Click! His lips, slick with saliva, wrestled tightly one against the other. 'Just let me help you and try your best not to complain; it wouldn't hurt you to be nicer to your own daughter, you know.'� So Jack Stein, seventy-eight years old, no tattoos, two daughters, twice divorced, rubbed lip against lip, and felt his foot shrivel into a nut.

'Well. That being said''� she let out a big sigh, a 'whoosh'� kind of sigh ''are you excited about this, Dad?'� She leaned back on her heels, like when she was a child in front of the television and he was behind her, drinking a beer, wanting to tell her to get out of the way while realizing at the same time that he could scoot over because she was just too cute, wide-eyed and lost, but he couldn't bring himself to actually do it. 'You don't seem as excited as I thought you'd be'unless you're just doing your tough-man thing, acting like you don't care. Are you doing that, Dad? Because everybody saw you with tears in your eyes at last year's Christmas party. You said you weren't excited about that either but as soon as Emily walked up to you with that picture she drew, and she told you that she even made the frame! Everybody saw. Everybody.'� Elizabeth's eyebrows lifted, one delicately notched over the other. Jack doesn't remember saying anything at that party, but she's right that he hates family functions'the oohs and the aahs and the questions.

Elizabeth stood up and shook her head. 'I think it's silly that men bother with it. Bruce, for instance.'� At the mention of his name, her bottom jaw stuck out, trying to jettison it across the room. 'I thought Bruce used to do that same thing so I just ignored it and even laughed at it''� Her husband. Not her ex husband as everybody hoped because they were only separated, only he was separated and living with a blonde thirty-year-old woman in St. Louis who had her own twelve-year-old kid and no other prospects. 'And you know what happened if I brought that up.'� Bruce, with his loud voice after three beers and a bowl of chicken wings, slicked hair and silver rings, a USMC tattoo on his upper left bicep, callused hands and a cocky grin when he mentioned his truck: The Brute, The Tank'�The Defender. Jack remembers all too well his loud voice, his swollen chest, the size of his hands.

'Anybody ever come near me, I go straight for my truck, that's what. There's more to that beast than meets the eye, if you know what I mean,'� and of course nobody really did, but he knew that. He just wanted everyone to guess, to clamor for the secret, to want to know. 'I got me a nice piece of metal right under that passenger seat. Yes I do. It'll blast any punk clear out of the state. He better not come around looking for me, cause I got something that'll look right back. Gotta keep it under the passenger seat. If someone comes to you from the driver's side, you just fling yourself over like you're scared, see, but really you'll be reaching under the seat and you'll scare the shit out of em when you sit back up!'� His cackle rang through households, across lawns, between book conversations and nostalgia. He split all thought in half, and left them shaken.

Elizabeth yanked the sleeve of Jack's lint-ridden blue cardigan over his watch and it snagged, but she kept pulling, and meanwhile his foot was getting hotter and hotter and her breath closer and closer, 'You remember that last time we tried getting you dressed and this same thing happened? I would appreciate it if you could help me just a little and try your best to lift your arm up so this wouldn't happen. You always''�

The last time Jack saw Bruce, his anger got the best of him. It took only one beer-chugging story, only one wink at Jack's oldest'Elizabeth, and only one memory of her limp, her head turned away, her voice saying 'Oh, you know'� just an argument.'� The memory made his head shake, a vibration like a paint mixer. He tried to relax, to see Elizabeth, fresh-faced, intent'�

She yanked on the sweater. The heat of his feet crawled up his ankles. His lips stopped moving. Bruce's mustache with splatters of food on the upper lip. His cajoling, his demands, his whisper in Elizabeth's ear'as if a quieter degradation is no degradation at all. His surprise when Jack clocked him in the temple.

But it was too much at once.

'Good god damned Jesus Christ, Beth! It's my damned watch! Just look at what you're doing! It's not my damned arm, it's my damned watch and it's snagged and you keep pulling at it like a dead animal! And my goddamned foot's about to explode because you tied my shoes too tight again and I can't move the damned thing. I don't know how you expect me to walk with my foot trapped in there like a good goddamned I-don't-know-what!'�

His breaths hit him hard. His eyes widened and he pushed his body as far into the chair as he could.

# # #

How can he catch his breath when he can't stop panting? He tried reaching over to his sleeve but the more he tried, the more his chest heaved. Sweat came down around his ears and trickled down the back of his neck as he struggled and finally gave in, his head falling back against the worn fabric of the chair that the nursing home provided. It smelled like years of tormented visits by generations of different families with nothing better to do on Sunday evenings.

'Jesus H. Christ,'� he said to nobody, his eyes closed as he felt the coldness of the air blow on his sweat, his sweater uncomfortably bunched under his arm pit, still snagged on his watch, his foot virtually burning off of its own accord.

The whoosh of the air conditioner was nothing compared to Jack's heavy breathing. He couldn't tell if he was hot or cold; he was feeling dizzy; his eyes burned; he felt the same as when he'd get a little drunk and lay down to bed and the forces that rested with his liquor pulled up on his belly button as if trying to take it away. He nearly fell asleep but heard a noise; something quiet, but thick, sitting over to his left. He opened his eyes and saw that he left the lights on and he was cold and something bothered him, but he didn't know what. He concentrated on his chest.

It was sore and moving a bit fast, so maybe he had a bad dream? Maybe he just woke from a nightmare that he couldn't remember and he's stunned, a little shocked. Nothing to be worried about.

He must have slept on his arm funny, though, because it was tight, tangled, stuck. And his neck hurt, and his foot. His foot. His foot.

'My damned foot! What happened to my foot!'� His voice cracked. His neck was taught. He was scared, and he wanted a cigarette and a nap all at once. 'Trish!'� he yelled out. 'Trish!'� he yelled more strongly, trying to get across his most urgent need in one syllable, one name, one request. 'Oh, Trish, help me!'�

Elizabeth heard his voice; she saw his lips move, the spittle fly, the anxiety in his eyes. What he was trying to say, she did not know, but something was bothering him; she didn't need articulation to understand that. All she could understand of his tantrum was 'foot,' which came out sounding more like a 'fat' than a 'foot.' Elizabeth moved away from the window where she was wiping her tears and watching her father's confused face make sense of this minute and this minute alone. When he called for her sister, she bit back a sob, one of those 'wracked'� sobs that often hit her unexpectedly at parties and in the car.

'I'll get it for you, Daddy. Just be still. I'll get it.'�

'Mah fat! What my fat! Iss tat, Tish. Iss tat. Elp! I ill em, I will!'�

Elizabeth used to grimace at those words; at that threat, that baby 'I ill em'� that used to mean the more clear but just as harsh 'I'll kill em'�'an empty promise to anybody within range to hear it. But this time she just concentrated on her sweaty fingers struggling with the thin brown cord of her father's shoelaces.

'They'll burn in hell for this, I promise you that!'� Jack wanted to raise his arm in glorified protest, but his arm wouldn't move and he knew this, somehow, somewhere, he knew it wouldn't move but whenever the reason why crept into his periphery, he lashed out at it. 'Keep away from me, you goddamned feet stranglers! I'll shoot you myself; I'll smash your fuckin' head in! Don't think cause I'm old I don't know how to take care of a problem!'�

'Daddy,'� Elizabeth said patiently, quietly, but loud enough to reach her father's ears, which were burning red. 'Daddy, look at me.'� Her tongue lay in her mouth like a wounded animal'�it wanted to stay right there, lying, resting.


'Goddamned people always pissing off an old man; I'm not old yet, you lousy bastard! You got me? I'm still young enough to turn my boot on your head, you rotten''�

'Daddy. Look at me. Daddy.'�

Elizabeth pulled on the laces as gently as she could without looking at them while she concentrated on her father's face. His laces were tight. She could see it now. He probably hated her. His cheeks trembled and spit fell down the creases of his chin. Elizabeth's stomach lurched a bit, but it wasn't as bad as it had been two years ago, when she'd had to rush to the nearest sink'all because her father couldn't control what his mouth held fast.

'Just look at me. Look at me.'�

She didn't know if Jack could actually hear what she was saying, but she knew he heard something because his eyes kept falling down toward her, rapidly, as if peeking. After a few more prods, he finally looked at her, full on, saw her face, saw her hands, and his lips came together tightly. As they did, more spit fell from his lips onto his dress shirt. 'Do you see me?'�

Jack stared at her.

Elizabeth forced her head and eyes to remain still, her fingers working furiously but gently, her eyes finally feeling tight because her tears had dried. She was working now. She was focusing on her father, seventy-eight years old, barely able to remember the minute. 'Do you see me, Dad,'� she asked more softly this time, practicing that neutral tone of voice the nurses helped her practice when she first started helping her father, after Trish gave up, had a breakdown of her own and couldn't cope, and Bruce ran away.

'Unh,'� he said. 'Unh.'�

He laid his head back against the chair, his skull cradled in that worn piece of fabric, and as his foot was released from whatever wrath had it, tears fell from his eyes and his chest heaved. Without knowing why, he sobbed, and Elizabeth worked on untangling the threads of his sweater from his watch, the bones in her back forever tightening around her own body.

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