THE CUP

Leaning on the counter, he sat swirling mud in the bottom of his cup, the aftertaste still in his mouth like so much tar. Jude made better coffee though she didn't touch the stuff. She'd had ten years of practice during their marriage though, and darn if she wasn't the expert.

A 6:00 a.m. sun sliced his eyes through the window prompting him to shift position. A wisp of dark hair fell forward and he averted his eyes to the cup he held and studied the accumulated chips and cracks of its' years. Bittersweet memories of younger, more scenic days imbedded in each abuse of the clay. His thoughts, interrupted by the beat of hooves in the coral, turned to the day his son had brought the cup home from kindergarten, so pleased and smiling brightly up at his lanky dad in the white coat, eyes excited with glee, offering him the gift forged of brown clay.

He and Jude had planned the house so it sat back far enough off the main road, planting both sides of the lane with fruit and nut trees to draw the smaller wildlife. It allowed for privacy, yet close enough to the school bus stop for little legs to have a comfortable, safe, if not curious trip to the front door, “Ohhhhhing and Ahhhhhing" over the resident rabbits and squirrels. Mind fodder for little, “Stories by Todd”.

Little legs pumping and face flushed red from the steam he’d built up getting to the door, Todd blew in like a locomotive on full steam.

"Look Daddy! Look what I made for you to take to work! It’s for your coffee! I made it just for you! Mine was the biggest!”

And then, stopping for air,

“We all measured!"

It was so heavy; Todd struggled to lift the lumpy cup upward to him in his little hand and Adam had just caught it before it slipped to the hard kitchen floor for a bounce test.

So, Adam had traded in his plastic "go" cup and resorted to clamping this one precariously between his knees in the truck. The daily risk of hot coffee sloshing around was worth the proud look on Todd's face every morning. He’d even pretty much figured out all the right moves to keep it steady while shifting gears!

He thought of the many times this massive cup had held his coffee and accompanied him on rounds from room to room, patient to patient, it's solid lumpy sides and knurled handle formed by the grip of tiny five-year-old hands. A scant smile surfaced as he looked whimsically at the size of the thing he had juggled through long halls along with patient charts, each one evidence to his balancing act. You could always tell his patient files by their many coffee stains from his balancing that clumsy cup; so big and thick you could eat stew out of it that wouldn't cool for an hour!

He refused to use the conventional plastic travel cups and his patients laughed and teased him mercilessly with that small-town lack of false formality.

"What's that big wad a clay you got there Doc?"

"Hey, Doc, what the hell is that? A rock with a handle on it?",

"Doc, what's that stain on your pants? You slippin‘?",

and the waiting room would erupt in riotous laughter!

Just a mug of clay, a caricature of a mug really, bearing the myriad chips and crazed cracks from years of use. Each little injury on its surface visually assaulting him with what seemed a lifetime of memories, each event unfolding in his mind as if watching re-runs of old 8mm home movies, complete with the accompanying flickers and specks on the screen.

Todd had been as proud of making that cup as he was to carry it.

*****************************

He still wore the same white coat as he looked out the bay window over a sink which had seen better days, the porcelain now dulled and stained rusty with years of chores, the murky stains reminding him of the current sky.

The clear blue, once promising a shiny day was now suffocated by a puckish, surrealistic green haze that stilled all life below with its’ electric ozone. It either threatened the worst storm of the year or the doom of an alien landing like that depicted in an old Stephen King novel he had just finished.

That sky. So leaded over and hazy green you'd think it would have its own odor.

“Yeah, like rotten eggs.”

“(What?)“

In the tomblike quiet, the sound of his own voice had startled him as he poured a second cup. He sipped at tepid coffee from a pot grown cold during his absent trip to the past, then glanced out at the huge empty coral feeling a mixed bag of nostalgia wash over him. The hoof beats had only been an echo reverberating against the walls of a mind long ago emptied of
exciting and chaotic future plans.

All the breed horses had been sold in retaliation, ridding himself of the sound their thundering hooves made in the rocky gorge below.

(As if he didn't hear it anyway.)

His eyes welled up and he quickly shut them tight in a futile effort to stop the flow. Small little leaks, now turning to rivulets pouring silently unheeded from their dam, down his cheeks. In the quiet he could hear the huge drops hit the sink as if each were a precursor of the threatening storm.

He broke the morning silence and screamed at the empty house, oblivious to his presence.

"Just one day! My world gone!"

“Yeah, gone mad“, he thought. “Skewed on its' axis“; (redefining perceptions of the reality he’d once had).

A day just like this one. Quiet, calmly blue and bright, then turned all to crap by the elements that be.

He imagined over and over the big sleek stallion terrorized by a single bolt of lighting slicing bright through the heavy overcast sky complete with a deafening clap of thunder. He pictured the horse’s muscles clenched in fear, bunched up on the stallion’s black flanks that sent its' thundering hooves up out of the gorge and over the rocks in line to the cliffs. As if it'd been driven by the devil himself, unable to stop at the edge, surprised by banks too steeply descending to maintain firm footing.

One day, one ride, mother and son away on a long-awaited ritual with a surprise ending.

He preferred to remember them as on that sunny morning galloping around the coral and out the gate. A seven-and-a-half-year old Todd laughing with abandon, his small towheaded body bouncing astride in front of his beautiful 34 year old mother, thick, long auburn hair loosely tied and streaming behind her.

"See ya later Doc Holiday!! (her favorite nickname for him). Ham for dinner tonight!! Hey! It's frozen, though!"

Jude and Todd had been warming up Blaze for the ride. They were headed for the ridge today and needed the muscle and stamina of his large frame for the climb. Passing through the wide steel gate, Jude laughed and blew a kiss.

From his perch on the fence, Adam reached out for a long one, caught it and laughed, nearly losing his balance before grabbing the rail.

"OK, I'll set it out. See ya'll later, Hon! Don’t be too late, now.”

These were the last words he had ever spoken aloud to his wife and son (unimportant words of assumed expectation). He rinsed out his cup and set it protectively beside the sink on the obscure little rubber coaster, then heard their words again, as if in a deprivation chamber allowing only a flat monotone quality. He heard a mirthless laugh erupt, tinged around the edges with a slight psychotic ring adding to the atmosphere of the surrounding shroud of shadows that had crept into the room.

“Christ”, he thought. “My life’s beginning to sound like a bad novel gone worse.”

Well, the day wasn't getting any longer. Adam opened the door toward beginning yet another day of healing and saving lives, feeling solitary even in the face of crowded rooms. Like he did every day now. One foot in front of the other, remembering to breath, day after day, practicing the motions.

As he sat down in the seat of his old red Ford pickup, Adam heard the screen door finally bang shut with the wind, as if in protest. The truck had turned classic twenty years ago and was kept running with his new mechanical hobby. Just to stay busy. Hell! Maybe it kept him running.

While turning the key in the ignition, he glanced over to make sure his plastic cup was in its holder. He preferred to remember Jude and Todd now with their sunlit faces laughing, looking forward to that promised beautiful day, just over a year ago.

Well, as someone once said,

"If I can't go on, I'll go on".




___________________________________________________

"If I can't go on, I'll go on". -- Samuel Beckett

(Dedicated to my children, Tereasa, Dave, and Ed whom it was my privilege to know for 28 years.)